The Game Dame

The other day I told you about some of the games I’ve been playing behind WoW’s back. Today I’ll continue outing these games by talking about three more that I downloaded from Xbox Live Arcade.

Lost Cities

This is a strategic card game that involves color and number matching. It’s very colorful and the music is soothing. It’s the kind of game I could really use — something relaxing and pretty that doesn’t stress me out or use too much of my brain. Status: Need more demo play to see if it’s worth buying. If I did buy this game, I would also want to upgrade to Xbox Gold so I could play against folks on Xbox Live.

Cloning Clyde

What a goofy, silly platformer! Clyde’s notes to himself are hilarious and the sheer absurdity of the game is good fun. I like the gimmick of being able to clone Clyde to do some stunts that you can’t do with the current Clyde. (Kinda like Batman’s different suits in LEGO Batman.) Just silly enough to make me laugh but not too silly that I get lost trying to figure out the gameplay. Its playfulness reminds me of Toe Jam & Earl, back in the day. Status: Still playing the demo with an eye toward buying it.  

Braid

At first I loved the visual style of this puzzle/platformer, but after only a few levels, I started to get frustrated by the puzzle-building and jumping mechanics. Status: Did not purchase. Might fiddle around some more with demo but I don’t really see myself purchasing this game.

If you’re curious about when I play these games, join me at Raptr or follow me on Twitter.

Eep! Raptr let it slip that I’ve been cheating on WoW by always Tweeting the Xbox360 games I’ve been playing.

If you don’t follow me on Twitter then all this might sound even crazier than the normal gibberish you get on this blog. But if you do follow me (and you’re welcome to do so), Raptr will send little updates throughout the day on the games I happen to be playing. (My gamertags, etc. can be found on Raptr if you want to follow along.) Not just that, of course. You also get (now what would you pay!) all the other boring tweet-prattlings that I can fit in 140 characters or less if you subscribe to my Twitter feed. You’ve been warned!

Okay, anyway, since Christmas, I’ve been having a blast playing a plethora of new games, each of which Raptr dutifully reports on Twitter. (But despite trying all these new games, I’ll have you know I still managed to get Slig to 80 and Solareclipse to 70. Pah!) What follows is by no means a formal review of these games, but rather just my first impressions.

Puzzle Quest

The sparkly goodness of jewely matching games + light role-play. You can cast spells to get rid of jewels on the board. The storyline is pretty cheesy and somewhat hard to follow, but choosing puzzles based on a map and foes with different spells from yours is a pretty cool enhancement to a puzzle game. Status: Purchased. Level 14 Knight character.

LEGO Batman

I actually gave this gift to my husband for Christmas. He really enjoyed the LEGO Star Wars games. For some reason I am enjoying Batman a whole lot more than Star Wars. Maybe it’s because the storylines are new to me, there are a ton of different powers you can try out with the suits, or that you get to play the villains. I suspect it’s all three! Status: Finished Mission 1 for Hero and am halfway through Mission 1 for Villain. 

Portal

Hubby, in turn, gave me The Orange Box for Christmas. What a fun collection of games! I love the guide’s voiceover as she “helps” you through the Portal experiments and the cerebral nature of the game. This is a pure first-person game but for some reason it doesn’t induce my simulator sickness. Status: Level 11. 

Half-Life 2

Wow! What an immediately immersive game! I never played any of the Half-Life games but throwing your character into his predicament with no backstory, leaving you the player to not only survive but figure out what’s going on made the game feel incredibly realistic to me. (Obviously, Bioshock owes a lot to this game.) I experienced a wide range of emotions, particularly in the beginning of the game. There are only two down sides for me. One, I like games that at least give you an option to solve problems through stealth rather than adrenaline-fueled shoot-outs. Two, I can’t play the game for more than about 30 minutes at a time because I get sim-sickness. Status: I’m only in Route Kanal because of the short play periods.

Tomorrow, I’ll continue availing you of my non-WoW game adventures with Lost Cities, Cloning Clyde, and Braid…