Amnesia, for all its strengths, was pretty shallow once you figured it out. Alien is far more sandbox. Very little scripting, lots of emergent behaviour and varied routines. It's a nice mix of System Shock and Splinter Cell. Sneak-em-up and gadgeteering.

It's a big game, no doubt. I think a part of that comes from how much it opens up two or so hours in. There are discrete missions but there is also a central hub of sorts that expands out in a metroidvania way. Ripley's engineering toolkit opening up doors/passageways/wings as the game progresses. More System Shock in…

In my experience, the most unfun moments occur for about an hour past the very well-done opening chapter. It's a short and frustrating window, but I think the game does it just to shove your nose in it. After that, I've had very smooth and rewarding sailing through atmospheric creep-em-up sandboxes of staggering…

There are only a few strategic lockers in this game. Hiding under tables is much more viable, because they are islands and you have plenty of room to peek, maneuver, and scout out your next possible hidey hole. I think this game is pretty rad. If you're stuck in one spot, you're doing it wrong. Think of it as Stealth…

Kingdom of Heaven Director's Cut was my first bluray and exposure to the film. I was arguing its merits with the few folk who had seen it theatrically or on DVD, rather futilely at the time. My favorite moments didn't appear even remotely in the theatrical cut. Exodus: Subtitle Subtitle Subtitle isn't grabbing me from…

Mother 3 is so good. Nintendo should really just make the fan translation canon and bring it out on the virtual consoles.

I did a playthrough of the series while reading the books last year. It was pretty frickin awesome. I think this could work if handled correctly. The inter-generational family drama with the conceit of each having the power to create worlds of their own, could be done very well as a show or transmedia thing. The books…

Here comes that bump.

Nice. Announced as a free ps+ title for November, to boot.

I'd encourage you to check out the klei forums, or the steam forums/reviews to get a good handle on how it stands with the users. For me, nothing feels incomplete, but I can see how they'll keep adding to it and making it better. I play it daily, but it hits my sweet spots. klei has a pretty swell record of releasing…

Invisible, Inc. from Klei (of Mark of the Ninja and Don't Starve fame) hit steam early access. That's the real deal. Turn based squad-stealth tactics. Terrific and improving with monthly updates.

I watched the first three episodes. If I had to rate what I've seen thus far, it'd be awful with streaks of terrific. It's an odd beast, go figure.

Bond, James Bond is the permafrost king.

Some info. It seems to be based on the initial concept/pre-production work of Del Toro's cancelled "insane" in the guise of a silent hill reboot. Game has been in production for at least a year. As a demo, there's a solid hours worth of content, maybe 3 for completionists. It is well done and stands up to other next…

Still better & 30 dollars cheaper than Ground Zeroes.

Pinhead is the parlance of Bill O'Reilly dittoheads, or so I am told.

I imagine his backing out going something like this.

And the world still waits for Sean Hannity to own up & get waterboarded for jurnalizm.

Poor Firefly. Can't get no breaks. Star Citizen, Elite & No Man's Sky are just looking over and shaking their heads very sympathetically.

New stuff. Guess I'll shrug and split it between The Goldfinch & (as so far 2/3rds) of Vandermeer's Southern Reach Trilogy. Seriously, what are the over/under odds on either of those being adapted into a tv/net show in the next two years. Catching up, I'm partial to Gene Wolfe's New Sun opus & Nausicaa, manga, not…