Saturday 23 November 2013

Mass Game Beatings

I have been on a game beating streak lately! Massacring Baklaag's minions like nothing. Here's a quick run-down of each one.

Path of Exile is a blatant Diablo II copy with some extremely deep customisation. The campaign (at least, on Easy difficulty) is relatively short, but still packs quite a few punches. A few of the bosses are outright jerks for the high-Agility, please-don't-hit-me character I was playing, but I managed to get through it eventually. The last boss is a multi-phase one-shots-you-constantly dodge-able-with-insane-reactions asshole that I felt like I'd never beat, but he died eventually.

Half Life 2: Lost Coast is essentially a level/map that was cut from the final game, and as such really isn't a full game, but it's still one more Beaten on Backloggery. The level was pretty fun, though I did get stuck in the church for a while trying to figure out what to do. Then my brain kicked in and I finished it. Not bad at all. I didn't play with the commentary on, maybe I'll do that sometime on Hard to get the Complete.

I've described Pokémon Ranger before so I won't really go into it, but I beat it a few days ago and I'm glad I did, because now I never have to play it again unless I want that Manaphy. Final boss rush is dumb. Either you pick up the right wild Pokémon or it's freaking impossible.

Assassin's Creed II: Discovery is the good DS title from the series. It's essentially a 2D platforming game with a few of the main series mechanics stuffed back in, like stealth kills and throwing knives. It's fast paced and difficult and I enjoyed it a lot, though the last mission is really long and taxing. My full sync is at 48% or something, so it'll be a long time before I get the Complete.

I really enjoyed the sequel, so I thought it was time to play the original Hacker Evolution and its expansion, Reinsertion. There aren't many differences; some minor UI changes, the lack of the deletelogs command, but otherwise the same. I enjoyed the writing in the main game, it actually presented a pretty cool story! Some of the levels were fun to work out, too. Unfortunately, the expansion isn't anywhere near as good so I steamed throughout it without much thought. I also tried to play Flight Zero, but it seems to actually be impossible, so... I stopped.

Another game that has been sitting on my shelf for literally years is Enchanted Arms, an early Xbox 360 JRPG with some fun strategic combat and truly terrible voice acting. I thought it was going to be an absolute slog but the characters got more interesting and the story was good enough that I wasn't rolling my eyes at every obvious twist at least. The ending boss rush is tricky, took quite a bit of weaselling for my slightly underpowered party, but I got through. I actually recommend this game if you have an Xbox 360/PS3 and a few bucks spare.

Finally, a few minutes ago I beat Epic Dungeon on Easy with a Berserker. It's an action rogue-like on XNA Indie Games, the rogue elements being fairly light. It's a fun game, and this playthrough took a little over an hour to do. Beating it on Easy seems fairly simple, so at some point I'd like to beat it on Epic difficulty and also finish up all the 'awardments' as it calls them.

8 games in a row. Of course Emptyeye had to buy me that Humble WB Games Bundle so that makes up for all the games I just beat... well, technically I haven't redeemed them yet so I'm not going to add them!

Backloggery unfinished rate is now 78.6%.

Monday 18 November 2013

I was a big, twenty, noisy wall of dick

So I had a really stupid dream last night. Let's recap.

For some reason I wanted to carry around a cap gun with me (you know those fake guns that just fire smoke basically) while I was walking around, so I put it in my bag and went out. While I was out, there were a bunch of soldiers in fatigues putting down some kind of equipment; I got paranoid that they were bomb sniffing devices and started running to get away.

Suddenly I'm in a car with some kid I don't know and he's complaining that the music on the radio is all old boring stuff. I listen more intently and recognise one of the tracks as a generic 80s synthpop kinda thing. The scene shifts again to a live performance of a glam rock track, complete with spinning camera views and zooming in on tongues etc.

Shortly after that it becomes an documentary about the band that played that track. The voiceover says something about it being "the first song with stacked instruments" and cuts to an interview with the bassist (who is for some reason not actually holding a bass, but a normal guitar).

Guitarist: "So I was just going blang, blang, blang", motioning with highest two strings on guitar, bending them impossibly far away from the guitar with just his fingers.
Interviewer: "What was the inspiration behind the song?"
Guitarist: "I was a big, twenty, noisy wall of dick!"

...I think it's some kind of euphemism for being high?

Analyse that, Freud.

Saturday 9 November 2013

Resolution Update #3... oops

Read all the books I got for Christmas
Nope. I'm about 82% of the way through Les Misérables, but my tablet is being repaired so I can't even read that.

Finish FF X-2, XII, XIII for Emily
Nope. Haven't played any of them since last time.

Submit a speedrun to SDA which isn't Arcomage
Submitted Arcomage, it was accepted.

Go to Crystals for Life
Hey, I did this one! I'm also preparing for next year's one.

Get my Backloggery Unfinished percentage to below 65%
Hahaha no. 79.5%

In conclusion I'm not very good at this.