Today may be the release of Dark Souls II (which I have), but I've been playing other videos games too! And finishing them! But first, a message from our sponsors:

You should buy my new electronic-book, Space Cops 5000. I know this probably won't convince you, so I won't dwell on it. Here's some links: US, UK, and it's available elsewhere too. Just search for Space Cops 5000 on Amazon.

Okay, here's what I thought of Strider. The new one.

So, after listening to Jeff go on and on about how great the NES Strider was, and only give Strider 3 stars in his review, I was going to wait until Strider went down lower than $15 before I bought it. But then I watched the Quick Look Throwback Bombastica for NES Strider, and realized that Jeff was horribly wrong about that game (well, that's a hyperbole), so I went and bought the new Strider.

And I'm glad I did! It's a really fun game. I almost want to call it great, but I think the game falls just short of being great. The core game play is great, I can say that without hesitation. Running and jumping feels good in this game, and that's more than a lot of games can say. Especially when the game is about a future ninja fighting through fake future USSR. There's something satisfying about running through groups of enemies whilst mashing the sword button and tearing them to shreds.

The problem I have with the game is that the world built around those great core mechanics isn't as great. It's hard to put my finger on exactly what it is that makes it not as good as something like Shadow Complex. Part of me wants to say that Strider should have had some more puzzles, or something along those lines. But I don't really remember Shadow Complex having puzzles. Or did it? I dunno! I can say that Strider lacked that special something to propel it to true greatness, but it's still a really fun time, even if at the end of the day it's maybe just a little forgettable.

Okay, let me try to find the right way to word this. When I was playing Strider, I really liked it. I was having a ton of fun. But I haven't played it in over a week, and I find myself struggling to find the words to describe it, because it all kind of blended together. There aren't really any standout moments. There's no, "Oh man, I just did this rad thing" moments in the game. It's just kind of 7 hours (if you play like I do, and try to find everything) of the same thing. At least until the final boss, which (now that I think about it) was absolutely insane. I mean, it looked like it came straight out of Bayonetta. It's that kind of weird. Just not as fun. The boss fights weren't great.

It's fun. You should probably play it if you like fun. I like fun. There's a few goofy things, like how Strider climbs up walls one handed (with his sword in the other hand) that I really like, for the goofiness.

There's my end game completion screen. I would have gotten 100% if the non-upgrade collectibles appeared on the map. I don't know why they don't. It's like they didn't want me to find that concept art, those Strider skins, and those challenge mode thingies.

Along with Strider, I had been playing a lot of Killzone Shadow Fall online. I don't really have much to say about that, other than the two matches in a row where I was #1 at the end of both matches! That was cool.

Last week I started playing the Tomb Raider reboot, because it was free on PlayStation Plus. I think this game is really great. It's kind of like Uncharted, if Uncharted's set pieces weren't as good, but it had a lot more exploration, and also you play as a lady. That last one just led to some not great hair physics, but at least it was one big clump of hair, rather than a mess of weightless strings, which is what the TressFX hair looked like to me in videos. While I'm on the subject of things I didn't care for that are mostly aesthetic, I might as well mention that the facial animations weren't great. But, you know, it's a last gen game, and hopefully more games will be doing LA Noire or MGSV facial capture type stuff.

In terms of the actual game part of the game, I really liked it. I think the game has a nice mix of combat and puzzles, though I would have liked more puzzles. But then again, I think that about most action games with puzzles in them. Well, most action games with good puzzles in them, at least. The types of puzzles in this are mostly the type where you have to figure out how to get through an environment, or trigger the thing that will open the path. You know, the kind of stuff that you'd expect from this type of game. None of it is super difficult, but it was fun anyway.

It's not a stealth game, but it does that thing where (usually) enemies aren't alerted to your presence when you enter an area, which I really like. If you're good, you can stealth kill and arrow your way through a decent chunk of the game without them noticing. And you can arrow through a lot of the big firefights too, because the AI isn't great. I noticed more than a few instances where an enemy was just standing out in the open while I drew my bow back and aimed at his head. Later in the game it got difficult enough that I actually had to use guns every once in a while, and move from cover to cover, so it's not like the game is broken or anything.

Now that I read over what I've written, it doesn't sound very convincing, does it? What if I said that I liked the collectibles? The voice acting? Robin Atkin Downes plays at least three different characters in it, one of which was Japanese (and still clearly him (if you're like me, and in deep enough to voice actors to know his voice, you can tell)). Lara Croft's voice actress did a much better job than I expected, not so much because I doubt the skills of Camilla Luddington (I had never heard of her before I waited through the credits to see who voiced her), more because it's Lara Croft. Even with it being a serious reboot, I still wasn't expecting a decently told story. If only it had had better facial animations.

Hey, another game that has a really well done female lead character that could have been a dude without really changing anything (never mind it being a reboot)! After Remember Me, I'm on a roll! Anyone out there have suggestions for another that I could play? My next book has a female lead (or, protagonist, if you will), and as a dude, I've been spending a fair amount of time thinking about that kind of stuff. I'm trying to go for the "Hey this is a lady just because not because there's some critical story thing like she gets pregnant or some crap like that" type of thing. You know? I'm not explaining it well, am I? It's, I'm trying to do different things in each of my books. Eh, whatever.

Granted, books are not games, and there's no shortage of books with female leads, but it bears mentioning: Not many games out there with female leads. And even fewer with ones that are decent characters that wear proper amounts of clothing while adventuring, shooting dudes, that kind of stuff. Eh, whatever, I don't want this to turn into one of those things where I'm preaching about this. Just an observation. (Of course, you could argue that Lara's tank top isn't a proper amount of clothing for adventuring, but at least she wore pants this time.)

Maybe I'm just not in the right mood for writing after a few hours of Dark Souls II. I'll refrain from writing about that, for now though. I will say that after writing those couple paragraphs about playing as ladies in games, that I made a male character. There are proper beards in Dark Souls II now. But they disappear when you die and aren't human? It's hard to tell.

The only other thing I want to mention is that the mechanic of having to warp back to the town to level up is already annoying me. Maybe it'll be less of an issue later in the game when it takes a lot of souls to level, and I'll be going longer between wanting to level, but right now it's a pain. Especially given how long the load times are (on PS3 at least). For all I know maybe there's a "level at every bonfire" item. I hope so. I don't want anyone to spoil anything for me (I'm still super early on), but if there is such an item, I wouldn't mind a little wink or nudge to let me know.

I think that's about all I have to say. I've written a few chapters for my next book, so that's going well. After spending so much time just editing my last book, and not doing much actual writing, I had lost sight of how much I enjoy writing. I mean, it's not like this. I enjoy writing blogs, but it's not the same. I'm not creating worlds, writing dialog, or thinking up ways to entwine different subplots together. If only my books would sell so I could make at least something resembling money off of this! Oh well, at least it's fun to write.

Praise the sun seems to have been replaced with Hurrah for light, or something like that. It's just not the same. I haven't gotten to a boss yet, but I feel like YOU DEFEATED isn't going to be in Dark Souls II.

I had been going to declare this year the Year of Solaire now that the Year of Luigi is ending, but then I remembered another thing from Dark Souls II that I wanted to mention, so screw it, here's Luigi again to close off this blog.