BioShock

I bought BioShock years ago because several friends recommended it. Finally started playing them, only to have the remastered versions all come out! Oh well, no point in buying them again.

When I first started gaming a couple of years ago, I was such a wimp. I got scared so easily while playing and would either not be able to finish the game or only play 10-30 minutes at a time. Playing BioShock barely scared me at all now, though I know even a year ago it would have been much harder for me. So that was pretty cool! In real life too, I notice I stay more calm during frightening or stressful situations than before.

While the age of the game showed a little bit in the graphics, it was definitely bearable. It didn’t bother me too much. However the mouse and keyboard controls seemed incredibly clunky to me but again, I could handle it. It was just difficult to switch between the different types of guns and plasmids, and between the guns and plasmids.

I also did have a little bit of trouble following the story. When it’s told through audio logs that play at the same time I’m exploring or fighting, I just can’t focus on both things at the same time. Sometimes I could stop and listen but often I’d come under attack and would miss part of the audio log.

That being said, I still managed to put together most of the story and read some summaries online to make sure I got the whole thing. I’m excited to continue on with the series, since I started BioShock 2 last week. And thank goodness, my XBox controller is compatible with it!

Although I did just find out that I received the free upgrade to the remastered version of BioShock 2. I’m about an hour into it, so if I have to restart I won’t have to replay too much. I didn’t know I was going to receive the upgrade, so that was a pleasant surprise when I logged on to Steam today!

Borderlands

I started and finished Borderlands months ago. It got me through a weirdly tough time in my life. I felt incredibly discontented and didn’t know what to do with myself, and on a whim I began playing it. It was exactly what I needed.

Friends had told me that the first Borderlands game was slow and boring, so I might have a hard time getting through it. That was not the case at all. It was a perfect mix of action, humor, and story to cheer me up.

Like I said, I started it back in April and finished it probably sometime in May or June. Since it has been a while I don’t remember every detail, I just remember having a lot of fun with it. I know I meant to write more of my ideas and thoughts on the games I play, but I definitely waited too long on this one. I really do want to keep this blog going and another function of it is to keep track of what I play, so at least this post does that!

OOPS!

So i realize I haven’t updated my blog in a very long time, and I definitely regret this now. I’ve played and finished so many games since my last post, which was about Undertale. (side note: maybe someday I’ll play Undertale again and try the other routes besides True Pacifist which I did for my first playthrough. But I like to focus on finishing games that are new to me since I’m so far behind, rather than replaying other ones! I’ve also been itching to play the Mass Effect trilogy again.)

Since my post about Undertale in February, I’ve finished

• Gone Home
• Firewatch
• Borderlands 1
• Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel
• (and I’m almost done with Borderlands 2, I just have some DLC to finish up!)
• Never Alone

And I recently started playing Bioshock 1 as well! I have a lot of writing to catch up on if I decide to go back and talk about all the games I’ve completed, but I think I’d like to try. I waited too long and began to miss writing all my thoughts down, even though so few people ever see them! However, I also started to feel weird about coming back after so long. But tonight I decided to just go for it. You can expect to see more action from this blog in the near future! Also, feel free to watch me stream here.

 

Undertale

This post will contain spoilers for Undertale.

After the urging of many of my friends, I played Undertale. It’s not my usual type of game and I didn’t enjoy it very much at first. In my opinion it had quite a slow start and I had trouble getting into it. With a lot of encouragement however, I finally got through it.

It looks and seems like a very simple game at first. To me, it was very reminiscent of Pokemon Blue version. You can only walk around very slowly and run into monsters every once in a while. The thing is, I was told not to fight anything, both by the game and by my friends. It was all about trying to find ways around fighting. At first that got quite annoying, but once I figured out how to avoid fighting certain monsters I could get away from them faster.

There were also a lot of puzzles to figure out, including ice puzzles that once again reminded me of Pokemon. I didn’t particularly enjoy the game mechanics.

What really made the game for me, was the characters. There really are some great ones, and I understand now why I see so much fanart and cosplay of characters from it. I really can’t choose a favorite.

While the game mechanics are not what I’m used to or what I enjoy, the story and the characters were great once I got into it. The graphics weren’t what I’m used to either, very pixelated, but they were charming. The soundtrack was amazing too. I would recommend this game, but be warned that there are specific ways to do things that make it a lot easier. You can’t know though unless you look things up or have already played once.

One of my other favorite things about the game is it knows what you’ve done before. References might be made to having fought or been killed by a character before. It really makes you think about choices you make. It can get really tricky too. There are times where it makes you think the game crashed or it will close on its own! The first time it happened I had just completed a difficult battle, and was really upset. Then I opened it back up, ready to go through it again, only to find that it was supposed to happen!

Like I mentioned, I played without killing anything. This is called the Pacifist route. There were times though that just got so frustrating I was ready to give up. What I ended up doing was giving it a try 3-5 times, then taking a break and trying again at least a couple of hours later. I finally made it through every time.

There’s also the Genocide route, in which you kill everything. I considered doing one, but I just couldn’t. I’m too attached to the characters.

Despite the slow start, stay determined and get through it for great characters and an interesting story!

 

Half Life 2, episode 2

This post will contain spoilers.

I’m now completely done with the Half Life series! And I now understand why so many people want more Half Life and/or Portal games. They need to come together. We must find out the link between the two. I got so excited when they mentioned Aperture Laboratories near the end of episode two. I’ve mentioned it before but the Portal games are what really got me into gaming in the first place so they are very special to me.

Episode two was really great. I liked it more than episode one, even though I really missed having the supercharged grav gun. It was also much more of an emotional rollercoaster, which I consider a good thing. From when Alyx almost got killed and when her father Eli did get killed, I was pretty sad.

One of my favorite parts was going into the antlion nest with the vortigaunt to get materials that could save Alyx’s life. For one, it seemed very important to save her. I also loved the way it looked, with the creepy burrows and glowing grubs.

The final battle was also a lot of fun, fighting stryders with the Magnusson devices. I had to use the grav gun to shoot them at the stryders, where they would stick and then I’d have to shoot them to detonate them. Very challenging but also a lot of fun.

Overall, I had more fun playing this episode than the first one. And I need more!

 

 

Half Life 2, episode 1

This post will contain spoilers.

To continue on with Half Life 2, I have been playing the episodes. So far I’ve finished episode 1. It wasn’t very long but continued the story from directly after the main game. I loved getting to use the overcharged grav gun some more, but unfortunately not for much longer.

You start out having to stabilize the core so that City 17 doesn’t explode. There were some fun puzzles involved. The beginning was my favorite part of this episode.

The next chapter, however, was my least favorite. It’s called Lowlife, and was quite scary for me. I had a hard time getting through it, as there were lots of jump scares as well as a new kind of zombie: the zombines. The zombines were very annoying to fight, because they are tougher than the regular zombies and will also make suicide runs at you with grenades which will kill you in one hit. At the end of this chapter, you have to fight off a massive horde of zombies and zombines while you wait for an elevator. It took me so many tries but I finally did it.

Next was Urban Flight, which was also a lot of fun. While it was one of the longer chapters in this episode, it went quickly. My favorite part was fighting zombies and combine in a hospital we had to get through.

Finally, Exit 17 was the last chapter. This was a quite challenging one, but still fun. I had to help escort a bunch of civilians to an evacuation train, all while fighting off combine troops. Then I had to fight a stryder, and Alyx and I finally made an escape ourselves. As we left City 17, we could see it exploding. Next is episode 2, which  I guess is a direct continuation of episode 1. I’m looking forward to it!

 

Half Life 2

This post will contain spoilers.

Guess who finished Half Life 2 today? I did! I really was concerned I wouldn’t like it after I couldn’t get through the first Half Life. I’m so glad I tried 2 because I really enjoyed it. It was so much more varied than the first one and the graphics were a big improvement, so both issues I had with the first game didn’t bother me in the second.

I was also worried I wouldn’t make it through Ravenholm, because I am such a wimp with anything that remotely fits into the horror genre. Well, I guess that’s been changing because while I was scared while playing through it, I still had fun. In fact, it is actually one of the more memorable parts of the game for me.

Some parts of the game got a little frustrating. There were a few parts that I felt dragged on too long, or too much backtracking which always makes me feel like I didn’t make much progress even though I did. But there weren’t too many of them and I made it through whenever it did happen.

Allying with the antlions was also fun! I liked having my little army of them to send at my enemies.

Learning to use the pods to control antlions.

Another memorable part was fighting the stryders, which I enjoyed. Any time I get to use the rocket launcher was fun for me.

Every time I saw Alyx again was nice. She’s such a cool character, and I was glad she and her father were safe at the end.

Some screenshots of Alyx being adorable

However the best part of all was getting the supercharged grav gun. It was so overpowered it really didn’t matter that I lost all my weapons. I wouldn’t have been using them anyway. I had so much fun just tearing through enemy troops and shooting fusion cores at them. I almost felt bad some of the time by how brutal and quick the grav gun could be.

Ready to fire a fusion core.

Finally it was time for the final battle. It took me two tries but I didn’t mind too much because it was so fun. All I could do was keep firing fusion cores until I finally destroyed the portal that Breen was trying to open into another dimension.

Once I did, everything else froze, and a mysterious man appeared and spoke to me. I don’t even know exactly what happened but I understand now why people want a third game so much. Well, at least I still have the episodes to play!

 

Animal Crossing: New Leaf, part 2

As you may know if you’ve paid close attention to my blog, I sometimes have issues with anxiety. It’s nothing too major but just enough to occasionally be an inconvenience. When it does become a problem, I love this game so much. It is just so calming and free. It gives me a chance to just slow down and do whatever I want in its cute, happy world.

I especially love it right now, because I live in a place where snow is unheard of. I know plenty of people who have never even seen snow. And in Animal Crossing right now, there is lots of snow and you can even go catch snowflakes and build snowpeople. It makes me so happy. I’ve been hard at work catching the snowflakes and collecting everything in the ice series. I’ve always loved the look of ice, and the floor and walls make my house look like Elsa’s castle in Frozen.

The holidays have always been a bit tricky for me. Family issues tend to flare up with the added stress the holidays bring. Things were better for a while when I could see my boyfriend’s family and do fun holiday things with them, but we broke up in January. This is my first holiday season as a single person since 2009 and it’s been a bit hard to accept that. But thank goodness for this game. It has helped me get excited for the holidays and looking forward to giving and receiving gifts.

Half Life 2, part 1

This post will contain spoilers.

I’m a good way through Half Life 2. I wanted to make sure I would like it before I started writing about it. I didn’t want another situation like I had with the first Half Life game, which I started and just couldn’t get through. Partly because I’m a scaredy cat, and partly because in my opinion it did not age well.

However, since I already had Half Life 2, I figured I might as well give it a try. Perhaps I could put up with the horror aspects with more polished controls and graphics.

I’m happy to say that I can! I waited until after I got through Ravenholm, since several people have told me that is the scariest part. It wasn’t even too bad! Sure it was scary but I could handle it. I think I’ve gotten more brave. I don’t know how that happened, but I don’t mind.

Right now I have played up to the end of the seventh chapter, which puts me right in the middle of the game. I’m having a lot more fun with it than I thought I would, and I’m glad. There’s a lot more variety in the game mechanics which makes it more interesting, which is good because one problem I had with the first game was that it managed to become stressful yet also tedious for me.

There are puzzles to solve and actual characters, like Eli and Alyx Vance and Dog. The grav gun is also a lot of fun.

While I’m not the biggest fan of all the driving parts there have been so far, I still have fun with it. Once in a while I’ll manage to get stuck on something so badly I’ll have to reload the game, but that’s just a mild annoyance.

I can’t wait to see where the story is going and to keep having fun with it!

Life is Strange

This post will contain spoilers.

I think this is the first time I’ve played a game within the same year it came out! After hearing so much about it, I just had to play it. I was not disappointed.

Life is Strange is about a girl in her senior year of high school, studying photography. She returns to the town where she grew up to study at the school there and develops a power to go back in time. She also reconnects with her childhood friend Chloe, who she didn’t talk to at all while she was living in Seattle.

Life is Strange is an episodic point and click/RPG game. This was my first experience with either type of game. I’m glad I waited to play it all until all the episodes were out; I can only imagine how hard it must have been to get to a cliffhanger at the end of the episode and have to wait for the next one to come out. And there were some incredibly suspenseful cliffhangers!

I quite liked the episodic aspect of the game; they lasted about as long as my play session usually go which is between 2 and 3 hours. The dialog option layout was also quite familiar; it was just like the Mass Effect series. I loved the role-playing part of the game.

However I was not such a fan of the point and click. While I think it was well done and the thoughts of Max, the protagonist, sounded very natural as you explore her world, I guess I would have preferred more action. The world was very fun to explore. In my opinion, the places you could go were very nice to look at. The only times there was more action it was stealth-based. At least if you were caught you could rewind time and just try again, so it wasn’t too hard. I just don’t think that stealth games are really my thing.

Like I said, I had never really played a point and click game before so the controls took me a little to get used to, but I finally got used to them. I managed to get my PC to work with an XBox controller, and I much preferred using that over mouse and keyboard with this game.

 

The RPG aspect pretty much made up for my ambivalence towards the point and click and stealth parts of the game. Just because of the rewind function, you could go back in time to try another option if you felt you said the wrong thing. There were some really tough choices to make too! I love making those choices, and it’s fun to discuss with other people what they chose and why.

By far my favorite part was the story. There were twists and turns I never saw coming. I highly recommend this game, but I will warn you that you will cry. I thought I’d be fine and would be well prepared to deal with it, but I wasn’t. While it hurt, it was still amazing and I had to make one of the hardest choices I’ve ever had to make in a game.

I also loved the fact that you could have Chloe and Max be a couple. They were so cute together and it’s nice to see for a change.

Thanks for reading!