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HAPPY NEW YEAR gaming update!

I hope 2017 brings you lots of joy this year, especially given what a rotter 2016 was! I’m afraid I’ve the updates go a bit (oops), so let’s get into this!

I’ve been enjoying FFXV, a little bit to my surprise! it’s definitely because it’s clearly a more Western-style game. this isn’t a revelatory observation, but it feels to me like a mix of FFXIV, Kingdom Hearts, and Dragon Age: Inquisition. not a bad thing at all, in my opinion! I’ve unfortunately had to put it down because the receiver for my surround sound system is being a butt, and plugging my PS4 directly into my TV makes for very disorienting viewing. it’ll be going to GeekSquad soon.

instead, I played Tyranny on PC - a game I’d been looking forward to since not long before its launch! I’m happy to say that it’s as good as it looked, and I was obsessed with it thru my entire first playthru! I’m on the second now - trying to make different decisions for a bit of achievement farming - and my only complaint is how little music there is. there are only about 4? maybe 5? songs in the game, and they get tired very fast. the game also feels too short (only about 30hrs) but I also acknowledge that those hours are VERY dense with content! I guess I’m spoiled by DA:I. :P

I recorded about ten OR MORE videos of Tyranny to finally getting going on my ‘tube channel...but thru the first recording of the character creation, I didn’t notice the mic wasn’t on. the second, I didn’t notice that I had the recording FPS and etc. on very low settings from when I was trying to livestream Portal for my dad. the THIRD recording was a success...until I played it back, after already recording that horde of videos, to discover that my voice is almost completely inaudible under the game’s audio. so that was 10 videos in the trash. le sob.

needing an RPG I’m less immediately familiar with, I started up another game that I bought on Steam’s winter sale - Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition! It’s fun, tho frustrating at times...getting around is slow, and - like Tyranny - little music to sample. some, I’m sure, enjoy that the game doesn’t hold your hand thru every quest progression, but I’m not that player. I want to make my way thru quests as quickly as possible, or at least give me SOME hint as to where to start and how to puzzle together what I need to do next.

Oh...Sir! is as hysterical as it seemed (I avoided LPs of it so that I could discover its brilliance for myself), but it’s not something I’m inclined to sit down with for long periods of time. the devs realize this, I think, with their “It Gets Boring After an Hour” achievement...

with my renewed passion for RPGs, I should try picking up Witcher 3 again... however, it’s been nearly a year and a half since I last played it, and I’ll be lucky if I can fumble thru remembering how to play and not get myself killed. there’s no way I’d start a new file, either: Steam tells me that I already sunk 90hrs into the damn thing.

seeing so much renewed love for Skyrim has, admittedly, brought back my interest in playing it as well...tho not the remastered. you gasp at me in confusion! think of it this way: I don’t want a second set of trophies on PS4 (or PC) when I have so many yet unlocked on PS3. 

(plus, I spent WAY too much on the Steam winter sale... don’t need to spend more...)

finally, I’m still whittling away at Fire Emblem Fates! I’m nearing the end of Revelation, and am unlocking the possibility of S rank with all characters! unfortunately, I didn’t trigger the action in Chapter 14 to get Benny and Charlotte, and I’m now heading into...21...BUT HEY! less support grinding for me to do!

the reason I’m grinding everyone to possible S rank is because viewing it, then restarting the game without saving, will still open up the cutscene in the Records Hall. (...okay, so I’m slightly a completionist with this.) THEN I need to figure out who I ACTUALLY want to pair everyone up with... and THEN the kids come along, and I have to support grind THEM... oi

[pinkensteins-blog]

status of the gaming 20/11/16

oh god what is my gaming life

since my team’s Extra Life 24hr WOW marathon is over, I’ve been idly piddling around until my sub runs out, since it only got reactivated for this. I really love just flying over a zone and filling in the map, exploring and getting a feel for the zone’s tone (bwehe)

haven’t touched FFXIV in a minute oops

between WOW and FFXIV, i don’t care about the lore for the latter but I do love the story from 3.0 onward, and the gameplay is very polished and easy for me to understand. I feel the reverse for WOW; some of the story interests me, but i don’t care for the gameplay much. I am, however, really interested in the lore. hard to stick out getting more into it if i don’t care as much for the game, tho.

I started Fire Emblem Fates Conquest. I LOVED the story, but even on the super ridiculously easy difficulty, the game was incredibly hard. so as much as I wanted to grind out all the supports, I didn’t. I just somehow muddled my way thru, and started Birthright. which I don’t like at all. Conquest was awesome; the story was more nuanced and had a lot more intrigue, and the bond between the Nohrian siblings is palpable. in contrast, Birthright’s story is very black-and-white “Nohr is bad!!!! Hoshido is good!!!!!”, and it barely feels like the Hoshidan siblings have any bond at all. a friend told me that there are huge localization and translation issues with Fates, but that doesn’t help. so it stinks quite a bit, to rush thru TWO games that potentially offer 100hrs+ of gaming. buuuuuuut yeah. one too difficult to attempt that and not lose interest or patience, the other with a story too boring to care. I’m hoping finishing Birthright and moving on to Revelation (where you get every character anyway...) will be the saving grace.

finished Dishonored!!! ...and now need to finish the story DLCs...!!! since they’re relevant to D2′s plot... finally finished Knife of Dunwall, so all that’s left is Brigmore Witches. then at last, D2!!! ...just in time for FFXV to come out...! good grief, what is this Q4 game line-up, jeez

started Shovel Knight, even tho I’m terrible at platformers. started Stardew Valley, even tho I’m terrible at resource management. why do I do these things to myself.

NEED TO FINISH:

Witcher 3

Princess Remedy in a World of Hurt

Deponia

Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright

Dishonored (Brigmore Witches DLC)

Stardew Valley (???)

Telltale’s Game of Thrones

Uncharted Collection

Hyper Light Drifter

Four Sided Fantasy

Ace Attorney Investigations

Shovel Knight

Broken Age (play with friend!)

Gray Matter

Millennium - A New Hope (so stuck tho)

Reigns (very stuck; get help, sob)

Undertale

Papers, Please

Portal

[pinkensteins-blog]

I’ve signed my death warrant!!! as a reward for voting, I finally picked up my pre-order of Battlefield 1 (I’m not an FPS player, but I’ve always had a morbid fascination with WWI, so I’m excited for the campaign!) AND I traded in FEA to pick up... FE Fates Conquest. rip me

I REALLY need to finish Dishonored, but I’m frustrated/stuck because I’ve been working really hard to get the never detected AND never killed trophies, but I might be screwed out of the former because of the confrontation between Granny Rags and SlackJaw. I tried giving myself a break but sticking with Dishonored by starting Knife of Dunwall, buuuuuut

yeah might bury my head in the sand about the election results and go nestle in bed to start Conquest

[pinkensteins-blog]

status of the gaming: N7 DAY 2016!

just like everyone else, I’m slobbering all over what little new info we now have while also trying to avoid knowing too much - I like going into new games/books/movies knowing as little as possible, especially with previously established IPs that I enjoy, so that I can just enjoy surprise after surprise.

ANYWHO.

new game of the update: DISHONORED! doing a rabid, desperate replay of the game so I have it fresh in my mind just in time for D2. I haven’t played since 2013, according to my trophies, and no wonder I sucked at it: I blew thru the damn game in about 24hrs! DE:HR is the trainer that finally broke this wild, anti-stealth bronco called Sam, so I’ve been going thru at a relative crawl. even so, I’m nearly done already...much less content than DE:HR, I suppose.

Fire Emblem: Awakening - FINALLY FINISHED THAT SUCKER!!! just a few hours shy of the...170...hour...mark............ phew. can’t say I’m proud of that, BUT the final battle was laughably easy. so that’s a plus??? unusually for me, I was actually so sated of my intense, short-lived FEA insanity, that I was able to almost immediately delete all my data and set the game aside for trading in. HA. (there are two DLC I never did end up beating, but I got too fed up)

once again considering dropping my FFXIV sub. I’m impressed that my first ever MMO managed to hold me for over a year, but it hasn’t pulled me back. I don’t know if it ever will. at the same time, not sure I want to give up that easily...considering the time, effort, and money I sunk into that damn thing.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution - FINISHED! didn’t do nearly as well as I had tried, or would have hoped. even tho stealth games are definitely not my forte nor my preference, I’m actually looking forward to pick it up and try again! even tho...playing it on easy...and being the impatient moron I am...meant it took........2..........months.....................to complete.............................. 

ahem

KINDA started MD, but I unfortunately had to do a mood whiplash (if not much of a gameplay whiplash) and switch to Dishonored in order to play that before D2′s release.

a lot of other things I was previously in the middle of is still on moratorium; tho, since my PS4 is now getting uncomfortably full (I try to keep as many games in my library actually on the console as I can, so I can just pick up something whenever the mood strikes me), I’m eyeing actually finishing the Uncharted collection and Telltale’s GOT.

I really went overboard with buying and bloating out my game library; now that that frenzy has cooled, I’m trying to focus on chipping away at said library a bit at a time. this includes my very small DS/3DS library! started finally playing Ace Attorney Investigations, a million years after actually buying it. my conflict re-emerges: I love Edgeworth, but holy shit this should have been about Ema and using forensic tools to analyze a crime scene this is such wasted potentiallllllll /claws at face

my hope is to be able to trade in as many games as possible to put towards pre-orders...especially now that Mass Effect: Andromeda is up for deluxe edition. chyaaaaaaaaaaa.

[pinkensteins-blog]

status of the gaming 22/10/16

soooooo did you ever have that problem...where no game is really grabbing you...so instead of finishing what you’re in the middle of...you start a billion more games...?

yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Fire Emblem: Awaking - almost done. just 3 more DLC left (I don’t care about the characters you get; I want to overcome the challenge!!!). after that, I simply head to endgame! ...also, almost 170hrs. HELP.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution - I’m getting towards the end of the Missing Link DLC, which I don’t want to go back to main story until I finish...even tho I’m stuck. I’m trying to do a “Factory Zero” playthru, but I’m stuck at a bit that I don’t know how to get thru without Praxis or weapons... I need to look up a walkthru, seems like HAHA.

FFXIV still hasn’t quite succeeded in grabbing me again, which is both good and bad. (good because I don’t need to lose months of my life, necessarily, and bad because what am I paying for it for, then...) that said, I finished the new story content. SO GOOD.......

did get sliiiiiiightly further in Telltale’s GOT, but I must really not be in the mood for marathoning narrative choice gaming...

platinumed Song of the Deep. I KNOW I’m forgetting things from the PS4 side of updates...

started 

Bound; pretty boring.

am stuck in ‘I am Setsuna.’ lovely game so far, tho not really grabbing me. 

Hyper Light Drifter; very interesting, if a little intimidating in its scope. 

I actually need to start (and finish) Dishonored, since 2 is coming out in a couple of weeks. I’ve played it before, but don’t remember it very well and didn’t play the DLC.

started playing Portal in a livestream for my dad; unfortunately, the latency was appalling and we both got frustrated. I’d actually never played the 1st game before. after all the years of hype, I expected a lot more meat to it than it feels there actually is...

kinda had the same problem livestreaming for a friend of mine. we started with Reigns (which I started and love, but suck at enormously), and moved on to starting Broken Age! I love it so far; beautiful and charming. 

a series of RPGMaker games called “Millennium”. they were cheap on Steam, so I figured ‘why not’. first time I’ve played an RPGMaker game; it’s grabbed me a lot more than I thought it would!

ZOOMBINIS!!!!! I COMPLETELY forgot that an HD remake was made, and spied it on the Steam Store! IMMEDIATELY bought and have already played about 3hrs. my childhood........

actually, Undertale. I convinced myself I wouldn’t play this game because the screaming hype was so overwhelming, but then I realized that watching an LP wouldn’t be as impactful as playing it myself. I bought it on sale a while back and gave it a whirl. I’m less than an hour in. the battle system is weird... I’ve managed to remain completely unspoiled for this game, except for the fact that there are ‘Genocide’ and ‘Pacifist’ endings. I’m trying to do the latter.

Reigns! super unique, surprisingly engrossing. I’m terrible at it.

Gray Matter; a point-and-click. mildly interesting. will try to see it thru to the end.

I played the demo for ‘Tormentum’; a point-and-click set in...Hell...? liked it; might buy it eventually.

[pinkensteins-blog]

status of the gaming 03/10/16

still obsessively playing Fire Emblem: Awakening. clocked at 120+hrs already... it’s a good thing I haven’t played this game until now, because clearly it has its hooks in me!

also still slowly working my way thru Deus Ex: Human Revolution so that I can finally get started on Mankind Divided. I was doing SO WELL on heading for the ‘Foxiest of the Hounds’ trophy at the end of the game, but I completely screwed it up in the PICUS level. don’t have a save point to go back far enough to start over, and also don’t care enough to... so it’ll bug me, but I just moved on, HAHA. if I ever replay this game for the Pacifist trophy, MAYBE THEN

gotta say, FEA has really put me in the mood for RPGs, especially of the JRPG variety! that just about never happens. I can’t decide whether to just dust off my PSVita to play FFIX, my PS3 to play Grandia (those two still being some of my favorite games of all time), or finally start on i am setsuna. for something a little fresher. even might start undertale. WHO KNOWS. I really should just finish what I already have started, tho... including the Uncharted Collection and Telltale’s Game of Thrones... (oops...)

there’s so much new content in FFXIV, but I’ve been piddling about doing normal stuff that was already around, and dabbling in continuing the new story content. after 2mos of putting the game down, I want to ease in slowly... but since it’s competing with FEA and DEHR at the moment, the obsession hasn’t quite recaptured me...yet?