Tag: gaming

Posted on

Mission Complete: Grim Fandango Remastered (PS4)

While I adored Lucasarts and Sierra adventure games growing up, I only played Grim Fandango until around Year 2 when it was first released. I’m happy to see that it and other Lucasarts adventure games are still thriving through emulation and remastering.

As I did originally, I loved the style and direction of the game. However, I found a lot of the puzzles unclear and baffling in their logic, requiring timed action that is not at all obvious during character animations. I found myself consulting guides way more than any other adventure game to get through it. The controls were also pretty clunky on console, even after replacing the tank controls. Yes, there was a run button but with the amount of backtracking you had to do in the game and the forced animations for various scene changes it did get quite tedious.

Either way, a classic adventure game restored for newer generations to enjoy, dated mechanics and all!

Posted on

Finished: Far Cry Primal (XB1)

Far Cry Primal

Far Cry: Primal is finished after 28 hours with a 56% completion rate and 80% of the achievements. I’ll probably play a bit more to get a few more easily obtainable achievements.

Far Cry Primal (2)

All in all I enjoyed it. A different take on the Far Cry experience. Not as cool as Blood Dragon and not as fun as Far Cry 3 & 4, but still enjoyable. I’m glad I got it on sale, but there’s a lot of content and I didn’t have the complaints that most people had about the reused map and lack of weapons. I found the weapon choices altered my play style from how I normally would have approached missions in other Far Cry experiences. I have to give them credit for doing something different.

Posted on

Finished: Mad Max (XB1)

Mad Max

Mad Max (XB1). Bought it during a Games for Gold sale after reading some positive comments and it turned out to be a fantastic game. Yes, it can get very grindy/repetitive if you’re a completist, but it sure is a lot of fun. My playthrough totaled 64 hours, I maxed out Max’s stats and his main car and by the time the credits rolled I was still having fun. I will note that I don’t enjoy racing games so I avoided all the optional races, hated the few mandatory ones, but LOVED the convoy chases. Definitely recommended if you’d like a mix of Arkham Knight, Shadow of Mordor, and set in an a well-executed Mad Max world.

Mad Max (2)

Posted on

Finished: Massive Chalice

Finished Massive Chalice over the weekend. I bought it during a Humble Bundle store sale while it was in early access, knowing it would hit 1.0 on June 1st. Then I found out it was part of the Games with Gold program for June, so I ended up playing that version instead.

I really enjoyed it. You could call it XCOM Light, and I thought the element of maintaining traits through bloodlines was pretty interesting. I didn’t pay attention to the fine tuning of stats and traits through marriage as much as was probably intended because of limited options at the start of the game, which ended up being a habit I kept up throughout. I also made the mistake of setting up too many families to breed Caberjacks, which I ended up loving over any other class as I went along anyways.

Old age was an interesting twist as well. While I was used to character permadeath in XCOM that could be brought on by a botched maneuver, I became very conscious of the ticking clock of time every time I brought my seasoned Vanguards out for another mission. You never knew when they would have their last, and when there were Wrinklers involved that could snatch away 5 years of their lives with every hit it just made every move that much more important.

I think the main complaints about this game were simply that it wasn’t as XCOM as XCOM, but I think anyone who liked XCOM or wanted an interesting take on the turn-based strategy genre should give it a try.

Posted on

Summer Steam Sale!

Steam Sale!
Steam Sale!

It’s that time of year again!

Here’s what I’ve picked up:

Now that I’ve compiled a list of everything I’ve bought during the Steam sale, I’m pretty embarassed. Sure, most of the games were incredibly cheap and nothing above $10. But that’s still a lot of games.

Posted on

Game Time: Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

Fri_Apr_10_18-02-27_UTC-0230_2015
Pow!

If you combine the best elements of the combat of the Batman Arkham series with the exploration of the Assassin’s Creed series, and then add the surprisingly awesome Nemesis system, you get Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor.

#selfie
#selfie

Despite loving Dragon: Age Inquisition, I needed to take a break from my 120+ hour save to try something new. I had picked up Shadow of Mordor during a recent sale and kept hearing overwhelmingly positive reviews, so I decided to give it a try. It was exactly what I needed.

Great creature designs.
Great creature designs.