I've been away from gaming at large for a week or so, having to schedule a quick trip to my hometown due to my dad's death. I'm back home now and back more or less to normal, now.
During my time away I only briefly played some New Super Mario Bros. 2. I finished out the World 2 of that game. It plays like a New Super Mario Bros. game, by and large. It's solid.
I did manage to finish my campaign in XCOM: Enemy Unknown. It was my first victory. My first soldier with psionic abilities was absolutely clutch in the final mission. At one point he smoked two fresh Sectopods with a single critical psi storm ability. I believe he was a heavy, with the ability to double all damage to robotic enemies. They took 17 points each, and were insta-fried.
I'm now working on a campaign of Enemy Within, which so far seems a little bit overwhelming with new features. I've probably gone a little too far into cybernetic upgrades so far, not realizing my soldiers would lose their former classes in doing so. Now I am down to only a single assault and support trooper, while I have entirely too many heavies and snipers. I will need to get in some new recruits to hopefully get a couple more of each class I need, to ensure there is always one available and not wounded and recovering. I haven't delved into the genetic modding side of the expansion yet, but I am on my first covert operative recovery mention against the Exalt faction.
This new campaign is off to a somewhat rocky start, having lost 2 countries from the initiative so far,and being slow to accomplish priority tasks. I have built a stunner, but have yet to construct a live alien containment facility yet. I also have several nations at mid-to-high tier panic, so I'm worried about losing continent bonuses or even losing too many nations to continue, period. If this campaign fails, I'll have to be smarter about satellite coverage next time. I may be able to stabilize, though.
XCOM has finally hooked me in the way I knew it should have when I bought it over 5 years ago, now. I hope to finish a campaign of Enemy Within and then move on to XCOM 2.
Tuesday, February 27, 2018
Thursday, February 15, 2018
Blasting and Backlogging
While I'm deep in XCOM: Enemy Unknown, I've been trying to play something new each week from the backlog.
Offspring Fling! - This must have come from an indie bundle at some point. It's a puzzle game where you play a forest creature who must navigate puzzle/platform levels while finding and ushering her offspring through them to the exit. One of the main things you can do to that end is to pick them up and hurl them across the level in a straight line. They will continue on all the way across without dropping at all until they hit something that obstructs their path, and then drop straight down. The levels couple this fact and the fact that the offspring are stacked on your character's head, increasing her height, and necessitating tunnels with a higher clearance, to come up with navigation and dexterity challenges. From the outset, there are 100 levels, mostly confined to a single screen, at least through the first 49 that I saw. It's a kind of cool little game, with a decent challenge curve as you get into it. After about an hour I had had enough, though. It's more than I can say for a lot of games, though.
Pokemon Picross - Picross is almost its own genre of puzzle game as far as I know. You have a grid of squares, most puzzles being 10x10, it seems, and you have to shade some of them in, based on numeric hints as to the number in the row or column to be shaded in each before there is an unshaded square or squares. When the puzzle is complete, the shaded squares make up an image of some sort. Pokemon Picross adds the wrinkle of a Pokemon theme, Pokemon bonuses at the outset or in the middle of each puzzle (reveal a few squares' true natures, etc.), and the F2P staple "energy" mechanic, which is just a progress gate that can be passed by paying a little money or by coming back after a timer has counted down. You also need to earn gems to move on to the next puzzle. It strikes me as Nintendo or The Pokemon Company's first foray into the mobile/F2P games paradigm, though this was a (free) 3DS game. The Pokemon and F2P trappings only serve to put me off, but I don't really know if I find Picross itself very interesting, either. It's not entirely dissimilar to Hexcells, but for some reason doesn't click with me at all in the way that game does.
Mostly, I have been laser-focused on XCOM in the last week or so. I finally managed to win a raid on the aliens' base, and now have my squad all up to colonel or major rank, all with titan armor and plasma weapons, and now I'm beginning to create advanced fighter aircraft to shoot down UFOs with weapons that will minimize damage to the alien craft. My satellite coverage is almost complete, though two nations have pulled out of the project. The next big task is to build the base facility for psionics and delve into that. I think I'll also get a couple of suits of the final armor types that offer stealth/flight/psi abilities and bonuses, as well. With luck I'll also be able to research and develop everything in one campaign. This one should prove winnable, now, I'm confident, especially considering that I can save scum if I need to. It's just a matter of time, I think, but I do need to be diligent in accomplishing the council's goals.
Offspring Fling! - This must have come from an indie bundle at some point. It's a puzzle game where you play a forest creature who must navigate puzzle/platform levels while finding and ushering her offspring through them to the exit. One of the main things you can do to that end is to pick them up and hurl them across the level in a straight line. They will continue on all the way across without dropping at all until they hit something that obstructs their path, and then drop straight down. The levels couple this fact and the fact that the offspring are stacked on your character's head, increasing her height, and necessitating tunnels with a higher clearance, to come up with navigation and dexterity challenges. From the outset, there are 100 levels, mostly confined to a single screen, at least through the first 49 that I saw. It's a kind of cool little game, with a decent challenge curve as you get into it. After about an hour I had had enough, though. It's more than I can say for a lot of games, though.
Pokemon Picross - Picross is almost its own genre of puzzle game as far as I know. You have a grid of squares, most puzzles being 10x10, it seems, and you have to shade some of them in, based on numeric hints as to the number in the row or column to be shaded in each before there is an unshaded square or squares. When the puzzle is complete, the shaded squares make up an image of some sort. Pokemon Picross adds the wrinkle of a Pokemon theme, Pokemon bonuses at the outset or in the middle of each puzzle (reveal a few squares' true natures, etc.), and the F2P staple "energy" mechanic, which is just a progress gate that can be passed by paying a little money or by coming back after a timer has counted down. You also need to earn gems to move on to the next puzzle. It strikes me as Nintendo or The Pokemon Company's first foray into the mobile/F2P games paradigm, though this was a (free) 3DS game. The Pokemon and F2P trappings only serve to put me off, but I don't really know if I find Picross itself very interesting, either. It's not entirely dissimilar to Hexcells, but for some reason doesn't click with me at all in the way that game does.
Mostly, I have been laser-focused on XCOM in the last week or so. I finally managed to win a raid on the aliens' base, and now have my squad all up to colonel or major rank, all with titan armor and plasma weapons, and now I'm beginning to create advanced fighter aircraft to shoot down UFOs with weapons that will minimize damage to the alien craft. My satellite coverage is almost complete, though two nations have pulled out of the project. The next big task is to build the base facility for psionics and delve into that. I think I'll also get a couple of suits of the final armor types that offer stealth/flight/psi abilities and bonuses, as well. With luck I'll also be able to research and develop everything in one campaign. This one should prove winnable, now, I'm confident, especially considering that I can save scum if I need to. It's just a matter of time, I think, but I do need to be diligent in accomplishing the council's goals.
Tuesday, February 6, 2018
The Primarchs: The First Batch
Between books of the Horus Heresy series proper, I've been dipping into the parallel Primarchs sub-series. It's six books strong as of now, with more coming out just about monthly, with audio dramas and short stories in tow as well, unfolding in the same manner as The Horus Heresy, Warhammer 40,000 fiction as a whole, and just about everything Black Library deals in these days.
Leman Russ: The Great Wolf - A tale of early on in the Great Crusade, with an episode after the siege of Terra, set within the framing device of an older Leman Russ telling a tale to the first Space Wolf to be raised, after the second founding, to the chapter of the same name rather than the legion. It's an interesting look into some internal dynamics of the legion, including how they view themselves in contrast to their cousins of the other legions. The Lion and the Dark Angels appear here too, and the storied duel of the primarchs is part of the tale.
Perturabo: The Hammer of Olympia - The origin story of Perturabo couched within the story of the Iron Warrors' grueling campaign against the alien Hrud and their return to Perturabo's home world to put down it's rebellion against the Imperium. This is where Perturabo breaks, and everything that comes after begins to make more sense having read this narrative.
Lorgar: Bearer of the Word - The intertwined stories of the emergence of Lorgar and Kor Phaeron, who, at least for a time, was closely associated with the primarch of the Word Bearers legion. We see how Lorgar, Aurelian, the Urizen, came to be the spiritual leader of the world of Colchis, and get some insight into what drives him to keep looking for truth in the galaxy and in the warp, even after being sanctioned by The Emperor for his habit of worship, which is contra to the Imperial Truth.
Book 48 of the main series is out now, and I'm going to read that next.
Leman Russ: The Great Wolf - A tale of early on in the Great Crusade, with an episode after the siege of Terra, set within the framing device of an older Leman Russ telling a tale to the first Space Wolf to be raised, after the second founding, to the chapter of the same name rather than the legion. It's an interesting look into some internal dynamics of the legion, including how they view themselves in contrast to their cousins of the other legions. The Lion and the Dark Angels appear here too, and the storied duel of the primarchs is part of the tale.
Perturabo: The Hammer of Olympia - The origin story of Perturabo couched within the story of the Iron Warrors' grueling campaign against the alien Hrud and their return to Perturabo's home world to put down it's rebellion against the Imperium. This is where Perturabo breaks, and everything that comes after begins to make more sense having read this narrative.
Lorgar: Bearer of the Word - The intertwined stories of the emergence of Lorgar and Kor Phaeron, who, at least for a time, was closely associated with the primarch of the Word Bearers legion. We see how Lorgar, Aurelian, the Urizen, came to be the spiritual leader of the world of Colchis, and get some insight into what drives him to keep looking for truth in the galaxy and in the warp, even after being sanctioned by The Emperor for his habit of worship, which is contra to the Imperial Truth.
Book 48 of the main series is out now, and I'm going to read that next.
Monday, February 5, 2018
New? Video Games
I noticed a theme among the games I've been playing in the last week. New Super Mario Bros. 2, Geometry Wars 2, Spelunky, and XCOM: Enemy Unknown are all newer takes of previous games or series.
Geometry Wars 2 is the sequel to Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved, which was an HD realization of the bonus mini-game Geometry Wars, which I believe was playable in Project Gotham Racing on the original Xbox. This is one of my favorites of my time with the Xbox 360, and I was able to play it for a little while via a friend's Xbox One's backward compatibility over the weekend, which was cool. It's one of the best arcade-style games I've ever played.
Spelunky is really also known as Spelunky HD, and it's the fully realized version of an older freeware game, I think. I've heard there are some play differences, and that it's not just a visual remake, but having never played the original, I don't know what those are. I still have yet to best Olmec, but I keep trying.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown is of course the modern revival of a very ancient and venerable series known variously as UFO: Enemy Unknown or X-COM: UFO Defense. It's a fantastic game that delivers on nearly everything the original also succeeded at, but greatly modernized and streamlined. I'm at the point in my current campaign, which is going much more smoothly than any previous, where I can assault an alien base. I should probably do that soon, but I want to continue to tech up at least to the point where I can use some improved body armor before I try that mission.
New Super Mario Bros. 2 is the sequel to New Super Mario Bros., itself a reinvention of the Mario franchise in 2D. It seems to stick mostly to the beats established by its predecessor, but with an increased emphasis on coin collecting. I'm not sure how much of an impact that has on the game as a whole quite yet, though, having only just made it to the second world.
Geometry Wars 2 is the sequel to Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved, which was an HD realization of the bonus mini-game Geometry Wars, which I believe was playable in Project Gotham Racing on the original Xbox. This is one of my favorites of my time with the Xbox 360, and I was able to play it for a little while via a friend's Xbox One's backward compatibility over the weekend, which was cool. It's one of the best arcade-style games I've ever played.
Spelunky is really also known as Spelunky HD, and it's the fully realized version of an older freeware game, I think. I've heard there are some play differences, and that it's not just a visual remake, but having never played the original, I don't know what those are. I still have yet to best Olmec, but I keep trying.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown is of course the modern revival of a very ancient and venerable series known variously as UFO: Enemy Unknown or X-COM: UFO Defense. It's a fantastic game that delivers on nearly everything the original also succeeded at, but greatly modernized and streamlined. I'm at the point in my current campaign, which is going much more smoothly than any previous, where I can assault an alien base. I should probably do that soon, but I want to continue to tech up at least to the point where I can use some improved body armor before I try that mission.
New Super Mario Bros. 2 is the sequel to New Super Mario Bros., itself a reinvention of the Mario franchise in 2D. It seems to stick mostly to the beats established by its predecessor, but with an increased emphasis on coin collecting. I'm not sure how much of an impact that has on the game as a whole quite yet, though, having only just made it to the second world.
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