This is a weekly segment where we share what games we are currently playing for our readers to get to know us a bit better. Said games can range from retro to current and from casual to FPS games.
If we’re playing it, we’ll share it. Please feel free to comment with what you’re playing or your opinions on the games that we’re involved with.
Jake: Still TERA. Lots and lots of TERA. I did enjoy a bit of the new Mid Wars in HoN Friday night, however.
William: Legend of Dragoon is still the flavor of the week. Just got to disk three. I think the story is going to pick up now, as I have all of my team members, and everyone’s dragoon spirit (except for Kongol, but whatever, he’s fat and slow).
Little League of Legends here and there, also going to try the official ARAM mode in HoN this weekend. Really, I’m looking forward to Diablo 3 this next week. The rest of my gaming is just chilling at the moment.
Logan: Starhawk Starhawk Starhawk, and maybe…. some Starhawk.
Jeff: I’ve beaten it plenty of times, but I just can’t stay away from Batman: Arkham City. I’ve also played a few free downloadable games, namely Everyday The Same Dream and Sumotori Dreams, neither of which are related. The former is an artistic representation of how change is seen as destructive in our world, and the latter is about drunk polygons trying to push each other over. I also had a chance to revisit Wolfenstein 3D for the game’s 20th anniversary, and did far better than my 9-year-old self ever could. Finally, I played the very impressive (and very lengthy) demo for Spec Ops: The Line, and tried my luck with Gran Turismo 2012 Academy, both free downloads on the PlayStation Store.
Chris: Played a few rounds of Street Fighter X Tekken, but this lead to me playing another fighting game. Had some extended runs playing King of Fighters XIII, I still feel this is the best fighting game available right now. Also in the midst of these NBA playoffs, I played a few games of NBA 2k12. My create-a-player is a straight baller single handedly making the Suns relevant.
Greg: In order to get ready for the return of Big D this Tuesday, I have been playing Diablo 2 and Torchlight. Getting ready to crawl some dungeons and find some loot. Also to click a bunch. Yeah, I’m a little excited.
Jen: Got the chance to play Warlock: Master of the Arcane, which I reviewed here. However the highlight of my week was finally hitting level 50 in SWTOR. I still have plenty to do with my level 50 character (like finish up her story) which is a nice change from when I got to level 50 in City of Heroes. Once hitting level 49 in CoH, I would usually just farm with a group to slowly get me to 50. In SWTOR, I was too busy with the story to BS my way to level 50.
Ben: My goal this week was to finish up Mana Khemia so I could have no distractions from Diablo 3 next week and I did just that. If you are interested in randomly playing a Ps2 JRPG that no one has heard of, give it shot because it is very good. Besides that I played a bunch more of Awesomenauts, which is still awesome. And, because it was free on PS+, I started playing Trine 2. I like it but it can be frustrating. Mini review of Trine 2 if anyone is interested:
As I said, I do really like the game. It is beautiful and has compelling mechanics but too much of it is spent trying to figure out how to solve some of the puzzles. That would be acceptable if I had any idea of what I am supposed to do. I don’t really want to stop in every room to think and then feel like a moron. What I’m saying is that when the game has flow it is great. When I have to stop in each room for 5 minutes just to try and figure out a puzzle that has little clues, it is not. Maybe I’m just bad at it but I think they could have made the game world give better hints sometimes. The game lets you set when you want a hint to be given (2 mins or 5 mins) but I never saw a hint from it even if I just set my controller down for a bit.
Although I do appreciate that the puzzles can be solved in a number of ways, this leads to some issues. Oftentimes the solutions, or the ones I’ve come up with, are just unsatisfying. Or they are so simple they might as well not even be puzzles in the first place. I spent 10 minutes rigging up an elaborate machine when the solution was just to do one simple thing– it is upsetting. Compared to Portal 2 where I almost always felt awesome for figuring things out, I feel almost insulted at times in Trine 2.
The combat is fine and so are over half the puzzles but the remainder is just a frustrating, albeit very pretty looking, roadblock.
