I’ve heard nothing but good things about Darksiders. I’m glad that I passed on the console version now.

I use the Complete Mod when I play Shadows of Chernobyl. I imagine the Clear Sky edition is also worth using.

Perhaps I felt so few things were worth sharing this week because The Onion set such a high standard on Monday.

Last time I heard from Shank it was being shown as an Xbox Live Arcade game. Now, fresh from the Penny Arcade Expo, GameTrailers has an extended gameplay video that they’ve filed under the “PC” category. This is great news, if it’s not an error, as the game looks wonderful.

At last, a zombie game that isn’t a first-person or twin-stick shooter, but a sim/RPG — and from a reputable developer, no less. By the look of those screenshots, the zombies may even be shambling.

It’s refreshing to see a someone in the press willing to play and cover the PC version of a multiplatform game. It’s not even a staggered release, which is usually the only time we hear about a PC version from anyone other than PC-centric outlets.

Although I’m wary of putting stock in non-announcements, I want to believe that publishers are coming back around to treating this platform right.

By now I hope you’ve noticed common theme in the items I’ve picked this week: the PC is getting its just deserts. News like this is so plentiful lately that it’s on the verge of becoming non-news; I’m okay with that.

I’m very glad that Quake Live’s launch has gone relatively smoothly. Having a queue system in place from the get-go showed great foresight and probably prevented any major crashing. I’ve also been impressed with the frequent updates id has been giving on their status via Twitter, news posts and interviews like this one.

A few months ago I voiced my concern for De Blob’s retail success, despite glowing reviews, due to third party Wii games’ tendency to tank. It looks like De Blob is in the clear!

I’m always interested to read about the process of game design, especially when it relates to a game series that I love. The Myst III puzzle discussed within happens to be a favorite of mine.

Back in April I wrote a bit about a few of the games that I was looking forward to most this year. That article has remained pretty popular over the months, and since the future which that feature referred to is now, I thought I would do a follow-up. A few gaming trade shows, a major merger of two gaming juggernauts and a development delay or two later, not quite all of the games on my list have been released yet, but I have gotten my hands on several.

Let’s revisit these in order, shall we?
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Third party Wii titles are a dime a dozen. Many don’t succeed, mostly due to quality, but also in no small part due to underexposure and Nintendo’s failure to properly promote them. A couple recent examples are Zack & Wiki and Boom Blox. Fun, well executed games that just didn’t have very stellar sales. One game I am hoping will not fall by the wayside is the Wii version of De Blob. You may remember this as one of the first cheap games featured here as Downloadable Suicide.

In my original article I mentioned that THQ is bringing it to Wii and DS sometime in 2008. The Wii version dropped a week or two ago and seems to have been met with critical success. It’s currently the 17th highest ranked Wii game on Metacritic with an average score of 82. Worthplaying gave it a 90 and said “It is a rare game that can appeal equally well to both the casual and hardcore crowds, yet de Blob does just that.”. EuroGamer had a grim comment that I hope won’t turn out to be true, “Probably the best and worst thing about de Blob is that it’s got ‘Destined For Cult Status’ written all over it.” GamePlayer felt De Blob worthy of a perfect 10 saying that it is “The first third-party Wii game that would have Mr Miyamoto bowing in awed respect.” Nice.

Reviews aside, the purpose of this post is simply to remind you about De Blob and its roots as a student project on the PC. While the breadth of its gameplay has evolved significantly during its transition to the Wii, its whimsical spirit and aesthetics appear to have stayed intact. Check it out on PC and consider giving it a look if you happen to own a Wii. The DS version looks like it’s going to bake a bit longer before it’s ready for consumption; it’s the version that I’ll be giving a try.

This game is called De Blob. According to The Wikipedia: “de Blob was originally developed as a free downloadable game for the Windows PC by eight students studying Game Design & Development at the Utrecht School of the Arts and one student studying Game and Media Technology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.”. I’ll take their word for it, and you should too.
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