Two Steps Forward, A Hundred Steps Back

I haven't purposefully neglected writing here; it's just been really busy at work lately, heh.  I've also been busy outside of work.  I was called away for about 10 days for a family emergency, and then the new Wheel Of Time book, Towers of Midnight, arrived at my door and I had to immediately take a week of free time and read straight through that.

Here I am now, though, making amends.  I've got quite a bit to cover from the last 3-4 weeks.

First off, Civ V.  I played a few more games and achieved every victory condition at least once before prying myself away to play other games for a while.  Civ is amazingly addictive, and I'm looking forward to going back to play a bunch more, to try and get a win with each Civ, at least, which will be a lot more gaming, since I've gotten wins with only 4 of the 20ish Civs currently playable.  I'm not sure what type of victory I should go for with the rest.  I may re-instate the score victory condition for those games.

While out of town, I did some light gaming, just played a little Diablo II, Minecraft, and emulated Demon's Crest for SNES on my Macbook, and while I'm here I may as well mention iPhone standards Canabalt, Galcon, and Words With Friends.  I also tried out Doom II RPG and Civ Rev, both of which I had picked up very cheap, but didn't care for them for one reason or another.

Since arriving back home, I haven't played a whole hell of a lot.  I played some League of Legends, which I continue to be mediocre at.  I'm sticking with one champion until I can learn the greater movements of the game, and once I'm confident with the game at large, then I might find another type of champion to play depending on what mood I'm in. I had some reward cash at Best Buy that I had nothing better to do with, and used it to get the retail collector's pack of LOL, which comes with a redeemable code that unlocks 20 champions and gives some Riot Points (the cash currency) that you can use to either buy more champions or skins for the ones you already own.  I think I may be able to purchse Influence Point bonuses also.  IP are the points you earn by playing matches that can be used to buy enhancements for your champions or to unlock more of them for play.

The rest of my Best Buy rewards cash I spent on Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines, the PSP game.  I was kind of curious, and it wasn't much real, actual cash out of my pocket, so I figured, what the hell?  It turns out to be a PSP-fitted follow-up to AC1.  You play as Altair again, this tracking down the remaining Templars and more artifacts like the Apple of Eden from the first game, visiting the island of Cyprus.  A lot of things from AC1 are there, they're just kind of ill-fitted into a junior-sized version of the game.  The cities are open-world, but the wards are small, sparsely populated, and separated by loads.  I'm about halfway through the game, and so far it's also been laughably easy.  I don't know whether to laud the game for what it's pulling off on the PSP, or condemn it for being what it is, limited in scope by the choice of platform.  It's not bad, per se, but it's not pulled off with the same flair that MGS: PW is.

Finally, I'm making a concerted effort this holiday weekend to finish, or come as close as possible to finishing, The Witcher.  It may not be doable in such a short time. This is one of those games that I'll take a long time away from, and then come back and wonder why I don't just plow through to the end of it.  It's really engrossing when I've got the time to devote to it.  I'm in the middle of chapter 3 right now, of 6 if I'm not mistaken.  The sequel is coming out next year, and I may upgrade my video card just for that.

I almost forgot what prompted the title of this post--Steam is having one of their famous sales this weekend, and I bought Alpha Protocol for cheap, and just now got a bundle of 5 different indie games for $5 total.  There is no resistance.

2010 GOTY Candidates

Of course, this is my personal GOTY, and I haven't played everything, so I'm afraid some big name games may not be in the running (Red Dead Redemption, Starcraft II, Fallout: New Vegas, etc.).  Anyway:

Mass Effect 2
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
MAG
Monster Hunter Tri
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
Alien Swarm
Minecraft
Bayonetta
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow
Civilization V

So, these are the noteworthy 2010 games that I actually played in 2010, so far.  I may add one or two to the list before the end of December 31st, but I just wanted to start thinking about this a little bit ahead of time.  Tough decisions ahead!