Thursday, June 19, 2014

The Final Leg of the Sheep Drive

Put a cap in Borderlands, is more like it. I went back to my years-old game save and finished up all the DLC, I care to, which equates to all the campaign-y stuff, General Knoxx, Dr. Ned, and Claptrap's add-ons. The Mad Moxxi thing is nothing more than an arena-based horde mode type of thing that is best played with friends. However, Borderlands no longer supports online play (thanks, GameSpy!), only LAN, so to hell with that. I have to admit that I had fun finishing this game off, even though I was rushing right through everything, seldom straying at all from the critical path. Look, I got shit to do.

I played a little bit of Half-Life 2 the other day, as I am wont to do every several months. That is a great game. That I can't seem to finish.

I also looked into Euro Truck Simulator 2 a little bit. It's pretty cool, but I'm a little disappointed by the lack of fidelity to the bits of Germany I am actually familiar with. It cuts out a lot of the anciliary countryside and urban areas to focus instead on the intersections--the interesting decisions, as it were. You'll seldom drive more than a few minutes down any one road before taking a ramp to another or turn off somewhere. Still, it's a neat idea, relaxing, and actually difficult in spots. Backing into a loading dock, especially. I'm not sure how much more I'll play, but I did enjoy myself with it for a couple of hours.

Summer is here, baby Juno is here, E3 is gone, and there is a bit of a lull before the busy all gaming season begins. It is time to play Mass Effect 3, finally. All the furor around its release is now water under the bridge, and I bought it for $5 or $10 at some point several months ago, and I am finally ready to guide Shepard to the end of her journey, for better or worse. The fixed ending is live, all DLC available on Origin (thank fuck, after the mess of ME2's DLC marketplace), some of which I may buy, and enough time has passed that neither is much of a sore spot anymore. If Shepard can make peace with the Alliance leadership for the greater good, so can I with EA/BioWare/Origin on these matters. We don't have to like it, but working together is the only way we'll get through this to the end.

That said, I imported my Caroline Shepard, created in ME1, continued through all of ME2, into ME3 last night, and got the ball rolling. Earth is being attacked by the Reapers, folks are dying, and Shepard has been reinstated as commander of the Normandy and sent to gain the aid of the Citadel. First stop are some Martian archives where it sounds like she may encounter long-time friend and comrade Liara, now a galactic shadow power broker. So far, so good. It feels like Mass Effect, and combat-wise maybe even the best of the bunch, though it is still early to really tell. I'm looking forward to more.

Saturday, June 7, 2014

Shooting From the Hip

I still haven't put away Diablo III, not completely. I have slowed down on it, considerably. All my characters are now Torment II capable, and each with some pretty cool rare legendary items that offer unique effects. There's no game as good for playing while listening to a podcast.

I may segue that habit over into Borderlands, now, though. I'm getting a little more back into it in the last couple of days. I'd like to put a cap on this game once and for all, and maybe peek into the sequel some, too. On the shooter topic, I had a weird hankering to play some Doom the other day, so I jumped in and messed around with that a bit. I should probably stick with some of the more modern fare that I have untouched, though. It's tough to go back that far.

I was able to complete a couple of games recently, one a tiny, ponderous sci-fi adventure called Stranded, which finds the player crash-landed on an alien world and having to survive and figure out the mysteries of the surrounding alien ruins. I enjoyed that. I also finished off Assassin's Creed Liberation, which was pretty mediocre all the way through. I don't regret playing it, though. Aveline's story was interesting enough.