Played Red Faction and Sin Gold.
Now I'm playing sometimes Master of Magic and Magic Carpet Plus.

Borderlands 2 - and It's doing the same thing to me that Borderlands did two years ago...

I'm not a huge multiplayer fan, so I'm playing this as a singleplayer game. It all starts out pretty easy and is just some fun shooting. But then the first Badasses appear and you'll experience a skyrocketing difficulty. In the first Borderlands I played as a Siren, because Phasewalking allowed me to run away (until it gets some offensive features). Now I'm playing as a Commando, because the Phaselock of the Siren is completely different from Phasewalk (I don't like the Assassin's skills, so Zer0 isn't an option). The Saber Turret was awesome for normal Bullymongs, but it's nothing against Badass Bullymongs. They rip this thing appart before they take any significant damage. It's effing, effing, effing hard!

Don't ge me wrong, I'm not complaining. Quite the contrary, I'm happy with the difficulty! Sounds funny, but singleplayer Borderlands is pretty old school ;) That's your gun, there's a shitload of enemies -> have fun. It's simplistic. AND it's freaking hard in singleplayer if you meet the wrong enemies. Awesome! I'm just level 7 and finished the first bunch of Hammerlock's sidequests and I'm already addicted to this game.

Holy isosceles triangle, Batman. I was playing Batman: Arkham Asylum a couple days ago, but my 360 started acting weird again and wouldn't read the disc, so I went ahead and started my only purchase from the Steam summer sale: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Legendary Edition.

And oh. My. Goodness. It's... it's... I don't even know the word. Addicting? I guess that's the closest one I can think of. It's not the best game I've ever played, but after about a dozen hours (in two days, by the way), it hasn't annoyed me in any way. I have told myself I'm not going to use fast travel. I haven't yet, but it takes forever to get anywhere. Why? It isn't so much about the in-game physical distance as it is the sheer amount of places and stuff to see and do. A city-to-city journey that probably should only take about five minutes can take anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour, simply because I keep getting sidetracked on the way to my destination. It's incredible.

So, long story short, I'm having a blast with this game.

Witcher 2 and Stronghold HD.

Blood Bowl MP as usual, Outlast and Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon.

Finished The Witcher 2 last night. Some thoughts:

Combat was decently implemented, but the use of traps was too awkward/slow to be really useful. On that note, precision targeting with throwing knives/bombs was entirely useless since by the time I actual got to that point enemies tend to be almost on top of me.

I felt like I wasted those two skill points on throwing knives as it didn't come nearly as handy as I thought it might - bombs are much more useful, in practically any given situation. Thank god I never invested into reflecting arrows since that skill seemed like it would have been a total waste. Key point: monsters (and even most non-monsters) don't use arrows whatsoever.

Aard, Yrden, and Quen seem to have been the most useful signs for me.

The crafting system seemed a bit much at first, but soon enough I figured out all that junk I was carrying around is better left in storage until I actually want to have someone create a specific item for me. Still didn't buy a lot of diagrams or formulas. Guess that's why I ended up with over 4k orens in the bank at the end of the game. At least I had money to waste on the bearded she-elf. What an odd thing to put in the game. =P

While story-wise it does make sense to take potions before a battle, the system in the second game just felt clunky having to meditate for every time I wanted to use a potion. Hence I very rarely did. I definitely liked how much easier it was to craft potions in 2, but on a whole I found the first game's implementation a lot better being able to down one on the go.

On that note, the whole inventory system felt clunky. It served its function, but it was never a real pleasure to navigate. Also switching between menu screens was a bit of a chore. I definitely appreciated how easy it was to browse through the different menu screens in the original.

Side quests tended to be more interesting in the original. Here it felt more like padding out the game for things to do to level up.

Wow. that sure sounds like an awful lot of griping. All that said, I still thoroughly enjoyed the game once I got to grips with some of the differences. Hell, I actually enjoyed the much-maligned QTE scenes. Yeah, I had some good fun.


I'm still debating about pre-ordering the third game. I still have some seven months to think about it, but I wouldn't be surprised if I did. The second game ran quite well with most settings on high, so I expect ought to be able to easily play the former in the medium to high range (or so I hope). Also looks like the interface was changed for the better for part three if this leaked screenie is anything to go by. I really hope that potion slot means I'd be able to once again down them without meditating. Anyway...

/ramble


Now that I got that out of my system, I'm not entirely sure what to play next. I may take a few days break from games since the whole Witcher 1&2 back-to-back run through took up quite a bit of my free time (not to mention sleep time).

In moment I play Red Faction and Half-Life and I must to say both is great FPS.

Shadow Warrior, System Shock 2 and Thief GOLD. Thank you GOG Summer Sale!

Oh, and Knock Knock whenever I'm feeling brave enough, or at least when it's daylight.

^ Thief Gold is on a pause for me me, playing System Shock 2 still.

Not sure if both games had exactly the same level designers (Looking Glass Studios vs. Irrational Games?), but both seem to share the love for maze-like levels where you easily get lost. SS2 at least has useful automaps (except near the end it seems, like when hunting down the black eggs), while Thief maps are next to useless IMHO. Kind of realistic though, like quickly drawn maps, but I don't feel they ever really help me in finding anything or figuring out my surroundings, I still have to memorize the levels in my mind instead.

I basically stopped playing Thief Gold because I got fed up with the no-sense level design (I think I am at the fourth or fifth level/mission now). Aaargh! I'll continue it at some point, maybe after SS2.

It is odd though that until yesterday, I kept playing System Shock 2 with the default key bindings, which are somewhat clumsy. Yesterday it finally occurred to me to change the setup closer to a real WASD setup, X = crouch toggle, weapon change to mouse wheel, and changing the ammo type by clicking the mouse wheel (middle button). Much better controls now, why didn't I play like this from the very beginning? The times I accidentally crouched when I wanted to go backwards, or frantically tried to find the correct weapon and ammo type...

Just finished the first half of Redneck Rampage.

Right now I am playing plants vs zombies.

Still Witcher 2, but also started Two Worlds.

I usually don't play games in parallel, at least not similar kind. But my kids love watching me play, especially medievalish 3D-RPGs (they love Oblivion and Skyrim for instance). But I think the Witcher games are too hardcore (in terms of scary, and yes, sex) for the kids to watch, so I thought Two Worlds is a better alternative.

Two Worlds is also a lot easier to play with the kids around - combat in The Witcher 2 demands total concentration and distraction often means death.

That said, my first impressions of Two Worlds:
The voiceover is easily one of the worst I've ever heard. Abysmal is the right word here. It's even worse than Dark Star One (German) that I loathed. I'm thinking about turning voices off, but I don't know if that could lead to missing "Over here!" shouts.
The visuals and sound fx are okay. Not as shiny/beautiful as Oblivion from a year earlier. Maybe it gets better later, I read some reviews that liked Two Worlds better than Oblivion.
Combat seems straightforward and simple. Click to kill. There seem to be ingredients and stuff that need cooking, but I still have to look into this (I'm only in the first village).

Right now, I'm playing some games I got in the summer sale.

Guacamelee, Valdis Story, and Abe's Oddysee for platformers. Of those, Guac has seen the most game-time from me; it just feels better to me than VS, and I prefer to play the Oddworld games with the speaker volume up a bit, which I can't always do.

King's Bounty: the Legend (to be followed by Crossworlds) here and there for some turn-based tactics. I tend to play this one in small doses, because of all the backtracking and encounter-dodging that seems to be required. It's still a solid and enjoyable diversion, though.

Most surprising to me is King of Dragon Pass. I have no previous experience with its game world, and wasn't entirely sure how much I'd enjoy it, but it is surprisingly addictive. It's a shame I'd never heard of it before the sale.

I'm playing dawn of fantasy kingdom wars right now. Good game but not as good as the mainstream RTS games.

I've started Syberia, thanks to groundhog42... and finished a couple of missions in Wing Commander 3