My last pre-order disappointed me pretty hard. This time, I'm hoping the video evidence is more indicative of the real game experience. As another Goichi Suda and Shinji Mikami joint, I'm hoping for something with the bizarre entertainment and gameplay factors of Killer7, but with the sophistication of the more modern No More Heroes and Vanquish; and judging by the presence of a gun upgrade called the "Big Boner" I'm pretty excited.

In the end, the story is a nice, compact little vignette about a bit-player in the world of Rapture; or, it would be, if not for some pacing issues and bugs that frequently upset the experience.

• In the first level, Minerva's Den proper, many of the objectives can be done in a variable order; which I sorta enjoyed, until I got to the end and realized that I'd missed most of the chapter's voice-over guidance. Although the objectives can be completed at your discretion, the narration isn't able to keep up with it.
• In the second level, the Operations department, this same issue is better but still not completely fixed. There were a handful of instances where the voice-over got mixed up, playing its response to event A after I've already completed event C. And this chapter was completely linear, so I don't know what the excuse was here.
• In the third/finale level, The Thinker, a playable segment after the final boss encounter has you searching through some personal quarters and filling in some emotional story bits. This includes a final audio diary, but when I picked it up, the Play button didn't work; I had to listen to it from the menu instead.
• The ending scene was, well, nice, but as a series of stills rather than a fully-animated cutscene, clearly lacked the production value of any of Rapture's previous storytelling.

These would ordinarily be trivial issues, but in a BioShock game, which prides itself in impactful storytelling - even BioShock 2 ended up doing some pretty cool things with the Big Daddy/Little Sister dynamic - Minerva's Den simply feels lacking.

And as for the gameplay, while it's certainly serviceable and just as fun as in BioShock 2, it completely fails to change that game's mechanics in any meaningful way. The closest it gets is arguably with the flying sentry robots -- though they've been around since BioShock one, they're numerous enough throughout Minerva's Den that you'll usually have two little robotic buddies following you around. It's a distinctive touch, although they still get in your way all the time, and you still have no direct control over them.

It's also a little curious why 2K decided to fill this DLC adventure, only a handful of hours long, with all the weapons and ammo types of BioShock 2 itself (plus the laser). In the first chapter, you'll be picking up a new weapon or ammo upgrade every few minutes, and even in the second chapter you'll be getting new weapons that absolutely aren't necessary.

Ultimately, while there's nothing holistically bad about Minerva's Den, it's immensely disappointing how little it does to mix-up or change the BioShock formula. Though BioShock 2 couldn't live up to the bar set by the original game, Minerva's Den isn't even trying, and that's a real shame.

Better than: Overlord: Raising Hell
Not as good as: Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare
I wouldn't say I regretted it: but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it, either

Progress: Finished on Normal

Yeah! It's available. Cool.

In the same way that BioShock 2 was more BioShock, Minerva's Den is more BioShock 2 -- Rapture, plasmids, Big Daddy drill, Adam collection, Little Sister defense, blah, blah, blah. The mechanics are all here, anyway; the story is necessarily simplified, and while it is a little lacking in potency and memorable characters, I appreciate that it doesn't just try to one-up the original BioShock by making up another rival for Andrew Ryan.

It's hard to write much more about the DLC so far; the new levels look and feel a lot like your previous adventures in Rapture. There is a laser gun weapon, but it isn't powerful enough to be really cool; there's a new black-hole plasmid, but other than as a puzzle mechanic it doesn't seem useful. And with its lackluster story, the whole package is a bit underwhelming. But it does still scratch that tension/exploration/forensic/scavenger itch.

Progress: Just got to Operations

It's impossible to talk about Terraria without mentioning how mechanically similar it is to Minecraft: Java Edition. You chop down trees and mine the earth, collecting raw materials to build houses and craft items, both to defend yourself from enemies and to explore the game world farther and deeper. What makes the Terraria experience (drastically) different from Minecraft is how these mechanics are tuned and balanced, such that, while I'd say Minecraft is more about the exploration and construction, Terraria is much more focused on fighting and survival. Being 2D, fighting enemies is a lot simpler and more straightforward, but these enemies are at the same time tougher, and more numerous, than your foes in Minecraft; and as you dig deeper into Terraria's underworld, they become downright fierce.

This progressive difficulty in turn forces you to focus on level-up items (as far as I know, just pickups to increase your mana pool and total health); crafting potions to get you through the tough times; and forging new armor and weapons to give those hell-monsters more of a fight. When I started playing, some of my buddies gave me their old equipment to get a leg-up, but I've still got a lot of equipment to make and upgrades to collect before I can adventure comfortably in the deep-dark underworld.

Yesterday me and some of my coworkers were browsing the indie games on Xbox Live, going through nonsensical card games and retarded twin-stick shooters, until finally arriving at this masterpiece. TKA is mechanically simple and, admittedly, dumb -- hold a button to slowly rise, or let it go to slowly fall, while scrolling through a level and avoiding obstacles. What makes this game brilliant is that it uses a trippy aesthetic and flashy graphics, synced with blaring house/rave music, to distract the shit out of you the whole time. Rainbows explode in every direction, lasers wipe across the play field, the whole screen strobes, even the current and high score counters will pulse and slide around, all while you're trying to guide a cat wearing a jetpack through an obstacle course.

I didn't play much of it myself, but the demo was awesome enough that I couldn't resist buying it ($3) and watching my coworker play through, unlocking all the playable cats in each stage.

Techno Kitten Adventure is so stupid and over-the-goddamn-top that you can't help but love it.

Progress: Gave Up

I've been playing this in small spurts for the past couple months. As it turns out, the demo covers a very early part of the game (basically the middle of the tutorial chapter), so the environments and puzzles get pleasantly more complex from there. The combat, not so much, at least so far; it's a little tedious, but fortunately doesn't seem to be a primary part of the game going forward.

Moment-to-moment, the world of Majin is inviting, curious, and fairly impressive: exploring the area, figuring out what to do, and then how to do it, is pretty consistently fun. But what makes Majin so hard to come back to is the lackluster high-level objective (I guess, restore the Majin's power, and kill all the bad guys?) and, relatedly, unclear mid-level goals. So far I'm just collecting items of power and unlocking doors, for the purpose of getting to some more items and more doors. The game isn't really doing very well at highlighting what I should be working towards, let alone helping me get there. What's my motivation? Why am I doing this?

I hope to continue on with Majin, because when I have the controller in my hands, it is an enjoyable experience. But when I'm away from the game, it's hard to get excited about.

Progress: Near the beginning, in some ruins or something

There's a question that's been plaguing me since Homocide desk: who was this game made for?

For the GTA fanatic, who likes the freedom of playing around in a large city -- certainly not; there's nothing to do in the city, aside from follow the story, scrounge up a handful of side-cases, and scavenger hunt for some incredibly minor collectibles (city landmarks, hidden vehicles, hidden film reels). The "Streets of LA" mode gives you the chance to drive through the city without major cases dogging your heels, and I can't imagine a more boring use of the stupidly expansive game map.

For the fan of clever writing and intrigue -- I hesitate to say so, since while the basic plot is pretty alright (especially in the last desk, as the bigger story come into the fore), the fractured storytelling you get from partially-flubbed interviews leaves much to be desired; with missing information mysteriously re-appearing, and witnesses, suspects, and even yourself completely overreacting in dialog. If you deviate at all from what Bondi wants you to do (which is easy, since it's frequently not intuitive or logical which choice is the "correct" one), the result is broken storytelling, which destroys the illusion.

For the old-school adventure game player -- maybe, as LA Noire is in many respects a three-dimensional take on the point-and-click adventure, with a thoroughly researched setting and some throwaway action sequences. But finding the right clues can require as much trial-and-error as the most irritating adventure games, with the modern equivalent of "pixel hunting" in clues that are visually indistinguishable from the environment, which you'd have no chance of finding if not for the controller rumbling as you get close.

For the movie- and book-buff who likes a detective story but doesn't play video games -- I think this is it. LA Noire clearly shows an intent to deliver on an amazing premise, of fully immersing you in a hard-boiled detective story in 1940s Los Angeles; someone who doesn't know better might ignore all the executional missteps I've complained about, and think, "You know, these cute little video games are doing something really impressive here." What they wouldn't realize is that LA Noire isn't testing the limits of the modern videogame: all the mistakes it makes - an over-large game world, a dearth of in-game activities, the disconnected dialog, and all the minor annoyances - aren't just solvable problems, but have been solved in many other modern games, some of which are even commonly regarded as poor.

That's my cynical opinion: that LA Noire was made by rookies for an audience that doesn't know any better. My more generous offering is that, maybe I'm mostly frustrated with it for the same reason I was frustrated with the first Mass Effect: although I was given a strong yoke on the main character, I wasn't able to direct him (specifically, in conversations) quite as I wanted, and often found myself yelling at the TV for being an idiot. And because I like GTA, and LA Noire is like GTA with all the criminal hijinks flavor sucked out of it.

So, in the best case, this game wasn't for me. I really feel like it shouldn't be for anyone with discerning tastes, but the internet vehemently disagrees. Anyway, now I can put another piece of criminally overrated garbage behind me.

Better than: Monkey Island 2
Not as good as: Alpha Protocol, no joke guys
If they sequelize it: polish up the conversations, and throw in a ton of side-quests, maybe I'd be interested

Progress: Complete

It's said (in some forum threads I found on Google, which I won't bother linking to) that LA Noire doesn't use the Rockstar Advanced Game Engine that powers GTA4 and Red Dead Redemption, but I'm pretty certain that this is a fractional-truth at best. You can look at any moment in the game and pick out hallmarks of Rockstar's engine - the lighting, the progressive detail and fade-in, being able to mow down lamp posts while telephone poles are indestructible - not to mention that so many of the game's mechanics are exactly the same as GTA, such that making another engine from the ground-up to achieve the same things doesn't make any sense at all. So it pisses me off when LA Noire has all the (forgive my terminology) motive and opportunity to give me the same features of a GTA, and then simply ... doesn't.

It's understandable that an LAPD officer wouldn't simply open fire in public, or get in fights with random pedestrians. On the other hand, only allowing you to pull a gun or put up your fists in extremely specific, scripted circumstances, means that the huge city with almost no secondary objectives is largely devoid of any interaction whatsoever. You can run over people with your car, but it takes some doing - Bondi seems to have broken some collision physics or AI behavior so that pedestrians will almost always bounce off your car instead of getting hit by it - and even when you do manage to jam someone between your bumper and a wall, and he dies, there's no consequence. People nearby will scream, and some might run away, but the crowd quickly returns to its business as usual; no fellow cops remark on your unbecoming conduct; there isn't even an ambulance coming to the rescue.

Crash head-first into a civilian vehicle, and you might do enough damage that both of your cars' engines set on fire -- but nobody is ever hurt. There are no seat belts, and nevertheless, you and your unfortunate victim will both be able to get out and walk around in perfect health. Clearly, LA Noire simply doesn't want you to test the safety boundaries of Los Angeles.

If you hold (rather than press) the 'Y' button by a vehicle, your partner will get in the driver seat and take you to whatever destination is marked on your map. This is a nice solution to the boredom of excessively long trips across the city. But when your partner starts driving, you go straight to a loading screen -- you don't observe the drive, you don't talk with him; it just skips straight ahead. And the conversations that you and your partner normally engage with in the car can be pretty important, often relating directly to tough questions about the case, and giving your partner the only characterization he's ever going to get. Recently I've found myself driving until my partner is done talking, then getting out and having him drive, which just seems silly.

I'm at the last crime desk of the game now, and the larger scheme behind some of the individual cases I've played is coming into the spotlight. Unfortunately, this is sometimes done with dramatically ironic cutscenes, which can be a problem in a mystery game. Now I know things about the case and the parties involved, that can't be used in interviews simply because my character doesn't know them. Even though they should be pretty easy to figure out.

Progress: Closed The Gas Man

Got this free through the Amazon Appstore a few weeks ago. Majesty is a mostly hands-off RTS -- with basic mechanics not unlike Dwarfs, in that your troops mostly take care of themselves, but with a heavier emphasis on kingdom-building, upgrading, and managing the creation and maintenance of your foot-soldiers. It's a much lighter experience than something you'd play with a mouse and keyboard, but still with enough depth that there is some challenge, and it suits the mobile platform well.

Getting the hang of the game economy is a little rough - since if you don't set up your marketplace early, use its income buff frequently, upgrade your castle appropriately, and expand the reach of your kingdom, you're going to have trouble keeping up with the game's financial needs - and it's a little irritating that you basically need Rangers to explore at all, even though they die at the drop of a hat. But once I got past those mechanical gotchas, Majesty became a pretty good time-waster. The strategy isn't very deep, such that you typically don't need to worry about monster lairs near your kingdom, or any sort of sophisticated attack or defense; you just need to survive long enough that your kingdom can support a strong army, then send that army after each of your targets.

Interestingly, there are some brief hints of fantasy-satire humor in a few pre- and post-mission descriptions, a slight reminder of Magicka. But there is never really any meaningful exposition or plot in the game. It's just a series of missions, with objectives loosely based on some fantasy scenario.

If it wasn't free, I wouldn't have paid for it: Majesty is good for a mobile game, but still not really a good game; it's simple, short, and not particularly unique. Like I said, though, it is a fairly effective time-waster for dicking around on your phone.

Better than: any other mobile game I've tried so far
Not as good as: a real video game with a real controller or keyboard
There's a tenth, bonus mission: but I don't know if I care enough to unlock it (by getting a Gold ranking in the other nine)

Progress: Finished the main nine missions

LA Noire's game world is big. Way too big. End to end, the city very easily takes longer to traverse than Liberty City, or the entire region of New Austin and Mexico. Driving from scene to scene usually takes an excruciatingly long time, with nothing going on in-between except dialog with your partner. Driving itself isn't really fun, and since there isn't anything more to do on the way - no spontaneous crimes, no optional content, no good side-missions to speak of - it's really just a cutscene with steering.

Now, to say there are no side missions would be incorrect: while you're driving around the city, there is a random chance of a radio message coming in to trigger an optional Street Mission. The mission will pop up somewhere on the map, and once you get there, you could get involved in anything from a high-speed chase, to an on-foot pursuit, to a shootout, to a hostage situation. These little cases take just a few minutes, and offer a reasonably bite-sized portion of LA Noire gameplay, that tends to lack the investigation and interrogation portions I'm so disappointed in.

If these missions were done in the style of GTA, dotting the landscape instead of appearing randomly and infrequently, I'd be a lot happier about having to drive all the way across town for the next mission objective. Or, if they were in the style of Red Faction: Guerrilla's random proximity missions, where the missions pop up when I'm driving nearby -- that would be cool. Instead, since the game map is too goddamn big, the street missions will invariably appear somewhere completely out of the way; in the opposite direction of, or exceedingly beyond, the mission location I'm on my way to. The scope of the street missions is perfect for a minor distraction, but as it is I end up ignoring most of them simply because I don't feel like doing more tedious driving just to get there.

Apparently, once I complete a crime desk (a series of missions in a particular position at the PD), I have the option to go into a free-roam mode to do the street missions available at that desk. So I may explore that option later on. When the street missions are commingled with the tightly linear story missions, though, they simply aren't enticing enough for me to bother.

Progress: Solved the case of the Golden Butterfly