A Green Mushroom

I am!  I can't wait for the release of Portal 2 next Tuesday.  Portal is one of the best games I've played and I can't even imagine the mind bending that will happen in the sequel. I like the idea of thinking with portals, but here's the sad news.  If I had a portal gun in real life I would probably just use it to get rid of my commute to work.  Lame, I know, but if I tried to do much more with it I would definitely have a portal related accident. Anyway, if you loved portal there's no reason to skip Portal 2.  A whole new single player campaign.  New twists in the gameplay.  And best of all, Co-op!  Seriously, who doesn't want to be part of a portal slinging robot duo?  My brother and I are going to dominate that mode. I also stumbled across this awesome Portal comic from valve.  It's worth checking out for the art style alone, but the story helps bridge the gap between Portal and Portal 2 too. If you don't already have Por...

Most of the games that hit the market today are not new.  They may look new or sell themselves as new, but the majority of the time they use old gameplay mechanics.  Developers constantly take each other's ideas and recreate the same type of game. Think of all the shovelware out there.  So many games aren't even worth five minutes of your time.  It is really sad. Playing Bayonetta is like playing Devil May Cry 3, which is like playing Devil May Cry 2, which is like playing Devil May Cry.  That's really the spark that got me thinking about rehashing gameplay mechanics.  Bayonetta has a crazy story and different visuals, but it is essentially an old game with a new layer of paint. When developers have really high production values they can get away with remaking the same game.  The Halo series comes to mind.  Between Halo, Halo 2, Halo 3, and Halo: ODST not a lot has changed.  All the games basically play the same.  If you didn't like...

I have mentioned before that I like achievements.  They add replayability and diversity to game play.  It's nice to see one pop up while playing the game normally, but there is a huge sense of accomplishment when I complete an achievement that I've been striving for. I replayed Portal last night because of achievements . Portal is a great game in its own right but I haven't thought about replaying it for quite some time. That changed last week when Valve released an update for Portal which added hidden radios throughout the game.  The player needs to retrieve the radios and then take them to an unspecified location in the level, then the radio tunes and gives a secret message.  There is an achievement for doing this with all 26 radios.  These messages have led to an entire mystery surrounding Portal 2. Now the community has a mystery to solve, players have new goals to achieve, and Portal 2 is building some hype.  As usual with achievements, everybo...