Games, games, and more games
It's only been about two months since my last entry, so I fear I'm going to be accused of post-whoring, but sometimes you just have to take these things in stride.
Obligatory Stuff That Matters Update: Not much has changed on the real life front. Still employed, still like my job, still like the people I work with.
D&D - I've been DMing the latest adventure for a couple months now (we don't meet that often, or for that long, so progress can be a little slow) and I really like where it's going. The group has seen how bad things have gotten and they have a lot of questions, and they're finally getting some answers. Who knows, they might even survive the experience.
Mirror's Edge - Steam dropped the price down to 20 so I finally gave in and bought a copy... kinda wish I hadn't, really. The "running" portion of the game is fairly interesting at first, but the combat very much isn't. And about the fourth or fifth time I had to completely stop and explore the area to figure out how the hell I was supposed to get to that glowing red thingy, I gave up. Repeatedly launching myself off a building because I didn't hit some random obstacle at the right angle is also rather irritating. I might try to go back again at some point, but I feel like I got ripped off right now.
Plants vs. Zombies - This game is absurdly addictive. After nearly two weeks I think I've finally broken free of its undead grasp. For 10 bucks from Steam, this is absolutely a must-have game.
Braid - I enjoyed this game, but it was rather short... apparently hunting down all the "hidden stars" and unlocking the real story would add, oh... a good ten hours to it or something, but I have zero desire to do that. I looked up the plot explanation after completing it and left it at that. I had picked up enough hints playing the game (particularly one reference on the final level) to have a pretty good idea of what was going on, and my suspicions were confirmed by the synopsis. The concepts employed in the puzzles were pretty cool, but they were front-loaded on the first half of the game, with the second half feeling uninspired and flat (with the exception of the wall of fire level, which was pretty awesome on a meaning level if somewhat standard on a gameplay level). The endless repetition of "don't let the lion die until just the right moment" puzzles later on got annoying quickly.
Blood Bowl - I played the beta for this a month or two back, and instantly fell in love with it. It has a seemingly perfect balance of random chance, strategy, tactics, and gratuitous violence. For those who don't know, Blood Bowl is the Warhammer tabletop football game. The off-the-wall humor and sheer brutality of the game (disabling and/or killing the opponent's team is not only allowed, it's a highly effective strategy) really work well. This is one of the few games where I might actually play the online portion more than the single player. Hopefully I can convince some other people to pick this up as well.
Dragon Age: Origins - Seeing as it is the "spiritual successor" to Baldur's Gate II, it's a foregone conclusion that I'm going to buy this game. The trailers I've seen lately are a little worrying ("This is the new shit"? Seriously?) but I hope this is just marketing trying to appeal to the teenage male FPS audience who wouldn't want to play the game anyway. BioWare has had some missteps in the past, but they are second only to Square in terms of the amount of fun I've had with their games, and are closely matched with Blizzard and Valve. And more than anything, Tycho seems to love it more and more, and seeing as how he's actually played it and I have a pretty good idea of his tastes, I'll take his word over some marketing trailer.
Mass Effect 2 - Improved Combat? Carry over decisions from the last game in a significant fashion? An actual Bad Ending (and here I thought Fate/Stay Night was the only game where you could seriously f things up)? All side worlds hand-crafted? Sold. I've played through the first game twice (once on 360, once on PC - yes, I bought it twice, and it was absolutely worth it) and I've been itching for another go lately. This one is from BioWare as well.
Star Wars: The Old Republic and FFXIV - I'm feeling the MMO pull less and less these days. I miss the people I played with, but the games themselves are a major deterrent. FFXI turned into a major grindfest, Warhammer seems to be heading in that direction whenever I play it, and WoW is a grindfest on easy mode. There's more to my dislike of MMOs than that, but it's hard to articulate, especially since I don't understand the problem well myself. At any rate, I'll be keeping an eye on these two to see if there's something that will address the problems I have.
Final Fantasy XIII - This is a given, but I'm still eagerly awaiting it's actual release. I also need to look into the companion games to determine exactly what the deal is (what platforms they're on, what they are, etc.)
The Dresden Files - Caught this series on Hulu and liked it well enough to try the books. A week later and seven books into the series I came up for breath. The books are /much/ darker than the TV series, but in an interesting way. Some of it seems purely designed to torture the main character, but the author is nicer about it that George R. R. Martin, so it's tolerable.
My Own Writins - I'm up to 7700 words on my NaNoWriMo project. At this rate I'll complete it in time for December 2012. Of course, though the actual writing I get done is sporadic, I do spend a lot of time thinking about the world this is set in, and this and other stories I'm writing in it. And of course the more I write, the easier it is to continue writing. So perhaps the completion of the first draft of this particular story isn't too far off. *crosses fingers*
Obligatory Stuff That Matters Update: Not much has changed on the real life front. Still employed, still like my job, still like the people I work with.
D&D - I've been DMing the latest adventure for a couple months now (we don't meet that often, or for that long, so progress can be a little slow) and I really like where it's going. The group has seen how bad things have gotten and they have a lot of questions, and they're finally getting some answers. Who knows, they might even survive the experience.
Mirror's Edge - Steam dropped the price down to 20 so I finally gave in and bought a copy... kinda wish I hadn't, really. The "running" portion of the game is fairly interesting at first, but the combat very much isn't. And about the fourth or fifth time I had to completely stop and explore the area to figure out how the hell I was supposed to get to that glowing red thingy, I gave up. Repeatedly launching myself off a building because I didn't hit some random obstacle at the right angle is also rather irritating. I might try to go back again at some point, but I feel like I got ripped off right now.
Plants vs. Zombies - This game is absurdly addictive. After nearly two weeks I think I've finally broken free of its undead grasp. For 10 bucks from Steam, this is absolutely a must-have game.
Braid - I enjoyed this game, but it was rather short... apparently hunting down all the "hidden stars" and unlocking the real story would add, oh... a good ten hours to it or something, but I have zero desire to do that. I looked up the plot explanation after completing it and left it at that. I had picked up enough hints playing the game (particularly one reference on the final level) to have a pretty good idea of what was going on, and my suspicions were confirmed by the synopsis. The concepts employed in the puzzles were pretty cool, but they were front-loaded on the first half of the game, with the second half feeling uninspired and flat (with the exception of the wall of fire level, which was pretty awesome on a meaning level if somewhat standard on a gameplay level). The endless repetition of "don't let the lion die until just the right moment" puzzles later on got annoying quickly.
Blood Bowl - I played the beta for this a month or two back, and instantly fell in love with it. It has a seemingly perfect balance of random chance, strategy, tactics, and gratuitous violence. For those who don't know, Blood Bowl is the Warhammer tabletop football game. The off-the-wall humor and sheer brutality of the game (disabling and/or killing the opponent's team is not only allowed, it's a highly effective strategy) really work well. This is one of the few games where I might actually play the online portion more than the single player. Hopefully I can convince some other people to pick this up as well.
Dragon Age: Origins - Seeing as it is the "spiritual successor" to Baldur's Gate II, it's a foregone conclusion that I'm going to buy this game. The trailers I've seen lately are a little worrying ("This is the new shit"? Seriously?) but I hope this is just marketing trying to appeal to the teenage male FPS audience who wouldn't want to play the game anyway. BioWare has had some missteps in the past, but they are second only to Square in terms of the amount of fun I've had with their games, and are closely matched with Blizzard and Valve. And more than anything, Tycho seems to love it more and more, and seeing as how he's actually played it and I have a pretty good idea of his tastes, I'll take his word over some marketing trailer.
Mass Effect 2 - Improved Combat? Carry over decisions from the last game in a significant fashion? An actual Bad Ending (and here I thought Fate/Stay Night was the only game where you could seriously f things up)? All side worlds hand-crafted? Sold. I've played through the first game twice (once on 360, once on PC - yes, I bought it twice, and it was absolutely worth it) and I've been itching for another go lately. This one is from BioWare as well.
Star Wars: The Old Republic and FFXIV - I'm feeling the MMO pull less and less these days. I miss the people I played with, but the games themselves are a major deterrent. FFXI turned into a major grindfest, Warhammer seems to be heading in that direction whenever I play it, and WoW is a grindfest on easy mode. There's more to my dislike of MMOs than that, but it's hard to articulate, especially since I don't understand the problem well myself. At any rate, I'll be keeping an eye on these two to see if there's something that will address the problems I have.
Final Fantasy XIII - This is a given, but I'm still eagerly awaiting it's actual release. I also need to look into the companion games to determine exactly what the deal is (what platforms they're on, what they are, etc.)
The Dresden Files - Caught this series on Hulu and liked it well enough to try the books. A week later and seven books into the series I came up for breath. The books are /much/ darker than the TV series, but in an interesting way. Some of it seems purely designed to torture the main character, but the author is nicer about it that George R. R. Martin, so it's tolerable.
My Own Writins - I'm up to 7700 words on my NaNoWriMo project. At this rate I'll complete it in time for December 2012. Of course, though the actual writing I get done is sporadic, I do spend a lot of time thinking about the world this is set in, and this and other stories I'm writing in it. And of course the more I write, the easier it is to continue writing. So perhaps the completion of the first draft of this particular story isn't too far off. *crosses fingers*