Today I Played
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Today I Played: Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

We began Today I Played last year with Far Cry 3. Today, we revisit the franchise with Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. Blood Dragon defies traditional descriptions of mainstream video games: it's not a sequel, nor is it a downloadable expansion; it can be played without a copy of Far Cry 3, but assumes the player has some experience with its namesake; it is set in the future, but of an alternate past. There's a lot to chew on if you want to, but you probably don't. Blood Dragon is best experienced on its most base level, rampaging through the neo-future island, detonating gas tanks, stabbing cyber-sharks and flashing the bird to the hundreds of robo-corpses left in your wake. I must say, I have one lingering complaint. Blood Dragon scraps Far Cry 3's inspired loop of hunting and crafting....
Today I Played
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Today I Played: Monaco

Here's the thing about Monaco: If you're not an expert, you're going to have a lot of trouble understanding what the hell is going on in the above video. The stylistic, minimalist HUD and graphics are not exactly friendly to newcomers. That's a bit of an issue when you're playing the game, and even more of an issue when you're watching four zany minutes of goofballs attempting to master its complexities. Monaco is the closest thing to Ocean's Eleven in game form. You select from a crack team of master thieves, each with their own special abilities, and use their skills to steal valuables from banks, embassies and yachts all over the globe. The game utilizes a top-down camera and fog of war, only letting you see what's in your direct line of sight. Hopefully that gives you some frame of...
Today I Played
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Today I Played: BattleBlock Theater

In this very special episode of Today I Played, we're experimenting with the time-tested technique of same-couch multiplayer. And what better game to test it out than BattleBlock Theater, which was designed from the ground up to end friendships? Yes, after an eternally long wait, BattleBlock Theater has finally dropped, so Chris Plante and I are jumping into the deep end, playing hours and hours (and hours) of the campaign and its bevy of multiplayer modes. Will we come out the other side or is this the end of Today I Played? (Spoiler: It's not. We'll still be doing a bunch of them. Don't worry.) More episodes of Today I Played
Today I Played
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Today I Played: BioShock Infinite

I understand. You're worried about the video revealing major story twists. I respect that, and if you've somehow managed to avoid all pertinent previews, trailers and tweets over the course of BioShock Infinite's protracted development, I urge you to bookmark this page and play the game. That said, if you have read previews — specifically, those from a December demonstration of the game's first few hours — I assure you that I don't reveal anything more. While I normally try to play through the entirety of a game for Today I Played, I restrained this video to the game's first third. More than the majority of its contemporaries, BioShock Infinite pivots on its "twists," and while criticism should be free of criticism, my video shouldn't be the thing that tarnishes your experience. W...
Today I Played
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Today I Played Gears of War: Judgment

Yes, a new Gears of War release is upon us. But Gears of War: Judgment is not your usual Gears sequel. This time around, Epic's working with Bulletstorm-developer, People Can Fly. and they're focusing on the be-goggled Baird and his travails shortly after the first Locust invasion. This is not my first Gears of War rodeo. I've played through all of the games thus far. But, unlike the other games in the series, I knew extremely little about this release before playing. Which made jumping into the action a little tricky at first. But, in no time, I was stomping giant centipedes with ease. Finding their eggs, though. That was an entirely different story. Click here for more episodes of Today I Played Click here for Polygon's review of Gears of War: Judgment
Today I Played
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Today I Played: SimCity

I experimented with SimCity games during grade school, but I would hardly call myself a simulation gamer. If you've watched previous Today I Playeds, you might have noticed my affinity for action and adventures games. Yeah, I like smart, thoughtful, slow games, but I also love blowing stuff up. I'm a simple man. Squeezing a button and being rewarded with streams of visual mayhem plays to my id. Simulations, they were usually too slow. I could play a simulation game for hours, weeks even, and still lose. I was trained on cheap gratification, and these games expected so much from me. SimCity is a simulation for mouth-breathers like myself. Every click is rewarded with a snappy sound effect or orchestral trill. Neighborhoods and skyscrapers grow, collapse and regrow in minutes. And when...
Today I Played
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Today I Played: Tomb Raider

Tomb Raider has not exactly been a household name over the last few years. But Lara Croft's latest game, fittingly-titled Tomb Raider, feels like a return to past glories. Despite that, it also leaves a lot of the immaturity behind. Lara is finally a serious, well-rounded character. Someone you can sympathize with. A few years ago, the prospect of locking myself in a room to play the latest Tomb Raider game would have felt like torture. And even though plenty of this game features torturous moments for Lara, what I went through was quite the opposite. But hey, don't just read about it. There's video evidence! Here is Today I Played: Tomb Raider See all of the episodes of Today I Played here.
Today I Played
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Today I Played: Dead Space 3

EA's had a rough go over the following years, shuttering a number of studios, nurturing a more austere slate of games. Mirror's Edge never got a sequel. The Dead Space franchise gradually exchanged its slow, quiet horror for loud guns and explosive set pieces. Coming into this game, the franchises' trajectory seemed, to an outsider, shrewdly calculated. You can imagine a board room in which an executive says, "Gamers like co-op and train sequences and epic boss battles, so let's do more of that." After playing Dead Space 3, I wonder if maybe I've read the series all wrong. That this was the natural path for the story. It's the Star Wars model (or the Campbell model) of sci-fi, in which the know-nothing hero becomes a destroyer of superhumans. It's tempting to build narratives around...
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Today I Played: Aliens: Colonial Marines

View this Today I Played as a travel journal. Join me on a journey into the darkness, where aliens move like humans and humans move like aliens. Behold the view from inside my colleague's animated face. Gasp as stray combustible barrels detonate my character's body like a water balloon full of strawberry soda. Video should help you better comprehend the flaws of Aliens: Colonial Marines. They are numerous. Some are painful, others are frustrating and a few are, intentionally or not, hilarious. If you had to choose, would you live in a world with Aliens video games or Aliens GIFs? Let me know in the comments section. And watch previous Today I Played videos here.
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Today I Played: DmC: Devil May Cry

As you might notice in this Today I Played, my reaction to DmC fluctuates between curious, disgusted and confused. Unlike the outspoken fans of the series, who have plenty of other issues with the game, I came to DmC with little baggage. I'd played previous games, but being action-brawlers, my interest waned by the second or third boss battle. DmC will be the first of the series I finish. The game, about a demon hunter named Dante, has a slow build. Yes, the first thing you do is fight a giant hell beast. But what weapons and moves are available reduce it to button mashing. For entertainment, I turned to the story, which is the grotesque love child of They Live and an episode of Futurama. After hours of weapons training and cinematic exposition, the game finally kicked in....
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Today I Played: Dark Souls

Ever since the original Demon's Souls, friends of mine have been singing the praises of From Software's insanely difficult RPG series. And yet, every time I played Demon's Souls or Dark Souls, it made me feel miserable. I'd pick it up at a press event, play for 10 minutes and come away wondering whether my friends had bad taste or a masochistic side I was just never aware of. It felt slow, awkward and intentionally obtuse. The controls and HUD made no sense and the lack of direction often left me scratching my head. So, after 10 minutes, I'd put the controller down and walk away with a feeling of superiority, knowing that this was a bad series that I wanted no part of. And yet, vocal love for the franchise persisted. So much so that one of the banner trailers at this past VGA awards...
Today I Played
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Today I Played: Far Cry 3

For your entertainment, we have captured one writer's experience of playing a new game for a day straight. Since we respect your time, we've condensed this madness to four minutes. This episode's game is Far Cry 3, in which we explored the dangerous Rook Islands as a pretty white kid from Southern California. It's one of those stories in which a Westernized dude is turned into a tribal tattoo-sporting psychopath. Like Apocalypse Now. Or a reversed Encino Man. Far Cry 3 is an unusual beast, more hunting game than traditional first-person shooter. You hunt goats, boars and tapirs. You also hunt the most dangerous game: tigers! Also, man. While these videos show scenes from the beginning third of the game, we have refrained from including major plot spoilers. Please let us know what you...
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