Gaming

I was close to the end last week, but I've finally finished Pillars of Eternity. It only took 8 years. I'll not start with the expansions right away, but to do them I'll have to load a save before the final dungeon, which kinda sucks.

I'm also taking a break from Quake 2 currently, although not by choice. It's because of a bug halfway through the second mission pack, Ground Zero, where my game would crash consistently. Maybe restarting the level could help, but I'll just wait. An internet comment I read mentioned that the devs are aware, and it'll get fixed in a patch, hopefully that'll happen soon.

Next, I finished two more games, first Shadowrun Returns. It wasn't that good. I'm not a big fan of tactical turn-based RPGs, and this game didn't help. As for the story, it's like they got two completely separate scripts and stuck them together. After like two thirds or something, the game takes a sharp turn and goes completely off the rails. The first part was really clichéd and predictable, but I still enjoyed it, and I wish it could have ended there. The "class" I chose also sucked, I guess, a melee hacker (or Decker in this universe). The hacking is 90% useless in the game, and melee feels like it's just massively disadvantaged, compared to ranged attacks. The game is also a bit buggy at times and the UI can be really clunky. I don't think I'll play the other two games in this trilogy unless I get really into TRPGs in the future.

The final game I finished was Katana Zero, which was a bit mediocre, with some bright spots. It's an action side-scroller where you need to kill every enemy in a room, without getting hit, to move forward. Dying resets the current room, and you have to start from the beginning, à la Super Meat Boy. However, there was a bit too much randomness in enemy placement and movement, to really get that perfect run done. The story could be interesting, but I didn't like the way it was told at all, however I did like the dialog system. When talking to someone you get a timed response, which you can hit, while the other is still talking, interrupting them, or wait for them to finish and choose from a few options. I really liked that. The game also looks great and has very good music. It's pretty short, I clocked out after less than four hours, but you're supposed to play through it at least twice I guess, because of the story. I didn't care for the basic gameplay enough, so I'm fine with just my single run.