Civilization Revolution is the best turn based strategy ive played on a console. The game is stripped down compared to Civilization 4 on PC but that doesn't mean its less fun. In fact, I believe the game is stronger because it does less.

All you have is the PS3 or XBOX controller so they had to reduce the complexity for the game to work very well on those systems. For instance, your tech tree isn't as deep. You have less military unit options. Your diplomacy options are not as advanced. You have less details to manage. There is less world real estate too. All that said, its as much fun as I remember the original DOS version was.

There are a few kinds of victories: domination, culture, economic and technological. The easiest one is domination, which I often stumble to even if I mean to do another. One bad element the game does present with any kind of victory is that it has a hard end if a certain amount of time has elapsed. Which basically stops you from spending an eternity toying with the opposition. The fixed time ending is my only real gripe with the game. Id prefer to take my time and do whatever taking as long as I care to. Oh wait, no, time has stopped sorry. You win?

I have Civilization 3 and can't seem to ever win. Civilization Revolution allows me to start out doing well and I can scale the difficulty to match my growing ability. They even have online play if you are interested in going head to head with other players. Its one of those games I purchased when I first got my PS3 and still play it because its a lot of fun.

Just started playing this game the other day after hearing about it on Weekend Confirmed. Its free, so if you have an iPhone you should check it out.

The premise is you have a jetpack and you are running and need to avoid getting hit by rockets and traps. Its basically another runner game similar to Robot Unicorn Attack. You collect coins in the game and can spend them on you player customization and upgraded jetpacks and the like. Like many freemium games on the iPhone you can pay money to get coins so you can outright buy the items instead of collecting coins by playing it.

So far ive collected about 4.5k coins and my best distance is 2,678m.

Like @Adym, I too remember this game.

I pretty much always played as the Banker from Boston so I could buy a ton of bullets and shoot squirrels. One time a classmate and I shot a squirrel hunderds of times to see if the amount of squirrel meat in pounds would increase.

Sadly it did not. It was still only 2 pounds.

Been listening to a lot of podcasts and reading articles and Portal 2 seems to be on most peoples game of the year lists. Im not sure I had a game of the year for 2011, but Portal 2 was on of the most unique experiences ive had behind the ps3.

For starters my wife enjoyed watching me play the game. She had the same feelings about Halflife 2, she wouldn't let me play it if she wasn't present to miss out on the story. Portal 2 starts out with a bang and throws you right back into Aperture Science as you wake up from a long hibernation period to a funny robot named Wheatley.

I never felt like the puzzles were impossible but occasionally I was stumped for a few minutes. More than once my wife helped me figure out how to complete a test chamber and I was on my way. The graphics are very good on the PS3 but some have said they are not jaw dropping. Everything looked just right to me.

One awesome bonus that Portal 2 came with on the PS3 was the inclusion of a free voucher for the PC steam copy. I bought it when the PS3 Network was down so I had to wait a few weeks to active the steam copy. I completed the game on the PS3 as I prefer shooters on the big TV in the living room, but it was fun to checkout the extras the steam version had.

Still have not tried out the co-op but plan to go through it with a friend a bit at a time. Ive heard co-op is where the game shines and I am eager to try it out.

Portal 2 was one of the coolest video game experiences I had in 2011, you monster.

This game wasn't launched on the iPhone but its perfect on a handheld touchscreen. Often before bed I play a level of this and its perfect in that pick-up and play setting. Ive noticed that since I played it PopCap has added quite a bit to it to spice it up.

They added the Zen Garden from the PC version and added new play types like puzzle where I have so far unlocked "i, zombie" and another mini game called "ZomBotany."

"i, zombie" is rad as you take you turn as the zombies attacking cardboard cut outs of the plants. "ZomBotany" is a mode where the zombies are fused with plants as they attack you.

There seem to be many other unlockables I can get by collecting tons of coins or I can outright purchase coins to unlock all this stuff. Cool feature, but makes me nervous as if my phone gets wiped it seems like ill lose all the unlocks? I don't know.

StarTropics is a cool game I never finished. I picked this up for a reduced price after the Super Nintendo was launched and NES games were marked down signifigantly. I believe I never finished it because the graphics were not quite as good as the SNES RPG's that I was used to, like Final Fantasy 2, 3 and Secret of Mana. All told the game isn't in the category of square's "golden SNES catalog" but it was fun.

It was a quirky story and a unique backdrop as you were on a island and the characters and enemies had an island flavor. Still haven't seen much that has reminded me of this setting in recent memory. Its on my bucket list of games to return to and figure out if its a great game and I missed it or if it was just kind of forgettable.

Either way, ive been thinking about it lately because it stands out in my mind as being unique and something I didn't see a lot of back in the the day.

I have had many conversations with my friends about the "best video game cart of all time". Not the best game of all time, the best cart. The original Zelda is tossed around, The Link to the Past, Secret of Mana, Goldeneye, and Sonic. Super Mario All Stars generally wins because it has such an amazing line up. Its not just that it has Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Bros 2, Super Mario Bros 3 & The Lost Levels... But that it adds things like saving whenever you want AND upgraded the graphics for the Super Nintendo.

For certain games like Super Mario Brothers 3 the save feature means the difference between warping directly to the end all the time and being able to play through the entire game reasonably. Super Mario Bros 3 was a great game on the NES but the lack of save really hampered what you could do with it. I know people that left their NES on a few nights to go through Mario 3 in its entirety. Plus, the Racoon tail suit was awesome.

My other fav of this cart is Super Mario Bros 2. Ill save most of my ravings about this game for another post about it directly. That said, Super Mario Bros 2 may very well be my most beloved of the series. So many great memories of playing this with @WhiteboySlim.

Didn't play too much of the lost levels, it was punishingly hard and to this day don't go wild for other hard titles like Nethack or various roguelikes. Not that the lost levels was a rougelike, it was just very hard.

One of my friends takes note with the "best video game cart of all time" for this cart as he has the Super Mario All Stars + Super Mario World which came with a late packaging of the SNES. I agree with him, that one is MUCH more epic, thing is I never owned it :)

Really cool information on Borderlands 2:

http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/exclusive-robots-revamping-and-rearming-a-qa-with-the-developers-of-borderlands-2/

Tonight I Played online w @WhiteboySlim and his friends. I was the lowest level and gained 5 levels in an hour and some change. Finally maxed out my money to the point that a death costs 4 million.

Since we had four players the bad guys were really hard. One bullet practically killed me so I took i got a few shots off, mostly behind cover.

Very fun.

Taking a break from programming to play Borderlands. First time I am playing since I beat it and it asked me which play through to load.

Awesome it lets you jump between them. Starting out play through 2.