Since I’ve been trying to play a new game every week this
year, I tend to play the new game for the week on Mondays. I found that while I
was playing through Far Cry 2, I was so heavily invested in that game it became
difficult to justify playing a new one for its own sake. So these days I give
myself some time to play a new game on one of my days off, so that my
obligation is out of the way and I’ve got time to do whatever I want later in
the week, whether it’s playing the new game if it’s engaged me enough, or
continue with whatever game I was trying to beat before. I haven’t been so
invested in a long-form game since Far Cry 2, I enjoyed Theme Hospital of
course but most of that had been done roughly a year before.
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| I'm enjoying the shell power up. |
So my new game for this week was New Super Mario Bros for
the Nintendo DS, as this is a great pick-up-and-play game. It’s always
interesting to experience the new gameplay mechanics that run across the
different Super Mario games – new for me anyway, as up until Super Mario 3D
World, I hadn’t play a Super Mario game for any significant amount of time
since Super Mario World for the SNES. I had a lot of fun with the Blue Shell,
even when I accidentally used it and ran in to something that killed me. The
giant mushroom is fun as well, though I suspect that as you can destroy Warp
Pipes with them, you’re closing off secret areas that could contain the giant
coins you’re supposed to be picking up. I’ve not got very far in the game yet,
but the point of my DS is that I can play it for a little while when it’s
convenient for me to play a handheld system, so I’m not expecting to make rapid
progress through this one. It’s there when I need it!
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| I did mine in Red, funnily enough... |
I also had a go at one of my favourite games: Mordheim: City
of the Damned. I downloaded it for my laptop a few years ago and, after a bit
of faffing around with the graphics card, found the strategy experience hugely
enjoyable. I’ve definitely put more hours in to this than any other PC game I
own! Unfortunately the game is a little buggy, and some game-breaking bugs
coupled with an ironman saving system has meant that I haven’t beaten it yet. I
might do this time though. I’ve started a Possessed warband called The Red
Death; we’ll see how it pans out.
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| Assigning units, taking calls... the life of a 911 Operator! |
As you’ll see from the Pickups and Trades blog I’m putting
out on the last Wednesday of every month I’ve gone a little mad with
downloading games off Steam, and with the school holidays on at the moment, I thought
I’d take the little more time that afforded me to play one or two of them. I
started with 911 Operator. This was a game I think I heard about over the
releases section of the Co-Optional Podcast, and I’m enjoying games that are
doing things a little bit differently. From what I heard, I was expecting an
L.A. Noire style negotiating style of gameplay as you desperately tried to sort
out what was wrong before it was too late. That’s in there, certainly, but a
lot of it is an “assign your units” point and click strategy game. You assign
police, fire fighters and paramedics to various vehicles with different
strengths and weaknesses, and purchase equipment for them. You then go into deployment
mode, where you assign those units to various emergencies that crop up over the
cities in the game.
I’m in Miami at the moment, and brilliantly there’s a team
of veteran cops in a sports car apparently referencing Miami Vice, an 80s cop
show I’ve never actually seen. They can usually get to an emergency quicker
than any squad car, but you need to assign another car to the emergency if they
need to take any criminals in. It’s a great game so far and I’m enjoying playing
it, I’m looking forward to seeing how it all plays out.
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