The Domesticated Gamer

I’ve been on vacation for the past two weeks and believe me I’ve been productive. In addition to reading the shit out of 2.5 books (Fantasy Freaks & Gaming Geeks, Ready Player One, and half of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close), I also beat three games.

Three!

They are all 3DS titles, so don’t go thinking I’m amazing or that they were long or anything… here we go…

PUSHMO. This is a pretty great game, especially for a cheap-o downloadable title. I’m glad they didn’t call it “Pullmo” but that’s really what you spend the majority of the game doing. Pulling out blocks to scale a large sculpture and save the small children (or whatever they are) stranded at the top. The game took much longer to beat than I anticipated, I’ve been playing it over the course of a few months, but the last few puzzles took me around 30 minutes each. Big game, worth the download.

Star Fox 64 3D. This was my first experience playing Star Fox. I can hear anyone reading this shouting at me through the internet with lots of swear words and angry comments about my wasted youth. Don’t worry, I got on the ball, it only took about 15 years and a port, but I ended up playing it. I didn’t do so hot my first time through. Actually, I got the worst possible outcomes I could. Fuck a bunch of Andross. :\ I can see the fantastic replayability factor and I understand why I should have played this title already. So I did. And I’ll play more of it in the future.

Kid Icarus: Uprising. Let me start by stressing how much I blow at this game. I really suck. Sometimes I have my moments of clarity where I will go a whole section without being hit, but being allowed to choose my difficulty on a sliding scale of 0-10 just results in my inevitable embarrassment on the lower end of the scale. I should be playing at a 7.0, not dying pathetically on a 4.5! Overall, it’s a great re-imagining of the series and although the campy nature of the characters can be a little boring, it’s still really cute and fun.

THANKS, AEROPLANES, FOR GIVING ME TIME TO PLAY VIDEO GAMES.

This is probably the longest title I’ve taken up since the new year. When the week was over and the damage was done, I had spent 17 hours being War.

I’m starting off by saying this game isn’t revolutionary. You aren’t going to find yourself enthralled by the story or the gameplay, but it is a mad amount of fun. Outright stealing elements from Zelda (Shadow War, hookshot, boomerang, bomb plants), Portal (a portal gun, I’m not even joking), and God of War (combat and some quicktime events), you might assume that the whole game would just make you angry. But it doesn’t. It’s a great combination of the two larger elements, and the mashup is a lot like a Girl Talk song. Fun.

Darksiders is definitely worth the price during a Steam sale. I got my copy for $10 during the Xmas sale of 2010. So it only took me a year to get around to it… good lord, I’m a terrible gamer.

With the news that the servers for Demon’s Souls are going offline at the conclusion of May, I’m going to put that on the top of my list. Adding to that, Josh purchased a ton of games on XBLA, including FEZ, that I can’t wait to sink my teeth into. Unfortunately, he and I are leaving for vacation fairly soon and I’ve gotta get my portable gaming situation in order.

Maybe a week or so ago I did a straight playthrough of Journey. For those who don’t know, Journey is a very gorgeous adventure that you can undertake alone or with another random PS3 user.

I was lucky enough to have my partner stick with me throughout the duration, and we were able to experience the game together. As Josh pointed out, one of the players he spent the most time with didn’t even speak English. The game manages to transcend language and break down communication into the basics of pinging your partner to acquire their attention.

As you bound about these beautiful environments, you only have a few goals. Collect scarf extensions that allow you to fly about longer and avoid the large enemies that scan the ground for signs of life. Simple, accessible, and fun.

Although it was a short experience, the game was well worth the cost. Even though Josh was the one to initially pay for it. I highly recommend giving it a try. It’s a relaxing title that will give you around 1.5 hours of entertainment.

Skyrim. Finally. I started this journey almost five full months ago, and have just finished the main story line. I only have two small side quests left and whatever other infinite quests I choose to be a part of, but I’m ready to retire the game until DLC is released. I really appreciated the kill cam addition in the update, as this wasn’t a necessary feature, and required a good deal of programming.

Everyone knows how I feel about this game. It’s been taking up a lot of my time since November 11th, but I’m really happy to be done. The final battle with Alduin wasn’t nearly as epic as I initially assumed it would be, but I was almost level 57 and can’t exactly complain that the game wasn’t prepared for my massive leveling.

My favorite character in Skyrim was Paarthurnax. Hands down. Why the game would ever try to entice me to kill him is beyond me. I’ve even read up on the perk you acquire if you do and it wasn’t terribly impressive. He can live. In all of my playthroughs.

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So now it’s the question of “What’s next?” I’ve got my eyes on the Darksiders series, Dark Souls, The Darkness, and Serious Sam 3. I know the last doesn’t exactly fit, but whatever. I’m okay with that. 13 games down, a million more to go…

I’m going to be writing a bunch of Mini Indie Interviews to go up on PikiGeek as well as a few diary entries. For now I’m going to relax, enjoy the few pieces of swag I decided to take with me, and see my family.

For all of my pals still out there, be safe coming home!!

I beat you and it’s over. I don’t care about Hell or trying to keep Curly Brace alive, I’m just happy I finished the game.

After swearing off the game for a few days, I went back to it. I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to beat it, I didn’t want to lie on my games list, and now I don’t have to. It was hard, but the learning curve was realistic. For as much bitching as I did about how painful the difficulty ramping was, in the end, the reason I kept crushing through 3 of the 4 bosses was because I learned how to fight them and how to conserve my health.

Tough? Yes. Impossible? Not by any stretch of the imagination.

Onto the next quest.

To keep things short and sweet, Josh and I beat Sam & Max Season 2 Ep. 2: Moai Better Blues. This time around I feel like he contributed WAY more in terms of solutions and I did a lot of ridiculous suggesting. This is probably my least favorite episode of Sam & Max thus far, and we’re hoping the next episode will be better. Josh and I both had the gripe that there were other logical conclusions that solved the puzzles while using the items we had, and some of the solutions felt like stretches. Big stretches…

A week or so ago, I wrote a review on a game that my friend Eric created. You can read the review here, or just believe me when I say it’s worth it. Really fun, very retro, exactly the kind of work I’d expect from Eric. Buy it here for $2.99. Short game, but loads of replay value.

#11 on my list is a game I feel I’ll never beat. Now, I played almost all of Cave Story prior to the new (and very awesome) re-release. Come to think of it, I played basically all of it except for the final boss fight. This time through, I got to that boss fight and (if you haven’t seen my complaining on twitter) hit a brick wall. It’s so ridiculously hard and I never knew I’d have to do four boss battles in a row. I’m at the point where I’ve played those final four boss fights about 30 times and I find myself wishing that I hadn’t used my Life Pot in the cave prior. Misery, the Doctor, and the Doctor’s 2nd form are all cake. Totally easy, I can get through those battles with almost all my health. But I cannot seem to get a hang of the Undead Core.

So I’m calling it. I know it might not count completely, but I have to take some time away from Cave Story so I can actually enjoy the game and not rage at it. The reason why I decided to still put it on the list is because I know everything I’m going to encounter. I’ll make it count for real at some point, but until then, I’m retiring the title.

Between painting, working out, doing general house stuff, and other adult things, I haven’t had as much chance to game as I’d like. I’ve got my eyes on this modified original game boy, something I want more for collection purposes than anything else, so I’m focusing on getting enough money to buy that, but hopefully I’ll be making more reviews, playing more games, posting videos of me painting, and generally making an ass out of myself on a regular basis.