Because the internet needs another gaming blog.

I sat down to do some gaming the other night but was unsure of what to play.  Nothing was jumping out at me, but dammit, I wanted to play something!  I looked over at my little row of neatly stacked game boxes and my eyes settled on Titan Quest.  It had been a while since I played it so what the hell, I threw it in.

Every time I come back to that game (once every blue moon) I’m reminded of how fun it is.  At least I seem to enjoy it.  There’s just something about it though that keeps me from obsessively playing it through to completion.  Perhaps it’s best enjoyed in short bursts.  I wonder if I’ll ever finish it…

There was a time where I finished just about every single game I played.  This magical time has long passed.  At least I’ve stopped buying so many games.

Just to follow up on my last post, I replaced my failed video card (a Radeon x1950 Pro AGP), with a Sapphire Radeon HD 3850.  I didn’t really expect to see any major improvement in gaming performance what with my CPU bottleneck, but I was very happy to see a very noticeable difference.  I loaded up a few different games to check it out, and Call of Duty 4 runs much better (at slightly higher settings too) than it did on the x1950, as well as Oblivion. So far, I’m pleasantly surprised.

I have now bought “the last AGP card I’ll ever need” for a second time.  Yes, I know I need to get a new PC.  The problem is that we’re trying to save money for too many other things that we need.  Which brings me to the title of this post.  The sales on Steam these days are crazy, and I’ve had to show a tremendous amount of restraint to keep from spending every hard earned penny I’ve got on their deals.

I have picked up two titles however, the first being Braid for a completely reasonable $2.50.  I had been meaning to pick this up for a while on Xbox Live but just never got around to it.  I still think I’d prefer to play it on my 360 as opposed to the PC, but I just couldn’t pass it up for $2.50.  It’s a nice little game to play in short bursts (which typically have turned into long bursts), and so far I’ve managed to complete worlds two and three, and I’m half way through four.  There has only been one puzzle so far that has sort of stumped me, but it turns out I had the right idea, just my execution was off.  I eventually got it down after a whole lot of do-overs.  I fully intend on finishing the game without looking up the solutions, no matter how far into insanity it drives me.

The other game I picked up was Trine.  I have heard a lot about this game lately and it was only $4.99 so I picked it up.  I have only gone through the opening tutorial, but so far it seems pretty cool.  It also seems like it’ll be good for short bursts at a time, hopefully acting as nice filler material in between Dragon Age sessions (when I finally get going on that one).

I had to talk myself out of picking up The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind for $4.99.  I was very tempted, because it’s one of my favourite games of all time.  I have it for my original Xbox and actually never finished it, surprise, surprise.  One day, I promise!  The PC version looks so much nicer, but realistically, I doubt I’d ever get around to playing it knowing that I’ve got a bunch of hours sunk into my Xbox save file.

The other game I seriously considered picking up was Torchlight, also for $4.99.  Again though, I had to be realistic; I’ve got un-played games coming out of my wazoo already so I certainly didn’t need to add another one to the pile.  I tell you though, this Steam stuff is tempting, and I know it’ll only lead to trouble.

I don’t really hold out much hope for Gothic 3, that said however, I paid a whopping six dollars for it so I figured I should give it a fair shake.  I’ve also got some morbid curiousity with it as well, given the crazy number of outright terrible reviews it received.  Here now are my thoughts after just a few minutes with the game.

I first checked for any updated patches and discovered that there’s a community pack done by former developers of the game that is apparently the “patch to install”, so I started to download it.  While it was downloading, I launched the game as it was to check it out.

The opening cinematic is terrible, featuring no semblance of story at all along with fairly crummy animation.  It’s no big deal though, it’s just a cinematic.  Immediately upon entering the game I was thrust into combat.  I was inside a small village that had been over-taken by Orcs and my best guess is that I, along with my companions were now liberating the village.

It didn’t take long for me to remember why I hated the demo.  The combat is nothing more than left-clicking like mad, and the sound effects, at least the various grunts and groans from the Orcs, are not so great, to say the least.  I persevered however and clicked my way to victory, the town now free of any Orc presence.  I saved the game and quit.

After the community patch had finished downloading, I isntalled it and re-launched the game.  Given that my saved game was no longer compatible I started over, replaying the same few opening minutes again.  This time, once the last Orc in the village was killed, the game crashed on me.  Thinking it just a fluke, I rebooted, re-launched, and re-played, only to have the game crash again at the same spot, as soon as the last Orc was killed.  The one thing I noticed was that a tutorial tip window was popping up when that last Orc was killed, so I re-launched the game, disabled the tips and lo and behold, after killing the final Orc, the game stayed up.  Cool.

I ended up talking to some guy in town who gave me a quest in some other town, so my next steps are to head out into the wilderness to find this town.  So far, the game seems like it could potentially, maybe, squeek out some promise.  The graphics are okay, but the perforance is kind of sluggish.  I do have an older PC however, although Oblivion looks great and runs great as well on my PC.  At this point, I’m actually looking forward to checking the game out some more, after all, I’ve got to get my six dollars worth.

I’m sure I’ve said it here before, but it bears repeating: I’m a crazy sucker for a gaming deal.  It doesn’t take much convincing for me to buy a game that I consider “super cheap”.  Given that I’m constantly browsing gaming related web sites, news sites, and forums, I’m also fairly knowledgeable about which games are good, and which are bad, so I’m usually a very good judge of what is or is not a gaming deal.

I was browsing through a store today looking for Christmas gifts when I stumbled upon a bin of assorted PC games.  Flipping through I came across Gothic 3: Collector’s Edition, which includes the fully updated version of Gothic 3, the Forsaken Gods add-on, a making of DVD, a soundtrack CD, and a full world map, all for $5.99.  Oh, and the whole thing comes packaged in a case made of freakin’ tin.  TIN!!!

I held the luscious case of tin in my hands and contemplated the potential purchase.  I remembered trying the demo of the game way back when and, quite frankly, hating it.  I remembered the graphics being great but the combat horrible, and the voices and sound effects being unbelievably annoying.  I didn’t pay too much attention to the game after that, but I was aware that while some people quite enjoyed it, it was universally panned in reviews mostly on account of bugs.  I almost put the tin back in the bin, but I just couldn’t do it.  For some reason I just knew that if I didn’t pick it up, the decision would haunt me for the rest of the day, so I did what any sucker would do and bought it.

Back at a computer, Gothic 3 tin now firmly in hand,  I checked the game out on metacritic.  Ouch.  There are some really terrible reviews for this thing.  Granted, there are some that are relatively okay, but mostly they’re horrible.  I quite like 1up’s review of the expansion:

The only reason that this didn’t get an “F” is the original music, which is very nice.  Not excellent mind you, but very nice – and the lone thing I latched on to for sanity while trying to review the otherwise completely putrescent Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods.

My friends, let me take you on a journey through a magical land where everything sucks.  On our jaunt, the sights are ugly and outdated, the indigenous fauna’s incredibly annoying, the locals have the communication skills of Chewbacca’s illiterate, deaf-mute cousin, and the controls on our vehicle are archaic and unintuitive.  Sounds great so far, right?

That certainly doesn’t sound too promising.  But you know what?  I’m even more eager to check it out now.  If anything it’ll give me something to talk about here.  That’s worth six bucks, isn’t it?

It’s been just over two weeks since my last post, which is a lifetime in blogging terms, but rest assured I’m still around (because I know you were wondering… right?).  The fact of the matter is, now that I’m no longer actively playing any MMOs, the blogging well has started to run dry.  There isn’t really a whole lot of interesting stuff to write about when you’re playing single-player games, is there?

Here’s a quick little update on a few different things:

Guild Wars
I was challenged by a friend claiming that I’d never be able to play Guild Wars up to level ten without first quitting of boredom.  I set out to prove him wrong and I definitely got off to a roaring start.  I was having a fair bit of fun with the game and rocketed my way up to level 8 and have since hit a brick wall.  I haven’t logged in to the game in weeks, so I’ll concede to my friend.  It probably wouldn’t take much to get those next two levels, but I’m not sure if I want to.  There you go Kuarlos… you win.

Dungeons and Dragons Online
The game went free, I played for a bit, and lost interest.  I definitely liked what I played, but my problem with it at the moment is that I wasn’t having a great time solo’ing it.  This game screams out for group play but my real life commitments don’t allow for that right now.  Maybe some day.

World of Warcraft
My subscription has been up  for two weeks now and I still have no burning desire to head back.  I suspect I’ll be able to last until Cataclysm’s release, at which time I fully intend to resubscribe, however, there’s nothing in that game for me right now.

Fallout 3
I finally cracked this one open on my Xbox 360 and I’m loving it.  It took a little bit to get going, but once it did, I was hooked.  I really like the atmosphere, although I can certainly see how it wouldn’t be for everyone.  There’s something so very satisfying about playing an RPG like this on a big TV while sitting in a comfy couch.  Sure the PC version looks better, but my rear end is so much more happy to be ensconced on the couch.  By my estimates I’m about halfway through the main story, and I’ve done every single side quest I’ve come across.

NHL 10
I hate (the internet version of hate) EA as much as the next guy, but they sure do make a good hockey game.  I’m having a blast with the “Be A Pro” mode in this one; a great feature if I’ve ever seen one.

Another reason I’ve migrated to my Xbox as of late is because I’m desperately in need of a new computer.  My current rig is approaching six years old and has been chugging on the newer games for the past little while.  When I finally get around to purchasing a new one I can see a whole lot of Dragon Age: Origins in my future.  For the meantime though, I’ll be sticking with the 360.