Of Tombs and Dragons

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Progress is slow.  I blame WoW’s 5.2 patch, and all its Thunder King shenanigans.

Still, slow is better than non-existent!  My progress in Skyrim is steady, if somewhat meandering.  My Dovakiin is level 25 now.  I’ve been doing a lot of wandering/side-quests.  Have to say, did not expect time travel.  If that’s a spoiler, too bad.  You should’ve played it sooner.

LaraMy Tomb Raider pre-order also activated this past week.  I’ve been poking at it a little, though more time is going into both WoW and Skyrim.  Have to say I’m quite liking it so far.  I had never played a Tomb Raider game before, and picked this one up based on the fact that I enjoyed the Uncharted games quite a bit.  In a nutshell, the game looks amazing, and plays well, but it is somewhat buggy.  There are a number of crash bugs, and the TressFX hair seems to still have a few kinks that need to be worked out.  Still, well worth playing, so far!

Retrospective: Sleeping Dogs

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While I was away I was gifted Sleeping Dogs and quite enjoyed my time with it.  It was like GTA, but without all the silly adolescent pandering and with a much much better combat system.

Sleeping DogsOne thing this game did a great job of was in making you attached to characters. Characters that you only just met become important to you very quickly, and it just becomes that much more poignant when Bad Things™ happen to them.

If you’re a fan of GTA you owe it to yourself to try out this much improved take on the formula. If you’re not, but like the idea of the setting or the whole Hong Kong cop/Triad member story, I recommend it doubly so.

…there’s this one off-ramp on the high way though where the geometry of the guard raid can catch your car and bring it instantly to a stop. I was propelled through my windshield on at least three occasions when I got snagged by it. Be warned.

On Hiatus

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Well, the new WoW expansion has eaten up a lot of the time I would spend playing other games.  Rather than just leave this dangling I will officially put this blog on hiatus until I lose interest in pandas.  So long, but not good bye!

Finished: XCOM Enemy Unknown

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…on Normal, non-ironman. Which hardly counts, but I’m still posting it here and striking it from the list!

I look forward to the crushing difficulty of the higher levels on ironman.  I can’t stress enough how good this game is if you’re a fan of turn-based tactical games.

Next game will be something older, in the interest of actually making progress, I promise!

Two possibilities exist…

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…that I will play XCOM, or that I will play WoW. Each is equally a time sink.

I’m absolutely loving XCOM: Enemy Unknown.  WoW:MoP is a begrudging second choice at the moment as I combat the alien invasion of Earth.

I wouldn’t say it’s identical to the original in terms of game play.  Quite a bit has changed in fact, but the spirit of the game remains the same.  A secret para-military organisation commissioned to defend the world from alien invaders.  You need to build a squad, salvage and research alien tech, replace fallen squad members, and stage a counterattack, all while keeping global panic at manageable levels to maintain your funding.  Almost all of the original gameplay elements are there, with the notable exception of having to fend off alien attacks against your own base, an unfortunate exclusion that the developers themselves explained and apologised in advance for.

Lots of fun, and very satisfying.  I will definitely be playing through this one multiple times and on higher difficulties.

R.I.P. Major Ahmed “Atlas” Mansoor – You carried the world and your squad

Retrospective: Beyond Good & Evil

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I can’t say enough good about this game.  The characters are fun, the game looks great for its age, and the story is good enough to keep you interested.  An excellent choice if you have a few hours to kill and want a zelda-ish adventure game to explore.  Taking pictures of the surrounding fauna is much more entertaining than it appears on the surface as well!

I suppose I should write something up here about a game I didn’t like at some point… coming soon!

Here I Go Again

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Well, my playing of other games has been soundly pushed aside by Mists of Pandaria. I don’t want this to turn into a WoW blog so I won’t say much more about it here.

I’m looking forward to the upcoming release of XCOM: Enemy Unknown, maybe that will pull me away long enough to have something to write about!

Oh, sphincters!

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Oops.  Forgot to update yesterday.  Got caught up assembling a new computer for a friend.  Moving on!

Managed to finish FTL on “easy”, moving it to the “finished” pile, though it’s nowhere near complete.  Lots of fun.  Winning weapons loadout on my ship was 2x Burst Laser II and 2x Pike Beam, for those who might be curious.

Been playing a fair bit of Borderlands 2, but all that is probably going by the wayside as Mists of Pandaria comes out today.  I expect I’ll be lost to it for some time…  For those who have played the first Borderlands this is more of the same, but prettier and a little more streamlined.  If you found yourself getting tired of the first there is not much more new here.  If you loved the first from start to finish, well then Borderlands 2 is definitely worth your time.

On a Wing and a Prayer

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Been playing some FTL: Faster Than Light the past few days.  Didn’t want to sink into anything more lengthy before Borderlands 2 unlocks.

FTL is a brutally difficult realtime boardgame/roguelike spaceship simulator.  If that sounds intriguing to you at all then I recommend checking it out.  If you’re still unsure just look at the above screenshot.  You can glean from its pixels a great deal of what you’re getting into with this game.  I warn you, you will die.  A lot.  Of course, if you know what “roguelike” means you probably could already guess that.