So…video games, huh?
I had a few thoughts on games recently that I wanted to share / discuss so I figured that I would start this topic. Please feel free to share your own thoughts & ramblings, be they short or long, here!
1. Grow Home
I’ll start this thread off with an amusing Grow Home anecdote.
For the past month-ish, I’ve been tinkering away with the cute & beautiful little indy game Grow Home.
Never touched a guide, never looked up any of the core concepts, never watched any videos, just threw myself into it because I had heard that it was a very Zen, unique, free-form, explore and discover, the journey is the reward, kind of game.
So, like I said, for the last month, I’ve been trying to get my B.U.D. (Botanical Utility Droid) higher and higher as I grew my star plant further and further skyward and collected my power crystals.
Last weekend, after a few hours a week here and there, I got to a point where I could not figure out how to advance.
So, today, I finally loooked up some guides and vids, and learned a few very basic things about the game that quite literally made me face palm and feel very stupid.
2 key points that could have saved me a lot of time if I had known them off the bat:
1: You can control the Star Shoots (little rosebud things that poke out of the sides of the main plant as you climb it). Activating these Star Shoots causes a smaller sub plant to shoot out of the rosebud and extend for a fairly long distance in what I had thought was a completely, random, twisting direction. Along this new subplant will be other Star Shoots you can activate. Until I read a guide today telling me you could direct the growth direction of the Star Shoots, I had thought each Star Shoot went to a purely random predetermined location and you had to try every Star Shoot (there are a lot) til you found the one that took you exactly where you needed to grow to. D’oh!
2: Floating in the air everywhere are little rocky islands. Some have glowing green bottoms. I had completely forgotten that crashing a growing Star Shoot into these “energy islands” caused the main plant to grow. So, between being reminded of that fact, plus learning that you could direct the Star Shoots…let’s just say I made almost more progress today in an hour than I had in the last month a few hours a week.
BUT…
I had a blast making my ignorant way through the game in my bumbling, knowledge-less state!
So all’s well that ends well!
2. Sleeping Dogs
I mentioned in another post how thoroughly impressed I am with Sleeping Dogs.
I believe it was originally a PS3 game, but they gathered all the extra content together, fully remastered it, and re-released it for next generation, which is what I bought.
It is by Squenix, who really have a knack for making unique and engaging open world shooters. Just Cause 3 (also by Squenix) kept me thoroughly satisfied for 3-4 solid months last year.
It is set in Hong Kong, which is a very unique and exotic setting and a city that I have long been intrigued by. So, there are Chinese radio stations while you drive around with really excellent Chinese music of many varieties playing on them, the citizens on the streets are all speaking Chinese (well, mostly), there is a lot of subtitled Chinese amongst the English in the main game dialogue, and it’s definitely gutsy and way less American or Euro centric than most games.
At first, I was a bit turned off by Sleeping Dogs because of the (at least at first) heavily Meiee focused combat system, and how much of a weak punching bag your character starts off as, but, once you get a couple story missions under your belt, gather a few Jade Statues (which can be traded in to a wise Sensei to unlock advanced melee techniques), and the gunplay aspect of the game makes itself known, the game really opens up.
The missions and side quests honestly play like a John Woo shoot em up / gunfire car chases / martial arts movie, and it is exhilarating and awesome!
I cannot recommend this game highly enough!
3. Overwatch
I got on Overwatch tonight with a crew of old friends for the first time in a looong time. Maybe it’s cuz I’ve been done with Battleborn for 4 months now, so im not going into every Overwatch session in a BB state of mind and constantly comparing it to BB in my head, but I had a blast!
A lot more fun than I remember, I’ve had it since release but have probably only sunk about 30-40 hours into it as opposed to the 1600 hours I put into Battleborn.
So definitely something I plan to play more of!
4. Other Games
I’ve also started Shadows of War but it hasn’t fully grabbed me yet, so I’m not very far into it yet. Seems way too much like the first so far, which isn’t a bad thing per se.
Plus, seeing the Micro-Transactions Market staring me in the face every time I load it up doesn’t help.
I’ve also started Grand Theft Auto 5, but haven’t had much time for it yet.
Feeling pretty guilty about abandoning The Witcher 3 after getting damn far into it (level 27, almost all side quests done, was getting decently far in main story, too), but, despite the awesome-ness of the writing and the amazing dialogue (and the boobies), I was tired of everything being so ridiculously easy.
I’ll finish it one day!
Ok!
Now you guys talk about your current gaming experiences!
Thanks in advance!
