Ryu Ga Gotoku 5 stole my attention from Wasteland 2 this month. The Vanishing of Ethan Carter vanished from my hard drive after completing it in a few hours, but it’s still somewhat worthwhile. Last but not least, Danganronpa 2 is one I’ll dive into more seriously later on, but the first chapter was pretty good.
Working through my backlog landed me on Gone Home. Made me feel a thief breaking into a house just to go through their personal things - surprisingly enjoyable. I also started up Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs but I don’t think it is landing as well as The Dark Descent or other walking around simulators.
Also playing The Book of Unwritten Tales. I’m getting toward the end and like it more than it probably deserves - that gnome just seems so happy about the whole experience.
Diablo 3 until Destiny came out. Then Destiny almost exclusively.
Endless Legend for me. There are some nice innovations in the game, it’s very pretty, and it’s addictive. A fresh take on the 4X genre.
Honorable mentions to Out of the Park Baseball 15, which I play in an online league, and Kerbal Space Program.
Star Realms
Defense Grid 2
Hex
Despite having dozens of games I’d like to play, all I managed to play was Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
Dominions 4 (again) and Age of Wonders 3 with the updated AI
I can attest to this sickness… For over a decade.
Damn.
Well, CS in general.
Diablo 3
Should have been: Destiny (PS4/XB1)
Actually was: Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare (PC/XB1) and Pinball FX2 (360/XB1)
I got my GTX 970 and dived into Far Cry 3. It isn’t creating the same memorable moments as part 2, but I’m still having a great time.
Also decided to finally play a few levels of Super Mario 3D Land. Finally working on the 2012 titles of the backlog!
It was going to be ArcheAge for me, but that didn’t pan out well, at all.
I ended up playing straight through Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag on the PS4 because pirates. I am a huge AC fan and when I picked this up last year I was on AC burnout from playing the others straight through. Now super psyched for Unity. The overall story was sort of bland (in the real world). The pirates/Assassins story was good enough.
Diablo 3
Sadly, I have to mention ClickerHeroes as well. I realize how stupid this “game” is, but still I find myself opening it daily to distribute my gold. I don’t really know why. Curse you, ClickerHeroes! Curse you!
Shadowrun Dragonfall: Director’s Cut, which finally feels like a real Shadowrun RPG to me. If you were holding off after the mediocre initial release then now is the right time to try it.
I played and finished Black Flag as well (PS4). I didn’t think I’d want to play another AC game but the pirate theme sucked me in, big time. Plus, the graphics on the PS4 compared to previous-gen consoles is a huge step up and makes a big difference for me.
Rome 2 : Total War Emperor Edition - The recent FREE Emperor Edition update to Rome 2 has finally transformed the game into what it should have been at release. In addition to numerous tweaks to the UI and the AI, we got an overhaul to both the building system and the diplomacy/political system.
The building overhaul added new buildings with new properties to the game, and tweaked the properties of many existing ones so that the overall economic strategy portion of the game is much more engaging. Make the right decisions about what to build and where and you can really improve the economic health, military strength and overall success of your empire. The changes to diplomacy make it less of a crapshoot trying to negotiate with the AI factions, and they come to you with reasonable offers much more regularly now. I’ve been surprised a couple of times already by factions wanting to ally themselves with mine or sue for peace because it was the smart thing to do (not a choice the AI would have taken previously). Finally, the political system seems much more robust now, with tweaks to the way unrest works so that civil war can be managed and even avoided if you play the political game correctly.
Overall I would say that if you haven’t played Rome 2 in awhile because of frustration with the AI and the political/diplomatic/construction sub-systems, it’s time to come back and take another look. The game is far more playable now in terms of bug fixes and AI behavior, and the new tweaks add more layers of strategy to an already well layered game. With apologies to Tom, Rome 2 is FUN now!
Finally started playing Fire Emblem Awakening for the 3DS after buying it (and a 3DS) at release. Excellent game, so far my favorite of those I’ve played in
the series.
Picked up Final Fantasy, err, I mean, Bravely Default last week and played a few hours. Love the music, art direction (which reminds me of FF IX), combat system. But the writing and voice acting are just so-so and I can’t help wonder how much better it (or any Final Fantasy or other Squenix RPG) would be with Atlus doing the writing and localization.
Slainte Mhath, that was a fantastic Rome 2 write up, I am gonna re-install and put some time aside after this weekend to go give it another try.
Woohoo! I failed to mention that the Emperor Edition also includes a brand new campaign scenario (Augustus) for free as well. That makes it easy to jump back in if you don’t want to start a brand new grand campaign. Also note that if you have an old grand campaign save, the new buildings and some other features will NOT apply, as they would break your saved game data. You have to start a new campaign (of any type) to play with the new buildings.
I finished The Last of Us Remastered at the beginning of the month and it was my first time playing (well, technically I played the first quarter of the game on PS3) so this one ranks fairly high. I’ve also spent some time with Ubisoft’s Child of Light and dabbling in World of Warcraft in anticipation of the new expansion which marks my return to the game since Cataclysm. My game of the month, though, is Mario Kart 8. My wife and I have been playing together and she’s actually pretty good, so we’re having a blast. Any game that gets my wife to play them is the greatest game ever, as far as I’m concerned.