Burnout Paradise

Yet another game thats pushing me closer to getting an XBox 360. Burnout is one of my favourite game series, and with the positive reviews this latest one is getting I will definitely need to own it. Unless a Wii version comes along I'm gonna have to get a 360. The amount of 360 games I want keeps growing and growing Bioshock, Halo 3, Orange Box, Mass Effect. Wii does have its perks though, I'm still persevering with Galaxy (only 13 stars to go) and I've got No More Heroes coming soon, and I'm a little curious about Zack and Wiki as well, worth a look I think.

Bioshock

Because of money issues I dont have an XBox 360 and I dont have a PS3, and nor do many other of my friends in Leicester. So when I go back to Guernsey in the holidays I do enjoy visiting my friend Craig who has been working full time since he left school and has a big flat near town with an HD TV, XBox 360, Wii, PS3 and a shit load of games. The highlight of my last trip was Bioshock. Craig had just bought Bioshock when I went to his flat so i watched him play through the first hour or so. It was pretty amazing to watch, probably one of the coolest openings to a game I've seen in a long time. The whole set up and scenario is just such a brilliantly original idea and so much more interesting than the average fps. I only played it for a short period of time and didn't progress that far into the game but that was enough to make me really want to buy an XBox. However, seeing as the last fps I'd been playing was Metroid Prime 3 on my Wii I did find using the 360 controller pretty awkward. I was wobbling about all over the place, controlling shooters with two analogue sticks is definitely not good.

Creativity - Super Mario Galaxy

How convenient that this game was released at a time when I'm supposed to be writing about creativity in video games. I cant think of a better example of creativity in a video game. The concept of the game allows for a huge amount of creativity compared to other games. There are at least 40 galaxies where your only mission is to get the star. The game designers were pretty much free to think of as many creative ways of collecting it as they could. Having the game set in space allows for a huge variety of different environments that wouldnt have been possible if it was set in the mushroom kingdom or in a Super Mario Sunshine style set up. There are hundreds of different planetoids varying from giant apples to floating pirate ships and even a giant wooden yoshi head covered in goombas. The music, the art direction and the gameplay are all highly creative, the main storyline is not so original but that is made up for by an unlockable storybook that tells the interesting and rather cute back story of Princess Rosalina and her traveling comet home thing. It really is an unbelievably creative and extremely fun game.