T w e n t y S i d e d
This week has been uneventful. I’m still playing Rimworld, and later today I have a session of Call of Cthulhu.
Maybe if I get some money together I’ll buy Helldivers 2.
So what is everyone else doing this week?
Stolen Pixels
A screencap comic that poked fun at videogames and the industry. The comic has ended, but there's plenty of archives for you to binge on.
Raytracing
Raytracing is coming. Slowly. Eventually. What is it and what will it mean for game development?
The Witch Watch
My first REAL published book, about a guy who comes back from the dead due to a misunderstanding.
Top 64 Videogames
Lists of 'best games ever' are dumb and annoying. But like a self-loathing hipster I made one anyway.
Silent Hill 2 Plot Analysis
A long-form analysis on one of the greatest horror games ever made.
I’ve been very sick this week, so not much in the way of gaming except for the occasional Bloons TD 6 stage on mobile.
Before getting sick, though, I managed to finish Resident Evil and The Case of the Golden Idol. No surprises on the former, as I’ve done it dozens of times, so even though it’s been years since I played it I still managed to do it swiftly and with a chest full of unused ammo and healing items.
The second one, though, was a bit tougher, despite being a puzzle game. The last couple of stages require a lot of attention to be paid, and even some memory of previous stages (though thankfully and thoughtfully, these are of easy access to peruse thanks to a row of buttons set for that express purpose). What a game. Drove me a bit crazy sometimes, but it was never unfair nor required any sort of moon logic. All the tools and clues to solve every case where there. You just had to be observant and logical.
Amazing game. Going to play the DLC now. Well, when I feel better, at least.
I was attending a free OpenAir Festival “Südwinsen Festival” and enjoyed various kinds of music and alcohol. Everything else was filled with Bellwright and Park Beyond. The latter still holding a few game breaking bugs – one and a half year after release. Why can’t I buy additional islands, while it’s mandatory for the mission to succeed to buy islands within a limited timeframe? Why are all my rides suddenly unpopular leaving a huge income gap?
Oh. Some quick rounds of Toybox Turbos were played as well. A very good Micro Machines clone.
Too busy to get in a run of The Old Republic but I DID manage to finish off Mass Effect. My “I’m not a nice person!” character didn’t have high enough Charm or Intimidate to talk Saren into dealing with himself, so I had to do the fight there, and I’m a bit bemused at how her Paragon level was slightly higher than her Renegade, mostly because a lot of the more Renegade options seemed to be a bit mean. Despite comments about that on my comment about it last time, Liara didn’t take another shot a romancing my Shepard, so that was nice and it at least in theory leaves her unattached for the next two. My character also let the Council die but again this is a choice where the full Renegade option is just too mean, even for that character, as the choice is “Let them die” which aligns with Ashley’s comment that they haven’t done anything for us so why help them, whereas the choice I made — we need to save our strength to go against Sovereign — seemingly gives slightly more Paragon points than Renegade ones (the pop-up for that sequence gave me 9 Paragon and 8 Renegade points), although being able to do that is something that this kind of morality meter can do that a straight Light/Dark meter can’t.
Since I’m playing the remastered Mass Effect trilogy, I expect that importing this character to ME2 should be mostly painless and it’ll be interesting to see what carries over to the next game. I’m hoping for credits but don’t think that’ll happen. Anyway, ME2 is up next on my planned journey to finish all three games this year.
The only thing that really carries over to the next game are a few story choices. Nothing in the way of character build, equipment or inventory of any kind (and yeah, that includes credits). Granted, the game’s story mostly justifies this, but if you were hoarding credits at the last moment with the expectation they’d remain for the sequel then I’m sorry but no.
No, I expected that credits and the like wouldn’t carry over. I was just amused at the novelty of HAVING lots of credits in an RPG and idly mused that given the cost of probes and fuel in ME2 having it carry over would be convenient.
Brotato is all that’s gotten played. Finally dropping the difficulty down to 1 or 0 to finish a run with everyone; there’s a particular elite on the higher levels that’s basically just a death sentence and the weaker characters can’t handle it.
Apart from that, I’ve been on a big mystery kick recently, watching through a bunch of Columbo and other shows. And trying to write some stories. Not mystery stories, just stories of any kind.
I actually picked up the entire series of Columbo a while ago, including the TV movies, because it was cheap for the hours that were in the series and I’d at least be able to write about it later. I’m working on “The Six Million Dollar Man” and the cartoon MASK right now, though.
For stories, I had a really hard time doing anything with that especially given my full-time work and other hobbies, but got really inspired to write one, found a good time for it — while waiting for dishes to soak — and now have been writing a chapter a week on various stories — to avoid getting bored — for almost two years now, posting them on my own blog the week after I write them. It’s amazing how getting into a routine with something that you want to do encourages you to keep doing it and even making a big effort to keep it going when before that you could never get started at it.
I bought the Columbo series as a gift for some other folks a while back, and have now borrowed it from them.
This is my second ‘successful’ attempt at getting into regular writing, and the more successful of the two, in that last time left most everything unfinished and I’ve finished a lot more this time. But most of it was “there’s a holiday/birthday coming up, I should write something for it,” so we’ll see how the pace survives the doldrums of August. Currently around one 4-page story every two weeks, which is certainly better than zero zero-page stories.
I finished Control except for a couple of side quests and the Foundation DLC. Easily the most absorbing game I’ve played in a long time. The Hartman fight in the Alan Wake-based DLC was kinda bullshit, though, and it’s where my patience broke and I dialed the difficulty down to almost nothing to finish it. Might go back to Tina Tina’s Wonderlands, might go to Doom (2016) – I haven’t decided yet. (Yeah, I’m really up-to-date on my video games.)
I’m painting more gaming minis lately, though I blanched at realizing how many figures I’d have to paint for a Warhammer 40K game – even if I saved money by 3D printing proxies. And I really need to get back to watching Spy x Family and Dungeon Meshi. They are so very much comfort food.
Still plugging away at Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous and Trails of Cold Steel 3.
Gladius: Relics of War. Finished a campaign as the Imperial Guard and started one as the Space Marines. The start isn’t great and I put the headquarters on entirely the wrong tile, but them’s the breaks. About a hundred turns in and just unlocked Terminators, so I’m thinking I’ll put out a couple of those and use them as a spearhead against the AdMech who recently started moving in my direction.
I’m also playing Command & Conquer: Generals: Zero Hour: Shockwave, a mod which overhauls the game. It is kind of buggy; when I start the game I need to manually move the game window so that I can access the options menu and mess with the resolution in order to get a fullscreen view, the General’s Challenge appears to be broken in that the only level available is Doctor Thrax’s even if you’re playing as him and completing his level counts as finishing the entire challenge campaign as far as the awards are concerned, and scrolling by moving the mouse to the edge of the screen doesn’t work. Still, skirmish with the overhauled or new generals is quite fun.
I was recommended the mod tool GenLauncher by some guy on the Steam forum, and man, where the hell was this thing back when I first learned of Shockwave? It’s awesome, very easy to use, and being a mod is free.
I’ve also started playing Doom, using the Guncaster gameplay mod together with the Sunder map set. I am reminded of why I don’t much like Sunder; these endless switch hunts which often put the switches necessary for progress in non-obvious locations, frequently leaving me wandering in circles for ten minutes or so at a time as I try to figure out where that damn switch is that will open the next door. Ah well.
On a totally different note, I would love to know where the “Action Log” header image comes from. This room (for lack of a better word) so completely resembles one in the building where I used to work!