I recently played and finished Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii and I can't fault it, it's consistently innovative, fun to play and the difficulty is well balanced from start to finish. I probably won't replay it but that's more to do with my own tastes than the game itself.
I finally decided to give Skyrim a go, played it for about 3 hours but I just can't see myself liking this game. The world design is fucking horrible and, for all intents and purposes, linear due to half the map being seemingly taken up by impassible rock formations and mountains with variably apparent paths between points of interest. I like the enemy design and the combat is solid (maybe even an improvement on the combat of it's sister series, Fallout) but travelling to new areas feels so scripted and drawn out and the story is so much high fantasy bullshit that I know it would be a chore for me to play this game.
Right now I'm playing Yakuza 4. I'm 6 hours in and impressions so far are that the combat is fun and has major nostalgia factor (for me) due to the near death of the beat em up genre in recent years. Yakuza is a series that definitely needs to exist IMO. The story is a little overbearing at first, with cutscenes coming in great big chunks, way more often that the actual gameplay. Eventually the violence does pick up though, Exploration is surprisingly fun, with an extensive list of minigames and collectible locker keys scattered around that reward you with shitloads of different items that actually make it worth it. There's even a typically Japanese relationship system involving Hostess bar girls that I probably won't touch beyond the side quests, but demonstrates the sheer volume of content in this game. One of my favourite distractions outside of the main storyline atm is going to bars and trying as many drinks on the menu until I get refused service, you get experience points for getting hammered and being drunk in public seems to increase the frequency of hostile encounters. I'm really enjoying the game so far and hoping the combat stays interesting through to the end.
