Bought the standard, no-extras THQ Bundle (I already had the extra games), so I played a bit of those titles. Darksiders didn't seem to be my kind of game on first impressions, but I might give it another go later. RF:Armageddon... hm, had somewhat more fun in Guerrilla. Company of Heroes is good, there were some intense battles where quick thinking was required, so that was OK. I also tried Warhammer 30k: Dawn of War, but right after playing CoH, it kinda felt like the same thing (capture control points, gain resources, upgrade units, repeat) - maybe when I'm done with CoH, I'll be more interested.

I returned to Torchlight II as well, still a lot of fun. Running around as an Embermage and spamming magma spears and fire pillars at everything is quite entertaining. I also like the various secrets which are often barely noticeable (like a small, faintly glinting button on a dungeon wall).

And finally, Dungeons of Dredmor. I'm still working on beating the game on Going Rogue with Permadeath. I normally go for the No Time to Grind option at the start, which makes the dungeon levels smaller with the same amount of XP, but that also means less food, drinks and craftables to work with. This time, I went for full size levels, which is better for a crafting-oriented skill loadout, and you can hoard all the healing items in your Pocket Dimension for a rainy day.

The best Torchlight 2 secret I've found so far was in the Warewolf-infested town part way through Act 3. The axes in the corpses that you can click on to set their spirits free. I don't know how, but I just knew the torches near the end of the map related to those.

Speaking of which, how far into Robot Parts are you?

I have found my first Robot Part in the Brood Cave where you have to destroy that Encrusted Hulk, and there's a narrow passageway which is initially blocked by another Hulk. I really hope it is the very first I'm supposed to find, because I'm interested in where this whole robot business is going.

I'm fairly sure I found one in the Embermines, and I'm fairly sure that came before the horrible encrusted hulk fight.

It turns out that starting NG+ erases all of your progress on that quest. I assumed it would carry over :(

One of the things I love about the old Spyro games was their sense of humor. Subtle shit like this made it.

Alright that’s creepy, your last post made me dig up my old GBA games and I played Season of Ice last night.

I just feel so lost playing that game, the camera angle is the worst.

Just like the Crash Bandicoot GBA games, They felt like the PS1 games only dumbed down.

Perspective. Total mindfuck.

So, it's a 3d Fez.

3D Fez is Fez.

Yeah. So, it's Fez.

Yes. But it's on PC

Fez looked more interesting.

I think you mean 'Fez had better presentation.'

Nah. Fez is based on blocks and jumping and whatnot, this interprets the coloured display as platforms. Put a black object in front of a platform and it becomes a gap. Most of it's about leaving the guy "pinned" to walls while you line stuff up.

In other words, you spend most of the game as the first-person guy. So it's a first-person spatial puzzle game i.e. not Fez.

Except the times when it's Fez.

But Fez is Fez all of the time. So this isn't Fez.

Fez had a fez so Fez wins.

fez

I'm playing SILPHEED THE LOST PLANET which is another in the Working Designs Ultra series, like Gungriffon Blaze mentioned above. Silpheed is a shmup, a damn good one, but is unfortunately single player only. Fun as it is, I find the company that made it pretty interesting.

Working Designs was an American game publisher that saw a schism between the Western and Asian (but mostly Japan) game markets and sought to bridge the gap. Up until then pretty much any AAA Japanese game was either not released over here or given an awful, awful, awful translation job and spat upon the market to a collective 'What the fuck is this?'. This meant a lot of decent (at least at the time) english voiceover work and small tweaks to the game engine to adjust it for Western expectations. Typically they'd release a game in two formats; one just standard case and disc and another more expensive 'Ultra' version with holographic boxart, full colour manuals (at a time when greyscale was the norm) and lots of other little goodies. Unfortunately this system of dual, financially trying releases and a series of 'Two games for the price of One' games more or less bankrupted them. This is a shame, because they did a really good job of making games clearly intended for the alien world of Japan into something approachable and fun for stupid gaijin Americunts.

So if you see shiny games with boxart that says WORKING DESIGNS ULTRA SERIES pick it up, it's kind of rare and probably a good game.

If anyone other than me has a Kinect, the new Double Fine game Kinect Party came out yesterday, and is free. It's silly fun, but still fun.

Also, iPhone users, the new Double Fine game, Middle Manager of Justice, came out last week, and that is also free. Also fun.

It should be on iPod touch as well, so I'll check it out. The title sounds kinda funny. What kind of game is it?

Time Management. You manager super heroes. And yeah, it's on iPad.

I've been meaning to buy Mirror's Edge on the PC for a long time and today I finally decided to get it from the Steam sale since it was only a couple euros. I always thought the console version was a great looking game, but after playing the PC version I can safely say I have no interest in playing it on my 360 again. Damn. I played two chapters of the game, the controls feel quite good on the PC, might have to beat the game yet again later.

So THQ filed for bankruptcy, which fucking blows.

I'm playing Armored Core 2. FUCK Armored Core 2.

I'm not playing it right now, but I checked Steam and someone very generously gifted DOTA 2 to me as an early Christmas gift. I'm pretty sure that MeechMunchie wouldn't like me to publicly announce his niceness so I'll have to thank him anonymously.

Thank you anon, well chuffed.

I'm fairly sure he's gifted them to everyone by now.

Everyone important, at least.

They were starting to clutter up my inventory.

I think Valve is trying to make the shift to free-to-play as seamless as possible by first getting the game to the point that only four Steam users haven't been sent invites yet.

I like Armored Core 2.

I still haven't played the DOTA 2 that Meech gifted me. Feels bad. Is there some kind of deadline?

I like it too. It's a really well done game. But just starting out, not knowing how to pilot my terible unupgraded mech, and seeing sometimes 10,000 Digital Dollars going down the digital drain because I shot too many bullets/got hit too many times is like being given a piece of paper someone spat in instead of a report card.

I'm also playing Urban Chaos: Riot Response. It is the greatest video game of all time. You play as a supercop named Nick Mason (but really TORGO DAZZLER because the game lets you change it) who is called in to murder or tase the balls of a city full of arsonists, rapists, cleaver-throwers, fire rapists, cleaver firers, shotgoons, and anthropormorphic rapist cleavers. All you have is your trusty riot shield that can be used to pulp foes and a wide array of improbably accurate firearms. You are joined by wisecracking firemen, beautiful Paramedics and a squawking woman from New Jersey who serves as dispatcher. It's a surprisingly original FPS that is honestly more fun than anything, fucking ANY GAME this generation. It's such a good game it makes me vomit with rage because games are all shitty and everything has been done to death already except the supercop/punsiher genre which is sadly ignored in this age of shooting virtual brown people. Pick it up if you have a PS2 and five dollars. It's probably the best thing you'll ever do with your sad non0supercop life. I'm going to go cry myself to sleep holding this FBI badge I drew.

I picked up Arkham Asylum in the Steam sale and, well, I wasn’t expecting so many people to be right about it being good.