Having played Arena doesn't make me that old, true, but I feel that way sometimes. :)

I hear what you're saying about the safety thing. I think of it more as built-in user-friendliness. Game designers used to get away with being serious assholes, and gamers enjoyed it, in a somewhat masochistic way. Many games these days are more immediately user-friendly and don't have as steep of a learning curve. I blame consoles and a larger, more mainstream audience.

Get off my lawn. 

It's the types of games as well, you can't just assume everyone will be able to navigate a 3d world, but a 2D is another (simpler) matter.

Also there's a shitload more money in the industry now, so the higher ups want as broad a selling base as possible - that's why most games are rated M; which really means T. 

[can't assume ] everyone will be able to navigate a 3d world

i loled at that 

a virtual 3d world, and that's the marketing / QA / shitheads at the top view 

starts out fairly sucky, and the attempts at story are even suckier but the main part of the game, fighting through the jungle levels, is pretty good.

Levels and missions in that part still do get a bit repetitive, but overall the gameplay in the jungle bit is very entertaining and noticeably different from your usual WW2 shooter. Dont know what exactly is different in this part, but it feels really good.

All of that is nearly undone in one very horrible flying level towards the end that is terrible in every aspect and is also extremely long to prolong the agony. What were they thinking?? 

<quote>The Orange Box</quote>

All 3 games are fantastic, team fortress 2 is my favourite of the whole bunch and will keep me playing for a long time! Whole package runs great on older pc systems too! 5/5

<quote>Bioshock</quote>

Winner of my personal "best intro sequence I can remember" award and has some great storytelling elements and characters throughout. Plasmids are great fun to use but the weapons could have felt meatier. Needs a fairly recent pc to run at the fullest. 4/5

<quote>Hellgate : London</quote>

Diablo 2 reincarnated, mindless blasting action for all the family, forget the subscription thing it simply is not worth it AT ALL. All the classes are fun to play and very different from each other. Needs a fairly new pc to run at its best. 3.5/5

<quote>Call of duty 4</quote>

(Might have already written about this) Great game! Classic CoD intensity and set pieces, loved the into where you are in the car also. The Chernobyl level shits on Stalker and laughs in its face. Not tried multi player yet... 4/5

<quote>Gears of war (pc)</quote>

I enjoyed the xbox version and the pc version pisses all over it. It looks much better and the mouse/keyboard make it so much easier to play. The new single player chapter is great fun also. Mutiplayer is the same as the xbox version and requires amicro$osft LIVE account. 4/5

<quote>Crysis</quote>

fantastic for the 1st 3 quarters of the game, then slowly but surely falls into mediocrity. Won't go into too much detail as I don't want to ruin the plot, but the jungle fighting gameplay is second to none, the nanosuit is not a gimmick, it is 100% genuinely useful in most situations. Weapon modifying on the fly is fantastic also. Needs a *BEAST* of a pc to run at high settings, I played through at medium / low settings and it looks slightly prettier than farcry. 4/5

<quote>Unreal Tournament 3</quote>

Only got this a day or 2 ago so can't comment with 100% accuracy, but so far it totally rocks! They fixed the UT franchise at last, everything is back to that gritty in your face combat that UT was known for. Most maps make your jaw fall off visually. Warfare mode is great and very fast thanks to the special orb that can instantly capture an enemy node. Menu system blows. Looking forward to playing more over xmas. So far - 4/5 

Thanks for the mini-reviews! :)

p.s. the funniest thing about your b0rked tags is that I read the whole post the first time without even noticing. 

Go play first:
http://www.geocities.jp/z_gundam_tanosii/home/syobon-action.zip

Then search youtube for syobon and watch the video of all the hilarious deaths you won't have patience for experiencing first hand. 

that's some frustrating leveldesign.

i'd hate to play that. =) 

is it just me or is prince of persia 2 (warrior within) much more infuriating than the first??

they've fixed up the combat a bit, but then ruin it with too many mini boss fights, and they've completely fucked the health system and the camera has a lot more problems than before too. 

I just couldn't be bothered to play it for very long, found it too frustrating. 

the nice level design kept me going, but I'm at a ridiculous boss fight at the moment and havent been bothered to try and get past it again. Will try again when I grow back some hair :) 

Better in some ways, worse in others. The most annoying thing was that alot of stuff wasn't finished - storyline inconsitancies in the hidden / second ending, unfinished textures (water sword, a few others), crappy bugs that should have been fixed during QA process (like the occassional bad camera view).

I preferred having the boss fights instead of hordes of the same old enemy relentlessly attacking. Some were great bosses as well - the griffin was cool. I liked the escape sections from that demon thing as well, even though they're probably more annoying than others.

Remember the first one was called frustrating as well.

I just remembered the stupid bits where you have to jump between the ship mast's before they collapse (pillar jumping) that has to be the most annoying bit in the whole game. 

and really if they didnt stuff up the health system (ie you can only get health back generally at a save point), the mini boss fights wouldnt have been bad. 

If HL1 is still on the hard drive this is worth the download. Thankfully works with or without steam.

http://paranoia.level-design.ru/ 

That looks fantastic and Half-Life v 1.1.1.0 or higher! It will look not as nice with 1.1.1.0 I guess but I wouldn't play it otherwise. :) 

http://www.nekogames.jp/mt/2008/01/cursor10.html 

very nice :) 

im stuck on the floor where there's 3 switches and 4 poppables. nothinghappens when i press alll three switches :( 

needs assistance from floor 6. 

That was to be accompanied by a beer, not the red sign. 

wow, that last one was evil.

hmm, wish there were more cooperative only riddles. as it is now, it's a lot of 'point your mouse fast at next stairs' 

is to get 188 points. 

very nice. I was always a bit nervous while trying to get the 188 score but finally got it :)

metlslime: thank you a lot for the link

anyone got the highest score with 9 cursors only?