Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

Oh, boy did I want to play Hearthstone when it was in closed beta. I took part in all kinds of Twitter and YouTube raffles in hopes of getting a beta key. In the end, I was finally given one by Blizzard itself a week before Christmas, on the same day the game's servers were down and no one could play...

Diablo III (and Reaper of Souls)

Diablo III and its expansion were 50% off sometime last fall, and I decided to finally buy and play the latest iteration of the genre-defining action roleplaying game series by Blizzard Entertainment.

Sunday, January 4, 2015

Baptism of Fire

It is as if the plot set for the saga turned out to be too short and the series needed a fillerish volume. Baptism of Fire takes Geralt and his fellowship of the witcher into a long journey to find Ciri but they never reach their destination, partly because of the distance and the difficulty of navigating between armies, and partly because they are not even sure where exactly they need to go. (I wish there was a map in the book.)

Saturday, January 3, 2015

System Shock 2

What I learned from playing System Shock 2 is that I cannot appreciate the old classics if I have not played them years ago. I guess I sort of got it from Deus Ex already but this one definitely confirmed it. I just miss all the features the progress in game design and technology has brought.

The Backlog

I thought I would be able to avoid the unfortunate fate so many have met thanks to Steam sales and such. And for quite some time I did, as I am fairly particular of games I am interested in. But now – somehow – I, too, have gathered a stupid number of unplayed games to go through. I have not yet even played all the games I bought last summer!

Friday, January 2, 2015

The Time of Contempt

The Witcher Saga saw a new translator, as for the second book, The Time of Contempt, David French replaced Danusia Stok. Either because of that, or because the source material was better, I liked this volume more than the first.

Thursday, January 1, 2015

Shadowrun Returns

I had not realized Shadowrun Returns was a tablet port until I got into the game and noticed the barely existent interface. Touch controls fit this kind of an "isometric" RPG superbly, though -- way better than, let us say, a first person shooter. Thus it being designed for tablets did not really lessen the experience too much. Still, more hotkeys, tooltips, and a more expansive GUI in general would have been nice to have on the PC version.