This week, my list of the games I’ve played throughout 2011 continues. First off, Metroid Prime. Yeah, the old Gamecube game. I just got around to finally playing it. I never owned a Gamecube, but a few years back, I’d played Eternal Darkness on my Wii and had a lot of fun. When I mentioned to a friend that I was interested in trying out other Gamecube games I may have missed out on, he recommended Wind Waker and Metroid Prime. I’d really enjoyed Wind Waker, so it was with much zeal that I dived into Metroid Prime. I was, frankly, disappointed. I understand that this game came out way before anyone had figured out the best control configuration for first person shooters on a gamepad, but the controls just did not gel for me. I played the game a good bit, and only quit while fighting the plant boss. Sorry, Samus. Did not like the game. C-.

Osmos is one of my favorite Humble Indie Bundle games. It surprised me, and in a very good way. The premise is simple: You’re a blob. There are other blobs. Eat the smaller blobs and avoid the bigger blobs. Sounds kind of boring, but a few mechanics they added make it a lot of fun. You move by expelling a tiny amount of your substance, so moving actually shrinks you an infintesmal amount. So you want to minimize your thrust. Also, the material you expel can push other blobs, and if it hits them, they get bigger.

The amount of complexity and strategy involved is far greater than you’d think. And there are multiple sections of the game that each introduce new mechanics. Osmos is a lot of fun, and I’ve heard they introduced an iOS version. If you’ve got an iPhone, I recommend Osmos highly. It gets a B.

I got a sweet deal on The Misadventures of PB Winterbottom when I bought it on Steam. I’m pretty sure I paid $2.50. It was an XBLA game that I’d missed and heard many good things about, so I jumped all over it. It seems like all XBLA puzzle/platformers get compared to Braid, and I suppose I can understand the comparison, but the only real similarities are that they’re both XBLA puzzle/platformers, and they both have sections of levels that each introduce new mechanics. For a while, I wasn’t sure I’d get through the game without a walkthrough, but in the end I managed. My daughter watched me play more often than not.

One thing that I nearly forgot to mention about PB Winterbottom is the amazing soundtrack. The music is so well written that I enjoy listening to it at work. It’s a beautiful orchestral score that integrates ticking clocks and other elements of the time-based gameplay very well. It’s second only to Bastion as the best music I’ve heard in a game this year. I really liked it a lot – I’ll give it a B.

I passed on Peggle when it first came out. Popcap has seriously impressed me with Plants Versus Zombies (and to a lesser degree Wordworm Adventures) but I never saw the allure of Peggle. If I was going to be on a PC, I’d much rather play a less causal game. But when the Android Amazon App store offered Peggle for free, I grabbed it. And now, I play the game nearly every day. I’ve finished the “adventure”, and begun going through all the “quick play” levels. I’ve aced roughly 75% of them, and I’m working on the remaining few. On a mobile platform, Peggle is a killer app. It gets a B.

I’ll stop right here for a moment and admit that all this preface about the Humble Indie bundles is so that I can write about Atom Zombie Smasher, but the bundles are good, and the background info is good info.

The first bundle included World of Goo, Aquaria, Gish, Penumbra: Overture, Lugaru, and Samarost 2. Of these, I enjoyed World of Goo and Penumbra: Overture and didn’t so much love the others.

The second bundle was much better. It included Cortex Command, Machinarium, Revenge of the Titans, Osmos, and Braid. By the time I’d gotten this bundle, I’d already played Braid, loved it, and written a hint series about the game on this site. The one from this bundle that grabbed me was Osmos, wherein you play a tiny amoeba trying to envelop and “eat” smaller amoebas and thus gain mass in order to eat increasingly larger amoebas. It’s a really good game, although the later levels get way too difficult. I believe that Osmos is now available on iOS, and I highly recommend it.

I never tried the unnumbered “Humble Frozenbyte Bundle” but I recently dug into the third bundle for the first time. I quickly learned that Hammerfight‘s controls were a bit wonky for my taste and And Yet It Moves didn’t hold my attention. I’d played the flash version of VVVVVV previously and didn’t feel the need to jump back in, although I’ve heard more than one person rave about that game. Cogs is one I played for about a dozen puzzle/levels before growing tired of the 3d puzzle-slider mechanic, and Steel Storm is a fun old school shoot-em-up that I continue to play bit by bit. Crayon Physics Deluxe is a game I took notice of long ago, when it was still in development. The premise was very creative and cool, much like Scribblenauts. But like Scribblenauts, the implementation somehow didn’t quite measure up.

Lastly, my favorite game in the bundle, which is my favorite game in any of the bundles. It might be my overall favorite game that I’m playing currently. Atom Zombie Smasher.

Atom Zombie Smasher is done by Blendo Games, who made the amazing Gravity Bone, which I featured long ago in Free Game Friday. After having seen what great stuff Blendo puts out, I’m going to have to revisit their catalog.

In Atom Zombie Smasher, you coordinate the response to a worldwide zombie outbreak. Your playing field is a map of multiple territories, and both you and the zombies score points on a victory track. The default setting has a 2000 point victory condition, but there are many settings to tweak. The zombies score one point per citizen that they convert into a zombie, and 10/20/30/40 points each round for level 1, 2, 3, or 4 outbreak areas. You score one point per citizen you rescue, and 20 points per round for each territory you capture. There are also certain milestones along each victory track at which specific events will occur – each side can unlock new abilities. For example, you can begin to rescue scientist and can gain access to orbital cannons and llama bombs. The zombies can increase their rate of infestation and begin to create super-zeds.

But this outer strategic level is only a housing for the meat of the game, wherein you evacuate citizens from the city. You first get a setup phase, where you can position snipers, ground troops, landmines, dynamite charges, and barricades. Then you click “begin” and the zombies begin coming. You set an evacuation point, and the citizens rush to it while the zombies pursue. You do your best to hold the zombies back while minimizing civilian casulaties, but the trick is that any citizen caught by a zombie becomes a zombie. Rescuing scientists can unlock new upgrades, and things like zombie bait, artillery, and the orbital catbird cannon help a lot. And if you take too long and night falls, even more zombies show up.

The game is very difficult, but very fun. I have yet to win a campaign, but I’ll be playing this one for quite some time.

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.