Given a pleasant-looking aesthetic and, uh, controllable dragons, this was a painless purchase from the Steam holiday sale. And I was impressed by the game's mechanics, which are solid and fun to boot -- progress feels swift and meaningful, and there's never a shortage of tasks to attend to on the map. I'd definitely encourage you to try the tutorials in the free demo.

But what holds this back, for me, is that there's no campaign. None whatsoever.

The gameplay is fun enough, but without an overarching goal to taunt me along, I have a very limited interest in this.

Better than: Anomaly: Warzone Earth, in terms of mechanics and features
Not as good as: Anomaly: Warzone Earth, in terms of longevity (since, you know, no campaign)
Seriously guys: I will buy a sequel/DLC pack if it includes a campaign!

Progress: Gave Up -- Won a few AI matches

While "reverse tower defense" is all but the game's tagline, that doesn't really describe it well at all. In Anomaly: Warzone Earth, you're not throwing units at a defensive wall -- in fact, you're trying desperately to preserve the lives of a small group of units, as you weave them through chokepoints and take out enemies strategically. And while some missions require planning in the form of your unit loadout, generally the game is much more about real-time tactical decision making, revolving around commander powerups (such as a decoy to draw enemy fire away). Also, you can upgrade units with money you make, from killing enemies and finding mineral deposits. Basically it's an RTS with a very low army limit.

The campaign is brief, but feels like it sufficiently explores the game's mechanical depth. And while the story is pretty dumb and the voice acting is hit-or-miss, the graphical presentation is impeccable.

AWE is a neat idea, and a fun diversion for its short length, but needs some more complexity to really stand out in the strategy genre. Stuff like a non-linear campaign, upgrade research options, multiple unit groupings, or additional powerups could make a pretty interesting sequel.

Better than: Majesty
Not as good as: StarCraft
Make no mistake: the "Casual" difficulty becomes pretty trying by the last third of the campaign

Progress: Finished on Casual

Yes, while your Kirby army is still building up, the game is pretty basic and boring -- unfortunately, even a full complement of 10 Kirbys plays pretty shallow. There simply aren't that many mechanics to exploit: just leading the army around by touch, or flicking individual Kirbys around, which is pretty difficult to do with any precision since they're all clustered together. Boss battles have the most complexity, where you'll have to lead the group away from obstacles, then rapidly sling them at a weak point when it opens. That's it.

I know it's wrong to expect significant depth or challenge from a Kirby game, but this is just unfulfilling. Not to say Mass Attack is bad, per se, but its uniqueness feels diluted and unremarkable, only really interesting for a few minutes. At least Epic Yarn's occasional tedium could be allayed by playing it co-op.

Progress: Gave Up -- Finished the first set of stages

The game mechanics are neat, and I am a fan of the presentation -- not just the cyber-blue aesthetics, but also (and especially) the excellent soundtrack. But I just don't care for the balance of it. I'm still super-early in the campaign, so I wouldn't exactly call it "hard," but it does require a level of attention and intricacy that I'm not really willing to spend on a video game (edit: yeah I guess that's not true).

While planning out a turn step-by-step is pretty fun, there are just so many variables in the execution - that is, potential, unknown enemy actions - that the pre-emptive simulations seem more misleading than unhelpful. Attempting to predict the AI is one thing, but I feel like there's too much guesswork in estimating weapon range and accuracy; the kinds of things that might be resolved using the simulations, but those results just aren't reliable. And even though the number of units you're given seems to generally be pretty low, some missions don't allow for cautious play.

Anyway, it seems pretty well put-together, but I don't think I have the patience for its learning curve or strategic nuances.

Progress: Gave Up -- Did some skirmish, finished the first couple campaign missions

Less content, no story (as far as I know), worse controls, lower-fidelity graphics and sound; but I'd expected this downloadable port of the original GBA Four Swords to come up short when compared to Four Swords Adventures. What I didn't expect was, in single-player mode, you can't control all four Links; you only get two.

What's the point? I'm not at all interested in a Zelda Two Swords. It needs more swords. And if I have to meet up with other players to get them, well, no thank you.

Progress: Gave Up

At first, this was one of the most interesting parts of my new 3DS -- specifically, the Find Mii game. Tossing co-workers' and strangers' Miis at ghosts, in what is effectively a stripped-down turn-based RPG, is a really neat idea; and there's even a little depth in it in the form of level-ups and magic spells. Plus, the Puzzle Swap game is a nice little collection activity to eat up a few minutes. But both of these games ultimately lose that spark of intrigue as they scale poorly.

After defeating the Find Mii dungeon once and not really finding any hats I wanted my Mii to wear, the next step was running through the dungeon again; but this time the ghosts have more health, such that first- or second-time StreetPass encounters with a Mii (or buying Wandering Heroes with pedometer coins) simply aren't leveled-up enough to make significant progress on an enemy. And Miis max out at level 7, which is about what I had going with my co-workers at the end of the first dungeon run, so I can only imagine that even maxed-out Miis would end up grinding away at the dungeon's second run for quite some time.

But it seems almost silly to critique the high-level design of the Find Mii game when it feels like what it's gotten right is more coincidental than intentional. Spells which buff the next hero work great, but since you can't control the order your heroes attack in - or even see the order after you've started the game - it's purely by chance whether or not they're actually useful. It's the same with the colored shields, and with situations where you need a specific spell (such as White "light" magic to light up a darkened room) -- heroes are wasted because they didn't happen to have the right color shirt. And you can't even hedge your bets by trying to build up a big, multicolored team before heading into the dungeon, because you have to check StreetPass updates before you can see what Miis you've met -- and once you check them, you must use those Miis or have them completely overwritten by the next update. There's no way to 'queue' your found heroes.

So having come to the point where the level one and two Wandering Heroes are utterly worthless, I decided to drop coins into Puzzle Swap instead, just to go for the collectible 3D artwork. But when you use coins to buy puzzle pieces, sometimes, they're pieces you've already found! In fact, most of the pieces I bought were duplicates of pieces I'd already traded with StreetPass. What!

Initially, the games in the Mii plaza were, more than a fun little diversion, a real, tangible motivation to bring my 3DS everywhere with me -- racking up pedometer coins, and trying to get as many StreetPass tags as I could. This was one of the original design intents of the 3DS, to support spontaneous play and events by encouraging users to keep their 3DSes on them; and with a little more polish on Find Mii's strategy and pacing, it could definitely fulfill that long-term. But now that the dungeon-crawling has lost its luster, I'd just as soon leave the 3DS sitting until I want to pick up a specific game.

If Find Mii was a little deeper, I might bother giving it a bad "score," but as it is it isn't even deep enough to consider a real game.

Progress: Gave Up -- Finished one run of Find Mii

I expect that first-timers will not be as pleased with OoT 3D as those who have played it before. As I mentioned, there were a number of instances where I got by purely because I remembered what I was supposed to do; Navi's advice wasn't super-helpful, and knocking around Hyrule to figure out my next step would have been more than a bit frustrating.

But if you've got fond memories of the original - or feel willing to put up with a few relics of game design from the 1990s - this is the definitive version.

Better than: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (forgiving Ocarina's occasional lack of clarity)
Not as good as: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii) (forgiving Twilight Princess's occasional long-windedness)
Now how about: Wind Waker 3D? Toon-shading with depth sounds pretty awesome, right?

Progress: Put a sword in Ganon's head

Confession time: I only just got my own 3DS the other week. Of course, waiting to get one not only netted me a nice price break, but an awesome-looking unit as well. Plus, I can exploit this timing in order to directly compare Skyward Sword with its most ancient-yet-relevant predecessor (more on this later).

If this was a pure port of the N64 game, it would probably not hold up great; in the 13 (!) years since Ocarina of Time's release, not only has it aged in the somewhat obvious audiovisual senses, but its mechanics, plotting, and level design became the bar which all 3D adventures aspired to reach -- and eventually did. The dungeons and the overall adventure's pace are still pretty great, although it has its share of Perfect Dark HD moments where an ambiguous goal and a light explanation can lead to a lot of wasted time. (Fortunately, if you've previously played the game to death, like I have, you'll be able to recall most of these solutions from memory.)

The storytelling is where Ocarina of Time 3DS shows its age most poignantly. Cutscenes are brief, and dialog is snappy and to the point. And since the story scenes are distributed fairly evenly between each dungeon, OoT presents a sharp counterpoint to Skyward Sword's scant-but-wordy story sequences. While the writing is certainly very 90's-quality, I can't help but admire its consistency. And the lickety speed with which Ocarina allows you to progress from dungeon to dungeon is pretty refreshing.

But it's the graphics that really justify this remake. Not just the 3D - I've actually had it turned off most of the time, since shifting my hands around ruins the effect - but the revised, higher-detail artwork, and the polygons that've been added to all the character models, really soften the blow. You'll still recall the N64 when gazing over some of Hyrule's low-detail terrain, but most of Ocarina's visual wrinkles have been expertly touched-up to the point where you might even consider them new.

Between the relatively swift pacing, my nostalgia, and everything that made the original N64 game great, I've had no trouble losing track of time in Hyrule all over again. At this point, my biggest obstacle is the system's battery life.

Progress: Got the Light Arrows

Some reviews (and official press pieces) have thrown around the phrase "best Zelda ever" for Skyward Sword, but for my money, no -- it doesn't really come close. While there are some aspects of this adventure that really stand out, I feel that overall - and crucially, in the areas I would consider most important to the Zelda franchise - Skyward Sword feels pretty lacking. It's still a good game for sure, so long as you're willing to forgive its more obvious faults for the eventual payoff; but to me, this installment is less triumphant than it is an opportunity to learn.

Regarding what it does right, I will remark that this is the greatest inventory Link has assembled so far. Although I might argue with the sensibility of leaving the hookshot and bow items until so late in the game, there is an impressive collection of kit here, from the fly-by-wire beetle, to a magic whip that Indiana Jones would tip his hat to, to an oddball air-blowing bellows that's surprisingly useful throughout the adventure. Splitting consumables and other temporary items off into a separate inventory is a great organizational improvement, and the loadout mechanic that comes with Link's limited pack space (should you take more bomb bags, or more potions?) adds a dash of equipment strategy as well.

The controls generally work well, although I confess that horizontal slashes, and especially straight stabs, continued to stymie me right up to the end. While they aren't perfect, these are certainly the best motion controls yet to be seen in an action game. A perfectly-timed shield block is immensely satisfying, and the different ways you can deploy bombs (tossing, dropping, or rolling) open up some cool new puzzle opportunities.

The plot, too, is pretty good, with a suitably epic backstory, some fine characters, and an ultimate villain who really manages to impress despite (spoilers?) not being Ganon for once. But here is where I'm going to veer into "complaint" territory -- the storytelling is some of the worst in the series. For the first 70%-or-so of the game, you'll be chasing the princess, but with little in the way of carrots to tease you along; just sticks, forcing you down the golden path. Every once in a while, the sword-spirit Fi will mention that you've gotta save Zelda, but the rest of the time she and the rest of the NPCs around her are concerned only with the immediate goal: find this item, unlock this door, help this person, kill this whatever.

Ghirahim is a very interesting villain, but he barely appears until the finale, and his strong, discomforting personality feels almost completely wasted. Some other supporting characters, too, feel like they don't get the screen-time they really deserve (although there is one sidekick in particular who develops spectacularly well).

With little in the way of narrative motivation to keep Link plodding along his quest, you're left to rely on the strength of the level design and individual encounters to stay engaged with the game world; but by and large, these are fairly mediocre. The forest area is navigable but not much else; the volcano area is consistently a big pain in the ass to visit; and the desert area, while very cool, is the last area. The sky never really "opened up" like I expected, and instead, most of the game tasks you with returning to the three regions you've already visited -- either to open up a little new terrain and go to a new dungeon, or in some cases, just to re-tread the same ground in a different way.

The effect is only frustrating in a few particular instances, but the heavy-handed asset reuse smacks of lazy design. It's also excruciatingly linear, not only because you must do the dungeons in a specific order, but also because you must do the bullshit around them in a specific order. There's only one point in the game - collecting the Song of the Hero - where more than one objective is available to you at a time (and of course, this is the point where, if you choose the wrong order, your game save is worthless).

Aside from those three regions, you've got the Skyloft town Link starts in, and, that's about it. There is one other island vital to the plot, and there are three more involved in some sidequests (two of which only have one NPC on them apiece); the rest of the rocks floating in the air are just homes to locked treasure chests, unlocked by finding Goddess Blocks on the surface. It's a lot like the treasure maps from Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass, but less interesting because the chests mark themselves on your map as soon as you unlock them.

So by and large, Skyward Sword's sky acts less like an overworld and more like a menu. There are almost no diversions or obstacles. What should be an awesome, epic part of the game - flying around on a giant bird - ends up being a simple point-A-to-B travel mechanism. (And while the orchestrated music sounds great, it doesn't feel like there is enough of it; particularly the flying theme, which repeats more frequently than is welcome.)

As for sidequests, they start out pretty weak (meaning, basically none of them are open) until later in the game, but while ultimately there is a healthy number of extra tasks you can do, few of them really seem worth doing, since at that point Link is already chock-full of money and heart containers. There is a fun diversion in unraveling a love-triangle drama among Link's peers at the Knight Academy, but the conflict ends abruptly, and unsatisfyingly.

Finally, the meat and potatoes of any Zelda - dungeons and bosses - are pretty middling. I would only consider two of the game's seven dungeons really memorable (including the last one), and only one or two of the dungeon bosses genuinely entertaining. The next-to-last boss of the game is a real challenge, although the necessity for stabbing motions dulls its appeal for me; and the last boss is, finally, a thrilling battle that tops the Ganondorf showdowns from Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. But otherwise, the bosses are unfulfilling -- trivially difficult, or recycled throughout the game, or both.

In spite of the paragraphs of complaints I've lodged against it, I wouldn't call Skyward Sword a bad game -- even a bad Zelda is pretty good. But it's far from the strongest in the series. It does do pretty well for itself in raw game mechanics, and I can't help but respect that. But by what seems like either sloth or oversimplification - between the tiring bullshit that interrupts dungeon treks, the largely-unremarkable dungeons themselves, the absolutely underwhelming world map, and the disappointing lack of ongoing narrative - it falls short of precisely what I expect most from a Zelda game.

Skyward Sword is good; but not as good as it should be.

Better than: The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks
Not as good as: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii)
Basically as good as: Darksiders

Progress: Saved Zelda, AGAIN.

I'm lukewarm on Metal Gear, and the reveal of Platinum Games being behind this is slightly intriguing, but what's really got me interested is how much the VGA reveal trailer reminds me of No More Heroes. At least, the villain is channeling Travis Touchdown in his hardass nihilistic attitude, and the trailer is cut in the same way Goichi Suda emulates Quentin Tarantino.

If the rest of the game is like this, I might be able to put up with some overlong cutscenes of it; and hopefully, the slice-and-dice gameplay is at least as well-implemented as Vanquish.