Saturday, December 23rd

So I really haven't been playing games almost at all... I dunno why, other things are just taking my interest.

However, LAN last night. Was supposed to be for HoMM3, and WAS for most, but because of some random stuff, I only got in a little of one game. HoMM3 is amazing though; very very complex strategies you can pull. I got in a little CSS and HL2:DM, but the real highlight for me was playing the new Garry's Mod 10. Talk about an improvement. The UI/menus are totally overhauled, and the tools are way more stable. Also, from looking at the site, it seems new stuff is always coming out.

Since The Ship is having a free weekend, I checked it out. Nifty game, nifty ideas, mostly good execution, and playing it is a problem. The problem is that identifying players/AI/random people is FAR too easy. Also, the lack of any sort of built in communication with other players ignores an entire possible part of the game; selling information.

GS2 is nearing an end, I got the second party in it, and combat actually requires a lot of thinking now. With 8 characters and 4 actions per round, you really have to choose carefully.

The lack of updating should be gone this week, no work and lots of LANs!

Sunday, December 10th

Finally, my friend and I continued our NWN2 game. She wanted to be main char, and so had to go level up a new character to the exact point we were at, save, and import my character as secondary. (kinda strange you can't just change main char when exporting/importing is so easy) It was great, except that whatever the last patch did, it seriously screwed up something. Both of us were getting around 10-15FPS, when we HAD been getting 50ish. It was almost playable, but we gave up in the end. Note: it has a very nice crafting system, I really like how you have to find books that explain the recipes, but you then can just write them down...

As usual, I played WC3 TDs with friends, nothing really special this time.

Saturday, December 9th

Well, I again (rather foolishly) tried to play Oblivion...
For whatever reason (looking at you, Vista drivers) the screen will regularly stop rendering. I can still see HUD, I can still move and do stuff, I can still see inventory. But I can't see the world or my character. I hope this is some simple DirectX issue or a NVIDIA driver issue... but we will see.
I also a tried to play X3 again. Good game, but incredibly complex and slow. It works, but even though they are on version 2.0.02 (2.0?? dear god thats a lot of patches) the storyline mode is completely broken. I will try to play it on a non-story mode at some point... when I have 10 hours to spare making trade runs.

Weekend Extra

This week's older game will be FreeSpace 1.

FreeSpace was made by the same team that created Descent. Interestingly enough, they are vastly different styles of games (though they are in the same genre.)
FreeSpace is a mission-based space flight sim. The basic plot is that Humans and Vasudans are at war when the Shivans show up and start indiscriminately blasting people out of space. The Humans and Vasudans (of course) join forces to fight the greater foe. While this plot is not exactly unique, and many space sims have used it (*cough*WC:Prophecy*cough*) it works pretty well. This is because they bothered to include factions within each side that are not happy with allying with their former enemies.
Combat in FreeSpace was well done, a semi-airplane set of physics makes the dogfighting both easier and more enjoyable than strict Newtonian physics would have been. The weapons are a real gem in this though. You begin with just simple energy weapons that deal no shield damage, and unguided low-yield missiles. As the game progresses, technological breakthroughs are made by the combined scientists of the Humans and Vasudans. This means that every few missions, new weapons show up. But you don't just get these weapons, oh no, often you have to test them, or fly the prototypes from point A to point B. And what happens there matters, you can get them earlier by playing well.
Ships are handled in basically the same way weapons are, new ones as they are developed. There is a great variety in ship types; interceptors, space-superiority, light bombers, heavy bombers, etc.
I should talk about the customization abilities next. Again, when the game begins, you are just a wingman in some squad. As the game progresses, you eventually make your way to squad leader, and then eventually leader of 4 squads. At the beginning of a mission, any ships you are allowed to control are given a recommended loadout, the fun is in that you don't have to keep that at all. The mission might say to use a heavy bomber wing, 2 interceptor wings, and a light bomber wing. But you can change it so that each squad consists of 2 bombers and 2 interceptors, or really anything you want. This adds a level of customizability to the setup of missions, not just the mission itself. Also, the weapons, ammo, and ships available are actually kept track of. So if you take those three brand new space-superiority fighters out on the mission, and get them all killed, good luck trying to field any until the next supply run. This adds a whole, almost hidden, level of resource management across missions.
The last is really the best. Non-linear mission structure. Or, well, something close to it. Essentially, your performance on missions (and what actually gets done, yes, often you are allowed to fail objectives) determines later missions. Suppose you are given a secondary objective of destroying a specific cruiser in a mission, but it warps out before you can finish it off, it WILL show up in some later mission to cause you strife.

Sure, the graphics are old, but otherwise, it ranks as the most entertaining space sim I have played. Ranked right up there with X-wing and TIE Fighter as one of the best. Sadly, it has not been majorly influential on the genre, and people still get excited over such old ideas as non-linear mission structure.

Friday, December 8th

Well, this week (and weekend) are going to end up being very game light, which is too bad.
I played WC3 TDs with people tonight, Maffa TD is interesting, it is hard, but as you figure out build sequences, levels become very easy. Then you loose on the next one, modify the build a little, win easily, and loose on the next one. Most TDs have some level that always makes you loose, or some build that always wins... Maffa changes that a little.

Also, more GS2, as usual.

Wednesday, December 7th

I finally played some more of Oblivion. I got in about an hour, and had some great dungeon delving, but also discovered an interesting bug between Vista and Oblivion. After about 45 min, the screen goes black and refuses to render the world anymore. One can still see their inventory and such, but nothing else. Upon quitting I noticed that an error message had come up, saying it was out of video memory.... Really puts a cramp on marathon sessions :P

Oh, and I spent 30min trying to get another spirit ring in GS2.... the forging system is REALLY aggravating.

Tuesday, December 5th

So I forgot to post for a few days... mainly because I didn't actually play anything besides a few rounds of a WC3 TD. (tough one too...)

Today however, I gave in and installed Oblivion on my Vista install. And then proceeded to take more than an hour getting mods. The last time I tried to play Oblivion, I spent 3-4x as much time on GETTING MODS as playing the game. This game is so heavily improved by mods, that its actually BAD, simply because you spend too much time imagining the game, and too little playing.
To be fair, I did play some. My current set (I'll list next time I play) looks great, and plays great. As usual with Vista, some graphical problems (though not unplayebly bad)

GS2 includes one feature (that many RPGs do) that annoys me greatly. Random item forging. You give some guy an ore, and he forges one of a few random items out of it. Why is this annoying? Because I have to spend 30 minutes loading my save game before I give him the ore, and repeatedly forging it until I get the item I want. Seriously, if the item is not dictated by earlier events, just let the player choose, and save time. Otherwise they 'break' the system, and get bored doing it.

Weekend Extra

This weekend's extra is that list you see on the side.
Yes, I own all of those games, and probably more.
No, I have not played all of them, much less finished all of them.
The borrowed games list (all the way at the bottom) is far from complete, but I cannot remember them all.

Friday, December 1st

As usual, played some GS2- nothing to report on that

WC3 is a wonderful game. This is really just because of the engine. The sheer number of maps people make is staggering, and the variety moreso. Someday, I will write a detailed analysis of the capabilities of the WC3 editor, but for now, lets just leave it at the fact that I played a TBS game in a RTS engine...

Thursday, November 30th

Again, a game light day.
Golden Sun was more of the same, and I am still trying to nail down what about their combination of simplicity and variety of puzzles makes it good.

I finished CoD2 today.
CoD2 was a very varied game. The first campaign (Russians) made me remember CoD1. Wide open areas, lots of comrades, and every building a fight to the death. A great piece of work. It is one of the few games that I had to play in chunks, simply because of how intense it was. After twenty minutes, one does not feel excited or accomplished; they feel as if they went through a war zone.
Sadly, this does not carry to the British campaign. Much of the combat took place in trenches, and becomes quickly monotonous. The tank missions were fun, but far too easy, and far too short.
The American campaign has its moments. The D-day missions are exhilarating and well paced (the falling back mission especially comes to mind.) Unfortunately, the town capture missions are all very similar, and again, monotonous by the third.
Strange note: The credits have a 'video' that plays in the background, a bizarre story of a botched rescue of a British soldier by American soldiers...

I attempted to play some BF2, but something is, and has been, wrong with my connection, and I CANNOT hold a connection to any server for a BF game. Major flaw if you ask me.

Wednesday, November 29th

Golden Sun 2: The Lost Age

GS2 is a bit of an oddity for me; the puzzles feel unnecessary, yet are enjoyable.

For example, one puzzle came up twice where you enter a room and it is partially filled with sand (which you can walk on). On one side of the room is a locked door, the switch to open it is midway through it. At some points in the sand there are invisible buttons that raise the sand level. If it gets to high it covers the door switch.

There is virtually no way know WHERE the sand raising buttons are before you step on them. But even on the second time I was not annoyed or bored by such luck and memory based puzzle.
Why?

I think it is because of two factors: First, ease of dealing with the puzzle. It is a very simple puzzle to understand, and especially important, to interact with. The player never is confused about what is going on. Second, it takes two minutes max. GS(2) is filled with these micro puzzles. They don't take huge amounts of thinking or time, but they give an instant reward that pushes the player forward.

Later posts on the same games will probably be much shorter.
Also, later posts will probably be better.

Up and running

I do not know what possessed me to think it was a good plan to start a blog. Much less one based on games.
My goal, at least until I abandon this, is to blog everyday that I play games, about the games I played that day.
Maybe once a week or something I can give a post of games long gone that deserve it.