One of the things that pretty much fell to the wayside after having Jessie enter our lives is my gaming. Last year I pretty much sold off all my games (thank you Cash Crusaders) from my collection, and can count the number of titles I played on my dusty XBOX 360 on my two hands.

I did enjoy some time off at the end of the year though, and despite pretty much being in single parent mode for most of my two weeks away from work, I did manage to squeeze some game time in late at night, finally knocking off Red Dead Redemption which I must say was a thoroughly engrossing and entertaining game.

2012 looks like it is going to be pretty similar in terms of playing games (i.e. there won’t be a lot of it), but at least I have managed to stock up for those rare occasions when I can maybe steal a hour or two of controller time. Thanks to a tidy little sum of Christmas money from the Montgomery clan (meaning I can spend it without feeling guilty about not spending in on the Lotter clan), I managed to pick up both Bulletstorm and Darksiders second-hand dirt cheap from BT Games.

I’ve since sneakily given both a spin and can report that I’m looking forward to both of them, which is a good thing considering the fact that I need to maximise my enjoyment out of my limited game time! :)

As for the last three games which I did manage to finish off over the course of 2011 (and for which I probably won’t get around to writing up decent reviews for), I thought it a good idea to quickly jot down some thoughts. So here they are in order of completion:

Spider-man: Shattered Dimensions

Looking past the cheesy Stan Lee cut scenes, I seriously loved this outing in the Spider-man game franchise (having also enjoyed the previous Spider-man: Web of Shadows release). A nice twist was having four different Spider-man characters from the various universes to play with, each having their own style of play, including the Noir Spider-man that seemed to lift a lot of his stealth gameplay straight from the stunning earlier Batman: Arkham Asylum release!

Plenty of web swinging and bashing people in the face is the order of the day for this third person action adventure game, with good graphics, a good story, slick fight engine, and great voice acting plus musical score. Definitely worth it for any comic book fan.

Dante’s Inferno

Woah, definitely a game only to be played when you are on your own, with everyone fast asleep around you. Certainly not for the easily offended (and make no mistake, there is a lot of disturbing and gruesome scenery to be had), Dante’s Inferno is actually a very good and very polished (if a little God of War generic) hack and slash action adventure game, which tells a good story as you are pushed ever deeper into the Circles of Hell in order to free your beloved Beatrice from Lucifer’s icy grip.

Lots of button bashing, a nice little level up abilities and magic system, some simple puzzles, good cut scenes with decent voice acting, and some larger than life boss battles.

So thoroughly enjoyable in a blood-soaked hack and slash way, but certainly not easily recommended to anyone thanks to its setting and story.

Red Dead Redemption

Easily the best game I’ve played in quite some time, a thoroughly engrossing and engaging sandbox Western title from Rockstar, which will have you taking down bandits, breaking wild horses and hunting the local fauna until the cows come home.

Despite the fact that I think the game should have ended when you finally catch up to the main target that has been your mission right from the start, Red Dead Redemption has a fantastic story, backed by impressive voice acting plus musical score. Add to that a brilliantly realised open world ripe for exploration and interaction, this is definitely one of the best sandbox titles ever to be made!

Highly, highly recommended.

And now you know :)