A loading screen from Magicka. It shows a yellow robe clad wizard who is frozen in place. The tip says, "Even though you've conjured the combination for a Magick, you don't have to cast it as one. Just press any of the regular cast buttons to cast it normally."
It is mid week question time yet again here at Border House:
- 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 those games listed ones that you want to see covered on the site?
I have continued playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I beat the first boss and am now in Hengsha. I love that most of the NPCs do not speak in English there. I think that was a great design choice. The subtitles still let know the player what people are saying, but that detail helps to make the location feel different from Detroit. I also started playing some of the games that I received from the recent Steam holiday sale. I started Orcs Must Die, Magicka, and Bastion. So far I really like the humor in Magicka but the game is a lot harder than I expected.
So, what have you been playing recently?
I was out of town most of last week and for the weekend, so I haven’t gotten in any PC/console gaming lately. Ike and I did, however, get an iPad, so I’ve been playing that a ton.
On the iPad, I’ve gotten quite a few games, though mostly I’ve been playing Tiny Tower, Infinity Blade, W.E.L.D.E.R., 4 Elements HD, Dragon Vale, Burn It All, Temple Run, Contre Jour, Scribblenauts, and Early Bird HD. I’ve really enjoyed all of the games listed.
Thanks for the suggestions last week, Deviija. Tiny Tower is so cute… hard to stop playing >.< Up to floor 23 so far. I'm also finding the dragons in Dragon Vale irresistibly cute
Currently incubating a moss egg (or at least that's what I think it is).
I'll probably be playing Superbrothers: Swords & Sworcery EP, EPOCH., Tiny Wings, Heroes vs. Monsters, and Infinity Blade 2 next, though I'm looking for more suggestions, as I'm new to iOS gaming.
If anyone uses GameCenter, add me or tell me your ID so I can add you! My ID for it is Llamaentity
I have a stack of new games (including Monster Tale) but as usual am spending too much time working to play most of them! My gaming time is largely made up of pushing through Japanese lessons on my DS, playing Baldur’s Gate 2 for the manyeth time but now with Imoen and Haer’Dalis mods added, testing a yaoi-themed tentacle porn game for a friend (no really!), and working on an upcoming project about a young queen managing a country.
I just finished Dragon Age: Origins last night. I enjoyed it a lot, though not as much as the Baldur’s Gate series, which it is apparently based on. I played as a duel-wielding, generally good-person rogue and ended up nearly unstoppable by the end.
I had a gay romance with Leliana, and it was… odd. There was no gradual realization of romantic feelings; it was like, Friend Talk, Friend Talk, Friend Talk, BOOM I LOVE YOU. It felt like they were just throwing a bone for the gays. I’ll have to play through her romance as male and see if it’s any more coherent. And don’t even get me started on that sex scene… made for some good giggles, though.
I would like to run through again as a male mage and romance Morrigan, who I liked immensely
SPOILERS!!!!!!!
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right up until the mindfuck plot twist at the end. “Hey Warden, can you convince Alistair to have sex with me so I can conceive a demon baby? THANKS!” Seriously, who the hell came up with that?
/SPOILERS
But I might just try Mass Effect instead.
I truly loathe that spoily plot twist/option because IMO it severely cheapens the climax of the game to the point of giving anyone who does it a “skip this hard choice for free” card. Maybe in a future game it’ll come back to bite people in the arse, but even if it does, in the context of Origins I find it extremely unsatisfying and unheroic. Not to mention I wanted to gut Morrigan (whom I despise and don’t trust an inch) for even suggesting it. My Warden did her duty and bit the bullet, and for me that is the perfect ending.
For some people it was itself a hard choice, far more difficult than the bit which follows, and it is one of the reasons I put for the argument that Female Warden/Alistair is the “true” path – if you’re playing that angle and your character shares his view on romance, all THREE ending options are pretty horrible, while if you don’t care about him it’s an easy out.
For my run the _hard_ choice was the one before that which determines whether or not you can even keep Alistair in your party for the final…
Basically, which choices are really tricky moral dilemmas depends slightly on the player, which I think is probably a good thing.
True about the dilemmas.
As someone who’s so thoroughly non-romantic (and finding myself turning rather anti-romance in fact), I was just baffled sometimes by how some people on the BSN looked at the Ritual with no concern for anything beyond their relationship.
Though I have to admit that for me there were no hard choices at all (besides not being really happy with any of the monarch options), so I probably shouldn’t complain. :p I’ve wanted my character to die a good, proper Warden death ever since seeing the Calling video, and the game certainly delivers there.
No Dragon Age 2? After taking the better part of 9 months to finish Dragon Age: Origins, I’ve ripped through about two-thirds of DA:2 since getting it for Christmas from my brother. Some of that is time constraints (I teach college and am on break between semesters) and some of that is the different nature of the games. DA:O favors long, time-consuming dungeons that I, at least, felt the need to block of large chunks of time (that I didn’t have) to complete. DA:2, on the other hand, has a lot of short quests that it’s easy to say “oh, I’ll have just one more.” Then it’s suddenly 4 hours later…whoops. I also wasn’t sure I liked DA:2 as much initially. The Border House review about it being “low” fantasy is spot on, and it feels like a bit of a comedown from the epic journey of DA:O. However, the complex moral nature of the storyline and the characters has gotten me hooked. It’s not quite so easy to be the good guy in a place like Kirkwall. It reminds me a bit of Game of Thrones…except better because you don’t feel helpless in the face of overwhelming misery. I am also pleasantly surprised by the way my relationship with Isabela is playing out so far. Unlike the romance with Leliana, my Hawke’s feelings for Isabela seem essential to the larger plot. I won’t go into more detail for spoiler reasons, but if you had a problem with the relationship with Leliana going from zero to 60 you may like the way this plays out better. I also kind of love Isabela as a character. On the surface, she’s a problematic “slutty bisexual” stereotype, but, as the reviewers here have pointed out, there’s much more to her than that.
My character (through Awakenings and the rest of the DLC) ended up being very “progressive” in terms of dealing with the Blight for the long term.
SPOILERS
Given the background of the game, the idiotic religious dogma, and the nature of the Archdemon, Morrigan’s offer gave a bare chance that future blights might be averted as her child will house the untainted soul of the old god that was cursed to become an Archdemon.
In Awakenings, you find out that even the Darkspawn are tainted in this manner, going from sentient to unwilling savages in the corrupting presence of an Archdemon. So the idea that there is some corruption — by all accounts coming from the Maker — behind it all is at least consistent. And from the Witch Hunt DLC, you can see that Morrigan took this to task because she actually believes it will work, then actively removes herself (and her child) from interference and influence by using a mirror gate.
How much you like this depends upon how much you “get” Morrigan, but I felt it was very well done in the end and hope they do pick up on it in DA3.
I’ve been playing Katawa Shoujo. It’s… interesting.
That’s /Katawa Shoujo/. (I keep forgetting to not use HTML.)
I’ve been playing Katawa Shoujo too. My impression is that it’s actually a pretty tasteful depiction of people with disabilities – however, I’m ashamed to admit that I don’t know all that much about (physical) disability issues. (I’m learning, but I know that I probably still have a lot of unexamined privilege in that area.) I would be interested to hear what someone better qualified than me could say about the game’s problems(/strong points?).
My first playthrough I took Shizune’s path, which was interesting enough. Now I’m playing through Hanako’s path and finding a little more compelling than Shizune’s, though I can’t put my finger on why.
I haven’t played it myself but reactions to it from what I’ve read have been quite emotional and tear-jerking. In terms of the “bigger issue” you can either feel it plays into an escapist fantasy (a special, lavish school where disabled kids can learn unthreatened and with special accommodations in the utmost) or ablist in that they feel the need to segregate them in the first place (medical issues notwithstanding).
On the meta level there’s a host of issues with playing into the vulnerability / entitlement waifu complex but not having played it myself I can’t say whether this is tastefully done or not.
It’s actually very tastefully done. I expected the game to be disabled fetishism, and it’s not. Far from it, in fact.
Firstly, the school exists not to permanently segregate the students from society. They’re all there on a temporary basis to learn what they need to learn before being sent back out into general society. The school exists to help them learn to cope with a society that is not built to accommodate them, and give them a safe area during their formative years where they won’t be judged and treated as lesser people.
That’s actually a thread running through the entire game. The surest way to get a bad ending is to treat people like they’re broken or need a white knight to protect them. While all the characters face unique problems, they all demand dignity. They want support, not repair.
It’s driven home even more by the fact that the protagonist actually has it much worse than the rest of his classmates. He has a severe case of arrhythmia and it’s made clear throughout the game that this will lead to his early death. None of the rest of the named characters have any life threatening disabilities.
This eventually leads to the realization that while the main character may look “normal” compared to his classmates, he is actually in far greater peril. Blind people, deaf mutes, amputees, they can all lead rich, full lives. The protagonist, despite outwards appearances, is essentially a dead man walking. Something as simple as a blow to the chest or overexertion could easily end his life. This is a game where you play the vulnerable one.
It throws the whole concept of physical disabilities on it’s head and forces you to realize that these are not broken people. They are not freaks. They’re human beings with dignity, and they want the same out of life as everyone else.
Yes, there are sex scenes. They’re also hours into the game, not very explicit (I’ve seen worse on HBO, in fact), and intentionally portrayed as somewhat awkward. Not because of the disabilities involved, but rather because the protagonist is a confused, listless young man who is terrified of letting anyone grow close to him due to fear of his own mortality.
The sex isn’t treated as a reward, it just sort of happens as the relationships grow. There are no harem endings, no threesomes, none of the usual garbage you see in the genre.
You want to know how different this game is? There’s a scene wherein the protagonist is walking a drunk girl back to her dorm, and despite her brazenly coming on to him, he simply tells her goodnight and leaves. There’s no choice in the matter, no secret bonus sex scenes, you just turn around and leave.
This game is far from perfect, but it’s a HUGE step forward not just for it’s genre, but for the medium in general. This is a game which not only treats the disabled as human beings with dignity, but it handles relationships far better than anything else I’ve played.
Also, if you don’t at least sniffle a little during Hanako’s good ending, you have no heart.
Trust me, I was all ready to hate this game, but now that I’ve played it, it’s a goddamn triumph. Try it. You might be surprised.
I’ve played this one through a few times for the different endings.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised. The writing is fantastic, and all of the characters are focused on for their personality and who they are, and not so much their disabilities.
The main character spends a fair amount of time trying to come to terms with his own physical limitations and struggling to find out how to relate to those people around him.
I completely agree with Hanako’s good ending … very emotional and powerful. I discovered I do have a heart.
A lot of the endings have and my play-throughs have had a reaction from me. With Rin I had an “omg everything is so broken” moment. It was brutal. You’ll know it when you see it.
The most raw emotional times in the game come when the characters expose just who they actually are, and that includes the main character. This all comes in the context of the evolving relationship that your character finds himself in.
I was not expecting too much in this game, and got it because I was curious. It is fantastic.
Get it and play it.
I’m back onto the glorious Mirror’s Edge, after a week of Fable 3. Fable 3 was enjoyable enough, but it was insanely easy and simplistic, and there weren’t enough clothing options to make my crossdressing muscleman character as ace as I would have liked.
For me, it’s been a week of more TOR (still not sure if I’ll stick with it), Magicka (complete blast in multiplayer), Terraria (hardmode … ouch), Dwarf Fortress (new version coming soonish!), and Dungeons of Dredmor (my altitis is acting up and making me start different builds) as the only new addition.
An article about roguelikes could be interesting, I think.
Also, I can heartily recommend Dwarf Fortress to anyone looking for a complex game.
Ooooh, I haven’t played Dwarf Fortress in ages. I must go back to that. Thank you for reminding me of its existence!
I’ve gone back to the original Mass Effect to hopefully finish another run through of both ME and ME2 before ME3 comes out. This will be my 6th Shepard — I have a few more planned, but probably won’t get to them before ME3 is out.
I’m curious as to how many Shepards other Mass Effect players have to import into ME3 (please someone, assure me I’m not the only one here just a tad obsessed with the series
I only have my one Commander Shepard, but I have several friends with 2+.
I too have only one Shepard, but if I had to replay, I think ME1 would be the one I’d choose to play again, not ME2. I can totally understand your enjoyment of returning to ME, it is a game I remember so many details about and memorable moments to revisit that reached out to me.
A little Skyrim, some Bastion, but way too much MTG.
I also got a chance to play some old arcade games at MAGFest last weekend (X-Men!). I’d forgotten how fun it was to stand at a case with a bunch of your friends… *sigh*
I am mostly biding my time however. I am excite for FFXIII-2, even though Fang and Vanille won’t be in it.
I didn’t realize Fang wasn’t in the new game. That is disappointing.
It follows after the first. Fang and Vanille are apparently holding Cocoon up in its Crystal state. INSTEAD we get to see Serah and some new people. Oh and Lightning. In kickass armor.
I thought, though, that since part of the point of XIII-2 is time travel, they stated that Fang and Vanille could make appearances in certain aspects of it?
I read somewhere (sorry, can’t remember where – it was some time ago) the voice actor for Fang talking about the game, so I would be inclined to take that as a hint that she appears in some form or other.
Wait, but didn’t Square’s teasers explicitly say they would?
I’ve been noobing my way through TOR, also been playing Magicka (yay Steam sales!), L4F2 and the newest Professor Layton. I’m loving them all in their own way, but geometry keeps stomping me in Layton. Magicka is pretty awesome although WASD does completely different things from what my reflexes want.
Did you mean Left For Dead 2 where you said L4F2? Yay for multiplayer games with friends.
Have you tried the RPG in the new Professor Layton yet or does that unlock when you finish the main game?
Oops! Yes, I meant Left for Dead 2. And that seals it — definitely hitting Starbucks at lunchtime.
I have not tried the RPG yet, but I think it’s open from the get-go.
Still conquering the streets in Saints Row 3. Also, went back to Mount&Blade Warband and got a rebellion going. Been thinking of writing a guest post about the state of patriarchy in the series.
For the on and offs, Baldur’s Gate and Giants: Citizen Kabuto.
Eagerly awaiting another Guild Wars get-together. I missed my chance to party up the last time.
I have been playing The Old Republic recently and I’m absolutely loving it so far! Other than that I’m still playing Starcraft 2 & League of Legends; anything multiplayer is alright with me : D
I finished Phantasy Star Ø a second time (with a Newman Hunter character), then decided I didn’t want to go through it a third time with a Human character or continue to grind for rare weapons and such.
I still have a lot of games waiting to be played, so I want to start a new one soon. However, the beginning of a game often includes a lot of cutscenes and dialogue that I want to give full attention to, and that’s not really possible when I play during breaks at work. Maybe tonight I’ll have time to start Dragon Quest IX properly so I can continue at work. Otherwise I’ll just play more of Soul Bubbles. That game is still pretty relaxed, although it’s easy to miss some stars or calabash.
After blowing through the 4 Assassin’s Creed games in a little over a month and finishing AC: Revelations this weekend, I’m feeling a bit lost and gameless. I have plenty of unplayed/unfinished games to go through, of course, but I haven’t quite let go of AC yet.
I’m still playing far too many things at once, but the short list:
Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky – I love this game for having a female, physical-fighter protagonist and a canonically bisexual male character; I hate the fact that the narrative doesn’t treat them with respect. I acknowledge that it’s a 5-year-old game, but the fact that these things even exist in it makes the lack of respect so frustrating. (The gameplay is really good, and the game is funny and often clever although possessed of a crushingly large pile of text.)
Infinite Undiscovery – There’s some amazing social commentary and construction buried under the clunky gameplay and characters that drive me straight up a wall. Fortunately, it’s also very short, and on Easy difficulty it’s quite easy! I hit Disc 2 (of 2) at 12 and a half hours, and I think I should be able to finish it by the end of the month.
Dragon Age: Origins – I’m replaying as a city elf warrior, slightly less paladin-y than I did the first time through, with the goal of romancing Zevran instead of Alistair.
I more or less put Doctor Lautrec and the Forbidden Knights on hold, because I’m stuck and can’t find any guides online.
Also I accidentally a bunch of hidden object games on the Mac App store.
I’ve been busy!
I’ve been quite interested in trying out some hidden object games on iOS. There are just so many that I have no idea what I should try :c
Are there any two or three in particular you’d recommend?
The one I spent the weekend playing was actually on MacOS, and was called Goddess Chronicles. I’ve not had the chance to play the two I picked up for iOS yet, but they were highly rated: “Awakening: the Dreamless Castle” and “The Mystery of the Crystal Portal.”
Since New Year’s, it’s been mostly SpaceChem and Jamestown for me, which is like beating my head against two different walls, but they are brilliant games. There was a lot of Atom Zombie Smasher there too. I’ve been meaning to give Fate of the World more time too.
I’ve been inching through the L4D campaign and having a lot of fun. I’m usually pretty averse to FPSs, but L4D hasn’t been troublesome in comparison to other FPSs. I hope to give co-op a try sometime.
I also need to finish my canon re-playthrough of Mass Effect 2. Trying to do Overlord again but these damn vehicle missions…
The SpaceChem + Jamestown combination reminds me a little of chess boxing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_boxing).
hehe wow. I’d never heard of that, but it’s a good analogy of my gaming week.
I like the idea of combining or nesting games. For instance, playing Civ and ordering a worker to build a farm or mine, then jumping into Minecraft.
I’ll definitely stick with TOR, but I haven’t played it yet at all this week: I’ve been ill.
Despite that I did play Gray Matter today (doesn’t require the timing and amnount of clicking and precision etc of an MMO. Also it pauses). I liked it, though there are bits that make me *facepalm* or cringe. It was an adventure I wanted to keep playing though, very engaging.
I’ve been playing quite a bit of The Sims Medieval, which has quite a lot going for it, and is much more structured than other Sims games. Except that last night I just finished my first ambition, and now it seems to want me to abandon my kingdom and create a new one if I want to try a different ambition, which has knocked the wind out of my sails. What’s the point in a Sims game if you have to abandon your characters just at the point when you’re starting to grow attached to them? Unless I’ve done something daft and am not seeing a way to keep one kingdom throughout the game, I doubt I’ll be spending much more time on this.
I’ve also been slowly replaying SpaceChem, which continues to be a fantastic game.
Yeah I was pretty bummed at that point, too. On the upside, if you do the “forging a new kingdom” quest in the old kingdom (I forget what it’s called exactly), you can pick a character from the old kingdom to be a monarch in the new one. You might be able to do it multiple times, too, so that you can use sims from your first kingdom to start off all your ambitions, but by that point the sims in the other kingdoms will probably have grown on you, too.
I am very close to finishing Venetica, and putting off that last mission with all sorts of goofing off in the city of Venice; just don’t want it to end and I am 36 hours in… Thanks for the interesting factual tidbits from last Wednesday, Deviija, I would never have found those out. For me, Venetica leaves Fable 3 off my queue of best games in the last year. Also finished LOR: War in the North and it delivered way more than we expected though agreed, it was short and very scant on side quests but so beautiful, fun and compelling. On the shelf about what to start next, Dark Souls (nervous twitch), Batman: Arkham Asylum (I’m a tad behind) or Divinity II: Dragon Night Saga.
I haven’t heard much about Dark Souls (no surprise, I’m PC-only) but what little I did see in a video sounds intriguing, a brutal, nasty, hard-as-hell way. If you dip into that next, I’d definitely like to hear about it.
Trying to get into again and find some decent Visual Novel-ish games. Dug up Corpse party and Hakuoki is on the horizon (even though I know that game is going to be filled with problems. The simple fact the it was put up to a vote starts it off as games for men rarely are ever voted for.)
I’m thinking Dragon Age plays out more of a VN than as a “regular game” and maybe that’s why people like it/hate so much. It’s a game you do RPG bits between the dialogue and less dialogue bits between the RPG.
Started to play Frozen Synapse and was enjoying that. And then my computer died hard. Sigh.
Been trying to make it through some of the Steam games that I haven’t played yet. Last night I enjoyed some Dungeons of Dredmor, SpaceChem, and The Binding of Isaac. I also got into Bastion, which I am seriously regretting not playing earlier. What a beautiful game it is! I love the voiceover part of it, I think it tells such an immersive story.
I started playing SpaceChem (what is it about this week?!), Shank, and Batman: Arkham City. I’ve also been piddling about avoiding finishing AC: Revelations – I want to play the end, but I also want to finish some of the economic stuff…
Shank is easily the worst of the bunch – it’s so chock full of sexist tropes that it may as well be actual pro wrestling (there’s a luchador theme throughout the game). I’m only a couple of chapters in, but the titular protagonist is heading for a strip bar, as far as I can tell with the intent of killing one of the strippers in revenge for her part in the rape and murder of his girlfriend… yeah. I don’t really see it getting any better. The gameplay is visceral and fun, but the themes leave an awful aftertaste to the whole affair.
I’m not nearly far enough into Batman to pass comment, but already I’ve been hearing the famous gendered slurs, and could do without them. The combat is still good. In the introductory sections I find that the game feels like it’s struggling to make Bruce Wayne relatable in 2011, which I find interesting, and I haven’t had any good ideas on how to do a better job of it.
SpaceChem == awesome. As far as I remember it never specified the player’s gender in the story section – I’ll have to go back and check on that.
…
Nope! No references to the player’s gender at all so far.
Most interesting puzzle game I’ve played in a long time, and the story has just started to grab me.
A comment on Magicka – it’s really, really heavily tuned for co-op play, and it’s way more fun that way anyway. I tried playing single-player after playing co-op, but I really couldn’t find enough energy to care. The humour is good, yes, but the enjoyment from being blown up by a stray ray from a careless friend is so much more.
Oh! And I’m still on Frozen Synapse – send wererogue a challenge any time you like!
On the PC’s gender in SpaceChem, the text indeed is gender neutral, but unfortunately the images show a male faceless figure. I did a double-take the first time I noticed it, because I had happily been assuming that the story was being gender neutral. But the man pictured matches only with the PC according to the text.
I’ve been spending most of my time on Majid and the Forsaken Kingdom, which only got mediocre reviews in the mainstream press but I have to say I’m thoroughly enjoying it! It’s a 3rd person action game, though I would mainly describe it as a 3d puzzler. Each region of the game has a number of areas and each area has a puzzle of some kind in it (reaching particular switches, opening doors, getting at bad guys, etc) So it has nice ‘bite-sized’ chunks which (unless I’m being particularly obtuse!) take 30-45 minutes each. It’s also nice and colourful, the music is nice and I have to say I’m finding the whole thing quite charming.
I’ve also been playing a bit of EVE Online. I’ve got a subscription and every so often I just start up a new character, work my way through the tutorial missions, etc, just to see what’s changed since I last looked. It’s a game I like but I never play for long, mainly because it is very time consuming and I just don’t have the time to dedicate to it that it deserves.
Other than that, I’ve been playing with a few iOS games – Drop7Lite mainly – my brain seems to like that one! I did try 100 Rogues, but what’s with the ‘How to play’ link going to a YouTube video?!
I loved this game too! The relationship between Majin and Tepeo was endearing, and I remember missing playing it when it was over. The level designs and puzzles were so fun and the companionship combat was satisfying. Good to be reminded of this little gem that was mostly lost in the big game genre quagmire.I worry that games such as these will disappear entirely in the future.
You know it’s one of the things I like about this particular part of the forum: there’s a lot of love for older or more off-beat games and not just the AAA mainstream titles!
I’m back in Mass Effect, playing as a male Engineer romancing Ashley. One of my goals is to play with Ash in order to see how her character progresses in the final game. I played with Kaidan for my 2 previous playthroughs. So far, playing with Ash by my side has been very cool. Playing as an Engineer is rather difficult since the class has very low health. Good for him that he has Liara and Ash protecting him.