*yawn*

Wrapped-up RAGE and Arkham City. Not quite 100% on both, but awfully close. Both games are surprisingly similar in how they approach open-world game design... And it's 5:30am and I'm exhausted, so I'll write more another time.

I'm also almost done Q.U.B.E., and it's very good.

Pun

Had a hell of a time installing RAGE...

Issues:

1. Steam requires games to be installed on the same drive as the Steam client; I keep Steam on my system drive, which you may recall is a 60GB SSD; even retail copies of RAGE require a 25GB Steam installation; after some manual clean-up, I had just enough space.
2. Game just wouldn't start; hung at the "Preparing to launch RAGE..." window; moved Steam client to a different drive and re-installed RAGE from the discs, just for fun; same problem.
3. Used Steam's back-up utility to back-up RAGE; moved Steam back to the system drive and then restored the back-up; everything works!

Anyway, I'm just getting started, and things aren't as bad as I was led to believe by the reviews. The graghics are gorgeous and the gameplay's solid; the story's a little contrived, but nothing awful; essentially I'm seeing a simple and solid FPS with stuff to do between levels.

I finished Duke Nukem Forever's The Doctor Who Cloned Me DLC after Space Marine, and it was alright... Nothing special, but it does have a few high points (the clone training facility is amusing and the moon level is visually stunning) as well as a few low points; the Gears-Of-War-parodying Dylan character's dialogue, in particular. I wouldn't pay more than $10 for it, and even then, it won't change your mind if you weren't already a fan.

The 1.0.5 patch for the Android port of Puzzle Quest 2 (possibly because of my recent upgrade to Android 4) is choppier, fails to load pretty frequently, sometimes simply doesn't display assets (black rooms, inaccurate maps, etc...), and occasionally crashes.

Speaking of Android 4, it's an adjustment, but an easy one because it's very pretty and the new layout and functionalities make sense. It's still decimating my battery, so I keep mobile data disabled unless I'm using it... Which sucks for work e-mails.

Loved it!

Space Marine is rock solid. Great graphics, delightfully visceral gameplay, a surprisingly engaging story with endearing characters... And multiplayer I'm actually interested in!? There isn't much bad here; I've read complaints about checkpoints and the "cliffhanger" ending, and I noticed some infequent issues with models getting stuck on world geometry, but it's all so minor in context. The checkpoints could've been laid-out a little more efficiently to reduce time spent running around, but if they were placed any more frequently, the game would've been far too easy; the designers managed to find the right balance of feeling like a total badass while still having to replay the challenging points a few times. Yes, you're going to waste some time, but no, it's not particularly frustrating. The ending isn't a huge cliffhanger, but rather a setup of things to come; the main story is still self-contained and complete. As for the good, many people immediately draw comparisons to Gears Of War, and while I see why they do; Gears is all about finding cover, whereas Space Marine is all about not giving a fuck because you have a chainsword!  Seriously though, Space Marine is such a slick production and a refreshing departure from everything else. It's ridiculously surreal, yet takes itself completely seriously without coming-off as silly. It redefines the beat-'em-up genre while marrying it to the third-person shooter genre with aplomb. Gears is still killer, but Space Marine gives us something genuinely new and exciting. Oh, and the multiplayer: I got into it to earn an achievement for the Great Gift Pile contest on Steam, and ended-up having so much fun I stuck around well after earning the prize! I'm putting it hold for now so I can work on this stack of unplayed games, but I'll be coming back to it, I'm sure.

Speaking of stacks of games, I've picked-up the following on Steam:

• Batman: Arkham City
• The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
• Crysis: Maximum Edition
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution
• L.A. Noire
• Sonic Generations
• Star Wars: Knights Of the Old Republic
• Star Wars: Republic Commando

I also won copies of Grotesque Tactics and Portal, as well as a bunch of Steam coupons... I'm so screwed.