The Twilight Samurai

The Netflix "Watch Instantly" library is a treasure trove. Sure, there are a lot of garbage SyFy Originals and violence porn like Tokyo Gore Police (yes, that is the name of an actual film). But it's also home to multi-award-winning documentaries and foreign films, which now make up about 95% of my Instant Queue. (The other 5% being Will Farrell comedies.) Based on my interest in Yojimbo and Lust, Caution, Netflix recommended Twilight Samurai, which turned out to be a surprisingly touching film.

DLC

I haven't played any new games lately, I've keeping my plate clear for Portal 2. But, the other night I finally finished the final level of Super Meat Boy, which got me thinking about downloadable games. To me, the most exciting stuff going on in this console generation is in the downloadable arena. In the long run, we'll probably look back one day and say that motion controllers were this generation's biggest contribution to the medium. The Kinect, especially, has a lot of untapped potential-- just take a look at what the warlocks over at KinectHacks are doing. But Microsoft has figured out what to do with the thing yet, and motion controls in general have a long way to go. For the moment, the most innovative and creative stuff is happening on Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, and....whatever the Wii online service is, I guess.

In a lot of ways, it's a return to the olden days of game development, when a small team (or even just a couple guys in a basement) could craft a good idea into an instant classic. You don't need tons of features and modes, you just need a good central gameplay hook. You don't need hyper-realistic graphics, you just need a unique aesthetic sense. If I ever get a job in the industry, I hope it's in making these smaller, downloadable games. They don't have as much investment money attached to them, so you can afford to take chances and make crazy experiments. And development cycles are much shorter-- as much as I love Halo, I feel kinda bad that the guys at Bungie have been stuck basically making the same game for 10+ years.

Call of Duty: Black Ops

Are the two M16s necessary? Are we really dual-wielding assault rifles now?

I never intended to get Black Ops. While I played, and enjoyed, both entries of Modern Warfare, I didn't developed much of an emotional attachment to the series. I mainly got into it to have something new to play with the Halo Nighters. But somehow, my mom managed to get her hands on a free copy of Black Ops (I assume she beat up some crippled kids) and sent it to me. My first reaction was to trade it in for Mass Effect 2, so that I could transition into it immediately after finishing the first game, making one seamless, 120-hour epic. However, Black Ops is supposed to be pretty short, and as long as it's in my house, I may as well get some enjoyment out of it. It will probably be good to have some sort of hiatus before indoctrination sets in.

Les Oiseaux en Colère

Furious Fowl

I am about to talk about Angry Birds.

As a member of teh l33t hardcorz, I should detest this "casual" game, and the cultural dilution it supposedly represents. But after playing it almost every day for the last month or so, I have to admit, this is brilliant game design wrapped in a fantastic business plan.

Mass Effect

I must stop the Reapers from destroying all intelligent life in the galaxy!

But first, I have to scan this random, barren rock world for mineral deposits.

And do some gambling in the casino.

...And play with this box of kittens.

Kraken by China Miéville

What do a mild-mannered museum curator, an underground mollusk cult, a statue-dwelling union leader, a supernatural police squad, and a mystical crime lord trapped inside a tattoo have in common? Why, they're just a few of the people scouring London for the formalin-preserved specimen of Architeuthis dux-- the giant squid-- which has mysteriously disappeared from the British History of Natural History. And which may or may not be causing the end of the world.

Splinter Cell: Conviction

FACT: Terrorists have terrible peripheral vision.

I wrapped up the campaign in Splinter Cell: Conviction over the weekend. Chaos Theory was, to me, the pinnacle of the stealth genre-- releasing me from the hellscape that is Metal Gear-- so it was impossible to walk into Conviction without some major expectations. This latest entry in the series took some major risks by introducing major changes to the core gameplay mechanics. Fortunately, these changes worked out well for the most part, and helped to freshen up the gameplay. I always like to support the noble experiment, so I applaud Ubisoft for having the guts to take chances with one of their biggest franchises.