Kodiak Night Light: Games You Should Play and Why

Portal 2 (Puzzle Game for PC, Mac, PS3, Xbox 360) - If you love solving puzzles, and don't give up easily, this game will reward you with an undying feeling of accomplishment (and likely an appreciation for the level designers who create these puzzles). Portal and its sequel contain gameplay that is truly unique to themselves. While getting used to the idea and the physics of 'portals' undoubtedly takes time, once that light comes on it becomes almost second nature. Don't get me wrong, there were times when I swore that a level was unbeatable, but that just made it all the more satisfying when I figured it out (except for when I realized I had been thinking way too hard the whole time and the answer was right in front of me, then I felt pretty dumb for wasting an hour of my life).

Tips
- While I've gone about this backwards from having first played the sequel to just now playing the original, I'd encourage you to play the original Portal first. Unless you're like me and you don't mind the fact that you really don't have any idea what's going on in the story of the game until about 5 hours into it, then by all means follow my lead.
- If you've tried the same strategy multiple times and it's hasn't gotten you where you want to be, it's most likely the wrong strategy and it's not going to get you there after twenty more tries. So think of something else ;)
- When you find yourself stuck and feel like you're beating your head against a brick wall, stop, it's not healthy. Okay, but really, if when you feel like you've reached that 'impossible' level, I found that taking a break and then coming back to the game after some time was just what I needed. That way when you come back, it will be easier to try and see the problem from a different perspective and hopefully lead you to the solution.

Price - only $29.99 for PC and $39.99 on consoles
Portal is available through purchasing the Orange Box. Which will cost you $19.99 and also give you an additional 4 games to play around with.

One of the earlier levels in Portal

A portal, in Portal

Repulsion gel in Portal 2 (trampoline gel)

More pictures coming soon!

Minecraft (Sandbox Game for PC) - This game is simple, fun and for everyone (well maybe not for everyone, if you're afraid of moaning block-shaped monsters, pictured below, you might want to graduate from Hello Kitty Online first). Build whatever you want, destroy whatever you want and flood whatever you want and that's only in the classic version (which is all I've played so far because it's free, actually that's not true I also played the demo I got with one of my PC gamer issues, pics below!), but even with minimal functionality I still found myself glued to the screen trying to construct whatever my imagination could think up. The beta version on the other hand is constantly being updated and contains many more features, including enemies that attack you and your creations at night!

Tips and Tutorials can be found here.
-Play around with the free classic version here.

Price - 14.95 Euros or ~$21.56 US Dollars

Just some super exciting stairs I built in the classic version

Here piggie piggie piggie

The PC Gamer Cow!

Well clearly this is a.. ummm, well that one up
there is definitely a bird

'hole-maker's' friend, one of the many infamous
block-monsters roaming the nights of Minecraft

I have to apologize for all the dark pictures (I lost my torches), I ended up spending all of the daylight I had on a 'Minecraft safari' (sorry, I can't help that I'm intrigued by animals that I can only identify by turning up my speakers to hear the noise(s) that they're making). After the sun went down and I was being chased down by zombie-bears, weird slingshot-wielding creatures and exploding leafy block-monsters I realized that a safari probably wasn't the best use of my time. I was bored of running so I naively decided to change my strategy from flight to fight, I had to see if these franken-spawns were as tough as they looked. I charged my nearest challenger and let's just say that's how I learned that the leafy block-monsters were explosive. Half my health was gone and I was in a good sized hole (3-4 cubes deep) where the ground had been (see picture above). Before I could hop out of my hole, one of 'hole-maker's' buddies was on top of me and my screen looked like so:

Not only did I lose the daylight of my first day without building a shelter, but when I died I also lost all of the free goodies I got from PC Gamer :(