Sometimes I play other games too

It’s been pretty quiet around here lately, for witch I apologize. But, I have a good excuse: I’m preparing to move, and not just down the block. No, my family and I are moving to a whole ‘nother country next week, and I’m frantically trying to close all of my accounts, cancel all of my services, and sell all of my belongings. That hasn’t left a lot of time for horror games, though I did recently put some time into Siren: New Translation and (I am somewhat ashamed to admit) Escape from Bug Island. Also, my brother hooked me up with The Darkness and F.E.A.R., so I have a lot to play.

But I’ve also been playing some non-horror games lately. Shocking as it may be, I actually try to interleave my horror games with my non-horror games so that I don’t get too burnt out on any particular genre. I thought I’d talk a little bit about the non-horror games I’ve been putting some time into:

  • Assassin’s Creed – This game got pretty slammed by reviewers, but I can’t figure out why. The game’s a little repetitive, yes, but that’s ok because the stuff that is repeating is fantastic. The art, particularly the animation, is fantastic, and the game really succeeds at making you feel like an awesome ninja killer dude. The controls are a little wonky and I don’t totally understand how to be reliably stealthy yet, but I’m very happy with the couple of hours I’ve put in so far. This is an interesting game with an interesting theme and I’m extremely impressed with the cohesiveness of its presentation. In my day job I work on animation systems programming a lot, and the animation system in Assassin’s Creed is really, really cool.
  • Pure – OK, so I’ve only played the demo, but I really enjoyed it. Pure is SSX on ATVs; the mechanics of jumping and performing tricks to get boost is almost exactly the same as SSX. However, SSX was awesome and Pure seems like it works very well too.
  • Earth Defense Force 2017 – This is an ultra-budget game by D3 publisher, the hard-working folks responsible for classics THE Zombie VS Ambulance and THE Onneechanbara. 2017 is pretty budget-looking, but it was recommended to me by a friend as being “hilarious fun,” and I have to concur with that assessment. The controls are fairly bad, the story is beyond terrible, the graphics suck, and yet I’ve played this thing for several hours already. On level one they give you a gun that blows entire buildings up! You can’t go wrong with this formula.

What are you playing lately?

26 thoughts on “Sometimes I play other games too

  1. … try the trilogy of Thief! There’re a bit old, but the very first Thief is the mother of all stealth games! It really worths a try!

  2. Recently I’ve played:
    * The Suffering, which is awesome all over. Maybe I’m just excited about playing a game who’s plot is not to save the world from virus created zombies, bad dialog and/or bad acting but I really enjoyed it all the way through. I also don’t understand people who say it’s ugly.
    * Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddlers Green which is, uh, the opposite of awesome. Somehow these people managed to screw up an awesome promise like killing zombies. It’s also really “ugly”.
    * Obscure, which I also enjoyed, especially in 2-player co-operative. Much to my surprise the characters didn’t annoy me at all. Maybe that’s because they’re all annoying but at least not made up of the standard geek/shy girl/jock/hot girl group.

    I also want to say that I REALLY wish more developers would add multi-player co-op to their games. Seriously. Blasting your friends in DM may be fun but nothing beats kicking the computers ass together.

  3. Yakuza 2 – I liked the original, but this one sort of suffers from the usual trapfalls of sequels. It took Sega a year and half to release this game over here in the UK and you can tell they tried to keep costs down e.g. lack of promotion, no big budget Western voices (a good thing!), the boxart, the just-put-it-out-there release date. I think this is going to blowback on Sega when it comes to them releasing Yakuza 3.

  4. i didnt like FEAR that much, it gets old way too fast, Condemned 1 is FEAR done right, i just recently finished it and it has almost the same story (you follow some dude, crazy things happen around you, but at least in Condemned you have a reason for doing so), it has the same scares (the same kind of “blackout+nightmare” fight scenes, but in C1 the “nightmares” change while in FEAR they are always Alma), hell, some levels are almost cloned, it even has the same kind of idiotic ending.

  5. got stuntman ignition last night aswell as bulletwitch so they’ll be getting pounded tonight, other than that silent hill 3 and WoW

  6. http://www.sikflick.blogspot.com
    I just finished the New Silent Hill game and didn’t really enjoy it, almost at all. But I’ve been giving the rounds to some older games such as re-playing the first Silent Hill, Final Fantasy VIII, Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes, Eternal Darkness, and Persona 3. I looking forward to buying Dead Space and Little Big Planet, which both titles look awesome.

  7. http://spooky.ms11.net/index.html
    Non-scary games I’ve played lately… I’m still addicted to Star Wars Battlefront 1, and a few months ago, I got a copy of Lego Indiana Jones (I loved Lego Star Wars so much).

    I don’t think Lego Indy is *as good* as Lego Star Wars, but it’s still a fun game.

    Next up, I hope to get a copy of Lego Bat Man.

  8. endaso.blogspot.com
    I recently played through Cave Story again, and got the true ending.

    I’ve also been playing other freeware stuff, like Demonophobia (not really recommended), The Longing Ribbon, and Yume Nikki. There’s definitely a lot of compelling horror-related stuff available for download on the Internet…

    As far as ‘actual’ games go, there’s been Sanitarium and Bad Mojo…

  9. Playing Silent Hill: Homecoming at the moment, and I’m about two thirds of the way through. Can’t comment on the game as a whole yet, but I’m definitely impressed so far and the story is very captivating.

  10. Well, after Project Zero shortened my life expectancy by raising my pulse to ‘I want to smash my TV’ levels way too often, I also decided I needed a break from horror. I went off and played Cooking Mama, MySims and Alien Syndrome.

    Since then, my diary shows me it’s been a pretty solid run on survival horror. Silent Hill 3, then wii Alone In The Dark, then Doom 3 on the mac, and just the other day I stumbled free of RE: Outbreak file 2.

  11. Lately I have been play Messiah by Shiny, there is no greater fun then taking some poor sap and ether throwing him in the middle of a gun fight, down several stories and breaking his legs or into the meat grinder.

  12. Well lately I’ve been hitting Motorstorm on a nightly basis. Racing games usually are ruined by too much realism (mind your fuel tank, tire wear, etc., blah blah blah). This one you just pop in at night, beat a race to unlock other races and go – no plot to remember or worry about. Gas, break, turbo – that’s it! Lots of cliff driving and car wrecks.

    And somehow my gal and I got hooked on the Ratchet and Clank series. Love that little Lombax.

    And for some reason I liked the Battlefield: Bad Company demo. Hmmmm…

    The Darkness story held my interest! Hope you enjoy that one, Chris.

  13. My two cents for non- horror games lately is a retrying ( and so far MUCH happier about it…) of Max Payne 2….I had dug it out and suddenly saw ads for the movie…( a sign?) Nice ‘drugged/crazy’ aspects…

    Have Silent Hill Homecoming…Not very impressed by the bad controls(dodge?….well…Maybe…) and the ten minute ‘down the stairs,down the ladders ,down the hallways,etc…’decent into hell is absolutly offense ‘game-stretching’ bull crap…

    And Assasin’s Creed?…Looked GREAT…Controls and motion?GREAT….Idea?..Pretty cool with L O T S of ‘throughout all of History’ potential….but the SAME thing over and over….Why NOT have stuff like Horse racing/Horse back fighting and OBJECTIVES…? Or some plain old Breaking and Entering….? Or Some Archery elements that were either wagering or Objective based?…
    A (montage?) or SOMETHING to start the game better woulda been great too….

    Darkness?….A keeper cause it really was the first one that I got that showed the PS3 at it’s best…

    Siren,New Translation ( Asian Blue Ray disc version….) Too short and I miss the timeline graph thingy…But otherwise—A master work….One of the best series EVER…

  14. Glad to know that even as the economy goes down the drain the Horror Quest can continue… Maybe without a few of us after awhile, though. o_o

    I’ve picked the original Siren up again and am attempting to make progress. I don’t want to give up on it, but it’s quite maddening.

  15. Star Wars: Force Unleashed[PS3], dont know why this has been bashed so heavily by critics. sure it is [very]derivative of other third-person action/adventure games but its Star Wars as a TPA, and the physics in it can be really beautiful.

  16. Just finished Silent Hill:Homecoming with my friend and well it’s throughly ok, overall I’m not too thrilled with it.

    Also just finishing The World Ends With You. If you own a DS at least rent this game. The story is kinda cliche towards the end, but gameplay is top notch.

    I hope your move goes well Chris, one never realizes how much “stuff” they have till they have to move it to another house.

  17. Glad to know that even as the economy goes down the drain the Horror Quest can continue… Maybe without a few of us after awhile, though. o_o

    I’ve picked the original Siren up again and am attempting to make progress. I don’t want to give up on it, but it’s quite maddening.

    I just gotta say that the only way that I and a lot of others got through it was to use the walkthroughs…It’s hardly ‘cheating’ as they just say ‘go here and do this”….YOU still gotta plow through it towards the now understood goal…

    I’m playing (for a year now?) Siren 2 and it’s a Japanese copy….I can’t read any clues or anything….The walkthroughs help…but….

  18. http://ultimeciaffb.deviantart.com
    I’m currently playing two games:
    – Final Fantasy Tactics A2
    I got to the final mission and I don’t feel like beating it. Sure, the game is fun, but the story was under-developed. The first game got a well crafted story with interesting twists, but this one… Uninteresting story and no surprises. It’s a shame :/
    – Lego Batman
    The game got many glitches but it’s still fun to play with friends.

    And when I got nothing to do, I always play The House of the Dead 2&3 for Wii.

    And I dunno why but currently I want to play Rule of Rose again.

  19. I just gotta say that the only way that I and a lot of others got through it was to use the walkthroughs…It’s hardly ‘cheating’ as they just say ‘go here and do this”….YOU still gotta plow through it towards the now understood goal…

    I’m playing (for a year now?) Siren 2 and it’s a Japanese copy….I can’t read any clues or anything….The walkthroughs help…but….

    I hate using walk-throughs as frequently as I have been with Siren (especially since it’s my first time playing it through), but I’ve been attempting this game for almost 2 years now. I really want to get through it, especially since they’ve already released Siren: New Translation for the PS3. Well, slow and steady wins the race, I guess.

  20. http://www.gamescares.com
    Re: Assassin’s Creed: “The game’s a little repetitive”

    A little repetetive?! How many times do you want to climb to the top of a tower and jump off it, or hear the npc’s say the exact same thing for the four hundreth time?

    I’m with the reviewers on this, imo it didn’t get slated enough, the single most boring game I’ve played in years, very disappointed.

    Anyway, just finished Hell’s Highway, nice twist with the story, however it got a bit confusing in the end, core gameplay was sound though so I enjoyed it. Also just finished Fracture, pretty enjoyable, but it’s embarassing how bad the game wants to be Halo/Gears of War….

    Looking forward to Fable 2, Dead Space, Far Cry 2 and Fallout 3 now, gonna be an expensive couple of months!

Comments are closed.