Weekend Gaming Wrapup

And so we say goodbye to Deadspace, hello to the Darkness and discussion of the future of our gaming trends in the house all take up this weeks wrap..

Deadspace became the obsession over the weekend, finishing the game in a Marathon run between Saturday and Sunday. This title proved difficult to put down, as the feel of combat, the overall RPG fun and the story became quite compelling.
I wish more games exhibited such polish and fun. It seems a lot are just dropped on the player, and they expect you to do a lot to figure things out, or is just overall shoddy in some way.
An example of this is the Infinite Undiscovery title. I was really enjoying this game, but directions of where to go, what you are doing becomes an issue. The only objectives you ever get is a simple "I did this" or "I plan to do this" comments on a pause screen. If someone wishes a sandbox title with a lot of running around blindly and figuring out what to do next, this game is for you.
The combat has become very "MMO", and a lot of times you feel like you have no major control of the action.
The issue lies with your party. Their AI is SO good that you have no need to worry about death. A lot of times when you finally get to a mob to attack it yourself, it dies from the other party members already taking their shots. The game seems to run itself, and that is not so fun.
Back to Deadspace. A killer boss fight at the end, had us all excited.

So, at this point, I looked through my games, and decided on one I have had sitting around since I bought the new 360 (so I could give my son the old 360).
The Darkness distributed by 2k Games. The game is based on a best selling comic by Top Cow productions. The developers, Starbreeze Studios, is also known for developing a killer movie to game product, The Chronicles of Riddick, which is being remade for the 360 (and that other console...uh...PS something), along with some new content as well. It was considered the first movie to video game title that did not suck...hard.
Seems this game was well received, and follows the vein of our gaming mantra..."Story is important".

More on this as we progress.

So, this weekend also had my wife up in arms over something, which was the issue of playing a game again. She said she missed being in control of the game, and it may be that she may be the one who will play an MMO soon. The issue is what game will work best for her.
She is quite picky, and as such, it proves to be difficult to find a specific game for her.
Story of course is foremost. Visuals are important (no cartoony characters so games like Domo or Wizard 101 will not work), strategy is important...
Fantasy is also number one, and she hates Sci-Fi.
I debate about maybe some type of card based battle game, as she loves those types of systems.
Has anyone played Magic online recently? Is it any good? Any other card style game? (besides LoN, which has an issue with font sizing like LOTRO on big screens...)

...Taking suggestions..

Anyways, a new week, and I plan to start debating about some games (Infinite is on the short list now), and of course, I wonder how 2009 is going to start shaping up...

Have a good week folks...