Obviously I've been forgetting to update this when I game. Sometimes I just forget to, or I don't have time, or I just go "meh, it wasn't that interesting". Oh well.

Mostly I've been playing Terraria, WoW, Diablo 3 and some StarCraft 2. No Ys Origin, though I'm not really sure why. I should get back to that soon I suppose.

The thing I have been playing over the last couple of days is... well, not really a game. It's a visual novel dating sim called Katawa Shoujo. Heavy emphasis on the novel aspect, with very few dialogue and action options, and no other mechanics. It's also very focussed on one girl, once you make the choices to go on her path. There are five to choose from, and Emi's seems to be the easiest path to land on by mistake. The game doesn't really do much to indicate whose path you're going down so until you get to act two it's a bit of a guessing game. I was trying to get Hanako, but I guess I made a mistake somewhere.

I will play- should I say read? I will read it again, and maybe use a reference sheet to get someone else. Or I could just make sure I choose different options and hope for the best?

It did take me about 7 hours to read through Emi's storyline, but I think I could go slower. The problem was that I was wanting more interaction and getting frustrated at it, so I skipped and skimmed over a lot of it. I still think I got most of it, because I read easily with not much attention, but still. I didn't really give the story the focus it deserved.

When I do it again, I'll treat it more like a book. That should help.

[ETA: I think this is my first chance to tag something completed too :D That makes me happy.]

Played some more Toki Tori today, although I'm at the stage where I'm struggling with every single puzzle. The fact that there are YouTube videos with solutions for all (or most) of the levels isn't really helping, particularly when I'm watching something else I don't want to stop to go hunting for said solution. I may have to go back over the puzzles I've done so far, and maybe do the bonus and hard puzzles for the first couple of worlds. Puzzles aren't really my thing, so I'd sort of be okay with just getting through them any old way, but it'd be nice if I could at least say that I'd mostly worked them all out myself.



Another on the list of games that I bought because someone said it was good and then forgot about is Magic the Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers. Only had time to go through the how to play bit and lose a campaign, but I think it might be something I can enjoy. As long as I can learn enough to not lose all the time. Which.... could be a thing. We'll see.

On thing that has me hesitant is the whole unlocking decks thing, particularly with cash. I'm hoping that it'll work out so I'll either get what I need as the game goes along or learn enough to be sure of what I want to buy, but that sort of thing is definitely not my skill. I like games that go "Here are some good options, learn how to use them and you'll be fine." For the time being I'm sticking with what I've got, and if that's not good enough I'll either quit or get better at the game.



Also tried a f2p mmo called Dragon Nest on impulse and it's not too bad. Well, terrible compared to WoW but that's not a fair comparison so we won't do that. Infinitely better than Everquest at least, and certainly decent enough on its own merits. I had some setup issues because of my dual monitors and Dvorak keyboard setting, and the monitor thing at least doesn't look to be something that I can fix how I want it regardless of how much I fiddle. Probably would have spent more time with this one, but our power's been playing up.

The dialogue to get quests is a bit tedious, and I'm mostly just spamming my way through it all and then checking the quest log after to figure out what's going on. Plus the quests involving Delilah make me.... a little uncomfortable. She's a dodgy vendor, but my character basically threatening her was a bit much. It all seems to be fully scripted though, so I don't think there's much I can do, and I'm guessing it won't affect character relations in any way that wasn't meant to happen. Still, wish it wasn't a thing.



And finally, in the "I've heard nothing good about this but it was on sale and I just had to try it" category: Game of Thrones RPG. So far it's.... not good, but I'll probably play more of it than others might. The dialogue is way too much - serious infodumping issues, probably because of the books/tv series connection - and I have no idea if the dialogue options have any influence on things, but I tend to ignore that anyway unless it's really good. So unless it turns out that what I say actually matters, I'll probably just skim the talk and make whatever comment seems reasonable at the time.

As for the combat it's.... clunky but not impossible, and goes rather well with the not paying much attention thing. Although I've died once so far because I forgot health was a thing. This is one of those games where the epic casualness of my playstyle will help, as long as the game lets it, because I think I can ignore a lot of the awful elements of it.

WoW is one of those things that I either play a ridiculous amount or not at all, with a little bit of middle ground. My brother got it shortly after it launched, and got me and a few friends into it not long after. I was rather addicted for quite a while and then.... my laptop fried. So for a year or two I had no way to play it at all. Which was actually pretty okay but geez was I happy to get a real computer back.

So that happened in time for Wrath of the Lich King, for which I bought the original again plus the two expansions, because I didn't have my original login or email or card details or anything, so buying again seemed like the easiest option. And since then I've had continuous subscription because.... well because I can. Even with the times I don't play it at all, I still play it more than other games that I spend as much or more money on. It all works out in the end or something.

One of my biggest things with WoW is that getting to the endgame has absolutely no appeal to me. The bosses and raiding and stuff always seems like so much player-drama and then you run around doing stupid low level stuff and achievements and generally wasting time. Which usually leaves me getting to around level 40, if even that far, then starting a new character to play around with a new class or race or area, or just get the satisfaction of actually making regular levelling progress.

Anyway, with the release of Mists of Pandaria, I decided to a) play more pandas, because pandas are adorable and b) play more classes, to the tune of all of them. So on Dalaran I have 11 characters, one of every class, a Pandaren for every class they can have, and almost equal parts Horde and Alliance. I have two Worgens to make up the numbers for the Alliance, and a Blood Elf and Undead for the Horde. Which amuses me and that's what matters.

So far, aside from the Death Knight, all the chars are in the 15-22 range, and I'm trying to send them to different zones as much as possible. Although at this stage there's inevitable repetition and that's okay.

What I figure is that as long as I focus on keeping them all in a reasonable level range I can just pick whichever suits my fancy at the time and I'll actually keep going with them. That's the theory anway... We'll see.

Today I played about half an hour with my Worgen Druid in Darkshore, but I'm way too tired to really sink time into it. Maybe later this afternoon, or before bed.

Some more Darksiders this evening after work. Reached the part I was up to in the PC version, and completed that area. Which is awesome, except said area included ball rolling. I don't play many games that have the feature, so I can't compare, but for the most part it was tolerable and used well in the puzzles.

Except then it was the key to the boss fight. And to make matters worse, the balls weren't the nice stone ones in the area up till that point. They were alive. With a time limit. Technically a clever boss fight, interesting way to use the mechanic, the level was sort of good practice, etc. By the time I finished the fight I was pissed off. If there was a way to aim the ball, I don't know about it, and the alternative is either be damned good at it, practice a shitload, or pray for blind luck.

I went with the third option.

But that area is done, and I'm done playing for the night. Besides the boss fight, it was rather nice. A couple of the puzzles were annoying, and I worked them out mostly by chance and a moment of "Fine, whatever, I'll reset- Are you kidding me??"

It'll be kind of interesting to see how I go with the area on PC. I'm inclined to think I'll have better luck with mouse and keyboard.

I really need to start tracking how much I actually play games, because I tend to get a lot of games, play some a bit, and the default right back to a few favourites. Which means I finish sod all of them. (I've finished three. In my life. Yes, I'm serious, yes I'm somewhat embarrassed by that. I'm working on it, okay?)

Anyway, it's 3am, I've just been playing Darksiders 2 for the first time, and I thought "Hey, wouldn't it be great to use some sort of online journal thing to track this" and DW was the best I could come up with. As long as I remember to actually update it, it should work out okay.

So to the topic in hand.

Recently pre-ordered the Wii U (look, those emails are effective, don't judge me) and got Darksiders 2 with it mostly because price and I'd heard good things about it. Except then Steam had a sale so I ended up with the PC version too because... well, because I'm really bad at budgets and restraint.

First impressions? I fucking love it. I am playing on the easiest difficulty setting, because I know myself too well, so combat has so far been a breeze. But it's been an enjoyable breeze. It reacts nicely, it's letting me spam attacks while I learn how to do it properly, and it looks good. The whole game looks good really, although the areas make me want to just jump and crawl all over everything, and that just doesn't happen. Also I ran into a couple of random fights because of checking out the scenery, but you get that.

The horse... I like it, it looks amazing, but something about the handling makes me think I may end up cursing it later on. I could be wrong, I want to be wrong, we'll just have to wait and see. Although that particular worry could just be because I'm automatically comparing it to Epona in Zelda, and I wanted to turn that horse into glue more than a few times.

And the story is definitely working for me so far. I want Death to succeed, I want to find out the secrets, I want to see the Corruption defeated, etc and so on. Which is particularly important to me, so I'm hoping it lasts.

Given that I'll have two copies of the game, I really, really hope I like it enough to finish.