fable II
sitting though that opening ...again

wish i could skip the bloody thing
i finished fable II 7 times already

Does Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy) ever move past being "Quick Time Events: The Game!"? I played it a bit earlier and really enjoyed parts of it, but I'm not a fan of quick time events, especially when they make up the bulk of the gameplay.

As far as I remember, no, it doesn't. I liked the game in the beginning as well, but without wanting to spoil anything, the story fell completely apart for me towards the end and in terms of gameplay, there isn't much variety. Personally, I wouldn't play it again.

I strongly recommend playing the first 10 mins of that game and then never playing any more of it. It all goes down him from there.

I played through Valiant Hearts: The Great War over the weekend. Fantastic adventure game that's now right up there with my favourites (Syberia series, Longest Journey series). The puzzles are quite simple as the game focuses more on the characters and their stories, and that's just how I like it. Thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.

Far Cry 3, got only like 4-5h so far, but really liking it.

After finishing Two Worlds and rather surprisingly hitting the end of Two World 2 (some wtf moment after really enjoying the game and assuming it would still go on for a while with that huge undiscovered landmass) I kind of chickened out (only have to do the boss battle) and looked elsewhere.

After dabbling a little with Painkiller (good shallow fun, secrets are real tough to find) and Dark Fall (looks nice, but I don't seem to have patience for it right now) I felt a little blood-thirsty after seeing all the ads for Dracula (... Untold movie and that tv show starting in Germany) and gave VtM:B another go. And it drew me in just like back in the day. Great, great game.

About to start Lords of the Realm. I enjoyed the 2nd one as a child many years ago, hopefully the game still holds up today.

I'm on day 3 of Gabriel Knight 20th.

So far its not bad... but I'm not sure I get the remake. I agree a remake should have been done... but it doesn't feel very fresh. It even sounds like they re-used audio (or they intentionally captured low quality sounds). The visuals have solved the horrible pixel hunt from the first game's bad graphics, but it still feels like an indie game that is intentionally trying to make a nostalgic feeling game (and NOT a game being remade utilizing modern tech).

Aside from a few bugs I've also seen, its a recommendable game at the current $19.99 price point... but, IMHO, not any more than that.

Gears of War 2 (local co-op) - This game is destined to be play as co-op. Single player is boring as hell due to the cheesy story but its mechanics makes the gameplay a lot more fun. A lot has improved from the first GoW like incorporated separate level difficulty and achievement tracking. The action seems to be also more frenetic.
I get stuck looking at Czech subtitles sometimes as they translate something in a weird way, heh.

Lost Odyssey - The beginning of this game is so misleading. You meet a boss with most devastating hits like a hour or two after you started playing and it literally forces you to grind in order to survive at least 2 rounds. It's misleading because there are no similar bosses later on - I am saying that as someone who is in the middle of 3 disc out of 4.
So far it is a refreshing change from what I usually play. A lot of scenes with characters processing their feelings while an imaginary firestorm is behind their backs and of course, it has mandatory children as companions. The story managed to surprise me once or twice, so that was nice.

I like to play something from just about every genre, a piece at a time. Here's what I'm working on:


My RPG: The Witcher -- still working on it a few hours a week. I enjoy this game a lot. After I picked up Summoner again again again (that's the 4th time I bought it :D) I remembered how similar their combat is for the PC version. I wonder if it was inspired by it. It's not my favorite, but it works.


My actiony game: Power-Up. I'm loving it. Pew pew pew pew!


My beta: I haven't played betas in a while. When I was young, I used to always be involved in a beta. I was an early beta tester for an awesome space battle sim from Microsoft that tanked. They actually sent you a disc which I ended up getting rid of. It would probably be worth money but probably illegal to sell. I got to Lineage I. That was a pretty great game. And a bunch of others that I can't remember right now, but those 2 really stuck out. But now I'm beta-testing again b/c AvP 2000 is awesome and it's great to see what Galaxy will be able to do. I can't wait for the near future to come!


My TBS: I'm playing through the campaign-like world of Warlock 2: The Exiled. I like it more than Warlock 1 and I think the naysayers were right and wrong. It is still very similar to Warlock 1, but the connection of the worlds has been awesome. My main enemy jumped through a teleporter and thought he could destroy me. With a simple land-lowering spell, he had to take ships to my city -- of course I had a dozen ships waiting to destroy them. But he eventually got through them and landed on a city. And just as he was about to take it, about 20 units from 2 different planes suddenly showed up in 2 turns and decimated his forces and then swarmed his plane. He's down to his capital and 1 city. But they are formidable. I've lost a lot of units there and might only be able to hold him back and not destroy him.


And lastly, I'm playing Alone in the Dark. It's fantastic. It's even made me jump twice -- which is astounding for such and old game with such bad sound effects. But it all works very well together. I have a feeling I'll need to replay it from the beginning b/c I'll have screwed something up. And I don't care. It's just fun getting around and staying alive.

Currently playing:

Dragon Age: Origins - It's not bad. I can't say it's really gripping me, but it's engaging enough to stick with. I haven't really played many western style RPGs (just Oblivion really that I can think of), I've always been more a JRPG kind of guy. It took a while to realise that I needed to be playing as a squad rather than just playing my individual character and letting the AI do the rest, but once I figured that out it became more fun.

Crusader Kings 2 - I love this game, despite taking a while to get into and being a little hard at times. I would highly recommend it to any 4x / grand strategy fans.

XCom Enemy Unknown - I'm not sure about this one. The combat and base management is fun but it's ridiculous and unfairly difficult, because you don't get enough missions to make enough money to afford the things you need to improve your base and soldiers, so you always feel like you are 2 steps behind. From the tips I've read online it seems there is only one or two real ways to succeed, and I hate when a game appears to give you freedom but forces you to play in a certain way to actually succeed. I want to like it because I love tactical RPGs, but I'm not sure I'll stick with it...

And I'm toying with starting a second play through of Xenoblade Chronicles, because I love it and it's probably my favourite game :)

Hopping around with my older games now. Getting fed up with one game, so switching to another:

1. Total Annihilation: Core Contingency

Bored a bit with this, making slow progress with it.

2. Nox

Playing as a Warrior. I earlier stopped playing the game when getting stuck to a necromancer mid-boss at the end of chapter 6: The Halberd of Horrendous. I just ran after the damn necromancer for several minutes, eventually dying.

Then I decided to try the Warrior skills (War Cry + Berserker Charge), and suddenly the boss became a pushover. I could kill it in 10 seconds or so. Onwards then, in chapter 7 now, and still irritated on how fast my armor gets broken, I constantly have to run back to the village to repair it, and it seems to be VERY expensive to repair it. I'm constantly running out of money just because of that, even if I carry loot to the town all the time.

At least I now have an indestructible weapon (Halberd of Horrendous), so I use that all the time as it doesn't need repairing. I hope the game later grants me indestructible armor too.

3. Tomb Raider (the first one)

I'm still amazed how much I like playing this game. And I even think it looks pretty good even today, even if it is a 3D game from 1996. It overall feels much newer and fresher game than it really is.

My idea was to slowly work through all the Tomb Raider games (this is my second playthrough of the first game, I haven't played the later games yet). Hopefully by the time (if) I get to the end of The Angel of Darkness, GOG has released more of the series (Legend, Anniversary(remake), Underworld...). I'd rather not buy them from Steam.

Consortium: The Master Edition. Wow, this game is amazing (when it's not taking five minutes to load or crashing), I'm getting sucked right into it (besides some of the meta stuff that popped up in one area). Unfortunately it's just crashed on me again (it likes to crash on loads and reloads) during a loading screen that I believe will take me to the final part of the game and I'll probably just put it down for the night.

Besides the crashing and the long loading screens (and a bug that prevented me from seeing inventory items, which was fixed in a patch) the only other issue I have with the game is that your character gets stuck on objects a bit too frequently and easily (for example: edges of doorways). The game does have a lot of positives, a very interesting plot (a whodunnit of sorts) with some good lore (that you have to discover on your own), a really cool dialogue system, characters bursting with personality, an easy on the eyes art direction and (touching again on the plot) a lot of juicy intrigue which creates a captivating atmosphere.

Even with the issues that have made it a technical pain I'll have to say that this game is right up there with Spate competing for my own Game of the Year 2014 award.

Finally gotten back to Wild Arms 2 on the PSN. At the moment, I'm enjoying it, although it's early in yet, so we'll see if it comes together. It has a few interesting new ideas that weren't in Wild Arms 1 (e.g. the perks system), but also nerfs the ARMS, and their reuse of Forces from the first game isn't encouraging. We'll see!

I really want to start Sam & Max Hit the Road, but given my limited time, I'm not sure I can juggle two games at once, and I don't want to abandon WA2.

edit. Oh man, this game's translation is just indescribable. Terrible, yes, but in such a uniquely charming way. Plus, Liz and Ard! They're lizard people. Get it?