World of Goo: These days my most anticipated video games are to be made available on Nintendo’s direct download service, WiiWare for somewhere between $5 and $15. World of Goo seems to be an example of what I consider to be a maturely designed video game. I’m super excited about it.
Anybody else getting excited about anything on WiiWare, XBox Live, or Playstation Network? Anyone else find themselves more excited about the smaller downloadable games than the traditional retail stuff?
Richard Clark (Co-Founder/Editor-in-Chief) has spent his entire life writing, reading, listening, and playing. He has a Bachelors in Theology from the Baptist College of Florida and has a Master of Arts in Theology and the Arts from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He lives in Louisville, KY where he is the classroom technology manager at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. In addition to writing at Christ and Pop Culture, he is also a staff writer for Kill Screen Magazine's website and has written for various other outlets such as Paste, Gamasutra, and Collide.
Email: deadyetliving [at] gmail [dot] com. Twitter: @deadyetliving. Xbox Live: deadyetliving 
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Braid looks cool, but I can’t play it on PC. Portal from last year was just a packaged lark on Valve’s part to increase value-added for Ep. 2 of Half-Life 2 (which was actually good enough to not require value added) and was one of these awesome, inventive games.
About a year ago, I was playing Darwinia which is just amazing and the multiplayer strategy version hit recently and is just phenomenal (check out the demo for Multiwinia and see if it’s your speed—I’ll bet it is). It’s available from Steam and, I believe, Xbox Live Whateverthingy.
I played some Audiosurf recently and had a good time. One of the greatest problem with these conceptually spectacular, indie games is replayability. The games tend to be short (sometimes very short) and aren’t the kinds of things one returns to over and over again. Portal’s main story takes three hours to complete. After I finished it, I moved on to Half-Life 2, Ep. 2, intending to go back and finish the bonus levels. That hasn’t happened yet. And if it does, what’s that? A max of three more hours of play? Totally awesome game. Completely inventive. Almost zero replayability. Puzzle games are like that though. Once the solution is apparent, the challenge evaporates.
On the other hand, I’ve spent wads of time playing through PS2′s Persona 3 over the last month and within the scope of JRPGs the game is crazy inventive and fun enough that I see myself playing through once or twice more over the course of my life. That’s hundreds of hours of value.
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I agree about the replay value. For the most part, though, I find that the price usually matches up with the replay value pretty well. I bought Toki Tori for $10 around July and still play it every once in a while when I’m bored. I’ve got a looong time till I beat it.
One way I’ve been able to assure the value of my purchases is by buying from back catalogue. I got Titan Quest and its expansion for 19 bones on Steam. And I put a ton of time into it and haven’t ever finished its sprawling quest. Steam actually has a ton of games for under $10.
I got Persona 3 recently for under $20 and its turning out to be just flatout awesome. I saw Beyond Good and Evil for $10 and Bioshock (which is amazing!) is only $20. If classic-style, point-click-interact adventure games are your speed, you can get The Longest Journey and its sequel (two full-length games that will take quite a while) for $25.
Plus, some older games are still better than what’s currently blowing minds. Grim Fandango will probably always be among the best games out there. Morrowind is the predecessor to Oblivion and in every way saved graphical complexity it is a superior game. Shadow of the Colossus sells for nothing now. God of War too. Dark Cloud 2. GTA:SA. Half-Life (the first!). All cheap and all incredible.
And if you want real bang for buck: there’s WoW. Huge time sink, but if you’re disciplined and able to take it at a speed comfortable to your life needs, WoW can be some of the cheapest entertainment out there.
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