Things, as they say, didn't go quite according to plan. I was going to play Aqua Aqua, ATV Off Road Fury 3, Atari Anthology, and Avatar: The Last Airbender. My PS2 console had other ideas.
Aqua Aqua (Zed Two Limited/3DO/2001) Okay, I see what they were trying to do here - a 3D puzzle game where you drop walls Tetris-style to contain water. Cool graphics idea for a tech demo, I guess, but you need to have better controls! Maybe with a mouse it would have played decently. With the control sticks, it was a mess.
ATV Off Road Fury wouldn't read in the PS2. Bad disc? Maybe. I've never tried playing it before, so give it the benefit of the doubt.
Atari Anthology (Digital Eclipse/Atari/2004) Collections like this are pure treasure troves of video game historical records. Those of us grey beards that remember the arcade and Atari 2600 days are transported back to a simpler time when games only gave you 3 lives for a quarter and joysticks had just a single button. On the down side, some of the games don't hold up well to our memories; graphics don't have the same shine that they seemed to have. Were they really better than what we see now, or were they that much more impressive for the day based on what we could compare them to then? Hard to say. I thought the recreations of old vector graphics games were handled particularly well. Trying to emulate an entirely different graphical technology is not easy. I could browse the bonus content of manuals, box art, arcade flyers, and magazine ads for hours. Oh, the feels!
Avatar: The Last Airbender wouldn't read either. This was troubling. One game not working, maybe it's the disc. Two games? It's a hardware problem. To confirm, I tried Bloodrayne 2. No dice.
I'd read about tweaking the dial for the DVD signal located on the underside of the laser unit. I tried this a couple of times, first turning it a little then a lot, but it didn't help. So, I replaced the laser completely with a replacement I got off Amazon awhile back. As of this writing everything is working fine but I want to get some white lithium grease to make the laser unit slide easier. If it keeps working, it will be my first successful PS2 Slim repair. Fingers crossed.
Well, this sure took a long time to get back to. My last "Yesterday's Worlds" was on May 15, 2015 - nearly 7 years ago! A few things happened since then that I think I will skip mentioning here as it won't change matters. Sewage under the bridge, as they say.
I don't know if I was streaming any of my YW gaming back then, but it's something I do now. Today I started playing some of the PS2 games that I got since 2015, filling in the blanks on my spreadsheet.
Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War (Namco/Bandai Namco/2006) It's been a long time since I played AC4 and 5, but I really found this entry to be harder to get into. My first missions involved trying to figure out what buttons did what, looking for enemies and getting shot down by missiles that I couldn't figure out how to avoid. Well, I can't complain about what I "spent" on this game...because I didn't spend anything really. I got a bunch of game stuff from a couple of nice ladies (courtesy of Next Door) and in it was a slightly battered PS2 fatty. The front of the drawer was broken off (fortunately included in the lot) and the drawer was stuck. When I opened up the system, there was this disc. Apparently, the previous owner (one of their sons) was into flight sims big time. Bose headphones big. More about that another time. Anyway, there's lots here, but nothing I want to get deeply into.
Alvin and the Chipmunks (Sensory Sweep/Brash Entertainment/2007) As you might expect, I got this for my daughter, MsSarah, as she likes to listen to the Chipmunks CD I (foolishly) got for her many years ago. I had no real idea what kind of game this was - it was a thrift pickup and very few questions were asked. At it's core, it's a deep, heart felt, moving, socially conscious, action, Souls-like, rogue-like...rhythm game...without all the adjectives preceding that. It's a VERY simple button pressing rhythm game and I'm not sure it's even pressing buttons to any type of discernable rhythm! There are four colored circles in each corner of the screen. As stars are spewed out of the center, you have to press the L1, L2, R1, or R2 button that corresponds to the corner the star is going to. There is a Rockometer on the left side that measures how well you are doing - let it go red and it's Game Over, man! And...that's it. A few non-animated cut scenes, wooden voice-overs, and what I'm guessing is 18 Alvin and the Chipmunks songs to "play". Small wonder it garnered a stunning 33 on Metacritic. Honestly...and I'll deny this if I'm ever brought to testify in its defense, I kinda liked it? Also, the VOD didn't get muted, so there's that in the plus column.
Okay, so getting back to these. If you want to catch up, here are the previous seven Yesterday's Worlds blog posts (Note: Before I came up with the catchy title of Yesterday's Worlds, I was calling these Back to the Past. I think it was a change for the better.):
With the passing of Sir Sean Connery yesterday, I decided to dedicate today's stream to playing the only video game he worked on, EA's From Russia With Love. Connery did the voice over work for it, something he was used to doing (ie, Dragonheart), but this was the first and only time he did it for a video game. It was also the last time he did any kind of acting as James Bond, and the first since his final Bond film in 1983. Now that he's gone, this game is like a preserved time capsule of his most famous character.
This game has a personal history for me because it was the only video game (I believe) that my mom bought for me. I had asked her for it back when we used to exchange gift "ideas" for Christmas. It would have been in 2005 (the year it was released), and I remember feeling a little uneasy about asking for it because I knew it was selling for full price ($50). That was about the amount we figured to spend on each other, so I figured it wasn't too bad if that was all she got me. What I do remember was how happy she was to be able to get it for me because it was something I wanted that she could, sort of, relate to. She wasn't what I would call a James Bond fan, but I'm sure she wasn't immune to his Scottish charms. After all, she would have been in her early 30's when the movie From Russia With Love was released.
When I got it that Christmas, I knew it would always be special to me because she had gone out specifically to find it at some electronics store. Yes, I had been responsible for making my own mother into a "fish out of water" customer at some game or electronics store. It's a shame I'll live with for the rest of my days.
I don't remember when I first tried to play it. We were still living in our old house and my setup for playing console games wasn't very good. I also wasn't that familiar with PS2 shooting games. I got through the opening mission - not very hard because it's sort of a tutorial and the action is unrelated to actual FRWL storyline. The next mission is the hedge maze mission where you are supposed to sneak around, not get caught, or engage in gunfights...or so I thought. This isn't the first game I misunderstood what I was supposed to do and was, therefore, too cautious to the point of failure (the second mission in Black was the same for me). For the longest time, I just assumed I couldn't do the second mission.
Until today.
In my stream today (which coincided with the 15th anniversary of the game's release), I got through the first 4 missions (on easy, naturally) and didn't "die" once. There were a couple of close calls, but my PS2/Xbox/GameCube-era skills were more than up to the challenge. Of course, I probably shouldn't be too pleased with myself considering we are talking about games that are, relatively speaking, complete and utter dinosaurs when compared to today's games. Face it, Dark Souls this ain't. But, that's not the point, is it?
When the stream was over, I took the disc out of my vintage PS2, put it back in the original case, and just held it against my chest. I thought back on when my mom got it for me and the years that have passed in between then and now. It feels nice sometimes to have those kinds of objects that connect you to past times and the people in the pages of our history.
Growing up in the late 60's and 70's, I loved two types of movies - Universal Studios monster movies and James Bond films. Back then (for those of you who don't remember) you couldn't just pick when to watch a movie. You had to peruse the TV Guide (the little one) and mark down when a movie was going to be playing. (I usually opted for circling in red pen.) Then, you'd try to make sure you were in front of the TV when it was on. I always looked forward to Bond movies because they were such great action movies (and my parents let me watch them...I think because dad was a big fan too). Sean Connery was, and still is to me, the best Bond, but I didn't mind Roger Moore after I got used to him.
So, fast forward about four decades...
Along with new Bond's, movies on disc, and, of course, videogames, we can now play the famous agent instead of just pretending with our friend in the backyard with a toy plastic gun. (Let me tell you, those 70's plastic guns were awesome!) There hasn't been a new James Bond game since 2012, but there are a number worth (in my opinion) going back to. Some of these I've played a little of previously, some not at all, and that's why I decided to make a streaming project to get through them. I'm going to keep adding my thoughts on the games here, so check back from time to time, or better yet, follow the progress on my Twitch page, twitch.tv/chessasaur , and watch the games in action!
007: Agent Under Fire (PS2/2001/EA) Plot: Stop an evil organization from substituting the leaders of the world with clones. Sort of a generic James Bond game - the names are there, as well as the music, but none of the actor's participated. The model for Bond looks like a mutation between Pierce Brosnan and Christopher Reeves. It's probably no coincidence that this is the only console Bond game that doesn't have a recognizable actor on the cover (Rogue Agent not included). Missions 1, 2, and 3 were fairly easy and I got Gold on them without trying. After that, my score began to drop and it became a parade of Silver and Bronze medals. Some levels took me over an hour to complete. Not helping is the fact that this, being an older game, runs on "lives" so if you fail more than 3 times, you are all the way back at the beginning. Mission 7 really got me stuck to the point that I had to look up an FAQ on how to get past the end "boss" - I should have seen the subtle hint to shoot for the train, not the tanks. The driving felt particularly good, almost like a Burnout game, but not as fast. Mission 8 was rough but what I realized while replaying it (over and over) is that these older games made you learn the level more by sending you back to the beginning. Newer games (like Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order which I'm playing concurrently) just put you back where you died with no real loss of progress. Saves time, but you don't learn as much I think. Mission 9 is best described as Disneyland's Matterhorn ride...with machine guns! Had to look up the FAQ on that one too. Who knew you had to shoot out lights to get a rocket launcher? (It wasn't required but made the last section easier. That part also had a unique fire-and-direct missile segment to send Bloch into a Gollum-esque fall to a pit of lava.) The rest of the game was easier from that point and ended with Bond saving the world's leaders from missile silos. (It was supposed to be the members of the G8 Summit - which would be the G7 now. Thankfully, I didn't have to save Trump.) It was disappointing that the game ended with no final cut-scene or even credits. Since it just went back to the mission select screen, I had to check the FAQ to see if there were more missions. Overall though, it was a very enjoyable game - a lot like Goldeneye, but better.
007: Nighfire (PS2/2002/EA) Plot: Evil genius fronts as a company that safely cleans up nuclear reactors, while instead taking the materials, making his own missiles, and then taking over the world. At first I didn't think this game had the classic Bond music, but I was happy to hear it was there; they just mixed in some generic Bond-ish music for variety. This time there's a realistic model of Pierce Brosnan's Bond, and the cut-scenes are considerably improved over AUF. There's even a short Bond song/music video to start the game. In addition, thankfully, there aren't a set number of "lives" when playing levels - you can keep playing from checkpoints. It is really a shame that they didn't get Brosnan to do some voice work (it wouldn't have taken long - not many lines). The "actor" they got didn't sound much like him. One thing I was impressed about in Nightfire was the variety of level design. There are a lot of newer games that just reuse the same mechanics over and over in different settings (Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, I'm looking in your direction). I've gone from stealth missions to driving missions to sniper missions to an underwater mission that reminds me of the Lotus-sub sequence from The Spy Who Loved Me! Then it ended with Bond armed with a laser gun in a zero-g mission outside a space station. There have been a couple of glitches - some dialog at the beginning of the "Deep Descent" mission didn't make any sense (for the PC version, maybe?) and I got to what should have been the next segment of the "Countdown" mission, but the event wouldn't trigger until I kept hitting the Action button around the bottom of the wall. Nothing too bad. When the game was over and before the credits ran, I got to see a brief live action feature about the team that made the game. Nice touch. I think more games should do that.
GoldenEye 007 (N64/1997/Rare) I was originally going to skip this generation of games - I mean, haven't people seen enough of GoldenEye? Well, apparently not. My chat during streams almost always had someone say I should have started with this one. So, after some miscellaneous finagling (including the installation of an obscure sound plugin for Project64 that seemed to fix a graphics issue as well, and changing settings so OBS would play nice) I've decided to go back and tackle GoldenEye. I did play some back in "the day" (ie, on a real N64 probably around 1999), but never finished it. I think I stopped on the mission that takes you back to the Siberian radar station. I didn't feel like doing that level again. Ultimately, I have decided to at least put this one on hold. I'm just not enjoying the experience after all these years. My hats off to anyone who can still play this today. (No, seriously, my hat is sitting here next to me on the desk. Really.)
007 Tomorrow Never Dies (PS1/1999/EA) I tried this for about an hour, running it on a PS3 and I could tell that it wasn't going to get any better. It's not a bad game, but after so many years of 3rd person shooter development, it's just very hard to go that far back. And the faces look like paper masks stretched over coffee cans.
007 The World is Not Enough (N64/2000/EA) While I do have this one in original cart form, I decided to try it via emulation in the same way I did Goldeneye. Unfortunately, the gameplay wasn't much better than Goldeneye. Going to put this one aside as well.
From Russia With Love (PS2/2005/EA) My original plan had been to play the Bond games in order of their release, but I jumped ahead to play this one in honor of Sir Sean Connery, who passed away on October 31, 2020. The fact that the game includes the likeness and voice of Sir Sean is only slightly marred by the unavoidable issue that 40+ years has changed his voice from a young man to a serious Scottish brogue, so you end up with a young Bond who sounds like Dragonheart. Gameplay does a pretty good job of following the movie - Bond is tasked with acquiring a Soviet encryption machine, the Lektor, before SPECTRE Octopus can get it and hand it over to Blofeld Goldfinger. (Rights to "SPECTRE" and "Blofeld" were held by producer Kevin McClory. This was an issue with the movies too.) In general, this was an enjoyable game - not too padded out, with some pretty decent character models for the PS2 era. The Bond Focus wasn't very useful (the one in Quantum of Solace was better implemented), but it was one way to earn points to "buy" things like video features. There was a
Overuse of the jet pack (which was from Thunderball, not FRWL)
Red Grant gets run over by a train but makes an appearance at the end.
Last mission was taken from Thunderball - Octopus threatens to use stolen nuclear weapon if not paid 100 million pounds.
September 2017 Gaming - Day by Day (well, the days I'm gaming anyway)
9/02 - Started the night finding a good price at Best Buy on the recently re-released Lego City Undercover game for Xbox One, PS4 and Switch. I bought the game awhile back for the Wii U but, of course, never played it. (So much of my collection is "untouched".) My first instinct was to buy a copy for the PS4...which I did. Then I thought, "What if I don't like the game? Anyone remember Lego Worlds? Maybe I should play it first." So, I cancelled my order, booted up the Wii U, and popped in the game. Wow, talk about a game that got screwed! This is probably the BEST Lego game made and it got stuck on a system with the worst install base. Unlike the other Lego games that are based on some movie or comic franchise, this is its own story and in the context of Lego worlds, it's a pretty good one. The action is mission based, not level oriented, so it's got sort of a GTA vibe (if you were playing as the cops, that is). In a clever move, they've worked in a number of nods to famous movies (Dirty Harry and The Dark Knight so far) that would certainly fly way over the heads of any child playing this. I'd already put this ahead of The Lego Movie in entertainment value and enjoyment. Unfortunately, I have to say the gamepad integration doesn't do it any favors. You have to use it since it sort of doubles as a scanner, map and phone. I don't think I'm going to want to put 15+ hours into this with that to deal with. So....
(Update: After thinking about it, I decided to re-order the game from Best Buy. What I found is a) I really like the game, b) on the Wii U, you have to use the gamepad, and c) I'd like to stream/capture some of the gameplay and that's too much hassle on the Wii U.)
9/04 - Hellblade. The other day, I was trying to remember the 3 short games I wanted to get through, but could only come up with >Observer_ (which I finished) and Uncharted: Lost Legacy. When I finally remembered it was Hellblade, I felt more than a little apprehensive. The last time I tried this one, I was hopelessly stuck, wandering around the same area, over and over again, getting nothing accomplished. I knew it had to have something to do with these "portals" I kept seeing (really just a couple of trees with an animal skull hung between them) and tonight I figured it out. In a clever bit of programming, walking through these gates changes the playing field to allow access to previously unreachable sections. So, progress was made, but I have to say this game gives me a certain level of anxiety because it doesn't give anything away - no objective pointers, no highlighted objects, no mini-map, no help whatsoever. I always feel like I'm going to miss something or get lost again. I died once in combat because I had forgotten the controller mapping and didn't have time to look at it before the fight. The fighting in Hellblade is as intense (or even more so) as it is in For Honor, but nowhere near as technical. I'll try to stay with Senua, but it's going to be a challenge.
9/06 - Sort of an odd mix tonight. I've been hearing about a definitive version of ReCore being released (turns out it's actually a free upgrade if you already have the game and it's available now), so I thought I'd give it a try again. I say "again" only because I played the demo which allowed you to start the game and play for about 30 minutes. What I remember of it was pretty good and I picked it up last Black Friday for something like $15. The Xbox had my save from the "demo", but I figured I should restart since I didn't recall how the controls worked. It's a pleasant little game, nicely made and easy to handle. At some point I'll probably try to work my way through its 12+ hour length.
I also decided to slip into a bit of Destiny on the PS4. Destiny 2 came out today and by all accounts, it's doing very well. I'll be playing it with my brother later this year or next - no hurry. But, all the D2 hype made me nostalgic, I guess. There's something about the opening of Destiny - the music, the narration by Bill Nighy, the desolation of the Cosmodrome and the memory of first hearing Peter Dinklage's Ghost voice - that all worked to create a feeling that this was the start of something special. I only played to the point where you first arrive at the City, but it was all I needed to feel that rush again.
9/07 - Lego City Undercover. Started the PS4 version. Such a pleasant game to play. Yeah, I know, I'm avoiding Hellblade, but what can ya do? This version looks much cleaner than the Wii U one and the scanner options are all remapped to overlay the main screen without any loss of gameplay. The only "weird" thing is that Chase McCain's uniform is a darker color (ie, dark blue instead of light blue). Not sure why that changed.
9/09 - Lego City Undercover. Other than a really good Shawshank Redemption parody, not much to say. Just a fun game!
9/10 - Lego City Undercover. The Matrix parody actually had me laughing! This is easily the best Lego game made. But, I have to say it's much better not having to use the Wii U's game pad. It added nothing and only made the game less "comfortable" to play. In other news, I finally had time to setup both my Switch and the Xbox One S. Of note...I still have my pre-order for the Xbox One X at Amazon. Just not ready to cut the cord on that one yet.
9/11 - Lego City Undercover. More enjoyable Lego. It's nice to have a game like this that you know you can't really lose at. There are some games that I feel a real anxiety while playing that I'm going to either run up against something I can't beat or I'll miss a challenge that I can't do over. I don't have that "fear" while playing LCU, even though there have been a couple challenges that I had to do over.
9/13 - Played my first Switch game, a demo for a just announced game called (tentatively) Project Octopath Traveler. It's essentially an old school 16-bit JRPG done on a modern console - which means most of it looks like Chrono Trigger except the enemies, which look more detailed. It should make the Retro fans very happy, but I prefer a more modern gaming experience. One thing I realized is that the Switch Pro Controller REALLY needs those PlayBudz! My hand starting hurting after only about 15 minutes of use.
9/14 - Well, the plan was to play either a new Steam game I bought, Asemblance, or more Lego City Undercover. However, after the power went out at 11:12 pm, I switched to a little Steins;Gate on the Vita to help me get some sleep. Power outages always weird me out.
9/15 & 9/16 - Lego City Undercover. Went to a Lego store today. One of the four sales persons I talked to agreed that LCU was a really good game and that a Lego Skyrim-esque one would be "interesting". In game, still amazed at the size of the world they created for a Lego game. Seamless travel around the map.
9/17 - Lego City Undercover. Playing catch-up now since my brother just finished his copy on the Switch. Well, it's not like that's an unusual occurrence. Couple of good movie/TV in-jokes tonight. They'll make good screenshots/vid clips for the blog.
9/18 - Lego City Undercover. Hit my first open-world loading screen - really more of just a fade in/fade out kind of thing. Still very impressed with the overall scale of the game. I will have to play something more "serious" after this one to make up for this softball gameplay.
9/19 - Lego City Undercover. Got to ride a mechanical T-Rex. Was more fun than anything in Lego Jurassic Park...which is sort of sad.
9/20 - Played a little game tonight called Catch Up With My Brother In Destiny. He and I have been playing a mission or so in the early evenings and he's gone from "claiming" to be hopeless at console based FPS games, to routinely beating me in kills and experience points. While the thought ever so briefly crossed my mind that he was sandbagging, I came to realize that our styles of play vary somewhat. While I'm more of a hang back, find cover, pick the enemies off one by one kind of shooter, he tends to wade into the enemy forces, doing melee and Super Charge kills. This allows him to finish more bounties than me (due to the ones that require multiple kills in a short period) but, surprisingly, he doesn't get killed as you might think.
9/23 - Did the first night of my replay through Lifeless Planet. David Board, the game's designer, is trying to get another game together, Lifeless Moon, and is running a Kickstarter for it. I figure the least I can do is try to get some attention for the game by streaming, but I don't have many followers so I don't know how much it will help. I really enjoyed LP and played all the way through it - something I don't usually do. It reminded me of Journey but with a more somber, reflective feeling. The environments are very large and the platforming seems to grow organically out of the landscape. I won't say I don't get "stuck" once in awhile, even having played it before, but the jumps aren't unfair and if I miss, it puts me back at a good point.
9/24 - Lifeless Planet. I think I'm getting through it faster than I originally did, but I still get hung up on some of the less clear parts. I was streaming it, but I didn't send out any tweets - this game isn't a super exciting one to watch. Oddly, I had one person watching me for about half an hour. It figures - I tweet out to multiple retweeters the previous day and...nothing. Just the way it goes, I guess.
9/25 - Lifeless Planet. Well, it was a good run, but I think I have to put LP aside for awhile. The problem was the Dead Forest, but VG Cats, one of my favorite online comics, sums up how it feels:
9/26 - I decided I needed an impulsive game purchase to get me away from Lifeless Planet, and for that I chose Hob. I knew nothing about it other than it looked like a cute 3D platformer and it was made by the folks who did the Torchlight games (which I've dabbled in and liked). What I've played so far is pretty, mildly intriguing, and technically competent, but I didn't really get invested in the characters or the setting like I'd hoped. (Better music wouldn't have hurt.) At the moment, it's a slightly bland puzzle-platformer with attractive graphics and a fair degree of mechanized elements. I'm hoping it grows on me.
9/29 - Lego City Undercover. The game may basically lead you around by the nose, but I'm just having problems getting back into Hob. I needed some time with a game with little challenge and no chance of failure. That can be a comforting feeling. Plus, I got to fly a helicopter in the game - another interesting mechanic I didn't expect them to include.
9/30 - Lego City Undercover. Really wanted to finish this tonight, but just couldn't stay awake long enough. It was good to see that when I thought they were done with movie parodies, they threw in a great Ahnold bit - the construction foreman talks like him and mentions nearly every movie he's ever been in. One more push should finish the storyline. It's been a lot of fun and I have to admit that I might play around in the world even after finishing. After getting all the abilities/characters, it may be fun to wander around Lego City, knowing that you can do anything. And you never know what you might run into.
8/01 - Wow, I actually had some energy to play this evening! Due to a pricing error on PSN, I got a game today called Strike Vector EX for free, so I thought I'd see if I got my money's worth. Overall, not a bad game. You pilot futuristic jet mech-planes and try to shoot down other futuristic jet mech-planes, while flying around giant floating refinery platforms. (The visual scale is impressive!) I played the first three missions and was pleased that they weren't very hard. Also, since there wasn't any gravity mechanic (ie, you could just sort of stop and hover), I didn't spend all the time zooming past my targets. Why this game is rated "M" is beyond me. I guess there must be more violent cut-scenes later in the game and some swearing. I also don't know who would have paid $15 for it (only because it's a game no one has heard of), so it's probably just as well that it was free. The other game I decided to play some of was Mighty No. 9. I was one of the Kickstarter backers, but I kept my contribution very modest (ie, just the game), which turned out to be a good idea. A lot of people bashed this game when it was finally released, mostly by those who were Mega Man fans. For me, I never played any - didn't own a NES and didn't get into them on the SNES or Playstation - so my expectations were pretty low. But, even though MN9 was an okay platformer, I can see where gamers would be disappointed in the finished product. For a project that collected $3.8 million dollars (!), it feels like it cut a lot of corners. Characters have voices, but there's not animation to them, the platforming feels stiff, and it's just not much fun to play. Well, at least I beat the first boss, something I always have trouble with in these side-scrolling games.
8/02 - Tonight was more about proving I could still do something than anything else. I decided to try Twitch streaming a game from my PS2, which I haven't done for a long time. This requires that a number of things work in conjunction with one another. I bought an Elgato Game Capture HD unit sometime ago - it's not the latest model, but it's the only one that allows old pre-HDMI systems to be hooked up for streaming. It also works as a component input upscaler to HDMI, so old consoles don't look like crap on HD TV's. As I have a PS2, Xbox, and Wii, I need to have a component switch (4 in, 1 out). That output goes to the Elgato. From the Elgato, the HDMI goes to a HDMI switch (5 in, 1 out) that hooks up to one of my gaming TV's HDMI ports - this is where I actually play the game.The other output from the Elgato, USB, goes to the computer (which is on the TV's other HDMI port). On the computer, I run OBS Studio (after updating it, of course) and add a video source that feeds from the Elgato input. However, this is where you have to sort of "jiggle the bits" some to get it to work. I usually have to bring up the Elgato software (which you can stream with, but the options are limited) just to check to make sure the Elgato is connecting to the computer. Since the Elgato has HDMI and component inputs, it always picks the wrong one so I have to go in and point it to the right input. Once that's done, I have to make sure OBS is getting a good signal. Last night, it looked at one point like it was a color negative of the original picture. Very weird. A little more restarting of various programs, and I got it all working. This also included getting the aspect ratio correct - these old consoles didn't really know about widescreen. When I went "live", I was happy to see that I was able to run for almost an hour with no dropped frames. I also used the laptop to keep an eye on what the stream looked like. I picked Darkwatch to play since it was the last PS2 game I played when I was doing my PS2 collection play through. Here's a little clip from when I realized that the crossbow in the game was very similar to the one in Rage. (Warning: LOUD!) Click-Me
8/04 - PUBG. Okay, not brain surgery, gaming wise, but it's the new Hearthstone. Pick up and play anytime. And I got my first kills this time! Corner camping may be my best bet for not dying.
8/05 - Played some Atari Flashback Classics Vol. 1 & 2. Some old arcade and Atari 2600 games, Adventure specifically. We shall not speak of this incident again.
8/06 - Tuesday saw the release of a new game called The Long Dark, and it's been making the rounds on various Twitch streams. It's a slow paced, survival game set after a global environmental apocalypse (sorry, no zombies). Stuck in Northern Canada after a plane crash, your principle concerns are warmth, food, water, and not getting eaten by the local wildlife. I'd considered buying it on either Xbox or PS4, but just didn't feel like dropping the $40 to get it. Well, while I was looking at other games on Steam, I happened to pick another survival horror game to look at (after looking at and deciding against Dark Elf). In their usual helpful fashion (read: interest-based advertising), the page included a link to The Long Dark...which it showed as being in my library! According to my purchase history, I bought it nearly 3 years ago on 12/29/14 for $9.99. I "guess" I got it when it was in Early Access on the cheap during their Christmas 2014 sale but never tried it. So, I figured it was time to jump in. The game is pretty frustrating at first because it tells you some things but not others. It tells you about the importance and uses of fire, but not how to heal yourself. Your character keeps repeating, "I'm going to bleed out if I don't do something quick", but until you stumble across a medkit, you have no idea what to do or what you're looking for. On the good side, it breaks the game down into missions that need to be done to move the "story" along. Once that goal is met (make a fire, melt water, etc), it progresses to the next day and saves the game. I can see myself staying with this one for awhile at least, but if it gets to a point where decisions can paint me into a corner (like using a resource at the wrong time and then getting locked out by the auto-save), I might have to bail.
8/08 - I didn't realize that a new game was coming out today that I was interested in - a digital only release on PS4 (and PC) called Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. After watching a little gameplay on Twitch, I decided that I should give it a try. (I'm not a big fan of digital download games, but sometimes you don't have any choice.) The developer calls this a "triple-A indie" and I'd have to agree - it's got amazing production values for a $30 game. It's also got a truly cinematic style; there are no context prompts or tutorials. You either have to read the "Controls" help section or listen to the voices in your head which sometimes give you hints. Watching the Twitch stream actually helped me figure out the best way to fight. The game has you playing a mentally unbalanced Celtic warrior who is on a quest to get a Viking god to raise her dead lover (whose skull she is carrying around...and sometimes talks to). So far it's been a combination of puzzle solving and pretty brutal combat. And it's really working for me!
8/09 - No gaming tonight, but a stark realization that I need a bigger external drive on my Xbox One. I've been planning on getting an Xbox One S for the new 4K TV and am looking to trade in one of the old Xbox One's I own. Since I might as well keep the white one (Gamestop gives you $100 regardless of color), I need to switch out my gaming station unit. So, I figured I'd just move games from the internal drive to the external drive - until I saw that the 1TB drive was over 90% full! I don't really want to delete most of the games I have on there because it takes so long to reload them (most games are over 40gb, which also explains the "bloat"). I'll probably get a 2 or 3TB drive, transfer the games I have using a PC and a program I found, then put the "leftover" 1TB drive on my PS4. Just have to wait for one to go on sale.
8/10 - Nothing really played, but did some "game management" on the living room Xbox One. Turns out you can select to download DLC that hasn't gotten automatically loaded. Also checked out the characters I created with Rock Band 4 and found that at some point Harmonix had added items from Mass Effect Andromeda, Fallout 4, and Battleborn. Very cool, but sort of sad because I don't know if they ever told anyone about them. I'm now the rocking Space Cowboy!
8/11 - Another night of "video game maintenance", I guess? I've got a new 4TB external drive up and running on the Xbox One on the gaming station, and moved the last 4 games off the internal drive. Nice to still have 3TB free after all that. I also started Hellblade again, this time on the PS4 Pro and a) it looks better (no surprise) and b) this time I'm playing without subtitles (it makes the "voices" in Senua's head seem more like their in my head when playing with headphones). Plus, I found an option to lower the difficulty to "Easy". What's weird is that by default, it's set to "Auto". What kind of difficulty setting is "Auto"?
8/13 - Things I hate: Getting reward "crates" in games and not knowing how to access them! Yes, For Honor, I'm talking to you!
8/14 - PUBG. I really need to not play this before bed.
8/15 - Not much to tell. Got a late start as we watched Alien: Covenant tonight. Tried playing Adr1ft, but I guess it doesn't like Bluetooth audio. OBS feels the same way. Did a quick run through of the Cat Quest demo. Cute, but not my thing.
8/16 - Bought a Switch. Why? I'm not sure yet, but since I had nearly $200 in GameStop trade-in credit, I wanted to buy something new instead of just using it to get an Xbox One S...which I really don't need. I'll probably buy a One S cheap at some point for the 4K-ness of it all. Lots of deals on those. As for the evening, finally got around to entering in my beta codes for Star Wars: B2 and CoD:WWII, which I got for doing the pre-orders. The Star Wars one was easy, but CoD required logging into the Activision site. At least I got the codes in while I could still read the GameStop receipts - they fade quickly.
8/17 - Dug out my old copy of Destiny for the Xbox One. It's been a long time since I booted it up and Bungie has put in a couple new cutscenes (or voice overs, at least). Nice, but they seem to be geared toward players who have already finished the core part (or more) of the game. Oh, well. Still feels good to put on the Guardian suit again. Also tried out Slime Rancher which I have ONLY because it was free with Xbox Gold. Not sure if it's too Playschool for me.
8/18 - Adr1ft. Finally got it working with a non-Bluetooth headset and even decided to try streaming it. Not a bad game, but very slow - aside from floating around, you need to read log entries (or I'm assuming you need to). I don't mind reading stuff, but most of what I saw didn't look like it was going to help. Also, a) why can't I hold a spare oxygen canister in my left hand, and b) why is my space suit made of porcelain? Every time I bumped into anything, the visor kept cracking.
8/19 - Steep stinks. Well, it doesn't actually smell, but it's going to be traded into GameStop soon. Just boring, to me anyway. Endless mountains aren't fun. Switched over to >Observer_. This one is going to take some patience. Rutger Hauer - making his video game debut from what IMDB would indicate - does the voice of the main character, but either he's going for overly gruff or he's just gotten really old. This one is made by the same group that did Layers of Fear, which felt like you were always on the move, going room to room. This one involves more searching in a single location, using two different types of sensors and analysis tools. A little tedious? Well, it's still early. Looks like about 6 hours, so at least it's not real long. On another note, PS4's don't play well with external hard drives. First, you have to plug them in the front which looks messy, and second, if you put the system in "rest" mode, it disconnects the external drive so you have to repair when you reconnect it. Xbox handles externals much better. Oh, well.
8/20 - >Observer_. This must be the year for really strange games. First, there was Here They Lie back in April, and now I've got this one in August. I really should have captured some in-game footage, but frankly I wouldn't know what or how much to show. Observer is made by the same studio that did Layers of Fear and, in keeping with their style, there doesn't seem to be any chance of "death". There also isn't any form of combat, but there is some light puzzle solving. The rest is just pure mind bending, jump scare weirdness! Games like this must hard to program because most game engines are designed to simulate the real world. When you are trying to break the rules of reality, and especially when you want to do jump cuts like a movie, that requires a whole new set of parameters. The one thing that will keep me going on this one is that Rutger Hauer is the main character. Old sounding or not, he's still one of my favorite actors. Oh, and I pre-ordered an Xbox One X Scorpio Edition from Amazon...and from Best Buy. Obviously, I'll only end up getting one, but from where? Or will I bail on both?
8/21 - >Observer_. A very frustrating night. When I got on my PC, I found out that I was 20 minutes late to get a SNES Classic pre-order from Best Buy. This was bad enough, but then I wasted more time seeing if they would release additional units - the page kept changing from "Coming Soon" to "Pre-order", but they never had anymore. I want to get as many SNES Classic systems as I can - and I have no intention of selling ANY of them! Ok, "as many as I can" isn't quite right; I just want one for Sarah, one for me, a spare for Sarah, and a few for my friends if they can't find one. This console-of-sorts is epic in it's selection of games and their importance in video gaming history, at least in my opinion. When I finally got around to playing >Observer_, I got caught up in doing this annoying 2D puzzle mini-game, With Fire and Swords: Spiders. I don't know what it has to do with the game (if anything), but I'm already stuck on level 4.
8/22 - >Observer_. Okay, no more SNES Classic pre-order hunting. Back into the game. A really weird game!
8/23 - >Observer_. This game is really pushing my buttons...but not in a good way. This developer is known for letting you interact with lots of stuff for no particular reason or purpose. That gets tedious after awhile. I did finally find out that you can die - at one point I had to hide from a "creature" in a maze of office cubicles or get killed. I'm also not sure if there are side-quests or if everything is related somehow. I am (well, my character) is stuck in this run down apartment building that is under lockdown. The main goal seems to be finding out if my son is dead or not, and if so, who killed him. But, at one point, I found a woman in a machine that was apparently trying to transfer her consciousness to the body of a brain damaged child, and a) I don't know if it has anything to do with the overall story, and b) I don't think I "finished" the segment - I really couldn't tell! Add to that getting stuck in dark hallways trying to target certain parts of the room (like doorknobs) and getting turned around easily, and I really wonder if I want to finish this one.
8/24 - >Observer_. When I played Layers of Fear (which got a nod in this game), I wasn't really mentally invested in the story. However, the ending was extremely satisfying and made my overall view of the game much better. I REALLY hope that I get that "lift" before the end of >Observer_.
8/26 - >Observer_. The weird journey continues. Going to have a whole gallery of crazy pics after this one.
8/27 - >Observer_. Had to stay up til 1am, but I finally finished it. Honestly, if it weren't for Rutger Hauer being in it, I'd probably have bailed before the end. (THIS YouTube video is a nice BTS piece where Rutger mentions Observer is his first video game after two previous projects fell through.) The tagline for this game was, "What would you do if your fears were hacked?", but I never really felt as though anything like that ever happened. The game has been getting good reviews, but if you think I'm leaning toward "overrated", you'd be right. There's no combat, minimal puzzle solving, and a few evade/sneak sections with "game over" results for failing, but the reset is just walking around multiple bizarre environments. Sort of a grand tour of outlandish computer graphics. The ending took way too long to get to and there was more trudging through sewer tunnels than there should have been. By the end, I felt I "understood" the story and I made a final choice that I felt kept with the main character's convictions, but it didn't have any particular emotional impact. There was a lot of extra material in the game (notes on computers mostly) that would have taken a long to read and I doubt if would have added much. The stuff I did read wasn't of much use. There were also these cards you could collect with what I'm assuming were the design staff with PhotoShopped implants on their faces. Cute, but I only found 17 of 69! And I looked around a lot. I think Layers of Fear was a much better game because it had more focus - a crazed artist looking for macabre items for his grand masterpiece. This was more like a wandering old man, jacking into other people's minds, not to use their fears against them, but just to see what they knew. Here is my screenshot album from the game: CLICK ME.
8/29 - Hellblade. Sort of a wasted evening since I couldn't seem to figure out where to go next or how to get there. Some Viking magic stuff going on that I don't understand yet.
8/30 - Just some light weight gaming - Everybody's Golf. This is the PS4 version of the next game in the Hot Shots Golf series and plays about the same - it just looks flashier. I played 9 holes and came in 16...out of 16 players. Going to take some getting used to.
8/31 - I tried starting Last Day of June, the next game from Murasaki Baby's creator, but the vibe I was getting was that this was going to be a VERY depressing (though ultimately uplifting) experience which I didn't feel ready for. So, I just played more Everybody's Golf. Seems it has enhancements for PS4 Pro. Have to try that.
Miscellaneous Musings
Backlog and Front Loading - I sometimes wonder if I'll ever get to a point where I can stop buying new games and work on the ones I have. At least I can sometimes talk myself out of certain games by just reminding myself that I have, for example, nearly ALL of GTA V to play! That covers a lot of ground by itself.
7/01 - Tonight was a V.G.O.N.S which sounds like an alien from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, but actually stands for Video Game One Night Stand. A V.G.O.N.S. involves taking a new (to me) game out for a few hours of fun...then never playing it again. In this case, it was the remake of LucasArts classic, Full Throttle. While I appreciated a number of improvements to the old systems of point-and-click adventure games (like the ability to highlight key objects in the environment), games like this are tedious to play when you get stuck on the puzzles. I left it at the point where I had to lure a junkyard dog away from some bike parts I needed. The worst part was getting chased away over and over and over again, having to watch the same animation for it every time. I could (and probably should) play this kind of game with a guide, but it sort of defeats the object of playing a puzzle game.
7/03 - For awhile, I'd been thinking about loading The Beatles Rock Band onto my gaming station Xbox 360 so I could chill some nights and just play Beatles songs. So that's what I did. Of course, loading the original game was not a problem, nor was getting a guitar controller synced to the system. The problem came when I wanted to load the additional song DLC I bought many years ago. Since music licensing exists only to make life more difficult for everyone, the in-game Music Store was closed down because the "license" to sell the DLC had expired. The only way to re-download the songs now is to go through your entire Download History and find them! Not a fast process. Worse, if you didn't buy them back then, you can't now. This is probably the saddest loss from the Great Rhythm Game Collapse. The Beatles Rock Band game was the high watermark of the genre; a marvel of content and execution. In a different world, a better world, there would have been games like this celebrating all the great rock and roll bands. I've actually played very little of this RB title, mostly because I've always seen it more of a single player experience - you can't create or modify a character, and even the ability to alter the music (with the whammy bar) is removed - and I just didn't get around to it when the 360 was in the living room. Playing Beatles songs is like a massage for your soul. I finished the night with one of my favorites:
7/04 - Not much gaming today, but I did get a chance to try Dragon's Lair HD on the PS3 and a new game, Vikings: Wolves of Midgard. Dragon's Lair was sort of a disappointment; while the cartoon animations brought back waves of happy nostalgia, the mechanic for selecting which direction to move is now a D-pad graphic in the lower left corner. The original game used lighted areas that you had to move toward and they overlaid the animations. This kept you looking at the action, instead of now where you have to concentrate on the corner of a widescreen picture. Ah well, at least there's an option to just watch the whole "story". Vikings, which I only played a tiny bit of, is very Diablo III-ish. I'll have to try a bit more to see if it's worth my time as, so far, I don't feel it's substantially more entertaining than D3. Interestingly, Vikings is one of these new $30 titles - feels like an attempt to fill in the gap left in the market when the mid-range publishers went out of business.
7/05 - Vikings. This is turning into an enjoyable little diversion. The game is very much a Diablo clone, but a) that's not a bad thing, and b) they've added an Exposure element to the formula. Since this is Norway (presumably), it gets very cold there; ergo, you need to watch out how cold you get. Staying out in the snow too long fills your Exposure bar and if it fills up, you take damage. Campfires will warm you up, so you have to watch the map to see where the next one is. Combat is pretty simple - just press the X button to fight - and you have two different weapon sets to switch between. I can deal with simple. What is hard to take is the dialog! Bad writing is hard enough to suffer through, but WHY do they have Vikings with Cockney accents?
7/06 - Vikings. Well, it was fun while it lasted. The second area to explore was basically like the last one, but without snow (and the Exposure mechanic). Lots of X button mashing, no really interesting loots, and rehashed enemies from the last zone. The only real difference was the boss at the end and that fight was very simple - beat two guards and the chieftain. Time to move onto something better.
7/07 - In the interest of showing that I actual play the games I buy, I felt that it was time to justify my $40 expenditure for Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy. Crash wasn't a series I did much with until the PS2 generation and even then I remember having to get rid of Wrath of Cortex because the loading times were so bad. So now I'm playing the remastered PS1 games and they remind me that my reflexes aren't what they used to be. However, once in a while, I do get it right:
This came after numerous (and ignominious) deaths by falling off things I clearly should have seen. If Sarah were playing these, it would be art. Me, it's a high definition train wreck!
7/08 - Crash Bandicoot. It's nice that there are 3 games here since I'm stuck on the first one. I've gone over to the next one to see how I get on with it. So far, it's been easier, but I'm also at the very beginning of the game, which is always easier. The hardest thing (other than missing jumps, of course) is trying to figure out the right "mechanic" to deal with the various creatures I'm trying to avoid. I don't know if they included these hints in the manuals (something old games always had), but I'm guessing they left it to the gamer to figure it out. These were the early days of consoles; more had to be discovered on one's own.
7/09 - Crash Bandicoot. Well, after getting stuck on some of the levels on #2, I switched to the third one, Warped. More interesting environments and a bit more variety of courses, but these games still fall into the "memorize or die" mold. I remember having to do this sort of thing back in the SNES platforming days and it was lots of fun...20 years ago. I might have to see if I can get Sarah interested in them. I'd love to see how she would handle them. It might also be a way to get her playing on the PS4; something that will let her play Kingdom Hearts 3 when it (eventually) releases.
7/10 - Crash Bandicoot. Didn't have too much time to play tonight, so I kept with Crash and I think I'm going to put it aside for now. The trilogy, as a whole, is a good deal - lots of nostalgia, pretty graphics, mostly good controls - but I think I want more depth to my game time. Also, I was a little disappointed that in the 3rd game, Warped, the 8th was basically a rehash of the 3rd (or 4th) stage. Up to that point, all of the levels had been fairly unique. Oh well, it was still fun to play and I figure I can always drop back into it for a quick bit of fun. CLICK HERE to see my highlight of the night - winning a race by the narrowest of margins. Oddly, this gameplay clip isn't what you usually do in Crash Bandicoot games - most of it is platforming.
7/11 - Time for a change of pace; from the cartoony world of Crash Bandicoot to the post-something-really-bad-happened world of Metro 2033 Redux. I played a tiny bit of this before it was remastered, so I had a little idea what to expect - in other words, I wasn't surprised to "die" right at the beginning. I've read a rough translation of Glukhovsky's book and I am impressed how closely the game is following the story. So far I've just had to fight off some, uh, mutant werewolves, I guess? I'm still trying to deal with not using inverted Y-axis and I'm, unfortunately, wasting a lot of ammo. Oh, and there was that other "experience" I had...CLICK HERE to see what happened. Also, I've gotten back into a little Twitch streaming (which is why these are Highlights) and I thought I was doing pretty good. I had one viewer for almost the whole show and as many as 3 at one point (but no one chatted). I was thrilled to have the one viewer...until I realized it was MY computer sitting on MY channel. Oh well, on the good side, it made it look like I did have a viewer and maybe that helps. I guess I might have a couple of my devices "watch" my stream just so it doesn't "look" empty.
7/12 - Rough work day, homework, pre-bedtime discovery of massive cat barf incident - these are the things that lead to late nights and the need for a game that fits your brain like a comfortable pair of underwear. In this case, it was some more of Inside, a game that demands little expertise and complements an already dower mood.
7/13 - Inside. Just some comfortable filler while the bod recovers from the rigors of the past week and girds itself for the coming madness of the Khan!
7/16 - As I'm trying to build up some sleep reserves before SDCC, I only played a little of a new game I got recently, Golf With Your Friends. Nice and simple miniature golf game which may work for our little group. It reminds me of the one I used to have on the Atari ST. Ah, the simpler old days.
7/19 - Due to SDCC 2017, gaming is at a minimum. I did get a chance to play a little of No Man's Sky on the PS4 Pro...and it looks like an entirely different game!
7/24 - Done with SDCC for another year, it's time to get back to a some gaming. I've been interested to at least restart Alan Wake after all this time, partly because it was the subject of some news lately. The game was being pulled from digital sales markets due to a music license that had expired. Remedy, the studio behind the game, stated that it wasn't possible to replace the song (or songs, for all we know) because of the way they were used in the game. After a few minutes in the game, I could see why - there is music playing in nearly every scene! I also forgot how not-exactly-great the controls were. A single press of the left bumper button does a "dodge", but holding it down puts Alan in "sprint" mode. So every time you want to run, you end up sort of ducking and it looks pretty silly. Another thing I had forgotten was that the very beginning of the game foreshadows the somewhat confusing ending. As the game starts, Alan quotes Stephen King, saying (in paraphrase), "Horror isn't supposed to make sense. If it did, it wouldn't be scary." Hearing that alone made replaying the first part worth the effort. I also forgot how well the proximity interaction feature worked - to talk to an NPC, you just stand next to them. A very seamless and natural way to handle conversations.
7/26 - Another One-Night Stand - this time, Dungeon Siege III. Don't get me wrong. I was actually pretty impressed with the game and was enjoying it. It plays a lot like Diablo 3, but with much better voice acting. Back in the day, our little gaming trio (me, my wife and my brother) played the first two DS games on networked PC's. (I'm actually not entirely sure we finished the second one.) The games were fun to play and at least the first one had a mechanic I haven't seen in another game since. In it, you could "follow" another player and then the game would run your character like a companion NPC, fighting along side whoever you were "protecting". I'm not ashamed to admit that there were times back then that I would link to my brother's character...and nap in my chair for 10 to 15 minutes. Hey, you have to get rest in when you can and we had a toddler back then. That aside, DS3 is a sold game, the RPG guts having been handled by Obsidian. What hasn't held up as well over the years is the character models (they look like people painted by amateur artists), the fact that NPC interactions are always posed the same way, and the gameplay, which got very repetitive, even after just a couple of hours. (Click HERE to see what most of it is like.) Basically, you walk along a path and enemies rush at you in groups. You fight them off, walk a little farther, and...well, you get the idea. I really liked that there was a button to press to show you which way to go to complete your quest (it was really easy to get turned around), and the story dialog in the game was tailored to fit the background of one of four different characters you picked to be at the beginning. It was a nice touch. I may have to boot up the PS3 version just to see if the graphics are better - I like to think I'm not that hung up on graphical quality, but if you compare this to something like Dead Space, which was from the same generation of consoles, it comes up pretty short.
7/27 - Dungeon Siege III. I wasn't really planning on going on another "date" with DS3, but she was available and I only had a little while to play. Plus, she does show a gamer a good time, if not a fancy one. I did try out the PS3 version and a) the graphics aren't any better, and b) I tried running a strictly melee character and didn't like the combat - guns are definitely the way to go. I might have to break it off with DS3 after this, but ya never know if I might have to give her a booty call again. I mean, take a look at this "art":
7/28 - Feeling a little out of sorts, I decided to pull out the Vita and do some sofa gaming. The game I picked was Three-Fourths Home and I don't know if I really understand what it exactly is. You are holding a conversation with your family while driving, which consists of keeping a finger on the back touch panel, advancing the story with the right bumper, selecting responses with the left thumbstick, and confirming with the X button. If that sounds uncomfortable, that's because it is! This is more interactive fiction than game and I'm not sure at this point if the ending will be worth the finger contortions required to finish.
7/29 - Except for a little bit of #1 (or #2, can't remember), I've never played any of the Saint's Row games. So, for whatever reason, I thought I'd give Saint's Row III: Gat Out Of Hell a try...the last expansion to all the SR games. Go figure. Basically, it was a brief experience a little reminiscent of the GTA games, but with worse graphics and demons all over the place. I will admit that the flying aspect (with dark angel wings) was sort of cool, but I had a lot of trouble with the controls. I'll put this in the "well, I gave it a try" category.
7/30 - No real gaming session today. Did a quick PUBG run and made it to the top 10 without getting shot or shooting anyone else - the barrier got me. Played a tiny bit of Mighty Number 9. Tried a little bit of Ziggurat which turned out to be a super hard FPS with a horrible POV - about 3 inches off the floor.
Miscellaneous Musings
Thought it might be time to change the format a little, so I'm embedding vids and screenshots in the text instead of just dumping them in all at the end. I'm also highlighting (ie, bold effect) the names of the games in each entry. I was going to put the boxart pics back in like I used to, but it's too much work to download the image, save it, then insert it.
Has anyone ever made a game where your character is a blow-up doll?
Doldrums - I don't know if it was Comic Con interference or just my mood in general, but I'm having trouble picking a game to really get into. I'd like to dig into something that I feel like I can realistically finish and will be rewarding. Looking over this month's entries, I've been all over the place. Dungeon Siege III is something I know I could get through, but I just don't feel like it's worth that much time - too old, and too much of the same thing over and over. Big open world games are great, but I just don't have the hours it would take to make a meaningful dent in one. I don't know how I made it 100+ hours in Fallout 4, but I doubt I can do that again on my current schedule.
