Here is a movie of flying to a mission with slipstream drive and fighting a battle using my new Chimera Heavy Destroyer.
Category: Games I Like
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Finished Batman: Arkham Asylum – what a great game!
After starting it twice before, I finally finished Batman: Arkham Asylum Game of the Year Edition, and what an amazing game it turned out to be. The story is good, the graphics are great, the exploring is fun, and the fighting is terrific. I was really surprised at just how much game there is – it kept going on and on, not in tedium, but always finding new ways to cause Batman trouble! Even the voice acting and background materials were good.
This is a third person action game with very minor RPG elements (upgrades to abilities and gear), and it has great environments and looks. Most of the time, Batman is exploring parts of Arkham Asylum that has been take over by the criminals. Upon finding baddies, Batman must thump them. That starts out easy, but becomes quite a challenge towards the end. There are a few boss battles, including one with Bane, that throw in different moves, as head-on attacks are doomed to fail. The Poison Ivy battle was great fun and not easy. The final battle with Joker is quite the final exam, testing nearly all of Batman’s skills.
And then there were the Scarecrow sequences. They are almost side-scrollers, but pretty awesome. Unfortunately, I got some crashes after those sequences. I ended up reading online that they were PhysX bugs, and sure enough, disabling PhysX solved the problem, though I’d like to have been able to leave it on, because PhysX did improve the atmosphere of the game.
The game involves a great mix of skulking in the rafters and dropping down on hapless thugs and straight up fights against groups of enemies (or bosses). Sneaking is essential in many missions, and the game provides powerful tools to help Batman sneak (including “Detective Mode” in which you can see baddies through walls and vents and other objects of interest are highlighted).
If you haven’t played Batman: Arkham Asylum, do it! It’s good fun!
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Still playing Star Trek Online and Lord of the Rings Online
So between finishing Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Gears of War 3 and being punished for thinking I could play Dark Souls, I have continued to play Star Trek Online (STO) and Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO), because they are fun and comfortable.
I am a charter subscriber to STO and have a lifetime membership, so I recently picked up a nifty attack ship they are giving as a lifetime member bonus. It is only for level 50 (Vice Admiral), but I finally got my latest Federation guy there, and it is a kick-ass ship. More stations and equipment slots than most, this more abilities, so that’s great fun! Plus it looks cool!
This Federation character is in a fleet that was apparently abandoned by the old leader, so I took over fleet leadership. I am still thinking how to encourage the fleet to grow and become better, so more on that in future.
I also have a Klingon character that is finally level 40 and was able to get a carrier, which isn’t quite as nifty as I’d hoped. It is fun to launch fighters to help deal with my foes, but the ship handles like it’s in molasses. I’ve only had about 20 minutes to play with it, so I may get used to it. My Klingon is an Engineer, so he’s used to cruisers that aren’t the swiftest things, but this is a bit slow.
I still haven’t bought Riders of Rohan for LOTRO, so I’m not playing my level 75 Lore-Master, but I am working on leveling my Warden and Minstrel up to where Rohan will matter. I’m waiting for a sale on Rohan and will buy it then. The LOTRO kinship has also had a rapid decrease in online players since everyone hit level 75 and had their fill of Isengard. I hope things improve, because LOTRO is still an awesome game, and seems to be improving all the time.
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After GOW3, Dark Souls Prepare to Die Edition!
After I finished GOW3, I figured I should enjoy some punishment for a while, so I started Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition on the PC. Dark Souls, like its predecessor, Demon Souls, is a game that you love to hate or hate to love or some of both. It is amazingly atmospheric and absorbing, yet absolutely punishing and brutal. I don’t know of any game that can make me feel as wary and nervous as Dark Souls (and Demon Souls), yet gives a big sense of accomplishment and RELIEF after you make your way through a harrowing path to kill a boss. It really needs to be experienced, as no description can do it justice.
First, a few words about the PC port of the game: absolute shit! Can I be more clear about that? The PC port is horrible. The only good thing about it is that it mostly works. When it starts, it isn’t in full screen mode, then it teases you that it can use the full monitor resolution (2560×1440 in my case), but then it turns out it really renders at about 1024×720 (even still, it doesn’t look terrible – the visuals are that good). Then, if you have any kind of game controller plugged in besides your Xbox 360 for Windows controller, it can’t find the Xbox controller. So I had to unplug my joystick, and finally the controller worked (and yes, you need to use a game controller for the game, as the keyboard and mouse are inadequate to the task). I know where is a user-coded patch that will improve the rendering quality, but I wanted to experience it as the devs intended. Turns out, I will apply that patch if I ever go back to continue the game.
The game throws you into a scary world with little instruction, yet enough to get by. As I said, the game is incredibly atmospheric, so you really need to play it to understand. Right from the start, you kill some other undead (did I mention that you are undead? You are, but it can be fixed), and get a little cocky, since they are easy. Then you meet your first boss, where your choices are to run or die. Later, you will come back and kill him to progress in the game.
As you kill enemies, you collect souls, which you can spend to level up and for weapons and other goodies. The problem is that if you die, you drop your collected souls where you died, and if you don’t recover them (i.e. you die again on the way back to where they are), they are gone forever. And you can’t save the game and try again. No, this is a punishing game that punishes attempts to explore or try new things (oops, you fell off that ledge: you died!). When playing this game, caution is the required stance. Always. Even if you are a badass, because the guy around the next corner may be able to kill you!
The online play is fascinating. You can see messages left by other players, warning you of danger or telling you of a treasure. Sometimes, you can click their bloodstains and see their ghosts and how they died so you can avoid repeating their mistakes. In some situations, your world can be invaded by another player whose job is to kill you, but if you kill them, the reward is great (I haven’t experienced this in Dark Souls, but I got my ass handed to me a few times in Demon Souls). So it is a very unique and somewhat terrifying experience.
After each death, you are respawned at the most recent bonfire you stopped at with all your collected souls removed and all the enemies put back into place. So even though you just fought your way through tons of baddies to get to the boss who thumped you, you have to do it all again. This is why I gave up on the game, at least for the moment. I will go back, however, because it is very compelling (and annoying).
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Finally finished Gears of War 3 and loved it
After finishing the Deus Ex: Human Revolution game and DLC, I jumped over to the old Xbox 360 to play Gears of War 3. Actually, this is the 3rd time I’ve started GOW3. Each previous time, I was either distracted by work or home crises or something, but this time, I was resolved to play the game.
Yes, GOW3 could fall into Yahtzee’s “spunkgargleweewee” game category, as it mostly involves running from one chest high wall to another with an overbuilt space marine. But it is a very well done, atmospheric, cover-based shooter. While there are still lots of unanswered questions about the Locust and the Lambent, and why the Locust Queen looks human, none of that hurts the gameplay for a second. In general, you know where to go, what to do, and, to some extent, why, and that you need to kill lots of baddies on the way.
In the previous GOW games, I quickly dropped the standard Gears’ Lancer rifle, because the enemy rifles were pretty good and ammo abounded, while Lancer ammo was hard to find. In this game, ammo was fairly easy to come by if I kept my eyes open, so I stuck with the Lancer through the game (with some excursions to explosive weapons for certain enemies). I’m glad I did, because using the Lancer’s chainsaw to rip through close-in enemies was great fun (and typically better than shooting when the enemy closed on you), as was executing injured baddies by splattering their guts all over the place.
The fights were fairly tough, but sufficiently well balanced that they tended not to get too frustrating. The GOW games have a particularly good checkpoint system, so if you die, you don’t have to repeat much (unlike the frustrating, yet wonderful Dark Souls). I’m happy that the GOW series has reached a reasonable conclusion, though I see that there is a prequel coming out to hoover more money from our wallets. Well, if it is as good as GOW3 was, I’ll pay…
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Mostly liked Deus Ex: Human Revolution – Missing Link DLC
After I finished Deus Ex: Human Revolution, I played the DLC package, Missing Link. It turns out I should have played it before the second to last mission of the original, because the DLC mission takes place during the voyage there. It didn’t take away from the game, however, because it was completely orthogonal to the main plot and couldn’t influence it in any way.
In fact, the DLC mission starts you essentially at the beginning with no upgrades to the augments. Quickly, you get some Praxis and can upgrade as you see fit. I played the mission much as I played the main game: sneaking where necessary, but killing lots of enemies when shooting would work. The DLC would likely be played better as a stealth mission, and it would have been a good opportunity for me to practice the stealth skills, but I didn’t.
The mission is reasonably good, but sad in many ways. I won’t go into details, but many of your allies die, and the game forces you into a moral choice that requires some number of innocent deaths. There is apparently a trick to eliminating those repercussions, but once you know you need it, it’s too late. I presume they’re hoping for replay value, but I’m not going to bother.
Overall, if you can get Deus Ex: Human Revolution – Missing Link on sale, get it. I thought it was pretty good.
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Finished Deus Ex: Human Revolution and really enjoyed it
I finished Deus Ex: Human Revolution and thought it was all it should have been. I played the original Deus Ex many years ago and liked it quite a bit (though remember little of it now), so had high hopes for this one, and wasn’t disappointed.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a first person action game with RPG elements (as you gain experience, you get to upgrade your augmentations to help you jump higher or hack security systems better, etc.). The game is sometimes a shooter and often a stealth game, because there are some situations where going in guns blazing doesn’t help or may not even be possible. You make good use of cover and can employ a variety of lethal or non-lethal weapons. The game is quite a challenge, because your character doesn’t start out as a badass and can die very quickly.
There are a number of frustrating situations, but in the end, there are solutions for all of them. The biggest problem with the game is inventory management. There isn’t enough space to store all your guns and ammo, yet you need to carry all of them, because ammo is scarce in many levels, so you’ll need to switch guns a lot. Towards the end, ammo is more plentiful, but you want to keep all the cool guns you’ve acquired and upgraded. There are a couple of unique guns: a laser rifle and plasma rifle, so when you see them, get them even if you have to drop something less powerful. The laser rifle makes the final boss fight trivial.
The game is interesting because it is really a morality story. It has a number of factions arguing for or against human augmentation (and eventually really trying to stop it), and you’ll hear compelling arguments from all sides. At the end, you will need to make a choice as to how the future development of augmentation goes (or not), which is nifty. Overall, the game is very well written and thought provoking. Certainly not a “happily ever after” game.
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Finished Borderlands 2 and the ending didn’t suck
I finished the story missions of Borderlands 2 over the weekend and really enjoyed the game. The ending was significantly less lame than the ending of the original Borderlands (umm, killed the monster, but no fancy loot? WTF?). This time, there were some nice drops from the final monster and Handsome Jack – so many, in fact, that I couldn’t carry them all, thus they were lost forever. The final boss wasn’t all that bad, especially compared to some of the earlier robot bosses that were extra tough and extra dangerous. So overall, it was a great game. I’ve now unlocked Vault Hunter mode, which I presume is simply a harder mode that gives better loot, but I have little interest in that. I’m more interested in trying a different character type.
So even though my level 33 Siren is pretty badass, she’s still able to die, either when confronted by lots of robots or by a super tough mobile boss (the huge Mom skag, for example). I think the skill progression tree goes a little slowly, and, if you don’t put all your points into one tree (there are 3 per class), you’ll never get the top-tier skill. Sure I was able to beat the game without it, but I’d like to have had it. But other than minor complaints like that, I thoroughly enjoyed the game and recommend it to everyone who likes shooters and first person RPGs.
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Finished Uncharted 3, Loving Borderlands 2, Wondering About Torchlight II Co-Op
I finally finished Uncharted 3 and enjoyed it quite a bit. It really is like playing in a movie, where everything is very scripted and you need to do exactly the right thing to get to the next cutscene, but while you’re playing, none of that feels constraining at all. The game looks good, and the 3D is quite well done (perhaps not quite worth buying a 3D TV for, but almost). Since I’m probably the last PS3 owner on the planet to finish Uncharted 3, I won’t recommend you go get it, since I just had to catch up on the pleasures of the game.
I’ve really been enjoying Borderlands 2! The action is great, the guns are awesome, and the enemies are fun to shoot, incinerate, blow up, etc. The plot is fair at best, but they have a tongue-in-cheek way of reminding us how lame the ending of the previous Borderlands was and explaining it away. Pretty cute.
I am playing as a Siren, which means I can hold an enemy in the air, which is handy, but I tend to forget to use that skill and just blow heads off with the sniper rifle! To that extent, playing the Siren seems pretty generic, so I’m tempted to try playing as one of the other classes, particularly the Assassin. I played the Commando in Borderlands, so am happy to be trying something different, but my playing style isn’t as different as I’d like (which I admit is likely my fault).
There have been a couple of instances where I simply could not complete a mission because the boss was too tough. In both cases, I went away, did some side missions to gain a couple levels, and came back to take care of business. Some of the missions are quite a challenge, but there’s always a way to figure it out.
For such a new game, there are remarkably few bugs. One annoyance is that the recorders that expose history keep reappearing in the same places, so I can’t be sure I’ve heard them all, so keep picking them up and hearing the same story over and over. I hope that’s a bug that will be fixed rather than a feature.
I also bought Torchlight II this weekend in hopes of playing co-op with a friend. If I were cynical, I would suggest that the co-op system for Torchlight II is just a nasty scheme for Runic Games to build their customer database so they can market to us or sell it for the same purpose. If I weren’t cynical, I’d just say it sucks. In order to play online, you need to register your account with Runic’s website, then connect it with Steam’s login (which concerns me right there), then log in within the game, having to remember your password each time. I don’t know what the online lobby/matching scheme is like, because when I tried it, I wasn’t able to connect. Great! Why can’t they do something simple, like what Borderlands 2 did: show your friends who are playing the game on the start screen? Really, why complicate it and make it us jump through hoops just to play with our friends?
So the jury’s still out on Torchlight II’s co-op scheme, but the game looks fine, if carpal-tunnel inducing. It’s a fixed-perspective action RPG, like Diablo, and involves clicking a lot, also like Diablo. I couldn’t find any support for game controllers or anything else for those of us that would like to keep our mouse fingers from cramping. I only played it for a few minutes, but it seems kinda fun.
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Borderlands 2 is great fun!
I got Borderlands 2 yesterday and played it for perhaps an hour and think it is great! The PC version looks good, is fun, and has lots of guns, even at the start! My only complaint is that the inventory/equipment screen is awkward. Instead of the obvious PC-centric approach of dragging equipment (guns and shields) from the backpack to their equipment slots, they chose a console-centric approach where we need to select the gun, select the (presumably occupied) slot, then swap. Pretty damn annoying. There does seem to be an auto-equip mechanism where holding down the use-key (“E” in the PC case) will replace the current gun with the one you are picking up. I’m not sure if it only does it for better guns or any gun, but it could be handy or it could surprise you by accidently replacing a gun you liked. Overall, Borderlands 2 seems like it will be great!
On the other hand, I think I will not continue playing it for a bit. I need to finish Uncharted 3 (I think I’m nearly there) and Kingdoms of Amalur. Speaking of Amalur, it has to be one of the best values in gaming, especially now that it no longer commands a $60 price. In terms of gameplay per dollar, it is fantastic. And it is a fun and attractive game, so check it out if you’re even remotely interested in single player RPGs!