Isolation Gamification

Well here we are about five weeks into our social distancing regime to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

I've been playing more video games lately, to help pass the time. It's not so much that there's more free time, since I am working more or less the same hours from home, or even that I've slowed down other leisure activities significantly, I've just taken some of the vast amounts of time I'd spent reading and painting and playing 40K and diverted that into gaming, instead.

The most significant play totals have been in going back to Elite Dangerous for a week or so, and also in returning to my XCOM 2 campaign, as a kind of refresher and point of comparison to XCOM: Chimera Squad, which was unexpectedly announced last week, and is coming out tomorrow.

I had the urge to fly through space some, so I went and concluded the expedition I was on in Elite, doubling my net worth. The next step will be to get a Guardian tech piece for my frame shift drive, to enhance my jump distance for the future. I want to go farther, faster.

My return to my suspended XCOM 2 campaign (still my first) has brought a lot of good momentum to that effort. It feels like I'm on the upswing of a campaign that could turn out to be a winning one. With enough missions turning out positive enough results early on, and smart tech advancement, I could maybe pull it off. We'll see.

I also told friends I'd play Diablo III season 20, and The Elder Scrolls Online with them, and so I have dipped back into both of those, as well. I have been having a good time with both, so I might put in a little more time with them soon.

Otherwise, I've been keeping up with Ring Fit Adventure since getting that for my birthday a couple of months ago. It's pretty decent as an in-home workout, and has a mildly interesting JRPG style adventure to work through, as well.

I've also put a little more time into Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, and that is one that I really do need to get back to. Especially considering its being a spiritual successor to one of my all-time favorites, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.

There was also a little time put into Magic: The Gathering: Arena, but not much to speak of. I think I'm still doing the tutorial stuff.

Actually, I've spent more time by far playing both sides of tabletop games of 40K that I've been setting up, using my two armies, White Scars Space Marines and my Astra Militarum (Imperial Guard) Planetary Defense Force for Icthyos Rho VIII AKA Tundra Bastion. That is a fun and interesting excercise, and very good practice for learning all the unit and weapon profiles and various ins and outs of the game rules in a stress-free, time-unconstrained environment. It's also incredibly mentally taxing, and takes many hours to get through a large game. I'm currently working on painting up a few new units before I do that again.

The Quickest of Hits

I've had a pretty crazy week, touching on a lot of different games, but basically all just because the whim struck.

Grand Theft Auto III - How many years has it been? I wanted to hear the soundtrack again, and just see what the game felt like after so much water under the bridge.

The Elder Scrolls Online - Revisiting the Orc paladin-analog I created here. Zenimax Online's dedication to the game has made me consider playing it more.

God of War II - Hype around the PS4 reboot made me want to go back and play this one that I never got to, previously. The first 45 minutes or so were pretty impressive.

Team Fortress 2 - I've been on a bit of a shooter kick lately. What really is the greatest of all time?

For Honor - I do like melee combat systems in games. This one seems good and crunchy so far.

Magic: The Gathering Arena - Maybe I do like this better than Hearthstone, after all?

Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon - It was the game going when I turned on the Switch. Still very cool, of course.

Roleplaying in a Galaxy Far, Far Away

I've been on a real Elder Scrolls kick lately. I've mentioned previously spending some time with Skyrim and Morrowind lately; the latter has given me the slip once again, I'm here to report. Or maybe I'd just rather spend time with its younger, prettier, and more friendly cousins. I think I'll get back around to Skyrim eventually, for the long haul, but in the throes of my recent fascination with the series, I had to check out Daggerfall, the only one of the games I had not played.


It didn't go over so well. I had a better time playing Arena for a short while, as a matter of fact. That's partly on me, though. I didn't RTFM like I knew I should have, and so I completely missed the fact you can look up and down in the game world, and also easily rebind keys. These follies as well as the game's inherent bugginess--my first character spawned knee-deep in the floor, unable to ascend stairs--put me off it sooner than was probably merited. That's OK, though. I have a history of coming back around to this series.


Last, and probably least, I picked up The Elder Scrolls Online in the recent Steam sale. Never was a game less necessary, but that said, there is something compulsive to it's playability. I liken it to junk food, the type of air-injected, sodium-laced carbohydrate empty calorie crap we all know is no good, but can't keep ourselves form engaging with all the same. It's all too easy to just jump right in and grind out some mindless quests and experience points in a bland, non-challenging setting and circumstance, as compared to challenging myself to progress in something requiring thought. I have an Orc Templar who is level 7 or 8, focused on heavy armor and two-handed weapons and healing skills. I guess I'm trying to be a tank, if I ever happen to play with other humans in this game. Since it's subscription-free, I guess that's not entirely implausible.


Jumping into our space ship and engaging our FTL drive, let's get galactic. I'm circling back around to Elite: Dangerous. I've had some podcast listening time free lately, and I still have a long way left to traverse back to inhabited space to unload this wealth of exploration data I've been carrying. I'll have been away so long the game will have shifted around me in my absence. I hope this data is still worth something. There's a new arcade mode to the game called CQC, which they somehow reconcile with your in-galaxy persona via your pilot ranking. I may check that mode out in the next week.


Finally, back to roleplaying, but remaining in the space variety, I'm playing Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic again. I've never made it more than maybe a third of the way into the game thanks to bugs and attrition, but this attempt is going well, so far.


I'm playing a light side Revan (of course I know the twist), though I have made a mistake or two, most notably proceeding with breaking the law in order to duel to the death with Bendak Starkiller. I was under the impression that killing him was OK, as it was to fulfill a government ordered bounty, but I got dark side points anyway, either due to participating in bloodsport to accomplish the end, or simply for the fact I killed him in cold blood--though wouldn't a hot blooded kill also be giving into the dark side? If killing itself is of the dark side, then why don't I suffer a penalty for all the trash mobs I take down wandering the world? Is it because they are hostile to me before I am to them? Perhaps that's the rationale. Either way, Bendak's blaster is apparently the best in the game, so I'm proceeding with this mistake as part of my character's background. After all, it's the least of black marks in his history.