What am I still playing at?

A post that’s just a list of games I’ve played recently (with a couple of sentences about each), that's perhaps even less interesting than this article about a new model of Barbie.

PERHAPS!

The Internet's ideal woman: computer engineer Barbie

Let’s take a look.

Geometry Wars 2: Retro Evolved (360): I’ve mostly been playing drunken multiplayer games, and it can be a pretty cruel mistress when your wits are dulled and your reaction times slowed. Nonetheless, judged on its own terms it’s a game that’s as close to perfection as you could hope. Pure in concept and brilliant in execution, it really is a timeless classic.

Command & Conquer: Red Alert (PC): Became free-to-download last weekend, and so I couldn’t resist returning to it. My impressions are probably clouded by the formative role it played in my own game-playing history, but all these years later it’s still lots of fun. Admittedly the fact that you’re unable to queue up more than one unit to build feels pretty archaic, and tactically I rarely get much beyond creating giant armies of tank units and grenadiers to overwhelm the slow-to-learn AI, but this is worth looking at again- even if just for the music and b-movie cut scenes.

Okami (PS2): One of those games that conventional wisdom says is compulsory to love, and despite never giving it much time before, even I (widely recognised as King of the Independently Minded) caved into the pressure and named it as one of the 50 best games of the past decade. It certainly looks stunning and I’m trying to give it all the goodwill in the world, but sadly all I can tell you so far is that it starts slowly.

The beautiful and wonderfully animated Okami.

Final Fantasy XII (PS2): I think this was my third attempt to get more than 3% of the way through the story, but it’s remained a game I prefer reading about to playing. I suppose I should be relieved: my inability to click with it has probably added an extra 90 hours or so of leisure time to my life.

Alien vs Predator demo (PC): The full game is due out at the end of the week. I think a large reason I’ve enjoyed playing this so much is because it’s the first time in ages where I’ve had the opportunity to play a deathmatch against people who haven’t been playing the same game ten hours a day for the last 5+ years of their lives (I’m looking at you Counterstrike). Shows promise.

Dragon Age: Origins (PC): Has left me pretty cold, which can only mean wizards, dwarves and elves are officially boring now.

 A suitably uninspiring screenshot of Dragon Age

More Brain Training from Dr Kawashima (DS): The brain training part got dull a long time ago, but I do still like a sudoku every now and then.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time Reshelled (360): I had a spare 400 Microsoft Points sloshing around my Xbox Live account, was lacking a decent disposable 4-player game, and so the recent reduction in price of this SNES remake seduced me. I wanted disposable and that's definitely what got it, but it's fun enough.


That's enough for now. (Even for me, the inanity of this list is quite something.) So scram. Go read that dreadful thing about Barbie already.