My Gaming Landscape [November 14th, 2015]

Gamers, I come to you today a defeated man. Partially because I had an overwhelming month where I find it hard to concentrate on just one or two games. Mostly because I had to stop playing a game due to technical issues. In fact, please forgive the lack of pictures and polish I typically put into these.

First, the easy stuff. I continued playing Batman: Arkham Asylum and Mirror’s Edge for my YouTube channel. Batman: Arkham Asylum is still a great game, as I clearly elaborated on in my nearly 3,000 word review, and Mirror’s Edge continues to underwhelm me, though I see the potential. I didn’t play too much though, as I’ve only done two videos for each in the three weeks or so since the last Gaming Landscape. Just have had trouble finding the motivation to record.

With the recent talk of Call of Duty: Black Ops III, I thought about catching up with the series. So I downloaded Call of Duty: Black Ops, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Call of Duty: Black Ops III, Call of Duty: World at War, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, Call of Duty: Ghosts, and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. Essentially all the Call of Duty games I haven’t played and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was the last I played. I tried each one, just to make sure they ran properly on my computer and they did for the most part, even Black Ops III, and I’m now playing the first Black Ops on my Twitch channel. I just started though because I’ve been falling behind on streaming too. This has been mostly due to my sleeping schedule being all screwed up as of late. So I’m not up when I think it would be an appropriate time to stream.

I was planning to stream Resident Evil Revelations since it was Halloween not too long ago. However, I only played a little bit on my own and decided not to. I bought Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil: Code Veronica on the PS3 during the PSN sale but didn’t actually end up playing them for longer than 10 minutes each. I did wind up playing Resident Evil 3: Nemesis for a bit, which I already owned. I wrote an Unplayable rant about that game way back when I first started writing. Since then, I’ve learned to appreciate the RE games for the puzzles and atmosphere but still don’t like the controls. They just aren’t precise enough. Even if it’s like that to enhance the horror, that doesn’t mean the game feels good to play.

Speaking of my old posts, I was reading one of my oldest post, a Discussing article called RPG Bypass and I noticed that one of the games I was playing back then but never finished was Mass Effect. So I decided to load it up on Origin and start playing. I got stuck playing that game for hours. I really got into it, mostly because of the politics and the various missions I got to do on the citadel. I really enjoy the various dialogue options, the characters and various alien races, and the slow but methodical pace. What I don’t really like is the combat. For what it is, it works fine but only barely. I found that my partners were constantly dying and giving them orders wasn’t intuitive or quick enough. The shooting controls feel stiff and guns so far lack a satisfying punch to them. I’m still very much enjoying the game but I’m starting to not like when I have a combat section to go through.

Real quick, I’ll go through some quick titles I touched on briefly. I loaded up Assassin’s Creed to test out a graphics mod. I think I’ll do either a stream or let’s play of the game with the mods some time in the future. I played some Street Fighter Alpha 3 on Fightcade because I finally got it working. I want to stream that as well but so far, Fightcade doesn’t want to cooperate with OBS so I need to figure that out first. I downloaded Sonic Lost World on the PC to try it out, being a big Sonic fan. It’s pretty much the same as on the Wii U but a bit prettier and without touch controls.

I streamed Final Fantasy VII with mods for a little but ultimately still haven’t gotten back into the game. I played Clay Fighter: Sculptor’s Cut on an emulator because I was in a weird mood one weekend. That’s my only real excuse for that. FYI, Clayfighter 63 1/3 is the better version of that game. Lastly, I completed Super Mario 3D Land and that game is padded like crazy. You essentially have to go through the game four times. The controls of the game feel like the physics and abilities of Super Mario Bros. 1 and that’s a huge step down. It’s not a bad game but it is the worst of the recent Mario games and is extremely mediocre.

Alright. Now for the main reason I feel defeated. I was played Tales of Zestiria on the PC for review for the site I write for, Middle of Nowhere Gaming. It was fairly slow going because I got caught up playing the next game I’m going to talk about. However, I kept at it and had made serious progress. Literally this morning, I realized that not only was my save file corrupted but I didn’t have my backup either. So I basically would have to start over. I’m not going to so I have to abandon that review. That really pissed me off because I was having a good time with that game. The combat was fun and varied, the story was interesting if predictable, and even though the dungeons felt aesthetically the same, they were broken up so it wasn’t that much of a problem. That’s my opinion so far but I feel like I didn’t get to play enough to really form an actual critique of the game. Maybe someday, I’ll come back to it but for now, I’m out.

Finally, I played The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess on the Wii. I’ve played this game before but I never made it past the first dungeon. That intro just drags on so long. Even the beginning of the game feels padded thanks to the collecting of tears to purify a section of the map. However, once the map opens up when you get the ability to switch between human and wolf forms, I really liked the game. Twilight Princess has the best world map of any 3D Zelda game. It’s not baron like Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker. It’s the closest to the 2D Zelda maps a 3D Zelda game has ever gotten.

However, the dungeons are lacking. Most of them are too long and overstay their welcome. The later dungeons suffer from lame items, like the Dominion Rod, and the infamous Spinner. Minigames are pretty fun. I liked the hookshot challenge especially in Hyrule Town. However, I never found the point of fishing. You get nothing for it. What’s the point? What’s my motivation? Ultimately, I liked this 3D Zelda almost as much as Ocarina of Time. I was thinking of doing a full review of the game but with the HD remaster announced, I think I’ll save that for when I get to play that version. It’ll already be better since it has buttons instead of motion controls nonsense!

And that’s what I’ve been playing. Since I got overwhelmed with games this past few weeks, I’m going to start fresh and not continue any of the games I started. Or maybe not. We’ll see how I feel. So what have you been playing? Let me know in the comments section and check out my Wordpress blog for more. Peace and Love, gamers and players! Colorwind out.