chummer

I would argue that Bernband is the stronger game of the two, but I wonder if part of that is because I played Hernhand much later. Consequently the latter feels like a weak cover song of Bernband, which drew me in with it's aesthetic, sound design, and world construction.

Just got three rejection notices within the span of a week! Excited because I moved from getting no notices at all! And yes, it's an extremely tiresome process. So tiresome that I'm not even sure I want to write anymore about it here other than to say mt sympathy is going out to my fellow job-seekers. Edit: Mt. Sympathy. A mountain of sympathy. Was that a typo? I'll never tell.

Welp, still on my first playthrough of 80 Days, but I think it might be a tie with Bernband. The reason I loved Bernband was at how well it created a sense of place. I loved exploring the various places and taking the multiple paths around it. I feel 80 Days impresses me equally with that exact same feeling of being in a living place, albeit through text and wonderful illustrations instead of blocky graphics. I'm in love with both of these games and would recommend them without hesitation.

Crossyroad.

Tried to bid on Majestic Nights and failed. Immediately turned my gems into sacks and then sold them. What a weird things this has been.

Vertical GOATs?

Assassin's Creed: Rogue. Writing this up as the infamously long Ubisoft credit sequence rolls. I wasn't planning on playing this game, but a combination of a $1 Gamefly deal and Stephen Totilo's review of the game over on Kotaku convinced me to give it a try. The game recycles a lot from Black Flag, which is fine my me because it's one of my favorite AC games. I still get a wonderfully peaceful feeling from just sailing through the world while my crew sings shanties. The game also manages to do some interesting things with the land stuff. Casting the player in the role of a Templar means that many of the ways the game wanted you to play as an assassin in other entries is how the enemy attacks you in this one. Enemy AI will use haystacks, leap on top of you from buildings, and use smoke bombs- it's a neat role-reversal. The game still has a lot of the design aesthetic that Ubisoft has been implementing so widely across their various open-world games, but I think AC:Rogue made enough interesting changes to justify its existence. I enjoyed it a lot and think it's a most definitely a better version of Black Flag.

I have no idea what is happening with this gem stuff aside from that I've sold some cards and now have $3 in my Steam wallet. Hoping someone will pick up one of my ridiculously overpriced cards.

Interested to hear thoughts on this! I played it and really disliked it as it felt like a D-quality KOTOR but with goblins instead of Jedi.

In regards to vanilla Minecraft, I really enjoy the first few days of building a house and making a renewable food resource farm of some kind. After that, I kind of drop off. This works for me though as I only play the vanilla version after it has been patched a few times, giving me something new each time I log back in. The only times I've ever been compelled to make something big is when I've played with other players. All that said, I really enjoy Hexxit- it's a mod that adds dungeons, a more intricate crafting systems, and different enemies. Gives the game a layer of action/adventure on top of the base systems of surviving and building. Perhaps that's something ya'll who don't like the directionless nature of plain Minecraft might be interested in checking out.

South Park: Stick of Truth. Haven't liked South Park since high school (around the early aughts), so I'm not surprised that I didn't want to play more after 3hrs of it.

With you on every part of your plan until this one. Do site/publication endorsements carry this kind of weight? Genuinely curious b/c I have no idea how that correlates- if at all- to game sales.

Any particular reason(s)? I gave in to a walk-through pretty quickly, but it has been long enough since I've played it that I'm interested in going back to it and just exploring the spaces again.

Didn't David Bowie....? Ah yes:

The Last Express is a smidge over $2 on Steam this week.

So I haven't kept up with this at all. Glad to hear it's good, but I'm curious about some stuff. How much GoT knowledge is required to play this game? I'm secretly hoping it's kind of like a Tell Tale version of Crusader Kings II in that it's about medieval-esque political intrigue, but I'm not interested if I have to know specific lore of that world to get a similar narrative impact that I got in Walking Dead.

RPS out here giving Far Cry 2 more love: 'Why Far Cry 2 Is Still The Best In The Series' Summed up a lot of my own feelings about the game and some of the same ones expressed on the 'cast. Making it my go-to article to link to when people ask about Far Cry 2. Hurrah! ...oh.

Second time trying to get through Alice: Madness Returns and I quit at almost the exact same point I did last time. I re-realized how bad the checkpointing was in the game and did not want to deal with it. I can handle the mediocre gameplay for a chance to see cool sights, but making me play sections over again is just too much. Thinking of starting up Kingdom of Amalur again...

Dragon Age: Origins I've never enjoyed the MMO-like nature of the combat (thinking about tanking, dps, healers, managing cooldowns, etc.), but I was impressed by how big the game felt, even if it wasn't actually that big. I think this was due to the way you move around in the world, made to choose places on a larger map and watch a trail go from point to point. While a lot of the world feels like a lazy cross between Tolkien short-hand mixed with stereotypes of real-world nations, I really like the way magic is conceived of in the game so I'm glad that seems to be the focus all the way through instead of "wow these giant brown people and their religion sure are scary." Character interaction is great! Dragon Age 2 Yup, one right after the other. I'm a monster. Liked that they pulled away from the Grey Wardens and decided that each game should focus on a different part of the world. The characters I liked (Varric, Merril, Isabelle) I really liked, though I don't feel they developed as well as the first game's characters. I didn't feel invested in the player character's story as much as I did in the first game, and I think it's because the conversation wheel didn't allow for the same minutiae of characterization. The animations/fx on magic attacks look great, as does the game's icon art and between-chapter art style. Considering how tepid I remember the response to this game being, I'm surprised I liked it as much as I did. That said, that weird anime-esque final battle felt weirdly out of tone with the rest of the game. I'll note that this was released during Bioware's " " era. Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor Meh. Iron Sky Invasion A middling, arcade space combat game. It has a lot of great ideas that aren't unique, but made me think of how they would make a better game really exciting. (Does that even make sense?) If you pick it up in a bundle and are into the genre, give it a gander. A Story About My Uncle You run around a pretty world while doing crazy big jumps and grappling. It's got a great kinesthetic (I don't think that's a word) feeling.

Without question or doubt, I knew the second I finished it up that my GOTY was Bernband.

'Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Astronauts'

Neat! The thing that immediately jumped to my mind was first-person hand animations, but that's me projecting thoughts about Alien: Isolation and the ever-present Far Cry 2. "Walkin' After Midnight (In A Spacestation)"

Jokes aside, I'm really excited. Curious if they're going to do another first-person exploration game like Gone Home or if they're just using that as a base and building on it. Maybe something else entirely. Eager to see it.

Gone Moon.

Added both ya'll. Public matches for attrition (which seems to be the most popular mode) haven't been bad for me. I've played 50 matches of this game and I don't think I've ever run into particularly abrasive people. Maybe that's b/c no one uses mics on PC though?