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My February and March gaming

Haven’t done anything really out of the ordinary since my trip to Venice. I’ve mostly been playing through my games, I might really be able to finish most of my games this year!

  • I beat Fallout on the PC, I’ll have to admit I got kind of tired of the game, because of the uneven difficulty and the fact that I felt too stressed trying to finish the game within the 100 (in-game) days limit that you get at the start. (I eventually figured out that I could buy more days.) So I ended up using a walkthrough for the last 1/3rd of the game. Think I’m going to take a break from Fallout for a while, before starting on Fallout 2.
    Fallout1End
       Goodbye, and good riddance!
  • Also beat Song Summoner Encore on the iPad, another game that I got tired of. It seemed interesting that I could create characters from my iPad songs, but in the end it didn’t really feel much different from just randomizing characters out of thin air. Story was pretty standard (boring). Final boss felt cheap because he could keep regenerating enemies, but I found out that one of the main (story) characters had an even cheaper special attack which hit almost every single enemy on-stage, so I beat it after a few tries.
    SongSummoner03
       This attack hits everything! (Almost.)
  • Played through Penumbra: Overture, which is a horror adventure game (pick up items, use this item on that to get further in the game) with a FPS engine. It was actually quite scary, even though the graphics are a bit dated! Even more so than Dead Space and Bioshock! Because Dead Space and Bioshock are more action games in my opinion, with tons of weapons to kill enemies (Dead Space’s story: You’re just an engineer, not a soldier, so you don’t have any weapons to protect yourself. But here, take these common engineering tools! Which engineers use. To cut apart rocks. And spaceships! Compared to that, most of the monsters in that game might as well be basic thugs with knifes and swords.). But in Penumbra, you really start out with no weapon at all, and when the first enemy (a zombie dog or something) appears, you have to crouch and hide behind a crate, hoping that it won’t see you when it walks past you.
    penumbra
       Aaaagh the dog saw you run run RUN!
    The music and graphical effects when you are hiding really does make this quite heartracing! But later in the game you get a crowbar and a pickaxe, so I ended up beating the crap out of the dogs after all just so I didn’t have to waste time hiding and waiting for them to go away. Still, the main character feels a lot more normal and helpless than in Dead Space and Bioshock, which makes the game scarier, even though it doesn’t really focus as much on enemies as the other two games. It’s really mostly just a puzzle game with a horror story. The game is short though, and ends with a "to be continued". I hear that in the second game you really don’t get any weapons, so you have to hide from the enemies all the time. So I’m not sure if I want to get it even to get the rest of the story. Uh, because hiding and waiting takes too long time. *cough*

 

Other than these games, I’m still playing Batman: Arkham Asylum (don’t play it as much as PC games since I usually only play it when nobody else is home so I don’t hog the TV), and started playing Prey on the PC. Prey is a pretty basic FPS although it has some unique mechanics like the spirit-walking and wallwalking. Though after playing Dead Space with it’s jumping on walls and flying in space, the wallwalking in Prey doesn’t impress me much. It is an old game after all though. Will try to just play through it quickly I guess. The voice acting is, if not bad, then quite annoying. The main character is not likeable at all. Ah well.

OK, just so this post won’t be just about games, I’m going to tell one random thing about me! That is not about gaming. I have actually cried when watching anime (and some movies too? Though rarely since I mostly watch action and comedies). Not crying as in wailing and sobbing, but just tears coming from the eyes. I won’t tell you which animes though.

Oh, I preordered the 3DS! Waiting expectantly for it to release! Anyways, since it’s weekend, I might try and finish Prey tonight. Johan out.

 

Posted by on 2011-03-11 in Games

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Dead Space, Venice

In the last weeks of January I managed to play through Dead Space on the iPad, Dead Space: Extraction on the Wii and Dead Space 2 on the PC, and I feel like I enjoyed all of the games. While the games might not be for everybody, and some people might find the story predictable and maybe clichéd, I think that the gameplay and way the story is told really makes these games. When playing Dead Space 2 it also felt a lot more like Bioshock (both 1 and 2) than the first Dead Space, because in Dead Space 2 you are wandering around in a lot more varied environment, instead of just on the same spaceship. Especially when walking through the apartment complex and entering peoples’ homes, seeing how they were messed up by the hostile attacks, gave some déjà vu feeling to certain locations in the Bioshock games. The intro scene in Dead Space 2 is also quite cinematic, with the main character having to run away from the enemies without any kind of weapon, and seeing them attack all the people around him.

By the way, did I mention that I bought the collector’s edition of Dead Space 2? Not because I really like to collect things, but since I enjoyed the games, I thought I’d support the game company just a little bit more. I did buy the PC version because it was cheaper than the collector’s edition for the XBox 360 (and PS3) though.

Plasma Cutter

Unfortunately I hear that the expansion/DLC Dead Space 2: Severed won’t be released for the PC version, which really sucks… I hope they change their mind, but if not, I guess I’ll consider getting the XBox 360 version when Severed is released, maybe borrowing it from a friend or so if possible. (Though I don’t really know so many friends with XBox 360.)

This week I went to Venice with my brother and some other friends, it was quite fun! We mostly walked randomly around and ate pasta. We also took a gondola ride, went to watch some glassblowers work, walked past a million masks and glasses souvenir shops. Seriously, it’s like the whole city only has souvenir shops and tourist trap restaurants, and only a handful normal shops for people who live there!

2011-02-14 12.42.45 2011-02-17 13.32.432011-02-14 21.27.02 2011-02-17 15.59.22

I wanted to try more italian gelato, I only had it once. But I got sick on Wednesday so I tried to avoid it. Oh well… I’m thinking of getting an italian ice cream recipe book and start using my ice cream machine again.

I should be sleeping more since I’m still slightly sick, so I think I’ll head to bed a bit more now. Oh yeah, I just beat Sam & Max: The Penal Zone (Season 3 Episode 1) on the iPad. It’s a funny game, but the game engine was poorly ported, so it was just too buggy! So I recommend getting it for the PC or so instead. I might buy season 2 too, which I haven’t played yet either.

 

Posted by on 2011-02-19 in Rambling

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Dead Rising is pretty hard

I know I shouldn’t try to play the story missions on my first playthrough, but I’m so used to "try and get everything" when playing games, so I have a hard time refraining from following the story missions. I eventually gave up trying to rescue everyone though, and I believe I can’t rescue everyone if I want to follow the story anyways. But I guess that’s what I *should* be doing since that is the quicker way to level up.

deadrising

Some thoughts about this game:

  • Yes, it’s true: Otis (the guy who keeps calling you) is annoying. Sometimes I try to attack while he’s talking, but it doesn’t work and I end up getting snacked on by zombies. And then he calls back and says I’m rude for suddenly hanging up. Huhuhu. I’m playing on a HDTV so I don’t have the problem with the phone text being too small to read though. Anyways since I’ve almost completely given up on rescuing people, I just ignore most of the phone calls anyways, unless I’m sure I’m safe.
  • All weapon items break rather too quickly in my opinion. I guess I’m not really supposed to try and kill every zombie in my path… still, it’d be nice if I didn’t have to replace the weapon every other minute.
  • I wish there were more savepoints.
  • I kind of suck in this game. I keep dying! Should probably work on leveling up a bit more, taking more photos, rescuing people, etc. Ah well. I’ll probably get to a point where I’m way too underpowered to complete the next story mission, forcing me to give up on the story to work on leveling up instead.

 

Oh, I had my birthday party last Saturday (Nov 20), it was pretty cozy. Had some friends over for dinner, talking and some games and karaoke. I cooked an entrecôte steak that I got from my father, it turned out quite good! Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of it, though Leon took some photos I think. I also made an ice cream cake, that I remembered to photograph only after I cut a few pieces of it.

20112010122
Ice cream cake with coconut cake layer on the bottom

We had dinner with my family on my actual birthday and also the day after that, it was cozy too, and my mother seemed to like the ice cream cake too. I also got some nice gifts from my friends: A shirt, a scarf, an electric shaver and some chocolate. Also a portable Othello game. Yum chocolate! *eats one*

juletrekuler

And I gave blood yesterday, got another umbrella since I don’t know where the first one went… Might have lent it out to someone and forgotten about it, or I might have just left it somewhere. So I got another one. In case I break my "travel" one.

By the way I also beat the final episode of Sam and Max: Season 1 last week! I managed to do it without cheating (looking at a walkthrough) this time. These games are really only for those who like those kind of games. (Point and click adventures.) Because once you’re stuck, it feels quite frustrating.

samandmax

I also started playing some indie games:

  • Super Mario Bros X: It’s a fan-made Mario game, which includes elements from almost all Mario games, including the US/EU Super Mario 2. Meaning the game actually has both normal powerups (fire flowers, ice flowers, Yoshi) and also has Shyguys that you have to pick up and/or throw things at. The physics in the game feels very close to "the real thing", except that some characters use their Mario 2 movements (Toad and Princess Peach), which makes movement feel slightly awkward because they can’t slide on hills.
    The game also has a two-player split-screen mode, but I haven’t tried that with anyone yet.
    smbx
  • An Untitled Story: This is a Metroid-style exploration type game and it’s actually rather difficult. The game has very simple graphics that seriously looks like it was made with MSPaint, and the music is at times grating. But the gameplay is reasonably solid, and there are tons of hidden powerups, mostly additional health. Which you are going to need, because some rooms requires fairly accurate jumping to get past without taking damage!
    untitled

 

My iPad finally got iOS 4.2(.1)! It adds a bunch of features that I had been looking forward to:

  • Folders
  • Support for the next/previous song buttons on my Bluetooth headset
  • Searching for text in webpages in Safari (though this crashed when searching in long websites, for example game walkthroughs…)
  • Multitasking (though it doesn’t seem to be real multitasking? Some apps just seem to reset when I switch away and then back to them. So it’s kind of like Android, it only works when the app supports it.)
  • Norwegian keyboard (I’ve found that I still try to hold the o and a buttons to get Norwegian letters because I’m so used to it by now. Bah.)

ipad

I like the iPad quite a lot, but I do feel somewhat frustrated by the limitations. I can’t do normal file transfer, but have to use iTunes, meaning I have to connect via a PC to add photos from a camera/phone. I bought a cheap copy of the iPad Camera Connection Kit, but it turns out support for the connection kit was broken with iOS 4.2. At first I thought it didn’t work because it was a cheap copy. Oh well, I hope they fix that soon… Still, this would only fix the limitation for photos, I still wouldn’t be able to freely move music or videos around.

What I do like about the iTunes music connectivity is that it syncs the number of times I’ve played or skipped a song. I plan to use that to clean up my song collection further. (Remove songs I don’t really like anymore.) Have just barely started to do the cleaning up though.

That asides, I mostly use the iPad as an internet device, for which it works excellently. I don’t miss Flash much at all when using it, and a lot of video websites have added HTML 5 video support anyhows, so those actually work. Working on it is not that easy though, I prefer normal keyboards for typing.

 

Argh, I wrote a lot again. Even though I have written many times that I should post more often instead of dumping out my thoughts out in a big blurb, I just never seem to be able to do that. Well I’ll end this post here in any case.

 

Posted by on 2010-11-28 in Uncategorized

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