I haven't played a turn-based strategy game since Heroes of Might and Magic III (1999), and I haven't played a Civilization game since the Super Nintendo version (1994). But what can I say? An intriguing demo plus a devastating Steam sale has led me into 40+ hours of Civ 5 over the past several evenings, and it's been a pretty fun ride so far.

What keeps a day-long Civ 5 campaign interesting, and what keeps me coming back the next day, is the sheer volume of variables in developing a civilization. The top-level victory conditions - military, diplomacy, technology, culture - are a gross over-simplification of general play options: as I've been learning over the past several campaigns, a robust play style against non-retarded AI needs to incorporate all aspects of war, and trade, and research, and internal investment. And just when you think it can be boiled down to tactics of picking particular buildings and units and strategic timings, you learn how important it can be to micro-manage each city's work, and each rival civilization's trade resources and relationships.

It's an incredibly deep game, and incredibly accessible too, thanks to the easy to use interface and Advisor tutorial messages. It can be slow at the start (even at the "Quick" game speed), but once the technological pace ramps up and rival civs start going wild, the game maintains a stable, engaging pace.

But I have to gripe a bit about balance issues and luck. Taken on their own, the potential differences in starting conditions - perks of your leader and neighboring leaders, resources available near your starting location, and the inscrutable personalities of AI opponents - aren't drastic enough that I would call them unfair; but in concert, they can be really dangerous.

Last game, for instance, I got screwed by ending up with borders near an incredibly hostile Montezuma. He managed to claim Egypt's capital, and even expanded overseas, before setting his sights on me and dumping wave after wave of soldier onto my civilization; so while several other civilizations hated the Incans, I was the only one with the economy to fight back -- for roughly two thousand years. Meanwhile, Korea was safe on the other side of the planet, and managed to research nuclear bombs and space shuttles almost completely unhindered. It was pretty frustrating, and I wish... well, honestly I wish I knew a better way to deal with the situation, because I feel like I might have been able to work around it with some crafty diplomacy or targeted technological development.

The other thing that irritates me about Civ 5 is the bugs, which - despite the game being almost two years old, now - are frequent and blatant. They seem to mostly center around unit animations: aircraft sometimes circle a target for way too long after an attack; the viewport sometimes scrolls itself away from other players' actions during their turns; and sometimes, clicking on a decision button during a unit animation causes the UI to get stuck, such that I'll have to open and close some menus before I can do anything else.

Those problems aside though, I'm having quite a bit of fun with Civ 5. It isn't fast enough to call "exciting," but its depth is pretty staggering, and each campaign has a lot to offer in terms of options and challenges. I've learned a lot about the game's mechanics and tactics in the past few days, and I look forward to learning at least a little more.

Progress: Won a Warlord (Easy) campaign, failed a Prince (Standard)

To me, this preview is pretty much an apology for the mechanical stagnance and misfires of the past three years of Assassin's Creed. Expectations: raised.

QUBE's first-person platform-puzzling and sterile white chambers beg comparison to Portal, but the game as a whole falls well short of Valve's franchise. QUBE is shorter than the first Portal, has (a few) more glitches, and is completely lacking in narrative or other story elements. But it does include some cool puzzles, and has a classy presentation. If you actually like puzzles, there is definitely something of value in here.

For its brevity and simplicity, QUBE's full price of $15 doesn't really seem correct. Fortunately the Steam Summer Sale price is a lot more palatable.

Better than: Ilomilo
Not as good as: Portal
Seriously, the similarities to Portal: are impossible to ignore.

Progress: Complete

It's clearly derived from Portal, it has no plot or storytelling whatsoever, it has one of the least sophisticated menus of any game this century, and it seems to be pretty dramatically short. But to wholly dismiss QUBE on these demerits would be slightly unfair, because its puzzles are (after the first few) genuinely clever and mentally challenging. QUBE's pacing is also legitimately good, as new mechanics and twists are introduced quickly enough to keep puzzles interesting, but not so quickly that they ever seem insurmountable.

The soundtrack is pretty neat, too.

Progress: Sector 5

I'd always intended to come back to this game by myself, to collect bonus medals and unlock new stuff. But the not-so-silver lining of New SMB Wii is that, although it's constructed on the same foundation that's historically made Mario a single-player joyride - complete with warp shortcuts and a special world - its levels are simply too loose and spread-out to enjoy solo. Without other players getting in your way, it's actually a pretty light experience.

So, yeah, lost interest. May we meet again in another game, World 9.

Progress: Beat Bowser (Co-op)

Here's the thing about DKC Returns -- it's too hard. To be clear, it's almost exactly as hard as the Donkey Kong Country games for SNES were, and in fact Returns follows the formula of its '90s forebears pretty closely. I remember those games fondly, spending entire days replaying the same level (usually involving mine carts) to proceed further into the jungle. But now we live in an era of tweets. Without reasonable checkpointing, DKC Returns feels intensely behind the times.

I've played co-op on a few occasions, and it's a genuinely fun game, the baffling remote-shaking control notwithstanding. There's just no way I have the patience to try and retry and re-re-re-re-retry a difficult level because there are a dozen instant-death moments between the start and the halfway point, and then another dozen from there to the end.

The Super Guide isn't a solution either, at least, it doesn't feel like one; as a mostly timing- and reflex-driven game, being "shown" what to do is rarely helpful, and skipping levels removes all sense of accomplishment, which is really the whole point of this kind of game.

DKC Returns isn't bad, and in fact should be a real delight to a dedicated-enough player. Maybe I'm just gettin' too old for this shit.

Progress: Gave Up -- Got up to the third world or so

As long as I'm removing old games from my backlog -- I really don't think I have the time for this guy. Yeah, I feel a little bad about it. Oh well.

Progress: Gave Up

Of course I wanted to play Ico, especially after being mostly-impressed by Shadow of the Colossus. But my game disc wouldn't work in my PS2 (which I later found out was because the PS2 CD reader is a real piece of shit), and my experience trying to emulate the game was pretty uneven, so I basically gave up. Fast forward to present day, and the PS3 HD remake has given me another chance! So I let my buddy take a stab at it first, since he hasn't played Ico yet either, and ... now I'm pretty lukewarm on it.

To be frank, Ico's basic dungeon-roaming and puzzle-solving gameplay has become rote and routine, today. Which would be fine, if not for its unique and/or antiquated annoyances of escorting the dumbass Yorda around (yeah yeah, I know it's the whole point, but that doesn't make it any less irritating) and poorly-placed checkpoints that end up forcing a lot of depressing repetition.

I'm sure this would have been great, ten years ago, or even five years ago; but today, this just doesn't meet my expectations, and I don't think I have the patience for it anymore. Sorry, Ueda-san.

Progress: Gave Up

I've been maintaining a tepid interest in this uniquely fascinating game even through its thoroughly underwhelming reception. And I was about to jump onto its current Flash Deal on Steam, but thought it prudent to sample the demo first. Now I'm glad I tried it.

It didn't help that Binary Domain's demo doesn't explain vital controls at all. A party member asks for my advice, and I'm supposed to answer with voice controls? No, let me use buttons or keys ... but which key shows me what to respond with? (Hint: it's Tab.) Of course, if I take too long to respond, the conversation ends with everyone disappointed and upset. Then I get into a firefight, but I ran out of ammo, I need to switch weapons ... how the hell do I do that!? (Hint: number keys 1-4.) Meanwhile my teammates are yelling at me for support, but I don't know how.

I also couldn't find any option to invert the look/aim control stick, which is -- I mean, come on, really? This has been a requisite standard since 1997. Fortunately the mouse and keyboard controls work well enough (although this apparently was not always the case), but if you still want to invert your mouse look, good luck with that.

Aside from the shoddy demo work, the gameplay in general also didn't feel quite right. There's a whole robust system of team interaction and trust, but your teammates are far too likely to run into your line of fire like an idiot, making them trust you less. And they bark questions at you way too much during combat, such that responding to them is more of an irritating chore than meaningful interaction.

The gunplay didn't seem very good either. Most weapons run out of ammo almost immediately, except for the standard assault rifle - which is inaccurate as hell, and has way too much kick - and the pistol sidearm, which is so weak that it's basically useless. And while it's cool how shooting different parts of the robot enemies causes armor plating and limb damage, the amount of total bullets they can absorb is just too many.

I got enough out of the demo to get a glimpse of some of Binary Domain's neat features, but also enough to see how flawed its execution was. For $15, I'll pass. Though I might take another look when it's down to $5.

Progress: Gave Up -- Tried the demo

Lollipop Chainsaw is just ... difficult to maintain interest in. Which is a bit curious, given how short the game is -- five chapters of 30 to 45 minutes each, plus a brief prologue and epilogue. But I had trouble following through with the idea of finishing the game in one sitting, or even in two sittings, because - though you might not expect it of a game where a high school cheerleader cuts up zombies with a chainsaw - Lollipop Chainsaw can be surprisingly monotonous.

It's a shame, because the high concept is great, the writing can be pretty hilarious, and the boss fights are (as can be counted on from Grasshopper) excellent. But the pom-pom/chainsaw/jump-dodge gameplay never really evolves past the first level. Well, I should elaborate: you can buy new combos and special moves, but I was never compelled to get more than a couple of them, and I only ever used one regularly. Instead I found it much more useful to spend my money on health and damage upgrades. Actually, it wasn't until the end of the game, with all three damage upgrades, that I felt my chainsaw was appropriately powerful.

At the same time, the game's economy seems broken. The amount of currency you earn in general is grossly inadequate for buying upgrades and new moves, unless you exploit the "Sparkle Hunting" multi-kill mechanic regularly -- which is unrealistic until and unless you get a number of upgrades, because corralling zombies together, as they randomly clamber around and interrupt your attacks, is just impossible. You don't get a good kill bonus unless you're taking out at least three zombies at the same time, which isn't realistic under normal circumstances.

So with the game's only (but still meager) means of increasing its depth dependent upon a basically unbalanced mechanic, combat largely boils down to dodging zombies and mashing the attack buttons. It's workable, at least when the camera is behaving itself - which is most of the time, anyway - but really feels like a missed opportunity.

Fortunately the game isn't a total waste. The game's theme and pacing get stronger in the later chapters, and what's most impressive is how well each boss's unique style - like a hippie momma with psychadelic mushrooms, and a house DJ who hops in a flying saucer - is accentuated by the perfect choice of musical accompaniment. Lollipop Chainsaw's soundtrack probably won't win any awards, but it should, because it fits the game like a glove; like no other game I've played.

The game's sense of humor, too, is pretty great, despite the overlong introduction. Bosses are pleasantly cocksure and entertaining to listen to, Juliet's family (particularly her father) is consistently hilarious, and Juliet herself is charmingly naive, but the real highlight is her boyfriend Nick's constantly depressing and flippant commentary. The writing and acting are both exemplary.

Suffice it to say, while I wouldn't call Lollipop Chainsaw a deep or nuanced game, it's surprisingly more than it appears. While the combat is definitely flawed and lackluster - and I may not have complained enough about its frequent reliance on quick-time events and poorly-implemented minigames - its other qualities are worth experiencing, even if only through watching someone else play. I can only hope that Grasshopper's next game can continue to carry their torch of bizarre but cogent theming. ... and polishes up its gameplay.

Better than: Killer7
Not as good as: Shadows of the Damned
Shame this couldn't run on the Wii: because the chainsaw QTEs would have been perfect for it.

Progress: Finished on Normal