Vitalogy

I got rid of my Xbox 360, as I talked about doing before, and used the credit from trading it and all the games in to get a Vita! Why? Why not! It's a semi-viable platform these days. It's perfectly good for playing classic PSX games and the few really stand-out PSP games. I spent a lot of this past weekend with it, playing a little bit of Assassin's Creed III: Liberation, but mostly having fun revisiting Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Metal Gear Solid, and Vagrant Story, while also checking out Killzone: Liberation, which I had never played on the PSP but did own, and digging back into my Tactics Ogre game, which looks and plays great, as one might expect.

Tactics Ogre is hard and deep and very involved, and I am lost somewhere in the middle with a cadre of fighters whose equipment and abilities have been badly mismanaged to this point. My kunoichi are garbage against most enemies, and I don't know why. I'm thinking it may be due to using the wrong slash/blunt/pierce affinity, but that doesn't explain why their ninjutsu also sucks. I'll have to work it out; I really like this game and want to finish it--multiple times, to see all the various branching stories and whatnot.

Diablo III has had an expansion announced, and I want to get my barbarian up to level 60 and through Inferno before that comes out. I don't think there is a date yet, and I am sure I have plenty of time, but I've gone ahead and gotten back into playing some over the last few days, advancing from level 23 to 26, from toward the end of Act II normal to the beginning of Act III. I also had my third ever legendary item drop yesterday, and what's more, it was even an upgrade! It was a belt that I doubt I will replace anytime soon. I like to play drops-only, at least until Inferno. Once there, things may get a little tougher--at launch, Inferno was insanely out of balance. After several patches, though, I anticipate a smoother difficulty curve, especially since drop rates have been drastically improved during the same time.

In other leisure time, I finished up Dishonored's The Brigmore Witches DLC, and uninstalled it. I love the game, but I need to play other stuff when I want that sort of experience. I have some Deus Ex and Thief and System Shock things to get to, as well. I also touched on Neverwinter; I need to sock away some more time for that; its decently entertaining. I even got in a couple of matches of Dota 2 with a friend/podcast listener. Fun times, all around.

Where Am I Going To Find The Time?

That is the question, these days. I have a hundred things vying for my free time, and it's harder than ever to find. Longtime readers will know that I spend an inordinate amount of time and energy trying to prioritize how I spend my leisure time. I almost don't even have time for that anymore!

Not to worry, though, I keep buying games. Relentlessly. Why, just today I bought about 8 EA games through the Humble Bundle. When will I play these? How long do I have left on this Earth?

Well, I have been playing a few things. The final Dishonored DLC, The Brigmore Witches, is out, and brings to a close Daud's campaign. I'm through the first level of that, another fine Dishonored stage. What a great game. I can't wait for a potential sequel, and I hope they expand more on the world they've just started to reveal in this game.

For some reason I've been playing Civ V recently, as well. I'm not sure what really brought it on, but I played to the bitter end a doomed Russian empire as Catherine the Great, ultimately falling broken, but unbent, to Augustus Caesar's aggressions. Now I've started up a large scale game as Attilla the Hun, where if things work out, I'll be doing the aggressing.

I've also begun playing an MMO. A free-to-play one, actually--Neverwinter, set in the popular Dungeons and Dragons world. Apparently the city of Baldur's Gate is in that world. Apparently Baldur's Gate is a city. Who knew. Anyway, it has many of the usual post-WoW and contempo-F2P traits you would expect in such a thing, but where it begins to deviate, in my limited MMO experience, is in the combat system, which is very timing-based, and does not use an auto-attack system. It seems pretty cool, so far, after maybe 5 hours, max. I had heard it was fun, and was interested, but what put me over the edge was hearing from a friend who was playing it, and asked me to join up so we could play together. Where am I going to find the time?

This past weekend was the culmination of The International 3, the Dota 2 tournament to end all tournaments. I haven't played in a while, but watching the best teams in the world slug it out was really something to behold. The grand finals went the full five games this time, and they were each incredible to watch. Alliance and Na'Vi were neck and neck much of the time; there were some real nail-biters in there, and game 5 was unforgettable.

So, there you have it. Now to play a game for a bit.