What to game, what to game?…

I’ve hit a bit of a slump after finishing listening to the two books in the Kingkiller Chronicles. That was filling my evenings and I was doing chores and playing a bit of Magic: Puzzle Quest while listening. The books are phenomenal, and the audio book was a great presentation as well.

However, kind of like the Amazon ads, I hit a “show hole,” or in this case a book hole, and I wasn’t sure what to read or listen to or do next. I had put 80 hours into listening to the Kingkiller Chronicles, with more and more towards the end.

I have a few books out from the library: Jo Walton’s The Just City out in print, and Station Eleven in audio book, but neither seemed quite right (although I have finally started listening to Station Eleven: liking it so far). But really, what I felt like doing was playing a video game.

I was immediately stopped because we have not yet setup the X-Box 360 in a new place at the new house. This limited my choices considerably, although it especially brought me up short as I was starting to think about replaying something like Final Fantasy XIII-2 (which is not yet backwards compatible) or Diablo III (which had a fancy X-Box One version come out so won’t be backwards compatible).

Given our recent discussion of replaying versus new material, I turned next to thinking about new games. There’s not really one I’m looking to play that we already owned, but now that we don’t have a data cap, the idea of buying a digital game and downloading it doesn’t seem like a terrible idea. Final Fantasy XV isn’t as cheap as I’d like it to be (might be an okay $20 game). I’ve heard such rave reviews of Witcher III that I strongly considered that one, but with the digital game I can’t tell if it’s equivalent to the “Game of the Year” edition which would have lots of the content as well. I did check for this at the store in town as well, but no luck… Hmmm, maybe an Amazon purchase…

My search for a new game to play leaving me unsatisfied, I turned to games I haven’t completed yet. I got started with Dishonored 2 and was liking it alright, but I also felt like I wanted to play in a different way than vaguely stealthy and want to start over – I’m giving myself a bit more time before doing that! On the other hand, I was well into Final Fantasy Type-0 HD, but it’s been long enough since then that diving back into the end feels daunting. Same with Kingdom Hearts 2 HD.

There was playing a classic, as well. I had started playing Final Fantasy VII on the PSP, but when it ran out of power it lost my progress during what is apparently a super long section without a save point – working your way up Shinra Tower! I could play it or VIII easily enough on the PSP or the PS3, but those didn’t feel right.

I also got to thinking about Baldur’s Gate 2 Enhanced Edition, which I had picked up on the computer but haven’t played because I haven’t really played anything on the computer in some time. I had this one recommended to me on Facebook recently by Jeremy, as well, so I may turn to it next…

But the game I ended up picking back up, however, is Mass Effect: Andromeda. The news that this game will probably not have DLC or sequels took some wind out of my sails in terms of finishing the game. However, it also felt like a game where I’ve played recently enough that jumping back in wasn’t a problem, I’m far enough that I feel the completionist desire to finish it, and knowing that I’ll probably just finish it and be good with it, I’ve decided to mainly just focus on the main story and companion quests. Hopefully I knock this one out soon!

Of course then, I might just be back into another bout of wondering what to play…

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Different Parts of Video Games – Comparative Opinions Episode 50

Welcome to the Comparative Opinions podcast! You know when you reach the point in a video game where you find yourself doing something very different from the rest of the game? Well, that’s what hosts David and Holly talk about this week, citing some examples of when games have done it wrong, and when they’ve done better!

Comparative Opinions is a weekly half-hour-ish podcast hosted on ComparativeGeeks.com. Subscribe for new episodes every Sunday!

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Music is by Scott Gratton: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Scott_Gratton/Intros_and_Outros

Kingdom Hearts 3 at E3 2017!

It’s E3, and while there aren’t many games that we’re currently on the lookout for, there is one in particular that we’ve talked about before on the podcast: Kingdom Hearts 3. And lo, a trailer!

On the one hand, a trailer makes it feel like the game is coming along and can be expected sometime soon, since there weren’t any trailers at E3 in 2016 (previous videos had come from 2015). So while the development on this one has been a long time coming (Kingdom Hearts 2 came out in 2005… for the PS2), it might finally be getting close to seeing the light of day. The last rumors I saw placed it sometime in early 2018, which to be honest might be right around when I have time to play it!

On the other hand, this trailer doesn’t really show anything super exciting or new. Characters we’ve seen before, an updated Olympus, some updated combat moves and animation. But I guess I should say, these feel like backbone elements. The sorts of things that in theory should have been in place for a while at this point. The real work is in developing new worlds and new characters, drawing from more Disney and Final Fantasy sources. This didn’t show us any of those.

Even the previous trailers showed more new stuff, focusing especially on some of the new summons – which seem based on Disney rides. Seem cool. Basically Doomtrain:

Anyway… I don’t know. Is this actually a good sign? Is this game truly coming soon? The best news for us, really, was that it still has X-Box One listed as a console it’s coming out for. How about you – what caught your eye about Kingdom Hearts 3? Let us know!

That Feeling When… All You Want To Do Is Curl Up With Something You Know

I’ve been feeling a lot lately like what I want to do is curl up with something I know, something I’m familiar with. And when you have that feeling, well, it helps drive your decision making, right? Like, we’ve been re-watching Parks & Rec – a show we finished watching not that long ago.

We traveled with a number of games we love and know, as well. We got Diablo 3 in and I remembered that’s a ton of fun on the console, with a shared screen. We played some Borderlands 2 and now I’d really like to try a new playthrough with our powerful characters.

I wanted to play a Final Fantasy game and so I picked back up Final Fantasy VII on the PSP over the choice of something like Crisis Core or Tactics, both of which I haven’t played much. And I picked up XCom for a new playthrough, and oh man, I had forgotten how much fun this game is.

It’s my base!

And there’s a new Final Fantasy game and a new XCom game I could be playing instead. And could be reviewing here on the site.

Which means, there’s maybe the real problem: there’s media-related things I should be doing, we should be doing, to find new things. To review new things. To write about. And I’m sure we will, and we do. I mean, we played 7 Wonders Duel yesterday for the first time, and that was a blast!

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And we’ve delved into new shows and things, and we’re looking ahead at a new movie season, and all that. But you know? Sometimes you just want to curl up with something you know and bask in some nostalgia and things that you know are good.

How about you, readers? What do you do when you feel like this? Do you give in to the nostalgia? Do you push yourself towards new experiences? I’d love to hear your strategies and opinions in the comments below!

Specialization in Role Playing Games – Throwback Thursday

We’ve been thinking a lot about World of Warcraft lately – more on that to come – but that had me looking back for related posts. I found this incredibly long essay about where games have gone with specialization of roles in role-playing games. Interesting to consider now a couple of years on – with D&D 5th Edition out and as a return to the older style of the game, and with Final Fantasy XV coming out and seemingly action-styled like Lightning Returns. Or to consider a game series like Dark Souls, which I have been playing a bit again lately, where with only one character to control – and the odds stacked heavily against you – you need to be ready for anything! If this all sounds interesting to you, I think my discussion holds up so give it a read! And just to warn again, it’s a long one!

This is a post idea I’ve had for a long time. My initial thought is this: lately I feel like there has been an increasing move towards specialization in characters in role playing games (RPGs). Meaning that before you often had characters who needed to be able to handle a multitude of situations, need to be able to heal and do damage and take a hit – all in one character, or all in each character.

However, that has been decreasing of late. Instead, we see the rise of roles like Tanking, Healer, and DPS. You see it in party-based online situations especially, and with the rise of MMORPGs, there’s a lot of this going on online and in big-name games people are putting a lot of time into. However, a further place you see this happening was in Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition, which was built to in many ways play like an MMO.

So I will look a bit at both of those – MMOs and D&D 4th Edition – but what really has me thinking about this is that I now have an even better case study. the Final Fantasy games. In Final Fantasy XIII, they hit the most specialized that they ever have; however, in breaking away from that in Lightning Returns, they are moving back to a place where you have far more control over customizing your character. So have we hit the far extent of the trend? Are we moving back away from specialization? That’s the question I will close with!