1.What was the last game you played? How are you finding it?
Technically, it was a few rounds of
Left 4 Dead 2 Realism Versus. However, the primary thing I've been playing lately is another Hard run-through of
Half-Life 2.
How am I finding it? The same as the other times I've played, save for one minor detail.
See #2
2.What is the last thing in a game you had difficulty with and overcame?
That one minor detail is: I'm trying to see how far into the game I can take D0g's pet roller-mine.
See, some years ago while messing around on a play-through of the game, I had decided to keep D0g's roller-mine with me as I went into Ravenholm. It turned out to be a fun challenge trying to keep the thing alive as I made my way through the town. Well, that, and it was fun to chuck the thing into rooms full of headcrabs and watch it run them down one at at time.
Zombies and headcrabs would incessantly attack it. Father Grigori would repeatedly snipe at it whenever it entered his line of sight - ignoring it only when I was holding it with the grav-gun. Any small bit of fire or water that touched it would cause it to explode instantly. It became quite the fun little challenge. It was almost like a plucky sidekick. However, by the time I got to the section of the town wherein Grigori would send the cart to bring me over to the church, I could not get the mine past the fences. There was some invisible wall preventing it from moving past.
But, on this recent run, I accidentally sent the thing careening off at an odd angle from the roof. As it flew, it passed through a spot that allowed the mine to land in the church courtyard. Barely across the fence, I just managed to save the thing before Grigori blasted it into oblivion.
Now the challenge has taken on a whole 'nother level. It's become a test of tenacity and cleverness in finding ways to keep the thing from dying. I've had to find ways of carrying it through tunnels of water, past walls of fire, over other 'invisible' walls, through the gauntlets of Combine snipers (yes, they shoot at it) and Antlions, you name it. It's made the game surprisingly fun in a new way after all these years.
3.What games are you looking forward to?
At the moment, I'm really excited for several.
First would be
Firewatch. It's the first title from Campo Santo, a team with a fair degree of pedigree in great adventure game design - with credits in some of TellTale's finest games. It's hard to summarize the game without it sounding...oddly mundane, but this video might speak for itself:
Besides that, I'm
really anxious to see what's become of
Routine. The game is being developed by a team of three on what is likely the quintessential shoe-string budget. However, it looks to be doing what most triple-A horror games have been failing to do for years - especially in the realm of proper audio usage to create real tension.
Then there's Blackbird Entertainment's new game
Homeworld: Shipbreakers. Because, really, any excuse to revisit the
Homeworld storyverse is fine by me. Especially when it's done by the original
Homeworld team.
Finally, I'm waiting for a price drop on
Grey Goo. It looks fairly fun, but I just...don't want to spend fifty bucks on it. I'm a cheapskate, I guess.
Honorable mentions to
Ashes of the Singularity,
Gigantic, and the
Terraria 1.3 patch.
