This weekend, I finished two games. The first game was World of Goo. It is essentially a physics simulator based puzzle game. Despite this, it manages to have a very clean learning curve and an interesting plot. Since the game is almost free ($20 MSRP and routinely discounted), I'd suggest it to anyone. Basically, the gameplay works by having you attempt to use (possibly sentient) balls of goo to build a structure from a starting locatation to an exit pipe while keeping enough balls to fulfill the exit requirement. Although this sounds simple, the game slowly introduces additional kinds of goo (such as goo balloons and undead goo who are immune to spikes) and more complicated terrains to keep things interesting.

The second game that I beat was Mirror's Edge. Though the game was hyped to death, I'll reiterate the premise for those living in caves. Basically, you're doing free-running (ala, Prince of Persia or Assassin's Creed) in a white, shiny distopia from a first person perspecive. The game itself tends to play pretty well. There are, however, some nagging issues. Firstly, the game lacks the "rewind" feature found in the Prince of Persia games. Instead, the game offers frequent checkpoints (mostly triggered silently) to which you will restore if you miss a jump. The problem with this is twofold: the places where you tend to be most likely to fall are right before these checkpoints, and the game removes any guns that you had when you hit the checkpoint when it restores. Thus, if you've managed to drag a weapon along part way through a run, the game punishes you doubly for missing a jump. Another major irritation is a type of enemy added late in the game, most early enemies are police officers. They generally fall in a few punches or kicks, dropping a weapon with which you can clean up their friends. Later on, there are enemies who attack using hand to hand combat and tasers. These enemies can generally dodge your attacks and take up to 6 hits to drop whereas your character will fall to their attacks in two to three hits. These enemies also seem to break their tasers when they fall meaning that when you inevitably are attacked by a pair of these enemies, life is made of pain.

Nevertheless, the game tends to be well laid out have a relatively small number of problematic areas (though it does have at least one that required me to look up the solution in a video walkthrough).

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In an unrelated note, I'd recommend watching the first episode of Guin Saga. It is another show that (at least based on the first episode) takes refuge in audacity quite well. You can find it in the usual places.

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