Fun in the sun

Firstly, a massive thank you to Alex Connolly (AKA loyal reader, 4xscope) who has drawn up our new, uniquely Dutch header. It is great to see someone take such an interest in this endeavour and it definitely provides inspiration to keep on writing. Alex has also worked on the logo for our Facebook fan page, and the work displayed there is equally spectacular. I would also like to thank our small vocal minority who comment regularly on the blog. The dialogue on display here is interesting to say the least, and the Dutch lexicon borders on the controversial more often than not.

Bleak weather coupled with my darling Carly's work commitments has resulted in a situation that I have (shamefully) been longing for, for quite some time; I will be in the house alone, with a shiny new game, and nothing to make me feel guilty for lavishing my time and affection on my PlayStation 3 save for the deep, brown eyes of my dog, Bosca.

I plan to spend the majority of my time with Red Dead Redemption, however I am also hoping to conquer my recent aversion to survival horror games and start playing Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition. It is recent in that up until the release of Resident Evil 5, I quite enjoyed my forays with survival horror games. My first encounter with the genre was via the Resident Evil 2 demo. I believe I would have played through that timed trial about 20 times. From those horrific seeds, came the flourished experience of the full game which was just as enjoyable and (embarrassingly) terrifying. I didn't finish RE3 or Code Veronica, but both were still good enough games in their own right. Resident Evil 4 however, is one of the greatest games I have ever played. I've touched on this before, but RE4 was so brutal to Leon S Kennedy that I fought tooth and nail to keep him healthy (read: with head firmly on shoulders). Other survival horror notables include Dino Crisis and one of the first true next-generation (now current) games, Dead Rising.

What's wrong with RE5? Nothing really; but, when compared to its predecessor, which was such a leap forward for the series, my limited experience with RE5 has been awkward, frustrating and above all disappointing.

I'll let you know how it goes either way. If I don't end up rediscovering the joy of survival horror there is always King of Fighters XII. I picked up the collector's edition, complete with a Terry Bogard statue for $19! If I find time I also plan to log some time on SSFIV and Team Fortress 2.

What are your plans for this weekend?

Post-script to Wednesday: After some spirited debate from one party, and some observations about a game I had already concluded that I would purchase from another, Lost Planet 2 will be the Reader's Choice for the week ending May 23, 2010. The decision was made much easier after the revelation that Lost Planet 2 contains the following:

• A confetti shotgun
• Frank West from the aforementioned Capcom classic, Dead Rising; complete with a teddy bear backpack