But today, I got some minutes off, so I just keep you informed on what I'm up nowadays.
On the Wii, I'm pretty hooked with the Metroid Prime Trilogy. I never got around to play the first two on the Gamecube, and as part three never got cheaper so I never bought it. It was a gift from the heavens of Nintendo to get a bundle with all of them, plus it was actially 5 Euros cheaper than MP 3 standalone.
Not really much to say about the game though, as I am only one third through with part 1. I can only say I like it. A lot. It's one of those rare games that makes me scribble down notes on rooms so I don't lose track of hidden things I found which are not yet accessible due to not having the proper equipment yet.
I do imagine it quite tedious to regain all of the equipment in each part, so I propably will take a lengthy break between finishing every part.
I haven't touched up on multiplayer, mainly for two reasons: living in a two person household, I lack adversaries, and my girlfriend just doesn't touch anything except Mario Kart Wii. Well, at least gaming wise... cough...
Wich brings me to the deepest gripe I have with MPT: no online multiplayer. Boooo!
On the PC, there are two things keeping me occupied. Firstly, I ran across a 10 Euro Splinter Cell collection, which I couldn't resist buying. Back in the days I only played part one, and have lost the disks since then, so it was a neat opportunity to brush up on Splinter Cell before the fith installment arrives. Right now, I'm about two thirds into part one, so plenty of sneaking to do until I finish it. Review-wise I don't think I have to say much, except that I don't know why I haven't played the Splinter Cell sequels when they were released.
The second game occupying my precious free time was Risen. It's made my the german developer Piranha Bytes. If you know them, Risen won't surprise you as they basically made the same geame thrice already: Gothic, Gothic 2 and Gothic 3.
If you don't know the series: They're RPGs without character creation. You start as a nameless generic char and decide if he will become a mage, a fighter, thief, hunter, alchemist, smith, whatever while playing. In all three games, the story telling is rather a weak point. But the huge believable worlds suck in anyone with a tiny bit of a need to explore. You have to beware though, as none of these games take you by the hand and guide you through it. You're pretty much on your own. And, at least at the beginning, even the lowliest standard monsters are a serious threat. So you better beef up before venturing too far from settlements. Which makes the games quite hard, especially during the first few levels, but ultimately, I like that approach more than level scaling like in Oblivion.
Little surprise that the only superficial difference between Risen and Gothic is that the again nameless hero has no goatee.
Beneath the surface there are some differences though. The one that gets most obvious is the scale. While Gothic 2 and especially 3 offered huge freely accessible landscapes, Risen only features a small island, not much larger than the prison in Gothic one. Also, while you could sink hundreds of hours into gothic 2 and 3 before finally beating it, Risen only takes twenty hours to finish.
While that sounds short, unless you compare it to FPS games, the small scale was the main reason Risen isn't such a bugfest as Gothic 3. Also, you spend less time wandering through vast, yet beautiful, landscapes just to get on with the quests. These two things make for a better paced gameplay and actually don't harm the overall game.
So I can definately recommend it to anyone who's into rather hardcore RPGs.
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