...or I wouldnt have gotten any sleep.
 
For XMas, I treated myself to a new graphics card and a couple of games.
 
First off was Call of Duty 2. I've played CoD 1 to death and loved every mission (except possibly the opening of the Stalingrad mission where you have to dodge MG fire unarmed).
CoD2 was a revelation in graphics. I marvelled at the snow, the extra detail in the models, the heat haze above fires, and then got into the action.
Now most of these WW2 FPS games I've gotten into the habit of calmly aiming and shooting the enemy as they spary bullets frantically in my direction. I've done the same in Half-Life mod Day of Defeat against real people too.
CoD 2 is the first game I've found immersive enough that my character hit the deck at first sight of the enemy and sprayed bullets around just to keep them from shooting back! I'd just gotten my heart rate back down into double figures when I got a Russian sniper mission.
"Red building, second floor!" said one of the spotters as I picked up the scoped Mosin-Nagant. What building? Second floor? Can't see squat through the scope or binoculars.
I looked at the other troops and noticed their breath steaming in the cold. Nice touch, thought I - then as I turned back to the scope I realised I could the German sniper's breath steaming past the edge of a windowframe where he was hiding. Damn this game is awesome!
One niggle is the SMG issued to the British troops in the North Africa campaign only has a 20rnd magazine. I havent checked the historical accuracy, but it means I've reverted to the tactic of nicking a German MP40 asap rather than run out of ammo mid-fight.
 
 
I'd been given a copy of Oblivion shortly after it was released. Unfortunately my graphics card then couldnt run the game at a decent FPS unless I reduced the resolution and detail down to the level of Pong. Even then, lag and jerkiness in combat meant I accidently shot the heir of Uriel Septim in the back of the head with a silver arrow, and despite managing to parley with him, getting apprehended by an Imperial Legionaire miles from anywhere and being divested of my hard-stolen goods. In frustration I'd uninstalled the game and put the dvd under a belt sander to stop me wanting to try it again.
 
But my new card will run it at 1650x1080, with most of the eyecandy on, and hit the 60fps limit of my monitor. It's one of those games where I have to stop occasionally and just look at the countryside - and despite some minor quests that have me running around the countryside of waiting for shops to open and the highly annoying 'leveling the enemy up' policy I'm addicted.
So much so that last night, I locked the DVD in the car outside just so I wouldnt be up until 3am playing it and could get a decent nights sleep before returning to work today

Nice.

Using some gift cards, I finally picked up Rome: Total War with the Barbarian Invasion expansion on Friday.  Pretty much blew away the entirety of my Saturday and most of Monday.  It's quite a leap forward in terms of gameplay and graphics of M:TW.  I'm loving my triarii.

Strategy games of any stripe are too fatally attractive for me.  I always fire them up, vowing to spend 45 minutes and no more playing.  The next thing I know, it's 3 hours later and I'm still saying, "Just one more turn, I want to see how this siege plays out...."

Quote from: O'Borg...
For XMas, I treated myself to a new graphics card ...

What card did you get?
And how much did you pay for it?

My mother bought me the complete Civilization series boxed set for Christmas.

I've spent the last two days almost entirely occupied by multiplayer CivIV.

Quote from: J ArcaneMy mother bought me the complete Civilization series boxed set for Christmas.

I've spent the last two days almost entirely occupied by multiplayer CivIV.

The one with the card game and the hardcover books?
I

Quote from: UmaSamaWhat card did you get?
And how much did you pay for it?

ATi Radeon x1950pro 512mb. I had to wait until the AGP version was released as I didnt feel like springing for a new PCI-E mobo plus cpu & ram. Nothing wrong with my existing A64/3200 aside from only having AGP.

Cost me £152 excluding delivery, but I treated myself to a Logitech G5 mouse too as I'd worn the silver coating off my old Microsoft explorer and one of the teflon feet was coming loose.

Quote from: UmaSamaThe one with the card game and the hardcover books?
I

There's no hardcover book, but there is the card game yes.  The only book is actually a short 96 page booklet of interviews and such.

but the look of it is all dolled up to look like a bunch of hardcover leather-bound books.

Finished CoD2 last night (Oblivion still being locked in the car) and had another Whoa moment in the final mission.

Defending a bunker in the Hurtgen forest, I headshoot a German soldier with a sniper rifle and his helmet goes flying.
The soldier half turns and watches his helmet spiral through the air with this "Damn that was close!" look on his face before ducking for cover and resuming fire.

It's moments like that when I can forgive the game the annoyances of it's control system and the Thompson SMG being given a woefully inadequate 20rnd magazine in all scenarios.

I got bought Medieval II Total War for my birthday in December.  I am much of the way through the Venetian conquest of the Byzantine Empire and the takeover of Northern Italy and am also playing a Scottish game, King Malcolm recently conquered Antwerp and we have married an English princess so as to create an alliance protecting our Southern borders.

Sadly Dublin was just a village rather than quite a large city, the first anachronism so far, but at least now it's a Scottish village.

Wonderful game.

Medieval II total War is awesome, as its almost the whole Total War Series, I have Rome Total War and it's great, I'm now looking forward in getting MEdieval II.