We’re getting to the most anticipated time of the year with some massive blockbusters coming out. It’s getting even more difficult to decide which video game deserves our time, there are too many to choose from! Check out what our staff have chosen to play over the last week. How about you, let us know what games you’ve been playing in the comments section below.
Mr Port:
This week has been spent lurking in the shadows, listening, waiting. I am the silent justice in the dark, the swift blade of retribution. I’ve been playing Dishonored. It’s quite good; and to make things a bit more challenging, I decided my first playthrough would be a “no-killing” one, so essentially all that stuff earlier about swift blades and whatnot, should be like, swift choke holds.
Also been spending some time playing through Of Orcs and Men, an interesting game that reverses the traditional “human protagonist and bad orcs” paradigm, I won’t say too much; keep your eyes peeled for my upcoming review of it!
Senior Stiv:
I finally did it. I finally finished Borderlands 2! After nearly a month of killing, well a lot of things, I’ve reached the end of my long journey through Pandora. And I made sure that dick Handsome Jack got bullet firmly planted in his head. I’m now going to play through as Zero and attempt to complete every side quest I missed on my first playthrough.
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Also, as a nice celebration for the Halloween holiday I purchased the original Left 4 Dead and I’ve been blasting zombies away like it’s my job (that would be a pretty sweet job). It’s different without the melee weapons, but feels good to be back in Bill’s boots again.
Steve B:
Diablo III is that ex you just can’t get rid of. When we first started dating she was so shiny and new, she liked all the things I liked and I enjoyed spending time with her. Then I started to see through all of her tricks, realise she was just doing the same thing over and over and she was just getting boring. So I dropped her. In patch 1.0.4 we had another one night stand, as she promised me that she’d listened to my complaints and she’d changed. She was soon back to her old ways though, and we broke up again. I took a break from her for a while, but then she came back into town with 1.0.5. She had a whole bunch of new tricks and my friends convinced me to give her another go. “She’s just like the old Diablo II you knew long ago,” they said.
Well, the last week I’ve been smashing through Diablo III and loving it. What I loved most about Diablo III at launch was getting to max level with a group of friends. Once we hit max level though, the brick wall of inferno was just so high and it actively punished us for wanting to play as a group. So it fell to the wayside. 1.0.4 tried to lure me back in with paragon levels, but ultimately still failed because hey, it still wasn’t efficient to play with a group. 1.0.5’s infernal machine and monster power, combined with the paragon levels from 1.0.4, have really hit the nail on the head. It’s fun to play with friends, you get a sense of progression, and you can set the challenge as high or as low as you want to!
HumblePie:
I seem to be a bit late to the new releases but never the less, I’ve jumped into Dishonored and have Borderlands 2 ready to go. I’m liking Dishonored so far, not loving it. It’s a whole lot of fun to sneak around and killing is awesomely gruesome but it reminds me so much of Bioshock! Not that this is a bad thing I guess.
Tunesmith:
After picking up Kingdoms of Amalur for $29, most of my gaming time has been dedicated to following my destiny and changing the fate of the world around me. The game is enjoyable; the quests are varied enough to keep one coming back, the surrounding races and NPCs are interesting and the levelling points system has an appeal. I’ve started the game the same way I start most games, which involves completing all available optional side quests along the way.
However, I might be in for more than I bargained for, as the world map appears bigger than I originally anticipated, and full game completion may take significantly longer than expected. Admittedly, the game does have some flaws. While combat is fun, all combat move combos are based on presses of a single button, which takes away from the sensation of achievement of pulling off special moves and combos. With large groups of monsters over a large area, the camera tends to zoom out, which I found made observing monster’s attacks and timing parries difficult.
There are a few other little annoyances, but for the most part I’m having a great time playing around and will continue to weave the threads of fate. For more info check out Senior Stiv’s review.
