Dog days of summer and most of the talk is about Summer of Arcade games. Notable to me was the praise lavished on the indie game Bastion. Tried the demo on Xbox but going to check it out on PC when it is released later.

Most exciting is talk of Space Marine since the multiplayer demo is out. Very excited for this one as Im a huge Relic fan.

Playing

More Infamous. Really enjoying this game as a light super-hero experience with a decent story. Played and played and then it was finished. The ending was great and caught me by surprise. I wouldnt say I cant wait for Infamous 2 but I will enjoy more of the story.

And then I decided to address my growing pile of unfinished games.

I bought an Xbox controller for my PC and moved my PC into the TV room and hooked it up to my 54" plasma TV to play Batman: Arkham Asylum. Wowza! Since this game has Games for Windows Live (with achievements) its like a high-power Xbox in my living room. Spending some quality time this month as Batman.

Bought

Nothing bought

Finished

Finished Infamous.

I've been missing the competitive experience of playing games against other people. All the more so since Im not allowed to play basketball (I guess that is a non-eSport) until December.

In the past I've spent countless hours playing FPS games like Counterstrike and Day of Defeat but Im not not into the modern crop of FPS games. And I never really tried the RTS genre despite my love of Company of Heroes and Dawn of War 2.

I never played Starcraft but I did enjoy Starcraft 2. However I wasnt won over by the multiplayer experience and didnt finish my 50 "practice" games. It was fun but not cooperative enough or compelling enough to continue.

Recently Valve has announced that they are getting into the eSports arena with DOTA2 and a new version of Counterstrike. DOTA2 is not released yet but they just had a contest with a $1M grand prize and have generated a lot of buzz which has me curious.

Unfortunately the MOBA world is a bit confusing with a ton of games that are so similar its hard to tell them apart and a reputation for brutal competition (and a lack of manners). Is this something I can enjoy casually?

As I understand it, first there was Warcraft 3. (Played it; didnt' love it.) Then there was a W3 mod called Defense of the Ancients. DOTA was a cult hit for years and spawned the MOBA genre. Years later we have Demigod, League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth, and two new games Rise of Immortals and DOTA2 (from Valve).

Im in the Rise of Immortals beta so I fired that up last night and... promptly lost match after match until my PC crashed. Think I will give it another try after I read the rules :) and then check out the other games.

Buzz

June is a HUGE month for gaming because of E3.

This year I watched the three major press conferences from Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. It was quite a contrast as each company seems to be taking a very different strategy for 2011.

Sony was Sony: A premium hardware company with middling software and services. They announced new hardware in the NGP and a ton of awesome looking games. This was my favorite show but admittedly it was just more of the normal Sony strategy.

Microsoft was notable in two ways. They were only company to have female presenters, as in tons of them plus children. Lots of children. And it was notable in that every presenter talked about Kinect. With a nod to the Halo hardcore that Microsoft is known for, there was an obvious effort to rebrand the console from core-gamers (14 to 35 year old men) to family gaming (Kinect, Sesame Street, children). Time will tell if Microsoft sticks with this new strategy and how well it works. (It wont work without more Kinect software...)

Nintendo was Nintendo. Long on nostalgia and short on details. Most of their presenters were Japanese with English translators and as a non-Nintendo fan, most of it was inscrutable to me. Since I dont have any history with Nintendo, their content did not resonate with me. The Wii U was announced and shown and I was baffled by it. I had to go read articles elsewhere to even understand what it was which is not the sign of a strong product demo... Nintendo seems to be struggling to find something to do after the Wii.

E3 games that caught me eye were the Lara Croft reboot, Call of Duty 4, and the Battlefield 3. Battlefield being one of the few games to lead on the PC.

New hardware was shown. The NGP (or Vita) from Sony. Sorry, I cant stand the Vita name and will hang onto the NGP for a while. Then there was Nintendo's rather bizarre Wii U. Is it a handheld? Is it a controller? Whatever it is, I dont think its for me and I think Nintendo's success with the Wii is something even they wont be able to maintain.

Rage. iD shooter + Bethesda RPG = caught my interest. Looks pretty good so far.

Prey 2 also got my interest as it sounds like an open-ended FPS+RPG. I passed on the first Prey but this sound different and better. (So why keep the brand at all?)

Frozen Synapse is a PC game on Steam that is getting buzz this month.   

Playing

This month is all about Infamous! on my PS3. Not the best game ever but the closest thing to the fun I had in Crackdown. It makes me feel like a super hero and reminds me of City of Heroes years ago.

Im also slogging my way through Demon's Souls still. Tried some PVP matches. Other people always come into my world and wipe me out so why not bring to pain to other strangers for a change? Well I and got completely smoked in every match I did. Good grief!

Was feeling the need for some strategy so I fired up Daw of War: Dark Crusade. This game is a mix of Risk and an RTS. Got it in a Steam pack and never played it until now. Pretty good stuff. Makes me wonder why this hasn't been done more often.

Claire got me into Diner Dash on iOS. Kept me entertained for a few hours.

Bought

Thank you Sony! This month I got free copies of Infamous and Little Big Planet on the PS3. Two games I wanted to play but didnt way to pay for.

Finished

Nothing finished this month.

"The Republic" (Plato)

Socrates (through his student Plato) proposed the idea of the Philosopher King. I think about that idea often at work and especially during political elections. A King is a term for a group leader and we have them all over the place.

Who do you want to be the King?

There is that guy/gal who tells everyone how much they want to be King. How much they deserve the power to make every decision, to tell everyone what to do. That person who has an easy answer for everything. That person who is always wheeling and dealing to make themselves more important.

Even two thousand years ago, Socrates was wise enough to see that that guy is the LAST person you want for a King.

No, Socrates proposed that the King we all really want is the one that does NOT want to be King at all. The person that is wise enough to know that the job totally sucks and is much harder than it looks. The person that doesnt want all that power because they know it comes with so much responsibility. The person that walks away when the election starts.

Socrates said that you want the King that you have to force to be King. The one who only takes the job because their sense of responsibility to others; the one that understands how bad it would if that guy gets the job.

Socrates was poisoned for speaking out against that guy but I still think about him.

Buzz

The buzz in May was dominated by the PSN outage which lasted for weeks. It started with outrage about Sony and then sort of dwindled into "can we have PSN back now?" Please!? (It wasnt really restored until June.)

The biggest game release of May was LA Noire. For several weeks that is all everyone was talking about, which seems appropriate for a game that has been in development for seven years. It doesn't sound like my kind of game but the facial technology sounds significant. Let's see what Rockstar does with it. Most games with such a long cycle are failures but this one sounds like it will be a hit.

Mortal Kombat got some attention. Clearly its a big brand with a loyal following though. I played MK back in the day in the arcades but fighting games are not my genre. Gore is really not my thang anymore either.

Brink also got a lot of attention but mostly negative. That's sad. Its a game that sounded interesting but like other multiplayer-only games will struggle to find a following given the immense sea of games out there.

With E3 at the start of June, lots of buzz about new titles. The Witcher 2 is one of those titles and folks really talked it up for both fans of the original game and a new audience. Im sure I will play it - after I finish the original Witcher. :) (Like Demon's Souls, I got bogged down in the original game because it requires actual thought and decisions. And the plot was like life; complex enough it was hard to follow.)

Lots of expectation about the next system from Nintendo. The Wii 2? Expect the unexpected as they say.

Playing

To keep from buying anything new, I spent this month looking at my collection of unfinished games. My pile of shame so to speak. Now that I have a new HDD on my PC, I can fill it up with games so I did.

Kings Bounty, Sins of a Solar Empire, The Witcher, Batham: Arkham Asylum. And when Sony gets their store back up, I will finally get to play Little Big Planet and Infamous since those are now free.

For Kings Bounty I just played the "install and remember why I love Steam" game. The game installed on my Win7 x64 machine but when it runs it doesnt show the game screen, only the menus. To try to fix that I installed the 1.7 patch. After that the SecuROM DRM refuses to let the game even run. It complains that I have the wrong CD... Seem to recall that this game made me glad for Steam the first time I installed and played it. So I uninstalled it.

While I played KB a previously, it looks like if I want to finish it, it will cost me $35 to buy the game and 2 expansions on Steam... Hmmm.

To scratch my strategy itch this month, I played Sins of a Solar Empire for a week. I think the game is from 2009. I played it a while ago and got bored of it. Once again it kept my interest for a week... before I got bored of it. Just like Rome: Total War did the month before.

Most of my gaming this month was dedicated to Patapon 2 on my PSP. I love this game but cant seem to beat it! Argh. Having bought the game and the system for a trip to Mexico a few years ago, I played 15 hours or so originally. This time I was more focused, read some strategy wiki's and started over. I built up an much better army and played another 15-20 hours before getting stuck on a mission I cannot get past. Not sure if I will finish it this time either. (Man oh man I hate that Bean minigame.)

Bought

Despite my best intentions not to spend any money on games, Steam messed with my head. Curse you Steam Sales!

I picked up the original Crysis on PC for $8. I played it for a night or two. Looks great but didnt grab me. I think these games are too open-ended for me.

I also spend $20 on Men of War. An RTS that sounds great but I probably wont play because I cannot find anyone to play it with. Maybe someday. $20 to support small developers is never a bad thing.

I also looked at the demo of Shogun 2 - a remake of one of my top 10 games of all time. Pretty much the same Total War formula so I decided to pass even though it was on sale for $40. Boy it sure looks great though! Unfortunately the charm of the original game was how simple it was - this game ruins that with tons of new units and complexity. That turns these games into a job for me so I will pass for now.

I thought about reactivating my Star Trek Online subscription. Im missing sci-fi and really enjoyed the ships but I dont have the time for the MMO thing these days. I also got to thinking about the MMO formula and that cooled some of my enthusiasm.

Lastly I almost did my first pre-order ever. Steam was selling Space Marine with a free copy of Darksiders for $50. Relic is one of my favorite developers so I feel safe giving them my money and violating my "demo first" rule. I heard good things about Darksiders so I thought maybe... I would play it if I had it. I hadnt heard about SM before but after watching the videos this is my most anticipated game of 2011. The videos look insanely good! Wow, Im excited for this. After playing all of Relic's Warhammer 40K RTS games it will be interesting to play from a FPS perspective. No buzz at all about this though - that seems wrong.

Finished

I give full credit to Indie game star Jonathan Blow for asking the questions. Why is your platform so closed? Why does your interface force me to watch advertisements? Ironically, I've only heard about Blow because of his game Braid on the Xbox but he is clearly no mindless fanboy and his insightful comments kept it real.

What makes the conversation so special is that the other guests are two Microsoft regulars, Stepto and e. This conversation is almost painful to listen to at times which illustrates how rarely anyone asks meaningful questions in the media. Blow and I seem to agree about a lot of the same things so the talk was great for me to listen to but I think it is also useful for Microsoft.

Blow's questions brought up a number of small issues that actually touch on serious/significant aspects of the company culture.

On a personal level, I am a gamer who loves gaming. I currently own 6 game platforms and I want to hear people who love games tell me about games wherever they are. I want to hear the good and the bad to help me be informed and make decisions. The idea that any platform is always good is childish.

For a while I listened to Stepto and e on the Major Nelson podcast. Eventually I stopped listening because it felt like too much of an infomercial for Xbox. While the cast seemed like nice people, all they did was talk about how great Xbox is. Even multi-platform games were discussed as if they only existed on the Xbox. That wasnt the game criticism I wanted to hear so I went back to listening to game journalists.

When Blow complained about being required to have achievements, the Softies said they had to do it because "people complained". To which Blow said: "That's when you sack up and tell them no." Amen brother. When people act like children, adults say no. Do people ever complain about Apple? Does Steve Jobs ever say no, you cant have multitasking or cut and paste? Just because someone asks it doesnt mean its the best idea.

The thing is, corporations avoid saying no (except to lawsuits) because it means someone has to think about the issue and make a decision and by doing so, that person takes the risk of screwing up and getting fired. Taking a risk by making a bold decision really is the worst thing you can do at a large corporation because you might screw up; job number one for corporate survivors is avoiding that situation by hiding in a group or by trying to please everyone. Whether the feedback is from partners or customers, Microsoft's corporate culture is very strong and starts with our CEO: be everything to everyone. Picking and choosing based on our design taste or creative vision are a huge no-no.

As part of the Microsoft talk, two other companies were mentioned: Apple and Valve.

Valve is a company of gamers for gamers. While they started as a PC game company that have evolved. They understand that they provide a service not a product; they bring games to gamers wherever they are. Windows, OSX, PS3, wherever. Blow complimented Valve for making it easy for him to sell games and reach gamers. I cant say enough good things about Valve.

Apple is an even more interesting comparison. For years I have heard that CEO Steve Jobs hates buttons (hence the no-button Mighty Mouse) and games. Apple does not make any game devices. They do make the hottest new gaming platform (the iPhone and iPad) which have created an entire new genre of touch gaming yet both products ship without a single game. Not even some crap like Minesweeper or some faux-intellectual stuff like Chess.

What Apple does make is a great platform for developers (Cocoa), great hardware, and they provide a platform that makes it easy to find, purchase and use software apps. Apple doesnt do games but they made it easy for other people to make games and touch gaming exploded immediately after the iPhone launch.

Blow is correct in his assessment. Touch gaming took off because of the sheer number of developers trying to make games on an easy to use, easy to distribute, open platform. iOS is nothing like the Xbox or PS3 or anything from Nintendo.

Despite Job's reputation for disdaining games, Apple has a bone fide top class gaming platform. iOS gaming is a big threat to all gaming hardware platforms because it is so popular and games are so cheap and there is only so much time customers can spend on gaming.

It may be inside baseball but the conversation illustrates that the culture at Microsoft is one of its biggest threats. Telling yourself how great you are, trying to be everything to everyone, and trying to control the platform will make it hard for Microsoft to grow and evolve. The Xbox is a major gaming platform with dedicated customers but it could be so much more.

By all accounts, MSFT ought to be THE gaming company because it essentially created PC gaming with Direct X. Remember Games for Windows? *cough* PC gaming is a lost opportunity for the company because the culture sees gaming as a product not a service. MSFT doesnt think of providing games to gamers wherever they are; MSFT sees gaming as a single product, Xbox, and as a result it has basically killed off PC gaming and ceded that market to others like Valve. One might even argue that until this year, Microsoft saw Xbox as a single game or game type (Halo and Gears).

The Microsoft press conference showed some interesting stuff but it remains to be seen whether the company has the vision and cajone's to tie that "stuff" into a coherent environment that people want to be.

Yeah, the first hour of this conversation was great. Despite our corporate slogan about unlocking potential, there is a lot of gaming potential Microsoft has yet to capitalize on and it wont do that without more frank dialogs like this. Way to go Jonathan.

Playing

This month I continued to play Demon's Souls. That was about all I was playing until I took a break. During the break the PSN network imploded so I am still on the break until PSN is restored.

AFter the buzz, I gave an iPad game (demo) a try: Hunters HD. This is a top-down turn-based strategy game with a small squad of units, RPG elements, and a sci-fi theme. Very cool but, uh, its an ipad game. I lost interest after a few sessions.

We had a Rockband night at work so I got to try the new pro guitar with Rockband 3. Amazing! After years of guitar lessons, CD's lessons, and VCR tapes, this thing is an incredible teaching aid. I've heard that is what the company was trying to create all along and I think they have finally succeeded. Too expensive for me at the moment, but I wish them great success. Regular Rockband is still a silly rhythm game; it was fun for a night but already starting to annoy me after just a few hours.

Then I got the jones for some strategy gaming. Shogun 2 was really on my mind but Im trying not to buy anything, I once swore I wouldnt buy another Total War game, and I refuse to pay $50+ so... I reached into the closet and broke out Rome: Total War from 2005. Still a fun game. Kept me entertained for a few days.

Bought

For the third month in a row, I resisted the urge to purchase any new games. I downloaded some PS3 demos but didnt even get to those.

Finished

Star Wars: Republic Commando! I finished it. This was a great game that I missed at the time. Cheap on Steam, a fun game with a lot of elements that clearly influenced future games. At the end of the month, I heard a rumor that Lucas Arts had hired back the lead designer and they may be making a sequel?! Serendipity and I hope its true.

Buzz

The month started off all about iPad. Specifically the Superbrothers Swords & Sworcery game. I looked a screenshots and passed but it piqued my interest because the praise was so effusive. A few weeks later though, no one was talking about it anymore.

Resistance 3 is on the horizon and the team was doing some PR interviews about it. Apparently I am not that into FPS games on console because I missed the first to games. Maybe I will give this one a shot. I am intrigued by using the Move as a light gun. That could be really fun.

Crysis 2 was getting a lot of PR at the start of the month but the reception was kind of luke warm. Ironically some folks were saying they liked the first Crysis better so I may look at that.

The Nintendo 3DS showed up and folks continued to talk about how excited they are about their shiny new plastic box even though there arent any games worth mentioning. Coming soon! Zelda! Mario! Lots of speculation about how great it will be. Someday. *yawn*

Rage? I havent been interested in an iD game in years because of their lack of story but now that Bethesda owns them? Weekend Confirmed talked a lot about Rage and, well, it sounds pretty good. Let;s see how the demo looks.

Lastly, Portal 2. This game just blew up this month. I never finished Portal (because I got bored and then the PS3 crashed and I lost my save) but... I feel left out of the buzz. A buzz that has been red hot praise. I might force myself back into Portal 1 to finish it and then we will see...

Buzz

There was a lot of buzz this month but I am finding it hard to remember much of it.

Two conventions. First GDC and then PAX East. Nothing memorable there.

First person shooters. First was Duke Nukem - which was later delayed followed by the release of Bullet Storm and Home Front. Folks really like BS and there were a lot of comparisons to Duke. They say the game grows on you, around here moss grows on you too but I have to admit that I am not too excited about this kind of game. Home Front sounded interesting but generally got poor reviews. Despite a large TV advertising campaign that must have cost a bundle, it sounds like the game lacks some polish and length. I may check it out later in the year.

The Nintendo 3DS was released this month. It sounds like the hardware is shiny and new but there arent really any compelling games yet. The augmented reality genre sounds pretty interesting but still very early. Im curious about the new Sony NGP but will probably skip this Nintendo device like I have skipped all the previous ones.

Guitar Synth piqued my interest. Along with Rock Band 3, we are now seeing "games" that promise to teach you how to play actual music. I know from personal experience that playing music can be fun but it is more work than game. Still I am curious about these products and may get one when I have the time to play an instrument again. I hope they succeed.

RPG fans will be excited that Dragon Age 2 was released but the more I hear about the game the less I am interested in it. 'Dragon Affect' is how it is described. A hybrid of the dragon age universe with the solo RPG system from Mass Effect. While I had a great time with ME, DA is a totally different game for me. Fantasy setting, RPG action with a focus on the character team is what I want. A good story, inventory, and combat strategy is what I want. It sounds like they took out those grognard RPG elements and replaced them with a single-person narrative like ME. Since Bioware was the last company doing games like Dragon Age, this is a really depressing development. The MBA in me thinks that Dragon Effect is cheaper to make and targeted at a wider, luke warm, audience. Another step in the progress of capitalism over art.

The final category of games that got my attention this month is the RTS.

Men of War, a game I have never heard of, sounds really fun to me. But I dont have anyone to play it with (or much time) so I probably wont see it but I hope the developer sells a lot of copies.

Shogun 2: Total War. Hmm. I stopped playing Total War games a few versions ago and I refused to buy another one until they changed their engine to support multi-player in the campaign. Their design was only to support MP in battles, which is lame. With that preface, the original Shogun: Total War is one of my top 10 games of all time. It was simple to understand and insanely hard to play; I never beat the game. Total War games after that kept getting more and more complex with more and more units and I gradually lost interest. So I am very curious what they did with this remake but I am well aware that you can never go back. This may be a great game but I doubt its the first game all over again for me.

Relic, one of my top two developers, also released a Dawn of War 2 expansion. I heard nothing, zero, nada about it. All of a sudden it was just on sale on Steam. Im sure I will check it out sometime but right now I dont even know what this is. I got the impression it was a multiplayer-only pack but maybe not.

Bought

This was simple; for the second month in a row I did not purchase any new games. Yay for my budget.

Finished

While I didnt buy anything new, I didnt finish anything either. Argh! I still have several games unfinished, like The Witcher, and some I havent even started yet like Mount & Blade and Batman: Arkham Asylum.

Playing

Once or twice I popped in Need for Speed: Most Wanted. Its a good game for that. Play for an hour and set it down for a week.

My play time has been limited but all I really played in March was Demon's Souls. And I am fine with that. I have had a blast with that game. After two months+, I have about 50 hours in it and a ways to go. Best $15 game I ever bought.

Game on!

"Demon's Souls Greatest Hits" (Atlus)

What is this game?

Take the slow pace and darkness of Thief.

Add some hand-to-hand combat and dungeon crawling from Die by the Sword.

Take the creepy atmosphere, the magic and sword combat plus the unusual (ie non-US) environments of Arx Fatalis.

And add the corpse-run difficulty of Everquest with the old school map viewing of EQAtlus.com

And you get this wonderful game that is both familiar and different at the same time. All that for $15!! Amazing.

the pace and the pain

While other games are getting the Hollywood action movie treatment - easy play, quick progression, nonstop action - this game is slow going. The game itself explains almost nothing when you start (and afterwards) so I play the game with my iPad open to the DS wiki.

This is one of those rare games where I spend almost as much time reading about and thinking about the game as playing it. And I enjoy it. The wiki has just enough detail to keep you coming back for answers on how to play the game, walk throughs on each level, and a wonderful map from some guy in Japan.

Even with the walk through, I will die 10 times on a boss, fighting my way back each time only to die again. But once I finally defeat the thing, it... feels... grrrreat!

The game is a reminder of how easy other games have become. In order to win more audience, other games have made you a hero by making the game easy, by stacking the deck in your favor, by handing you "achievement". From World of Warcraft to Call of Duty, most games rarely challenge the player for very long because market research says that "people dont like to get stuck". Challenge is now restricted to multiplayer.

Not this game. This game is hard and when you progress, you really feel something; something called accomplishment. "I did it!" Its a good feeling.

mindfulness

Because of the difficulty, I play the game a little bit at a time. I dont play when I am tired because I screw up. I read the wiki and slowly make decisions about which weapon to upgrade, which stat to raise next, which level to play. There are very few items but a lot of actual decisions to make.

I have about 50 hours invested in my first character and on my first play through. That has taken over two months for me but I am still enjoying it and will be sad when it ends. I even enjoy grinding to level up my character. Somehow things that are boring or a turn off in other games is fun here.

mechanics

After a completely baffling "tutorial", the game opens up with a hub and 5 worlds to explore. Each world has a different theme, different enemies, multiple levels and each level has a boss.

Another aspect of the difficulty is the body-soul mechanic. When you die, you turn into a soul with half the HP. To turn back into a body you need a magic stone (which are limited) or you need to kill a boss or you need to invade someone else's world and kill them.

Its a strange system but it makes me very cautious when I am a person; I dont want to die. So you go slowly.

And I have, playing an hour or two at a time, a night at a time. So far I am about half way through and definitely got my money's worth. My best $20 investment.

online sort of

Another aspect of the game is the online play. In the past, I have gotten tired of single player games. I start to feel like I am spending too much time alone while on the other hand multiplayer games have little to no narrative which turns me off.

DS has a very unusual online system, which again, is not explained at all.

Everyone is playing a solo game, online. You log into the server and see the ghosts of other players in your world. You see what they do. You see their blood stains where they died and if you click a stain, you get to see the last seconds of their life. Its very unusual but totally works with the "soul" theme of the game and makes you feel like you are not totally alone. It is also a great way to provide in-game hints for those who dont read the wiki. And I am happy to say that even now, there are still plenty of folks playing the game.

The other part of online is that you can enter other people's games as a spirit to either fight with them or against them. I havent tried this myself but I have had other people invade my world as a "black phantom". When it happens it is really scary and so far I have been killed each time. Which adds to the difficulty and my enjoyment. These are one-time battles; win or lose you cannot go back and replay them.

combat evolved

The combat is very deep. While there are not a lot of weapons like a Diablo, each weapon is different. A rapier, spear, sword, short axe, long axe plus bows. These weapons have unique animations and fighting moves. You control a normal and strong attack for each arm. You can equip a weapon or shield in the left hand to block. With very few controls and a few items, the system is surprisingly satisfying and deep. There is also some location-based damage. Stab someone in the back for a special backstab animation or chunk them on the head with an axe for a "direct hit". While I have played most of the game with a fire sword or spear with a long bow, its fun to experiment and I can see how the weapons allow a wide range of play styles.

I am not into "fighting games" but this system has been a real pleasure. I wish there were more games like it.

closing

Random thoughts:

Dodge and fall off a platform. Die. Step on a trap. Die. Walk off the stairs. Die. Ugh!

Die and you drop all the money you were carrying. Die twice in a row and that money is gone forever.

Finding and catching crystal lizards to upgrade your weapons is tedious, frustrating and challenging.

The inventory system severely limits what you can carry (and you lose anything you dont pick up).

The story is sparse but seems consistent and sufficiently creepy. A conflict between religion and magic with demons and a purgatory construct.

Overall this game has been a huge surprise and real pleasure. Vinnie on Giant Bomb finished the game in 40 hours and seemed luke warm on it (although he did play it for 40 hours). Highly recommended and you cant beat the value for the price.

While the source was a TV show, the statement struck me as both profound and meaningful on both personal and professional levels.

Think about a difficult decision you faced. So much angst goes into making a decision, considering the alternatives, making sure everyone is involved, debating the costs. What if this? What if that? All the hand wringing and second-guessing occurs before the decision is made.

Once the decision is made, the path is clear and the rest is execution, the details.

There are more nuances to this topic of course. Some people just decide and let others pick up the pieces while others really think about things before a decision and agonize. Some situations are half-decisions, like the things you do because you are forced to not because you actually wanted to.

But overall its a phrase worth thinking about when faced with your own decisions: "most problems come from indecision."

"Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief" (20th Century Fox)

I recently watched the mediocre movie “Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief”. A modernization of Greek mythology for the Twilight-teenies crowd.

The movie depicts the land of the Lotus Eaters as being a casino in Las Vegas. Clever idea that got me thinking.

While the land of the Lotus Eaters probably started as physical place for alcohol, drugs and general hedonism, it is not just a physical place.

You get to a comfortable place in life. Your basic needs are being met. You get older. You get lazy. You get slow. You forget things you knew, you lose your ambition and drive, you lose track of time and any sense of urgency and eventually you forget the person you wanted to be. Time passes…

The land of the Lotus Eaters may be a physical place for the young but it is also a very real state of mind for those of us who are getting older.

"Nintendo 3DS - Aqua Blue" (Nintendo)

While the 3DS is faster hardware, I doubt the lasting power of its killer feature: 3D. I have yet to hear about a great 3D game while I regularly hear about headaches.

The bigger, long term issue though is that the 3DS and the Sony NGP will both struggle in the face of competition from the iPhone and smart phone gaming. There will continue to be a market for portable gaming but customer expectations are changing around two areas in particular: networking and game prices.

Nintendo in particular and Japanese platforms in general are lousy at networking. I've heard that some of this is cultural (Japanese players play together in the same room, not over the Internet), but the rest of the world expects Internet-based services. Sony and Nintendo are weak in that area and continue to be so. The Playstation Network is ok and will probably get better when Valve adds Steam but Nintendo's online services are widely considered a joke. Finding, buying and delivering games online is the future and both portable makers struggle there; these are companies with hardware DNA not network DNA.

Another huge issue is the price of games. Apple has set the bar with both enormous quantity and low price. Sony and Nintendo want to charge $40 or $50 for a portable game?! When Apple games are $5 or less? I think not. I like my PSP but I refuse to pay $40 for a game like Valkyria Chronicles 2. I want the game but I dont NEED the game. I have so many other ways to entertain myself, I can wait or live without it completely.

"Valkyria Chronicles 2" (Sega Of America, Inc.)

$20 or $25 is about the max they should charge for portable games, especially ones that are available as downloads without physical media. Apple and to some extent Steam have shown that you can get more revenue by driving volume with lower prices. Console makers continue to resist this model but how long can it continue before someone starts to experiment?

So this will be an interesting year in portable games. We can watch 3DS sales, look for the NGP release, and watch the Apple trends. The iPad continues to grow and the iPhone is well on its way to becoming the Windows of mobile phones, a single unstoppable platform that shapes the market.

"Why has this happened to us?"

What a powerful sentence. Just think about that for a few seconds and the humanity of it. Why has happened to us?

A cultural touchstone

I have written before about the Japanese psyche on display in their media. Take science fiction stories.

American sci-fi are basically Westerns: A badass dude rolls into town, kills everyone who disagrees with him, roll the credits. We idolize victory through violence.

Japanese sci-fi is either about an apocalyptic event or about rebuilding after an apocalyptic event. I bet NeoTokyo is the #1 location in all Japanese comics.

Can you blame them?

History

By all account Japan is a beautiful island nation. Ocean coasts, green valleys, tall forests, rocky mountains.

Unfortunately for Japan, the island is also on the Pacific Ocean's "ring of fire". An active region where tectonic plates meet and the resulting collisions of the Earth's crust creates volcanos and earth quakes and those quakes in turn create tsunamis.

For centuries, the Japanese have had to live with earthquakes and tsunamis. One moment you are fine, the next moment the Earth opens up, and the house falls down. One moment you are fine, the next moment your family is killed. One moment things are normal, the next moment the town burns down in a fire after the quake or a tsunami pours in a ruins the harvest.

A thing like that would weigh on anyone's mind and over time influence the culture itself. Since the invention of TV and shows like "Cops", American's love to dwell on imaginary disaster but the Japanese have had to live with the realities.

Then comes World War Two. Japan is one of the pre-eminant military powers in the world. Close the the height of their power when the US uses atomic weapons on two of their cities. One second you are walking down the street, the next second you are a shadow burned into a wall. In the blink of an eye, the city you grew up in is vaporized and the unlucky survivors have to deal with the aftermath and the radioactive fallout for a generation.

If you are Japanese, not only are you at the mercy of natural events like earthquakes an tsunamis but also atomic weapons. Things like that can fuck with your brain.

2011

Then comes March 2011.

Japan suffers a massive earthquake. A devastating tsunami that displaces 50,000 people. A nuclear power meltdown. And it snows.

"Why has this happened to us?"

I hear you. If I lost everything, my house, my family, my town... I might well give up.

It is a testament to the Japanese culture that they dont give up.

But Japan is not a Christian nation. They dont believe God is punishing them. They dont believe they are cursed or that disasters are caused by gays in the military or letting women vote or allowing abortions. The Japanese are orderly, and organized, and show the kind of practical, common-sense and self-sacrifice that American's havent shown in two generations. I wish them luck.

It is natural to ask why terrible things happen to us but the only real answer is that such things happen in life. Sometimes the only thing you can do is move forward as best you can.

We are all watching and wishing you the best of luck, Japan.

Thanks to the Big10 Network, ESPN and no thanks to CBS, I got to watch every single MSU Spartan game this year except one: the final MSU-UofM game on CBS (not televised on the West Coast). (A perfect example of how traditional media companies don’t get the Internet future.)

Normally I am excited to watch my team do heavy damage in March Madness but not this year. This was the strangest Spartan year I can remember and the first time in my fandom that the team may not even get into the tournament. Wow.

After starting the season ranked #2, the team steadily lost rank until the middle of the season when the wheels came off. They haven’t been ranked at all since then and are fighting for one of the last 4 spots of the 31 at-large bids. Crazy!

The year started fine. The team played rocky but fine in Hawaii which is totally normal. Izzo’s teams always struggle and then pull it together at the end of the season. They play tough defense, rebound, struggle on offense and play really hard opponents, then “surprise!” folks at bracket time.

At least they do in a normal year but this was not a normal year.

Over the summer Izzo interviewed to be a professional coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers and Chris Allen (a good shooter) was cut from the team. Kalin Lucas had his Achilles tendon explode last season (jeez, you should see his scar!) but he was back and steadily got better as the season went. Green is still short, slow and chubby but he has had some great games this year as a shooter, ball handler and passer. When he plays well, everyone plays well. And Delvon Roe finally looked healthy and he played fantastic defense; easily his best ball in college. Some of the freshmen and sophomores look good too and had good games: Nix, Payne, Sherman and Appling.

And then something went horribly wrong.

Corey Lucious, the #6 man, was kicked off the team suddenly. Durrell “Summertime” Summers’ play went to shit. He couldn’t hit a jump shot, he didn’t play hard on defense, no more alley oop dunks. The team’s top scorer just disappeared and has not come back. Worst of all, Delvon Roe, who was playing the best basketball of his college career, hurt his knee again on a meaningless layup at the end of a game. He hasn’t looked the same since.

What a topsy-turvey year! Kebler and Thornton – both bench-warmers – are now key players who get lots of game time. Its just plain weird.

I have said before that bball is a mental game. Clearly something happened to the team psyche and I have doubt they can pull it together at this point.

Izzo teams always play tough defense, rebound and struggle to score. The mental thing again. Offense is a totally different head space from defense (just look at the pros). This year Lucas is scoring with confidence but no one else on the team looks comfortable taking a shot. Not good.

They have had some great games. The one against Ohio State was a standout with great play from the entire team against a #1 opponent but there is no consistency. They just don’t look good.

So long 2010-2011. I feel bad for the seniors (Lucas, Summers, Kebler) but I hope the team gets back to form next year.

Buzz

The month started with more buzz on Little Big Planet 2. As usual, the game got a lot of praise and within two weeks, wasnt mentioned again. I plan to check it out but my daughter is still a little too young for it. Oh well.

An indie release, Majicka, got some positive buzz for a few weeks. Likewise with DoubleFine's next small game, Stacking. Unlikely I will get to either but Majicka sounds interesting.

Dead Space 2 seemed like the biggest release of the month. Folks just love that Dead Space. I've seen the animated movie and the game doesn't look like its for me. I just dont like that illogical horror stuff. Doesn't horror obey the laws of mass conservation? A tiny corpse cant morph into a giant multi-limbed behemoth. Yeah, I'd like to be the part of that conversation but its not for me.

The other major release this month was Killzone 3. I was interested until I heard how paper thin the plot is. I just dont like FPS games unless I like the narrative. I got bored just with the KZ2 demo... Then folks started talked about playing KZ3 with Move and that piqued my interest again. An FPS with an actual light gun? I think I might try that later in the year when there are enough Move titles to justify a purchase.

Bought

I held strong this month. No new purchases.

Finished

No new purchases but nothing finished either.

Playing

I started the month still using my PSP to play Puzzle Quest. I sure got my money's worth on that game. No idea how much more there is but by the middle of the month I wasnt thinking about it anymore or playing it. Back on the shelf, PSP.

This month I finished the remodel on the TV room and purchased a new TV to go with it. Even before that happened though, I was hooked on a new PS3 game: Demon's Souls. Dang, Im in love. I've played this game all month and into March. Its really all I am playing right now and Im not even half way through. I keep waiting to get bored but aint happened yet.