Welcome back to another cop-out of a post where I’ll retread stuff that you can read elsewhere and make excuses as to why I’ve been “too busy” to write any actual content on this site all week.

It seemed a bit strange that in the week that saw the retail release of highly anticipated Gear of War 3 and yet I still  found myself playing a three-year old Xbox 360 game and an Xbox Live Arcade offering, instead.

So OK, I was playing Gears 3 for a few day the week before it came out, I had been given a review copy and intended to put a review up on these pages. I’d also, the week before, promised the folks over at Game Culture NZ a review of the Xbox Live Arcade action RPG, Crimson Alliance. A bit of prioritising put both a review for The Gunstringer and first impressions piece for El Shaddai: Accension of the Metatron before Crimson Alliance.

I’d never finished Gears of War 2; the truth be known, I’d not really started it. So I found myself hurriedly trying to get through Gears 2 in between Gears of War 3 sessions. Apart from being confusing, Gears 2‘s plot mixing with that of Gears 3, my obligation to review Crimson Alliance was also preying on my mind.

Crimson Alliancemay be just an Xbox Live Arcade game, but less that ten years ago it would have been a full priced game. I wasn’t going to be able to breeze through it, nor was I going to be able to do that game any justice if I just pumped out a 400 word review.  Whilst I enjoyed the game immensely, I’m not too happy about the way the game has been marketed. Using a freemium model, whereby the game is touted as being free, and charging 800 MS Points to properly unlock one game character is a bit out-of-order. It should just be called a trial and get done with it. You can read my full review on Game Culture NZ here.

As I was putting the finishing touches to Crimson Alliance, Techday.com asked me if I could furnish them with a review for Gears of War 3, which I accepted. I also offered them a  full review of (the yet to be completed by me) El Shaddia, which they accepted.

I decided that I needed to play and complete Gears of War 2 before continuing with Gears of War 3 in order to write an half-decent review. So here I am, almost a week after the release of Gears of War 3, instead playing though the last knockings of Gears of Wars 2. After that I’ll be on the third game and then it’s back on to El Shaddai: Accension of the Metatron.

My intentions of finishing Deus Ex and Dead Island have, for the moment, been put on hold. The chances of properly finishing Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, Arkham Asylum and Oblivion before their sequels arrive is now absolutely zero. Oh, the stress of having too many video games to play; It’s almost overwhelming.