Time ... it is what it is ...

So, here we are, just less than three weeks from Torment/Horizon day. Game-wise, I've been hitting the unfinished classics pretty hard (Baldur's Gate & Morrowind), as well as a lot of ESO. It's been OK, but man, I am BURNING for something new and shiny.

I realized, this morning, that it's been a year and nine months since the last game about which I was insanely excited released. That was The Witcher 3. There's been some solid games since then, but 2016 was my (and this only my opinion about games that I like) JV squad in terms of releases. I'm fond of Deus Ex, Dishonored, Doom, XCOM, and all those type games, and I've really enjoyed the latest releases for SWTOR, ESO, and Guild Wars 2, but those all feel like snacks. Those are my second tier for games, and it's all I had last year.

Part of what caused this was Dragon Age: Inquisition, Pillars of Eternity, and The Witcher 3 all releasing in a six-month span, from 2014 November to 2015 May. It was wonderful and brutal.

I didn't even notice this 'problem' until I really started to think about my recent 'gaming malaise.' I am licking my chops, ready for something new and awesome.

Fucking Torment: Tides of Numenera. Bring that shit on, man. I'm actually taking the day off for it. It looks wonderful. Everything I've seen about it, and everything I've played of the demo tickle my soul.

Yeah, I know. Me not loving the same games you do can be a problem for some, and the fact that I only really get invested in RPGs triggers weird reactions in random folks, but I don't care. I tried some of the indie darlings, thought they were OK, and moved on. I didn't hate them, I thought they had good aspects, and that was pretty much the extent of my judgement. I didn't hate them, I didn't declare that other people shouldn't go crazy for them, I just thought they were OK. Relax.

And all of that is missing the point, anyway. I played a lotta shit last year, and none of it really ignited me. I had a very good time with Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, as well as Dishonored 2. I enjoyed some time with Doom and XCOM 2. I thought whatever 2D indie darling games they made me play were OK.

But man, no matter what I try, the only games that REALLY grab me are the ones that are huge investments with depth everywhere, from the systems to the lore to the story to the characters, to the world, etc. I love games that I can just throw myself at for months. I actually approach my job much the same way. I tend to chase after the 'huge project' work, rather than the little shit. I like deeply investing in things.

Again, as a side note, the fact that I've never finished an Elder Scrolls game still somewhat baffles me. Those games are ridiculously deep. There's just something about the actual mechanics and design choices that throw me occasionally. Most of this is aimed at Morrowind.

Also, in this drought, I did finally find my way into the Fallout Bethesda/Obsidian games. It took several tries over several years, but I finally pushed through Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, and adored them. Fallout 4 was very good, but didn't quite hit the mark that FNV did. I think part of it is that New Vegas was sooo good, and I played F4 like right after finishing it.

Anyway, I'm curious to see how this 2015/5/19-2017/2/28 stretch matches with other periods of time. It certainly feels like the longest I've ever gone. And like I said, it kinda snuck up on me. I knew last year was a 'B-team year' in terms of my favorite franchises and games, but the fact that you have to go back all the way to May in 2015 surprised me.

I'm not offering to do any actual research on the subject, but it really surprised me.

And then, after that, I've got Mass Effect: Andromeda three weeks later. And in those three weeks, I'm traveling for two of them. It's a good 'problem' to have, but goddam. I'll have Torment, Horizon, and MEA all queued up, and then I got Prey in May, and then the Morrowind expac in June, and then, I think, a long drought into winter. Good times.

What about you? You ever have a stretch like this? It's weird how my favorite games seem to cluster in terms of release. In theory, though, I should have a new BioWare game by 2018/3/31, and I have some Kickstarters that should be landing later this year and early next year (though I got money that says no way Obsidian hits 2018 Q1 with Pillars 2, and that's totally OK.)

Anyway, that's that. What about you? You ever have 'awesome game starvation?'

Also, get caught up on my 'The Road to Andromeda' Mass Effect series on YouTube here or below:



Thanks! I'll be resuming the playthrough tomorrow night!

-Blaine

Just Another Manic Monday

Man, I am just a monster on Monday mornings now. Yikes. I can kinda joke around, but I get so annoyed with people that aren't focused on the discussion at hand, and get pretty fucking dismissive about things that I see as irrelevant to what I am discussing at that moment. Wow.

That's like four work Mondays in a row in which I'm just not feeling like dealing with people. I usually roll my eyes at people that are like that, too. When did I become one of them?

Part of it, I think, is that, for the summer, I get up at 530AM Mon-Thurs to accommodate the family schedule. To accomplish that, I dose myself with various pain relief PM pills to help me get to sleep early, but then I'm groggy as hell in the morning, and I still haven't quite slept enough.

I dunno. On one hand, I need to get over it, but on the other, I'm OK with asking people to cut me a little slack at the front end of the week.

On the positive side, I did finish the main campaign for Dishonored, which was a really fun game. And about the right length.

Dishonored and Doom, both, have recently hit home for me just how important traversal can be for a game. A big part of the reason I enjoy them both so thoroughly is that movement is easy and fun. WASD + mouse look + context buttons are great, and when the first-person control constantly lands you where you were expecting ... man, it's just so satisfying. And the 'Blink' power. Ah. So wonderful. By the end, I was Blinking everywhere. I'd Blink up behind a dude, stab him in the neck, Blink to another dude, stab, and on and on. It was so awesome.

And yeah, I ended up with a pretty high Chaos level, but I felt justified. I didn't kill everybody, but I did take out the ones that I felt had lied to me and/or betrayed me. Or if they shot at me. Or if I couldn't take the chance of leaving them alive. You get the idea.

I then moved on to the first of the Daud DLCs (The Knife of Dunwall). I think I should've held off for at least a month or two, actually. One, Daud's jump is just waaay too floaty relative to Corvo's, and two ... it's weird right back in with lowered stakes. I dunno. Maybe I'll chill on it for a bit.

Otherwise, I got back into Shadowrun Dragonfall Director's Cut. Yeah, OK, let me explain.

So, I have this thing where I'll hit max-frustration breaking point with a game, in which I decide 'this is no longer fun, so why am I spending time with it? I'll come back when I figure out how to beat this part that's making me crazy.' Sometimes, it's a week, sometimes it's nine months. In this case, it was nine months.

So, yeah, I saw that game in my 'installed' list in the Steam instance on my ROG, thought about it, walked around the house doing a little picking up, and then it dawned on me that a) I needed to leave one party member way behind while b) drawing the enemy forces into a choke point, and it worked!

And, man, I LOVE games by Harebrained Schemes. These guys are so good at what they do. The writing, art, combat, strategy, lore, and world-building are all top-notch in their games. I can't wait to play more, and then jump over to Hong Kong.

Of course, now, I'm at that point where I have too many games all going on. Dragonfall, Dishonored: The Knifs of Dunwall, Witcher 3: Blood and Wine, a second playthrough of Dragon Age Inquisition, the four MMOs I juggle, and I still wanna do another playthrough of Deus Ex: Human Revolution before Mankind Divided comes out. I think I'm gonna chill on Daud for now, focus on Dragonfall and Blood and Wine, then maybe come back to Daud after DXHR is done again. We'll see.

Oh, and this is a separate post for another time, but I installed Pokemon Go to bond with my oldest son, and it's been a lot of fun doing something with him where he's the expert instead of me. It's made him really happy, and it's been a cool way to spend time together. More on this later.

You playing anything cool lately? Anything coming out soon for which you are crazy-hyped?

-Blaine

Oh, and I streamed some Final Fantasy XIV for no reason, but ended up having a great discussion with chat about what defines a 'Final Fantasy' game. Check it out, and feel free to chime in the comments.

Too Much Reality

I don't ignore social problems. I just don't have the same instant outbursts of vitriol that have become fashionable in this age. It's like there's a race to see who can have a strong opinion the fastest. Just not my cup of tea. I'm content to hang back, observe, see what happens, and then, if I need to, form an opinion. At this point, most of it just sounds like children screaming.

I also don't think that 'cops killing black men' is as simple a problem as it's portrayed. Were I to look at it more closely, I'm guessing I'd find that socioeconomic problems on both sides are in play, as well as psychological issues on the part of the police. There's probably also some conditioning that's happening that predispose the two 'sides' to antagonism toward each other.

Regardless, if I pull way back and look at the issue from the perspective of time and space, I see a) things really are getting better. It's hard to see when it's all up in your face, but things really are getting better, and b) social media warriors ... most of them make their platform look like idiots. Bring reason and manners to the table or get the fuck out. All caps and hyperbole don't help your case a bit. When's the last time you got your mind changed about a political stance because of a Facebook post or fucking bumper sticker?

Anyway, it's tiresome. Were there actual discourse involved, I might be interested, but it's millions of people all trying to shout over each other. It's a mess.

And frankly, I'm more focused on Juno and Jupiter right now.

Thus, I'm thinking about what I want to accomplish with the rest of the summer.

Off the top of my head ...

01) finish Blood and Wine
02) finish Dishonored
03) Play through Deus Ex: Human Revolution: Director's Cut (I played the original release, but feel a playthrough of this would be a helpful refresher for the next game in August)
04) Build a basic RPG in Unity with the ORK Framework
05) drop another 20 pounds
06) blog nearly every day
07) build a stable streaming audience

I think that's probably plenty.

Anything in particular you all wanna see me stream? I'm mostly PC gaming, and have a ton of properly modded shit, and a huge library, so I can accommodate nearly any request.

I'm also thinking about starting to toss some fiction up here. Not sure. Maybe a weekly serial? We'll see. I've got some cool original stuff that I've worked on over the years, and I won't lie, I have a pretty bitchin' Star Wars fan fic idea from the Old Republic era that I've been itching to work on.

Anywho, it's been a fucking hell of a week, and I'm ready to chill and stream.

Word. Thanks for reading. I hope reality stops harshing my buzz like immediately.

-Blaine

Goodbye, Witcher, Hello, Torment.

The summer time is often the dead zone for gaming. And, I guess, it kinda should be. It's usually the best time to be outside, walking, fighting bears, toiling in the yard, or whatever it is that people that like being outside pretend to enjoy doing out there.

The only time I like being 'out there' is if I'm at a ballgame (GO CARDS), or exploring something and/or learning something. I do enjoy summer evenings. Back when I used to smoke and drink, the back porch was where you could almost always find me in the evening. Now, it's my couch.

Holy cow, do I get off track like really crazy fast, or what?

ANYWAY, this is the time of year that I'm finishing games, clearing out the pile of shame, and trying new experiences (games, not weird sexual things (that's year-round)).

Right now, I have a rotation going made up of Dishonored, Doom, Witcher 3: Blood and Wine, and the Torment beta, as well as several MMOs. It's too much, but it is what it is right now.

I'm zooming in on the end of Dishonored right now, after which I'll play the two story DLCs. I like that game's compromise between a linear, mission-based structure, and free-roaming within each mission. I think that's a wonderful approach, especially relative to all the HUGE RPGs I play. The story and world are also really cool. Some LOVE the visual style, and I've slowly come to appreciate it, but I still think it's just kinda ugly. It's like BioShock, only not as ... effective? I dunno. Either way, overall, it's a fantastic game.

Doom is just fun. I play a mission every few days. I've stopped playing the multiplayer. This is not because I don't like it, but multiplayer shooters are just never a priority for me.

The Witcher ... I've been a big fan of this franchise for a long time. I've been a few of both the games and the books for years. It took me a couple years to really understand the first game, but once I did, I went nuts for it. The books, I fell in love with right away. It's been painful waiting for each translation, but I devour them quickly. They are each worth the wait.

It was interesting this past weekend, though, knowing that, in Blood and Wine, I'm concluding my video game time with Geralt, just as I was also really getting seduced by the Torment beta. It was this weird feeling that I was sunsetting one intense relationship, just as another was beckoning.

I saw an interesting quote during all this, and I wish I could remember where. I want to give proper credit. Basically, someone posited that 'The Witcher' franchise wasn't a fantasy RPG, it is a folklore RPG. I wholeheartedly agree with that. So much of it pulls from Polish folklore, which is a huge part of what gives it such distinct flavor.

It was really great juxtaposing The Witcher and Torment this weekend. I really didn't mean to, but I kept flipping back and forth between the Blood and Wine expac, and the Torment beta.

Where Blood and Wine is, itself, a great juxtaposition (dark, grim Geralt in a bright, whimsical setting), Torment is a fascinating blend of post-apocalyptic science fiction and high fantasy. And something else. I don't know enough about the Numenera setting yet to really say much, but every aspect of this world grabbed me by my imagination and intellect and YANKED.

For me, that's probably the highest compliment that I can give to a game. I play games to experience other worlds, and to live out stories in them. I feel the same way about The Witcher.

And while I'm slowly bringing my final adventure with Geralt to a close, it's been interesting getting settled into Numenera, and appreciating how these two games accomplish similar feats, albeit in utterly different ways. Where the Witcher is over-the-shoulder, action-based, and told from the point of view of a fixed character (though you influence that character's choices and overall demeanor), Torment is an old-style cRPG, very dialogue-driven, told from the perspective of a character that you create, and turn-based combat. These games are utterly dissimilar, aside from both being RPGs. This kinda highlights what I love about the genre, which is its versatility. I love how broad the experience can be.

Anyway, I just thought I'd share some of my musings from the weekend. It's about the only time I have to game anymore.

I tend to slow-jam certain games, so I'll be playing Blood and Wine for a while. Torment beta and Dishonored, I'll wrap up soon-ish, and then I'll probably start beating up another of my MMOs (Guild Wars 2, SWTOR, ESO, FFXIV). I should probably post my server info for anyone that wants to play together. Hmm.

Anyway, I'm heading back into Visual Studio. Keep it real.

-Blaine

BTW - in case you were curious, I post those Amazon links because I get a cut of the sale, and I wanna make money off these blogs, because I love doing them.

My YouTube video quality

I was informed, and noticed, that my YouTube video quality was shit, and that has now been corrected. It's vastly better now. I promise. Give me another chance.

My last stream, the Dishonored mission, was the first of the 'better quality' streams. And it's much, much better. I promise. Check it out.

I'm gonna stream again today. Not sure what. Maybe the Torment beta. We'll see.

I'll throw something up on Twitter when I go live.

I'm kinda tired. Happy Lard's Day.

-Blaine

Oh, yeah, Dishonored is great

Something I've failed to mention on here lately.

During E3 week, I finally succumbed to intense pressure from a couple friends to finally give Dishonored another chance. I'd played a bit of it when it first came out, and maybe again, a year later, but hated the way it looked, and wasn't overly impressed with the opening.

The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized I hadn't really given the game my full attention when I'd been playing it, and it really is a game that requires a fair amount of focus and thought while playing it.

So, I played a lot of it after the floor show at E3 closed, while I watched the Giant Bomb and Easy Allies late night streams, and actually fell in love with it.

Especially in a time in which every game now has gone 'open world' and 'free roaming,' Dishonored' very structured, very focused 'go to this environment and do A, but you can also stop and do B and C if you want, as well' approach is much appreciated. Additionally, the fact that the player can approach each of these situations in a number of ways is very cool. My approach to most things in life, is 'blunt instrument,' which was not going over too well in this game, given my shit FPS skills, so I quickly started using the 'Blink' ability a lot (stealth teleport), and started having greater success, and a hell of a lot more fun.

I started out the game yelling at NPCs for making me kill them because they saw me and attacked, to frolicking the rooftops over a bourgeois party, quietly slipping in, neutralizing a target, and slipping back out, never raising an alarm. I love this game.

In fact, here's this past night's stream of my latest mission in the game.

So, yeah, if you've not played Dishonored yet, I highly recommend it. I'm more of an RPG guy than a shooter guy, and this straddled the two worlds perfectly for me. It really let me play the game the way I wanted to. I think I'm close to the end, so I'll be sure to wrap up my final thoughts about it. And I cannot wait to play Dishonored 2 later this year!

-Blaine