Castles II: Siege and Conquest.

I don't game much anymore, but for some reason I find I can fire up this largely forgotten title any 'ol time and enjoy it for a few hours, both on the strategic side and the creative side, what with its overwrought voice-over work and silly .fmv interludes. That's the hallmark of a fun strategy game, I reckon (look at chess, or even minecraft for that matter).

In the order of time invested weekly:

Diablo 2 LoD (PC)

Playing as Barbarian. Stuck to grinding at the end of Act 4, trying to amass enough gems to create a Prismatic Amulet (and some kickass weapons and armor) which will probably help quite a lot with boss fights, as it boost all the elemental defences quite a lot. After that I'll try to kill Diablo. LoD act (Act 5) is still remaining after that.

Surprisingly, now I feel I might even replay this game sometime in the future, using some completely different character (e.g. a Necromancer or a Druid). Let's see, but I currently enjoy the game more now than earlier, even if I am grinding right now. Go figure. Maybe learning the usage of the Horadric Cube changed my mind, and I don't mind the wonky save game system that much anymore either.


Heavy Gear (PC)

- Still a few missions left on the story campaign (hard difficulty), I don't like how these last missions are quite a lot also about luck, as it takes only a couple of homing missiles from the enemies to destroy my heaviest gears. I wonder if I could outrun the missiles with a more nimble gear? But then I'd probably run out of ammo to destroy the enemies...

After the story campaign I need to check if there is anything else to play in the game, apparently there is some kind of career mode too (without story)...


Halo 2 (Xbox)

- Playing whenever I feel like firing up the Xbox, which is not quite often right now. I think I was now stuck to some big firefight where I'm supposed to kill a lot of enemies alone in some aircraft hangar where they have just landed. I seem to run out of grenades and ammo quite easily, maybe I am missing something obvious.


ICO (PS2)

- See above. I think I am quite close to the end now, I just don't feel like firing up the console(s) that often. One reason for that is that then I'd reserve our only TV to my use only, and my gf wouldn't probably like that. I can play games on PC (laptop) when she is watching the TV. Playing PC games just feels less hassle in my current situation, go figure. :)


WarWind (PC)

- I've played a few missions lately, but this doesn't feel too much fun. Let's see...

FM 2012 and Duke Nukem Forever (beating it for the 2nd time, call me mad?)

GTA 4 + Killing Floor

X3 reunion

Fallout New Vegas

Just getting into Eternal Sonata on the PS3. I picked it up dirt cheap and it's been sitting on my shelf for a while since I started it briefly to test it and had other games to play. Since I've been playing it a bit more though the story has absolutely captivated me.

Can certainly recommend it.

Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project, Redneck Rampage Collection with eRampage and Painkiller Black Edition.

Progress is slow, not much time for gaming these days.

Skyrim,BG1 and 2 and PS:T

A little !@#$ing Bulletstorm with my !@#$ing coffee earlier.

The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion.

135 hours. Level 67. Installed a stat uncapper mod after maxing out my attributes around level 40 (using Oblivion XP). Completed main quest. Completed all faction quests. Completed all Daedric quests. Completed all other quests. Completed some mod quests, in the middle of Lost Spires. Have yet to start a few other mod quests and Knights of the Nine. Have yet to visit Shivering Isles.

Dungeon Keeper, first time ever
Fallout 3

Skyrim; sort of just wading through all of the quests now that they're (mostly) a breeze to complete, so that I can move on to other games and not feel like I missed out on anything because of being in a hurry to complete it.

Still Diablo 2 LoD.

Ok, so last couple of weeks or more I've been just grinding the end of Act 4, fighting the same dungeons and same monsters over and over again, to make my barbarian stronger and get him better items to face Diablo (through gems, and also accumulating rejuvenation potions which are pretty slow and hard to come by. Elemental defences are pretty good already, varying from around 36 to 65 or so.

So, finally I have 16 full rejuvenation potions, made double weapons with flawless or perfect skulls and gems and some runes, my archer companion is fully equipped... I actually feel I'm ready to face the Diablo at last.

So I fight the powerful enemies at the end of Act 4 again to open the five portals that summon Diablo. Confident, but warily, I approach the Diablo. Ok, he does some fire circle spell that does some damage to me and my companion, no biggie... still approaching to get to distance that I can start hitting him...

Whoosh! Dead. WTF was that? So, he hit me with some firestream spell, that killed me instantly? Nice. My oh so powerful barbarian couldn't land even one hit to Diablo, which insta-killed me with his second spell.

Back to homebase, since I know I can't get back to my corpse, and belongings, lying next to Diablo without dying over and over again, I save and reload the game so that the corpse teleports to my hometown. Nice, in the process I lose 12 of my 16 full rejuvenation potions that were so hard to get.

Note to myself for the next time: leave enough room in your inventory so that when (not if) you die, the excessive rejuvenation potions go to your inventory, and not lying around your corpse, from where they will vanish to thin air if you save the game.

I think I hate the game again. Time for a pause I think. Fjuck!

Dungeon freaking Defenders!!!!!!

I recently upgraded my computer, including hard disk and OS, so I ended up installing a bunch of games from my backlogs instead of continuing those that were halfway done and full of cobwebs.

From GOG, I installed Spellforce, Sacrifice, Heroes of Might and Magic 3 and Unreal Tournament 2k4. Spellforce is nice and I'm not much that in. UT2k4 is an old staple and I'm intent on figuring out how to set a listen server to play it with my brother online, but I think I'll have to figure out port forwarding and techie stuff I'm not familiar with, Sacrifice I only played part of the tutorial, found it interesting, but will wait until I finish some other games from my plate and likewise with HoMM3, since I know that one has a lot of meat and would rather give it my full attention.

From Steam, I just finished Machinarium (had to look at the help book for the "bird who ate my piece" and (stupidly) for the batteries one, since I had both elements needed for that in my inventory and forgot to mix them. The rest was all wits and clicking randomly until I saw a pointing hand. I also installed Defense Grid (good time killer) Majesty Gold HD (had almost finished the vanilla version in crappyD before reinstalling) Unreal Tournament 3 black edition (hoping it goes on sale soon so I can gift it to my brother and a friend and we can set up a server then, maybe it's easier there) Elven Legacy (it's very much like chess and kinda hard, if chess involved terrain and spells) and Rome Total War, which I haven't touched, pretty much in a similar situation to HoMM and Sacrifice.

Odds of anyone actually caring about any of this are slim, but hey, it feels good to share.

There's a mission in Torlan on the UT3 campaign where you're given a massive vehicle but your team is outnumbered and made of idiots. It makes me hate the game too, since it feels like you're playing on your own against two teams. It's one of the few games that manages to make me scream at my computer ans at bots. It's not just that they can't hear you, they're freaking programs who will never understand me, so why am I screaming?