Middle-campaign

I wanted to briefly mention that I did reinstall and pick up Shadow of Mordor once more. I have been kind of rewatching the Lord of the Rings trilogy lately, and wanted to play some in that world. Maybe I will eventually find what others have in that game.

In Final Fantasy Tactics, I have made it up to the beginning of Chapter III: The Valiant. I'm currently grinding out random battles to get my force to the jobs I want them to be going forward. I'm also roaming the land doing errands out of the various towns. I don't recall if anything important comes out of these, but they're fun to do all the same. I have Ramza as dragoon now. I'm not sure where he will end up. Maybe as a samurai, or perhaps even as a Mime. I have yet to unlock either samurai or ninja, or summoner or mediator on the magic track.

The campaigns continue.

One Does Not Simply Play Through Mordor

I've given up on Shadow of Mordor. The game has never managed to click with me. I did feel like I finally got a good grip on it this last session, but in the end I still felt like it was an overall pretty mediocre game made up of component parts done better elsewhere. Assassin's Creed, the Batman Arkham series, Hitman, and others, cover all these bases sufficiently. I'm considering this one done.

Which, along with my completion of the Destiny 2 campaign and beginning of the upside-down castle in Symphony of the Night, puts me well on my way back toward playing The Witcher 3 again.

I'm still making my way through Super Mario Odyssey, too. I'm just past New Donk City and in the Seaside Kingdom, now. I like how this game lets you bypass a lot of things if you like, and come back to them later if you wish.

I'm also continuing to practice running Spelunky, hoping for an eventual victory. I still don't reliably make it to the Jungle stages, though.

I did manage to finally finish off Hexcells Infinite, getting that achievement for doing 60 procedurally generated puzzles. That is definitely a low-stress way to play that game, though less interesting accordingly.

Finally, Titan Quest has received an unexpected expansion some 11 years after release. Its called Ragnarok and adds a fifth act as well as some other improvements. I've never made it much past the first act, but curiosity and wanting to encourage such rashness from THQ Nordic overtook me, and I bought in. Maybe this will do the trick, finally.

On the Road Back

I'm sticking to the plan I laid out last week.

I've polished off the Destiny 2 campaign. Overall verdict: better than the first game, not as good as any of Bungie's Halo games. I question the need for a campaign at all. Perhaps Destiny should cut straight to the gear chase. I've set the game aside for the time being.

In it's place I've been concentrating on my Symphony of the Night save. As of this writing just prior to a trip out of town, I have 100% of the initial upright castle completed, and I'm ready to tackle the inverted castle. So, pretty decent progress, so far.

I'm unsure of whether I'll end up clicking with Shadow of Mordor and finishing it. I've struggled to, but then I don't think I've actually focused my efforts to do so on it to this point. Every fight I get into, it still seems like I'm being overwhelmed by too many orcs, and too many of them want to get in my face and start a Nemesis system action. I don't know if this is just how the game will always be, or if at some point I am supposed to be able to slay them 10 at a time and be able to fight 50 of them off without breaking a sweat. Something just feels off about the balance to me. I think I may need to just really start trying to grind out some ability and skill points on lower level nemeses in order to be able to tackle tougher orcs and larger groups of them.

I'm at I think 52/60 Hexcells proc gen puzzles done, and I've been brushing up on my Spelunky skills, trying to get back in the swing of things. These may be what I play tonight, if I have any free time.

This will all be put on hold, though, since we're headed out of town for 5 days. I'll take the Switch, but I'm not sure what else. Perhaps the DSs or SNES Classic? I'm leaning away from the Vita, though, and the PS3 and PC are obviously not coming along. I'll probably do more reading than gaming, but we'll see.

Mix Me Up, It's Autumn

I'm all over the place right now.

What I really want to do, though, is go home and play more Symphony of the Night. I played maybe an hour over the weekend, and it's still so great. I've got my current save up past the point of where the prior PS3 one was, before I wiped the system out of frustration with some other aspect of its operation. The save file on the Vita copy of the game I have is further along, I think, though maybe not by much.

Another game I've played catch up in recently is Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. I bought this on PS3 back at release, but never made it very far in. Soon, a PC port was announced, and I resolved to buy and play that instead. Now, I've made good on that resolution, at least partially. I'm now past where I was on PS3, at least. It's a good game. I'll keep it around until I finish it, maybe. No reason to play Bayonetta or Devil May Cry or anything like that while this is unbeaten, I figure.

Last week I decided to check out World of Tanks: Blitz upon learning that one could unlock Warhammer 40,000 tanks in that game. It's surprisingly good for a very F2P mobile game port. I think I'd prefer to play the real PC client, though. Hopefully that is better put together. As for the 40K tanks, there was no way I was going to play it hardcore enough to get that far, much less take advantage of them once I had.

I'm still plinking away at Hexcells Infinite, as well. I'm over halfway to the last achievement, with about 33 or 35 randomly generated puzzles finished. I have my eye on another puzzle game to fill this slot once I'm done with this one.

Talk of Shadow of War has driven me back to Shadow of Mordor once more. I continue to be frustrated with the 50-on-1 structure of it's fights, though. It's a little ridiculous, really. The nemesis system could really be toned down some. I don't need 4 new hopeful captains to chime in with a taunt every time I get into a little scuffle at an orc stronghold. I may as well finish it, at this point, though.

I also spent some more time in Skyrim again this weekend. I might as well get on with playing a lot more of it, too. It seems like there's never a time to be free of the mainline Elder Scrolls games. They're too weirdly compelling.

Lastly, I've finally slowed my Diablo III roll down a bit from the fevered pitch of the last several weeks.I am kind of just waiting for the forthcoming patch, now, to see what changes there. I will continue to run bounties and rifts here and there, in the meantime. I need to improve my gear more to complete the Vyr's set dungeon, and complete the Delsere's and Tal'Rasha's sets to do those ones, as well. At that point I might consider my Wizard done, or press on for a clear of GR70 if that doesn't happen in the meantime, in order to unlock access to primal ancient gear. That would be the play; and from there on to Barbarian and the rest of the classes to do those set dungeons as well.

Twirl, Then Pivot

I've kind of been casting about lately in a holding pattern waiting to maybe or maybe not get Mass Effect Andromeda. I'm going to move on to either that or something else tonight, though.

I played some GRID, a G game to remove from my backlog. It seems pretty good, like Codemasters' racing games often are. This is an older one, from 2007, focused on city street track racing. You begin as a nobody, racing for various teams in order to earn cash to progress your career. It was fairly difficult when I started, I think owing to its more realistic handling model. One real problem here--GRID 2 is out, and in my library. It has apparently been obsoleted, as games so often are.

I played some Zelda: A Link Between Worlds last night, finding my way to the mountain palace "dungeon" and completing it. It was fun enough in the moment, but left me feeling kind of empty afterward. A curious feeling.

The other day was the 20th anniversary of the release of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, and as one must do, I paid tribute (!?) by accessing one of my numerous copies of the game, and playing it for a while, appreciating the crisp movement, and clear tones of the soundtrack, and awful recorded dialog. It is, as ever, a masterpiece.

I have continued to play Shadow of Mordor, as well, determining that my character needs more experience for skills and abilities to be able to hold his own against the worst of Sauron's monsters. I'm told I need to stick with the game at least long enough to make it to the second large region. It's pretty fun, so I'll keep it around for now.

I also replayed the first 30 minutes perhaps of Resident Evil 4 today, years after having played that game back on the PS2. It's still pretty cool, though it's really aged.

Suspended in Limbo

I was looking for something to while away the time with before Mass Effect Andromeda arrives, and so I bounced between a return to Shadow of Mordor, Final Fantasy IV, and Skyrim this weekend.


It hit me as I was playing Skyrim that I didn't care all that much about the plot or even exploring the world, which I have already seem much of now. I could deal with those, but the real problem is how combat system is lacking. Combat in Oblivion and Skyrim has always felt like flailing wildly about with pool noodles, and it really detracts from the experience. I thought I should probably just not play the game any longer and move on. One thing I do appreciate about Skyrim, though, is the way your character gets better at doing things with experience. Use a two-handed weapon long enough, and you will be noticeably more proficient with that type. Same with magic skills, lockpicking, persuasion, et cetera.  This is a logical and believable way to evolve your character and account for the spin your own play style puts on the game.


FFIV continues to be FFIV. I only played maybe 20 minutes of it this weekend, but I'm now about to take Cecil up the mountain with Palom and Porom to realize his conversion from Dark Knight to Paladin.


Shadow of Mordor is just a very solid and enjoyable open world action game. I like that it's more centered around its play mechanic (combat) with its rewards for doing things in the world as compared to recent Assassin's Creed games, which are more about exploring and enjoying the world and the sights there. I'm not too interested in Mordor or the Lord of the Rings world, but it works as a good backdrop for the play featured here. It's nice that the effort that goes into working with and mastering the core of the game is rewarded in that same area. I may go forward more with Mordor instead of Skyrim for now.

Pillars

This is a post about pillars, in a way. Two major pillars of my pantheon of games, at least for the past few months, have been Diablo III and Elite: Dangerous. Also, Pillars of Eternity, Obsidian's Kickstarted modern successor to the Infinity Engine RPGs of old has been released, and I've played a bit of that.

A few other tidbits, first.

I finally uninstalled Borderlands 2, after giving it another go to see if the hook would set. It's not a bad game by any means, but it's not snagging me at the time being. I may have gotten my fill with the first game, but there's also the fact that I have umpteen other FPS to play, many of which I think I would get more out of for time spent. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, for instance.

I played a little SpaceChem recently, as well. That's a great game, but one that might be too difficult for its own good. I like that about it. I'm stuck on what might be one of the first really genuinely mind-bending puzzles, a level called "No Ordinary Headache." Indeed.

Rather than tool around in Assassin's Creed Rogue collecting miscellany, I jumped back into Shadow of Mordor for that Assassin-like feeling. It's a game that is way better than it has any right to be, as a licensed property. In fact, I think the license is pretty boring, and probably a major reason why I'm not head over heels for this game. It's very solid and fun in the moment, but there's pretty much nothing that actively draws me back to play it over one of my pillar games.

Speaking of which, I leveled up a Crusader to 70 and beyond for Season 2 of Diablo III play. I like it better than Witch Doctor, but maybe not as much as Barbarian or Wizard. Crusader seems designed around the concept an agro-grabbing tank, which I think has limited utility in a game like this to begin with, and then only in multi-player. I would like to try that way of playing sometime, but I wonder if it would be as efficient as going all-out offense. It might require having other damage dealing-centric party members rework their gear to disregard survivability and go 100% damage- focused. I'm not sure if I'll play any more of Season 2. I ran bounties all the way to 70 and then did one rift after that. I might like to run a few more and then try a greater rift, but then I might just wait until Season 3, when I plan to play a Monk to 70 to complete the full set of classes. After that may be when I focus on endgame stuff for each class, and when I finally delve into hardcore mode characters. There is still a lot of Diablo left to play.

Elite recently hit version 2.2, where two new ships were added, the Vulture (5M CR) and Fer-de-Lance (51M CR), both dedicated heavy fighters. I was able to afford a modestly outfitted Vulture with my earnings from exploration and trading, and set out to try 2.2's other big change to the game, buffed bounties. Simply put, the monetary rewards for destroying pirate ships got a big increase, so much so that to me it seems like easily the fastest and most enjoyable way to amass a small fortune. At some point, maybe in a Type-7 or larger, trade might edge it out in CR/hour, but without any of the thrill of combat. I earned over a million credits over the last day in about an hour altogether of hunting pirates at a RES (resource extraction site). That is quite an improvement over earning rates pre-patch, no matter the method. I'll probably crank out a few more million hunting bounties, hoping to raise my combat rating, before putting it all into an Asp for some real big-time exploration. That's going to be fun. I don't know where I'm going, only that it'll be a hell of a trip.

I mentioned Pillars of Eternity at the top of this post, but I really don't have much to say about it just yet. I've created a character, a sort of halfling woman who is a Chanter, which is a class that seems a lot like a Bard from FFXI, with buffs and debuffs. I've only made it through character creation and the first maybe 20 minutes of play thus far, but it does seem very faithful to the feel of games like Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment. I hope to dig deep into this one soon.

Anything Less Would Be... Uncivilized

I'm a couple of games into Beyond Earth, now. My first game I played as Kavitha Thukar, which I think is the faction whose cities expand to new tiles at twice the usual rate. I was going for Supremacy, and still figuring things out when the victory was snatched out from under me by the African faction. In my second game, I was playing as the Franco-Iberians, focused on Purity and culture, basically building The Imperium of Man pre-Heresy. Everything was rolling along real well until out of nowhere ARC (the American analogue) runs off with the Contact victory. No one else stood a chance.


Beyond Earth is very cool. It is a whole lot like Civ V, but there are some interesting differences aside from just in the theme. The win conditions are different, depending on your affinity (Purity, Supremacy, or Harmony), The tech progression is also interestingly different in that it is a web rather than a tree, which makes sense since this is about civilizations branching out from a common start rather than making the same progression in parallel, just with paces staggered.


Speaking of Civ V, I just kind of wanted to check it out again after finishing a couple of games of the new one, and I got back in and am getting toward the end of a game as Venice, with which you are limited to a single city, and fumbling toward a culture victory. It probably won't work, at this point, but I'm still having a great time messing around with it. This is the first I've really played much with the expansions active, and the religion/culture and endgame stuff they added to the game is pretty substantial, not to mention all of the factions now part of the game that weren't in there, before.


I think it's great that Civ V and Beyond Earth can exist at once and both be unique while still sharing 90% of the same DNA. Neither makes the other feel obsolete or pointless.


Not much to report, outside of Civilization games. I played another short session of Shadow of Mordor. It's cool, but I'll need more time to get into it.

Filling Out Twenty-Fourteen

The end of the year is rapidly approaching, and I like to come to some kind of annual conclusion on what my game of the year is, so I am now trying to revisit or look into some of the more notable releases of the year, to my sensibilities, anyway.

I also jumped sooner on at least one game, Shadow of Mordor, after hearing a lot of talk about its interesting Nemesis system. I've only played it for about an hour so far, but it seems pretty slick, with solid (Batman) combat, Assassin's Creed climbing, and multiple systems of unlocks for new abilities. It's a pretty good looking game, as well, especially powered by my new 970 GTX.

Civilization: Beyond Earth has also just come out, and I am most itching to get in and play it some more. I also have only spent about an hour with this one, so far, but I've spent 70+ with Civ V. While I am far, far from anything approaching good or expert at the game, I do really like it, and I see a lot, at least on the surface, of Civ V in Beyond Earth. I think I prefer the exoplanet colonization theme, too, as great as the historical cultures of the world theme, is. Both are very cool.

Legend of Grimrock II is out! I haven't had much time to put into this one yet, either, but so far so good. I really loved the first game, and this seems like more, and more robust, and nice outdoor environments, too.

The Banner Saga is on my short list of GOTY contenders, but it had been several long months since I last played (and never completed) it, so I'm trying to pick it up again. I played for about half an hour last night, and was given a healthy reminder on what is so grand about the game. The art is stellar, the writing is also great, and it even has a cool tactical combat system, though this may be its Achilles' heel, so to speak. It seems easy to play yourself into an untenable state. That may just be it's razor's edge balance speaking, but often the battles in this game have me feeling really stretched thin. I'll have to see how it further pans out. I don't really have any sense as to how deep into the game I am, other than an hour count (6).

Elsewhere, I've dipped into both Borderlands 2 and Diablo III for a bit of click and loot, I'm continuing playing Baldur's Gate (on ipad now) as a solo sorcerer, and I even played the first hour of Final Fantasy VII the other day just in the interest of refreshing my memories (and opinions) on what it seems is finally no longer the undisputed masterpiece of everything ever. While far from my favorite of the series, it is also far from my least favorite, and I think I would like to revisit it, in limited chunks, here and there.