Breaking

Emily persuaded me to buy some games because they were cheap. What is going on?

• Nier, because everybody says it's quite good and really sad, and what I need are more sad 360 games in my life.
• The Darkness II, because the previous game in the series was excellent.

Other than this, gameplaying has been a secondary concern to Emily trying to get a permanent Visa for UK residence. This means she'll never have to renew her existing one, which is nice, and it's also a step to becoming a full citizen once that's possible.

However, I have started Nier and I'm not sure what to think of it just yet. The prologue took forever because I unwisely chose the Hard difficulty and everything takes forever to die. I might change it to Easy on this save if possible, and if not just start again, because I'm not too far in. It's standard action RPG fare so far, although there are the hints of massive tragedy in the air.

Liberation and Conworlding

It took me three days to beat Assassin's Creed: Liberation HD, and I had a lot of fun. It plays quite similarly to Assassin's Creed III, but has the higher pace and more immediate connection to the plot that Assassin's Creed and Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines have - in short, I wish the main entries in the series were more like this! There were some frustrations; Aveline seems very happy to randomly jump off things rather than making safe movements, and some of the 100% Sync criteria are very arbitrary and random to achieve. I like the story; again, I knew nothing about this period and location, so it was quite instructive for me. Aveline really comes off as torn between two worlds, and while Abstergo's manipulation of the truth might be quite simple, I like how little needed to be edited out in order to achieve their goal of whitewashing. Recommended, for sure. Enjoyed it a lot more than I'm enjoying Black Flag!

There is a slightly darker side, though. Emily pointed out one of this game's central mechanics is changing outfits; Aveline can swap between 'Lady', an aristocratic puffy dress thing that removes most of your killing potential, 'Assassin', where you're... an assassin, and 'Slave', where you are punished more severely for publicly offensive acts. Note that this is also the only Assassin's Creed game where you play a female character. Is this sexist? It's an interesting mechanic and one Emily and I would like to see in a more prominent game; Liberation was originally only for the Vita, and it might not be a coincidence that the main character is a black woman. Now, the Vita version did not sell particularly badly, so I hope this is actually just a sign that Ubisoft is considering more widely varied main characters. It would be interesting to see some sales data, as there has historically been this concept that male gamers do not like to play female protagonists, unless they are super sexy all the time. Aveline is certainly attractive, but is almost always completely covered up and certainly doesn't act like a femme fatale.

In some non-gaming news (sort of), I've began working a little more seriously on Craze, the fantasy world I've had in mind for many years now. Originally it was the setting to a game, also called Craze, but I spend so much time thinking about it that I really want to flesh it out and make it consistent. To this end I've acquired several books by Mark Rosenfelder, who has a real talent for explaining things that should be obvious. I already had it in mind that creating a world, complete with at least 5 different cultures, was going to be a massive pile of work, but his books more clearly lay out all the different things that have to be thought about, it's very useful. Maybe I'll also eventually write that game - I have a JRPG-style thing in mind but with a lot of branching paths and the ability to play as your own character as well as 'the hero'.

Washington Revisited

Before I get into the games I've actually been playing, here's a short list of acquisitions:

• Got Sid Meier's Civlization Revolution via Games with Gold
• Got Toy Soldiers: Cold War via Games with Gold
• Emily bought me Avadon: The Black Fortress for Valentine's Day

My patience with Final Fantasy Anniversary Edition's final bonus dungeon has started to wear thin, so I decided to get started on Final Fantasy II Anniversary Edition. Emptyeye had prepared me a little for how the game works, so I was all ready to beat the snot out of my own characters, but I haven't really needed to do that too much yet. However, I have got into a few fights specifically to level my character's Magic and MP stats. Right now I'm in Mysidia, trying to figure out how on earth to get out of Mysidia without dying to random encounters.

I also randomly started playing Battle Isle on a whim. I remember when I was 12 or something I bought this Battle Isle Platinum collection which had much of the entire series in it, including the expansion to Incubation which I never had. Now I'm finally getting round to playing them, and the first BI is okay so far. Annoyingly enough I had to look up a password to even get to start playing the single player vs. AI levels, and I've played a couple without any trouble. My first attempt at the mission 'EVOTY' resulted in abject failure, so I might need to rethink it a bit.

The major success story of the last couple of days is beating the entire Assassin's Creed III DLC called The Tyranny of King Washington. I knew it wasn't very long, but because of my problems beating the first instalment (bug preventing one of the later missions being beatable) I was eager to rush through and just do the story missions, in case something similar happened. Not so, and I was able to destroy most of the expansion pack with no problem. To that end, I decided to get 100% Sync on every mission, which meant I needed to reload checkpoint quite a few times, but it wasn't too bad. The plot itself is interesting, though Washington is such a terrible and unrepentant figure he's kind of one-dimensional. Worth the season pass.

I've also finally started practising Ultima Underworld for Crystals for Life. Done a few runs through, my current best is 22:10, far away from the current record of 17:25 which uses the same route. I still have a lot of work to do, and even more to learn the sequel, which I've never speedrun before. So many people are starting to drop out of the marathon, I'm wondering if there are going to be 9 hours spare for me to do Dark Cloud...

Dark Darkness

Not as much gaming went on this past few days, because I had to do work and stuff. However, I did still find time to beat a game and a DLC.

Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012: Ascend into Darkness is the ridiculously long title of the DLC, which I mentioned last post. This adds a campaign and three new decks to play - Liliana Vess's awful Black discard deck, Ral Zarek's awful Red/Blue control deck and Ajani Goldmane's awful Green/White enchantress deck. I played each of them for the requisite one victory each, because as you can see I don't consider them very highly. The campaign has two duels each with the new planeswalkers, and then a series of Archenemy matches where you're the Archenemy! This makes the game extremely easy, because it's simple to win when you're putting gobs of creature tokens on the field and deploying your deck as fast as you can draw it. Took another 8 hours or so. I did enjoy the puzzles in this campaign; figuring out the board position in Archenemy is a lot more complicated.

The other game I beat is one of the first Xbox 360 games I bought: The Darkness! I'm not sure why I've been putting it off for so long - the brief part I'd played earlier really interested me, but for some reason it's taken years to get back onto it again. I love this game, I think it's one of the best stories I've ever seen in a game, let alone an FPS. Mike Patton's performance as The Darkness is incredible, and he does his very best to unnerve the player. The gunplay is frantic, though if you take your time and shoot all the lights out, it becomes a game of ducking quickly in and out of dark areas to refresh your shield. Not too difficult (on Normal difficulty), I didn't do many sidequests, I did find a bunch of collectables, would like to speedrun some day.

I have Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light in my 2DS to play next, but I haven't started yet. I also really need to get practicing (and streaming) some Ultima Underworld 1 & 2.

Pokémon in space playing cards

More games to report on!

First is Pokémon X. I really enjoyed this but throughout I had the nagging feeling that it was far too easy. It's hard to pin down exactly why I felt this, but the re-introduction of 'EXP.ALL' probably goes a long way toward it, as well as Mega Evolution. Here's my hall of fame:

Nocturne	SIGILYPH	♂	Lv. 73	OT/Lag.Com
Shyvana	TYRANTRUM	♂	Lv. 71	OT/Lag.Com
Maokai	VENUSAUR	♂	Lv. 72	OT/Lag.Com
Ahri	DELPHOX	♂	Lv. 72	OT/Lag.Com
Tryndamere	DOUBLADE	♂	Lv. 73	OT/Lag.Com
Tibbers	PANGORO	♀	Lv. 72	OT/Lag.Com

Yes I know the genders don't match up with the character names, shut up. I had an extremely wide type coverage; the only type I really missed was something Electric to deal with Gyarados, but it went fine and almost every battle was simple. Also, Maokai would have been a much better name for a Trevenant. Maybe Zyra for the Venusaur?

Next is a DLC, Gratuitous Space Battles: The Outcasts. I've no idea when I acquired this, as I got most of the content for GSB at the same time, but whatever. Each DLC gives you an additional 2 battles to think your way through, but my existing ship designs were enough to get through these new ones. However, I didn't do it with a large amount of Honour, the in-game currency you get for being frugal with your loadouts. I have bought every single upgrade though, so I don't mind too much. If I really wanted to make sure GSB and all its content is Completed, I'd have to beat every mission on Hard, which sounds... difficult. I had another brief attempt at the Galactic Conquest campaign but it just wasn't happening.

Other than that, I thought I'd have a crack at Magic the Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012. As I may have mentioned before, this is Wizards of the Coast's introductory a level Magic series and it plays quite pleasantly. The decks are all reasonably balanced, except Karn's, which has Mox Sapphire and Tinker in it. Along with the list of opponents to beat, it also has optional 'challenges', which are insane play setups you have to solve. The first few are insultingly easy, with solutions like 'block, then attack', but some of them are interesting, with many interlocking effects on the board at once. Anyway, I played through all three campaigns (one of which showcases Archenemy, an insane 3v1 game mode) using various decks, mostly the Treefolk one. I do have the expansion campaign Ascend into Darkness yet to beat.

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.

High Octane Game Beating Action

The gaming doesn't let up! Here's an update.

Blinx: The Time Sweeper is a game I remember very fondly from my school days, where I'd go to a friend's house and attempt to take on this incredibly unforgiving game. Most of the game's difficulty comes from its controls, which are 'loose' at best. I've been playing a (different) friend's copy on my Xbox 360, and... it doesn't emulate it very well. Most levels run at about 80% speed, in some spots the game slows down to around 20%... this might make it easier in some ways, but no gamer wants a variable framerate. Anyway, I'd played the first few worlds months ago, but I got around to it recently and now it's sat with a nice shiny Beaten sign, though not Completed, because I didn't even get half of the Cat Medals. The last boss is very random and frustrating. Despite all the problems I still like this game. I'd like to run it someday, probably only possible once I get a real Xbox.

Next up is Symphony, an odd game which takes the concept of games like Audiosurf and Beat Hazard and wraps it in a campaign you can actually finish. Essentially it creates shmup-like levels which vaguely match up to the beat and dynamics of the music you choose. I had to stop playing this for several months while they fixed a bug that made it unable to display enough drive letter icons for me to actually browse to my music. Then I realised that a hardlink would allow me to browse to it from C:. After I did this and beat the game, they patched it so that it shows more drive letters. That's life. It's a fairly good game, nothing special. If somebody could produce a more precise algorithm I still think this genre of game has potential.

Seeing as I beat Sonic CD a few days ago, Emily suggested also beating Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode I as I bought it in some random sale in months past. So I did. Massive amounts of design ripped off from earlier games, some really halfhearted boss fights, the requisite few really fucking annoying levels and a final boss that had me yelling at the scream. That's not a recommendation. It's not a terrible game by any means, but if you own any other 2D Sonic game then it's probably better than this.

The last game to fall before I write this is Mega Man X: Command Mission. This another game I played a big chunk of last year and decided to finish up - I was just about to start Chapter 8, so I only had 3 to go. Went fairly smooth; one of the bosses took an annoyingly long time to defeat but I was never in any danger. Then, the boss rush was totally pointless, just gave me some more XP I guess. The final bosses were scary at first, but not all that difficult; overall this is a serviceable JRPG. Of course, that comes with the usual proviso that the voice acting and plot is terrible, so skip cutscenes, even if this is your first playthrough. It's not worth it; there's no character development or denouement with this game, unlike Enchanted Arms.

I only had four games to report on beating, but I may as well mention that I started another - Mystic Heroes, a PS2 game by Koei. Yes, it's like Dynasty Warriors. No, it's not as good. It's based on some incredibly popular Chinese fantasy novel which I know nothing about, so I'm sure a lot of it is lost on me, but it plays like DW with what little finesse there is taken out. Also it's a bit laggier and I'm not sure why. I'm already at 6-3 so there's probably only a few levels left. Watch this space.