I've owned this game for a year.
I hadn't played it consistently for at least ten months.
I just broke it out about three weeks ago.
I can't stop playing this game.

You think - soccer. Dull.
You think - soccer. I could care less.
You think- soccer. It's for dummies.

Right. 
I challenge you to play this game on Normal difficulty level with two equal teams and tell me you did not have fun playing the game and that you did not get beaten rather soundly in your first go.

In sports, statistics don't lie.
To date, FIFA 11 has sold over 9.8 million copies across the major consoles. See this.
To date, Madden 11 has sold over 3.1 million copies across the major consoles. See this.

If you give FIFA 11 even half a chance, you will find a superb game that is full of game modes, variety, challenge and enjoyment that you will have so much fun with you might not even notice it is one of the deepest and most dense sports video games ever made.

FIFA 12 is due out this month.
FIFA 12 home page is here.
Until then, let's discuss FIFA 11, shall we.
FIFA 11 home page is here.

Teams.
Madden cannot touch the number of teams included in FIFA 11. 
Five hundred (500) licensed teams, thirty (30) licensed leagues, fifteen thousand (15,000) players and fifty-three (53) stadiums. 
The breakdown of all this is here.
These should keep you busy for a while.

Game modes include:

Exhibition Match
The basic one match mode.

Virtual Pro
Create a player and use him in every game mode, on-line and off-line. Improve your player by what he does on the pitch in every game he plays in.

Career Mode 
Create a player and work him through a career beginning with the team of your choice (or use your Virtual Pro).
Be a team manager, coach your players, play the games and lead your team to titles.

Ultimate Team
Playing cards are used here to represent players, coaching staff, player contracts, arenas, skill boosts, healing, game balls, uniforms and everything else. Playing matches earns you coins that are then used to buy more packs of cards to improve/enhance your team. Active on-line trading and selling of cards is also a part of this mode.

On-line Mode
Single matches or tournaments can be played this way.

Creation Center
This is an on-line mode reached through your home computer where you create players and teams to be used on your console in either on-line or off-line matches.

Replay Theatre
This allows you to upload your replays (edited by you) to your on-line EA Sports/FIFA 11 account where the videos can be seen by everyone.

The gameplay in FIFA is extremely deep.
You may run circles around weaker teams, but face an equal squad or a squad better than yours and you had better know how to play the game. Formations, strategies, substitutions, passing, set pieces, shooting, defending and especially dribbling are all important. The nuances are numerous in keeping possession of the ball - dribbling is deep as is passing, crossing and shooting. This game is not for the arcade soccer fan.

FIFA 11 has so much playability, you won't even touch the massive amount of replayability the game has until you have played through a full league season - you may then start to scratch the surface...

If you like sports video games, try this.
If you like a challenge, try this.
If you like a heck of good time, try this.

Don't stand on the sidelines any longer.
Get in on FIFA 11 (and now FIFA 12 - Release Date: September 27, 2011).

I own five or six racing video games.
I have owned a few more that I have since traded in.

Mario Kart Wii is the best racing video game I have ever played.

Sure, it doesn't have realistic car models, realistic damage, realistic race tracks or pit crews.
What Mario Kart Wii does have is tons of different vehicles, a dozen weapons/gadgets, great and varied race circuits and buckets and buckets of fun.

The game can be played single player off-line or on-line in either Race or Battle Mode.
You can race against your own best times, your own ghost laps, compete to win all of the circuits Grand Prix style or just race for the sake of racing. Battle mode let you zoom around with you teammates in a rush to collect coins faster than the other team or administer damage to the opposing team.

Race and Battle long enough and well enough and you will eventually unlock a lot of things, including: new characters, new vehicles, new events, the ability to use your own Mii in the game, new costumes and more.

On-line, the game shines.
In Race Mode, you are pitted against anywhere from 1 to 11 other opponents on a race track that is voted on by all racers but chosen randomly by the Wii. Races last no more that 4-5 minutes at most and are lag-free. Battle Mode pits your team against another team in a scramble to collect coins and whack around the other team before time runs out. Battles last no more than 10 minutes.

Replayability?
Is "Infinity" a good number?

Once you start playing Mario Kart Wii, you won't stop.

You will take your lumps sometimes, but the races/battles always equal out and are always, always fun.

I have found my latest piece of video-gaming addiction.

You all know what that feeling is -
When you have your hands and fingers working the controls and buttons in perfect unison with your eyes and the images on the screen move and zip and the sounds zap and ping just the way you planned them..
And that feeling hits your brain -
That electric tickle that traps the rest of your cerebral cortex in the moment and you know you have found it:

Video game bliss.

The type of bliss that video games were created for.
The type of bliss that matches you against the machine.
The type of bliss that matches you against the countdown clock.
The type of bliss that matches you against impossible odds but you know - you can just see it - the way out.
The type of bliss that motivates you top best your previous score. Again.
The type of bliss that makes you spill another two dollars worth of quarters into the machine.
The type of bliss that makes you hit the Restart button one more time.
The type of bliss that lets moments, then minutes then hours pass by.
The type of bliss that video games were created for.

Pixeljunk Racers: 2nd Lap is the current producer of my present video game bliss.

Not complicated at all, the game is a top-down, slot car racer where you control only the speed of your car and which of the four lanes your car travels in around the race tracks.
There are dozens of modes, and they all boil down to some simple mechanics: speed, passing cars, not crashing into said cars, a time limit, turbo boosts and survival. 
Rinse and repeat.

The game is very similar to the game my brother used to love, the arcade classic Super Sprint.
I think the controls in Pixeljunk Racer: 2nd Lap are easier to handle - your car always move in the correct direction around the track and your job is to make sure it doesn't ram into any other cars.

Another kick of this game is that all of the scores by all of the players for all of the modes are able to be uploaded to the PlayStation Network.
This feature allows you to immediately see where your best score in each mode ranks in the entire universe of Pixeljunk Racer racers.
Burn your initials into this game immediately and all over the world for everyone to see.
There is even an overall Driver Score kept for you that factors in your ranking in all of the available events - so not only are you ranked in each individual event, you are ranked as an overall Pixeljunk Racer: 2nd Lap racer.

The game is repetitive.
So is Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Asteroids and Galaga.
The modes are similar.
So are the different modes of Space Invaders, Asteroids and Missile Command.
It is pretty much the same game over and over.
So is Space Invaders, Asteroids, Missile Command and Galaga (Galaxian, anyone?).
....but can you handle it?

The game is only downloadable and is only available from PllayStation Network.
Normal price is $9.99. 
That's almost 40 quarters. 

You can handle that.


Game trailer.
Official PSN site.

I looked at my statistics for my career playing time for the PlayStation 3 game, Blur.
I have raced in 513 on-line races and completed 21% of the off-line mode.
Those are pretty impressive numbers, I thought.
I don't play this game every day - but I guess when I do play it, I get a lot of bang for the buck.

To me, in fact, that is what Blur is.
A lot of BANG!

Each time I play an on-line race here is what goes down:

I turn on the PS3, put the Blur disc in
Wait for the game to load up 
Press START
Sign in (auto for me) 
Choose on-line mode
Choose which on-line mode to race in (usually the race mode with 20 individual racers in it)
Wait for thirty seconds but no more than two minutes to get dropped into a race that's about to start
Vote on which track to race
Choose my car
Set up my car's load-out
Race
Have a heckuva good time
The race ends (in anywhere from 3 to 4.5 minutes)
Vote on which track to race
Choose my car
Set up my car's load-out
Race
Have a heckuva good time

Rinse and repeat.

BANG!

Nine or ten races can be raced in an hour.
The experience is extremely solid, action-packed, fast, tactical and on-edge.
If this were a arcade game in an arcade, you would be pumping quarters in again and again just to keep the experience going.
But - this isn't an arcade game and no quarters are needed, so just wait until the next race starts and go roaring away again!
Beauty.

I need to mention -
The on-line racing is the focus of the game, but the off-line mode of the game has some good things to offer:
1) Races teach you the best-line and shortcuts on all the tracks
2) Certain modes help you hone your combat skills
3) Each Boss you beat in this mode earns you a special car you can use in the on-line mode.

The cars are varied.
The cars are cool.

The tracks are varied.
The tracks are cool.

The weapons, defenses, power-ups are varied.
And all cool.

The correct car(s) for the correct track(s) are important.
The correct load-outs for your style, strategy and track is important.

Racing line is key.
Not bashing into corner after corner is key.
Keeping a nice racing line and cornering correctly is loads of fun and a scream when bombarded by homing on-fire asteroids, single and multi-shot bolt bullets, lightning strikes and shoving force fields.
The fact that you are driving at around and over 200MPH is a factor, too.

You've played racing games before.
You've played combat-racing games before.
You've played all of these on-line before.
Play this one - and you will enjoy yourself and then look for a quarter to put into the machine to give it just one more go.

Blur is a really good on-line racing game.
Give it a whirl.

Blur homepage.
Blur video advert that hooked me.

Pixeljunk Monsters is a downloadable game from Playstation Network. Pixeljunk Monsters Encore expansion pack can also be downloaded from Playstation Network. Pixeljunk Monsters Deluxe can also be purchased and downloaded from Playstation Network and played on a PSP. 

Pixeljunk Monsters is one of those games that leaves you thinking, "This is so simple, why didn't I think of it."

And, "This is so simple, why can't I beat the pants off of this game?"

Followed by, "I just....can't stop...playing this...game!"

So, you are this little turtle guy (I think that's what he is) that has found himself in charge of defending these disarmingly cute fluffy, ball-shaped creatures that are so adorable they are drastically defenseless.

The fluffy creatures are sequestered deep in the woods, on the sides of mountains or any number of other semi-defendable geographic locations.

It is your job as the Secretary of Defense Terrapin, to construct a myriad of defense towers strategically on the map to hinder the waves of either ground-based or flying meanies that for some reason are bent on doing the cute fluffles harm.

It all sounds easy, and it is a very simple premise, but - it costs gold coins to build the defense towers. Sure, you have an initial base of we assume fluffy ball-shaped creature tax money to construct the first few towers, but then you only earn gold coins when the advancing meanies are destroyed - and you must gather those gold coins from the ground where the meanies have expired, while the surviving meanies continue to march toward the fluff balls. 

Complicating matters, and providing an opportunity to boost your defenses, the fallen meanies also drop  the occasional green gems when they meet their maker. These gems can be spent to upgrade existing defense towers. Green gems can also be used to purchase the ability to build new and better defense towers - how you spend these green gems is vital. Of course, you must harvest these green gems as the invasion continues toward the cute pinkies.

If you are racing around the invaders to gather up gold and/or green gems and you collide with an enemy, you automatically lose a portion of your gold on hand and the rest of the gold scatters over the nearby ground. You can pick up the gold you dropped, but you will not recover all you initially carried and the meanies are still moving in on the small pink furries.

The defense towers have unique properties. For example, the basic Arrow Tower is good against ground-bound attackers and airborne attackers, though not great against either. The basic Cannon Tower is great against ground-bound attackers but completely useless against airborne enemies. The Air Tower is (you guessed it) great against airborne enemies, but totally no help at all against the ground-pounding meanies.

A gauge at the bottom of the screen keeps you informed of the next enemy type to assault your peaceful settlement. This gives you a good idea of how to plan your defenses and what shade of panic you should be in.

You can tear down your towers to gain gold pieces to build different towers. This is a big help when you don't need seven cannons to fight off some flying meanies - you can trash a few Cannon Towers and build up  a few Air Towers.

There are about twelve types of towers, and I've only seen four of them - I keep replaying the same levels because I want to do better, it's so much fun, I have yet to stockpile the green gems to buy more advanced technology and I...can't stop...playing...this game!

Stay away from the cute fluffies!!! 

(I digress....)

The game is addictive. Did I mention that? The game is addictive.

The art is wonderful and warm and charming, as is the music and then entire experience. It's not good when the baddies make it through your defense gauntlet and stomp on the warm fuzzies, but it is so much fun, you just replay the level and not mind it a bit. Some people don't like the music, but I think it is just right.

There is a Casual game mode that eases up on the number of marching baddies and slows the game speed. The main game mode allows your score to be compared on-line with other Pixeljunk Monsters players, if you want. There is a Hard mode too, for those into all-out frantic fits.

Pixeljunk Monsters is $9.99.

Pixeljunk Monster encore is an additional $4.99 or $5.99 (I forget), but it gives you an entire new island to defend the cute ball-shaped fluffies on. It's a no-brainer purchase.

There is even a free demo available for download. So, try the demo, get addicted and pick up the rest.

There are not many games like this, period. If you like video games at all, you will really like this one.

Strategy, planning, resource management, dexterity, nifty music, shear panic, cutsey characters and ground-thumping bad guys - what's not to love?

Pixeljunk Monsters is a winner and I would think some sort of Game of the Year winner this time next Year. 

Yes, you read that name correctly.

"Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle Cars".

This is what I'd call a "Bargain Game" downloadable from the Playstation Network.

I had never heard of the game until a week ago.
I was hunting for some "hidden gems" games for the PS3, and I ran across this long title in a forum post somewhere in the vast reaches of the internet. All the poster wrote in his response to the initial forum post that was inquiring for thoughts on little-known but good games for the PS3 was, "Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle Cars".
I had to research that name just because of  - well - just because of that name.

I found it on the Playstation Store, downloaded the demo and played.
It's a game that uses cars that look like RC variety cars to motor around various arenas that are covered with Boost power-up tiles/pods for for the sole purpose of motivating a large bouncing ball into the appropriate goal while one's opponents are attempting to achieve the exact same thing. 
It reminds of me of Rollerball with RC cars.

The cars are not ground-bound. No way.
Using the correct combination of controls (all laid out plainly enough) these cars can jump, leap, flip, twist, boost, spin, rocket up in the air and even rocket boost themselves in flight across these arenas. 
I've seen some incredible moves made with these cars, and in the right combinations, a car can pass, shoot, block and spin the game ball in any manner of ways. There are clearly offensive moves that can be learned and defensive moves that can be learned. These RC cars become more like individual athletes during games and certainly rise above being mere RC cars.

I found out quickly (after an on-line game or two), the learning curve is fairly steep.
Just keeping up with where the ball is within the arena is tricky enough, but then being able to be in the correct position to whack the game ball with your car, then being able to whack the game ball with your car and get the ball to move in the direction you want it to, then being able to whack the ball toward teammates and ultimately into the correct goal are another things all together.
It is frustrating, initially.
But - the on-line bouts are 5 minutes long, so it's not so laborious you get worn out and not so long of timeframe that you gaffe enough to totally blow the game for your team.

There are also a myriad of ways to smash into, smack silly, knock across the arena and totally obliterate opposing cars (who are forced then to re-spawn a few seconds later far away from the action)

The off-line game provides a lot of mini-games that teach the controls, skills needed to become effective in arena matches and give you some overall instruction. Amen to that.
The off-line game also provides a tournament mode that lets you compete in arena matches against computer opponents and hone the skills you learned about in the mini-games or brush up on skills you know you desperately need to get better at after a goofing up numerous times in on-line matches.

The off-line game contains unlockable vehicles, unlockable vehicle skins, unlockable arenas.
The off-line game also keeps a record of your scores as you work through the mini-games and tournament.

On-line, the game gives a brief stat summary at the end of matches and doles out awards as well (I seem to always win the coveted, "Player Who Used the Least Boost" award).
On-line stats are kept, too.

Joining a game is simple and quick.
There's the usual lobby/game-find trickiness, but it's nothing we haven't dealt with before.

On-line games are smooth, not glitchy and are quick.
Once a game ends, you can decide to jump right back into the arena to play again and forego the lobby altogether.

There are Unranked and Ranked arena match choices available.
(Right now, I'm just rank)

Voice-chat is available - this is good and bad: It can be good for working with your teammates, but it doesn't keep the questionable language used by other players from floating into your living room.
(This feature also can provide you an idea of just what age your opponents may be as you hear their parents call them to dinner or ask them (again!) to clean their room right in the middle of an arena match)

The graphics are not the best quality, but completely good enough. Most impressive is the game ball itself that is usually lit up in some unique way.
Gameplay is totally solid.
Music is of the standard, usual "I wish I could turn it completely off" variety.

The game is under the radar.
The game is what it says it is.
The solo off-line game is fun and helps you learn all you need to be able to compete in on-line arena matches.
The on-line arena matches are the focus of this game - but, I totally enjoy off-line arena matches against computer opponents, they are almost as rewarding as being on-line (with no 11-year olds trying to talk trash to you or argue with his Mom mid-match!).

The title is confusing but entertaining.
The game is priced just right at $9.99, and worth every penny.
Replay value is really high.
The learning curve is pretty steep.
The fun-factor is very high.

If you are at all interested in racing games, racing combat games, sports games or on-line games you should really give this a spin.
Try out the free demo - you get part of the off-line game and enough of the on-line game to give you opportunity to discover if this game is for you.

SARPBC is a winner.