Starwars

Man I really suck at this game! Having a lot of fun though. I'm just starting on Hard because I guess I'll learn how to do it eventually. Switching over to Stone Houses as soon as possible (basically right after just getting the first few citizens housed in quickly) seemed to make a big difference right away. Gatherers are really good. I haven't really delved into farming yet. On hard you don't start with seeds so I guess you have to trade for them? Do I have to trade for cattle also?

Yeah, pretty stoked for this game actually. The survival angle and the fact that you can build some pretty nice looking cities is gonna be fun!

After having been able to rely on public transportation just fine all my life (living in cities) and now having moved out into the country and having to get a driver's license at the tender age of 30 I have to say... Screw cars, screw driving, screw drivers, screw everything. Having no real desire to drive, nor any interest in cars *whatsoever*, this is actually easily one of the most frustrating things I've ever done in my life. To you people who actually drive *well*, kudos to you, you are awesome.

There's a new builder game (no combat, YAY!) coming out called Banished, here's a review for it. Think I'll have to get this one, it looks great!

Gotta say it looks like a lot of fun, haha. The battles look a bit... slow somehow. I'm a huge fan of turnbased combat, I hope they will manage to keep it interesting throughout the game. Looking forward to playing this!

This looks really nice. It got funded quickly and already broke some stretch goals as well.

After finishing up fantastic, amazing Primordia, I've started up Alpha Protocol again. Been a while since I played it. Personally I don't find Saudi Arabia as horrible as many people do, but that and the Greybox at the start are undoubtedly the weakest part of the game. I think those locations turned a lot of people off from the game.

After finishing up Broken Age, I kinda wanted to play some more adventure games. Decided to replay Primordia. Jesus, this game is fantastic. Not just "an ok adventure game by today's standards" but truly great. One of the all-time greats. If you like adventure games, then buy it buy it buy it!

Yeah, I think Banner Saga is one of few games that does it right. It saves often enough to not be a problem, and it encourages you (well, me) to stay with the decisions and consequences. It's a not a game where you're supposed to be in control. You're thrust into being a leader in a crisis, and now you have to deal with all the junk. I lost a lot of characters on my first playthrough and I loved it. Just keep playing and try to make the best of the situation.

Played and finished the first act of Broken Age. Too easy for my taste which led to a playthrough that felt really rushed even though I had no intention of rushing anything. The game will still be of decent length with the second Act but I hope they can make it *slightly* more difficult (hopefully not to the point of being really frustrating). Really enjoyed the story though. The dialogue and all that is amusing, but not really downright funny I find. On the other hand, behind the childish and beautiful appearance of the game, there is a dark side to the story as well which works really well. I think I can see where it's gonna go in the second Act, but yeah, it'll be fun to see how it plays out for sure.

Pretty excited about this actually. Thought the Dead Man's Switch was... OK mostly. Just looking forward to more Shadowrun at the moment, and I hope they can improve a lot of things in this DLC/expansion. Also, that music was pretty awesome.

Nightmare Harvest was a pretty good campaign, just finished it myself. Didn't like the combat but the writing was pretty damn good and there were some options and how to approach things. I was briefly checking out Shadowrun Unlimited as well and that looks to have a ton of potential, more of a sandbox really. Still a WIP but well worth checking out.

After playing the Banner Saga and highly enjoying it (except for a few missteps), I decided to try out the Shadowrun Returns mod called Nightmare Harvest. Had been hearing a lot of good things about it. For the most part I enjoyed it. A few design decisions I wasn't crazy about. But definitely a good showcase of the fact that there'll probably be more good mods coming for the game.

Actually playing some Fable 3 with my girlfriend. Which is kinda funny actually. I always kinda groaned at the Fable series as they do kinda encapsulate a lot of things I really don't want in roleplaying games. But playing it with my girlfriend, who comes from a background of liking fantasy but never having been all that interested in games, tabletop or otherwise, I can really appreciate some aspects of the game through her eyes. Dialing back the "critical eyes" that one has developed from playing games all these years is pretty nice, even if the goddamn fetch quests and "collect x number of this item" quests drives me bonkers.

Love this so much. Absolutely amazing song.

This is one good point to have I think even though it doesn't necessarily solve the "problem" (if one thinks it is a problem) per say. If the world of PE is close to its historical counterpoint of our world, then there should be plenty of mystery and points of view regarding the history of things. If stuff like lore is presented with personality and with varying points of view depending on who you talk to in the game, I find it involves the player as it activates your imagination. What *was* the true story behind this? What *is* the nature of this phenomenon, etc. And ideally, the player would have to choose his own side in the matter of things. I like having "codexes" in games where you can look up things, but they should be easy to navigate. Straight up "info dumps" tend to be boring even if they may be written well. But yeah, if there is some *point* to it besides just dumping info... Whether the NPC is trying to get a point across, showcasing his/her personality, tying it into quests (even in the subtlest way)then it's all good. But it's a pretty hard balance to strike in my opinion. On one hand, I also like having stories and such in games since they can just flesh the world out and not make it seem like *everything* in the game is focused on a quest, or the main quest or a character or whatever. That can make a game feel too "narrow" in its lore and background. An interesting example is the mage in Torment explaning the nature of the planes. There are interesting anecdotes there for sure, especially since the game is so well-written in general, but to me that conversation crosses the line into "hey, we're explaning the world here!" territory. It becomes too dry, too lengthy and too unnatural to be really fun to read in my opinion.

I'm playing the Early Acess version of Age of Decadence. Been a long time since I beta-tested it so it's fun to jump in again, some really nice improvements and more content to play with. Lots of fun. Also still playing Civ V with the expansions every now and then. Greatly enjoy this game, the expansions have made it really good.

Had my first real problem with STEAM recently. Bought Fable III on a whim since it was on sale. But apparently STEAM was out of cd-keys for it. Now it's 2 days later, still not able to play it since they apparently haven't gotten any keys yet. And the game was up for the entirety of the sale even though STEAM would know that they had no keys for it. So... thanks for not letting me play that old game I bought I guess.

I didn't really think about it at first when PE was released, but at the moment the prospect of getting... well, just a really huge game ala BG2 seems wonderful. If they manage to capture the sense of adventure and "place", the massive feel of something like Athkatla then that will be wonderful. Though I think a part of that is really down to the nostalgia as well. I know I tend to "pick games apart" a bit more nowadays, whereas diving into something like Fallout for the first time was with completely blue eyes so to speak. Other than that, I'm hoping for a lot of reactivity and choices. I guess my main fear is that it will feel *too* combat-heavy for my taste (yes, I know it was part of the original pitch to have a focus on combat). I love tough encounters but I hope it won't feel like a slog at times. Plus, I'm really interested to see what non-IE things they will put in the game. Like the scripted encounters with the art background that's more reminiscant of Darklands. I'm looking forward to seeing them mix in some other things as well.

Playing a lot of Civilization V with the expansions now. Mostly really enjoy the Brave New World stuff, the newest patch tweaked some things to make it even better and made Tourism feel a bit more integrated overall. Really enjoying the game overall.

Finished up Shadowrun Returns. Unremarkable I think, but still fun. And a pretty good fit for a schedule where I no longer play as much. Writing was mostly good (a few glaring exceptions), felt like a nice little adventure. Hard to not want *more* though. It was obviously a tight budget and schedule but it just doesn't get deep enough to be really interesting. I have hopes for the Berlin campaign as well as the user-made modules.

Been wondering about this for a while. Does anyone know of any decent Facebook games, preferably with good stories, RPG-ish gameplay or adventure game-ish gameplay? There's gotta be something out there.

Gameplay looks surprisingly fun and silly I must say, But yeah, I wonder how that will play out using mouse and keyboard on the PC. Hopefully some effort will be spent in making it play well.

Excellent update! Good to hear everything is moving forward. I'm really looking forward to seeing the big cities especially.

Ingress, who accidentally stepped through a portal on her homeplane in Torment and unwittingly ended up in Sigil. Her story really moved me, especially her paranoia about not wanting to go under *any* arc in fear of it being a portal to another plane. Really touching for some reason, felt really happy when I found out that you could help her. Someone mentioned Bloodlines above and I have to agree. They really nailed it there with the characters. Grout's voiceactor on the tapes was fantastic for example.