Level: 99
Area: Undead Parish
Build: Warrior, high dexterity/stamina, primary weapons are spear+shield, or sword+shield
Equipment: Medium Armor, Iato+14, Lighting Spear+5, and Black Knight Shield
Hours In: 65
Comments: I finally beat the final boss of the game, and for the hell of it I started the NG+. The bosses so far are not as difficult as they felt the first time through, as are the enemies. They hit about as hard as they should, meaning they still take away a big chunk of your health, but it seems like it is too easy to kill them.
2013/Dec
I finally got to the final boss for the second play through but he keeps on tooling me. Not sure if I'll be able to beat him.
Batman: Arkham City-
Progress: First Playthrough complete, working on New Game+
Riddler Trophies Found: About 180
Hours In: ?
Comments: I haven't played this game in about 2 weeks or so. During my last splurge, I found a bunch of trophies, and that seemed to unlock almost all of the practice maps, which was my main motivation for starting the NG+.
Skyrim-
Level:50
Area: ?
Build: dual wielder with perks in one-handed weapons, archery, and sneak
Equipment:
Hours In: 120
Comments: So about 20 or 25 hours ago, I completed the Quest line for The Companions, which serves as a kind of fighters guild in Skyrim, and also I've completed the College of Winterhold Quests. I haven't gotten around to joining the Thieves Guild. I started the process of joining the Dark Brotherhood, but I'm not an official member yet. I have picked sides in the civil war conflict, but I'm feeling a little ambivalent about my choice.
You can choose to support the imperial government, or you can side with the rebels. After playing for about 20 hours, it seemed like the imperial government is just the lap dog of a powerful elvish coalition, has turned its back on some of its traditional heroes, and should probably be overthrown. So I decided to join up with the rebels. However, my character is a dark elf, and most of the Nord people in Skyrim who are rebels are as racially sensitive and embracing as the members of a Ku Klux Klan rally. The city where the rebel leader is based even has its own dark elf slum which is segregated from the other parts of the city. I was actually arrested for putting the beat down on a racist POS after he harassed another dark elf.
In cities that I've conquered in the name of the rebel king, I've talked to shop keepers and citizens from different regions, and they say that they actually face persecution from the rebel soldiers.
That aside, the game is still incredibly engaging. There are hundreds of locations and hundreds of quests which require you to explore those locations. I think one reviewer noted that Skyrim is actually something like a minefield, where you cannot move or interact with another character in the game without receiving some request to KILL THIS DRAGON HERE, or RETRIEVE THIS PRECIOUS HEIRLOOM FROM OVER THERE. The beauty, as the reviewer points out, is that Skyrim still feels like a natural, organic world, and not some blatant attempt to make the player explore those locations.
By now (Jan. 16 2012), I've completed the Companions, Mage's College, Civil War, and Dark Brotherhood Quests, and I'm most of the way through the main questline and the Thieves' Guild questline. There are still three or four cities that I've barely visited, and I know that there will be side quests that I can pick up there, and there are still about 7 Daedric quests that I haven't found yet, plus two FIND THE COMPLETE SET type quests that will take a while to complete.
I haven't been putting in too many hours with this game recently, or with any games for that matter. It seems to be crashing a little more frequently.
2012/March/20
I've now put in about 120 hours. I completed the main quest line about 5 hours past, but the game lets you continue to explore and have adventures after that, so I've been going through and doing some side quests. On Gamespot, they have a weekly series where they show the top 5 mods for the computer version of Skyrim. I must say I'm really jealous. There are mods that add new player houses to the map, mods that change the combat or add new weapons/armor/clothes, mods that change textures, and mods that add new quests and missions as well. There is even a mod that makes chickens explode when you hit them. There are several Star Wars themed mods that add the Death Star to it and let you use lightsabers.
2013/November/6
I started a new game as a weird hybrid character: he wears heavy armor and carries a two-handed sword, but also uses quite a bit of magic. I think I'm going to play this character as a goody two-shoes law-abider and actually try to wipe out the thieves and assassin's guild.
2013/Dec /1
I started to use my older character so I could get a few trophies, but I think I might go back to using the newer character for the next month or so.
Darksiders-
I tried to buy this as a downloadable game on the PS3's PlayStation Network, but it kept giving me error messages, so I'm not sure what's up with that. I might purchase it from Play-Asia when I order Deus Ex and Kingdoms of Amalur.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution-
I'm thinking of picking up this game soon. Since I've beat Dark Souls once now, I want to see if Skyrim and Dark Souls can still occupy my free time completely, or whether I'll need to pick up a new game. If I need a new game, this one will be it until Kingdoms of Amalur comes out next month.
Kingdoms of Amalur: The Reckoning-
This game doesn't come out until February 7th, but I'm ridiculously excited about it. Once I pick it up, my progress will be posted here.
The studio released a demo of this game on Jan. 18th, and I've gone through it two times now. I'm not sure what to make of it. The combat is definitely very fun, but the camera always needs to be babysat otherwise it tends to become difficult to make out how far away enemies are, and there is no lock on feature, so a lot of your attacks end up hitting nothing but air. And there seem to be a fair number of audio-visual bugs.
Instead of pre-ordering it, I will probably wait until some reviews come in.
The reviews seem to be mostly positive, if not actually glowing. Still, I've just booked a flight back to the US, so I'm gonna hold off for now.
(2012-May-27)
I just picked up a used US copy at a game trader in Akihabara. I've only put about 30 minutes into it. I had actually just read that the company responsible for this game has already closed down and laid everyone off. More to come later.
2012-May-29
I'm about 3.5 hours in. The combat is a lot more fun, manageable and even challenging than in the demo. The camera still needs to be looked after, but the hitting air problem is a lot less frequent, and I haven't encountered any of the audio\visual bugs that I had in the demo. The crafting is nice so far, and the quests have an interesting way of expanding into something more involved than they seem at first glance, just like many quests in Skyrim. It is a pity that 38 Studios went under already if this is what they can produce on their first try.
Dragon's Dogma
I remember this game from last year's E3 convention videos. I just saw a few reviews for it, and I might pick it up sometime this year. I still need to pick up Deus Ex, etc, though.
Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag
2013/November/6
This game rocks! The pirating/hunting mechanics work great together, and the locale is gorgeous. It feels like Master and Commander, Pirates of the Caribbean, and the classic swashbucklers all rolled into one. So far, I keep encountering really high level ships and getting my butt handed to me, and the combat is not quite as fun as I'd like it to be (Batman: Arkham Asylum/City or Kingdoms of Amalur levels). But the story is good so far and climbing freely around a city and stabbing people still feels awesome.
2013/Dec/1
So today I finally beat the game. I upgraded my ship almost all the way (seems to be some kind of bug regarding one of the treasure maps for the final upgrade), and I was able to defeat all four legendary ships. I might check out the multiplayer, but Ubisoft's UPlay passport seems to be buggy. That is, I bought a new copy of the game, but all the passcodes that came with the game seem invalid. So, I'm not sure what that is all about.
Portal 2
Amazingly funny game and the puzzles are great. I wish I could convince Michi to play the co-op version with me.
Diablo 3
Pretty fun so far, but way too grindy, especially for the hardcore characters.
2014/Feb/2
So I've killed off like six or seven hardcore characters now: two demon hunters, which are a pure archer class, and about four or five barbarians, which are a pure melee class. I did figure out a way to more efficiently level up my characters though. In Diablo 3, there are four "modes:" Normal, Nightmare, Hell, and Inferno. You can really only play the last three modes if you have completed the game in the previous mode. But there are a bunch of difficultly levels, each of which increases the amount of XP and other goodies you get when you fight monsters. So after completing a bunch of missions in Medium difficulty, I just go back and do them again on Master I, which gives a lot more XP. After doing that, I go through them again on Master II, III, IV, and V. Then I go back to Medium and advance through the game safely until I reach another difficulty spike.
I was able to take Karsa Orlong (my third version of that barbarian character) up to level 12 in just a few hours this way.
2014/March
Pretty much quit Diablo 3 for now. I've lost too many hours building hardcore characters up only to lose them. RIP Karsa the 6th.
Mass Effect 2
Started playing this one back in February. Very much a Bioware RPG, in the tradition of Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II. Combat is a little slow and unexciting, but the characters and dialogue options are great.
Dark Souls 2
2014/March/18
Been playing this one for about three days. Many of the tactics I used in Dark Souls don't work in the sequel, plus I have created four characters, all of which have different stats and play-styles than the ones I used in Dark Souls. It kind of makes me wish I had experimented with Dark Souls a lot more.
2014/March/23
Anomander: Soul Level around 50. Dual swordsman. Going for a heavy dexterity build. Cleared the first four or five bosses.
Icarium: Soul Level around 55. Shield/Greatsword combo. Going for a dexterity/strength build. Cleared the first four or five bosses.
Quick Ben: Soul level around 60. Wizard. Going for a a straight magic build. Cleared the first six bosses, and joined the Blue Sentinels Covenant.
Heboric: Soul Level around 40. Cleric. Going for a strength/faith build. Cleared the first three bosses and joined the Way of Blue Covenant.
2014/March/30
Anomander: Soul Level 101. Dual swordsman. Going for a heavy dexterity build. Cleared most of the first half of the game, and joined the Heirs of the Sun Covenant.
Icarium: Soul Level 95. Shield/Greatsword combo. Going for a dexterity/strength build. Cleared a good chunk of the first half. Thinking of Joining the Bell Keepers Covenant.
Quick Ben: Soul level 89. Wizard. Going for a a straight magic build. Cleared the first eight bosses, and joined the Blue Sentinels Covenant.
Heboric: Soul Level around 82. Cleric. Going for a strength/faith build. Cleared the first seven bosses and joined the Way of Blue Covenant.
Combining my four characters' playtimes together, I've got about 61 hours into the game. There are lots of little changes that really make the game more enjoyable. For example, you can fast travel between any of the save points you've unlocked from the beginning. The combat animations have been tweaked and improved and there is a larger variety of weapons, armor and weapon types.
When you want to create a "boss weapon," all you need is that boss's soul. (In the first Dark Souls, you had to take a normal weapon, upgrade it to a certain point, which would cost time and souls and upgrade stones, and then you could trade that weapon in for a boss weapon.) In Dark Souls 2, you save lots of time and souls and upgrade stones, and you don't lose any weapons when you trade in the boss soul.
Health, magic, and stamina items like in Demons Souls have returned and they work great.
The new enemy spawning system is really nice too: you can only kill each enemy in an area a certain number of times before the enemy does not spawn in again. This prevents cheap farming and also lets you move around the level quicker after you have cleared it out.
2014/April/9
Anomander: Soul Level 101, 26.5 hours. Dual swordsman. Going for a heavy dexterity build. Cleared most of the first half of the game, and joined the Heirs of the Sun Covenant.
Icarium: Soul Level 137, 26 hours. Shield/Greatsword combo. Going for a dexterity/strength build. In the endgame. I have collected the "four big souls" that you need before you can take on the final boss, but there are several sub-bosses and minor areas that I have not completed. Joined the Bell Keepers Covenant.
Quick Ben: Soul level 104, 19 hours. Wizard. Going for a straight magic build. Cleared the first ten bosses, and joined the Blue Sentinels Covenant. There are several bosses that I've been trying to defeat but they keep getting me.
Heboric: Soul Level around 103, 16 hours. Cleric. Going for a strength/faith build. Cleared the first seven bosses and joined the Way of Blue Covenant.
2014/April/17
Icarium: Soul Level 190, 40 hours? Shield/Greatsword combo. I've switched covenants from the Bell Keepers to the Pilgrims of Dark, and then once again to the Heirs of the Sun. I've also beaten the game and started NG+, but they have really upped the difficulty and I haven't made it past the first bonfire yet.
I haven't put in many hours for my other characters recently, but I might go back and try to beat the game with Quick Ben or Heboric next.
