Happy Monday Duders... 01/05/15

Well, it's another Monday and another weekend has come and gone in the states. Games were played, family was visited, and I was not ready for the new week to start. To appease my total distaste for Monday I have decided to start a weekly blog on this the most dreaded of all seven days. It should help quench my thirst for blood in the morning by instead replacing that blood-lust with thoughts of what I will discuss when I finally get around to writing this.

I'm hoping to have the opportunity every week but we know how ideas are, oftentimes, much better in thought than in actual execution. Things come up. There's nothing I, or anyone else, can do about that. If this blog grows then I may find the motivation to make it happen every single Monday. That's the plan anyway... and I love it when a plan comes together.

Now to the actual content of the blog.

Weekend Gaming

What did I actually play over the previous weekend? Well, that's simple enough to answer because there wasn't a ton. My daughter had a little league basketball game so Sunday was not an option so I had to use the little bit of time that I had on Saturday morning and night to get all the gaming in that I could which included about 4 hours with two different games.

1. Wolfenstein: The New Order

THOUGHTS: When this game released I didn't have the PC to run it. I needed an upgrade and an upgrade badly. Over the Summer I did just that and now after spending a lot of money can run it on Ultra. I bought it during the holiday sale for 20 bucks and according to Steam I've played 2.6 hours of it (all this weekend) and I have to say that if it continues the way it is going now, I will regret not playing it sooner so it could have ended up on my Top Ten List for 2014. The way that MachineGames has been able to humanize B.J. Blazkowicz is extremely impressive. In the older Wolfenstein games he was only an avatar for the player to use while they mowed down scores and scores of evil Nazis. While there is nothing wrong with that it is cool to see him have a little bit more of a personal interest in killing said evil, world dominating monsters.

I'm thoroughly enjoying the shooting which has a retro feel to it but is modern enough in execution that it feels great in modern gaming. The fact that I can run down a hallway duel-wielding automatic shotguns while blowing away ever enemy in sight is awesome. The game makes you feel like a badass in the best ways possible, even the stealth has a polished feel to it, alerting enemies is forgiving enough that so far it hasn't been frustrating at all.

Hey, it's really pretty too.

VERDICT: I plan to finish it. I have loved the limited amount of time that I've played so far and I feel like all of the elements that I listed above will continue to pull me back in. I've heard it isn't terrible long so next week I may be giving you my final thoughts on it.

2. Nuclear Throne

THOUGHTS: Another game that I have had my eye on for quite some time but never really felt I had the time to play it until now. Also a holiday sale pick-up on Steam Nuclear Throne seemed like something that I could pop into every now and then and play for a bit just to have fun an after the time I played of it on Saturday I can say that I more than likely will do just that. The shooting feels really tight and after the GB crew named it as the Best Early Access Experience of 2014 I decided to give it a go. The developers seem to be updating it frequently whether with in-game content or blog posts regarding the development process. The music is great. The shooting feels good and the characters that I have played as so far all feel differet, which is a good thing.

VERDICT: That Quick Look is well over a year old and I can say that the game seems to have changed a ton since but I decided to add it here because I actually think that QL is great. So watch it and love it... it has Vinny, that's all you need to know. Anyway, the game is great. I will play it more and I'm sure I'll discuss it more and more as this blog series hopefully continues.

THE WEEK AHEAD

I spent way too much money during the Steam sale so I have a lot of games to get to and a whole year to do it. I also picked up Sunset Overdrive and will be spending some time with it when I finish up Wolfenstein. So here's a few games that I hope to play before next Monday.

-More Wolfenstein: The New Order

-Sunset Overdrive, if I finish Wolfenstein.

-The Wolf Among Us Episode 2

-Game of Thrones Episode 1... I love Adventure games.

OPINIONTIME

This section will involve me just giving a quick opinion on what is going on in gaming. Good things, bad things, whatever pops into my head.

Pre-Orders: One of my gaming resolutions for 2015 was to not pre-order one single game. I, along with many of you, were burnt by lackluster or even bad (Assassin's Creed: Unity I'm looking at you) experiences in 2014. I am going to wait days, weeks, even months in some instances to pick up new games this year to give developers time to actually finish games.

The good thing about this new initiative for myself is that it should give me more time to catch-up on the insane number of backlog games that I have accumulated so this series will probably be littered with games that weren't released this year. There are still a number of games that I am excited to play that will come out in 2015 like Bloodborne, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and more but while I'm waiting on them to release I will be working my through games that I always wanted to get to but didn't have a chance for... reasons.

So, thanks for reading if you made it this far... let me know your opinions on the blog and especially leave your 2015 Gaming Resolutions in the comments. I'm curious to see what some of you hope to accomplish this year.

Have a Happy Monday Duders. I hope the rest of your week is awesome!!!!

Good stuff! Wolfenstein is a fantastic game front to back. One of the absolute best games last year...some people would put it as the fourth best game... :)

@spraynardtatum: Nice list... 3 of those are on my backlog list. I'm working through Wolfenstein now, then I'll get to Bayonetta 2, and finally I'll eventually play South Park.

Thanks for responding!!!!

@jbg4: Thanks for writing!

@spraynardtatum: YAY we're friends now... Wanna come over and play some Street Fighter then, maybe, break into a gas station?!?!

Yes and yes!

Anyone willing to share something they plan to play in the coming week?

I still need to play Wolfenstein I may or may not get to that soon. So I don't have much to add yet to what you wrote about.

For me I plan to play Puzzle Agent 2, chase some achievements in South Park: The Stick of Truth and maybe Akane the Kunoichi and keep chipping away at Dragon Age.

@slag: I played a bit more Wolfenstein today and I have to say it is highly recommended. I'm loving it so far... around 5 hours in now.

Dragon Age just didn't grab me. I played around 12 hours and gave up. The world seemed a bit lifeless to me which in a game of that scope will make me lose interest quickly.

Also, I have owned Puzzle Agent 1 and 2 on Steam for years and never played them. I may need to fix that... Did you really like the first one?

Nice seguia. Im currently trying to finish Lichdom Battlemage. Its a one trick pony, but i could spend 10 minutes easily on why its as much a game changer(for the future) as the nemisis system from SOM, and Divinitys approach to freedom. Also playing in spurts one of my favorite casual games this(last year) Letter Quest: Grimms Journey. Super smart game that has a nice balance of casual, rpg and challenge. And the last game im playing right now is Halfway. Im hooked with the story, but mixed on the combat.

@jbg4:

yeah I'm looking forward to Wolfenstein it does look good! And several users I respect are big fans. But I'm pondering whether I should jump in without playing the previous games or not. That last Wolfenstein I played was actually this one, so I'm missing quite a but of backstory I'd think. But I'll probably just jump into it.

I can see that about DA, I'm a sucker for those kinds of games but admittedly it has some significant flaws.

Puzzle Agent is alright, I smashed through it in about 3 hours. It's pretty easy. The Puzzles are easier and significantly less varied than Professor Layton stuff, but the story and art are pretty rad. And that's the real reason to play (or not play) these, the art/story is the draw.

It's so short I can't really think of a reason not to play it if you like Professor Layton type Adventure/Puzzle games. Real easy one to shuck off the backlog in an afternoon if you so desire.

I'm gonna continue my adventures in Dragon Age and probably get a few hours of Destiny in, that game has me in its clutches. And a game I play every single week, Spelunky, will also get a few good hours. The daily challenge in that game keeps pulling me back in.

@slag: I played the 2009 Wolfenstein and it surprisingly ties into this game. There aren't any huge things, a couple of characters, that you would miss if you jumped straight to this one though. I may force myself to play through the first Puzzle Agent at some point this week so I can talk about it next week... I love short, condensed experiences like that so it may be just what I need as a buffer after Wolfenstein before starting something else. I just put a couple more hours into it before heading to bed.

@nilazz: Destiny sunk it's evil fangs into me for a bit too, I haven't played in about a month but there's a reason that it was number 4 on my 2014 GOTY List. I loved it...

@me3639: I picked up Halfway a while ago because of the Quick Look from a few months ago and have yet to play it. I really need to fix that too...

Thanks for the feedback everyone...

@jbg4:

So after playing about 2/3 of Puzzle Agent 2 last night, I must say I strongly recommend playing Puzzle Agent 2 shortly after Puzzle Agent one. Feels more like the second half of the game than a true sequel.

@slag: I will definitely play them back to back then. I'm going to need a bit of a palate cleanser after all the Nazi killin' in Wolfenstein. Which, by the way, I am nearing the end... about 9 hours in now, and I have to say I cannot recommend it enough. I'll reserve full judgement until the end but what I have played so far is great and worth seeing.

I plan to get Bayonetta 2 this weekend. I saw that it was your GOTY for 2014. I am really excited to get to that...