What I Played Today: March 8

Dungeons of Dredmor, SpaceChem

Today was weird. I was stressed out at work, so I didn't got the usual game night, instead screwed around on Steam. I went through one room in Dungeons of Dredmor, and also tried to play SpaceChem, and...yeah. I don't know. They can't all be exciting. I mean, you would hope one of them would be, but it's not this one.

What I Played Today: December 28

Guild Wars 2, Persona 4, Dungeons of Dredmor

(Guild Wars 2 yadda yadda. Those podcasts I was putting aside time for are done, alright?)

I got through a couple of days on Persona 4 somehow. I wasn't paying attention, we are slowing building up to the Kanji dungeon. For some reason it takes DAYS. After you have seen this three or four times already, it has very little impact.

Also turned Dungeons of Dredmor back on, played a few minutes of my current character, and then said, "you know, fuck the vegan bullcrap." It is severely annoying not being able to kill certain monsters, because they get in the way all the time. All the time! I managed to die because I couldn't escape a deathcloud because I surrounded by my "animal friends," so I said screw it, and started a new game with a character who actively wanted to kill every single monster he met. Because he was a big game hunter, and got bonus XP. Maybe one day I'll pass this game. Maybe.

What I Played Today: November 2

Assassin's Creed 3, Dungeons of Dredmor

I'm make pretty good progress in Dungeons of Dredmor. I murdered a whole Monster Zoo! Screw Monster Zoos! (I'll probably just run into another.)

Also, multiplayer Assassin's Creed, it looks as if I'll have everything I need by level 20, so...hurray! I'm still pretty good at this, I like being good at things.

What I Played Today: October 30

Assassin's Creed 3, Dungeons of Dredmor

I continue to play Dungeons of Dredmor, and it continues to be entertaining. I am slicing straight through everything, and I finally figured out how the General Winter ability works and it really does require me to wear the Ushanka all the time, otherwise I might die from my own ability. But hey, easily done, helms aren't that exciting anyway.

But enough of that, Assassin's Creed 3 is out! First, to speak to the multiplayer, which I still love. They gave it a bit of a UI upgrade, and they did something I really didn't expect. Apparently Abstergo has gotten into the entertainment business, and the multiplayer is now in universe a multiplayer game, which is all layers of meta. But the new character models are cool, and I love this game, so...hurray.

Also, because this game is newish, details of the single player campaign will be hidden for now, but click if you're willing....

What I Played Today: October 28

Dungeons of Dredmor, Assassin's Creed: Revelations

I somehow managed to buy the DLC for Dungeons of Dredmor. Was just kinda looking around and realized it existed and only cost $6, so of course I'm going to impulse buy that. Who cares if I hadn't even beat the original game yet. So I jump in again, load up a character with some of the newer skill trees, and they are sufficiently wacky. My player is a communist vegan, who cannot kill animals and occasionally can take advantage of socialized health care, with the disadvantage of occasionally recieving a Communist-themed curse as well. It is silly. There is also an Atlas Shrugged joke in there, which is something I have never seen before, that's interesting.

I had also not turned on permadeath, and I am perfectly fine to just keep playing the same character even though she has died before. Get to learn how things really work, and I really want to hang on to this awesome pocket dimension that I had found. Pocket Dimension! Get yours today!

Also a lot of time in Assassin's Creed: Revelations, trying to cap that crap off. You know, when you ignore absolutely everything that was added for this game, it's really just more enjoyable Assassin's Creed business. Lot of fun, jumping and stabbing. I just wish the new stuff didn't suck so bad. I accidently had to do the tower defense game again, and it was just...awful. The difficulty curve is way off and the camera angle makes no sense. I also did another stage of the first-person platformer they thought would be a good idea, and boy oh boy, really? First-person platformer? And it's full of all kinds of wacky little fidgets, like placeable blocks and null zones and bleh. And don't get me started how little I care about bombs.

But enough about things that suck! Because the core gameplay is still Assassin's Creed, and old man Ezio is still a baller. Ezio decides to stab the crap out of this guy because the prince told him to. So he sneaks into this base full of dudes and kills him, only for this guy to say, "Hey, I was totally on your side, stupid." WHOOPS! So Ezio breaks the news to the prince, who's all, welp, that sucks, and then Ezio goes to have a picnic with his lady friend, then goes to some dumb water puzzle place and gets the last disc of Altair's dumb life.

And if you thought Ezio was old balls, holy crap you should see how ancient Altair is in this last memory in which he takes back the assassin homeland from some jerk. Altair has been banished for two decades, that is, 20 years after he was already pretty old and had adult sons, which means he's got to be pushing 80. He is so old in fact that he can't vault off stuff anymore, and will occasionally cough into his arm, it is sad. He can still suplex a mother though, as he just walks up and kills a few more guys for fun, and eventually shoots the stupid jerk with a gun. Which, when you think about it, is a big fucking deal on account of it being the 12th century. Guns aren't really a thing yet. Where did you get that, Altair?

What I Played Today: October 27

Guild Wars 2, FTL, Dungeons of Dredmor, Assassin's Creed: Revelations

Screwing around on the computer, logged into Guild Wars 2 and thought about doing Halloween stuff and realized, "nah." Also managed to die pretty early in FTL, just big old explosion, poor me.

So, I decided to dig in deeper in Dungeons of Dredmor, check out some of the cool mods that apparently exist. I had managed to crash my program twice doing this, which isn't super cool, but in I went, and manage to get to the third floor before I die somehow! I think I stepped on a trap. Stupid traps. But I am liking this a lot, I especially am pretty cool with the crafting system, although I'd like it better if things were more frequent, and have never been a fan of potions. Screw potions.

Then, on a whim, I thought, "Hmm...that new Assassin's Creed game comes out pretty soon. Should I finish the last game?" Before I have finished thinking, it is in the Xbox and I am playing it. Ezio started a riot and then walked into a place and didn't kill anyone! Come on Ezio! Do your job. But I find a disc after being a dick to some templars who are enjoying a whitewater rafting trip, and get to see Altair's wife get stabbed! Did you ever remember that he got married? I had forgotten as well.

What I Played Today: October 18

Cook Serve Delicious, Dungeons of Dredmor

I once again watched a video of someone playing a video game and immediately thought, "I need to play this video game." Cook Serve Delicious is a time management game about running a restaurant, but instead of being super micromanagey and fussing about exact timing or clearing tables, it abstracts itself to the point where you want to play as fast as possible. You can play with the mouse, but that's asking for disaster, as you really need to play with your keyboard to keep up. It's pretty intense, and I like all the trappings of it. Of course, it still has the time management problem of thinking I want to play this forever to get anywhere (really? 20 whole days before I get to be a first-star restaurant?), but hey, I might play this a bit more.

So, in between, to slow things down, I also played Dungeons of Dredmor, and actually got quite far. I found a monster zoo and immediately ran the other way, which probably helped my success, and now I'm on the third floor, hanging out. Fighting robots.

What I Played Today: October 17

Nanuk, Smash Up, Dixit, Netrunner, BattleCON, Avalon, Dungeons of Dredmor

Lot of games today! First Nanuk, which is a bit of liar's dice. I've talked about it before, I'm sure. I didn't win, although I did pretty okay. I don't know, middling.

Then a game of Smash-Up. It took forever for the game to actually get going, because everyone was playing minions, but was spreading them out. Come on guys, break those bases. The game ended pretty quickly when the robot pirate player managed to dump a full 10 points onto a base into a turn, so that was cool.

A quick game of Dixit, that I somehow ran away with. Well, whatever.

Then a couple of two-player games while a full ton of people were learning Battlestar Galactica. I lost in Netrunner because man on man, there has got to be a better way with slowing down card snatching from the HQ. I have no control over what's there! I also lost BattleCON, because I chose the doppleganger character, which I hate, and my opponent was not easily copyable. We managed to go to time, probably past, in fact, because we weren't paying a lot of attention.

Then we went to a bar and tried to play Avalon, which was a bad idea! Some people missed the rules, some spies didn't see each other, some spies didn't even open their eyes, it was a disaster. Don't play games in bars if all players aren't within five feet of each other, everyone.

Then I was at home, and thought to myself, "Dungeons of Dredmor. That's a thing, right?" So I played that for a bit, looked around online, apparently a lot of people have made their own skill mods for it, that sounds cool. So I might play it again!

What I Played Today: Christmas Vacation

Saints Row the Third, Rift, Skyrim, VVVVVV, Dungeons of Dredmor, Pushmo, Dance Central 2, Agricola, A Few Acres of Snow, Sentinels of the Multiverse, Various

Listen, I'm not going into great detail of all the games that I've played over the past few days, in which I was not working very hard. So let's hit a few highlights:

I beat Saint's Row the Third, and the ending is pretty good. I won't be ruining exactly what happens, but there is a part where you have to choose which ending you get, and "Holding Out for a Hero" starts playing, and it is great. Also, the after-the-finale mission really confused the hell out of me for a good three minutes until I remembered, "Oh right. This game is crazy, but not that crazy." But yeah! Great game. Although I think, from hearing some gibber-gabber, that I watched the "bad ending," which makes absolutely no sense to me. Oh well, they left the final mission replayable so I can see the other ending if I want.

I partook of a few board games over the Internet, one being a deckbuilding game that I sure wasn't going to buy, A Few Acres of Snow. It's not that great... I have decided that I just don't like Martin Wallace, and he can get over it. His games feel crunchy to the point of boredom, simulating a lot of things that don't really need to be. In this, you're trying to gain control over a certain amount of the board by playing location cards and connection cards, and to build up territories and bleh. You spend a lot of time cycling your deck because you do not get the locations you need, and I only won the game I was playing because my opponent kinda refused to actually attack me. I also found a poor man's version of Agricola online, which is just weird and wonky. This guy bought 12 physical copies of Agricola and hid them in his closet, so technically you are playing with those sets. The interface is way wonky, and you better know exactly how to play the game, because nothing is automated. If you need to pay food, or gain food, or anything, you gotta do it yourself. Still, nice there is a space where I can play this by myself, because I've completely lost my actual copy of it.

Also on Rift, my guild completely up and switched servers, which is apparently really easy to do. So I followed, and screwed around some. I ran a couple of regular dungeons that were way too easy for someone of my level, but I wanted to actually see them before I tried them at Tier 2. They also added an Instant Adventure mode, which immediately teleports to an area and tells you, "go on, kill 10 boars. Kill 10 boars until you die." It's good for experience I guess, but not as good as chronicles. But it's handled pretty strangely.

Also played other stuff. I won't go into any details, but I acknowledge that I played it.

What I Played Today: July 22

Dungeons of Dredmor

Played a bit more of the Dungeons game, died again. I made the mistake of finding and then entering a monster zoo. Hint number one: Don't go into the monster zoo. There are monsters in there. They will kill you. That's all you need to know.

What I Played Today: July 21

Rift, Dungeons of Dredmor

Ho hum, more Rift. These daily quests aren't going to do themselves.

Also, because I think I like roguelikes now, I bought a new one that seems like an easy entry point that doesn't involve Pokemon. It has some fine if vaguely goofy graphics and is just silly enough to work. I had a little trouble the first time, and I was doing fine until I blundered into a poison trap like three or four times. So I started over and am starting to kick butt, playing a melee-based character with a couple of abilities that go off on when I'm hit, making me stronger in a long combat. Although I'm coming to the conclusion that half the stuff I'm picking up are worthless because I don't have the right skills...which is a bit unfortunate, because I want to make stuff. I do have a cool way to get rid of unwanted gear though! I found a Herardic Lutefisk Cube, which will turn anything you put inside it into lutefisk. Now, this in itself sucks, but there's a idol that will only take lutefisk as an offering. I don't know why I keep offering, I haven't gotten a benefit yet, but no harm in keep trying if I can't actually use anything I'm picking up.