Part of Sam & Max Season One, Abe Lincoln Must Die! is an episode available for free as a teaser of sorts for the series. So, being a fan of free things, I was obliged to give it a playthrough. It's been quite a while since I've played a point-and-click adventure game, and so the most immediate frustration I had with Sam & Max was its actual challenge, in that it required me to think. More than once, I put the game down for a significant period in order to recollect my thoughts. But as it functions like a puzzle, I was quite self-motivated to piece it together.

In that regard, it plays out remarkably similarly to Hit the Road. At once, this may strike you as anti-progressive - sans the 3D graphics, this is pretty much a game from 1993. But the other side of this coin is the nostalgia inherent in such a game, and its venerated, tried-and-true gameplay mechanics. It may not be as exhilirating as modern games, but it is a brain-tickler, and the writing is damn good; honestly, the best comedy I have seen in any game. And there's something to be said for the slow-paced relaxation factor of it, too.

Abe Lincoln Must Die!, while not the most "engaging" game I've played, has definitely succeeded in making me want to play more of the episodic series.

Progress: Complete

I was planning on waiting to buy BioShock until I got a better graphics card - my current one runs the demo like shit. But Steam had to go and have another sale. For $15, I can't say no.

Now I'll just be sitting on it until I can actually play it decently.

At its best, Sly Cooper is a formulaic, moderately entertaining action/platform game with some light stealth elements. As far as mechanics, it's nothing you haven't seen before in a previous console generation, and frankly falls short of its predecessors' expert implementation. At its worst, Sly is frustrating to play, with out-of-left-field one-hit kills, annoying checkpoint placement, and ridiculously difficult minigames (that you have to play to proceed in the game's story).

Playing Sly Cooper, it's clear that Sucker Punch had some good ideas. That's why I read up on the game's sequels to see where they went with it. When I saw that my precise complaints about the game were addressed, I up and bought Sly 2 and 3 - this was weeks ago, back when I was still at 35%. Aside from being dirt cheap, I have confidence in their ability to run with the foundation laid by this game.

At the same time, with a completion time of just under 6 hours (and leaving me fairly unmotivated to collect the extra stuff I'd need for 100%), Thievius Raccoonus feels like one you can skip. If not for the minigames, I'd rank it as a solid, middle-of-the-road 5/10, but they are just too goddamn frustrating to forget.

Progress: 73%, beat final boss

Based on my surprisingly good experience with the original Halo, giving the sequel a whirl seemed obvious enough. Of course I had my doubts even before I started - Wikipedia told me that Halo 2 rides its progenitor's coattails in a big way. So I wasn't really expecting much in the way of pleasant surprises this time around.

Something else I didn't expect was just how upsetting the humanisation of the Covenant would be. Watching the opening cinematic unfold, I felt not unlike when I first sat down to watch The Matrix Reloaded. Suddenly all the mystery of this class of people was gone; replaced by hackneyed pseudo-intellectual science fiction. I was happy enough killing mindless aliens. Giving them evidence of reasonable intelligence? What the hell.

Of course, as with the first game, I would be more than willing to forget about flimsy writing and presentation in return for a solid gameplay experience. But the "pimping out" of Halo's control scheme for the sequel is half-baked. Dual-wielding? Fine, if it can be done right - but why the hell am I throwing my spare weapons all over the place? And what happened to my grenades? Left-handing a weapon is presented as a promiment feature of the game, but implemented as an afterthought. And the effect of recoil has increased by an order of magnitude. Making a hectic firefight is one thing, but artificially increasing the intensity of battle by requiring constant aim adjustment is sloppy and annoying.

And what's with this Games for Windows Live shit? Microsoft tells me to sign up for the Vista equivalent of Xbox Live even if all I want to do is play the game offline by myself. It even has those goddamn sounds and interface effects, complete with colored Xbox button icons on the screen. And here I was, all this time, thinking that my computer wasn't an Xbox.

Sure, my list of grievances is somewhat short when itemized, and rightfully so: I only played the first half hour of the game. But when the core gameplay formula has been tampered with so seriously, I have no interest in trying to get over my other issues. No sale.

Progress: Gave Up

The gameplay is hideous, with more than its fair share of illogical decision trees and obfuscated progression, and yet Birdman still manages to be the easiest game I've played in recent memory. The writing isn't good enough to be called half-assed; I'd say eighth-assed, at most, with by far the best material in the game being a handful of clips pulled directly from the TV show. Characters that are new to the game (e.g. not from the show) are even poorly animated. The unlockable extras are few, and mostly copies or emulations of the show's DVD extras anyway.

The fifth case is the only part of the game that even closely resembles something fun. While the other cases have a cumulative "fun" length totalling somewhere in the 10-20 second range, case 5 has one, maybe even two whole minutes' worth. So that's the only reason I'm bumping my rating up to a 2.

At $20, this game is a complete and total scam. Do yourself a favor and buy a DVD volume of the TV show instead (which is not only cheaper, but also infinitely more entertaining). And if you, like me, already own all the DVDs, buying this game is a mistake. Sigh.

Progress: Complete

I didn't expect the gameplay to be up to the calibur of Ace Attorney, but I did expect the writing and presentation to be up to Harvey Birdman's. It isn't.

Jesus Christ but it isn't.

Progress: Middle of case 3

There is a point, a little over halfway through the game, where it - all of a sudden - becomes difficult. One or two levels seem to stretch on forever with near-infinite repetition of identical rooms and corridors. And the characterization is pretty weak (yeah, it gets worse). But this isn't enough to detract from the game's simple pleasures of anti-alien violence, bolstered by a mostly-great difficulty curve, addictive action-driven plot, and mood-setting music.

Halo succeeds in being fun in spite of its flaws; the game is greater than the sum of its parts. I could generously compare it to its contemporary Metroid Prime - while Prime has a longer story and a different approach to action (less fighting, more figuring out), Halo has a similar feel of immersion to it, and that's quite good. The environments in Halo won't blow anyone away, but the game is instead driven by the player's actions and resourcefulness in dire combat situations.

Which is one reason why the latter half of the game is a slight disappointment - hordes of enemies, sometimes literally endless, often force you to run through areas instead of strategically cleaning them out. But like I said; it is nevertheless an exciting and even fulfilling game. I may even play the sequel when I can get around to it.

Progress: Finished on Normal

Check it out. This one's got a weird style to it - a 3D overworld (with sprites), and a return to the 2D LMBS from earlier Tales games. Very awesome.

As I play, Sly Cooper alternately impresses and depresses me. One moment, I'll jump into a level with a clever mechanic - like faux-sidescrolling or a truck race - and feel like this game has some really creative ideas behind it. The next moment, the camera will get stuck behind a signpost, or I'll be one-shotted by some enemy (remember: there are no health points), and the last checkpoint was forever ago, and I just want to throw down the controller in frustration.

I've only beaten two of the game's five bosses, and I frequently think of just tossing the disc back in its case forever. But at the same time, the game's flaws are of the kind that could be easily fixed in a sequel, if Sucker Punch were to deem it so. At any rate, I can't help but press on so I can feel like I got the most out of Sly.

Progress: 35%

The puzzles have become pretty fucking hard. I love it.

Progress: Slimy Sewer Level 3