Saturday! Pheeew!

I might've said it before, and if so, it's worth saying again. For a short week, this felt like a looong week.

Now, it's Saturday. I got to sleep in until almost 9AM, I'm showered, I'm relaxing with my sons, I'm listening to Elder Scrolls Off the Record, and I'm typing at you. Good times. I'm thinking about taking the boys out for lunch today. Not sure where. Suggestions are welcome.

I fully plan to engage max chill this weekend. I got my sister-in-law and her boyfriend coming down today, and they're both cool people. I'm buying the UFC thing on PPV tonight for her man, for his birthday, I got a buddy coming over tonight to shoot the breeze, and we haven't seen each other in a while, and I got an itch for some MMO action, so either SWTOR, ESO, FFXIV, or Guild Wars 2 (or some combination thereof) is/are going to get played. Probably SWTOR, at least, since I wanna play the next chapter of Knights of the Fallen Empire, and I wanna continue in the Dark vs Light event.

Your vote here might matter.

All four are amazing games, I don't have nearly enough time for all four, three cost monthly money, I know, but all four are amazing games, and I love MMOs. I love RPGs in general, but I love having a main single-player RPG and an MMO to focus on. I'm fickle about the MMOs, though. I dunno. I'm weird.

I'll probably stream a bit, too. I wanted to stream my first foray into Red Dead Redemption on Xbox, since it's on backwards compatibility now, but I don't think I can stream to YouTube Gaming from Xbox One, which sucks ASS. I don't want to stream to Twitch, but I might anyway. We'll see.

I did have a couple GREAT streams the last couple days, though. PLEASE, if you haven't watched any of my stream recordings yet, check these out. The Doom one starts out slow (I had some dog issues), so jump ahead to six minutes. I guess I could just edit it.

Also, playing Inside was interesting. I do not play platformers, especially 2D, and especially puzzle-heavy. I got a request to go way outside my comfort zone with a game, and this one was suggested, and apparently, the results were hilarious. This was kind of a special video. Give it a look-see.

Anyway, check those out, and please give me some feedback, either here, or in that video's comments. And feel free to poke around my channel, take it all in, and give me some overall feedback. I love doing this stuff, and I wanna do it better.

If you have any requests to see me play something, lemme know. I'm pretty open.

Alright, time to plan for lunch. If I'm gonna stream later, I'll throw something up on my Twitter.

Word.

-Blaine

PS - I love Dark Matter and Killjoys SOOO MUCH. Give 'em a look.

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.