Just started up Aselia the Eternal. Everything I've read points to it being a great VN/SRPG, so I've been looking forward to trying it. Unfortunately the Prologue has been such boring cliche crap that I had to put it down pretty quickly. I'll get through it, probably in short bursts. "It" being the Prologue - hopefully it picks up after that or I'll just have to drop it permanently.

Re the "I Have No Mouth" game. I also bought it and thought it looked great, but like you, the puzzles didn't make much sense and I got bored. I decided there were better games to play and I put No Mouth in the trash bin.

IHNMAIMS is still worth playing I guess. It has some quite heavy stuff that I haven't seen much in games (e.g. Ellen). So as a game it might not be that good, but as a story-telling device, it is worth it.

I have now finished Garrister, Ellen and Ben chapters (occasionally using the walkthrough), just started Nimdok.

A couple of days ago I got an urge to install and try out Nox. Very slick and charming Diablo-clone. It can be considered even less of a RPG than Diablo games and it is quite a simple and straightforward game overall (and easy too, at least so far (now at the start of Chapter 4), but it works and is enjoyable to play. I can't find much fault in it, in fact I even prefer the linear gameplay of it to e.g. Diablo 2, where I was quite often lost, not sure which direction I should go (which was even worse if you had to fight the same monsters several times due to dying).

And at least it has save-anywhere, something that Diablo 2 was sorely missing. Just consider Nox as an action game with some stats, and you are fine.

Oh, and I love the simple and hassle-free inventory system! None of the inventory-tetris of e.g. Diablo 2.

Castlevania Lords of Shadow 2.

Good game, cant believe a lot of the shite I have seen written about it.

Bitching cos of stealth sections where Dracula turns into a swarm of rats....wtf its part of drac lore that he can do that.

"Hard" stealth sections where the reviewers couldn't figure out that the need to use their newly acquired "mist" skill.

Anyway, an enjoyable romp with a more open world with a user controllable camera this time. Epic boss battles, lots of skills to power up and master, plus collectibles, lots of explorability (is that a word?...probably not), decent gfx and really good music score, New Game Plus ( you lose your masteries but all XP is refunded to you, to reskill).

Putting Aselia on hold for the moment to replay Shuffle. I just ordered Tick Tack (a sequel of sorts), so I wanted it fresh it my mind. Then Steins;Gate is supposed to come out end of the month I think. And I need to find time to get back and finish Aselia.

Got a little burned out on Mega Man games, now I'm on a VN kick.

Dang, now I am starting to dislike Nox a bit. I'm proceeding quite well in it (I think I'm in chapter 6 or 7 now?), but the item damage system (meaning how your weapons and armor get broken) is starting to annoy me when I lose some trusty weapon that can't be just bought in general stores. So I basically have to keep several weapons and sets of armor with me, just in case some of them get in bad condition during a long trip.

In one case I ended up in a situation that I after losing the armor and shields I was wearing, I was basically fighting hordes of enemies in my underwear, wielding only some stupid axe cheap-ass axe that I had picked from a fallen enemy, just because I didn't make it in time back to some store to fix my items for a price. How silly that must have looked to the enemies.

I think they should have tuned down the item wear and tear quite a lot, or even disabled it altogether. I just don't feel it really adds any fun or challenge to the gameplay, just irritation. Or then I am missing something obvious, e.g. should I be able to fix the items myself, without having to visit stores?

I didn't mind the same feature in e.g. Betrayal at Krondor, but there you could at least learn to fix your items yourself, and they would last quite long anyway.

Also, certain mid-boss fights are a bit irritating, me trying to run after the boss and constantly missing him with my clicks, because quite often I can't even see him/her as I have some NPCs with me which are also attacking him.


In the meantime, I happened to finally install the first game I ever bought from GOG (in June 2011): M.A.X. + M.A.X.2. So it took a few years from purchase to actually playing it. :) More in fact, I think I have the games also as retail versions (not fully sure, but I think I do).

It took some time to learn M.A.X., but the tutorial missions are quite good, and I am growing to like it. I like how genuinely "human-like" the enemy AI seems, e.g. how they try to avoid suicidally just running at your powerful gun turrets, but try to find ways around them. Or how the enemy scouts do hit and run attacks. I guess I am too used to dumb enemies in RTS games. And it is also interesting how the game lets you choose whether to play it in realtime (RTS), or turn-based. I play TB.

So far the only complaint is that there is too much micromanagement to my liking. If I e.g. buy upgrades for tanks, I'd prefer if I didn't have to upgrade each existing tank one by one (new tanks are upgraded by default, though). That's how it seems to go now, right? I just have to click a lot to get anything done.

Currently playing the Witcher 2 (GoG release).

I must say, this game seems much better than the first game, in everything, storyline, objectives, combat and leveling, even playing with a gamepad. Though I didn't know what to expect when I played the first game and the combat threw me off, so I lost interest early. Perhaps I'll re-install the Witcher and give it another chance, after I finish a playthrough of the Witcher 2.

also fiddling with a few other curiosities, Dungeon Keeper Gold being one among them, never played the first game, only DK II.

Back to Aselia, got stuck early in Act III. Spent almost all my mana on upgrading my troops, built high-level defensive structures at the point I'm supposed to defend, and my whole party still gets one-shotted. Lame.

I am considering stopping playing M.A.X. It seems like a pretty good turn-based tactical game, but already in the second campaign mission, it feels hard as nails (expert level, ie. good enemy AI, but the computer doesn't get any advantages in production etc. over me; seems fair, a battle of wits).

So early in the campaign, and it really seems you have to use every trick in your sleeve and carefully fine-tune your production to have any chance surviving. Come on, this is only the second mission, is it going to get even harder later on? I've restarted that second mission from scratch like 30 times already. And I thought I'd be doing fine in TB tactical games, since I didn't have much of a problem playing Gorky 17 (which many seem to consider quite hard).

I eventually checked one walkthrough for some further tips, but it doesn't say that much more what I don't know already. In a good day, I'm able to keep the eastern green forces at bay by surgically making temporary airdrops and long-range attacks with scouts, but then the southern blue forces come a little bit later, decimating all my tanks with the ultra.long range missile crawlers. There are many suggestions I should try to destroy their scanners and scouts first, but easier said than done.

It also rubs me the wrong way that according to that linked walkthrough, apparently more or less all missions are time/round-limited, as in "you have to reach your objective in n rounds". I prefer games where most levels are not time limited, only spicing up occasional levels. If I have to rush in a level, I prefer it is e.g. due to incoming enemies, not so much some god-like doomsday timer over my head. After all, that's what irritated me the most also in Rise of Nations.

And the reports that the game has some bugs that may constantly crash the game and corrupt save games when you go to three-digit round numbers doesn't sound too good either. Does the GOG version have those same issues?

Too bad, I can see the promise in the game though.

M.A.X., I'm still going to give you a chance.

In that darn second campaign mission (expert level), I'm now on round 18 or so (I think I have to survive 30 rounds without my research center getting destroyed), and I seem to have been able to fend off both the green and blue massive forces. I'm unsure if there are more coming, or if most of them merely fled as I destroyed their scanners and scouts (making their main forces practically blind).

In doing that, I have certain lost many scouts and tanks of myself, and the southern base is in shambles, practically only the research center is still standing, while everything else is destroyed. Northern base is still fine, but too far to support.

I still have quite many scouts, some tanks carried by two air carriers, one fighter, one air-to-ground fighter, and one missile crawler approaching the southern base. Maybe they are enough to fend off any remaining attacks, I hope. Air drops with tanks seem to work great, I think that is the most important tactic in this mission. The second one is using scouts for hit and run attacks.

A very challenging game, but quite addicting too. I had to force myself stop playing it when I noticed it was already 2:11am, had to get some sleep...

In other news, I tried Civilization as well yesterday. Yes, the very first game, why not start from the very beginning for a taste for it.

I've dabbled with it long time ago already (back when I was mostly playing Doom), but I never really understood what the heck I was doing in the game and what and why is happening ("let your subjects enhance your palace..." why exactly? Does it matter which part they enhance?). So I dismissed the game as uninteresting and too confusing, yet I later e.g. bought the Civ Chronicles bundle etc. because the games have a cult following, so obviously there is something I just didn't see.

So I started humbly with the easiest difficulty level, and only four other countries. Can't lose then, right? Still, for some reason I've now lost three times in a row, when I accidentally unleashed some barbaric horde, that went on to destroy all my cities. At one time I had barely created my first city, and some enemies appeared and ended my game. :)

Apparently I am playing it fundamentally wrong, I need to create and leave some soldiers to defend my cities etc. This is version .05, I read somewhere it is supposed to be much harder than e.g. .01.

South Park: The Stick of Truth (PC)
WWE 2K14 (PS3)

I'm currently playing Trackmania United Forever and Thief GOLD.

I've had this one sitting on the burner for a long, long time. It's still on the burner, but thanks for the write-up. It'll move it up on the list.

By the by, I'm currently playing:

Thief (primary)
ARMA 2 (probably won't do much more with except multiplayer w/ bro until Thief is done)

And my current multiplayer standbys with friends/family:
Demigod
Company of Heroes
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit
HAWX
Splinter Cell: Blacklist (XBOX)

And my lap game (game I play with my 2 year old and 4 year old on my lap):
Costume Quest
(btw, our last one, Mickey Mouse: Castle of Illusion was FANTASTIC! Has anyone tried that DuckTales game? They were wanting to give that one a go after Costume Quest)

If it helps, I just completed that second mission. :) As I suspected, nothing really important happened after the initial big rush from green and blue which I was able to fend off barely. There were some air raids towards the end, but so what, the air fighters can't destroy the research center.

Also, for some reason the enemies seemed to suddenly get more interested in the northern base., maybe because most of my units were by then on the southern base, defending what was remaining of it. Pfft, do what you want with the northern base, the protected research center is at south.

It felt we were both in a stalemate situation (the one who moves his units first dies), and that was perfectly fine to me because I only needed to wait until round 31 to beat the enemy.

Third mission already appears much simpler and easier, apparently there was some high difficulty spike at mission 2?