Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Drowning in a sea of games.

I've never had so many games to play at the same time.
It started with Dead Nation, which I finally got around to playing, it's an immediately addictive top down shooter with an excellent charge shot mechanic that encourages you to focus and line up zombies. 


Also from PSN I got Bloodrayne, which is pretty much a nice HD Castlevania game. There are a lot of enemies that are straight up Castlevania knockoffs. It's a great game with smart combat and great visuals, and if it were any other time, I would have probably finished it, but there is an avalanche of games coming.



This is about the time I started playing my first facebook game, Kixeye's War Commander. I haven't played a proper strategy game since Warcraft 2, though I have been really into tower defense games. That being said, War commander was really easy to get into. I had to get used to the much slower pace of facebook games, but I like that it's kind of always on the back burner  and I check in a few times a day to initiate more upgrades, or go on quick sorties.

After a weekend I decided that the game was definitely awesome and I thought it was at least worth $10 so I bought $10 worth of instant upgrades. This way I get a progression boost and support a game that I enjoy.


Then I got Dead Island which made me motion sick so I started taking dramamine for it. After 2 dramamine sessions I was able to play the game free and clear. It took much longer to get into but the melee is pretty excellent, especially for a FPS. I really like that it encourages you to pick up and discard weapons frequently, which adds to a more improvised feel to the combat.
At one point, I was playing online co-op and a random kid dropped into my game and gave me a sweet electric Katana and tesla sledgehammer for free, it was very kind of him. 
I do hate the RPG tropes of people just standing in the same place talking about how dire the situation is. The worst is when I went on a supply fetch mission, I came back in my pickup expecting cheering crowds who excitedly unload the food off of my truck and carry me in celebration, instead I parked the truck, went inside to finish my mission, and the guy, Sinamoi, just stood there and wouldn't respond. Turned out I had to unload the truck and stash the goods myself. What a bunch of ingrates. 


I got to the point where they told me I was going to initiate the last mission, but by that time I was bored with DI and was getting into RE4 for the 3rd time in my life. It took a little getting used to the controls but it's held up remarkably well. Though the textures were left alone, they were good enough that they look pretty good rendered in HD, especially faces. The sound is noticably low-fi though. As with my previous playthroughs, I've been extremely frugal with my ammunition which leads to a completely packed suitcase within a few hours. 
You'll notice some of my weapons are at zero rounds because I'm waiting for the salesman to give me ammo when I upgrade the capacity. This leads to relatively breezy boss encounters and a lot of backtracking to the dealer to sell more ammo. I also like to keep my case tidy.
After the first nerve-wracking playthrough I've been intermittently playing through again with infinite launcher. 
Then I got the Battlefield 3 Beta which is pretty slick. Though BFBC2 was obviously more polished and fully featured, I am getting a lot of enjoyment out of the operation metro map. I'm also liking the much more robust customization options on my weapons. They keep you satisfied with much more frequent and plentiful unlocks, many specific to the weapons you use to unlock them. They also trickle much more points at you. I especially like scoring for teammates spawning on you. Obviously, if they're spawning on you, that means you're in a tactical position and you're staying alive so it's nice to be rewarded for that.
My favorite tactic is planting myself with an M249 and a bipod and waiting for enemies to show up. I wait until they're running toward me to turn on my tac light, I don't want them to immediately know that I'm there, but once they do they're blinded.


I tried finding the Uncharted MP codes at subway but they didn't have them, now that I have Dark Souls, it may be a while before I get UC3MP, I'll probably just wait until the game comes out.


And I'm sort of dreading Dark Souls, I know it will be an excellent epic quest of a game, but it's also going to be really hard. And I don't have much time before BF3 and UC3 come out.


........durpedur, checking War Commander.....


So yeah, this is the most packed few months of games I've ever had, and it's totally awesome. I just hope there's a lull during X-mas so I can catch up. I definitely want to get into a lot of BF3 MP and Uncharted 3. Not to mention I've got Arkham Asylum coming and MGSHD collection. Thank Jaffe that twisted Metal was pushed back or I might have an aneurism. 
Also hope to be importing a Vita in December. Woot!

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