So I haven't done one of these in some time. So I've been playing quite a few games since I last wrote about something. That being Mass Effect 3. Since then I've picked up The Witcher 2, Resident Evil Operation Raccoon City, Dark Souls, The Darkness 2, SSX, and Prototype 2. I'm not going to do a write up about all of them though. Just a couple.
The first being The Witcher 2. Now, I never played The Witcher on PC.My laptop has a shit graphics card so I can't really run anything. So that being said, coming from someone who knows nothing about the original game, I thought The Witcher 2 was fantastic. Great story, great characters, great environment, and even the combat felt great once I got the hang of it. I said, the story is great. It is obviously the main emphasis of the game rather then gameplay or graphics (Though both of those are great too) The character's personalities felt real. Most were not portrayed as some godly saint of all goodness or the embodiment of evil. They were all somewhere in the grey area. All with flaws and some also with redeemable traits. And this felt more real to me because no one is perfect. The game also comes off as a very 'mature' game. Not because there is nudity and course language (There are those too) but everything about the story and the world feels 'mature'. I'm not too sure how to actually explain it. Like, if typical fantasy was in real life.. this would be it. It's not some magical world where everything seems alright or is going to be alright. Not sure how much I can run this point into th ground, so I'll move along. To sum this paragraph up though, The Witcher 2 is great.
I also started playing Prototype 2. Which I'm really enjoying so far. It's not going to win any awards or be very memorable because of its story. It's just a really fun game. One that makes you feel completely bad ass and in a world you can cause chaos in. I know there are quite a few games that are like this, but both Prototype games to me worked really well. The story isn't anything great, average perhaps. And the game isn't very long either but that doesn't really matter to me. As long as I'm having a fun time playing it. I love games with great deep stories but every now and then I like to relax and play a mindless action game. Prototype 2 is perfect for that.
As for the other games I haven't played nearly as much of. I've been spending most of my time with The Witcher 2 and just picked up Prototype 2 last night, been playing that none stop since. I have gone back and finished up all of the achievements in a few games I had sitting around and were close to finishing. Those being Fallout 3, Kingdoms of Amalur, Borderlands, and Kung Fu Panda. Anyways I guess that's all for now. Maybe more than one person will read this. Maybe they won't. Who knows. I don't particularly care either way, I'm just bored and felt like sharing my opinion to those of whom wish to listen. Mood: Neutral Music: Drunk Tank Podcast
I'm a little late on posting something regarding Mass Effect 3 but here are my thoughts on the first really big release of the year. (And has got to be one of the biggest releases of the year) Warning there will probably be some spoilers in here. Not sure how many or where they will pop up, but I'm sure I will mention some.
If you know me, then you know I've been a fan since I randomly decided to purchase the original game. With countless playthroughs on both Mass Effect 1 and 2, I was highly anticipating this release. But did it live up to the hype and two years of waiting?
To put it short. Yes. Yes it did. Putting all of the negative criticism regarding the ending aside. The game was fantastic. Simply fantastic. The game play felt better then it ever has been, which is great. And planet scanning has been greatly simplified. But for the better I think. I didn't hate the old planet scanning but it was just so time consuming and tedious. But most importantly was the story. It was great to say the least. It is very rare when a game (or story of any kind) can draw me in and make me feel attachment the way Mass Effect has been able to do. And many times in this game there have been moments where I was on the edge of my seat, so to speak, not knowing if a character will even survive or not. It was nerve racking. But that's why it was great. Notable scenes that were very emotionally powerful to me were... SPOILER... Mordin's sacrifice, Thane's death, and Grunt seemingly dying fighting off hordes of Rachni, and then crawling out of the cave covered in blood. I actually felt relief and joy seeing that happen. This is almost unheard of from me. So that is saying something. Another scene that made my stomach turn because of how emotional it was was if you are like me and screw up bringing peace to the Geth and Quarians, one of the outcomes is the Geth completely destroy the Quarians. (I do like the Geth better anyway after learning how they were treated and everything was out of self defence.) But then Tali ends up taking her own life, and that was a horrible feeling. Bad enough that I restarted an earlier save so I could save her and bring peace to the two species. (And I did, turns out I forgot to do an important side mission regarding the Geth)
Anyways, over all the game was fantastic... up until the last 10 minutes or so. If you have heard anything regarding Mass Effect 3 then you probably have heard the internet masses bitching and complaining about the ending. Although I do not agree with their arguments of wanting Bioware to actually change the ending. (Seriously, it is their game they can do whatever they want and should not be expected to change it) I didn't like the ending very much though. It wasn't all bad. It just felt rushed and lacked a lot of closure with many of the characters. Also the ending didn't really bring in any choices you have made throughout the series. You'd think after all of this time making alliances and major choices that there would be a bigger impact on the ending. Pretty much all of the endings had about the same outcome. Just with different twists in them. Now I do understand that Bioware did probably have to rush the ending because there was that big leak of the original ending. I kinda wish Bioware either kept the original ending anyway or pushed the game back longer in order to make a better ending. I would have been completely fine with this. But oh well. They have said they are going to release some sort of DLC that will focus on the ending. What this means I am not sure, but I am looking forward to see what it will be. Still I don't think they should feel they need to do anything to the end just because the internet bitched about it. The internet bitches about everything.
Well anyways, those are my thoughts on the game. Still an extremely great game over all. Music: Between the Buried and Me
Awaiting the wait till Mass Effect 3's March 6th release date, I picked up Kingdoms of Amalur a few weeks ago. I played the demo back whenever that was released and really enjoyed it so I was looking forward to playing the full game as soon as I could. I even pushed aside all the other games I need to work on in order to play this game. I'm a sucker for RPGs. This one is particularly addictive to me. Visually it reminds me of Fable with some elements of World of Warcraft. The game plays completely different though. Reminds me of the combat in games like Torchlight, Crimson Alliance, and other games in that similar style.
This game is far from perfect, but where it shines it does so brightly. Very engaging gameplay with a large world to explore, plenty of enemies to kill, plenty of people to do various quests for, and plenty of loot to be found. Which is good because I always love loot, even if I end up selling 99.9% of it. Most of the environments that I have seen have been very nice looking. Everything is very colourful. I also rather like the appearance of the creatures and people in the world. Another impressive thing they have done is not just built a world but they created one with a lot of history. Where this game really shines though is in the combat. The combat is very smooth and seamless while switching between your primary weapon, secondary weapon, and abilities. Personally I always wield the strongest pair of... magic metal circle things. I honestly cannot remember what they are called. Anyways, those are always my primary weapon. And I like having a ranged secondary weapon. Always a bow because I'm not a fan of the scepters. They eat up mana. You are allowed to have four different abilities equipped at one time. I generally only use the lightening spell you gain at the beginning. I haven't unlocked any better spells yet. I do occasionally use some other abilities like the ground quake one or the ice traps. Again, haven't unlocked any better traps yet. I haven't been sticking to any of the three typical RPG "classes" which I'm glad this game allows you to be able to take whatever you feel like. Much like Skyrim, I can be a mixture between a warrior, rogue, or spellcaster. Which is great because my main weapons (the circle things) are magic weapons, put I also like being stealthy and using a bow (rogue) and also I like wearing the biggest set of armor I can find (warrior).
The story I haven't found to be overly engaging sadly. It's not bad, just missing that certain something that really draws you in and makes you feel like your a part of the story. I find myself skipping through a lot of dialogue options that are not in the main quest. Which I hate doing, but I just find they take forever and I'm not interested enough in most of them to pay attention. I'll skim through the subtitles just to get the basic sum of it, but ignore the character speaking. It probably doesn't help that the character animations, well, aren't that great. The lip syncing is pretty bad at times and the characters show no emotion in their faces. I don't expect L.A. Noire style facial expressions, but it would be nice to see their faces match the voice. The voice acting I don't have a problem with. Some other smaller issues are the mini games when you pick locks or dispell objects. Both of these can be rather annoying unless you level up your lockpicking and dispelling skills. The lockpicking system in particular is annoying. At first it seems like it would work similar to the lockpicking style seen in Fallout 3/NV, and Skyrim. But you quickly find out it seems to be based more on luck than actual skill. Which is annoying. Luckly lockpicks are easy to find at many merchants so I have lockpicks coming out of my ass. Dispelling isn't horrible, but can be annoying unless you have very fast button hitting reflexes. Which I don't.
Over all though the game is very fun and definitely worth playing atleast the demo if you're a fan of RPGs. Which the demo is also recommended because you unlock Mass Effect 3 gear if you complete the demo (along with some bonus gear for Reckoning once you start off, which are rather helpful).
One more thing, for anyone who compares the game as a whole with Skyrim, or claims it is a rip off of Skyrim. You are an idiot. The games have very little similarities asides from how a few systems work (Breaking the law, etc.) That is all. Music: Perfect Dark soundtrack
I finally got around to picking up Deus Ex shortly after Christmas and I started it a couple weeks ago. I'm really enjoying it. This game keeps getting better and better the more I play it. Which is rare in a game. I probably would say this is in my top games of 2011. Definitely a lot of fun. I think what is making it more fun and rewarding for me is I'm playing it on the hardest difficulty and trying to get Pacifist Achievement (Not killing anyone asides from bosses) and Foxiest of the Hounds Achievement (Never set off an alarm) So basically I'm going fully stealth. Which is a hell of a lot more fun then running in the front door guns-a-blazing. Normally I'm not great at shooters anyways so doing that on the hardest difficulty would not be easy for me. But going all stealthy the difficulty is pretty much unimportant. Another thing that I've really liked about this game is the art style. I love the whole Noir-Cyberpunk-whatever you want to call it atmosphere they have created. It's beautiful. The graphics aren't anything stunning, fairly average. But that is not required to make a beautiful game. I also really like some of the interesting fashion choices used in the game.
Anyways, enough about Deus Ex. So this is a fairly busy time for my gaming life. Just finished the onslaught of 2011's fall line up. Brutal. But so many good games came out of it. And that is partially the problem. I have little time to play all of them. I have managed to finish Saints Row the Third and Batman Arkham City. And that's about it so far. Of course I've played a lot of Skyrim but that game just keeps going so I'm not even going to include it in this. I've barely started Assassin's Creed Revelations which I really want to play because I love the Assassin's Creed series. But I'm trying to focus on one (two games max) at a time. Currently being Deus Ex and Mass Effect 2. I have beaten Mass Effect 2 many times already, and it is one of the very few games I can replay in its entirety multiple times and never get tired of it. And I'm not even trying for achievements. Mass Effect 3 is coming out in a little over a month and I really want to finish this playthrough of Mass Effect 2 before then. I wanted to fix some decisions and just have the Mass Effect series fresh in my mind once the third comes out. I'm greatly looking forward to it. I played the original Mass Effect a couple years ago and loved every second of it. Easily my favourite game at the time (and still possibly is) I had to have had atleast 10 complete playthroughs in that game. Never getting tiring or old to me. Then Mass Effect 2 came out, just as addicting as the first. Sure some features were changed and I preferred the original game in those regards. But the shiny new graphics and amazing story line made it just as amazing as the first. There hasn't been a game series (or any kind of story in general) that I have felt this connected to and generally cared for the characters in it. It's kind of funny because out of all my playthroughs in both games, I have always played as the exact same Shepard. I've been meaning to start a Female Shepard playthrough of both games, but I just haven't gotten around to it. I feel almost wrong to play Mass Effect as any other character besides MY Shepard. It just doesn't feel right. That being said I still will do a Female playthrough eventually. I normally prefer to play as female characters when I'm given the choice anyways. Odd that I went with the Male Shepard in the first place.
Okay I think that is enough from me for now. No one probably reads this shit anyways, but it kills some time while I'm on break at school. Mood: Neutral Music: Inception Soundtrack
Lately I've been feeling very 'hollow', or 'dead.' Just can't see anything fun or exciting in anything. The world is grey to me and dull to me. I feel nothing. Well, more like I feel less. Everyday is a little different of course. Some I might feel a bit more "normal", while other days I will feel very disconnected. This isn't anything particularly new to me though. I've felt this way for extended periods of time countless times in the past. And yet every time it does feel different or some how worse then the times before. If that is true or not, I do not know. That is beside the point anyway. I just feel like venting. Normally I don't like writing journal entries online in this nature, but it feels like my only venting option right now. I've felt a lot more distant from everyone in my life for the past.. well I don't know how long. A decent length of time. To the point where I don't feel comfortable or willing to talk about my emotions very openly as I once was able to do with particular people. I've also been feeling what seems to be like a building lack of empathy. I've never been someone to care too much about people, but it feels stronger then it does normally. These two things combined make me feel very disconnected. Disconnected from the people around me. Disconnected from society. Disconnected from myself. It's like I'm only half here. Only in body, not in mind or spirit (if you believe in such things.)I just go about each day repeating essentially the same routines with no looking forward to things in the near future. In fact I try avoid looking towards the future as much as possible. I only have negative feelings and pessimistic outlooks towards the future. And those thoughts have definitely been stronger lately. Maybe this little entry has been going on too long now. Not sure what else to say anyways. Nothing of real importance anyways. Like I've said, I don't expect anyone to even read my journal entries but I'll write them from time to time regardless. Like now. Oh well. I might as well attempt to sleep. Mood: Disconnected. Depressed. Music: "Outro" by Haste The Day
