November started with blustery wind and fairly heavy rain. David Cameron signed a little deal with Nicolas Sarkozy to say we’d share some military equipment. As long as those aircraft carriers come back with a tank full of petrol and the smell of stale Gauloises well aired out of them it shouldn’t be a problem.
The San Francisco Giants beat the Texas Rangers in the World Series. That would be the second best team in baseball beating the dastardly Texans who cheated (it’s the only explanation) the Yankees out of a place in the World Series. Hurrah!
The British Royal family were busy this month. They announced the engagement, and later the wedding date, of William and Kate, prompting about a week of really crap news coverage as every broadcast journalist in the country queued up to point at something vaguely related to royals or weddings or proposals. The Queen was probably still trying to work out how to set up an event on her newly founded Facebook page. Unfortunately us loyal subject aren’t permitted to add Her Majesty as a friend or give her a cheeky poke.
Sebastian Vettel got a prize for driving a rocket ship around in circles for a soft drink company and freedom of speech in the UK suffered a severe blow when a man’s appeal against a ridiculous conviction for making a joke about bombing an airport via Twitter was denied. We won’t be making any jokes about that in case MI5 are listening.
The Pope said that condoms were permitted in “exceptional circumstances” which, presumably means that he’d rather his priests wore them when fathering illegitimate children and molesting altar boys. Probably a little too late to help the masses of catholic HIV sufferers in Africa though.
The Republic of Ireland’s financial crisis finally reached boiling point, possibly thanks to everyone rushing out and buying condoms now it’s okay. An austerity budget was proposed, elections called for January and an EU bailout suggested. Lots of people on the UK news were seen moaning about the projected £6.5bn the UK would have to put in to the bail out but Ireland is like family and a few quid for our little brother seems like a much nicer use of resources than the billions we threw at those greedy, ungrateful bankers last year.
Finally, in the news, Wikileaks started publishing the contents of some US diplomatic cables. The broadcast and print news was in uproar about a load of things that we’d all presumed was happening for years. Russian government close links with the mafia? Brazilian authorities not very nice about drug smugglers? Sinn Fein leaders also quite knowledgeable about the workings of the IRA? Well, duh. Get to the stuff about the aliens and then we’ll talk.
November was, of course, a bumper month for games. This pre-Christmas period is prime-time on the release schedule. We saw Call of Duty: Black Ops smash records and dominate charts, as is now traditional for Call of Duty games. Microsoft kicked their motion control system out into the wild, along with a raft of games.
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit veered into stores and scored a lot of praise from the critics who were just glad to play anything that didn’t make them dance along to Lady GaGa or tickle a tiger cub’s belly.
We also saw GoldenEye 007 and Epic Mickey arrive for the Wii and Ghost of Sparta pop up on the PSP. Pac-Man CE DX appeared for download on the PSN and XBLA and we rediscovered our love for electronic music, dark rooms and magic pills.
In the UK it was windy and rainy at the start of the month but reasonably mild with the temperature dropping in the second half of the month turning it into one of the coldest for almost 20 years. Northern Ireland and Scotland enjoyed one of their sunniest Novembers in recent history. Which is not as good as it sounds.
Note: It’s been pointed out that several other high profile games were also released. I don’t mention everything (simply because there’d be way too much to mention in November!) but should have perhaps given a nod to GT5 and Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood since they were actually two of my favourite games of the year. Serves me right for being so keen to move on to the weather report…
tonyyeb
Oh yeah, and a the small matter of GT5 being released?
colmshan1990
Bit of an oversight there, surely?
SpikeyMikey23
and Assassins Creed brotherhood ;)
colossalblue
oops, an odd oversight considering B-Spec was running in the background while I wrote this up!
I’ll add a note :)
bajere
B-Spec!?! i cant get to grips with that. does it get more interesting later on in the game?
GT5 and AC:BH are my two games in rotation at the moment. love them both
ericzap
“…along with a raft of games.”
A certain Kinect accessory reference methinks?
http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2010/10/08/kinect-gets-boat-accessory/
Tuffcub
Yeah but who cares about that.
project84music
Me =]
Definitely want one of those, or maybe three… I don’t even have Kinect, but how can you live without a Kinect Adventures boat ;]
gazzagb
Black Ops has been a disappointment for me, don’t get me wrong, it’s still a great game, but MW2 was so much better, both SP wise and MP wise.
I’m still to get GT5, hoping my aunt gives it to me as a late xmas prezzie although I can’t play it til Feb anyway.:(
Assassins Creed Brotherhood is my GotY, its simply brilliant, and the ending is mindblowing. Can’t wait till AC3.
E8_BALL_
brotherhood is acIII, or am i loosing it
Rocket_345
It’s more AC 2.5. It’s the 3rd AC game but it isn’t classed as number 3.
gazzagb
It’s more AC2.5 as it continues the story of Ezio. AC3 will have a new character and location.
Don’t be fooled into thinking ACB is just an expensive DLC for AC2; it’s not. The single player took me around 20hrs to complete (taking it relatively slowly, buying shops, collecting flags, doing the Lairs etc) and the addition of multiplayer is brilliant.
cc_star
Love BlOps, by far the best game in the series, but I haven’t given it much attention since I picked up, by far my fave racer of the gen NfSHP… Got back into BlOps yesterday and it was just awesome.
A great end to a year which has otherwise been quite ordinary for gaming.
Dan Lee
To counter that, I disliked it intensely – to the point where I haven’t even finished it and will be posting it back to LOVEFiLM.
cc_star
To counter that, I’d just like to add
ya mum!
ericzap
FINISH HIM
Dan Lee
It’s too late – he’s already dead. :oD
yogdog
CoD 2 is my favourite game in the series : )
E8_BALL_
FINISH HIM
sweep the leg
Seventy2
Best 2010 review yet.
ericzap
Yeah BlOps was a so-so experience for me. Loved the campaign and the psychological aspects and twist ending. Loving Nazi Zombies, me and my friends can get to 25+ on a regular basis. The multiplayer was the most broken experience I’ve ever had outside of SOCOM Confrontation (which I don’t consider a game but a test of my patience). From the start I got kicked from about 5 consecutive games. Blech.
Blayney
I haven’t experienced anymore issues with Blops than I did with the other CoD games. Although this might be the whole NAT type thing? Mine is always saying open but whenever I party up it says someone has a closed/moderate type and it might affect matchmaking.
I also set it up to only search for local games – so I don’t get screwed tying to connect to some yanks. It also lowers the amount of whiney american children I have to listen to.
Love the game and think it’s the best since Modern Warfare. Although the graphics appear to be worse?