2013

Hey, the number on the calendar changed, LETS DO THINGS???

This year I'm not going to be buying any games. This is part new year's resolution, part practicality. The sheer amount of unfinished games I own is a little embarrassing and I'll be doing my best to rectify this for the next year. I'll also be attempting to get another run published on SDA - I remember promising to submit Klonoa 2 a few years ago, and it hasn't happened yet.

Things to do:

• Read all the books I got for Christmas
• finish Final Fantasy X-2, XII, XIII for Emily to watch (even if she doesn't want to)
• submit speedrun of Klonoa 2 / Majesty / a game that is not Arcomage to SDA
• go to Crystals for Life and be happy
• get my Unfinished percentage on Backloggery to be <65%?

Speedruns I want to do:

• Klonoa 2: this is already routed, I just need to do and record it! Maybe if I stream all these attempts then people will actually like to watch me.
• Majesty: a long time ago I did some ILs of the every non-Expert level, but now that Majesty HD is out I can improve those. Hopefully I can beat my old times and then finally figure out some decent strategies for the harder levels.
• Arcomage: technically I already have an improvement to Destruction recorded and ready to submit, but I wanted to beat my Building time too and that is really hard.
• Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine: not usually my kind of run, but I love this game and feel it deserves more attention, no planning done yet.
• Total Annihilation: this has been on the back burner for a long time... the sheer amount of missions and usual 'destroy everything' goals weigh heavily on my patience.
• Blaze and Blade: done lots of planning for this, though the entire game isn't routed out yet. My main worry is that I'll get to the end and not be able to beat it, because the last section is haaaaaaaaaard.
• Puzzle Quest: this started out as a joke but I do love the idea of running such a pointlessly random game. Needs a lot of work.
• Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team: I know this game pretty well already and have some strategies in mind. It's short and should be fairly simple to do.
• Grandia 2: grew kind of despondent when I lost my notes/haxtools but I definitely still want to do this.

I'm not going to set an unrealistic expectation and claim that these will all be done this year. I need more focus than that; something I have always lacked. I will simply try to do as much of these lists as I can.

Happy New Year.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine

So in this game you decapitate like a million orks and then shoot a bunch of chaos. That might seem a bit obvious but the distinction is actually important.
The first half of the game is about wading in, throwing grenades, sniping the rokkit launcher dudes, dodging nob attacks, stunning and executing enemies. In short, it's hectic, and somewhat hard. The game gives you a bunch of different weapons and lets you change them pretty often and it all adds up to an interesting experience. By the end of the third chapter you'll be drained but confident that you can beat all the orks, so the game changes it up.
The second half of the game is about hiding behind cover and shooting everyone from as far away as you can manage. Huh. Sounds like every FPS made in the last few years. This unfortunate change is because the Chaos marines use the same strategy as your own marine buddies do, i.e. dig in and shoot. There are also the Sorcerer units which laser beam you if you stay out in the open for too long, but they make a nice satisfying -pop- when you hit them with a charged Plasma shot, so they're okay. The melee dudes run at you and engage you in some pretty one-sided combat; if you don't have the Thunder Hammer, it's going to be pretty tedious to wear them down. If you do have the Thunder Hammer, you only have your Plasma Pistol and Bolter to go on, and that makes fighting the Chaos horde a lot harder. I guess this section is meant to make you choose between raw melee power and actually-being-able-to-shoot-people-worth-a-damn but the choice is hollow because the Plasma Rifle is too good.
The finale is pretty badass and befitting the whole game, and the ending cutscene made me smile because I basically knew it was coming, but it fits the W40K world very well.

All in all I did enjoy this game. It's a lot of fun and it is definitely intense. I like this take on the W40K game but I'm still, STILL waiting for an honest recreation of the board game in video game format. Not that I expected this to be it; Space Marine excels at what it set out to do, namely: let you tear off Ork faces.