Resolve

A lot of the games I've been playing lately are ones that have been selected by Resolution on Call Of Podcast, or are on my short list of "must finish" games that I would like to knock out before my baby is due this summer.

Portal 2 was on that list, and when it was released last week, I played through it as quick as I could across three evenings. I only made it through the single-player portion, but hope to tackle the co-op soon. I had a great time with it, just like the first. I'll refrain from talking any more about it, because just look at the internet this week. It's lousy with Portal 2 talk.

I've also been playing a lot of STALKER, another game on that short list. I think I've made some pretty good progress, such that I'm about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way through it now. Maybe I can finish that game off this week, and then move on to Fallout 2 before The Witcher 2 is released. I've been live-tweeting my playthrough with the hashtag "#stalk3r," because there's constantly something cool and interesting happening in the Zone.

For Resolution, I've dug into Ryu Ga Gotoku 3 and Max Payne. Both are pretty good, and I'll carry on playing RGG3 to keep up my language practice and because I'm a fan of the series. With Max Payne, I came to a good stopping point. Maybe I'll come back to it eventually.

In the few days leading up to Portal 2's release, you could play any of the "potato sack" indie games to speed along its release. I contributed by checking out Super Meat Boy briefly (really needed a pad for this), and playing a couple of hours in Killing Floor, which plays kind of like a cross between the end scene of a Left 4 Dead scenario and Counter-Strike. You get one life per round, and kills earn you money you can spend to upgrade your arsenal between rounds. It's pretty simple, and fun.

Lost Count

I can't remember if I already subtracted 2 completions from my total for ordering Portal 2 from Amazon. Going off my list of completed/bought for 2011, though, I should still have 4 banked, being that I'm at 8 games beaten, and only 2 bought for over $25. I think what happened was that I ordered the game, took off 2 completions, but didn't add it to the pile o' treasure because I wouldn't receive it for a while. Yeah, lets roll with that. So now, now that I've cancelled that order, I can refund those 2 completions to bring me back up to 4. I'm just going to go and buy the game via Steam when I get home, anyway. When in doubt, err in your own favor, that's what I always say. This way I already have stocked the 2 completions I'll need to spend on The Witcher 2, my most anticipated game of 2011.

Actually, I think the token system has served its purpose well, having curbed my game acquisitions by a good amount. The key seems to be only buying a game when you are about to play it, unless it's a screaming 75% off deal or something. I may scrap that whole policy if I keep going at this rate, since it wouldn't be necessary, and I apparently can't keep count, anyway!

Better Use Of My Time

It occurred to me while playing Killzone 2 this past week that I didn't really like the campaign, and I wasn't going to waste anymore time with it. We talked about it on the last Call Of Podcast (Dad Man Walking), but I've got a baby on the way, and I'm looking at a drastic drop in the amount of free time I have for gaming. It's already started in a lot of ways. We're doing baby shopping, doctor visits, birthing classes, and the whole nine yards. Anyway, I've got games I figure are more fun--indeed, more important--to play. I was prompted to make a short list of "must complete" games that I'm going to focus on over the next several weeks before the baby is due (at the end of June). Said list:

STALKER
Fallout 2
Demon's Souls
Deus Ex
Portal 2
The Witcher 2

I'm well into the first 3, and the second 3 are my preliminary choices for last major pre-baby completion status. It's impossible to say how much time I'll have to play games in the second half of the year, but I'm betting it won't be a hell of a lot, and thus this initiative.

I've kicked off by jumping back into STALKER last night, and I'm planning a separate play diary of that, maybe in further blog posts here, or on twitter.

Otherwise, I spent the majority of my time gaming since the last post playing Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. I enjoyed the hell out of that game. As of this writing, I have collected every feather, every flag, and every treasure. I've finished every shop quest and own every piece of equipment and every piece of real estate available for purchase in the game. I've done every mission there is in the game, save two that were exclusive to the uber deluxe collector's edition of the game (I have done the Copernico missions that were exclusive to my PS3 copy of the game). I've finished the DLC, solved all of the glyph puzzles and played the Truth mission, and basically have seen all there is to see in the game.  I've only played about an hour of the multiplayer yet, though, and have done practically none of the VR missions.  There are also a couple of Ezio skins I haven't unlocked (Raiden from MGS4, and the Desmond skin). I got my money's worth, though, no doubt.

On a bit of a whim, I finally decided to load up X-Com: UFO Defense. It's a classic, as anyone who was gaming on PC in the early 90's will tell you. At first brush, it's a whole lot deeper than I was expecting, and I'll really need to sit down and get into it at some point in the future. It looks like it could be pretty addictive.