It reminds me of how I and the other TANlads could always tell whether we’d played Grand Theft Auto 3 or Grand Theft Auto: Vice City more recently by whether or not we wanted to steal police cars. In GTA 3 those things had great handling and could take a ton of damage, but in GTA:VC they drove like top-heavy boats.

Then there was Spider-Man 2 on the Xbox and Tim pretending to web-sling and swing through the house and down the halls at his old job.

Maybe that’s the hallmark of a good sandbox game: the degree to which you get mindfucked by it…

PS: 10 TANpoints to the first comment that knows where this post’s title comes from. Don’t be lazy and Google for it. The points are completely worthless.

I owe you all a lot of posts. I’m throwing this up first because the clock is ticking. I’ll punch myself in the nuts once I’m done.

2D Boy, the insane geniuses behind World of Goo, are having a sale. You have one day to get this game for whatever price you want to pay for it.

If you are a cheap bastard, pay a penny and make baby Jeebus (and PayPal) cry. If you can spare $5, pay that. If you like number sequences, pay $3.14 or $12.34 or $24.68.

This is a crazy, well-writen, fascinating, physics-based puzzle game. It’s available on every PC platform. There is no DRM or other dickishness attached, which might explain why it’s one of the most pirated games out there.

So go legit if you have a warez copy. Buy a copy cheap if you are just plain curious. Donate a ton of money if you feel like supporting small developers.

Whatever you do, do it by October 25.

* – Okay, technically, the sale’s been going on since October 13 and they extended it though this Sunday, but I’ve had a busy week and didn’t notice.

It’s a real First World Problem to have, but I am a 30-something suburban dad so this is the kind of shit I spend actual time thinking about.

Should I buy a Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3?

Make no mistake: I eventually plan on owning both consoles. The dilemma is simply which to buy first.

Lets compare the contenders.

Online: At this point, more of my friends (and more Americans) own an Xbox 360 than own a PlayStation 3, and by quite a margin. On this point alone I would have to give online play to Microsoft, but the attention to detail they’ve shown in crafting the Xbox LIVE (I assume that second word is screamed) experience just seals the deal.

Games: Here the difference is more subtle. Both consoles have exclusives I want to play. Both have versions of multi-platform games with additional content (fucking publishers and their desire for easy money…). Both have developers who spend more time polishing a multi-platform release on their hardware than the competitor’s. Microsoft may beat Sony by a thin margin thanks to its greater US penetration (seriously, it’s sold like 2x more than Sony), additional year on the market, and simpler development process, in spite of having weaker…

Hardware: Sony, hands down. Gigabit Ethernet. Built-in WiFi (instead of an overpriced add-on). User-replaceable hard drive (upgrades are at market prices, not “Microsoft, please assrape me” prices). Lower power consumption. Quieter operation. Significantly lower failure rate. More powerful (I’m told) CPU and GPU.

Media: This seems like it should be an afterthought, but this may be the point upon which the whole battle turns. Sony supports streaming more kinds of video (including codecs a… um… downloaded movie is likely to use). Sony has a Blu-Ray player. No, let’s be more precise: The PlayStation 3 is probably still the best Blu-Ray player on the market. On the other hand, the Xbox 360 streams content from Netflix, including some 720p HD movies and shows. My living room TV does 720p, not 1080i or 1080p, so while Blu-Ray would look better than my DVDs, they wouldn’t look much/any better than the HD content I could stream instantly and at-will from Netflix. Now, if only I could tell which way this turns the battle…

My wife was excited to hear about the “PS3 slim” release and really, REALLY, wants to get Planet Earth on Blu-Ray, posthaste. She’s also a big fan of playing co-op and multi-player Halo. In short, she can’t decide either.

It really feels like my decision is whether to play the Xbox 360 or watch the PlayStation 3.

The Valve Complete Pack!

The package costs $99.99 and includes the classic Half-Life and its expansions:

• Half-Life
• Half-Life: Opposing Force
• Half-Life: Blue Shift

… some famous Half-Life mods/add-ons:

• Team Fortress Classic
• Counter-Strike
• Deathmatch Classic
• Ricochet

… some games built on the Half-Life engine which started as independent mods:

• Day of Defeat
• Counter-Strike: Condition Zero

… some rebuilds of above games, ported to Valve’s more modern “Source” game engine (with mixed results):

• Half-Life: Source
• Counter-Strike: Source
• Day of Defeat: Source
• Half-Life Deathmatch: Source

… Half-Life 2 and its expansions:

• Half-Life 2
• Half-Life 2: Lost Coast
• Half-Life 2: Episode One
• Half-Life 2: Episode Two
• Half-Life 2: Deathmatch

… two more excellent games based on the Source engine:

• Portal
• Team Fortress 2

… a “lite” version of one very popular puzzle game (why not?):

• Peggle Extreme

… and one survival horror shooter that has some good buzz and pre-release reviews:

• Left 4 Dead

Arguing against my knee-jerk lust reaction:

• I barely play the dozens of games I already own, owing to family obligations (including my wife begrudging me the excessive “alone time” my gaming can lead to), work, TANcast, and an addiction to several amazingly, seriously, extremely, awesomely great television shows.
• I own a copy of Half-Life and have played most of the classic mods, so owning another copy of that (or of its Source-based revamp) doesn’t appeal to me as much as it might.  Don’t get me wrong: I enjoyed them all even if I did constantly get my ass handed to me by casual players (I’ve never been a hardcore gamer).
• Valve’s “The Orange Box” package includes Half-Life 2 and its expansions, Portal, Team Fortress 2, and Peggle Extreme for just $29.99.  Adding Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source, and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch would cost only another $34.97, so it would really take Left 4 Dead (at $49.99) to push the value of what I’m really lusting after over the $99.99 mark.
• Eventually I’ll get a PlayStation 3 and/or an Xbox 360, and The Orange Box is available on both (and my TV is huge).
• Seriously, when will I have the time?  I ought to be watching less TV and reading less random crap as it is so I can spend more time working on TANcast, learning Java and PHP (and maybe Python and Ruby), writing, and playing with Andy Jr., not necessarily in that order.

Let me tell you, that time thing really is the killer.  If there were 30 hours in a day I’d be all over this thing. I need to win the lottery or something so I can replace all this working with additional laziness and leisure…

Somewhere in the middle of all that, perhaps around the time that SimEarth and SimLife were out, Young Andy dreamed that some clever soul would take all the “SimSomething” games and make a “SimEverything” game.

It took 16 years or more, but I think Will Wright may have done just that.  Now Old Andy is on pins and needles.

I have spent a few hours playing with the Spore Creature Creator and I am, in a word, impressed.  No matter how many weird appendages I added or how insanely I proportioned the body, the end results all looked like they belonged in the same universe.  The art direction clearly took care to be sure the hands and eyes and miscellaneous widgets were consistent with each other, and the animation and rendering obviously used the same engine, but there is still something impressive about this unified look and feel.

I can hardly wait until I can take my ravening horde out of a real spin around a planet I can terraform from orbit.  T minus 17 days, and counting…

Oops… I think I may have just wet myself a little.

Of course, that 16+ years later happens to coincide almost exactly when my first child is due, so I think I’ll probably be playing SimPoopyDiaper for a long time before I get to play any Spore.