Here are a few of the games I've played this holiday season and my thoughts on them.

Left 4 Dead : been playing this on my 360 with my son and my brother-in-law and it is a blast. The 2-player split-screen support is great and allows us all to play. Only the Live Gold subscribers can chat, but that doesn't stop the fun.

Rock Band 2 : another one that allows both local and online players to play at the same time, we've been enjoying 4-person bands with my brother-in law and his girlfriend on one end, and me and my son on the other. I was afraid this game might not be so fun without a full group but 2 player is just as enjoyable as I hoped.

Horton Hears a Who - You to the Rescue! and Cat in the Hat - I Can Do That! : two great board games for the younger players (ages 4 and up) that even the older kids can enjoy. Both are very simple with physical actions you have to perform in order to score points. Neither require deep thinking, but the physical activities are great for the younger set that can't understand moving pieces around a game board anyway. The production values on both are very high with durable components and excellent use of licensed art from Dr. Seuss.

Star Wars Pocketmodel TCG : one of the last things Wizkidz did before they were shut down, this game is a major disappointment. The models are weak, the production value low, and the gameplay was only so-so. I had high hopes we might be able to pick a few of these up on the cheap (Target had them on clearance) but I won't bother.

World of Warcraft Miniatures Game : on the opposite end of the spectrum from Wizkidz we have Upper Deck's miniatures game. This one is everything Wizkidz was not (although the bases aren't quite as good as Wizkidz.) The pre-painted plastic miniatures look great with plenty of detail and are classic WoW in appearance. I instantly recognized the Troll priestess, Drenei paladin, Gnome mage, etc. I gave my son the Starter Set ($20) to see how it worked and we loved it. The starter set comes with 4 minis (preselected Common heroes), a paper game board, 6 branded 10-sided dice, and 6 character Ubases. These bases are interchangeable between character models and required to play the game. They let you see the health a character currently has as well as the next round it is allowed to move in. We loved it so much, we went out yesterday and bought the Deluxe Edition ($40) and a booster pack ($10). The Deluxe Edition comes with a hardboard game board, tiles and tokens to create unique map boards, 6 random miniatures, 6 Ubases, 6 branded dice, and a better rulebook than the starter set. The game is pretty straight forward although the round-based movement system is a little tedious to keep track of. If you get this game, I recommend getting the Deluxe Edition because the game board is so much better than the one in the Starter Set. I got a couple of Rare figures but nothing Epic or Legendary, and so far no monsters (although there certainly are those in the set.) We're looking forward to one of the promised Raid encounters because it looks like it will be more of a cooperative game.

Lego Batman : best Lego game yet, and full of co-op goodness. I can't believe how many good co-op games there are on the 360 suddenly (after 2 years of nearly nothing decent.) We rented it and managed to wring every once we could out of it in a couple of weeks. If there is a downside, once you complete all the missions the game is effectively over.

World of Goo : an Indy game you can buy for $20 for the PC or for the Wii. I went for the PC version because of the community additions that are in the works. It's a fun diversion from the standard big-budget fare but the art is fantastic and the puzzles addicting.

On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode 2 : the second installment of the Penny Arcade adventure/RPG. I played the first on the PC and the second on the Xbox and I think I prefer the Xbox version for ease of control. The humor is still excellent and the overall game is worth playing despite some moments of just crazy gameplay.

Taking full advantage of the awesome Fall of Gaming we are having, I've been playing a few games I thought I would share with the group.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed for the Xbox 360 - I've played through the game once and found it awesome. Great simulation of force powers and a strong story. It was shorter than I might like, but there is some amount of replayability if only because the game is fun and you can start the plot over with your character progressed to whatever level they were at near the end.

Spore for the PC - my son and I have been having a great time with this one. There is more depth to the game than I think a cursory look will show you - and I suspect that's what many bloggers did. Creature creation is surprisingly fun, and being able to attack, befriend, and otherwise interact with creatures created by your buddies is more interesting than I expected. You can probably say that Spore is 5 games in one, with some aspects deeper than others. The Cell stage is pretty simple (as you might expect) and plays like a 2D arcade side-scroller, but quickly gives way to the far more interesting creature stage. Creature stage kind of plays like an RPG with the ability to befriend in addition to combat. Tribal and Civilization stages both play like RTS games, although Tribal is simpler with fewer units to control (and brutally difficult in Hard, I might add.) Space stage plays out yet differently, with elements of a 4x game ala Masters of Orion. Fun, and my son is getting to try out different game types with different levels of complexity.

What are you playing?

With apologies to the Bard...

I've been looking forward to the new PC game, Spore, for awhile now. I even went so far as to purchase the Spore Creature Creator to get a taste of the game. (Result: Needed more info than was provided to me, but I'm slow)

The hype just kept building, but a few chinks in the damn appeared this past week, with a couple of European sites giving Spore less than awesome reviews, citing a general lack of gameplay as the main reason. Sure, all the stages of the game are interesting in concept, but the actual 'fun' was left out to some degree. I see the Metacritic score is rather high from the review sites, but a lot lower from the actual gaming public. Strike one.

Then along came word that Walter John Williams actually wrote all the dialog and some of the space situations for the game. A real life SF writer writing real life, SF for a game. Awesome! The count is now: 1 ball, 1 strike.

I was at the store today, which shall remain nameless but rhymes with Wal Mart, and almost, almost, dropped by the Gamestop to purchase Spore with my carefully horded wad of store credit and gift cards. But a quick call to Mr. Sanity, Tim, changed my mind, not the least of which because the game will drop in price, probably in short order. The count: 1 ball, 2 strikes.

And now I see there is a player rebellion against EA and Spore over on the Amazon page for the game. Spore, and by extension EA, is being savaged for its horribly intrusive and abusive copy-protection. This is pretty much a deal killer for me. I end up having to re-install my OSes every so often and only three 'activations' is just ridiculous. I'm shelling out some hard earned cash for a game, I want to be assured that I can install when and where I want, without the publisher looking over my shoulder. I don't even see the point here, as any copy protection they come out with will be cracked withing thirty microseconds of release. All they're doing is hurting their customers. The ones who are paying (in more ways than one) for their games. Sorry EA, you've lost a sale from me. Strike 3, yer out! (Oh how I wish I could find a video of Dutch Rennert punching out a batter. Makes me sad knowing he isn't umpiring anymore.)

I think I'll be thinking twice about buying anymore EA games, especially those with terrible copy protection. If you'd like to see a company that doesn't treat its customers like thieves, try Stardock. Galactic Civilizations is fun and has no copy protection whatsoever. In fact, none of their games do. And see their Gamers Bill of Rights to understand why they get it.

Am I the only one that sees a tremendous fall of gaming shaping up? It's not going to be much of a long cold winter at my house with what seems an amazing collection of high quality games coming out. Here are a few that I'm looking forward to.

Rock Band 2 - Everybody I know who has the first version of this game loves it, so I'm jumping to in on this version for the 360 since it has all wireless instruments and an enormous list of downloadable songs.

Force Unleashed - If the demo of this game (available on XBL Marketplace) is representative of the full game I think Lucasarts has a hit here. My only lament is that it's not going to be available on the PC, but I was pleasantly surprised at how well the game played on the console controller.

Spore - I'm not always a fan of Will Wright games, but this one just looks so interesting it's going to be worth playing with even if there isn't going to be much of a challenging game here.

Fallout 3 - What's not to love about a post-apocalyptic wasteland? Oh, and a strong RPG element - at least I'm hoping it's as deep as previous installments.

Gears of War 2 - Now I didn't find GoW to be the best game I've ever played, but unless I miss my mark this is going to get a lot of play with my buds and as a result some strong multi-player is in our future.

And that's not all, there are more - Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X, Resident Evil 5, and it goes on and on!

Spore is the new 'God' game from Will Wright, where players get to create their own alien creatures and guide them from humble beginnings all the way to galactic conquest. We've mentioned that National Geographic will be airing a documentary, How to Build a Better Being, about the game on Sept. 9th. IGN has an exclusive clip from the show about the evolution of eye sight and how it will transfer to evolution in the video game. Rather interesting how the eyesight of the creature affects the display on screen.

I was all set to buy this as soon as it came out, however its been receiving wildly divergent scores so I'm not sure anymore. Anyone else out there buying this one?

I stumbled upon this really interesting student created game called The Misadventrures of P.B. Winterbottom. It has a really nice 1920's vibe to it and all wrapped up in a black and white, silent film aesthetic. But what's it about? I'll let the creators tell you:

Create Your Own Paradox for the Love of Pie!
Enter a macabre and comical silent film world filled with mischief, time travel, and delicious pie. Record yourself and harness your time bending abilities to cooperate, compete against, and disrupt your past, present, and future selves. Winterbottom's debut misadventures present whimsical spin on the notions of time, space, and play.

That has to be one of the best game features, ever. But what does it look like? Feast your eyes on the trailer:

The ability to interact with your 'time clones' is really impressive. It's taking the time travel ability from games like Prince of Persia and Braid and going to a whole new level. Insane yet cool, and all done by students at USC Interactive Media department. The game industry should take a look at what these students are doing. Original and unique, unlike most of the video games industry. (Hmm, the same could be said about Hollywood. Coincidence? I think not.) Where was this type of stuff when I was going to college? I'd be all over a B.A. in Interactive Entertainment.

Sadly, I don't know if this will ever make to a PC or console near you. It seems perfect for something like Steam or Xbox Live Arcade. They'd get my money.

The economies in MMOs are primarily based on only one thing - time. If you put in time on the game you'll get something out of it that can be traded or bartered. That might be in-game currency or items, but either one work.

Acquiring the right items at the right time maximizes your advancement. I believe this to be a fact of almost all MMOs. Whether equipment like swords or guns or raw materials for crafting or something else, having them when you need them makes a difference. And we all need to admit that advancing through an MMO is what makes it fun. Advancement is the real reward for the time spent. But as a result, being able to acquire the items you need easily - for the least time invested - makes a difference. And that translates into fun.

The more people there are playing on your server, the more total man-hours that is spent and therefore, the more items exist. The more items exist, the lower their value, and ultimately, the cheaper they are to acquire through trade. The more people there are engaging in trade also works to drive prices down. And finally, with more people there is less chance of somebody forming a cartel to artificially keep prices high. There is more currency as well, but because it is spread out it doesn't have the inflationary impact it might have if it were concentrated in a few hands.

As a result, I enjoy playing on servers with the most other people. It can result in some frustration associated with dueling for spawn locations or an increase in childish behavior, but to me the overall benefits outweigh the downside.

What do you think?