Hotline Miami

I was going to arbitrarily dismiss Hotline Miami as soon as I saw the Devolver logo, but I figured I went to all the trouble to start it and it was good enough to run with no problems, so what the Hell! Starting it up didn't appear to offer much I was interested in, low-res graphics, 80's pseudo-nostalgia, and wonky controls, but I'd heard good things about this game so I powered through. I gotta say, it's not bad.

You play a hitman in 1980's Miami, taking jobs for pay, and just generally living the dream. The jobs are essentially puzzles, you need to enter a building and move through, killing everyone present; the puzzle comes in the form of how you approach and neutralize as you start every level weaponless and need to take care how many people notice you before you're ready for them.

NES era graphics or not, there's a lot of blood in this game.

The controls are wonky and not very fluid, but I'm pretty sure this was by design, you have to be more careful on approaches, making timing more key. The game itself is quite point driven, combo's, killing move's, etc all adding up to bigger and bigger numbers, but I found the puzzle angle enough to keep me interested, I don't care about accumulating points.

I'm going to give this guy 8/10, although I'm tempted to go a little higher. If you manage to get this one on sale for a couple bucks, it's highly recommended, at full price I can't recommend it as highly, but there are probably worse ways to waste your money.

Left 4 Dead

I loved Left 4 Dead, what more can I say? This is one of the few games I have been willing to go online and play with unknown ass-hats across the world, and with few regrets. This is not a thinking persons game, this is a survival shooter that achieves everything it sets out to, for better or worse.

This picture proves world peace is within our grasp.

9/10 on this one, as great as it is, it's better with other people, which is a failing as far as I'm concerned. Pick it up and play the solo campaign if you want, there's nothing wrong with it, but there is no magic either, you need other people to make the sparks fly on this one.

Sine Mora

Sine Mora is a bit different than I expected, but being as how the title gave me absolutely nothing to work with, I guess that's to be expected. I figured it'd be some kind of low grade RPG, but it actually turned out to be an interesting little side scrolling air plane shooter, something like a cross between 1941 and the original Super Mario Brothers.

As Sine Mora's go, this is defentiely the most I've ever seen.

The game has great graphics, decent mechanics, and what appears to be quite a story written into to if you have the time and patience to read paragraphs of text in between missions, which I do not. The spoken language for the game is likely Asian in origin, but being as I do not speak that language any more than I have the patience for the text, I paid no attention to.

The unique factor of this game is actually a couple of points: 1. You don't die from getting shot or hit, only drop weapon power ups (which can be picked up again), but there is a timer counting down that gets replenished by kills and power ups, you only die when time runs out; 2. A time dilation mechanic that allows you to slow everything down on the screen except yourself (maybe not unique, but it is for this style of game); and 3. Holding the space bar allows you to speed through dialogue sections, of which there are many.

I'm going to do 7/10 for Sine Mora, it's a nice little game that I got more play time out of than I expected.

Ticket to Ride

Ticket to Ride is based on a board game by the same name and I have no qualms about admitting it is one of the better board games I've ever played.

The game is simple in execution: You get a map, North America for example, and a number of cities connected by spaces. You get cards, that act as goals, naming which cities you need to connect; other cards are drawn to give you train cars for the connection; get the right number of cards with the correct colors and you've done it. Rinse and repeat until train cards are gone

Trains, do men ever get tired of playing them?

As always, there is more to it than that, but that's the general idea. Keep collecting cards, hoping no one else decides to use the route your trying to build or even just cut you off from yours. The game is meant to be played by multiple parties, but you can use AI too, it works well enough.

9/10 for Ticket to Ride, the video game is a perfect analogue of the board game, and there is more play time here than you can imagine.

Plants vs Zombies

Plants vs Zombies is not the original tower defense game, but it defined the genre for both what it was capable of and how it should be done. This is a great game, and it has a pretty snappy theme song!

Using anthropomorphic plants to fight off waves of zombies is not the vision or of a sane or rational human being, but it is a lot of fun. Collect sun to buy more and better plants and use their defensive and offensive abilities to fight off zombies, that's the whole game in a nutshell. The campaign is more than enough for several hours of playtime, changing up the environment, and strategies, as it goes, but there are also a number of mini-games that get unlocked along the way.

Pictured: FUN!

I cannot think of anything this game should have done differently or could have done better. It's pretty much a casual game, but there is a lot of playtime involved so this gets 10/10, highest recommendations.

Space Hulk

I got Space Hulk on a Humble Store sale for two reasons: 1. It was cheap, and 2. I have fond memories of playing Space Hulk: Vengeance of the Blood Angels on the PS1. All I can say is, I'm glad I got it cheap, cause Blood Angels it is not.

There it is in all its spacey hulky glory.

Main thing that needs to be said is, this is not an FPS, this is an electronic adaptation of a board game, it would have saved me some trouble if I'd realized that I was not getting an updated version of Blood Angels. Taken in those terms it works well, I'd even say very well, but if you're expecting any action you'll be disappointed. Each turn allows you to move your men, some with different actions, then wait for dice rolls to dictate how they fare in the fights, once they are placed there is nothing you can do to influence the play.

The game looks great and the mechanics work very well, however repetitive animations and lack of control limit the audience from people wanting action or real goals. I milked a great deal of extra play time out of it by fulfilling achievements (I'm very goal oriented in my gaming) and getting them can be challenging, but that's not a selling point, just a comment.

There seem to be a great deal of con's to this game, but I still got a great deal of enjoyment out of it. I'll give this one 6/10 for those reasons, but only because I got it so cheap, at full price I cannot recommend this game.

LA Noire

I am not a huge Rockstar fan, I find many of their games pedantic and pandering, however I have to admit they give everything they've got in every game. LA Noire may not be the best game I ever played, but I am a fan of the effort, and it is a good game.

I would say the best part of this game is the story that is unravelled one thread at a time through several different means. You play Cole Phelps, a war "hero" trying to apply his sense of ethics into post war 1940's Los Angeles. To say much more would give away a great deal of the story that you should find out for yourself by playing the game, but I will say Cole is a unique anti-hero, a very flawed character trying to do right as he see's it.

Pictured: Not Cole Phelps

The game mechanics are nothing short of amazing. Interrogation programming utilized motion capture that allows you to actually recognize actors and delivers tiny cues for those tricky interrogations. The shooting and driving works as good as any Rockstar game, and the map is modelled on actual city of Los Angeles street plans from that era, great looking, well detailed, and huge; in a game like this, where you literally spend half the game examining the scenery and travelling, this is a key point, and it was done very well.

Unfortunately the problems are as glaring as the positives. The game pacing suffers; going from intense interrogations to flat out gang warfare in the blink of an eye is jarring (I'm assuming at some point the project managers said "Hey, we're Rockstar, when do we stop thinking and start shooting and stealing?") Also, I hated the character of Cole Phelps; he's well written and likely came off exactly as intended, but I have rarely felt that much loathing for an individual (may not make much difference to anyone else, but it's important to me). One last thing, the game requires a fair bit of work to play effectively, I found myself keeping extensive notes to keep track of clues and suspects, maybe not everyone's idea of a good time.

I like this game, but I don't know that I really enjoyed it, it was a bit more work than I'm used to in my leisure time. As such, I'm very torn about how to rate it but I'm going 8/10 with a sale caveat: if you get it on sale, which it often is, it's well worth it, but this is not a full price game

Bioshock Infinite

I love me some Bioshock, yes I do, still, no love is unrequited. Bioshock Infinite is a decent game, I played through it, and even enjoyed some of the DLC, however it doesn't meet the bar set by Bioshock 1 or 2. I'd love to know how it would have fared if it didn't have the "Bioshock" legacy attached, I think it would be dropped and forgotten. Set as a prequel/sequel to Bioshock 1 and 2 (play the game to find out how that works) I was highly anticipating this game, maybe it's perceived failure is my fault.

I've given this considerable thought and come to the conclusion that it left the parts that really made it work in Rapture and tried to forge a path into country that wasn't built for paths. Rapture was dark, shadowy, claustrophobic, and scary, the very city itself made you feel like it would kill you without a second thought: Columbia is often bright and airy, and, at times, cheery. Yes, the further you get into the game the darker it gets, figuratively and literally, but it still feels too open, I never got a sense of danger from anything environmental. I did respect the thematic religious overtones of the game, they were a great metaphor, but ultimately did nothing for me on a personal level, it felt more like window dressing;I actually identified with Andrew Ryan and his Libertarian agenda in Rapture, helping me invest in the experience.

Although it is not without its charms...

Game play is solid, if uninspired, I played the bulk of the game using almost no vigors, using only guns on many levels, for which a great deal of ammo can be either found or bought, taking away survivalist urgency. In place of Big Daddies you had vigor equipped bad guys who made things tougher, but since there were so many you got desensitized to them and never really came to dread them, like you did when facing down a Big Daddy. Finally, despite her helpfulnesses and no requirement to defend, I never got used to having Elizabeth with me, it made the whole game feel like one long escort mission.

If you get this cheap, pick it up, I'll give it a 6/10, it's not a bad game, but it amounts to little more than a time filler, not an experience. A much better name for this would have been Bioshock: Call of Duty, it's just another big budget project that can't forget it's past success.

Portal 2

I liked Portal 2, there isn't a great deal to separate it from it's progenitor, other than multiplayer, for which I do not care, but it does add in a few things and fills out the Aperture Science back story as elegantly as I could imagine. This is essentially what a sequel should strive to be.

If you played Portal you've played Portal 2, solve puzzles to continue, but this time with a bit more characterization to the facility. The feeling of the passage of time in the lower levels of the facility work great, as do the voiceovers to fill in the history, plus the addition of the means to create portals in new places. Small changes, but well done.

Potral 2, now more portally!

I don't know what more to say about Portal 2, you should play this game for yourself, if you haven't already. 10/10 for this title, I can't find anything wrong with this game or anything that could have been done differently.

Left 4 Dead 2

To be blunt, Left 4 Dead 2 doesn't offer much over what it's predecessor did, but, how much more do you need? High impact survival with limited resources, now with melee weapons, these were the best of times, these were the worst of times.

The basic game is what it should be, run through levels trying to stay alive and keep your team-mates alive, because that's how you stay alive, finding what you need as you go. 2 adds in a few change ups to that make the game more challenging, such as resource hunting, inclement weather, and moderate special infected to balance out the new weapons and survival items. Gotta love dusting a tank with a vial of boomer bile and watching the regular infected swarm (pro tip, completing that combo with a Molotov cocktail give the zombie survival 'E' trifecta: Effective, Efficient, and Entertaining)

Fighting a tank is often a tad bit challenging, 2 of them is not double the fun.

There is really nothing wrong with this game, my only real complaint is not being able to play the original team; it seemed like a bit of a cheap out, a way of psuedo-advancing the story without having to put any writing effort into it. I also have to say melee weapons are not my style, they work well here, and can save your ass, but I'm more of a shoot 'em up kind of guy than a bash 'em up. I can't say these changes ruin, or even hurt, the game in anyway, they just kind of rubbed me wrong a little bit.

9/10, this is a great game, the changes done didn't do much for me, but that's me. All you need to remember is, the basic game is unchanged, and always shoot the smokers first, give 'em half a chance and they will ruin your whole day.

Bioshock 2

There are sequels that leave you wondering why you even bothered playing the first one and there are sequels that make you run out and find the first one so you can experience everything that world has to offer. While Bioshock 2 doesn't achieve everything it set out to, it certainly does fill out the 'experience the whole world category'.

I love this game, I've played it time and time again, but it isn't the horizon expanding experience Bioshock was. You're back in Rapture, this time a Big Daddy, with a new set of bosses, but largely the same set of goals as before, save or sacrifice little girls to survive and fulfil your agenda. I'll give it points for being a full standalone, there is nothing missed if you never did play 1, and in some ways this is a better game, such as dual wielding guns and plasmids; I wanted to include the ocean floor free roam in there, but it actually doesn't enhance the game that much, cool yes, but not true free roam.

It is actually much cooler than this looks.

As good as it is it should have been much more, but it suffered heavily during development, not only to standard rewrites, but, more importantly, in concept delivery. The Big Sisters populating rapture were supposed to be one boss battle at the end, making them more of a pain in the ass than an experience, and apparently a large portion of innovated game was ripped out to make room for a multi-player addition that, while I've only heard good things about, was never extensively played; funny thing, almost as if people who thrive on suspense laden, semi-horror driven gaming, don't care to mix it up online with a bunch of ass-hats.

As a stand alone game this doesn't deliver anything new or ground breaking, but, pick it up on sale and treat it as episode 2 of Bioshock, as opposed to a new entity, and it'll deliver more Bioshocky goodness than you can shake a plasmid at. I'll call this at 9/10, it could have been  more, but still a very, very good game.

Borderlands 2

Borderlands 2 is a magnificent game and might well be perfect if not for a few details.

There is a massive amount of fun to be had in this game, the levels are well crafted and the bad guys are diverse and unique, diversity that follows into the level maps and quests, to a large extent. I do have to say that, although the game delivers a more quantifiable goal than the first one did, I found the ending to be a little weak, however I wasn't really steam rolled by 1 in that aspect either.

The sign says it all, take my word for it.

The character classes are not quite as well balanced as they were in the first, but I'm thinking that was deliberate to try and amp up the multiplayer aspect; I was still able to solo the classes I tried, but some parts of the game were a challenge. The biggest issue I had is one they hyped the most: the loot drops. I spent more time deciding which guns and items to sell and which to keep than I did shooting things trying to kill me, it was a loot overload, plain and simple (we'll call this a First World Problem though). Neither of these may be problems for others, but they put a bit of sand in my craw.

9/10 on this one, a well built and thoroughly enjoyable game that, although I did have a couple gripes with, delivers a great time right up the ending credits. I should also note, some of the DLC is pretty decent and even includes a Christmas themed level.

Mafia 2

This is not only one of my favorite games of all time, it was probably the biggest surprise. I picked Mafia 2 up on a Steam Christmas sale a few years ago on a whim; the price was right and I'd heard decent things about it. I ended up not only playing the game through, but I picked up all the DLC and played through several more times before that holiday season was over.

As much as I loved this game I've always had a tough time quantifying why; it plays much like a scaled down Grand Theft Auto game, but where I've never really gotten into those titles, I found myself totally immersed in the life of Vito Scalleta and his journey through organized crime. I have to add, the soundtrack, period specific music, added immensely to the experience even if it was a bit anachronistic. Same goes for the Playboy magazines hidden through the game, no less pleasing for being totally out of their time.

I think I need to play this again.

An over the shoulder 3rd person action game, you steal cars, and shoot other, worse guys, in an effort to make your way in the world. The game play itself is nothing more than you'd expect, it's well done and enjoyable, but not extraordinary and while the game does have full free roam, there are no side quests outside the main storyline; this game grabbed me because if it's story. I like Vito and wanted to see how things play out for him, he may be the best example of a flawed hero I've ever encountered, and, for better or worse, I identified with him.

Obviously this game gets 10/10, from the opening moments at the end of WWII, to the depths of prison, to the end of Vito's journey, I stayed with him every step of the way.

Orcs Must Die

Orcs Must Die is unequivocally one of my favorite games of all time. I bought it on a Steam Christmas sale a few years back not knowing anything about it, other than it was cheap, little did I know how much fun it would be. This is currently the only game in my library which I completed every achievement for

You play an untalented War-Mage tasked with keeping Orcs from invading a magic portal, using a series of obstacles, traps, and spells. As the game progresses you get better items to use to fight off larger and tougher enemies. At it's heart this is a tower defence game with a lot of action; it's possible to do a great deal of fighting personally, but the traps are needed to win.

Tar traps, spike walls, acid pots, and crossbow! Yup everything looks good here.

The standard campaign can be beaten without too much difficulty with a set strategy of force multipliers, such as barricades and tar traps to slow and channel forces, but making sure nothing gets through can be a bit more of a challenge; besides, why deny yourself the inherent joy of watching a group of orcs literally get diced up in a wall blade trap. Move on to the Nightmare mode and shit gets real in a big hurry. Between the humor (I think Bruce Campbell was more than a passing though on designing the mage) and non stop action you get one hell of a good game.

Like Spinal Tap, this game scores 11 because 10/10 is not high enough to give it all the credit it deserves. I can think of few games I will ever give higher recommendations for.

Star Wars: Repubic Commando

I seriously love me some Star Wars, but gaming has rarely been good to it. There are a few exceptions, but the license has just been to lucrative, encouraging dev studios to flood the market with crap (people will buy anything with 'Star Wars' on it). Fortunately, there are exceptions, like Star Wars: Republic Commando.

A late Xbox era FPS, this game should have been total junk, there are no Jedi and it introduces new "heroes" that no one ever expected to be worth a story, but, and this is a huge 'but', I think the game is good because of these things, not in spite of it. You play the leader of a squad of specially grown clones tasked with the most difficult missions of the Clone Wars; the initial campaign is through the Geonosian battle from Attack of the Clones, and the action feels nothing less than authentic.

The game has aged incredibly well, it'll be 10 years old in a few months, but still as imminently playable as it was in 2005. The lack of need for a background on your character leaves room for personal immersion you almost never find in an FPS; you also get a lot of character from your squadmates with little effort, and don't need to be distracted from your game in order get the standard Star Wars backfill.

Ah, the old stab the commando in the back trick!

The game has a great flow to it, the weapons work well and feel authentic, and the enemies are really well made, being both interesting and challenging. The squad command system works really well too, there isn't a lot of variation on how to utilize your squad, but that keeps from over complicating the interaction, keeping you immersed in the experience.

10/10 on this one, maybe the best Star Wars game made to date, definitely one of my favourite games of all time.

Borderlands

I can sum this whole thing up in 3 words: Borderlands is fun! I enjoyed this game from start (I still love the intro song) to finish and relished every gun I picked up and every bullet I fired from each one. There is no pretension in this game, it doesn't set out to make the world a better place, or tell an epic tale, you simply get an endless shooting gallery with explosive headshots and shotguns filled with acidic pellets that melt your foes, literally.

Borderlands is built for and intended to be played multiplayer, however it is fully playable solo, the game manages to handle ramping perfectly; play solo and you get bad guys, play 2 players, you get more and tougher bad guys, so on and so forth up to 4 players. I have played co-op, but the bulk of my hours have been solo, the game functions equally well in both modes.

This screencap would have added more if there had been a headshot in it, but it communicates the general idea.

The four playable characters each have their unique strengths; I'vee solo'd the game with every one of them and, although the Siren is my favorite, I've enjoyed each one. Whether it be headshotting bandits, putting a well aimed bullet down a skag's throat, or shotgunning raks out of the air, the game delivers fun and good time action in every way.

This is one of my all time favourites, easily top 5 games of all time, and as such deserves nothing less than the best: 10/10, I cannot recommend this game highly enough.

Bioshock

Every once and a while a perfect melding of theme, action, story, and execution, giving a ray of sunshine into AAA gaming that will reinforce your belief in the purpose of humanity: this games name was Bioshock. If you have played the game then all I can say is "I know, right?"; if you have not, then I have no words for you, and must ask, why do you hate your life?

Underwater civilization in collapse, crazed super powered drug addicts, armour plated Goliaths, and creepy little girls, this game has it all. Rarely has an FPS/RPG ever worked this well but it does.

There it all is.

Bioshock falls firmly in my top 5 games of all time. I don't remember how many times I've played through it and I've been enthralled by every moment I spent in Rapture.

10/10 there is literally nothing more I can say about this game without writing volumes.

Oil Rush

I generally like strategy games and Oil Rush is a decent example of one, however I think the interface, built specifically for this game, is too clunky. Long loading screens and cheesy dialogue for the cut scenes don't help it's case either.

As the title suggests, you need to control resources (oil) in a future world that has been flooded. Using oil for currency you can buy units and upgrades to fight off attacks and take control of existing resources. The game is really well detailed, the action is pleasing to watch, and the game touts a stripped down interface. Unit and resource production bases are not built, only captured, and units are auto-generated based on the building designation; the same goes for unit deployments, you select their base, then determine what percentage of available manpower is sent out.

Definitely a nice looking game.

The game looks great and it has a decent concept for the plot, however I'm finding the interface to be problematic. The key to a great RTS is a fluid interface that allows you to be quick at each action; with this one I found unit selection and upgrading to be a bit slow. I'm sure more practice would increase my ability, but the great RTS's I can remember playing, like Warcraft I and II, didn't require that time, just time to get into the flow of the game. I also found the loading times to be a little too long, there is a lot going on in each map and, once loaded, they perform well, but it's a little distracting.

6/10 for Oil Rush, a good looking game with an interesting premise (even if a bit overdone), but execution on the game mechanics falls short, either because of or in spite of the design.

Puzzle Agent

I'm a Telltale fan, I think they have a great business model, buying existing licenses and gaming them; Puzzle Agent and Puzzle Agent 2 seem to be a new IP for them, but still a very good example of their talent. I can't say these are the best games I've ever played, but I got much more enjoyment out of them than I expected.

As member of the FBI Puzzle Research Department you travel to the town of Scoggins, Minnesota to solve a mystery, said investigation involving a series of puzzles. The town is populated with an eclectic group of people involved in a very strange set of circumstances (hard to say much more without spoiling), leading to some very challenging puzzles and quite a bit more genuine humour than I expected. Puzzle Agent 2 is required to get the full story as it's not so much a sequel as it is episode 2, but it does wrap the story up nicely.

Spoiler alert: This is an actual solution to one of the puzzles

I enjoy puzzles in games, but I've actually never really been sold on video games based on puzzles, I find they often lack context that allow full grasp,  a problem this game is rife with. I'd also cite an imbalance in the puzzle difficulty throughout this game, some at the start are harder than some at the end, but that could simply be subjective, due to my skill set, and not technically true.

I got about 10 hours of play out of these two games, which isn't bad; I'd say the story plods along a little bit, due to conversation dialogs, but it is interesting, and, again, funny enough to have kept me going. I'll do an 8/10 on these 2; puzzles tend to the esoteric, and, although the playtime seems a bit short, it's actually about right for this style of game. This gets Robs Stamp of Approval!

Dear Esther

There isn't much to say about Dear Esther as it isn't a game in any sense I'm accustomed to. I didn't play much of it, although I did play more than I expected to, mostly because I was wondering when something would start happening. The whole thing is nothing more than walking around an island, a very beautifully rendered island,  listening to letters dictated to you; that's it, that's the whole "game".

Looking at this screen cap has literally allowed you to play a part of the game.

I did a bit of reading about it after playing a bit and found that it is a big deal on the indie scene, a whole new genre of game. You may ask, who is going to be playing said genre? I certainly don't know, I just know it won't be me.

2/10, the game is very pleasing on the eyes, and the letters are intriguing in their ambiguity, but there is literally nothing to do here.

Neighbours from Hell

Not knowing what to expect, as I don't remember when I got these games, I thought I'd give Neighbours from Hell a try. Starting it up seemed to promise a platformer, but that promise was a very pleasant lie. There are 2 entries in this title, but they are little more than 2 episodes of the same game.

The game is a point and click puzzler that actually manages to pull off some of the humour it's driving for. Concept is simple: you play tricks on a neighbour, sneaking around the house, or vacation spot, finding items to use, then setting up the tricks, while avoiding getting caught by him, his pets, or, in the sequel, his mother; not much story, but it's not needed. The levels also do a great job of ramping up the difficulty, allowing you to get your feet wet and learn how to play before getting hardcore.

Sneaky little shit, isn't he?

I have to say there is quite a bit of re-playability to it as it's very compelling to go back and redo levels to try and up your ratings, timing your tricks to get the neighbour madder and madder. A single play of both titles can easily be done in under 10 hours, but going for the full score will almost double that. I'm not much of a fan of the "sitcom tv" style the game uses, but I see where the designer was going with it, and it's not obtrusive.

9/10 on this one for me, it's inexpensive, engaging, and, best of all, fun. Only caveat is, point and click puzzles may not be for everyone.

Papers, Please

Papers, Please is a game that should be arbitrarily dismissed as crap: very little story or plot, exceedingly low-res graphics, topped off with point and click gameplay. You play a border guard in an early 1980's communist state tasked with inspecting documentation for people wanting to enter the country. I can unequivocally say, this is a good game.

Every morning you get requirements for entry, often very different from the day before; as the game progresses you get more and better tools for the inspections, but taking the requirement changes into play means more work, then add in the fact that you get paid by the number of people you process, and not very well. When you're done you have to allot your salary for household expenses, usually resulting in what member of your family you let suffer, or die, due to not enough money for basic necessities.

Graphics intensive it is not.

Frustration #1 is your superiors will always know when you screwed up so letting the wrong person in or denying the wrong person often ends up penalizing you, resulting in not enough money taken home. Frustration # 2 is the fact that properly analysing each person takes too long so you don't bring home enough money either way. Throw in a subplot about spies and revolutions that actually matter to you (because, hello, bribes!) and you get an experience you can get immersed in.

I'm giving this one a 9/10, I'd like to give it full marks, but it's a little too frustrating for that. Then again, replace the word "frustration" with "challenge" and you've got what makes a game worth playing.