Within the past week, I picked up two great games for even better prices.

Mirror's Edge (PC): While I wasn't willing to shell out $50-60 for this beauty, I was willing to pay $20. Then GoGamer had it up for $5. Talk about a no-brainer.

Price of Persia (PC): Within two days, this gem also went on sale for $8. This is another title that I was willing to spend about $20 on. Now I own it for less than half of what I expected.

/endplug for www.gogamer.com

Disclaimer: I just finished playing this game for the first time now, in '09.

This game left me feeling ambivalent. The loot whore in me LOVED the great armor and weapon drops, the hack n' slasher in me felt the fighting was straightforward, and the story-whore in me thought the narrative held up well enough.

But that's about it. The graphics left something to be desired, and my loot was so small in my inventory that it was difficult to drool over. I can't blame the developers or publisher for this, as the resolutions offered are pretty standard for the day. But you'd think they'd at least have a UI text file you could use to manually alter the resolution. That being said, I really enjoyed the art direction; the variety of ecosystems in which to play kept things somewhat interesting, and I also enjoyed that the type of henchmen changed with each land. Then there's the grind; too much grinding in order to be powerful enough to take on the end levels.

For it's time, I can see why this game was the best at what it does. Now, without the nostalgia, it's only slightly above average.

Score: 7.5

Choices, choices everywhere. The Witcher does nearly everything right, with only a few minor flaws from making this a perfectr game. It has the click-action of Diablo, but with chained attacks if you time your next attack correctly. It has potion mixing (although the mixing is straightforward if you choose it to be). It has choices that affect who lives and dies, who you are allied with or against. It has mature dialogue which sets it apart from the many other games in its genre; add to that drugs, alcohol and sex with women. To add icing, the developers released two free additions to the game.

The only gripes I have about this game are about length, one boss fight and bugs. During Chapters 2 and 3, my quests seemed to come, rapid-fire, one after the other. This isn't something I can really hold against the game, as it was my choice to pursue the alternative quests. But then again, without having done those quests, and thus leveling up my character in the process, I wonder if the game would have been too difficult to defeat. The boss fight at the end of Chapter 1 is definitely too difficult. Posts litter websites saying so, and the developers could have easily hinted how to defeat the monster. Once you know how, the fight is simple. Last, even after several patches, there are still game-breaking bugs. I found myself having to replay through Chapter 1 and half of Chapter 2 when encountering a bug that stopped my progress.

Definitely worth getting if you're a fan of RPGs, Action RPGs, or simply own a PC that will run this game.

Score: 9.5

With their inability to take most upgrades, laptops are often married to older games. In my case, this makes little sense, as I have a good Core 2 Duo processor, 3 GB RAM, and a decent nVidia video card. Oh well.

My portable games include

Diablo 2

Dreamfall: The Longest Journey

Indigo Prophecy

The Longest Journey

Planescape: Torment

Sacred

Sam & Max Season 1

Syberia

Essentially, point and click games and adventure games.

On Monday, we got back from our family's annual cottage vacation. My wife's family owns a cottage right on Lake Erie. It was relaxing. The girls got to swim in "the ocean," Samantha proved that she wasn't afraid of sand anymore, and we got some great pictures.

I also wrote ten pages worth of essays for my Master's Degree program, and began Fallout 2.

Ok, I get it. I finally get it. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is a hidden gem. I have attempted to start this game twice on earlier occassions, but got board with the **** guns and lack of armor that your character begins with. Some advice for those of you who haven't started it yet: aim for the head with your pistol, and grab an enemy's shotgun the moment it's safe.

I am probably only about 20-30% of the way through the game, but already I am loving it. One of the things that has immediately made this game better is through the use of mods. I tried the Float 32 mod, but didn't see enough of a difference. Then I tried the 2009 total conversion mod. Hoo boy.

and here's a shot of the game with the total conversion mod. To see the difference, check out the sky, clouds, trees, and my character's hand (at the bottom). Note the different UI too.

Today, I encountered two warring factions of Stalkers. I agreed to help one group attack another, and off I went. In truth, I accepted the quest but wasn't sure if I wanted to alienate myself from another group of Stalkers. But the moment I approached the enemy's base, a sniper took a shot at me. **** that. They're going down. So after the battle ended, I had a virtual playground of loot to gather: guns, ammo, artifacts, you name it...

My Playground

The fools that I sold my stash to

I spent all day today (vacation) playing this game, and I can't wait to get back to it tomorrow.

I have always categorize games into one of two genres: single player game to complete, and multiplayer (including MMOs) games to play until the population dies.

But lately, I'vereturned toa third category; the one listed above. These games are fun, long, some you can complete (most you can't), and rarely do I play the for days on end.

Rise of Nations, Sid Meier's Pirates!, Left 4 Dead, SimCity... the list goes on.

Which of these, or others, have you played and/or dabbled in?

So, I just started S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Cernobyl (PC) and finally got past the first portion through which you must use the **** of pistols ever given in the history of fps. Now, I find my character's inventory swimming with guns, bullets, bandages, first aid kits, etc. Yes, all of the things that I lacked (and caused me to die) in the first mission. The game is good, and I can see why so many PC gamers give this title hype; its very "different."

I continue to dabble in Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 (Xbox 360), and should be done with Act 2 (of 3) in the next few days. I'm really enjoying this series, but grow tired with the numerous solo missions. What's the point of hyping the squad command system if you only have a squad half of the time?

I picked up Boom Blox (Wii) for myself and my family last week. It, along with Mario Kart Wii, is a fine specimen to add to my list of "family games." Although I'm interested in seeing what else the Wii can do, and to that effect, I recently put in for - and received - Red Steele (Wii). Maybe the Wii can do more than family/party games. Only time will tell.

I still have yet to pick up my wife's DS in a year (give or take), but once I do, I'll have Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow(DS)to slog through. I hope it's more fun than trying to relive my original Castlevania 2 (NES) memories on the Wii's Virtual Console. Yeah, it's not so good.

I'm finally on vacation (I taught summer school for the past five weeks), and I plan on using this time to finish the aforementioned games, and maybe ding a few levels in Lord of the Rings Online (PC).

For the last installment of Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People Season One, the games of the 80s and 90s are brought to the forefront to poke fun at, play within, and enjoy (?) a second time around.

Pitfall's jumps, scorpions and vine swings; Wolfenstein's first person shooter point of view; King's Quest generic (at present) questing and gathering of everything not nailed down; and Snakeboxing and Stinkoman (both from the Strongbad Vidalextrix universe) are all used to good effect to keep the gameplay mixed and interesting.

While this game didn't provide the same sense of wow that the earlier episodes did, it served as a good capstone on the series.

If you've purchased every epiosode thus far, this is a no-brainer. If you're the type of person that picks and chooses through the episodes, try the demo first.

Score: 8

Bleh

Right when I'm remotely interested in playing City of Heroes, my subscription lapses. Bah, it's probably a case of I only want to play it because I can't.

I wanted to try S.T.A.L.K.E.R., but STEAM was giving me download errors for a half an hour. That's the first time that's happened. No problem, I think. I'll just play a RTS.

Commmand & Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath has a campaign that ONLY follows The Brotherhood of Nod. I'm a GDI kind of guy.

Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow is like half-watching an episode of 24 that I'm not very interested in.

Great