Argh. I tried to like my Devil May Cry three-pack - I mean, I didn't try very hard. I started the first game several times, trying to get into it, but none of it took. On reports that DMC2 was total garbage, I gave the third a shot, and found a few differences:

• The over-the-top action tone was turned up, from melodramatic to cheesy/parodic

• As far as I saw, the insipid free-roaming areas were removed, streamlining the process between insipid fight sequences

• Longer cinematics? I think this actually makes more action in the cutscenes than in the game

Admittedly, I've come into the series from its future, which gives me something of a perspective bias. But I hesitate to give DMC too much credit. This is a completely polarized game: the combat is either monotonous button mashing, or impossible strings of combo sequences (how long has it been since combo sequences were fun?). In both the first and third games, I kept dying in ways that did nothing to illustrate how I might go about not dying, a cardinal sin of game design.

And don't get me started on the black hole that is the series' story and theme. DMC feels like God of War, but dumber. And to be frank, I didn't consider God of War very smart.

I'm sure there's something to like for someone in here. But I don't think it's for me, and I no longer care to look for it.

Progress: Gave Up -- Almost finished mission 2

Another really cool thing this game does is progressive difficulty scaling. As you dive further into each area of the game world, the environment puzzles become more complex, which isn't exactly a "new" idea - but as you progress in the game overall (which you can do in a non-linear fashion), combat becomes more difficult as well. Enemies have more health, attack faster, and learn new defensive moves. Where the early combat situations are friendly enough to allow you to experiment, by the final boss fight you're expected to have a solid handle on the game's evasion, parry, and counterattack mechanics, which leads to some really cool boss fights.

Follow up on the magic plates: the Blue ones activate a non-interactive magical grappling hook, carrying you to a new area. It's effectively similar to the Red plates, but used more often in close quarters, as it takes an elliptical path rather than a straight one (not that this matters, since you don't actively control either one).

The game is not without its shortcomings. Combat arenas are walled off, and the quick-time events that occur when you repeatedly run into the edges can become pretty tiresome. The Prince's dialog and manner of speech may or may not be your cup of tea (I actually liked it). The ending is not much of a crowd pleaser, although I thought it was kind of cool. The mostly-seamless graphics are sometimes marred by Elika and/or the Prince clipping into walls. If you're not into the light seed thing, collecting what you need to get through the magic plate obstacles would probably be a pain. I found the light seed collection fun enough to be considered part of the main game, but if you don't, your hour-count will suffer for it.

So, yes, in many cases your mileage will vary; I really, really liked this game, but I can see why someone might not. The new PoP isn't perfect - but that's about the worst I can say about it.

Progress: 1001 light seeds

As with Assassin's Creed, my progress in HL2 was wiped by a hard drive failure. Unlike AC, I don't plan on going back and playing HL2 again.

Look, Gordon Freeman. We had a good run. But we're just not right for each other. Past the scientist technobabble and the robust physics engine, you're just about navigating through a dystopian future and shooting dudes, and that really isn't doing it for me.

Maybe, one day, when I'm super-bored, I'll try HL2 again. Maybe. Not planning on it.

Progress: Gave Up

So, my hard drive failure from a few weeks back irrevocably killed this save file, and now I'm thoroughly entranced by Prince of Persia (2008) anyway. I'll definitely have to come back to AC at some point though.

Minor gripe time, before I get into the excessively positive part:

Like Assassin's Creed before it, and as I've seen in the PC versions of many other multiplatform titles, the interface was designed with an Xbox 360 controller in mind. I mean, you can plug a 360 controller into Windows, but keyboards cost about 90% less and do the job just fine. So when a quick-time event prompts for a keypress, and the prompt consists of a small action icon (indicative of the key) and a bright face-button color, there is a clear feeling of neglect toward keyboard/mouse users. It's not a big issue, but it would be nice - and this is a general statement, not just for PoP - if key prompts indicated their associated keys more clearly.

Other than that, and some super-minor technological nags (on very rare occasions, the Prince will grab the wrong edge of a corner, or the camera won't do exactly the right thing - but since you can't die, it's hardly an issue anyway), I'm really enjoying PoP as it proceeds. Character development has continued at a surprising pace, revealing interesting backstories about not only Elika and the Ahura people, but the Prince as well.

More on the game structure: the world map is divided generally into four regions, each of which has six sub-areas (and as I mentioned before, some are interconnected Metroid-style, so the regions are separated more thematically than physically). Each of these regions has its own backstory, and an associated boss, a servant of Ahriman, each of which also has his/her own backstory. In five of each region's sub-areas, you'll fight the region's servant in a sort of sub-boss encounter before healing a fertile ground. And once they are all healed, in the sixth sub-area, you engage in the final boss fight with said servant. So I just did one of these today - the Alchemist - and the intensity of that fight, along with the more hectic battles I've seen in other areas as well, has me sufficiently impressed with the game's combat system.

Back to the sub-areas - although the first one in each region is freely accessible from the start, later ones have roadblocks in the form of magical plates used by the Ahura. These plates are inactive, and must be unlocked; that's why you're collecting Light Seeds. Think Samus's suit upgrades: certain areas are inaccessible until you can double-jump, or grapple, et cetera. There are four types of plate, each of which is a roadblock in four separate sub-areas (this is all illustrated very well in the in-game map, so you know exactly what you need to get where).

I've activated three of these plates so far:

• The red ones are like the jump pads in Sonic - land on it and press the magic button, and you leap somewhere, usually to (or near) another red pad, so that you string the jumps together in order to reach some final destination.
• The green ones change the Prince's sense of gravity, and make him for instance dash up or across a wall or ceiling. The Prince automatically runs until the end of the "track" is reached, so in the meantime you move left and right to dodge obstacles in real-time.
• The yellow ones are similar to the green ones, except instead of running along a surface, you fly, and must dodge obstacles by moving left/right/up/down as Elika carries you along a pre-set route.

The plate abilities aren't quite as thrilling as, say, wall-running through a canyon, but they do add some appreciated variety to the gameplay experience. And aside from being critical parts of progressing through each region, they're also used fairly frequently in Light Seed puzzles.

At 10 healed fertile grounds and one boss down, I'm somewhere less than halfway through the game, and I feel like it's going to work out to a meaty length of time in the end (I haven't been keeping track, but an estimate on the order of 20 hours sounds right). I'm really, really happy about this. Usually when I anticipate a game as much as I have this one, by the time I've put a few hours in I've become used to it (or horribly disappointed). But with this Prince, I'm still satisfied, and surprised, every time I sit down with it. I'm looking forward to the next time I play, and the time after that, all the way until the final moment.

One more thing: some people have complained about the Prince not being Persian enough. In the sense that he isn't Persian, they're 100% right. This Prince is a cocksure upstart full of Americanized slang - he's like a gymnastic Han Solo. But, so what? In the earlier trilogy, the Prince had a pseudo-European accent, and that along with his style of narration helped mold his personality as a curious traveler in a foreign and mystical land. In this game, the Prince's persona as a pragmatic adventurer who lives in the moment is reinforced by his speech and mannerisms. I guess, if anything is an issue here, it's that the title of the game is more a result of the series it stems from, than of its setting. Who cares. I really think this is just another case of people bitching on the Internet because they have nothing better to do all day.

Progress: 10 grounds healed, 1 boss killed

A few things:

• I already knew that the 1-60 game had been trivialized, but apparently the 60-70 game has been, too. This is perhaps a design flaw in MMO expansions: adding content on top of a previous max level, means that new players have to do the entire old game before seeing new stuff. At the same time, shortening the earlier content makes it lose much of its gravitas, and makes the experience feel more tedious than adventurous. This time around, I never did any of the epic quest lines I enjoyed in my first playthrough, opting instead for an ideal experience-per-minute path; and I have no doubt that new players almost invariably do the same, thanks to the guidance of established friends and/or guildmates. A system similar to the one for Death Knights, where they begin at 55, makes more sense - but then, that's only for Death Knights.

• Leveling as Horde makes me realize certain conveniences I had previously taken for granted as Alliance. Mainly, town access: though there is only one zone in Azeroth whose Horde presence makes life difficult for Alliance, there are several examples of the inverse. It's not a huge issue gameplay-wise, and it doesn't crop up again in Outland or Northrend, but it does give a Horde player the feeling of being a second-class citizen.

• PvP servers are bullshit. Since all servers have battlegrounds and arenas (and the new Wintergrasp PvP zone), being on a PvP server isn't so much about wanting to fight as it is about picking fights. And no one ever picks a fight unless they know they can win. As a Mage, I am basically finished if the other person strikes first, and so this is how my PvP life goes: every solo quest is tempered with the anxiety of being stricken down by an Alliance interloper at a crucial moment. It's the Un'Goro Crater Devilsaur all over again.

Despite all this, I am rediscovering my hopeless addiction to WoW. The sampling of new abilities I've encountered so far (Living Bomb!) are a treat, and the new areas in Northrend are a real blast. Following on the design successes of Outland, in making less numerous, but more populous and distinct zones, the zones in Northrend all have very unique feels. The starting zones of Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord have you largely saving wildlife and fighting crazy viking monsters, respectively, where the intermediate area of Dragonblight puts you next to serious magical forces (e.g. dragons) as well as immersing you in a snowy wasteland that characterizes Northrend as a whole. (I skipped Grizzly Hills, so, who cares.) I've only briefly ventured into the further zones, but I'm hoping to have more to say on them soon.

Progress: Level 73

After replacing a bad hard drive and a failed attempt at flying home for the holidays, I'm finally able to play my new Prince of Persia. And it's almost worth ruining Christmas! In all seriousness, it is a great game, and I'm very glad I've got it to keep me busy this week.

The basic concept is the same as the previous PoP trilogy: use gravity-defying acrobatics and fancy swordplay to save a magical kingdom from destruction. The story in the new Prince is nothing remarkable in and of itself, but it is told very well, through in-game cutscenes, optional dialog sequences (with heaps of character development), and the environment design itself. Together with the haunting soundtrack and unique graphical look of the game, it really does feel like playing a storybook.

Taking a note from previous criticism, the new PoP has de-emphasized combat somewhat. Enemy encounters are rare, you only fight one at a time, and the battle system is very free-form and forgiving: it reminds me a lot of the final boss battles in Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. While far from difficult, the system is as fast-paced as you want it to be, and is very cool in the sense that it allows you to strike, parry, and so on at your whim. The system also rewards you for stringing together creative combos, encouraging you to consistently try new things in battle.

The non-difficulty is a persistent theme in the new Prince of Persia. If you've read anything about the game, the one thing you're most likely to know is that, thanks to magical female sidekick Elika, you cannot die. If an enemy gets the better of you in combat, she'll save your ass, the only caveat being that her magic powers become unusable for a (very) brief time. And if you leap to your doom while navigating through a level, she'll pick you up and put you back on solid ground. You may be wondering, well, what the fuck is the point of the game then? The point is of course, to get to your goal and defeat the bosses.

If you're worried about the effect this has on the challenge of the game, don't be. Think about it: what's the difference between Elika saving you, and your last save file saving you? This system removes the hassle of incremental "just to be safe" saves, and the time involved in "dying" and reloading. Simply put, it cuts the crap out of the game. If anything is lost here, it's some of the catharsis of finally getting that jump sequence you've failed to do a dozen times. But you also don't have to deal with as much frustration from those dozen misses; and the forgiving retries also encourage you to take risky maneuvers, just to see where they lead you. What's the worst that could happen?

Warrior Within and The Two Thrones did a lot to mix up the game's pacing in the form of Dark Prince segments. These segments were super-fun because they pushed you to move as quickly as possible, pumping your adrenaline as the Prince jumped from falling ledge to falling ledge. The new PoP does something fairly similar, but again leans toward the side of forgiveness. Certain elements of the level design, such as slides and wall-running handholds, require you to move and think quickly: combine this with the hazardous objects you have to avoid on your first run through a level, and you're encouraged to keep the pace swift (although more often than not, there is no harm in slowing down).

"First" time through? Allow me to explain. Once you get to the boss of an area and defeat him, you can heal the land there, which removes the hazardous elements and opens up new paths. Glowing items called Light Seeds appear throughout the area, which you need to collect to help Elika learn new magical powers. So now your goal is to survey the land, see where the Light Seeds are, and try to figure out how to reach them. Thus, the basic pattern is: acrobatic platforming, then a boss battle, then acrobatic puzzles. Very cool.

Though the land is divided into distinct regions, they are all connected, Metroid style, into one large world map. You can get to any region from any adjacent region, which is a cool explorational touch. And to ease the collection of Light Seeds and the progression to new areas, you can use the map to instantly teleport from any healed area to any other healed area.

All in all, this Prince is a really impressive game. The theme and setting are great, the gameplay is great, even the length is looking great at this point (I've put in a few hours already, and I've only healed four of the game's 24 areas on the map). The only thing keeping me from giving it a perfect score is that I have yet to encounter a really thrilling combat situation. But I also haven't done any of the game's main boss fights yet!

Progress: Healed four fertile grounds!

I had some leftover Wii points, and with a title like this, how can I say no?

Space Invaders Get Even is really cool for two reasons. The first, and this may not be cool to anyone but myself, is the revenue model. The game is split into packs of missions, each being two shooter levels and ending with a third boss level. The base game only costs $5 - and only comes with one pack of missions. Three additional mission packs are available for $5 each, and so one could say that the full game of 12 missions carries a $20 price tag; but you can buy fractions of it at your leisure. This is a really exciting evolution of the episodic distribution idea: the base game carries a price to recoup development costs, but is cheap enough so as to be almost free, and I wouldn't hesitate to think of it as a sort of demo. If a player is sold on the concept, he is then liable to buy additional levels for the game a'la carte, each in a bite-sized chunk that both stuffs Taito's coffers and satisfies the player's desire for new content. (I don't know if the game is architected to allow more add-on mission packs beyond the existing three, but that would really complete the business model.)

The second reason this game is cool is pretty much indicated by its title. Past the introductory narration, which is equal parts confusing and boring, Space Invaders Get Even is about exactly what it sounds like: the space invaders, after 30 years of living with the stench of failure, have come back to Earth for revenge. The scenario is sort of a post-campy setup, where, as you pilot the mothership with your nunchuk, you'll overhear terrestrial radio chatter like "we can't hit these 2D targets!" The invader ships that swarm around you can be directed into a number of attack formations that range from the expected, such as homing in on targets, to the hilariously bizarre, like forming the shape of a giant drill and plowing into an enemy.

The game plays like a vertical-scrolling overhead shooter with ground targets (in fact, you'll be firing at tanks more often than at helicopters). The playfield is also littered with military and civilian structures, and, Rampage/Blast Corps-style, you'll gain seconds on your level timer for causing wanton destruction. You also lose seconds for being hit, so blowing shit up is not just fun, but also meaningful to your goal of survival! My only real complaint about the gameplay mechanics is that, while they are initially hard to learn due to the number of attack formations you have, within a level or two you'll find out that about half of them are really ineffective and pointless.

What I don't like about Space Invaders Get Even is that, despite the new concepts and mechanics, the game is structured around high score pissing contests just as much as the original Space Invaders. Rather than unlock new abilities or features, your reward for killing everything or finishing quickly is racking up points, which are ranked globally in online high score tables within the game. If you like that sort of thing, then this game's implementation seems pretty good, but it's not really my cup of tea.

Nevertheless, I don't doubt that a boring evening at home could easily lead to me buying a $5 mission pack and invading Earth again.

Progress: Gave Up -- Finished basic level pack

My hard drive is on life support, which ruled out HL2 and Assassin's Creed (and though my old Powerbook can play Lich King, its aging hardware mars the experience somewhat). So I turned on my Wii and checked out what's new on the Nintendo Channel: a playable demo of The Fallen King, which I had heard some interesting facts about. Namely, that it uses Phantom Hourglass-like controls, which I was curious to see at work in another title.

Basically, Fallen King is classic sidescrolling Prince of Persia, plus Phantom Hourglass touch-to-move controls. Though the concept is simple, the execution falters because PoP's gameplay is fundamentally different from Zelda's. Where Link can get away with using a stylus to move and use items from an overhead view, using it to tell the Prince to jump and climb walls from a side perspective is more of a stretch, and makes vertical segments a tiring exercise in jamming the stylus in the general vicinity of a ledge.

The game's secondary character, some sort of floating magi, is basically a device for enabling new level design elements - but he's not used very well (at least in the demo). You "switch" to the magi by pressing any face button or any direction on the D-pad, at which point, instead of doing tap-to-move, you're touching points of interest to the magi on the screen. Touch a grapple point, and the Prince and the magi will grapple to it. Touch an explosive magic item, and you can drag it to a destination. Touch an enemy or empty area, and the magi will fire a magic bolt out, which stuns an enemy briefly but does no damage (e.g., the complexity of combat plateaus at stunning an enemy so that the Prince can take a free swipe).

The puzzles in the demo, involving pressure plates and rolling boulders, were more difficult than I'd expect from a free taste: which makes me hopeful that the final product could actually have some genuinely challenging puzzle-platform gameplay in it. But I'll likely never find out for sure, as the rest of the gameplay is too tedious for me to sit through again. Moving to a traditional button-based control scheme would be a good first step, but even then The Fallen King is depressingly similar to the original PoP, albeit with brighter colors and meaningless magi objects.

Progress: Gave Up -- Finished three-minute demo

This game is the reason I need to change how the Glog handles video game titles/versions. And yet, I still haven't done it. Huh.