Here in early June, already, it's been a pretty good year for gaming so far. I'm coming off two extended stays--Mass Effect Andromeda and a FFXI revisit, as well as having knocked out a few shorter games earlier in the year and knocked a bunch more off the backlog, if not completing them.
I'm in a weird spot for the next week or so, not sure what to play before heading to Japan for four weeks. I know that while there I plan to play more Switch. I'm not sure what else. Maybe just that. I should probably pick up Mario Kart, thinking on that. It does have the kid-friendly mode. My girls like it on the 3DS, and I'm not certain I want to take the 3DS.
I suppose I probably should, since I myself have a bunch of DS/3DS stuff I need to play. I am unsure, though, how much time I'll have to play games there, and think I might want to focus on Zelda. But then, it might be good to have systems to pass off to them during travel or while killing time at home.
And what about the Vita? I'd like to have it along as well, but does it make sense to have a Switch, 3DS, 2DS, and Vita? In addition to a MacBook and two iPads? And my kindle, of course.
Back to the topic at hand, though: what to play leading up to the trip. I just buckled down and finished Andromeda. Maybe I could do the same with AC: Unity? Or make more progress into Shadow of Mordor? Surely it makes sense to finish The Witcher 3 before Mordor, and I plan to do that upon returning from Japan. I could play more of Dawn of War III, or Warcraft III, or Starcraft II, or Stellaris, or Endless Legend or... but I don't think I'm in a strategy mindset right now. I'm leaning toward AC Unity or a backlog blitz, I suppose.
Tuesday, June 6, 2017
Overly Hearthstone Inspired Hack Job
The Elder Scrolls Legends recently came out on Steam and Android OS, and I was kind of curious about it, so I decided to check it out, wondering what Bethesda's take on the digital CCG might be like.
Turns out, it's a lot like Blizzard's. As in, they just ripped off whole swathes of Hearthstone and gave them a different skin. I could see doing that early in production, with a mind to go back and redesign later, but for the most part things are laid out extremely similarly to the way the other game does them.
It wouldn't be so bad, really, if more care had been taken in thoughtfully re-arranging menu or UI elements. The design of the game itself, sectioning the playfield out into lanes, adding runes to the life bar that explode and grant card draw as life is depleted, and the like, does seem to show more than a surface groping of Blizzard's mechanics, but the presentation here is awful.
Apart from the blatant copypasta, The Elder Scrolls Legends incorporates terrible voice acting, very bad cutscene art, and tutorials aimed at an idiot. The cutscene art is most puzzling, considering the art on the game cards is generally pretty decent. What you get in the interstitial scenes features not only uninspired fantasy pap for a script, but some of the ugliest photos-digitized-and-fantasy-filtered stylings this side of Mortal Kombat.
The one thing I was really curious about was if the developer could make something as fun as but less frustrating than Hearthstone. I don't think I'll play enough to find out, though.
I wonder if the idea of a continuously evolving CCG is inherently flawed. The ever expanding card base presents obvious issues of balance, which games like Hearthstone and Magic: The Gathering before it mitigate by restricting structured play to only the most recent sets of cards. However, you will still eventually run out of ideas keeping the game fresh. Maybe that's only a problem for the individual player, and not so much the game's stewards.
Turns out, it's a lot like Blizzard's. As in, they just ripped off whole swathes of Hearthstone and gave them a different skin. I could see doing that early in production, with a mind to go back and redesign later, but for the most part things are laid out extremely similarly to the way the other game does them.
It wouldn't be so bad, really, if more care had been taken in thoughtfully re-arranging menu or UI elements. The design of the game itself, sectioning the playfield out into lanes, adding runes to the life bar that explode and grant card draw as life is depleted, and the like, does seem to show more than a surface groping of Blizzard's mechanics, but the presentation here is awful.
Apart from the blatant copypasta, The Elder Scrolls Legends incorporates terrible voice acting, very bad cutscene art, and tutorials aimed at an idiot. The cutscene art is most puzzling, considering the art on the game cards is generally pretty decent. What you get in the interstitial scenes features not only uninspired fantasy pap for a script, but some of the ugliest photos-digitized-and-fantasy-filtered stylings this side of Mortal Kombat.
The one thing I was really curious about was if the developer could make something as fun as but less frustrating than Hearthstone. I don't think I'll play enough to find out, though.
I wonder if the idea of a continuously evolving CCG is inherently flawed. The ever expanding card base presents obvious issues of balance, which games like Hearthstone and Magic: The Gathering before it mitigate by restricting structured play to only the most recent sets of cards. However, you will still eventually run out of ideas keeping the game fresh. Maybe that's only a problem for the individual player, and not so much the game's stewards.
Saturday, June 3, 2017
Paths Found
I have finally wrapped up Mass Effect Andromeda after some 80 game hours. It's a beast of a game, with some open world filler, but overall I had a pretty good time with it.
The combat was fun all the way through. Maybe that was a product of my character build choices--shotgun-centric, making liberal use of the dash and jump, with a heavy dose of melee damage and shield drain and fire thrower abilities from the tech skill path.
Plot-wise, Andromeda is pretty successful pseudo-reboot, set apart from the events of the original Mass Effect trilogy in both time and space. It's the story of the Milky Way races establishing a new home in a new galaxy, while at the same time helping the Heleus native Angara to fend of a militaristic empire of gene-consuming race assimilators called the Kett, to deal with the remains of an ancient race's AI constructs, and to weather the fallout of an apocalyptic war in the sector in the years the Andromeda Initiative arks were in transit from the Milky Way.
At the end of the game, a foothold is gained, allies made, and the Kett Archon fended off, but the rest of the Kett are still out there in the galaxy, one last ark is still making its way in Andromeda, and the Pathfinder and crew still have a job to do exploring and building a new civilization in their new home.
EA has made noises that sound like the game didn't perform to expectations, and while that's not hard to believe, given said expectations, I do hope we'll see a continuation of the series in Andromeda. Maybe DLC to begin with, to cover the arrival of the Quarians and other Milky Way races, and another game in the future, possibly a generation later, exploring the further integration of the new arrivals with the natives, and the looming threat of the Kett Empire.
In all likelihood, we get either the first or neither at all.
The combat was fun all the way through. Maybe that was a product of my character build choices--shotgun-centric, making liberal use of the dash and jump, with a heavy dose of melee damage and shield drain and fire thrower abilities from the tech skill path.
Plot-wise, Andromeda is pretty successful pseudo-reboot, set apart from the events of the original Mass Effect trilogy in both time and space. It's the story of the Milky Way races establishing a new home in a new galaxy, while at the same time helping the Heleus native Angara to fend of a militaristic empire of gene-consuming race assimilators called the Kett, to deal with the remains of an ancient race's AI constructs, and to weather the fallout of an apocalyptic war in the sector in the years the Andromeda Initiative arks were in transit from the Milky Way.
At the end of the game, a foothold is gained, allies made, and the Kett Archon fended off, but the rest of the Kett are still out there in the galaxy, one last ark is still making its way in Andromeda, and the Pathfinder and crew still have a job to do exploring and building a new civilization in their new home.
EA has made noises that sound like the game didn't perform to expectations, and while that's not hard to believe, given said expectations, I do hope we'll see a continuation of the series in Andromeda. Maybe DLC to begin with, to cover the arrival of the Quarians and other Milky Way races, and another game in the future, possibly a generation later, exploring the further integration of the new arrivals with the natives, and the looming threat of the Kett Empire.
In all likelihood, we get either the first or neither at all.
Thursday, May 25, 2017
Jack All
That's about all I've played that's new.
I got an alpha of a Frozenbyte-developed game in an indie game bundle a while back called Jack Claw. It's got a sort of Bionic Commando like character with an extendable super strong arm, except this game is set in a sort of quaint dystopia and played from an overhead perspective in the manner of a twin stick shooter. It's basically just a vertical slice like developers make as a proof of concept for new games, only a sample of play with no win or loss conditions and very little content. This game apparently never came to anything more, but I wouldn't say it's a huge loss.
It's Overwatch's first anniversary period now, so I logged in to open a free loot box, thinking I might play some, but I'm not so sure now.
I've been trying to concentrate on Mass Effect Andromeda lately, and I've made some solid progress. I'm moving toward having established settlements on every viable planet, but my main goal is to do all of the loyalty missions and priority missions. Everything else is secondary. However, it's hard not to swing by and scoop up every little thing in the open-world style maps. I'm going to have to reign in that impulse, though, because I want to finish this game in the next 3 weeks.
I got an alpha of a Frozenbyte-developed game in an indie game bundle a while back called Jack Claw. It's got a sort of Bionic Commando like character with an extendable super strong arm, except this game is set in a sort of quaint dystopia and played from an overhead perspective in the manner of a twin stick shooter. It's basically just a vertical slice like developers make as a proof of concept for new games, only a sample of play with no win or loss conditions and very little content. This game apparently never came to anything more, but I wouldn't say it's a huge loss.
It's Overwatch's first anniversary period now, so I logged in to open a free loot box, thinking I might play some, but I'm not so sure now.
I've been trying to concentrate on Mass Effect Andromeda lately, and I've made some solid progress. I'm moving toward having established settlements on every viable planet, but my main goal is to do all of the loyalty missions and priority missions. Everything else is secondary. However, it's hard not to swing by and scoop up every little thing in the open-world style maps. I'm going to have to reign in that impulse, though, because I want to finish this game in the next 3 weeks.
Thursday, May 18, 2017
Speeding Toward Terra
The Horus Heresy reading continues apace.
I am now on Corax, book 40, a collection of novellas and short stories about the Raven Guard and their primarch, Corvus Corax, all about the things they've been up to since their prior book Deliverance Lost. I've just begun this one.
Praetorian of Dorn, book 39, is set in the solar system, and an Alpha Legion plot there. As is usually the case with the Alpha Legion, it's not clear exactly what their objective is, other than speeding along the end of the Imperium and through that the extinguishing of Chaos through the same of humanity. This one has a pretty momentous ending, as Rogal Dorn, primarch of the VII legion Imperial Fists kills Alpharius, the primarch of the XX legion Alpha Legion. From here on, it's Omegon leading them as Alpharius, making a tragic mockery of their famous line "I am Alpharius." This is only the second primarch to die since the beginning of the series, and the first since book 5, Fulgrim (III legion Emperor's Children), where the titular primarch kills his brother Ferrus Manus (X legion Iron Hands) at the Dropsite Massacre.
Book 38, Angels of Caliban, seemed to bring a cap to the Imperium Secundus arc of the series, focusing on Macragge, where the primarchs Lion el'Jonson (I legion Dark Angels), Roboute Guilliman (XII legion Ultramarines), and Sanguinius (IX legion Blood Angels) try to maintain humanity's hold on the galaxy while fending of the destructive efforts of Konrad Curze (VIII legion Night Lords). On the other side of the galaxy, on Caliban, Luther turns his other exiled Dark Angels away from the Lion and back toward the ancient Order that ruled Caliban before the coming of the Emperor. There's trouble brewing, there.
Book 37, The Silent War, is a collection of short stories all about the various forces under Malcador the Sigillite, the Lord Regent of the Imperium. We see a lot of the Knights Errant, the beginnings of the Inquisition, and more interesting things kind of behind the scenes of the galactic civil war.
The Path of Heaven, book 36, brings the White Scars home to Terra after years of harrying Horus' various forces on the edges of the galaxy. The Emperor's Children and the Death Guard figure into the story here, and Leman Russ (VI legion Space Wolves) makes an appearance toward the end, as well, as Jaghatai Khan (V legion White Scars) faces him to apologize for leaving his brother in a lurch back at the Alaxxes nebula, where the Wolves were beset by the Alpha Legion. Now that the Khan has returned, there is work to do reinforcing the Terra's defenses. The traitor legions are on their way.
I am now on Corax, book 40, a collection of novellas and short stories about the Raven Guard and their primarch, Corvus Corax, all about the things they've been up to since their prior book Deliverance Lost. I've just begun this one.
Praetorian of Dorn, book 39, is set in the solar system, and an Alpha Legion plot there. As is usually the case with the Alpha Legion, it's not clear exactly what their objective is, other than speeding along the end of the Imperium and through that the extinguishing of Chaos through the same of humanity. This one has a pretty momentous ending, as Rogal Dorn, primarch of the VII legion Imperial Fists kills Alpharius, the primarch of the XX legion Alpha Legion. From here on, it's Omegon leading them as Alpharius, making a tragic mockery of their famous line "I am Alpharius." This is only the second primarch to die since the beginning of the series, and the first since book 5, Fulgrim (III legion Emperor's Children), where the titular primarch kills his brother Ferrus Manus (X legion Iron Hands) at the Dropsite Massacre.
Book 38, Angels of Caliban, seemed to bring a cap to the Imperium Secundus arc of the series, focusing on Macragge, where the primarchs Lion el'Jonson (I legion Dark Angels), Roboute Guilliman (XII legion Ultramarines), and Sanguinius (IX legion Blood Angels) try to maintain humanity's hold on the galaxy while fending of the destructive efforts of Konrad Curze (VIII legion Night Lords). On the other side of the galaxy, on Caliban, Luther turns his other exiled Dark Angels away from the Lion and back toward the ancient Order that ruled Caliban before the coming of the Emperor. There's trouble brewing, there.
Book 37, The Silent War, is a collection of short stories all about the various forces under Malcador the Sigillite, the Lord Regent of the Imperium. We see a lot of the Knights Errant, the beginnings of the Inquisition, and more interesting things kind of behind the scenes of the galactic civil war.
The Path of Heaven, book 36, brings the White Scars home to Terra after years of harrying Horus' various forces on the edges of the galaxy. The Emperor's Children and the Death Guard figure into the story here, and Leman Russ (VI legion Space Wolves) makes an appearance toward the end, as well, as Jaghatai Khan (V legion White Scars) faces him to apologize for leaving his brother in a lurch back at the Alaxxes nebula, where the Wolves were beset by the Alpha Legion. Now that the Khan has returned, there is work to do reinforcing the Terra's defenses. The traitor legions are on their way.
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.
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.
Tuesday, May 9, 2017
Lost Week Last Week?
It's been more than a week since my last post, but I have little to report, unfortunately. I know I spent some time playing games, but it doesn't feel like a whole lot.
I did make my way a little further into Dawn of War III. I'm about to begin the 5th mission of the campaign, and got a chance to play a match of co-op multiplayer against AI, which was also fun. There seems to be a lot more to enjoy here.
I also knocked out some pretty good progress in Mass Effect Andromeda, at least toward the end of settling the planet Kadara. I did every quest I could find there, and unlocked and reset the Remnant vault, purifying the planet's water. Next I'm headed to the planet the Krogan exiles are on to see what's up over there. It's one of a couple I need to check out before I go to confront the Kett flagship to push events along to whatever the next big thing is. That will be the next episode of this ongoing saga.
I felt like knocking an H game off my backlog yesterday, so I played a little of Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders. I'd definitely seen it around back in the 90s, but I don't know if I'd ever actually played much of it until now. It's basically DOOM, with a medieval fantasy and wizardry skin. Developed by Raven, John Romero as executive producer. It's like 90% the same game, with a few extra features, like a limited ability to look up and down. It also seems harder right off the bat, or at least the levels are longer and more complicated sooner than in DOOM. Like it's forebear, it's a cool game that holds up very well even now, provided you go into the settings (using DOSBox) and set the controls to something resembling a modern WASD setup. I probably won't play any more, but I do have the rest of the Heretic/Hexen series to check out, as well.
I did make my way a little further into Dawn of War III. I'm about to begin the 5th mission of the campaign, and got a chance to play a match of co-op multiplayer against AI, which was also fun. There seems to be a lot more to enjoy here.
I also knocked out some pretty good progress in Mass Effect Andromeda, at least toward the end of settling the planet Kadara. I did every quest I could find there, and unlocked and reset the Remnant vault, purifying the planet's water. Next I'm headed to the planet the Krogan exiles are on to see what's up over there. It's one of a couple I need to check out before I go to confront the Kett flagship to push events along to whatever the next big thing is. That will be the next episode of this ongoing saga.
I felt like knocking an H game off my backlog yesterday, so I played a little of Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders. I'd definitely seen it around back in the 90s, but I don't know if I'd ever actually played much of it until now. It's basically DOOM, with a medieval fantasy and wizardry skin. Developed by Raven, John Romero as executive producer. It's like 90% the same game, with a few extra features, like a limited ability to look up and down. It also seems harder right off the bat, or at least the levels are longer and more complicated sooner than in DOOM. Like it's forebear, it's a cool game that holds up very well even now, provided you go into the settings (using DOSBox) and set the controls to something resembling a modern WASD setup. I probably won't play any more, but I do have the rest of the Heretic/Hexen series to check out, as well.
Monday, May 1, 2017
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.
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.
Wednesday, April 26, 2017
Wonder Boy Pathfinder
I made some progress in Mass Effect Andromeda over the last week, actually getting out into the open world on one of the planets for only about the second time in probably 35 hours of play. I'm at a point in the game where I can go to one of two potentially habitable planets, or go hunt down the Kett leader's flagship for a confrontation. Instead, I've opted to dig into some side quests that, in a roleplaying sense, sounded urgent.
I've also dabbled in Super Mario World and Heroes of the Storm. The latter now has a fresh 2.0 update that I'm interested in exploring a bit. I still think I am fundamentally not that into multi-player games, though. I've been playing beginner level bot matches just on a lark here and there. Playing a game to relax, imagine that.
I picked up another retro-style 2D action game on the Switch, the beautiful remake of Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap. It's a cool game from the Sega Master System, a platform I have very little familiarity with, though I can credit my interest in video games to it. Wonder Boy lets you flash back and forth from the modern, very lavish 2D art to the super old school 8-bit reality of the original. I find the new art really nice and have been almost entirely playing that way.
The underlying game is very well done, and while it definitely feels simplistic, it's an interesting design considering when the game first came out. It's an open-world action platformer more or less contemporaneous with Metroid, but not done in quite the same way. Here, doors open into the background, where in Metroid they always open on one of the four sides of the screen, which means the way the world fits together is pretty different. It's also clear some or all of the doors are magical, so it may not be possible for all of the levels to exist in one contiguous chunk.
You begin as a boy with a sword, but begin to gain the ability to transform into other types of animals and fight and explore in different ways. So far I have been a lizard boy and mouse boy. I'll continue to explore what this nifty game has to offer.
I've also dabbled in Super Mario World and Heroes of the Storm. The latter now has a fresh 2.0 update that I'm interested in exploring a bit. I still think I am fundamentally not that into multi-player games, though. I've been playing beginner level bot matches just on a lark here and there. Playing a game to relax, imagine that.
I picked up another retro-style 2D action game on the Switch, the beautiful remake of Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap. It's a cool game from the Sega Master System, a platform I have very little familiarity with, though I can credit my interest in video games to it. Wonder Boy lets you flash back and forth from the modern, very lavish 2D art to the super old school 8-bit reality of the original. I find the new art really nice and have been almost entirely playing that way.
The underlying game is very well done, and while it definitely feels simplistic, it's an interesting design considering when the game first came out. It's an open-world action platformer more or less contemporaneous with Metroid, but not done in quite the same way. Here, doors open into the background, where in Metroid they always open on one of the four sides of the screen, which means the way the world fits together is pretty different. It's also clear some or all of the doors are magical, so it may not be possible for all of the levels to exist in one contiguous chunk.
You begin as a boy with a sword, but begin to gain the ability to transform into other types of animals and fight and explore in different ways. So far I have been a lizard boy and mouse boy. I'll continue to explore what this nifty game has to offer.
Tuesday, April 18, 2017
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.
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.
Thursday, April 6, 2017
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.
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.
Wednesday, March 29, 2017
Hello Galaxy
Mass Effect Andromeda is out now. I had been looking forward to it as a fresh start in a new galaxy with a new broad objective; 'establish a foothold' as opposed to 'prevent the eradication of intelligent life by an overzealous species of sentient machines that think they are gods'. So far, I think I have pretty much what I wanted.
I'm still in the early parts of the game, having established my character and his role as Pathfinder for the Andromeda Initiative. I've been with my crew down to the planet of Eos and successfully terraformed its atmosphere enough to establish a colony. Next will be to rendezvous back at the Nexus with the Director of the Initiative to plan my next move. It will likely be to the standout planet on the chart discovered in the Remnant vault on Eos. That one was different from the rest somehow.
One thing I appreciate about the game so far is just how little most people know about what is going on in Andromeda, and what they're doing there. Ryder and crew pretty often are clearly spouting conjecture as to what things in the environments around them do or how they came to be where they are. This is the sort of exploratory, scientific approach you would hope people in this position would take. Probably the most interesting choice I have made in terms of roleplaying so far was to decide between founding a military or science-focused outpost to begin with. The game pretty clearly indicates this first founding is a landmark and the decision you make here will set a tone for the rest of the game.
In terms of playability, and with respect to the game's nature as a third-person cover-based shooter with super powers, this is probably the best Mass Effect to date. Ryder is much more mobile than Shepard ever was, and much more flexible in terms of skill paths and variable loadouts, as well as available equipment choices. This makes for more possibilities on the battlefield, as well. Ryder's enhanced mobility extends to the non-combat exploration of the worlds presented here, as well. I love the jump pack and dash/dodge abilities. These allow for enhanced verticality of terrain in the game, too, which is important in large, open environs like the game is serving up to this point. It feels good to play, for the most part.
I can't really judge the writing, plotting, or character development authoritatively yet, since I am still so early in, but it's been fine thus far; if not stellar, also mostly not terrible. There is one really poorly done character (Addison), but she stands out for it, making me wonder if somehow it wasn't a conscious move somehow to make her like that. Many characters have odd-looking facial features or animations, Ryder included, but I don't find it too distracting--yet. There was one obviously erratic instance of blocking in a cutscene that took me out of the moment, and there are some issues with audio samples overlapping each other or being cut off unexpectedly, but again I'm not too bothered by them.
All in all, I think the game is off to a fine start. My taste in Sci-Fi is probably a little more forgiving or allowing for the slow burn than some, of course. I am definitely looking forward to playing a lot more of Andromeda, though.
I'm still in the early parts of the game, having established my character and his role as Pathfinder for the Andromeda Initiative. I've been with my crew down to the planet of Eos and successfully terraformed its atmosphere enough to establish a colony. Next will be to rendezvous back at the Nexus with the Director of the Initiative to plan my next move. It will likely be to the standout planet on the chart discovered in the Remnant vault on Eos. That one was different from the rest somehow.
One thing I appreciate about the game so far is just how little most people know about what is going on in Andromeda, and what they're doing there. Ryder and crew pretty often are clearly spouting conjecture as to what things in the environments around them do or how they came to be where they are. This is the sort of exploratory, scientific approach you would hope people in this position would take. Probably the most interesting choice I have made in terms of roleplaying so far was to decide between founding a military or science-focused outpost to begin with. The game pretty clearly indicates this first founding is a landmark and the decision you make here will set a tone for the rest of the game.
In terms of playability, and with respect to the game's nature as a third-person cover-based shooter with super powers, this is probably the best Mass Effect to date. Ryder is much more mobile than Shepard ever was, and much more flexible in terms of skill paths and variable loadouts, as well as available equipment choices. This makes for more possibilities on the battlefield, as well. Ryder's enhanced mobility extends to the non-combat exploration of the worlds presented here, as well. I love the jump pack and dash/dodge abilities. These allow for enhanced verticality of terrain in the game, too, which is important in large, open environs like the game is serving up to this point. It feels good to play, for the most part.
I can't really judge the writing, plotting, or character development authoritatively yet, since I am still so early in, but it's been fine thus far; if not stellar, also mostly not terrible. There is one really poorly done character (Addison), but she stands out for it, making me wonder if somehow it wasn't a conscious move somehow to make her like that. Many characters have odd-looking facial features or animations, Ryder included, but I don't find it too distracting--yet. There was one obviously erratic instance of blocking in a cutscene that took me out of the moment, and there are some issues with audio samples overlapping each other or being cut off unexpectedly, but again I'm not too bothered by them.
All in all, I think the game is off to a fine start. My taste in Sci-Fi is probably a little more forgiving or allowing for the slow burn than some, of course. I am definitely looking forward to playing a lot more of Andromeda, though.
Thursday, March 23, 2017
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.
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.
Monday, March 20, 2017
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.
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.
Friday, March 17, 2017
MH 4 U
Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate. MH4U. 4 U. Not for me, as it turns out.
I've enjoyed Monster Hunter in the past, to a limited extent, and this latest one I've tried (not by any stretch the latest released) is more of the same. I have less time and patience than ever for the type of rigmarole this game foists upon its players, though.
One 'gather some eggs' mission, and I'm done. I wasn't going to stick with it long anyway, but ugh. This game needs to evolve, dearly.
There's a PC clone coming out called Dauntless that will probably mix up some of the elements, and could turn out to be really good. I heard some ex-Riot developers are working on it.
I've enjoyed Monster Hunter in the past, to a limited extent, and this latest one I've tried (not by any stretch the latest released) is more of the same. I have less time and patience than ever for the type of rigmarole this game foists upon its players, though.
One 'gather some eggs' mission, and I'm done. I wasn't going to stick with it long anyway, but ugh. This game needs to evolve, dearly.
There's a PC clone coming out called Dauntless that will probably mix up some of the elements, and could turn out to be really good. I heard some ex-Riot developers are working on it.
Tuesday, March 7, 2017
Pargon of Samurai Excellence
I collected the full set of Samurai Artifact armor in FFXI! It took some doing. I had to hunt for coffer keys and then the coffers themselves in three locations, as well as undertake quests to hop around the world fighting notorious monsters in order to earn the full set of Myochin gear.
Artifact gear has always been a mixed bag in terms of effectiveness. For Samurai, I'll probably only really use the legs full-time, and those only until I can wear something better, like the Shura Haidate or Barabarosa's Zerehs I have from my time playing Monk and Ninja. A lot of the Samurai gear overlaps with that of those other classes I had previously played, so that instead of the hands I'm using Ochiudo's Kote, and instead of the chest I'm wearing a Haubergeon. Instead of the AF feet, I have a race-specific pair of boots that is great for melee damage dealing. The head piece I'll use in a macro gear swap because it makes Meditate better, granting more TP per use. Still, you can't beat the armor's design for that iconic class style.
AF gear is also a character development milestone in that it indicates you've hit level 60 to be able to wear the full set. I'm at 63 on Samurai, currently. With AF done, I need to find some other guiding star, going forward. Other than wanting to hit 75 and roam Sky and Sea, I'm not sure what that should be. Most of the things I want to do are better at 75 (or above, now). I may take this opportunity, that of needing a ton of XP, to explore some of the expansion content from Aht Urghan and after.
Another thing that needs some thought is the end of my month coming up. I'm not sure exactly when that is, but I may need to cancel. I'm not sure I want to be paying while Mass Effect Andromeda is out and incomplete. Hmm...
I should very quickly mention that I knocked Full Mojo Rampage off my backlog last week. It's a voodoo-themed twin-stick shooter roguelike that was surprisingly cool. I was ready to dismiss it out of hand, but it probably warrants some real playtime. From someone, sometime. Probably not me, sadly. I have way too many other things to play.
Artifact gear has always been a mixed bag in terms of effectiveness. For Samurai, I'll probably only really use the legs full-time, and those only until I can wear something better, like the Shura Haidate or Barabarosa's Zerehs I have from my time playing Monk and Ninja. A lot of the Samurai gear overlaps with that of those other classes I had previously played, so that instead of the hands I'm using Ochiudo's Kote, and instead of the chest I'm wearing a Haubergeon. Instead of the AF feet, I have a race-specific pair of boots that is great for melee damage dealing. The head piece I'll use in a macro gear swap because it makes Meditate better, granting more TP per use. Still, you can't beat the armor's design for that iconic class style.
AF gear is also a character development milestone in that it indicates you've hit level 60 to be able to wear the full set. I'm at 63 on Samurai, currently. With AF done, I need to find some other guiding star, going forward. Other than wanting to hit 75 and roam Sky and Sea, I'm not sure what that should be. Most of the things I want to do are better at 75 (or above, now). I may take this opportunity, that of needing a ton of XP, to explore some of the expansion content from Aht Urghan and after.
Another thing that needs some thought is the end of my month coming up. I'm not sure exactly when that is, but I may need to cancel. I'm not sure I want to be paying while Mass Effect Andromeda is out and incomplete. Hmm...
I should very quickly mention that I knocked Full Mojo Rampage off my backlog last week. It's a voodoo-themed twin-stick shooter roguelike that was surprisingly cool. I was ready to dismiss it out of hand, but it probably warrants some real playtime. From someone, sometime. Probably not me, sadly. I have way too many other things to play.
Wednesday, March 1, 2017
Booklog Update
A couple of months into 2017, I've been reading a decent amount so far. I've finished a couple of Horus Heresy books, am working on a third, and also finally polished off a non-fiction work I'd been reading.
The Ninja was a historical look at these famous, secretive warriors of Japan. It wasn't quite what I was hoping for, though. It was more about the philosophy and martial arts aspects of Ninja than the straight historical dope. Maybe it was unfair to expect that, though, given the subject matter. Hearsay and tall tales and unverifiable accounts are more to be expected. There was some interesting information here, to be sure, but it was also written in such a way as to be less accessible. I think I'll have to look elsewhere for the history I want.
War Without End was a collection of short stories and novellas set in the Horus Heresy, and might broadly be considered to be loyalist legion focused, whereas Legacies of Betrayal was mostly about the traitor legions.
Pharos was a novel in the Heresy, telling of a Night Lords attack on the world of Sotha, where Mount Pharos and Imperium Secundus' stand-in for the Astronomican was. In the end, after a gigantic pulse of energy (which caught the attention of the Tyranids out in intergalactic space--oops), I'm not clear on whether the beacon is still operational, and whether the Ruinstorm is more navigable now or not, since Lorgar and Angron's Shadow Crusade appears to be waning or through.
Eye of Terra is another short story and novella collection of Horus Heresy writings. The Wolf of Ash and Fire and Aurelian are standout tales so far. Generally, though, the "present" of the Heresy seems to be moving more forward now, with most of these stories catching us up with various happenings of legions we have seen (or not) recently, in preparation for what is to come next in their stories.
The Ninja was a historical look at these famous, secretive warriors of Japan. It wasn't quite what I was hoping for, though. It was more about the philosophy and martial arts aspects of Ninja than the straight historical dope. Maybe it was unfair to expect that, though, given the subject matter. Hearsay and tall tales and unverifiable accounts are more to be expected. There was some interesting information here, to be sure, but it was also written in such a way as to be less accessible. I think I'll have to look elsewhere for the history I want.
War Without End was a collection of short stories and novellas set in the Horus Heresy, and might broadly be considered to be loyalist legion focused, whereas Legacies of Betrayal was mostly about the traitor legions.
Pharos was a novel in the Heresy, telling of a Night Lords attack on the world of Sotha, where Mount Pharos and Imperium Secundus' stand-in for the Astronomican was. In the end, after a gigantic pulse of energy (which caught the attention of the Tyranids out in intergalactic space--oops), I'm not clear on whether the beacon is still operational, and whether the Ruinstorm is more navigable now or not, since Lorgar and Angron's Shadow Crusade appears to be waning or through.
Eye of Terra is another short story and novella collection of Horus Heresy writings. The Wolf of Ash and Fire and Aurelian are standout tales so far. Generally, though, the "present" of the Heresy seems to be moving more forward now, with most of these stories catching us up with various happenings of legions we have seen (or not) recently, in preparation for what is to come next in their stories.
Weeks in Vana'Diel
I haven't played anything but FFXI since my last post about returning to it. I've been having a lot of fun times revisiting the world and seeing what's new. I have yet to revisit all of the zones I remember, or any of the newer ones, or try much in the way of newer content, the exceptions being Records of Eminence (achievements that award items and experience points), Trust magic (AI party members), and Fields of Valor (experience training regimens with point reward bonuses).
I have, though, managed to level Samurai up to 50, along with bringing Warrior and Dragoon to 50 as well, from 43 and 47, respectively. These I did because they were near enough anyway, and to serve as support jobs for a theoretical level 99 Samurai. I'm not sure I'll level that far, but this is how the game is played. I have noticed a lot of top-level Samurai using Dancer as their support job, but the brief bits I've read about that choice make it seem more like a consideration for soloing. Warrior seems to be the best for damage dealing through conventional means, and Dragoon for enhanced TP gain. Both seem to have their pluses. I'll stick with Warrior, probably.
I'm currently leveling on demons in Xarcabard, taking advantage of the Samurai's innate Demon Killer and Warding Circle abilities, which together confer a decent edge over this particular class of enemy. Next on the agenda, up through level 60, will be the Samurai artifact armor quests for the Myochin set of job-themed gear. Getting artifact armor is always a major milestone in leveling a job in this game. Even though Samurai is my sixth job to 50, it'll only be my fourth with artifact armor, and should I progress that far, my first past 75, since that was the level cap back when I used to play.
A lot has changed, since then, though. I've had almost zero contact with other players since coming back to the game. I wonder if that's a sign of the game being near death, or just to be expected, since I'm playing through low-level content at the moment. If I'm going to be playing a decent amount, as I have been lately, it would be nice to have a chat channel and group of people to do events with. I don't know that I will, but still.
I have, though, managed to level Samurai up to 50, along with bringing Warrior and Dragoon to 50 as well, from 43 and 47, respectively. These I did because they were near enough anyway, and to serve as support jobs for a theoretical level 99 Samurai. I'm not sure I'll level that far, but this is how the game is played. I have noticed a lot of top-level Samurai using Dancer as their support job, but the brief bits I've read about that choice make it seem more like a consideration for soloing. Warrior seems to be the best for damage dealing through conventional means, and Dragoon for enhanced TP gain. Both seem to have their pluses. I'll stick with Warrior, probably.
I'm currently leveling on demons in Xarcabard, taking advantage of the Samurai's innate Demon Killer and Warding Circle abilities, which together confer a decent edge over this particular class of enemy. Next on the agenda, up through level 60, will be the Samurai artifact armor quests for the Myochin set of job-themed gear. Getting artifact armor is always a major milestone in leveling a job in this game. Even though Samurai is my sixth job to 50, it'll only be my fourth with artifact armor, and should I progress that far, my first past 75, since that was the level cap back when I used to play.
A lot has changed, since then, though. I've had almost zero contact with other players since coming back to the game. I wonder if that's a sign of the game being near death, or just to be expected, since I'm playing through low-level content at the moment. If I'm going to be playing a decent amount, as I have been lately, it would be nice to have a chat channel and group of people to do events with. I don't know that I will, but still.
Wednesday, February 15, 2017
A Return
I have very little progress to report on Yakuza 3 or XCOM: Enemy Unknown, but both have gotten attention over the last week. XCOM much more, but with very little to show for it. The alien base invasion mission continues to frustrate me. I think I have had 5-6 complete squad wipes there, now, two due to mind-control by the psionic Sectoid commander there.
A feeling some who don't know me might mistake for nostalgia has mounted recently, possibly in part due to my choice of musical accompaniment at work. I have become acutely wistful about my time previously spent playing Final Fantasy XI, which I ceased playing just about a decade ago, after devoting a heavy portion of the 3 years prior to. It also happens to be the game's 15th anniversary, and so I decided, after having gone through the PS2 to PC account migration procedures when the former version of the game was finally taken offline last year, that I would re-subscribe for a time, to the game which I may have to finally admit to myself is my favorite video game.
My longtime exclusive main character Nascia, formerly level capped (at 75) Black Mage, Monk, and Ninja, is now being trained as a Samurai in the wilds of Sarutabaruta. I have been away from the game for so long, and so much has changed, that I thought it made the most sense to effectively begin again, retaining of course, everything I had earned previously, as you can do with the character development system in FFXI. I could conceivably level up to 99 as SAM now, though at some point I would need to either level my Warrior (WAR) support job up to 49 from the 43 I believe it is at now.
Living alone in Japan with a less demanding job and mania for this game have in the past conspired to cause me to go too hard on it, so if I'm going to be playing it again, I think one defense I need to maintain a reasonable amount of playtime with it, is to clearly define a goal each time I sit down to play it, and to try not to deviate too much from that, and to try to end the session reasonably soon after attaining it, if possible. Otherwise, to find a sensible stopping point when it becomes clear the originally intended goal will not be achieved that session.
Last night, for instance, I sat down intending to explore the zones Sarutabaruta and Giddeus, and to level up from 5 to 10, approximately. That was exactly what I did, though in the end I still ended up playing a little too long. Thinking, planning, like this for game sessions requires a long-term vision for what I want to do in the game.
I don't know that I'll make it to the endgame, or even care all that much about progressing into the post-75 world. All of my love for this game is confined to the base game, and Zilart and Promathia expansions. I played during the Aht Urghan era, but that content didn't stick with me in the way the other did. Right now, I only know for sure I want to keep leveling up and revisiting old haunts. I was really struck by how enormous the zones were, upon revisiting. I thought perhaps they had inflated in my mind, but no, they are actually pretty huge.
I think my next foray in will be to the Auction House and weapon shops in Windurst to outfit myself with a coherent set of armor. I should probably also investigate Trusts to gather an adventuring group before setting out for much more serious leveling. I have no idea what getting those involves. I'd rather not have to go and do anything on my higher level jobs, but I will if I must.
Playing again after so long and on an unfamiliar version of the game (PC now, was PS2 previously), has me wondering how to recreate the routines and macros I used to rely so heavily on. This is one major reason I hesitate to jump back onto my higher level jobs--I'm not certain I remember exactly how to play them effectively. Beginning as a low-level, I am able to easy myself back into the swing of things, while enjoying the natural progression through the levels and geographic areas of the world of Vana'Diel I love so much, even to this day.
A feeling some who don't know me might mistake for nostalgia has mounted recently, possibly in part due to my choice of musical accompaniment at work. I have become acutely wistful about my time previously spent playing Final Fantasy XI, which I ceased playing just about a decade ago, after devoting a heavy portion of the 3 years prior to. It also happens to be the game's 15th anniversary, and so I decided, after having gone through the PS2 to PC account migration procedures when the former version of the game was finally taken offline last year, that I would re-subscribe for a time, to the game which I may have to finally admit to myself is my favorite video game.
My longtime exclusive main character Nascia, formerly level capped (at 75) Black Mage, Monk, and Ninja, is now being trained as a Samurai in the wilds of Sarutabaruta. I have been away from the game for so long, and so much has changed, that I thought it made the most sense to effectively begin again, retaining of course, everything I had earned previously, as you can do with the character development system in FFXI. I could conceivably level up to 99 as SAM now, though at some point I would need to either level my Warrior (WAR) support job up to 49 from the 43 I believe it is at now.
Living alone in Japan with a less demanding job and mania for this game have in the past conspired to cause me to go too hard on it, so if I'm going to be playing it again, I think one defense I need to maintain a reasonable amount of playtime with it, is to clearly define a goal each time I sit down to play it, and to try not to deviate too much from that, and to try to end the session reasonably soon after attaining it, if possible. Otherwise, to find a sensible stopping point when it becomes clear the originally intended goal will not be achieved that session.
Last night, for instance, I sat down intending to explore the zones Sarutabaruta and Giddeus, and to level up from 5 to 10, approximately. That was exactly what I did, though in the end I still ended up playing a little too long. Thinking, planning, like this for game sessions requires a long-term vision for what I want to do in the game.
I don't know that I'll make it to the endgame, or even care all that much about progressing into the post-75 world. All of my love for this game is confined to the base game, and Zilart and Promathia expansions. I played during the Aht Urghan era, but that content didn't stick with me in the way the other did. Right now, I only know for sure I want to keep leveling up and revisiting old haunts. I was really struck by how enormous the zones were, upon revisiting. I thought perhaps they had inflated in my mind, but no, they are actually pretty huge.
I think my next foray in will be to the Auction House and weapon shops in Windurst to outfit myself with a coherent set of armor. I should probably also investigate Trusts to gather an adventuring group before setting out for much more serious leveling. I have no idea what getting those involves. I'd rather not have to go and do anything on my higher level jobs, but I will if I must.
Playing again after so long and on an unfamiliar version of the game (PC now, was PS2 previously), has me wondering how to recreate the routines and macros I used to rely so heavily on. This is one major reason I hesitate to jump back onto my higher level jobs--I'm not certain I remember exactly how to play them effectively. Beginning as a low-level, I am able to easy myself back into the swing of things, while enjoying the natural progression through the levels and geographic areas of the world of Vana'Diel I love so much, even to this day.
Wednesday, February 8, 2017
Ain't Got Me
Mobile games are often trashy money sinks that mire you in infinite fiddly management to get a paid leg up in a weak core game. So seems to be the case with Fire Emblem Heroes. I gave it a shot for a couple of hours, but I felt like I pretty quickly saw through all the dressing to the lacking center. I have played a number of mobile games in this mold before, all ultimately unfulfilling despite how compulsive the character collecting and team building might be at first blush. The presentation is very stilted, full of idiotic plotting and dialogue, and I can't stand the tedium of endless optimization this type of game asks of you.
I only mention it because it is the second real attempt at a mobile game from Nintendo, after the qualified success of Super Mario Run, which I actually like, and am keeping around on my phone.
I have other, let's call them 'real', Fire Emblem games like Awakening and Fates that I am still interested in playing, actually more now, despite being let down by Heroes' nature as a F2P Gacha-centered borefest. Hearing from a few longtime fans of the series how this game differed from other recent entries has given me increased excitement to give those a go.
There is, at the moment, another tactical combat-centered game that is my focus--XCOM: Enemy Unknown has drawn me back to try to finish off my Ironman campaign. I am at a much better place than before, having teched up my squad to plasma rifles and working on titan armor. I have wiped a few times on the alien base invasion mission, so I am trying to level up a squad to take that on. I also finally managed to unlock the sixth squad member slot, which should help. I would like to successfully finish this campaign, but we'll see. Either way, I think I will play Enemy Within for my next campaign, and maybe until I finish one victorious. I haven't bought XCOM 2 just yet.
I haven't spent a heck of a lot of time gaming over the last week, partly due to returning to actively studying Japanese, after a decade or more of not. One thing I can do to combine these interests, neatly, is to play the Yakuza series. I've finished the first two on PS2, and once before sat down to begin the third, entirely in Japanese. That save file was lost, though, in troubleshooting some PS3 issues. I have restarted again, and will be continuing this time, both to brush up on my language skills, but also to progress through this series, of which I already own 2 further entries past this one, after which several others await. Even if I only played the mainline modern-era games, They're up to 6 now. Throw in Zero, remakes, and feudal-era entries, and that's a pretty hefty syllabus. Not to mention the odd zombie game or the portable entries, which I think I'll just ignore.
I only mention it because it is the second real attempt at a mobile game from Nintendo, after the qualified success of Super Mario Run, which I actually like, and am keeping around on my phone.
I have other, let's call them 'real', Fire Emblem games like Awakening and Fates that I am still interested in playing, actually more now, despite being let down by Heroes' nature as a F2P Gacha-centered borefest. Hearing from a few longtime fans of the series how this game differed from other recent entries has given me increased excitement to give those a go.
There is, at the moment, another tactical combat-centered game that is my focus--XCOM: Enemy Unknown has drawn me back to try to finish off my Ironman campaign. I am at a much better place than before, having teched up my squad to plasma rifles and working on titan armor. I have wiped a few times on the alien base invasion mission, so I am trying to level up a squad to take that on. I also finally managed to unlock the sixth squad member slot, which should help. I would like to successfully finish this campaign, but we'll see. Either way, I think I will play Enemy Within for my next campaign, and maybe until I finish one victorious. I haven't bought XCOM 2 just yet.
I haven't spent a heck of a lot of time gaming over the last week, partly due to returning to actively studying Japanese, after a decade or more of not. One thing I can do to combine these interests, neatly, is to play the Yakuza series. I've finished the first two on PS2, and once before sat down to begin the third, entirely in Japanese. That save file was lost, though, in troubleshooting some PS3 issues. I have restarted again, and will be continuing this time, both to brush up on my language skills, but also to progress through this series, of which I already own 2 further entries past this one, after which several others await. Even if I only played the mainline modern-era games, They're up to 6 now. Throw in Zero, remakes, and feudal-era entries, and that's a pretty hefty syllabus. Not to mention the odd zombie game or the portable entries, which I think I'll just ignore.
Sunday, January 29, 2017
Where is the Line? You decide.
I fairly quickly plowed through Spec Ops: The Line this weekend.
I'd heard it was good, and had meant to give it a go. Talk of a new Apocalypse Now game in the works finally spurred me on. As it turns, out, the (somewhat muted) hype was warranted.
Underneath a pretty rote third person shooter is a game that is attempting, and mostly pulling off, some pretty bold things with its narrative. It is of course to some degree standing on the shoulders of giants, but what 2K and Yager created here is something pretty special in video gaming. It's a shooter that actually tries to make you wonder about what you are doing, both in character, and you yourself, sat at home, choosing to spend your leisure time in this manner.
You might think you're the hero, going in. Capt. Martin Walker (voiced by Nolan North), certainly believes he is. But it's his self-aggrandizement, and ignoring of orders, that precipitates much of the horror that happens in this apocalyptic, sand-drowned Dubai. That hubris that echoes the actions of the John Konrad, the man Walker is trying to find in the city under siege both by nature and a rogue force of the US Army. Konrad also took it upon himself to go into Dubai with grand intentions, and neither for him did they work out as intended.
The more I think about Spec Ops: The Line, the more I admire the story it's telling, and how thought provoking it is. And the action's not terrible, it's just not remarkable. The story is excellently paced, though, clocking in at about 6 hours, all in, and that's reloading the final save to see all of the four different endings, each one in its own way feeling like the true canonical ending to the whole tragic farce.
I'd heard it was good, and had meant to give it a go. Talk of a new Apocalypse Now game in the works finally spurred me on. As it turns, out, the (somewhat muted) hype was warranted.
Underneath a pretty rote third person shooter is a game that is attempting, and mostly pulling off, some pretty bold things with its narrative. It is of course to some degree standing on the shoulders of giants, but what 2K and Yager created here is something pretty special in video gaming. It's a shooter that actually tries to make you wonder about what you are doing, both in character, and you yourself, sat at home, choosing to spend your leisure time in this manner.
You might think you're the hero, going in. Capt. Martin Walker (voiced by Nolan North), certainly believes he is. But it's his self-aggrandizement, and ignoring of orders, that precipitates much of the horror that happens in this apocalyptic, sand-drowned Dubai. That hubris that echoes the actions of the John Konrad, the man Walker is trying to find in the city under siege both by nature and a rogue force of the US Army. Konrad also took it upon himself to go into Dubai with grand intentions, and neither for him did they work out as intended.
The more I think about Spec Ops: The Line, the more I admire the story it's telling, and how thought provoking it is. And the action's not terrible, it's just not remarkable. The story is excellently paced, though, clocking in at about 6 hours, all in, and that's reloading the final save to see all of the four different endings, each one in its own way feeling like the true canonical ending to the whole tragic farce.
Friday, January 27, 2017
A Little Bit of Matsuno In My Life
I had planned to begin another 3DS game this week when the thought struck me that I still hadn't played to my satisfaction of Crimson Shroud. This was a relatively small game directed by one my personal favorite game directors, Yasumi Matsuno, the very talented developer behind the best games with names like Ogre Battle, Tactics Ogre, Final Fantasy Tactics, Vagrant Story, and Final Fantasy XII, among others.
Crimson Shroud is interesting in that it is basically a table-top RPG campaign, complete with miniatures and dice rolls, encapsulated as a video game for the 3DS. Art and menu design, as well as the narrative flair, will be familiar to other admirers of Matsuno's work, but the way the game plays is obviously a little different.
For one thing, it's much more limited in scope, like a tabletop campaign would have to be, able to be completed in 6-8 hours, more if you go back for New Game+ and the alternate ending. It's also slower to unfold in terms of action, with how you have to make dice rolls for a lot of abilities, but interestingly, here the plot unfolds with little in the way of complication. It wouldn't make sense to tell an epic tale full of various factions and long-lived rivalries, but Matsuno goes ahead and gives it a shot anyway--artfully relying on world background to give relevance to the dungeon crawl at hand.
It's not an easy game, either. Like most Matsuno-directed games, you can find yourself kind of painted into a corner by some of the choices you've made with the system for character development, and in need of some grinding to sort things out. I do like what the team has done with that system, though. Rather than it be a straight experience points and skill tree sort of thing, All of your character evolving is done through your choices of what gear to loot and skills to take, given the chance. Additional loot or spell scrolls can be melded to what you have in a sort of craft-magical synthesis resulting in +1 bonuses to stats.
I find systems that get away from straight time-investiture to personalize your characters are more interesting. I would rather choose between a heavy, slower weapon, and a lighter, quicker one, and have that be the main thing that defines my fighting style, than to just carry a generic weapon and somehow get stronger as time goes on and more battles are fought. This is one area in which the Souls series from FROM Software really succeed in my book.
I got all the way through the base play through of Crimson Shroud, but not without some considerable difficulty in the last couple of boss encounters. Witch Kings are never a good sight, I'll tell you that. And leave those ancient, fell artefacts right where you find them. Trust me.
Crimson Shroud is interesting in that it is basically a table-top RPG campaign, complete with miniatures and dice rolls, encapsulated as a video game for the 3DS. Art and menu design, as well as the narrative flair, will be familiar to other admirers of Matsuno's work, but the way the game plays is obviously a little different.
For one thing, it's much more limited in scope, like a tabletop campaign would have to be, able to be completed in 6-8 hours, more if you go back for New Game+ and the alternate ending. It's also slower to unfold in terms of action, with how you have to make dice rolls for a lot of abilities, but interestingly, here the plot unfolds with little in the way of complication. It wouldn't make sense to tell an epic tale full of various factions and long-lived rivalries, but Matsuno goes ahead and gives it a shot anyway--artfully relying on world background to give relevance to the dungeon crawl at hand.
It's not an easy game, either. Like most Matsuno-directed games, you can find yourself kind of painted into a corner by some of the choices you've made with the system for character development, and in need of some grinding to sort things out. I do like what the team has done with that system, though. Rather than it be a straight experience points and skill tree sort of thing, All of your character evolving is done through your choices of what gear to loot and skills to take, given the chance. Additional loot or spell scrolls can be melded to what you have in a sort of craft-magical synthesis resulting in +1 bonuses to stats.
I find systems that get away from straight time-investiture to personalize your characters are more interesting. I would rather choose between a heavy, slower weapon, and a lighter, quicker one, and have that be the main thing that defines my fighting style, than to just carry a generic weapon and somehow get stronger as time goes on and more battles are fought. This is one area in which the Souls series from FROM Software really succeed in my book.
I got all the way through the base play through of Crimson Shroud, but not without some considerable difficulty in the last couple of boss encounters. Witch Kings are never a good sight, I'll tell you that. And leave those ancient, fell artefacts right where you find them. Trust me.
Wednesday, January 18, 2017
Weekly Game Reporting
I made it my goal last week to report (on GameBytesShow) on Dungeon of the Endless. I have a quick update to that. I attempted to play through on "Easy" (hard) mode, a couple of times, and my progress was abruptly cut short at about floor 7. After having finished the game on "Too Easy" (normal), though, I feel pretty good about my experience with the game, and have elected to uninstall and move on.
This week, I'm reporting on Democracy 3, which I found to be pretty great! It's a series of interlocking menus that represent the levers of power in government, and the cause and effect relationships there. It's fairly simplistic and makes some dubious assumptions and gross simplifications, but it's not meant to be a completely accurate simulation or model (one hopes).
You are given the reins of power to one of several western democracies and are able to spend your political capital, replenished each quarter (turn), to implement new policies or tweak existing ones, trying to win or maintain the support of the citizenry, or to accomplish whatever goals you set for yourself. I've been playing as POTUS, and mostly trying to balance the budget while making various changes to US policy. I once tried to stamp out religion, and was assassinated by zealots. Another time I was assassinated by leftists(!) presumably because I put too tight of restrictions on alcohol consumption, and ramped up policing too much. I had attained the Crime Free Utopia status that game, though. In my current game, I am just focusing on the GDP, and trying to maximize that by driving education, productivity, and employment as hard as I can.
I finished off Titanfall 2 last night. I kept putting off playing more of the campaign, but in the end I really had a great time with it. I don't play FPS campaigns much anymore, but this one was a blast. Every level was nicely varied and paced very well. Even the titan vs titan boss encounters were fun. Just good stuff, all around. I recommend it.
A few other quick hits:
Super Mario World - made a few levels' progress yesterday. The Vanilla Dome castle is tough! I will complete this game again for my kids, though, and for myself. It is definitely my favorite Mario game.
Duelyst - I had a bunch of unopened card packs, so I went and opened those. I don't have any actual drive to continue playing, though. It does seen very well done, and has an insane amount of lore built into it. I can't imagine anyone really cares about it, but I applaud the effort. I wonder if they'll spin the out some other implementation of it. Another game type, I would hope, a la Amplitude Studios, and not a comic or novel or what have you.
Heroes of the Storm - The game that was too good. I can't let myself play this. It would be irresponsible. One quick round, and I was out, and uninstalled. All the other RTSs have to come first.
This week, I'm reporting on Democracy 3, which I found to be pretty great! It's a series of interlocking menus that represent the levers of power in government, and the cause and effect relationships there. It's fairly simplistic and makes some dubious assumptions and gross simplifications, but it's not meant to be a completely accurate simulation or model (one hopes).
You are given the reins of power to one of several western democracies and are able to spend your political capital, replenished each quarter (turn), to implement new policies or tweak existing ones, trying to win or maintain the support of the citizenry, or to accomplish whatever goals you set for yourself. I've been playing as POTUS, and mostly trying to balance the budget while making various changes to US policy. I once tried to stamp out religion, and was assassinated by zealots. Another time I was assassinated by leftists(!) presumably because I put too tight of restrictions on alcohol consumption, and ramped up policing too much. I had attained the Crime Free Utopia status that game, though. In my current game, I am just focusing on the GDP, and trying to maximize that by driving education, productivity, and employment as hard as I can.
I finished off Titanfall 2 last night. I kept putting off playing more of the campaign, but in the end I really had a great time with it. I don't play FPS campaigns much anymore, but this one was a blast. Every level was nicely varied and paced very well. Even the titan vs titan boss encounters were fun. Just good stuff, all around. I recommend it.
A few other quick hits:
Super Mario World - made a few levels' progress yesterday. The Vanilla Dome castle is tough! I will complete this game again for my kids, though, and for myself. It is definitely my favorite Mario game.
Duelyst - I had a bunch of unopened card packs, so I went and opened those. I don't have any actual drive to continue playing, though. It does seen very well done, and has an insane amount of lore built into it. I can't imagine anyone really cares about it, but I applaud the effort. I wonder if they'll spin the out some other implementation of it. Another game type, I would hope, a la Amplitude Studios, and not a comic or novel or what have you.
Heroes of the Storm - The game that was too good. I can't let myself play this. It would be irresponsible. One quick round, and I was out, and uninstalled. All the other RTSs have to come first.
Wednesday, January 11, 2017
Gratifying Gaming in the New Year Twenty-Seventeen
The first 10 days or so of 2017 have been pretty good for my gaming regimen.
I kicked it off last week by progressing further into the Titanfall 2 campaign, through the much vaunted mission Effect and Cause with its time travel mechanic, and later through a very cool multiple titan battle toward the end of the campaign. There are two or three missions left at this point.
Soon thereafter, the Diablo 20th anniversary event in Diablo III went live--a recreation of the original game's 16-floor dungeon complete with boss encounters like the Butcher, King Leoric, Arch-Bishop Lazarus, and Diablo himself. The whole thing is framed as being from the memory of Adria, down to the graphical filter to make the game look more pixellated and grim like the first Diablo. There are also a couple of other conceits, such as only being able to move in eight directions and at a reasonably fast walk, and the vintage UI bar. It was fun to jump back into Diablo III for a bit. I ended up picking up my Crusader for this, and earned a few Paragon levels while I was at it. I'm more excited for the addition of the Necromancer class, which is supposed to see the light of day this year, I believe.
My favorite thing from the last several days has been finally clicking with Amplitude's rogue-like, tower defense incorporating dungeon crawler Dungeon of the Endless. When I first attempted to play it, it wasn't immediately apparent how to do so, or why I kept losing so quickly and so decisively. Somehow something drew me back to the game a few days ago, determined to figure it out, and I think I've done a fair job of it. I finished my first game of it tonight, getting through all twelve floors of the dungeon, unlocking a bunch of characters and starting ships (game modes) and achievements in the process. And it's been really fun, too. It's a pretty unique blending of genres, and it exists in the world of Endless Space and Endless Legend, and actually serves as a sort of narrative segue from one to the other, which is interesting.
I kicked it off last week by progressing further into the Titanfall 2 campaign, through the much vaunted mission Effect and Cause with its time travel mechanic, and later through a very cool multiple titan battle toward the end of the campaign. There are two or three missions left at this point.
Soon thereafter, the Diablo 20th anniversary event in Diablo III went live--a recreation of the original game's 16-floor dungeon complete with boss encounters like the Butcher, King Leoric, Arch-Bishop Lazarus, and Diablo himself. The whole thing is framed as being from the memory of Adria, down to the graphical filter to make the game look more pixellated and grim like the first Diablo. There are also a couple of other conceits, such as only being able to move in eight directions and at a reasonably fast walk, and the vintage UI bar. It was fun to jump back into Diablo III for a bit. I ended up picking up my Crusader for this, and earned a few Paragon levels while I was at it. I'm more excited for the addition of the Necromancer class, which is supposed to see the light of day this year, I believe.
My favorite thing from the last several days has been finally clicking with Amplitude's rogue-like, tower defense incorporating dungeon crawler Dungeon of the Endless. When I first attempted to play it, it wasn't immediately apparent how to do so, or why I kept losing so quickly and so decisively. Somehow something drew me back to the game a few days ago, determined to figure it out, and I think I've done a fair job of it. I finished my first game of it tonight, getting through all twelve floors of the dungeon, unlocking a bunch of characters and starting ships (game modes) and achievements in the process. And it's been really fun, too. It's a pretty unique blending of genres, and it exists in the world of Endless Space and Endless Legend, and actually serves as a sort of narrative segue from one to the other, which is interesting.
Sunday, January 1, 2017
2016 Wrap Up with G and B OTY
2016 has been a kind of off year. I've felt my enthusiasm for a lot of games seem to wane a bit, and so even with my top picks, I feel less than completely rapt. Without further ado, though:
My Game of the Year: World of Warcraft: Legion
Honorable Mention: Overwatch
Two Blizzard games, as it turns out. I went into the year unenthused by either, but it turns out I probably had the most unreserved fun with them throughout the year. There were a series of others games in 2016 I was more looking forward to, but for one reason or another just didn't stick, things like The Witness and Firewatch. Even stalwart series I enjoy like HITMAN and Dishonored didn't hook me the way I look for in a GOTY candidate. At least not in time for the end of the year. I still have hope for some of these.
In terms of backlog maintenance, it seems 2016 was another draw, if not a net add to the pile. I didn't exactly go crazy buying games, but at the same time I only knocked relatively few off the list, and most of those were just dabblings and dismissals. Here are the skulls I took this year, those achievements and milestones I felt notable. It's not as easy as rolling the credits on a game anymore; these days games try to be perennial, perpetual, and otherwise endless, so you have to be able to define your own goals more than ever:
Super Mario Run (Tour)
World of Warcraft (Death Knight 110)
World of Warcraft (Death Knight 100)
World of Warcraft (Death Knight 90)
No Man's Sky (Atlas)
Eisenhorn: Xenos
World of Warcraft (Death Knight 85)
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (Dungeons)
World of Warcraft (Death Knight 80)
World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade (Dungeons)
World of Warcraft (Death Knight 70)
Warcraft III (Undead)
World of Warcraft (Death Knight intro)
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II - Retribution (Space Marines)
Dark Souls
Dark Souls: Artorias of the Abyss
Mass Effect 3
Mass Effect 3: Citadel
Mass Effect 3: Omega
Mass Effect 3: Leviathan
Talisman: The Horus Heresy
Firewatch
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
That's 23 recorded milestones this year, however charitable I am about the definition. About average with past years' totals:
2015:26
2014:32
2013:33
2012:23
2011:21
2010:23
2009:19
2008:26
2007:15
At this point I'm not going to try to put together a 2017 syllabus of any sort. I made some progress through the one for this year, but those always end up falling apart. It seems like a bit of a fool's errand. A few things I'd like to do, though, are finally crack Paradox strategy games, probably with Stellaris, which I am now familiarizing myself with, to get around to really playing The Witcher 3, and to play more real-time strategy.
2017 releases I'm looking forward to? Mass Effect Andromeda, Dawn of War III, and Nintendo's Switch and all that comes with that.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now on to the page-turning side of things. I read a decent amount this year:
Deathfire
Legacies of Betrayal
The Keeler Image
The Unburdened
The Honoured
Altered Carbon
Saga of the Swamp Thing Vol. 1
Origin (Wolverine)
Warcraft III and WoW Manuals (Lore)
Remember
The Damnation of Pythos
Vengeful Spirit
Scars
The Unremembered Empire
Vulkan Lives
Mark of Calth
Paradise Lost
Betrayer
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions
Angel Exterminatus
That's 20-some odd works, by my hackneyed accounting. Figure a few additional, based on all the single issue comics I've read (several large volumes' worth, easily). A pretty good sum from the few years I've been keeping track. Definitely better than 2015:
2016:20-some odd
2015:4ish
2014:18
2013:9
Book of the Year: The Unremembered Empire
Honorable Mention: Betrayer
Two Horus Heresy novels, which is patently unfair to other quality work, such as Altered Carbon, or mind-benders like Flatland or Paradise Lost, because of how much they draw from the surrounding Heresy universe, but there you have it. Both books were incredible, and you are missing out if you aren't reading The Horus Heresy.
I have a lot more reading queued up for 2017, including a lot more Heresy, among other things, so I'm pretty psyched about that.
My Game of the Year: World of Warcraft: Legion
Honorable Mention: Overwatch
Two Blizzard games, as it turns out. I went into the year unenthused by either, but it turns out I probably had the most unreserved fun with them throughout the year. There were a series of others games in 2016 I was more looking forward to, but for one reason or another just didn't stick, things like The Witness and Firewatch. Even stalwart series I enjoy like HITMAN and Dishonored didn't hook me the way I look for in a GOTY candidate. At least not in time for the end of the year. I still have hope for some of these.
In terms of backlog maintenance, it seems 2016 was another draw, if not a net add to the pile. I didn't exactly go crazy buying games, but at the same time I only knocked relatively few off the list, and most of those were just dabblings and dismissals. Here are the skulls I took this year, those achievements and milestones I felt notable. It's not as easy as rolling the credits on a game anymore; these days games try to be perennial, perpetual, and otherwise endless, so you have to be able to define your own goals more than ever:
Super Mario Run (Tour)
World of Warcraft (Death Knight 110)
World of Warcraft (Death Knight 100)
World of Warcraft (Death Knight 90)
No Man's Sky (Atlas)
Eisenhorn: Xenos
World of Warcraft (Death Knight 85)
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (Dungeons)
World of Warcraft (Death Knight 80)
World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade (Dungeons)
World of Warcraft (Death Knight 70)
Warcraft III (Undead)
World of Warcraft (Death Knight intro)
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II - Retribution (Space Marines)
Dark Souls
Dark Souls: Artorias of the Abyss
Mass Effect 3
Mass Effect 3: Citadel
Mass Effect 3: Omega
Mass Effect 3: Leviathan
Talisman: The Horus Heresy
Firewatch
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
That's 23 recorded milestones this year, however charitable I am about the definition. About average with past years' totals:
2015:26
2014:32
2013:33
2012:23
2011:21
2010:23
2009:19
2008:26
2007:15
At this point I'm not going to try to put together a 2017 syllabus of any sort. I made some progress through the one for this year, but those always end up falling apart. It seems like a bit of a fool's errand. A few things I'd like to do, though, are finally crack Paradox strategy games, probably with Stellaris, which I am now familiarizing myself with, to get around to really playing The Witcher 3, and to play more real-time strategy.
2017 releases I'm looking forward to? Mass Effect Andromeda, Dawn of War III, and Nintendo's Switch and all that comes with that.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now on to the page-turning side of things. I read a decent amount this year:
Deathfire
Legacies of Betrayal
The Keeler Image
The Unburdened
The Honoured
Altered Carbon
Saga of the Swamp Thing Vol. 1
Origin (Wolverine)
Warcraft III and WoW Manuals (Lore)
Remember
The Damnation of Pythos
Vengeful Spirit
Scars
The Unremembered Empire
Vulkan Lives
Mark of Calth
Paradise Lost
Betrayer
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions
Angel Exterminatus
That's 20-some odd works, by my hackneyed accounting. Figure a few additional, based on all the single issue comics I've read (several large volumes' worth, easily). A pretty good sum from the few years I've been keeping track. Definitely better than 2015:
2016:20-some odd
2015:4ish
2014:18
2013:9
Book of the Year: The Unremembered Empire
Honorable Mention: Betrayer
Two Horus Heresy novels, which is patently unfair to other quality work, such as Altered Carbon, or mind-benders like Flatland or Paradise Lost, because of how much they draw from the surrounding Heresy universe, but there you have it. Both books were incredible, and you are missing out if you aren't reading The Horus Heresy.
I have a lot more reading queued up for 2017, including a lot more Heresy, among other things, so I'm pretty psyched about that.
Friday, December 30, 2016
Last Call for Playahol
I played some Wipeout HD/Fury on PS3 the other day. That is a very cool game from yesteryear that I could see myself revisiting more often now that I have it re-installed again. Zone mode still feels ahead of its time.
A loyal Call of Podcast listener gifted me Downwell, so I put some time into that, too. Pretty simple, pretty fun. Very arcadey in feel, since it is a score attack game, divided up into stages like a Spelunky or something. It only uses 3 colors in its aesthetic, but it lets you unlock and swap between different palettes, which is nice. You are a guy falling down an endless well with guns shooting from the bottom of his boots. You must progress as far down as you can without taking too many hits from the monsters on the way down.
I finally bought this year's DOOM remake/sequel, which oddly seems to be an alternate universe Doom ]|[? Unless Doom 3 is somehow set farther in the future or something... anyway, I'll suffice it to say that it feels very faithful to the first couple of Doom games, which is to say it moves very fast and feels very relentless. I like it.
Another new, 'let's get ready for GOTY talk' pickup is Stellaris. I am really going to try to hunker down and familiarize myself with a Paradox strategy game. This one seems close enough to the type of 4X games I've played before (mostly Civ) that I can get a toehold on the climb to competence. I've played a few hours, and am starting to feel like I know what I want to do next, at the very least. That being to conquer the galaxy in the name of the Commonwealth (Imperium) of Man. Yes, I will be enacting my own Great Crusade soon to claim the galaxy for humanity alone.
Revisiting The Witness tonight, I miraculously solved several puzzles that had previously given me grief. The bad part is I did them without knowing exactly why or how the solution was valid. I wouldn't call it brute forcing them, because each only took one or two tries, but perhaps it was some obscene luck. This is a nice and relaxing game to visit.
Otherwise, I've been spending more time in Skyrim, figuring out my inventory situation and what I want my character to be doing--tough when the choices consist of everything. I also jumped back into Overwatch briefly, trying to sort out where it will land in my GOTY rankings.
Finally, I reinstalled and played some more Space Marine tonight. I can confirm that it does play feel better than Eternal Crusade. I managed to get into a match of the cooperative horde mode for a while, which was actually a lot of fun. I didn't have any luck getting into a game of the PVP, however. Maybe next time. I did pop into the campaign briefly, though. This is still a very fun game.
A loyal Call of Podcast listener gifted me Downwell, so I put some time into that, too. Pretty simple, pretty fun. Very arcadey in feel, since it is a score attack game, divided up into stages like a Spelunky or something. It only uses 3 colors in its aesthetic, but it lets you unlock and swap between different palettes, which is nice. You are a guy falling down an endless well with guns shooting from the bottom of his boots. You must progress as far down as you can without taking too many hits from the monsters on the way down.
I finally bought this year's DOOM remake/sequel, which oddly seems to be an alternate universe Doom ]|[? Unless Doom 3 is somehow set farther in the future or something... anyway, I'll suffice it to say that it feels very faithful to the first couple of Doom games, which is to say it moves very fast and feels very relentless. I like it.
Another new, 'let's get ready for GOTY talk' pickup is Stellaris. I am really going to try to hunker down and familiarize myself with a Paradox strategy game. This one seems close enough to the type of 4X games I've played before (mostly Civ) that I can get a toehold on the climb to competence. I've played a few hours, and am starting to feel like I know what I want to do next, at the very least. That being to conquer the galaxy in the name of the Commonwealth (Imperium) of Man. Yes, I will be enacting my own Great Crusade soon to claim the galaxy for humanity alone.
Revisiting The Witness tonight, I miraculously solved several puzzles that had previously given me grief. The bad part is I did them without knowing exactly why or how the solution was valid. I wouldn't call it brute forcing them, because each only took one or two tries, but perhaps it was some obscene luck. This is a nice and relaxing game to visit.
Otherwise, I've been spending more time in Skyrim, figuring out my inventory situation and what I want my character to be doing--tough when the choices consist of everything. I also jumped back into Overwatch briefly, trying to sort out where it will land in my GOTY rankings.
Finally, I reinstalled and played some more Space Marine tonight. I can confirm that it does play feel better than Eternal Crusade. I managed to get into a match of the cooperative horde mode for a while, which was actually a lot of fun. I didn't have any luck getting into a game of the PVP, however. Maybe next time. I did pop into the campaign briefly, though. This is still a very fun game.
Sunday, December 25, 2016
Twisting in the Wind
The last little while has been characterized by a general sort of funk or malaise around gaming. Instead, I've been doing other things, and prime among them, reading Deathfire, the 32nd book in the numbered Horus Heresy series. There are a number that are not numbered, as it were. The series continues to ride high and epic. I should come away from 2016 with a pretty healthy, at least in terms of numbers, of titles read.
Game-wise, it's just been a smattering of things. Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade took most hours played, though it's not a great game. It wants to be Battlefield in the 41st millenium, but I think the focus is too much on close-quarters arena battling for it to work. The vehicles really seem to be of questionable value. There seem to be some other balance concerns, as well, like my Imperial Fists Astartes withering under about 1 second of Eldar fire. That's just not right. I don't really think this game has the budget to excel, and I doubt it maintains the community, either. It's too bad, because those Space Marines look pretty glorious.
Second in play time recently would be Skyrim, though I don't have much to report. I've decided to follow the main quest for the time being. It's led me to High Hrothgar to speak to the Graybeards.
In a fit of not knowing what else to do last week, I played the first mission of the Orc campaign in Warcraft III. Great game!
Cube World got in a little time, too, oddly enough. @wollay tweeted out an update of something he was working on that inspired me to go back and play a bit. I don't think a downloadable update has been made available to players since about three and a half years ago, though.
I put a couple more hours into Tyranny, making my way to the Disfavored war camp and resolving a few situations verbally on my way to locate a missing shipment of arms. It seems like a pretty good game.
Stellaris is, from what I gather, Paradox's attempt to bring their grand strategy games into space sci-fi. I have been curious to give it a shot, having always wanted to make sense of Europa Universalis or Crusader Kings, and not having been able to do so. After my first session, I don't feel all that enlightened just yet. Again, more play time will be needed, here.
I've been playing both Super Mario World and Super Mario Run lately. As a rule, I don't talk about mobile games here, but I'll just say I was very curious to see what Nintendo's first real game outside their own platform would be. I quite like it. I think it hangs as a Mario game, and I think it takes advantage of the lateral shift in genre to introduce some new mechanics that wouldn't make sense in the usual Mario platformers. I'm impressed. Nothing much to say about World, other than it feels way damn harder now than it used to, whatever the reason.
Game-wise, it's just been a smattering of things. Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade took most hours played, though it's not a great game. It wants to be Battlefield in the 41st millenium, but I think the focus is too much on close-quarters arena battling for it to work. The vehicles really seem to be of questionable value. There seem to be some other balance concerns, as well, like my Imperial Fists Astartes withering under about 1 second of Eldar fire. That's just not right. I don't really think this game has the budget to excel, and I doubt it maintains the community, either. It's too bad, because those Space Marines look pretty glorious.
Second in play time recently would be Skyrim, though I don't have much to report. I've decided to follow the main quest for the time being. It's led me to High Hrothgar to speak to the Graybeards.
In a fit of not knowing what else to do last week, I played the first mission of the Orc campaign in Warcraft III. Great game!
Cube World got in a little time, too, oddly enough. @wollay tweeted out an update of something he was working on that inspired me to go back and play a bit. I don't think a downloadable update has been made available to players since about three and a half years ago, though.
I put a couple more hours into Tyranny, making my way to the Disfavored war camp and resolving a few situations verbally on my way to locate a missing shipment of arms. It seems like a pretty good game.
Stellaris is, from what I gather, Paradox's attempt to bring their grand strategy games into space sci-fi. I have been curious to give it a shot, having always wanted to make sense of Europa Universalis or Crusader Kings, and not having been able to do so. After my first session, I don't feel all that enlightened just yet. Again, more play time will be needed, here.
I've been playing both Super Mario World and Super Mario Run lately. As a rule, I don't talk about mobile games here, but I'll just say I was very curious to see what Nintendo's first real game outside their own platform would be. I quite like it. I think it hangs as a Mario game, and I think it takes advantage of the lateral shift in genre to introduce some new mechanics that wouldn't make sense in the usual Mario platformers. I'm impressed. Nothing much to say about World, other than it feels way damn harder now than it used to, whatever the reason.
Monday, December 12, 2016
Out of Sorts with My Sort
I've been in a strange place lately with gaming. I don't know if my tastes are changing and evolving, or if I'm just getting tired of my usual things, or what. I have had a hard time drilling down into things lately, things that should really most definitely be my sort of thing. I'm trying to just go where my whims take me, though, and trust that I'll get to where I need to be that way.
So far, this has led me directly back to The Last of Us. I've always had issues with the play in Naughty Dog's Uncharted series, while yet still wanting to play through each for their cinematic aspects. The same goes for this game. I've decided to take another run at it, having lost the save of my first attempt. I'm about 2 or 3 hours in, and not quite back to where I had left off previously. I'm trying to look at it like a dramatic TV series as opposed to the kind of video game I typically enjoy, because it (and the Uncharted series) excel at aspects of the former, but are deficient at aspects of the latter. Maybe I can buckle down and get through this game with that mindset.
Super Mario World - I want to get through this on my SNES with my daughters. It seems harder than I remember, though. I wonder if lag on my HDTV might be to blame. Probably not, it's probably just faulty memory and degrading motor skills, though. I made it to the Vanilla Dome, though.
Skyrim - I wanted to play some yesterday, but wasn't too attached to any of the quests in my log. I am still not sold on either side of the civil war going on here, either. I figured I would chase down the next leg of the main, dragon related quest, then, to compensate for my jack-of-all-trades approach to character specialization with some draconic superpowers. I walked halfway across the province to a barrow, having small adventures along the way.
Titan Quest Anniversary Edition - Long story short, it is still a dull action roleplaying loot game, but one that has been nicely spruced up by its new publisher, THQ Nordic. I wish them success in future endeavors.
Duelyst - I played a few more puzzles and practice matches. I don't have too much more to say other than I'm using this to substitute for Hearthstone for the time being. I need to get into it at least to the point where I can appreciate the 20 booster packs I got for it.
Elite: Dangerous - I made a conscious decision to get away from playing this game and try to find things that are more novel in the same space. There may not actually be a real replacement for it, but at the present, I just can't justify spending any more time in it without investigating alternatives.
Assassin's Creed Unity - I just couldn't do it anymore. I didn't care about the plot, and I wasn't looking forward to Syndicate at all. Uninstalled. Maybe I'll be back with the next incarnation of the series. I am planning to see the upcoming movie, but I don't have high hopes for it.
WoW - Filling out my trilogy of quit games this entry. My flame with the game has run its course this time around, and longer and brighter than previously. The Suramar quest grind and lack of additional zones to explore finally bored me, and the idea of powering up my artifact even more, while attractive, was not ultimately enough to get me to play enough that I felt it was worth the subscription.
Finally, I began Obsidian's new 3/4 view party RPG (not Infinity Engine), Tyranny. I'm only a couple of hours in, but it seems very cool so far. I'm enjoying the very gray territory the decisions I am making are in, being a sort of enforcer for a conquering power as the conquest winds down, bringing the conquered lands and people into compliance. The emperor Kyros seems like a really bad guy from afar, capricious and uncaring. The whole setting is very reminiscent of 40K and the Horus Heresy.
So far, this has led me directly back to The Last of Us. I've always had issues with the play in Naughty Dog's Uncharted series, while yet still wanting to play through each for their cinematic aspects. The same goes for this game. I've decided to take another run at it, having lost the save of my first attempt. I'm about 2 or 3 hours in, and not quite back to where I had left off previously. I'm trying to look at it like a dramatic TV series as opposed to the kind of video game I typically enjoy, because it (and the Uncharted series) excel at aspects of the former, but are deficient at aspects of the latter. Maybe I can buckle down and get through this game with that mindset.
Super Mario World - I want to get through this on my SNES with my daughters. It seems harder than I remember, though. I wonder if lag on my HDTV might be to blame. Probably not, it's probably just faulty memory and degrading motor skills, though. I made it to the Vanilla Dome, though.
Skyrim - I wanted to play some yesterday, but wasn't too attached to any of the quests in my log. I am still not sold on either side of the civil war going on here, either. I figured I would chase down the next leg of the main, dragon related quest, then, to compensate for my jack-of-all-trades approach to character specialization with some draconic superpowers. I walked halfway across the province to a barrow, having small adventures along the way.
Titan Quest Anniversary Edition - Long story short, it is still a dull action roleplaying loot game, but one that has been nicely spruced up by its new publisher, THQ Nordic. I wish them success in future endeavors.
Duelyst - I played a few more puzzles and practice matches. I don't have too much more to say other than I'm using this to substitute for Hearthstone for the time being. I need to get into it at least to the point where I can appreciate the 20 booster packs I got for it.
Elite: Dangerous - I made a conscious decision to get away from playing this game and try to find things that are more novel in the same space. There may not actually be a real replacement for it, but at the present, I just can't justify spending any more time in it without investigating alternatives.
Assassin's Creed Unity - I just couldn't do it anymore. I didn't care about the plot, and I wasn't looking forward to Syndicate at all. Uninstalled. Maybe I'll be back with the next incarnation of the series. I am planning to see the upcoming movie, but I don't have high hopes for it.
WoW - Filling out my trilogy of quit games this entry. My flame with the game has run its course this time around, and longer and brighter than previously. The Suramar quest grind and lack of additional zones to explore finally bored me, and the idea of powering up my artifact even more, while attractive, was not ultimately enough to get me to play enough that I felt it was worth the subscription.
Finally, I began Obsidian's new 3/4 view party RPG (not Infinity Engine), Tyranny. I'm only a couple of hours in, but it seems very cool so far. I'm enjoying the very gray territory the decisions I am making are in, being a sort of enforcer for a conquering power as the conquest winds down, bringing the conquered lands and people into compliance. The emperor Kyros seems like a really bad guy from afar, capricious and uncaring. The whole setting is very reminiscent of 40K and the Horus Heresy.
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Giving Thanks for Gaming This Thanksgaming
The last week or so has been a whirlwind tour of many games. Progress updates!
Skyrim - Got back into it with my Nord character, who is by turns a brawny two-hander warrior and a stealthy backstabber ranger. Fence sitting in this way makes the game more difficult in terms of combat, but in the end I should rule all. I have a whole lot of ground to cover, though. I'm not fast traveling at all in this playthrough.
Dishonored 2 - I found the Crown Killer at the Addermire Institute, and solved that affair peacefully.
Hitman - I did the Paris mission at the fashion show for the first time, using a spiked drink to lure the male target into a bathroom, where I drowned him, and then snuck up on and strangled the female target in an empty room, and stashed her body in a corner somewhere before escaping via helicopter.
Dawn of War II - I was really only revisiting this to earn the Steam trading cards and badge. I played a couple of campaign missions and a few rounds of The Last Stand. Can't wait for DoW III!
Assassin's Creed Unity - Jumped back into this in an effort to go ahead and finish it off at some point, after not having played it for maybe a year and a half. I'm about to begin sector 8, having just found out and killed the murderous mutinous Assassin brother. I am trying to ignore most of the ancillary content in this game and just focus on the core story missions, which are all I care about in the series at this point. Paris is nice enough, though.
No Man's Sky - I returned to the game with the recent Foundation update, only to be very quickly overcome with boredom and despair at having to jump back on that resource grind. 45 hours of this was probably enough, I am thinking now. I should go back to Elite: Dangerous, instead.
Hearthstone - A few savage losses and the meager enjoyment felt when winning have put me off it again. And on the eve of the new expansion, as well. I think I'll play more Duelyst instead. I did leave my account with enough gold to do an arena run at some point in the future, though.
World of Warcraft - More Suramar quest progress. I made a few levels of artifact research and upgrades, and got a 5th piece of class armor (of 8). I kind of feel my enthusiasm flagging, but I'm going to continue playing here and there for now.
I should also give a booklog update here. I finished The Honoured and The Unburdened, the Calth novellas, then read the new Eisenhorn short story, The Keeler Image, and have now begun Horus Heresy book 31, Legacies of Betrayal. I'm really looking forward to the next grip of Heresy books, especially book 41, Master of Mankind, just released. Not sure when I'll make it that far, though.
Skyrim - Got back into it with my Nord character, who is by turns a brawny two-hander warrior and a stealthy backstabber ranger. Fence sitting in this way makes the game more difficult in terms of combat, but in the end I should rule all. I have a whole lot of ground to cover, though. I'm not fast traveling at all in this playthrough.
Dishonored 2 - I found the Crown Killer at the Addermire Institute, and solved that affair peacefully.
Hitman - I did the Paris mission at the fashion show for the first time, using a spiked drink to lure the male target into a bathroom, where I drowned him, and then snuck up on and strangled the female target in an empty room, and stashed her body in a corner somewhere before escaping via helicopter.
Dawn of War II - I was really only revisiting this to earn the Steam trading cards and badge. I played a couple of campaign missions and a few rounds of The Last Stand. Can't wait for DoW III!
Assassin's Creed Unity - Jumped back into this in an effort to go ahead and finish it off at some point, after not having played it for maybe a year and a half. I'm about to begin sector 8, having just found out and killed the murderous mutinous Assassin brother. I am trying to ignore most of the ancillary content in this game and just focus on the core story missions, which are all I care about in the series at this point. Paris is nice enough, though.
No Man's Sky - I returned to the game with the recent Foundation update, only to be very quickly overcome with boredom and despair at having to jump back on that resource grind. 45 hours of this was probably enough, I am thinking now. I should go back to Elite: Dangerous, instead.
Hearthstone - A few savage losses and the meager enjoyment felt when winning have put me off it again. And on the eve of the new expansion, as well. I think I'll play more Duelyst instead. I did leave my account with enough gold to do an arena run at some point in the future, though.
World of Warcraft - More Suramar quest progress. I made a few levels of artifact research and upgrades, and got a 5th piece of class armor (of 8). I kind of feel my enthusiasm flagging, but I'm going to continue playing here and there for now.
I should also give a booklog update here. I finished The Honoured and The Unburdened, the Calth novellas, then read the new Eisenhorn short story, The Keeler Image, and have now begun Horus Heresy book 31, Legacies of Betrayal. I'm really looking forward to the next grip of Heresy books, especially book 41, Master of Mankind, just released. Not sure when I'll make it that far, though.
Monday, November 21, 2016
Big Game Weekend
I had several good game sessions this weekend, wherein I really feel like I made some good progress. In chronological order:
Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne - Friday afternoon after I got home but the family had not, yet. I found my way from Shinjuku to Yoyogi park and Shibuya, where I met Chiaki and Hijiri again, and got access to the magical webway to head toward Ginza to meet a human male there, either Hikawa or Isamu, presumably. The game is pretty light on plot, so far, which I think kind of works. You have the odd premise, and a general goal, to either return the world to how it was, or to remake it in whatever way you wish. It's kind of Fallout-like in that regard.
Dishonored 2 - Friday night, late. Made it through the first mission in Karnaca, on my way out to Addermire to meet with Hypatia. Stealth seems harder than in the first game, but then I am playing it on the Hard setting for Dishonored veterans. I've tired repeatedly to engage guards after being caught, but most of the time I end up being killed. That may be because I'm trying not to kill them, but incapacitate them instead. I should probably just retreat and lose them unless there is only one.
Hitman - Saturday evening. Being a longtime fan of the Hitman series, the unanimous praise the new episodic game has been getting finally convinced me to pick it up. The 50% off sale on Steam this weekend helped, as well. At first blush it does seem pretty great. I have played the first 3 training scenarios, and poked around briefly in the first real mission, in Paris. It really seems like everything good from Silent Assassin, Contracts, and Blood Money just brought forward to the modern era. I have never played Agent 47 or Absolution, though I guess I should at some point just out of curiosity.
WoW - I made some more progress through the Suramar quests and a few other odds and ends Sunday midday. I need to focus mostly on order hall resources for artifact research and order hall modifications. I want to finish the thrust of the questing before concentrating on world quests and dungeons and raiding, though. I think there is quite a bit of that left, yet. Suramar got a whole other load of that stuff in a patch, recently.
Duelyst - Sunday night. I had been meaning to get back in and play more of this, especially to contrast it to Hearthstone. I played a couple of rounds last night as the Lyonar(?) faction, including my first match online, which I won. It's a cool game, most definitely. I have to wonder at the size of the playerbase, but I was able to find a match partner right away, so that's a good sign, hopefully. I'll try again tonight and see how it goes.
Hearthstone - Sunday night. Playing Duelyst and chatting with Esteban made me want to hop back in, and I did, after a good long while. As a welcome back, the game awarded me with three free packs of cards and a quick 3-round onboarding of games against easy opponents, I guess to refamiliarize myself. I did all of that and then, again, played a match of ranked online and won, using a Shaman deck the Innkeeper had assembled for me. What a nice guy, what a nice tavern, what a nice game. I'll play more, I'm sure. There is quite a bit of new stuff in the game since the last time I'd played, which was around the time the Goblins vs Gnomes card set was coming out. I think since there has been a grand tournament set, an Old Gods set, and soon there will be a Gadgetzan set.
Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne - Friday afternoon after I got home but the family had not, yet. I found my way from Shinjuku to Yoyogi park and Shibuya, where I met Chiaki and Hijiri again, and got access to the magical webway to head toward Ginza to meet a human male there, either Hikawa or Isamu, presumably. The game is pretty light on plot, so far, which I think kind of works. You have the odd premise, and a general goal, to either return the world to how it was, or to remake it in whatever way you wish. It's kind of Fallout-like in that regard.
Dishonored 2 - Friday night, late. Made it through the first mission in Karnaca, on my way out to Addermire to meet with Hypatia. Stealth seems harder than in the first game, but then I am playing it on the Hard setting for Dishonored veterans. I've tired repeatedly to engage guards after being caught, but most of the time I end up being killed. That may be because I'm trying not to kill them, but incapacitate them instead. I should probably just retreat and lose them unless there is only one.
Hitman - Saturday evening. Being a longtime fan of the Hitman series, the unanimous praise the new episodic game has been getting finally convinced me to pick it up. The 50% off sale on Steam this weekend helped, as well. At first blush it does seem pretty great. I have played the first 3 training scenarios, and poked around briefly in the first real mission, in Paris. It really seems like everything good from Silent Assassin, Contracts, and Blood Money just brought forward to the modern era. I have never played Agent 47 or Absolution, though I guess I should at some point just out of curiosity.
WoW - I made some more progress through the Suramar quests and a few other odds and ends Sunday midday. I need to focus mostly on order hall resources for artifact research and order hall modifications. I want to finish the thrust of the questing before concentrating on world quests and dungeons and raiding, though. I think there is quite a bit of that left, yet. Suramar got a whole other load of that stuff in a patch, recently.
Duelyst - Sunday night. I had been meaning to get back in and play more of this, especially to contrast it to Hearthstone. I played a couple of rounds last night as the Lyonar(?) faction, including my first match online, which I won. It's a cool game, most definitely. I have to wonder at the size of the playerbase, but I was able to find a match partner right away, so that's a good sign, hopefully. I'll try again tonight and see how it goes.
Hearthstone - Sunday night. Playing Duelyst and chatting with Esteban made me want to hop back in, and I did, after a good long while. As a welcome back, the game awarded me with three free packs of cards and a quick 3-round onboarding of games against easy opponents, I guess to refamiliarize myself. I did all of that and then, again, played a match of ranked online and won, using a Shaman deck the Innkeeper had assembled for me. What a nice guy, what a nice tavern, what a nice game. I'll play more, I'm sure. There is quite a bit of new stuff in the game since the last time I'd played, which was around the time the Goblins vs Gnomes card set was coming out. I think since there has been a grand tournament set, an Old Gods set, and soon there will be a Gadgetzan set.
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
Playlog: First Half of November, 2016
Dishonored 2 is out now, but I haven't had as much time to play it as I'd like quite yet. I began a game on Hard playing as Emily Kaldwin, and I'm currently beginning the second full mission, the introduction to Karnaca.
Titanfall 2 - continue to play some multiplayer, still have not finished the campaign yet, despite all the positive word of mouth around it. Have enjoyed what I played so far, though.
World of Warcraft - Focusing on Suramar zone quests before moving on to more dungeon running and world quests toward the end of finishing Order Hall and Artifact quests, or what is currently available, anyway.
Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne - Picked this up on PSN on a great sale price last night. I'd like to put more time into it again this time. I never got past maybe halfway in, if that, when I tried it years ago, but I never lost interest in its premise.
The Egyptian Prophecy: The Fate of Ramses - a 3D-in-the-sense-of-Google-maps adventure set in ancient Egypt, one with a sort of magical realism. I didn't get too far in, not caring for the genre, but that's one more off the backlog.
Reading, I'm in the middle of the Horus Heresy novella The Honoured, set in the aftermath of the betrayal at Calth, in the underworld war on that world following the poisoning of the local star.
Titanfall 2 - continue to play some multiplayer, still have not finished the campaign yet, despite all the positive word of mouth around it. Have enjoyed what I played so far, though.
World of Warcraft - Focusing on Suramar zone quests before moving on to more dungeon running and world quests toward the end of finishing Order Hall and Artifact quests, or what is currently available, anyway.
Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne - Picked this up on PSN on a great sale price last night. I'd like to put more time into it again this time. I never got past maybe halfway in, if that, when I tried it years ago, but I never lost interest in its premise.
The Egyptian Prophecy: The Fate of Ramses - a 3D-in-the-sense-of-Google-maps adventure set in ancient Egypt, one with a sort of magical realism. I didn't get too far in, not caring for the genre, but that's one more off the backlog.
Reading, I'm in the middle of the Horus Heresy novella The Honoured, set in the aftermath of the betrayal at Calth, in the underworld war on that world following the poisoning of the local star.
Monday, October 31, 2016
Warcraft Booklogsta Spook-y Mechany
I finally finished off Altered Carbon, the cyberpunk noir novel starring Takeshi Kovacs. It was pretty entertaining. There are a couple more books with the same character, but I'm not sure I'll read those. It's a big bookshelf and booklog. I'll go back to some Horus Heresy material soon, but I'm also in the middle of a couple of other things, one being the Warcraft chronicle.
Speaking of Warcraft, much of the last couple of weeks I have spent plowing through the remaining quest lines of the new Broken Isles zones. At some point I'll run out of the authored stuff and into a sort of endgame phase where what's left is to either do PVP, more hardcore PVE, or seemingly repetitive World Quests, which it seems are procedurally generated. I'm not sure how much of that I'll be interested in doing. I do like how podcast friendly the game is, though, and I would enjoy finishing off my Artifact!
I mentioned Endless Legend previously. I went back and completed the tutorial to re-familiarize, and then jumped back into the game I was playing before. I feel a little more acclimated to the game now, but it'll definitely take more time to satisfy myself. I haven't even finished one game yet.
I seem to have stalled out in Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I finished a bunch of side objectives in Detroit and have been sent elsewhere to a mission, at this point. Some sort of industrial location. I forget what the objective is.
New on the agenda as of late is Titanfall 2. I lucked into a copy at no out of pocket cost, so I have been giving it a go. I'm two missions into the new single player campaign, which is fun, and I've played a few rounds of multiplayer, too, which is also fun. I'll put more time into this for sure, even though I feel more and more distant from the FPS genre as time goes on.
Speaking of Warcraft, much of the last couple of weeks I have spent plowing through the remaining quest lines of the new Broken Isles zones. At some point I'll run out of the authored stuff and into a sort of endgame phase where what's left is to either do PVP, more hardcore PVE, or seemingly repetitive World Quests, which it seems are procedurally generated. I'm not sure how much of that I'll be interested in doing. I do like how podcast friendly the game is, though, and I would enjoy finishing off my Artifact!
I mentioned Endless Legend previously. I went back and completed the tutorial to re-familiarize, and then jumped back into the game I was playing before. I feel a little more acclimated to the game now, but it'll definitely take more time to satisfy myself. I haven't even finished one game yet.
I seem to have stalled out in Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I finished a bunch of side objectives in Detroit and have been sent elsewhere to a mission, at this point. Some sort of industrial location. I forget what the objective is.
New on the agenda as of late is Titanfall 2. I lucked into a copy at no out of pocket cost, so I have been giving it a go. I'm two missions into the new single player campaign, which is fun, and I've played a few rounds of multiplayer, too, which is also fun. I'll put more time into this for sure, even though I feel more and more distant from the FPS genre as time goes on.
Friday, October 14, 2016
God from Endless Warcraft
Amplitude's Endless series of games was on sale on Steam the other day, and it occurred to me that I still wanted to play more of Endless Legend, and that I could economically substitute that in my rotation this week as compared to purchasing the newly released Civilization VI, even when accounting for the 10 bucks' worth of DLC I purchased to bring me more up to speed with the state of the game. I thought I should probably replay the tutorial, since it had been a while, and I don't think I ever finished a game when I played it, previously. I'm about 45 minutes into that tutorial now, I think.
I also began Deus Ex: Human Revolution over the last week or two. I should have played this game sooner, because it seems to have aged kind of roughly. The graphics are below my expectations for a game of the prior generation, and there are ugly 720p loading screens and CG cut-scenes everywhere. The play holds up, though. I suppose it's pretty timeless, since it feels more or less identical to that of the original Deus Ex, which released in 2000, if I'm not mistaken. The game has style, too. A roundly mocked style, admittedly, but a style nonetheless. I happen to like this genre, known to some as the immersive simulation, so I'll keep playing it, but I don't know for how long. Dishonored 2 will be out in about a month's time, after all.
I also managed to make it all the way to 110, the level cap, in WoW with my Death Knight, Phoenixian, and I'm working through all the questing content in Legion in order to see everything in the expansion and power up my Artifact weapons as far as possible. There are a million things to do in this game, of course, but for my own purposes, I plan to do all of the one-time quests I can, and play through all of the dungeons and raids I can, at least once or twice. Given an abundance of time, I'd also like to go back and explore the rest of Azeroth/Outland/Draenor some more as well. In other words, no end in sight.
I also began Deus Ex: Human Revolution over the last week or two. I should have played this game sooner, because it seems to have aged kind of roughly. The graphics are below my expectations for a game of the prior generation, and there are ugly 720p loading screens and CG cut-scenes everywhere. The play holds up, though. I suppose it's pretty timeless, since it feels more or less identical to that of the original Deus Ex, which released in 2000, if I'm not mistaken. The game has style, too. A roundly mocked style, admittedly, but a style nonetheless. I happen to like this genre, known to some as the immersive simulation, so I'll keep playing it, but I don't know for how long. Dishonored 2 will be out in about a month's time, after all.
I also managed to make it all the way to 110, the level cap, in WoW with my Death Knight, Phoenixian, and I'm working through all the questing content in Legion in order to see everything in the expansion and power up my Artifact weapons as far as possible. There are a million things to do in this game, of course, but for my own purposes, I plan to do all of the one-time quests I can, and play through all of the dungeons and raids I can, at least once or twice. Given an abundance of time, I'd also like to go back and explore the rest of Azeroth/Outland/Draenor some more as well. In other words, no end in sight.
Tuesday, September 27, 2016
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.
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.
Wednesday, September 14, 2016
Never Gonna Get Hooked On Adventure
That's my only supposition based on my repeated attempts to get into games in the graphical adventure genre.
Most recently, I tried The Blackwell Legacy. It fared better than some, but within a couple of hours I got to a part where I couldn't readily figure out what to do next, and gave up. I don't plan to go back, not to this one, at least. I still have 3 other Blackwell games to try out sometime in the future. I was kind of enjoying the characters of Rosangela and Joey, I'll admit. And I do enjoy the Wadjet Eye graphical style and musical choices, as well.
I got Mia (5) to sit down and try out SFC Mario Kart the other day. She of course doesn't really get the whole concept of driving, acceleration and braking, etc., but it'll come to her in time. She wanted to play as Peach, and expected I'd play as Mario. I obliged, though I always used to go with Koopa Troopa when I played the game as a kid on SNES.
In Final Fantasy IV JP edition playthrough news, I got over Mt. Hobusu and recruited Yan into the party. We're saved right outside Fabul at the moment.
No Man's Sky-wise, I was able to hunt down about 5 black holes and make my way closer to the center before too many resources and modules were burned. I finally had to set down on a planet to start the rebuilding process. Maybe I'll finally try to get a ship upgrade. Maybe not. I did already sink a lot of resources into the better warp drives for the one I have. It would probably be worth it at some point, though.
In WoW, I am continuing to level up (94 now) and do quests in Draenor. I have yet to move on from Shadowmoon Valley, though. There are a ton of quests to do there. At this rate I probably won't get more than 2-3 zones through Draenor before I head off to the Broken Isles for Legion content. I am definitely looking forward to that.
Most recently, I tried The Blackwell Legacy. It fared better than some, but within a couple of hours I got to a part where I couldn't readily figure out what to do next, and gave up. I don't plan to go back, not to this one, at least. I still have 3 other Blackwell games to try out sometime in the future. I was kind of enjoying the characters of Rosangela and Joey, I'll admit. And I do enjoy the Wadjet Eye graphical style and musical choices, as well.
I got Mia (5) to sit down and try out SFC Mario Kart the other day. She of course doesn't really get the whole concept of driving, acceleration and braking, etc., but it'll come to her in time. She wanted to play as Peach, and expected I'd play as Mario. I obliged, though I always used to go with Koopa Troopa when I played the game as a kid on SNES.
In Final Fantasy IV JP edition playthrough news, I got over Mt. Hobusu and recruited Yan into the party. We're saved right outside Fabul at the moment.
No Man's Sky-wise, I was able to hunt down about 5 black holes and make my way closer to the center before too many resources and modules were burned. I finally had to set down on a planet to start the rebuilding process. Maybe I'll finally try to get a ship upgrade. Maybe not. I did already sink a lot of resources into the better warp drives for the one I have. It would probably be worth it at some point, though.
In WoW, I am continuing to level up (94 now) and do quests in Draenor. I have yet to move on from Shadowmoon Valley, though. There are a ton of quests to do there. At this rate I probably won't get more than 2-3 zones through Draenor before I head off to the Broken Isles for Legion content. I am definitely looking forward to that.
Thursday, September 8, 2016
Backlog Patrol Round 2
Well, I decided to hop back into the backlog this week with another A game on my second trip through the alphabet of gaming. I played some ARMA: Cold War Assault, which was originally released as Operation Flashpoint. While I'd never played an ARMA game before, I had played an Operation Flashpoint game (Dragon Rising) in the past, and knew sort of what to expect--a relatively realistic military simulation, at least in comparison to something like Battlefield or Call of Duty. It delivers on that point, if its age and contemporary tech level and conventions hinder it somewhat.
What I was not prepared for, though, were the cinematics, especially the introduction to the Resistance campaign of missions. Someone there at Bohemia Interactive was clearly inspired by filmmaking techniques and giving that sort of thing a go in their game scenario design. The choices of camera angles, blocking, direction, and music were all pretty striking, especially for a game of that era. It was wild. Are all the ARMA games like this?
I made some progress on my Japanese FFIV play through, getting through the antlion cave bit with Gilbert (Edward in the US version) and Rydia to get the cure for Rosa's sickness. She's now joined the party to be with Cecil, and next we're headed over a mountain to try and prevent Golbez from getting any more crystals than he has already.
I made some progression through No Man's Sky, as well, gearing up my ship and exosuit with upgrades that make it easier to get to the black holes on the way to the center of the galaxy. That game has a way of grabbing me and holding onto me for as long as I can possibly make a session last.
In World of Warcraft, I'm playing through all the quests in the first zone of Draenor, gathering stuff for my garrison and learning what's going on with the Draenei there as the Iron Horde rises. I'm about halfway through level 93 to this point. I think I'm finally starting to accept that I'll never see the whole of Azeroth and the outlying areas, and that I should be okay with that. No one sees the entire world they live on or does everything possible in life, do they? It's more about where the journey does take you, and the paths that you yourself choose, at the opportunity cost of choosing others, that determines who you are.
What I was not prepared for, though, were the cinematics, especially the introduction to the Resistance campaign of missions. Someone there at Bohemia Interactive was clearly inspired by filmmaking techniques and giving that sort of thing a go in their game scenario design. The choices of camera angles, blocking, direction, and music were all pretty striking, especially for a game of that era. It was wild. Are all the ARMA games like this?
I made some progress on my Japanese FFIV play through, getting through the antlion cave bit with Gilbert (Edward in the US version) and Rydia to get the cure for Rosa's sickness. She's now joined the party to be with Cecil, and next we're headed over a mountain to try and prevent Golbez from getting any more crystals than he has already.
I made some progression through No Man's Sky, as well, gearing up my ship and exosuit with upgrades that make it easier to get to the black holes on the way to the center of the galaxy. That game has a way of grabbing me and holding onto me for as long as I can possibly make a session last.
In World of Warcraft, I'm playing through all the quests in the first zone of Draenor, gathering stuff for my garrison and learning what's going on with the Draenei there as the Iron Horde rises. I'm about halfway through level 93 to this point. I think I'm finally starting to accept that I'll never see the whole of Azeroth and the outlying areas, and that I should be okay with that. No one sees the entire world they live on or does everything possible in life, do they? It's more about where the journey does take you, and the paths that you yourself choose, at the opportunity cost of choosing others, that determines who you are.
Monday, August 29, 2016
Dedication and Study
I reached the end of the Atlas path in No Man's Sky, and turned from there to head toward the center of the galaxy making use of black holes along the way to warp me closer and closer in. This is where I am now, still searching for a bigger ship I can either afford or repair, and trying to scrounge enough materials for fuel along the way. I am curious what other mysteries the game holds, and hope to get to the bottom of them eventually. I don't love this game, but I like it well enough.
My SFC copy of Final Fantasy IV arrived last week, and I'm beginning a play through of the game in its original Japanese incarnation, both as a study exercise, and just for fun. I haven't really played the real FFIV, aside from some of the 3D version they released on the DS several years ago. So far I've made it to the desert oasis town where Rydia decides to travel along with Cecil after he protects her from the soldiers from Baron who have come to kill her on their king's orders. Kain is not currently around; he was lost in the earthquake in Mist.
One odd thing about the SFC version is that it's all in hiragana, with no kanji. That makes it both easier and harder to parse, actually, for different reasons.
I made my way back into WoW over the past couple of days, as well, after having focused so much on No Man's Sky for a couple of weeks. Legion releases tomorrow, and leading up to that, there are Burning Legion invasion events all around Azeroth that are great for getting experience and gear. I went from 86 to 90, almost 91, just by participating in 6 of these events, maybe an hour's play. I'm going to milk these for all their worth tonight, which is probably the last chance I'll get, assuming they go away with tomorrow's weekly update coinciding with the launch of the expansion proper.
My SFC copy of Final Fantasy IV arrived last week, and I'm beginning a play through of the game in its original Japanese incarnation, both as a study exercise, and just for fun. I haven't really played the real FFIV, aside from some of the 3D version they released on the DS several years ago. So far I've made it to the desert oasis town where Rydia decides to travel along with Cecil after he protects her from the soldiers from Baron who have come to kill her on their king's orders. Kain is not currently around; he was lost in the earthquake in Mist.
One odd thing about the SFC version is that it's all in hiragana, with no kanji. That makes it both easier and harder to parse, actually, for different reasons.
I made my way back into WoW over the past couple of days, as well, after having focused so much on No Man's Sky for a couple of weeks. Legion releases tomorrow, and leading up to that, there are Burning Legion invasion events all around Azeroth that are great for getting experience and gear. I went from 86 to 90, almost 91, just by participating in 6 of these events, maybe an hour's play. I'm going to milk these for all their worth tonight, which is probably the last chance I'll get, assuming they go away with tomorrow's weekly update coinciding with the launch of the expansion proper.
Thursday, August 18, 2016
All These Worlds Are Mine
Several weeks ago a trip to my hometown kicked off a spate of retro game revisiting. I returned home to Oregon with my gaming systems from my adolescence in tow: NES, SNES, N64, and PSX, with a brace of games for each. Despite my best efforts, I couldn't get my NES to work, so I traded that and all my games in to the local retro games store. The N64 and its games I just plain didn't want, so those too were traded in. The PSX and a copy of Tomb Raider were redundant, and so also got traded in. I won't miss the NES, and even if I did, Nintendo is putting out the NES Classic 30 games in 1 system later this year, anyway. I do plan on getting one of those.
The only system I kept was my SNES, and since I have a Super Famicom cart adapter, I used most of my trade-in credit on imported SFC games, including Brandish, Super Puyo Puyo, Nobunaga's Ambition, Star Ocean, Street Fighter II, and a Super Robot Taisen game. I also picked up the rare and much lauded Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen, as well as Super Mario All-Stars, which I had had as a kid, but traded in sometime in the past. My SNES/SFC collection also includes Final Fantasy II (US), Final Fantasy V (SFC import), Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger, Super Metroid, Super Mario World, Super Castlevania IV, and I may be forgetting something. I thought I still had The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Final Fantasy III (US), but apparently I did not.
I've been playing some of the first 4-5 Super Mario games, namely everything on the SNES Super Mario All-Stars and Super Mario World. What great games. Certainly not news to anyone reading this blog, but it should be stated, still. They're genius. My older daughter is just beginning to cut her teeth on these and other games, and they still make a great entry point to the hobby. Not that I'd push her into it or anything, but she naturally wants to try things she sees me do (for now; she's only five). It'd probably be for the best if she never got into gaming, at least not to the extent I have.
Anyway, Super Mario Bros. I have to say, I really prefer the 16-bit 're-masters' of the NES games. I like that there are backgrounds to SMB and The Lost Levels. Mia seems to like SMB3 for the world map, along with Super Mario World.
I am still playing World of Warcraft, though I haven't much over the last week or so, since I've been busy with the games to follow. I've decided to go for the exploration achievements, and already have them for base Azeroth, Outland, and Northrend, and I'm working on the Cataclysm zones while queuing for Cataclysm dungeons. I'm still level 86, and I hope to get through the rest of the Cataclysm Heroic dungeons before leveling out of them (if that happens; I'm still not sure).
Eisenhorn: Xenos came out last week, and is a video game adaptation of the novel, which I did greatly enjoy reading several years ago. Gregor Eisenhorn lives in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, and is an Inquisitor, which makes him a sort of government sanctioned Witcher. The game does a pretty good job at adapting the plot and atmosphere of the book, but falters at character development, especially outside of Eisenhorn himself, and unfortunately, having compelling play. What there is mostly consists of Devil May Cry-ish combat in which you use a combination of sword and pistol attacks and combos to kill bad guys. It's merely adequate; and kind of makes one wonder if interactive entertainment is the best target medium for an adaptation of the novel.
I'd always wanted a Mass Effect style adaptation, personally. I still think that would work better. Best, though, would be a 'further adventures of' game, similar to what CDPR did with The Witcher, which of course was also a beloved character taken from a
series of books. His games are not adapting the novels though; they're taking them as water under the bridge, and running from there, and giving the player agency in the story they tell. Eisenhorn: Xenos is ultimately a failure in this regard, though I applaud the effort. I wouldn't mind seeing the rest of the trilogy adapted as well, hopefully with the developer gaining expertise along the way. Maybe then we could eventually get the Witcher treatment for Eisenhorn.
Finally, No Man's Sky. I can't think of another game this year with so much hype behind it. I also can't think of another game that came out to such an apparently baffled audience (perhaps The Witness or Stephen's Sausage Roll counts). Even I was surprised at how NMS went wild of my expectations. I was expecting Elite: Dangerous for casuals. Instead, it's Minecraft in space for casuals who want less to do, and wish to fiddle around with a constrained inventory for hours. Maybe that sounds harsh. That's how I see it, though, and I happen to like the game. Well enough, anyhow. I'm twenty-something jumps into my journey, headed to my fourth Atlas Interface system. It's got a good, solid, if repetitive play loop. I find it pretty chill to play, and I'm enjoying the pulp sci-fi styling and ambient prog rock soundscape. I'm looking forward to getting better ships with more storage, and exploring worlds with more interesting features. I hear they get more wild as you near the center of the galaxy. I don't know if I'm headed that way or not, though.
The only system I kept was my SNES, and since I have a Super Famicom cart adapter, I used most of my trade-in credit on imported SFC games, including Brandish, Super Puyo Puyo, Nobunaga's Ambition, Star Ocean, Street Fighter II, and a Super Robot Taisen game. I also picked up the rare and much lauded Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen, as well as Super Mario All-Stars, which I had had as a kid, but traded in sometime in the past. My SNES/SFC collection also includes Final Fantasy II (US), Final Fantasy V (SFC import), Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger, Super Metroid, Super Mario World, Super Castlevania IV, and I may be forgetting something. I thought I still had The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Final Fantasy III (US), but apparently I did not.
I've been playing some of the first 4-5 Super Mario games, namely everything on the SNES Super Mario All-Stars and Super Mario World. What great games. Certainly not news to anyone reading this blog, but it should be stated, still. They're genius. My older daughter is just beginning to cut her teeth on these and other games, and they still make a great entry point to the hobby. Not that I'd push her into it or anything, but she naturally wants to try things she sees me do (for now; she's only five). It'd probably be for the best if she never got into gaming, at least not to the extent I have.
Anyway, Super Mario Bros. I have to say, I really prefer the 16-bit 're-masters' of the NES games. I like that there are backgrounds to SMB and The Lost Levels. Mia seems to like SMB3 for the world map, along with Super Mario World.
I am still playing World of Warcraft, though I haven't much over the last week or so, since I've been busy with the games to follow. I've decided to go for the exploration achievements, and already have them for base Azeroth, Outland, and Northrend, and I'm working on the Cataclysm zones while queuing for Cataclysm dungeons. I'm still level 86, and I hope to get through the rest of the Cataclysm Heroic dungeons before leveling out of them (if that happens; I'm still not sure).
Eisenhorn: Xenos came out last week, and is a video game adaptation of the novel, which I did greatly enjoy reading several years ago. Gregor Eisenhorn lives in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, and is an Inquisitor, which makes him a sort of government sanctioned Witcher. The game does a pretty good job at adapting the plot and atmosphere of the book, but falters at character development, especially outside of Eisenhorn himself, and unfortunately, having compelling play. What there is mostly consists of Devil May Cry-ish combat in which you use a combination of sword and pistol attacks and combos to kill bad guys. It's merely adequate; and kind of makes one wonder if interactive entertainment is the best target medium for an adaptation of the novel.
I'd always wanted a Mass Effect style adaptation, personally. I still think that would work better. Best, though, would be a 'further adventures of' game, similar to what CDPR did with The Witcher, which of course was also a beloved character taken from a
series of books. His games are not adapting the novels though; they're taking them as water under the bridge, and running from there, and giving the player agency in the story they tell. Eisenhorn: Xenos is ultimately a failure in this regard, though I applaud the effort. I wouldn't mind seeing the rest of the trilogy adapted as well, hopefully with the developer gaining expertise along the way. Maybe then we could eventually get the Witcher treatment for Eisenhorn.
Finally, No Man's Sky. I can't think of another game this year with so much hype behind it. I also can't think of another game that came out to such an apparently baffled audience (perhaps The Witness or Stephen's Sausage Roll counts). Even I was surprised at how NMS went wild of my expectations. I was expecting Elite: Dangerous for casuals. Instead, it's Minecraft in space for casuals who want less to do, and wish to fiddle around with a constrained inventory for hours. Maybe that sounds harsh. That's how I see it, though, and I happen to like the game. Well enough, anyhow. I'm twenty-something jumps into my journey, headed to my fourth Atlas Interface system. It's got a good, solid, if repetitive play loop. I find it pretty chill to play, and I'm enjoying the pulp sci-fi styling and ambient prog rock soundscape. I'm looking forward to getting better ships with more storage, and exploring worlds with more interesting features. I hear they get more wild as you near the center of the galaxy. I don't know if I'm headed that way or not, though.
Thursday, August 4, 2016
Worlds Fantastic and Gothic
I made it once through the entire alphabet in my backlog culling!
The Z game this time around was Zeno Clash, a Source engine first-person brawler in an outlandish fantasy setting that you might describe as iron age punk and tribal. It was surprisingly engrossing until the point where I hit an encounter that had multiple phases and lost it. I didn't want to repeat it. Brawlers have always been fleeting in terms of enjoyment.
I'll restart at the top of the alphabet soon.
Castlevania: Order of Ecclsia arrived in the mail recently. This may be the last DS game I ever buy. I only played a short portion of it so far, but I was surprised at how much higher the production values seemed than what I remember of the other handheld SotN-like Castlevanias of the GBA and DS libraries. I'll be popping into this game now and again whenever the bug strikes.
World of Warcraft wise, I've settled back into my Frost specialization after a brief stint as a Blood Death Knight, tanking. I wasn't prepared for the pressure of tanking the first time I'd set foot into many of these dungeons. I'd much rather take it easy and just be along for the ride as DPS. I'm at level 84, now, and running around the Cataclysm zones, and soon to move off to Pandaria after I hit 85. The content keeps getting better as I move from expansion to expansion, if not in enormous leaps and bounds. WoW is a fun RPG.
The Z game this time around was Zeno Clash, a Source engine first-person brawler in an outlandish fantasy setting that you might describe as iron age punk and tribal. It was surprisingly engrossing until the point where I hit an encounter that had multiple phases and lost it. I didn't want to repeat it. Brawlers have always been fleeting in terms of enjoyment.
I'll restart at the top of the alphabet soon.
Castlevania: Order of Ecclsia arrived in the mail recently. This may be the last DS game I ever buy. I only played a short portion of it so far, but I was surprised at how much higher the production values seemed than what I remember of the other handheld SotN-like Castlevanias of the GBA and DS libraries. I'll be popping into this game now and again whenever the bug strikes.
World of Warcraft wise, I've settled back into my Frost specialization after a brief stint as a Blood Death Knight, tanking. I wasn't prepared for the pressure of tanking the first time I'd set foot into many of these dungeons. I'd much rather take it easy and just be along for the ride as DPS. I'm at level 84, now, and running around the Cataclysm zones, and soon to move off to Pandaria after I hit 85. The content keeps getting better as I move from expansion to expansion, if not in enormous leaps and bounds. WoW is a fun RPG.
Thursday, July 21, 2016
Big Level 75!
WoW - I hit the big landmark level 75 with the Death Knight, Phoenixian, last night. In FFXI, that would actually be a big thing. WoW, however, will soon have a level cap of 110, so in fact I'm still just a no-name schlub working my way through Northrend quest by quest, zone by zone, dungeon by dungeon. I still find the problem of not needing all this runway to achieve my takeoff. I'm not even fully through two zones and I'm halfway through the Wrath leveling curve.
I guess I shouldn't complain; but if there's all this world out there to explore, and most of it is rapidly becoming rather pointless to do so in, I'd prefer to have some kind of guidance about what the best parts of it are. Maybe instead of just following the quest breadcrumbs around from place to place I should actually hoof it around the zones finding the most interesting or attractive locales, and then choosing to do the quest chains in those areas. It's not like I need to pay any attention to what the gear rewards are at this level. And anyway, running dungeons will keep me outfitted as well as I need to be.
This week saw the release of the big pre-Legion patch 7.0.3, which streamlined a lot of stuff including character attributes, specializations, and talents. The big impact for my Frost spec Death Knight is the loss of a few talents now siloed into the Blood and Unholy specs, the gain of a few new ones for Frost, and being forced into dual-wielding for as long as I remain thusly specialized.
I have no real end goal in mind for this game, other than perhaps getting to 100. At that point maybe I would go ahead and buy the expansion and carry on up to 110. I am still enjoying the game, though, so I suppose I'll continue on for now. I can see myself wrapping up Wrath content, or at least hitting 80 and moving on from it, at the very least.
Xenonauts - I decided to get back to the backlog thinning mission by playing a game whose title begins with an X. Xenonauts was a Kickstarter-funded game, one that I backed several years ago. It was an X-Com remake before Firaxis remade X-Com, and hews much, much closer to the original game than the official reboot. It's good, and well executed, but I think I prefer the more modern take. Even that one, though, doesn't hook me like it does other people. I put a couple of hours into this game before deciding that I'd seen enough. At least it's there in case I ever decide I do want to go back and play the original X-Com, but made more modern and user-friendly. It does stand well apart from the official reboot.
King of Dragon Pass - I'll mention this game because even though I play the iPad version, it does have a PC version which is pretty much the exact same game, as I understand it. KODP is a role-playing game in which you lead a tribe or clan of settlers newly relocated to the titular geographical area. You are a leader, and have to administer your people's hunting, farming, diplomacy, warmaking, religious practices, and so on. The object of the game is to survive and thrive for ten years and be made king. It plays out like a text adventure or Twine game, just menu after menu, choice after choice. It's interesting, and you can kind of pick it up or leave it at any point, like many Civ or grand strategy titles, with little or no commitment to the actual victory conditions.
I guess I shouldn't complain; but if there's all this world out there to explore, and most of it is rapidly becoming rather pointless to do so in, I'd prefer to have some kind of guidance about what the best parts of it are. Maybe instead of just following the quest breadcrumbs around from place to place I should actually hoof it around the zones finding the most interesting or attractive locales, and then choosing to do the quest chains in those areas. It's not like I need to pay any attention to what the gear rewards are at this level. And anyway, running dungeons will keep me outfitted as well as I need to be.
This week saw the release of the big pre-Legion patch 7.0.3, which streamlined a lot of stuff including character attributes, specializations, and talents. The big impact for my Frost spec Death Knight is the loss of a few talents now siloed into the Blood and Unholy specs, the gain of a few new ones for Frost, and being forced into dual-wielding for as long as I remain thusly specialized.
I have no real end goal in mind for this game, other than perhaps getting to 100. At that point maybe I would go ahead and buy the expansion and carry on up to 110. I am still enjoying the game, though, so I suppose I'll continue on for now. I can see myself wrapping up Wrath content, or at least hitting 80 and moving on from it, at the very least.
Xenonauts - I decided to get back to the backlog thinning mission by playing a game whose title begins with an X. Xenonauts was a Kickstarter-funded game, one that I backed several years ago. It was an X-Com remake before Firaxis remade X-Com, and hews much, much closer to the original game than the official reboot. It's good, and well executed, but I think I prefer the more modern take. Even that one, though, doesn't hook me like it does other people. I put a couple of hours into this game before deciding that I'd seen enough. At least it's there in case I ever decide I do want to go back and play the original X-Com, but made more modern and user-friendly. It does stand well apart from the official reboot.
King of Dragon Pass - I'll mention this game because even though I play the iPad version, it does have a PC version which is pretty much the exact same game, as I understand it. KODP is a role-playing game in which you lead a tribe or clan of settlers newly relocated to the titular geographical area. You are a leader, and have to administer your people's hunting, farming, diplomacy, warmaking, religious practices, and so on. The object of the game is to survive and thrive for ten years and be made king. It plays out like a text adventure or Twine game, just menu after menu, choice after choice. It's interesting, and you can kind of pick it up or leave it at any point, like many Civ or grand strategy titles, with little or no commitment to the actual victory conditions.
Tuesday, July 5, 2016
Out-leveling Outland
I've only played more World of Warcraft over the last week. It's nice and relaxing, which feels good in this relatively hectic time for me.
I've managed to hit level 67, only progressing very far into two zones of Outland so far, Hellfire Peninsula and Terrokar Forest. I finally had to ditch quests in the latter zone so I could move on and see more zones before over-leveling my character. I'm going to Nagrand next, which looks like a pretty nice place to grind out some XP.
I've been using the dungeon finder a lot, too, which is a pretty great addition to the game. Through its magic I'm able to see more places and more of Blizzard's encounter designs in the game with very little effort. A plus, in my book, and another factor contributing to making the game a relatively frictionless joy to play. I'm not too concerned with my gear, especially while leveling, but I have a few pieces found in dungeons that I wouldn't, otherwise.
I'm more interested in specializing my Death Knight appropriately. Frost is probably the spec most suited to my path-of-least-resistance play style, but I think I may want to change to Unholy going forward, which is probably more in keeping with my character Phoenixian's inspiration, the Phoenician, Fulgrim, Primarch of the III Legion Emperor's Children in the Horus Heresy. Then again, the Blood spec might align more with Fulgrim, and Unholy with Mortarion, Primarch of the XIV Legion Death Guard. Maybe I should go Blood; I'm not quite sure, yet.
How much longer with this tour through Azeroth last? I don't know!
I've managed to hit level 67, only progressing very far into two zones of Outland so far, Hellfire Peninsula and Terrokar Forest. I finally had to ditch quests in the latter zone so I could move on and see more zones before over-leveling my character. I'm going to Nagrand next, which looks like a pretty nice place to grind out some XP.
I've been using the dungeon finder a lot, too, which is a pretty great addition to the game. Through its magic I'm able to see more places and more of Blizzard's encounter designs in the game with very little effort. A plus, in my book, and another factor contributing to making the game a relatively frictionless joy to play. I'm not too concerned with my gear, especially while leveling, but I have a few pieces found in dungeons that I wouldn't, otherwise.
I'm more interested in specializing my Death Knight appropriately. Frost is probably the spec most suited to my path-of-least-resistance play style, but I think I may want to change to Unholy going forward, which is probably more in keeping with my character Phoenixian's inspiration, the Phoenician, Fulgrim, Primarch of the III Legion Emperor's Children in the Horus Heresy. Then again, the Blood spec might align more with Fulgrim, and Unholy with Mortarion, Primarch of the XIV Legion Death Guard. Maybe I should go Blood; I'm not quite sure, yet.
How much longer with this tour through Azeroth last? I don't know!
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