We grabbed the demo for Dungeon Siege III, because demo. Plus, we have the requisite neurotransmitters a game like this might stimulate. We long, for example, to wield the famed Barb of Yalf, and games where such barbs may be obtained are of interest. Also, co-op, and any game whose quality is at least partially determined by the friends I’ve made stands to gain several points.

Except that Dungeon Siege has co-op more along the lines of sidekicks, drifters who temporarily embody people from your own game. Fable 2 tried to get away with the same sort of thing, something they remedied in the third outing. I can’t really stress this enough: “Co-op” means that you and at least one friend can share an experience. In a shooter, that’s ridiculously easy. In an RPG, which amounts to a tarted-up progression schedule, I‘m not entirely sure you can do away with local advancement and retain the “experience,” let alone the genre.

We came back from the store with Shadows of the Damned and “F.3.A.R.,” which is pronounced fa-thrir. Shadows of the Damned is often funny - actually funny, not Videogame Funny, thanks no doubt to the Suda 51 portion of its superstar triad. It’s pretty loose, though, from a technical perspective; it’s papered over with that style, and it’s an inimitable style, but I’m not sure how long you’ll last if you don’t like its particular thing.

We found F.3.A.R. very difficult to put down, so difficult (in fact) that we’re halfway through it without really meaning to be. I’ll go into more detail once I’ve played further, but it’s a function of our actually enjoying it coupled with the fact that we have been playing co-operative shooters together for a very long time. We used to play Descent with such otherworldly synchronicity that no communication was ever required. Which is good, because we couldn’t speak. We’re pretty old, you’ll recall. I tried to remember why we wouldn’t have used our phones to keep in contact, squozen awkwardly in the crooks of our shoulders, but then I remembered that we were using that line to send data, as one did in those days. A cellular phone would have been kind of a strange, ostentatious bit of status display, to say nothing of the expense.

Like I said: old.

Our friends Scort and Krasp, known the world over as Blamimators par excellence, have completed the first DVD collection of their Richter Award winning shorts. They have a preorder thingy up, where you get a map of The Rivenshyre or something, but really you would probably buy it because it’s good, and they’re good, and you want it.

(CW)TB out.

shredding the files like yeah