In my last column, I mentioned my current love affair with Just Cause and how that inspired me to go back through my collection of 360 titles to see if there was anything worth highlighting. You know what? There's not much that you probably aren't already aware of... of course, I also need to mention that I didn't spend as much time as I wanted rummaging through my library. While I did take some time to revisit Kameo and The Outfit, I mostly blew my vacation time on Puzzle Quest on Xbox Live Arcade... and The Orange Box of course.

Challenge of the Geek Lords

As I'd mentioned in our damn-near divine podcast, I wasn't all that amped up about Puzzle Quest, mostly because I can't stand Bejeweled and the horde of spin-offs that followed its gem-swapping theme. Imagine my surprise when I actually started spending more time with Puzzle Quest than chillin' with Gordon Freeman. What strange biological alchemy had occurred within me to cause this abrupt change of heart?

It's simple, really: I'm a sucker for RPGs. I'll qualify that by adding that I'm apparently also a sucker for RPG elements, because Puzzle Quest is far from a true RPG... or is it? When you get down to it, the only thing that keeps Puzzle Quest from being a standard RPG is that the combat system revolves around a stone-switching puzzle game with only the most tenuous tie to actual battle. Either way, I am totally hooked and that's why I didn't spend a ton of time playing crappy old games -- that's my story and I'm sticking to it.


The other game vying for my precious vacation time was The Orange Box and while I probably won't be playing a bunch of Team Fortress 2 or Portal, I could play Half-Life 2 and its subsequent episodes for the rest of my life and be a happy man. I've already devoted several paragraphs to the brilliance of Half-Life 2's narrative in past columns, so I'll skip that in favor of delving into why I don't really care for Team Fortress 2.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing in particular that I think is flawed about TF2, it's just not my thing. See, when I want to mix it up on Live, I don't want to think too much and I don't think I'm in the minority. I like the fact that Halo 3 is built around a simple formula of non-stop carnage, so when I started playing TF2 it was a bit of a shock to suddenly find that I needed some brain cells to actually succeed.

Also, as Sterling has pointed out in the past, not everyone playing TF2 really "gets it." You can't just choose the soldier class and run around like a solo bad ass because you're on a team, just like it says in the title of the game. Yet, jump into a match and you'll find plenty of hotdogs that would rather get gibbed over and over than spawn as a medic. Of course, that's not the game's fault at all, but it certainly doesn't contribute to my enjoyment of the product.

And as to why I won't be playing much Portal in the foreseeable future, well, that's because I beat it already. It was fantastic, but reminiscent of an amuse-bouche which is a French term for bite-sized hors d'oeuvres that typically precede a meal and are designed to be a quick flash of tantalizing flavor (the term itself translates literally as "mouth amuser"). Portal is great, but over all too quickly. Fortunately, given the success of Valve's other franchises, we'll hopefully have more to look forward to in the future (possibly downloadable over Xbox Live, please!).