Brütal Legend

The most metal game ever made.

Worship the Gods of Rock

Brütal Legend is an over the shoulder adventure game where you play a roadie who is sucked into a world of pure rock and roll. The game is about 2/3 adventure, exploration, and story with 1/3 first person real time strategy.

Should You Buy It?

I got it free somewhere so I bet you can find it for dirt cheap. In any case the answer is YES. If you like Heavy Metal (the movie), Spın̈al Tap, or Jack Black you should give the game a try. Worst case scenario is that you love the first half hour and never come back.

Ratings (1-10)

Story: 8 -- If it was generic fantasy world, story would get a 6. Being set in a world of heavy metal makes it so much better.

Graphic Design: 8 -- The world screamed Rock and Roll. It was creative, amusing, and engaging. Maybe this should even be a 9.

Graphic Quality: 6 or 7 -- the game is a bit old so it's not fair to judge. Some models are blocky or cartoony. It worked really well though. 

Gameplay: 5 -- nothing wrong with the gameplay, but nothing special. I didn't get into the combo moves. The RTS elements were enough to keep me invested in the story but few enough that I didn't get bored.

Soundtrack: 11 -- it goes to 11

Voice Acting: 9 -- this is a tough one. Jack Black is always a lot of fun. Jennifer Hale is one of the best voice actors in the industry. Tim Curry brings a typical amazing performance. Some of the other voice acting is done by musicians (including Ozzy Osbourne) who aren't actors. The voice is perfect but the lines are sometimes stilted. Not too bad, but prevents me from giving it a 10.

Oxenfree

A short and sweet point and click adventure with strong interpersonal dialogue.

Review

Oxenfree is a simple adventure game that explores the hero's relationships while solving a haunted island. The adventure itself is fairly straightforward. There aren't many puzzles and the plot is mostly linear. What makes the game endearing is the dialog. It's cute, heartfelt, funny, and sad. The game had a slow start and I almost quit after 5 minutes, but I'm glad I hung in there.

Pros

• Interesting plot
• Meaningful dialog
• Good pacing
• Good voice acting

Cons

• I did not connect with the teenage female protagonist in this strong 1st person game
• As a grumpy old man, the dialog was grating to me. It sounded like a bunch of teenagers talking, with a lot of "... or whatever" and "I guess ..." and "... or something". 

Should You Buy It?

If you are a teenage girl, yes, absolutely. The farther you are from that, the less likely you should buy it. Teenage boy? Sure. 30-year old girl? Maybe.. yeah. 50 year old man?  Maybe not.

Wasteland 2

I barely remember the original Wasteland. I suspect I power-gamed it and waltzed through it.

A Short Review

On the heels of the excellent Hard West, playing Wasteland felt like a chore. Combat is mediocre. The voice acting is sub-par. The UI is lackluster. 

The RPG elements are okay. I would have liked more description of how skills work and how they relate to stats... basically they don't. The stupid grunt is just as good at computers as the genius. It was unclear how to plan for leveling. How many skills do I want to max out? Should I focus on a few or have a great breadth? Will my game be miserable if I don't have a certain skill? Do I need all the skills?

The random encounters were annoying. In my entire time playing I had about 10 encounters but they were almost all identical within two categories -- wimpy bandits or super tough lizards. The bandit encounter were a monotonous waste of time. The lizard encounters were annoying difficult and success was completely determined by how well my "animal specialist" rolled. 

The worst part of Wasteland 2 is that a single exploratory click can ruin the game. I had two such instances.

The first was in Highpool. After I saved the citizens I was walking around and exploring. Came across the graveyard and the UI lured me into digging up a grave. Look. I know it was dumb. I deserve the town to be mad at me. But in my defense, I am used to this style of game reward random clicking around. I'm fully willing to accept some punishment but what happened is the entire town aggroed on me, forcing me to slaughter them. That sucked, from a roleplay perspective but the gameplay also suffered because I lost out on quests, shops, and so on. Worst, it broke the gameflow in that I still had mandatory quests to accomplish in town but the clue-givers refused to talk to me. I had to read spoilers on the Internet to discover what to do. 

The second bad click experience was in the base. After being promoted, I was allowed to enter the base proper. In the barracks there was a nuke with a button. I hit the button. The nuke exploded, killing me and everyone in the base, GAME OVER. Uh.. seriously? You are going to leave a live nuke sitting in the barracks without even putting duct tape over the death button or a sign that says, "warning, live nuke, do not touch". I had even asked an NPC to give me a tour and he refused, saying that recruits never pay attention. Well, maybe if you had given me that tour, you and your buddies would still be alive and I would be playing Wasteland 2 instead of complain about it on a blog that nobody reads.

Summary

Don't bother. Go play Fallout 4 again. If you want squad tactics, try Hard West or XCom.

Hard West

Isometric turn based squad combat with a strong story.

Overview

The basic gameplay of Hard West is nothing new. We have seen it hundreds of times, most notably in XCom. While Hard West's take on it is fun and engaging, what really makes for a memorable experience is the story.

The game is set in the Wild West, or perhaps the Weird West. It is gritty, full of desperados and more anti-heroes than heroes. There is a smattering of the occult -- haunted Indian burial grounds, curses, Chinese herbs, that sort of thing. 

The campaign consists of two adventure lines. Each adventure line is linear, except there is one "prequel" adventure which is not unlocked until you have advanced the story sufficiently. Each adventure tells the story of the main character who is on some quest -- perhaps to find his father, to cure a disease, or to beg Death to return his wife. The story is told by visiting locations and making minor choose-your-own-adventure decisions where you can acquire better guns and equipment, followers, and money. The Narrator does a great job with spot on voice-acting. The story is told in the past tense. Instead of "choice 1: you go to the saloon, choice 2: you go to sleep" you are presented with "choice 1: Solomon went to the saloon, choice 2: Solomon went to sleep". Framing the story as a legend of the past was more engaging for me because it helped my suspension of disbelief. I'm not dodging bullets and burning witches, I'm helping tell the story of a man who dodged bullets and burned witches.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

It's a Western. I have to make the pun.

The Good

Engaging story. Fun tactical missions. Very atmospheric. 

The Bad

"Normal" difficulty felt a little too easy, but switching it to hard just beefed up enemy hit points. This made the game very hard but not more fun. I decided that it was more fun to play on easy mode. Maybe later I was good that I could have bumped it to hard.

The interface is generally pretty good, but sometimes you think you are behind cover and aren't. That is a huge big deal and you can be killed in one shot. I died more often to "oh dang, I thought I was behind cover" than any other reason.

The Ugly

There were a few minor but obvious bugs. Surprising since the game has a lot of polish. For example, every so often a location I had previously visited and "exhausted" would play it's description. Once I had to exit the game and return because I was stuck in a loop of visiting places that were closed (this wasn't a big deal, I didn't lose anything). Also, it looked like there was some placeholder dialog. Normally when you leave an area it just gives you a single choice like, "Leave the saloon while you still have your wits about you". A few times the choice was "End the event", where event was clearly the programmer name for the location you were visiting.

Should You Buy It?

Yes. You like XCom. You can tolerate Wild West. You like good stories. I don't usually like Westerns, but this one drew me in. 

Sam and Max

Point and Click comedy adventure puzzle game in the Telltale Style.

Nostalgia

I loved Sam and Max Hit the Road way back in the day. Lucas Arts was wonderful back then. Since I've enjoyed the Telltale Games I've played, when I saw a Sam and Max bundle, I had to buy it.

Overview

After playing two of the Sam and Max games, I am underwhelmed. The humor is okay, but not enough to keep me engaged. The puzzles are poor -- often obscure or requiring trial and error. There is a lot of tedium running from one end of town to the other just to try another combination.

Recommendation

Sadly, I can't recommend the game. I should be the biggest fan but I barely finished the first game of the series and the second I mostly used spoilers.

Endless Frontier

A collection based idle game for ios.

Overview

Endless Frontier is an idle game, which means that it largely plays itself. The genre has been growing rapidly and idle games are becoming more sophisticated. In this game you collect heroes to form a team to kill wave after wave of enemies. More powerful teams can go farther and kill faster.

The collection aspect is reminiscent of Puzzles and Dragons. Since I don't like the puzzling in PaD but wanted to see more of the collecting, Endless Frontier held my interest.

The Good

There are a lot of options and strategies. There is collecting and leveling, so common in our post-Pokemon world. The game needs periods of idle time but you can generally give it less or more attention depending on your availability.

The Bad

This game has two fatal flaws. The first is the semi-mandatory 30 second ads. When you watch an ad, the game speed doubles for twenty minutes. When playing without the boost, the game feels slow and I would have quickly given up on it. To make matters worse, the ads crash the app about 75% of time. 

You can buy a speed boost in the game, but for me this has problems. If I was paying to disable ads, I don't mind that, but that's not how the boost is presented. For all I know it's an additional boost on top of the ads. Another problem is that I severely dislike that sort of payment. I don't want to pay for a week of benefit. I would rather pay a higher price for an app that is permanently unlocked. The only subscription based game I have paid for in years is World of Warcraft, and that is a huge value for the money. Lastly, the price of the speed boost is exorbitant at $5 per week. I will get much more enjoyment out of a $10 app than two weeks of this silly thing.

The second fatal flaw is that the game must be running in the foreground to really progress. This is becoming normal for the genre and I don't understand it. I understand why clicking should be mandatory, but why differentiate between the app running in the foreground vs. sleeping? If I have an hour-long run that doesn't require my attention, why hijack my phone so I can do something else? You expect me to stare at the screen for an hour? To make matters worse, the game is a big battery drain. 

Conclusion

If you don't mind the ads or paying $5/month and don't mind dedicating your phone to this game, there is fun to be had. Even still, it's free to try. 

Small World 2

Why play board games with people when you can play against an AI?

Overview

Small World is a medium-light area-control board game. At the start, you pick a race and conquer part of the world, Risk-style. Each race offers a unique ability to help conquer more, score points, or defend against the other players. It offers interesting decisions and good replayability. 

The strongest feature of Small World is how well it balances the excitement of attacking other players with the inherent unfairness of direct conflict. In essence, the game scores like a peaceful non-competitive game with little interaction, but feels like you are a mighty conqueror devastating the other players.

Computer Adaptation

Overall, this adaptation gets a B+. The screen, graphics, sound, UI.. just about everything gets a solid A. They did a great job bringing the game to the computer. The only flaw would be the AI, which is still pretty good. Still, even if I give the AI a B, that is so important to me it brings the whole game down to a B+. For a game of this type, the AI is more than sufficient. If you have never played Small World before the AI will certainly beat you for the first few games and be challenging for a dozen more.

Recommendation

I'm not sure who I would recommend this game to. I received a free copy as a gift and it was a pleasant diversion. I think the board game benefits from the social aspect of playing with humans and the computer version suffers for it. I suppose I would recommend this game for anybody who is a fan of the board game but wants more options for playing... like you only have two people but want a 4-player game.

(I am reviewing the Steam version for PC. I have also played the iPad version of Small World 1 and have similar thoughts.)

BGG CON

I've made it to BGGCon about 7 times. It's a huge boardgame convention. I don't play nearly as many games as some of the attendees, but this year I got a few in:

Mario Level Up

We wanted to play a cute and silly little game. This fit the bill nicely, but had a little more depth than I expected. Looks like a good game to play with the kids. 

2 or 3 out of 5. Light and simple with no good reason to own it, but if someone brought it out it can be a fun time.

This War of Mine

I haven't played the computer game but I was told the boardgame was very faithful to it. It was quite dark and difficult cooperative game with scripted storytelling events. It it took a long time to play and made me wonder why I wasn't playing a computer game. 

2 out of 5. Worth playing once to experience it, but too slow and random for what it is. Computers make this stuff better.

Puzzle Hunt

I do puzzle events a few times a year. I've done about four of them at BGGCon but have missed the last few years, so I was excited to get a team for this year. We had a great time and got about 12th place.

5 out of 5

Sub Terra

A cooperative game about spelunkers that get trapped in a cave with monsters, floods, tremors, and other dangers. Pretty simple and quick. I think it has about 5 or 10 games in it before getting old. I only played once but I'd be happy to play again.

3 out of 5, wouldn't buy it but I'd push to get it played if I saw it.

Asking for Trobils

A silly theme backed by a decent game. You amass victory points by removing Trobils from a planet and dumping them into the sun. To lure the Trobils away you must amass resources. It's a fairly light worker placement game but has enough meat to be interesting. Ultimately it is too slow and a good example of why I don't like games where players take turns. With simultaneous turns, it would feel like Race for the Galaxy, an excellent game.

2 out of 5, not a flawed game but not my cup of tea.

Mountains of Madness

A cooperative game in the Lovecraftian style where you must ascend a mountain while cursed with afflictions. Each turn the group has 30 seconds to figure out who can play the correct resources to get a reward. During that negotiation, everybody has a different curse to hamper them. For example one curse is to only speak in rhyme. Another curse forces you to stop talking if anyone says a certain word.

3 out of 5, should be my kind of game but somehow misses the mark. The curses are a little too goofy. Feels like Space Alert, which I prefer.

Dimension

A quick filler game where you have 30 seconds to use small spheres to build a pyramid according to rules. Imagine using different colored Legos to build something, but some rules said things like, "all red bricks must touch a yellow brick" and "you can only put blue bricks on the bottom level".

4 of 5, a perfect filler who's only sin is being too quick and simple.

Loot Island

Try to force the pirate ship to dig for treasure at a location where you will get the most loot. There are different types of loot that score differently. Feels a lot like Dragon's Gold with a hint of something like Ra.

2 of 5, too slow for what it is. I'm sick of this multiple victory point theme. I'd rather play Dragon's Gold, Ra, Medici, or a slew of other similar games. If it had simultaneous turns, it would be much better.

Flick Em Up Dead of Winter

With the Flick Em Up games you have meeples on a table with terrain, like carboard buildings, cars, barrels, lamp posts, etc. You move and attack by flicking a disc. This game was Dead of Winter themed, but really it was indistinguishable from any other zombie game. It had some cleverness to it. The rules for the scenario apparently were convoluted. 

3 of 5, I love me a flicky game but there are plenty to choose from and this does not distinguish itself. I could give it a 5 if it were the only flicky game I knew about. Also, zombies aren't my favorite theme, even though I do own Dead of Winter.

Viral

Game about viruses infecting a body. Really just an area control game. You evolve special powers. The turns are somewhat simultaneous but the resolution is serial and you often change your mind based on the previous players. There are some clever mechanics, but there are countless area control games with clever mechanics. I suspect winning strategies require annoying calculations like trying to be in last place on the penultimate turn so you can set up a monster final turn.

2 of 5, maybe I would have liked it more if we had played more quickly. I'm pretty jaded to this type of game.

Unlock!

Basically an escape room told through a phone app and story cards. I really like the puzzle aspect, but both games I played were ruined by not understanding the very simple mechanics. 

3 of 5, it has potential to scratch the puzzle itch but there are so many other sources of puzzles I am not sure how to recommend buying this one.

Too Many Bones

Probably the winner of the con for me. A cooperative dice adventure rpg where you level up and kill monsters and get loot. Each class plays very differently. We had a lot of tense moments but made it to the final boss. In the end we almost won the fight, but not quite. Sadly, I don't see it for sale for less than about $300.

4 of 5, fun but pretty brutal. Seemed to take longer than it should have.

Barbuda

We have a con tradition to play card games in the wee hours. This year the game was Barbuda, a strange game that combines hearts, spades, and some other similar games.

5 of 5, the king of all card games

Njet

At 5 am we finished Barbuda but wanted more. We started Njet to accommodate a 5th player. 5 am trick taking is lots of fun. Njet is sort of a generic tricks and trumps game but you have a bidding process to determine trump, scoring, card passing, etc.

4 of 5, a little deeper than Oh Hell / Wizard, hearts, or Spades. 

Offworld Trading Company

Offworld Trading Company combines the best aspects of a Real Time Strategy game and watching the Business Channel.

Summary

You represent a corporation building mines and factories on Mars to assist a new colony. Competing for that business are other companies. You must predict the needs of the market, grow your business efficiently, and possibly sabotage your competitors.

Gameplay

The gameplay feel a little bit like a RTS in that you must make tough real time decisions about what structures to build and that greatly informs how the game will play out. There is a ton of strategy about these decisions. Each corporation consumes resources in different amounts, and you also want to provide for the needs of the colony. These means you likely want to create the resources you will need but also might supply resources that your competitors will buy.

In addition to building structures, you buy and sell goods on the stock market. As materials are consumed by corporations and the colony, the price will go up. When people sell their supply the price goes down. Generally market manipulation doesn't seem to work as well as predicting supply and demand, but it's all pertinent. 

Exploration

At the start of the game the map is filled with fog of war. You click around to revel the map to find resources. Eventually when you find a good place to land your base you take it. Grabbing a landing spot early grants an advantage in that you get to claim the nearby resources. Also, your workers can start working while the other players are still exploring. On the other hand, the last players to drop their base are given a few bonuses, like extra tiles to claim. This is a neat concept, but I don't like the implementation. Once you place your base, all fog is lifted so you can see if your base is in a good location or not. Sometimes you don't realize there is a shortage of materials and your workers will have to move across the whole map to mine something rare. Other times you think you are monopolizing a resource to find there were two giant caches you didn't scan. 

In many games, the positioning isn't very important. There are sufficient resources, or maybe fuel is cheap for remote workers. So in some games you want to drop your base early, others late, and often it doesn't really matter. This leads to and awkward system that probably could have been skipped. Perhaps it would be better if players could see the entire map and then got to bid on placement order.

Combat

There isn't really combat. Direct aggression comes from the Black Market where you can buy items that help you or hurt an opponent. This isn't my favorite part of the game, but it doesn't bother me. The game has a steep learning curve and this should have been introduced later, but you can disable it in the game options, so not a big deal.

The other form of aggression is price war. If you can monopolize a rare resource you can force the other players to pay a lot to obtain it. In my experience this is a good idea more because you can sell for a higher price, but it's also nice that the opponents must buy at a higher price.

Winning

Depending on the mode the game either ends after a certain number of days or when one corporations has bought out all the others. Both of these have a bit of awkwardness. When the game ends after a set time, you don't get credit for any stockpiles you have, so you have to be constantly aware of the time. Buying out corporations has its own set of problems. You have to figure out if you should buy stock early when its cheap, or invest that money into buildings to grow your economy. You can't buy your own stock from another company but they can buy it from you. This mean games often end with two companies trying to buy each other up as quickly as possible, and it feels weird. 

Overall

This is a fun and challenging game. It took many games before I could win a stand-alone scenario on the hardest difficulty. The campaign is interesting but after losing twice I gave up. A few aspects of the game could be changed someone to make it more fun. In some ways this is the perfect game for me. I'm always looking for real-time crafting games with a strong economy and Offworld Trading Company nails it. For me, this game is 7/10 but I suspect most people would rate it lower.

King's Bounty: The Legend

Been sitting on this for a while. Recently I wanted a turn based strategy game so gave it a try.

Overview

I did not care for the game. Combat was slow and boring. The story didn't engage me. Perhaps I was in a foul mood when I played. I wanted a hard-core strategy and this game was far too light.

Sam and Max

When I was younger I really enjoyed the LucasArts Sam & Max game and I've been enjoying the Telltale games so I bought the big Sam and Max bundle.

Overview

Sam and Max is a series of about 15 games from Telltale. They tell the story of a large talking dog named Sam and an ultra violent rabbit named Max. It's a typical puzzle game. Most of the game involves clicking the screen to move Sam around and clicking on objects to see what they do. There is also a lot of dialog. The major appeal of the game is the humor.

Opinions

I liked the game well enough to finish, but it was a close call. The humor was fine but I didn't find any hilarious moments like I remembered from the old Sam & Max Hit the Road. The puzzles are not as clever as Lucas Arts games and not as engaging as Telltale games. Some of the puzzles were too obscure and I had to either grind through them or read spoilers.

Conclusion

These games are dirt cheap so there isn't much penalty to try it. You might adore the humor. I'm going to at least give the second one in the series a look.

Realm Grinder

A few years ago Cookie Clicker came out. It was the first "real game" of that genre that I had seen. Since then a variety of grinder type games have come out. I usually avoid games of mindless clicking, but Realm Grinder seemed to have some strategic depth to it.

Overview

The setting is generically fantasy based, but that's a thin veil for the underlying mechanics. At the start, you click on the screen to earn gold which is spent on buildings and upgrades. Buildings mostly just provide income per second although when upgraded they can provide other bonuses. The upgrades do all sorts of things, but basically affect how quickly you generate gold and faction coins.

Goal

I'm not sure there is a final goal of the game although it wouldn't surprise me. Perhaps the goal is to see how often you can reincarnate. There is the opportunity for personal goals like, "try every race" or "beat every challenge".

Stages

The game has discrete stages, although they feel more like cycles.

Runs

The runis like what you would expect out of a single game of this type. You click some, build buildings, try to find an efficient path to generate more income, and eventually you quit when you just can't meaningfully increase your income. For a game like Cookie Clicker, you are done. You might start over to find a more optimized strategy, or you might lament wasting time on a pointless pursuit. In Realm Grinder, you don't quit, you abdicate.

Abdication

As you play the game you earn gems. These gems are meaningless until you abdicate. Abdication basically resets the game and you start over from scratch. You get a boost, however, in the form of trophies and gems.

Trophies are basically achievements. Some are purely grinding like "build 10 farms". Others involve difficult challenges like "build exactly 1 of each building". Some require special circumstance like "build a church on Sunday". Trophies have a tangible benefit in that one of the most productive buildings in the game gets a bonus based on the number of trophies you earn. This means that the more you play, the easier it is to get gold.

The real boost comes from gems. Each gem you earn is a global 2% bonus to production. That means if I earn 100 gems my first game, after I abdicate all my buildings will produce an extra 200% more. A typical goal is to earn 20 to 100 times as many gems as you started your run with, so you pretty quickly are earning 1,000,000% or more on your buildings. 

Reincarnation

The goal of abdicating is to get enough gems to reincarnate. When this happens, you lose all of your gems and get some reincarnation bonuses. These bonuses include extra production multipliers and access to additional features, like challenges and new races. Each reincarnation requires many more gems than the previous one.

Strategy

At the basic run level, there is the minor strategy that all clicker games have. Do you build a building or an upgrade? Do you focus on upgrades click rewards or passive production? I find this fairly minor and uninteresting in Realm Grinder, at least past the first run. 

More interesting strategies come from deciding which race to play for a given run. It might depend on how many gems you have, because some races do well in a low-gem run while others do better with high-gems. You also might choose a race depending on how long you have to make your run -- if you plan to abdicate in 10 minutes you want a different race than if you are going to let the game run overnight. Also, your level of activity is important. Angels cast a lot of spells, but that requires paying constant attention to the game. Other races do well with moderate interaction as long as you can poke the screen every few minutes. The undead race give bonuses for the game running offline, so you might choose them if you start a game before going to bed. In addition, you might choose a certain race to get a trophy.

Final Thoughts

When I first started Realm Grinder, I expected a pointless clicker game. Instead I was surprised and amused at how much thought went into turning a pointless clicker game into a strategy game. It's similar to how I feel about all the match-3 evolutions out there. If you are looking for a free mindless time-waster, Realm Grinder isn't a bad choice.

Star Wars: Battlefront 2 -- Original

Finished Battlefront 2 a couple weeks ago. It was the original one with a good single player campaign and out of date graphics. I mostly enjoyed it but only because I'm a Star Wars nerd. Hopefully the upcoming EA Battlefront 2 will have a decent single player campaign and there won't be any reason to play the old game.

The most memorable moment was assaulting the Jedi temple during Order 66. I'm used to Jedi being good guys so I was slow to shoot them. And there is nothing as terrifying as a horde of Jedi charging at hapless stormtroopers.

Mass Effect 3

Despite a three month hiatus in the middle of my playthough, I went back and finished Mass Effect 3. Awesome game.

The Trilogy

I've played all three games in the trilogy, although each of them was at least 5 years late. There were some truly great moments and I'm looking forward to Mass Effect Andromeda in a few years when I get around to it.

Overall, Mass Effect is great story telling. It is epic and engaging. The writing is generally excellent. The graphics are surprisingly good, especially in cutscenes.

Memorable Moments

Three moments stick out for me from the trilogy.

Samara and Morinth

In Mass Effect 2 you recruit an Asari justicar named Samara. At some point you accept a mission to help her track down and kill her evil daughter, Morinth. Well, I hadn't really clicked with Samara. She hadn't been on my crew for very long and I didn't fully get along with her. She was a little bit too goody-goody for me. When we went to hunt down her daughter there was a moment when Morinth tempted me with power and excitement. For just a split second I was tempted and helped her kill Samara. I immediately regretted the decision and almost loaded a save game. Instead I decided to live with the consequences. That's part of the game, right? 

Tali and the Geth

In Mass Effect 3 you sort of have to choose between saving the Quarians and the Geth. I was feeling ballsy and tried to save both. Tali tried to order the Quarian fleet to stand down, but generations of hatred wouldn't let them and their whole race was exterminated. Overcome by unbearable sadness, Tali takes her own life. I tried to stop her, but I was too involved in the cutscene and didn't notice the "save Tali" button until it was too late. I don't feel too much guilt for the Quarians -- I was asked to choose between two races and one of them wanted to cooperate. However being too slow to save Tali made me sad (even though I later read that she might have been impossible to save even if I was faster).

Activating the Crucible

The ending of Mass Effect 3 received a lot of criticism for various reasons. I liked it pretty well. My only complaint was not enough exposition. I wanted to explore the ramifications of the choices more deeply. But that's a big trait of Commander Shepard. He makes big decisions with little knowledge and he is usually right. The game sometimes uses that style to trick the player into morally ambiguous decisions.

I decided not to activate the crucible, dooming the galaxy to another cycle of Reapers. Killing the Reapers meant killing all synthetic life, and some people with synthetic parts. I already had some guilt at exterminating the Quarians in favor of the Geth, and I didn't want to willfully genocide that race as well. I had some attachment to EDI, who ran the last mission with me. Also, I feared for Miranda with her implants. Even in the best cast scenario, the Krogan would likely conquer the galaxy since I had cured the genophage. Additionally, the Catalyst said he was there to solve the problem of synthetic life vs organic life. Eventually the galaxy would create more synthetic life and would be back to the problems that the Protheans initially faced. By activating the crucible I might be setting the galaxy back thousands of years, would likely be dooming the galaxy to enslavement by the Krogan, and would certainly be genociding the Geth and dooming EDI and other friends.

I had the option to control the Reapers. I should have chose this, but I was tired. Not only was it 3am in real life, but Shepard had just finished being blown up, knocked out, and shot. There was ten minutes of Shepard being barely alive and it felt like a relief when he and his buddy let go of life at the end. When the radio woke Shepard up, I felt his pain. He did his duty and wanted to rest. So when the Catalyst said that Shepard's body would die but his mind would change and live eternally, it sounded like torture. It seemed very likely that Shepard would eventually take over the Catalyst's task of wiping out the galaxy every so often. I just didn't want to live in that Hell. I'd rather the current Catalyst keep his job than be the one to slaughter everybody every few hundred years.

So I decided to continue the cycle. Everything Shepard achieved was for nothing. Everybody's sacrifices wasted. Kind of sucks. But every cycle grew closer to completing the crucible and stopping the Reapers. Maybe next cycle there would be another Shepard who could find a better choice. For example, I wasn't offered the choice of synthesis. Maybe next cycle a better Shepard will achieve it. Liara's message to the future left me with some hope.

Controls

I'm a PC gamer and generally hate games where you can feel the console in the controls. Mass Effect is no exception. The controls is the worst part of the game. I've played it on console and hate it more. The only way to make it work is to have completely different control systems. Don't even try to reuse elements. Even things like the radial menus on the PC are annoying. 

Combat in The Division has a similar feel but is much cleaner. Fallout 4 also does a decent job with combat despite some annoying controls in the rest of the UI.

Combat

Combats were mediocre. They were a great tool for the story telling, but weren't great by themselves. I played long range sniper and combat rifle. Fighting from cover was reasonably fun but anything that involved running around was too chaotic. Battlefields were cluttered so I couldn't retreat backwards while firing very effectively. When getting swarmed I had to turn and run, which was generally too effective for getting away, and then too awkward at getting set up behind cover. The Division did a much better job at fighting from cover, although it doesn't really do melee.

The squad combat is still pretty mediocre. Not sure what the solution is. I appreciate that the player needs to be the hero in a very visceral first-person way, but the two buddies don't quite do it for me. They don't seem very effective and yet I don't want to micro manage them and I don't want them to out-shine me. It felt better in Mass Effect 2 for some reason. I mean it almost worked, but not quite. I want Garrus and Ash to provide distracting fire while I flank. I want Ash and James to protect my flank while I snipe. I want Liara to pull entrenched targets into the air. I want EDI's decoys to save the day when we get overrun and to draw out the enemy when they are hard to hit. They already do this to some extent, but not enough.

Diablo 3 Season 11 -- Monk

I've done a few of the Diablo seasonal achievements. It reinvigorated life into the game and the extra tabs are nice.

Why Do Seasonal?

I've done the story at least 3 times and spent countless hours doing endgame rifts and such. With seasonal you start from scratch so it's a new challenge. It lets you really see the unique styles of a new character.

Monk

Normally I avoid the monk in fantasy games. I don't like the fiction of an unarmed guy punching his way against foes wearing plate mail. I find the physical manifestation of focused willpower to be unconvincing. True, I'm already accepting magic and elves and the power of gods, so a little chi isn't too extraordinary, it just isn't my thing. 

So why play a monk? Mostly because I have played all of the other classes. I thought I would hate the Demon Hunter but I loved it. Maybe monk would be the same.

Nope. I didn't like it. Maybe it was the set I used. Maybe it was the low damage before you hit extreme endgame. It just didn't work for me. The dodgy nature of the monk meant jumping into every fight and hoping that your incredible evasion would save you. And usually it does, but sometimes it doesn't. I died a whole lot.

There are good think about the monk. The set I played, Raiment, really felt like a monk. I zipped around the battlefield punching things to death. There would be moments of power and moments of defense. Sometimes I could coincide everything and unleash devastation on a boss while completely immune. Of all the classes, the monk felt the most iconic. The end game barbarian feels like a squishy wizard who casts spells and avoids combat. Conversely, the firebird wizard feels like a barbarian who is most comfortable when surrounded by enemies in melee range. 

I would have played necromancer but I had just gotten one leveled up and really didn't want to start another.

Community

The online community is pretty great. I don't actually want much of that in my Diablo, but all of my interactions have been positive. I got someone to power level me, saving me hours of grinding. It's easy to find groups to do rifts, bounties, or whatever else you need. I found someone to help me with three of the conquests with almost no searching.

Diablo In My Future

I'm not going to play this season any more. One of my buddies wants to use this character for open play so I'll wait for the season to end before we start up again. Then I'll bring my necromancer back and see how far we can get in the open environment.

Blizzard says that won't be announcing Diablo 4 at Blizzcon, so I bet there is a lot of time to keep playing D3.

Gencon 2017

I had never been to Gencon. I've been close once or twice, but lately conventions don't have so much appeal. I attend BGGCon every year, but that's largely to see old friends. This was the 50th anniversary and was expected to be big.

Games

I sampled a few board games but mostly I was there for RPGs. A few games were memorable.

Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition Adventurer's League

The big thing I did was D&D for 4 4-hour sessions. It was 5th edition which I hadn't played much of and it was Adventurer's League which I knew nothing about. Still, I ended up being the party leader and had a pretty good time. I'm lukewarm about Adventurer's League. The idea is that characters are built and progress in a fairly strict fashion so that characters of a given level are balanced. I suppose that's fine, but honestly if I am playing with strangers anyway I don't mind a pre-generated one-shot disposable character. I get enough long-term campaign play with friends.

So why play D&D at a con if I play at home? Good question. I guess it was to inject new ideas into my universe. I also wanted to try out 5th edition a little bit more, and I actually liked it. Not as crunchy as 3rd edition but more consistent than 1st and 2nd edition. 

Starfinder

Paizo put out a game just like Pathfinder but in space. It's really pretty amazing how much it resembles Pathfinder. 1st level Technomancers cast Magic Missile, and such. They were running 1-hour demos. I played 3 of the 5 so got a feel for the system. They added space combat which looks interesting, except I'm not convinced it will be worth the complication of the rules if every turn just involves turning to face the enemy and firing. Since I'm currently playing 3 space RPGs, I don't see picking this up any time soon.

Dominion

I've played a lot of Dominion in my life and still play some on dominion.games. I checked out Empires. Seems like a good expansion.

True Dungeon

There is an event which is like an hour of D&D but you move from room to room with prop and actors. Combat is handled by doing well playing shuffleboard and spells are cast by memorizing things. There are also puzzles, much like a lite escape room. I got into a very experienced group and we didn't have any difficulty beating the dungeon.

While I am glad I experienced it and might do it again, I'm not too excited about it. The props and acting were good enough but not mind blowing. Shuffleboard was fun but I can play shuffleboard much cheaper at the sports bar. It did make me consider perhaps using a dart board or something for my own D&D games. 

I was surprised that the operation wasn't smoother. In the waiting room, the guy who was supposed to explain things almost seemed to know nothing. There were multiple groups running simultaneously and there was a lot of noise. I couldn't hear the actors give their short speeches. Perhaps I'm a puzzle snob, but the puzzles weren't especially well done. The props were excellent but sparse. Still, it was a pretty unique experience.

They Might Be Giants

I'm a fan so seeing then was a no-brainer. Pretty amused how many times they talked about being in Indianapolis and got no response. I think eventually they figured out that everybody there was from out of town. They made it sound like they had never played such a large crowd, so good for them. I saw them a few years ago at a pretty small venue.

Cosplay

I love me some cosplay and Gencon did not disappoint. Favorites:

• Overwatch! Just about everyone was represented. D.VA and Soldier 76 were most common with quite a bit of Reaper and Tracer. There was an awesome Winston.
• 3 lady Yondo's, Starlord's blue adopted father. All had babies who, I assume, are Starlord.
• King Arthur, Sir Bedivere, Tim the Enchanter, and Patsy banging coconuts together
• A guy who looked like Stan Lee with an name tag that said, "not Stan Lee"

I'm forgetting a ton.

Larry Elmore

He's a fantasy artist who has been around forever. I always like his work and he was selling prints. It was neat to meet a guy who had such an influence on my life.

Final Fantasy Record Keeper

Final Fantasy Record Keeper

I don't play a ton of iPhone games. Sure, I've spent thousands of hours on hundreds of games, but mostly that was the past. Lately I have enough free time to sit at my desktop to play "real games". When I'm out and need to be entertained by my phone, I'm more likely to catch up on news or something.

Puzzles and Dragons

FFRK is quite similar to Puzzles and Dragons, which I played for a bit. In the end I quit Puzzles and Dragons because I didn't like the puzzling part. FFRK uses the typical Final Fantasy tactical combat, which isn't especially deep but doesn't bother me too much.

Too Much Initial Grinding

I haven't totally given up on FFRK because I feel like I haven't given it a real chance. The problem is the initial grind. I've done over 100 dungeons and they are almost always too easy. I hit "autoplay" and wait for the boss encounter. For the boss I use the friend Soul Break to kill the boss. No decisions or anything. Just an annoying process. 

The boards talk about interesting strategies and tough encounters. I'm sure that's true but I might not have the patience to get there. You are pretty much forced to clear the initial dungeons to improve your max stamina and pick up magicka. But clearing hundreds of dungeons on auto-play isn't fun.

Even worse, it takes a fair amount of attention even to do the auto-play. There are a lot of loading screens and a lot of "push to continue" buttons. Worst of all, there is a "start" button followed by a long load followed by combat. However combat isn't paused and doesn't default to auto-play, so if you put the phone down for 45 seconds you might end up dead. If they simply paused combat before it started I would be able to grind these dungeons while doing something else. Instead I have to spend 10 seconds staring at a loading screen before each encounter. Multiply this by 3 encounters per dungeon and 500 dungeons and that 15000 seconds staring at a load screen. That's over 4 hours staring at a load screen.

Recommendations

Because the grind is so bad I don't know who to recommend this game to. I suppose a big fan of Final Fantasy would enjoy unlocking all of the characters more than I do. Also, it revisits the stories of all the Final Fantasy games so that might entertain someone who has played more than I have.

World of Warcraft: Legion

Legion

Where Has the Time Gone?

I've been playing so much WoW that I haven't gotten other games off my Steam backlog. I hope to get back to other games, and I left Mass Effect 3 in the middle.

MMORPGS

I've played lots of MMOs. I mean lots. I got the rank of Wizard in a MUD in 1990 and have logged countless hours in so many different MMORPGs. I've played most of the major ones. 

The only one I regret not trying is Ultima Online. Not sure how I missed that given that I had friends who worked on it at Origin. That was a busy time in my life -- I was working 60 hour weeks, had an active social life, and was steeped in Final Fantasy XII. 

Despite all of the time I spend with other MMOs, nothing has stolen my time like World of Warcraft.

WoW

I've played all of the expansions but for some reason I was never there at launch. Even for Vanilla WoW I was months late to the party. The one exception was Warlords of Draenor, which launched while I was working for Blizzard. My account was free, all my coworkers were playing it, and it was common to see everybody log in during lunch hour.

Starting late to the party made me feel like I was always behind and that shaped my perception of the game. Also, the interference of real life made it hard to join a raiding guild. I never did real raiding until Legion. Instead my end-game was focused on casual battleground PvP, where I could log off pretty quickly if the family needed me.

Legion

You can see a definite evolution to WoW with each expansion. Not only is the basic content of instances and raids easily obtainable, the more difficult modes are facilitated with the dungeon finder. I just did a pick-up group for Nighthold, the toughest raid, on Heroic mode with no wipes. 

The leveling process has also become more friendly. There is a central location where some guy will give you quests to know where you should be. The mobs in the different areas scale with your level, so you can go to any place you want. There are a lot of interest plots going on, and some fairly large stories lines (like Suramar). 

Plenty of missions, daily quests, and weekly quests make sure you keep coming back. It's insidious.

The Force Unleashed 2

I'm still going through some of the older Star Wars games I got in a bundle.

Story

The story isn't bad. Good voice acting, great cinematics. There isn't a lot of meat there and it relies on knowing the previous game to really feel it. The events are a little too important to the Star Wars universe for my taste. Darth Vader is an obvious villain and this lets us live out our fantasies of confronting him. I prefer plots that are more subdued.

Gameplay

The gameplay bothered me enough that I set the difficulty on Easy so I could just zip though the story. 

Encounters

Most of the encounters were really fun. There were a variety of threats that required different tactics to beat. Many of the environments were really interesting and added a lot. Sadly, for me by the end of the game I would just do "mind trick, stab" over and over. At least the mechanical mini-bosses were immune and I never found a good trick for beating them.

One complaint is that many of the encounters felt rehashed. Like, "wasn't that a fun encounter? Now do it again!"

Boss Fights

While the boss fights had great cinematic quality, I didn't find them fun. I felt like I was mostly getting knocked down and standing up while trying to figure out how to hurt the boss. There was also a lot of "hold E and left click" which is fine for a while but here it was overdone.

Platforms

I really hate platform jumping puzzles. This game had plenty and with the quirky controls (see below) it was just annoying. I don't mind having to do this sort of thing as part of a larger encounter but jumping platforms by itself isn't fun.

Odds and Ends

The Force Unleashed 2 forces you to do a lot of minor things to keep you engaged while the story is being told. I appreciate that sort of thing, like in Telltale Games. Here it felt a little clunky but not overly annoying. I hope I never have to put another power cell in another door.

Controls

Ugh. The game loses at least half a star for the controls. I'm a PC snob and want the controls for my game to be right for the PC. This game had that clunky console-port feel. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't great. Maybe equivalent to Assassin's Creed. Not as good as Fallout 4.

Overall

As a Star Wars fanboy, this was well worth the 7 or 8 hours I put into it on easy mode. 

More Heroes of the Storm

I'm still playing Heroes of the Storm and Overwatch. I've gotten most of the new heroes to level 5. Here are my impressions.

Zarya

Felt lackluster. Maybe her role isn't so great as primary tank and in quick match you don't often get two tanks. I like playing tanks so why waste my time with this one?

Diablo

I already had this guy at level 5, but he is a big part of the meta these days so I'm re-learning him. Fun, beefy, tank.

Alarak

Hated him. Just didn't get a feel for his skillshot. Decided I didn't want to even get him to level 5.

Greymane

This guy was fun and I could see learning him for real. He isn't part of the meta right now, so I'm not keep to put too much more time into it.

Guldan

Feels clunky. I often had top damage but didn't feel like I was doing much. I see his value and I didn't hate him, but I won't be rushing to learn him.

Li-Ming

Fun long range hero with decent damage. I haven't played Chromie yet but I see the appeal of Li-Ming. If I was going to learn a ranged mage, it would be her.

Ragnaros

Holy crap this guy is awesome. Just my style. Combines powerful 1v1 melee with amazing wave clear and some extra map utility. Kerrigan is my favorite melee but this guy offers more.

Tracer

Loads of fun but needs support which you don't get in Quick Match. If I were playing with a team I might consider her, but that isn't likely.

Tychus

I already had this guy at level 9 but I really suck with him. I think his only role in the meta is vs. Cho'Gall or multiple tanks. Had one fun game vs Cho'Gall where I really ate him up.

Samuro

The first no-mana hero that I sort of like. Normally I like my melee assassins to be YOLO and have no escape, but this guy is pretty fun. I had trouble securing the kills but it's nice to be able to bail out of a bad situation.

Auriel

Didn't feel comfortable. Had a hard time generating mana and healing effectively. I'm not so good with most healers and this is no different. Except Uther. I love that guy.

Medivh

Fun and unique play style. I don't think he is so good in quick match, or maybe that's just me.

Sgt. Hammer

I finally got this guy up to level 5. Previous he was avoided because I tend to not like the heroes with no mount. I like to mount up a lot when I play, especially if I'm not a warrior. A mounted assassin can really threaten the back line. With this guy I kept trying to mount and blowing the escape cooldown. Still, fun hero with straight-forward playstile. 

Xul

While I loved playing a necromancer in Diablo 2, this guy didn't cut it for me. Not sure why since I tend to enjoy melee and specialists. The abilities were never comfortable. Maybe if I was going to dedicate a lot of play to him I could make it work, but for now I really enjoy Zagara, Nazeebo, and Gazlowe who all push lanes well. 

Lunara

Getting to level 5 in quick match wasn't so great. Often there was no front line so I just got to play the poking game mostly. Eventually I started to take the leap ability to play around with it. I might like Lunara if I dedicated some time to her.

Invisible Inc Review

Summary

A fun turn-based squad style tactical stealth game that borrows heavily from X-COM set in a cyberpunk world.

Review

It takes a while for me to play all the games out there. A Steam friend had been playing a lot of Invisible Inc and the reviews were really good so I picked it up during a sale. It languished for months before getting the CPU cycles to show itself off.

I'm definitely an X-COM fan. The original first and second saw a lot of action but I didn't care for the third. For the recent reboot, I liked the first one but a bug kept me from finishing it and I didn't have a good save game. I still haven't played the second one, as I am waiting for a good sale.

Stealth

The primary focus of Invisible Inc is stealth. It isn't pure stealth and you kill plenty of guards, but you simply can't go in guns blazing. The default mode shows you all enemies' lines of sight so you can plan where to hide and how to approach. The less stealthy you are the more alert the enemy is. This can snowball into dangerous situations.

Alarm

The alarm system provides time pressure. Every turn the alarm increases. This provides tension as you decide between a slow and careful approach or a fast a reckless approach.  You can stealthily knock out guards, but they will wake up and cause trouble later, or you can kill them which provides an immediate increase to the alarm.

Hacking

The hacking system in this game is really fun. There are a variety of objects to be hacked, like security cameras, corporate safes, and databases. You have limited energy to spend for hacking so you must prioritize. Every game you choose two programs used for hacking and those really influence the game. One program might hack quickly while another hacks slowly but is really cheap.

Improving Squad

There are three ways to improve members of your squad. There are augments which provide a permanent, usually passive, bonus. There are items like guns and stim packs. You can improve your skills, like speed, strength, and hacking. Most of those can be purchased with money, although you need to find (and hack) terminals in-game to access item shops. 

Missions

You start with two squad members and can acquire two more. The only way to acquire them is to run missions. You can also acquire items and other upgrades by running missions. Each mission takes time and over time the missions get more difficult. Eventually time runs out and you must do the final mission.

Rating

Overall I give the game a solid A. It doesn't have the glitz of the major title but the voice acting is good and the comic style is solid. The game is clean, fun, and cheap. It doesn't have the depth of X-COM but it has plenty of offer at a fraction of the price. Also, if you bored with X-COM, it can inject new life into the genre.

Heroes of the Storm

I haven't played Heroes in over a year but their new cross promotion with Overwatch has me revisiting the game.

Why Play Heroes of Storm

I'm a bit of a Blizzard fanboy so take this with a grain of salt, but Heroes is by far my favorite MOBA (oh, sorry Blizzard, I mean "Team Brawler"). Other than momentum, I don't understand the continuing popularity of League of Legends and Dota.

Heroes has a lot of team fighting and all of the characters have epic abilities that can change the game. It feels great to land a perfect hook with Stitches, snipe an enemy with Nova, or gobble three people with Zagara's sand worm.

The game has a lot going on and even after thousands of hours there is more to learn. Just consider taking mercenary camps. The thought might go like this, from lowest skill level to highest:

1. What are camps? Let's fight.
2. Camps are good if someone else on my team takes them.
3. We should take camps when the opportunity arises.
4. Let's take camps right before the objective spawns so they can push while we fight.
5. The enemy will be taking a camp before the objective so let's ambush them there.
6. We need good scouting to know if the enemy is ambushing our camp, taking their own camp, or doing both.

Drafting in Hero League is lots of fun. At the lower levels it's mostly about trying to make a half decent team from the few characters that your team wants to play. Then you get into countering enemy hero picks and finding synergy in your own picks. 

So basically, play Heroes of the Storm because games are reasonably short, have a lot of action, reward teamwork, and require both strategy and tactics.

Why Not to Play Heroes of the Storm

Some people don't like that style of game. But then why are you reading this review in the first place?

Teamwork can be difficult. In some ways low-level play is more difficult than high-level play because it's about mitigating bad decisions rather than making good ones. Sometimes a player will solo push his lane and wont fight with the team. Or a low-dps warrior might take a mercenary camp by himself when you should be capturing the objective. At higher levels of play, those obvious mistakes don't happen but at low levels you need to adapt.

Communication is lackluster. There is a decent system to ping the map, and there is team chat, but I don't like to type much. I find the chat is mostly filled with people blaming each other for their losses. I suspect voice chat would help. For some reason, the voice chat in Overwatch is actually helpful and not full of salt. I don't really know how to fix the communication in Heroes. I want more complicated planning, maybe pings that persist or an obvious way to declare an enemy to focus on.

Team composition is frustrating. In Quick Play it tries to balance number of healers and warriors but you often end up with really frustratingly terrible compositions. Maybe I kind of want to play Kerrigan but I don't want to be the only melee hero on my team. In Hero League, it is difficult to communicate preferences. You can "show" one hero that you are thinking of playing but that isn't enough. If I show a healer but the enemy bans that hero, the team might expect me to pick a different healer than I'm not comfortable with. Why can't I show three or five heroes that I'm happy to play? If someone shows five healers, nobody has to worry about healing and he focus on the best healer for our comp. If I show two healers, two assassins, and two specialists, people know that I can fill any role except warrior so they can be sure to draft a warrior early. Disclaimer: I haven't played unranked draft mode. Maybe it will replace Quick Play for when I want to play casual and only have a few choices I am willing to make.

The length of the game is almost too long for me. Overwatch has shorter games so when Real Life needs me I can say, "give me 5 minutes" instead of "give me 10 minutes".

Conclusion

Heroes of the Storm is certainly worth trying. It's free, easy to get into and lot's of fun.