I keep taking extended breaks from Toki Tori, but I'm consistently pleased with it when I pick the game back up again. The challenge level is really satisfying, and real-time actions are rarely a significant factor, making it great for just sitting back and thinking of how to complete the level.

And new items keep showing up, which really keeps the formula fresh even well into the game. In World 4, Toki Tori falls underwater, and a sort of diving suit is introduced that allows you to swim upward for a limited number of spaces. It dramatically changes the movement mechanics that drove the game previously, which is awesome.

Progress: Bubble Barrage Level 2

I haven't been glogging my way through Jak and Daxter because, well, because there wasn't a whole lot to say about it. My first impressions were that it had little to offer over an N64-era platformer; and that stayed pretty consistent through the end.

If you've played a 3D platformer, Jak won't surprise you in any significant way. You run around, jump on ledges, punch enemies, all the while collecting power cells (stars), Precursor orbs (coins), and scout flies (red coins). There is a green plains level. There is an ice level. There is a lava level. There is a swamp level. There is even a fucking annoying level full of giant fucking spiders.

The game does succeed in at least two ways: technologically, because the game possesses a physics engine relatively sophisticated for its time, as well as a slick no-loading-screens setup that helps the game world come together; and in flavor, through the mostly-great voice acting and comedic script. Overall though the narrative falls short of stellar, since when it gets dramatic it gets very melodramatic - the ending, for instance, is remarkably dull and unfulfilling.

While parts of the implementation are pretty impressive, Jak fails to present anything gameplay-wise that it can really call its own. There are occasional vehicle segments, and infrequent instances of different-colored Eco powers to perform special tasks, but neither of these stand out as exceptionally fun or unique.

Like Sly Cooper, I don't really hesitate to say that Jak is comparable to platformers that came a whole generation before it. In fairness, Jak is put together better than Sly (though it certainly isn't without its fair share of hair-pulling frustration moments, either); but Sly also shows its unique mettle in the stealth tactics and level diversity, where Jak is a clone first and its own game second. Judging by what I've read about the sequels, this doesn't really change. Jak may be a fun platformer... but so are dozens of other games.

Progress: 100%

It is a wicked cool concept, and based on some multiplayer I tried when a co-worker brought the game in for lunch breaks, it is very fun in a party-style setting. However, from what I've seen and heard of the multiplayer, the part I was really interested in - a lengthy, challenging, solo puzzle-solving mode - is seriously lacking. I'm glad I got to try it, but I think I've already gotten what I can out of Boom Blox.

Progress: Gave Up

Mechanically, Republic Commando is well put-together; the shooting combat is very fun once you've got the hang of the different weapon types, and the team tactics work extremely well. And despite the prequel trilogy backdrop, the game benefits from being placed in the Star Wars universe, what with lasers and robots and so on (plus the sheer satisfaction of kicking ass with John Williams in the background). But there's so much chintzy crap wrong with the game that, like a delicious cake swarming with flies, the experience leaves me with an uncomfortable taste in my mouth.

The game's relatively short length is something I could live with. But having only three campaigns (e.g. three distinct environment types) left me wanting; I would much rather have had more, shorter campaigns, especially since all three of them felt rather dragging toward the end. The rare bugs are not so bad, forgiving one time that a teammate actually became hostile to me, and I had to kill him but could not revive (and thus had to restart from an earlier save file); but there are particular combat situations which seem disproportionately frustrating to be bugs, like small, nimble enemies that deal ridiculous damage, or an enemy spawner next to the only mannable laser turret in the area. The characterization of the clone troopers is interesting at first, but is ultimately meaningless, as each trooper can do each assignable task equally well, and they all use the same AI.

The game is rife with basic design oversights - radio is jammed in much of campaign 2, but that doesn't stop command from being able to make a snarky comment when you die; relatedly, in the rare instance where you have an objective other than surviving, failure results in a tirade from command, followed by an automatic death to force the "Retry?" screen. And everyone refers to everyone else as Delta: "Delta, go slice that console" or "Nice work, Delta" or "Take cover, Delta!" Also, the ending was trite even by shooter standards. (After all four Deltas split up to take down a Separatist battleship with turbolaser cannons, 07 is heard dying over the comlink; command orders the unit out, there is some strong-hearted protest, and then moments later everyone is stoked to keep fighting in the implied sequel.)

Like I've said: it's pretty good for a Star Wars game, and not terrible, but not exactly a must-play.

Progress: Complete

We all knew it was going to happen, but this is a bit sooner than I expected!

Though it is shorter than its followers, GTA3 has its fair share of extra stuff too: rampages, vigilante/rescue/taxi missions, optional mission chains, stunt jumps, et cetera; not that I bothered with almost all of them, but they are there for your inner completionist if you have one. And, in the end, I was pleasantly surprised by the story cohesion - it was still generally weak, but more than I was expecting.

All in all, I'm not sure what more I can say except, it's a fun game that has its problems, much like the sequels.

Progress: Cleaner (1616), finished main missions

As the game goes on, it's hard to judge it by its own merits rather than in terms of its sequels. The gap between GTA3 and Vice City seems significant, but is really just the result of a few new features and improvements - an in-game map on the pause menu, a narrative to tie the missions together, more and better radio music, helicopters, motorcycles. I've already discussed the incremental development of the GTA series, but I cannot overemphasize how easy it is to miss the sequels' improvements when returning to an earlier entry.

On its own, GTA3 feels like it has a very solid formula that needs more polish before it can really be great. The improvements in subsequent GTA games make it seem obsolete and irrelevant, but that also speaks to the strength of the core mechanisms at work here. So yeah, it's good, but you're not missing anything if you skip it for the later games.

Progress: Fixer (963)

It came free with my new graphics card, so that was the first sign that something would probably go horribly wrong.

Actually, I guess the first sign was three years ago, when Uwe Boll got involved. And the second sign was when the game came out, and Atari was being a dick about nobody liking it. So the third was the game being free, and the fourth was when it failed to start up, moments after installation, because of a bullshit SecuROM error.

The fifth sign was when the game told me to press X to blink. Yeah, as you might expect of any good cliched adventure game, the story begins with you waking up after being knocked unconscious, and since your vision is all blurry, you need to blink to clear it up. Not just once. Continually. This eventually goes away, minutes later, but I'm pretty sure a "blink" button is something that would never get past any halfway-decent QA department.

The sixth sign was at the precise moment the blink feature became obsolete, when the game's first-person perspective shifted to third. The third-person controls are somewhat like Resident Evil, e.g. you go forward/back with W/S, and turn with A and D. The mouse does nothing here. This is where the game starts screaming "BUY A GAMEPAD, FUCKHEAD!"

Thankfully, you can hit Tab to switch back to first-person. But the seventh sign that the game is absolute shit comes when you do, well, anything - this act of doing anything switches the perspective back to third-person automatically. I was basically spamming the Tab key most of the time. And, following up on the fuckhead problem, the game's eighth sign is when it told me to press Print Screen (yeah, that one!) to jump onto a ledge.

All of this happened in the first chapter. Well, actually that last one was in the first few seconds of chapter 2. So to be fair, there are only seven reasons for you to stop playing in the first chapter alone. As for reasons to continue playing, there might be one, in a part where I had to pull some rapelling maneuvers in an elevator shaft. For that brief sequence, maybe a minute or so, AITD resembled a real game.

What a load of shit.

Progress: Gave Up -- Figuring out how to uninstall SecuROM

Amazon kept recommending it to me, so I saw a free demo on Steam and took a shot at it; and I'm glad I did. Not because the game is good, because it isn't - it's awful. But Rayne is hot. So when she leaps onto a femme vampire in a bustier and sinks her teeth into the chick's neck ... anyway, I'm glad I tried it.

A full purchase is out of the question. BloodRayne 2 (and I haven't played the first one, but I can assume that it has the same features, or less) tries to merge several gameplay concepts, but is pretty terrible at all of them. It has environmental acrobatics a'la Prince of Persia, but the controls for these are stupid, and half the time don't even go in the direction you're trying for. It has shooting, but you can't really aim, which makes that a bit difficult. It has hand-to-hand fighting, which is totally brainless because she has swords and just cuts everything in pieces.

The gore factor is kinda neat, in that you can slice up your enemies and their limbs fall into huge puddles of blood and so forth. But other than that, and the tits, there are no redeeming factors here.

Progress: Gave Up -- Played the demo

As soon as I started GTA3, I could see a big distinction between it and its followers. The first hint to it is in the game's approach to storytelling: GTA3 begins with a minutes-long premise-setting prologue cinema, but afterward there is not much in the way of exposition. My protagonist has (at least so far) zero lines. And the mafiosos who are giving me jobs seem content to sum up their orders in blunt one- or two-liners.

This air of simplicity extends to the gameplay, as well - GTA3's feature set is fairly small when compared to its sequels. There is a lack of variety in the in-game radio stations; there aren't a ton of concurrent mission sources; there isn't a lot for me to do with the money I'm earning. There's also some evidence of the lack of refinement from incremental development, in the uncooperative camera and the ease with which vehicles explode. But the core gameplay, stealing fast cars and using them to barrel down city streets and mow down pedestrians, is already fairly solid.

GTA3 is a relatively limited package, but I'm quite enjoying it so far. Plus, I can listen to "Take it to the Limit" on the radio. Sweet.

Progress: Goon (204)