RPG Tourist

Horizon Zero Dawn is a game that I deliberately avoided learning much about. It did not look like something I would normally play. It appeared on the PS4 recently (there are multiple accounts) and next thing I knew I was playing it obsessively. I really get the love for this title. You get to play the entire tutorial as an adorable little girl. Main game coming of age Aloy starts out with some moves. She is attractive, the NPC’s are attractive and the environments are attractive which make the robots appear even more unnatural and terrifying. The game play reminds me of Far Cry Primal but Horizon Zero Dawn is post apocalyptic science fiction so everything is possible and plausible. Denizens are articulate and even literate. The resource based economy is a little grindy but the game is generous with XP. Even though it’s obvious what caused societal collapse there is much mystery surrounding Aloy, her society and the weird machines. The game is lore deep. It is mostly a strategy game...

Warning: Spoilers Because I avoided learning very much about Mass Effect 3’s ending controversy, I didn’t really know what to expect. Well for me it’s over now. Yikes. On the surface, 3 isn’t much different than the previous game but there are hints of the catastrophic direction Bioware was about to turn. They deliberately made progressing towards the final mission more difficult for exclusive single play. They addressed this with an extended DLC but I still got frustrated with gathering war assets and cheated. Regarding the Steam version performance issues, enough hate buckets have been tossed that EA has responded. There’s no solution yet but they claim to be investigating. As well they should considering their asking price. I started the game on normal difficulty but got frustrated with a boss, turned the difficulty down and tried using my Steam controller. That got me through the boss fight but made the fps drops all the more noticeable. I think it’s because I put...

I have completed the Dragon Age II base game but could not wait to dig into Mass Effect 3 so I’ll return to the DLC later. Mass Effect’s performance issues are noticeable but it’s playable and I sprang for its DLC. I decided to resurrect the smarty pants female character that I abandoned in Inquisition but as class mage this time and left the difficulty on normal. She was pretty useless for most of the first act. To survive battles, I kept putting together incompatible parties to complement her lack of skill. Ok all the bickering was pretty funny but Hawke had become an irritating goofball that only Varric could love. The prospect of an incompetent Hawke left alone on an Act III battleground was looming over me. If I wanted to avoid that situation, I had to form parties that made narrative sense as well. Hawke also had to become a little more sensitive. Most companions were neutral enough that she could have gone the other way but working towards friendship seemed easier. I w...

I have been doing too many things simultaneously and have bogged down in all of them. I have yet to return to Witcher 3 even though I have watched the Netflix series for the second time. When I left, I was having difficulty progressing in levels. I am stuck in an end game boss fight in Uncharted 2 and trapped inside an outpost in Terminator Resistance with no exit strategy coming to mind. Kingdom Come Deliverance had been uninstalled to make way for other games but I correctly thought I needed to play more dice to progress with my own version. I did manage to complete the Ashes for Ashes DLC and Henry is now so wealthy he can pretty much do as he likes. He replaced Pebbles with a fully equipped Agro and what a difference. She's so fast he hardly fast travels any more. Poor Pebbles apparently just got vaporized which seems hardly fair. To my amazement, Henry did get around to discussing Radzig with Theresa and for once she became worried about their relationship. Wait til she f...

Warning: Minor Spoilers I have now breezed through Witcher 2. At least it feels that way compared to Witcher 1. Geralt can meditate wherever he pleases and the maps seem more compact and much more interesting. Despite many improvements I have some complaints. Geralt can only drink potions while meditating. This means either a full metal alchemist perennially poisoned Geralt or the save a lot, die a lot strategy. All the best gear and character abilities are reserved for Chapter 3 none of which carry over for a second play through. I found character development the most confusing of the three games. I tried to hold out for greater mutagens but only ever got two greater vitality mutagens and by the time I could spend them I was nearly at end game anyway so what was the point? I know that I missed some Chapter 3 content but I was more interested in story progression and didn’t really care. I believe that there is a fair amount of randomness in game play and others may have had a b...

Minor Spoilers Yes, yay! I have finished Witcher Enhanced Edition. Although there is a lot of things I like about it, I must admit it was a slog. I was not inspired to try out the premium content. I don’t think it matters to the story arc anyway. The story, the characters and the alchemy system are cool and you can pick out advanced abilities to complement combat styles you like. The gift giving can lead to some hilarious NPC interactions. Unfortunately important characters can show up in unexpected places or at specific times and Geralt can’t meditate wherever he likes. Climbing and jumping is also restricted and he can’t take short cuts across some of the maps. This means a lot of tedious running around for Geralt. I’m not sure how many quests I failed or how many rewards I missed but I don’t care much. The whole amnesia thing worked well for me because I didn’t know what to expect from the game and for the most part Geralt just goes along to get along until he’s forced i...

I’ve been granted some access to the PS4 again and in the meantime Playstation has released a couple of free game titles. So for a short period I was playing three games at once. Whee! Once I started encountering some cool references to the original game in Witcher 3, I stopped and turned all my attention to Uncharted Drake’s Fortune. I appreciate the remastering but I soon remembered what caused me to abandon it in the first place. At one point I left the room to have a toddler tantrum. Then I thought to turn down the camera sensitivity. Things went much better until the mutant uglies showed up. I truly wasn’t expecting this although when Nate first discovered an abandoned U-Boat I should suspected that something gruesome would turn up. It wasn’t long before I set the controller down and said “I don’t want to do this.” Maybe turning the camera sensitivity back up might help. On the bright side I have finished Witcher Enhanced Edition.

Having temporarily lost access to the PS4, I decided to try the Witcher Enhanced Edition once more. I had left it in Chapter I because of repeated fails at vanquishing main boss The Beast. I couldn’t remember much else about the game so I decided to start over and quickly realized what the problem was. Once you get used to games with a lot of freedom of movement, it isn’t easy to return to restricted movement. Because Geralt can’t jump over fences and take short cuts through the map, he is reduced to running in endless circles. Chapter I’s tedium probably led me to rush through it and I wasn’t really prepared to face the end battle. This time I made sure to do everything possible before I even went to the cave. I tried to knock the Beast down and take him out but failing at that I sent Geralt to that safe space behind a house and dealt with all those Barghests from there. Soon I was on Chapter II which offers a couple of more interesting areas to explore. The swamp has the sam...

Warning: Spoilers The past few weeks have been disruptive and self discipline has pretty much gone out the window. I have mostly been escaping into Witcher world when I can. I have been pleasantly surprised by how much I don’t really remember. I remember most of the main story missions but there are many quests and locations I had forgotten about completely. Thanks to a geared up Roach I am not nearly as anxious about exploring or leveling up. I’m finding it hard to play Geralt as a jerk because he’s generally fairly decent anyway. I struggled with the Keira quest line but finally rationalized that Geralt wouldn’t care much about being used and he didn’t sleep with her because he didn’t like her, right? He didn’t romance her the first time but that didn’t make any difference to the story so once again he gruffly sent her off to Kaer Morhen. At this point I decided that Geralt only goes out of his way for his friends but takes the easy way out whenever he can. And is sometimes ju...

I haven't progressed very far with my dice program. I managed to put together some code without triggering a show stopping execution error but the computer player made dumb decisions and calculation errors. I am now in a cycle of refining and testing.  Predictably I have not stopped playing video games either. I finally finished off the last Assassin's Creed Origins DLC and moved on to my Witcher 3 NG+ save. This time I am playing Geralt as a gambling, womanizing jerk. He has just discovered that Ciri has turned up in the region with the Wild Hunt in pursuit. Even though he has agreed to look for her, he privately believes the search might only lead the Wild Hunt to her. He decides to just continue doing what he does normally and collect information along the way.  On my original play through I avoided alchemy abilities and Gwent. This time Geralt is a horrible looking toxic mess and just loves to play Gwent. Huh. Go figure. He is currently wandering Velen looking for...