What I’m Playing…
July – November 2017
Yeah, I know–I’m woefully behind on this. I’ve been so busy. Unless you follow me on social media or subscribe to my newsletter (The Conspiracy), you have no idea. In between bouts of house hell and writing/editing, I have managed to catch up some on my gaming list such as:
Horizon: Zero Dawn, which is one of the most breathtakingly beautiful games I have ever played, not to mention the phenomenal world-building and character arcs. This game has jumped into my Top 5 favorite games of all time. I can’t wait to play the newly released DLC for it! I even saw someone cosplaying Aloy recently. Her outfit was epic (see right)!
Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep. Don’t get me wrong–I love the Kingdom Hearts’ franchise, but this has to be one of the clunkiest, plot-hole filled games I’ve ever played. It’s painful, and honestly, it makes me worry about KH3 because Chain of Memories and 358/2 were almost as bad. I don’t know why they’ve decided to make whatever decisions they are making, but it’s killing the games. We’re talking plot holes large enough to land The Enterprise in, not to mention horrific camera work, clunky controls, punishments for not playing on the highest difficulty, etc.
Just ugh.
Square–please get Kingdom Hearts 3 right. Please? Assuming it’s ever released…
April – June 2017
We’ve spent the past few months gaming very little (at least in video games) outside of finishing the new Zelda game, but we did try to get into Final Fantasy XIV, the MMO.
I say try because this game irritated the hell out of me in all the wrong ways.
Just because you throw a Chocobo into the game doesn’t make it Final Fantasy. I realize that my issue is that I’m somewhat old school when it comes to Final Fantasy. My favorites are VI, VII, and X. Besides Tactics, I haven’t liked a Final Fantasy game since X.
Part of what makes Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy, is that it’s an RPG. I was hopeful that with RPG elements in the MMO, it would be a balance of both in a way that could be fun. There were times that I enjoyed the game. But not enough to pay a monthly subscription to it.
There are too many good games out there more deserving of my attention. More on this later when I get around to reviewing it for Monday Night Gaming.
January – March 2017
Finally got around to playing The Last of Us, which is a great action adventure survival-horror game–boy that’s a mouthful!–but it all applies. The storytelling and gameplay are stellar, with rich worldbuilding and depth.
Also got around to finally playing Rise of the Tomb Raider, which is phenomenal. Like The Last of Us, it has great storytelling/writing, worldbuilding, and character development.
After this, I played Pokemon Sun & Moon (well, I played Moon and my husband played Sun). I also played through Diablo III with our Saturday night gaming group. I wrote an in-depth review of the game as part of the Monday Night Gaming series, which you can check out HERE.
Apparently this is the year for playing rich games as I also encountered the game Life is Strange. There aren’t words to describe how amazing this game is. There is a flaw in one of the multiple endings but even with that, this game is easily one of the best I’ve seen in terms of games that revolve around time travel or controlling time. Very Butterfly Effect. The characters in it are realistic and organic. Love this game.
And finally, Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which so far, is probably the best Zelda game by far, and that’s saying something since Ocarina of Time is one of my all-time favorites. It’s not perfect–there are some flaws–but it is a breathtakingly gorgeous, open-world Zelda with crafting and adventure. No where near finishing it yet, but holy cow. O_O
May – August 2016
I haven’t been playing a ton of games of late, but there have been a few. First, I played a bit of Pokemon Go! along with the rest of the world. You can read more on my thoughts about it HERE.
I’ve been playing weekly Minecraft on our server with a few friends. In fact, if you play and are looking for a server, shoot me an email. 🙂 We’re always looking for more players.
I’ve also been playing a great mobile game released by WG Cells (formerly DropForge Games) where my husband works. He worked hard on this game (Smash Squad) and I’m finding it a lot of fun. It’s only on iPhone/iPad products at the moment, but if you want to check it out, you can click here to download it.
April 20, 2016
Can you tell that we’ve been selling the condo, buying a house, and moving? You can’t? Well, if you check the dates on my last “What I’m…” pages, you’ll see I haven’t been playing, watching, or reading much of anything. I have been way more busy than I have a right to be!
Things are settling down some though. I’m currently playing Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon, which is kicking my ass in a not-so-good way. Its predecessors were some of my favorite games, but this one… Ugh. They changed in all the wrong ways.
The entire purpose of dungeon crawlers is to crawl the dungeon. To explore. This game forces you into dungeons before you’re leveled appropriately, which forces the player to staircase-find and rush through as fast as possible in order to not die at the hands of very basic Pokemon. Toss in seriously over-repetitive dialogue and cut-scenes and you have this game. I’m frustrated by it, but playing through it in hopes it gets better.
December 1, 2015
November brought the release of Fallout 4, which has been on our TV more than anything else this past month. Fallout 3 is one of my top 3 favorite games of all time, so it’s no surprise that I’ve been seriously excited about the next game in the Fallout franchise.
So far, I’m loving the look of the overhauled game engine and the story line. I’m less thrilled with the Farmville aspect of developing settlements. As usual, there are a million and one side quests to keep you from completing the main quest, but if that wasn’t the case, this wouldn’t be a Bethesda game now would it? 😉
September 15, 2015
You can tell by the gap in the date that I’ve been busy. Having our home flooded, then renovating, selling, buying, and moving have put a huge dent in my recreation time. At the moment, I’ve been playing Starbound when I have the time.
We’ve got a little Saturday night gaming group going now with some friends of ours. First we started off on Don’t Starve Together, but now we’re back to Starbound since more updates have come through.
It takes some of the building elements of Minecraft and tosses in a lot of crafting, adventure, and space. 😀
Of course, Kotaku’s recent article on games coming out this fall has me worried. When will I find all the time for so many awesome games??
Let just say that I squeed a bit when I saw how close we are to the release of Fallout 4.
May 15, 2015
I have been sucked into the world of Don’t Starve Together. If you don’t hear from me in the coming month, send help for I have starved.
I kid, I kid!
This game is freaking awesome as a cooperative survival game where starving is very much a possibility, as is dying from killer bees, giant monsters, and the elements. The fact that I can play this with friends on a semi-private server is awesome. Reminds me of the days when our Minecraft server was still populated.
April 27th, 2015
My wrist is still healing–well, the tendons, not so much the bones–but I’m currently playing Pokemon Rumble World on my new 3DS.
Also about to try out Don’t Starve on Steam.
My to-play list is ever so very long.
March 18th, 2015
Due to my broken wrist, I’m still not playing much of anything yet on the video game spectrum, but I am diving into the new Magic: the Gathering set, Dragons of Tarkir.
You can read more about that and my deck, here.
February 18th, 2015
At the moment, I’m not playing much of anything due to a broken wrist.
Once I’m all healed up (in March), I’ll update this again.
January 19th, 2015
We finally got back to Brotherhood and finished it. Despite a few irritating mini-games, the game was quite solid. Loved the plot in this one.
I had to know what was going to happen to Desmond, so once finished, we set headlong into Assassin’s Creed: Revelations.
Parts of this game (like the plot!) are awesome. My problem is that the plot, so far, makes up too little of the game. Most of it feels like one mini-game after another, which is disappointing. We’ll see how that goes as we progress.
December 9th, 2014
Currently, we’re going through Dishonored, which I’ve dubbed “Dishonored Creed.” I love this game so far, but it’s very much the love child of Assassin’s Creed and Bioshock. It’s a stealth action/adventure game by Bethesda (creators of the fabulous Fallout 3) and Arkane Studios. It’s a first person perspective and like Assassin’s Creed, you are tasked with killing lots of folks to get back your honor. I love that everyone around you is dying of the plague. The artwork in it is freaking phenomenal.
There are powers in the game and story lines that revolve around mysticism and people’s fear of the unknown. I loved Assassin’s Creed and Bioshock, so this mix works really well for me.
I’m also still making my way through the Professor Layton game from last time. I’m so busy that it’s hard to find time for playing more than one game at a time.
Either way, I’m excited to see where the plot line of Dishonored goes.
-Game On!
November 15th, 2014
If you want to know what I’m playing in regards to Tabletop games, check out this week’s Monday Night Gaming post here.
As for video games, I’m currently going through the zombie game: Dead Island and loving it. I will say that it falls afoul of the stereotype “all women must be bikini clad, weak, and stupid” but other than that, the killing zombies and quests are pretty awesome. The game does a great job of creeping me out with the ambiance, sounds, music, etc. I think I need to pick up the Left 4 Dead series next.
I’m also making my way through Professor Layton and the Last Specter on the 3DS. I’m a huge fan of all the Layton games. The puzzles are fun and challenging, plus the story lines and music are phenomenal. I’m pretty early in on this game so we’ll see how it compares to the last one, Professor Layton and the Unwound Future. So far, it’s my favorite due to all the back-story we get on Professor Layton.
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