When I decided to make my glorious return to PC gaming, I imagined that, several days after purchasing a fancy gaming laptop I’d be marshaling forces in the “Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3” beta at only the highest difficulty settings. I was certain I’d stalk through “STALKER” and trick through “Trackmania.”
Didn’t happen.
My gaming time’s been limited this week. So last night, when I finally had about half an hour to play something and the Olympics were keeping my TV busy for the other member of my household, I opened my fancy new laptop and played…
“Lumines.”
Come on, it’s a good game! And it’s been a while since I played. It’s been such a long time since I played Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s rave re-mix of “Tetris.” I forgot that, if you are even half-decent at “Lumines,” it takes about 30 minutes for the game to get tough. Last night, I played on the advanced difficulty setting and, by 15 minutes in, was playing a second game in my head: the game of debating whether to keep playing for ego’s sake or whether to sacrifice my game so I could play something else. My ego won. I made it to 31 minutes of playtime. The game’s too easy. That’s why I gave it up on my PSP and why I’m probably done with it on PC too. It’s unfortunate, since I like the fundamentals of the game.
After that I spent a few minutes trying to figure out how to get “DEFCON” to play in full-screen mode. I got it working and then had to wrap up. So let’s just agree that my return to PC gaming is occurring more like a slow walk into the shallow side of the pool than a platform dive.
Also, yesterday, I briefly played a short-range wireless co-op match in the fall DS tower-defense game “Ninjatown.” Co-op players battle through the same map, but after each wave, a victor for that wave is declared, the loser of the wave loses a health point, that loser gains a random bonus (destroy an enemy building, steal the opponent’s money, etc.) and then the next wave marches in. The co-op rules are well-balanced and appear to create really close matches. I had a lot of fun and will write more on it when I’ve played a newer build closer to release.
Next: Ratchet vs. Baldur tonight. Who will win?