When Double Fine announced they had reached a partnership with THQ to publish downloadable titles, I have to admit, I got a bit excited. A prominent developer embracing the digital platforms is always great and, in Double Fine's case, the digital platforms offer a lower risk alternative for them to offer their unique brand of titles without being dependant on making a huge number of sales in order to be a commercial success. The benefit for their customers is also great, as we get more Double Fine titles for lower prices. Double Fine's first downloadable title, Costume Quest, was a great start. Stacking follows suit, nicely.

Stacking sees you playing as Charlie Blackmore, the youngest and smallest member of his family. With the disappearance of their father, the Blackmore family has fallen into debt and the children have been forced into indentured service to The Baron in order to make good on their debts. Well, all of the children except for Charlie who is deemed to small to do any good.

It's an interesting setup on its own, but it gets better. The characters in the world of Stacking are all Russian Stacking Dolls. Playing as Charlie, you have the ability to "stack" into dolls who are a size larger than you, controlling that doll and making use of its unique ability. Once inside a doll can then continually "stack" into dolls that are one size larger, using their abilities, as well.

So this is, essentially, an Adventure game but instead of collecting and combining items, you use the special abilities and combinations of Stacking Dolls in order to problem solve. It's a system that works really well because it's so in tune with the game's characters.

Each level, there are four, plus the Train Station hub world, has Charlie solving various puzzles. Each puzzle offers multiple ways to solve it, encouraging you to replay each puzzle multiple times in order to find each of the increasingly complicated and imaginative solutions.

Exploration is also encouraged. There are unique dolls to discover, themed characters to simultaneously stack together and Hi-Jinks to participate in. Your accomplishments are kept track of by Levi, Charlie's hobo friend, who you can visit in an abandoned area of the train station seeing how close you are to completing the various things to do in each level.

Stacking also encourages you to talk to as many dolls as possible. Dialogue has traditionally been a strength of Double Fine games and Stacking is no different, with some very clever, funny bits of dialogue presented. There is no voice acting in the game, which some people might take issue with, but it seems fitting with the silent movie presentation of the cut scenes.

Stacking also provides a generous hint system for those who need help solving the puzzles. What's nice is that it is placed in the menu system, so those who want to use it can and those who want to figure things out on their own aren't hit over the head with unsolicited tips.

Double Fine's second foray into the downloadable game space is as good, if not better than, their first. Stacking is a refreshing take on the adventure game, offering a unique gameplay mechanic that is tied into the the aesthetic incredibly well. With the accessibility of the gameplay and hint system, the amount of content there for those who want it via the multiple ways to solve each puzzle and the encouragement given to explore the world, this is an easy game to recommend. Everything in Stacking just fits together so well. Double Fine may have found its niche in bringing these smaller, imaginative titles to the downloadable services. I hope they continue to bring more.

The biggest piece of advice I can give someone playing the campaign of Killzone 3 is to stop and look up every once in awhile. The harsh environments, as oppressive as they feel, are a wonderful sight. While Killzone 3's gameplay mostly consists of posting up against a wall or a barricade, taking down your enemies before creeping forward and repeating the process again, you'd be doing yourself a disservice by not stopping every once in awhile and just taking a moment to look around.

The campaign feels very similar to the one in Killzone 2. You are led from objective to objective, pushed down the cattle shoot, if you will, towards enemy engagements. You will never get lost in an environment, you won't struggle to figure out where you are supposed to go next. Killzone 3 is a game of moments, and Guerilla wants to put you in the right spot for each and every one of them. This can be great or frustrating depending on your perspective. While it's nice not to miss out on big moments in these grand set pieces it can be a bit disheartening having an AI character shouting into the com system exactly what you are supposed to be doing next or what weak spot on an enemy you need to be aiming for.

While there may be times that you feel like you are being pushed to a specific point, Guerilla Games does a great job of making you feel a real sense of agency over your character. They do this by keeping you in first person perspective the whole time you are controlling your character. Like it was in its predecessor, Killzone 3's campaign uses a first person cover system. The system is improved over its predecessor as you can tweak so setting so you no longer have to hold a shoulder button to stay in cover. In the setup I used simply tapping L2 placed you up against an object in cover, allowing me to then comfortably use L1 to aim down the guns sights. For those of us who prefer to use L1 to look down the sights rather than click in one of the analog sticks, it feels much better than in Killzone 2. You will also stay in the first person perspective while performing brutal melee attacks. Once again, this draws you into the experience even further. Little things, like seeing your characters arms grabbing ammo from a crate or climbing a ladder all give you a sense that you are controlling a body rather than a camera on a stick.

The heavy feeling when handling the weapons in Killzone 2 is now gone, for better or worse. I liked the weightiness of the controls but I realize that the control scheme was a source of frustration for a lot of people who played KZ2. Those people should feel no frustration now as the controls are tight and movement speed is fast. Personally, I kind of miss the old way, though it should make multiplayer more fun this time around.

A common complaint about Killzone 2 was the lack of environmental variation. You were limited for most of the first half of the game to fighting in war torn urban envirionments. While Killzone 3 still takes place on the planet of Helghan, the environments are more varied and distinct. You will travel all over Helghan during the campaign and each environment is wondrous in its attention to detail.

Vehicular sequences are, for the most part, an exercise in frustration. The only exceptions coming when using the jet pack or controlling the mech. The other sequences, which are "on-rails" have you simply looking to lock on a reticule while hammering on a fire button. The lack of control you feel in during these brief sections of the game is a pain and, while they are brief, there are too many of them.

Story, or lack thereof, was also a complaint about Killzone 2. Killzone 3 is definitely more story heavy. The story picks up immediately after the end of Killzone 2 and you once again play as Tomas "Sev" Sevchenko as he and his fellow ISA troops are stuck behind enemy lines, now you also get a view into the high command of Helghan as men struggle for power in the wake of Scholar Visari's assassination at the hands of Rico. While the voice acting is generally very good, the story didn't really make me feel anything one way or the other. There were also some odd editing decisions with a few instances of jarring, abrupt cuts and audio cutting out.

Yes, Rico is back. The annoying character who tormented me throughout Killzone 2 with his bluntness and vulgarity is along for the ride once again. His dudebro-isms are definitely toned down in Killzone 3, and that goes for the tone of the game in general. While Rico is improved, he is still annoying. There is no Raiden-esque redemption for Rico in this game. Though it is great that he will now zap you back to life with the med gun if he is able to. This does make it feel like you are, at times, fighting along side someone else.

If really want to fight alongside another person, you can do that from the comfort of your own couch. Killzone 3 features local co-op, so you can play through the entirety of the campaign with a friend. Though online co-op wasn't included, local co-op is a nice bonus. The game also supports 3D televisions, though I did not have the ability to test this feature.

Playstation Move integration is a nice alternative for those who want to try it out. You will have to do some tweaking with the menus, but once you get your preferred settings in place, it can be an engrossing experience, taken out only by some frustration with reloading. Still, even with such a minor quibble, Killzone 3, along with MAG show that the Move controller is a viable alternative control method for shooters.

In its best moments, Killzone 3 has the ability to draw you in, making you feel both the oppressiveness of battle and wonder of being in such a well realized environment. If I could be grand for a moment, there are times when Killzone 3 is almost an assault on the senses. You will run into memorable moments, some of which you'll feel like you were dragged by the hand to by the developer. But setting aside the points of linearity, even the small moments when taking in the sights of a destroyed capital or watching the wind whip snow past your perspective, Killzone 3 is a wonderfully realized world to play in. It's not a title that redefines the genre with its gameplay, but it does stand out and is worth playing as an example of how high production values married to the first person perspective can pull you into an experience like nothing else before it. 

Though I had never played one of their games until last year, Telltale is fast becoming one of my favorite developers. My introduction was through the wonderful third season of the Sam & Max series. I liked the game so much that I purchased Tales From Monkey Island when that was made available for on the Playstation Store. As these Telltale titles were my first real introduction into adventure games, it's also clear they've come to shape my expectations of what an adventure game should be. 

I must admit, I was curious as to whether or not Strongbad's Cool Game For Attractive People could pull me in the same manner that the two aforementioned Telltale titles did. It had a few things going against it. The first issue was, though the game was only now being released on the PS3, the game is actually over two years old. Originally released episodically on Wii and PC in 2008, Strong Bad's Cool Game is actually older than the two Telltale titles I'd previously played and loved. I did wonder if the game would feel a bit antiquated in comparison to Sam & Max and Tales From Monkey Island. The second potential issue was that I'd never heard of Strong Bad, nor had I heard of the Homestar Runner web seriesthat had spurred the creation of this game.

While this is a port of a two plus year old game, most of the hallmarks of a classic Telltale adventure are present in Strong Bad's Cool Game. The puzzle difficulty, which has a range of all across the board from very simple to pretty complex, is always kept in check by the game's adjustable hint system. On the occasions where I was having a hard time wrapping my head around a particular scenario, I could just adjust a menu option to give me stronger hints. This type of hint option is a great way to keep the game challenging for those who want it that way while giving a person who just wants to come along for the humor a chance to get through the proceedings.

The game's art style hold up well today, never making me feel like I was playing a game from 2008. The cartoony-style of the characters and world is very distinctive and the voice-work is excellent. In some cases, I was laughing more at the delivery of certain lines than at the lines themselves, which is not a knock on the writing but, rather,  a compliment to the voice actors.

Though I was unfamiliar with Strong Bad and the already established world in which he resides, I never felt behind the curve while playing the episodes. The world and characters in this series are pretty funny. Some characters are funnier than others, of course, but overall playing through these five episodes made me want to check out homestarrunner.com to see what these characters are up to now.

There is a somewhat streamlined nature to the dialogue options in comparison to the other Telltale games I'd played before, with dialogue choices pared down to "good" or "bad" choices. Also, rather than showing the lines of dialogue your character can say, there is an icon-based system for choosing your topic. I often ended up choosing all of the possible lines of dialogue, as no matter how you interacted with a character, they'd ultimately give you the same information. This is obviously done as not to lock you out of any gameplay scenarios as well as letting you hear all of the lines of dialogue.

I'm going to leave the various plots of each episode aside, as the story is a large part of the draw to these games. Though these are all being released at once, the game is split up into five episodes. Each episode sees Strong Bad tackling a different problem. The episodic setup of this game really makes it feel like you are taking part in a television series or, as it is, a web series. The sense of progression in each individual episode as you work your way towards the end is quite strong and the episodic nature of the game makes each episode feel like a fresh experience.

Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People can safely sit close to Telltale's other episodic adventures in terms of quality writing and puzzle design. The game's characters and world are its greatest assets but Telltale didn't forget that people also want interesting puzzles to solve and the game's hint system gives a nice hands-off approach for those who want it while giving a layer of accessiblity for those who need it. There is a lot of content included for price and, due to the episodic nature of the titles, it does feel like you are getting five fresh experiences on the same dime. I definitely recommend Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People for adventure game aficionados.