Tale

I just found out they're retiring hit. As an affliction lock, I'm so happy.

Warlords of Draenor officially announced. http://us.battle.net/wow/warlords-of-draenor/ World of Warcraft is getting a time travel expansion. I try to be optimistic about WoW, but I fear this being terrible. Time travel rarely works out well when it's not the basis of a franchise. I see people meeting Ner'zhul, being terribly unimpressed, then fighting him in a 5-man where he runs away like a Saturday morning cartoon villain.

Drakensang, Chains of Satinav, Memoria, Realms of Arkania

Playing both Memoria and Goodbye Deponia this year, loving them both, has turned me into a minor Daedalic fanboy. I want this to be great, but am unwilling to follow an episodic release schedule of their early release.

I'd love to get Blackguards, but I've kind of gotten tired of "episodic." I want to play the entire game in short order. I have too much going on, other games, work, my writing, to keep track of stuff over an episodic schedule.

Moving this over to Computer and Console. It's perhaps a little too on topic for off topic. I know there's already some discussion in The Kickstarter Thread. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63674-the-kickstarter-thread/page-26

9 of 9 I accomplished this miracle feat through my use of the ancient human art of "cheating."

You might want to be aware that Memoria is a sequel to Chains of Satinav. Chains of Satinav was good, but not great. I'd pretty much forgotten how it ended by the time I started Memoria and I only played Chains less than a year ago.

I'm skeptical. Talent is a perishable good and they don't have much to show from the past decade. Sounds like they might have one guy who worked on League of Legends on the team. But by the same token, that kind of skepticism is against inXile and I'm hopeful. Or Harebrained Schemes and I think they did well. And inXile increased their talent pool from when they first pitched.

That is on my wishlist... It's my 2013 game of the year pick so far. If you're into adventure games, I can't recommend it enough.

I hope you gave Fthreear to someone you hate.

Finished Memoria. WHO IS CUTTING ONIONS IN HERE?!

The phone is nothing but a tool of evil. Nobody understands me over it. Me: "Hello, this is (my name)." Guy on phone: "Oh hey (my boss's name), I've been to get ahold of you." No. No. No. Me: "Hey, we need someone to do 1 and 2 job in Reno, NV." Guy on phone: "Yeah, we can do that." 2 days later Guy on phone: "Whoah whoah whoah, we don't do 2. Nobody told me about 2!" Me: "Hey, we need someone to do 1 and 2 job in Reno, NV." Guy on phone: "Yeah, we can do that." 1 day later Guy on phone: "So here I am in Las Vegas, what's going on? What do you mean Reno? I can't do Reno!"

Assassin's Creed III allows you to jump through the branches of trees, on top of the rooftop hopping. Yeah, but those branches suuuuuck. And all the rooftops are pretty short.

None of them improve over the rooftop jumping of 2 and Brotherhood, let's put it that way. While also seeing the rest of the game fail to be as good.

Assassin's Creed II is fantastic. And Brotherhood is a great sequel to it. And that's the entirety of my ability to recommend that franchise.

Hit a game breaking bug in Memoria. So I've stopped playing it until someone e-mails me a new savegame.

Enough to warrant a 400€ pricetag. Why would you expect a crossgen game to be a system seller? It's like judging the PS3 on Marvel Ultimate Alliance.

Finished Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director's Cut. The game has lost much of its initial charm with time. It's still good, but it's not a game I can see replaying for a third time, not even for New Game+. On to Memoria.

I didn't like it, but I don't hate it, I don't see it as if it's some lazy cash-in. They definitely made a fair effort, but as a big fan of the book, I can't help but wish they'd done much better.

Saw Ender's Game. Needed to be more than one movie, really. Lots of violations of show, don't tell, with tons of narration from Ender on what's going on. Half of the narration seems redundant with things on-screen and the other half seems like it only exists to make up for the parts they don't have time to show. And the speed of the movie really ends up hurting the characterization, you don't have time to see why he becomes the way he is, and you don't even see enough of him to know that any of it's growth and change.

The only particularly good action scene in either of Singer's X-Men movies was with Nightcrawler. Storm-Toad, Mystique-Wolverine, Woverine-Lady Deathstrike were like watching B-movies to me. First Class I see as the best film of any of them. It's the one with real characterizations and growth, and it's not just a vehicle for Wolverine to slash at stuff. Really looking forward to all the Marvel movie's planned. Winter Soldier has me surprised that they're going to go with the Captain America being willing to rebel route. Though I think the "Winter Soldier" part is not going to give it much time to develop. In the comics, Captain America's particular "rebellions" tended to coincide with a political message. And while it would definitely be topical in the current climate, it seems too much of politics for Marvel films. Still, I expect Winter Soldier to put the entire thing on the backburner anyway. I don't see both of them developing and the action where he fights a dude, then has personal drama, will win out.

The concern I got out of the video was the cutscene-gameplay ratio. The earlier video showed a much longer gameplay segment, so that's good. Sadly, I don't think we've seen much in the choice department, though I know we've heard about choosing sides in the war.

Every report I've seen so far from people in the Alpha say that it was not a good game.

You just solidified its place on my Wishlist now. Wonder what it'll hit at Christmas.