After work today I decided to unwind with just me, a controller and a TV – where I would go on to die a couple hundred times and STILL somehow move the plot of Ori and the Blind Forest. Making my way through Mt. Horu, which has taken much patience and even more teeth gritting. It was either going to be this or Horizon Zero Dawn, but I figured I’m getting closer to the end and wanted to push things in the right direction, enough to give myself another break from it. 😛
Video Games
Party Like It’s The Apocalypse
I keep telling myself that I’ll beat Darksiders one of these days, and thanks to Cloud Saves and the Steam Deck I’m hoping to make that happen. For the most part I remembered how to play, despite the long lapse since my last session. I did see some higher res textures on the Nexus Mods site, might consider adding those for next time I play in 4K.
I will say though; Every time I’ve played this I keep finding new things at the start. It’s like each time I play I get more adventurous.. might even play more of this tomorrow night after some animation, which btw… got a lot done tonight. 😉
The Spirit Of Machines
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
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
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…
Back On The Horizon
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.
I’ve Ascended (Finally Beat Toren!)
Four months into 2024 and I’ve finally completed another game in what feels like an ever growing collection of entertainment. After all these years I finally defeated the Dragon, conquered the overall clunkiness and ascended Toren with only one achievement to go back for on another day. It’s only a couple hours long, but if you’re thinking of getting it I recommend waiting for a sale. While the visuals are stunning, and the music is immersive as well as breathtaking, the controls were off putting enough for me to take long breaks until finally willing myself to sit down and finish it. I put up a short review on Steam for it if anyone wants to see another opinion cast into the ocean of mixed reviews.
If you do end up buying it I’d recommend it more as a Linux game than a Windows one. If you play under Windows the game has a nasty habit of not closing out the executable properly, but if you play it on Linux or Steam Deck it functions normally. A good reason to be dual-booting! 🙂 (Now if Linux could support my Sound Card properly that would be greaaaaaaat)
So far both games I’ve finished this year have been Indie games. I wonder what the third game I’ll finish this year will be… There’s a good chance it could be another indie game, but who knows? Maybe a triple-AAA game will slip in there somewhere.
Only time will tell.
Meditation & Hats
Decided to do some zenning on the couch tonight with some tea and good scenery. Covered a lot of ground, leveled my character and found more things than I could detail.
I journeyed between The Village and Fields mostly. Found some Spirit Mail to deliver, which helped purify and open more areas. To be honest it was hard for me to put the game down tonight because I couldn’t stop finding things. Kept finding hats, rots, even a couple of meditation spots and several chests. Even with the battles it was still very therapeutic gameplay. Enough that I can give it a rest, as well as myself.
Kept You Waiting, Huh
Squared off against The Jaberwock tonight, and lucky for me he sucks at playing a game of Jacks. Then I navigated through one of the easiest mazes ever, it’s hard to get lost when you keep following all the enemies you haven’t killed yet.
Parking in Airborne Terror for now. Looks like it’ll be fun. I thought I’d be getting pretty close to finishing, but I’ve looked up the list of levels and I have at least a few more sessions before reaching the end. Oh well… more to savor!
The Adventurous Sorts
The last bit of my evening was spent losing myself in a very vivid, colorful world with much to discover. I returned to the farmland that was previously on fire, and began to slowly purify the land. I found a few rot, won a few battles and even have a special delivery for next time.
I’m thinking tomorrow night of continuing my adventures in HZD. I played a bit last night, and much like in Kena I was once again lost in a very vivid world. Last night I left off helping the Nora Braves take down some Cultists, destroyed two of three bases and found a few Ancient Vessels for my ever expanding collection. It was fun taking down the alarms and creating an ambush. I don’t know why so many people at work told me this game is boring, it offers a multitude of destroying your enemies.