Progress

Wrapped-up Legend of Grimrock II; game of the year, right there. Almost done with Bravely Default. Slogging through Metro 2033. Started Alien: Isolation; surprisingly rough around the edges (occasionally awful animation and scripting), but otherwise stunning in its presentation; into it.

Found a great deal on a brand new Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon - Core i5-4300U, 4GB 1600MHz DDR3, 128GB SSD, 14.0" 1440p IPS multi-touch screen, and 64-bit Windows 8.1 Pro for $999; down from $1739... Mentioned it to my brother, an then my mom bought it for me... Holy crap.

Vaguely

Bought LEGO City Undercover and Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker for Wii U, and Freedom Wars for Vita... Haven't had the time to play any of them, or Alien: Isolation, yet :( Finished Crysis 3; it was okay. Metro 2033 got really boring by the time I reached the Nazis; hasn't gotten better. Legend of Grimrock II and Bravely Default are still awesome.

I'm really not enjoying Symantec Backup Exec 2014.

Recently swapped a bunch of parts from various computers to assemble the following three:

• Core i5 2500K
• Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 rev2.0
• 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 (dual channel)
• 1GB Radeon HD 5850
• 64GB OCZ Vertex SSD
• 1TB Seagate 7200RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s HDD
• 64-Bit Windows 7 Ultimate

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• Core 2 Duo E6750
• ASUS P5K-E/WiFi-AP
• 4GB 800MHz DDR2 (dual channel)
• 320MB 550MHz GeForce 8800 GTS
• 160GB + 3x320GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s HDDs
• 32-bit Windows Vista Business

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• Core 2 Duo E6750
• ASUS P5K
• 4GB 800MHz DDR2 (dual channel)
• 512MB Radeon HD 3870
• 250GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s HDD
• 32-bit Windows Vista Business

...And now I feel vaguely productive.

Deal or No Deal?

$330 for ~$550 worth of stuff (XBOX One, Assassin's Creed Black Flag and Unity, and a $50 gift card or another game) would be very tempting if I actually wanted either of those games on that platform... The PS4 deals are even less tempting :\

I did snag Alien: Isolation plus all seven pieces of DLC for $55 at the humble Store though, which is MUCH better than the $100, store-specific pre-order bullshit they tried at launch.

Finally moving forward with Crysis 3 and Metro 2033 again after getting snagged on some particularly tricky save-points... Bravely Default is still awesome, and Legend of Grimrock II is getting tougher... Or maybe I'm just not doing it right.

Also...

...I bought Bayonetta 2 the day it was released and nearly a week later, a boxed Dreamcast broadband adapter... And if I'm not playing Legend of Grimrock II at home, I'm playing Bravely Default on the go.

Can't Stop

Seriously, I can't stop playing Legend of Grimrock II. Everything else is on hold when I'm at home. It's a really, really good game.

Savings!

So I bought a brand-new, $560 MSRP, factory-overclocked (1006/1059MHz, up from 863/900MHz) GeForce GTX 780 for $340, and it included $150 of free games - Three Splinter Cell games (Double Agent, Conviction, and Blacklist) and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. I literally just saved $370, or ~52%, off retail.

Spendin' Money

I want to buy Bayonetta 2 and Hyrule Warriors, mostly because I want to support the Wii U... The thing is, they're both selling at a premium price ($65 here in Canada) and I don't actually enjoy those styles of action game. For example, while I haven't finished any of them, I've played every Devil May Cry game, and they're just so silly, thumb-cramp-inducing, and drawn-out in their combat. DmC was probably my favourite, and I quickly sold my copies of the first three... That's probably blasphemy... Also, Otogi was cool... Ninja Gaiden kinda blows... God of War is more my pace when it comes to that genre ;) Same goes for the whole Dynasty Warriors/N3/whatever style; I always got too bored before too long to bother sticking around.

D'ah well.

Have I ever mentioned that I loved S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, bugs 'n all? Did I mention that Clear Sky almost turned me off the whole genre completely and I'm afraid to touch Call of Pripyat? Or how I initially thought Metro 2033 was much more similar to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. than it actually is? No? Huh. Well... Yeah. Finally got around to Metro (not Redux), and it's kinda exactly what I've been itching for. Despite being really rough around the edges, it's still just a fun, atmospheric, story-driven FPS that's neither too easy nor too unforgiving. I'm kinda upset that I waited so long to play it, but also really looking forward to Last Light all of a sudden :)

Ooh! Also! GeForce 780s've been slashed to, like, $300! Video card upgrade time! I'm looking at the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 780 AMP! Edition 'cause it's regularly, like, $560. I'm still really happy with my Radeon HD 5850, but I've got a good home for that one, too.

No, I don't gotta...

I played the first Pokémon game when it was released, and I found it to be simplistic, but solid. I didn't really play another title in the series until X/Y... Which are kinda awful. I was expecting them to be slick, streamlined, and kinda perfect by now; instead I found a confused mess of a game designed to literally waste time. I get it; you gotta keep those kids occupied, so make the messages, menus, and prompts as slow and convoluted as possible; but man, when there's like 750 monsters to catch and a number of incredibly deep subsystems to manage, it all just feels to brutally inefficient.

Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS is pretty cool though, I guess.

Paradise?

Why didn't anyone tell me Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2012) was so much fun!? I'd played every Need for Speed (and Burnout) game except for this one, and I'm not sure why I held-off on it. I guess I did keep hearing it was pretty flawed, multiplayer-focused, and simply not as good as Most Wanted (2010)... But none of that takes away from how much fun it is! Yeah, the controls're too floaty, the rubber-band gameplay makes races mostly pointless, the HUD map is almost useless, the DLC isn't worth $30~$45, and the soundtrack is godawful more often than not; but it's still a hell of a lot of fun, so I highly recommend it.

Aliens: Infestation on DS is a solid Metroid clone, by the way.

Aliens vs. Predator (2010) kinda sucks :(

I think I'm gonna give Titanfall another go once I wrap-up Crysis 3... Even though Crysis 3 is still kinda of a slog.

Left Behind

I try to finish, at least, the main campaign of every game I purchase, but sometimes... Ergh. Lately, off the top of my head, I've stalled on Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (too much superfluous crap!), Enslaved (great story and platforming; too bad the combat's a bit of a slog), Crysis 3 (stunning graphics; questionable stealth), Super Princess Peach (she relies on her emotions and goes shopping? Really?), and The Swapper (those puzzles get difficult toward the end!)... And then I started The Last of Us: Left Behind, and immediately remembered how awesome stuff can be; it's been too few and far between playing games that have me constantly coming back for more.

Such Nintendo

Wrapped-up Ghost Trick; it's awesome, so play it.

Got my Wii U, Mario Kart 8, New Super Mario Bros. U, Nintendo Land, and ZombiU. The system's setup wizard was annoying because it wouldn't let me see the unit's MAC address, so I chose to set-up WiFi later, then it asked me to add my existing account, but needed to connect to the Internet to do so, so I disabled my MAC filter, but it wouldn't let me go back to the WiFi settings, and then wanted to do a system update, and I can't remember the exact details now... I'm tired... The point is, I had to create a dummy account just to get started, only to delete it later; not the end of the world, but kind of annoying. Regardless, the system is friggin' sweet.

Also picked-up Mario Kart 7 and burned through it pretty quickly. Fun.

Annal

Picked-up Mario Kart 8 just in time to capitalise on the free game promotion; Wii U should arrive today; in the meantime, I played through a 50cc circuit on every Mario Kart game I own.

• Super Mario Kart was simplistic but still fun.
• Mario Kart 64 was just as good as I remembered.
• Mario Kart: Super Circuit was even better than I remembered.
• Mario Kart: Double Dash!! has aged incredibly well; probably my favourite of the bunch.

I haven't actually played Mario Kart DS, Wii, or 7, so I'm willing to bet 8's gonna feel kinda fresh.

P.S. Ghost Trick rules.

Fate

Finally sitting-down with Ghost Trick on DS; four chapters in, and I'm stoked to see the rest. There's so much character, and the visual design is incredibly stylish... It's also available for iOS, and totally worth your time.

Tried Band of Monsters on Android because it was free... I'd read it was a solid Pokemon clone... It's not. The translation is actually painful to wait through, and the basic battle system doesn't impress.

Bought Paper Mario for N64, OlliOlli (which is rad) and TxK (which is awesome) for Vita, The Last of Us: Left Behind and Rain for PS3, and Wonderful 101 for Wii U because I dunno why.

5

I love id Tech 5. I wish RAGE had a better ending. Wolfenstein: The New Order is awesome and cheesy and over-the-top and still awesome. Play it.

Bought a Wii U because I found a better deal than the Mario Kart 8 bundle. While that bundle gets you ~$75 worth of free stuff for $350, it was brought to my attention that a factory-refurbished Wii U plus Nintendo Land is only $200... So that plus Mario Kart 8 plus a Wii Remote Plus plus this $5 coupon for Target will get me $90 worth of free stuff for $300! I don't get the plastic steering wheel, but I can live with that :)

Also, hey, speculators, the only thing unique about that Mario Kart 8 bundle is the box; it is NOT worth $500 :(

Power!

Posting this from my new old 1.8GHz G5 iMac; got it for free. Installed OS X 10.5 and 2GB of DDR400 RAM. Web browsing is a little sluggish and it can't seem to handle HD video streams... That is to say, playback is chunky and the whole system tends to power-off under stress. Wheee!!!

More Raven!

Before digging-in to Wolfenstein: The New Order, I figured I should finally track-down a copy of Raven's 2009 Wolfenstein... I'd heard it wasn't very good... It isn't very good. It's not bad, but it is incredibly rough. The cutscenes look cheap, the voice acting is cheesy, the character animations are awkward, the open world is a chore to navigate and doesn't add any real kind of immersion to the experience, and this is on id Tech 4!? DOOM 3 looked much better :( Still, once you get the rhythm of the game, it's not a slog to finish.

Also, Phantom Hourglass is now the second Zelda game I've officially abandoned because its gameplay just wasn't fun for me; the first was The Adventure of Link. Making me blow on and yell at my DS isn't very fun when I'm on the subway or late at night; an option to do otherwise would've been swell. I hear Spirit Tracks is more of the same... No thanks.

Summer Sale

Steam Summer Sale purchases thus far:

• BattleBlock Theatre
• Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
• DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue
• Deus Ex: The Fall
• Transistor
• The Walking Dead: Season Two
• The Wolf Among Us
• Wolfenstien: The New Order
• X-COM: Enemy Within
• Year Walk

Also, Stick It to The Man was great and I highly recommend it, Reaper of Souls is a hell of a lot of fun, and Half-Minute Hero II is a satisfying sequel to one of my favourite games ever.

Titanfall is super fun and pretty and yeah... But I'm also still just not that into online gaming, apparently :\

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds is a good time and looks great, but it also feels kinda stale and the two-worlds cliché is weak... I expected more from Zelda... So upon completing the game, I immediately jumped-into Phantom Hourglass, and ARGH! Piss-poor writing and gimmicky controls! Again, still fun, but what the hell, Nintendo!? My top three Zelda games remain Link's Awakening, Minish Cap, and Majora's Mask :p

Poor Raven :(

I finally got around to playing Singularity! Later the next day, I had nearly completed Singularity. While it's not an overly-long game, it's not too short either; I was actually just so into it that I kept coming back. It looks good, the story's interesting, the action is tense and visceral - Raven did it again... Almost. Is it a BioShock clone? Yup. Do the expository setpieces break the flow of everything else? Oh yeah. Is the upgrade system pointless? Uh-huh. Are the NPCs dead-eyed and unpolished? To a T! I heard there might've been some serious cuts to the production of this game after Wolfenstein failed to perform as expected, so that might explain what went wrong - but it's still totally solid and worth checking out.

Also, did anyone else notice that Singularity's story shared quite a bit with the new Wolfenstein game?

Also, does anyone remember how AWESOME Raven's Heretic II is? Too bad it was released next to Half-Life :(

Minority Report

Bought a Kinect for my 360 for, like, $25 with The Gunstringer, Kinect Adventures, Kinect Party, Kinectimals... Now with Bears!, and Once Upon a Monster. They're all solid experiences, but motion controls and voice commands are still stupid in lieu of controllers... In conjunction with controllers, however, we can talk.

Started Stick it to the Man! on Steam, and it's pretty awesome, especially considering the $3.75 sale price at the Humble Store! Kentucky Route Zero Episode Three is next, with bouts of Half-Minute Hero II (finally!) throughout... Then I figure I should get into Reaper of Souls 'cause I paid full price for it :\

Arkham Origins has yet to keep my attention :(

Let's see if I can remember everything...

On Vita, I wrapped-up Ys: Memories of Celceta, and it was wonderful. Every post-Napishtim entry in this series seems to be an instant classic and has yet to disappoint... Though I've yet to play Ys Origin. Then I ploughed-through Tearaway, and OH MY CRAP! While the feeling didn't exactly hold-up through the entire experience, I was immediately ready to add this to the hallowed halls of truly great third-person platformers alongside Psychonauts, Beyond Good & Evil, and Super Mario 64. Tearaway is overflowing with character, and the production values are incredible! I was a little disappointed at how dark, barren, and weird things got by the end (the verdant settings felt a lot more interesting), but I was still satisfied and will likely go back to 100% this thing. Tearaway is so much more than a tech demo; it absolutely deserves to be a system seller with a vibrant UGC community!

Moving on, Sonic Generations on 3DS is a great companion to its PC/console counterpart, and Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode II (PC) is... Well, it's not as good, so far. Thankfully, I've gotten back into the groove of Shin Megami Tensei IV. Bascially, I'm saying the portables are killing it right now :)

Speaking of PC, Outlast is a fantastic experience that everyone should endure, BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea - Episode 2 is a fine (if somewhat unnecessary; the two main games stand-up well on their own) send-off to a beautiful series, and Dishonored: The Brigmore Witches is exactly what I want from that franchise - more of the same :) I've never been huge on stealth games; I refuse to play them in any way other than non-lethal and I can be a notorious save-scummer, so they'd damned-well better have a good story to tell and a vibrant world to explore.

And to wrap-up, Quake Epsilon is totally sweet, the newest Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit was an absolute steal during its recent Steam sale, and Batman: Arkham Origins + its season pass on sale for $15? Yeah, I can do that.

Ohhh... I get it!

Polished-off A Machine For Pigs... Creepy as hell, but I think I had a better experience with The Dark Descent. Still, worth your time!

Getting back into the new Ys, and then Shin Megami Tensei IV... And The Brigmore Witches in between.

Of the three PCs affected by the storm, two just needed new PSUs; the other was mostly toast, so it's now salvage... Whatever usefulness I can get out of an old Sempron rig, anyway. The good news is that I recently came into a 3.2GHz HT Pentium 4 machine with 2GB of RAM and a Vista license, so that'll do nicely as a replacement :)

Back It Up!

Stalled on A Machine For Pigs and Ys, but wrapped-up Burial At Sea (good stuff!) and the first act of Broken Age (also good stuff!).

Saved a company ~$10,000 by recovering/rebuilding an old Windows 2000 machine that was running the only copy of their ancient HVAC control software, and put a system in place that can resurrect the machine (should this happen again) in ~15 minutes.

Lost three computers to a recent power surge, despite being connected to a surge protector and a UPS... Damned epic ice storm. So far, it looks like only the PSUs were affected, and they're nothing fancy, so cheap will do.