FuzzyCo

I don't know if Professor Layton invented the detective solves a mystery by a solving a bunch of more-or-less-related puzzles, but that's the first one I encountered, so it's my standard I hold other games of the sort up to. Puzzle Agent is in the same genre. The graphic style of the game is very distinctive, based on the art of Graham Annable's Grickle. The puzzles are, as is common in this sort of game, sometimes only tangentially related to the plot. The plot is, delightfully, a little bit dark and odd—there's been a accident and a disappearance that need to be solved, but it seems like just about everyone in this snowbound Minnesota town is just a bit off. The game is a little short and the ending seemed a little abrupt, but I suppose it's good that I'm left wanting more rather than being worn down by a surfeit of puzzles.

FuzzyCo grade: A-

(Also available on Steam and also available on the iPad and iPhone [last two, iTunes links].)

Machinarium is a point-and-click adventure game from the same developers as Samarost. It's available directly from the developers, with soundtrack bonus, and on Steam. I got my copy with the Humble Indie Bundle—which is no longer available, but if you like these sorts of games I'd definitely sign up for their mailing list because it's always a great mix of games at pay-what-you-like.

Machinarium has a bit more of a narrative than the Samarost games, which you discover as the game progresses. It also solves some of the click-everywhere puzzle frustration of the earlier games by introducing the restriction that you can only click places that your little robot protagonist can reach. Cuteness levels remain dangerously high.

FuzzyCo grade: A

The 1998 LucasArts adventure game Grim Fandango has wonky controls, a couple of game-stopping bugs (especially when played on modern hardware), and some annoyingly obscure inventory puzzles. But it also has an engaging story unlike any other game -- a noir mystery set in the Aztec Land of the Dead. Oh, and a gorgeous soundtrack. It was well worth the trouble playing through.

FuzzyCo grade: A-

After Doom and Quake, I pretty much left the PC and filled my FPS-itch with Marathon and its sequels on the Mac. In recent years, though, it became economical to build a cheap PC that could play late-90s/early '00s PC games just fine, and those games are often available in cheap bundles. So in between Wii sessions I've been fitting in some recent-retro-gaming. The hoopla over Bioshock got me interested in that development team's earlier games: System Shock and System Shock 2. I couldn't get SS to run past the first room, but SS2 ran just fine once I found a magical config file setting on a forum somewhere.

SS2 has two things going for it: it's got a good story that unrolls steadily through the whole game and it's almost frustratingly hard. I mean, your freakin' laser pistol falls apart every 10 times you shoot it!* It's also frightfully flexible in terms of how your character develops -- you can be a shoot-everything marine or a smarty-pants tech or a creepy-brain psionics guy, or you can try and mix and match skills from all three areas as get get "cyber" upgrades. I probably didn't take proper advantage of the subtleties of this system, and I'm sure that hurt me as I moved into the last section of the game (more on that in just a moment). The oddest part of the game is right at the beginning when you go through 3 years of training in the Space Navy**, where each year is represented by walking through a shuttle bay door, watching a loading screen, and then reading a little story about what happened on that tour of duty.

So in the last section of the game you go out into the big biomass that's glommed onto your spaceship*** and the game goes from hard to really-freaking-hard. Hard enough that I kinda stalled out on the game a few months ago. But I still wanted to see how the story ended, so last night I cheated. (I felt better about myself when, in the course of searching for these cheat codes, I read someone else's account of "I only made it through the end of the game by using cheat codes.") Even all god-moded up, there were some jumping puzzles and such that took me a while to get through.

FuzzyCo grade: B+

* I exaggerate. Slightly.
** Or whatever it was called.
*** Do I need to shout SPOILER for an eight year-old game?

Half Life 2: Episode One* was rather disappointing, especially since I had just finished playing Half Life 2 -- it's basically the last two sections of HL2 in reverse order. That alien fortress we just blew up and escaped from? -- you have to go back in. And the besieged city we snuck into to get to that fortress? -- now we have to sneak out. For a game that really impressed me with its varied level design, it felt rather lazy.

Episode Two satisfied my expectations, however. There's several interesting new environments -- a mine overtaken by alien insects and some nice cross-country travel -- new enemies, and some new game mechanics. And more importantly, the story is really chugging along. I can't wait for Episode Three. (And I'm really impressed/frightened by how easy the Steam online service makes it to buy a game and just have it.)

* Surely one of the most confusing sequel names ever. Doesn't it sound like Episode One should come before Half Life 2 or is part of it or something?

So I'm working through The Orange Box and Half Life 2 was next on my list. I had actually played Half Life back when it came out, so I've been meaning to play the sequel for some time. (A Mac Book Pro running XP under Boot Camp turns out to be a half-decent gaming machine, it turns out. Better than my actual PC, anyway.)

So, am I going to be the guy who comes along 3 years later and says "naw, that game isn't that great"? No, I am not. Fun stuff. I was a little surprised by the abruptness of the ending, but unlike someone playing the game in 2004, I can immediately load up Episode One. And that's just what I'm off to do.

I'll admit, Yahtzee's review of Peggle (umm.. probably NSFW) intrigued me enough to go check out the demo, but I decided that $20 was too much for a casual game like that. But then the Orange Box included a special Halflife- (and Portal-) themed set of levels and Steam (Valve's game download service) had the game for $10. And Erica was out of town and I was being dumb and staying up all night. So... I bought it. And played and played. It's a dumb game, but it sure satisfies some sort of primal clicky-make-noise impulse.

FuzzyCo grade: B-

Erica gave me The Orange Box as an early Christmas present and I spent the weekend playing the heck out of Portal.

The game has an interesting history -- a prototype was developed by a group of students using the Half Life 2 engine that so impressed Valve (the makers of Half Life) that they hired the whole team and polished the game into its present form.

The game itself is awesome. The gameplay is remarkably different from usual first person shooter games -- the only weapon the main character has is a "portal gun" that allows you to create two "portals" nearly anywhere in your environment that you can step, or jump, or fall through. It makes for very interesting puzzle solving. And the story presented in the game is , by turns, funny, touching, and disturbing. It's certainly not an epic -- I've read it described as a 'short story' of a video game. But it's definitely a complete piece. FuzzyCo grade: A+.

F.E.A.R. (or rather, F.E.A.R.: First Encounter Assault Recon, to use its rather histronic full name) is the first first-person-shooter I've played in quite a while, let alone finished. I liked the emphasis on mood and atmosphere over action -- I did my share of firing at shadows in the course of the game. And I certainly didn't miss a crazy final boss battle -- there are plenty of games I've 98% completed, except for some crazy final boss battle. My only complaint was that it seemed a bit short -- I finished it in 5 sessions, none of which was more than 4 hours.