COGS!

Man, this game... WTH was I thinking when I bought it?

Always been a fan of puzzle games and this one has its teeth in me pretty hard.

Basically a take on the old slider puzzle games from when you were a kid, this game puts steam pipes, gears and chimes on the sliding pieces which you must then rearrange to solve the puzzle. Simple right? HELL NO! This crap is in a 3d environment and in some cases, moves made on one side of the puzzle affect piece on the opposite side.. SOOOO in some cases you are trying to solve multiple puzzles simultaneously in 3 dimensions.

There are 50 puzzles (51 actually I think if you include the "End Credits" puzzles). These puzzles can be played in 3 ways:

Inventor Mode - no time limit but Gold, Silver and Bronze medals are awarded based on the time it took to solve and number of moves used.

Challenge Mode - Puzzles solved in Inventor Mode are unlocked in this mode. There are 2 categories:
-Timed - You have 30 seconds to solve the puzzle.
-Moves - You have to solve the puzzle in 10 moves or less.

I'm about 15 hours into this game.. I've solved all the Inventor Mode Puzzles, All the Challenge Mode Puzzles (Both Timed and Moves)... and yet the game still haunts me... Why you ask... Those God Damned Steam Achievements!!! I've earned 13 of 18 of these cursed things (as of this post)... with the last 5 being uber-pains in the ass with like 1% or less of people earning these achievements.

Sigh...

Anyway, its a great game if you like puzzle games. Its on Steam and currently bundled with 4 other games (which I haven't even downloaded yet because I'm so obsessed with COGS!) for only $4.99, a price I think that's fair for just Cogs alone.

Watch the vid if you think you may have some interest in this game. Mayhap I'll earn the remaining achievements soon and move on with my gaming life.



PEACE!

Because the Mayans Say the World Will End Before Diablo III is Released....

Anyone who knows me knows I can't play FPS games. Most of them make me want to spew the copious amounts of Mountain Dew and junk food I consume while gaming. So this leaves me to playing 3rd person view games.

So, RTS games, turn based games and games such as Diablo II tend to feed my gaming addiction. And like everyone else I've been endlessly waiting for any sort of indication as to a credible time-line for the release of Diablo III. I'm fairly certain I may not see it before Quetzalcoatl comes down from the heavens and reigns a fiery end to the Earth as we know it on December 21, 2012.

So on the suggestion of a friend I checked out Torchlight. I was pretty much hooked instantly. If this is not built on the engine for Diablo II then I'd say Blizzard might have some legs for a lawsuit. Everything about the game plays like Diablo 2. The Hotkeys, magic items, the fact that there are 3 character type (a melee brute, ranged specialist, and mage type akin to the D2 Barbarian, Amazon, and Necro).

The graphics are better than D2's though a bit more cartoonish. It boasts over 100 dungeon levels with randomized dungeons so re-playability is good. At only 20 bones, it doesn't break the wallet for hours of Diabloesque fun. I purchased the game through Steam which has over 60 different in-game accomplishment to achieve, adding to the playability. Steam has had it on sale in the past for only $10, so you might be able to hold out for even cheaper fun.

Only real drag is that it's single player only. So if you don't mind the fact that you are clobbering PC controlled monsters and not some character controlled by a prepubescent zit-ridden 13 year old with nothing better to do with their life... then this game might just be be for you.

Peace

Welcome Dave to the Stage.

We now have a rundown of pretty much everyone I know that either reads or writes for TL;DR. Last week we added two new contributors, and today, we're adding Dave.

Dave and I have known each other since...2000(?),at least since then. Dave is an old skool console gamer, but more a PC gamer and so his perspective is going to be unique. I had long since written PC gaming off for dead years ago, but have been proven otherwise. Maybe retail PC gaming may be on lifesupport, but sites like Direct 2 Drive and Steam have kept things running pretty well.

Dave used to be a big Quake III, Diablo II guy. He and I used to play Ultima Online for a good period of time, and has moved on to games like Company of Heroes and Blood Bowl. Any strategy games you play, you may want to add this guy because he's pretty damn good at them.