It's Hard to Overstate My Satisfaction.

I have spent a genuinely terrifying amount of time with the various components of The Orange Box, and it's been great fun. I want to go into Portal in greater depth at some point soon. I haven't even touched Team Fortress yet, as I've been plowing through the four singleplayer components. They're all pretty great. The Source engine doesn't really look too great these days, but it features wonderful physics, and must be forgiven.

The mention of this brings me onto a soon-to-be-released game Bionic Commando. A sequel to/remake of the original arcade/NES game of the same name, it looks to be running heavily with the Havok physics as well. Anyone who's ever had the misfortune to have to watch me playing videogames, or listen to me talk about them, or really spend any time near me at all, will know that I am obsessed with physics in games. Utterly obsessed. I've been playing the things for over 20 years, and I'm pretty tired of shooting things and jumping on their heads. What I'm about these days is crushing them with bits of the environment, throwing them into walls, and generally being cruel and unusual.

What you probably didn't know is the original Bionic Commando is responsible for this. It was the first game I ever played that featured interesting physics. You shot out your bionic arm like a grappling hook, grabbed a platform, and swung across. To my 6-year-old self, this was like crack. It was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen. I could never get past the second level of the damn thing, but it didn't matter, because I just loved making the little guy swing around shooting bigger guys with beards.

I knew that this was in development, but it wasn't until I saw the video, and more importantly, heard an orchestral version of the them song I know so well as a four-channel midi, that my inner child had a joy-seizure (I blame the sherbet dib-dabs myself), and I felt compelled to get this all out.

I think a worrying amount of my psyche may be hinged around this game. If this remake blows, I think the whole house of cards may come tumbling down. Woe betide those in my way.