Steel Battalion

Steel Battalion is ridiculous. Indeed, it might be the most ridiculous, but that's what makes it such a unique snowflake. A dense, kludgy, blatantly user-unfriendly snowflake that also happens to deliver the most immersive gaming experience short of a holodeck.

Crusader Kings II

At some point in the last year or so my tastes in gaming underwent a sea-change. For a long time I enjoyed quantity of games over depth of play, favoring short, easily mastered games that could be finished and traded in quickly. Creative shooters like Bulletstorm, or action-adventure titles like Tomb Raider fit the bill perfectly-- games I could finish in 10-12 hours, trade in, and move on the next experience. It's not that I shunned difficulty, it was just that I wanted games that gave me relaxation and entertainment over a steep mental challenge. Plus, I had a big backlog of games I wanted to play and I valued the ability to have a multitude of experiences.

Lately, however, I have been drawn to deep, dense, highly complex games that take hours and hours just to learn the base gameplay, let alone experience the fullness of what they have to offer. Games that scoff at words like "accessibility" and "user-friendly," that punish you for your mistakes but reward patience and hard work. Games that test your patience and your skills, but forge you into a better gamer on the cold, hard anvil of their difficulty. Crusader Kings II is such a game and I have sunk many, many hours into plumbing its depths.

Gunpoint

I picked this up for $5.99 during the Steam Summer sale, and it's in the running for the best six dollars I've spent all year. Thanks to Summer Sale bargains and Humble Indie Bundles, my Steam library has grown to epic proportions; my list of unplayed games has nearly caught up with my Netflix queue. I truly despair of catching up (I know, #firstworldproblems). But Gunpoint stands out like a shining star, so much so that as soon as I finished the game I started over and played it all over again.

Remember the early days of video gaming, when a couple guys with thick glasses and poor hygiene could crank out a hit game by toiling away in a basement? For a while there, it seemed like those days were long gone, subsumed by the monster budgets of the AAA development cycle. But between cheap, user-friendly creation tools like the Unity and Game Maker, and the limitless crowd resources of the Internet, the game industry has come full circle back to the days of garage development. Case in point, Gunpoint was created by an editor at PC Gamer with no programming experience experimenting in his spare time. Designer Tom Frances built a working prototype, got some outside help with art assets and music (which he recruited via his blog), and voilà- a hit was born.

Total development cost? $30.

Tomb Raider 2013

March is apparently The Month of Way Too Many Game Releases, and while I don't normally buy brand new games (because I'm cheap), there are three coming out this month that I don't want to miss: Tomb Raider, Gears of War: Judgement, and BioShock Infinite, in that order. Yep, sadly no new IP's in that list. But Gears and BioShock are in the handful of series that I'm absolutely loyal to, and I've been super curious about the Tomb Raider reboot. Fortunately I have an elaborate plan to get me through the month. Thanks to a Gamestop +50% special on trade-ins, I had enough used games to give me exactly $60 in store credit. I put all of that towards a Tomb Raider preorder, which-- having completed the campaign-- I have already traded in towards BioShock. And when I'm done with that game, I will trade it towards Gears, which I'm hoping will have lowered in price by that time. (Competitive shooters like Gears, CoD, and Halo always seem to drop faster). With any luck I'll only have to spend $20-30 on all three games. Crafty like a poverty-stricken fox!

Anyways, I sped through Tomb Raider in record time, completing the campaign in just over a week. I intentionally sped through the game as quickly as possible to maximize trade-in value, but honestly I would have finished it that quickly anyways-- I could not put the controller down from start to finish. It's a damn good game, and a welcome return for gaming's most recognizable female lead.

Voiding Warranties: Refurbishing the NES

Ah, the NES! Who in our generation doesn't have fond memories of the fabled grey box? I was fortunate enough to have an ex-coworker give me and old NES she found in her attic (thanks Donna!). Of course I was super excited. But who doesn't also have memories of cajoling said grey box to work properly? Power flashes, blue screens, grey screens, a mesh of pixels...The old gal could be finicky. When I tried plugging it into my TV, I got this:

Halo 4: The Haloiest Halo Yet

It's no surprise that I'm something of a Halo fanboy. So when the news came that not only would there be a Halo 4, but that it would be made by a brand new studio, I was (justifiably) suspicious. Fortunately the new studio, 343 Industries, made up largely of ex-Bungie employees and industry veterans, did a fine job in moving the series forward.

How to Pair Games and Cocktails

I didn't ask for this much vermouth.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution -- Manhattan

There is no question that Deus Ex is a noir game. And for a noir film, we need a noir drink, something that says cynicism and melodrama all at once. Enter the Manhattan: favored drink of washed-out private detectives and smoldering ingenues everywhere. (Of course, the game has several it's own cocktails, but I'm not about to sully good sake by mixing it with cough syrup.)

2 oz. whiskey
½ oz. sweet vermouth
a dash or two of Angostura bitters
maraschino cherry, to garnish

Combine the first three ingredients into a mixing glass and stir well. (Never, ever shake.) Strain into a rocks glass filled with ice (or better yet, whiskey stones), garnish with the cherry, and sip broodingly as you stare out the rain-slick window into the cold, uncaring night.

A classic drink dating back as far as the 1860s, the Manhattan is traditionally made with rye whiskey. But personally, I prefer bourbon above any other kind of whiskey, with Knob Creek as my current reigning fave. If you use Scotch call it a Rob Roy, or substitute tequila and call it an Anejo Manhattan. And feel free to substitute dry vermouth for the sweet, or use equal parts of both for a "perfect" Manhattan.

A note on vermouth: Keep in mind that vermouth is wine, and it will start to go downhill as soon as you open the bottle. Refrigerating it may help it last a little longer, but the older it gets the more stale it's going to taste, so replace your bottle if it's starting to look a little dusty. And as with any wine, different brands have different flavors, so experiment around until you find one you like.

Alternates: Gibson, Singapore Sling

 

More after the jump...