Doug has hit the track again, Tyler has wound through the Mass Effect 2 DLC, and Nick has finally settled down in the great state of Texas and has time to play lots of games again. So without further ado, on to the Backlog!

Nick

This illustration is pulled straight out of Gray's Anatomy. Side note: This is also how I feel after watching Grey's Anatomy.

After what has seemed like a vast expanse of time without digital entertainment, I’m finally back in the saddle. I re-upped on my Xbox Live gold subscription and started digging into the Gears of War 3 multiplayer beta test, which I’d sincerely forgotten was even underway. I bought Bulletstorm based on its own merits, after all, and given how totally disappointing Gears of War 2 was both online and off I really wasn’t all that interested in being chainsawed repeatedly by stoned twentysomethings online yet again. But I’m a man who writes about the video games, and I don’t want to shirk my responsibility. So after a quick patch download, I was running around as Marcus Fenix and digging the familiar thrill of roadie running from cement barricade to cement barricade.

Ten minutes later, I’d been slaughtered a half-dozen times and had failed to kill even a single opponent. I’m officially done with Gears of War 3′s multiplayer.

I’m not surprised, though; Gears’ multiplayer offerings have never done it for me. As a co-op shooter, though, the original Gears is largely unsurpassed even today, and I’ve got high hopes for Epic’s conclusion to the trilogy on that front.

In other news, I finally got to partake in an honest-to-goodness Rock Band night last night — the first since I moved to Austin. I can’t begin to describe how awesome an experience Rock Band is when you’ve got a few friends, a good speaker setup and plenty of beer. Absolutely unparalleled multiplayer fun. I just hope Harmonix manages to keep innovating for its next release; clearly the now-traditional formula isn’t a commercial magic bullet anymore, and frankly, I feel like Rock Band has pretty much hit its apex. Unless the next entry goes full-bore into teaching real instruments and allowing for recording, mixing and distribution of music, I’m not sure there’s a whole lot of room left for development within the traditional Rock Band formula.

I’ve been flying, gliding and jet-packing my way through Pilotwings Resort‘s brief but altogether enjoyable series of challenges. At forty bucks, it’s sure not the best value out there, but it excels as a pick-up-and-play experience. I’m finding that the real meat of the game is in its free-roaming exploration mode, which has plenty of objects to track down and secrets to discover. If nothing else, it’s a very relaxing way to unwind after a long day, and the 3D effect really makes for an engrossing experience. It gives me hope for the long-term potential of the 3DS platform.

Now that PSN is back up, I’m hoping to finally purchase a few great downloadable games that I’d been holding out on, like the surprisingly excellent Might & Magic Clash of Heroes. But even without a functioning online infrastructure, I’ve still managed to have a great time playing through God of War III and engaging in a few rounds of the thoroughly brutal and incredibly satisfying Mortal Kombat.

Let’s start with God of War III. I’m nearing the end of the game, or at least I’m pretty sure I’m close to the end, because there really aren’t that many gods left to kill. I’m racking my brain and seeking out the most obscure reaches of Greek mythology, and nope — Kratos has pretty much concluded his deicidal rampage. I’m having a whole lot more fun with that game than I ever imagined possible, especially considering how lukewarm I always was on the combat in the first two. But God of War III is so smartly designed and finely tuned that I have to admit that it’s truly an excellent game. (Somewhere in Japan, Tyler just fist-pumped – Ed.) I’m glad to see such an important series go out on a high note.

As for Mortal Kombat, let’s just say that I never liked the games all that much in the first place. Sure, it was a huge deal when it first came out — everyone remembers the nudality and playable Goro rumors — but I never thought it had the polish or the replayability that made Street Fighter II so great. The violence was kinda cool, I guess, but really, Mortal Kombat was and always has been kind of a one-trick pony.

But the new Mortal Kombat? It’s actually pretty fucking fantastic.

I haven’t dug into the single-player story mode, which I hear is shockingly robust, but the pure one-on-one and tag-team versus combat is seriously top-notch stuff. Characters feel distinct and balanced, and the visuals and sound work are unparalleled in any fighting game to date. I can’t wait to pick up my own copy in the near future.

But before that happens, I’ve got a date with L.A. Noire. And of course, I’d be making a terrible mistake if I didn’t remind everyone that Chrono Trigger is coming out for the Wii’s Virtual Console today. If you’ve never played it — and really, why haven’t you? — it truly is the best 16-bit roleplaying game, and it’s perhaps my absolute favorite game ever. Trust me: If you have a Wii and eight dollars, you can’t go wrong with Chrono Trigger.

Tyler

Tyler's advice for Mass Effect 3 DLC: Attractive Aliens = Good; Autistic Cyborgs = Bad.

I’ve had a relatively busy week here and was left with very little free time. The few moments I managed to squeak in to my hectic schedule were spent putting the finishing touches on my PS3 play-through of one of this generations finest gaming experiences, Mass Effect 2. I also apologize for being late to the party, I’m usually a very punctual person, but I have finally completed the Overlord and Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC packs.

The former left me rather unsatisfied. It reminded me of a more polished version of the Bring Down the Sky DLC for the first Mass Effect. I say more polished because at least with Overlord, there is some variety in the environments, but both epitomize the kind of DLC that doesn’t work in this series. They are side missions with little to no bearing on the overall stories or characters and leave little lasting impact on the narrative the player is weaving with their Commander Shepard. Also, both are chock full of vehicular combat and traversal…a style of gameplay Bioware has yet to really grasp. It’s not to say the Hammerhead hover-tank isn’t an improvement on the Mako from ME1, but it’s still not something I have any desire to spend any amount of time with.

On the other hand, Lair of the Shadow Broker might be the finest piece of new content BioWare has ever constructed for one of their games. The gameplay mirrors the multitude of recruitment and loyalty missions in the standard campaign — combat from cover, use powers, shoot bad guys — however, the story has Shepard working directly with a Liara T’soni, a teammate and potential ex-love interest from the first game. I wish we had more missions directly tying events in Mass Effect 2 to it’s predecessor because the franchise excels when there is that sense of narrative cohesion. Lair of the Shadow Broker is rewarding, not only in the context of Mass Effect 1 and 2, but because it has implications that will play a pivotal role in the final act, now due early next year.

Video games, for better or for worse, are more than something myself and the other editors and contributors of Sasquatch do in our free time. Even when we’re not playing games, we’re thinking about them, we’re reading about them and of course, writing about them. The past week-plus has been especially newsworthy, with cover stories from several different publications focused on Mass Effect 3. Ordinarily, news of a delay of the release of a highly anticipated title would perturb me, but I could not be happier about the game’s move to early 2012. There are plenty of games I’m looking forward in 2011 and besides, a Q1 release worked out rather well for Mass Effect 2. Plus, I selfishly  want BioWare to spend as much time as is economically feasible to make the end of the trilogy the satisfying conclusion it needs to be.

Doug

Doug's still digging F1 2010, despite its most famous race leaving him absolutely befuddled.

I have admit something to you guys: I feel like I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel here. I’m still on the mother of all new-game fasts (save sipping from the iOS games trough) but L.A. Noire is about to test my patience in a major way. I’ve been a sucker for Rockstar’s games on the current gen, and the thought that it leans more toward “adventure” instead of “go fuck around in a city” is peeeeeeeeerfectly fine with me. Being a noir detective and combining GTA with Phoenix Wright sounds like exactly what I want from a game right now.

But that’s a purchase away. What I’ve been digging into, though, is returning to Formula 1 2010. One of my friends started digging in to the game and it gave me the bug to head back out to the track and work on securing my second championship. I’d been dreading heading back into the single-player career, though, because it meant facing my F1 arch-nemesis: the streets of Monte Carlo. If you’ve never seen a lap at Monaco, go take a peek at a lap from last year — a former F1 driver described racing on those narrow, twisting streets as trying to ride a bicycle in a living room.

Now I’m hardly trying to run from a challenge (I do have the difficulty cranked up pretty high) and I do think I’m pretty good at this game and racers in general (I can and will beat the AI most of the time), but damned if I just can’t get up to speed at Monaco. It’s a classic downward spiral: the narrow confines mean there’s little room for error to learn the track, so I get frustrated and can’t get faster. And because I get frustrated, I don’t even want to bother.

I contend that, in games, there’s a difference between challenge and frustration. Just at this point, Monaco tips it from one to the other. Annoying.

Also I just remembered that, even though I don’t have a ton new to play still at the moment, I still have a lot left to do in Dragon Quest IX. I think that’s going to keep me busy for a while. And while Nick is digging through God of War III, I think I might have to get back into the original. Decisions, decisions.

The Backlog is, of course, for the games we’ve been playing as of late and, ideally, games that are brand new. The cutting edge!

That’s how it turns into our Backlog being full of brand-new bangers like…um…Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Quest IX? Riiiiiiiiiight. Well. At least we’ve got things to say about these games, plus honest-to-god newer wares, too.

Anyway. To the Backlog!

Nick

Nick thinks the co-op play in Portal 2 is as revolutionary as the first game was. Science!

When you finish Portal 2, you unlock an achievement whose description is simply “That just happened.” Truer words have never been written.

The single-player portion of Portal 2 was satisfying, cleverly told and just the right length. Smartly broken up into three acts, it logically extends the formula of the first game with some clever but not altogether earth-shattering additions.

Cooperative play is where things get downright revolutionary. Introducing two players and four portals is as mind-bending as the original Portal experience was, and the way GLaDOS taunts you and your partner’s friendship is wonderfully evil. I have yet to finish it, but it’s not for lack of wanting to. I’m just afraid of spoiling such a rare and inspired experience by rushing through it.

I’m on a short trip out to California this weekend so I won’t be playing many games, but I am planning on wrapping up both Puzzle Agent and Sword and Sworcery while airborne. To look back at the iPhone just three years ago and realize just how far it’s come in terms of hardware capability and ingenuity of software design — hell, there wasn’t even an App Store three years ago! — puts in perspective just how incredible a market mobile gaming has become.

Tyler

Fortunately, the PS3 version of Mass Effect 2 comes with the DLC, so Tyler wasn't left out in the cold with PSN down.

I’ve been playing video games for nearly twenty years now. It’s been longer if you count the times when my babysitter brought over her Sega Master System or when I visited my cousins with their NES. I’ve owned more than a dozen consoles, and I don’t even want to consider how many titles I’ve played. I’ve long since understood that as far as entertainment goes, games are an imperfect medium. At a young age, especially when we were playing on cartridges, it was easy to think of games less as software and more as toys. However, these days when games are burned on to discs or downloaded and when your console’s value can be determined in gigabytes of storage and is expected to connect to the internet, the lines between a computer and a game console have blurred. And of course, where you have software, you’re bound to have bugs, glitches and other such impediments.

In the previous Backlog I mentioned years ago I built my own PC and played many a PC game. Two of my favorites were the much-revered Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic games by BioWare and Obsidian Entertainment. I loved those games, and they were likely the first western-style role-playing games I truly adored. But oh, did I ever have problems with them. In addition to difficulties that came with my Frankenstein machine, both titles were just generally broken games that, while fun, had problems. These ranged from the minor (such as textures failing to appear and party members clipping through environments) to the major (the entire game crashing, corrupted save files). When I think back on those games, though, it’s not frustration but nostalgia.

This week’s PSN-is-down coping mechanism is another BioWare game, the PS3 version of Mass Effect 2. It’s still my favorite game of 2010, repackaged with a little extra polish and most of the DLC I missed out on. The port is not without its downsides, however. The motion comic Mass Effect: Genesis that comes with the PSN variant of the Cerberus Network is a less-than-adequate substitute for actually playing the first Mass Effect and transferring your save. The decisions are extremely limited, but the larger issue is that the few that existed were borked in my play-through. The way NPCs referenced my actions in the previous act in the series made it sound like an episode of TV’s Fringe with my Shepard moving between two parallel universes with completely different choices. Sometimes Kaiden would be alive, sometimes Ashley; maybe I saved the council, maybe I didn’t. It was frustrating in a game I love so greatly for the ability to craft your own personal continuity.

The worst part was that I wasn’t fully aware how serious the issue was until roughly twelve hours into the game. Luckily, despite PSN being down, game updates can still be issued if your PS3 has a network connection; the recent patch ended the parallel universes and brought my Shepard back to normalcy in a right-thinking universe where Kaiden is very much dead.

With the complexity of games, size of development teams and expectations of consumers rising each year, the issue of bugs or glitches in games is likely only going to get worse. And I hate to be the cynic, but I think it may be poor judgment to assume that PSN’s recent woes will be the last time one of the major online infrastructures goes down. Might this be the longest and most severe? Possibly, lord knows I hope so, but it would be foolish to say this is the end of outages for these services. The number of people playing games online globally is only going to rise, as will the bandwidth demands on games and networks, and of course there will always be hackers. I wouldn’t ask anyone to forgive Sony but this is, has been and always will be a medium with flaws.

And I love it, warts and all.

Doug

Doug's gone back to the world of Dragon Quest IX, and wonders why he ever left.

A funny thing happened to me this week: I ran my DS Lite’s battery almost all the way down. At the very least, I ran it down to the point where the light went from green to red and I had to madly scramble and remember where the charger wound up. For one reason or another, I’ve always liked the idea of handheld gaming much more than the actual execution; the time I used my DS the most was in college, where it pulled double-duty as a Japanese-English dictionary. When you have a couple of consoles sitting there hooked up to the TV, why bother with the little Nintendo handheld? I guess it’s the same reason why we bother with any of these consoles — because it has some damn good games.

Without much left uncovered on the 360, I started playing a couple of my DS games again. I’ve been intending to get back into Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past for ages, and that’s definitely been fun. The gameplay is incredibly well-balanced and fun, but man, it’s kind of frustrating dying at the boss and having to go through the entire dungeon all over again. And since I’ve never gotten past that first dungeon, it feels like Groundhog Day in the worst possible way.

So I jumped back over to Dragon Quest IX, a game that…yes, kicked me back to town if I lost against the boss. Funny, that. I raved about this game last summer when I bought it and dumped some time into it, but after getting stuck and needing to level up, down it went and it became forgotten. I gave it another shot after seeing it still in my DS when I loaded up Zelda, and also listening to a recent 8-4 Play podcast where the discussion of Dragon Quest’s English translation re-sparked my interest.

Regardless, I’ve probably played it ten hours this week, gotten through three or four dungeons and bosses, and unraveled the story even moreso. I know the story isn’t exactly the point of DQIX, but I’m enjoying it, despite the awkwardly silent protagonist (and that giving him my name makes him stand out in the Celestrian world). However, the combat system has started to open up, even as I realize that it’s going to keep going forever. My characters are right around level 20, and that’s on their first jobs, too, so I’m going to be involved with this for a while.

Between the simple yet fun combat system, the charming Dragon Quest aesthetic and the surprisingly touching story, I’m hooked. I’m even thinking about taking the dive and picking up Dragon Quest VIII soon, though I think I should finish one before starting another up.

Aaron

Aaron's not sure if Metro 2033 is going to be any good, but it was on sale so he didn't think to hard about it.

All I had time for this week was a few minutes, maybe a brief hour, of Portal 2. And no: I still haven’t finished it.

But the following three days will be productive. I plan to spend those precious hours of not-work going through my ever-increasing tower of videogames. Be it Portal 2, Dragon Age II, Metro 2033, Crysis 2, DJ Hero 2 or the handful of smaller add-ons and expanded content I’ve purchased on a whim over the last month, I’m going to get shit done. I want my plate to be cleared and squeaky clean by the time L.A Noire launches in a little over a week.

Now if someone could stop making me purchase things on Steam, I’d be in your debt. Sometimes having a little extra spending money is a total drag. And man do I ever look American/white/middle class for writing that.

Alright, so here’s the deal: Before the jump, I’m not going to spoil anything. After the jump, I will try to avoid direct story spoilers but discuss what Arrival means in terms of Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3. It’s a hard topic to avoid when talking about this DLC pack, and needs to be addressed. Capiche? Capiche.

At Silicon Sasquatch, we love ourselves some Mass Effect. I’ve played through Mass Effect 1 and 2 twice each, bought and played through all of the ME2 DLC, and earned almost all the achievements in both…and I’m the person on staff who is the least hardcore about the game! Put simply, we enjoy the game’s mechanics and universe so much that the opportunity to dive back into ME2 one last time and get a nice bridge between it and the highly anticipated Mass Effect 3 is very, very hard to avoid.

That said, I enjoyed it but as a DLC package for Mass Effect 2, I find it hard to put Arrival ahead of some other extra missions Commander Shepard has gone on. It’s not quite as interesting from a gameplay standpoint as the Overlord or Kasumi: Stolen Memory missions were, and I don’t think the storyline was handled as well as The Lair of the Shadow Broker. There are times in Arrival where I felt like the level design was a touch convoluted. I think Arrival also relies a bit too much on combat — one of the new achievements in this DLC is tied directly to a specific combat sequence, and I can’t for the life of me think how you could get it the first time around. Hell, the second half of the mission has an almost-bewildering amount of shooting dudes given the context of the situation.

That said, Arrival does tell the story that bridges Mass Effect 2 and 3. And it does provide additional context and, above all, gets you excited for Mass Effect 3 to get here NOW. So, it has that going for it. Lastly, it provides you another chance to go back into the game — and even with some issues, more Mass Effect 2 is always a good thing. It may be a bit fanboy-ish, but when the topic of ME comes up, it’s hard to be completely subjective. The game series has proved itself to be that good.

So dig in. Whether now, to avoid as many spoilers as possible, or as an appetizer to get back into the mood for Mass Effect 3, this deserves to be played, for better or worse. It’s a shame that the hook of being the gap between Mass Effect 2 and 3 can be used to get fans to struggle through an average experience.

The break-in sequence in ME2: Arrival is actually pretty fun, but the level design is a little janky.

So let’s discuss the impact of this DLC on the storyline of the game. I don’t think it really adds much to the game that we didn’t already know — and if you’ve played through Arrival, I think you’d agree. The conclusion it provides isn’t terribly interesting or, really, all that new; what is, however, is the context it provides. To put things vaguely, we knew what would happen, but not when, and Arrival answers that second question. It’s not something I was expecting to happen so quickly within the Mass Effect universe, but it does make sense; what you have to do in the DLC also leaves a believable impact.

The other storyline facet Arrival provides relates to the consequences of that event and its impact. That Commander Shepard may have to go explain his actions back on Earth, and that players may have the chance to role play these choices, is going to tumble around in my mind for a good, long time leading up to ME3.

Otherwise, though, the frustrating part of Arrival for me is how the combat curve snaps the tension built by the setting and circumstances. There is a time and place for lots ‘o combat, but what should be a time-sensitive instance in a laboratory is NOT one of those for me. Why the hell is a laboratory that well-staffed with security flunkies, anyways? Especially when this is supposedly an unbelievably top secret operation — hell, you have to play the DLC without teammates because Admiral Hackett wants you to go it alone. That said, the ability to play the first segment of Arrival in a stealthy way was interesting, as were a couple things in the second half of the pack. One little moment in particular was really cool, if a bit throwaway.

I am going to be very interested to see how BioWare resolves storyline consistency issues now, too. There are now a lot of permutations of how to play and what content to tackle in ME2 — between the different endings, the resolving of Lair of the Shadow Broker, and whether or not you played Arrival, that’s a LOT of different things to try and explain. I’m sure BioWare can handle the problem, but they can’t bring Commander Shepard back from the dead again, so seeing how this happens will be an intriguing aspect of Mass Effect 3.

Frankly, again, I feel that the Lair of the Shadow Broker, Overlord, and even the Kasumi DLC packs were more fun to play; however, only Shadow Broker can even come close in terms of story importance in the Mass Effect universe. The gameplay may leave a little to be desired, but as a prologue to Mass Effect 3, it’s a requirement.

Recommended for:

• Its impact on the Mass Effect universe — as the bridge between ME2 and ME3, it is vital for fans
• Providing context to the events to come in Mass Effect 3

Arrival is a downloadable add-on for Mass Effect 2, available on Xbox Live Marketplace for $6.99/560Microsoft Points and PC and PlayStation 3 for $6.99. The reviewer purchased the downloadable content and completed it on the normal difficulty setting, earning one of three achievements.

Read our policy on reviews here.

Okay, fine: So maybe we didn’t put our thinking caps on this morning to figure out what ties all three of our Backlog entries together. It’s possible that we didn’t get enough sleep because some jerk woodpecker just had to poke the hell out of a dying fir tree about five feet from a certain editor’s bed for roughly three hours. Maybe that same editor grew frustrated in hunting down a hilarious .jpg and drew a crude comic to vent his frustration instead.

Who knows? It is a mystery. So why don’t we just file it away for now and move on to more pressing matters?

Lovely.

Here’s the skinny: Nick is up to his old tricks, Doug is off the friggin’ deep end of football-induced insanity, and Aaron just really, really hates free stuff.

Nick:

We have to go deeper.

In case you ever decide to plagiarize our wildly successful business model, you might want to take note of a few key details about technique and approach. For example, the first thing I do before writing my Backlog contribution is make a list of every game I’ve played over the past week. This allows me both to prioritize my article’s structure and, in a rare instance of introspection, determine how much relaxation I’ve afforded myself in recent days.

That last part is a lot more important than I’ve allowed myself to realize recently. With so much pressure on my shoulders to find a new job and move back into the city – pressure that is primarily self-imposed – I haven’t had much time to play games, read books, play music, visit with friends, or just be a pleasant, mellow human being.

That’s going to change. I don’t think it’s foolish to suggest that someone can still have fun even while looking for work.

So here’s my pledge to you: Next week’s Backlog will mention at least one new game, and it will be a minimum of 147% more interesting to read. (Don’t you worry about the math — that’s my forte.)

But because you’re already here and it’d be rude of me to shove you back out into the cold, let me get you up to speed. I’ve begun work on my most ambitious project yet in Minecraft: the construction of an underwater city. And no, it’s not that underwater city; someone’s already recreated it anyway. I love how Minecraft makes it remarkably simple to take a concept and make it real in a shared online experience.

Speaking of Rapture, I’ve wrapped up Minerva’s Den, the self-contained narrative add-on to BioShock 2. It’s an interesting piece of content both within the BioShock universe and in terms of what a ten-dollar downloadable add-on can do for a game, and I’m hoping to get a review posted next week.

Beyond that, I’m trying to get back up to speed on pro drums in Rock Band 3 and enjoying some good, old-fashioned masochistic fun with Demon’s Souls on PlayStation 3 and 100 Rogues on iPhone. Something about a high-stakes, brutal, remorseless roleplaying game is just so damn compelling to me. I just need a good safe word.

Doug:

Yes, Doug is still playing this game. No, we don't know when that will ever stop.

Ah, video games. Just last night I put the wraps on my second playthrough of Mass Effect 2, saving the universe in quite the heroic way — and not losing a single crew member on the so-called suicide mission. I’ve still got a little content left to experience in the game, but I could go back through all I’ve already played for a third time quite easily.

Put a little more time into Super Street Fighter IV as well. Nick and I decided that if there’s ever a Silicon Sasquatch office, we’ll definitely have a dedicated SSFIV setup. I’ve loved fighting games for a while, but SSFIV is just about the pinnacle of balance, playability, and fun. I’m really, really terrible at executing combos on the standard 360 pad, though.

But neither of those games are the one I poured time into. Nope. That would go to the ever-present black hole, my addiction, Pro Evo Soccer 2010. If you’ll excuse me for a moment…

(Editor’s note: At this point, Doug has stood up and hastily pulled on his Arsenal soccer shirt. He is speaking in tongues. I’m calling the police.)

Seriously, it’s the time of year I start caring a lot more about European soccer. I’m always following along, but now that college football is done and the NBA playoff race hasn’t heated up, it’s time for soccer. Plus, Arsenal’s still in all four competitions, should win the Carling Cup (first silverware for five years, yay), and could still win the League for the first time in forever, so it’s time to pay attention.

I don’t know how much time I’ve dumped into my main Master League save, but I reckon I’ve played as major Italian club AS Roma for almost 60 hours. Now on my fourth season with the giallorossi, I’ve made some big-money purchases, developed players, and have quite the attacking team. I was using Roma’s stock 4-4-1-1 for a long time, and while it’s a fun way to play, it felt a bit too reliant on whoever is playing AMF (which, to begin with, is Francesco Totti). I loved how Roma’s attackers would switch positions and move fluidly, but I needed a new formation. Getting spanked by Real Madrid in the Champions League final precipitated change, so now I’m playing a more fluid 4-3-3 with a stock back four, DMF and two CMFs, and two SS and a CF up top.

The brilliant thing is that, by buying players who fit into multiple roles, I’ve created a midfield and attack setup where I can play total football until my black little heart explodes. My midfielders rotate responsibilities, my forwards swap positions on the field, and it allows me to do revel in why I love PES 2010: play going forward is much, much more organic and creative than FIFA’s recent games have been. With FIFA, it’s always felt like the best way to play is to put a ball through, spring the offside trap, and go one-on-one with the keeper. With PES, sure, that’s a way to do it, but you can send crosses into the middle of the box, to the far post, in early, and — crucially — you can attack and build in numbers, chipping away around the 18-yard-box until you find a way through.

It’s far from a perfect game — if my other favorite Konami soccer game, Winning Eleven 9, is too quick on the whistle, than PES 2010 is far too stingy awarding fouls, and free kicks are impossible to score on. However, it’s interesting enough to keep me going until the 2011-2012 season games are out this fall.

Aaron

Aaron's pretty sure this isn't a screenshot from the CSI demo he tried, but at this point he doesn't care. He also doesn't think anyone could tell the difference if asked.

Demos are a good and bad thing. They let you give games a preliminary test run before you put down a lot of money. At their best, demos preserve your wallet from waste; at their worst, well, demos let your girlfriend spend an hour playing a god-awful CSI: Criminal Some Bullshit or Whatever game on Xbox.

My girlfriend and I were spending a nice morning off from work together, hanging out and browsing the Xbox marketplace to kill time. I had just finished Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands (which, in short, pissed me off a great deal due to idiotic puzzles that truly deserve their own classification in the realm of “fuck this shit”) and made her sit through the entirety of the Dead Space 2 demo. Now, my girlfriend wasn’t upset or put out by my gaming choices the other day; in fact, she enjoyed watching the Prince defy gravity and an unassuming space engineer rip apart demon babies.

However, when I gave her the controller and asked her to pick the next game to play, she went straight to the demo section and downloaded that shovelware CSI demo. It was shit. Horrible, poorly designed shit. The worst part is, I found out that Telltale Games puts these things out! We both did our best to solve the mystery of a car wash cocaine murder, but after nearly an hour of lifeless voice acting and mind-numbing puzzles, we threw in the towel. Now we’ll never know “whodunnit,” and if Gil Grissom caught wind of our performance, he’d be upset yet passively bitchy. That’s the beauty of Grissom.

As I’ve demonstrated here in a very brief bit of writing, videogame demos are a beautiful thing when used right. In the wrong hands, though, they can be a nightmare. Overall, the CSI demo was a learning experience, one that told me how easy it would be to make a decent crime scene adventure game if given to the right team.

After the demo extravaganza, we finished out the day playing Kingdom Hearts. Since I’ve never even touched the series before yesterday, it was fun to sit down and see what the fuss was all about. I’m starting to be excited for the next installment on PS3, no less. It’s nice to play a Square-Enix game from a time before they started to suck at making RPGs (Final Fantasy XIII says hello).

Truly, April may be the cruelest month, but January is getting damn close. After a respite granted by the holidays, the real world stings like the fog on a frosty January morning. Aaron’s got the working man’s blues, living for the weekend (whenever that may actually fall for him — it’s like a shell game, you see), while Doug and Nick have the non-working man’s blues. It’s enough to drive a person crazy.

Plus the days are still crazy short around here. At least we have video games to keep us company! Time for the Backlog!

Aaron

Aaron wonders whether Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game was unfairly hard or if he just lacks the intestinal fortitude to crush Gideon. I'm guessing it's somewhere in the middle.

I never thought I’d get around to beating Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game, but I did. In the end it took about two hours of focused dedication to defeat the Katayanagis, NegaScott and the many evil forms of Gideon. Looking back after a couple of days since then, the game really wasn’t that difficult…I’m just bad at beat’em ups.

It’s been another solid week of LittleBigPlanet 2 action at my house, and my appreciation of the game continues to grow. The charm of the series has never been lost on me, but I’ve connected with the sequel in a way that wasn’t possible with the first. Maybe that’s because I own my own personal copy of number two and, in a way, I feel a legitimate connection to my Sackboy and his experiences — the clothes he wears and the items he collects. Sharing the brilliant level design and quirky British charm with my girlfriend has also made LBP2 my favorite game of 2011, which isn’t really a big honor because I haven’t tried Dead Space 2 yet.

Nick

Nick calls Solipskier a cross between SkiFree and blazing guitars. I'm just glad he finds the gameplay fun.

Call me crazy, but I just haven’t been in the mood for videogames this week. I’m pushing hard to find a job and figure out how I’m gonna move out on my own once again — am I sounding like a broken record yet? — but aside from that, I’ve mostly just been sleeping.

I plunged back into BioShock 2 with Minerva’s Den, a self-contained story add-on. Look for some more on that once I wrap it up in the next few days.

I’ve barely scratched the surface of LittleBigPlanet 2 since the day I got it, and I think I know why: playing it alone just isn’t much fun. I had the good fortune of having a friend around when my copy arrived and we blazed through the first world, having a great time of it. But since then I can only get through a level or two before I get frustrated or bored and shelve it again. Much like the first LittleBigPlanet, the real value of the game is in its creation tools and not its level design; unfortunately, the only way to get the tools for level building is by playing through the single-player mode.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. I picked up Solipskier yesterday, an awesome little game that’s well-suited to a touchscreen platform. It’s available on iOS and Android, and there’s also a web-based version on the developer’s site. It’s a simple concept: draw a path for a skier to follow with your finger, building up speed and hitting gates while avoiding pitfalls. I’ll admit I didn’t get the appeal when I saw it on a friend’s phone, but that’s probably because the sound was off. Solipskier features some great music, with its ridiculous guitar-shredding gameplay song that clashes beautifully with the quiet Chopin piano composition that accompanies the game-over screen. It’s currently down to $.99 on the App Store; highly recommended.

Doug

Super Street Fighter IV, or: Nick kicks Doug's ass, repeatedly.

When the going gets tough, the tough get going. When the times are lean, then, the gamer gets creative. Over the past few years I’ve noticed myself spending a lot of time gaming forward, consuming a bit of a game then buying another new one the next month. I can’t do that right now, so it’s time to burn through my backlog of games. Otherwise, I’m liable to go insane either by overdosing on Pro Evo Soccer or job applications, and neither is a great idea.

How this turned into a ringing endorsement for Super Street Fighter IV, then, is anybody’s guess, but god damn have I forgotten how good that game is. Nick can still kick the ever-loving crap out of me at it — in ten online matches earlier this week, I won once, maybe — but I’m struggling to think of a good reason why I ever shuffled the game out of my regular rotation. It really is an amazing fighting game, matching a deep fighting engine with fast action and a great graphic style. I’ve noticed a few extra graphic flourishes of late, too, like the look of horror on your opponent’s face during the windup animation for an Ultra. I’m still really bad at the game, but improving through sheer determination and practice.

Like Aaron, I’ve also spent more time on Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Now that I know the best process for leveling up a character, I can avoid the frustration of being at a high level but without upgraded stats. The sprites, songs and beat-em-up gameplay are still fulfilling, and the DLC pack at least adds Knives as a playable character. So it’s got that going for it.

Normally I’m the guy who’s elbows-deep in sports game career modes, all worried about the dynamics going on within my soccer, football or basketball season. I enjoy story-based games, but I’ve always been really bad about justifying taking the time to complete missions. Right now, though, I’m in a real patch of single player goodness — I’m almost done with Assassin’s Creed II and my second playthrough of Mass Effect 2.

AC2 has continued to impress me in almost every way possible. The game uses so many of the same basic ideas as its predecessor, but it paces and meters them in a much, much better way. I love the storyline, finding out The Truth, exploring renaissance Italy, and all the wonderful Italian cursing.

And what can be said about ME2 that we haven’t already covered in detail? Still a great game. I think I’m going to find time next week to dive through the game’s final mission. Can’t wait for ME3.

A rare moment of Portland winter when it wasn't grey and rainy! Instead it's just clear and cold.

Happy New Year! Brrrrrrr. It’s cold out there. It hasn’t snowed at all in Portland this year, but it has been frigid around here. Cold enough to make streets a little slick and freeze car locks if you’re parking outside. It’s kind of sad that we didn’t get a last-minute snowfall to provide a true White Christmas, but considering the insanity that happens whenever Portlanders have to drive in the snow, it probably saved millions in insurance claims.

It’s also been cold enough to stay inside and play some games, which we’ve been doing! Nick has (shockingly) kept on playing Minecraft, Doug is still living out sports fantasies, and Aaron has shared the joy of Civilization V. So, without further ado, we present the first Backlog of 2011.

Nick

Nick's been playing some more VVVVVV. After seeing this screenshot, now I see why the name is so appropriate

In between the twinges of guilt for still not having a steady job and the surprising amounts of reading and socializing I’ve been doing, I’ve managed to squeeze in a little unadulterated fun in the form of some video-based gaming entertainment.

Almost all of that time was spent with Minecraft, unsurprisingly. If you already thought I was a lunatic for evangelizing it, it’ll probably only alienate you further that I have almost finished hollowing out an entire goddamn mountain and filling it with lava. It’s true — my volcano lair is almost complete. And thanks to our brand-new subway and highway systems, getting around our server is surprisingly efficient. I’ve also broken ground on a more artistic work, but I’m not ready to share it just yet. Picture Mount Rushmore but, um, not okay for children.

Anyway! Moving right along…

I also finished up the second half of Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, and I walked away satisfied if a bit let down. I was a big fan of the original Sands trilogy (if you ignore the flagrant, hyper-masculine stupidity of the second game’s presentation), but I also happened to love the colorful, vibrant Prince of Persia reboot released in 2008. Because of its lackluster sales figures, I assume, Ubisoft opted to release a game that’s, well, basically The Sands of Time all over again. And while the platforming is clever and the combat is satisfying, The Forgotten Sands lacks the distinct charm and satisfying story arc present in The Sands of Time. It’s a shame it couldn’t quite tap the zeitgeist yet again, but it’s still a satisfying return to form.

Finally, I began playing VVVVVV, the spike-ridden, gravity-inverting indie platformer with a (if I dare say it) hella thumpin’ chiptune soundtrack and some deviously addictive platforming. It’s five dollars, and it’s on Steam, and it’s great. If that’s not a good enough recommendation, I don’t know what is.

Aaron

Civilization V is a game of self…hexpression. Aaron apologizes for the awful, awful pun, but it needed to be said.

Work burns a lot of time during the day. It’s not like I’m just realizing that now, but I definitely can’t believe my weekend passed me by (my “weekends” fall in the middle of the week on this current schedule). I limited my gaming time to properly address all the other facets of my now-busy life; however, I had enough compulsion to achieve two very important gaming feats. I beat Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, and I convinced my girlfriend to purchase Civilization V after introducing her to the game late one night this week.

AssBro (as I really like to call it [screw you, I'm mature]) ended just as tersely as AC2 did. The suspense and drama and wacky sci-fi elements make for a sometimes confusing but altogether wonderful plot, and I can’t wait for the inevitable full-fledged sequel.

Now regarding Civ V, I feel proud that I convinced a quasi-gamer to devote her attention to a well designed, albeit hardcore, strategy game. Normally she prefers, but doesn’t limit herself to, games like platformers, Mario titles and the Banjo-Kazooie series. As we mentioned in our GOTYs, Civ V is accessible to new players while keeping its most beloved and obsessive-compulsive elements intact. So it’s not really a stretch that my girlfriend wound up enjoying Civ. It’s incredibly well made, and she’s a very strategic person in her own right. However, what’s most amazing is that I haven’t even purchased the game yet myself!

She beat me to owning a game I, by all accounts, should already have in my library. That’s a first.

Doug

Rudy Fernandez brings the thunder for Doug in NBA 2K11.

First and foremost, I’ve been playing the I Need To Find A Real Job game. Life’s hard out there for a broke master’s degree holder, which is why I need a j-o-b! Shoot me a line at doug@siliconsasquatch.com if you want to hook a brother up with a good job.

Base pandering aside, I have indeed been playing video games during this holiday break for the site. Inspired partially by our Game of the Year discussions, I’ve picked back up my second save in Mass Effect 2. God I love this game. The writing and crafting of characters remains fantastic. I’ve played through the Shadow Broker and Stealing Memory DLC packs, and while I like seeing the on-disc content a second time, getting something fresh is a different experience. Getting a second glimpse of the game and the missions is like watching a good movie the second or third time — now, I’m looking to judge the execution of the storyline instead of being surprised by what unfolds. The options unlocked by the Shadow Broker DLC are really fascinating if you geek out on the codexes already in the game, but I’m a little let down that Kasumi doesn’t have the sort of conversation options the on-disc characters have. Ah well, downloadable content isn’t perfect yet.

Another game on our Game of the Year top 10 was NBA 2k11, which remains awesome. I’ve continued to spend most of my time playing games in my fantasy drafted Trail Blazers squad (truly a fantasy as Kevin Durant is in black and red) and leading them to the top of the Western Conference. I think I’ve realized why I like playing through sports games in this manner: Dynasty modes, now, are able to facilitate the sort of narrative arc that happens in real life. Which teams will be good? What’s the dynamic on your team? What player is making their skills felt in the league, both on your team and on others? What teams are your nemesis? This is how seasons develop in real life, and there’s a parallel to the sorts of narrative strings that appear when playing world-building games like Civilization. The stories that come out of Civ playthroughs hit the same high points — this opponent civ was an asshole; I struggled to establish my economy; I got some lucky breaks early on and that set my cities up well for the rest of the game.

See, sports gamers and those who look down on us as dumb jocks, we’re not THAT different after all!

Formula 1 2010 has also been getting some good time because I’ve closed in on (and won) the F1 Driver’s Championship. The game more actively cultivates that sort of narrative and does a pretty good job for a first-run of the game; I’ve moved from a mid-pack team to Ferrari, and now will be going to McLaren for my third season. Can I defend my title? It’s high time I moved up to the highest difficulty, so that will make it more difficult. The game’s far from perfect, but I’m the right kind of person (racing gamer, huge F1 racing fan) to really enjoy what’s there. Hopefully F1 2011 will bring along some improvements.

It scares some of us.

Nick and Doug settle for the gaming equivalent of security blankets this week instead of embracing the unknown.

I’m not judging them, at least not intentionally. But maybe I am now that I think about it.

Our story so far: two editors walk down well-tread paths carved out of boredom while I charge blindly into trying two indie games on a whim and a 2010 retail release I had completely forgotten about until this past Tuesday.

Nick:

Nick says: Considering that Diablo 2 was my favorite game when I was 14 years old, I have a long history of characters with crude, juvenile names. My current character is named Assbutt. I'm nearly 25 years old. You're welcome.

World of Warcraft is the great divider among gamers. Either you play it or you don’t, and when you’re playing it that’s generally the only game you have time to play.

As an editor of an award-winning¹, world-famous² website about games, I can’t reasonably justify diving back into the murky depths of Azeroth post-Cataclysm. I’ve watched a fair bit of video on the new regions and races, though, and it looks like a smarter, faster WoW. That’s good news, but it also means it’s a game I should probably steer clear of for the time being.

But when life closes one time-consuming, soul-sucking door, it opens another one called Diablo 2.

If you know me you know that as far as I’m concerned Diablo 2 is the real goddamn deal. More than 10 years after it was released and came to encompass my high school gaming experience, it’s still unsurpassed in its genre. Newcomers like Torchlight have come very, very close, but when Diablo 2 is still so playable and so much fun after a decade of new games, there’s something legendary about that.

James (of StarCraft 2 review fame) and I have been playing some serious Diablo 2 over the last couple days, and the game is every bit as fun as I remembered. The expertly-paced combat, the varied dungeons and the addictive loot-hunting gameplay all resonate down to my core desires as a gamer. And with the latest patch adding modern features like being able to reallocate your skills and points as you level up, it’s more playable than ever.

The only downside to all this is that Diablo 3 is all but certain to disappoint. How could it not? Between the near-perfect design of its predecessor and a decade of my own potent feelings of nostalgia, it’s facing an uphill battle. I hope that, as was the case with StarCraft 2, all those years of development and refinement result in a similar leap forward for the series.

1. Well, in our hearts…
2. Okay, that’s just a flat-out lie

Doug:

Doug says: The ol' girl's still looking pretty good. Oh, and Forza 3 stands the test of time, too.

Right now I’m still sitting between what I want to play and what I feel like I need to play. I’m still playing through a couple different games ahead of our Game of the Year discussions, but I’m only really drawn into one of them. I actually put another one into my Xbox 360 a couple nights ago, booted the game up, and then stared at the title screen for a minute or two…only to pop the disc out and put Mass Effect 2 back in.

Yep — I’ve gotten the bug for ME2 back, and earlier this week I blitzed through the Lair of the Shadow Broker content pack. Without giving anything away, I thought it was maybe too combat-heavy but provided a fascinating twist into the storyline. Highly recommended for anybody who’s played the game, but that’s a fact we’ve known since Nick’s review.

Another game I’ve been putting time back into recently is Forza Motorsport 3. It’s over a year old, but it’s still a very good-looking game and plays very, very well. After spending all the time with F1 2010, my racing senses have been set to “super-alert”; the street cars in Forza obviously react and drive a bit slower, which takes some adjusting. I really want to sit down and give Gran Turismo 5 a shot now that I’ve been playing Forza 3 again some more, because it’ll be a clearer comparison in my mind. There’s also another DLC pack coming out for Forza 3 next week, and it features some cars I like in real life — and then also the DeLorean, as made famous in Back to the Future.

Lastly, I’ve been playing more NBA 2K11…and it’s still amazing. It also helps that I created an awesome Trail Blazers squad with a fantasy draft — Kevin Durant and Tony Parker to run things on offense and Kevin Love to pick up all the rebounds? Yes, please. The closest nerd analogue I can think of is playing a game where you start off by rolling characters, and getting a really good starting roll. I’m looking forward to trying to get through a season with the lineup I’ve drafted.

Aaron:

I say: In spite of a horrendous advertising campaign and lukewarm reviews, Blur is the most splitscreen fun I've had all fucking year.

It would be great if someone would tell me I was wrong about something way ahead of time. Blur came out in May, and I blacklisted this racer as a cheap knock-off of the Mario Kart formula. It’s not. It’s much, much better as far as this generation of Mario Kart is concerned.

I’m absolutely serious, people! Mario Kart for Wii was god-awful. I couldn’t even stomach the hackneyed motion controls during multiplayer, let alone an entire singleplayer racing campaign.  And that’s coming from a diehard fan of every other Mario Kart game in the series — even Double Dash.

My opportunity to play Blur came this past week, and over the last few days I’ve spent several hours with the game’s singleplayer campaign and multiplayer splitscreen modes. The learning curve is steep, and the tutorial videos are tedious and do a bad job of explaining the concepts. But once I had a few races under my belt I was ready to unleash the fury of my RS Camaro. Time and time again the NPC drivers would fall prey to my land mine traps, EMP fields and tiny purple energy missiles of doom. Blur is a gorgeously rendered neon-soaked alternate universe where a race is won by crossing the checkered line first and pummeling cars into oblivion. This is the most addictive racing game I’ve ever played (yeah, ever), and I’m saddened that Bizarre Creations might be closing its doors in part because Blur, the better-than-Mario-Kart-Wii racer, flopped at retail.

Aside from blowing up a hundred Ford Focuses this week, I randomly bought two Xbox Live Indie Games. My purchases of Breath of Death VII and Epic Dungeon have been very sound investments. Breath of Death is a parody of everyone’s favorite JRPGs as well as a compendium of so many references to nerd culture that I can rarely keep up with the script. Epic Dungeon is a rapid Diablo-like hack ‘n slash. It’s simplistic in an admirable way, and the incessant dungeon crawling is more immediately rewarding than, say, Torchlight.

Both indie titles are a buck each, and I would recommend them to anyone with the Microsoft Points to spare.

Image by friend of the site Brian Gundell

I don’t care who you are, if you’re an Oregonian, this is a weekend you care about. It’s Civil War weekend, and as proud (if a bit underemployed) alumni of the University of Oregon, all three of us have a side to take in the game. Good luck getting much done in Portland tomorrow between noon and 4 pm, and god speed to anyone driving south on I-5 from Portland who isn’t going to the game. I don’t think it hurts us to take an excessively pro-Ducks stance, so here goes:

LET’S GO DUCKS!

We do have the usual Backlog content to go with the heaping of school pride, though. Nick’s been stabbin’ fools in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, Doug’s tackling some single-player games passed over during the year, and Aaron has been finding a balance between work, games, and the Wasteland.

Nick

This reminds me of a recent Penny Arcade comic that featured this very thing. Didn't think I'd actually see it in the game!

So there’s this book I was working on? Anyway, I guess it’s out now. I wouldn’t really know much about that kind of thing.

Now, though, I’m faced with an overabundance of free time — that is, until panic sets in and I spend my days focused only on job applications and the crippling guilt that comes from having lived at home for four months now. But in the meantime, I’m hoping to finish sampling games as we lead up to our Game of the Year feature later this month. Let’s talk about some games, okay? Is that fine?

As is my custom, I demolished Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood‘s single player mode and have been climbing the ranks of multiplayer. I had my doubts about that series getting a direct sequel a year after Assassin’s Creed 2 did so much to improve upon the original, but it delivered in just about every way I could have hoped for. Granted it’s much more of an incremental improvement over its predecessor, but I still think it’s safe to say that Brotherhood is the strongest overall game in the series.

Playing Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands makes me wonder if Ubisoft has any idea what made 2003′s Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time such a landmark success (and, if I’m remembering right, my declared favorite game of that year). Like most flagship series under the Ubisoft helm, it’s had its fair share of ups and downs, ranging from the unabashed shittiness of Warrior Within, the relatively successful conclusion of that trilogy with The Two Thrones, and 2008′s series reboot, which remains one of my favorite current-gen experiences — so as you can imagine, most people thought it was stupid. The Forgotten Sands is the product of a company groping in the dark for whatever serendipitous formula made The Sands of Time a classic, and it sees the series returning to an almost carbon copy of that exact formula. However, the crucial elements — the balanced pacing between exploration and combat, the storybook charm and narration, the stuffy Prince — are all watered down. Yeah, it’s an okay game, and if you never played the old trilogy you might get a lot out of it. But to me, Forgotten Sands is kind of just sad, you know?

I also spent an hour with 3D Dot Game Heroes, a tediously paced and, frankly, pretty boring homage to The Legend of Zelda. It’s clever and weird and unlike much of anything else out there, so you’d think I’d go wild for it. But for whatever reason, I feel like it hasn’t done much to spark any sort of attachment for me. If it had a stronger identity or it was more self-aware with its Zelda imitations and references to gaming culture, then maybe I’d stick with it. But so far, it’s a pretty bland experience all around.

And then, at the opposite end of the spectrum from Brotherhood, there’s Fable 3. I’m a few hours in, but I don’t think I’ve seen a lazier sequel from a big-name studio this generation. I’m trying my damnedest to engage with this game, but it’s just sort of sitting there, twiddling its thumbs and occasionally humming under its breath, staring vacantly out into the distance. This is not a game that was ready for the world to see.

Doug

It's from multiplayer and not single-player, but this Halo: Reach screenshot was too badass not to post.

Much like Nick, this is the time of the year where all three of us have to get caught up on some of the games we may have missed this year. Thanks to the largesse of my chums, I’ve been able to borrow and put some time into a couple of the titles that may be up for our Game of the Year award.

I’m about three or four hours into Bayonetta and I can’t believe I haven’t gotten to the game sooner. I mean, it must be cheap used by now, right? Regardless what you think of the game’s setting, cut-scenes or art direction (to put it kindly), the actual fighting engine and in-game combat is really, really fun. Seeking out attacks to dodge then activate Witch Time can feel a bit hokey, but bouncing from target to target and kicking ass feels appropriately…err…bad-ass. The mechanics are great, and I can tell I’ve barely scratched the surface. Time to kick the difficulty down from normal and see what Bayonetta has, because I do not have time to repeat bosses four or five times each.

The other single-player game I’ve taken a dive into is Halo: Reach. That game really does not fuck around — you get dropped into Noble Team, it assumes you’ve played a Halo game or two before, and you get stuck into fighting the Covenant quickly. I barely ever play first-person shooters — I actually think the last one I spent time with may have been Halo 3 — but I’ve enjoyed the Halo series for a long time, and especially love the way they integrate story into the proceedings. As well, the firefights are obviously well done (great encounters have been at the heart of every Halo game) and the weapons have that heft. Picking Reach up feels like reminiscing with an old friend in a good way; I’ve heard this is one of the best single-player campaigns in the Halo series, and ends on a poignant note. I’m looking forward to that.

Inspired by a friend finishing up the campaign in Mass Effect 2, I’ve spent a good five or six hours with my second playthrough this week. I’m into the second half of the game, about to start up the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC content, and also at the point where your Shepard’s powers have blossomed. The beginning of the game really relies on gunplay, but as you unlock and level up biotic and engineering powers, the combat gets better. Playing through the story again reminds me how much I loved the game the first time around. Definitely a Game of the Year contender.

Of course, a week can’t go by without playing more sports games. I’ve got Nick salivating to dig into NBA 2K11; I’m looking forward to teaching him the ropes in the coming weeks. I’ve also done another F1 2010 race weekend and spent some time in NCAA Football 11 guiding the Ducks to victory as well. Hopefully they win the day on Saturday, too, and get to the National Championship in January.

Aaron

Aaron's car, dubbed the Spicy Penguin, makes its destructive debut in Forza 3

Working has its benefits. For one, I actually have an income, which lets me do things like eat, drink and be merry (and pay rent!). The only problem with all the working I’ve been doing is I’ve had little time to myself to play games. I’m coping with that fact, and I just need to figure out a schedule that permits more time to relax with a videogame or two.

This week I finished Fallout: New Vegas. It was kind of a let down, but I attribute that to following the “good guy” path and allying with the New California Republic.

With my wandering in the wasteland complete, I dove into Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood more, and I’m enjoying what I’ve played. I don’t think I’ve explored enough of Rome yet to be able to tell the game apart from AC2, but what I have seen impresses me. Still, it’s more incremental than revolutionary, but I think it’s what most fans wanted anyway.

I also received my used copy of Forza Motorsport 3 on Tuesday, and poured three hours into the game a few days later. The experience system is genius because it gives me a reason to keep playing besides simply collecting cars and unlocking tournaments. It’s a shame I waited so long to play it (It really is – Doug).

This was a lot funnier in my head. Sorry, everybody.

At Silicon Sasquatch, one of our strengths — yes, we do have strengths — is our diversity of taste. Doug loves games where you drive a car in circles for hours, which Aaron will find baffling; surely his period-piece mafia adventure is a lot more fun. And both of them will think I’m absolutely out of my mind when I tell them I spent most of my free time this week hollowing out an entire mountain because, um, that’s just what I wanted to do.

So that’s what we’re focusing on this week: the things that make each of us special.

Aaron:

Let’s talk, in brief, about Mafia II.

I’m near the end of the story, and it’s been quite above and beyond the typical open-world video game experience. The first Mafia is one of my all-time favorites, and its sequel doesn’t disappoint, even after an eight-year hiatus for the series. Vito, the protagonist, is a blatant Hollywood stereotype (or perhaps a caricature) for 1950′s mobsters, but the clichés are offset by a diverse plot flowing with lively action and unflinching suspense. There’s a lot to say about the game, which was panned by numerous critics upon its release, though I will have to save my thoughts for a full article. Suffice it to say, Mafia II has kept me sitting neatly in my computer chair playing for hours at a time.

Civilization V also found its way to my desktop device this week; now I actually get all of the jokes about its addictive nature. I’m still only on my first random campaign — saved after spending five hours building an economic superpower this past Monday — in which I’m acting as the Siamese kingdom working alongside the Iroquois to take over the world. We just defeated Caesar and felled Rome. That was cathartic. Oh, and Gandhi was our BFF for awhile, but that was over fast. How fast? Well, my Iroquois neighbors gave me numerous amounts of much-needed iron, so in the 10 minutes after I had signed a treaty of cooperation with India the Iroquois then asked to team up and defeat the Indian pacifists — I couldn’t object.

Poor Gandhi tried to negotiate a surrender with my multi-national alliance. We had none of that.

Doug:

Coming soon: The F1 2010 pit crew MMORPG

I’ve spent a lot of my time with Formula 1 2010 this past week. I spent some time playing online in NCAA Football 11 and the Madden NFL 11 demo (for my editorial earlier this weekend), yes, but mostly in F1 getting to grips with the worldwide racing circus. I don’t want to go too far in-depth since I’ll be penning a review on the game next week, but I’m having a good time with the game in spite of its faults. I’ve loved auto racing and the Formula 1 series for years, and this is the best console adaptation since the PlayStation and Psygnosis’ games.

I put a few hours into Mass Effect 2, too, and once I got re-calibrated to the combat controls and technique, I really started enjoying my second playthrough. I got through a couple of the story missions earlier this week, too. As much as I want to play through as both a good and bad character, I just can’t bring myself to become space’s biggest asshole — I guess I’m too much of a nice guy to feel good about going through with that, even if the results can be hilarious (SPOILER SPOILER SPOOOOOOOILARS). But I’m still a bit away from the Lair of the Shadow Broker content, so it’s time to continue on down that path.

Also, I think I’ve finally met my match in Civilization Revolution. I moved my way up quickly to playing on King difficulty, and I recently started playing on Emperor — but man, trying to get the game’s economic victory that way? Not pretty. Didn’t help that I got dropped into a bad starting place where the only real expansion options were an archipelago. I’ll have to re-try, but I’m now even more afraid what awaits on Deity. Ugh.

Oh, and this week’s delay of NBA Elite 11 to 2011 makes the NBA franchise choice easier than it once was — after playing the demos again, NBA 2K11 is superb. Elite looks and feels like a game that needs more time in the oven, and I’m amazed that EA  is giving them the time to perfect the game.

Nick:

Just because you can combine flint and iron doesn't mean you should

Before we get into the crux of my situation — the reason why I’m losing sleep and dreaming of  grandiose excavations in a cubist’s paradise — let’s talk about the other games I’ve been playing. Like Space Invaders Infinity Gene! That’s a pretty good game. You should check out my review and grab the trial on your platform of choice.

My transformation from a brain-dead drone to micromanaging caffeine junkie is well underway in StarCraft II thanks in large part to some hands-on tutoring from my friend James, who wrote our review of the game. I’ve got the first three minutes of each game pretty much nailed down to a science, which — surprisingly — hasn’t made the game duller. If anything, that routine is liberating. It gives you time to assess the layout of the map and to plot your unit strategy accordingly. I’m still in the practice league, but I’m undefeated so far.

Okay, so. Let’s talk about Minecraft. Specifically, let’s talk about why it’s so engaging for a game that lacks a goal or any concrete sense of progression.

I think it all comes down to the fact that no other world-building game is as accessible and unexpectedly rewarding as Minecraft is. There’s no complex quest chain, no tutorial to plod through, no difficult controls to master; really, it’s pretty much just a point-and-click game where you can build (or destroy, if you’re as stupid as I was in the above picture) just about anything you can imagine.

I spent a few hours mining out the majority of a mountain in an offline game before joining a server my friend was hosting, and that’s when this craziness ensued. Instead of fumbling my way through a largely deserted world (save for some creepy zombies that wanted to tear me apart) by myself, we were able to collaborate in building structures, crafting objects, and hunting down rare materials. It’s surprising how naturally Minecraft lends itself to a cooperative online experience.

But if you’re already struggling with your time-management skills, you might want to think carefully before buying Minecraft. Between StarCraft II, Civilization V and Minecraft, I pretty much have to exile myself from the house for most of the day just to make sure I get things done on time.

There’s been no shortage of Mass Effect-themed entertainment this year. Beginning with Mass Effect 2, the praiseworthy sequel to the series’ 2007  debut, developer BioWare has put out a steady stream of downloadable mission packs, optional weapons and equipment, additional characters and story-related add-ons that all bolster the core Mass Effect experience with varying degrees of success.

While there have been some high and low points in Commander Shepard’s extracurricular activities, this latest supplement, The Lair of the Shadow Broker, is the first add-on that delivers the same level of quality in role-playing, exploration and combat that made Mass Effect 2 such a standout game.

Liara T'Soni returns as your squadmate for the first time since the original Mass Effect

As with any game where story is paramount to the overall experience, it’d be a shame if I spoiled the plot of Lair of the Shadow Broker. To put things simply, this is an add-on that has the player once again assuming control of Commander Shepard in order to assist Liara T’Soni, your former Mass Effect squad-mate and potential love interest, in pursuing and confronting the Shadow Broker, an information dealer central to both games in the series. Although Mass Effect 2 veterans will be familiar enough with the dangerous game Liara is playing in her pursuit of the inscrutable Shadow Broker, BioWare included some clever callbacks within Lair of the Shadow Broker that incorporate events from the first Mass Effect game and the comic book series, Redemption.

Fans of the original Mass Effect will be glad to hear that Liara joins your squad in earnest for the duration of the add-on content. That means you can issue commands to her, equip her with your preferred set of weapons and allocate her skill points — including her controversial Stasis ability, which makes an enormous difference when playing on higher difficulty levels.

From Shadow Broker’s inciting incident to its surprising conclusion, you’re looking at about two hours of top-notch combat and role-playing. With the possible exception of a prolonged battle atop a large spacecraft, each enemy and boss encounter is built to require smart squad management and a good amount of thinking on one’s feet. In other words, it’s up there with the best missions within Mass Effect 2 proper.

Once the core sequence of events has reached its conclusion, there’s still plenty left to do. A series of terminals open up to Shepard, enabling the player to purchase tips for high-value mining targets or to reassign skill points to each party member. But perhaps the most valuable reward is the terminal that includes background information on all the major characters in the Mass Effect universe. The facts unearthed in that terminal range from simply humorous to downright revelatory, but for a die-hard Mass Effect fan they’re a practical goldmine.

Perhaps the highest compliment that can be paid to Lair of the Shadow Broker is that it feels like an essential component of the greater Mass Effect experience. It easily rivals the best moments of the Mass Effect series with its fast pace, meaningful narrative and engaging, challenging combat. Fans of the series shouldn’t hesitate to give this add-on a go.

Recommended for:

• Sharp writing, strong acting, and a surprisingly significant contribution to the Mass Effect mythology
• An expert balance between role-playing decisions and some of the best tactical combat the series has ever seen
• Everybody who played and enjoyed Mass Effect 2; Lair of the Shadow Broker should be considered required reading

The Lair of the Shadow Broker is a downloadable add-on for Mass Effect 2, available on Xbox Live Marketplace for $9.99/800 Microsoft Points. The reviewer purchased the downloadable content and completed it on the second-hardest difficulty setting, earning all five possible achievements.

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