Trine 2
As I mentioned recently, the release of Trine 2 completely caught me off-guard. Since I’ve still got a bunch of PSN dollars from a card I bought a while back, I’ll likely snatch this one up on December 6th. I loved the first one, and it’s the only platinum PSN trophy I’ve got.

Amy
Amy was supposed to come out in September, then on Halloween. Then it was supposed to come out in November. Guess what? November is over now. Still no Amy. But the videos look so good. Let’s hope that the delay has given the game extra polish. I loves me a good survival horror game.

The Last Guardian
This release date has been pushed and pushed, and currently sits at some point in 2012. It’s probably my number one most-anticipated game for 2012. Oh, look. It was my most-anticipated game for 2011 too.

Mechwarrior Online
The latest in the Mechwarrior series has been re-envisioned quite a few times, but now looks to be a free-to-play title. It may very well be the first free-to-play game I actually try. I’ve been a big fan of Mechwarrior, if not a fan of online multiplayer games.

Pixeljunk Monsters Browser Game
What’s even more ridiculous than Greg wanting to play a free-to-play online multiplayer game? I’ll tell you what. Greg wanting to play a browser-based MMO. My love for Pixeljunk Monsters is that strong. Hopefully the browser game is half as good as the amazing PSP edition.

List analytics aside, let’s look at the next five games.

30 – Dungeon Keeper (Bullfrog Productions, Windows, 1997)
Despite being more than a decade old, Dungeon Keeper is still a lot of fun. The graphics are horribly dated, but the mechanic of digging out an area for your dungeon – creating your own space – is a lot of fun. I’ve never realized it before just now, but Dungeon Keeper really has a lot in common with Desktop Tower Defense. In both, you build a maze to channel creeps through so that you can kill them. In Dungeon Keeper, you’re just building traps and placing creatures instead of building towers and cannons. You’ve also got to mine gold and keep it away from those pesky adventurers. Ah, there’s nothing like laying waste to the kingdom…

29 – Fallout Tactics (Micro Forte, Windows, 2001)
The consensus about Fallout Tactics was that it was a pale shadow of the two main Fallout titles, and I’ll admit that the story and the RPG options present in the original were missing. Fallout Tactics is just a series of missions. But it lets you form a full party and control each of them in combat, which is something I’d wanted badly in the main games. It allows for quite a lot of strategy, and that’s where the game shines.

So you can create a party that consists of a ghoul with a high driving skill behind the wheel of your APC, a sniper who sits up on a fire escape, a sneaky guy who gets close, plants land mines, then waits nearby with a shotgun, and a deathclaw who sneaks in close before attacking. Then, BOOM! Your shotgun guy pops-up at point blank range and cuts two slavers in half with a shotgun blast just as your deathclaw charges in. The other slavers go after the deathclaw but hit landmines. And the ghoul driver comes in and runs down some others with the APC. Meanwhile, your sniper picks off strays. I love it.

28 – Wasteland (Interplay, Commodore 64, 1988)

Wasteland had a release on both the Commodore 64 and DOS platforms, and as such there’s still a version floating around that’s playable on modern computers. Wasteland was a hugely influential game – it ended up inspiring a little title you may have heard of: Fallout.

Wasteland is Fallout, only more so. It’s less tame. Sure, the Fallout games have plenty of blood, but in Wasteland you could do a lot of things that you just don’t see in more modern video games. In Wasteland, you’re attacked by a ten-year-old boy after you kill his dog, and you’re forced to kill the lad. And this is in the first 20 minutes of the game. One of Wasteland’s climactic battles has you battling nuns with assault rifles. And you can sleep with a prostitute and contract wasteland herpes. Good times.

27 – Mechwarrior 4: Vengeance (FASA Interactive, Windows, 2000)

Another reason I loved the old Mechwarrior games was because they were so unlike other mech games. Armored Core and Chromehounds are twitch games. Mechwarrior is not. Even when you’re in battle using jump jets to dodge gunfire, locking on with your missiles, and aiming your PPC shots, it isn’t frantic. The timing feels so much more relaxed – like a real time strategy than a shooter.

26 – Typing of the Dead (Smilebit, Windows, 2000)

Before the Sega Dreamcast version of Typing of the Dead was released in 2001, this was a PC title. It’s now very rare and difficult to obtain, but it’s very much worth it. It’s so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking it up.

Typing of the Dead is a game about which I may never tire of ranting and raving. It’s got a lot of camp value, and to fully enjoy it you need to enjoy the humor of the terrible voice acting and outdated graphics as much as the humor of the ridiculous things you’re typing. I keep Typing of the Dead installed on my PC and play it from time to time when I don’t have any other games lined up. It’s always fun, and since it’s already so old, it never gets old… er.

So here we are at the fifth part of my series on the elements I enjoy most in games. This time, I’ll be talking about games that allow you to create and customize something. The two games that come to mind as having done this very well are the Mechwarrior series and the old Commodore 64 game Autoduel. Both give you the ability to construct vehicles and modify them with weapons and armor, and then ride them into combat.

I haven’t played Autoduel in many years, but I loved putting together vehicles with specifications geared to my own play style. You could select a sedan, a station wagon, a van, or any of a number of vehicle bodies. You’d then select a power plant and a tire type. Puncture proof and solid tires did especially well against spikedroppers. Then you’d place armor on the car’s various locations. If you were planning on charging enemies head-on, you’d put lots of armor up front. If you felt daring, you could save weight and money by not putting armor on the car’s undercarriage, but then if you ever hit a landmine, you were screwed.

The game then let you pick from many weapons, and place them wherever you wanted. You could mount dual rocket launchers on the front, a recoilless rifle on the side, or maybe a flamethrower on the vehicle’s rear. Personally, I was a big fan of the side-mounted laser. I’d just put tons of armor on that side of the vehicle, then drive circles around the enemy and fry him.

If there were ever an update of this game, they could add in turrets, gas versus electric engines, varying traction for different tire types, and maybe even ablative armor, which was always a favorite of mine when we’d play tabletop Car Wars.

In the Mechwarrior series, you select from a number of light, medium, heavy, or assault chassis, and then pile on armor and weapons. Weight is a serious consideration, as each chassis has a maximum weight limit. As you begin to add weapons, the heat they generate also becomes a factor. You can add heat sinks, but they take up more space and weight. Thus, the four limiting factors you have to consider are weight, heat, space, and of course money.

Mass driver weapons such as machine guns and autoguns are a standard, but you need to be sure to add ammunition for them, which takes up space. You can add as much ammo as you like, but should the part of the mech where you’ve stored the ammo take significant damage, the ammunition might explode, causing additional damage.

There are also energy weapons such as lasers and particle projection cannons. They require no ammo, but tend to generate much more heat, and you may find yourself waiting longer in between shots in order to prevent a forced shutdown triggered by excessive heat buildup.

Missiles can also be a good option. They tend to lock on, and thus require less work to aim manually. They require ammo just like mass drivers do, and have the same potential issues with ammo explosions. But they can take up a lot of space and weight, and don’t usually fire as quickly as the other alternatives.

Thus, it’s a trade off. The construction of a mech can be as much fun as playing through the actual combat. When you perfect a build that you really enjoy, deciding to add in jump jets, enhanced radar, anti-missile devices, or any of the other options, playing with that mech can be all the more rewarding.

I’ve always loved these types of games that give you a lot of depth in creating your engine of destruction, and then use them to kill enemies. I haven’t seen a good one in years. Hopefully this lawsuit doesn’t stop the new Mechwarrior game from coming out. I’d love to play it.

Keepers is a weekly segment in which I discuss games I’ve played that I’ve seen fit to keep after playing. I generally sell a game that I’ve finished, so the only reason I keep one is because I plan to replay the game some day. Classifying a game as a “keeper” is generally a badge of merit.

The Mechwarrior series had some great games. This particular compilation includes Mechwarrior 4: Vengeance, Mechwarrior 4: Black Knight, and Mechwarrior Mercenaries.

Although slightly slower-paced than some other mech games like Armored Core and Chromehounds, Mechwarrior is the king of the mech games. It lets you customize better than any other game I’ve seen since the Commodore 64’s Autoduel. You can add missiles, particle projection cannons, machine guns, flamethrowers, and tons of other weapons. You can add weapons into any part of the mech, and weight and heat are serious considerations that you need to balance out. Creating the perfect mech is as much a part of the game as piloting it.

Based on the original FASA rules for Battletech, the Mechwarrior series had some good stuff to draw on. I’ll admit to having played tabletop Battletech on more than one occasion, as I did Car Wars. Good stuff.

Mechwarrior 4 was a fantastic game, and the Mechwarrior series is one of the game franchises that I’m hoping will make a comeback.