Lords of Shadow looks and sounds great -- the environments are gorgeous, the voice acting is fantastic, the soundtrack is epic, and the story seems genuinely intriguing. It's too bad, then, that the gameplay is so rote and uninteresting. Granted, Metroidvania was getting a little familiar, but you don't freshen up a franchise by turning it into yet another God of War ripoff.

If this becomes a movie or an anime or something, I'd love to watch it.

Progress: Gave Up -- Played the demo

The reviews have made it clear that Dead Rising 2 is more of the same: a pleasant reward for fans of the original, but not doing much at all to fix its many issues. I may not be as downright mad at this as I was at Crackdown 2, but it's an easy pass for me.

Progress: Gave Up

I've been really looking forward to this. I hadn't heard much good about Ninja Theory's previous project, but this one simply looks great: combat and platforming, a genuinely interesting story, and absolutely gorgeous artwork.

After playing the demo, I still think the narrative and presentation is fantastic -- but I'm concerned about the gameplay. While it works, it simply isn't very engaging. Maybe the combat becomes deeper as the game goes on; maybe the platforming and acrobatics become less familiar. I hope so! But now I'm in wait-and-see mode.

Progress: Gave Up -- Played the demo

Take the laziest possible copy of Gears of War, then add the terrible aiming mechanics of Kane & Lynch, remove now-common features like blind-firing from cover (!?), add a completely meaningless melee-combo system, and put a shockingly uninteresting level design around it. That's Quantum Theory.

It's hard to believe how a reasonably professional publisher can, in all seriousness, release a game in 2010 that's nothing more than a bad facsimile of a game from 2007.

Progress: Gave Up -- Finished the demo

Lost and Damned is, I would say, two steps forward and one step back for GTA4. Well, maybe more like two back.

It's pleasing to see TLAD place (much) less emphasis on the insipid parts of GTA4 -- I haven't received any calls from biker buddies about going out bowling, although I have received calls about doing optional side-missions; and the game hasn't even tried to make me care about watching TV or buying clothes. It serves to more strongly emphasize the core action and story, which is basically a good thing.

This generation, Rockstar seems to be all about characterization; but while TLAD has a more consistent stable of characters, none of them are as interesting as the original game's. Johnny's story is a fraction as long as Niko's epic tale of redemption, and as a result, some of the exposition seems hurried and flat. Billy, President of the biker gang, makes his character painfully obvious from the first five minutes, and doesn't seem to have any purpose at all except as a dramatic foil for Johnny. And the other bikers are little more than lackeys, choosing one side or the other in the conflict. It's not a bad story per se, but not as compelling as I expected.

On the whole, gameplay has been improved since GTA4: TLAD doesn't waste any time in introducing you to new weaponry (including a sawed-off shotgun!), and new features like gang warfare make for much more meaningful side-quests than the original game had. But I feel like the gameplay evolution is seriously marred by, well, the motorcycle. Riding a bike isn't always required, but it's always seriously encouraged, and to be frank the bikes still don't work as well as the cars.

So in general I would say I'm pleased with the incremental improvement, but - both because of the weaker story and the goddamn motorcycles - I'm less hooked by TLAD than I was by GTA4.

Progress: Gang wars!

Tilting the stick 'up' to jump bothers me. Otherwise, Muramasa's control scheme and battle mechanics are pleasantly sophisticated and varied. The story is surprisingly vacant, insomuch as, after the first boss encounter, I still don't know the premise; there's a bit of intrigue, but Muramasa is definitely relying on the strength of its action gameplay to motivate me forward.

What worries me the most is the game's difficulty. There are two options to start, and the default selection is the Easy one -- I selected the harder-sounding option, which isn't hard most of the time, but I feel like enemies do an inordinate amount of damage when they hit me. At the same time, I wonder if the game would be too easy on the easier setting. At least I have the option of changing difficulties in the pause menu, should I hit a wall later on.

Progress: Momohime Act 2

Hahahahahaha!!

Better than: Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard (what the foxtrot!)
Not as good as: Rogue Warrior (needs more cursing)
Best ending: ever?

Progress: Finished on Normal

What you might not gather from comedic gameplay videos is that Jurassic: The Hunted plays really badly. The controls feel clunky and unresponsive, the framerate takes a dive at the slightest hint of foliage (which is almost all of the time, given it takes place in a jungle), and the combat is just silly: since you have a gun, the only way for the dinosaurs to present any sort of challenge is for them to leap all the way across the goddamn screen at you.

While it does have its moments, Jurassic simply can't measure up to the terrible hilarity of Rogue Warrior. At least, so far. I've still got plenty of dino-killin' ahead of me!

Progress: Level 4: Vortex Zero

Splosion Man, with its dead-simple controls and pleasant aesthetic, is a breeze to get into. I imagine that casual players will quickly be turned off, though, by the sometimes devilish puzzle/platform difficulty. For me, it's a treat.

What I'm not so big a fan of is the game's occasional Mega Man-style challenge: platform segments where you don't even know you might die, until you do. And which require split-second precision to get past, else you're sent back to a checkpoint that always seems just a little too far back.

Splosion Man is surprisingly fun for its simplicity - a testament to its level design - but also more frustrating than I think it has to be.

Progress: Level 1-11

If you weren't sure about spending $15 on this little guy, how about $5 from a reputable game distributor? Now it just needs Steam Cloud support.

Progress: 12 trinkets, 865 deaths