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Beyond Good and Evil was 240 points yesterday on XBLA. I bought it. Gotta finish Zelda first.

Playstation Plus is looking seriously tempting right now.

Space Challenge 5 Part 2 ???

...That's got to be a typo, right?

@Guillaume Indie games were also involved in the sale; sorry I didn't make that clear.

I bought Rochard back in October (part of the spend 60$, get back 10$ deal) and just got around to playing and completing it. Overall, it's a pretty good game. I had really enjoyed the demo and it seemed like the full game was pretty promising. It offers a little bit of everything. Action, platforming, puzzle solving, and even some tiny bit of Metroid-ish progress. You won't find yourself returning to areas you've previously explored but new abilities will be unlocked and extra ammo will be found to be more efficient in battle.

Unfortunately it's not until the end of the game that I found myself really enjoying the combat part of the game. As you unlock the final ability, it's then that it feels like you can mix together everything you've learned up to that point and have it be a fun of fun as well. It almost feels as if they should've somehow implemented a combo system as I found myself pulling off some crazy moves.

It seems that the game could set itself up for a sequel though. I have no idea if one is in development but this game has done a good enough job to have me interested

Getting the full season of Back to the Future as a PSN Plus member this month.

You know, the program gets mocked because you don't "own" the games, you lose them when your subscription stops, but to be honest, if Nintendo had a program like this I'd be happy like a pig in shit.

I think I'll pass on Siphon Filter, though.

@Guillaume

I've been meaning to check out the BttF games. I enjoyed dabbling with Sam & Max on PC, and the BttF episodes seem to have been received well. (Though those recent Jurassic Park ones...Oi!)

@New Forms

I've played through the first episode. There's not much to say about it, it's a Telltale episodic adventure game. From what I know of the rest of the chapters, the time-travel element remains under-exploited.

But still, game has a nice style, some great voice-acting, etc. It tugged enough at my nostalgic bone (!?) to make me watch the movies again.

@Guillaume

Yeah, I heard they're kind of easy in the puzzle dept. too.

That's okay, I'd mostly be going back for the nostalgia trip, which I understand it has in spades.

So I got a new laptop, 'cause the old one unceremoniously kicked the bucket, and I didn't want to resurrect it again.

I was going to get a desktop and maybe a tablet to interface with it, but I just picked a laptop, because it seemed easier. It's pretty cool, but, MAN, does it suck for games. Super Meat Boy was chugging on it. Is that normal?

@Anand

Yeah, unless your laptop is noted in some fashion as a "gaming laptop" then the intigrated graphics card will usually suck.

Did your last laptop handle games well?

No, it was a piece of shit. I didn't even attempt to run games on it.

Buying a laptop kind of goes against everything I stand for. I'm feeling a bit of buyer's remorse. Desktops are so much more flexible/powerful/reliable, and I did spend $750, all told...

I have 12 more days to evaluate it, I guess.

@Anand

I can see your point.

I gave up on tower PCs maybe 5 or more years ago as I do so little "home computing" to begin with. The portability of the laptop has been more to my taste 'cause I basically only use one for media consumption and management, so it's nice to have something for couch web surfing while the television is on.

All that said, unless I want to run the most basic current games (PopCap titles like PvZ) or classics from GOG.com, then I'm boned.

@New Forms
Pretty much. It kind of staggered me that Super Meat Boy chugged.

But does anyone use a cheap tablet as a dumb terminal for a desktop tower (that also connects to a large display)? That seems like the best of most worlds. That's what I was going to shoot for initially.

@Anand

Super Meat Boy is not exactly an example of game programming excellence.

@Guillaume
Yeah, that seemed like another possibility.

Most of my Steam Library is Humble Bundle stuff. It's kind of funny that choppy versions of games that I already own on consoles serve as my re-introduction to PC gaming.

Man, some of those user-made Super Meat Boy levels are a bitch and a half. I don't really understand what people find fun about that type of level design.

I also tried for three hours to set up Windows Media Center streaming with my Xbox 360. After much fruitless application of the scientific method and all sorts of dangerous measures, I finally got it working by... restarting the PC. Ah, computers.

@Anand Well, as someone who spent like 100 hours making a LittleBigPlanet stage and decided, ultimately, to make it very challenging (but not too bad) I can offer some insight. Basically, it takes a lot of time to create a user stage, especially if you're trying to really polish it up nice. And you don't want to have spent all of that time to have the few people who play it to burn through it in a minute and move onto something else. So by making it challenging, you get to feel like people will spend more time on it, which in turn validates the time you spent making it. There is also this notion that most players won't be playing your stage until they have played through the main game, so the difficulty arc, so to speak, has already reached a pretty high level, and in order to hit that part of someone that likes to feel like they are continually being challenged you have to go beyond anything found in the main game.

Of course, the problem is people take it too far and end up with these stages that are nearly unplayable. Especially if they focus more on challenge and less on designing it well. Too many user created stages in games have no sense of flow, everything seems chaotic. I'm all up for a nice challenge, but it has to feel like it flows, and not like there is just a bunch of random crap in my way that was haphazardly placed.

@Zero
Makes sense, I guess, but I'm pretty sure your level didn't even approach the beast that I was playing. Probably only a couple milliseconds of error on that fucking thing.

But my complaint kind of extends to Super Meat Boy proper (and other balls-hard indie platformers), as well. I can appreciate the variety and rhythm of the level design, and it's certainly functional (although always playing it on a 360 pad doesn't help), but the physics aren't FUN to me, and even though the challenges are... overcome-able, I never feel much pleasure from actually overcoming them.

Nah I know, my level was perfectly designed and perfect in every way in its absolute perfection. We can't really expect other people to meet my level of quality though, can we?

I know what you mean though, the user created stages packed into VVVVVV are very hit and miss, and a lot of the "miss" ones are just insanely hard in stupid ways.