My level 17 worgen mage in World of Warcraft looking quite dapper in her top hat as she flies into Darnassus on the back of a gryphon.
It is midweek and time for yet another What are You Playing Wednesday!
- What games have you been playing lately?
- Are there any you would recommend to other Border House readers?
- What games that have you ranting or raving?
- What games do you want to see covered on the site?
As for me I recently went back to World of Warcraft for a bit. A lot has changed since I left and I had trouble going back to my high level characters so I have been spending time with my new ones instead. I have also been playing more Monster Hunter Tri and Tales of Symphonia. Finally, I got in a few good hours of Skyrim. So far pretty much everything in that game has impressed me: the graphics, the story, the little details. It is such a huge game I know that with a level 12 character I have only seen a fraction of what the game has to offer.
Now it is your turn! What have you been playing this last week?
City XL though I’m still following the (very long and detailed) tutorial at the moment. Also playing Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone but I’m stuck even with a walkthrough. I know, it’s pathetic
I got into last weekend’s TOR stresstest and enioyed it quite a bit. There were issues in terms of gameplay/mechanics, character creation, “immersive” environments as well as storytelling, but still my impression was quite positive. I really enjoyed being able to make a tall and athletic woman … sadly, it seems many other players take a “why would you pick such an ugly she-male for anything but MAYBE a Trooper” stance towards body type #3. *sigh* But at least that’ll make characters with that model stand out from the crowds a bit, literally and figuratively.
TOR stresstest here too.
I was kind of disppointed that there is a fat male bodytype, but the corresponding female bodytype just has a bigger behind, arms that aren’t sticks, and a very slightly rounder face. I liked it, better than the usual thin bodytype, but why didn’t we also get a real fat option? also liked the truly tall and very muscled female bodytype.
I already knew what to expect in terms of gameplay and such, they were pretty clear about the kind of game they were going to make. So I just figured “standard MMO + Bioware strengths = an MMO I will probably like because of the Bioware elements”, and I was right.
Oh, but a “fat” model would be even “uglier” than the tall one and we can’t have that now can we? *sigh* What do people think about the male #4? From what I read, many players (predictably) consider it a bad joke that shouldn’t even be in the game.
On the other hand, I was somewhat positively surprised that the male #3 doesn’t appear to be all that popular; a middle ground between #2 and #3 was a wish expressed by many on the boards because the “steroid on steroids” isn’t something they can identify with. I find that interesting because that model isn’t half as bad as most of the men in WoW, where hardly anyone seems to mind how grotesque the men are. Is it just the over-the-top cartoony graphics that make the ultra-hulks so desirable in WoW?
My own biggest wishes in the character creator would be better hair, too many textures look like plastic or really crude. Fan-mods for Morrowind did much much better in the game’s heyday, and that was how long ago? Also: there are no curly hairstyles for women, why?
Gameplay felt a little clunky on my Jedi Knight and Consular, which might be due to low levels but still could be done better to make it more engaging. Early impressions are important. I do hope the classes won’t be as much of a mess as they were in early WoW.
Companions are nice, but take a while to acquire and then gave very little to say, so anyone going into TOR expecting interaction like in Dragon Age will be disappointed. I hope that, too, gets better later.
Combat doesn’t feel nearly as heroic as they claimed it would, because too many enemies aren’t affected by our stuns and such. When my companion and I are ganging up on an enemy who has more health than both of us put together, laughs at our stuns but has no problem punting us around like footballs — who is more “heroic” then? It means that boss fights, which should be the most dynamic and cinematic and exciting, are actually the least so. Just flail away and hope it isn’t *your* health bar that’s empty first.
Finally, the game could be less “sterile” if it really wants to draw me in. WoW does that much better: day/night cycles, random weather effects, critters and wildlife, ambient sounds, near-seamless continents to explore. You also can’t sit on any of the many benches or chairs — or, you *can*, but the default non-interactive sitting pose isn’t suited to it at all. It’s true that the people really make or break a game’s RP potential and you don’t technically need any visual or audio aids. But this isn’t a chatroom, so the “stage” for our RP could be more lively.
All this sounds pretty negative, but I still had fun, I just tend to gnaw on the things that I DON’T like. :p The voice acting and the single-player like storytelling were fun, as was the party-talk system. Animations seem to be the same or nearly so for men and women. So no stupid giggle-squee little-girl sexy-poses like in WoW when all you’re trying to do is /cheer or /applaud or /dance. I guess one of my problems is that I’m just not a Star Wars fan. The Jedi and the Force are appealing, the rest leaves me cold. And I like big cats and hippogryphs and druidism much more than droids and speeders and space combat. Still, I’ll give TOR a whirl when it launches because Blizzard has been systematically gutting everything I enjoyed about WoW’s setting and characters for a long while now, and there just isn’t any hope it will ever get better.
I just killed the whole reply I was typing by pressing some wrong button. *cries*
D:
It was so long….
I might try again later.
I also checked out the Star Wars beta and thoroughly enjoyed the sith campaign. Aside from that I’m still working on Skyrim – sweet, dear, forever-crashing Skyrim. Oh and DCU of course, that game has managed to suck up a great deal of my time since it’s gone free to play.
I’m on a second playthrough of Skyrim now – I’ve done a mage, now I’m doing the thieve’s guild storyline with a stealth/archery specialist. Still so much content to see! After this I might give it a rest for a bit until more patches come out, and get back to Dragon Quest 9 which I still haven’t finished.
Playing some Fiber Twig 1 & 2. A nice relaxing puzzle game where the goal is to get to the end of the twig structure by connecting the rest of the structures. Pretty open ended for what you can build.
I touched Skyrim, haven’t been infected yet. It seems to have afflicted most of my twitter list and my online friend. It also causes people to inflict it upon the unsuspecting. *Stares at Steam* Where the inflicted seems to play the game and…die off. The only real way to tell if they are alive is to keep a running tab on their hours played.
Also picked up a 3DS Zelda Edition so I’m playing Ocarina of Time 3D. I think what I hate about the game is that I know there are hidden things in it and I can’t remember if some are time sensitive AND/OR if I can actually get the items at the moment. (Nothing sucks worse when you try to get something but can’t, find out you COULD have gotten it and then missed the window.)
Skyrim for me, i am in it something like 100hrs now. I have been waiting for Saint’s Row since release day, i ordered from THQ cuz i thought i was doing something good, clearly not as they dont want to actually deliver my game.
Has it at least been shipped yet?
I’ve played the heck out of SW:TOR beta this weekend and here are my thoughts:
. It kept me playing and more interested with game then exp, quest rewards or loot. I also played a little bit female Sith Warrior and it was great too (being arrogant and evil). Seriously I can’t imagine going back to mmo without VO and dialogues, cut scenes and companions.
First things I impressed with:
-the way storytelling, VO, dialogues, companions fit mmorpg, I know it’s Bioware but it is still great. It was great to play my female Chiss Imperial Agent with Kaliyo as her companion, going all for fun, profit and casual violence, while skewing heavily towards Dark Side
- Graphics is great, maybe characters models and animation are a bit lacking but locations are absolutely stunning, textures and shadows are awesome.
Now the things the left me skeptical or even cold:
-basically whole game mechanic is WoW incarnation in SW universe, I mean I know that WoW is one of the most successful games ever but it is still 7 year old game and Bioware seems not to change a thing. Combat is clunky and boring, skill inflation causes that you spam literally dozens of skills on recharge even on lower level character (small, same looking boring icons). Adding companion helps to speed up dispatching mobs while playing solo.
-running around, holy shit you do really run back and forth for a ridiculous amount of time, cabs and speed boost skill early on helps a little but even locations seem to be design to force player to run, run, run….argh.
-I haven’t really dabbed with crafting system mostly because it seemed so artificial towards story driven nature of the game (I am Sith but I have to spend ludicrous number of time crafting vests?)
All in all, I was vastly skeptical about SW:TOR prior this weekend play but what I’ve experienced was a quality Bioware game (and I am both SW and KotOR fan) , nevertheless it is mmorpg title and for me this game seems to excel at what is unique for Bioware :characters, story and companions but at the same time being dragged down by its meticulous and artificial WoW legacy, considering a steep price and monthly subscription I know that I won’t be buying this game, though I am pretty sure if it would one day follow Guild Wars model I would jump in it right away to continue the story of blue skinned Imperial Agent Thal’Shea.
Skyrim, and oddly, Saints Row. It’s a farce of a game, but that’s what makes it entertaining. My character (a black woman) really felt like a badass in the cutscenes. It was pretty empowering.
I created my 2nd char in Skyrim, just because. This time I became an assassin-thief to see what all the buzz is about. And now I know! It’s actually really fun killing things from far away, and exhilarating trying to pickpocket the Jarl as he sleeps.
Skyrim and Saints Row for me, too. They complement each other well, oddly. My head swims with all the information brought on by inventory management, quest juggling and fighting off homicidal fauna and indulging in a bit of uncomplicated, very colourful mayhem is a great antidote.
I agree that the player character in Saints Row is pretty badass, although there were several occasions recently my character was incorrectly addressed using male pronouns.
Haven’t been far enough to notice wrong pronouns for my Lady Boss (or I’m too distracted by ridiculously badass shit). Although I was taken aback a bit when I heard a pedestrian say that I look like white trash for the first time. And I’m thinking “But I’m Asian… Oh, you mean my ghoulish face paint?”
Also, do police officers shoot you for streaking?
Ike and I had a chance to play with an iPad for a bit last week, so we tried out TinyTower (someone here on TBH mentioned it before, can’t remember who
) and it was pretty fun and quite adorable. We’re excited about getting an iPad within the next few months. There are tons games I’d like to try!
On the Wii, I’ve been playing a bit of Skyward Sword. I’d like to play more but have been spending too much time on the PC.
I’ve been playing Lost Horizon, Gemini Rue, Machinarium, and Uplink on the PC. I love point-and-click adventure games (the first three of those games listed
). Uplink was an interesting break from them… it’s a hacking simulation game of sorts. I might look up some mods for it to see if anything adds a storyline.
The next few days I’ll probably be trying some Mount & Blade and continuing the adventure games.
Skyward Sword.
I am on the second dungeon. I am rescuing Zelda again. But she seems to have here own part to play in this quest. She’s not sitting in the Big Bad’s HQ waiting for me, she’s out and about in the world. I missed ‘rescuing’ her in the first dungeon because she had finished what she needed to do there and moved on.
Yeah, I like that Zelda actually appears to be doing stuff and Link is kind of just chasing her around. What’s weird is that before the end of the second dungeon, it’s not clear whether she’s been captured or if she is actually running around on her own. Sometimes the characters you meet are like “oh I saw her going that way” and then sometimes Fi talks about her being taken somewhere. I was kind of confused, at least until the end of the second dungeon, when a thing happens.
My wife has taken over the 360 with Skyrim, so I’ve been playing Kingdom Rush (an awesome TD game), Backyard Monsters (at Kongregate), and Cthulhu Saves the World (because I have amazing friends).
Is Kingdom Rush PC or a handheld tower defense game?
It’s PC/browser-based. I play it at the Armor Games website. Also, I’m done with Backyard Monsters. Ugh, too cliquish.
MORE SKYRIM! Whew, it’s been a while since a game has kept my attention for this long.
Outside of Skyrim I’ve been checking out Dungeons of Dredmor, a roguelike made from the ground up to be more friendly than most other roguelikes out there such as Dwarf Fortress and NetHack. It’s actually pretty fun, and it has a nice sense of humor, though I could do without the “dandy” mockery. (It’s not mocking you for playing on easy, it’s just telling you the armor is really poor.) However, it makes me want to go play Tales of Maj’Eyal, or ToME for short. It’s kind of like DoD in the since that it’s built to be more accessible, but it’s different in that it’s free.
Also, going to go back to Darksiders soon. Been a while since I’ve played.
Actual conversation from this morning:
Llama: It’s Wednesday! You know what that means…
Me: Um… Spaghetti night?
Llama: That too, but I was talking about “What Are You Playing Wednesday”.
Fact – There are few things that Llama likes more than spaghetti. This blog is one of them. You should be proud.
As for games, I’ve been playing Skyward Sword, Machinarium, Glitch, and an Android app called “Drag Racing Premium”. (It was the free app of the day on Amazon appstore a couple of months ago.) Like Llamaentity said above, we tried out Tiny Tower on an iPad.
Also, Glitch just announced that they are going back to beta to work out some issues and develop more content! This is exciting because I was starting to run out of things to do.
I’m currently closing in on the end of my 3d playthrough of DAII, this time playing as a very diplomatic male mage. I still have a couple of other playthroughs planned, but will put it away until next year to keep it feeling fresh between playthroughs. It’s still an amazing game and it never gets boring! .
I’m also looking forward to playing Skyward Sword, since Zelda-games have had a special place in my heart since I was a child and had a crush on LInk, and perhaps Skyrim later, after seeing all the buzz about it online and among my offline friends.
I am not playing anything, instead I am writing about representations of sex workers in main stream video games for one of my university term papers. It was actually inspired by a article posted here about sex workers in Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. But even though I am actually enjoying working on the paper I really wish I was playing more Skyrim right now.
Shockingly – still playing Xenoblade. I tried to finish it at the weekend and found that I still need a bit more levelling up before I can get through. So back to the side quests…!
I’ve also spent a few hours on Arkham City – which I’m enjoying a great deal but, yeah, thug background dialogue is problematical…
As of now, I am too busy playing angry birds. Im addicted to it. Before it I played crossfire, dota, battlefield. They are all great dudes.
I’ve been playing El Shaddai…which is a game that defies explanation, but is also utterly beautiful in both it’s look and sound. There are some minor mechanical problems (combat feels a tad simplistic) but otherwise I’m enjoying it immensely. I think if you can get past the religious content, or enjoy it for the religious content, it’s definitely a game I recommend, so far.
Otherwise, my main gaming computer has been scuttled by a virus, so that’s sucking up alot of my time, attempting to fix it.
Stiiiiill Skyrim. Having lots of fun ignoring the plot and capturing souls. The quest in Yngvild was… interesting. Certainly motivated me to kill the boss…
Gender-wise, the full rainbow obviously isn’t represented, but otherwise, hm. Chainmail bikini is there sometimes, and where it is there it seems entirely skyhooked.
In terms of NPCs… plot a chart of NPC importance vs sexism fail. and you get a nice parabola. Mooks are broadly good – they’re mooks, they have one cycle of lines, and come in male and female varieties. Critical NPCs are good too – female NPCs have a broad range of ambitions and roles and personalities, near as I can see. But when you get to mid-level NPCs – quest givers, basically – it often all goes a bit stereotypical as they’re not in sharp enough focus to be awesome and not in soft enough focus to be featureless. I’m still pretty not-sure-if-want about Yngvild, and I’ve been hearing a lot about a quest where the only win condition is some really horrible slut-shaming of someone who’s slept with a WHOLE THREE men in the last year (without, say, an option to go “hey, this woman’s being a dick to you, you want you should go have some righteous religious anger at her?”)
Finishing up Assassin’s Creed: Revelations. Got to level 21 in the multiplayer, and I’m satisfied enough with that. Trying to get all the achievements and 100 percent sync in the single player! Almost there…
I do miss Leonardo… He was so nice to have around.
I’ve been playing a little Skyward Sword. First dungeon plus a little. Lots of fun. The first Zelda game I really dig. Also playing NCAA12 or whatever it’s called. I like football when I don’t have to worry about the players getting head injuries. Oh, and I finally played Cut the Rope:Experiments on the iPod Touch.
Wants the Skyrim, but I need to finish Skyward Sword first.
I’m playing a game I just got today: Skyrim!
Pretty awesome as 18th birthday presents go.
Been playing bits of Fallout: New Vegas and Aion during the last week. Still wanting Skyrim, still a long way off from getting the computing grunt that I need. (d’oh).
Finished UNCHARTED 3 (on Easy) last week. Started playing it again on Normal mode. Haven’t been playing much of it since last week, though. Too busy/tired.
Still….. MW3. I have DX:HR, UC3, and Skyrim in the offing though, so perhaps next week after I finish marking exams and hand in the next chapter of my thesis, I’ll be onto something new.
On a different note, is there any game out there any of you would recommend to someone who likes sandbox games? I don’t care for them personally, but my roommate loves them, and I’m stumped for a christmas gift. He’s already got Infamous, the AC series, and GTA.
If your roommate hasn’t played Red Dead Redemption or Borderlands, I’d say those two are good options. If he’s already played them, consider L.A. Noire, though the gameplay is slower-paced than the others.
Hope that helps! I can suggest some more games if he’s played all of those already. If you want more suggestions, let me know what platforms are available
Oooh, Red Dead Redemption! I think he missed out on that one. And I’ve been meaning to look into L.A. Noire myself (we both own PS3s, if that helps).
Thanks a bunch.
Just found this blog today, and am impressed! I have enjoyed reading back through the archives – Great articles and great community! . Anyway, I’ve been trying to work my way through a backlog of games I feel I should have played by now, but never got around to. So I’m playing Bioshock and also DX:HR. Also working on my umpteenth ME2 playthrough in preparation for ME3…
Welcome aboard.
Thanks!!
Battlefield 3!
I wish there was a female character in this game though.
Isn’t the gunner in flying section named “Jennifer”?
Or did you mean a female MP skin?
Strictly referring to MP. I haven’t even started the singe player game. Normally I hate MP, but Battlefield MP grabs me by my genitalia.
Come to think of it, the only recent FPS games with female avatars for MP that I can think of are Vegas 2 and the Resistance series. Though if I feel like it I just play a tactical heavy and pretend it’s a woman under all that kevlar.
Same here. Battlefield MP is heavenly. The SP is…. ….not. You’re not missing much.
I don’t think I’ve seen Frozen Synapse covered here, and I love me that game.
I just finished AC2, in preparation for playing Revelations later this month, and started playing Amnesia: The Dark Descent, which is doing a good job of getting my heart racing.
What about AC: Brotherhood? Are you skipping that title for Revelations, or have you already played it?