As the NZ gaming scene continues to hot up for Christmas, it’s been another exciting week in the house of B’Stard.

Last week Battlefield 3 reminded me why I have such a love/hate relationship with PC gaming. Even though console releases can be riddled with day-one bugs, they are not usually as bad as the absolutely show-stopping little bastards found in a PC release. Regardless of my love for the game, as you can read in my review here, the PC version of BF3 can be a sod at times. This, on top of having to wrestling with my three overheating  SLI’d GTX285 video cards has provided me with a few moments of frustration over the past week.

The Battlefield 3 single player game has issues. Not only is the story is a bit meh, but there are also some interesting annoying bugs. I came across three crackers. The first, possibly due to me and my insistence on using an Xbox 360 controller with the game, results in my soldier unloading his gun until the ammo runs out if I forget to switch the bloody controller on. The second was the lack of any [E] prompt to cut a red wire when required, resulting in me having to restart the level. The third could be either a bug or a bit of bad design, in any case, when a certain character needs shooting, frustratingly, I couldn’t fire the shot until, after ten tries I (angrily) pummeled the left mouse button into the table.

Prolonged BF3 multiplayer really exposes just how fragile the game is in its present form. Not only does it take bloody ages to load, BF3 also likes to give you the odd crash-to-desktop, which means that it can take an absolute age to get a game going. There’s also the random disconnections between maps that smarts a little, especially if it’s taken you a while to find a decent game. Last night, for no reason whatsoever, I couldn’t even connect to a game. I hope that is a temporary issue, but you can never be sure with a PC. But, when Battlefield 3 is running well on a PC, boy does look the dogs nuts and with 64 simultaneous players its absolute madness.

Two weeks since release and Batman: Arkham City still has me hooked. I wasn’t intending to do a review for it as I wanted to play it for pleasure. I did, however, write a review for the Nightwing DLC which has been published on the Game Console pages at Techday.com. The DLC adds Nightwing, the grown-up Robin as a playable character for beating up thugs with in the game’s challenge maps. Is also includes a couple of extra maps and a Nighwing skin from the animated Batman series. Anyway, you can read what I had to say about it here. Roll on the Robin DLC pack is all I can say!

Also over at Game Console, I continued with my series of Xbox Live Arcade reviews, this time taking a look another look at Crimson Alliance (which I also reviewed over at Game Culture NZ). The game is such good fun to play and really shows off how classic gameplay never gets old. You can read my Game Console review here.

Last week’s big release was, of course, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. This is another game that I’ll NOT be reviewing as I’m currently taking my time with it, savoring every moment. I did do a write-up of my unboxing of the absolutely class, Uncharted 3 Explorer Edition which you can read here. So far I’m loving Uncharted 3. It is an amazingly cinematic experience, ever so slightly marred by a few overly tricky bullet-proof opponents that seem to show up with alarming frequency (like the game was too short or something). But other than that, its excellent stuff.

This week is Modern Warfare 3 and I’ve promised not to buy it (gasp), just as I promised not to buy Battlefield 3 and still did. With Modern Warfare 3 I mean it. I just don’t have the time right now, maybe later. It’s a shame as (and forgive me peeps) I think, having played BF3, Modern Warfare will offer players the more rounded package and, despite all EA’s willy waving, be the better of the two games.

Also this week we see the release of 2011’s game of the year, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. That’s apparently, if the developers are to be believed, 300 hours of gameplay (hence the reason I’ve not time to play MW3). Let’s just hope that JB Hi-Fi come up with the goods and supply me with that Skyrim Collector’s Edition that they promised me (or there will be hell to pay).

Lastly, I got a couple of Xbox 360 discs in the post today. But I can’t talk about them until the 15th November.

That’s about it from me. I need to go a get Nathan Drake on a transport plane!

Vic Out.