Haroldo's Gaming Report - 2
By HaroldoNVU 1 Comments
As intended, here I am posting another Gaming Report. January was a busy month gaming-wise, so much that I almost didn't post anything on Giant Bomb during this month but I'll give you the highlights now.
Os Pés Juntinhos
I've spent a lot of the last few years with very bad internet connection, both bandwidth and latency prevented to play most games online, with a little exception being Final Fantasy XI during late 2009 and early 2010. But since October of last year I moved into a new town and now I have access to broadband. It's only 1mb and latency could be better but it's enough for all games I've tried. A few friends that live on the Western Amazon region and I started playing Alien Swarm and Left 4 Dead 2 relatively frequent and then during the holiday season of the last year I started a group on steam, Os Pés Juntinhos.The name is pretty silly and kinda hard to translate (it's something like "close little feet"), the name being a suggestion of my friend Thiago Nosferatu that also bought the L4D2 4-Pack and gifted to other group members, including me. So far I consider the group a moderate success. We tried scheduling events but attendance was really low, but at least, we played together for at least 4 hours a week during the last month.
Left 4 Dead 2
If during November/December our main game was Alien Swarm, during January the group almost only played L4D2. I actually knew very little about the game until I got it. I'm kinda sick of zombies, but that game is cool in my book. I specially love how some of the special infected abilities force you to work as a team. You'd think that since I only play with friends that this wouldn't be a necessity, but while I love my gang, they can be assholes sometimes when they're gaming.Ok, I'm not perfect, I'm very anal and I might not be most skilled in the group, but I take teamwork very seriously. "Leave no man behind" is my motto, but I lost count of how many times I was, forgive the pun, left for dead. Still, it was fun. We finished all Campaigns on normal mode and played a bit of Survival (which we can't really handle). I think we'll keep playing this occasionally during this month.
In Search of the Golden Co-Op
While L4D2 has been fun, we're starting to consider a new co-op game for this or the next month. We're considering about a dozen games, but so far the most popular in discussions has been Borderlands, which fortunately I already own. My friends are new to Steam, so they don't have a lot of games. That means that they're kind of counting on me to recommend the next game, with is a rather cool responsibility.So far, besides Borderlands, I "nominated" the just released Magicka, the still unreleased Torchlight II, the original Left 4 Dead, the not so good or old Titan Quest, the probably not so good but cheap The Scourge Project, and finally the derivative but cool Monday Night Combat. The Scourge Project was more of a "I got this with a indie pack and IF you guys like this we can give it a change" and the others are genuine suggestions. But Borderlands is the most popular so far. I actually played about 5 hours with two different classes so I could give them a personal review. Hopefully we'll see the white smoke by the time I write the next Gaming Report.
Dragon Age: Origins
Man, I love this game... but somehow, I didn't manage to play this enough during January. I played 20 hours at best during last month and my characters are all around level 11-12. My Warden is in a relationship with Alistair and so far I haven't even finished the Urn of Sacred Ashes questline. I'm currently at the Fade, doing the long Lost in Dreams quest. I intend to focus most of my gaming time advancing this story during this month.Magic: the Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers
I got hooked on unlocking cards ever since I finished all the Campaings. So far I'm only 20 cards away of completing the whole collection. Then I'm gonna focus on playing it only. And damn, the took time, I have almost 110 hours of gameplay registered according to my steam account. it's my favorite game to play while I listen to the Bombcast for the last 5 months, but as soon I have all the cards unlocked I'll need to choose another game to play.By the way, I wrote my first guide, a step by step walkthrough to the Challenge Mode of the first expansion. I hope it proves useful to someone one day. It was quite fun to write it, and at least I did something at Giant Bomb during a otherwise slow month for me.
Back to College
Yeah, January was fun while it lasted but it's time I got back to college and maybe, who know, finish it for a chance. That means a lot of less time for gaming, but I still can manage the squeeze a little time for my favorite hobby. But I'm very happy I'm finally going back. Last year was very, very messed up. But things are looking up already. The only problem is that now I live a lot far from campus, that means I'll have to wake up at 4:30 am to be in time for my first class. I'm gonna save a lot of old Bombcasts on my iPoor to listen on the buses and hopefully not get mugged in the way.That's all folks. Tune back next month.