Just because I don't want to play a certain video game very much doesn't mean I hate it.
To the contrary, two new video games are quite good, objectively speaking (they're entertaining and impressive), but simply aren't my cup of coffee.
First, Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time is a big, beautiful game where you travel the universe as Ratchet (a little squirrel-looking guy called a lombax) and his little buddy Clank (a tiny robot).
As in previous Ratchet & Clank games, this cartoonish, sci-fi fantasy calls on you to save the universe by shooting, punching and blowing up evil robots as you run from room to room in spectacularly imagined space stations, teeming with, for starters, robot villains equipped with chainsaw arms.
This is a creative, long and lovely looking game. If you play on the high-definition PS 3 and a high-definition TV, the fast-moving visuals fill your sumptuous screen with vibrant atmosphere and battle explosions.
Here's why I won't obsess over A Crack in Time: The action is a little too traditional.
A) To make your way through rooms, you jump from platform to platform. B) You must collect nuts and bolts constantly from the ground; the nuts and bolts are your form of currency to upgrade weapons. C) You break a lot of wooden crates to get extra nuts and bolts.
I understand many gamers enjoy this traditional type of platform game. I was one of those gamers in 1991, when Sonic the Hedgehog came out; 1991 was a long time ago.
I must point out I have even enjoyed hours of fun playing A Crack and listening to its funny dialogue. But it's not my bag; I will put it aside soon. If you, though, love platformers, or have kids, I highly recommend it.
Second, Borderlands is a very stylized and crafty game featuring a flat-animated style set on a craven desert planet where scads of bad humans shoot at you, while ground animals bite at you.
This game is smart. Borderlands lets you piece together assortments of weapons to custom-create guns to your liking. And the game figures out what kinds of challenging villains to place in front of your path, depending on how you've played so far.
Here's why Borderlands won't keep me gaming much longer, though. If I play by myself, the game feels lonely and empty, because I essentially just run back and forth from the same map points in a sprawling desert landscape.
Online, I can play Borderlands in less-lonely cooperative mode, to join other real gamers to move through the game's levels. But I'm still running back and forth between the same old mission points. That seems a bit repetitive.
On the other hand, if you're looking for an unusually creative sci-fi shooter, you might like Borderlands. I feel good saying that because, after all, different strokes for different folks, there's no accounting for taste, and all those clichés.
