No waggling this time, boyo.

With so many fantastic new video games coming out this November, my laughably empty bank account and dust-filled wallet told me to not buy any of them. Unfortunately… I ended up buying two of them. Want some initial opinions?

The first is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, which I should say that everybody bought, seeing as it’s made over £480 million worldwide. However… that isn’t the case for me, or at least in my group of 20-something friends, with only a handful of them actually picking it up. There seems to be some apathy regarding the latest game in the franchise, possibly due to Treyarch’s Black Ops leaving a slightly bad taste in everyone’s mouth – I haven’t played it myself, but I have a copy waiting for a rainy day. What I do know is that I enjoyed Modern Warfare 2′s fast-paced and ridiculously addictive online multiplayer, and the new instalment doesn’t disappoint when it comes to that. New maps, new challenges, and all at a smooth 60 frames per second (which is really strange to see, after playing Battlefield: Bad Company 2′s multiplayer a lot recently). So if you’re one of the ones that bought the game, pop it in your Xbox 360, add me to your friends list (GT: philcsf), and we’ll go crack some skulls together. Opinions of the single-player campaign will come at a later date, when I can pull myself away from pointless gun levelling and loadout customising.

Obviously, the second game isn’t Skyrim, because I have no interest in the Elder Scrolls series. Instead I chose Skyloft, and dove head-first into Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. I’ve always been a big Nintendo fan, so there’s no way that I’d be able to pass this up. And after a six-year wait from Nintendo for a proper Wii game in the franchise, I can say that it’s totally worth it. The art style is fantastic (a hybrid between Wind Waker and Twilight Princess that should stand the test of time), and there’s just so much detail that you take for granted in games nowadays. Roll into a wall, and physics shake lights, knock pots from shelves, and leave you feeling satisfied that you’ve managed to wreck a stranger’s house that you just walked into. There’s been some bitching in reviews about inaccurate controls, but I’ve had no problems whatsoever with them, and couldn’t imagine playing without. Eight hours in, and I only feel like I’ve just scratched the surface. More opinions later!