As you may have noticed, both Brandon and myself have a gamercard of my own design on the left sidebar here at Lungfishopoils. Because I feel like making some comments, I’m going to discuss the six games listed on my gamercard.

Crysis
Ever since I got the Vista machine I have now, I’ve been thinking about playing Crysis. And while my Radeon HD 3870 card may not have the horsepower to run it at anything more than medium settings, it’s still a great game. It’s a lot like Far Cry, which is a good thing. You can lay prone and crawl around, and you’ve got a meter that shows your enemies’ alertness levels. Plus, now you’ve got special abilities due to a nano suit.

I hit a bug yesterday in the second chapter where after having blown up two tanks, the game didn’t acknowledge that I’d done so, and I got stuck. I’d saved the game already, so now I’m gonna have to go back and redo a large section of the game. Despite this annoyance, I’m still enjoying Crysis.

Mass Effect
I’d heard a lot of mixed reviews of Mass Effect. Having played it now, I’m noticing how very Bioware it is. The engine feels like Neverwinter Nights and KotOR. I’m actually enjoying the dialogue and the story, but the combat could be a lot better. I can’t pinpoint what it is, but it just feels clunky. If it’s the same engine as those other games, there must just be something about that engine I don’t like. If not for the sniper rifle, I wouldn’t enjoy combat at all. But as it is, I’ll complete the game. I’m just a completionist like that.

One thing about Mass Effect that’s really annoying me is the infrequency of save points and nonexistence of checkpoints. I chose the highest difficulty level, and so I die quite a bit. As a result, I’ve had to replay quite a lot of the game. And I’ve become very good at hitting that F6 key for the quicksave frequently.

I also recently played through a level where I was driving a vehicle and the shadows were so dark that they were indistinguishable from the black of these bottomless pits. Just after I convinced myself that the black places were all just shadows, I drove off a cliff and died instantly. Guess I should adjust the contrast or something.

I think I’m about three quarters through the game, but I could be very wrong. I’m hitting a lot of the optional content, but not being too too anal about it.

Freeway Solitaire

This is the game I play when I’ve got ten spare minutes or so. When I’m waiting for files to upload or something. Brandon gifted me the game, and I’ve really been digging it. It’s a version of Solitaire themed as golf. The cards are laid out in different patterns on each “course”, and you’re given “clubs” as helper cards. Playing a 4-iron will let you then play a 3 or 5 card. It’s a lot of fun. I’m currently stuck on a course named The Willows. I can’t earn enough money to get past it. Grrr.

Dead Space
As I mentioned previously, Dead Space feels to me so much like the old Resident Evil games. Maybe that’s why I’m liking it. The cutting off limbs thing seemed gimmicky at first, and I suppose it is a gimmick, but I’m still liking the scare factor the game offers. The story is strictly average, but the gameplay is good. Much more than the Doom ripoff I’d expected.

Pixeljunk Monsters
As you may know from reading this site previously, I absolutely love Pixeljunk Monsters. While I don’t play it super frequently or for long stretches of time, I always love going back to it. It’s by far the PS3 game I play most often.

Audiosurf
Now that I’ve got my old machine set up as a TVersity media server, which I use primarily with the Playstation 3, I can stream music straight into Audiosurf, which is fuun. I’ll admit, I’m not very good at the game, but being able to race down the tetris track while listening to MC Frontalot or No More Kings is a trip.

And that’s it for my list. Oh – and I still have to go back and finish Okami at some point.