So I fell off the gaming wagon for a couple of months, mainly in lieu of graduating and watching Supernatural. But I've been back to gaming for the past couple of weeks, so here we go once again. We start with a couple of games from before gaming hiatus though.
Main entry goes
here.
Game 11: Tales of Graces f - 51 hours, finished March 2, PS3
It should be just Tales of Graces, minus the f, because I stopped playing shortly after clearing the main game, and I don't see me going back 4 months later to play more of it. As usual with Tales of games, I go in with some mediocre battle skills because I never spent too much time trying to master an awful lot of it. So, with mediocre effort comes mediocre appreciation, and while I know it's lauded as the best Tales of battle system, all I can say about it is that I enjoyed it. The story, surprisingly, didn't bother me much, and I don't think it deviates a lot in quality from the rest of Tales of. The music was awful, all 30 unique seconds of it.
Well, I ought to get started on Xillia at some point.
Game 12: The Secret World - 30-40-50??? hours, finished somewhere in March, PC
Okay, this is a MMO, so there is no end for it, but I got in a couple dozen of hours, finished the first large story arc, and lost interest (or at the very least, enthusiasm) for the time being. Not knowing if and when I'm going back to it, I'll be writing it off as finished. I still have it on my PC, just because it's 30GB and was a pain to patch.
I had been avoiding MMOs ever since I lost so much time of my life with Ragnarok Online, but The Secret World was indeed fairly different from what else I had tried. It's theme park, but it has a lot of good lore (or, masterfully stitched lore) that was enjoyable to read through and find references in, so that's a plus. On the other hand the battle system is clunky and not really enjoyable despite the relative freedom of skills to acquire.
I might go back to it one day, but after a couple of months of hiatus, I don't really feel any pull.
Game 13: Long Live the Queen - 2 hours, finished June 26, PC
One of the games that gets famous during the Steam sales, so I decided to give it a try. Played through 4-5 deaths and clearing the game, and then promptly deleted it. I enjoyed the bits I played through quite a bit actually, but I was getting annoyed by the end. Overall it seems like a game I'd prefer on mobile, so that I can play it on the subway and never have the opportunity to get annoyed due to playing it for more than quarter of an hour.
Going for more endings would have required using a guide or keeping detailed records, neither of which I wanted to bother with.
Game 14: Borderlands 2 - 80ish hours (~130 by now), finished July 7, PC
I liked the first one, and I like this one too, although it seems to have more rubbish loot. Also, as with the first one, I soloed the first playthrough, and in my opinion this is in no way a game particularly better in multiplayer. Sure, it can be better, but it will depend mainly on the people, not on the game being designed around it. Which suits me fine.
I'd probably be done with it by now, because I don't even fancy too much going through the next few modes, but I've picked a MP game with a new character and having a Mechromancer is quite fun (after spending both the first game and this one with the soldier/commando class).
Game 15: The Typing of The Dead: Overkill - 7 hours, finished July 9, PC
Love this so much! I suck at it, because I can't touch type for real although it's been on my to learn list for ages. It's still on my hdd though, and I've been going through the regular House of the Dead: Overkill game, and occasionally through a typing level.
I need more parody games.
Game 16: The Walking Dead: Season 1 + 400 Days DLC - 14 hours, finished July 18, PC
I moderately enjoyed this, enough to decide to play the second season (when the last episode comes out). After finishing the game though, I checked a wiki, mostly to confirm my suspicions, and the whole tailored to player's decisions thing is fairly bleh and very short-term, or, worse, just a statistic.
Game 17: Tomb Raider - 19 hours, finished August 1, PC
I have no Lara Croft nostalgia to speak of (have only played one game, pre-first-reboot), and I didn't mind this being a Lara Croft Uncharted. I can't really compare to Uncharted's experience due to me sucking at aiming with a controller and hence having great difficulty enjoying it on a console. So this was sort of a new experience in that it was overall very, very enjoyable. Story and Lara's character were also enjoyable and nicely handled. Other characters not so much, but there were just too many of them.
I actually didn't care much for Lara turning badass so quickly, which is something that seems to bother many. If anything the challenges and collectables is what bugged me, as they have nothing to do with the survival and are just a waste of time. The documents contributed to the story at least, but the rest was ridiculous. And I suppose the tombs weren't much to shout about.
Game 18: The Wolf Among Us - 8 hours, finished August 2, PC
It was sort of off at the beginning, maybe I went in with some expectations a la Grimm. By the second episode it had started feeling nice and engaging. Hopefully they will bring out a second season, though as many have expressed, playing as episodes come out seems like a huge pain, and the way to go about it is buy on a sale when it's all out. It also surprised me how short this turned out to be compared with The Walking Dead.