Geralt the Witcher: a white haired, burly man with a large scar that runs from his forehead to his lower cheek crossing his left eye.
It is mid week question time!
- What games are you playing this week?
- Would you recommend those games to other Border House readers?
- What games have you ranting?
- Are any of them games that you want to see covered on the site?
As for me I have been playing more World of Warcraft and Skyrim. I am slowly progressing in both but I don’t have much new to say about either one. Tonight, however, I started The Witcher. I am playing it in Polish with English subtitles. I have already noticed that the spoken dialogue is much richer than the written subtitles. Some things are omitted and others are slightly altered. For instance one set of subtitles said “You are right, Triss” but the dialogue was something similar to, “You are right, Triss, my girl. Just as you are always right”. They are not huge plot changes but the subtle differences add up. I just finished the tutorial section and look forward to playing more soon.
Well, what have you been playing?
Been playing bits of indie bundles, started Oblivion and Everquest II. More Terraria.
Is there such a thing as “too much Terraria”? because I’m starting to feel like I’m coming close to finding out.
Playing SW:TOR now. Just finished a replay of KotOR on Monday.
Roughly how many hours is a playthrough of KotOR?
40-60 hours if I remember correctly.
I can’t really calculate how many hours very easily, but after 4 reinstalls to get it working properly on Win7, I started playing… I think Friday (the one right before last Monday).
You got early access already? Enjoy! I don’t expect to get more than 1-2 days myself.
Terraria, here. I killed the Wall of Flesh in my old pre-patch world just to see if I could, and continued in my first 1.1 world as well, but … *twitch* … I developed a case of restartitis. And I’m holding off playing more till the holiday patch in case that has features which require a new world gen too.
Also, I tired the Trine demo and am waiting for the sequel’s demo. Gorgeous game. I’m not really good at puzzle-platformers but it’s been enjoyable. Yes, the characters are a bit stereotypical, but eh.
Finally, I’m getting in what good RP I can with my WoW-guildies before I take a much-needed break which will likely become permanent. It’s sad to leave them, but I just loathe the game now, and I want to add to and hug the fond memories now while I can.
Yeah, redeemed the code apparently on July 23rd, and got an invite in the 3rd wave on Tuesday.
I had the same problem with Ryzom that you have with WoW: nice people there, nice RP, but I couldn’t stand the game anymore.
I’ve been playing Ten Desires, the newest game in the Touhou series. I’m currently trying to clear it on Normal difficulty with all the characters – I’ve managed it once, but most of the time I lose too many lives by crashing into random enemies and making other silly missteps due to my unfamiliarity with the stages. It’s also my first time playing since the English patch was released, so I’m enjoying all the new characters and dialogue.
Ike and I got Rayman Origins, which we’ve been playing co-op the last few nights. So far it’s a lot of fun, with secrets in every level and different characters to unlock (and some amazing artwork).
I’m almost done with Gemini Rue, finally, and looking forward to playing the Blackwell games after. Has anyone here played them?
Otherwise, I’ve done some online gaming: Mount & Blade: Warband with my brother and a bit of Terraria and Magicka with Laquidara and Maverynthia, which I’d like to do more of this week XD
Is it a very difficult game? It looks fun but I heard it was quite a challenge as well.
I have never played their games but I have heard a lot of good things about Gemini Rue.
We just finished the first set of stages in Rayman Origins last night and nothing’s been too difficult yet. It’ll probably get harder, but we play a lot of co-op 2D platformers together so we should be okay.
I somehow missed these comments when I read them before. I’ve played Gemini Rue and the Blackwell series. They are very good, though, all on the easy side and short in length. But challenge is one thing I feel is missing from nearly all adventure games released these days compared to classic ones, so my judgement is more on other things like the story and art direction. In those, Wadjet Eye’s games range from passable to great with Gemini Rue being my favorite.
On the subject of story, I have read great things about the story of To The Moon, an adventure game that oddly was made in RPG Maker. Has anyone played this?
I finished Gemini Rue Wednesday night and have started the Blackwell Legacy. I agree that Gemini Rue was very easy. Though, as you say, it seems art direction and story are more the focus with many adventure games these days. Thankfully, I love the pixel art in Gemini Rue and Blackwell.
I’m a big fan of the point-and-click adventure game genre and have been for a long time, though there are many classics I’ve missed out on over the years, unfortunately. Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers is at the top of the list of adventure games I know I’ve always missed out on, so hopefully I can get to that soon. There are just so many games to play! (that’s not a complaint
)
On that note, I’ve heard many good things about To the Moon, as well. I haven’t played it yet, but I’m planning on it. I recall someone here commenting on it (in last week’s What Are You Playing Wednesday post, if I remember correctly).
Mainly Skyrim and BF3, pretty much the same for a coupe of weeks now.
I played briefly Batman:AC, AC:Revelations and SainstRow3 while visiting friends, and generally I am not impressed. Quality games in a way but burden of being another incarnation of the series is weighting heavily on general experience. Spreading mayhem on streets, punching thugs or climbing minarets is as fun as ever but stories and writing left me cold. I know that these games are targeted at much younger audience but still… SR3 fares better due to its pastiche and “over the top stunts” approach, while AC and Batman story seem pretty much tired and redundant. These three big recent titles show how much industry need influx of fresh ideas, fresh LP and better writing.
Well, not Skyrim, that’s for sure. 55 hours and unplayable. Went out and bought Skyward Sword as consolation, and am enjoying the couple of hours I’ve played. I fear that I keep getting distracted by Dr. Mario and Bust-A-Move when I turn on the Wii…
Oh my goodness! What happened?
I got Bulletstorm for $0.26, so I’ve been playing that. All kinds of problematic, but I really like how People Can Fly continues to mess with shooter mechanics (I was a fan of Painkiller back in the day).
Also, I may be a bad person for wanting to shout some of the silly curses from that game whenever something goes wrong in my real life.
Thats rather disappointing about the Witcher’s subtitles and is likely to discourage me from playing it, since I have only the subtitles to go on because of my deafness.
As for what I’ve been playing, mostly Glitch and ToME 4 (Tales of Maj’Eyal) lately. Glitch’s already been discussed around here lately (in fact it’s where I heard about the game), and ToME 4 is a roguelike. Still betaish and buggy, but playable and winnable. Has some interesting different mechanisms between classes, and none of them play that similarly.
I always play RPGs with the subtitles turned on, even though there’s nothing wrong with my hearing. It just makes it easier to skip dialogue if you’re replaying a section. In both The Witcher and The Witcher 2 I can’t remember there being any difference between the English spoken dialogue and the subtitles. I suspect that the issue Gunthera1 mentions is probably more to do with the difference between the Polish and English versions.
Me, I’m back on the Dragon Quest 9. I hadn’t quite finished it when Skyrim came out and sucked up all my gaming time!
Okay, thanks for that clarification. Obviously, I only have others’ word to go with on this, and it’s easy for me to misunderstand or overlook things like that.
My comment was meant as the difference between what is spoken in Polish versus the subtitles (which I have set in English) that appear on the screen. I am sorry for any confusion.
I always put the subtitles on as well. Partially because my hearing is not always fantastic, partly for ease of skipping (I can read faster than people speak!) and partly because I quite often end up turning the sound off. This is particularly true for very long RPGs where you can get fed up with hearing the same musical queues and dialogue fragments over and over again!
I rediscovered my dormant Steam account last week and have been playing Civ III, as well as trying out a few of the titles from the most recent Humble Indie Bundle. My partner and I also discovered that his MacBook actually has a decent graphics card (unlike my laptop) so we installed Steam on it. Trying to get him to give Portal a shot, but I’m afraid the FPS format is not the most friendly for someone with very little gaming background.
Skyrim when I have some free time. I’m busy getting distracted by roaming from place to place, picking flowers and butterflies, and pickpocketing everyone in sight (which has leveled me up about eight times now, very quickly). Got my fifteen times dagger damage and stealth to 60, so have been enjoying super stealth attacks. Hee.
Other than that, it is mostly iOS app games. I got Sims Medieval on the iOS for free during EA’s daily deals for the holidays. It’s cute. I am addicted to Please Stay Calm, a zombie apocalypse survivor/safehouse building game. Similarly, Zombie Lane is true love for those same reasons only graphical. You can also gain a spouse and pet along the way. You can also customize them somewhat, and possibly even gender (so there might be same-sex couples; I’m not sure on that yet). Both games are free(mium).
Mostly Terraria with some some Cave Story+ on the side. Really enjoying both, especially Terraria, which has actually been surprising me with just how much content this little indie title has in it, and just how much unlike Minecraft it is. Impressive game all around.
Cave Story+ has been satisfying so far. Nice style, music, characters, and humorous dialog. Seeing some nice twists to some ideas put forth by other 2D platformers.
Darksiders is getting long in the tooth. And yeah, I’m still making my way through it. I feel like I’m nearing the final sequence.
I haven’t really been playing much of anything this week, as I’ve had midterms, but my last exams are tomorrow. After that my boyfriend and I are gonna collapse and spend the day playing Dungeon Defenders and watching exploitation films.
PARTY HARD, YO.
SO MANY GAMES, HOLY CRAP
First off, I downloaded Gabriel Knight in the GOG sale and went on a crusade to get it running on my MacBook. I gathered my findings and wrote a guide for getting DOSBox-compatible GOG games (and other DOS games) running on a Mac with minimal fuss (probably helpful for Linux users, too, though if you use Linux you probably know all of this stuff already).
Also, I’m playing the Elebits DS game, and I love it. It’s adorable and a way better Zelda game than Spirit Tracks.
Still going through Skyrim, Skyward Sword, and FFXIII, also started a thief playthrough of QFG because WHY NOT (I’ve never played a thief before, always magic user!)
So many awesome games! Did you ever play the original Elebits? Is the DS game like that? I ask because Elebits is one of my favorite early Wii games.
I played it a little bit, never got very far because it’s hard! Elebits DS is pretty different, it’s more like a 2D Zelda game. You still shake things like trees and rocks to find Elebits, but now you have little creature companions called Omegas that are big Elebits with special powers that help you get around and solve puzzles. There’s a fire Omega, Wind Omega, another one that breaks rocks, another that digs holes, etc. It’s pretty neat.
Gabriel Knight is great! At least the first one. The later ones go from “hard-but-reasonable” to “what the heck were they thinking when they designed this puzzle?” Also, thief is probably my favorite class in the QFG games.
As for me, I’m about to start playing Master of Magic. I liked Civilization 2-4 and Alpha Centauri, so I figured it was about time I gave this classic 4x a try.
MoM is my champion of 4x games even above Civ or MoO2.
Though technically I’ve been playing Skyrim my time with that game has really slowed down as the difficulty amped up.
Mostly I’ve been enjoying all those indie game bundles. There’s a Humble Indie Bundle out right now (pay what you want, benefits charity) that included Cave Story, Bit.Trip.Runner, and Super Meat Boy, among others. There’s also Indie Royale’s Xmas bundle, which includes the adventure trilogy The Blackwell Legacy and other games. They’re shorter games, more focused games, which makes it easy for me to enjoy them in-between doing responsibility stuff. :3
Still with Saints Row 3, now I’m beginning to find some icky things (Zimos’s missions)
I have gotten burned out on games that focus on combat/killing (sorry Skyrim) so I have been playing any otome game I can get my hands on because they are so unintentionally funny
So far I have beat: Hatoful boyfriend (All routes), Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side 1 & 2 (I route for each), Magical Diary (1 route) and Lucky Rabbit Reflex (2 routes)
LRR is so far the best since not only is it funny but it is was made by a british one women team from the UK so the humor and the culture is a lot more relatable to me
Just finished up Dragon Age 2 which I loved, despite all the haterade from DAO fandom – my mysterious eye-watering allergies definitely got going when the credits rolled. Now I’m doing a DAO replay to compare, but god, the combat is soooo sloooooowwww in comparison.
Still playing Skyrim, but I’m too busy riding around the countryside picking flowers to do anything constructive in it. Dragons? What dragons? Other than that, mostly just quick indie games (one takes place in a psychiatric hospital/ward – not sure how I feel about it, but it was intriguing), and nursing my baffling addiction to Pocket Potions on my iphone. I used to make fun of Farmville players, but god, now I understand better than I ever wanted to.
The bugs in Skyrim eventually wore me down (it was the decrease of draw distance that really got me; I’d be running along and BAM a mountain ten feet ahead of me), so I took a crack at the free copy of Fable 3 that came with the 360 I got to replace my brother’s currently fried one. It’s… okay, I suppose. I suppose that I come out of Skyrim feeling a little pampered. You can’t really get a good feel for much beyond the blatant in Fable 3, whereas in Oblivion, you can get the gist of the racism and sexism going on without some NPC outright telling you that it happens. When someone talks about Dovahkiin and wondering who “he” is, I don’t take it as sloppy writing. It makes sense considering Nord society. The sloppiest thing in 3 I’ve seen is that there are only human children, and not even any Redguards at that. No little Orcses or elves or lizardlings or kittens.
I started Witcher 2 recently and while its visuals are stunning and story intriguing, I’m already planning to replay the original Witcher over the winter. One thing I already miss is the three choices in camera angles.
I totally agree with you on the Polish voiceover. The English voiceover dialogue a little too generic and falls flat. I might be biased having read all the books in Polish, although I did also read the English translations of the first two. I like to combine the voiceover with English subtitles and labels because they’re a lot quicker to read.
What really got me hooked in the game was the environment. You never forget that first night in the swamp as you find a relatively safe bit of dry land, watching nervously the bands of bloedzuigers patrolling the shallow waters and drowners lurking about in the bushes. Even here, seemingly out of their sights it is not safe, as one wrong moves puts you under attack from an archespore. I felt genuine fear and rush of adrenaline going into fights and making it out alive. If anything, the game has made me appreciate Geralt’s solitary craft even more when going back to read the books and short stories.
I wish the designers included a playable female character in this game. Triss, or Ciri, the alternate universe backstory is not as important as playing a woman running around these creepy bogs and cemeteries would be to me.
There are also differences in tone between the English subtitle and the actual dialog. (And no, the subtitle is not always reasonably shorter, so that doesn’t seem to be the reason.)
I just finished the game and while the balance really sucked IMO and the main quest line ended rather abruptly, I love the atmosphere and dialogs and the “nobody is what they seem to be at first sight”. I also hope the other books get translated soon!