I was just owning faces as Stalin. I think some of my cities were starving to death, so I was really keeping it historically accurate. At least for a little while. Now I’m just airbombing the shit out of my enemies, while they’re stuck in the 18th century. I have anti-tank units when everyone else only has cavalry. Those horses are going to get decimated. It’s going to be like that climatic charge in The Last Samurai where somehow Tom Cruise is the only dude that lives. Only this time there won’t be a Tom Cruise.

How did it take me so long to play any iteration of Civ? This is best game of all-time territory here. Every game is epic stuff, and the propensity for the each game to unravel completely differently is incredible. There are just so many possibilities with the techs, units, buildings, diplomacy, map types…

I couldn’t even function at work this week because I just wanted to get home to play Civ4. I don’t even know why I bought more games off Steam this week. When am I going to play anything else but Civ4? Maybe Left 4 Dead when I get invited. Maybe Trials 2 because it’s the most masochistic game I have ever played. But Defense Grid and Trackmania? They are just going to sit in my Steam games list, along with the other dozen games I haven’t come close to finishing.

(Yes, those last three games — a total of approximately $40 — can be added to the wallet damage I posted a few days ago.)

This time the damage was $38.97. Civilization IV Complete, Bioshock, and Defcon. Not a bad haul. I already own Bioshock on 360, but FIVE DOLLARS. Only a week ago I bought S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl for $4.99. And I can see myself buying Trackmania United Forever before the Holiday Sale is over.

You should be buying some games too. Steam’s Holiday Sale includes every single game, some over 75% off. Examples include the aforementioned Bioshock for $4.99 and Company of Heroes: Gold for $22.49. A taste of the rest of the sale:

World of Goo – $14.99
Valve Complete Pack – $74.99 (insane value, but everyone on this earth has played most of the games already)
Peggle – $4.99
id Super Pack – $34.99
Far Cry 2 – $37.49
Painkiller – $7.49
Heavy Weapon – $0.99
Fallout 3 – $39.99

Now do your American duty and prop up the economy.

The public is about to get the most addictive demo I’ve ever played dropped on their Steam clients and Xbox Live Marketplaces. While I’ve played the PC version way too much, I haven’t had a chance to play its 360 counterpart, but almost every impression I’ve come across on the web with regards to the latter is exceeding positive. Even moreso than the PC version — but that would be due to shitty matchmaking taking the place of a server list. Console gamers may be used to matchmaking. but if Valve doesn’t at least add a custom server browser in the PC version, there will be internet rioting. Nonetheless, once a game is up and running on a good server with four people, it’s easily the most fun I’ve had gaming this year.

The brilliance of the game lies in the simple premise of surviving a zombie apocalypse taken to its highest level of replayability and unpredictability. The two go hand-in-hand, and the difference in every playthrough can be attributed to The Director, the AI constructed by Valve that controls zombie attacks, health pack location, weapon drops — pretty much everything other than the physical structure of the level itself. Does your group suck? Then the Director won’t spawn that tank zombie right around the corner. Taking too long? Zombie swarm incoming. The Director — combined with the variation between human partners — makes for an amazingly unique experience every time. And this is just the very first (not even full) two levels out of 20. I’ve played the demo for 10 hours. Ten hours for less than 1/10 of the game, not including the other modes. Some of that may be due to not wanting to touch my 360 games until my new HDTV arrives, but the demo is undoubtedly incredible.

It is so transcedent that I may have to double-dip, as most of my friends will be buying it for 360, and I want to kill zombies with the same people I would kill them with if there were a real-life zombie apocalypse. We need to formulate strategies and assign roles. Not to mention the split-screen capability. I’ll just have to see how well I get accustomed to using the 360 controller to play a Source-engine game. That’s going to be weird.

My own PC leanings aside, Left 4 Dead is poised to become the massive word-of-mouth hit of this holiday season. This demo just might be the Call of Duty 4 beta of 2008. We will see starting tomorrow. Don’t let me down, my fellow gamers.

Edit as of 11/12/08: 360 demo is vastly inferior. Oh well.

See, instead of telling you to vote, I tell you which videogames to buy. I also like telling you which movies and TV shows to watch, and occasionally which books and music to spend your time reading and listening to. I know you need the guidance.

You should’ve already bought Audiosurf — even though it gets old a bit too quick — but now you are obligated to purchase it. I will IP ban you from this blog if you don’t. It is TWO DOLLARS AND FIFTY CENTS on Steam. Even if it gets old, it’s TWO DOLLARS AND FIFTY CENTS. You probably spend three or four times that to see shitty movies in theaters. So basically, if you manage to get 30 minutes of entertainment out of this, you’ve broken even. You’ll get more than that, unless you hate music and videogames. Like the tagline says: Ride Your Music. And not in the groupie sex way. It really is like you are interacting with your favorite songs.

Anyhow, here’s the intro video:

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You can find the HD version here: http://store.steampowered.com/app/5141/

I think I could get used to just posting videos. I can’t see myself wasting time on writing much the upcoming week, so I’m just going to utilize vodpod to take movies from all over the internet and plaster them on here. Not like I have any baseball to talk about anymore. Fucking Phillies.

The goal of the game is to make goo balls all of different colors and properties make it to the goal — a pipe that sucks them in to collect them for the World of Goo Corporation. The first level just starts out with you building a simple bridge, but there are levels where you need to blow up goo balls in certain ways, or make a string hang in the air at just the right height with balloons. An extra is that you get to make a massive Tower of Goo to compete with other players, which is probably the most addictive part of the game for me. For every ball of goo you collect over the level goal, you get to add a ball of goo to your tower. As you build your tower, you see clouds floating around that display the towers you’re competing against. So awesome. Who doesn’t love building stuff really high?

The demo I’m about to link you to includes all of Chapter 1. The only problem I have with this fact is that most of levels have you building a similar tower or bridge structure. Chapter 2 is when the game truly gets interesting, so I implore you to buy the game on Steam or Wii (*shudder*) if you AT ALL enjoy the demo. I bought it blindly and did not regret it. The one person I came across online that didn’t like it at all was a total moron who basically couldn’t figure out how to play. I believe that was the demographic McCain was shooting for tonight. Anyway…

Here’s your demo:

FileFront Download
Mirror 1
Mirror 2

Edit: The demo is now available on Steam.

Enjoy. Or GTFO and vote for McCain.

“Here, you can preload so you don’t have to download anything more, just validate files and then play!”

Nope. Wrong. EPIC FAIL.

And Gabe Newell is fat.