Last couple of days have been manic and Ubisoft have been keeping me busy by parading me around Montreal before we flew back to the UK. I didn't have time to do a day 3 blog while I was there and I thought while I am slowly transcribing Q&A's I would get one out!

We left the hotel around 8:30 in the morning and arrived at Ubisoft's beautiful and absolutely massive Montreal studio! We got a small tour of the studio, saw places where they record audio, created the game and ate food. We couldn't take many pictures due to several secret unannounced projects going on and the company was very secretive and secure about everything. A security guard patrolled during the day as well as certain employees only having key cards that accessed certain rooms.

After the small tour we were lead to one of the lower floors into a room full of Assassin's Creed 2 posters and debug units. Here we got a Q&A session with Sebastian Puel, producer for AC2, and got some proper hands on time with the game. A good 4 hours I managed and I also got a nice look at the PSP and DS versions that are being worked on, the DS version looked the most promising.

I am still waiting on a few photos but will pop them up as soon as they become available, the day was amazing and the game is well... you'll have to wait for my preview but to cut the story short: amazing! Keep an eye on Consolemonster.com for the preview as well as more blogs in this ubi portal.

October was probably the busiest month of the year so far, in gaming terms at least. However we have just entered November which promises to be even busier, and that could be because of just one game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

I personally cannot wait for this game to be released, and starting from tonight, I’ll be trying to complete the Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare campaign to get back in the right frame of mind.

Wow, October came and went and it was probably one of my busiest months of gaming in a long while.

It all began with Need for Speed Shift, which I reviewed for this very website. I was quite impressed by the change in the series and the graphics were certainly a step up from previous NFS games. The interior view for me is one of the best out of any videogame and the sense of speed you get when using it is fantastic.

Even with Forza 3 (which I'll come onto in a moment), being out, it has made me realise that even Forza has failed to re-create the driver viewpoint as staggeringly done by Shift. That said some iffy handling let the game down, but surely things can only get better!

Up next I downloaded a classic XBLA title which I had wanted since the launch of the console. Quite why it took me 4 years to download Smash TV, I'm not quite sure, but I was enticed to some co-op with a friend and at 400 MS Points, it wasn't much to give me a bit of retro goodness. Sadly the co-op is plauged now by drop-outs which is a shame, but a very addictive title.

On the XBLA front again, I have been playing Watchmen Part 2, again reviewed for the website. Although this appeared at the end of September, I failed to give it a brief mention last month. As you can see from the score, I thought the game was pretty dire and very expensive for what it is. Strangely enough though I found myself returning to it to complete it as the second character and still hated it the second time through.

Then came a much bigger leap in the gaming calander, in the form of Halo 3: ODST. I didn't get this straight from launch and even at the end of last month, it was still sitting sealed whilst I completed some other games. I've enjoyed the campaign and managed to wrap that up on Heroic, but I can't do Legendary on my own. I've enjoyed it with 2 other players, but solo it can be nigh on impossible. Not only that but the campaign is very broken in terms of when you begin a game and who with which meant having to re-play through the game to gain access to the next levels. A frustrating element of ODST, but a cracking game nontheless especially the epic Firefight battles I have endured.

Next up was Stoked, where you can read my review. This is quite a nice looking snowboarding title but I found it very hard to get to grips with, especially as the control system is taken from Skate which I'm useless at. If you are into the extreme sport and want beautiful looking mountains, then I suggest you take a look, especially as it can be picked up relatively cheap.

I managed to trade in Dirt 2 which I had near on completed from September and get £30 off Guitar Hero 5. With my staff discount at work, it meant I gained 1p, which meant I had two games for the price of one, considering I only paid £26 for Dirt 2 from an online retailer.

I've enjoyed what Guitar Hero 5 had to offer, it seem more polished and the soundtrack is far better than in World Tour. It took me back to the glory days of Guitar Hero III which was a postive element for me. The new improvements, whilst generally subtle, give it the edge. Sadly though the game is let down by poor DLC and connectivity with the old games.

With Halo 3: ODST as mentioned earlier, I decided to return to the multiplayer of Halo 3. It had been a long time since I played online particulary with the new maps which came on the second disc. I quite enjoyed my return to the game, a game which I've spent many fond hours playing online and it was nice to get back into the fray. Sadly with so many releases, online is something I don't bother with these days, but I should really settle down to some games more often.

The end of October heralded a packed month, I finally opened FIFA 10, after my girlfriends mate came round and wanted to play it. I guessed that it was time to take the shrink-wrap off and give it a blast. I've spent very little time with it, but it is an improvement on last year.

Around the time I opened FIFA, Forza Motorsport 3 arrived. I hadn't initally planned to buy the game and luckily I didn't have to. I won the staff of the month award for September at work and got a free copy which was nice. I didn't enjoy Forza 2, but this is a step up with some lovely menus and tracks alongside the vast variety of cars. Really enjoying the racing and handling as well and I can see me returning every now and again to complete events.

Up next was NBA Live 10, and a review will be up shortly for this. I've had a soft-spot for basket ball games down the years and NBA Live 10 is quite impressive. It is a very flexiable game in terms of rules and settings and the gameplay is great.

Finally (phew!), just making it into October is DJ Hero. I will write more about this next month and possibly put a review on the site. It is a cracking music game albiet over-priced but the mixes on it are superb and the instrument is well built.

And that is not all for October (I did say it was packed!), I was given entry into the Beta for the next Xbox update which is shaping up to be quite nice with Facebook, Twitter and Last.fm leading the way. I particulary like Last.fm, but it is ashame it can't be used in games (yet!). Sky Player also launched a week later which looks quite good but was plagued by problems. I will hopefully be getting access to the full service later in the month.

My target of achieving 30,000 gamerscore was smashed in October, and I'm now sitting on 32K, having beat two of my friends for the first time in three years past there scores. My next target is 50K, but that is a long way off.

October was certainly the busiest month possibly ever for gaming and November will be quieter but with a return to some classics and a few new guys, including possibly MW2, if I decide to splash out.

This month was Console Monster’s first GamerScore competition which I felt went really well. I managed to obtain 5,000 GamerScore throughout the entirety of the competition, though I’ll still be racking up the points in order to catch up with fellow Console Monster staff member and GamerScore competition partner: Reece.

"Excuse me, I'm lost." - Lost: Via Domus

The GamerScore competition meant I played an array of new titles throughout the month. Madden NFL 06, Fight Night Round 3, Eat Lead, Lost Via Domus and Open Season all helped me immensely, providing me with huge GamerScore increases despite not being the most enjoyable of titles.

My highlight of the month has to be the incredible Brutal Legend, a title that I didn’t initially have high hopes for. From the review: “The combination of a humorous action-adventure story with music and gameplay to match makes the game one of the most unique titles on the market at the moment and one I thoroughly recommend any gamer to purchase.”

Rock on! - Brutal Legend

This month also saw me reviewing two movie-to-game conversions coming in the form of Disney Pixar’s Up and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, both of which have provided me with sufficient entertainment despite not being AAA titles. NHL 2k10 was another title I’ve reviewed throughout the month, a game I enjoyed despite not being a huge ice hockey fanatic.

Both FIFA 10 and Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony look set to take me nicely into November having obtained both titles towards the end of October. Nevertheless, November is shaping up to be an impressive month for new releases with Ghostbusters, Assassin’s Creed 2, Left 4 Dead 2 and LEGO Indiana Jones 2 all on my radar.

I seem to say this every month: the time has flown by, where did October go?

Plenty seems to have happened through the Monster Month of October, with some major releases going on, and your favourite evil empire gimping honest hard working people’s memory cards.

I started the month participating in the Console Monster gamer score challenge. I never really expected to progress in to the finals, but some of the scores gained through the first round where insurmountable. Either my Kung Fu has weakened since I started gaming many years ago, or else people are spending 24/7 sat in front of their televisions waggling joypads, hammering buttons and gaining weight and spots by ordering take-away pizza to avoid too much pause time.

Have you heard of outside people?

Not that I’m bitter or anything. At least I managed to gain a mildly respectable 1400 odd points, and continue my quest to at least rid myself of all my gaming ducks. And I think I got away with the fact my team was Strange Hopefuls In Theory ;)

My main gaming priority this month has been Forza 3. I’ve long been a big fan of the series, and since Forza 1 came out on the original Xbox, I think it’s made inroads to take the crown from GT as the de facto driving simulator, which seems to have been stagnating since Gran Turismo 2 on PlayStation One. With Forza 3, Turn Ten has taken what’s great in previous outings and turtle waxed it good.

It’s not without its niggles of course, and on the official forums there’s huge list of reported bugs. I’m sure Turn Ten are already aware of many of them. In Software Development bugs tend to get prioritised according to severity; in the rush to get something out the door, those low on the list are often left to fester, not because programmers can’t be bothered to fix them, but simply because there isn’t enough time. Hopefully things will be patched up in the future.

On a final note, and something that has gotten me very hot under the collar: Microsoft’s repugnant decision to remove 3rd party memory support from the Xbox360. In Major Nelson’s podcast on Sunday 25th October, it was claimed this has been done to stop game save hacking. Now, if this was only possible on the Datel devices, they might have a valid point ... but it isn’t. The same feats are as easily possible using official Microsoft’s products, so the argument holds very little water. Of course, Microsoft is able to profit greatly by this action because:

a) The memory cards / HDDs have massive mark-up compared to cost
b) Only Microsoft make memory cards that will work
c) You can’t easily get by without having a memory device / HDD

Something I’m sure the bean counters are fully aware of. The only people this is going to hurt are hard working, honest consumers who’ve been supporting the company, and may not even be aware that their profile and saved games are simply going to disappear when the dashboard update goes live next month. Those people who would do evil will merely switch to other methods and laugh at Microsoft for what is a stupid, pointless and anti-consumer move.

Shame on you Microsoft!

Until next month, remember to buy multi-format releases on alternative platforms! Ciao!