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Monday Gaming Diary: Here Comes the Guides…

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B108784AbRemember a few months back I posted a poll on which The Legend of Zelda game I should complete first? The big winner was Wind Waker HD, which was next on my list after I got through Dragon Age (mmmmm…Dragon Age…). No really, it honestly was. I knew that Majora’s Mask was going to release in 2015, and I knew there would be a strategy guide for it that I’d have to review, but I assumed it wouldn’t release until the summer or fall.

WRONG.

SO WRONG.

Nintendo doesn’t care if I get anything done, so Majora’s Mask is releasing this month, in about 10 days, actually. I even wrote about Gamestop’s nifty little bundle for the collector’s editions of both the game and the guide. Therefore, that will be both my first strategy guide of 2015 to review and the first Legend of Zelda game that gets played. Technically I already have the game thanks to my Legend of Zelda Collector’s Disc for GameCube, so I could already play it now, and I already have the strategy guide for that collection (thank you, Nintendo Power subscription gifts!). But yeah, I’m going to wait for the new shiny thing.

Hopefully I’ll go longer with the Majora’s Mask 3D remake than I did Ocarina of Time. I still want to give that game a chance, but at the same time, I’m still bitter that I had a game breaking glitch for one particular boss fight. I haven’t restarted it because I get angry all over again. You know how sometimes you don’t want to replay a game again due to one particular region that was a pain or a boss fight that was exceptionally difficult? This is kind of like that; I don’t want to risk that torture all over again, especially when I was having a great time up until that one fight.

And I still hold that the targeting in that game was atrocious.

Now I have zero hope for completing Majora’s Mask, as it was technically a sequel and released on the same console as Ocarina of Time. I am so screwed, aren’t I?

Monday Gaming Diary: Best Laid Plans…

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PAX-SouthLaugh at me all you want, but I had plans to play Dragon Age Inquisition while at PAX South this weekend. I had a hard time forcing myself to stop playing that game all last week, so I packed up the Xbox One in vain hopes that I would be playing it at night after writing. I should have known it wouldn’t happen after I didn’t play it Thursday night.

We got into horrendous traffic Thursday night. Massive construction going on in one of the small towns on I-35, which took us nearly an hour and a half to get through 7 miles. We reached our hotel 2 hours later than we expected as a result, so we headed down to the hotel bar to drink our frustration away and then crawled into bed.

After that, well, we were waylaid by alcohol most nights. Friday night we drank too many free margaritas at the Saints Row IV launch party. Then we drank too many margaritas on Saturday night just because we’re in San Antonio, which means you must consume margaritas. I didn’t even get any writing done, which I do feel rather guilty about.

PAX South sadly didn’t have a lot of publisher representation, but the indie devs were out there in full force, so it was nice to play several games I wouldn’t normally do. Plenty of them were big surprises for me, such as a 2D platformer! I’d go into more details, but I should probably save more for the podcast.

I did get yet another Mass Effect tattoo before we went. My friend got the Elder Scrolls dragon tattoo, and I got the Renegade logo on my right ankle. I thought about getting it on my right shoulder, across from the Paragon logo, but the more I thought about it, the less I liked the idea. I like that they’re in different spots. Plus, now I can yell, “Paragon Punch! Renegade kick!” My friend said we needed to go back to get Dragon Age tattoos, but man, if I get a third BioWare tat, I might as well stamp “Property of BioWare” on my forehead.

That said, I am honestly thinking about it. Because I have a serious, serious problem.

Monday Gaming Diary: Broke One Resolution for the Inquisition

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sep_29_-_keyart_groupWell that didn’t take very long. I resolved to not start any new games (other than what I have to for work) until I wrapped up the strategy guides I still need to review from 2014. After completing Dragon Age 2, the allure was just to strong for me to hold my ground. I had to play Dragon Age Inquisition, I had to know where the story was going, and I had to see if it would be as great as Dragon Age Origins. I never, never should have started up that game.

I only got about an hour and a half in (it took me nearly 30 minutes to build my character), and I know I’m in trouble. I ceased all desires to do anything else but play DAI. I had to force myself to save and turn it off to go pick up my kids after debating asking my husband to leave work early to do it for me. Even eating seems like it could get in the way of proper DAI time. When I got in review codes for work that included a hefty embargo date of Monday morning, I instantly became sad. I don’t want to stop playing for work! So I may get fired, but my boss will understand, right? It’s all in the name of Dragon Age! He’ll get it!

I ran it by him because I am a good little employee, and while he did understand, he said absolutely not. As a result, I have not touched DAI since I started it that one day. And I really want to today, like nothing else. I posted two reviews today and wrote a couple of news stories; that’s enough to call it quits for the day to play DAI, right? I mean seriously, Thedas ain’t gonna save itself…

Monday Gaming Diary: Dragon Age 2 Was As Bad As Advertised

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Meredith_Orsino_interludeI ran through Dragon Age 2 far more quickly than I thought I would. My final time was 25 hours and I did almost every side quest available. I did all of the companion quests, anyway, even though I utterly despised most of my party. And when I say despised, I mean I tried to find ways to get rid of them. Like when Merrill killed the Keeper in her companion quest? I went through all of the dialogue options to find a way to turn her over to the elves to deal with. They didn’t want her either, dammit.

That said, I admit I had more fun than I thought I would…until the very last mission. My exact response has been immortalized on Twitter:

 

My jaw was on the ground for pretty much the rest of the game. I couldn’t believe it could go so badly and have so many plot holes. I also couldn’t believe how it continued to get worse.

I chose to side with the mages because 1) Hawke’s sister was a mage who had no part of blood magic and 2) I wanted to complete my romance with Anders even though he is a murdering a-hole. I did complete that romance, but I was ready to stab him in the face right after I unlocked that Achievement. You were so awesome in Awakening, man! How could you?

However, I am tempted to redo my ending and side with the templars, even though it makes absolutely no sense to do so with Bethany in the mages’ circle. I mean, it’s either that or Hawke is a mage and why would mage Hawke agree to kill all mages? Perhaps I should have done the playthrough where Bethany gets blighted and has to become a Grey Warden in order to side with the templars without killing my sister or being a total hypocrite. Oh well. I’m not going to go that far back in my playthrough to iron out the plot issues. After watching the First Enchanter turn to blood magic for really no reason, yeah, maybe all of you should be culled. And then when I played through the Legacy DLC and learned where the Blight first came from…yeah, mages seem to be the root of all evil.

Haven’t fully decided yet if I’m going to be that committed to seeing the different endings. I know it all goes the same in the end, but it’s a matter of how quickly the mage revolt spreads through Thedas.

Or maybe I’ll just shrug it all off, deal with letting Anders live and the crappiness of the mages and import that game into Inquisition when I play that…after I get through my 2014 guides. I’m going to try to keep that one resolution, by golly!

Strategy Guide New Year’s Resolutions

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Funny-new-years-resolutions-calvin-and-hobbsWe’re back! Did you miss us? I was off the grid pretty much the entire time, and I can’t lie; it was super, super nice. I also did a lot of work on my backlog, something that Chris and I will discuss on the Coffee Break podcast this week. Oh yeah, that’s coming back too!

So while I was playing my backlog and NOT working on the, uh, three or four strategy guides I have left over from 2014 that I have not reviewed, I pondered on my own particular resolutions for reviewing strategy guides for SGR. I hope I can get Chris to ponder the same for his Corner of Randomness this week. (*poke poke, nudge nudge*)

While I’d like to say I’ll resolve to not start a game until I finish reviewing the guide for the one I’m working on, there’s no way I could possibly make that realistic with my current job and the release schedule for games. I just can’t. It’s a pretty idea to have, and sure, I do need to get better about finishing one thing before starting the next, but that’s not always feasible, no matter how much I may want to. So here is my big resolution:

Will not start on any 2015 games or any new games from backlog until 2014 games and guides are finished.

Is that a bit of a cop-out? A little. And it is easy since the first guide of the year is Dying Light and of course I’m not touching that one. It does also help that none of the games I’m really excited about or will review hit until late February.

But still…this means no starting Dragon Age Inquisition or really anything else until I finish Shadow of Mordor, Call of Duty Advanced Warfare, Far Cry 4, Sunset Overdrive, and LEGO Batman 3, and four of those are for guide review purposes. That’s a huge undertaking.

I’m also going to resolve to do one more thing, even if it kills me:

Finish 2015 games and guide reviews in 2015.

I don’t want to add to my stack of shame any more than I seem to do every year. It seems inevitable, but it doesn’t mean I like it or I want to keep that trend going.

And of course, I’m going to resolve to finish The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD. It wouldn’t be a gaming New Year’s resolution without me swearing to finish a Legend of Zelda game for the year. I did one last year, so maybe I can do one or two this year. Crazy, right?

So. Do you have any gaming resolutions for 2015?

 

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