Today I will mostly be playing... catch-up

Honestly, I'm away from the site for two months and all hell breaks loose. I'll do a quick round-up to get back on track but, coincidentally, my last post about Blueberry Garden is still relevant as the game has just been released. So there. Buy it here, enjoy the game and comment on the review below.

Off we go:

• Thief 4 -or Thi4f if you're out of touch or work in marketing- was announced to much predictable criticism. The l33t-speak-inaccurate logo sparked fires on internet forums, minds faithful to the series exploded and the corpse of Looking Glass Studios is all set to spin vigourously within its bejewelled coffin. Also developing Deus Ex 3, Eidos Montreal potentially have in their hands the destruction of two much-loved franchises. They're cult games. Fucking either one up will break a lot of hearts.
  

• 3D Realms disbanded and Duke Nukem Forever is now delayed indefinitely, as opposed to simply being delayed for an undefined length of time. The difference is brain-meltingly subtle. Many mourned the loss of the company as a father figure of PC gaming whilst some people likened the sudden news to God poking his head through the clouds and announcing that Jesus won't actually be making a comeback after all. That is: astonishing at first, but the actual outcome was to be expected. And before you take that metaphor the wrong way, I'm not likening the 3D Realms team to God. For starters, God is yet to put his name to any above-average corridor shooters. Tee-dum-tshhh!

• Popcap released Plants vs Zombies, following which I rediscovered my love for computer games. Twenty hours of my life were stolen by what is essentially a Flash game and I decided to give up blogging in order to cultivate virtual flora. I've arrived at the opinion that if you play this game and don't devote most of your free time to it then you probably lack the emotion and humour to remain a valuable member of society. In fact, if you haven't made your first kill already or at least begun eyeing up tramps as potential victims then I'd start locking any blades away now because it's only a matter of time.

• E3 happened. Too much to go into here, but it was surprisingly interesting to keep track of. Many titles appealed and out of nowhere MMO shooters were suddenly all the rage. Nothing, though, excited me more than Just Cause 2's delightfully explosive approach to action gaming. The first game was good enough, but if this sequel delivers on its promises then we could be looking at the new benchmark for sandbox shooters. And then hopefully the GTA series will cheer up a bit and learn some new tricks. Quick time events have to go though...

• Left 4 Dead 2 was announced to a hilariously unexpected degree of anger from gamers. It seems that people who bought the original expecting updates akin to Valve's TF2 dedication were a little upset. It was another case of a roudy mass experiencing a misjudged sense of entitlement. Assumptions were lobbed about that in turn got people even more riled, whilst a small proportion of them fumed that Half-Life 2: Episode 3 was still floating about in the ether, unreleased and unannounced. Seriously, check out the RPS comments thread of the announcement and experience a sense of superiority in the knowledge that you're not a whining idiot. Unless you are, in which case have a whinge below. You idiot.