I was a HUGE fan of the introduction of this number-raising gameplay elements into all genres. I remember people saying Borderlands would never work, that nobody wanted that sort of fusion, but I was sold on the concept from the first moment I heard about it, and absolutely loved the game. Admittedly, I was always…

I can imagine a Torment TV series, though. At its heart, it's about a grumpy man re-discovering himself … just in a strange place. Cut most of the combat, make a few funky sets and costumes, and the dialog may well be better in a film than it was as a wall of text in the Infinity Engine.

I think I'm more or less done with Mafia III. I stuck with it for 37 hours, and figure I still have a ways to go. Two more Capos to take down, and I just hit my "I'm done with this" point.

It's a recursive translation problem. That stuff doesn't make any sense in Japanese, really, but it conveys a certain feeling that does make sense, so somehow the whole thing does make sense in Japanese. Good luck translating that, because the only faithful way to do it would be to completely re-write it from scratch.

As others have said, Omega is a lot of fun. It was one of my favorite places in ME2, actually, and I was sad to find out that the Omega stuff had been pushed into a DLC … so I bought the DLC.

Hyper Light Drifter may be my winner for this year. It was so damn beautiful, and had such an awesome soundtrack. It sticks with me, and made me feel something.

Oh, I LOVE Galak-Z so much, and those movement controls with the drift were a large part of it. Admittedly, I've played a ton of games that controlled similarly back in the day — StarControl 2 Super Melee being the one that comes to mind most readily — so they felt natural to me the moment I picked up the controller.

I was a backer, and was delighted beyond all expectation by the game itself. I agree, this may be the most beautiful game of the year. It is certainly the only game that I can remember leaving me struck with awe, particularly in the sunken city East zone. I have to chime in, though — the music was just as important as…

I built a monster gaming rig. I now have a 40" 4K monitor, and the power to push those all those pixels. It is glorious … and I realized that I didn't have anything really flashy to play on it. I missed the Black Friday deals, and had a sad. I played Forza 6 Apex a bit, which is truly glorious, but didn't like the…

I really enjoyed having the Robot class. It filled a bit of the "mecha stomper soldier" shaped hole that had been left since the expansion to XCOM1, and the alternative upgrading and healing paths were interesting to deal with.

Easy is definitely the way to learn XCOM2. You get better by the end, but it's still fun, and you will be ready to try the next level if you feel so inclined.

Complicating matters is my residence in Japan. Things are a lot better regarding region-locking and whatnot than they used to be during the dark ages of the mid 2000s, but I still worry. I COULD do this, instead of buying a monster PC. Decisions, decisions.

I saw this up, and thought to myself, WTF, it's like Wednesday. Then I remembered that there is something odd in the calendar about this week back home. I will celebrate by going to work, as usual on a Thursday.

I still don't have a PS platform of any sort, which has stopped me from playing the games. I kind of want a PS4, but from what I hear only Persona 5 will be available on it. I keep thinking they'll do a release of 3 and 4 on the new hardware at some point, but who knows. And, you know, I'd need to actually get a…

Rogue Legacy is a ton of fun. I really, really enjoyed it.

That DLC made me wish for a smaller-scale Mass Effect series, where you're just hanging out doing detective work and whatnot, solving low-stakes cases against comically inept Evil Super Villains.

That has not been a permitted thing before? Sadness. I can follow a lot/most spoken Japanese, but can barely read a thing, so this is sort of the perfect option for me — at least, if I'm not playing specifically to study, and without a willing cadre of student interpreters on hand.

I've played through all the ME games, and DA:I, and I have to be honest — I could not bring myself to bone, or be boned, by anyone. I suppose it says something about me that I'd follow a relationship path a ways, and then just start to feel odd and guilty about it, and back away.

I am playing Civ VI a bit. It's not great, because the AI is so utterly incompetent. But I have found a way to make it fun. I choose a civilization, discover its expected mechanical gimmick, and try to push it as hard as possible, just to really explore the civilizations. This time it's China, so I've built nearly…

Even Pangea is broken up into a couple of discretely named continent areas. They just happen to be contiguous.