First Parts

Only three games beaten since last time; work slows things down a bit on that front.

The Walking Dead - Episode 1 was free on Xbox Live some time ago, so of course I picked it up, and now I've gone through it. I've heard a lot about how good it is, so I had high hopes, which were quickly fulfilled. It's difficult to for games to really create emotion in their players, but Telltale have done a good job here, immediately drawing me in with an amazing opening. Some of the emotion seems a little easily manufactured, but other than that I was happy to play through the couple of hours in this episode and I'd like to pick up the rest sometime. It may even be on sale soon, what with the second season coming out right now.

The other game I beat is Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness, which I started dabbling with sometime last year. Decided it was time to actually finish it, and then all of a sudden it was over. When you boil it down, the game is actually quite simple, with only a few steps in the goals you need to do. I like to compare it to the original Final Fantasy, as a good counter-example to the ridiculous WRPG/JRPG wars that rock the internet occasionally. Both games let you gather the gems/crystals in pretty much whatever order you want. Maybe FF could have done with a first person space simulation too? Maybe not. Anyway, I beat it with a Human Fighter (yawn), not that the classes or races are particularly difficult.

I immediately started planning a speedrun after beating it. I streamed a couple of attempts yesterday on my channel but both of them ended at Mondain, who posed no trouble during my first playthrough. If they hadn't, I probably would have been able to win in about 45 minutes, which means it could be a lot less than that, even. Posted a new topic on SDA in case anyone else has some smart ideas.

Almost forgot to mention that I beat Mystic Heroes - it has a truly obnoxious final boss that took a few attempts, but otherwise the game was pretty smooth. If you've played a Dynasty Warriors game before, you might be surprised how many adventure-y elements there are in this game, like platforming and permanent stat boosts from killing enemies. It's not bad, it's just not great, and it lags strangely.