From playing a slight amount of New SMB U single-player, and a more substantial amount with two, I can really only describe it in terms of New Super Mario Bros. Wii -- specifically, that the denser level design caters more to the single player and small crowd than the party situation encouraged by the Wii version. I'm looking forward to playing more of the Wii U version as if it was a traditional Mario game.

At the same time, I haven't even tried the GamePad control mode yet, so there might be some party-mode surprises left in there.

Progress: Stuck in a ghost swamp!

The final mission ends somewhat abruptly (as in, the ending event seems slightly unfinished), but don't take this DLC campaign's brevity as a sign of laziness -- there are a ton of side-missions in here that I've yet to scratch the surface of. This being yet another way that Captain Scarlett is really more of the same Borderlands 2 experience, and that definitely isn't a bad thing at all.

Progress: Opened the desert vault

I don't even care -- this game is still awesome. The Saboteur's twist on open-world ownership - rather than buying or gang-warring for territory, ala Saints Row or GTA: San Andreas, Sean takes the map back from the Nazis by blowing up a shitton of them - is uniquely satisfying and super-cool. And the depth and breadth of its mechanics give you the freedom to quietly infiltrate or go in guns blazing all on a whim.

At times, The Saboteur also shows an impressive attention to detail. It wasn't until this playthrough that I discovered what happens when you skip the NPC set-up dialog when accepting a mission: Sean will verbally indicate his impatience (e.g. "Get to the point already!"), and the NPC will skip to a line which summarizes the mission objective. And if Sean runs out of earshot while the NPC is still talking, he'll further exclaim "Yeah yeah, I got it!" It's a surprisingly sophisticated mechanic that makes the game world even more believable.

I don't know if I have the industriousness to go back and take out all ten-kerjillion Nazi freeplay targets again, particularly considering my sour experience in the last mission -- due to a combination of bugs, including a cutscene hang, an AI pathfinding fail, and a total game freeze, I had to play through the entire Doppelsieg factory three times over. But I definitely had way more fun re-playing through this three-year-old game than should be reasonably expected.

For shutting down Pandemic before they even had the opportunity to patch the game's most frustrating bugs, EA has earned a special place on my shit-list.

Progress: Killed Dierker, again

In investigating whether Uncharted 3 was really not as good as its predecessor, or I was just jaded by nostalgia, I've determined that the truth is somewhere in the middle. Completing Uncharted 2 again showed me that I was remembering it more fondly than it perhaps deserved. But completing Uncharted 3 again showed me, well, pretty much the same thing.

The third game's mechanics are an improvement over the second's, but only incrementally -- there are still way too many encounters that are just insufferably frustrating, due to an unbelievable number of enemies, irritatingly overpowered enemy snipers or shotgunners, and the absolutely incredible resilience of armored foes. Fun fact: even on the lowest, "Very Easy" difficulty, snipers can one-shot Drake, while armored guys can take two direct shotgun blasts to the head.

And - just as I previously evaluated - these small mechanical steps don't make up for the narrative shortfall when compared to Drake's previous adventure. As I noted before, Uncharted 3's pacing is kind of wacky, with disparate side-trips taking up too much of the game's length. This leads to too many of the game's stand-out moments - the ship, the plane, the horse chase - getting jammed together in the last third. And the finale is unsatisfying, despite being refreshingly realistic.

So my conclusion is that, yes, Uncharted 2 is overall better than the third, and that this isn't mutually exclusive with the nostalgia factor. In fact - having definitively observed that Uncharted is better remembered than played - I would say the reason Uncharted 2 stands tall, is simply because it has more memorable moments.

Progress: Finished again (on Very Easy because fuck it)

For being essentially free (with pre-orders of BioShock Infinite), Industrial Revolution isn't a bad time-waster, but that's pretty much all it is. There are some bits of Columbia backstory here, but they're scant, and no more engaging than what you might read in an instruction manual. And while the intro makes some claims about choosing sides and changing outcomes, the gradual storytelling really seems tightly scripted -- I frequently saw story sequences of Founder success after "helping" the Vox Populi, and vice-versa. Not that any of it is particularly thrilling.

Industrial Revolution has six rewards you can earn by completing puzzles -- I wasn't paying great attention to my early progress, but the first five (unlockables in BioShock Infinite) all came within the first dozen or so puzzles. Completing the 59th puzzle finally unlocks the sixth reward, which is ... a collection of social media images for your favored alliegance. So unless you really want a themed image for your Facebook profile or your Twitter background, there's no reason to keep playing, other than the game itself.

And that game is, well, okay. Early puzzles are way too easy, and in fact most of the game seems overly simplistic. Only a handful of puzzles took me more than a minute or so. Like I said, it's alright for a time-waster, but you shouldn't expect anything more from it.

Better than: nothing, I guess
Not as good as: anything worth paying for
BioShock Infinite is still: ... four months away? God damn it.

Progress: Finished all 59 puzzles

Torchlight II is an improvement over Torchlight in all the obvious ways: more classes, more abilities and items, more environments, multiplayer (LAN or online), general mechanical enhancements. As such, it's eminently more playable than its somewhat-anemic predecessor -- and in many ways, I would argue, a superior dungeon-crawling experience over its Goliath of a rival, Diablo III.

But there are some ways in which Torchlight II still seems stuck in the past (albeit, a more recent past than the first game). Its storytelling is a complete throwaway, with uninteresting cutscenes and unengaging quest descriptions. The world and enemies are visually diverse, but almost never mix up combat. Weirdest of all, though, is the talent point system; you can re-allocate your last three talent points, but that's it. For a game that's otherwise rife with choices, forcing you to live with early decisions - likely made in error - is a bit baffling.

But these finer complaints fade away when you're partied up with a group of friends, grinding through monsters and dungeons, following map indicators across an impressive (yet randomly assembled) gamescape, picking up colored loot (dropped uniquely to your character!), and sending your pet back to town to clear out your inventory.

Here's what I wonder, though: why is Act 2 always in the fucking desert?

Progress: Somewhere in the desert

As game collections go, you could certainly do worse.

Aether is a charming little game; there isn't a lot to it, but it's a fun experience everyone should try. To be honest, I didn't get totally sucked in by its childlike wonder, but only because I was so enchanted by the original Flash version (back in twenty-aught-eight) that I still remember all the puzzle solutions.

Spewer is a neat puzzle concept (filling rooms with liquid that you can imbibe and regurgitate at will), but I'm already getting to a point where the required platforming precision is a bit much for me.

Time Fcuk is, well, surprising! I'm barely into it so far, but the way it mixes up mechanics, and provides running, paradoxical commentary is very cool.

More on the others as they develop.

Progress: Finished Aether, started Spewer and Time Fcuk

So far, Captain Scarlett is more of the same from Borderlands 2, which is a very good thing. I saved a town, which turned out to be inhabited by one extra-creepy dude, from a bunch of pirates, who throw exploding bottles of rum. And I just got my sand skiff, which is like some kind of awesome jet powered hovercraft with harpoons and rockets.

So yeah! Badass.

Progress: Repaired the sand skiff!

There are more than a few reasons why Borderlands 2 is better than the first, which generally boil down to "better everything," but I would argue that the most meaningful is in how expertly crafted the sequel's content is. The environments are varied and beautiful (oddly, except for the overwhelming amount of snow in the early game) -- the missions are almost all engaging and witty, and there are a ton of them.

Borderlands was fun with a group, but a chore alone; Borderlands 2 is a pretty similar experience with friends, but actually a blast as a solo adventure, too.

The game's balance and sense of humor are excellent, and there's always a constant drive to fight more badass dudes and get more badass guns. (The addition of casino slots to turn extra cash into more chances of weapon drops is also pretty brilliant.) Borderlands 2 may not be a perfect game - I might accuse some enemies of being unreasonable - but it is an all-around improvement over its predecessor.

Better than: Borderlands
Not as good as: Skyrim
And guess what: there's DLC!

Progress: Level 35, beat Jack

In my continuing effort to verify once and for all whether Uncharted 2 is better than Uncharted 3, I started replaying this guy again -- and so far I'm not totally sure yet.

I'm about halfway through, so I haven't done the cool sinking ship part or the desert stuff yet, but man, the early parts of this game are disjointed. From Colombia to London, to France, and Syria, and now Yemen, the scene changes are just too much. As with the disoriented timeline of its predecessor, Uncharted 3's storytelling seems like it has most of the right pieces, just not always in the right sequence.

And I'm already getting sick to death of having to fight dozens of fuckin' pirates all in one go, especially when they've got sniper rifles, combat shotguns, machine turrets, and body armor that seems to be made of adamantium.

I know the best is ahead of me, so I can't say for sure; but this is lending more weight to my theory that remembering Uncharted is more fun than playing it.

Progress: Storming the pirate base