Weekly update - 1 of 52

It’s official, the first week of 2011 is over. As part of my ongoing blog resurgence I’m doing a weekly roundup of my activities, including what I’ve been playing (podcasters will love that part), to serve in part as a journal, but also to remind me of the things I’ve started and wwill inevitably put off, hopefully reining in that particular character flaw of mine. Thanks to a few inspirational bloggers - I’ll name and shame them at the end of the post - I’m ready to ram my words into your already brimming eyeholes.

I started this week back in my home town - Morecambe - I’d been up there for the Xmas and New Year holidays, and had some amazing times with family and friends. There’s nothing like having a week off work to relax, eat and drink loads and catch up with the people I only get to see four times a year. It was with great reluctance that I left once more to return to Norwich, but we must all return to reality some time, or else we’d end up like those tramps outside the public loos arguing over the last can of super.

Thanks to some excellent forward thinking, I had a couple of days after returning before I had to go back to the office, so I set about tidying away all the cool new presents I had received (and some not so cool - thanks bro!) and generally busying myself about so as not to feel homesick. Catching up on my RSS feeds made me realise the damage I was causing by blog due to neglect, so I rebooted this site (see my earlier post). After all that had been taken care of it was time to get down to doing what I do best - gaming!

As you can see, I’ve been having a bit of a go on Forza 3. I’m not normally too bothered about driving games, but the career progression and sheer range of choice in available cars and races have got me hooked. I only picked it up so I would have something to play with my dad when he goes on his shiny new Xbox 360 (he’s even on Xbox Live, but I’ve warned him about you lot and I’m not saying his gamertag here). So far I’ve achieved driver level 20, which I’m quite proud of.

I’ve also been back to playing Kinect as it didn’t see much action before xmas - I was ill with a lung infection which meant jumping around like a fool was off the cards - and as I didn’t pick up any new games for it, I’ve just been trying to progress some more in Kinect Adventures and Kinectimals, the former being a much more sweaty endeavour than the latter. I haven’t played any Dance Central or Your Shape this week, but I have a feeling I’ll add be adding those to my weekend playlist if I want to stay firm with some of my other New Year resolutions!

Broken Sword on the iPhone came up as a freebie, so I’ve been playing that on the bus, it’s much better suited to the bumpy ride I normally have, which renders Angry Birds or Bejewelled nigh impossible to play. While back in Morecambe I played my first games of Munchkin, which is a neat adventuring card game with a comedy twist, but be warned, there is so much backstabbing and treachery involved in winning you may not be able to look your friends in the eye after playing.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a week without some time spent on Halo Reach, after all, those daily challenges will not complete themselves. I’m at the point where I have lots of credits saved up as I want the shiny gold visor for my spartan, but it’s so very tempting to go and buy the Cortana voice for use in Firefight - damn Bungie for seeding the mechanics of this game with addictive crack!

When I’m not busy blowing up aliens in the face, I have been trying out The Sims 3, which has been equal parts joy - making my friends into Sims and forcing them to do stuff - and agony - losing a whole evenings play due to a save malfunction. It’s not my ideal game, but I’m willing to give most things a go in the name of fun.

Speaking of naive gaming selections, my final new gaming experience this week was the delightfully awful Maids with Balloons, in which you get to see some terrible costumes, even worse acting, and much much much (yeah, that much) worse gaming sprites. As awful as it was, I’m glad I tried it, as the end of the demo - the bit where the developer pleads with you to buy it - was absolutely hilarious. Not funny enough to part with 80 MS points, mind you.

Now for those with exceptional memories I said there were a few people who have inspired me this week, if you’ve made it this far then before we part ways maybe you’ll go visit these links -

• Jennifer Allen
• Steven Wright
• Benjo321

So that’s been my week, thanks for reading all about it, have yourself an awesome weekend, friend.