Literally slept on it...

Long story short, I literally slept through yesterday's Steam deals and missed the chance to get Back to the Future: The Game, The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, Serious Sam HD: Gold Edition for super-cheap... Damnit.

Rage is $30 today; hrmmm...

Buhbye, social life!

Rayman: Origins is everything I'd hoped it would be; buy it; forget everything else... Except for Mortal Kombat. Ho-lee-shit, this is what a fighting game should be! The learning curve is fun, the story mode is fantastic, and the fanservice is pure joy. The $70 it was going for new was steep, but the $35 I paid for a PS3 copy is a steal; I will be buying the DLC.

Everything else is on hold, despite the incredible sales on Steam right now. I've already picked-up The Oddboxx and the third season of Sam & Max... and I'm teetering on Alice: Madness Returns, Cave Story+, Dead Island, Hard Return, and Space Marine. Rage is also on sale, but $45 isn't cheap enough for me to buy it well before I'll have any chance to play it.

Out Of Control

I've been stopping by an indie game shop by my work every now and again since the 15th, hoping they've ordered a copy of Rayman: Origins for 360. Turns out their suppliers aren't offering it, so I checked out another indie shop not too far away and they had it... So I bought it... And King Of Fighters XIII for 360, Mortal Kombat for PS3, as well as Boom Blox, Kirby's Return To Dreamland, and Sonic Colors for Wii.

There is no way I have enough to time to master this stack of fighting games, let alone get any good at them. I need a plan, and I'm thinking that after I get Assasin's Creed: Brotherhood out of the way, I'm avoiding all open-world/sandbox games, RPGs, strategy games, and the like until I plough through some of these single player titles.

Man...

I remember, when I first started my current sysadmin position a few years ago, an employee accidentally deleting a database. The database software had the "delete" and "delete all" buttons right next to each other, so I didn't really blame the employee.

I was about a third of the way through Puzzle Quest 2 and had developed a pretty killer Assassin character when I accidentally deleted him. I really only play the game on the subway ride to and from work, and I happened to be particularly tired on my way in that day... Whoever put the "delete hero" button next to the "back" button and made the deletion confirmation screen look exactly like any other confirmation screen in the game deserves a real good smack upside the head.

Didn't get Rayman: Origins the other day 'cause my local indie shop didn't order any... I really hope that game's successful :(

Right, it's an alpha...

The latest version of Puzzle Quest 2 for Android seems to make everything feel a bit snappier.

The Voxatron alpha is fantastic, but awfully short; looking forward to more!

Amnesia and Justine are triumphs of game design.

Escape Goat is really fun.

Far Cry 2 is still not grabbing me.

The Resistance 3 demo was boring.

Rayman: Origins is sweet; forget Modern Warfare 3, Skyrim,  Skyward Sword, etc... I'm buying the new Rayman.

No dogs jumping through windows...

I completed Amnesia (and the spiffy little Justine DLC), and I loved it! The game didn't make me go to bed with the lights on or anything, but I found it really intense. It was a nice change of pace to be helpless and have to hide in the face of danger, and to experience scares that didn't rely on surprise. I really dug the Lovecraftian themes and exploring the castle, but what really won me over was the balance of the gameplay; stay in the light or lose your sanity, hide from enemies in the dark, don't look at enemies for too long... Those design decisions force you to light rooms strategically, remember where you came from, and rely on the sound design. I highly recommend this one.

Hallowe'en

Far Cry 2 sits untouched since my last post.

I started Castlevania: Legacy Of Darkness on N64 for Hallowe'en... So far it mostly looks bad, sports a horrible camera, the jumping mechanics are terrible, and the main character lacks a whip. That wasn't a good start for a Castlevania title, so I considered spending some quality time with Silent Hill 2 and Jack Bros. to keep in the spirit, but they failed to hold my attention for long.

Ended-up taking advantage of Steam's Hallowe'en sale and snagged Amnesia, Costume Quest, Dead Space 1 and 2, and the Penumbra Collection. Held-off on The Binding Of Isaac for no real reason, but ended-up picking it up as part of The Humble Voxatron Debut. So Amnesia is awesome, Voxatron is a whole different kind of awesome, and I haven't really played anything else since...

...Except for Puzzle Quest 2, which was recently released for Android! It's slow, unresponsive, and buggy, but hot damn, is it ever fun! So glad to finally have it on a portable platform :)