Adventure Games

A Walk Through Nibel

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My desktop has been rendering the last chunk of animation for the Skyrim video, so I’ve been making some more progress in Ori and the Blind Forest on Steam Deck. It’s actually kinda funny to think that last night I was playing a Playstation game, and now I’ve shifted over to an XBox game, and I don’t even need to own both consoles! 😛 I mostly ventured through Black Root Burrows., and doing what you would typically do in a metroidvania and circle back to older areas after learning new abilities. Mostly finding life and ability cells, and opening up sealed off areas. Fun stuff.

Was actually having a conversation about this at work the other day with another co-worker bud. One of her fave genres is metroidvania, we actually talk about Bloodstained Ritual of the Night on a few occasions, and I’ve also shared other ones with her like the Shantae series and recently Dust. She plays on Playstation, though we do like to dish out on games in general, among other subjects. It’s nice having a few work friends to help the day feel less hellish.

The Hunt Continues

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See… I had plans to wrap up my animation project, but there was an empty couch in need of a tired body after a long work week, and an imagination in dire need of a cinematic fix with a side of tea. I only meant to play for a couple hours, but it ended up being the rest of the evening… this game is just too good. Found some new machines to study… and kill. I also saved the city of Meridian from a very punchable protagonist (not the guy in the above picture) and did tons of exploration.

I may or may not continue this tomorrow… or maybe a little more tonight! 😛

Palace and Chill

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Took on some Glinthawks tonight and advanced the plot a little in Horizon Zero Dawn. Instead of fast traveling I’ve been walking all over the place looking for treasures and settlements, and maybe the occasional Machine skirmish. I wish I knew more people to talk about this game with. Other than a couple friends between work and online, everyone else I know either thinks it’s too boring, or they find Aloy to be too “woke” *aka* she’s not fuckable enough. Though to me she’s probably one of the best female protagonists since Lara Croft. In fact, Aloy seems more like classic Lara than the current spin of Lara ala Crystal Dynamics. Aloy explores, learns from her environment and adapts, she crafts arrows and other items like modern Lara but without the annoying whining.

Wish I could have played more tonight, but at least I moved the main quest along, and I’m in position for next time.

Knock Knock, Open Thread

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Think after tonight I’ll give HZD a little break. I’ve already put in over 40 hours into it! Tonight I completed a couple quests, but spent most of it stealthily exploring the environment. Played a little extra tonight to celebrate finishing another SFM render, will probably do more animating tomorrow night, and pick a different game to chill with… possibly something more demonic. Tomorrow’s my Friday, so the sky’s the limit!

Open Thread!

The Spirit Of Machines

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Tonight I found a village where the humans and machines were peaceful towards one another… for awhile anyway.

Most areas of the game have machines that will make no bones about attack you, unless of course you hack them yourself. Of course it wasn’t meant to last, and I ended up having to kill the once friendly machines. The more I play this the more I wonder what plunged civilization into a second stone-age. Somehow I get the feeling a billionaire manchild might possibly have something to do with it, but it’ll be several play sessions before I figure it out methinks.

Like Clockwork

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Time traveled back to an older game and made it through another chapter. I had to take a break after the clockwork rooms, started feeling motion sick from traversing all those spinning gears. Next time I play I’ll be playing the final chapter of the game – 5 levels in total, and the first one starting with a bossfight against the Jabberwock. It’s looking like I might actually finish this one, and possibly some time this year!

Just A Normal Game Of HZD

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Sooooo I made the mistake of looking at the updated list of mods for Horizon Zero Dawn, and ended up spending most of the day immersed in Aloy’s adventures. I took over another bandit camp, caused all kinds of machine related chaos and even made it to the desert. Finding all kinds of different machines, each bigger and more horrifying than the last, and equally fun to try and figure out how to take down. I kept telling myself that I’d get back to animating after finding a stuck area, but I kept powering through it enough that next thing I knew it had been a good couple of hours, and at that point I was thirsty for more adventure!

I think after today I can say I got a good amount of adventure out of my system, enough that I can shelve the game for now and focus on my animation, and of course a different distraction. This game was just too beautiful to put down, and I’m compelled to finish it now that I have Forbidden West to play afterwards! That’s a looooong ways away though. I have other games I need to take into consideration – I’m thinking of doing something hellish tomorrow night…

Lost In Shadows

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We went about our usual Sunday adventures in Baldur’s Gate 3. We’re still adventuring the Shadow Cursed lands, but we’ve managed to survive some fights, and an annoying demonic child and his parents, or what was left of them. We also rescued a missing child with the help of Halsin, a brave Druid. Or at least the physical properties of a child… the Shadow Curse has a good hold on him, will probably look further into that next weekend.

It’s been fun not having to stress about anything for a week. I have one more day of it before I have to return to reality and chaos, trying not to think too much about it until tomorrow. Tonight is my last night of full enjoyment, gotta make it count. As it is I’ve been having fun tying up a couple loose ends, playing games longer than an hour, late nights reading and partaking of tea and snax, sharing a meal with a friend, etc.

Back On The Horizon

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Today I craved cinematic adventure, so I enjoyed some HZD on the comfort of a couch and controller. Took care of a couple corrupted areas, watched corrupted machines rip apart some bandits and even did an override on a cauldron’s core! I’ve mainly been playing on Keyboard and Mouse, so it did take some dialing in with the Steam Controller, but once I worked the config to my liking it wasn’t much different than playing desktop style. I’ve become quite proficient at taking down the watchers, and even learned how to override a few new machines in the process.

It’s still going to be a long way before I finish this one, so I don’t feel too bad about binge playing it today. I wish there were more people I could talk about this game with at work… either they haven’t gotten around to playing it, or they just found it all to be boring. To each their own… For me it’s like a mix of Modern Tomb Raider and MGSV, it’s a good mix.