The Hour Of My Return Is Already Overlate

It's been a while since I posted here, because I'm dumb. No navel-gazing this time, just going to be talking about games.

Recent acquisitions:

• Ordered Samurai Warriors 2: Empires from CeX literally months ago, they finally got around to sending it. More Musou!
• Some free with Xbox Live Gold games: Gotham City Impostors, Battleblock Theater, AirMech Arena, Motocross Madness, Warface. I know very little about most of these, but I have seen Battleblock Theater before and it looks like a laugh.
• Somehow I managed to win a copy of Soul Blazer from the last Crystals For Life, so... now I have that, too.
• Nintendo saw fit to give me a free game of my choice (from a short list) so I plumped for Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins. Stay tuned for more on that, later in this post.
• They also gave everybody Steel Diver: Sub Wars so I guess that's new too.

I started playing Darksiders - it is pretty fun as I had guessed. However, it is depressing seeing how every mechanic in the game is lifted from another game; is there not one original idea in the entire thing? I hope so, because it is getting predictable. I just got Ruin, the horse, so at least it won't take forever to get around any more.

Played a few campaigns of Warriors Orochi 2 now, the storyline is bizarre and pointless as always. I don't know many of the Samurai Warriors characters yet, so there are new faces every campaign, which is nice. Got quite a few generals I enjoy playing as so far - Zuo Ci is still overpowered as all get out. Still got Wu and the Orochi campaigns left to do.

Much progress is being made on the Spiderweb Software front; I beat Geneforge 2! That is, I beat it by leaving the place to fend for itself, then I continued to play it and actually beat it properly. I went with the Awakened path (again) despite initially starting out Loyalist, because Emily hated it when I chose the options that were mean to the serviles! I think this instalment is an improvement on the prequel; all of the factions (except the Barzites) are nuanced and have enough supporting rhetoric that joining them seems like a logical choice. It really does just depend on what kind of character you want to play. I've since started playing Geneforge 3, but I haven't got too far yet. I'll talk about that in another post.

I've had this PS2 fighting game sat on my shelf for a long time without playing, so I thought I'd pull it off and beat it. The game is Spectral Vs Generation and it is a very Guilty Gear-inspired piece, but with lower quality graphics; some research indicates that it is essentially a port of a PSP game, so I understand that. It's fun, nothing special, the characters are all typical anime fare, end boss is overpowered, the usual. I played as Kryce, a 'dude with sword' character with a bunch of mix-up dash things. His combos were relatively easy so I breezed through until the last guy, who is unironically named "Holy God Earth". Very annoying fight; many rounds came very close as I managed to knock him out of some of the more unsafe animations, but it took maybe half an hour for me to actually win! Might look back at it again sometime, maybe beat it with every character for the 'Completed' state on Backloggery.

Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins was a surprise addition to my collection; it was something to do with having a Club Nintendo account for a certain amount of time? The other games on the list I'd either played or had absolutely no interest in. I'm not the biggest Mario fan, though I definitely enjoyed Super Mario Bros. 3 back in the day, so I decided to give this one a shot. It has a hub structure which allows you to finish the levels/zones in whichever order you wish, so there isn't a difficulty curve as such. I feel like some of the zones are trickier than others, but it's a very close thing. I found a couple of secret exits, but probably not all of them (not sure if this is actually tracked in-game). Rushed through all the zones without much problem, but after you do all six zones there's a last level which is way, way harder than the rest of the game. Again, this level alone (and the multiple-stage boss at the end of it) took me about 30 minutes by itself. Not a bad game, but I am glad it was free.

It sounds like a lot of activity, but it really isn't, because a lot of my free time has been spent playing that destroyer of careers, World of Warcraft. My main character is firmly in the Mists of Pandaria endgame now, working on Flexible raiding. I still enjoy it despite the repetition; it does help that I have a couple of toons just reaching Wrath of the Lich King content on the way too, so I can swap between them if I get tired of waiting 3 hours for another raid party.

No progress on any speedruns, I'm afraid. I'm still interested in running every game ever but I'm finding it very hard to actually pick one to go with. Either Blaze & Blade or Klonoa 2 sounds likely because they have the most planning done of any of the runs I want to do.

The continuation

Only a few Steam Sale games left:

• Europa Universalis IV with Conquest of Paradise - again, Paradox strategy games
• Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition and Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition - makes me feel a little sad to also have the originals on GOG, but this will be more convenient for showing Emily
• Shadowrun Returns because it seems like a faithful successor

Just to make sure I will never, ever finish my Backloggery I also bought a few games at CeX again:

• Darksiders - looks fun, if not groundbreaking
• Gauntlet: Dark Legacy - one of those cult classics
• Warriors Orochi 2 - finally got mailed to me

Also, free stuff:

• Magrunner: Dark Pulse was free for a while on GOG
• Saints Row: The Third was one of the Xbox Live free games, and I certainly enjoyed Saints Row II
• Charlie Murder is another free one
• as is Gotham City Impostors

Post containing actual content to come soonish.

Mixed Bag

Well, it's been quite some time since I bothered to write something. Here's a mammoth update!

Firstly, I started to play Nier. Gameplay-wise, it's fairly standard mash-buttons-until-things-die fare so far. Where the game is really standing out is its setting; it is relentlessly gloomy and I'm forever getting the feeling that everything is going to explode at some point, or more likely just slowly die out with nobody left to care. I'm looking forward to playing more of the plot; the game is full of these bring a thing to a place sidequests which are starting to wear me down, and don't even start with the fishing.

Next in my handy-dandy Backloggery memory card is Glass Rose. Emily wanted to pick this up because it was developed by Cing, the now-defunct company that made Hotel Dusk and some other story-based games. Since then, we've played through it unlocking all four endings! It's trivial to unlock three from one save file if you know what you're doing, but getting the fourth basically requires an extra playthrough. I'm not quite sure what to say about this one... it has a bizarre premise and some nice twists and turns, but the writing and voice acting is so badly done that it's difficult to really get into. Also, the controls are pretty bad and much more suited towards a mouse (or a touchscreen). Might ask Emily to write some further comments on here, because I think she could have a few things to say.

Finally I beat Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. I say 'finally' because I've only been playing this while at my parents' house, because my mother enjoys watching me play through these games. I've yelled at the game a few times for its risible sailing sections, but it's still pretty fun and I particularly enjoyed the ending, which just adds to the series's mysticism and overall nonsense. This led me to begin the DLC, Freedom Cry. I haven't done much yet, but I have rescued a bunch of slaves, and again this is more fun than Black Flag because you don't sail as much! Adéwalé plays almost identically to Edward (although he does have a machete like Aveline) so it was easy to jump right in, but he is much more sympathetic. I really hope that the next AC game has no sailing. Or anything related to vehicles at all.

Caved in and bought Crusader Kings II and a bunch of discounted DLC a little while ago. I've always had a healthy dollop of respect for Paradox for bringing such incredibly detailed and dry strategy games to a somewhat large market, but until now I've only owned Europa Universalis III. I played as an Italian Duke named, uh, Ezio Auditore. Spent a long time trying to increase my territory a little without angering anyone major, but I made a few mis-steps and didn't really gain much, then Gavelkind ruined everything. So I started again as a Welsh Count named Cadwgan ap Meurig. He hasn't done much, but he has fought off the Irish and managed to make some important alliances, as well as installing a courtier as the Duke of Deheubarth, which he hopes to have his successor inherit. I changed the succession law to Tanistry because it seems fun.

Finally there's a few games to add to my collection, because OF COURSE THERE IS.

• Hitman: Absolution was free with Xbox Live Gold (mine is actually expiring soon, not sure if I'll renew it until the next free game is released) and apparently is a bit more user-friendly than the previous instalments, so I'll try it out.
• Warriors Orochi 2 and Samurai Warriors 2: Empires are both on the way from CeX, because Emily has gone nuts after playing Samurai Warriors: Chronicles and Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires and wants more of the same.