No Thanksgaming

It's Thanksgiving time in the US, and I'm out of town, resulting in slim to no game playing on my part. In the last couple of weeks before this trip though, I logged some time on a few games.

I played a smidge of Dirt 2 on a whim, mainly because it's such a pretty game with such beautiful weather in all the locations you race in. I like rally racing because of the locales you drive through. It's a shame I have no clue how to control a rally car at speeds above about 30 mph, though.

I've begun XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and while its quality is plain to see, I haven't given myself completely over to it, just yet. I've been playing a mission at a time, just here and there. I decided on Ironman mode right off the bat, because I think the permanence of consequence makes the game much more interesting. I felt kind of shameful about reloading a lot playing X-Com classic, and I wish I had played Ironman-style in that game, too. I'm not looking at it as a game to beat ASAP, but rather as an experience to enjoy long-term.

Dark Souls will probably turn out to be another long-term game for me. I'm not in any rush to finish it; that would probably hurt the appeal of the game for me. No, I'd rather inch through it little by little as time and impetus allow. I had to restart my game on the PC, since I'd put in around 8 or 10 hours on the PS3, previously. Despite already retracing all my old steps and decisions, I opted to keep rolling with a Knight over any other class. I feel like all the rest would focus more on agility and dodging, and what I want is to be able to stand toe-to-toe with the biggest and baddest the game has to throw at me. I played Demon's Souls as a roll-reliant Wanderer, and I'd rather go heavy this time around.

I spent the majority of the last few weeks' game time on Fallout 3. As a matter of fact, I plowed right through the game's main quest line and had completed it before I even realized it was over. I'm not sure what that says about the game, but I have been enjoying it quite a bit. It's not Fallout 1 or 2, but it's good. I'm in the middle of the proper post-game DLC, Broken Steel, right now, and I'm also going to play the rest of the DLC stuff, at the very least. One of the last perks I unlocked revealed every point of interest on the map, and to say that I'd visited even 10% of them through the main quest would be generous. I'm not going to commit to that, but we'll see how it goes. I'm already kitted out in Enclave Hellfire armor and Plasma weapons, but there is still a long way to go until I hit level 30.

Of Games, This Day, February 14th, Twenty-Twelve

I'd like for this blog to be more than just an info dump on what I've been playing, but at the very least it has to be that. So, here goes:

Dota 2: Awesome. Valve takes another mod and redoes it AAA-style; it's a story we've heard again and again. I think this will end up being the most accessible game in the MOBA genre, for a few reasons, not the least being that it'll be native to Steam, which has an enormous userbase, will likely be free-to-play, and will have a built-in suite of training tutorials, a mentor program, and spectator mode. These games have a steep learning curve, but if anyone can level it out, it'll be Valve. I would also bet on the playerbase being more casual than HoN or LoL or the original DotA, making for an easier experience to new players. I've played twelve or thirteen matches, and have found a character I like: Windrunner. I'll focus on learning her while trying to improve my game in general.

Max Payne: It's finally starting to be kind of fun. There's not a lot to this game beside a film noir motif and lots of bullet-time gun fights. I might be able to finish it in the next day or two, which will be nice. The sequel sounds at least a little more interesting, and then we have Max Payne 3 coming out later this year, of course.

Diablo III beta: Stupidly great. I've maxed out a monk, wizard, and demon hunter thus far, though my monk was lost to an update wipe. I'm going to try a Witch Doctor next, probably. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that some of the beta-only achievements will carry over to the full release, though it's not very likely.

Dirt 2: It was only sale for $5 not too long ago, and since people say it's better than Dirt 3, I decided to check it out. I don't know about better, but it is a lot of fun. I'll play more. For some reason I've been more interested in rally racing games lately than street or track racers; not that I play a lot of racing games at all, though.

Super Meat Boy: I tried it out for the second time ever the other day, this time with the 360 pad hooked up. I'm stuck on level 20 of the first world. This game is okay; I liked VVVVVV a whole lot more, though.

Half-Life 2: I began it a couple of weekends ago because I wasn't really in the middle of an FPS since finishing off Bioshock 2. It's fantastic, thus far. I'll be playing this for my shooter fix once I finish off Max Payne. It's past time I played through it and the episodes

Guild Wars: It's an MMO without the fees or need for other players. That is almost too good of a summation of the game, actually. To it's credit, it is also much more user-friendly than your typical MMO--it offers fast travel, respecs, and other nifty touches that would make FFXI or WoW or what have you better on players. I wouldn't say it goes so far as to be as compelling as an offline RPG, though. It is still a bit of a grind, and light on anything you'd call interesting story. It's just good enough that I will keep it in my rotation; it has a huge world, and I'd like to see more of what is on offer there.

Assassin's Creed Revelations

Because that's the game I finished the other night and finished last night. I just had a few things to mop up, but I'm done for now. I may head back into the multiplayer from time to time, but I've had my fix and am once again up to date with AC. It feels good; it's one of the few series I am current with. How was the game? It was pretty decent. It was like Brotherhood with some extra fluff mechanics and a ho-hum plot tying Altair's life post AC1 into Ezio's role as an Assassin mentor later in the timeline, and both sets of memories back into Desmond's shattered psyche to prep him for the (intimated) big huge showdown to come in the next AC title.

It wasn't great, but I like these games. I will say that the historical stuff is always great. I also really like the characters in these games, Ezio, particularly. Desmond is a fool and I couldn't care less about the modern day side of the franchise, but I do really appreciate the historical settings and the idea of an ancient shadow war between the factions of the order of the Assassins and the Knights Templar.

I think the series needs a drastic revamp for the next entry, and hopefully Ubisoft is already on track with that. Tying up all the loose ends with existing characters and settings presents a golden opportunity for another paradigm shift on the order of the changes made from AC1 to AC2. Don't fuck this up, Ubisoft.

The only other game I've been playing much of over the past few weeks is Nehrim, the total conversion mod for Oblivion that I've written of before. I'm still less than halfway through the game, plot-wise, but in terms of raw hours, I'm probably closer to two thirds done, if I had to guess. I front-loaded my playthrough with a ton of grinding and side quests and random stuff, so the payoff should be a breezy back end. We'll see about that. Nehrim is like a more plot-intensive, slightly more linear and directed Elder Scrolls game. It's very good. Definitely give it a whirl if you own Oblivion on PC and aren't deep into Skyrim right yet.

I also bought Dirt 3 from Steam a few weeks ago and I've been racing in that a little bit here and there. Not much to say other than that I am super casual, all-assists-on, touristy driver man, here. It looks really damned good on my PC, and runs at an obscenely good frame rate. And rally is a nice change of pace from the usual type of racing game I play.