Catherine. Or possibly Rapunzel.

It's a puzzle game. With a huge story.
And boss battles.

I love Atlus. I don't know what they put in the water in that company, but they come up with some crazy awesome ideas. Like the later Persona games - take a rather hard dungeon crawler and cross it with a sort of dating sim, and it turns out to be great. Or take a reasonable idea like making an operation game but then add magical abilities, viruses that are closer to monsters, and at one point have you operate on a bomb. And now there's Catherine, which is a puzzle game surrounded by a whole lot of plot about cheating and starring a guy in boxer shorts.

Phantasy Star IV

Yes, instead of doing some sexy block pushing I'm playing a PSP port of a 17 year old Genesis game. That just happens sometimes. I'm also doing a puzzle which is completely non-electronic and is eating up gaming time. Though Chris discovered it today so it probably won't be a distraction for much longer.

Puzzle Agent 2

Gnomes they are scary

I liked the first Puzzle Agent game quite a bit. The writing was good, the art style worked really well, the story was different and interesting, and the puzzles were generally pretty fun. And once in a while a gnome would pop up and scare the crap out of me. So I was excited to play the sequel, though that excitement took a hit when I read the one-line summary of the Adventure Gamer review and learned that something had apparently gone wrong. After playing through it I sadly agree. Figures that the one I actually paid $10 for wouldn't be worth the money. Oh well. At least my friends enjoyed the free copy of Puzzle Agent 1 that came with it.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

You're the hardship, buddy

OMG I hate the owl. Every time I'm trying go somewhere he's all "Link, up here!" Not like there's a choice in the matter. I've tried to sneak around him in Zora's River and it's freaking impossible. And what's with the "Should I waste even more of your time repeating all this bullshit again?" ARGH.

Stupid owl.

I love difficulty select

Dammit game - no need to rub it in

I love the seemingly mandatory difficulty select on all action games now. Because I suck at games. Especially if there's shooting involved. Like Shadows of the Damned - apparently it's really easy but I'm terrible at it anyway. Half of it's just laziness and impatience. Dodging means having to line up the shot again and it's just not always worth it. It also annoys me to hide behind cover, take one shot, and then hide some more. So I end up getting shot a bunch in order to speed things along. Not like it matters with most games also going to auto-regenerating health. Hiding behind a wall is now just as effective at healing bullet wounds as your neighborhood inn.

Back to the Future

It's Michael J. Fox!

Finally played the last episode of Telltale's Back to the Future. Overall I liked it, though there were some rough patches in the middle. Just like how the visuals in Tron weren't quite good enough to carry two hours of movie, the nostalgia factor didn't quite make up for some gameplay issues.

Starcraft

Hard to tell what's going on with over a hundred units there

Earlier I mentioned that the Civ V icon on my desktop can be terribly distracting when I try to play other games that aren't Civ V. The Starcraft II icon also causes problems. I don't like playing multiplayer after the brilliant single player campaign, so I end up replaying that every couple of months. Mostly to do the train robbing level and the one near the end where you get a truly massive army. Unfortunately there are only so many levels, so it seemed like it was time to play something new...