I’ve got a few new games to talk about this week. I
discovered a better way of counting my games on the spreadsheet I have for
them, and found that I had more than I thought I had bringing me up to over
1000 games now, and the number of games I have yet to play is astonishingly
high so I thought I’d better play some of them.
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| Dom's sad story brings a tear to the eye... |
I played Gears of War 2 on the Xbox 360 a lot last week. I
beat it as well, so most of what I’m going to say about the game will be in the
review I’m going to post up about it next week. However, I will say this: It’s
among the first games I ever bought for the 360, and I didn’t play it for the
longest time mainly because I wanted to get everything I could possibly get out
of the original Gears of War before I moved on to its sequel. Of course, that
didn’t happen, and probably never will, but I found myself thinking about the
almost obsessive attitude I’ve taken towards completing games over the last
eight years, and how I’m making the necessary adjustment to accommodate it.
First, I needed to break out of the need to play through
games sequentially. I usually do this if I can, but it means a few things that
are detrimental to clearing my backlog. For one thing, many of the games I’ve
bought over the years are series; I’ve bought many sequels to a base game
before I’ve even played it. I bought the first three Gears games at the same
time, for example, but I’d never have dreamed of playing any but the first game
first. Also, there are many game series out there whose first iterations are on
consoles I no longer own, or computers I don’t have access to and never will.
Finally, the quality of games tends to improve with sequels, so I’m potentially
missing out on the best the series has to offer by playing them all in order
first!
Secondly, I need to not worry so much about the achievement
points and trophies. They’re nice to have, but difficult to justify why it’s so
important to me when, say, I’m playing a game where many of the achievements
are tied up in online multiplayer modes with dead servers. Gears of War is one
such game, and I won’t be throwing away the opportunity to play a well-designed
game with a fun story because I haven’t completed its previous iteration any
longer!
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| Danger threatens in the dungeon... |
I’ve also been playing Warhammer Quest on my laptop. I first
saw this covered by TotalBiscuit, and while he didn’t think much of it, I can
usually find some fun in Warhammer-related games. It’s a turn-based dungeon
basher, with some basic role-playing game elements to it. There’s not a lot to
it, and the skill involved with the game is almost nullified by the random
number generation that permeates the game, but sometimes a simple dungeon
crawler is all I want to be playing, and Warhammer Quest appears to be a game I
can dip in and out of if I happen to have an hour to spare in the afternoon.
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| This is Ripto, in case you were wondering. |
Finally, I’ve been playing a couple of games that are very
much aimed at children: Spryo 2: Ripto’s Rage on the PS4, and Juju on the Xbox
360. I’ve said it before but not for nothing: my daughter Jessie is around a
lot of the time now, and while she’s maturing at a rapid rate, it would be very
irresponsible of me to play graphically violent or intense games when she’s
around. So, when she’s with me, I stick to either racing, sports or
child-friendly action games. Regular readers may remember I was talking about
Spyro the Dragon a lot last year, and what I’ve seen so far is everything a
sequel should be: more of the same, but with extra moves, more things to do,
and an overall better experience. Juju is a charming little platformer where
you make your way through an exotic forest jumping on things; I’m sure I’ll be
playing more of this in weeks to come!
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