Gaming While Abroad 2018

Having the Switch has been a real blessing in terms of the breadth and depth of experience available to play while way from home. I would never have thought to be able to take with me games like Fortnite, Bayonetta, Breath of the Wild, or the hottest new JRPG on the scene, Octopath Traveler, in the days of even the Vita or 3DS.

Much of my game time in Japan this year was spent with those, but I also checked in on a few others, including Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (for the kids, mostly), Shovel Knight, and Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon.

I took my 3DS along for the trip with the express purpose of playing Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux, and I did just that. I got about 3 hours or so in. So far, so good. the dungeon exploration is reminiscent of Etrian Odyssey, though thankfully without the need to manually draw in features on the map.

I thought I might like to play some Rocket League, but my wifi speeds are apparently not sufficient for it to work well via the Steam Link on my TV, so I guess I will have to keep that bounded within the four sides of my desktop monitor for the time being.

Closing Out 2017

I've been off for about 10 days for the holidays, and I've been trying to get in some good game time. In this span I have made some good progress through Opus Magnum, finished the main game content in Super Mario Odyssey, played my fill of Battle of Tallarn, and returned to the Hyrule of Breath of the Wild to do some pretty serious shrine hunting.

I'll just single out Battle of Tallarn here. I think the game is pretty good for a mobile port. It lands squarely in that range where I could just keep playing it until I've exhausted it of content, but will instead forgo spending any more time doing just that and instead look to other games that I suspect will be better. Warhammer 40,000: Armageddon, namely, but also others in general.

I'll also just mention that in the last few days since Christmas I have been back into Zelda in a big way. I've spent much more time than anticipated each session hunting for that last shrine or wanting to quickly investigate something off in the distance. I even thought about reordering my game of the year rankings, but in the end I think it'll just miss being named there. That post is to follow.

Vacay Plays 3

The last couple of weeks, wrapping up our Japan trip and a few days back in the US, have mostly been about Breath of the Wild.

I'm to the point now where I'm probably ready to go and face Ganon, having won back the four Divine Beasts to the side of good and acquired the Master Sword. However, I want to go do some more shrines beforehand, and perhaps some of the other side quests and content added by the first bunch of DLC to have come out recently. I want to do some of the shrine quests I have, at least, if not scour the world for hidden shrines. I might also like to collect some of those memories out and about. So far I've only happened upon one in my time playing, of twelve.

I revisited Shin Megami Tensei IV in the last few days in Japan, but hit a roadblock that would require grinding to clear, so I think that game is on hold now. There's a Minotaur boss blocking me from accessing Apocalyptic Tokyo who is weak to Bufu (ice) magic. I've gone all out with press turns and good luck rolls, but it still wasn't enough to skate by him, so the next step is actually just to grind out levels for the main character and various demons, and probably to do some demon fusion, as well. I just don't think I want to invest the time at the moment.

My Tactics Ogre save is in a similar spot, hemmed in by fights too tough to take on and blocked from further plot progression. I love RPGs, and have for many years, but this sort of thing is a real drag. It's much easier these days to be distracted, as well, with so many games to choose from, and so little free time.

This weekend I focused entirely on playing the new Necromancer class in Diablo III, since it was a double XP weekend. I managed to get up to level fifty-something. The class is a lot of fun to play, with a lot of cool abilities that feel incredibly powerful. I'm only a little bit into Act II of the campaign. I should be able to easily hit 70 and grind out some Paragon levels by the time I were to take down Malthael. I want both to have this additional class at the level cap and to have finished the campaign with it. I'm at 6/7 classes done now, and I won't not have 7/7 or */* whatever the number ends up being.

The kids have continued to enjoy Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on the Switch, and I finally got around to finishing world 3 of Super Mario 3D Land.

I am actually on a bit of a 3DS platform kick at the moment, having pre-ordered a New 2DS XL, and hitting ebay for some of the good games (mostly RPGs) from the system library that I've missed. There are still a few games on the horizon for the system that I want, as well. An odd fact to consider, at this point.

Book-wise, I'm about 3 stories into Shattered Legions now. I've got to keep going if I want to catch up to the publishing schedule of the Horus Heresy. It's very close, now.

Vacation Plays 2

The playlist and reading list mostly remains the same, as we head into the final week or so of vacation.

I wrapped up Garro today, bringing the Knight Errant more or less up to speed with other happenings in the Heresy. I had last seen the former Death Knight after his flight from Isstvan III back to Terra in Flight of the Eienstein, which was only the fourth title I read in the series. It's been a while since those days. Garro is the 42nd numbered book I've read in the series, but there are others non-numbered I've read, as well.

Garro also brought an end to Esteride Kell's thread, which began in the novel Nemesis, and featured Kyril Sindermann and Euphrati Keeler, two characters also from much earlier in the series.

Next up will be Shattered Legions, oddly enough another narrative that will pick up from the kick-off of Horus's rebellion, specifically Isstvan V, the dropsite massacre. There, three loyal legions were all but wiped out, left broken and scattered. Shattered Legions collects several stories of the Iron Hands, Salamanders, and Raven Guard, but I would bet Astartes of other legions show up, as well.

Game-wise, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe continues to see regular play with the kiddies, mine as well as their cousins.

The Necromancer pack for Diablo III released, but I've not had great luck getting the game to maintain a connection long enough to get any real playtime in. I may table this endeavor for now and focus more on Zelda.

Breath of the Wild is also continuing along apace. I have unlocked most of the world map at this point, done about 35 shrines, and have 9 heart containers. I've located the Master Sword, but am not yet ready to pull it.

Vacation Plays 1

Since leaving for the trip to Japan we are on now, I've played a lot of Mario Kart, both 7 on the 3DS's and 8 Deluxe on the Switch. The guided play options of the latter make it especially kid-friendly, which is appreciated. The games are pretty fun, as well.

I've also been playing a little more of Breath of the Wild, it being my focus for the trip, as far as progress. I've got all my quests from Kakariko and Hateno, and I've made my way to Zora's Domain to see about this first Divine Beast. I'm thinking I'm probably under-leveled as it goes in this game, having only five hearts and one stamina upgrade so far. I'm one shrine away from the next of either, though.

Since my last booklog entry, I finished up Corax and also read The Master of Mankind, and am now beginning Garro.

Corax took the titular primarch basically to his end as far as his heresy-era deeds. By the end, he's bloodied the traitors' efforts to push to Terra, realized some hard truths, and set off on what amounts to a suicide mission, presumably within the Eye of Terror.

Garro picks up Battle-captian Nathaniel Garro's story after his return from Isstvan III to warn the Emperor of Horus and the others' betrayal there. From other books I've read, I know enough to know he goes on to work for Malcador the Sigillite to form the Knights Errant, who are a force of legionaries plucked from their former legions, both loyalist and traitor, to be Terran Regent's hand among the various theaters of the galactic civil war.

The Master of Mankind is a pretty interesting and important novel in the series. It chronicles the actual conflict of import, to the Emperor, of the Horus Heresy--the war for the Webway. Nothing, not the space marine legions, the primarchs, or even the worlds of the Imperium matter as much to the Emperor's dreams for humanity as the Webway, which offers the possibility to travel across the galaxy without need of the Warp. Without that, humanity can never be free of its corrupting influence. What abhorrent lengths the man will go to toward that end are explored here. The book is interesting in the wider context of the Horus Heresy series and all of Warhammer 40,000 because this is the closest we are ever likely to be to seeing the Emperor's own point of view, and apparent fallibility. It also sets up one hell of a Chekov's Gun that will no doubt come into play sometime in the far, far future of the setting.

I Game of Military

Aside from the usual plinking away at Mass Effect Andromeda and Zelda: Breath of the Wild, with little to report on either, I also reinstalled Spelunky the other day after hearing some podcast talk about it and catching the bug again. I should just keep it installed so I don't have to keep re-unlocking all the characters and Tunnel Man shortcuts due to save data loss on uninstall.


The main thing I should touch on here is the I game, Insurgency. I didn't expect much, really, other than another relatively dull military shooter. It's well done, though, and I was kind of surprised to find people still playing it. The game is built in Valve's Source engine, and it has a fun co-op mode I took part in for a round. I was actually impressed with the tutorial--not something I ever expected to write--due to how it morphs into a narrative mission toward the end.

Wonder Weekend

I was home alone a good amount this weekend with a cold, but it afforded me some pretty good game time.


I had a pretty good time playing more Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap, defeating a boss and gaining access to another transformation type: Fish Man. This in turn opened up a couple of new areas I could get to and another couple of abilities to go to even more places by breaking blocks in the environment, and in some cases, creating new ones. Again, this is a pretty cool game for something originally released on the Sega Master System.


After Wonder Boy, I loaded up Breath of the Wild again for the first time in a week or so, and had a great time making my way to Hateno village and unlocking the Sheikah slate's final functionality, a camera and compendium. Next it'll be back to Kakariko again to speak to Impa again. I'm not sure how I'll travel it this time, though. I might go overland a different way, or maybe just fast travel it. Adventure awaits, either way.


Dawn of War III has finally come out, and I've played through the campaign tutorials and the first couple of campaign missions, one as Space Marines and one as Orks. It seems like fun, so far. I have a couple of gripes, though. First, the performance in the menus is pretty bad, which is odd. It seems fine in game. Second, panning around the battlefield by mousing to the screen edges is S-L-O-W, and for seemingly no good reason. You can hold down the mouse wheel (middle mouse button), and do a kind of grab and pan thing, and that moves at the speed you would expect. I'm not sure why this extremely sluggish movement is there, and there doesn't seem to be any option to change it, either.


Finally, I got a chance to check out the beta version of the Necromancer class in Diablo III. It didn't take long for me to determine that, yes, I am very interested in playing this once it's released. Hopefully that's not too far out at this point.

Perfect Compliments, Shovel Knight

For the last few weeks I've been bouncing back and forth between Mass Effect Andromeda and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I'm finding that the two compliment each other very well, Mass Effect being mostly a game about talking to people, and Zelda a game mostly about wandering around doing things. Each has a bit of the other, of course, but my experiences in each have fit together like yin and yang.

In Andromeda, I'm mostly following the main path so far, having now been to Aya, the home planet of the Angara, and having rescued one of their leaders from the Kett and their "Exaltation" practice of converting other species into themselves. I have to say, this is trending a little close to what the Collectors were doing on behalf of the Reapers back in Mass Effect 2. Now I'm on to investigating the ties a colony of exiles, both of Milky Way and Andromeda species, have to... I forget. Either the Remnant vaults or the Kett, I guess. But also some potential sabotage of the Nexus' efforts? Tonight is tentatively Mass Effect night, so I should probably make sure I understand the mission before commencing with it.

In Zelda, and much more simply, I'm on my way from Kakariko village to Hateno village to learn a little more about my mission and Sheikah slate, finding towers and shrines along the way. This is a game that's much simpler to talk about. In fact, there's really little to say, other than that I really like it, so far. It's fun and interesting just in its world and mechanics. If anything, I feel like this game fits more in a series with the first two Zelda games than anything that came after.

Starting with A Link to the Past, and later with Ocarina of Time, there have been two paradigms for Zelda games, top-down and third-person, each cast in the mold of its first, some might say classic, example. Breath of the Wild certainly owes much to earlier games in the series, especially Ocarina (as do most games that use lock-on, or "Z-targeting"), but feels on the whole so far more evolved past it as to be itself a mold for future games. And I think it goes one better than either aLttP or OoT in creating something a little further afield of the original Legend of Zelda. Either of those can be seen as 'the original but look how we can do it now'. Breath of the Wild leaves behind so many conventions of the series that it seems to me one of only three mostly unique archetypes of the series: the original, the side-scroller, and the free-form adventure.

Since I only had one game on the Switch, and Shovel Knight was released on it, and I had been wanting to try that, I bought the collection, and began playing the core game. It's pretty cool, so far. I've been through 3-4 stages, having beat Black Knight, King Knight, and Spectre Knight, if I recall. It plays like a kind of amalgamation of NES side-scrolling action classics like Super Mario Bros. 3, Zelda II, Mega Man, and Castlevania. The art and music are vintage NES, as well, and very well done. 

Switch and Zelda

The combination of immense hype, a separate enthusiasm on my own part, and a large tax return led me to pick up a Switch last week along with a copy of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.


The Switch is still hard to come by, just a month after launch, but I happened on a small stack of about 7 in my local Best Buy, and eventually temptation won out. As the console itself goes, its nifty. I like the pretty seamless transitioning between handheld and TV modes, and I like the system interface and styling. I am a little reserved about the build quality and robustness of the console, though. For now I have applied a screen protector to the system and am not letting my kids know about the system. This is still feasible while they go to bed earlier than I, and I can keep the system put up somewhere. They have found the dock and joy-con grip, but don't know what they are or what they are for. Yet.


As far as Zelda goes, I like it. It has really been quite some time since I was into a new Zelda. The last was Ocarina of Time, actually, of which my impression has suffered over the years just due to the unwarranted amount of ludicrous worship the game has had in the years since it came out. I have played, briefly, subsequent games in the series, but not much cared for them on the whole, to the point where I had basically dismissed the series as uninteresting. To this day I would say my favorite Zelda game is the original, followed maybe by The Adventure of Link just because it is such a different thing, and I could take or leave the balance of the series. That might sound harsh, but I honestly never see myself playing A Link to the Past or Ocarina or any of the others through again in my lifetime.


All that in mind, Breath of the Wild seems like a real departure for the series in how it dispenses with all of the hand-holding some of the other games have opened with, and gets right to the adventure. Not a lot is explained to Link until several hours in, when the player has had the chance to get out and get some experience and have some fun in the world, and is ready for some plot and guidance. This is the point I'm to now, having just left the Great Plateau with the semblance of a mission to carry me through the rest of the adventure.


This Zelda is also really interesting in that it is a very open game with a lot of systems that intersect freely and in interesting ways, a lot like a Stalker or Far Cry or any number of other more modern games, even things like FROM Software's Souls series or the wave of survival games on the PC that are so big these days. It's interesting because Nintendo seems to be taking the game in a new direction, perhaps due to there being a new generation of folks working on the game, with newer influences and goals.


I'm not very far in, really, and from what I've heard this is an absolutely huge game, so I'm sure my overall impression will evolve as I continue to play, but I feel like it's pretty promising.

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.

13 Days' Round-Up

It's been about two weeks of fairly varied play.


Varied play beginning with the Battlefield 1 beta, which I thought was entertaining, but ultimately left me questioning why. This was followed fairly close on by some Battlefield 4 play, after EA made all of the DLC free for a short time. Also entertaining, but I can never quite get over the sensation that I would get more out of playing another game.


Final Fantasy IV is still serving for Japanese practice, but I've put only a little time into it since the last post. My party talked to some people in Fabul, and are about to depart there on a ship, bound for Baron once more, if I understood properly.


Castle of Illusion, the Mickey Mouse platformer, or more precisely the recent remake of the original, was to be pulled from sale due to a licensing issue, so I picked it up very cheaply before it disappeared, thinking that my daughters would probably enjoy it, or watching me play it, at least. It's a little beyond their game skills at this point. This is actually a very good game. I am not familiar with the original, which I think was a Sega Genesis game, but I knew this version was well regarded going in. I can see why. First, its gorgeous. The locales are varied and vibrant, and perfect for Mickey. Second, the platforming is also very well done. Mickey controls well, and the levels are put together in a good, fun way. I was impressed.


I've been bringing together a small, high quality library of games for my 3DS(s), including a game I had not played since 1998 and in the meantime has become, I feel, one of the most over-celebrated games of all time, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Nevertheless, I felt it deserved a place in my collection, so I picked up the 3DS remake, which is 99% the same game, but with some good tech and usability improvements. I do maintain it is widely over-appreciated by nostalgia junky fanboy manchildren, but it is still a very good game. I've played through the first few sections of it, and I'm on my way to Death Mountain now.


Another recent addition to my 3DS library is Mario Kart 7, which, alongside the original Mario Kart on SFC, I have been playing some of along with Mia. She still can't drive, but she's kind of learning.


There's a new video game CCG, a Hearthstone-like, out now called Duelyst. The twist here is that instead of just putting cards out on a table, cards summon creatures onto a tactical grid where positioning is a very real factor in how fights turn out. I thought the art looked nice, and so was interested to begin with, but 20 free card packs through a Humble Bundle newsletter promotion tempted me into actually downloading and trying out the game. It seems like a cool thing after a few practice games, and I'm happy to have an alternative to Hearthstone, which I do not particularly relish going back to play more of, even while I recognize the near inevitability of such a thing, given how well Blizzard supports their games in the very long term. Perhaps Duelyst will attract enough of an audience to remain on the scene for a while. I wouldn't bet on it, though, regardless of the game's quality.


Speaking of Blizzard games, I have also been spending a lot of time indeed with World of Warcraft. I have my Death Knight at level 100 now, and I am enjoying the Legion content a good deal. The Death Knight class-specific and spec-specific content has been really cool so far. It's a novel experience to be more or less current with the game for the first time ever, and I'm looking forward to playing to the cap and beyond.

Once Familiar

Once familiar is how I would describe The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. It reminds me quite a bit of A Link to the Past, but spruced up on more modern hardware with more modern design sensibilities. I like how it is analog and runs at a very smooth frame rate. Otherwise it seems fairly stock Zelda so far, save perhaps the item rental system, which if it pans out the way I'm hoping could lend the game an enhanced feeling of freedom over the usual. I haven't really liked a Zelda game in a very long time. I was wowed by Ocarina back when just like anyone, but looking back I can't help but feel it has been overblown, and I don't think I would ever want to replay it. I think my favorites in the series have always been the first and A Link to the Past. Zelda II holds a special place in my mind, but I wouldn't call it one of my favorite games by any stretch of the imagination.

The Homeworld Remastered collection came out recently, and I was given a copy as a gift by my good friend and podcasting buddy Esteban. This is a series I've seldom heard much about, but what I did hear was always very glowing. It's very well-regarded. So far I've played through the tutorial in both the remastered and original versions of the first game. It seems novel, an RTS that is relatively slower paced than most in a fully three-dimensional space setting. I'm planning to delve deeper into the remaster, as time goes on.

My Diablo III Season 2 Crusader is developing nicely. She's level 48 now, I think. This class makes a pretty satisfying brick house. It's neat to be able to just face down everything enemies try to throw at you and almost browbeat them into submission, albeit with a flail or some such. The shield-centric abilities are neat, too. You may trade off some loot-grind efficiency for the feeling of being untoppleable, but I don't mind.

I recently made a long exploring expedition in Elite, cut short somewhat by my desire to contribute to an exploration-themed community goal. I earned over 2 million credits with all my discovery data, and put that into a Lakon Type-6 trading ship, which allows for up to 112 tons of cargo. My Cobra would max out at 60. I've now flown everything up to a million credits in price, and my next ship is tentatively an Asp for more deep, deep space exploration. I may hop into a Viper for some combat play, though, or one of the new ships coming in the next update, if their sticker costs fall in under the 6+ mil required to fly an Asp. Right now my total net worth is probably around 5 mil, but I wouldn't be able to get much out of an Asp without about 8-10 mil for the ship itself and the additional modules needed to make the most of it. It's going to take some hours in trading to be able to afford that.

RPGs, the 3DS, and a Couple of Other Things

We stand here on the eve of one of the most momentous days in all of our collective history. Tomorrow, Destiny is releaased, and with it the new order of science fiction first-person shooting and loot collecting for the new generation of game console systems. After tomorrow, everything will be different. Now is the time to take stock of recent events, before all is washed away in the coming deluge.

I have Destiny on pre-order at my local independent game store, but they're pretty slow about getting new games, so I'm not sure when I'll be able to pick it up. Hopefully this week, sometime. I am looking forward to playing it. Not wildly and with total abandon, but maybe like I have been Diablo III since patch 2.1, a little bit here and there--no rush.

I played all the way through and finished a game in two days last week--Evoland, which is something of an homage and deconstruction and examination of the RPG and adventure genre beginning with the NES era all the way up through Diablo III, though it mostly seems to focus on the Final Fantasy and Zelda series. It begins with very rudimentary, almost Game Boy-esque graphics and no sound to speak of. As you go along, you open chests that do things like supply sound and music, enhance the graphics, unlock new features and systems such as Active Time Battle, 3D polygonal overworld graphics, Pre-rendered backgrounds, etc. It was a decent stroll down memory lane for me, and just the right length. The only part I thought dragged a bit was during the 32-bit/FFVII homage areas. And the end came pretty abruptly, as well. I might have moved one of the dungeons from the former bit to the part leading up to the final battle. The whole thing took less than three hours, well spent, on the whole, I think.

I dug out my S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky save and progressed that some, following on from finishing Half-Life 2. I find the open world shooter to be so much more of an interesting and compelling experience than the linear, corridor-confined variety. Stalker, as I'll call it, is such a rich experience. It's one of my favorite PC-exclusive series, and without a doubt justifies maintaining the platform, even if that is all you ever play on it. I'm so glad I've still got half of this game and then Call of Pripyat to play through, as well. At the rate I go, they'll keep me in dour Russian post-apocalyptic free-form shooting adventure for a while.

I can't quit playing Hearthstone, even though I'm not "progressing" toward anything when I play it, other than perhaps a full collection of every card. It's just too easy to jump into for a few minutes here and there, and somehow remains fun even when it certain games are rage-inducing. I need to stop playing it, at least beyond the minimum each month to unlock more card backs. I have better uses of my time.

Psychonauts is one of those games whose reputation preceeds it. It's known to be a mechanically frustrating and well-written comedic 3D platformer, and I'd say that's about accurate from the hour or so I put into it. I see what they were going for, but I've never liked 3D platforming, or its garish Saturday morning cartoon aesthetic. The writing seemed good, I'll give it that. Otherwise, no sir, I don't like it.

Something made me pick up my 3DS a few days ago, and I've been playing a bit of my library for that system:

Crimson Shroud - Definitely a Yasumi Matsuno game (writing, art, presentation). This one is sort of board game like, in that you move from space to space on a map and roll dice a lot, and characters are little statue pieces (maquettes, they might be called). Seems cool, but I wish it had a better UI for equipping items and skills and stuff. This is the same one as Tactics Ogre, and it's cumbersome, I find. Still, there is a lot to like, here.

The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures - I believe this was free at one point or another on the eshop. I messed around with it for a bit, single-player. Yawn. All the tedium I remember of the 16-bit era, and none of the real fun. Maybe that je ne sais quoi is impossible to catch now that I'm not allowed in Narnia anymore.

Steel Diver: Sub Wars - More fun than a boring game has any right to be. I'm mystified as to how this came out of Nintendo as a first-party release. There must be one rogue designer who is a big submarine warfare nerd. Fine, Takeda, we'll do your stupid submarine game, not like we have anything else for the 3DS Launch.

Super Mario 3D Land - My daughter knows who Mario is, and wants to see this game everytime she sees the 3DS. I finished a level because I was sick of looking at it.

To wrap things up, I am beginning Baldur's Gate, the recent Enhanced Edition by Beamdog. I've never played Baldur's Gate, though I have played Planescape: Torment, and some small amount of The Temple of Elemental Evil and miniscule amount of Icewind Dale. I fumbled my way through Planescape because it was magical experience, but I'm going to have to really master D&D 2nd edition to play this. I'm in that kind of mood now, and I've learned to strike while the iron is hot. Here goes!

Loss For Words

I know what you're thinking. It's about time, right? I ramble on for paragraphs at a time here every week with impressions and stories of the games I've been playing, and now all of the sudden I have nothing to say? Well, you can thank the podcast I've started doing with Lonesteban, which you can find here: http://drop.io/mmh4vw1# and here: http://drop.io/knowzen

Now, an annotated pictorial:

I finished my Heroic playthrough of the Halo 3 ODST campaign, and I really enjoyed it. Next I need to try Firefight.

500 Wii Points I had otherwise collecting digital dust went toward a VC Legend of Zelda. This classic still holds up remarkably well, and the master quest is still hard as a diamond.

This is my character in Titan Quest, Yorthagonus, seeking an audience with the Spartan king Leonidas. I have to go kill a satyr or something first.

Tenebrous Maelstrom of Umbral Inferno

This is what my mind is like when I try to recall the games I played over the last week. I've been kind of busy. Let's do a list with quick and dirty impressions:

Hitman: Blood Money PC demo - good, but kind of low-fi, Xbox 1 gen-looking.
Vanguard Storm lite - simple FFTA-style strategy. $5? Not a good price on the app store.
GeoDefense lite - coolest tower defense I've played on iPhone. Didn't buy it, though.
UniWar Lite - complex hex-based 3-way strategy. Need to play more.

Einhander - still really hard, still fucking awesome.
Pixel Junk Monsters - probably coolest tower defense game I've played at all (short time only)
Super Stardust HD - played a couple of games. Already nearing Lonesteban's high score. Makes me want to play more Geometry Wars 2, too.
World of Warcraft - jumped in and killed some stuff for the first time in a month. Currently killing stuff in The Blasted Lands. Still level 52.
Red Faction: Guerilla - liberated Badlands, finished all guerilla actions up to and into Oasis, still having a ball. Most fun game in a while. So great.

I picked up Twilight Princess again after playing the initial couple of hours probably a year ago. I figured it's about time I played a Wii game, and since it's been years and years since I really played a Zelda game (the last was Ocarina of Time), where better to start? So far I've played through the first dungeon, the Forest Temple, got the boomerang, and made my way across Hyrule Field to Kakariko Village. The dungeon took me a while to get through. It was really well designed, though. It will be cool to get further into the game and see more. It's really similar to OoT in a lot of ways, so far.

I never played Wind Waker past a couple of hours in, when someone asked me to go collect butterflies for him. I kind of wish I had stuck with it now, though. Ah well, Twilight Princess it is. I have Phantom Hourglass for DS, too.

The Wii may end up getting a lot of play in the latter half of the year. Besides Zelda, I have Super Mario Galaxy to play through, and I'm more excited than I should be about both Metroid Prime Trilogy and New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Who knows, I might dip into VC stuff at some point, too. I want to play FFIV: The After Years...

Retrograde Motion

Gaming as a contemporary experience--being perpetually "in the now"--moves along at quite a fast clip, and it's just about impossible to keep current if your tastes extend to more than one genre. Every now and then you just have to ignore the new for a while and take a closer look at things already past their retail "sell by" date.

Which is what I'm attempting to do now. One look over at the sidebars of this blog will tell you just how many games I have laying around unfinished, and in many cases, unopened. It's entertainment in the bank, and what I find I'd like more of at the present is more money in the bank, which provides a nice secondary motivation for this endeavor.

To this end, I wrapped up New Super Mario Bros. this evening. That only took two and a half years! What is there to say about this game? It's the latest in a legendary series of 2D platformers, the core platforming series in all of game-dom. It's about what you'd expect if you'e ever played SMB 3 or Super Mario World, which is to say it's a rock-solid fun experience.

I don't really know what came over me yesterday, but I wanted to jump into something new. I thought to finally start the borrowed copy of Assassin's Creed sitting on my TV stand, but instead I jumped into a couple of things.

The first was Fable. The original Xbox didn't have much of anything remarkable that couldn't be had on the PS2 eventually, but Fable was one of that handful of Xbox exclusive highlights. Back around the time of it's original release, the hype levels had risen so high that even I--in Japan, and way over my head into FFXI--took notice of the coming 'RPG revolution.'

Well, I think it's fair to say that Fable was hardly a revolution, and the game has apparently taken it's knocks in backlash since, but being an Xbox owner by virtue of backward compatibility (remember that shit, Sony?), I wanted to see what all of the fuss had been about. Also, this game can be had for like $7.99 these days if you know where to look. I've played it for about 5 hours or so this weekend, and I like it. The character models are kind of unsightly, and the menu system is not-so-pretty (though not terrible), and it kind of has that "last-gen-in-a-bad-kind-of-way" look to it overall, but the game is fun.

I like the battle and experience systems. So far I have kind of a jedi-like warrior-mage hybrid character who relies on his weapon primarily for damage but has a few 'force' tricks like shooting lightning, an area-of-effect force push with knock-back and damage, and a teleport to just behind the target so you can cut them down without being countered. So far my good/evil alignment is still around the middle, edging a bit more toward good. I find it hard to be an out and out asshole to people, but at the same time I'm not going to bend over backwards for everyone, like that guy who had been bitten by zombie werewolves and wanted to join my escort party through the swamps. Yeah, that's going to end well. Also, that mother who wants the remedy for her son who ate the magic mushroom can suck it. It would take way too much energy to track down the other mushrooms for that witch to make the remedy.

The other thing I threw in this weekend is Zelda: Twilight Princess for Wii. I basically just decided to sit down with it one good time before blindly trading it in for credit at Game Trader. I thought if anything I'd get the Gamecube version since it'd have a traditional control scheme. I've changed my mind. After about three hours with the game, it seems pretty damned good, Wii-mote and all, plus I read that the GC version isn't widescreen and only allows you to map two of your items to buttons rather than the 3 the Wii version allows. Other differences include the spin attack having to be charged on GC, whereas it's instant on Wii (which is handy), and interestingly, the games environments are all mirrored from one version to the other.

See, Link has always been a lefty, but Nintendo found that playtesters liked to use the nunchuck in their left hands and the Wii-mote (sword swings) in the right hand, and so they mirrored the entire game to retcon Link into a righty for the sake of soccer-moms and shogakusei everywhere. Whatever, I don't care, I just think it'd be cool to have the option to play the GC mirror image, since at places it apparently evokes environs from Ocarina of Time (although that game gets way too much worship anyway).

I'd like to plow through Fable kind of quickly and then pick up and continue Twilight Princess. Zelda's title demo really, really reminds me of Shadow of the Colossus, by the way. It's uncanny. Elsewise this week, I finished up Diablo II act III, killing the first of the Prime Evils, Mephisto. Bastard dropped a set piece that I already had. I had to create a Diablo mule, too, so I spent a few hours this week idling in the first act's rogue encampment to get the dude enough playtime so he wouldn't get deleted after 10 days. Good music there, but not as good as Diablo I's Tristram music. I also played some Castle Crashers online with my college buddy Jonathan, jzpeeps. Great game. Definitely better in co-op, though.