I know, I know, gamers everywhere are playing Dark Souls 3 and I’m only now playing the second one. Given how much I liked the first game, this might sound a bit odd but I was put off when I heard that the sequel is considered markedly inferior to the first game. Then with the news of all of the DLC, I decided to put off getting it until the inevitable definitive edition for the PC was released with all of the bells and whistles included. I actually got this a while back but have only just gotten around to playing it due to my backlog. Note that this post will only be about the main game which I’ve just finished. I intend to write a follow-up post about the DLC content later.
This is one that I picked up not too long after its release. It’s a small indie title that in my opinion is best described as Dungeoneerdone right. The dealer lays out encounter cards that form a dungeon of sorts. You move between them, triggering bits of story or combat as stated. Rewards include better equipment, food, gold, blessings and permanent health increases and so forth. There’s only one hero so there’s no party system here and there’s no choice of classes either. Your character is basically a melee-based barbarian and you can’t even choose what he looks like, let alone the hero’s gender.
Since I chose to skip over Civilization V and its derivatives, the last proper 4x game I played was probably Colonization back in 2009 (I’m not counting the Paradox games here since I don’t really think of them as 4x games). Wow, that was a long time ago. To tell the truth, I was never really very good at them and as I grow older I feel lazier and lazier about learning the unique mechanics of each of these massive strategy games. I’ve tried to keep up with things however so I was vaguely aware of Amplitude Studios’ Endless series. This one, the fantasy-themed Endless Legend, was named Game of the Year for 2014 by Rock, Paper, Shotgun, which was what convinced me to buy it.
Though I didn’t really like Star Wars: The Old Republicand felt that the story for the Jedi Knight class was lacklustre, I still went back to it for quite a while. Obviously I’m a bit of a glutton for punishment and there’s something about standard MMO gameplay that makes it low-hanging fruit. It’s just so easy and convenient to boot it up for just one more session of mindless playing. But it’s also because I looked what most people consider to be the best class story in the game and it’s pretty much unanimously the Imperial Agent. I decided that I needed to check it out for myself.
So I was just randomly browsing Broken Forum one day when I read a comment about how everyone who loved Portal should play this. My first reaction was naturally: wait? There’s a Portal game that I somehow missed? How could this be possible! This turned out to be a fan-made mod, albeit one that is so well made that it’s even featured as a free game on Steam. It has original art assets, voice acting, a storyline, the works.
Obviously I haven’t been around for a while. Due to the Chinese New Year holidays, a trip overseas and most significantly a family crisis, I’ve been busy. Hopefully I’ll slowly be able to settle back into my usual routines from now on. Before all this, I’d been spending a lot of time with Star Wars: The Old Republic so as I’ve just finished one of the class-based story arcs, I’m writing about it now.
When I wrote about Season One a couple of years ago, I ended by noting that it seems almost inevitable that Clementine would be the main character for Season Two and expressed disappointment that she must then either have plot armor or be killed like any other character in this franchise. So when this came out and it was revealed that Clementine really would be the protagonist after all, I managed to stay away from it for a long time, not wanting it to ruin the amazing experience I had with the first game.
