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Games
This month started off with me playing a game that released at the end of January, Mass Effect 2, and what a game it was! Definitely my game of the year so far and one of my most enjoyable game experiences in a long time. It looks lovely, it plays brilliant, it has an epic story that continues from ME1 and sets up the inevitable ME3 beautifully.

After just finishing up Mass Effect 2, along came another sequel to a brilliant game, Bioshock 2. From outer space to under water in the time it takes to change discs. Bioshock 2 while not as good as Mass Effect 2 was still a fun game. It was a bit hard to get into but after a couple hours the story finally decided what it wanted to do and got on with it. I’ve not had a go at the multiplayer yet but I will at some point I’m sure.

Once I’d blasted my way through hordes of Geth and Big Sisters I got a bit ADD in my gaming. I went back to a couple of old titles that I’d either not completed fully or missed out on completely. I never got around to the Fallout 3 DLC so that was first on my list. I played through the Mothership Zeta content first and to be honest, it was pretty horrible. I moved onto Point Lookout next but never got very far in that because I kept dying. So I gave up on Fallout 3 and moved to Dragon Age: Origins which I missed out on because it released five days before Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. I’d played a little bit but never got into it before MW2 arrived so I thought I’d give it another go. I played a couple hours of it but it just didn’t grab me so I gave up on that too.

Next on the pile was Borderlands which I’d never finished cos Callum borrowed it. I’m still playing through it cos it’s a huge game but I think I need to play it on co-op to enjoy it more.

Since I knocked my rental games down to only one at a time the only rental game I’ve played this month is Darksiders: Wrath of War. It’s an alright game and I was starting to really enjoy it when it did something I really hate: had an unkillable boss. I tried four or five times to beat this boss and couldn’t so the games going back.

I’ve finally managed to settle on a game that I’ll be playing for a while tho: Eternal Sonata. It’s a beautiful game that’s easy to play and I should be able to get a fair few hours out of it.

There’s been some games I really want to play released in the past couple weeks and March just sees more added to that list. Battlefield: Bad Company 2, God of War 3, Heavy Rain, Dante’s Inferno, Echoshift, Command & Conquer 4, Final Fantasy 13, Metro 2033, Just Cause 2, Mafia 2, and Resonance of Fate. I think I’m gonna have to increase my rental number again!

On my iPhone I’ve been playing a bit of Cogs, a little Marple and some Final Fantasy. I love how good the iPhone is for bite-sized gaming.

TV
February has been pretty quiet for TV shows since the Olympics have been on. Lost started back and has been completely confusing as always, I caught up with Supernatural and cannot wait for that to start up again and finish the story arc, I finally started to watch Weeds season 5 and only have a few episodes to go, Desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters are finally jettisoning the crappier storylines and sticking to the ones I’ve been enjoying, I gave up on Heroes as it was just too crap and that’s about it. March should hopefully be better with the Olympics out of the way.

Books
I’ve read four books this month: Doctor Who: Shining Darkness which was pretty dull, The Mirrored Heavens which was a good sci-fi romp, Peter & Max which was my favourite of the lot and a highly enjoyable read, and The Medici Curse which was a nice romance novel. I think I enjoyed The Medici Curse more because it was set in the same time period as Assassins Creed 2 and I recognised events that were taking place.

Movies
I think the only new movie I watched this month was Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs which I saw with Paula and Kirstin. It was alright, not as funny as the Disney Pixar movies but it was cute. I also watched the Directors Cut of Watchmen which I really enjoyed.

Music
The Courteneers debut album would have to be my favourite of this month, I don’t know why but it reminds me of Glasvegas a lot. I also can’t stop listening to Lady Gaga’s Dance in the Dark and Timbaland’s If We Ever Meet Again since I heard them in Polo. I think I enjoyed myself more than I think I did. Next month sees the release of Amy MacDonald’s second album so look for my review of that next month.

I finished my latest book The Mirrored Heavens last night, it was given to me for Christmas by Arlene & Harry (Tim’s Mom and Dad) and I’m not sure where they got it from as I don’t think it was on my wish list.

However I really enjoyed the book, it’s a sci-fi novel set in the not too distant future where there’s now only two superpowers: The US and the Eurasian Coalition. They’ve engaged in a second cold war and are very close to all out war so when the Space Elevator they’ve jointly built is blown up by terrorists, it doesn’t exactly relive the tension.

The story is seen from three different perspectives and that was one of the negatives of the book for me as I often got confused who the current segment was about, especially when it’s just from character to character within lines of each other rather than pages.

That being said it was a good book and it’s a bit too close to how our own future might turn out. It’s the author’s first novel and when I Amazon searched him I discovered that he’s since released another book which is part two to this book in what’s going to be a trilogy. So I’ll pick that up at some point in the future.

For now I’m reading Peter & Max: A Fables Novel which is another Christmas present, this time from my Grandparents. It’s set within the Fables universe which is a series of comics I read and love. The book itself is beautiful with the page edges not lining up properly to give the book an antique feel. The paper is also thicker than regular paper and there’s illustrations on most of the pages. All in all it’s a gorgeous book that I can’t wait to read.

This trailer really makes me want to read the book!

I knew there was a movie of it coming out but I didn’t realise it was as soon as this March. There doesn’t seem to be any trailers released but there’s a website you can go to and watch some clips. I loved the book and hope the film does it justice.

These are in no particular order

Games
Halo Wars
Resident Evil 5
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Killzone 2 -
Borderlands
DIRT 2
Modern Warfare 2
Left 4 Dead 2
Assassin’s Creed 2
Forza 3

Biggest Disappointment: Halo 3: ODST
Started but didn’t finish in 2009: Uncharted 2

DLC games
Battlefield 1943
Shadow Complex
Splosion Man
The Lost & Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony
Tinker

Music
Enter Shikari – Common Dreads
Kelly Clarkson – All I Ever Wanted
Frankmusik – Complete Me
Boys Like Girls – Love Drunk
Black Eyed Peas – The E.N.D.
A-Ha – Foot Of The Mountain
White Lies – To Lose My Life
Lady Gaga – The Fame
Mat Kearney – City of Black and White
Athlete – Black Swan

Favourite song of 2009: Dykeenies – Sounds of the City
Favourite gig of 2009: Snow Patrol

Movies
District 9
Up
Star Trek
New Moon
Avatar
500 Days of Summer
The Time Travelers Wife
Watchmen
The Fall
Ice Age 3

Books
The Girl Who books
The True Blood novels
Assassin’s Creed: Renaissance
Night Over Water/Pillars of the Earth
Eragon/Eldest
Let The Right One In/Handling The Undead
The Grant County books
Alice in Wonderland
A Christmas Carol
Second World

I finally got around to finishing Assassin’s Creed the other day, almost two years after it released. I was kinda disappointed in the ending as it was very abrupt (think Halo 2) and didn’t explain a whole lot. That doesn’t mean I’m not dying to play Assassin’s Creed 2, which I picked up today, after reading the book of it.

I finished Eldest today, the 2nd book of the Inheritance series that started with Eragon. It wasn’t quite as good as Eragon as it was much slower, but then second books always are aren’t they? I actually thought the Inheritance books was a trilogy but apparently not as I read there’s a fourth book place. Due to that I’ve decided to wait and read Brisingr later on and am now reading Assassin’s Creed: Renaissance. Yes it’s a book based on a video game. But I liked AC1 and want to play AC2 so I figured it’d be fun to read something that dives deeper into the universe.

When I was in town today with Tim having lunch we walked past Borders and I was distraught to discover it’s shutting down! Apparently it’s gone into administration and if they don’t get a buyer within the next three to four weeks then all the stores will close. I’m totally gutted as I love going in and browsing.

The Sunday Mail were giving away copies of A Christmas Carol on Sunday so I went and picked one up and started reading it on Monday. Since it was only a hundred pages long I finished it yesterday and I quite enjoyed it. The language was a bit confusing in parts but for the most part I could understand it and it tells a good message about the meaning of Christmas!

It’s insane to think that it was first published 156 years ago, how different the world must be today! I still really want to go see the film as well.

What a phenomenally awesome book and a brilliant finale to the Millenium trilogy. It’s such a shame Stieg Larsson never lived to see how popular his books got.