If I was to make a list of my top ten favourite computer games of all time, I’d have to sit and really think about it for a while. I’ve played a lot of great games over the years. I can say with absolute certainty however, that one of the top five positions would be occupied by Might and Magic III: Isles of Terra. It was the first computer game I ever purchased (not including my Commodore 64), and I spent hours playing it, making my own maps along the way.

The other thing I know about my top ten list, is that the number one spot would be filled by Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven. It’s been years since I’ve played it, but no game since has absorbed me into its world as much as MM6 did. The atmosphere was tremendous, especially as your party moved further west. The land became more barren, more bleak, and the monsters more powerful. I can remember my sense of dread building as I progressed through the game.

Those are the only two Might and Magic games I’ve played. I bought Might and Magic V: Darkside of Xeen, but never got around to playing it. It was one of my famous bargain bin purchases, the kind where “I can’t believe that game is in the bargain bin, I gotta get it now!”, but then never play it.

This past weekend, Good Old Games had a sale on all Might and Magic titles. Despite knowing I’ll probably never get around to playing them, I couldn’t stop myself from making a purchase. I got Might and Magic 1 through 8 for just over $13. After downloading the games, I immediately launched Might and Magic VI and was assaulted with a blast of nostalgia as the intro movie began. When the “3DO” logo and voice-over appeared, it felt like only a week had passed since I last played, not the 12 or 13 years that it’s actually been. What a great game.

I haven’t been doing much gaming over the past two weeks, but I did manage to remove two games from the “stack of games I bought and need to finish” pile. The first was Crysis: Warhead, the stand-alone expansion to Crysis. I actually whipped through the campaign fairly quickly, and quite enjoyed it. There was a far greater emphasis on the action this go around when compared with the original game; there wasn’t much time between fire-fights to catch your breath. Other than that, it was basically more of the same from the original campaign, and the game-play did start to wear a little thin towards the end. Still a very nice game though, and well worth the $9.99 that I paid for it off Steam.

The other game I finished, as the picture above may suggest, is StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. I have to admit that I’ve never been a huge StarCraft fan; I much preferred Total Annihilation back in the day, and my progress on the StarCraft II campaign had stalled a while ago due to lack of interest. I ultimately decided to just get it over with however, and forced my way through the five missions that I had remaining. My initial enthusiasm for the game had taken a nosedive as I progressed through the campaign; each mission feeling pretty much the same despite varying little gimicks attempting to set each level apart. The story, of course, was very well done and was the game’s redeeming feature for me.

I finished Crysis the other day and have already started up the expansion, Warhead. It’s been a long time since I’ve enjoyed a first person shooter enough to play it all the way through, but I really enjoyed Crysis. I have a feeling however, that once I’m done with Warhead I’ll be ready to leave the Crysis world behind.

Speaking of first person shooters, I fired up the Duke Nukem Forever demo (pictured) and played through the first level real quick. First of all, I can’t believe this game is actually coming out after so many years. Secondly, the level I played seemed cool enough. Obviously I can’t judge the game based off of two minutes of play time, but I was a little bit turned off at the fact that you can pick up a log of feces and throw it around, leaving streaks upon the walls. Really? Is that necessary? I’m still interested in the game though, and will likely pick it up when it comes out, more for nostalgic reasons than anything else I think.

I purchased Trackmania United Forever for $10 during the most recent Steam sale. This game is crazy fun, and I found myself continuing to play last night, breaking my repeated promise of “this time is my last try, then I need to get to bed”. I couldn’t help myself.

I was playing the solo race mode, where you challenge to beat the bronze, silver, and gold medal times for the track. Beating those times is easy enough; the challenge comes with trying to continually improve your own time to challenge the world rankings.

On one track in particular I had it so that I could consistently post a time good enough for 4th place in my province (Manitoba) so I entered the race to post an official time and sure enough, I flubbed the race almost right from the start. I’ll probably stick to practice mode for the immediate future.

Great game.

Many, many years ago I used to take weekly trips to Office Depot because they had a nice little bargain bin filled with some pretty good cheap PC games.  It was always fun to go there to see if any gems had been added to the pile. Last week I noticed that Office Depot had a “store closing” sale and I popped in to check it out; not to search for games of course, as the bargain bin disappeared over a decade ago.

Browsing through stores looking for PC games has gotten fairly depressing these past few years as PC game sections have continued to shrink in size.  Best Buy and Futureshop are the best bets; they still have a decent selection, mostly comprised of newer titles. Gamestop is not an option for PC games at all, unless you’re looking for Blizzard titles.

It should be no secret to anyone that in the PC gaming world at least, the digital services are replacing (or have already replaced) the brick and mortar stores. I still prefer being able to physically stroll down the aisle of a store and checking out the backs of the game boxes, but during this past year I finally joined the rest of the world and have started to purchase more games off Steam.  I’m certainly aware of the other services out there, like Impulse, and Direct2Drive, but I’ve had my Steam account since Half-Life 2 and don’t really want to bother with another account for another service. I have a feeling however, that that’s about to change.

I checked out Good Old Games for the first time today and it immediately brought back the feeling of visiting the Office Depot bargain bin from so long ago. I managed to restrain myself today, but I’ve got my eye on a few titles which I’m sure I’ll end up getting in the not too distant future.  Titles like Planescape: Torment, The Temple of Elemental Evil, and Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura.

I’ve wanted to play Planescape for some time now; it routinely appears on “best CRPG ever” lists, so seeing it available for just $10 is pretty exciting. I almost bought it on the spot, but then I remembered the huge pile of un-played games that I already have, particularly Baldur’s Gate II, which I’ve been meaning to play for some time now.  So my new vow, proclaimed after once again installing Baldur’s Gate II, is to not purchase Planescape, or anything else off of Good Old Games, until I’ve finally finished Baldur’s Gate II.