Installed Imperium Romanum today, a nice relaxed city-builder very much alike Civ-City Rome, but it's nice to play a new game instead of restarting Civ-City, which I already finished. It's a nice change of peacefullnes (combat is very shallow in Imperium Romanum), compared with Dragon Age and shooters.

I mostly play Dragon Age:Origins, it became my favourite this year, it's more new to me than Baldur's Gate.

And I've been playing some shooters: Frontlines: Fuel of War (easy to finish, as it's campaign is quite short), Battlefield Bad Company 2 and, believe it or not, just started with Return to Castle Wolfenstein, which I never played before as I lost the CD-key before playing when I bought it years ago on disc and only recently bought it in a Steam-sale some months ago.

Playing currently King's Bounty: Armored Princess with the Crossworlds expansion.
Also playing The Elder Scrolls III: Morrrowind, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Torchlight II and Borderlands.
Might continue with Neverwinter Nights 2 as well.

1. Since Theme Hospital keeps getting so much praise, I decided to give it yet another chance. I think I played two scenarios so far (hardest difficulty), so still just preliminary impressions. I still don't get it what would make me love the game, even the humor and "funny" animations.

As far as I can tell, the gameplay mostly consists of you first "decorating" your hospital doll house (creating all the needed rooms and putting devices in there, maybe putting some plants and such, hiring the staff), and after that you just wait, watch the hospital run itself until the scenario is supposed to end. Maybe some little intervention may be needed here and there, like making a decision whether to try to cure a patient who has a 75% survival probability, or send him back home. How the heck should I know which I should select, or is it some kind of virtual fruit machine where I just watch whether I am lucky enough?

It is also a bit unclear how I should react if it seems I am not making as much money as I am spending. even though the hospital is full of patients which keep my doctors and nurses occupied all the time. Should I sack some of the staff to spend less money? Or hire more? Or shouldn't I have just blindly built all the needed rooms for different types of vague analysis and remedies? Are they reaking money in, or out?

There's no clear feedback how the little decisions I make affect my success, are they helping or not.

I'm not giving up on it yet, I guess I have barely touched it. I guess the "business simulators" are just not for me, even though I like RTS games.

2. Which is why I decided to try also Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War. Seems pretty normal RTS game, so I guess I'll find it at least somewhat enjoyable.

3. I also played a couple hours of Spec Ops: The Line yesterday, the most praised game of all time (or so it seemed). So far meh, especially the gameplay, but the graphics are really nice and run very smoothly. I'm waiting when the story picks up which is what seems to make everyone go gaa-gaa over it. I've tried my best to avoid the spoilers (if it is the story, and not the gameplay, which makes the game so great), but I'm presuming I'll have to shoot some civilian or a street dog later in the game in order to save my comrades, and I'm supposed to feel shitty about it. Or sumthing. As they say, war is a muthafucka.

4. Oh yeah, I forgot I'm still (re-)playing also the original GTA3, picked it up after I finished Far Cry 2 (which I liked quite a bit). I'm surprised how much I still enjoy playing GTA3, a testament how well it is designed after all.

I was supposed to just quickly retry GTA3 before moving to the sequels I've yet to play (Vice City, San Andreas, Stories, GTA4, what is there...), but decided to keep playing it as I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

Out of completionism, I did buy it last month, even though it got a lot of dislikes on RPG-fora. But I can always go back to DA:O. Last week, it occured to me I never did play a two-handed wielder yet, and created a new human noble character, but I still gotta finish with my first one, she's just about to complete the Deep Roads part of the story... (the one that's part of the Orzammar questline, in case there's still another up ahead). Game only 55% finished it says, so there's still lots to come.

Currently playing mostly...

Hitman Absolution
Prime World Defenders
Eador: Masters of the Broken World

Probably going to check out the latest build of Prison Architect soon, and maybe get a bit more progression in Company of Heroes since I'm still on the first campaign.

When I have the time, lately I've been working on:

Defenders Quest PC (really enjoying this a *lot* more than I thought I would)

Tom Clancy's HAWX on XBox 360

Forza Motorsport 4 also on the 360

Finished Allied General after a 5 month break (and started it nearly a year ago).

Currently I'm playing X3 Terran Conlfict. And sometimes The Witcher 2, but I'm found this too console-oriented, For me the fist Witcher is more fun that the second.

Wow AG, that brings up some memories. I loved that game, until I rage quit (one of the very few I ever have). It was quit a few years ago, but I remember being a good 3/4 through the main campaign, and then hit what I can only assume was some type of a bug or glitch, that prevented me from moving some of my crucial units to where I wanted to move them, and made winning the scenario impossible for me. I can remember restarting from previous saves to try a work around it, but to no avail, lol. I finally rage quit,and that was the last time I played it. Really enjoyed it though. Congrats on finishing General! :)
Hey, I've had X3TC sitting on a shelf for a good 2 to 3 years now, and I keep eyeing it. Having never played the previous games...is it really hard and tedious to get started and going? I ask, cuz I really like the looks and concept of it, but feel I should probably wait till I know I can really devote a *lot* of time to it.

The big throuble of this game is the lack of a tutorial; X2 The Threat have a good set of tutorials that show all of the diferents posible actions on the game (how to fly your ship, how to change of ship, how to command other ships, how to trade, how to build an station...), but X3TC only have the how to fly your ship tutorial, that made the game very hard to learn for those that not have played the previous games.

Ahh, okay, gotcha. I actually have both of the earlier games, and haven't played those either. Sounds like it might be a good idea to at least play a good part of the second one, if for no other reason than to pick up all the nuances of flying, trading, building, exploring, ect., through the tutorials before firing up X3TC. Appreciate the feedback bro :)

Spent the past few days alternating between XCOM: Enemy Unknown and Civilization V. Picked up both of them for 14 bucks on GameFly. Too good of a deal to pass up and both games are amazing.

Last night I got King's Quest VI working in ScummVM using Windows MIDI. I have decided too play the DOS version because I prefer the low-res character portraits, the higher-resolution portraits used in the Windows version doesn't fit very well with the original graphics imo.
I'm also playing GTA: Vice City my favorite GTA game. My goal is too complete the game with 100 % stats. Currently I'm having a very fun time performing Stunt Jumps on my PCJ 600 :)

I've started Oblivion GOTY, almost done with the main game for just 20 hours or so hmm.. Engine is cool and all except ugly NPC, love the quest log! Morrowind with overhaul was better looking and a lot epic and longer storyline, so yeah i'm a little disappointed with IV.. I will see through the end, Shivering Isles is said to be great!