It used to be that I’d just about never quit a game before I completed it. And while I still derive a sense of satisfaction from seeing the whole game through, I no longer feel an obligation to stick with a game I’m not enjoying just to be able to say that I finished.

Penumbra:Overture isn’t a bad game. I got it as a Christmas gift from a friend who gifted me the Humble Indie Bundle. I’ve got no problem when you’re forced you to hide and flee from enemies rather than fighting them – I enjoy scary games. My problems with Penumbra came when I was forced to fight those damned little spiders. The combat controls in the game are designed such that it’s nearly impossible to hit anything. When you’re forced to fight, it’s an uphill battle. So I died. And died. And then I died again. Those little spiders are killers. Uninstalled.

Osmos is another Humble Indie Bundle game that I really like. I’ve heard that there’s an iPhone version, and if there were an Android version, I’d snatch it up in a minute, assuming that the pricing is in line with other Android games. It’s the same big-eats-little mechanic that we’ve seen in Fl0w, Spore, Katamari Damacy, The Wonderful End of the World, and a dozen other games, but it’s done so very well. Your amoeba propels itself by exuding tiny jets of itself, so moving makes you incrementally smaller. Economy of movement is key. In addition, the bits of yourself that you propel don’t disappear – they keep going. If they hit another amoeba, it gets incrementally bigger. And as you choose new segments of the game to try, new mechanics evolve. In one, all the amoebas are orbiting a big sun-like thing. In another, antimatter amoebas exist. In yet a third, the other amoebas have AI. The game is fantastic. Alas, the later levels are hard as hell. Too difficult for me, thanks. Uninstalled.

Magicka sounded like the coolest game I could imagine. A CRPG with no levels and no gear. You’ve got a number of elements with strict rules, such that when they’re combined you get different effects. Water, Fire, Lightning, Earth, Cold, Shield, Arcane, Life. Water and fire create steam. Water and cold creates ice. Shield and earth creates a wall of rock. Fire and earth creates a fireball. The system’s complexity is brilliant, and there are myriad possibilities for accidentally killing yourself. Cast a lightning spell while you’re wet and you’ll probably electrocute yourself. Combine healing and shield and you’ll protect yourself from ever being healed. There in no mana in Magicka – you can cast spells as fast as you can bang them out. Play it in four-player online co-op and you’ll be accidentally setting your friends on fire in no time. The only thing? This game is hard. Really hard. I couldn’t even complete the demo. Uninstalled.

Torchlight is a game people have raved about for a long time as the second coming of Diablo 2. It’s funny, because I thought the forthcoming Diablo 3 was the second coming of Diablo 2, but no matter. Torchlight is kind of fun. Kind of monotonous, but fun. I played through for ten or twelve levels before I got bored with it. Then I found myself just not playing it. For eight months. Uninstalled.

I’m currently in the same boat with Fallout: New Vegas. I’m just not playing it. Last night I went back and played Borderlands with a friend from Colorado. Mothrakk is a serious bitch. Sitting in a parked outrunner for fifteen minutes while somebody else shoots rockets at an endlessly circling mutated space moth and hits one out of ten times is annoying – I nearly pulled out a book – but it’s more fun than I’ve been having lately with New Vegas. Hard to say why. Maybe it’s just the been there, done that of having played 100 hours of Fallout 3. I’m hoping that if I install the Project Nevada mod it might make the game fun again.

I’m about halfway through Metro 2033, and hoping that it stays good enough to keep playing all the way through, as I hear it’s got a pretty good conclusion. I’ll have more to say about this game as I get further in. Dragon Age 2 and Portal 2 are coming out soon, so I’ve got to finish up as many of these games as I can.