No Game New Year part 4: Progress with GTAV, an awful Blood Bowl competition and temptation...

Todays post may come across as a little negative but if it does it's not because of any ill feeling towards the challenge or anything like that, it's just that the balance of things that have happened this week won't necessarily come across too well when written down.

Temptation 1: Dust: Elysian Tail

So this week I had my first real temptation to jack it all in and buy a new game. You see, I've recently become a fan of TotalBiscuit, and in my quest to try and watch every single video the man has ever made (or at least, all of his WTF is... series,) I occasionally come across a game I want to try. This doesn't happen very often as TB is a PC gamer first and foremost, and I don't own a PC that even comes to within a country mile of being powerful enough to run most modern games, but sometimes he covers games that have come out on the Xbox360 as well, and depending on what he's said about the game, sometimes I feel compelled to give it a go.

The video I watched in this case was the one where he covers Dust: Elysian Tail. The game looked really good and I'd love to have a go with it. One of the great things about TotalBiscuit is that he often covers indie games. I love it when reviewers do this because there's tonnes of the things out there and I can't be bothered to trawl through all of them to find one that's any good. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to support indie developers. I think a lot of the time you get Triple-A games that have had huge development teams, massive production companies backing them and a large potential audience, and somewhere between the initial idea for the game and it's fourth or fifth iteration (I'm looking at you, Tony Hawks Pro Skater) they lose sight of what the game was trying to achieve in the first place. So if the indie developers have a small enough gig going on that they can maintain their vision for the game, AND make enough money to support themselves, I'm very happy to support them - if they come up with good games. If they don't, then I don't want to buy them, simple as that, so I'd like to thank TB and anybody else who covers indie games for being a part of the process of sorting out the good games from the bad ones.

By the way, just so we all know, I bought Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons on Total Biscuit's recommendation back in November, and Rad Raygun on the Happy Videogame Nerd's recommendation late last summer. I've finished both games so they probably won't come up again in this series. In the spirit of the challenge, I did not buy Dust: Elysian Tail, and I saved myself £9.99 (about $15). But I'll put that on the list of games I might buy next year, and see how it all looks then!

Grand Theft Auto Five

There isn't much I've got to say about this game in the rather major terms of storytelling and game mechanics that I've been talking about up until now, simply because I haven't had that much time with the game so there's not really all that much to say. The plot, as they say, is thickening, and I'm getting a lot more missions now that are conducive to the metaplot of the whole game now rather than 'filler.' It's a great, compelling story, but to be honest I'm at the point now where I'm looking forward to playing another game, and wondering what the next one is going to be. But I'm choosing to be hopeful that my victory over GTAV will be all the more sweeter for all of this.

That being said, there are still some aspects of the game that are fantastic and worth commenting on:

• For the longest time I didn't realise that you could reply to some of the emails that you are sent! I've already commented on how much Michaels issues resonate with me, and seeing the emails between Michael and his daughter Tracey were quite poignant for me because it reminds me that Michael's issues with his family aren't going away just because you're playing a game.
• I did, for the first time in a long time in any game, a bit of exploration that wasn't on the map, by which I mean there's no towns, missions, any reason for me to go there. I was, in fact, on my way to somewhere on the North side of the map (I forget the name of the town) and I tried to see if I could do it by driving an all-terrain vehicle up the mountain range blocking the most direct route. I didn't manage it in the end, but I'm determined to come back at some point and try again on a dirt bike. There's not many games in which I find entertainment by trying to traverse a difficult piece of ground! 
• Having now done several missions in a plane and/or helicopter, I have to say the flight mechanics of this game are superb and the best I've seen in any game in a long time. I don't really play air combat games anymore so this isn't saying much, but given that the controls for them the last time I tried (early 00's, at the latest) were either naff or overly complicated, it's nice to see that they're finally getting it right.

I don't remember playing much multiplayer, but the one time I did, I'm going to have to call out the douchebag who, on the Saving Ryan's Privates level, took it upon himself to climb into a tank, and destroy all the vehicles on the level so that nobody else could use them. Thanks for that, it was re-he-hearly good fun playing with you. Ass.

Blood Bowl

Oh dear Lord I've had a bad run of games this week. I took part in The Aerial Cup, and managed to lose every single game I played. This was partly due to my lack of tactical acumen, partly due to the fact that in any game where you can get screwed by the dice, you WILL get screwed by the dice, but mostly because the other teams were just better than me. Here's how it all went down:

I began by managing my team. The catcher Detlef Doolist went up to Level 3, and I gave him Diving Catch, which allows him to attempt a catch from both his square and all surrounding squares. Given how poorly this can turn out in games of Blood Bowl, I wanted to make sure he had as easy a time of this as possible. I also levelled up my other catcher, Dagonet Hupper, and gave him Sure Feet which allows him to re-roll Go For It rolls.

*Go For It: The last two possible squares of movement for any player are Go For It squares, where the player is expending a little more energy and taking a risk in making the manoeuvre. You have to make and pass a 'go for it' roll, or he will fall flat on his face and the turn will be over. I usually ignore it but twice last competition it was the difference between winning and losing so if I'm going to rely on it, I might as well give them a little something extra!*

Given that I rated my catchers and blitzers but didn't think much of my linemen, I signed a new player: Griswold the Angry. He was a Level 5 beast with Strip Ball (if you push the ball carrier he will drop the ball, whatever else happens) +1 armour and +1 strength, and sure hands. I also sacked Arnul the Beloved, as I had yet to use him and he wasn't doing me much good on the sidelines.

So, on to the games:

• Game 1 vs The gur'klash Murderers (Chaos) We got off to a promising start with my blitzer, Arnulf Ottman, benefitting from training and gaining +1 Strength for the match, but they had a Star Player, Grashnik Blackhoof (I think. My handwriting is bad to the point where even I can't read what I've written...) After a huge fight including several KOs from both sides and my other blitzer, Viscount Lutolf, suffering a  gouged eye, Chaos scored a well-deserved try. In the second half, the team busted through my appallingly leaky defence to score a second try. A good passing play from Arnulf Ottman to Detlef Doolist got the Nihilists a try, but it wasn't enough to save the game. No-Team Nihilists Lose, 1-2.
• Game 2 vs Da Spitgob Dribblerz (Goblins) There were no trys in the first half of the game, partly due to a scrappy set of passes from the goblins, and partly due to my linemen's complete inability to pick up a ball. In the second half, the goblins scored a point right before the end, we didn't manage to respond and Nihilists Lose, 1-0.
• Game 3 vs Noxious Nibblers (Skaven) Unfortunately for us, our training failed and the recently levelled-up Dagonet couldn't play. And if that wasn't bad enough, a pitch invasion knackered most of my team before the starting whistle had blown. The gutter runners got an early point - Christ, the Skaven are fast! We tried for a point near the end of the first half but the blitzer failed his Go For It roll. In the second half, the Skaven scored another easy, slippery try. Serange the Storyteller got in a late point, but it was purely to improve his stats as it was too little too late for his team. Nihilists lose, 2-1. Serange and Jek the Anti levelled up, and Block was given as a skill to both of them as this would in theory sort out a lot of what was going wrong with the dice.

Because of the way the competitions at this level work, we weren't out of the runnings yet, though our sponsors were not going to be happy:

• Playoffs: Noxious Nibblers This game got off to an absolutely appalling start when my throwers shoved a gutter runner into a clear path to the goal! They snuck another one in towards the end due to a mis-placed tackled. After one of my linemen narrowly escaped death, the gutter runners scored again. Enan the Applauder got one in after a huge fight, but with Skaven scoring again in the dying moments, we never had a chance. Nihilists Lose, 4-1.

However, Arne Rolf, one of my throwers, did win Best Passer of the game, so it can't be all that bad, can it? Well, let's hope it gets better for next time...