Gorogoa

From the Monument Valley school of aesthetic poke around, this is a bland and completely frivolous game. A puzzle game where the pieces are slowly sifted out by tapping around and the actual solutions feel weakly clever at their best and blatantly obvious at their worst. Also, can we stop having these wannabe austere, mysticism meets desolation, just-an-arrangement-of-symbols games? They're almost always lame.

At least it was short.

2 minutes to 25 hours.

I might sit this one out. There's like 40 games from that year I'd like to play but I have no plans on playing any of them soon.

Jumping Flash! 2

I love Jumping Flash, and this is just more Jumping Flash. A new assortment of levels and boss fights with the same strengths and weaknesses as the first game. The hallway levels are better, it's the tiniest bit tougher (though it's still an easy game), and the controls and powerups are basically all the same. I was overjoyed that they made another level in a fair style with roller coaster tracks; that was my favorite level in the first game and they outdid it in this one.

Anyways, it's good even if it's more of an expansion than it is a sequel. It's Jumping Flash baby.

Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army (Boo! Bad title. Fix your title)

This one hurts, because it does some things so exceedingly well and others so inexplicably poorly, how much someone likes this game will depend almost entirely on what they value. It has the greatest and most interesting setting of an SMT game I've played (and MT2 and SMT2 have fantastic settings). It uses its demons and its conspiracy plotline to express the xenophobia, militarism, and acceleration of technology that was troubling Japan during that time; it's really cool to see an RPG that references history so thoughtfully. I also like that our protagonist is a supernatural detective, and how powers from demons you've captured are used to influence people and objects in the game world. The environments alone, which reanimate period Tokyo make the game worth checking out.

What's baffling is how completely lame the combat is. SMT, especially in the PS2 era, had a great turn-based system, and man did they bungle their first shot at action RPG. It's slow and unresponsive, and using friendly demons and strategy is often less effective than just running around, slashing enemies and blocking attacks. It's really a slog, made worse by the back chunk of the game which would be a bit tiresome even with a good combat system.

It's a really mixed bag, but I'm going to lean towards 'worth playing' if just for its world and ambitions.

ME2 is like playing a season of a really bad sci-fi TV show. Portal 2 is good, which is the difference for me.

I've been playing The Pandora Directive, and I just don't like it very much. I have trouble parsing out why exactly: I really like Under a Killing Moon and thought Tesla Effect was good too. Maybe it's just that it starts off in a smaller, less interesting version of the same environment from the previous game? Maybe it's the focus on money and a moral system (apparently the story forks in major ways depending on decisions made). I'm just not engaged at all by the characters, it just comes across as limp and empty to me. Maybe I'm not in the mood. I think I'll drop it and be open to giving it another shot some time in the future.

I'm guessing Game Boy Color titles weren't considered? I would have had Metroid 2 and Gargoyles Quest on the list, but it's pretty solid regardless.

Silent Hill 2

I think it's a bit weak. The shifting, corrupted environments of the first game are now pretty straightforward: a maze of full broken locks and slow, shambling enemies with just as many packs of ammunition to nonchalantly put them down. It was a pretty monotonous, mopey game with few surprises and annoying characters. Yes it looks good (I like that the game stuck with the lo-fi look that was a necessity in the first game), and the last half hour or so, which is (apart from the final boss fight) excellent, makes up for some of the game's shortcomings. Those things and a row boat aren't enough for me to agree with the consensus on this one.

"0 point: The Quiet Man"

You just had to do it to him.