Gaming Blogs

This week, I have played a little more of Mark Of The Ninja - finally reached the next level/chapter And I played some of 1954 Alcatraz early in the week - Controlling Joe, I now have him in the infirmary area, where i've managed to get out of the hospital cell and acquire a bunch of various items from the nearby area. Mostly this week, though, I've been playing Max Payne 3, in which I finished the stadium level/chapter and the bar level/chapter, and am now someway through the following level (which is hot onthe tail of the kidnappers) And also I've played quite a bit on Goodbye Deponia, having now reached the point where Rufus gets thrown off the Organon ship and lands on the junk press.  I've managed to do all this this past week without having to look up even just a hint! So I'm feeling quite proud of myself for that =+)

On Tuesday, I played several 4-player boardgames online.  First up was Cacao, a kind of tile-placing game where you're just trying to earn money - the most money at the end wins.  There are various types of jungles tiles, which you earn actions and resources from, and then each player has the same set of meeple-labelled tiles (with different combinations of meeple counts on each edge).  You earn stuff from jungle tiles by having the most meeples pointing at it from adjacent meeple-labelled tiles.  I had not played it before, and came last.  It took me a while to get the hang of it too.  Netx up was Kingdomino, a nice simply tile-placement game, with several different colours of tiles, that you are trying to place on your own area so that each different-coloured area is continuous, as you score more points that way.  Somehow I managed to win this one, but it is a really simple-to-understand game! Finally we played Love Letter.  I'd played this before a few times, albeit a while

For those who don't know, The Secret Of Monkey Island is the first game in the series of Monkey Island point-and-click adventure games, starring the unlikely hero Guybrush Threepwood.  It was actually released in 1990 so this year is its 30th anniversary! I first played this game many years ago, back on the Amiga A500 which was our family's first computer (which is where I discovered a love of computer games) The copy I borrowed off a friend, unfortunately, crashed at a certain point so I could not even complete the first part. Fast forward a couple of decades or so, and I see the remastered version on Steam.  So I bought it.  It was still another couple of years before I started playing it, but this time around, I was able to finish it! The remaster on Steam has the option of switching the graphics between their original low-res-ness, and the smoother remastered graphics, so I opted to keep the newer graphics, having seen plenty of the original style. This is one of those clas

This week I completed the indie point-and-click adventure game Ben There, Dan That.  The end credits show it was actuallly made in the Adventure Game Studio, a free tool for creating adventure games on PC. I've also returned to Bioshock (the first one, and not the remaster as unfortunately you can't move savegames from the original to the remaster) and played a bit more. I'm currnetly at the point where I'm trying to get access to "Fontaine's Fisheries", and I just defeated another of the Big Daddy bosses, again choosing to rescue the accompanying "Little Sister".  Having looked online, this means I'm roughly a quarter of the way through the game at this point. I installed Goodbye, Deponia, the 3rd out of 4 titles in the Deponia series. I've had to look up hints a couple of times, but mostly been able to figure out the puzzles myself. And finally I played some more Command And Conquer: Red Alert 3, completing the next (6th) mission in th

This week I completed Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge.  I admit there were times when I had to consuly a guide online, but luckily i found a site that only gives hints rather than full solutions, to the various puzzles in the game (think it has this for other similar titles too) I already knew a little about what happens at the end, I don't want to spoil it but it is...interesting (and not 100% obvious the meaning behind it) I've also been playing another point-and-click adventure game: Ben There, Dan That - an indie-made game from a few years ago.  I've still got a way to go on that game. Tuesday's online boardgaming involved a 5-player game of Celestia (my first of it - it's a push-your-luck game and quite fun) and a 5-player game of the co-op card trikc-taking game The Crew, in which we managed to complete...4 missions I think it was? Apparently the site we use saves your group's progress so hopefully we can carry on from there at some point. I also p

This week I managed to finish (not saying "complete" as i only played one of the 2 timelines, and did not get all of the collectibles) Wolfenstein: The New Order.  I had to consult a walkthrough again for the final boss fight - it's split into 3 main kind of sections, the first is fine, once you know what to do, but the second part is really tricky. I gave it several attempts before I (embarrassingly) had to turn the difficutly down to the lowest level! But i didn't want to spend a lot of time trying it because I have plenty of other singleplayer games that need playing.  However for the last section i handled it fine at the next-lowest difficulty, which is the one I played most of the game on.  I originally began playing on "normal" difficulty but turned it down a notch when I reached the first level that requries some steath - the one where you find more knives and get the ability to throw them. Having finished it, for now I have no desire to either go ba

This week I have played some more on Wolfenstein: The New Order, getting quite a way into (i've already passed 2 large firefight sections) the last chapter/level, Death's Head's Compound.  They were 2 big firefights featuring a number of mechs, plus the heavily-armoured rocket launcher troops, in with the easier-to-kil standard troops and stormtrooper-type troops.  Luckily there were still enough ammo, health and armour pickups to help me survive (I'm guessing that playing on the "easy" difficulty as opposed to "normal" helps with the number of such pickups) In Torchlight 2, I reached the roof of Vyrax's Tower dungeon, and did managed to defeat the big-boy dragon.  It was tough going but actually some of the battles earlier in the dungeon got me to lower health than i ever did in this last battle of the dungeon.  I aslo did not manage to find all of the secret rooms, so I thnk I will return to it and have a proper search around now that all the

This week I have played quite a bit of time on Wolfenstein: The New Order.  I completed the next level, being the one where you return to the Nazis' London Nautica base after having been at their moonbase.  This level includes a tense, big boss battle at the end, against a large, 4-legged mech called the London Monitor.  I did "cheat" a little at this, in that instead of spending time figuring out how to take it down, I looked up in a guide online.  Even so, at one point in the middle of the battle, i felt I was going to die on my first attempt at it, as I had lost most of my armour (m,y health was still OK though).  But, probably due to playing the game on what I consider the "easy" difficulty level, i managed to stumble on an armour boost right around that time. So, in the end, i did manage to take out this mech on my first attempt! I have now got a few savepoints into the next level, which sees you returning to the resistance base, now being full-on assualted

On Tuesday I played in a 6-player game of Alhambra on Boardgame Arena. The version on there is apparently in beta at the moment, but we did not encounter any issues with it. I had played it a few times before, in real life, but not for a long time, so i only managed 4th place.  I enjoyd it though - it's a fairly simple game, with only 3 possible actions you can choose from.  There is a way you can get more than one action on your turn, but it only happens quite rarely. You use money cards of different colours to pay for available tiles, which you then need to either place immediately, or store for later placement.  There are rules around placement of the tiles - you can't rotate them, and most have a wall on 1 or more sides, so you can't place a tile somewhere on your area if there is no unblocked route to it from your starting tile.  The tiles are also different colours, and that is what controls ther victory point scoring.  Basically the more you have of a particular colo

I have played some more on Monkey Island 2 this past week - I found a site that gives hints for the various puzzles, but not as far as giving the whole solution.  This is what I need, especially when I miss parts of conversations with the various charactersa in the game. I'm better at that than I used to be - in point-and-click adventure games, often clues can be found when eploring the various conversation trees in the game, and Monkey island 2 is no exception! It's important to pay attention, and also commit details to memory to help with later parts of the game.  I'm enjoying playing through it, at any rate. I have also played some more of Mark Of The Ninja - I'm slowly making progress, still on the first overall mission but I think nearing the end of it (the first mission) now.  For most of it i use the mouse and keyboard combination for control, although as I mentioned in a previous post, there is the odd occasion where I switch to my Xbox360 controller.  But that

(Posting this a couple of days late!) This week I mostly played on Monkey Island 2.  I got a little stuck, so i had to consult a guide a couple of times - to found out how to win at the gambiling game with the wheel, in the alley on Phatt Island.  (I then won each of the 3 prizes).  I also ended up reading about how to buy stuff from the shop on Booty Island.  I am still trying to do as much of the game myself, without looking it up in a guide. Also, on Saturday I played 2 different boardgames (Concordia and Crown Of Emara) within Tabeltop Simulator. For remote board/tabletop gaming, this is an excellent program, even if it relies on there being a good mod for the games you want to play.  In these days of the Covid pandemic, another way to play remotely is welcome. And at least when the mod you're playing has been well-made, it's an enjoyable experience, even if it does not beat/replace playing in person! Finally, on Saturday eveing i played around 1.5 hours of Phasmophobia, a

This week I mostly played some more of Mark Of The Ninja - I have now got further than I had on my previous PC, which I mentoned before I had lost a bit of that progress.  I found a couple more Artifacts (collectibles hidden throughout the level) and I suspect I'm nearing the end of the first mision/level. I also learned some more about how the savegame checkpoint system in the game works - the biggest thing being that you can re-visit a savegame checkpoint, when you've made some more progress nearby, in order to use the checkpoint again! This is useful for areas where there are a bunch of guards and dogs in a tricky location/patrol pattern, because it means you can save the game after taking out each guard individually, rather than having to play through the whole area in one go without making any mistakes. I also played a little more of Assassin's Creed II, learning some more about how the parkour system works (it's not every part of every wall that can be climbed on)

I managed to get in a few hours of PC gaming overall this past week.  I split this time between 4 different games.  First up, I picked up on Mark Of The Ninja.  I'd not played this since i upgraded to  a new machine near the end of last year.  It had, unfortunately, lost a bit of my progress, but thankfully not much.  I'm still on the first overall mission, but some way into it.  If you're unaware, Mark of The Ninjs is a 2D-action-stealth-em-up.  I mean, properly stealth - the only real way to take out enemy guards, for example, is to sneak up undetected and take them oui with one sword thrust.  It's also then a good idea to move the body where it won't be found by a living guard!  Control-wise, I tend to switch between mouse-and-keyboard, and (Xbox 360) controller - there are situations where io find the latter easier than the former, and vice versa.  Mouse-and-keyboard is my default, and I switch to controller when I need to. I've also put in more time this pa

This past week i have done a few hours of PC gaming. Some of that was on Wolfenstein: The New Order.  Being 6 years old or so, my PC handles it on high fraphics settings without even breaking a sweat.  But the graphics are good - I've been a PC gamer long enough that I remember the early days of 3D graphics, and we've come along way since those days in the early-to-mid 90s! I like the way there is a proper story to the game, with various plot points being revealed as you play, but some of these are not forced on you so you only encounter them if you explicitly look for them (both as extra items to find in-game, and also various voice-and-text items that are revealed as you play but have to be accessed from the game's menu and "diary". The action is good too - there are plenty of firefights against massed enemies, and there are genuinely different tactics that work best for different types of enemies. I admit i have it on the 2nd-easiest setting, mainly because I f

Again, not done much gaming this past week - I was actually away on a break Monday-Friday. The previous weekend, I did manage to have a quick go on Super Mario 3D World (bought myself a secondhand Wii U a while ago!) and during that session, I completed the boss fight level I had reached, which I think is/was the first one in the game - where you have to knock large rolling bombs back to the Bowser enemy (not sure if it's the main guy himself) and avoid the ones that are going to explode near you. I also played a little more on 1954 Alcatraz, a 3D point-and-click adventure I have on Steam, developed and published by Daedelic Entertainment. I have their Deponia series ( 4 games in total; 2 I've played so far) so when I saw this on offer I decided to buy it.  That was ages ago and I've only started playing it a month or two ago. It's a really good example of the genre - the puzzles are pretty much logical, and I've not needed to look up any hints or guides yet.  Even

I have not done much gaming this week, but when I did, it was Torchlight 2. This is an action RPG from a few years ago - it has a co-op mode but I'm just tackling it on my own! I am currently in the camp near the Blightbogs area, and I have no idea how much of the game is left (I may look that up online later) but I am attempting to find, and complete, every side quest as well as (obviously) the main story quest. My character build is a ranged-weapon specialist; my primary gear loadout has a powerful, enchanted pistol-type gun in each hand, and good pieces of armour that are all (or mostly) augmented with gems. One of my keyboard shortcuts is set to the only special ability I use - Rapid Fire. I also guzzle those health potions and mana potions! I can't recall what the animal is that I have for my pet, but it's some kind of wildcat-type-thing. The graphics are OK and there are various hidden secrets - see the screenshot below, where I was rewarded for exploring a boss area,

So this week, myself and Craig managed to get in 2 plays of Payday 2 - one on Tuesday and one yesterday (Thursday) The Thursday session worked out really well.  We attempted a "stealthy" heist, which previously we attempted a number of times (on Tuesday) but failed badly on each attempt.  So this time around we took a more planned approach - We even made use of the pre-game planning function offered in Payday 2.  From our previous lot of unsuccessful attempts, we kind of knew a number of the possible patrol routes for some of the armed guards. Being a stealthy heist, you can't kill too many of the armed guards or the alarms trigger and you're most likely to fail it.  Even restricting the numbers you klll, you have to go right near the body of each one you take down, and "interact" to use their radio/pager to keep suspicions down. We kept to a stealthy route in to the main building, a warehouse with several floors and various rooms, entering via the roof afte

Another of the games from my "list of shame".  I bought this not too long after it was released, and it included a bunch of DLC.  The little i saw of it (at the time, on the videogaming TV channel GINX TV, which although a bit light on content is sorely missed!) suggested it as a first-person heist simulator.  That was enough to get me to buy it when on offer. Sometime later I also read a bit about it in a gameplay guide, which further suggested it to be a heist RPG, with skills and equipment and cosmeticsa for your character, that could be levelled and earned. Well, now I have actually had a play of it (I completed 1 easy-level heist, with a friend and 2 AI players) I know it really is nothing like that.  It has the FPS + RPG elements, yes, but it plays like a zombie horde shooter that has just been re-skinned, with the enemies becoming various types of law enforcement, with varying levels of weapons and armour. There is even a kind of respawn system within heists, at least

Star Wars: Legion is a tabletop miniatures game, set in the continuity of Star Wars, made by the company Fantasy Flight Games.  I did have a bit of a play of a beginner setup at the UK Games Expo last year, with my good friend Craig.  But it wasn't really a proper go at it. Fast forward a load of months, and Craig decided to "pull the trigger" and buy the starter set.  This was just before the whole Covid situation hit the UK, so we only managed to get around to having a proper game of Legion last Monday, the 10th August. I chose to lead the Rebel scum, and Craig was the evil Empire.  We chose to play the beginner scenario, with only some basic terrain (barricades) in specified postions, and our squads of troopers and our vehicles did not have any special weapons/other equipment. Legion is elegant - not too complicated - by just using several different colours of dice (separately for attacking and defending) rather than a load of tables you have to consult.  So each diffe

I actually also have the first PC Blood Bowl game, but I never got around to playing it.  So, Blood Bowl 2 - a few of my friends were setting up a small PvP league to have a go at, and I decided to join them.  There were 5 of us human coaches, plus one AI.  I decided to give the Skaven a go (a populous race of ratmen) as they are my chosen faction from the Warhammer world, and what little I knew about Blood Bowl is that it's a violent version of American Football, set in Games Workshop's fantasy world of Warhammer. This soon revealed itself to be a mistake - In Blood Bowl 2, the Skaven are quite specialised, excelling in speed (how far their players can move each turn, and how good they are at dodging opponents' attacks, known as Blocks in the world of Blood Bowl) but being quite weak and "squishy" once an opposing player gets hold of one of them. In addition to this first mistake, I opted for an automatically-generated team.  This turned out to be another mistake

 Right, I'm going to try and write one post per week, actually writing about games I'm playing (viedogames, boardgames, and tabletop games) rather than simply listing them!