All Playing, All Preparing

I guess it slipped my mind just how many games I've played over the last week or so since the last update. I went to update thinking I didn't have much to write about, but in making the list discovered otherwise.


First up, the T game in my alphabetical backlog tour: Tiny and Big: Grandpa's Leftovers. You're thinking, what the fuck is this? I was too. I'm guessing this made it into my library as part of an indie game bundle at some point. It's a 3D platformer with physics puzzles and a snazzy graphical and musical style. The plot, if you can call it that, is nonsensical, but that's not the real star here, anyway. Tiny and Big is about navigation and manipulation of the environment. You have 3 primary tools in addition to your jump, a cutter for slicing and parting objects in the environment, a grapple to pull them, and an attachable rocket to propel them. Combined with large and malleable levels, it makes for a pretty fun and interesting game. I finished the tutorial and 2-3 levels.


The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing is another Diablo clone I had in my library, and the mood struck, so I gave it a go. It's very well executed, if overwhelming at first with the amount of decisions it wants you to make about how to spec your character very early in the game. I found it to be completely competent, but not very interesting, otherwise. I've always loved Castlevania, Diablo, Dracula, and that sort of classic gothic horror, but the variant on offer here doesn't resonate enough to keep me playing and essentially duplicating to no end effort that could go into one of my D3 characters to more of a substantial sense of progression. Neocore Games, the folks behind this, are now working on Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor - Martyr, which I think I would like to partake in, when that appears.


Spelunky - I continue to run dailies to little avail.


Castlevania SOTN - Just a few minutes for that tactile flavor.


Dark Souls - Reinstalled the game and DSfix. I'd like to actually finish it at some point.


Dragon Age II - Ran a couple of quests, getting the ball rolling to continue and finish later.


Dawn of War II: Retribution - Playing The Last Stand here and there.


SF2 Turbo HD Remix - Got completely dominated by a normal AI DeeJay repeatedly. I've never been good, but this is ridiculous.

Synthesis

Well, I finally did it. I finally put the cap on the Mass Effect trilogy. Overall, I was pretty satisfied with how things wrapped up for me. If I have any real regrets, it's that rushing through ME3 to some extent locked me out of a few quests, and caused the death of Miranda when I would really have liked to see her live. The other, from earlier in the saga, might choosing Morinth over Samara in ME2, though that certainly made for an interesting decision.

I had a pretty simple play style, as an Infiltrator with a single-shot, high-powered sniper rifle. Stealth up, headshot an enemy, duck back into cover, reload, and repeat. It was really satisfying, though. Most things died in a single hit, and I usually took Liara (biotic) and either Javik, James, or Ashley (assault) with me to round out the squad. I almost never used Garrus in ME3, just because he and I seemed to overlap too much in skillsets.

Here's looking forward to Andromeda.

That makes two titles off my prospectus altogether, and I'm making progress in a few others, as well. After finishing ME3, I immediately reinstalled Dragon Age II, and hopped back into that for a little bit to see if I could pick up where I left off. I don't think it'll be a problem to see that game through to the end, as well, sometime this year.

Mass Effect 3
The Witcher 3
Skyrim
The Walking Dead Season 2
Dawn of War II: Retribution
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
X-Com: Enemy Unknown
Warcraft III
StarCraft II
Dragon Age II
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Wasteland 2
Baldur's Gate II

I'm also maintaining the Spelunky daily challenge, as I mentioned before. I'm not back to the level of skill and proficiency with the game I used to have, but hopefully I'll get there.

Flying the Black Flag

I have just begun to consummate the yearly Assassin's Creed affair, this time with the pirate Edward Kenway. I only put in abut 90 minutes so far, but the broad strokes are of course, very familiar. I'm looking forward to seeing how Edward's story plays out, and exploring what appears to be the goofy extra-Animus conceit of the series, going forward. General impressions of this year's game, the sixth fully-fledged adventure in the series, are much more positive than they were for last year's AC3, which I enjoyed a great deal, constant readers might remember. One black mark that game had, though, was that the primary protagonist, Connor "Ratonhnhaké:ton" Kenway, was always so serious, and just not much fun. He was no Ezio Auditore, that is for sure. Edward, Connor's grandfather, appears to be much more of swashbuckling rogue out to make a fortune and have a good time doing it.

Beyond that, I've just been playing the Spelunky and Hearthstone circuit, for the most part, while advancing my way through Dragon Age II.

I did duck into a couple more DLC modules, 400 Days for The Walking Dead, and Burial at Sea Episode 1 for Bioshock Infinite. Both were enjoyable, featuring interesting new content with the familiar mechanics of the parent game.

I also played, and subsequently decided to be done with (for now), Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Battlefield 3. CS:GO is fun, but man, I am bad, and I don't care to put in the time to get any better at it. I'd play more BF3, sometime, but BF4 is already out, and I'd just as soon pick that up and start on it. Which I will, at some point, no doubt.

Playlog: First Week of November, 2013

Most of what I’ve been playing over the last week is the same as the week before. I managed to get in a good, solid 4 hours of game time on Halloween, being alone at home periodically answering the door to hand out candy. Most nights I can play for around 2 hours or so beginning at about 9pm, if I’m willing to give up doing anything else with that free time. Often enough, I am.

I did make some time this week to check out a couple of 2013’s smaller independent releases, namely The Stanley Parable and Proteus. I want to be suitably informed when it comes time to talk Game of the Year. The Stanley Parable is a very clever subversive deconstruction of the typical modern AAA video game, and at times chuckle-inducing. Anyone reading this blog would probably enjoy it. Proteus, though, I’m not too sure about. It’s less a game even than Stanley or Gone Home; it is more of a ponderous exploration of a small, randomly-generated island through a day of each of the four seasons, with soothing music. There is nothing to do but wander around and take in the sights, and once per night cycle find your way to the proper location to trigger procession to the next season. At the end of winter, the whole thing ends, and you are free to play it again. Or not, as I elected.

Dragon Age II is coming along well enough. About 10 hours in, I have noticed repeating environments, and MMO-style light, almost throwaway quest design, but the world and political circumstance as well as the interactions between Hawke and crew are enough of a draw to keep me playing. The combat is either too easy or too complex, seemingly, depending on how you play the game. I have just been focusing on pointing Hawke at who she needs to stab, leaving my part mates to be handled by the AI. This works out well enough, until Hawke gets knocked out, and I’m forced to take over control of one of the other characters, none of whose abilities I am familiar with, since I’ve been letting the game auto-level them up and altogether unconcerned with what they do in battle or how they are doing it. I should probably take a little more of a hands-on approach, assuming control of the mage or fighter types here and there. I’ve had one fight versus a dragon that I might call a boss fight, at this point, and it went down pretty easily, though.

I’ve gotten to a point with Spelunky where I can more consistently get into the jungle levels and accrue around $50,000 worth of treasure before dying. I still have never made it past the jungle, though. I still need a lot more practice.

I have been hitting Hearthstone in a big way since getting access to the beta. I now have almost all of the basic card set unlocked, with 7 of 9 classes leveled to 10 or higher, and I have been doing the daily quests every day to earn more gold so that I can do more Arena draft runs. This is a really good game. The limited card variety and tighter focus on creature fights mean that games are over a lot quicker than in Magic, and while I haven’t done any scientific testing on the matter, it feels kind of like you are more dependent on lucky draws for success at the game. Then again, the removal of mana from the deck means the risk of a completely fruitless once-per-turn card draw are dramatically reduced. Either way, I am having a great time with Hearthstone.

I’ve spent a few hours playing more Battlefield 3 since re-installing it last week, and I’m still kind of ambivalent on the game. I think Bad Company 2 might have been a better game, or at least had better maps. I don’t actually feel like the jets are much fun in BF3—the maps are entirely too small to support them, even the big ones. You spend more time banking and looping trying to line up a strafing run on tightly clustered targets than you do actually having fun with them. The helicopters are a lot more fun to play with, I think. I still don’t feel like I’ve played enough BF3 to warrant the $60 I spent on it when it came out, and thus I am very wary of buying BF4 anytime soon. I need to either get more out of 3, or find 4 for like $30 for that to happen.

A New Daily Rotation

I've established a solid routine over the last few weeks of Spelunky daily challenges (and sometimes normal Spelunky runs). I continue to get better at the game bit by bit, and my average score and leaderboard position are still climbing bit by bit, but if I don't really focus on delving further and gaining more experience, I'll never be able to finish the game or approach the highest ranks of players on the leaderboard. So, I need to practice more during my daily sessions.

I've also gotten really into Hearthstone, and into doing the daily challenges it gives, which usually mean playing 3 to 5 matches to accomplish whatever quest they dole out. This game is just a lot of fun, and you win enough gold quickly enough to make your next turn in the arena, and your next chance at bragging rights and fabulous card-related prizes perpetually just around the corner. I am still in the process of playing long enough with every character to unlock all of the cards in the basic set. Once I'm done with that, I guess I'll pick one or two to build decks around and set about the business of disenchanting and crafting to build out my card collection to feed those. CCGs!

I am still playing Dragon Age II, but it's been a few days since I jumped in. I've been busy in the evenings to the point where I don't have much more time and energy than it takes to play some Spelunky and Hearthstone. I am still at an early stage of the game, trying to earn a total of 50 gold so I can buy Hawke and crew's way onto an treasure-hunting expedition into the dwarven "Deep Roads."  I now have Merril, Fenris, Varric, Aveline, and Bethany in my circle of adventurer friends.

I had a hankering to play some Battlefield yesterday, so I re-installed BF3 last night, and spent as much or more time futzing around with Punkbuster as actually in game. Punkbuster sucks; I can't believe modern releases are still using that trash. BF3 requires Origin--why can't EA come up with a better anti-cheat solution? I almost decided to go back and play more Bad Company 2, instead, but that's neither here nor there. It's a bummer not having access to around half of the maps in BF3, and EA is still charging $30 for Battlefield Premium to complete the set, even though BF4 is out, now. Legacy product support--EA is the absolute worst about this kind of thing. I still can't believe the hoops required to be jumped through for DLC for Mass Effect 2. Ridiculous.

On the reading front, I recently finished the Horus Heresy novel Mechanicum, and after queueing up my next 4 books on that series, I actually started two new books. The first is a non-fiction book about the ninja in Japanese history, and the second is Red Storm Rising, the only Tom Clancy novel I have not read. I thought I would check it out since I've owned it for ages and ages, and the man recently died. I'm not very far in just yet, but it already seems like a real page-turner, like I remember most of his others being. Those were a lot of fun, if a little jingoistic. I'm not sure how well they would hold up to the scrutiny of recent political and intelligence-related revelations, but hey, they were from a differenet era. The one Clancy book I read and that he wrote in a post 9/11 world was not really what he had become known for, as well. Those Jack Ryan books, and Red Storm Rising, certainly--being a tale of the Cold War going hot--are products of their time.

A Wild Hare

I'm trying to be a little more impulsive in choosing which games I play, and when. I figure that is a much quicker way of whittling down the pile and winnowing out games from it that I can immediately discard, at least initially.

Along this train of thought, I decided to check out a few games over the past week:

SteamWorld Dig - I felt that it made sense to play this, having free money on Nintendo's eShop, and having recently played La Mulana, Cave Story+, and Spelunky, other 2D-platformer cave-centered adventure games. It seems pretty well done, but to be lacking in depth. It feels like it would have been a really great SNES game. There are Metroid-like mobility and ability upgrades, and a petty easiliy identifiable core loop of dig > collect valuables > return to town to sell them > purchase upgrades > tackle more areas to dig in. It just feels a little too pat next to those other three games.

Persona 2: Innocent Sin - The PSP version of this was on sale for $10 on PSN last week, so I picked it up to play on my Vita. I purchased Eternal Punishment way back in, I think, 2001, but never played much of it. I won't be playing much of this, either, unfortunately. It's not that I didn't like what I played--an hour or so--it's just that way too much of that time was spent in repetitive random battles. The game is not compatible with my limited amount of time, as a grown-ass man and father. At least not at this stage of those roles. I did find the premise kind of interesting, though, I have to admit, if a little anime-cliche heavy.

Deus Ex: Invisible War - I bet this game would have made a real impression, had I played it on the PS2. It was apparently designed around that system. Next to modern entries in the "immersive sim" genre, or I should say PC entries in said genre, including the original Deus Ex, this is Deus Ex Duplo. Everything is big and simplistic, with all the edges rounded off. And the voices are atrocious; not that those of the original were any good. What a shame? What a shame.

Dragon Age II - I think my approach may have paid off, here. I've put in a couple of hours with it so far, and I'm intrigued. I haven't played Dragon Age: Origins, and that may be for the better, in this case. Dragon Age II, by all accounts, is not much like that game, and suffers for the comparison. No, Dragon Age II seems to me so far more like a Swords and Sorcery skin on the Mass Effect formula, with a few tweaks. No doubt a huge let-down for fans of DA:O, but as a Mass Effect player, I am OK with taking it for what it is, at least this far. It also starts out well with a cast of strong female characters, particularly with a female Hawke. She's very cool, so far. I'm planning to play more of this one.

On the more traditional backlog slog, I'm still trying to get through Half-Life 2. I don't know why its taking so long; I like this genre, and I like this game, I just always seem to want to play something else. The last section I played through was pretty awesome, though--leading a bunch of antlions on an assault of the Combine-controlled prison Nova Prospekt. I wonder what comes next; I have pretty much no idea where this game goes or what happens on down the line in the series, aside from spoilers about how Episode 2 wraps up. It might be a subconscious thing. I may be protecting myself from getting wrapped up in the story, knowing that there is no conclusion in sight.

I began Soul Sacrifice recently, though I didn't do much but begin it. It seems like it might be good. I need to play more, whenever I can make the time, but I wasn't put off of it for any reason. It could be fun, with some time invested in getting to the up-and-running phase.

I am still playing the Spelunky daily challenge every day, and I think I am actually getting better at the game. That is no protection from stupid deaths, of course, but I do feel like I am regularly getting farther in than I was before. Maybe it's that I am being more cautious with my precious one-time daily plays.

Finally, Blizzard sent me a beta invitation to Hearthstone, their free-to-play digital collectible card game, and I really like it. As a onetime uber-hardcore Magic: The Gathering player, Hearthstone is very simplistic, but also very quick to play, and a lot of fun. It's actually a lot like Magic, just with most everything stripped out and boiled down to the creature combat mechanic, with a couple of interesting tweaks. In Hearthstone, you can choose whether you attack other creatures, which ones, or whether you bypass them and attack the other player directly. In Magic, it is of course up to the defending player to assign blockers or absorb the damage themselves. Hearthstone also lacks land dependency for mana and "instant" speed spells that can be played at any time during combat or the opponent's turn. There don't appear to be any "permanents" aside from creatures, either. Decks are limited to 30 cards, and there doesn't appear to be any graveyard. It seems that cards, once cast, go back into the deck to be reused later. There doesn't seem to be a mechanic for running out of cards, and so the only way to win is to actually kill the enemy through damage. All this leads to a much faster and more streamlined game, but at the cost of a lot of the depth of Magic. It's a valid approach, and it does make for a game that is a lot of fun. I am looking forward to playing a lot more of it; the arena (sealed draft) mode especially.