-Mirror's Edge is gorgeous, has an awesome soundtrack, a reasonably respectable and strong female protagonist (something we can always use more of), and actually tried something new and innovative. It was just extremely frustrating to play.
-Dead Space: Ignition was actually a really interesting idea. I mean, a choose-you-own-adventure motion comic interspersed with minigames and puzzles? I can totally get behind that concept, especially when it's a part of one of my favourite game franchises. It's just that there are a pitiful few minigame types in the whole game, and one of those, the Trace Routes, is something I'm completely terrible at, so I can only get so far in before getting frustrated in giving up.
-Half-Life: Blue Shift not only gave the franchise the complete badass that is Barney Calhoun, but it actually did the "interactive cutscene" sections that Half-Life 2 is so well-known for long before Half-Life 2 did them, and it actually did them fairly well. Like in Half-Life 2, there's actually a unique, named NPC that the player has to interact with, Dr. Rosenburg, who gives us quite a bit of interesting exposition on how the portal technology in the Half-Life world actually works. I'd almost call the whole game a bit ahead if its time in how its narrative plays out. Too bad that beyond that, Blue Shift is just a smaller, less tightly-designed version of Half-Life 1 that, unlike it's much better brother Opposing Force, adds almost nothing else new to the formula.
