Progress Report: Sales, Stars and a Robotic Revival

Welcome to.. the ENNND! mwhahahaha…of the year that is.

I hope everyone has had an amazing Christmas and now that the family, food and frivolity is behind us we can sit back in a comfy couch a just relax once more with our favourite games. And, that’s what I’ve been doing.

Of course there was the Steam sale as well so I’m now nicely stocked up on games to play for the next 2 weeks I have off. Surprisingly I mostly just picked up cheap indie games, and a far few of them. Dust: an Elysian Tale, Guacamelee, Hotline Miami, Rogue Legacy, Solar 2, Spelunky, Violett, Brothers, Gnomoria, and The swapper. The bigger titles I picked up were the Bioshock Series and Dark Souls. A good mix of games over all.

Out of the bunch I’ve probably been playing Rogue Legacy the most. Each and every bit of free time in between bigger projects or sometimes for hours on end has been spent delving into the corrupted castle in search of treasure. I was terrible at it when I started, I make risky moves, i was bad at jumping and I really didn’t understand the game very well. The tricks it plays and how it entices you into hard to win spots in order to kill you. It is risk vs reward incarnate.

Now that I do understand the game a bit better I’m still terrible at it. I’ve managed to beat the first boss, that giant eye thing which took a countless number of deaths and I can clear that first easier section of the castle over half the time but I never get much further. It is more through brute force that I’ve managed to accumulate wealth to upgrade my armour and castle, I think the most I got in a run was around 6k, decent but hardly something to brag over.

My measly progress

What makes the game special though is the attention to detail on all the weird but wonderful traits. The have a huge collection of them that randomly attach to certain characters which alter the experience in trivial, aesthetic or drastic ways. It’s also amusing how there not afraid to be politically incorrect. They haven’t altered the random generation at all so you can get pretty much any combination of traits and even character looks. A bearded near-sighted gay woman at one stage just because.

my favourite, the nostalgia trait

It is a wonderful rogue like that will punish you fiercely but feels so rewarding.

Another fun, enjoyable title was Solar 2. It’s a game were you play some sort of sentient planet based life form wherein you progress by absorbing specific other objects around you depending on your type and size. At first you’re an asteroid bumping into other asteroids to gain mass, then you turn into a planet and start absorbing all the asteroids you can to get bigger, eventually you gain life on the planet that in turn protects you. You get still bigger and turn into a star with planets that circle you with their own progression needs as well.

There is a lot to the game mechanically but the gameplay is quite easy to learn and feel smooth to play. Progression is this slight upward track of steadily growing in mass while still trying to care for the systems under your control until your this massive black hole sucking up everything in your path… sucking up everything in your path is insanely satisfy, watching the planets sling-shotted by your force is rather amusing as well

I found myself really enjoying the exploration based gameplay and taking my time growing as an entity, seeking out what I needed. It has a decent challenge to it, there will usually be bigger systems out there with more developed planets and stars. These can be quite dangerous. Running is always an option but if you do play it smart you can take them out or lower their power. Stealing their most developed planets is fun too. There are a bunch of missions to complete as well if you want more of a challenge and some of these really require you to be tactical. The only issue I have is that it is too hard to defeat a fleeing system, star or planet… they’re just too fast and you’re unable to do enough damage.

As you know I’ve kept up my building in Terraria. The sails are complete now although I’m thinking about painting an image on some of them, just a red jewel to represent me. I’ve also created a land mass nearby the ship which might end up being the port for the ship.

A little more Starbound of course. I’m still taking it a bit slower than I normally would because there is another wipe coming in the new year. It should be the first patch that requires it which will mean a character and world wipe, no point getting that attached to it then. I’ve still just be learning more about the game and it’s progression. Crafting what i need to and exploring a lot. I’m still amazed by how pretty some of the environments are for something that is so limited. They have the lighting absolutely perfect which usually makes night time the prettiest time of all.

Last week I managed to play a bit of Rayman Legends, an absolutely brilliant remake of the old classic. The environment designs are wonderful the combat while simple feels good and the jumping aspects have a good difficulty curve that keeps you learning while after more.

The only issue is that it isn’t really designed for keyboard use. It’s just not as fluid to play that way and you end up making mistakes because of it. It’s about time I got a controller for the puter anyway, would make a lot of games a little easier. I was thinking about getting a ps4 controller as I plan to get the console eventually anyway, that way I can use it then when the time comes.

I finally jumped back into Mass Effect 2 but the main story isn’t letting me progress any further. The are still researching, working out and/or installing the collector device so that I can head though the gates to kick some collector booty…do collectors have butts?

To fill the time I thought  to finish up more of the characters side mission and well, I was already at the citadel after doing some shopping and thought why not do Thane’s. Another family issue to resolve of course with his son getting into the family business.

While the mission was a rather boring follow the leader type thing, tailing a certain suspect from the boardwalks above the story behind it was a nice one. A father seeking redemption for himself and for his son. A lost relationship after Thane got involved in the revenge of his wife and now, regretting that decision a little.

During these conversations I get the feeling during these missions that I should have focused on one morality, good or bad and maintained a high rating as during these missions I’m getting a lot of greyed out options during the dialogue. Some of these are obviously the easy choices in order to finish the mission faster in a certain way but because I’ve played out decision rather normally, acting what I think is right in any given decision (well, except for that kicking a guy out the window bit) and that ends up pretty neutral.

The next mission was that of Legion. Here there was a new threat to the Geth coming from a heretic Geth station. A new virus had been designed that could infect the Geth with the creators logic.. I’m guessing that would be extremely bad. Another large army under the creators control..

It was interesting talking to legion during this time as the Geth have some, rather different decisions on morality for a synthetic life form. They claim all Life forms should be able to Self Determinate which comes down to them pretty much accepting other races to live how they want without the interference from others.

This actually makes the conflict between the Geth and the Quarrians that much more interesting. If that is their tree feeling then they would have been fine with leaving them alone, and that’s what they did so the surviving Quarrianss could organise and build the Fleet. If there is any more conflict then it would probably be instigated by the Quarrians first.

Hmm… although at this stage would the Geth, knowing what the Quarrians are like proceed with a pre-emptive strike.

Anyway the mission was rather great as well. Combat is getting more engaging, the environmental aspect of the trigger points were great, and the final wave defense was a lot of fun as well.

Another moral conundrum as well. To rewrite an intelligent artificial race or to simply destroy them. To force a “conclusion on them seems a little wrong but then, these beings are intelligent and outright genocide is not a good choice either. I’m sure as a human would prefer death than to be brainwashed… to lose ourselves but then there is no individuality there to begin with.. or at least a minimal amount. With the same experiences many eyes looking at the same thing, even from different angles will usually come to the same conclusion.

The philosophical Robot

I ended up choosing to rewrite them first as it seemed the right thing to do but also since doing that would create more resistance against the heretics.

Well that’s it for this week. With a lot more gaming in the weeks to come. I shouldn’t be this happy about having time at home but I am. Working full time as well as having the usual responsibilities means you often don’t get the time to game as much as you would like to. More is always better although I think I might be reaching the limit at the moment… Backs getting sore =p

oh yeh, and I may or may not be in a beta… and kinda liking it

Have a great week everyone and may all your chests be full of shining gold and fabulous lootz

 

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