A Green Mushroom

I caught up on some gaming over the holiday weekend last week.  I was super excited to get back to both Telltale games series that I'm in the middle of right now.  The first one I caught up with was Game of Thrones. Episode 4, Sons of Winter, was another good entry in the series.  We're definitely in the middle episodes now.  Characters are getting closer to their objectives but nothing major happens with the main characters in this episode. Instead, there is a lot of development of characters around the main cast.  We learn a lot more about side characters that have been with us since episode one.  It was nice to see their stories fleshed out and given more relevance to the main plot. Enough happened with the main characters that I'm really excited to see where they end up.  I'm expecting big revelations and conclusions to happen with the final two episodes.  Hopefully I won't have to wait too much longer for them to release!

The Wolf Among Us was a flop for me.  I bought a season pass and played episode one when it released, but I hadn't gotten back to playing the other four episodes until this last week.  I buckled down, played episodes 2 and 3, and then gave up. I gave this story plenty of time to grip me but it failed.  It was a murder mystery where I never actually got to solve anything.  It was very unsatisfying. I know these Telltale story-based games are on rails.  There's not much you can do to effect the overall outcome.  But, while most of them keep me on the edge of my seat, this one completely failed to connect with me. It's sad because I loved the Walking Dead and I've loved the episodes of Game of Thrones and Tales from the Borderlands that have released so far.  I'm actually super excited that the next Tales from the Borderlands just released.  I never felt any of that excitement about The Wolf Among Us. It would probably be different if...

Last night I sat down and for the first time in a long time I didn't know what I was going to play. After finishing up the last main entry in my Final Fantasy Project I don't specifically have any games lined up to play.  I want to get around to the Final Fantasy spin-offs, but I'm taking a break before diving in. I was surprised and excited to see that the second episode of the Telltale Game of Thrones game was out!  I downloaded it and marathoned the whole episode last night. It was really good.  I'm a big Game of Thrones fan and I've slowly been becoming a Telltale Games fan too.  The combination of the two is a perfect match for me. This particular episode jumped back and forth between characters often and really had the pacing of a Game of Thrones episode.  Characters developed and grew.  Tension was built.  There were a couple "Oh shit" moments in the typical Game of Thrones vein too.  I just loved it. I don't know how...

I've never been much of an adventure game fan.  All that pointing and clicking didn't hold much appeal for me.  The stories were too slow and the puzzles too obtuse to enjoy.  Every time I played an adventure game I felt like I would rather be reading the story in a book or playing a more active version of the game. This all changed when my brother convinced me to play The Walking Dead .  I have never played an adventure game like it.  For the first time ever I was drawn in and captivated by all the pointing and clicking. But there is so much more to The Walking Dead than just that.  There are truly meaningful decisions and the most difficult moral choices that I've ever made in a game.  In an undead apocalypse who can you really trust and what are you willing to do to survive?  I made a lot of decisions that seemed like the best idea at the time but ended up with unforeseen consequences. I want to give so many amazi...

I'm still playing through Final Fantasy II and enjoying the experience.  While playing, something caught my attention in this old JRPG.  I was grinding.  I was grinding for experience, gear, money, and other loot.  I was grinding the way I grind in MMOs.  But instead of that listless MMO feeling I was having fun.  What's the deal? I think part of the reason is that I'm playing a game with a definitive ending.  I may be grinding, but there's an end in sight.  In MMOs it's way too easy to get stuck on the gear treadmill at "endgame" and keep grinding for better gear so that you can clear the next tier of raid so that you can get better gear etc, etc, etc.  That's how they keep you playing.  But without an ending, without that feeling of conclusion and satisfaction, a videogame loses something. The end is always time for reflection MMOs aren't the only culprit.  I've invested around 60 hours in Skyrim and have "completed" 2 of th...

After months of chipping away at it, I've completed Final Fantasy I.  It had it's ups and downs but I must say it has provided me with hours of entertainment.  You have to admit, months of entertainment for $9 is a steal.  My completion time was right around 18 hours, but it was broken up into chunks of 5-10 minutes which is why it lasted so long.  I think the longest play session I did was around 30 minutes and that only happened once.  As always, my initial impressions still stand but I had a few other thoughts along the way too. The main thing I liked about this game was the chance to look back at the foundation of modern RPGs.  Final Fantasy basically defined the shape of the JRPG genre and many of the conventions set forth in this game can still be seen in RPGs today. The whole game was fun back-to-back dungeon romps.  If you're in the mood for that type of gameplay then Final Fantasy I still measures up. Where it ...

I've hit the wall with Dragon Age: Origins.  I just want it to be over.  I love the gameplay, I like the world, I'm enjoying the story, but I've been playing the game for 66 hours now and I'm still not at the end. Why do games have to be this long to be considered worth our money?  RPGs especially suffer from length problems.  How often have you played a quick RPG?  RPGs need to be a little longer to tell a story, but when I'm pushing 70 hours in one playthrough there might be a problem. Portal told an amazing story in less then 5 hours on my first playthrough.  The game concept and story execution resonated with me on a deep level and the developers didn't need 70 hours of my time to accomplish that.  It was a first person exploration/shooter but there still has to be middle ground between 5 hours and 70. I'm going to be a trooper and make it to the end of Dragon Age: Origins but at this point it's mostly because I want it finished by the time...

I've been slowly playing through Red Dead Redemption lately and having a great time.  It's essentially Grand Theft Auto in the wild west.  The funny thing is I haven't enjoyed GTA since Vice City was released in 2002.  Each new iteration is basically the same as the last.  They haven't been breaking new ground at all.  Red Dead Redemption doesn't offer all that much more, but it's setting is in the wild west instead of a modern day city and that's making all the difference. It's strange that the gameplay can be so similar but a change of setting completely shifts my perspective on the game.  I've been on a huge StarCraft 2 kick lately, but in all honesty how different is it from WarCraft 3?  I know there are some differences, but they're both Blizzard RTS games that play in the same fashion.  Apparently setting makes a lot of difference because while I always liked the WarCraft series I absolutely love the StarCraft series. It really makes ...

If you had any doubt about the story of StarCraft 2 being epic, this video should lay it to rest.  Thanks to Klelith at Lost in Neurons for linking to this.  Maybe a trailer like this could even convince Spinks to give StarCraft 2 a try. Also, for a geek like me, it's really nice to see them building off of the world the StarCraft novels have created.  The novels have set a great scene for another epic game and I'm glad to see it isn't going to waste.

I'm so excited for StarCraft 2!  I can't remember the last time I was this pumped up for a game release.  But Spinks isn't impressed.  She wrote on her experience trying out the StarCraft 2 beta and the reasons she wasn't impressed.  Her points are completely valid.  The beta was entirely multiplayer focused and she says that she lost every game.  I can understand how that would be extremely frustrating.  Because of her post I've decided to talk about some of the other features in StarCraft 2 that might appeal to those who haven't been impressed so far. The single player campaign is made by Blizzard.  I haven't played it yet (no one has) but Blizzard has a great pedigree for story in their real time strategy games.  They have a long history of polishing their games until they shine.  The single player campaign also has a variety of difficulty settings so that everyone can enjoy it, even RTS newbies.  It won't be brutal the way ...

Final Fantasy XIII has a problem, it feels extremely linear.  For the first hour of the game the player is literally on rails (a train track) which only goes one direction.  After the literal rails go away the player is still on rails throughout the game.  No one wants to feel like they have no say in where they are going. Once I started thinking about it, I realized that almost all the Final Fantasy games are on rails.  That isn't the problem.  The problem is the player realizing how structured the path in front of them really is.  There is most definitely a difference between a game being linear and a game feeling linear. If you take a look at the older Final Fantasy games a  few things stick out that make the world feel open.  The most important in my mind is having an overworld.  The overworld lets a player roam freely, even if they only have one destination they are aiming for.  Even in Final Fantasy X there are large areas to...