Why hasn't anyone released a "1001 Games To Play Before You Die" book ? It's about time... who do you think should write it ?

  Thoughts on games I'm playing now or will play in the near future:

1. Borderlands: one I've been expecting anxiously and one I'm really not sure about. I like a lot of what I see and dislike a lot of other things. It seems to me the game has a lot of little flaws that should be no-brainers for the developers and despite being small stuff (like the interface on the PC and no proper loot-sharing method) it might add up. The fact the game didn't unlock on Steam on the 26th (like previously announced for my territory), didn't help much. It bothers me that all the looting is pretty much focused on the guns and that it doesn't change your appearance, this kind of stuff seemed so obvious to me. Still believing, tough. Might turn into a success and maybe Borderlands 2 will turn out to be everything I imagined. Now, can you please unlock the damn thing ?
2. World of Goo: I gave 2D 10 bucks for it. Thought 20 dollars was a bit much, maybe I was wrong. I've only played about an hour, but it looks and sounds awesome and has a lot of charm, wich is something I value and few games have it. Gameplay is still very simple, but I heard it gets pretty hard, so I have to still get there.
3. Machinarium: I'm throught the first three scenes now and this game proves that you can have very simple mechanics and still have a nice game. This is pretty much a Flash puzzle, but it looks incredible, the music is interesting and it also has tons of charm. I'm very curious to find out how it goes on. Also, love the hint mechanic.
4. Torchlight: Already wrote about this one, here it is.
5. Dragon Age:Origins: what got me into this one was the epic scale and it also reminds me of Neverwinter Nights, wich I loved. Not sure what to expect. It seems to be prettty straightforward with the fantasy setting, nothing new there. But Bioware knows their RPG, so I'm hoping for the best. Only thing that scares me is that 20 Gb download on Steam...pretty much the only thing I'll download next month, I guess.
6. Mass Effect: I'm pretty late for it but my previous machine couldn't run it. I'm about two hours into it and since I like Bioware RPG's and like space, well, there you go. The problem with games like this one (and also Dragon Age, I'm sure) is that they take me forever to get through. Usually developers are vey vocal about their 100-hour games and I always think "how the hell am I going to finish this". Now, who the hell thought these elevators were a good idea.
7. L4D 2: I'll be late to this one. Surprisingly, I'm not that curious to play it right away, I didn't pre-order and won't buy it on launch, I'll wait a bit because there's so much stuff to play right now. But I'm guessing it will work out fine and I hope they support this one longer.

Am I missing something ? Probably...
It sucks having a day job and just a couple hours a week to play all this stuff. And you know, there's life outside of videogame world...no, really ! Anyway, what games are you looking forward the most in the holiday season ?

 This second part is to expand a bit on yesterday's post and to reply to a few comments made to the original post.

I used the word clone in the original post and it could be read as a negative comment on the game, so I'd like to be clear: I don't think it is bad to be a clone, at least not in this particular case. For two reasons:

1) it's by the same guys who worked on Diablo, so it's not like they are stealing other people's work. In fact, they are expanding on their previous work and they just don't call it Diablo because they don't own the IP.

2) I love Diablo.

The reason I call it a clone is because it's pretty obvious the guys at Runic wanted to evoke the "feel" of Diablo as much as possible. You can notice it when you open a town portal, you can hear it in the music cues, the sound you hear when you sell or buy gear. And to me, that's not a bad thing because it brings back all those good memories. And obviously, this game is made for us who love Diablo. That's the audience they are going for.

Still, Runic managed to make a bunch of little changes that give the game a more unique feel. The pet is the most obvious one. You can take a cat or dog with you during your quests and he will assist you in your fights. You don't control him directly. He has a name, can learn spells, has his own inventory. One nice detail: you can load your unwanted loot into his inventory and tell him to go to town and sell it and bring the money back to you. Since your pet is also a fighter, this will leave you to battle alone for some time (I've seen it take from 30 sec to about a minute for him to return). It's a smart little touch and it saves you from using a lot of town portals to get rid of overweight.
You will occasionally find merchants in the dungeons, so you may be able to do some trading in the middle of a quest. From what I've seen, you will also find quest-givers along the way so not everything depends on you returning to Torchlight town.
When in town, you have all kind of traders to buy and sell stuff and also enchant and mutate your gear into something new. One merchant sells only magical stuff but you never know the exact benefits of the gear until you buy it. It's risky, but sometimes very rewarding. All those little touches benefit and streamline the game a lot.
Now, about classes:
I've only used the Vanquisher, the pretty lady with guns, because I like ranged combat. You can also use The Destroyer, your traditional melee class, and the Alchemist, your steampunky mage.
As far as I know, there are no class-limited items, I can't really remember any, so please correct me if this is wrong, I have a feeling it is :). It seems to me any class can use most ranged weapons, melee or even spells.I've been using a mace as a secondary weapon, when things get too hectic, despite being a ranged fighter.
The real difference between classes is the skill tree, wich will favour the classes fighting style. Since these are only early impressions, I can't get into much detail there. Once i'm done with the game, wich should last about 8 to 10 hours according to the Giantbombcast, I will review all this and give my final impressions. As of now, so far, so good. Hope you are all anjoying it, too. Seems to be causing a nice impression.

Since Steam, or 2K, or Gearbox have decided that announced release dates for Borderlands don't really matter, I've been forced to take my looting elsewhere. What better place than Torchlight, the new Diablo clone made by some of the same guys who worked on Diablo and who now call themselves Runic.
 
At first, I was a bit sceptical about the game, I usually don't enjoy clones. But Diablo is the game that got me back into gaming those many years ago...it made me buy my first PC, for crying out loud ! Also, this kind of game is becoming a genre in itself, so...yes, I love clicking and watching animations unfold.
I played for a couple of hours and if it wasn't for my need to get some sleep, I could be up all night still playing. On some level, this kind of gameplay is less complex than, say, Peggle, and yet it has the same addictive quality. And, of course, looting, wich is what the game is all about. And there is a lot of it. Two hours in and I'm already filling my stash with stuff that I won't use but...I just wan't to keep a little longer. One of the nice things they did was to create a secondary shared stash, wich I can fill with sutff for other characters I will create. It's already filled with interesting staffs for my future mage.
 
Another detail I loved was the music, composed by Matt Uelmen, who wrote the original material for Diablo, wich is my favourite soundtrack of all time. It's all there, heavy percussion and wicked guitars. Love it. Also, if you're a big fan of the soundtrack, you can get all the tracks from the installation folder of the game, pretty simple to find and copy. Should be pretty easy to mod your own music into the game, I guess...
 
I won't get into gameplay much because if you ever played Diablo, you know all there is to know. Get quests, kill beasts, collect loot, level up, learn new skills, repeat.
 
I admit that at first I wasn't much into the artstyle but it grew on me and I don't mind it anymore. Despite being cartoony in a Warcraft 3 kind of way, it looks pretty good and has some steampunky influences that actually make it more unique than your traditional fantasy setting.I'm carrying pistols and rifles !
You can pause the game at anytime and it makes the camera rotate around your character, nice to see all the stuff you're getting in the dungeons.
I also appreciate that fact that this style of art allows them to keep game assets smooth on your PC and that means you can play this game on pretty much ANY computer you have lying around. That's a wise decision on Runic's part.
 
There are only 3 character classes to choose from and nothing really bold there, you got your fighter, your ranged class and your mage. Pretty clichéd, but it also matches the philosophy of keeping it simple.
 
One of the things I miss is having some open areas, as far as I know, it's all dungeons in this one. Would be nice to have some of those desert- or jungle-styled levels. Maybe in the future expansion packs ?
 
Well, here's how I see it: for 20 bucks, if you're into this kind of game, please go buy it. Give the guys at Runic a chance to expand this project, because they made a pretty good game, for a fair price, that will run on any machine and keep you entertained. It looks good, it plays very well and sounds excellent.
I respect their vision for the game and would like to see them succeed.
 And you know, you'll probably play Diablo III with your grandchildren when it comes out, so...get some good looting now. Life's too short.

well. let's check this out.
I enjoyed the E3 coverage. But I got to tell you, there are just too many games out at any given time. And so many of them look alike.