Hellgate London does a surprisingly good job of making the different classes play very differently. Even though it's an MMO, the shooter classes actually feel FPSy. That being said, despite the fact it was developed by some of the guys who developed Diablo -- it's no Diablo. The random environs of the subway tubes are ultimately pretty sterile, especially coming off of a Portal kind of a thing. I also object to having to click 10-12 times on the quest giver to get all of the flavor text -- would it kill you to just give a quick summary and then dump the color text afterward for nerds like me who want to read it in one blow? Or give me some quests that force me to use parts of your game system so I know what they are? You can tell by all the small experience details these guys got wrong that the folks who stayed at Blizzard are the guys who make that company what it is.

Speaking of Portal, I can't believe I never spoke of Portal. It's freaking awesome. Best 2-3 hours of your gaming life. A perfectly designed and balanced little gem. Go play it.

Half Life 2: Episode 2 was a lot of fun, but it was no Portal.

Finally finished Halo 3 last night after a couple weeks of being too irritated with the "rescue Cortana from zombieland" level to get back into it. It was, in the end, Halo -- only three-ier. What can you say? They know how to make that game, and they did it well. My system totally failed to red-ring too, guaranteeing me some deep frustration when Mass Effect finally comes out.

Sam & Max: Episode 1 totally captured the flavor of the original Lucasarts game, and I can't believe I've gone this long without playing these things. I will grant you that these are adventure games, with all of the stupid inventory puzzles and tedious dialogue trees the genre implies. However, the important difference here is that you mostly care about hearing the comedically genius non-sequitorial dialogue, so it's all OK.

In WoW news, we downed two more of the bosses in the dungeon, leaving us one to go:

(I'm the big tree.)

I'm just incredibly proud of our group -- they've come a long way, they play smart and hard, and they keep bring their A game every week. It's been a really positive experience for Carrie & I to lead this group every week, and watch our team develop over time. Looking forward to downing some trolls in this upcoming patch.

Note to self after re-reading this entire list -- go play Psychonauts you cheap bastard.