Random Junk: Volume 1 Issue 1
By ahoodedfigure 6 Comments
I'll be buying the sequels to the first Age of Wonders because they're discounted at GOG this weekend. I guess some other download site had them cheaper, but I don't really care all that much given that these are DRM free. Someone argued that the other site offered a soundtrack of the games, but since the soundtrack was pretty easy to find in the first game at least, and completely customizable, I didn't see that as an advantage.
I downloaded the freeware Shmup Tyrian 2000 from this site, but haven't installed it yet. Shmups are always daunting for me... maybe because despite their prettiness they're usually for very intensely specialized gamers. I like blowing up chunks of stuff, seeing huge, complicated mechanisms, that sort of thing. The bullet hell style I can do without, and I like advanced ship customization. Yet I also like Xevious, so I dunno.
Through the continually rewarding Rock Paper Shotgun, I found out about The Battle of Yavin and The Battle of Endor, two Star Wars space combat games for free at Bruneras.com. I didn't know what I was watching when I first saw it, but afterward I figured out it wasn't X-Wing or whatever, but an arcade-style, segmented mission 1st-person blast-em-up. Nice. They sport playthrough videos of the two games, if you're curious.
RPS also brought my attention to a Bushido-Blade style Korean scrolling brawler that looks phenomenal and has great animation, though the subject matter seems a bit senselessly twisted :) They also featured a demo reel for a new Unreal Engine build that looked pretty, but struck me as a bit weird since I really don't know the current state of 3D tech. The features it listed might as well have been in a foreign language, although I briefly wondered what Minecraft would feel like if it looked like that.
When researching a monster response to someone's post on an earlier blog entry, I ran across Nick Yee's page, where he takes surveys of MMO populations and shows us what's going on behind the character veil. Fascinating stuff.
As for stuff I've actually been playing, I've made it a bit of the way through Infinite Ocean, a suspenseful point and click adventure Flash game featured on Armor Games. I played through some of the endings to the excellent-if-flawed debut game After Years in Dark Tunnels, which I found out about through AV Club's Sawbuck Gamer feature. I tried playing old Spelunky on the laptop, though it had me wishing for a gamepad. With some practice I can get up my proficiency again I think, but man, I play like I've barely learned the basics now, when before it was second-nature for me. Still love that game.
The main bulk has been leveling my dudes in Might and Magic II and finding a continual barrage of secrets that I have to write down in my lil' notepad. They have more money than god (I checked) and are nearing the point where they don't instantly die from a stronger baddy's melee hit. Favorite spell is acquired, too, called Moon Ray, which does up to 100 points of damage and heals everyone for the same range of damage. Pretty handy if you ask me.
The other part of my time has been playing through Solium Infernum in repeated short campaigns, training myself for what promises to be my first successfully executed multi-player match (if I don't keep screwing up the PBEM files). I've beaten the computer all but once during this latest bout of plays. Still very uneven and random, but always fun just for the plethora of completely random stuff that can happen in a given turn.
Any discoveries this week? Anyone brave the Black Friday crowds or find a game worth mentioning (whether or not it had anything to do with Black Friday)?
Take care, everyone. Happy Thanksgiving, even if you don't celebrate it :)
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