It's easy for me to compare Epic Yarn to Muramasa: both games have a beautiful artistic style, supported by simple gameplay mechanics, with a throwaway story tacked on for good measure. There are two big differences, though: Kirby has co-op multiplayer, and, in Epic Yarn you can transform into a string tank.

While you might think that Kirby's basic gameplay would be completely vacant without the ability to eat and emulate your enemies, in practice Epic Yarn's context-sensitive powers end up feeling a lot like any other Kirby game (despite the fact that it wasn't originally about Kirby). Granted, Epic Yarn might be at risk of feeling incredibly shallow, were it not for the amazing transformations that happen at the end of most stages - such as tanks, UFOs, race buggies, and line-riding trains - but the game doesn't have any delusions of grandeur about its complexity. It works, and it's fun!

It's hard not to be impressed by how highly polished Epic Yarn is. The core gameplay may not be the most exciting, but the controls are tight, the levels are well-designed, and the overally execution on the yarn-world premise is just stunning.

Progress: Water Land (co-op)

When I called out Muramasa's combat for being "sophisticated and varied," I didn't realize how tiresome it would become after a few hours of not getting any more sophisticated or varied. While it's fun for a few minutes at a time, battling demons and ninjas and shit in Muramasa becomes phenomenally dull in short order, as the game sends wave after wave of enemy at your sword, and you either master the arts of dodging and slowly wittling down your foes (in hard mode), or, like me, get bored and mash the A button until you can get to the next screen (in easy mode).

Between the broken map, utterly dull backtracking, a shallow equipment system, and the aforementioned tedious combat, the gameplay in Muramasa just isn't very fun (at least, not sustainably so). The sword forging system seemed interesting at first, but since the game requires you to collect story-milestone swords to progress along forging paths, and new swords are locked by stats you get from leveling up, and leveling up is directly correlated to how many screens you've progressed through, and the differences between swords are almost solely numeric strength, it's really a thin veil over a thoroughly linear experience.

And so Muramasa comes down to a question of finding the right motivation to get through the unremarkable gameplay. The impossible-to-follow story certainly isn't it. The graphics are, well, beautiful -- but that simply isn't enough.

I'm glad I tried Muramasa out, but it has completely failed to give me any reason to see it through.

Better than: Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn
Not as good as: Dead Space: Extraction
Maybe I'm just racist: but the excessively Japanese story and setting meant absolutely nothing to me

Progress: Gave Up -- Momohime Act 4

Given that The Last Guardian isn't currently a thing that exists - and its gameplay mechanics are yet to be a matter of public record - it's tough to say whether Majin is just like it (although that's a fair guess). Perhaps a better analogy would be to Wind Waker's Earth Temple, in which you, the childlike hero, enlist the help of a magical friend to solve environment puzzles and defeat shadowy monsters. The biggest difference between the two is that while Medli was a nice enough little bird girl, Majin is a pretty big lug -- and yet, even friendlier!

The combat is pretty basic, though it looks like it'll become more complex as the game proceeds, with new abilities and level-ups. What's most interesting about fighting with Majin is that, whereas many games have you fight in real time while dumb AI helps you out, in Majin it feels like you're the one helping out the AI. Only he can finish off enemies to prevent them from respawning, and he has significantly more health and brute strength than you; so your job is to keep guys off his back, distract enemies with quick hits and dodges, give battle orders when necessary, and help execute combo attacks as the opportunities arise. The system is fun despite its simplicity, because it's really not about mashing the X button so much as it is about teamwork.

The non-combat gameplay is similarly simplistic but enjoyable, as you find things for Majin to break, or sneak around in order to hit levers, etc. that the big guy is simply too big to get to himself. All of this is polished up with bright graphics and cheery personalities (both in Majin and in the thief character) that straddle the line between lame and charming.

In short, the demo was fun. But it was a very brief cross-section of the game, that I'm not really sure is representative of what will come out next month. A lot of the retail product's success will rely on how well it balances the combat and platforming sections, and how it keeps both of them from becoming stale. And the end of the demo alluded to a boss fight, but that never happened, so who knows how that will turn out? Anyway, my ear's to the ground for this one.

Progress: Gave Up -- Finished the demo

Initial Vanquish reviews had me very concerned about the game's length, indicating something on the order of four hours. I guess those reviewers are just way better at video games than me (or were playing on easy auto-aim mode), because my final score screen said about six hours, and I'm pretty sure that doesn't include cutscenes. At any rate, it seemed very much like a standard shooter campaign length; other than said cutscenes, and a few brief exposition segments, the experience doesn't have any downtime.

That being said, I think I would have preferred that the game was shorter. I played the demo repeatedly, until I got bored of the demo level; and I got the same feeling at many points throughout the full campaign. The hectic rocket-sliding gameplay is a blast at first, but so many levels are built in the same way, it doesn't take long for them to become very tedious. Some levels mix it up with some genuinely interesting set pieces, but in general it's corridors, or stairs, or corridors next to stairs.

There's a healthy variety of enemies, and a nice arrangement of weapons (even if the disk launcher is a disappointment, and the upgrade system doesn't work as well as it should). But Vanquish is stretched just a little too thin over the full campaign's length. Good thing the excellent audio/visual presentation keeps things interesting, because the dumb-as-doornails story sure doesn't.

Vanquish presents some exciting new ideas for a third-person shooter, but doesn't take them far enough. It sets the stage for a sequel, but given the IP ownership situation between Sega and Platinum, it's hard to say if a Vanquish 2 will push the formula far enough either.

Better than: Bionic Commando
Not as good as: Resident Evil 4
Has great lines like: "Thank God I'm an atheist!"

Progress: Finished on Normal

If there is a single redeeming thing about Java, it's Minecraft.

There are a lot of things that Minecraft tries to do, and it doesn't succeed at a lot of them. Of course it's in "alpha" right now so that's hardly surprising. What is surprising is how awesome it can be when it's at its best. Specifically, in the "mine" part, and in the "craft" part.

Mining isn't like in World of Warcraft where you wander around looking for mineral deposits: in Minecraft, the world is your mineral deposit. Make some torches and picks and shovels, dig a staircase down, and see how many gems and ores you can find before reaching the bottom of the game. The randomly generated map is full of surprises, and they're always fun to explore (except the ones that fall out of the map).

As for crafting, there is an item-crafting system (which is how you get the aforementioned torches, picks, and shovels) but that's not what I mean -- that system could use some work, I think, since the crafting materials are impossible to know unless you just google it. No, the crafting I like is more like LEGO. Whatever you dig up, you can use as a building material. Hence, castle. The more advanced stuff is pretty well beyond what I want to put into a game, but, come on. Castle! Awesome.

There are a lot of rough spots around the mining and crafting, like navigating the huge map, which I'm sure will be addressed as the game's development continues. What worries me most is the combat, which is kind of shitty right now, since to make a bow (the only projectile weapon) you need to get string, from killing giant spiders. But you have to kill them without a bow. Meanwhile, skeletons are firing their bows at you. Dicks.

But combat is entirely avoidable once you lay out your network of underground tunnels, and craft some doors. Awesome.

Progress: Gave Up -- Mined the earth, built a beach castle

Now, I'm no stranger to bad games. And I try my best to see them through, because hey, they're usually only a couple hours long anyway. But Jumper? Man. No way.

I know I just said that Terminator Salvation had last-gen graphics, but this is way worse. If I assume that the Wii version looks identical to the Xbox 360 one - and really, there's no reason it couldn't - it still looks fuckin' terrible. The models and textures are downright N64-esque. So is the audio quality, for that matter. And the narrative direction. If I didn't know that the (stupid) movie was released in 2008, I'd be convinced that this license was from the '90s.

As for the gameplay, there's actually an interesting idea here: based on the premise that the main character can just up and teleport wherever he wants (except away from the battle, I guess), each of the four face buttons will put Griffin on one side of the targeted enemy: Y goes behind, A in front, X to the left, and B to the right. Then he whacks the guy with a stick. As you're fighting a dude, a green indicator will appear on one side, which you'll get "power" for when you hit it; and another side may show a red indicator, meaning you'll be counterattacked if you try it. Of course there are combos and special moves too, but they're largely irrelevant -- conceptually, the combat system is half-Quick-Time-Event, half rhythm game, and in theory could be pretty fun.

Unsurprisingly though, the execution sucks. Ignoring the sometimes unresponsive controls, and the environment and camera glitches, the most basic problem is that the red indicator moves. Jumper's combat system only works when it's fast - not just because it's otherwise boring, but also because enemies attack fast - and as an enemy turns around, the camera moves, and random triggers just kind of happen, it can become very difficult to predict where the red indicator is even as you're hitting it.

Typically, this just makes for some frustrating button mashing. But in the game's third level, I ended up fighting two dudes with stupid-fast attacks, who each have two red sides at a time. They can take me down almost instantly, and yet there doesn't seem to be any way for me to effectively fight back, unless I pussyfoot around the room for 20 minutes getting in cheap shots. Or reduce the difficulty. Either way, not worth the effort.

What an abysmal failure. Man. I wonder how bad the rest of the game is, though.

Progress: Gave Up -- Can't finish the third level on Normal

Clunky aiming controls, a throwaway plot with gaping holes in it, impossible physics, laughable running length, incompetent AI, indecipherable design decisions (the health bar doesn't make any sense!), poor checkpoint placement, astonishing loading times, lack of gameplay variety, idiotic dialog, drab environments, last-gen graphics, stupefyingly repetitive soundtrack, helped bankrupt a company -- as far as really bad games go, Terminator Salvation is everything you'd expect.

If there's one surprising thing about Salvation, it's that there are so many parties involved. There are like half a dozen development and publishing houses on this thing. What the hell were they all doing? Shouldn't at least one of them have said, hey, guys, this game stinks?

Better than: the movie, I guess? maybe not
Not as good as: T2: The Arcade Game, real video games
Not as funny as: Rogue Warrior

Progress: Finished on Normal

While Lost and Damned attempted to mix up the formula set by GTA4 - a focus on motorcycles, a more outright hostile protagonist, and more optional open-world missions - Gay Tony hews much closer to the original game. It isn't a 100% success story; the game's second mission makes you play another dumb minigame (golf!), and it wasn't long before Luis's friend Henrique was pestering me on the phone to "hang out." But it iterates on and improves Liberty City enough to make up for the few bad traits it brought back.

There are a handful of new cars. Nice cars. Fast cars. There's a new combat helicopter with missiles. There's a tank. There are new guns, sticky bombs, explosive shotgun rounds. As a one-up on Lost and Damned's Gun Van feature (which also reappears in Gay Tony), you can call one of Luis's friend for free cars -- and not just for shitty cars, either. In terms of driving and gunplay, this is simply the best in the series.

There are new things to do in the city, too, like optional Drug Wars missions, Base Jumping, and Club Management. Unfortunately these side missions don't deliver very strongly - they all get pretty repetitive, and don't have much in the way of rewards - but it's an improvement nonetheless.

As for the story, it's, well, GTA4-caliber good. Luis Lopez is a strong character, less foolish than Johnny Klebitz, less naive than Niko Bellic. Gay Tony himself is surprisingly well-presented; rather than being a flamboyant joke, Tony's intellect and personal issues make him seem genuinely human.

TBOGT may not have as much length or narrative heft as GTA4 did, but it's denser with fun driving and shooting action. More so than Lost and Damned, Gay Tony proves that the GTA format can work great for smaller stories.

Better than: Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned
Not as good as: the next GTA, I guess? Arguably, not as fulfilling as Grand Theft Auto IV, but at least as fun
The new Vladivostok FM: is a perfect soundtrack for zooming across the city

Progress: Finally got Bulgarin back

The Minerva's Den DLC was sounding like one I'd actually strongly consider buying. But then, nope! No PC version.

I expect this kind of bullshit from Ubisoft, but come on, really 2K? Not supporting a multiplatform first-person shooter's PC version is kind of inexcusable.

Good news everyone! Crisis averted. Now, don't screw it up!

Progress: Finished on Normal

Apparently, Gang Wars can only be initiated from a bike. So, not bothering with any more of those. Motorcycles are generally better in Lost in Damned than they were in GTA4; specifically, it's more difficult to be thrown off of one. But, due to the laws of physics, they still can't do high speed turns very well. Cars are still more fun.

For that reason, and because the storyline is relatively weak - not to mention, a little spotty (it has a Kane & Lynch-ian quality of some plot points being completely unexplained) - The Lost and Damned fails to meet the high bar set by the original GTA4. But it's certainly still a good deal of fun, and worth playing if you enjoyed Niko's adventure -- not just for the intersecting story points, but also for the new weapons. Two words: street sweeper.

Better than: Overlord: Raising Hell
Not as good as: Grand Theft Auto IV
If you thought bike gangs were scum: TLAD definitely won't change your mind

Progress: Broke into prison