I thought Red Dead was pants, personally. It was very easy, and very boring. I didn't care one jot for the characters. The scenery was quite nice though and the presentation was pretty neat.

I'd be tempted to get a PS3 for the updated versions of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, as I never played them on PS2 and feel I've missed out on something there.

I enjoyed Mass Effect 1 a hell of a lot. I played intentionally as an ass-kicking jerk, it was fun, but also a bit predictably black-and-white. I had to make sure I went out of me way to choose the bad option every time,otherwise if I'd have done what I truly wanted I'd probably have just ended up with a lame somewhere-in-the-middle character. There was one part though where I took the bad path, and felt a bit guilty about it - which I enjoyed actually, as it gave me pause for thought.
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The developers have been pretty good at the good vs evil features of their games for some years now. It worked the best in the Knights of the Old Republic games though as the balance between being on the light side Jedi path, and tipping over to the evil dark side Sith really showed itself well in the game, wit characters avoiding you on sight if you were dark and running to aid you and be ultra helpful if you were light.

I also love the Mass Effect games. The first 2 were brilliant and can't wait for the third.

Back on subject. I noticed the new F1 2011 is now out. Anyone bought it yet? I've got 2010 on the PC and really enjoy it, but am tempted to get the new on on the PS3.

Oh, and if you haven't played Ico or Shadow of the Colossus then definitely get the PS3 updated versions. These are 2 great games that really do push gaming into an art form. The style and design is amazing and really creates emotion in the games. I'm even tempted to get the PS3 versions, even though I have the originals, just for the HD update.
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There's also a Beyond Good and Evil HD remake, might want to get that one too. It was very good on the PS2 and PC.
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I spotted that one, but have it on the PC, so no need for better visuals.
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Not sure what game I can recommend to get for the PS3 as I do not have much of them.
But I can recommend what game you should wait with getting; Resistance 3.

I am a bit of a Resistance fan, liking the games despite that they are FPS games on the console and I have bought all parts and am planning to get Resistance Burning Skies (though I will wait with getting a PS Vista for a while).

But the series has had some serious downhill points since R1.
While R2 was grander in scope I disliked the auto health system and weapon system that was like COD and Halo.
Now I am not against auto health in general but just sitting behind a wall for a couple of minutes and you are fit as a fiddle again is ridiculous, I rather had it like in Resistance 1 in which you at least always have one bar of health even if there are no health pick ups.

One of my biggest problems with the main series was that often the storylines were rather lacking in parts as were the characters.
A lot of explanation actually had to come from the books and documents found during the game rather than actually encountering it yourself.

The only game that I found an exception of this was Resistance Retribution which had a somewhat well worked out cast of characters and an actual plotline.
Surprisingly this game was not made by Insomniac who made the main games.

The problem with Resistance 3 is that it in general adds nothing to the series.
Because it was the third game in the series and people automatically make comparisons to other trilogies like Gears of War, Halo, and the upcoming Mass Effect 3, a lot of us expected some major revelations in this game about the Chimera, their goals, and how we eventually stopped them.

The thing is, Resistance 3 felt more like a filler, a side story.
Yes there was a goal to work towards but no real anticipation.
There were stakes at risks but there was little done to make you care about it, unlike Resistance 2 in which the fate of the remaining humanity seemed to be at risk.

A couple of plot twists did happen but that they really build the game, no.

It might be worth a rental, but if you are planning to buy it, get it either second hand or wait until prices lower.
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That's a neat implementation of the effects of your choices, but as with Mass Effect it seems that the choice is either Space-Jesus or Space-Hitler. What about the shades of gray in between? I appreciate that it probably isn't an easy thing to design...
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Character cause and effect must definitely be one of the hardest things to design and code in a game. Although the up coming Old Republic Star Wars MMO (by the same developers as all these ie Mass Effect and KotOR) are implementing a much more advanced system that is meant to add more shades of grey between the 2 extremes of character makeup and influence of events based on your current leanings. I'm really looking forward to finding out exactly how far this goes.
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Someone lent me Oblivion, which I'm enjoying since I can freely roam around the entire world. They also lent me the big fat massive guidebook, so I've been doing all the sidequests too. The one thing I don't like about it is if you lockpick your way into someone's house and steal from them, and no-one sees you, the guards still come looking for you and acuse you of theft, and jail you. I mean, I specialised as Thief and Assassin, how am I supposed to achieve this?? But apart from that it's great, I love the fact you can go anywhere you want and pretty much do anything you want. I'm level 10 now and still have half the game world to explore. The side quests are good fun, you often get a nice neat item at the end of it, plus loot!
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Oblivion was great fun. I might load it up again as it will run nicely on current PCs, compared to all the tweaking we had to do when it was new to get it to run well. I never had such issues with lockpicking. If someone hears or sees you then the guards came running, but not if you were careful. I know they altered some of the ways this logic worked in more recent game patches, so maybe they did something here.

Are you considering the next game in the series? Due out at the end of this month.
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Skyrim will be too expensive for me to get new. I'm probably not even halfway through the main Oblivion quest yet, let alone all the faction quests (still haven't joined a guild). It's the Game of the Year edition I was lent, which also has the Knights of the Nine and the Shivering Isles expansions in - also none of which I've done yet - so it should keep me going for months and months yet.

I've been playing with an assassin/thief class, so have great stats in marksmanship and stealth (I tend to creep around, sticking arrows into people from afar) - I'm just currently trying to up my magic ability. I can now breathe underwater and walk on water, and my magic regenerates faster than those spells last for, which means I can swim underwater as long as I want. Someone needs to make a patch for reality so we can use these spells in real life
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