Reus

Year: 2013
Genre: God Game, Simulation
Website: http://www.reusgame.com/

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Shane:

• Platform: PC
• Hours logged: 12.0
• Playthroughs: 3
• Rating: 7/10

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Notes and Discussions:

• Shane (12/12/2015): I have come back to this game a few times.  It has some elements that are REALLY compelling.  Unfortunately it also has some problems. 
  
  First the good things:  The mood of the game is mostly peaceful.  Though I play almost entirely with the sound off, the few times where I had audio playing I found the music relaxing and appropriate.  The animated characters were endearing, and I found myself building emotional attachments to them.
  
  There is enough strategy to make the game interesting while not drowning the player in impossible memory tasks.  Different giants have different abilities that are buffed by different biomes.  Using one giant to place a resource, then upgrading that resource with another giant's ability to get the right synergies can be challenging at first, but it doesn't take that long to find patterns that work.  Helping the civilizations gather the correct resources in the correct places is very rewarding.  Letting some towns get greedy and start wars with the others can be fun too...  Hell, I even enjoy that towns can get pissy and start attacking the giants. (If they kill one of the giants, you lose.  Game over.)
  
  Now... problems:  The pace of the game is incredibly frustrating, not to mention the new-gamer unlock order.  When you start a new game you have a lot of decisions to make.  You have to decide where to put the water and mountains.  Then you drop forests and swamps.  Doing this the first few times is OK.  After you do it 5 or 10 times though it grates on you.  Then there is the waiting.  You wait for your giants to walk across the map.  You wait for settlers to show up and pick a location.  You wait for the towns to harvest resources.  You wait for everything. 
  
  Worse than that, you have to play the game several times before you get enough unlockables to actually do anything interesting.  Your first time through you play for a 30 minute era, but it will take much longer than that.  Standard gameplay for me involved pausing the game, telling each of the giants what I wanted them to do, unpausing until one of the tasks had been completed, pausing again to reassign a task... rinse and repeat.  The cooldowns for abilities made this a bit more frustrating as I would have to leave the game running for stretches before I could use an ability that I needed for a particular town.  This usually left one of my other giants idling for a while...  Put another way, the game rewards micromanagement, but has controls in place that break up the flow of task driving. 
  
  I have ended up still feeling mostly positive about this title.  It is fun enough to have had me play it several times through the 30 minute era.  I have, however, stopped playing at this point.  I am very happy with the hours that I gave it but it didn't take long before I hated starting another map.  As much as I want to play it a lot more to get more unlockables and see what other wonders the cities will make, the detractors were just a bit too painful to play it more now. 
  
  Thanks for the hours of fun!  Now... Maybe I will go read a book.

Heroes of Loot

Year: 2013
Genre: Hack and Slash, Dungeon Crawl
Website: http://www.orangepixel.net/heroesofloot/

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Shane:

• Platform: Android
• Hours logged: 7.5
• Playthroughs: 0
• Rating: --/10

Lee:

• Platform: Android
• Hours logged: --.-
• Playthroughs: 0
• Rating: --/10

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Notes and Discussions:

• Shane (11/9/2015): Now THIS is a game that I was able to sink myself into.  I loved the simple interface because it allowed me to get into the game quickly.  I loved that there was enough complexity that I had to make some choices regarding how I wanted to kill different enemies.  I was even able to sit and play 10-20 minutes of this game at a time.  It kept my attention through individual lives, but I didn't feel that I needed to devote my life to it.
  
  It has been several months since I played it, so this is not a complete review.  What is notable on this game though, is that I still think about it.  I would be happy to load it up again and play, just as soon as I have a hole in my schedule.
  
  In fact, that is part of the strength of this game.  It feels well-contained.  It isn't a life sink like its spiritual ancestors such as Diablo, for instance.  In fact, if Diablo was a multi-book epic, then Heroes of Loot is a short story.  Long enough to feel something when it is done, but I don't feel like I need a flow chart to map out relationships and lineages.
  
  I had some problems with the game as well.  Money didn't stick around that long after you kill stuff.  This was a problem as my best technique was to stand in the entrance of a room and spam the attack button, hosing down the enemies in that space.  Unfortunately when I did this, I would lose out on much of the gold that is dropped because it takes more than the loot lifespan for me to clear the room.  I also got squished by some of the larger enemies immediately when the level started.  These issues would have really bothered me if I was REALLY invested in the game.  With how I was interacting on this one I ended up just a bit annoyed.
  
  In summary, short game, well built, some problems but I was happy I played it and would be happy to burn another few hours some day.

Containment: The Zombie Puzzler

Year: 2011
Genre: Puzzle
Website: http://www.containmentthezombiepuzzler.com/

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Shane:

• Platform: Android
• Hours logged: 5.0
• Playthroughs: 1
• Rating: 3/10

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Notes and Discussions:

• Shane (11/9/2015):  I like many puzzle games. I prefer them to involve a touch of strategy.  What this game did right was to have reasonable complexity.  The "good guys" have 4 different types.  If you surround zombies with one type of survivor (denoted by color) then the survivors will kill the zombie.
  
  Here is the problem.  This game is not turn based.  If you don't do anything, the zombies will overtake you.  They have a timer that doesn't seem to have anything to do with the actions of the player.  What this means to the player is that if you click faster you get more done.  This removes any hope of logic challenge from this game.  You don't need to THINK about what you are doing.  You just have to move really fast.
  
  My brother and I used to play card games when we were growing up.  Two different types of games come to mind.  The style that I enjoyed and am still willing to play today are games like rummy and ... well... that may be about it.  This game rewards people who take their time and consider the best action.  Yes there is some luck, but a "good" player is one who makes the right call after long consideration.  The other type of game is like speed or war or slap jacks.  I hate those games.  They capitalized on quickness and not over-thinking.  In our house they bred brutality and pain and to this day I have no use for them.  Containment is like this second type.
  
  So, move quickly, don't worry about making mistakes, and don't overthink it.  That being said, don't spend the time if you have anything better to do.

Fallout Shelter

Year: 2015
Genre: Simulation
Website: http://bethsoft.com/en-us/games/fallout_shelter

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Lee:

• Platform: Android
• Hours logged: 305.5
• Playthroughs: 1
• Rating: 10/10

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Notes and Discussions:

• Lee (9/16/2015): Woah. Where am I? What the hell happened? Why are all of my dishes and laundry dirty? This damn game... Fallout Shelter was recommended to me by a friend (who is also a reader of this blog!) a few months ago, but at the time, the game wasn't yet available on Android. He raved about it enough that I almost considered getting an iPad. But then Bethesda finally came through with an Android version, and my life disappeared for a while.
  
  When the game started up, the directions did a pretty good job of telling me what I needed to do to get started. I built a few rooms, assigned dwellers to them, made them do some work, and then more dwellers appeared. More rooms. More dwellers. And then I happened to satisfy one of the objectives and was awarded a free lunchbox. Lunchboxes contain randomized rewards chosen from: resources, CAPS (in-game currency to be spent on new rooms and room upgrades), dwellers, outfits, and weapons. Upon opening that first one, I believe I remember voicing a soft, "Uh oh..." I knew I was hooked. (Note that lunchboxes can also be purchased from the in-game store with real money, but like my Summoners War gaming experience, I can somewhat proudly say that I didn't spend a dime on this game. Part of me feels that I should support the devs, but I'm not entirely sure where I would draw the line...)
  
  I feel that I shouldn't have liked this game as much as I did, given its simplicity, but I really think that it perfectly suited my personality. Much like Minecraft, I found Fallout Shelter to be mostly zen-like. There were times when a Molerat invasion nearly took out my entire vault population, and holy hell, the Deathclaws! But aside from dealing with the random, panic-inducing vault incidents, the gameplay served as a pretty wonderful stress-reliever. Aside from opening the lunchboxes, I did really enjoy collecting resources, upgrading rooms and dwellers, meeting the objectives, and sending my strongest dudes with the best gear out to the wasteland to collect more awesome gear. But perhaps the thing I liked most about this game is that you can sit for hours playing it, or you can set it and leave it (with the exception that you can't leave dwellers out in the Wasteland for days...or they will be dead when you get back).
  
  Here are a few pieces of strategy that I gathered along the way via experimentation and reading a few online articles and forums:
  
  1. Don't expand too quickly! Build each type of room in sets of three, but make sure that you upgrade your rooms fully before building on to them. Also, don't build extra rooms until you need them and have dwellers to fill them.
  
  2. Send your strongest dwellers out into the Wasteland equipped with the best guns, the best outfits (preferably those that boost Endurance, Strength, and Luck), and as many Stimpacks and RadAways as you can afford. The goal is to collect enough gear to give each of your dwellers back in the vault a strong gun and an outfit suited to their main S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stat (or Luck). Once you have built the training rooms, boosting ANY of your Wasteland explorer's stats will help (especially Endurance, Strength, and Luck).
  
  3. Feel free to grow your vault's population as quickly as is comfortable (via pregnancies, lunchboxes, and/or the radio station), but when you start to get close to 60 dwellers in your vault, stop growing. When your population reaches 61 dwellers, you will start attracting Deathclaws nearly every time you open the vault door, and if you aren't prepared, you are entering a world of hurt. I would recommend training each of your dwellers' Endurance and giving them a big damn gun, especially those dwellers who work in the rooms closest to the vault door.
  
  I figured that I would end up defining a playthrough for Fallout Shelter as either building the final room, the Nuka Cola Bottler, or reaching the vault maximum population of 200 dwellers. Unfortunately, the game shit the bed before I made it to either of those milestones. While constructing my fourth vault, I felt satisfied with the organization of my vault rooms, and I believed that I had built a strong enough defense against the Deathclaws and Molerats to take a swing at reaching the end game. I redeemed the few lunchboxes that I had saved up, which pushed me over the 61 dwellers mark and into Deathclaw territory. But then after satisfying the very next objective, the game would crash every time I opened the Objectives screen. A Google search showed that others had seen similar problems with the Android version of the game. Balls.
  
  I guess now I must wait until Bethesda can patch Fallout Shelter before I can proceed. More soon...I hope.

• Lee (10/28/2015): I opted to not wait for Bethesda to patch the game, and since opening the objectives screen in my vault caused the game to crash, I created a new vault. And then I proceeded to dump another 100+ hours into this damn game. It was worth every second.
  
  I won't go very deep into the details, but this time around, I was much more efficient with my resources and vault layout. After a few weeks, I managed to max out my vault population at 200 dwellers; upgrade all of the food, water, and power production rooms to their advanced versions; and I added a few Nuka Cola Bottler rooms. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), one day, as I was in the process of scouring the Wasteland for updated gear for all of my dwellers, my phone ran out of battery and shut itself down mid-game. I plugged my phone in, booted it back up, reopened the Fallout Shelter app...and to my horror, my game save file was gone. Deleted. So I rage quit. Once again, thankfully I hadn't spent any real money on lunchboxes or anything.
  
  Having logged what I am considering a playthrough of Fallout Shelter, I felt good about uninstalling it at this point. I may go back to it again someday, but it will likely take a pretty sizable update to suck me back in.

• Lee (1/18/2016): I got sucked back in. For the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I put some more time into Fallout Shelter. I see that the last time I made an update to this blog post, the game had just deleted my save file. Luckily, I had saved the game to the cloud, so when I went to create a brand new game, it asked me if I wanted to restore my old game from the cloud. So I did.
  
  This time around, I had already built all of the rooms that I wanted to in the vault, so I focused on leveling up and maxing out the skills of all 199 members of my vault. (I left one spot open to allow me to bring in dwellers that I received from lunchboxes...which I immediately put into a room and set it on fire.) After accomplishing this, I set out with a full squad of explorers to mine the National Guard Depot (at 60 hours into the Wasteland) for legendary gear. I didn't seem to be seeing the 1 in 10 chance of obtaining legendary items that was reported on the intarweb, so I dug deeper. Apparently, they nerfed that. WTF, Bethesda?
  
  I briefly considered running a hardcore vault, but a recent update to the game made it very difficult for me to heal my dwellers fast enough for everyone to survive a Deathclaw attack. And given that you are unable to resurrect your dwellers in hardcore mode, fuck that.
  
  So...officially, I had no more reason to play Fallout Shelter. 100% complete. For now...

OLO

Year: 2012
Genre: General
Website: http://www.ologame.com/

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Shane:

• Platform: Android
• Hours logged: 0.5
• Playthroughs: --
• Rating: --/10

Lee:

• Platform: Android
• Hours logged: 1.5
• Playthroughs: 8
• Rating: 7/10

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Notes and Discussions:

• Shane (8/25/2014): Lee and I played it for 10 or 15 minutes one day.  Then we stopped playing it and haven't talked about it again.
  
  The end.

• Lee (10/4/2015): More than a year after Shane and I briefly took this game for a spin, I found myself in need of an activity to keep my girlfriend's 8-year-old busy in the emergency room waiting area while her 11-year-old was getting his newly-broken leg checked out. OLO worked perfectly! The game ended up keeping both of us occupied for more than an hour. I'll remember that in the future...

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

Year: 2002
Genre: Action Role-Playing
Website: http://www.elderscrolls.com/morrowind/

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Lee:

• Platform: PC
• Hours logged: 75.0
• Playthroughs: 1
• Rating: 8/10

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Notes and Discussions:

• Lee (7/7/2014): This game and I have a long history together. Morrowind was recommended to me a decade ago by a friend, and since it was the same friend that also suggested I play Half-Life 2 and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, I picked up a copy...and I loved it! But I didn't beat it. Almost. So close. As in, I quit just before taking on the final fortress thingy. I honestly don't remember why I didn't finish the game, but I have regretted it all of this time. Fast forward a few years, and I found an original Xbox copy of the game to play on my Xbox 360. Unfortunately, the game gathered dust until I sold it. Then a few years later, I got a wild urge to play it again, so I bought a copy of it online from a German game reseller. (It felt kind of sketchy, but the game worked and LOOKED legit...) I played a few hours of it, then got distracted with something else. A few years later, that copy game made it into the Goodwill pile. But then finally, during last year's Steam Summer Sale, there it was. For $10. "Ah, fuck it," said I. And I bought the game a fourth time.
  
  Knowing that this was likely the last time I would consider playing this game, I stocked the beer cellar, dug out the strategy guide that I bought with the original copy of the game, hung the world map on the wall, and braced myself for adventure. Seventy-five hours of it. And you know what? It was a pretty great time. But the best part...I FINALLY BEAT MORROWIND!
  
  All in all, Morrowind had a lot to offer. The world was expansive and immersive, and the storyline, factions, and characters were interesting. Most of the quests were intriguing, challenging, and ultimately completable (though some of them did end up being a tad boring and repetitive). The game graphics showed their age a bit, but that didn't detract much from the gameplay for me. The menu systems and controls were a bit clunky and inefficient at times, but were still learnable and usable. And the game only crashed on me a few times...
  
  In addition to completing the Main Quest, I also became a Master in the Fighters Guild, an Arch-Mage in the Mages Guild, and a Master Thief in the Thieves Guild. I had intended upon finishing the other faction quests too, but that's a ridiculous amount of content, and I have a lot of other games to play.
  
  So now the question remains: What's next for me within the Elder Scrolls universe? Do I play the Tribunal and Bloodmoon expansions; move on to the sequel, Oblivion; or skip right to the game that I've been drooling over for years, Skyrim? We'll see...
  
  BTW...should you decide to give Morrowind a spin, here are a few tips to help you on your way: 1) Find the Boots of Blinding Speed (Google it), and make a "Resist Magicka 100% on Self" spell (name it "Prevent Blindness"). Cast the spell before equipping the boots. It will save you a ton of time. 2) Find Creeper (Google it), and always sell your shit to him. You are welcome.

Warframe

Year: 2013
Genre: Third-Person Shooter
Website: https://warframe.com/game

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Shane:

• Platform: PC
• Hours logged: 140
• Playthroughs: 0
• Rating: 10/10

Lee:

• Platform: PC
• Hours logged: 26.5
• Playthroughs: 0
• Rating: 8/10

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Notes and Discussions:

• Lee (7/6/2015): I consider Warframe to be a heavy-hitter for our video game project (especially for Shane), and as such, I am going to try something new. In the past, Shane and I have had some difficulty writing up some of the games that we log dozens, if not hundreds, of hours into. We likely just burn out on the game and would rather focus on something else, like which game we want to play next. So for this one, I am going to share what thoughts I have before I get too wrapped up in the next big game (*cough* Fallout 3)...
  
  Warframe didn't really click for me as much as it seemed to for Shane, but I can say that it can be a hell of a lot of fun. And it is a beautiful game. The character design, world art, combat sequences, and more are extremely well done. The controls are surprisingly intuitive. And though I enjoy the variety of missions that are available, I think my favorites are the Extermination ones. KILL EVERYTHING! (Or in the words of Ordis, your eccentric spaceship computer, "Operator, were you visualizing a bloody battle? ME TOO.")
  
  I felt a strong draw toward playing through the missions solo, but the multiplayer aspect of the game almost completely turned me off. Trying to keep up with a few high-level online teammates, while they blow through a level at top speed is not exactly my idea of a good time. I like killing shit. Especially with my space ninja sword. Despite the fact that the loot you gain from essentially being escorted through a challenging level can be pretty amazing, I would rather take my time, picking off each enemy one by one with my assault rifle or sneaking up and executing them with my sword. Oh yes! But the game doesn't always work that way. You are meant to work together with the internet nerd collective to finish many of the levels. Ugh.
  
  I am not done with this one yet. Shane continues to impart unto me little bits of strategy and wisdom that he has learned from the many missions he has run, which continues to keep me coming back for more game time. He has become for me the tutorial that the game lacks. I just don't have the patience, nor the motivation to research each weapon, warframe, and mod in this game. (Interestingly, I did do all of that for Summoners War...) I guess sometimes I need to be spoon-fed my video games. Thanks, Shane.
  
  More on this game soon...probably.

Blek

Year: 2013
Genre: Puzzle
Website: http://blekgame.com/

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Lee:

• Platform: Android
• Hours logged: 3.0
• Playthroughs: 0
• Rating: --/10

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Notes and Discussions:

• Lee (6/28/2015): Oh shit yeah. Very clever. Blek is a great game! I was traveling again this weekend, and I once again, I needed to kill several hours on the train, in the airport, and on the plane. Much like last weekend's Box Cat/Flappy Golf combo, I found a game that didn't appeal to me (2-bit Cowboy), and then Blek, which definitely did.
  
  Blek starts out with very little instruction. You kind of just have to figure it out. The first puzzle is simple, once you know what you are supposed to do. The goal is to make a pattern with your finger that will repeat end to end, in an attempt to take out the colored dots without touching any black dots. That much is easy enough to figure out, but the rest, I'll let you learn for yourself, as that is the fun and rewarding part! Most of the puzzles started out as head-scratchers, but after studying the dot patterns and experimenting a bit, the solution usually became clear. Within a few hours, I was able to complete the first 55 puzzles. I understood how to do #56, but it took several tries to get the timing just right. I had to cheat on puzzle 57 by looking up the solution online though. (Once again, I had the right approach, but I couldn't get my timing just right.) Puzzles 58-60 are just silly. Perhaps I burned myself out on pushing through every Flappy Golf level last week, but for this game, I just don't feel like grinding the last few puzzles to log the playthrough. Had I done so, this game would easily have gotten an 8 from me. Go give it a spin!

2-bit Cowboy

Year: 2014
Genre: Platformer
Website: http://www.cascadiagames.com/game_2bitcowboy.html

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Lee:

• Platform: Android
• Hours logged: 0.5
• Playthroughs: 0
• Rating: --/10

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Notes and Discussions:

• Lee (6/28/2015): Ugh. Platformers. "2-bit Cowboy" is a Super Mario-like game with a western setting and retro 4-color Game Boy graphics. Sadly, I am terrible at platformers, and they frustrate me greatly. I got chewed up by piranhas, burned by a fire, bitten by a snake, and shot to death by bank robbers. I gave up.

Flappy Golf

Year: 2014
Genre: General
Website: http://www.noodlecake.com/1581/flappygolf-2/

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Lee:

• Platform: Android
• Hours logged: 13.0
• Playthroughs: 1
• Rating: 7/10

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Notes and Discussions:

• Lee (6/25/2015): When I flew to Tokyo for a week of backpacking throughout the city, I got to experience my first ridiculously long airplane flight. Luckily, built into the seat in front of me was an in-flight entertainment system, which contained a list of movies and games to choose from. One of these games was Bejeweled...and I played that bitch for nearly the entire flight. Fast forward nearly a decade, and now I have my phone that I can use to pass the time in airports, on airplanes, and on the train. During our trip to San Diego last weekend, I first tried Box Cat, but that was a dud. Next, I loaded up Flappy Golf.
  
  The aggravating thing for me about Flappy Golf is that it did a pretty great job of sucking me in, but then it wouldn't let me go until I finished it. And there were a cubic fuckton of levels. Every level was ultimately completable, but my obsessive nature made me get a gold star on each one. I did that for the first three or four thousand levels (just kidding), but then I just desperately wanted to be done with the game, so I allowed silver stars for a while. By the time I made it to the final 20 bonus levels, bronze stars were plenty good enough.
  
  In all fairness, many of the levels were very cleverly built, and some of them were even fun. But after finishing the last level, I breathed a sigh of relief, then uninstalled it from my phone. In retrospect, this game was great for passing several hours while traveling, as it didn't require a lot of brainpower, but I don't see myself coming back to this one anytime soon.

Box Cat

Year: 2011
Genre: General
Website: http://www.noodlecake.com/presskits/box-cat-and-bloop/

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Lee:

• Platform: Android
• Hours logged: 0.5
• Playthroughs: --
• Rating: --/10

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Notes and Discussions:

• Lee (6/23/2015): A TriMet MAX ride from Beaverton to the Portland Airport takes about 1.5 hours. A flight from Portland to San Diego takes about two hours, and we all know you should always arrive at the airport an hour early. So, while traveling to SD for vacation last week, Julie and I had several hours to kill, and what better way is there to kill time than playing a mobile game? I have accumulated dozens of Android games from various Humble Mobile Bundles, so I picked one from the list that I thought had the potential to occupy my time. It wasn't a great choice.
  
  I have never really been very good at arcade-style games that require precise timing (think original Paperboy), and this game is no exception. I was mildly amused by the concept of a cat knocking around cars on a street, and I chuckled when I collected enough coins to briefly turn my avatar into a Super Box Cat, but I quickly lost interest in the game. "Survival Mode" didn't help either, as I wasn't fast enough to smash all of the cars. I did get some enjoyment out of the "Rush Hour" mode, since all you had to do was smash as many cars as possible within a given amount of time. But yeah, this is not my sort of game. Flappy Golf (another Noodlecake game), however... That one got me all the way to San Diego and back. And more.

Eufloria

Year: 2012
Genre: Real-Time Strategy
Website: http://www.eufloria-game.com/

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Lee:

• Platform: Android
• Hours logged: 20.5
• Playthroughs: 1
• Rating: 8/10

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Notes and Discussions:

• Lee (6/11/2015): Eufloria is another game that I picked up in one of the Android Humble Bundles along the way, and I'm glad I did! This game was a joy to play (except for Level 18), and it was really hard to put down until I finished it.
  
  Eufloria is like a mix between Solar 2 and Darwinia. The premise of the game is to build your space empire by conquering and settling planets and asteroids. Using tree seedlings. Yeah, it's weird, but it works. Ten seedlings can be planted at a time to grow either a Dyson tree, which spawns more seedlings, or a Defense tree that shoots spores at attacking enemies. A single seedling can be sent as a scout to check out an asteroid, so that you know how big of an army to send to take it over and make it yours. There are several other game elements, including ancient artifacts (useless, I think), beacon plants, terraform trees, flowers, laser pods, and enhanced seedlings, but the game does a great job of introducing each of these elements to you over the span of the first several levels.
  
  Level 18... Most of the levels in the game can be beaten within a few attempts, once you stumble upon the right strategy required for the given level. Except for Level 18. That one took around 30 tries, and I finally had to cheat and watch a Youtube video of how to beat it. The problem is that the AI is highly scripted, and you have to time your escape perfectly from several planets before you can even think about starting a base (to give the devs a bit of credit, their hints for that level did suggest as much). The problem is that several minutes have elapsed by the time you start building your resources, so the only way to stay alive is to get lucky enough that the AI doesn't select your planet for the enemies to pay a visit to (your instant death). Thirty tries. Not cool.
  
  Other than Level 18, the game was a blast! I played through the main story, then I played a few of the skirmishes. I would definitely consider playing this one again, and I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for an action-packed strategy game for your mobile device!

Summoners War: Sky Arena

Year: 2014
Genre: General
Website: http://m.withhive.com/game/desc/313/0

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Shane:

• Platform: Android
• Hours logged: a few hundred
• Playthroughs: 1
• Rating: 8/10

Lee:

• Platform: Android
• Hours logged: ~264.0
• Playthroughs: 1
• Rating: 10/10

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Notes and Discussions:

• Lee (5/28/2015): Shane and I have fallen into the habit of skipping the write-up of some of the heavy hitters (Borderlands 2, Minecraft, Dungeon Defenders, etc.), but I would like to break that habit. As I mentioned in my LYNE write-up, I’m not here to be fancy; I just want to share some of my thoughts, feelings, and experiences. So here it goes…
  
  There is a lot to do in Summoners War. There is a story mode with 13 scenario regions, which is a great place to gain XP, monster scrolls, monster drops, mana, and runes to equip on your monsters. The story mode can be played on three difficulty modes (Normal, Hard, and Hell). The harder the difficulty, the better the rewards (better rune drops, more XP, and more mana). Each region will yield a different type of rune. Equipping multiple runes of the same type will grant a given set bonus to the monster. The player can also battle against NPCs and other player characters in the Arena for “Glory Points” and crystals. Glory Points can be used to purchase monster scrolls and helpful buildings for your floating island. I would recommend spending Glory Points to max out your Mysterious Plant first. Crystals can be spent on many different things in Summoners War, but my recommendation is to save them up and spend them on “Premium Packs,” which will net you 11 high-level monsters. The Cairos Dungeon is another great place to spend energy (and time). Clearing the Dragon and Giant levels in Cairos is a good way to find great loot, including powerful runes. Essences can be gathered in the Halls of Elements and are used to evolve your monsters into more powerful creatures. Also, many of the Daily Missions can be completed in the Cairos Dungeon. (Completing the Daily Missions is very important, as it will net you 10 crystals every day!) That’s enough to keep you busy for hours, days, and weeks. Trust me.
  
  This game is amazing! A perfect 10. (The only other 10 I have given to an Android game was for Rebuild.) Interestingly, Shane only gave this one an 8. I find it fascinating what he and I look for in games. For me, I look for a game that consumes my world. A game that I cannot put down until I am forced to pry it out of my aching, sweaty hands, in order to move on with my life. This one definitely qualifies. I had to stop playing this game, because I was no longer sleeping at night. I would play it in bed at night until I dozed off, often dropping my phone on the floor. If I woke up in the middle of the night, I would pick the game up and burn any available in-game energy. And I would try to wake up an hour early to burn my energy and complete my daily missions before I had to start getting ready for work. I even played this game during dinner and while watching movies or TV shows. Julie was incredibly patient with me during this obsession (much like she is with all of my obsessions). I made spreadsheets to keep track of which monsters were “friends” and which were “food,” and I researched the most effective rune builds for each monster in my library. Yeah, I’m a big nerd. You can view the spreadsheet here. (Note that much of the content came from this amazing site: http://summonerswar.co/.)
  
  Playing this game was an incredible experience…and I didn’t spend a dime on it. Occasionally, you would see someone in the in-game chat channels lamenting about how many hundreds of dollars they have spent on premium content for this game, then many others would berate this player, insisting that F2P (free to play) was the only way to go, until finally others would chime in and offer that “somebody has to pay the developers’ bills.” I don’t know where I sit with that whole thing. Sure, there were times that I wish I had a little extra energy to do “this one more thing”…but I never felt the need to pay for it. Instead, I just made a sandwich, then came back in a few hours after my energy had a chance to fill up. I think that the game offers a really great balance between the feeling of accomplishment and the desire to play more. But I can definitely see how they make money off of people who aren’t cheap-asses nor relatively patient. On the other hand, I did feel the urge to flip the devs some money to thank them for making a great game…but I think they are financially doing just fine. Regardless, thanks, Com2uS!
  
  In all fairness, there were a few things that I didn't like about Summoners War. First, it was too difficult to coordinate, connect, or communicate with other players. For instance, Shane and I ran a guild for one frustrating week, and during that time, we were unable to round up our guildmates well enough to hold our own in battle. We were unable to see who was online, and we couldn't send messages, neither to the group nor individuals. The best we could do was add a note to the guild description. I suppose the lack of social networking capability in the game does hinder the actions of online sexual predators, but it is still a lame setup. Another issue that I had with the game was related to the rune power-up mechanism. For each power-up you do for a particular rune, there is a chance that it will fail, and that chance increases the higher the rune's level (up to level 15). Failure is so frequent with higher level runes that you can spend hundreds of thousands of mana before getting a successful power-up. I would much rather see a set cost for a given power-up. That way, I know how much mana to save up, AND it would help keep my blood from boiling. And finally, why is it so hard to get a natural 5* monster? There are dozens of them available! I heard some people in the chat channels complain that they have been playing for the entire year that the game has been open, and they have never received a nat 5*. I suppose one could purchase piles of crystals with real money, then spend them on hundreds of mystical scrolls...but what fun would that be?
  
  Shane and I played this game for 2.5 months, and during that time, we had countless conversations over Google Hangouts about strategy, friend vs. food monsters, rune builds, status updates, and general excitement for this game. That was my favorite part of this game. And now, I am getting the chance to experience a bit of the same with Julie's kids. I get a lot of joy out of being asked whether or not a Water Vagabond is food, or whether they should evolve Ramagos or Sieq first (Ramagos, FTW!!). I'll definitely be back...

LYNE

Year: 2014
Genre: General
Website: http://www.lynegame.com/

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Lee:

• Platform: Android
• Hours logged: 14.5
• Playthroughs: 0
• Rating: 7/10

---

Notes and Discussions:

• Lee (5/21/2015): It has been four days shy of HALF OF A YEAR since the last time I made a blog post here. It's not as though I haven't been playing video games...I just haven't felt like writing about them. I think that I got too wrapped up in it, then I got overwhelmed by the expectations that I had made for myself that these blog posts be AMAZING, when I really should have just been keeping them simple and fun. So that's what I'm here to do once again. Getting behind sucks, but to be honest, I am kind of excited about it, since now I get to go back and replay parts of a pile of games as I play catch up. Over the next several weeks, you can expect to see blog posts from me for several of these games: Morrowind, Dungeon Defenders, Minecraft, Grand Theft Auto III, Borderlands 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Clash of Clans, and Summoners War.
  
  Let's talk briefly about LYNE. It's a pretty good game. Simple, clever, engaging, and equal parts rewarding and aggravating. The premise of the game is to draw a line from each color's start/end point to its other start/end point, while passing through every block of that color in the puzzle. The grey blocks serve as junctions where lines of different colors may meet or cross. Many of the puzzles have multiple possible solutions, which you can arrive at using a combination of logical reasoning and trial-and-error. The puzzles are grouped into sets of 25, and each set is denoted by a letter of the alphabet. In addition to the main puzzle sets (A-Z), there are two Daily puzzle sets available each day. Each time you complete a puzzle set, you are awarded a number of points based upon the difficulty of the set.
  
  I was amused by LYNE for several days, but then the colossal beast that is Summoners War swallowed my life. Before my interest in this game went away, I did manage to complete puzzle "M25", and I earned a total of 49 points. I tried to pick it up again today, but I got bored after only making it to puzzle "N3". I guess I can shelve this one.

Darwinia

Year: 2006
Genre: Real-Time Strategy
Website: http://www.introversion.co.uk/darwinia/

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Lee:

• Platform: PC
• Hours logged: 17.0
• Playthroughs: 1
• Rating: 10/10

---

Notes and Discussions:

• Lee (11/4/2014): This is definitely my sort of game! Darwinia has an intriguing storyline, and its gameplay is engaging, satisfying, challenging, highly accessible, and easily completable. And it’s pretty gloriously nerdy.
  
  The premise of Darwinia is that you have stumbled upon a digital computer simulation of a world, which has been overrun by evil virus creatures. Before the virus invasion, the artificial world had been created and studied over the span of many years by a scientist named Dr. Sepulveda. Communicating with you via video messages, Dr. Sepulveda fills in the game’s backstory as he gives you objectives, hints, and status updates regarding your struggle to help him regain control of Darwinia from the evil viruses. As you play through the game, your create and control various units to fight the viruses, research new tech, reclaim important buildings, and guide the native inhabitants (called Darwinians) to safety.
  
  I remembered loving Darwinia when it first came out nearly a decade ago, so when Shane and I started this blog project, Darwinia made it onto my retro games shortlist. I have been surprised by how well some of the games that I have dug up and replayed from my past have held up over time. This is definitely one of them. I wouldn't really have guessed that this would be a 10 for me, but after loading it up and beating the first few levels, I couldn't put it down until I was done. And after the credits rolled, I left feeling tremendously satisfied. I have no doubt that I will be back for yet another playthrough of Darwinia someday. I highly recommend giving this one a spin!

Soda Drinker Pro

Year: 2014
Genre: General
Website: http://sodadrinkerpro.com/

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Shane:

• Platform: Android
• Hours logged: 0.5
• Playthroughs: 0
• Rating: --/10

Lee:

• Platform: Android
• Hours logged: 0.5
• Playthroughs: 1
• Rating: 2/10

---

Notes and Discussions:

• Lee (11/20/2014): OK, I get it. Some dude makes a pointless "game" in a single day. He uploads it to some game websites and distribution services. Some people are amused by it and write jokingly glowing reviews of it. It's Goat Simulator + Delicious Women's Phd Darling Sexy Costume/Haribo Sugar Free Gummy Bears. Meh.
  
  If you drink the soda on the last level, the game congratulates you on quenching your thirst. I'll call that a playthrough. My rating for this starts at a "1" for being complete shit, but includes a "+1" for the fact that some dude made a thing that got bigger than it really should have. Nice work, man.

• Shane (11/28/2014):  I am actually (very mildly) angry that this exists.  Yay there is a person releasing stuff that is really unpolished and it was fast to build and... I don't care.  It isn't a "game."  It is a camera overlay with a soda.  Do you want to see a camera overlay game that is half-way awesome?  Arcade Reality.  You are welcome.  Please don't go out of your way to buy the soda thing though.  Just... don't.
  
  P.S.  Lee, thanks for the screenshot of the inside of a stall at work.  Appropriate in so many ways.

Mines of Mars

Year: 2014
Genre: General
Website: http://crescentmoongames.com/wordpress/mines-of-mars/

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Lee:

• Platform: Android
• Hours logged: 27.0
• Playthroughs: 1
• Rating: 7/10

---

Notes and Discussions:

• Lee (11/4/2014): Mines of Mars... So much potential. I even forgave the massive game glitch that locked me out of the dungeons the first time I played it (a re-install of the game fixed the issue). I REALLY wanted to like this game. It had all of the right hooks for me: gloomy and mysterious Sci-Fi setting; unique premise; impressive physics; amusing dialog; addictive search for crafting ingredients; crafting of cool gear, tools, and weapons; etc...
  
  But honestly, I feel that the game failed to capitalize on all of those promising things it had going for it. From the moment that you are dumped on the surface of the planet, your routine becomes: jump into the portal, mine side-to-side and downward, collect a few raw ore and gems, curse at the limited size of your backpack, use the jetpack to fly back up to the portal to the surface, heal and refuel yourself, fill up on ammo, drop raw gems off at the gem cutter, drop raw ore off at the smelter, window shop at the crafting station, curse at your lack of resources, head back to the portal, repeat...
  
  The game allows you to mine all of the way down to the planet's core (assuming you craft all of the necessary heat dissipation gear) and craft all of the gear available in the game before you take on any of the dungeons. This feels clunky. And the dungeons (with their Super Metroid-like bosses) seem out of place...and kind of shitty. Also, the portals that you unlock are not evenly spread out across the depth of the planet, though that could just be another game glitch. And WTF is with the Offering Pit, artifacts, Museum, and the Arcade? These all feel cobbled together and pointless.
  
  Now that I've ripped into this game a bit, let's talk about the positives. I COULDN'T STOP PLAYING. Despite the infuriating number of trips that I had to take back to the planet's surface, I kept going back to mine more shit. There was something very exciting about digging deeper and finding a new vein of ore. And I loved spending my hard-earned ore and gems on new hardware. I simply HAD TO BUILD EVERYTHING. And also, this game was beautiful. The graphics and physics engines gave me a world that I wanted to live in and explore. It was so rich, so moody, so alone. Incredible.
  
  I heard a rumbling that the devs are planning on adding multiplayer capability, and while that is an intriguing prospect, I do hope it means that they are not done fine-tuning this game. Keep at it, guys. You are onto something quite good here; it just needs some polishing.

Rebuild

Year: 2011
Genre: Turn-Based Strategy
Website: http://rebuildgame.com/info.html

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Shane:

• Platform: Android
• Hours logged: 7.0
• Playthroughs: 3
• Rating: 10/10

Lee:

• Platform: Android
• Hours logged: 29.5
• Playthroughs: 3
• Rating: 10/10

---

Notes and Discussions:

• Shane (11/15/2014): Yes yes yes!  This was a great game! Lee played this one first and reported to me that it was amazing.  I booted it up, but was underwhelmed at first.  It took a full playthrough (about 3-4 hours) before I realized that I really wanted to play again.  So I did.
  
  All told, I played through three times and might hit it again when I have time.  I am curious about what other "win" conditions I might find with subsequent playthroughs.  I would report on which story-lines I completed, but I think that would constitute spoilers, so I won't post that publicly. If anyone wants to know more you can add a note to the comments section and I would be happy to expand.  The different methods of winning are well placed though, and I am excited about seeing the patterns that I missed.
  
  This is a turn based game, which is nice for those of us who can not dedicate a full hour at a time for playing.  A turn or "day" can easily fit into a latrine break.  (Side note: this game made me want to play "Final Fantasy Tactics" again.  I have a copy of it for Gameboy, but unfortunately, I lost my Gameboy in my last house move.  I would pick it up again if it ever comes out for Android.)  Someday I will be back to a point in my life where I can sit and play a full game of something, but that will likely be after I am done with school.  Until then, I will celebrate turn based games, I guess.
  
  I will happily recommend this game to "choose your own adventure" fans and to people who need something to entertain themselves while they squat.  I am happy I played it and intend to hit this one again.

• Lee (11/17/2014): We picked this one up as part of the Humble Bundle Halloween pack, and I've got to say, this game is amazing! Finally, I found an Android game that I am happy to give a 10. And having Shane drop a 10 on it as well is definitely saying something: if you are a fan of playing games on your mobile device...BUY THIS!
  
  To learn the game mechanics, I started out in a "typical" size city on the "pretty easy" difficulty. I definitely made some mistakes, but the game is very forgiving on the easiest difficulty. It was actually a very enjoyable experience getting to experiment with new strategies, techniques, and game choices without having to worry about ruining my chances of survival. True "Lee Mode." Fantastic! After achieving a few of the endings, I started another game, this time in a "big" city on the "kind of tough" difficulty. During this playthrough, I started getting hit by more waves of zombies, but I was also developing new, more effective strategies of fighting back. I won without too much difficulty, but there was definitely more challenge and risk involved. I was feeling pretty confident in my zombie fighting abilities, so I started another game on "challenging," the third of five difficulty levels. I quickly got my ass handed to me.
  
  My frustration of getting so thoroughly ripped to shreds didn't last very long, but I knew that I needed to do some research before taking another crack at it. To the intarweb! A Google search of "rebuild game strategy" will show you the true depth of this game. There are forums full of discussions on tactics and strategy for Rebuild. Several of the forum posts seemed to have been written by people who didn't pass fourth grade English class, but I did manage to find a few readable entries that had some very clever ideas for how to survive some of the harder difficulties.
  
  **If you would rather use trial and error to learn this game, then skip over this paragraph.**
  Here are a few tips that helped me out greatly, while tackling a "huge" city on the "challenging" difficulty:
  - Personnel distribution: 2 leaders, 6 builders, 6 scientists, and train all the rest as soldiers.
  - Another post (with confirmation from Shane) explained that if you put all of your unused people on guard duty before ending each day, then every time a zombie attack happens, all of these "guards" will increase in soldier ability.
  - Shane and I agreed that scavenging for scraps is likely a waste of time.
  - Building priority: Hospital -> Laboratory -> Police Stations -> everything else as needed.
  - Research the cure for zombieism as soon as possible, then research everything else.
  - Convert drive-ins, restaurants, and other useless blocks to something more useful (housing, bars/churches, farms).
  **End of strategy discussion.**
  
  I really can't recommend this game enough. I'm itching to see if I can beat the game on "seriously hard" difficulty... I'll report back here when I do.

Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor

Year: 2009
Genre: Puzzle, Action
Website: http://tigerstylegames.com/Spider/tsobm/

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Lee:

• Platform: Android
• Hours logged: 8.5
• Playthroughs: 2
• Rating: 8/10

Shane:

• Platform: Android
• Hours logged: 4.5
• Playthroughs: 1
• Rating: 5/10

---

Notes and Discussions:

• Lee (2/26/2014): This was another favorite from the first Humble Bundle Android pack that Shane and I picked up. I was intrigued by the game mechanics and delighted by the ease with which one can build large webs to catch bugs. It was also satisfying that the game introduced new bugs to catch every few levels, with new techniques being required to take down each bug. For example, you had to chase the mosquitoes into a web, the hornets needed to be taken down out of the air, and scoring a firefly required a mid-air grab with a shove into a web.
  
  This gradual "easing me into the game" made the first playthrough very captivating and enjoyable. However, when I started the game over, the second playthrough offered no new content, and my interest in the game suffered a bit. Replayability is huge consideration for me from a hedonic rating standpoint. Much like Ridiculous Fishing, Spider got dinged for replayability, but from a value standpoint, I got many hours of great entertainment out of another game that cost about $1.
  
  One of the only things about the gameplay that disappointed me was that when you knocked hornets from their nests, they would escape the level if you didn't chase them down in time. It was very difficult to catch them all, which meant that it was also very difficult to get a 100% completion for every level. I was intrigued enough to keep trapping bugs after achieving the percentage required to open each level's portal (to the next level), but I wasn't about to grind each level containing a hornet nest to get the full completion.

• Shane (11/15/2014)  I also logged a playthrough of this game, and once again, I was surprised when Lee told me how much he enjoyed it.  I remember being in the middle of the platformer/adventure game Swordigo (same Humble Android Bundle, if memory serves) and not really feeling like I had time for this one.
  
  Don't get me wrong, it was neat.  It just didn't thrill me.  I remember wondering why I should care about this spider.  I cared even less about the big house the spider was (inexplicably) moving through.  If I tried it again now, I might have a different take on it, but back then, it wasn't what I wanted to do.
  
  All of that being said, it was very pretty, it had neat controls, and the different bugs did different things.  I give thumbs up on all of those points.  Otherwise, I guess I don't have all that much to say for Spider.

F.E.A.R.

Year: 2005
Genre: First-Person Shooter, Survival Horror
Website: --

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Shane:

• Platform: PC
• Hours logged: 13.0
• Playthroughs: 1
• Rating: 5/10

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Notes and Discussions:

• Shane (11/15/2014): I started playing this one months ago.  Well before I started back into school.  A lot of why I booted this game up was actually that, when I looked up playthrough times on the interblags, I saw reports that people finished it in 5 hours or so.  I thought, "Well, that will work just fine.  A quick playthrough on an old FPS and another blog entry soon to come!"  I started playing.
  
  
  Four hours of play time pass.  I am about half way into what I figure is the second level.  “Hmm...” I think to myself, “This is either a really short game, or I am really bad at this.”
  
  
  Or people on the internet are lying to me.
  
  
  I eventually played on and found more and more levels.  I found some new guns and met some new enemies. In short, the game refused to end. 
  
  
  There were some points to this game that I feel are noteworthy.  First, I don't really enjoy the action/horror genre.  It just isn't my thing.  When something pops up in front of me I expect to be able to shoot it or punch it or however the game would usually allow a player to process foes. In the horror style it is all too common to leave the player impotent, for no other reason than raising suspense.  I am a bit high strung these days anyway, so more stress isn't probably the best.  (There was an event in this game with a ladder that kind of rocked my world…as in it scared me enough that I either jumped, squealed or peed myself a little.  I was then paranoid about every other ladder I had to interact with in that way throughout the rest of the game.
  
  
  Having particles blow into the air when someone shoots a wall is cool.  Having a little sprite of a bullet hole or crater is a nice touch as well.  Letting the player look around corners instead of just strafe into oncoming fire is a cool thing that I used a lot.  As for the ability to slow down time…Max Payne did it better.  I probably just say that though, because I kept forgetting that I could do that.  Blah blah blah, good job on a cool game engine, blah blah blah.
  
  
  My next point is that I HATE when a game takes away my guns.  I was going to call this “pulling a Half-Life” but I didn't know if anyone else would remember the point in the original Half-Life, when at about 3/4 of the way through the game, they take all of your ammo.  I play most games with economy in mind.  I go out of my way to save bullets and grenades and pride myself on doing so.  I will even avoid using my fun guns, instead just use the boring things for which I have more rounds.  Imagine my vitriol when instead of being rewarded for this conservative play I am left naked and violated.  Interesting consideration for any game developers out there:  Before you steal the shit that I have spent the whole damn game collecting, would you please offer me a fun place to “blow my load”?  Or, crazy thought here, HOW ABOUT YOU DON’T STEAL MY SHIT YOU FLAMING FUCKWIT!?  Finishing a game with piles of ammo is one thing.  Having to work through the last 15 minutes of a game while pissed that you could be using the cool shit that you collected earlier just pisses me off.
  
  So yeah.  That is what I came away with after working this game.  The story was fine, the gameplay had some cool stuff that was new when they made it, the heroes were likable, and they fucked it up at the end.  Good job, folks.
  

Doodle God

Year: 2010
Genre: Puzzle
Website: http://doodlegod.com/games/doodle-god/

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Shane:

• Platform: Android
• Hours logged: 1.0
• Playthroughs: 0
• Rating: --/10

---

Notes and Discussions:

• Shane (11/15/2014): I am not going to play this one any further, I don't expect.  I already did a full playthrough on Doodle Devil.  I am not going to say that I exactly regretted it, but I don't want to subject myself to any more of this pointless shuffling.
  
  Also, I am an atheist, and games based on religion annoy me. 

Hotline Miami

Year: 2012
Genre: Action, Shoot-'Em-Up
Website: http://www.hotlinemiami.com/

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Shane:

• Platform: PC
• Hours logged: 4.0
• Playthroughs: 1
• Rating: 8/10

---

Notes and Discussions:

• Shane (11/6/2014):  I have to be honest here that I still think about this game.  My playthrough was over a month ago, but I want to go back and do it again.  On the surface, the game doesn't appear to have outstanding replayability, but they did a few things right with regards to that.  First they gave us a LOT of unlockables.  Masks that offer various perks and new weapons that kill things differently seem to be the most of it, but there is also an odd little word puzzle that I don't understand yet.  The letters are hidden throughout the levels and are collectible by standing over odd colored spots on the floor and pushing a button.
  
  I think the main selling points for the game from the development point of view would have been the music (80's style EDM) and the rampant violence (very satisfying).  The ambiance throughout the game has a disjointed dreamlike feel that was heightened by the haunting music and the echos of the creaking doors.  Recently, I have been playing most games with the sound off or very low, but this one was an exception to that rule.
  
  The top-down view didn't actually take that long to get used to, much to my surprise.  It didn't hit me until later that I had seen a similar perspective while playing the old Grand Theft Auto games (before they went 3D in GTA III).  This was easier to grasp though.
  
  I really liked the rapid restart feature of the game.  When something kills you, there is an immediate restart of the level (or floor).  No lengthy death screen or drawn out musical interlude (looking at you, Mario), just a quick message that you died, and then back to the beginning where you can try again.  The penalty for getting killed is so minor it is easy to get locked into a "Just one more time" loop.
  
  I feel like I stomped through this game pretty quickly.  Four hours is surely not the fastest playthrough.  Not by any stretch of the imagination.  I enjoyed it though.  I want to boot it up again and collect more masks and weapons.  I stopped playing after I beat it once, thinking I should spend some time on a different game.  I think this game has earned a bit more time though.  

Doodle Devil

Year: 2010
Genre: Puzzle
Website: http://doodlegod.com/games/doodle-devil

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Shane:

• Platform: Android 
• Hours logged: 8.0
• Playthroughs: 1
• Rating: 3/10

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Notes and Discussions:

• Shane (10/20/2014): I have a weakness for build trees.  I love them, honestly.  Back in middle school, I sat for hours reading the build tree insert that came with StarCraft.  I kept reading it long past when I had memorized it.  That obsession continues through to other games but I didn't expect a game to be nothing but that mechanic.
  
  Unfortunately this isn't a very good game.  I think that is mostly because there isn't really any GAME to play.  As the screenshot above states, I did eventually find all of the elements, but after the first 40 or so, I did it out of obsession more than any feeling of entertainment.  I even feel a bit angry at myself for how many screen taps I made for essentially no good reason.
  
  So, I finished this one, but I can't recommend it.  The connections that the developers tried to make didn't usually make much sense to me, which was frustrating. And, as you are collecting these icons, there isn't anything to DO with them.  Just make more connections that reveal nothing.
  
  3/10.  Bonus for the sense of accomplishment I felt when I was done.  Another point gained because the game had Cthulhu. 

Gunpoint

Year: 2013
Genre: Puzzle-Platformer
Website: http://www.gunpointgame.com/

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Shane:

• Platform: PC
• Hours logged: 4.0
• Playthroughs: 1
• Rating: 8/10

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Notes and Discussions:

• Shane (9/22/2014): What a great game this is!  It has so much atmosphere that I was as engrossed in the crime noir world as much as the gameplay. (Pedantic Author's Note: "Atmosphere" is a word that I don't usually like to use, since it is also used to mean "the stuff that exists around us everywhere."  So, saying "so much atmosphere" is like saying "it has so much of the thing that is everywhere, always.")
  
  The music was a big part of this experience for me.  All too often I am playing games with the sound turned down.  In a lot of games, the score is repetitive and largely unneeded.  The music here was so well done and fitting that I left it on beyond having heard multiple loops of each song.  I played the game slowly as well, so I heard the music a lot.
  
  But that brings up another good point actually.  I didn't get tired of the game in the four hours that I played it.  I am really happy that I was able to learn the gameplay, figure out and engage with a story, and play through all normal content in about half of what a regular work day would have been, had I been working when I played this.
  
  I strongly considered giving Gunpoint a 9, but I had some small quibbles with a lack of granularity of control that I enjoy, and that the puzzles were inventive in technology, but not difficult in execution.  Ultimately I also had to consider that I didn't leave the game installed as I have with other quick games.  I do expect that I will come back to this game eventually.  More to the point, I will seek out more games developed by this designer.
  
  If you have the few bucks to spare and are considering buying this game, I would recommend it.  It offers a rewarding, well built, entertaining few hours and a simple sense of accomplishment.  Well done.

Threes!

Year: 2014
Genre: Puzzle
Website: http://asherv.com/threes/

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Shane:

• Platform: Android
• Hours logged: 10.5
• Playthroughs: --
• Rating: 8/10

Lee:

• Platform: Android
• Hours logged: 10.0
• Playthroughs: --
• Rating: 8/10

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Notes and Discussions:

• Lee (9/22/2014): This game was a surprise hit for both Shane and me. Though simple to learn, this game is rather challenging, but is also very addictive. The goal of the game is to increase the value of the tiles on the board by swiping across the screen either up, down, left, or right, which moves all of the tiles in the chosen direction, and combines tiles according to some rules: 1) a "1" and a "2" tile will combine to create a "3", and 2) two identical tiles of "3" or above will combine to create a tile worth double that value (i.e. two "12" tiles create a "24"). At the end of the round, the game scores each tile and reports your final score for that round.
  
  When I first started playing this game, I expected that it would capture my attention for a couple hours at most, before I lost interest and moved on to something else, much like the game, SpellTower. But I was wrong. Several times, I found myself finishing up one round, then immediately starting another one, thinking, "I can do better."
  
  Shane, Julie, and I got into a bit of a competition to see who could break 10,000 points in a round first. Julie and I both landed scores in the 9000s, but the 10k mark eluded us. I put the game down for a month, then picked it back up, played a few rounds, and finally scored a 10,422! I may have gloated a bit after that... But nine hours later, I got an email from Shane with the title, "Eat it". Inside the email was a screenshot of his new score, 21,522. I give up.

Ittle Dew

Year: 2013
Genre: Action-Adventure
Website: http://www.ittledew.com/

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Shane:

• Platform: Android
• Hours logged: 4.5
• Playthroughs: 1
• Rating: 4/10

---

Notes and Discussions:

• Shane (9/16/2014): This was a pleasant game, vaguely reminiscent of 16 bit Legend of Zelda.
  
  Hehe... That is a lie actually.  This game is a direct rip off of Legend of Zelda.  Therein lies much of it's charm.  And charm was exactly enough to get me through the game.
  
  The puzzles were easy enough to do with a toddler in my lap yet difficult enough to be fun.  Or they WOULD have been difficult had I not grown up with exactly this type of block pushing puzzle.
  
  The enemies were varied, which is nice.  They had the standard progression, just dumbed down a bit.  Two of the mobs are also puzzle pieces, which isn't new to the genre.  Having to position these creatures didn't screw up the gameplay that much as it so often does.
  
  I also like that the hero in this game is actually a heroine.  That satisfies both my desire that women gain better representation in the video gaming world, and my nerd rage over people miss-identifying the hero of the Legend of Zelda games as Zelda.  For some reason having a female lead in a Zelda clone just feels appropriate.
  
  When all is said and done, I won't be playing it again but I am glad that it exists.  

Draw a Stickman: EPIC

Year: 2012
Genre: Puzzle, Action-Adventure
Website: http://epic.drawastickman.com/

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Shane:

• Platform: Android
• Hours logged: 5.0
• Playthroughs: 1
• Rating: 2/10

---

Notes and Discussions:

• Shane (9/16/2014): I made it through this one after putting it aside for several months.  To be honest, I never really thought of this as a game.  Throughout, this one felt like a proof of concept for a neat technology (namely starting the "game" by making the user draw two stick figures, which then serve as both a character and the player's avatar, with individual limbs moving as if walking), more than a polished offering for a puzzle-loving crowd.
  
  Many of the levels in this game have multiple ways to complete them.  Usually, I enjoy having more content to work through but everything here was...well...clunky.  The screenshot I selected even shows some of the awkwardness.  My avatar is stuck behind a rock.  I am mildly annoyed to have to see this now as I type it.
  
  All of that aside, the concepts that were being played with were reasonably neat.  If these things made their way into a more polished game, I would be happy to play it.  

Borderlands 2: Mr. Torgue's Campaign of Carnage

Year: 2012
Genre: First-Person Shooter, Action Role-Playing
Website: http://www.borderlands2.com/campaignofcarnage

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Shane:

• Platform: PC
• Hours logged: 5.0
• Playthroughs: 1
• Rating: 10/10

---

Notes and Discussions:

• Shane (8/25/2014): Before I played Assault on Dragon's Keep I played through Mr Torgue's Campaign of Carnage.  This was the first of the Borderlands 2 DLC that I tried actually.  I started it before I had finished all of the main storyline, which was a very small mistake.  There were a few small spoilers in this story that I won't post publicly because I try to not be a dick, when I can.
  
  The thing that struck me most was that I loved the Mr. Torgue character.  His childlike excitement for adrenaline is, in a word, awesome.  Things in this man's world were excessive by design and obviously took constant effort to maintain.  He is the personification of single-minded devotion to that which you love in a chaotic frontier full of murderers and psychopaths.
  
  The content in this expansion is much of the same that you can find in the base Borderlands 2 game.  That is probably part of why I loved it so.  The story was a nice blast.  There were one-on-one matches where things went wrong.  The writing was top notch.  The new weapons were... again, more of the same.
  
  I am short on words to describe how contentedly cheerful I felt when I finished this DLC.  I want to see the story again and interact with the characters more.  If Mr. Torgue was a real person I would want to hug him.  Then we could go out and blow up a car or something.

Galcon Fusion

Year: 2010
Genre: Real-Time Strategy, Action
Website: http://www.galcon.com/fusion/

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Shane:

• Platform: Android
• Hours logged: 3.0
• Playthroughs: --
• Rating: --/10

---

Notes and Discussions:

• Shane (8/25/2014): I still have this game loaded.  I can't really figure out what I should list as a playthrough.  The individual games are pretty short, so that doesn't seem right.  There are several different play modes so I could list a playthrough as beating all modes... but that also feels kind of flimsy.  Oh well.  No clear winners show up on that front so for now I will leave that field blank.
  
  I picked up this game in one of the Humble Bundle mobile packs.  I played it on mobile for a while and liked it for the first hour.  By the second hour I had played each of the modes and was building up the difficulty level.  By the third hour I had the difficulty up high enough that I was losing many matches but I wasn't feeling any additional sense of reward.  I may take a swing at this on PC later, given that it has a Steam version attached to the Humble Bundle pack.  Otherwise, I don't expect to give this one a lot more attention.
  
  One final note, my kid likes to play with my phone.  I launched this game and gave it to her a while ago and chuckled as she tapped at the screen.  In the end she got bored (fairly quickly honestly) and I couldn't keep her from pressing the home button.  I doubt there is any deeper meaning to be derived from this... I am left with curiosity on whether the kid will turn out to be a gamer or not.  Time will tell on that one.

Left 4 Dead

Year: 2008
Genre: First-Person Shooter, Survival Horror
Website: http://www.valvesoftware.com/games/l4d.html

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Shane:

• Platform: PC
• Hours logged: 6.5
• Playthroughs: 1
• Rating: 8/10

Lee:

• Platform: Xbox 360
• Hours logged: 5.0
• Playthroughs: 1
• Rating: 10/10

• Platform: PC
• Hours logged: 5.0
• Playthroughs: 1
• Rating: 10/10

---

Notes and Discussions:

• Lee (8/1/2014): I love this game. It is one of my all-time favorites. When it first came out, I played many, many hours of it on my Xbox 360 (the vast majority of which is not represented in the “hours logged” line above). Single player is my favorite, but for a time, I even played this game with the scary, unwashed underbelly of the Intarweb on Xbox Live. In fact, I think this is the ONLY game that I played on Xbox Live. I was shocked when Shane told me that he had never played the L4D games, so when it showed up for super cheap on the Steam Summer Sale, I strongly urged him to buy it.
  
  It took a while for Shane and I to develop a rhythm for playing together. I was very used to playing the game on single player mode on the Xbox, where, when you jump out in front of the AI-controlled characters to dive into the fray, they don’t shoot you in the back of the head...or yell and swear at you. Sorry, Shane. We got it figured out though. I would still dive into the piles of zombies with pistols blazing, but this time, I would crouch so he could shoot zombies over my head with his assault rifle. We also got pretty good at communicating about our systematic approach to clearing out the nooks and crannies of each stage, while still keeping the group together. In L4D, sticking together is key. If you go off exploring on your own and a Smoker grabs you with its tongue or a Hunter pounces on you, you're dead.
  
  In the latter part of each chapter, the game allows you to choose an advanced weapon: auto-shotgun, assault rifle, or hunting rifle. For whatever reason, I am most attracted to either the hunting rifle/dual pistol combo or the auto-shotgun. I tend to stray away from the assault rifle, likely because it requires you to be somewhat accurate over a longer period of time as you dump several bullets into each zombie. My favorite “strafe + fire” approach to killing in first person shooters involves sweeping the crosshairs across what I intend to kill, then squeezing the trigger at the right moment. This technique lends itself well to the use of a shotgun. Because of this, being required to put my crosshairs on something and hold it there, all the while firing as fast as the gun will spray bullets, isn't something that I’m particularly good at. Using pistols is somewhat similar, but at least pistol ammo is unlimited! Back in high school and college, I dumped cubic man-months of my life into playing Counter-Strike and Half-Life Deathmatch, and during that time, I became pretty handy with a sniper rifle. I got pretty good at crouching, drawing a bead on someone, and then squeezing off a single, high-powered round into an unsuspecting skull. As strange as it is to say, I still find scoring a solid headshot to be one of the most satisfying experiences in gaming.
  
  I suspect that we will end up coming back to this game from time to time, and we may even log some time playing as the special zombies in multiplayer mode. But for now, I would like to move on to Left 4 Dead 2, since I have only played that game once all the way through. Zombie clowns!

• Shane (8/25/2014):  Damn Lee, I didn't realize that you had posted this one already.
  
  It is almost true that I had never played this game, with the exception of one afternoon at your place after I drove over for... it had to have been a brewfest.  Winterfest maybe?  That would have been the trip where I met the three very cute social workers on the plane, talked with them on subway then met up at the beer tent.  Hmm... We were a sort of friends for a while after that.  A person should try to reconnect with old friends.  We can all use more friends these days.
  
  That aside, I loved this game.  The graphics haven't quite held up and there are other quirks that I hollered about while we were playing (A level with a fence as a map border that allowed zombies to run directly through but was impassable to players.)  One control quirk took me quite a bit to get a handle on, specifically alt fire not being a zoom type but instead allowing a push or melee strike.  All told though, VERY satisfying play experience.
  
  Lee was right with the descriptions of playing together.  It took some practice limiting our friendly fire.  And I did yell at Lee quite a bit.  I would position myself to look down an alley, take a bead on a zombie down the way and promptly put three bullets into the back of Lee's head as he ran in front of me.  His willingness to crouch as he passed my line of fire was one point that helped but it also taught me to communicate my intentions better.  We both got good at hollering "Clearing left.  Left clear.  Sweeping right hallway.  Smoker in second window." and that manner of thing.
  
  It struck me while reading this that Lee considers our play to be currently done on this game.  I have a few other sections (Campaigns?  Movies?) I would like to complete before I can say that it is officially time to move on from this game but I will also happily follow along to L4D2.  Squad based FPS play actually IS fun when you have people with whom you are used to playing.  Go figure.