I've recently been playing not a whole lot what with a dislocated thumb and all. Control pads don't like that. However it's mostly healed now and so I'm back in the swing of things. So what have I spent my time playing:

Well during the past couple of weeks where my hand has been incapacitated I have played a LOT of dwarf fortress. I love DF but I can tell you now, when it's the ONLY game you play for over 2 weeks? It gets boring fast. Definitely need a bit of a break from it there.

Since Gears 2 decided to be troutty on horde mode this weekend in a stupid decision which I don't understand (why gimp horde mode out the weekend before Gears 3 is released? Would've been better to make it an awesome weekend to drive people in to a fever pitch for it) I have forgone the usual gears chew fest in anticipation of the new one, I'm more working on the whole I will pick this game up tomorrow and blitz trout with Dan and Paul amongst others. Regardless of if it kills my thumb.

I've played some Ace Combat 6 instead this weekend, Ace Combat 6 was pretty impressive, I doubt however I will ever get all the achievements in the game, mostly because they involve some ridiculous amounts of multi-player and unfortunately last time I entered that there was hardly any games available apart from when myself and JK-Trix went on and did the co-op missions together. Thankfully Dan has also picked up a copy so we can blitz stuff together on this. I have now completed the campaign using only attacker craft, dog fighting 64 - 2 in an A-10 thunderbolt mk2 is nigh on impossible but somehow I did it. The final mission was in a way, both easier and harder than I anticipated on that, using a Tornado jet bomber I was able to basically circle around the Chandelier and destroy piece by piece only breaking the loop briefly to dive down the maw of it's loading system to get the cruise missiles they were preparing to load in. I am currently flying through the game on Ace difficulty. I've mostly scored S ranks though to be fair I am using the most hax plane of them all the CFA-44 Nosferatu with the ADDM system (18 missiles each with 12 individual lock-on markers, targets can be air or ground or mixed between the two, each detonation is similar to the Nimbus cruise missiles used against you in that they basically will kill anything in one hit) I might try mixing it up and using the more balanced F-22 Raptor but for now I'm happily blasting everything to kingdom come or getting right up close and personal with the machine gun

I've also tried the Ace Combat Assault Horizon demo out on the 360. I liked the fact that the controls were pretty much the same as AC06 for the jets (don't know what gimped out controls you ps3 boys got but it was old school ace combat for me) I liked and disliked the fact that jets can take a lot more punishment now, sure when you're using guns giving them extra time under fire before they finally go down seems ok but missiles are too weak in the demo, when you can pump 3 or so missiles in to an enemy jet to get it to blow up it's a little too much. Though the new Dog-fighting mechanics work well and obviously the concession on missile damage is to support this, reminds me of the 5th Ace Combat game where you often HAD to rely on both missiles and guns to get the kills. Helicopter mission took some getting used to, didn't initially like the idea of literally being able to snipe individual infantry men out from above using the machine gun on my chopper and had a similar opinion on the damage sustained by the enemy Hinds what crop up in that. Still a solid game and I will definitely be buying the full release version.

Also tried the Space Marine demo out briefly, kinda unsure, needs another attempt I think. The hack and slash feel was simple enough but the health gaining mechanics might be a little too harsh. Will try again later before I make any decision on buying the game.