As promised, I have been working on my priority queue. I included Dark Souls on there more as an afterthought for the time being, but nevertheless I spent a few hours playing it over the past couple of weeks. Previously, playing the PS3 version, I had progressed up to the Capra Demon. Now, on the PC version, I have gotten past him and down into The Depths. This meant playing through the rest of The Undead Parish and defeating the twin gargoyles at the top, which didn't turn out to be too difficult with the help of a summoned NPC to distract them. The next boss, though, the Crapra Demon himself, took quite a bit more effort. I must have tried the fight 10 times before finally slaying the beast and being able to move down into the grim sewer areas that follow. I've made it a good way through them, finding the next bonfire and another door of white mist. That is where I left off, for now.
This weekend I loaded up Fallout 3 again, and polished off the Broken Steel DLC, and played through the Operation Anchorage DLC, as well. Broken Steel was the better of the two, offering some post-game narrative content on the scouring of the Capital Wasteland of the Enclave, along with an interesting choice of whether to rain down missiles on them, or to possibly take out Megaton, the Brotherhood of Steel, Project Purity, or Rivet City, instead. I am a big fan of the Brotherhood in the Fallout world, and less so of The Enclave, so I eliminated them, as a true Paladin of the Wastes would.
Operation Anchorage was, I guess, Bethesda trying to pull of a Call of Duty mission in Fallout 3. It didn't work out all that well, if I'm honest. I felt like I was playing a pretty average PS2 game, the kind entitled something like Conflict: Desert Storm that I used to rent in college. Kind of half-assed. From a world background narrative perspective, it wasn't that interesting, either. The Chinese invaded Alaska for oil, and that presumably sparked the nuclear war that left the world in the state it currently exists in in the Fallout universe. I'm not sure that is new information. In any case, it was a simulation authored by the general in command after the fact, so its veracity is in doubt, anyway.
I guess I'll do Point Lookout next.
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
A Memory of Light, Wheel of Time Finished
It feels odd to have finished the Wheel of Time. I believe it was Christmas of 1996 when I was given The Eye of the World by an aunt. I was fifteen, and I had always liked reading, and reading fantasy, as a kid, but had kind of fallen out of the habit in favor of playing SNES games and Magic: The Gathering in my free time. At 814 pages in paperback, it was the biggest book I'd ever considered tackling, and half of what made me give it a whirl was just the challenge of seeing if I could finish a book that long. I never imagined it would turn out to be fourteen volumes of a similar size and heft, or that I would read many of them twice or thrice over as the years wore on, in anticipation of the next volume being released.
Well, the final book has finally come and gone. Although--unbelievably--only two years have passed for the series' characters throughout all the tumult their world and their lives seen, it's been sixteen years for me. That is fully half my lifetime thus far. So now, to be done with the story, or at least to know how it all plays out, and to have lost some of those characters I know so well to their ultimate fates, and the rest to the end of the narrative, it just feels weird. Forgive the wordplay, but it's as if I closed the book on one chapter of my life.
The characters and the world of Robert Jordan (and to some extent, Brandon Sanderson's) Wheel of Time are to me what Tolkien's works are to many people, and to the world of fantasy fiction, in general. I read Jordan--extensively--long before I ever picked up The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit. Growing up in parallel to, if much faster than, Rand, Mat, Perrin, Egwene, and others always made the series resonate with me more than a lot of fiction, and a small part of me is sad that I'll never get another view into how their world and their lives are coming along.
They say endings are one of the hardest things to do in fiction, and I believe it, having seen so many seem to go up in smoke, even harming for many the quality of the work prior to the ending. I am fairly satisfied with the way The Wheel of Time ended up. With the series having gone on for so long, there was almost no chance of every little matter being wrapped up in a grand and superlative way. I feel like the way it ended was mostly appropriate and fulfilling, even if I have a bone or two to pick here and there. I'm looking forward to the series' capstone encyclopedia which is due out in a couple of years, and in several years, eventually introducing The Eye of the World to my daughter. Maybe she'll enjoy it as much as I have over the years. I wouldn't rule out re-reading the series again for myself at some point, either. It wouldn't be the first time.
Well, the final book has finally come and gone. Although--unbelievably--only two years have passed for the series' characters throughout all the tumult their world and their lives seen, it's been sixteen years for me. That is fully half my lifetime thus far. So now, to be done with the story, or at least to know how it all plays out, and to have lost some of those characters I know so well to their ultimate fates, and the rest to the end of the narrative, it just feels weird. Forgive the wordplay, but it's as if I closed the book on one chapter of my life.
The characters and the world of Robert Jordan (and to some extent, Brandon Sanderson's) Wheel of Time are to me what Tolkien's works are to many people, and to the world of fantasy fiction, in general. I read Jordan--extensively--long before I ever picked up The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit. Growing up in parallel to, if much faster than, Rand, Mat, Perrin, Egwene, and others always made the series resonate with me more than a lot of fiction, and a small part of me is sad that I'll never get another view into how their world and their lives are coming along.
They say endings are one of the hardest things to do in fiction, and I believe it, having seen so many seem to go up in smoke, even harming for many the quality of the work prior to the ending. I am fairly satisfied with the way The Wheel of Time ended up. With the series having gone on for so long, there was almost no chance of every little matter being wrapped up in a grand and superlative way. I feel like the way it ended was mostly appropriate and fulfilling, even if I have a bone or two to pick here and there. I'm looking forward to the series' capstone encyclopedia which is due out in a couple of years, and in several years, eventually introducing The Eye of the World to my daughter. Maybe she'll enjoy it as much as I have over the years. I wouldn't rule out re-reading the series again for myself at some point, either. It wouldn't be the first time.
Thursday, January 10, 2013
A Priority Queue
I have a lot of games that I want to finish; that is a given. There are a small handful that I feel that are a bit more urgent, and that I want to really focus on due to imminent sequels and/or sequel announcements, but also because I feel particularly behind, here. This is what I have been thinking of over the last couple of weeks as my priority queue:
Half-Life 2 and its related games Lost Coast, Episode 1, and Episode 2
Starcraft: Brood War and Starcraft II
Fallout 3 DLC and Fallout: New Vegas
Dark Souls
These are the most pressing, I feel, and followed at a little bit of a distance by the next tier of stuff including Halo 4, Red Dead Redemption, the Company of Heroes games, and others I won't start trying to pick out just yet.
I want to hone in my focus to these games to relatively quickly address each of them. Realistically speaking, I would be happy to polish off each of them by the end of the year; or by the end of summer if I am lucky.
I did just wrap up one loose end, my Inferno difficulty run of Diablo III on my now wizened (level 3 paragon!) wizard. The spirit moved me, though, and I had to create a new character, a barbarian this time, and play just a little bit of his eventual run up to level 60. Of course, I also enjoy a dip into Dota 2 (I've been playing Mirana and Slardar lately) or what have you (SpaceChem), as well, so there will always be more competing for my time.
Paramount among my leisure time activities for the moment, though, is the final volume of the Wheel of Time series, A Memory of Light. I'm about 250/900s of the way in right now, and it's been very action-packed thus far, especially by the standards of this often slow series. There are a thousand and one disparate threads still needing to be woven back together before the ending, so I don't see the pace letting up much. It's a sprint to the finish line, which is nice, because for a while there during the middle of the race it felt like the runner had lain down for a nap. We've long been told that not everything will be wrapped up in a nice, neat little bow at the series' end; I just hope nothing too major is left unexplained. Open-ended is fine, but if we somehow got through the entire series not knowing just what the hell Demandred was up to, that would be quite a disappointment. It's bad enough we never saw more of the world outside of the main kingdoms and the Aiel Waste. I always wanted the story to visit Shara or the Island of the Madmen as shown in the "Big White Book" series encyclopedia released so long ago.
Half-Life 2 and its related games Lost Coast, Episode 1, and Episode 2
Starcraft: Brood War and Starcraft II
Fallout 3 DLC and Fallout: New Vegas
Dark Souls
These are the most pressing, I feel, and followed at a little bit of a distance by the next tier of stuff including Halo 4, Red Dead Redemption, the Company of Heroes games, and others I won't start trying to pick out just yet.
I want to hone in my focus to these games to relatively quickly address each of them. Realistically speaking, I would be happy to polish off each of them by the end of the year; or by the end of summer if I am lucky.
I did just wrap up one loose end, my Inferno difficulty run of Diablo III on my now wizened (level 3 paragon!) wizard. The spirit moved me, though, and I had to create a new character, a barbarian this time, and play just a little bit of his eventual run up to level 60. Of course, I also enjoy a dip into Dota 2 (I've been playing Mirana and Slardar lately) or what have you (SpaceChem), as well, so there will always be more competing for my time.
Paramount among my leisure time activities for the moment, though, is the final volume of the Wheel of Time series, A Memory of Light. I'm about 250/900s of the way in right now, and it's been very action-packed thus far, especially by the standards of this often slow series. There are a thousand and one disparate threads still needing to be woven back together before the ending, so I don't see the pace letting up much. It's a sprint to the finish line, which is nice, because for a while there during the middle of the race it felt like the runner had lain down for a nap. We've long been told that not everything will be wrapped up in a nice, neat little bow at the series' end; I just hope nothing too major is left unexplained. Open-ended is fine, but if we somehow got through the entire series not knowing just what the hell Demandred was up to, that would be quite a disappointment. It's bad enough we never saw more of the world outside of the main kingdoms and the Aiel Waste. I always wanted the story to visit Shara or the Island of the Madmen as shown in the "Big White Book" series encyclopedia released so long ago.
Saturday, January 5, 2013
Pariah Done
I just finished reading Dan Abnett's Pariah, the first in the Bequin trilogy, which is itself the author's third trilogy about the Warhammer 40,000 universe's Inquisition. It is billed a titanic conflict between the legendary inquisitors Gregor Eisenhorn and Gideon Ravenor, both of which have tended to go rogue and take whatever measures they deemed necessary to accomplish their goals of rooting out heretics to the Imperium.
Who is in the right thus far in this conflict is far from clear. Much of the action in Pariah is setting the stage and establishing the motivations of each Inquisitor and their respective retinues, primarily by way of introducing us to one Alizabeth Bequin, a character at once familiar but strange to readers of the Eisenhorn trilogy. Writing much more would spoil a lot of the fun. Suffice it to say, if you have read the Eisenhorn and Ravenor books, you'll want to read this one, as well.
And if you haven't read Eisenhorn and Ravenor, that's actually ok, too, for the purposes of enjoying Pariah--but take my word for it, you should go read those two preceding trilogies. They are really great sci-fi renegade detective stories, tons of fun, and exist really quite apart from the Space Marines-focused galactic war stories of the rest of the universe.
Who is in the right thus far in this conflict is far from clear. Much of the action in Pariah is setting the stage and establishing the motivations of each Inquisitor and their respective retinues, primarily by way of introducing us to one Alizabeth Bequin, a character at once familiar but strange to readers of the Eisenhorn trilogy. Writing much more would spoil a lot of the fun. Suffice it to say, if you have read the Eisenhorn and Ravenor books, you'll want to read this one, as well.
And if you haven't read Eisenhorn and Ravenor, that's actually ok, too, for the purposes of enjoying Pariah--but take my word for it, you should go read those two preceding trilogies. They are really great sci-fi renegade detective stories, tons of fun, and exist really quite apart from the Space Marines-focused galactic war stories of the rest of the universe.
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
2012 Game Of The Year & Recap
Another year has come and gone, but the world keeps turning, and players keep gaming. This year saw me grapple with two titans of gaming, logging well over 150+ hours with each, even discounting time spent AFK or spectating or browsing the in-game store or auction house. What, pray tell, could those games be?
My Game of 2012: Dota 2
Runner-Up: Diablo III
My Game of 2012: Dota 2
Runner-Up: Diablo III
Of course, anyone reading this blog over the past year or listening to Call Of Podcast would probably have been able to guess one or the both of those. Neither should really come as much surprise, if I haven't had much to say about Diablo since putting it on a back burner in August.
The real surprise to me, personally, has been just how deep Dota 2 has gotten its hooks into me. It's about as deep as my personal life these days (full-time job, child, spouse, etc.) will allow for the sort of thing to happen. It's nothing like what it might have been like during the days when I could binge on FFXI for entirely self-destructive amounts of time; it's a more responsible admiration as opposed to an outright addiction or obsession. I also harbor no delusions of grandeur; I will never be a great player of Dota 2, but I can try to at least be decent at it, and as long as I feel like I'm doing well in-game, playing it is high in the ranks of satisfying experiences I've had with video games. So, bravo Valve, Icefrog, the Warcraft III modding community, Blizzard, and everyone else who had a hand in bringing the game to be over the years. It's heady stuff.
If not for that game, Diablo III would easily have taken the top spot. I've had a blast with it. It's not Diablo II, and it's not Diablo, either--it's something new and modernized, and for me, it works. It works very, very well.
Past years' picks, for reference:
2011: The Witcher 2/SpaceChem
2010: Mass Effect 2/Castlevania: Lords of Shadow
2009: Demon's Souls/Red Faction: Guerilla
2008: Metal Gear Solid 4/Gears of War 2
2007: BioShock/Halo 3
And as for the progress on the backlog? Well, here are the games (liberally defined) I finished this year:
BioShock 2
The real surprise to me, personally, has been just how deep Dota 2 has gotten its hooks into me. It's about as deep as my personal life these days (full-time job, child, spouse, etc.) will allow for the sort of thing to happen. It's nothing like what it might have been like during the days when I could binge on FFXI for entirely self-destructive amounts of time; it's a more responsible admiration as opposed to an outright addiction or obsession. I also harbor no delusions of grandeur; I will never be a great player of Dota 2, but I can try to at least be decent at it, and as long as I feel like I'm doing well in-game, playing it is high in the ranks of satisfying experiences I've had with video games. So, bravo Valve, Icefrog, the Warcraft III modding community, Blizzard, and everyone else who had a hand in bringing the game to be over the years. It's heady stuff.
If not for that game, Diablo III would easily have taken the top spot. I've had a blast with it. It's not Diablo II, and it's not Diablo, either--it's something new and modernized, and for me, it works. It works very, very well.
Past years' picks, for reference:
2011: The Witcher 2/SpaceChem
2010: Mass Effect 2/Castlevania: Lords of Shadow
2009: Demon's Souls/Red Faction: Guerilla
2008: Metal Gear Solid 4/Gears of War 2
2007: BioShock/Halo 3
And as for the progress on the backlog? Well, here are the games (liberally defined) I finished this year:
BioShock 2
Minerva's Den
Max Payne
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Trine
Legend of Grimrock
Diablo III
Diablo III (Nightmare)
Diablo III (Hell)
The Walking Dead Ep. 1
Thirty Flights of Loving
The Walking Dead Ep. 2
Moon Base Alpha
NightSky
Diablo II
The Walking Dead Ep. 3
Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising
The Walking Dead Ep. 4
Dishonored
Darksiders
Fallout 3
The Walking Dead Ep. 5
Assassin's Creed III
23, all told.
Past years' totals:
2011:21
2010:23
2009:19
2008:26
2007:15
The backlog is as big as its ever been, it seems. This time last year I was planning on a 2 out, 1 in completion policy. I amended that later to straight 1 out, 1 in, and then decided that books knocked off the booklog would also count as 1 out. That may be lenient, but I'll stick with it for now. There is the additional guideline of not buying a game unless I want to play it right away, which seems to have been successful, recently. Looking at the Pile o' Shame now, I'm not sure that it'll ever get back under control, or how to tackle it. I could resurrect the Resolution idea of trying something new each week, but that sounds like homework, to be honest, and not very attractive.
I don't have a New Year's Resolution of any type at the moment, really, other than the same stuff as every year--try to be fit, eat healthy, read more, write more, etc. Perhaps I'll add to that to try to play more games from the backlog. We'll see how that goes.
Oh, can't forget the Booklog! I finished one book since beginning the initiative recently:
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
There are still plenty of titles on that pile, as well.
Happy New Year, everyone, and game on!
Monday, December 31, 2012
Assassin's Excess
When I've been playing games over the last couple of weeks, it's been mostly Assassin's Creed III. I've put in nearly 50 hours according to Steam, with some of that spent AFK. I have played a lot of this game, and I'm here with some more thoughts.
I finished up the main story stuff yesterday after mostly taking it on at a leisurely pace. I like to wander around and see what there is in the world and try all the various things at least once or twice. I also have a compulsion to collect every collectable and see every little bit of content, no matter how slight. There's a hell of a lot of that stuff in every Assassin's Creed game, but they've really gone overboard with III.
On the one hand, I want to applaud Ubisoft for packing a game so full of stuff to do, but on the other I think they really need to sit down and have a think about just how much goes into one of these mammoth titles, and see if maybe they can't pare it down to just the great stuff. Then maybe they could use the extra resources to tighten up the core gameplay, which has a lot of rumpled, saggy bits to it.
Jumping back into the game after finishing it last night, I stumbled upon some interesting post-game stuff that serves as a slight hint at the future direction of the series while also giving you the keys to hack the animus, activating cheats to let you go wild in the open world. These are neat features, as are the myriad of little vignette missions you can do around your homestead in the game, as are the very well done naval missions, et cetera.
Not all of the side stuff is of the shallow collect-athon mold, but much of it is, unfortunately. Some seems to serve no purpose whatsoever--what are the underground tunnel networks all about? They're completely redundant because the game lets you fast travel to and from enough locations on the maps that it would take tens of times longer to go through the tunnels, and there's nothing down there anyway! Near as I can tell, all they do is link one spot in the city to another. There are a couple of missions in the game where you go through them, but that's no reason to actually build out and include the whole network, is it?
I know these games sell a whole lot, but I can't help but think even so there is a lot of wasted time and energy going into them. I love that Ubisoft is throwing incredible amounts of time and money at them, but maybe that's not really all that necessary. With some logistical optimization during development, I think we could all see a much leaner, meaner, Assassin's Creed, and maybe even free up some people to finally get Beyond Good & Evil 2 out the door, huh?
That rant out of the way, I just want to say that I love this game. I'm a big fan of the series, but it has never looked this good or had anything like the rugged nature of the homestead or frontier areas III does. The naval stuff has been a huge surprise. Hearing about its inclusion, I groaned on the inside thinking it would be just more tacked-on bloat, but it is really well done and pretty exciting, if simplistic. I wouldn't mind seeing it fleshed out into its own game about naval warfare and ships-o-the-line. The Revolutionary America setting doesn't really do any more or less for me than prior settings in terms of historical happenings, but I do really like the countryside, as I mentioned, and it is cool to play as a Native American and at least see some mind paid to what they went through during the period. The game's inverse Raiden, a chap by the name of Haytham Kenway, is actually a more interesting character than Connor himself, and really benefits the story when he's around during the latter parts of the story, as well.
All in all, I've been pretty happy with Assassin's Creed III. It is certainly not the disappointment to me that it seems to have been to some. With the audience this series has, though, there's no hope for pleasing everybody. It's had a rough time in the gaming scene partially, I think, due to it being the fifth game in the series, and fourth in four years. If you're a person who keeps current with games, that's a hell of a lot of this formula in a short amount of time. We're due for a break, whether its just so they can make the game for next-gen consoles, or so that they can go back to the drawing board for whatever's next. I fear there will be no break, though, and we'll be right back here next year, like we were last year.
I finished up the main story stuff yesterday after mostly taking it on at a leisurely pace. I like to wander around and see what there is in the world and try all the various things at least once or twice. I also have a compulsion to collect every collectable and see every little bit of content, no matter how slight. There's a hell of a lot of that stuff in every Assassin's Creed game, but they've really gone overboard with III.
On the one hand, I want to applaud Ubisoft for packing a game so full of stuff to do, but on the other I think they really need to sit down and have a think about just how much goes into one of these mammoth titles, and see if maybe they can't pare it down to just the great stuff. Then maybe they could use the extra resources to tighten up the core gameplay, which has a lot of rumpled, saggy bits to it.
Jumping back into the game after finishing it last night, I stumbled upon some interesting post-game stuff that serves as a slight hint at the future direction of the series while also giving you the keys to hack the animus, activating cheats to let you go wild in the open world. These are neat features, as are the myriad of little vignette missions you can do around your homestead in the game, as are the very well done naval missions, et cetera.
Not all of the side stuff is of the shallow collect-athon mold, but much of it is, unfortunately. Some seems to serve no purpose whatsoever--what are the underground tunnel networks all about? They're completely redundant because the game lets you fast travel to and from enough locations on the maps that it would take tens of times longer to go through the tunnels, and there's nothing down there anyway! Near as I can tell, all they do is link one spot in the city to another. There are a couple of missions in the game where you go through them, but that's no reason to actually build out and include the whole network, is it?
I know these games sell a whole lot, but I can't help but think even so there is a lot of wasted time and energy going into them. I love that Ubisoft is throwing incredible amounts of time and money at them, but maybe that's not really all that necessary. With some logistical optimization during development, I think we could all see a much leaner, meaner, Assassin's Creed, and maybe even free up some people to finally get Beyond Good & Evil 2 out the door, huh?
That rant out of the way, I just want to say that I love this game. I'm a big fan of the series, but it has never looked this good or had anything like the rugged nature of the homestead or frontier areas III does. The naval stuff has been a huge surprise. Hearing about its inclusion, I groaned on the inside thinking it would be just more tacked-on bloat, but it is really well done and pretty exciting, if simplistic. I wouldn't mind seeing it fleshed out into its own game about naval warfare and ships-o-the-line. The Revolutionary America setting doesn't really do any more or less for me than prior settings in terms of historical happenings, but I do really like the countryside, as I mentioned, and it is cool to play as a Native American and at least see some mind paid to what they went through during the period. The game's inverse Raiden, a chap by the name of Haytham Kenway, is actually a more interesting character than Connor himself, and really benefits the story when he's around during the latter parts of the story, as well.
All in all, I've been pretty happy with Assassin's Creed III. It is certainly not the disappointment to me that it seems to have been to some. With the audience this series has, though, there's no hope for pleasing everybody. It's had a rough time in the gaming scene partially, I think, due to it being the fifth game in the series, and fourth in four years. If you're a person who keeps current with games, that's a hell of a lot of this formula in a short amount of time. We're due for a break, whether its just so they can make the game for next-gen consoles, or so that they can go back to the drawing board for whatever's next. I fear there will be no break, though, and we'll be right back here next year, like we were last year.
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Cloud Atlas, Pariah
I finally finished up David Mitchell's novel Cloud Atlas the other day. You might know it as the basis for a movie that recently came out. It's fairly interesting and unique as far as non-genre fiction goes. The book tells six stories of six sets of characters in six timelines in a Russian nesting doll fashion. The first tale set in the late 1800's in the South Pacific is interrupted midway through by the second, which is interrupted midway through by the third, and so on, until the middle of the book, where the sixth story is told in its entirety, and then all the others are closed out in reverse order, as well. The stories are linked in various ways, and the idea is that there is one soul consistent in each time period, being reincarnated time and again.
I think my favorite aspect of the book was just how completely different each story section was from the last, in terms of prose style, genre, and setting, especially. The overall themes of each story are consistent, though, and basically boil down to the fact that people are bad and tend to hurt one another. There's a glimmer of hope in each scenario for the future, but by and large the central idea seems to be that life is suffering. I guess that's literature for you.
I'm on to something a little more fun, if not much more hopeful, in Dan Abnett's newest Warhammer 40,000 novel about the Inquisition, which happens to be the first book in the last of a trilogy of trilogies, called Pariah. The main character is known to readers of the Eisenhorn trilogy as Alizabeth Bequin. It opens with her being raised in a special school for a special type of person in a city called Queen Mab. It's intriguing, so far. Abnett is a great writer, and Black Library, the publishing arm of Games Workshop, who makes the Warhammer 40,000 games and curates the license, is lucky to have him enriching their fantasy universes.
I think my favorite aspect of the book was just how completely different each story section was from the last, in terms of prose style, genre, and setting, especially. The overall themes of each story are consistent, though, and basically boil down to the fact that people are bad and tend to hurt one another. There's a glimmer of hope in each scenario for the future, but by and large the central idea seems to be that life is suffering. I guess that's literature for you.
I'm on to something a little more fun, if not much more hopeful, in Dan Abnett's newest Warhammer 40,000 novel about the Inquisition, which happens to be the first book in the last of a trilogy of trilogies, called Pariah. The main character is known to readers of the Eisenhorn trilogy as Alizabeth Bequin. It opens with her being raised in a special school for a special type of person in a city called Queen Mab. It's intriguing, so far. Abnett is a great writer, and Black Library, the publishing arm of Games Workshop, who makes the Warhammer 40,000 games and curates the license, is lucky to have him enriching their fantasy universes.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
The Quick And The Dead
You want reflexes like a jackrabbit and aim like a NASA engineer launching a Mars rover if you're going to be playing either Counter-Strike or Hotline Miami.
I bought into the newest iteration of Valve's classic competitive shooter, CS GO, because it's a simple, quick, no-frills affair that is easy to jump in and out of whenever the mood for a bit of tactical combat strikes. It was also on sale for $7.50, and I couldn't pass that up. I've only played a few short hours of CS: Source, but that along with my brief time with the CS GO beta let me know I'd have fun with the game. And fun it is, if a bit bewildering at times. There are people playing who are amazingly good at the game and will just dominate any match they play. I am not one of those people. I am usually last or second to last in the score rankings.
The Arms Race (AKA Gun Game) mode is the definition of a light-hearted romp in a FPS setting, and classic Counter-Strike modes like Demolition are also here with their discrete rounds. What I like about CS is that it is so immediate. I enjoy Battlefield, but sometimes I want to just jump right into the action without having to find it or find transportation to it, or even deal with vehicles even being a part of the equation. CS is great for a quick 15 or 20 minute hit of FPS play.
Hotline Miami is something else, entirely, if its demands for speed and precision are much like CS's. People make the comparison to the first few GTA games, before that series went 3D, but a bigger point of reference to me is the NES Mission Impossible. That game had the same top-down perspective, and much like Hotline Miami, was incredibly difficult. That said, the game is pretty fun, and I suspect has some surprises in store further in. Some kind of trippy plot is developing between my contract-killer's murderous jobs. It is kind of reminiscent of Drive, though even more sinister, and with an even nastier soundtrack. I like it.
I bought into the newest iteration of Valve's classic competitive shooter, CS GO, because it's a simple, quick, no-frills affair that is easy to jump in and out of whenever the mood for a bit of tactical combat strikes. It was also on sale for $7.50, and I couldn't pass that up. I've only played a few short hours of CS: Source, but that along with my brief time with the CS GO beta let me know I'd have fun with the game. And fun it is, if a bit bewildering at times. There are people playing who are amazingly good at the game and will just dominate any match they play. I am not one of those people. I am usually last or second to last in the score rankings.
The Arms Race (AKA Gun Game) mode is the definition of a light-hearted romp in a FPS setting, and classic Counter-Strike modes like Demolition are also here with their discrete rounds. What I like about CS is that it is so immediate. I enjoy Battlefield, but sometimes I want to just jump right into the action without having to find it or find transportation to it, or even deal with vehicles even being a part of the equation. CS is great for a quick 15 or 20 minute hit of FPS play.
Hotline Miami is something else, entirely, if its demands for speed and precision are much like CS's. People make the comparison to the first few GTA games, before that series went 3D, but a bigger point of reference to me is the NES Mission Impossible. That game had the same top-down perspective, and much like Hotline Miami, was incredibly difficult. That said, the game is pretty fun, and I suspect has some surprises in store further in. Some kind of trippy plot is developing between my contract-killer's murderous jobs. It is kind of reminiscent of Drive, though even more sinister, and with an even nastier soundtrack. I like it.
Friday, December 14, 2012
Now Is The Winter of Our Downloadable Content
A glance at my Steam profile confirms that most of my game time over the past couple of weeks has been split between Assassin's Creed III and STALKER: Clear Sky.
AC3 is good, though all of the usual nitpicks apply. As always, it is supremely ambitious, at times seeming to bite off more than it can competently chew. As has been the norm, though, I still enjoy playing it, warts and all. I've been taking this one at a slower, steadier pace than I did the Ezio trilogy. As I recall, I played the first game in the series in a similar fashion; coming to it here and there, I let the plot points and setting changes the series is so fond of percolate for a bit before moving on. Even with the dreaded 12/21/12 approaching both in-world and IRL, I feel no rush to blitz through this iteration. I'd rather hit it leisurely and not stress the well-worn mechanics so hard. I wonder what Ubisoft's future plans are for the series, and whether they're going to continue putting them out at the breakneck pace they have been. It seems riskier and riskier every time, and at least with media types, they seem to have come very close to disaster this year. For what it's worth, I think the series ambition and devotion to offering unique and interesting settings and conflicts are more than worth overlooking some sloppiness, provided they don't let it get too out of hand.
Speaking of games released in a bit of a sloppy state that hide unique and compelling qualities, I've been playing more S.T.A.L.K.E.R.!
Clear Sky is the second in the trilogy, and widely regarded as the red-headed stepchild of the bunch. At release there were a number of issues with the game causing it to be excruciatingly difficult or even outright unfair, to hear it told by game reviewers. That, dear reader, is why you should be glad that we live in a world where enterprising fans have taken it upon themselves to compile the series of Complete mods for the Stalker series. Don't enter the Zone without them! In addition to fixing bugs and altering mechanics to make the games more firm-but-fair than outright broken, they also implement a number of graphical enhancements and in places even restore content cut from the original releases. I played Shadow of Chernobyl with the Complete mod from the word go, and I'm doing the same with Clear Sky, and I'm happy to report that I'm having nothing but a great time in the bleak, desolate, and unwelcoming Chernobyl exclusion zone.
There is simply no other series that does what the Stalker games do. The closest analogues I can think of would be Far Cry 2 and Fallout 3 (and perhaps their sequels), though neither of those could really be considered similar beyond superficial features. The Stalker series offers up an engaging mix of survivalist scavenging, treasure hunting, FPS action, faction-based warfare, mysterious supernatural phenomena, and horror in a world that is at once more hostile and vital than any other in gaming.
In Clear Sky, you play a stalker called Scar who, after surviving an unprecedented blast of energy out of nowhere, wakes up in the care of a faction of stalkers called Clear Sky, who are devoted to the careful scientific study of the supernatural happenings in the Zone. You know only that you need to track down a group of other stalkers who are rumored to have made their way to the center of the Zone, and who are probably at the heart of why it has been acting so erratic lately. If that sounds like personification of the Zone, that is because that is precisely what is going on, here. The men of Clear Sky think that the Zone is acting, through seemingly random emissions of power capable of frying anyone else, to protect whatever is at its core. And off you go.
If you've played the first game, you know who it was that made it to the center of the Zone, and what they found there. Clear Sky is actually a prequel to the events of Shadow of Chernobyl, and runs concurrent to Strelok and his group's trip past the Brain Scorcher that leads into the first game.
I'm about 10 hours in, as of this writing, hot on the trail of a stalker called Fang, one of Strelok's group, looking for answers. I can hardly wait to play more. So far I've seen a lot of the same areas of the Zone as in the first game, with the exception of the starting area, the swamps. From there the game moves on to the cordon, the garbage, and the dark valley. I think there are a couple of other new areas later on, too.
Clear Sky introduces a faction warfare system, so now you can join the groups of stalkers like Duty, Freedom, Clear Sky, and others, though I haven't really been compelled to do so, just yet. I've fought alongside a couple of them, but only to my own ends, thus far. This game also introduces a weapon upgrade system, which is cool, but sadly takes away the global stalker rating system SoC had. In that game, a list was kept of every stalker NPC in the game, and your stats, as you played, measured up against them. It was artificial, but cool nonetheless.
AC3 is good, though all of the usual nitpicks apply. As always, it is supremely ambitious, at times seeming to bite off more than it can competently chew. As has been the norm, though, I still enjoy playing it, warts and all. I've been taking this one at a slower, steadier pace than I did the Ezio trilogy. As I recall, I played the first game in the series in a similar fashion; coming to it here and there, I let the plot points and setting changes the series is so fond of percolate for a bit before moving on. Even with the dreaded 12/21/12 approaching both in-world and IRL, I feel no rush to blitz through this iteration. I'd rather hit it leisurely and not stress the well-worn mechanics so hard. I wonder what Ubisoft's future plans are for the series, and whether they're going to continue putting them out at the breakneck pace they have been. It seems riskier and riskier every time, and at least with media types, they seem to have come very close to disaster this year. For what it's worth, I think the series ambition and devotion to offering unique and interesting settings and conflicts are more than worth overlooking some sloppiness, provided they don't let it get too out of hand.
Speaking of games released in a bit of a sloppy state that hide unique and compelling qualities, I've been playing more S.T.A.L.K.E.R.!
Clear Sky is the second in the trilogy, and widely regarded as the red-headed stepchild of the bunch. At release there were a number of issues with the game causing it to be excruciatingly difficult or even outright unfair, to hear it told by game reviewers. That, dear reader, is why you should be glad that we live in a world where enterprising fans have taken it upon themselves to compile the series of Complete mods for the Stalker series. Don't enter the Zone without them! In addition to fixing bugs and altering mechanics to make the games more firm-but-fair than outright broken, they also implement a number of graphical enhancements and in places even restore content cut from the original releases. I played Shadow of Chernobyl with the Complete mod from the word go, and I'm doing the same with Clear Sky, and I'm happy to report that I'm having nothing but a great time in the bleak, desolate, and unwelcoming Chernobyl exclusion zone.
There is simply no other series that does what the Stalker games do. The closest analogues I can think of would be Far Cry 2 and Fallout 3 (and perhaps their sequels), though neither of those could really be considered similar beyond superficial features. The Stalker series offers up an engaging mix of survivalist scavenging, treasure hunting, FPS action, faction-based warfare, mysterious supernatural phenomena, and horror in a world that is at once more hostile and vital than any other in gaming.
In Clear Sky, you play a stalker called Scar who, after surviving an unprecedented blast of energy out of nowhere, wakes up in the care of a faction of stalkers called Clear Sky, who are devoted to the careful scientific study of the supernatural happenings in the Zone. You know only that you need to track down a group of other stalkers who are rumored to have made their way to the center of the Zone, and who are probably at the heart of why it has been acting so erratic lately. If that sounds like personification of the Zone, that is because that is precisely what is going on, here. The men of Clear Sky think that the Zone is acting, through seemingly random emissions of power capable of frying anyone else, to protect whatever is at its core. And off you go.
If you've played the first game, you know who it was that made it to the center of the Zone, and what they found there. Clear Sky is actually a prequel to the events of Shadow of Chernobyl, and runs concurrent to Strelok and his group's trip past the Brain Scorcher that leads into the first game.
I'm about 10 hours in, as of this writing, hot on the trail of a stalker called Fang, one of Strelok's group, looking for answers. I can hardly wait to play more. So far I've seen a lot of the same areas of the Zone as in the first game, with the exception of the starting area, the swamps. From there the game moves on to the cordon, the garbage, and the dark valley. I think there are a couple of other new areas later on, too.
Clear Sky introduces a faction warfare system, so now you can join the groups of stalkers like Duty, Freedom, Clear Sky, and others, though I haven't really been compelled to do so, just yet. I've fought alongside a couple of them, but only to my own ends, thus far. This game also introduces a weapon upgrade system, which is cool, but sadly takes away the global stalker rating system SoC had. In that game, a list was kept of every stalker NPC in the game, and your stats, as you played, measured up against them. It was artificial, but cool nonetheless.
Monday, December 3, 2012
Booklog
I've been a reader as long as I've been a gamer. I picked up both habits right around the same time, as a matter of fact. These days, I'm sad to say, I don't make as much time for reading as I'd like to. As you might guess from reading this blog, the majority of my leisure time is spent gaming. This, combined with a thirst for fiction almost as great as my thirst for games, has over the last few years resulted in a backlog of books (both fiction and non-fiction) that, while not nearly as extensive as my gaming backlog, still represents a titanic amount of time to tackle. That is why I have decided to begin tracking my book backlog on this blog in tandem with my gaming.
Considering the name of this blog is a reference to a book and not a game, I'm not sure why the thought hasn't occurred to me until just now, but there you have it. I'm going to reward myself with a completion token (for use in buying more games, naturally) every time I finish a book. I don't feel the need to spend tokens when I buy books, because a) I don't buy them that often, b) I'm worried about neither the money spent on books, nor the amount of them lying around untouched, and c) I think reading is a wonderful thing, and should never be discouraged in any form or fashion, nor should enthusiasm relating to it (i.e., the purchase of books).
Right now I'm slogging (more as a function of how rarely I sit down to read than a commentary on the quality of the book) through Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. It's good! I need to finish it; I've been reading it for a couple of months now, probably, and I want to move on to something else. When I do, I'll write something up about it. For now, I'm going to add a list to the sidebar here of books on my Booklog, and then go read for a while (before coming back to the computer to play a game, no doubt, before the night is out).
Considering the name of this blog is a reference to a book and not a game, I'm not sure why the thought hasn't occurred to me until just now, but there you have it. I'm going to reward myself with a completion token (for use in buying more games, naturally) every time I finish a book. I don't feel the need to spend tokens when I buy books, because a) I don't buy them that often, b) I'm worried about neither the money spent on books, nor the amount of them lying around untouched, and c) I think reading is a wonderful thing, and should never be discouraged in any form or fashion, nor should enthusiasm relating to it (i.e., the purchase of books).
Right now I'm slogging (more as a function of how rarely I sit down to read than a commentary on the quality of the book) through Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. It's good! I need to finish it; I've been reading it for a couple of months now, probably, and I want to move on to something else. When I do, I'll write something up about it. For now, I'm going to add a list to the sidebar here of books on my Booklog, and then go read for a while (before coming back to the computer to play a game, no doubt, before the night is out).
Sunday, November 25, 2012
No Thanksgaming
It's Thanksgiving time in the US, and I'm out of town, resulting in slim to no game playing on my part. In the last couple of weeks before this trip though, I logged some time on a few games.
I played a smidge of Dirt 2 on a whim, mainly because it's such a pretty game with such beautiful weather in all the locations you race in. I like rally racing because of the locales you drive through. It's a shame I have no clue how to control a rally car at speeds above about 30 mph, though.
I've begun XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and while its quality is plain to see, I haven't given myself completely over to it, just yet. I've been playing a mission at a time, just here and there. I decided on Ironman mode right off the bat, because I think the permanence of consequence makes the game much more interesting. I felt kind of shameful about reloading a lot playing X-Com classic, and I wish I had played Ironman-style in that game, too. I'm not looking at it as a game to beat ASAP, but rather as an experience to enjoy long-term.
Dark Souls will probably turn out to be another long-term game for me. I'm not in any rush to finish it; that would probably hurt the appeal of the game for me. No, I'd rather inch through it little by little as time and impetus allow. I had to restart my game on the PC, since I'd put in around 8 or 10 hours on the PS3, previously. Despite already retracing all my old steps and decisions, I opted to keep rolling with a Knight over any other class. I feel like all the rest would focus more on agility and dodging, and what I want is to be able to stand toe-to-toe with the biggest and baddest the game has to throw at me. I played Demon's Souls as a roll-reliant Wanderer, and I'd rather go heavy this time around.
I spent the majority of the last few weeks' game time on Fallout 3. As a matter of fact, I plowed right through the game's main quest line and had completed it before I even realized it was over. I'm not sure what that says about the game, but I have been enjoying it quite a bit. It's not Fallout 1 or 2, but it's good. I'm in the middle of the proper post-game DLC, Broken Steel, right now, and I'm also going to play the rest of the DLC stuff, at the very least. One of the last perks I unlocked revealed every point of interest on the map, and to say that I'd visited even 10% of them through the main quest would be generous. I'm not going to commit to that, but we'll see how it goes. I'm already kitted out in Enclave Hellfire armor and Plasma weapons, but there is still a long way to go until I hit level 30.
I played a smidge of Dirt 2 on a whim, mainly because it's such a pretty game with such beautiful weather in all the locations you race in. I like rally racing because of the locales you drive through. It's a shame I have no clue how to control a rally car at speeds above about 30 mph, though.
I've begun XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and while its quality is plain to see, I haven't given myself completely over to it, just yet. I've been playing a mission at a time, just here and there. I decided on Ironman mode right off the bat, because I think the permanence of consequence makes the game much more interesting. I felt kind of shameful about reloading a lot playing X-Com classic, and I wish I had played Ironman-style in that game, too. I'm not looking at it as a game to beat ASAP, but rather as an experience to enjoy long-term.
Dark Souls will probably turn out to be another long-term game for me. I'm not in any rush to finish it; that would probably hurt the appeal of the game for me. No, I'd rather inch through it little by little as time and impetus allow. I had to restart my game on the PC, since I'd put in around 8 or 10 hours on the PS3, previously. Despite already retracing all my old steps and decisions, I opted to keep rolling with a Knight over any other class. I feel like all the rest would focus more on agility and dodging, and what I want is to be able to stand toe-to-toe with the biggest and baddest the game has to throw at me. I played Demon's Souls as a roll-reliant Wanderer, and I'd rather go heavy this time around.
I spent the majority of the last few weeks' game time on Fallout 3. As a matter of fact, I plowed right through the game's main quest line and had completed it before I even realized it was over. I'm not sure what that says about the game, but I have been enjoying it quite a bit. It's not Fallout 1 or 2, but it's good. I'm in the middle of the proper post-game DLC, Broken Steel, right now, and I'm also going to play the rest of the DLC stuff, at the very least. One of the last perks I unlocked revealed every point of interest on the map, and to say that I'd visited even 10% of them through the main quest would be generous. I'm not going to commit to that, but we'll see how it goes. I'm already kitted out in Enclave Hellfire armor and Plasma weapons, but there is still a long way to go until I hit level 30.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Picking Up What I've Put Down
There was a time when I just could not do this. I used to play a single game at a time. I would play nothing but that game until I was done with it, and if for some reason I did leave a game unfinished, the next time I wanted to play it, I had to start from the beginning again.
I just do not have the time to waste on doing that these days. Additionally, my tastes are an order of magnitude broader than they used to be. I tend to jump around from game to game as a rule these days. PC gaming makes it easy, because all of your games are just a couple of clicks away--no discs to swap out, shelves to keep organized, et cetera. If I play one single title exclusively for a week or two it's something I'm deeply absorbed in, like Dishonored, recently, or Diablo III earlier this year. So, I find myself with a lot of games back-burnered, and I find myself picking up game saves that have sat around untouched for months at a time.
In the last couple of weeks I've gone back to Fallout 3 (9 months or so), Half-Life 2 (8ish months), and Diablo III (around 2 months). The last was just to see what the two major patches since August had changed, and to see if I still liked the game after some time away. Turns out I do!
Fallout 3. I love this series. Even set apart in time and space from the first two games, Fallout 3 carries over a lot of cool things in the world. It's really good, and I'll write more about it in the future. I can't decide how much of the side stuff I really want to delve into. I know I want to hit all of the main DLC bits, and finish the main quest, of course. After that, we'll see. It might be really tempting to move on to New Vegas.
Half-Life 2 I decided to pick up just for some more conventional FPS gameplay after going the stealth route through Dishonored. As no one needs to be told, it's a great game. I'm still just a meager 2-3 hours in, though. More will be written about this one, too, time comes to pass.
I just do not have the time to waste on doing that these days. Additionally, my tastes are an order of magnitude broader than they used to be. I tend to jump around from game to game as a rule these days. PC gaming makes it easy, because all of your games are just a couple of clicks away--no discs to swap out, shelves to keep organized, et cetera. If I play one single title exclusively for a week or two it's something I'm deeply absorbed in, like Dishonored, recently, or Diablo III earlier this year. So, I find myself with a lot of games back-burnered, and I find myself picking up game saves that have sat around untouched for months at a time.
In the last couple of weeks I've gone back to Fallout 3 (9 months or so), Half-Life 2 (8ish months), and Diablo III (around 2 months). The last was just to see what the two major patches since August had changed, and to see if I still liked the game after some time away. Turns out I do!
Fallout 3. I love this series. Even set apart in time and space from the first two games, Fallout 3 carries over a lot of cool things in the world. It's really good, and I'll write more about it in the future. I can't decide how much of the side stuff I really want to delve into. I know I want to hit all of the main DLC bits, and finish the main quest, of course. After that, we'll see. It might be really tempting to move on to New Vegas.
Half-Life 2 I decided to pick up just for some more conventional FPS gameplay after going the stealth route through Dishonored. As no one needs to be told, it's a great game. I'm still just a meager 2-3 hours in, though. More will be written about this one, too, time comes to pass.
Monday, November 5, 2012
Wrath Of... yawn... War
People say that it's like a Zelda game, and in many ways that is true, but while I personally find it more interesting a world and mythology than Nintendo's franchise, it doesn't quite match their cohesion of design.
There is a lot of wasted potential in Darksiders' mechanics. Several of the items and abilities gained throughout the game seem to be in the game only to justify a progression-blocking barrier and divert the player on to the next dungeon of the eight-ish required in a game like this before the quest can be over. The pistol seems pretty useless. War's horse, Ruin, is used in a couple of combat encounters, and to my knowledge not able to be called upon in the majority of the game world's locales. The hookshot-alike is used sparingly, as are the floaty double-jump wings, and the portal gun is only for use where there are portal pads around the world, which is a small number of places.
Darksiders' combat system is better than Zelda's, but that doesn't mean it's great. It's pretty button-mashy, and anyone who's played a third-person action game in the last 10 years will know basically what to expect.
Let me take a moment here to just say that I hate the kind of puzzles you see in this type of game. They are completely pointless, and braindead in their conception. They do nothing but waste time. Who but a game designer would ever construct such places, with their levers and mirrors and disappearing floor tiles and such? Not the evilest being in all of history. They would be too busy doing evil things to create what amounts to a rat maze for the person coming to kill them, whom they are presumably unaware will ever exist!
I came away from the game feeling like it was pretty average. I think this entire genre is just not really my type of thing. I do like the art a lot, but the plot was pretty poor, I thought, and did not make a lot of sense. I do own the sequel, though, and I am actually still looking forward to playing it, at some point. I've been told not to expect the "epic" events hinted at in this game's ending, but knowing what Darksiders II is viewing it, I wasn't under any illusion of that sort, anyway. What I am expecting to like is more in what I've heard of the sequel's world (more fantastical), loot, and platforming gameplay.
Friday, November 2, 2012
Uninstall: Mid-'90s Strategy Master Class
It's about progress, modernization! It's about clearing the land of old construction to make way for new, while ensuring that the existing foundation, solid as ever, remains.
It's also about letting go of the past, and what might have been, to accept the path we've trod, and to seize the opportunity of the present, with an eye toward what the future may bring.
Dwelling on the choices we could have made, or attempting to turn back time to make another attempt will only cause us to be caught unawares by current circumstance.
It is to this end that I dedicate this memorial to the heroes, feats, and achievements of our forbears.
The ground you broke, the intrepid exploration, and their lasting contributions to our current prosperity,
Though consigned to the annals of time, will not be forgotten.
It's also about letting go of the past, and what might have been, to accept the path we've trod, and to seize the opportunity of the present, with an eye toward what the future may bring.
Dwelling on the choices we could have made, or attempting to turn back time to make another attempt will only cause us to be caught unawares by current circumstance.
It is to this end that I dedicate this memorial to the heroes, feats, and achievements of our forbears.
The ground you broke, the intrepid exploration, and their lasting contributions to our current prosperity,
Though consigned to the annals of time, will not be forgotten.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Uninstall: Doom & Doom II
These are bona fide classics, none will object, but it was time to put them away. I've never played all the way through to the end of either of them, and if I'm honest, I never will, at this point. But I have played quite a bit of them, and enjoyed the hell out of them in the mid '90s.
I was so into Doom back in 1995 that I read the two novelizations that were out at the time. And I liked them. I was 14, and I liked Doom, Final Fantasy III (as we knew it, then), and Magic: The Gathering better than just about anything. Sorry, I fell down a nostalgia hole for a second, there.
I got tired of looking at all these old Doom games in my backlog and decided to boot them all up for a few minutes at the very least. I had never tried Final Doom or Master Levels For Doom II. Talk about a jolt of '90s--load one of those up and see what a DOS interface looked like again for the first time in a while.
This was in part spurred on by the recent re-release of Doom 3 in the BFG Edition. It was enough to remind me of the Doom franchise. I own Doom 3 and it's expansion, but have yet to ever try them. I'll get around to them at some point, probably before Doom 4 comes out.
I was so into Doom back in 1995 that I read the two novelizations that were out at the time. And I liked them. I was 14, and I liked Doom, Final Fantasy III (as we knew it, then), and Magic: The Gathering better than just about anything. Sorry, I fell down a nostalgia hole for a second, there.
I got tired of looking at all these old Doom games in my backlog and decided to boot them all up for a few minutes at the very least. I had never tried Final Doom or Master Levels For Doom II. Talk about a jolt of '90s--load one of those up and see what a DOS interface looked like again for the first time in a while.
This was in part spurred on by the recent re-release of Doom 3 in the BFG Edition. It was enough to remind me of the Doom franchise. I own Doom 3 and it's expansion, but have yet to ever try them. I'll get around to them at some point, probably before Doom 4 comes out.
Friday, October 26, 2012
The Raven Of Dunwall
I had just begun playing Dishonored when I blogged last. I have finished it now, playing stealthily all the way through, and only purposefully killing four guards in the prison escape. One other unknown person somehow died in the first real mission, completely unknown to me until the mission summary card. I loved Dishonored. I had a great time playing through it--a 24+ hour long journey full of many quickloads and much tinkering and exploring of the available scenarios and pathways. I can't really imagine playing it any other way. I practically never used many of the weapons and powers available to Corvo, but I still feel like I had a very satisfying time with it. I spent much of it Blinking around rooftops of the plagued city, which I'm told is rendered in an Edwardian fashion, sneaking up on guards and leaving them unconscious and stashed in dark corners. If I some day do a replay, maybe I'll try another approach. I do highly recommend the game, at whatever price you're willing to pay for a very-well-executed immersive sim (the label I've see applied to Deus-esques, as I term them).
Otherwise, I've just been playing a smattering of several things: continuing my campaign in X-Com (classic, still), which I've decided to take an Ironman approach to; playing a few random matches of Dota 2, trying to pick back up my game of Half-Life 2 (same art director as Dishonored), and trying to gain some experience with and within The Temple of Elemental Evil.
I've been busy and doing some more reading over the last several days. I'm working on Cloud Atlas at the moment, which strikes me as surprisingly complex and fantastical for something I assumed to be mainstream. Is it, though?
Otherwise, I've just been playing a smattering of several things: continuing my campaign in X-Com (classic, still), which I've decided to take an Ironman approach to; playing a few random matches of Dota 2, trying to pick back up my game of Half-Life 2 (same art director as Dishonored), and trying to gain some experience with and within The Temple of Elemental Evil.
I've been busy and doing some more reading over the last several days. I'm working on Cloud Atlas at the moment, which strikes me as surprisingly complex and fantastical for something I assumed to be mainstream. Is it, though?
Thursday, October 11, 2012
The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions
I bought both Dishonored and XCOM: Enemy Unknown this week, fully intending to play both. So far, I've only had time to play Dishonored. Hell, the new Walking Dead Episode 4 was out last night, but I went ahead and played Dishonored more because I knew I only had a couple of hours and didn't think I'd get through that in one go. The Walking Dead will probably be on tonight's docket.
Dishonored is great. It's very much like Deus Ex, thus far, with a Bioshock-ian clearly vision-inspired world and cohesion of art and atmosphere. It has other similarities to Bioshock 2, in particular, in its supernatural abilities, the way those abilities scale, and its dual-wield-by-default setup. It's great fun, and like the games I've compared it to, it lends itself to experimentation and playing with its systems. It looks great, too, in terms of both graphical quality and art direction. The characters are dressed quite snappily, too, I might add. I wonder if the developer might do more in this universe, because it seems very well realized and fleshed-out for what I'm guessing is a game of maybe 12 to 15 discrete levels around one city. I've seen big maps of the seas of the world with archipelagos and such that leads me to believe there is a much larger world outside of the city of Dunwall. I'm about 5 hours into the game, taking my sweet time. I'm only on the first assassination mission, so far.
Last week, something possessed me, and I plowed through the brunt of Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising, right through to the end. It was more good fun in the vein of the base game, with a twist in squads being able to be corrupted by Chaos, and the addition of wargear tailored for units on either end of the Purity/Corruption spectrum. By the end of the game, you will lose one of your valued squadmates, whom you've brought up with you through two full campaigns to that point, and that kind of hurts, but altogether the story puts a nice cap on this little saga. Retribution, the next expansion, takes up the Space Marines' story some years later, with a few new faces, and some old ones having moved on, apparently.
I've begun playing Retribution, as well, but only The Last Stand mode, for now. I just finished the book Know No Fear, about the Ultramarines being ambushed by the traitor Word Bearers legion at the beginning of the Horus Heresy, and so I felt like suiting up in blue and gold and spilling some blood in the name of the Emperor. The Last Stand is a suitable stand in for a match of Dota when I don't feel like trying too hard or only have 15 or 20 minutes to kill, plus it has persistent unlocks, which are always fun.
On the subject of space marines, I also took a brief look back into Space Marine, specifically the multiplayer, and was surprised to see people playing it. It probably helps that there was a big THQ sale on Steam this past weekend. I may hop back in that from time to time, as well. We're not likely to see another good game like it (or a sequel) anytime soon.
I played a good bit of X-Com: UFO Defense (the classic game) over the last week or two, as well. I've finally gotten a handle on the tactical interface and overall movement of the game. I feel like I now know how to play, and the next step is just getting good at it. Surprisingly, I don't think the new game is going to make obsolete the old one. Sure, there are a lot of similarities in the two, but I think the classic one remains distinctively different; enough to make sure I'll keep it around for a good while longer. I'd love to eventually beat it, one of these days.
Lastly, I played a few more minutes (a few more stages) of Dustforce, though there's not much to say about it. It's a difficult platformer, but still nice to play. And of course, I was able to get in a couple of matches of Dota 2, busy as I have been. It's becoming a perennial favorite, even if I do not focus a lot on it some weeks.
Dishonored is great. It's very much like Deus Ex, thus far, with a Bioshock-ian clearly vision-inspired world and cohesion of art and atmosphere. It has other similarities to Bioshock 2, in particular, in its supernatural abilities, the way those abilities scale, and its dual-wield-by-default setup. It's great fun, and like the games I've compared it to, it lends itself to experimentation and playing with its systems. It looks great, too, in terms of both graphical quality and art direction. The characters are dressed quite snappily, too, I might add. I wonder if the developer might do more in this universe, because it seems very well realized and fleshed-out for what I'm guessing is a game of maybe 12 to 15 discrete levels around one city. I've seen big maps of the seas of the world with archipelagos and such that leads me to believe there is a much larger world outside of the city of Dunwall. I'm about 5 hours into the game, taking my sweet time. I'm only on the first assassination mission, so far.
Last week, something possessed me, and I plowed through the brunt of Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising, right through to the end. It was more good fun in the vein of the base game, with a twist in squads being able to be corrupted by Chaos, and the addition of wargear tailored for units on either end of the Purity/Corruption spectrum. By the end of the game, you will lose one of your valued squadmates, whom you've brought up with you through two full campaigns to that point, and that kind of hurts, but altogether the story puts a nice cap on this little saga. Retribution, the next expansion, takes up the Space Marines' story some years later, with a few new faces, and some old ones having moved on, apparently.
I've begun playing Retribution, as well, but only The Last Stand mode, for now. I just finished the book Know No Fear, about the Ultramarines being ambushed by the traitor Word Bearers legion at the beginning of the Horus Heresy, and so I felt like suiting up in blue and gold and spilling some blood in the name of the Emperor. The Last Stand is a suitable stand in for a match of Dota when I don't feel like trying too hard or only have 15 or 20 minutes to kill, plus it has persistent unlocks, which are always fun.
On the subject of space marines, I also took a brief look back into Space Marine, specifically the multiplayer, and was surprised to see people playing it. It probably helps that there was a big THQ sale on Steam this past weekend. I may hop back in that from time to time, as well. We're not likely to see another good game like it (or a sequel) anytime soon.
I played a good bit of X-Com: UFO Defense (the classic game) over the last week or two, as well. I've finally gotten a handle on the tactical interface and overall movement of the game. I feel like I now know how to play, and the next step is just getting good at it. Surprisingly, I don't think the new game is going to make obsolete the old one. Sure, there are a lot of similarities in the two, but I think the classic one remains distinctively different; enough to make sure I'll keep it around for a good while longer. I'd love to eventually beat it, one of these days.
Lastly, I played a few more minutes (a few more stages) of Dustforce, though there's not much to say about it. It's a difficult platformer, but still nice to play. And of course, I was able to get in a couple of matches of Dota 2, busy as I have been. It's becoming a perennial favorite, even if I do not focus a lot on it some weeks.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Slower Than Light
Since the last post, I've been playing:
MGS: PW - no real update
Diablo II - no real update
The Walking Dead ep.3 - good, but went on a little too long
Dota 2 - been random-ing at hero select lately, it's been fun
FTL - awesome space captain roguelike, playing on easy; it's still hard
Darksiders - made a tiny bit of progress, got Ruin, War's horse
Dustforce - skill-based 2D platforming, nice game
The Temple of Elemental Evil w/ Circle of Eight (Desura) - complex, intimidating
X-Com: UFO Defense - complex, intimidating; ancient, clunky UI
Torchlight II - like the first but more, better; playing an Engineer
I need to make another road map or game plan (haha) some sort. I have, and am in the middle of way too many RPGs, in particular. I keep getting into new games and others that I still mean to finish (say Fallout 3) keep getting pushed further and further back in the queue. I really am going to need to crank through to the end of a game or two to finish out this Fall's big games. I'd like to pick up Assassin's Creed 3, Halo 4, Dishonored, and maybe Darksiders II or something else, but as it stands now, I can only buy one more game before I finish something!
Of the games listed above, I could probably power through Lord of Destruction for Diablo II, I might get lucky and beat FTL on easy, and Darksiders could probably be polished off without too much trouble if I put in a concerted effort. Torchlight II is just a matter of time, but it may be quite a bit of time. Beyond that, I'd probably have to dig deeper into the stuff I am in the middle of, and pull out something like Half-Life 2 or Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising or one of any number of other things I have going.
Progress on the backlog has been really slow lately, partly due to being a dad and being busy, but also choosing to spend my more limited time on longer (or endless) games, and other pursuits such as getting in some physical activity, reading, and sleeping on occasion.
Maybe I'll choose something and do an Uninstall this week. It is always nice to knock something off the pile, one way or another.
MGS: PW - no real update
Diablo II - no real update
The Walking Dead ep.3 - good, but went on a little too long
Dota 2 - been random-ing at hero select lately, it's been fun
FTL - awesome space captain roguelike, playing on easy; it's still hard
Darksiders - made a tiny bit of progress, got Ruin, War's horse
Dustforce - skill-based 2D platforming, nice game
The Temple of Elemental Evil w/ Circle of Eight (Desura) - complex, intimidating
X-Com: UFO Defense - complex, intimidating; ancient, clunky UI
Torchlight II - like the first but more, better; playing an Engineer
I need to make another road map or game plan (haha) some sort. I have, and am in the middle of way too many RPGs, in particular. I keep getting into new games and others that I still mean to finish (say Fallout 3) keep getting pushed further and further back in the queue. I really am going to need to crank through to the end of a game or two to finish out this Fall's big games. I'd like to pick up Assassin's Creed 3, Halo 4, Dishonored, and maybe Darksiders II or something else, but as it stands now, I can only buy one more game before I finish something!
Of the games listed above, I could probably power through Lord of Destruction for Diablo II, I might get lucky and beat FTL on easy, and Darksiders could probably be polished off without too much trouble if I put in a concerted effort. Torchlight II is just a matter of time, but it may be quite a bit of time. Beyond that, I'd probably have to dig deeper into the stuff I am in the middle of, and pull out something like Half-Life 2 or Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising or one of any number of other things I have going.
Progress on the backlog has been really slow lately, partly due to being a dad and being busy, but also choosing to spend my more limited time on longer (or endless) games, and other pursuits such as getting in some physical activity, reading, and sleeping on occasion.
Maybe I'll choose something and do an Uninstall this week. It is always nice to knock something off the pile, one way or another.
Sunday, September 9, 2012
Uninstall: Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising
This week I decided to finally shit or get off the pot, as they say, with Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising. I bought the game two or more years ago on sale for $7.50 on Steam, and it had been sitting there installed ever since. Turns out is a fairly hardcore military game that edges more toward the simulation side of things than the all out bombast of a Call of Duty game. It wasn't bad, just a little slow and deliberate, with a lot of bland open terrain between objectives. I completed the first mission of the campaign, achieving all objectives, and would probably play more given a surplus of free time or some interest in playing virtual soldier. I can't lay claim to either of those at the moment, though, and so I had to uninstall.
It's a Sunday afternoon as I write this, and I've just finished up Diablo II with my barbarian. That was fun. I made a small foray into the expansion fifth act, but I'm not sure whether I'll complete that. I need to get back into D3 and earn some money and paragon levels while I finish up Inferno with my wizard there.
I loaded up MGS Peace Walker HD this week to get back around to doing some of the story-related post-game content present there. I'm going back and re-watching all of the cut-scenes, as well. I am a sucker for Metal Gear, indeed. I wonder when in 201X the newly-announced Ground Zeroes will release. Could it come as early as 2013? I think that would be wise if they want to be able to sell a good number of copies on the 360 and PS3. There is speculation we may see a PC release as well, which would be interesting.
A good friend recommended that I check out a game called Don't Starve, which is currently in beta, and available through the Chrome application store. It's a survival game in the Minecraft sense, where you are dropped into a world and have to make do with raw materials that you find around the world. It's a 2D isometric game, though, with an interesting Edward Gorey-like art style that you might call Gothic, though I'm not certain the label applies, personally. It didn't do anything for me. In practice it felt more like proceeding onto the next thing like you do in a facebook game than having fun. It's a game of "Here's a list of shopping items you need to survive, now go find them within this time limit."
And finally, of course, I've been playing a lot of Dota 2. I'm into playing a hard, carry-type hero, and my current pick is Slardar. I've had mixed results, to be honest. I've had some just downright terrible games, and then I've had some of the best I've ever played within a couple of days. Dota is a game of extremes, to be sure.
It's a Sunday afternoon as I write this, and I've just finished up Diablo II with my barbarian. That was fun. I made a small foray into the expansion fifth act, but I'm not sure whether I'll complete that. I need to get back into D3 and earn some money and paragon levels while I finish up Inferno with my wizard there.
I loaded up MGS Peace Walker HD this week to get back around to doing some of the story-related post-game content present there. I'm going back and re-watching all of the cut-scenes, as well. I am a sucker for Metal Gear, indeed. I wonder when in 201X the newly-announced Ground Zeroes will release. Could it come as early as 2013? I think that would be wise if they want to be able to sell a good number of copies on the 360 and PS3. There is speculation we may see a PC release as well, which would be interesting.
A good friend recommended that I check out a game called Don't Starve, which is currently in beta, and available through the Chrome application store. It's a survival game in the Minecraft sense, where you are dropped into a world and have to make do with raw materials that you find around the world. It's a 2D isometric game, though, with an interesting Edward Gorey-like art style that you might call Gothic, though I'm not certain the label applies, personally. It didn't do anything for me. In practice it felt more like proceeding onto the next thing like you do in a facebook game than having fun. It's a game of "Here's a list of shopping items you need to survive, now go find them within this time limit."
And finally, of course, I've been playing a lot of Dota 2. I'm into playing a hard, carry-type hero, and my current pick is Slardar. I've had mixed results, to be honest. I've had some just downright terrible games, and then I've had some of the best I've ever played within a couple of days. Dota is a game of extremes, to be sure.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Uninstall: NightSky
I've been out of town for the last 10 days, but before I left Oregon, I did manage to do an uninstall for Call Of Podcast on the game NightSky. It feels good to check out an indie game that's been on my backlog for who knows how long. NightSky is a physics puzzle game featuring a ball in silouhette. You use the left and right arrow keys to spin the ball clockwise and counter-clockwise (which rolls the ball of course, but has other applications, as well). There are eight or ten worlds each consisting of eight or ten short stages--most seemed to be exactly three screens long. I'm sure your well-versed gamer mind can fill in the details. It's a nice looking game, has relaxing music, and the puzzles are neither too brain-dead easy nor overly exacting in terms of required technique. There are even secret exits to discover, and a few bonus stages to tackle. I give it 2 out of 2 balls in silouhette.
To further catch this blog up to the point when I left on this business trip, I ran through the next little section of Darksiders leading into the 2nd big dungeon. I'm on my way to meet someone... Uriel, their name might be. No, wait, Uriel Septim is a character from Oblivion. This person, they do have a name. I assure you.
I also finished up my 20 matches of Dota 2 playing Faceless Void. I saw Gabe Newell on a video saying that (Dota honcho) Icefrog advised him to randomly select his heroes until he became good at the game. I'm not sure if that is the approach for me--but then, I'm not sure it's not. However, I do feel like my pick a hero, play 20 matches method has been effective so far. I'm through Windrunner, Bounty Hunter, Omniknight, Silencer, and Faceless Void, now. I'm still thinking I want a hard carry next. Void is a carry, but he can be pretty fragile. I want a big slab of hard-hitting meat, but I'm not sure who fits that bill the best in Dota 2. I'd like to try Chen or Visage, maybe, but I'm not sure I'm ready for sub-units and ctrl-groups in Dota. The 2012 International is happening this weekend, and I want to watch a bunch of that, so maybe that will help me decide on a hero to learn next.
I'll bet you can't guess what game I've been playing in my hotel room here in Arkansas. Oh, you got it. That's right, the O.G., the recently retired, the reknown, Diablo II. With a "II." I just can't seem to get enough of the loot pinata, slot-machine effect. Well, and I'd never played a few of the classes available in that game, and had only completed it a single time as an Assassin. Knowing how finicky D2 is about skill point allocation, I looked up a build for a Barbarian, and have been busy over the last week and a half filling it out in-game. It revolves mostly around the Double Swing and Frenzy skills, basically just attacking so quickly and so heavily that enemies are effectively stun-locked when they are able to survive past the first couple of hits. It's fun. I've just finished up Act III on Normal. I've had three set items drop to this point, and one of them, a breastplate, I'm actually wearing. I've been playing offline, not that it really matters. I don't really plan on doing anymore than finishing Act IV, maybe the expansion act, and then just leaving the character to rot on this computer for any future trips out of town. After all, patch 1.0.4 for D3 came out just after I left town, and there's more I need to delve into, there.
To further catch this blog up to the point when I left on this business trip, I ran through the next little section of Darksiders leading into the 2nd big dungeon. I'm on my way to meet someone... Uriel, their name might be. No, wait, Uriel Septim is a character from Oblivion. This person, they do have a name. I assure you.
I also finished up my 20 matches of Dota 2 playing Faceless Void. I saw Gabe Newell on a video saying that (Dota honcho) Icefrog advised him to randomly select his heroes until he became good at the game. I'm not sure if that is the approach for me--but then, I'm not sure it's not. However, I do feel like my pick a hero, play 20 matches method has been effective so far. I'm through Windrunner, Bounty Hunter, Omniknight, Silencer, and Faceless Void, now. I'm still thinking I want a hard carry next. Void is a carry, but he can be pretty fragile. I want a big slab of hard-hitting meat, but I'm not sure who fits that bill the best in Dota 2. I'd like to try Chen or Visage, maybe, but I'm not sure I'm ready for sub-units and ctrl-groups in Dota. The 2012 International is happening this weekend, and I want to watch a bunch of that, so maybe that will help me decide on a hero to learn next.
I'll bet you can't guess what game I've been playing in my hotel room here in Arkansas. Oh, you got it. That's right, the O.G., the recently retired, the reknown, Diablo II. With a "II." I just can't seem to get enough of the loot pinata, slot-machine effect. Well, and I'd never played a few of the classes available in that game, and had only completed it a single time as an Assassin. Knowing how finicky D2 is about skill point allocation, I looked up a build for a Barbarian, and have been busy over the last week and a half filling it out in-game. It revolves mostly around the Double Swing and Frenzy skills, basically just attacking so quickly and so heavily that enemies are effectively stun-locked when they are able to survive past the first couple of hits. It's fun. I've just finished up Act III on Normal. I've had three set items drop to this point, and one of them, a breastplate, I'm actually wearing. I've been playing offline, not that it really matters. I don't really plan on doing anymore than finishing Act IV, maybe the expansion act, and then just leaving the character to rot on this computer for any future trips out of town. After all, patch 1.0.4 for D3 came out just after I left town, and there's more I need to delve into, there.
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