And here's what we got:
Regardless, in my long-standing tradition of playing games well past their popularity spike (I haven’t even reviewed Mass Effect or Bioshock 2, both recently played) I recently picked up Torchlight on the XBox Arcade. From my vague recollections, Torchlight was something like Diablo, but streamlined and graphically updated.
Believe it or not, that’s pretty much it. Well, except the compelling storyline.
I am not a fan of Rockstar Games, generally. Not to say that they don’t do good work, but their usual fare just isn’t something that I can enjoy for more than about 10 minutes. Grand Theft Auto 3 and onwards always felt tedious (regardless of how much you can personally achieve in it), and Red Dead Redemption just seemed like the same thing, but with cowboys.
The whole ‘open world, do what you want, oh by the way there’s some actual story here if you wanna play it’ model never really did much for me. It’s neat and all, I get the appeal, but I never really got into it.
So then they start talking about L.A. Noire, and my first thought was “oh good, GTA in the 1940′s but this time you’re a cop and will get shot at by bad guys instead of the other way around. Yawwwwn” and promptly ignored it. But then they started releasing the trailers for L.A. Noire, and I watched them. And then I watched some more. And then I started reading about what L.A. Noire was really going to be. A detective game, but with chases, shakedowns, shooting, and moral implications.
Then I got excited.
I’ve been waiting a long time for this.
Pretty much everyone who played the first Portal has been chomping at the bit for a sequel of sorts to come around. That being said, Portal was a bit of a sleeper hit (and meme generator). It took a while for it to become popular. It took even longer for for it to become popular to release on its own. It did, of course, and I’ve been the proud owner of Portal: Still Alive (the XBox 360 release) for a good while now.
So when I heard about a Portal 2 coming out, I became very excited (along with a good portion of the Internet). What’s interesting is Portal came out in 2007. There is a 4 year gap between the two games, which is a long time in the game industry. With that kind of gap, people are going to be expecting a lot from this release.
So the question is: does it stand up?
Yeup.
I’m quickly becoming a big fan of Double Fine Productions, and the wonderful stuff that’s coming wonderfully out of their wonderful hands. I didn’t get a chance to review Costume Quest when it came out (by which I mean I was too goddamned lazy) but I can say that it was easily one of the best Xbox Arcade games to come out in forever.
When the expansion for Costume Quest came out, I burned through it and found that Double Fine threw in an easter egg/achievement that advertised their new game (and subject of this review), Stacking.
With some interesting mechanics, and the Double Fine sense of humour, Stacking makes for an interesting addition to the Xbox Arcade.
Borderlands is a strange one for me. I started off by, quite frankly, disliking it. I went off about how playing through the game in single-player would be a chore, and so the only time I would actually play it would be at my friends house. Preferably only after a decent amount of drinking. Nothing really struck me as truly amazing about it, and whined that the original version would have been so much cooler/more epic/a better RPG/whatever the hell else my mouth decided to spout.
This is pretty much how it played out until one day I woke up with a copy of Borderlands in my hand, and a dead horse in my bed. I’m still trying to figure out where that copy of Borderlands came from.
Oh look, another Professor Layton. I don’t think I need to outline once again how every Professor Layton game holds me firmly in its thrall. I’ve lost sleep with each game. Basically as long as Level 5 keep coming out with these games, they will keep taking the money I throw at them.
That said, the new Professor Layton came with a veritable feast of new mini-games, new puzzles, and one of the best story-lines in a game I’ve played in the last while. As a result, the newest addition to the series (Professor Layton and the Unwound Future) ends up being the best of the series (thus far).
So how was everyones Christmas? Good, I hope. Unless yours was anything like ours wherein the hot water and heating died on Christmas Day. We had to heat the place up with the stove tops. It was rustic.
Putting aside my moment of Little Tim, Theresa got me a present I’d have never thought to get myself. Hell, it was a gift I would have never guessed, as I’ve never exhibited that much outward desire for it. Now unless you’re not paying attention or you’re simple remedial, I am talking about the
Amazon Kindle.
Let us pretend for the sake of this review that it’s 2007; people are getting shot at Virginia Tech, Bob Barker airs his last episode of The Price is Right, some intense earthquakes happen, and countries are revoting against their respective leaders. I’d list them here, but seriously, there were a lot of revolts that year. You could say it was…. insane? Hah, you totally though I was going to say ‘revolting’ but I didn’t and I totally got you. You should see the look on your face.
Anyways.
On top of all of this, Bioshock hits the market and ends up getting a whole slew of reviews and press. No solid reviews have come out beyond the wank-fests of the big game rags, and he Internet waits for the independent reviews to start coming in.
That’s where this review comes in. For those that don’t want to play along, yes this is a review for a game that I only just got around to playing about 3 years later. I was a busy man, probably.
To the review-mobile!
I am so very sorry that this is the first movie review I have written in… However long it’s been… has to be for TRON Legacy. Rudy 2 doesn’t really count. Hey it’s my website and what I say goes, junior. I’ll do my best to follow a format or at least some kind of [...]