This was originally published as part of a game roundup on 28 February 2011.
I played Scott Pilgrim: The Video Game on the 360. This made me nostalgic for The Simpsons Arcade Game which is a fond memory from my youth. I thought it played very well, but the game was a bit unstable. I suspect that Adobe Flash is to blame for this. Regardless, it was solid and I’d recommend it.
Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game: 1
This was originally published as part of a game roundup on 28 February 2011.
Once the novelty of being able to summon Cthulhu wear off, Scribblenauts is rather uninteresting. Almost every level can be beaten with a half-dozen or fewer common objects. My eventual strategy was to start almost every level by summoning a black hole and probably a few lengths of chain or rope. So much for “thousands of unique objects”.
Scribblenauts: 0
This was originally published as part of a game roundup on 28 February 2011.
I was deeply conflicted about this Metroid: Other M. Fundamentally, the gameplay here was quite good and it played enough like the old 2D platform games to really keep me hooked. The real issue, though, was the new characterization of Samus. She went from the strong “silent protagonist” type to something else entirely. Others have written extensively about the themes of psychological abuse that can be read into the story (without trying very hard, either), so I won’t rehash them here. Unfortunately, it feels like this game really damaged the Metroid brand and that is something that can’t be forgiven.
Metroid: Other M: 0
This was originally published as part of a game roundup on 28 February 2011.
Although I have been a longtime player of the Command & Conquer series (I had the original C&C for DOS), I had never gotten around to playing Red Alert 2 until just recently. I had obtained it back in college with a set of “Laptop Games” which I bought in order to get the expansion to Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri. Considering that the game is over a decade old, it has aged very well and was still full of the old C&C charm.
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2: 1 (but you don’t really need me to tell you this)
This was originally published as part of a game roundup on 28 February 2011.
What happens if you combine a fighting game with the grind of a Japanese-style RPG? Answer: Dissidia: Final Fantasy. On the other hand, the game is perhaps the most cinematic fighting game that I’ve ever played, but I’m not certain that that is enough.
Dissidia: Final Fantasy: 0
This was originally published as part of a game roundup on 28 February 2011.
The Secret of Monkey Island is a classic adventure game. Unfortunately, badly clued games have somewhat gone out of fashion and, even with the graphical update, I found some parts to be arbitrary and frustrating. I’ve yet to finish the second game for similar reasons.
The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition: 0
This was originally published as part of a game roundup on 28 February 2011.
Fallout: New Vegas feels a lot like a total conversion mod of Fallout 3, mostly because it kindof is. I thought that New Vegas did manage to give somewhat more freedom to the PC by giving real choice about endings and removing any “invincible” or “essential” NPCs (something that Fallout 3 had many, many of). Those choices gave the game a greater sense of weight than I thought Fallout 3 had. Of course, many of the engine bugs from Fallout 3 persist, but I’ve long since forgiven them.
Fallout: New Vegas: 1
This was originally published as part of a game roundup on 28 February 2011.
The Polynomial was a pickup at one of the Steam Xmas sales. Basically, you play in an X-Wing style space shooter with a universe procedurally generated based on music. It sounds cool in theory, but turns out to be mind-numbingly boring after about 20 minutes. All the levels are essentially identical–even with radically different music used to generate them–and there never feels like any point. It would make a nice visualizer, but it is anything but a good game.
The Polynomial: 0
This was originally published as part of a game roundup on 28 February 2011.
I actually got Machinarium as part of the Humble Indy Bundle a while back, but only recently got around to playing it. Despite it being an adventure game very much like Monkey Island above, it manage to feel somewhat less arbitrary and had an internal hint system that made it feel like I wasn’t cheating just because I couldn’t figure out which object to rub against which other object. Also, the fact that it manages to tell such a compelling story without any dialog was rather impressive to me.
Machinarium: 1
This was originally published as part of a game roundup on 28 February 2011.
Alpha Protocol was another Steam sale pickup. This game feels much like Deus Ex in its genre and story: conspiracies inside of conspiracies and the like. Unfortunately, this game has one of the worst cases of Console-itis that I’ve yet to see in a PC game. Controls for ability selection are tedious when they should have been hot keys. Some menus “support” the mouse, but don’t quite work correctly. This causes the entire control system to feel somewhat shoddy. Nevertheless, the plot is quite interesting and most gameplay is still within the realm of acceptable. Overall, I’d recommend just playing Deus Ex again instead.
Alpha Protocol: 0