I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas holiday! Mine actually had more gaming than I thought it would. I’m so used to family glossing over or downright ignoring my video gaming hobby that I have zero expectations about gaming every year. But I keep forgetting that I have an awesome mother-in-law, who actually bought me a bunch of Mass Effect stuff from the BioWare store. Of course it’s not cold enough now to wear the hoodie, but that should be fixed in a few days. I’m really excited to have a new hat to draw names from when I have my guide giveaways!

My hubby also gave me a N7 skin for my new Kindle Fire, so I have plenty of Mass Effect love to go around.

We traveled down to my family’s abode for the holidays, so I sadly had to say goodbye to my gaming consoles for a few days. I packed my PSPgo to play more Final Fantasy V, but I ended up starting the original Final Fantasy on my iPad. On so many levels, that game is so ridiculously simple. On many other levels, it’s a bit complicated. I have never played the original FF game before, and I expected to get bored with it like I did FFIII. It doesn’t have that great of a story, but dammit if it’s not addictive to play.

Of course, let’s see what I have to say about it when I get to a point where grinding is mandatory. I’m doing all the side quests I find, but I will rage quit if I have to grind outside of side quests, like I did FFIII. Life is too short to grind just for grinding.

Last week, campaign DLC for Gears of War 3 came down and due the retardedness that was the procedure to download the 2GB via the Season Pass, I wasn’t able to play the game until Wednesday. I was originally disappointed that I would have to wait a day to shoot at RAAM once again, and I should have just turned on my PS3 to play Skyrim while it downloaded. Instead, I read a Gears of War book. But by not playing the day of release, I was able to join two other friends the following night as we all played the campaign with fresh eyes.

I reviewed it for Gaming Angels, so I can’t go into too much here as of yet, but I can say that it is well worth the $15 price tag. We’re already planning to play together again and find a fourth member so we can get the Arcade and the 4-player co-op achievements. My only complaint was that there should be an Achievement for playing it on harder difficulties, as I accidentally set my difficulty on Hardcore while everyone else was on Normal. The end result included me dying a far bit more than the others, and then subsequently getting pissed that my hard work was not rewarded. All I had to show for it was a bruised ego and the echoing sounds of laughter from my teammates.

I sadly didn’t get a chance to play more Skyrim or Assassin’s Creed Revelations as I had to go out of town for the weekend for part one of Christmas get-togethers. But I actually traveled prepared! I packed my PSPgo and an old school strategy guide so I could try out Final Fantasy V. So far, I’m not that impressed. It starts off with a little bit more of a story than Final Fantasy III (still haven’t played Final Fantasy IV), but then it follows the same formula. I haven’t played VI yet, and I’m a little curious as to which FF game stopped the trend of being about collecting crystals to save the freaking world. Obviously VII wasn’t structured that way, but I’ll have to see if VI broke the mold or not. DO NOT TELL ME. LET ME FIND OUT FOR MYSELF.

I really hope I can play more Skyrim this week. Presents may not get wrapped in the process, but I’m willing to take that risk.

Oh yes, you read that title correctly. This past week, I actually finished two games, one of which I was convinced I would never finish this year. First on the list was Uncharted 3.

I agreed to write a review for Gaming Angels, so I can’t go into much detail here, but I will say that I don’t understand all the hatred toward this game. I’m willing to admit that the aiming patch most likely helped, but I didn’t find combat too difficult either way. Maybe it’s because I’m not stellar at shooters. I did not think that the enemies were bullet sponges though, something that many people accused the game of having. Now did I think they were cheap? YES. How many grenades do these bastards carry? Thank God I got decent at the throwback technique or I would have just gotten really good at fleeing. A lot.

Also, my favorite chapters in the game were with the ship graveyard and the cruise ship, which were apparently the most hated chapters on the internet. Shooting villains from the water cracked me up every time. Bob up, shoot, dive down and swim away.  Fighting in water was different; no other Uncharted game delved into that, and I haven’t played a game that really captured the physics of what it would be like to try to aim while in water or standing on a boat in rough seas. My husband watched me play these levels, and his response to them was, “See, this is why I didn’t join the Navy.”

I’m about to go into stuff that I’ll have to include in a review, so I’ll leave off this now and just plead with any of you who have not tried this game due to grumblings on the Internet to please give it a chance. Uncharted 3 has made its way into the top five games for me this year. If I was decent at consistently making headshots, I would try for the Platinum trophy. But I really think I will replay the game on Crushing. I also want to replay Uncharted 2, now that I’m a bit of a better shooter than I was when I first played it. Maybe I won’t hate the helicopters as much.

Next game I beat was Deus Ex: Human Revolution, the game I swore was going to sit in my stack of shame to 2012. I took a me day last Friday and focused on wrapping this game up. As much as I loved the story and unique gameplay of DXHR, I was greatly, greatly disappointed with the endings. I was also disappointed with the final boss. I had the one weapon you needed to take down the final boss in one shot. So yeah, in five seconds, the fight was over. And then my “choices” came in…UGH. So many great ways this game should have ended. It felt like the writers didn’t know how to end the game, so this is what they came up with. I felt like no loose ends were tied, and I walked away with zero desire to play the DLC.

But I’ll get more into DXHR when I write my little mini-review here.

Lastly, I did try out Assassin’s Creed Revelations over the weekend. All I can say now is that this is the first game in the franchise that I feel was 100% milked like an Activision game. Since this post is quite long as it is, I’ll save that discussion for a later date. This week though, I shall overcome my fear and start Skyrim. If there are no posts here for the next three months, you’ll know why.

Words CANNOT express how happy I am that I held off on playing Uncharted 3 until the aiming patch released. It’s a night and day difference. I can make headshots now with relative ease!

In addition, I’ve gotten through some areas that I was warned would be extremely difficult with minimal Drake deaths. And for the record for my jackass friends, I am still playing on Normal mode.

So I’m incredibly thrilled with this turn of events with Uncharted 3. It’s gone from being dreaded to play to being fun as an Uncharted game should be. The story has me in its grasp, I love seeing what weird jumps he can make that would rip a normal person’s arm out of his socket, and his sarcastic quips keep me laughing.

However, I really don’t want another level with those bugs again. I’m already terrified of spiders as it is, as well as hordes of insects that will devour a human body. I hated the giant army ant scene in the fourth Indiana Jones movie, and the scarab beetles scenes from The Mummy actually haunted me for some time. Kudos to the developers for making those scenes feel so realistic that I get ungodly tense during them, and at the same time, I hate you, you rat bastards.

If you already finished the game sans patch and the aiming left a bad taste in your mouth, I highly suggest playing at least one level with the alternate aiming scheme (this is what it is called in the Options menu) and see if you feel differently.

I pretty much started Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary as soon as it landed in my hands and then played it nonstop. My review is still in the works for Gaming Angels because I am a slacker, so I can’t divulge too much into my thoughts, but I will admit that I liked it far more than I thought I would. Despite how bad the level design was–not to mention boring–I still had a blast. So much so, I started looking into picking up the other Halo games.

And then my friend and fellow EvilCast cohort, Blake, surprised me with Halo 2, Halo 3, and Halo 3: ODST as Christmas gifts. He said I had to get Reach on my own, but I was so blown away he sent me the others that I didn’t even notice that Reach wasn’t in the mix. I had a girl moment and teared up a little bit, and then I thought about being nicer to him on the podcast, but the girly moment passed and I realized being nice to him on the podcast was a terrible idea.

I can’t wait to start on the rest of the Halo games, but I need to focus on other games I need to review for GA and guides I need to review here. I got word that the Uncharted 3 patch for gunplay is out, so I will go back to that this week.

But over the weekend, when I wasn’t doing tons of wedding stuff and cooking food, I returned to the world of Deus Ex: Human Revolution. This is one game I don’t want to slip through my fingers in 2011. I really want to finish it, and I made great progress over the weekend. All sidequests are done, and last night, I landed in the last area of the game. I’m looking forward to seeing what gets explained and what doesn’t, as well as seeing if I have the need to play it again to see a different ending. At this point, it’s a distinct possibility, but that will have to wait for others. My stack of shame has doubled in just a week thanks to Blake and the November releases.

At least I can safely say that I will not be bored any time soon.