It’s been a while since my last mainline blog. Nothing
happened that specifically made me stop, but there were a couple of times where
I found myself wanting to play games more than write about them so that’s what
I did. And I’ve built up a backlog of things to talk about as well; so big that
talking about them all wasn’t the right approach. I could talk about how I’d
beaten Crash Bandicoot 2 and Skyrim, but both of my reviews are available if
you want to read about that. No, instead I’ll talk about the games I’ve been
playing recently.
To try to manage the backlog of games, (fighting for a lost
cause, I know, but I might as well try!) I find myself organising the kind of
game I’m playing across different platforms. I might have an RPG on one system,
a platformer/action game on another, a fighting game on another, and a strategy
game on yet more. This works well; it can take a while to settle into the
routine between beating games but once I do, I’m a lot more focussed.
 |
Hopefully the map will be a lot more
full by the time I'm done. |
For my long-form RPG I’ve come back to an old save file on Baldur’s
Gate on my laptop. This is a game I’ve started and re-started many times over
the years, and I’ve always enjoyed the first few hours before drifting off to another
game. The game is not particularly well-balanced and unless you think to save
in the middle of an area or dungeon, you can potentially lose anything up to an
hour of play for having your protagonist or a favourite party member die. But I
think what frustrates me most is that I always feel like the player character (A
paladin, in this case!) and the party are always under-levelled for the mainline
quest; I’ll go to deal with whatever I’m supposed to be dealing with and be destroyed
within moments. There are also moments in the game where certain of the side quests
and enemies are presented to you far sooner than you can deal with them. But
this time around, I found myself thinking: “Hey, you’ve just beaten Skyrim.
Whenever something was too difficult in Skyrim you’d go and clear another few dungeons
to level up your abilities and get some more weapons! Just do that.” And then I
knew where I was, and everything started to fall in to place. Hopefully this will
keep me playing long enough to see it through to the end!
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| Chloe's a great character... |
On the PS4 I’ve been playing Uncharted 2. This was my
action-adventure game that, in a move typical of many 7
th-gen
console games, are entertaining while they last but don’t take too long to
beat. Some of you may remember that I played through the first Uncharted game
the year before last; I enjoyed it at the time but felt that one play through
was enough, and Uncharted 2 is shaping up to be much the same, with one
exception: The story is much better. I’m all for keeping a tight focus on your
plot, but having a well-performed cast of characters with conflicting interests
and personalities, as well as having a betrayal and revenge saga alongside your
quest for gold and glory, makes the game a lot more engaging. I’ve about three
quarters of the way to the end at the time of writing and I’m hoping to beat it
by the end of the month.
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Zangief is much better in USF2, because
he has a special move that blocks projectiles
without losing ground. |
And finally, on the Switch I’ve been enjoying Ultra Street
Fighter 2: The Final Challengers. This is always a nice game to play with Jessie,
but I’ve been playing through the game on the hardest difficulty with as many
of the characters as I can. So far I’ve managed to beat it with the original
eight Street Fighter 2 characters, and I’m always pleased to see that the endings
have been modified slightly from their 4
th-gen counterparts – it gives
something new to those of us who have been playing Street Fighter 2 for years. I
also find myself spamming medium jump kick more than I ever did before!
Hopefully by next week I’ll have finished Uncharted 2, and I’ll
tell you about that. See you then!
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