Gaming Blogs

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...