The first Silent Hill only had something very similar most of the time.

The loud industrial sounds in the music are part of what made Silent Hill terrifying.

Completed (sort of - I haven't completed all the timed runs etc.) Quantum Conundrum.

The collectibles were intelligently placed, and the game was fun. But it was surprisingly unimaginative with its usage of the basic "shifting" gimmick, all just moving boxes onto buttons. The humour slowly loses its charm over the course of the game. Also, possibly the worst ending to a game I've seen this year. I'm not going to spoil it, but it could be summarised as "♪ Yeah yeah buy some DLC ♫".

EDIT: Now I'm playing Aquaria. The cathedral is deeply disturbing. You've got the kind of freaky monster design I haven't seen since the Mega Drive era; Plus a few I've never seen outside of those low-budget Japanese arcade games, like missile-firing tadpole-sperm spawning from a giant eyeball-covered sphincter.

Playing Spore. It's pretty fun until you get to the tribal ages.

The space stage seems like it's going to be great at the start, until you start getting called back to your homeworld every five minutes to defend them from raiders.

That's my race as my avatar, in case anyone couldn't tell. He's wearing space goggles.

EDIT: Man, Aquaria's secret ending is batshit insane. Shame it's not on consoles, I bet the Wii crowd would love it.

Oh, and I made my first purchace of the SSS... Bio-Hazard Battle!

Nostalgia! '90s-level difficulty! Truly fucked-up enemy design!

Okay, now I'm playing SpaceChem. It's probably the most complicated thing I've ever played. If you liked programming robots as a kid, you'll probably like it.

This is level three. There are fiftysomething. I still made it, though!

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/...4DB1FCA4574D9/

Okay, so there are these little carriers - the coloured rings - that grab atoms and trigger commands that they hit.
The "In" commands make the atom or compound on the left appear in that input area.
The "Grab" makes the carrier pick up the molecule on that tile.
The "Sync" prevents the red carrier from moving until the blue carrier hits another Sync command and vice versa.
Those +/- things in the background are bonding areas. When triggered, they form or break bonds (depending on the command) between all atoms over them at the time.

So, both loops bring in an atom and pick it up, then the "Sync" holds the red hydrogen in place until the blue carbon gets there. Then they run parallel so that Red drops the hydrogen in the bonding area; just as Blue, carrying the carbon atom, runs over the bond command and bonds the two atoms together.

We're not done, we need another hydrogen. So the "Rotate" tile spins our HC molecule to the right and then Blue waits at another Sync while Red goes around to get another Hydrogen. When the Red Sync hits, another Hydrogen gets dropped, Blue moves into position, and another Hydrogen gets stuck to the other side.

Methylene complete, it's Red's turn to wait as Blue moves round to drop the molecule and hit "Out", which sends any molecules on that area of the grid off to the next reactor. Back to "Start"!

Yep, you only can react two chemicals at a time, so you've got to plot out another flowchart for how you're going to get them to where they're needed.

It's simple in terms of the game, but I can't help but feel slightly proud of myself.

ScrabTrapMan, play it.

I got Steam! Now I want the PTI.

oh, and I completed SH2.

I too played spacechem. I gave up when it came to multiple reactors and stuff.
i gave up because that chemical reactions are too easy and are an insult to my intelligence of course D: ....really

It gets about this complicated, if anyone cares.

I've been playing Borderlands. My PC can't run it all that well but it's playable...just.

My impressions so far are very positive, It's such a fun game. I love the huge amounts of weapons you can buy or find and I adore the Artstyle so fricking much. I really can't wait to get a Gaming PC and run this game with the highest settings :D

Oh and I got it with all the DLC for £4.99 - I fucking love Steam.

Very fun game indeed. The weapon collection aspect gets really addictive, and the gameplay is just so fun.

I finished Botanicula. I started it before exams, not long after it came out, and got to the bit where you collect chickens but then put it on hold to do revision. I completed the remainder of the game in two (short) sittings, yesterday and today.

It had much more in common with Samorost than it did with Machinarium, which isn't necessarily a bad thing per se; I just expected a more "in depth" experience. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it; I really liked the atmosphere, and the puzzles were easier than Machinarium's (simultaneously a good and bad thing).

A good game, worth the pennies I paid for it (although precisely how many pennies it was, I forget).

Is collecting chickens really a spoiler?

THANKS, ASSHOLE!
*quits*

Now I can never enjoy the hours of tension over what kind of bird I will have to collect.

Been playing Tetris on my iPod, not much else. It's pretty addictive.

I bought The Binding of Isaac (or The Blinding of Issac as MM used to say) since I bought it from the Steam flash sale. It's pretty disturbing but good.

I suppose if you saved prior to them escaping then you...

Wait, no, not really.

Christ, they got out? I'm telling you man, you have ruined this for me.

At least he put it in the spoiler tag, you...! D:<

I've started playing Tales of Graces F. Very pretty and cutesy, but I'm still trying to get used to the battle system.

I'm thinking of starting the Deus Ex games (from the beginning), would anyone say they're worth a play?

I would. Deus Ex 1 and 3 are brilliant games, I definitely recommend playing them. There was no DE2, so don't touch it.

The gameplay is fun, there are multiple ways to play the game, there's some hidden-spot hunting, the story is cool

Tetris on anything is addictive, I still play the original on my Game Boy from time to time. That and Dr. Mario.

What's wrong with the second?

There's nothing wrong with it. Fans are just pissy about it because it was different.

Actually, it was a pretty poor game, the gameplay was simplified as far as it could, they did things like one type of ammo for every weapon, from pistols to flamethrowers to "appeal to console gamers" (not like it was necessary for them to enjoy, I believe it's quite the opposite), the engine optimization simply doesn't exist on PC version [it was a pain to play it on a fairly new PC], and it doesn't even compensate with a good quality - e.g. the maps are incredibly small, claustrophobic (comparing to huge open spaces in DE1). Voice acting sounds terrible, stiff. The dialogues are bad-written, you're listening to characters and you're not interested to hear whatever they've got to say. The story is weak, and what they did with DE1 ending is near blasphemy.

It had some good points, but all of them were included in DE1, and even better executed there.

That's why I hate this game.






....nah, I hate it because it's different.

It was never a great game, but it's being rated next to DX1 that really killed it.

I bought The Longest Journey on Steam and I played it for an hour. It seems like a good adventure game, I really like the characters' voices and the beginning was such a mindfuck that I'm interested to find out how it's connected to the story.

I played Invisible War first, without ever making the connection to the first Deus Ex and how amazing it is. I thought it was a really, really cool game. I had the dumbed-down Xbox port and it was still a really fine game. Fuck tha haterz

I finally got the Cinqueda in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. It lets me steal abilities from other people and basically breaks the entire game for Humans/Moogles. Unfortunately, I'm like 2/3rds through the whole game so it takes some of the novelty out since I missed a lot of once-a-playthrough benefits. Still a fun game.

If I like DE1 I'll give the second one a go, there's no point in avoiding it, I might end up enjoying it. Thanks guys.