Gaming Completionist

A gamer with too many games and not enough time.

[tastefullyoffensive]

Pun Dog #5 (previously) [via]

[musikjunkie-blog]

March 4th, the only day that is also a sentence.

John Green (via expectopatronums)

[gamingcompletionist]

Evil Reborn

I finally managed to beat diablo 3 on normal today.  In previous diablo games I pretty much considered that the end of it, and never bothered to play through nightmare and beyond, but with Diablo 3 I feel like you miss out on a good chunk of the game, especially since a lot of the good weapons don't even begin to drop until nightmare.  There's also a TON of lore that I know I missed out on during the first play through that I'd like to go back and make sure I catch.  Diablo 3 is a great game and it was worth (most of) the wait.

None of the things that make it great are the big things though, at its core it's not a whole lot different than diablo 2.  The shine comes from all the little things.  Having your character have conversations rather than just being talked at makes the experience seem more like a real situation and less like a scripted video game.  Diablo 3 is by no means the first game to take this step, but its nice to see that they did, as there was no particular reason to keep the protagonist(s) silent.  Especially having your companions each feel like real people, not some arbitrary replacable deamon fodder, really made the game feel human, from fearful exclimations upon seeing a powerful enemy, to the exhilirated congradulations upon victory.  Gossip has also been replaced by micro conversations that take place when there are no enemies around, and companions will talk about their past, you, or other characters and developments.  Even the nameless NPC's will have unimportant, but realistic things to say about the situation.  It all makes the world feel very personal and alive.

In terms of gameplay, not having to pick up gold manually was also a great touch, as that was one of the more annoying aspects of Diablo 2, and item pick up as a whole was terrible in diablo 1.  It also feels like magic items drop more frequently in Diablo 3 compared to 2, but that's probably due to the massive increase in enemies encountered; each act feels to be about twice as long as diablo 2, though that could just be my memory failing me.   The crafting system is good so far, better than the convoluted and somewhat silly system from Diablo 2 (which basically consisted of the horodric cube and gambling), but I feel like it might be better if taken just a step further.  I realize Diablo 3 is not a true MMO, and will never have the complicated economies that games like WoW have, but it would be nice to have more than two craftsmen, one dealing in magic and the other in gems.  I suppose simplicity here was the key as inventory space is somewhat limited, as your stach is shared across characters.  I know it gets more in depth as the game goes on, and I look forward to seeing that.

But no game, even one in development for over a decade, is perfect.  Diablo 1 had 3 classes, a warrior, a mage, and a rogue, 3 typical classes for a game not meant for exclusive party play (else the cleric would be necessary, with his healing abilities).  Characters could build however they want, distributing skills as they see fit, and many players hybridized.  It was an overly simple system, but at the time it was pretty good.  Diablo 2 saw many of those freedoms removed, but where characters could no longer hybridize by learning skills from other classes, they now had three entire skill trees to play with, being able to specialize how they saw fit within their class, with many different subclasses emerging based on various popular builds.  My favourite was always the summoning necromancer, because I like having a small (or large) undead horde to do my fighting for me.  Many abilities gave buffs to party members, and when in a group those abilities could synergize to devastating effects.   This type of gameplay got an even bigger roll in WoW, where some rolls focus heavily on buffing and debuffing, with good support rolls in larger raids becoming critical.  Diablo 3 has, at least in early game, not shown this synergy.

 Don't get me wrong, there is certainly still the ability for players and their abilities to work together, but it is still a much more isolated experience so far.  Skills as a whole in diablo 3 have been taken back, with a total of 6 active and 3 passive skills available at any time.  Each of the active skills can be chosen from a list of 4, and each skill has a number of skill runes to tweak its effects.  My biggest issue here is the lack of an ability to specialize.  If a player doesn't particularly like any of the 4 abilities offered from a particular active skill slot, they have no ability to pick from one of the other 20 skills they know.  They've managed to make it work pretty well, but its still, in my mind, the weakest aspect of the game.  They've effectively enforced a system that requires characters to be well rounded, rather than allowing specializations that would turn 5 classes into 15 or more classes, assuming 3 skill trees per class.  It leaves me very underwhelmed with the class selection, even if they did have a great set of 5 classes as a starting point.

My final dissatisfaction with the game isn't truly one at all.  The game was a load of fun, and I'm sure will continue to be, as I play through it on my Witch Doctor and my Monk, and continue through nightmare mode with my Barbarian.  But as I watched the credits roll, I couldn't help but think of how I felt upon beating Bastion, and comparing the two feelings.  Victory over Diablo left me feeling victorious and anxious to see what loot nightmare mode had in store for me; beating bastion left me clicking the new game+ mode to see what it would be like if I had made different decisions, and I immediately played straight through the game a second time.  Even now months later, the tiny indy game made by only a handful of developers still was more enjoyable, in its short time, than diablo was in its many hours.  I think I would rather have 6 $10 indy games with the soul of bastion than a single $60 copy of Diablo 3, which took many times more developers a much longer time.  Giant epic games like Diablo 3 still have their place, but they don't seem to have that specialness that a smaller game does.  Let's see how Torchlight 2 compares when it launches in a few months. All in all, if you liked Diablo 2, you'll like diablo 3.  The game is loretastic, the graphics are very fitting, and the gameplay is everything you'd expect from a diablo game.   Just don't go into it expecting it to be WoW in the diablo universe.

[gamingcompletionist]

"5 straight hours of limbo - I haven't done that since my honeymoon."

With my desktop at home for immediate future, my computer gaming will be done on a laptop for a while.  As such, my gaming will be limited to less computationally intensive games, so I'll be going through some of my indie games.  The first game completed:  Limbo.

Limbo is a screwed up little game, more art than game, but enjoyable none-the-less.  There is no dialog or instructions, and in fact the only text in the entire game is the menus, credits, and title screen.  The main character is a small child who, given the title and events of the game, we can assume is in limbo, the shadowy unending plane of existence between heaven and hell.  We can assume that the seemingly gentle forest that the game begins in is in fact the hellish realm of limbo due to the many gruesome dangers waiting behind every shadow to bring a bloody end to the un-life of our young protagonist:   pits and walls of spikes, bottomless pits, foul mires, giant spiders and their webbing, trap laying-arrow-shooting savages, mind-controlling-brain-slugs, spinning saws of death, electrified rails, and the list goes on and on.

The plot and setting may be sparse, but the setting, style, and execution of this game fit perfectly to create an immersive, slightly disturbing, and beautiful experience.  It's hard to really review this as a game, as it falls much more in line with an interactive work of art.  Like any work of art, personal taste can vary greatly from person to person.  That said, if you enjoyed games such as portal, braid, and flash escape games, Limbo might be straight up your alley.  Overall score, 7/10, but with a very very large standard deviation.  At 10 Dollars, it comes out to about 2 dollars per hour of game (it took me about 5 hours to complete), so pick it up on sale if you're interested.  But please, don't just jump to a walk-through as there are some difficult but satisfying puzzles.  

[gamingcompletionist]

"We are the Ultramarines, the Sons of Guilliman. Whilst we draw breath, we stand. Whilst we stand, we fight. Whilst we fight, we prevail. Nothing shall stay our wrath."

Finally beat Space Marine last night.  Damn that final fight was hard.  The first half of the game seems to be figuring out strategies to fight different kinds of enemies, and slowly unlocking all of the various skills and weapons.  The second half of the game consists of all of the enemies you've seen before and know how to defeat, but in combinations that can make it tricky.  Especially with the introduction of Chaos and Psykers, with more units being summoned the entire time the Psyker is active.  Things ramp in difficulty as you now have to fight both chaos and Ork forces, who are also fighting with each other.  Having the enemies attention split means there is less death flying your way, but the forces are also larger.  Many of the battles are more about keeping enemy forces balanced than they are about killing the aliens. After killing the Ork Warboss, the game shifts to focus on finishing off the chaos army that you accidentally helped to invade.  Rather than draw the game out by several more hours, you get a spectacular combination of equipment:

The Jump Pack alone is a blast, and the thunder hammer can be devastating, but the combination is basically a 40 pound box of death.  Stuns become easy, and if you get into trouble, you can just fly away out of danger.  Oh, and you can drop from the sky like a cartoon anvil and kill anything within several meters of the newly formed crater where you land.  Anything unlucky enough to have survived the initial super-human-ordinance then has its face pushed to the back of its skull by the explosive-loaded hammer of doom.  

  That entire part of the game ends up being "overpower the main character as much as possible to make it feel like he really accomplished something" which then makes the following battle (without a jump pack) feel that much more challenging. The downside of the Thunderhammer is that it limits you to a pistol and bolter, taking meltaguns, lascannons, storm bolters, and plasma guns off the table.  For those with lightning reflexes that excels at close quarter fighting combos, the thunder hammer is absolutely the way to go.  Close combat can be devastating to the enemy, but is also much less forgiving than removing behind cover, then taking a few potshots at the enemy.  I personally prefer the safer method, especially the fleshmelting heavy weapons.  The lascannon functions like a sniper rifle, but packs the power of a small missile launcher.  The meltagun, on the other hand, is a very short range burst weapon that fires pure a laser of pure antimatter all over everything within about 3 meters of your character; it's great for those moments when you suddenly find yourself completely surrounded by a half dozen bloodletters.  They'll even take down Nobz and Bosses with only a few shots. But Nobz have a replacement, the chaos champion.

They're basically you, with high health, shields that regenerate, and a power mace that can take you from full shields to death in only 3-4 hits.  I'm sure there is some real strategy to taking these things down, but I sure as hell can't find them, so my only solution was using fury to enhance my attacks enough to drive an ax right through their twisted sparks.  

After you've eliminated the last of the deamons, you enter the final battle:   For all the hell this guy put you through, his final battle is surprisingly easy, it's basically just "push the right buttons at the right times that we tell you"  So its DDR:  Demon-decapitation-revolution.

All in all the game was pretty good, I give it an 8/10.  Graphics are solid, gameplay is good, but the story is somewhat lacking unless you're already a fan of the 40K universe.  All in all, I wouldn't pay full price for this game, but if you can pick it up on sale for 20 bucks or less, I wouldn't pass it up.  Especially with how much fun the multiplayer progression has been.  I'd love to see this game get some multi-player love from relic, or even an expansion, but we'll see what way the tides of the warp flow.   

[gamingcompletionist]

"Better crippled in body, than corrupt in mind."

There are very few moments in gaming more frustrating than being in a long final boss battle that you just can't seem to beat, playing over and over and then realizing "hey, its 4 am, I should sleep."  Walking away from an ultimate battle is difficult and sad, but hey, it could be worse; it could be any of the old Nintendo games where walking away from, or sometimes even failing to beat the final boss meant not only playing the entire final level over, but often the entire game over.

[gamingcompletionist]

"If a job is worth doing, it's worth dying for."

I'm currently about halfway through Space Marine, and at the rate I'm dying, it must be a job that is really worth doing.  Space Marine is a good game, but it is not a perfect game.  For someone like me, who used to be very into the entire franchise (I played Warhammer 40K, Inquisitor, Necromunda, Battlefleet Gothic, Warhammer Fantasy....) the game is a perfect blend of shooter and a nostalgiarific exploration of the universe of the 41st millennium.  That said, for those that are not fans of the setting, or have just not been exposed, you may find the game lacking a bit.  It's combat system is fun, but sometimes it's been hard to figure out exactly what the trick was for a particular encounter/enemy.  Respawning a halfdozen or a dozen times, fighting through a long battle to face the single enemy that insists on putting his club where my head likes to live is not the most fun way to figure out what the trick to that enemy is.  Nobz, I'm looking at you.

Nobz have this annoying habbit of....killing you.  In the face.

Normally in a shooter one would expect the strategy to be somehow deal damage, fall back, deal damage fall back, or, failing that, employ cover and terrain to prevent the enemy from reaching you before you can put enough bullets in their face and torso to render them dead.  Not Nobz.  Not Space Marine.  Space Marine requires you to stun and then execute Nobz, stunning being a type of melee attack.  Of course, these are big Orks, and a simple kick to the gut won't stun them.  No, they require chained stun attacks.  In most games, you'd have an annoying companion of some sort, possibly over a radio, or in your head telepathically, or via a memory, either tell or imply that stun attacks are the best way to fell a Nob.  Nope.  It is however one of the many hints that displays when you reload after dying, however.  Another little helper you pick up about 1/3rd of the way through the game is this baby:

Now, Don't get me wrong chainswords are awesome, but a power ax can rip through a Nob's armour in half the time, and a quarter the skill.  Which is probably why the game designers give it to you right before you have to fight two Nobz at once for the first time.  Spoiler alert, they will still eat you several times.

Stuns and executions, as I mentioned earlier, are a very important aspect of the game.  Not only are they the easiest (and often only) way to take down larger enemies, they're also the only way to regain health.  No med-kits, no food, no wimpy "stand-in-a-corner-until-the-bleeding-stops" for the ultimate warrior from the 41st millennium, no, he regains health by executing a helpless, stunned enemy.  Small enemies like gretchen can just be grabbed and executed, while normal orc boyz can be stunned from a simple kick or ground pound.  At that point, a fancy execution of some sort takes place, destroying the enemy in a spectacular manner which somehow makes you healthier.  I'm pretty sure the power armour is actually a chaos god that feeds on the blood.  

Ooh, also, the game is a bit bloody.  Not recommended for Children.  Not quite as bad as the girl with the dragon tattoo, but still not exactly a family friendly affair.   You'd think based on those pictures, that stunning and executign would be simple and easy, and for most enemies it is.  Just not nobz.  Nobz suck.

You can tell the Nob because he's the one not bleeding from the giant energy-field-surrounded-ax that killed all his friends.  Nobs require chain attack stuns to stun them, and even then, you're not done.  At that point you enter into a power match, where you repeatedly press the left mouse button to overpower him.  Otherwise, if you were like me and too distracted by all the green-skins trying to eat you to notice the little mouse flashing at the bottom of the screen, you get a fun little animation of the Nob either killing you, or dramatically reducing your health.  It looks a lot like this

Notice the still flashing mouse at the bottom, as if to say "hey, jackass, you were supposed to click this.  And now you have a lacerated Kidney.  Good luck getting by with just 3."   However, once you do learn this trick, then the only difficult part of Nobz is stunning them when surrounded by a hoard of choppa boyz trying to cut your face off.  And usually succeeding.

I think the lesson here is that I should not have chosen to play any shooter ever on normal mode.  I may not be new to the genre, but I am both bad at shooters, and trying to play with a laser mouse on top of a blanket (yes, I play my games in bed, on a desktop).  I also should not have expected to be able to beast through the entire game in a day.  I feel I should end this post with a quote:  so many mistakes.

[gamingcompletionist]

"In the dark future, there is only war"

I've decided the first game on my list:  Warhammer 40'000:  Space Marine.  

I bought it on steam sale, figuring that it had an achievement that went with it, and also that I love the Warhammer 40K franchise, and Relic did great things with Dawn of War.  I booted it up and was not disappointed with either the campaign mode or multiplayer.  I played through the multiplayer a little for steam achievements for the Great Gift Pile, but found myself playing a few rounds afterwards just because it was so well done, both in execution and a balanced experience system that gives you chances to advance without making new or low level players absolutely useless.  I'm still pretty early in the Campaign mode, so I'll leave a larger description of that 'till later.   But so far, I am very happy with it.  Now excuse me but I'm off to slay some greenskins. FOR THE EMPEROR! 

[gamingcompletionist]

New Years Resolution to Complete my Game collection

It's that time of year.  The beginning!  The time when one takes stock of ones life, regrets, and goals, and resolves to change their life in some meaningful way.  For gamers, it's also the time of year when we realize how many games we bought on the wallet assault that is the steam holiday sale.  My damage this year wasn't too bad, as I mostly bought indie games, but it has made me realize two related things: 1.  I own a huge amount of games. 2.  I have beaten very few of said games.

So, the time has come for the great resolution and challenge!  I shall not buy ANY new games until I have beaten all those games on my list that do not absolutely suck.  This will have the several benefits including:  Saving me money, Saving time (I will be less likely to put times into older games or games that are not as fun) and exposing me to games I might not otherwise give the time they deserve.   The challenge is mighty, but I can think of no better time of year to start this.  The first step is to list all of the unbeaten games, starting with my steam list. 

Amnesia:  The dark Descent Anomaly Warzone Earth Bastion The Binding of Isaac Bioshock 2 BorderLands Breath of Death VII Bunch Of Heroes Cave Story+ Cities in Motion Command and Conquer 3:  Kane's wrath. Command and Conquer 3:  Tiberium Wars Command and Conquer 4:  Tiberian Twilight Command and Conquer:  Red alert 3:  Uprising Crysis Crysis Warhead Crysis Wars Cthulu Saves the World Darksiders Defense Grid:  The awakening Deux Ex:  Human Revolution Deus Ex:  Human Revolution - The Missing Link Doc Clock:  The toasted sandwich of Time Dragon Age:  Origins - Awakening Dungeons of Dredmor The Elder Scrolls III:  Morrowind The Elder Scrolls IV:  Oblivion The Elder Scrolls V:  Skyrim Fable - The lost Chapters Fable III Fallout 3 - GOTY Far Cry Far Cry 2 Freedom Force Freedom Force vs. the 3rd Reich Gemeni Rue Ghostbusters - The Video Game Grand Theft Auto Grand Theft Auto 2 Grand Theft Auto:  Episodes from Liberty City Gratuitous Space Battles Hacker Evolution Half-Life 2:  Episode 2 HOARD Hydrophobia:  Prophecy Iron Grip:  Warlord Jade Empire:  Special Edition Kane & Lynch:  Dead Men The Last Remnant Left 4 Dead Left 4 Dead 2 Lightfish Limbo Magicka Mass Effect Mass Effect 2 Max Payne Max Payne 2:  The fall of Max Payne Metro 2033 Mirror's Edge Orcs Must Die! Overlord Overlord II Overlord:  Raising Hell Portal 2:  (I put this here because of Co-Op) Prince of Persia Prince of Persia:  The forgotten Sands Prince of Persia :  The sands of Time Prince of Persia :  The two Thrones Prince of Persia :  The war within Red Faction Red Faction II Revenge of the Titans Rise of Immortals Rock of Ages S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:  Clear Sky S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:  Shadow of Chernobyl Singularity Solar 2 Space Chem Star Wars:  Knights of the Old Republic Star Wars:  The Force Unleashed Star Wars:  The force Unleashed II Super Meat Boy Terraria Toki Tori Universe at War:  Earth Assault VVVVVV Warhammer 40K:  Dawn of War II - Retribution Warhammer 40K:  Dawn of War II Warhammer 40K:  Dawn of War II - Chaos Rising Warhammer 40K:  Space Marine World in Conflict World in Conflict:  Soviet Assault World of Goo X-Com:  Apocalypse X-Com:  Enforcer X-Com:  Terror from the Deep X-Com:  UFO Defense Zombie Bowl-O-Rama I am tired just typing up that games list. Note that this is just my Steam Collection, it does not include my 360 Games, my PS3 games, my Wii Games, my DS games, or my computer games not on Steam (which is very few, because, hey, steam is awesome)