Ready for the Apocalypse

Shelter in Place! Self Quarantine! 

The long delayed but absolutely inevitable apocalypse we've all kind of known was coming has arrived in the form of a global pandemic and today's big victory was finding toilet paper at the grocery. Going in, the only things we have stockpiled here are:

• Alcohol
• Wetnaps
• Videogames

I feel good about our chances!

Beaten in 2010

I may not have been blogging about games for the last decade, but I did maintain lists each year of the games I have beaten in each year. Here is 2010, which was the year I caught up on the PS3:

Full:

Assassin's Creed 2 (360)

Mass Effect 2 (360)

Uncharted : Drake's Fortune (PS3)

The Chronicles of Riddick : Escape From Butcher Bay (PS3)

The Chronicles of Riddick : Assault on Dark Athena (PS3)

Uncharted 2 : Among Thieves (PS3)

Just Cause 2 (PS3)

Saint's Row 2 (360)

3D Dot Game Heroes (PS3)

Red Dead Redemption (PS3)

Resistance : Fall of Man (PS3)

Resistance 2 (PS3)

Infamous (PS3)

Dark Void (360)

Halo : Reach (360)

Alan Wake (360)

Red Faction Guerilla (PS3)

Fable 3 (360)

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood (PS3)

DLC Packs

Mass Effect 2 - Normandy Crash Site (360)

Mass Effect 2 - Kasumi - Stolen Memory (360)

Mass Effect 2 - The Price of Revenge (360)

Mass Effect 2 - Firewalker (360)

Mass Effect 2 - Overlord (360)

Mass Effect 2 - Lair of the Shadow Broker (360)

Assasin's Creed 2 - The Battle of Forli (360)

Assassin's Creed 2 - Bonfire of the Vanities (360)

Red Dead Redemption - Undead Nightmare (PS3)

Red Faction Guerilla - Demons of the Badlands (PS3)

Borderlands - The Secret Armory of General Knoxx (360)

Borderlands - Claptrap's New Robot Revolution (360)

Left 4 Dead 2 - The Passing (360)

Alan Wake - The Signal (360)

Alan Wake - The Writer (360)

Ten Years Later

Hey it's been a minute. Because decades seem to go by in a minute these days.

I can't believe that this blog still exists. Well, I'm still alive and still very middle-aged and have come back to a place in my life where I want to write about videogames again. The only issue with that is that my ability to discipline my time for it is as poor as ever.

Yet here I am pecking away at the keys. At 53 years old now, the feeling of immortality I once knew has faded into the realization that if there was something I was waiting until later in my life to do, I should get to it. Big dreams like uniting all of humanity into one society are still on the backburner, but small ones like leaving an accounting of my time as a lifelong gamer behind are certainly reasonable.

I play sporadically these days, not rushing to the hottest new release, so things like reviews of new releases are going to be rare (although Iron Man VR is on my radar for its May release). Last year I replayed King's Field The Ancient City (PS2), beating it again 13 years after first conquering it. Doing so has inspired my to delve deep into gaming's past and take care of some unfinished business from the many eras I’ve seen come and go.

Like Colossal Cave Adventure - I had it on the C64 back in the day but never took it on. And in a few weeks when the Turbografx 16 Mini comes out, I’m finally going to play Ys Books 1 & 2, which I missed back in the early nineties as the TurboCD attachment never was in my budget.

But I'll get into what that has entailed thus far in future posts. There is a ton of catching up ahead, and this middle-aged gamer doesn't care if anyone is reading anymore.

The End

Obviously, I'm no longer updating this blog. It was a fun writing exercise, but it's time to move on.

I've missed a lot this year - great games that needed reviewed, Ultima Online finally getting the High Seas Adventure expansion SunSword promised me seven years ago (I'm not going back to UO for it), the seventh anniversary of the unveiling of Ultima X : Odyssey, the 25th anniversary of my purchase of a Commodore 64. And so on.

I'll leave the blog up as long as it can stay up, mostly because I'm really proud of that Ultima X Odyssey team interview back in 2008. I've also been tweeting my daily game playing on Twitter (see the feed at the left), so I'm not totally done writing about videogames, I guess.

Thanks for reading, and goodbye.

Reviving This Blog

Ah my poor old blog that no one reads. I have neglected it so with my lack of free time. But today, I take a shot at reversing that process by starting a Twitter account and adding a feed to this page.

Of course, someone already grabbed the username middleagedgamer over on Twitter. Their last tweet was on Christmas of last year. Oh well, you snooze you lose. I promise not to tweet about inconsequential personal things and just stick to videogaming.

Now to connect it to Facebook and see if I can get some followers. Muhahahaha!

Just Cause 2 : For The Glory of Panau

I'm still very busy, but I've got to take a few minutes to write about Just Cause 2, a game that I've been playing so much of for the last two months, logging over 120 hours of in-game time and still only reaching a mere 75% completion mark on my main playthrough.

Last year I thoroughly enjoyed the first Just Cause game on my XBox 360, in spite of some repetetive gameplay and a short story mode. Just Cause 2 is a much improved sequel, sporting amazing graphics, tight gameplay, and unquestionably the largest and most amazing open world I've ever seen. The island nation of Panau is truly a gamer's paradise and the greatest electronic playground I've had the joy to explore.

The islands sport beaches, cities, villages, airports, and military bases, and terrain that varies from snowy mountain peaks to dusty deserts. There's a major highway around the main island with exit ramps and gorgeous bridges spanning long stretches between islands. There are dusty roads leading to old ruins, immense fortresses and frozen lakes, and so much more overall variety in sights to see compared to the first game.

The action on the ground is amazing, too, with main character Rico returning with an improved grapple hook. The combination of the grapple hook and parachute are so well integrated that once the player masters their use, it almost feels like one is playing a superhero game. Gunplay is tight and not too hard even on the hardcore setting, but there is no cover button, so cover must be found and utilized naturally.

Different this time in combat is the lack of enemy tanks firing upon the player as they try to take a military base, which was quite a challenge in the first game. Helicopter gunships will fly in and blast the player, but it's really easy most of the time to just grapple up and take over the chopper. There are enemies with rocket launchers and sniper rifles that can do some damage, but I found myself actually missing the one-shot-insta-kill tanks of the first Just Cause. Guess I'm weird.

The vehicles range from scooters to passenger jets, and each of them control so well that it made me a little embarrassed for the designers of other such games I've played (I'm looking at you Rockstar Games). The aforementioned grapple hook can now be used to grapple things two things, so towing a giant statue head with a tank is just another day in Panau for Rico.

Once again, the main story is painfully short, and the cinematics are nowhere near the standards of most other games out today. There are really only seven "Agency", or main story missions, and the first and last two are concurrent. Players must "cause" a lot of chaos to unlock the progression of these missions and finish the game, which in both of my playthroughs I did with only 28% of the whole game being completed. That means that over two-thirds of the game can be ignored to just beat it if that's what one wants.

I don't recommend just skimming it that way, though. There are 49 faction missions which offer some great variety as well as funny mission names (my favorite was "River Runs Red", a reference to a great Midnight Oil song). There are also scores of racing challenges for planes, cars, boats, and even skydiving, all checkpoint-based and fun to try.

More importantly, Panau is in the humble opinion of this gamer, the greatest videogame playground ever crafted. Each time one tries to take control of a small town can end up being an unpredictably wild adventure, so the best thing I can really say about Just Cause 2 is that the action is done so well that the designers didn't really need to put a thick layer of story on it just to motivate the player to enjoy it. I find myself returning to Panau again and again - "just cause" it's still fun.

Oh Yeah, I Played Mass Effect 2 Back In January

In January, I took a week off of work to play Mass Effect 2. So when my co-workers were, in the weeks leading up to my vacation, asking me where I was going, I replied "All over the galaxy", and from most of them I got a weird look.
The other gamers there knew exactly what I meant.

The game itself was not only a great sci-fi game, it's just great sci-fi. The rugged space hero Shepherd once again assembles a crew to take on some great menace. Most of the game is his not only acquiring this crew, but winning their loyalty as well. There are other side missions, but not that many. Most of the planets are empty save for mineral resources, but checking out every one of them is a must in order to squeeze as much fun out of Mass Effect 2 as possible.

The creators of Mass Effect have said that it's a trilogy, which is usually a bad idea for game companies to do (did anyone ever see the last three Alternate Reality games?). However, the first chapter, the iPhone game, and Mass Effect 2 are so intertwined that for the first time in game history, it really feels like a larger tapestry is being painted here.

There are so many big and small things from the first game that carry over into the second that one can imagine the designers having a huge wall of post-it notes with strings connecting them to keep it all straight. Some minor characters return in small cameos that have a brief impact, and some of the major characters return with a huge emotional impact, giving the involved player a sense of regret that can only be experienced with the passage of time and the reality of old friends moving on.

The gameplay is less RPGish and more shooter-ish, and that's fine, because they've really refined all of those aspects and made them more fun than frustating. The cover mechanics are solid this time and the allies seem smarter. There are more variey to the ememies and the environments, and the graphics are breathtaking.

And the story is an epic of the grandest proportions, leaving the player ravenously hungry for the next installment. There's not much praise that I can heap on Mass Effect 2 that wasn't already said two months ago, but I will add that design-wise, it's another huge step forward in terms of episodic storytelling in videogames, and it's the kind of game I dreamed about playing back in the old days.

And Now, An Endorsement

Weary from work and my awesome life as a husband to a wife who's ten years younger than I (careful what you wish for guys), I often arrive at Monday morning - my almost regular weekly videogame zone-out time - exhausted and struggling to stay awake even when I'm playing a game with lots of noise and explosions and pretty colors.

I gave up soda a few years ago, having consumed more Pepsi and Coke in my life than the entire nation of Liechtenstein has in its whole history, and I've never liked coffee. Red Bull and all those other energy drinks that the kids love also didn't do it for me, mostly because they tasted awful and left my stomach churning like the rough seas of the J'fer Sok (that's a reference to any Ultima Online fans out there).

So at the gas station I discovered this wondrous elixir:

It's just the thing for long gaming sessions, filling the user with mental energy more than physical jitters. I've even used it for an occasional late-night gaming session. But it must be consumed in moderation. No more than once a day, preferably only once or twice a week. The flavors that I've tried are not too bad - orange, grape, and berry - but there can be something of an aftertaste.

5 Hour Energy has become a regular part of my gaming sessions, when I'm struggling to stay awake. I wholeheartedly endorse this product for anyone who wants to maximize their free time after a long week of toil.

OK, I'm Lazy Then

As a middle-aged gamer, my life is not as it once was. When I was a young man, there was work and gaming, and it seemed like I had plenty of time to stop and reflect on the hobby. In addition, there were fewer great games being released, but today it's impossible to keep up with just the really great games, much less the not-so-great-but-still-pretty-damn-good games that fly at us with alarming speed.

Seriously, they could stop releasing videogames for two years, and I'd probably still not be caught up with everything I want to play for the three console systems and three handhelds I use. Such is life, though, and for the last two months, I've been unable to muster up the basic discipline to stop playing and start writing. You see now why I'm not employed somewhere writing about videogames.

So, sorry to my two or three readers out there who probably stopped dropping by after about two weeks of seeing my little rant about Lords of Ultima as the lead story. We now rejoin my pointless and ordinary videogame weblog already in progress...

Hey, Wait, I Forgot To Review Assassin's Creed 2

I beat Assassin's Creed 2 back in January, and my lazy ass is just getting into gear to jot down a quick review. I mentioned the game briefly last fall, but feel a strong need to write a bit more about it.

Assassin's Creed 2 builds heftily on the solid foundation of the first game in the series, with improved mission variety, puzzles, and combat. Graphically gorgeous and featuring smooth controls, it's a testament to the successful business model in modern game design where a thousand people come together and spend countless milions of dollars to make a state-of-the-art, polished, and playable game product.

Combat reminds me a little bit of Demon's Souls, in that one must follow the onscreen movements of one's foes and counter them with the right move. AC2 is a lot easier, though, with a variety of options to counter, disarm, dodge, and even distract - with such items as smoke bombs and sneaky moves like throwing sand in an enemy's eyes. Where in the first game I could pretty much get by with just countering, this sequel makes the action more engaging.

The platforming action is still great, with the same rooftop running and great climbing action that at times reminds me of the arcade classic Crazy Climber. The cities and countryside of Renaissance Italy are breathtaking to behold and fun to explore. And the puzzles - oh the puzzles of Assassin's Creed 2 - how they harken back to the kind of brain workout that puzzles in all those Commodore 64 RPGs had back in the day. Absolute joy.

What's new from the first game is the addition of money that can be earned by completing missions and looting corpses. This cash is spent on upgrades, weapons, and a strange side-mission town simulation, where Ezio's contributions help rebuild a run-down town.

The first game was structurally monotonous, in that the missions played out in the exact same structure in the four cities. In AC2, more variety in the structure is achieved by having cinematic story elements occur, but there is still some repetitiveness. Assasssin missions, follow missions, and others do repeat to some extent, but as with the first game it's not a problem because it's so much fun.

Big improvement is made in the future-story part of Assassin's Creed, as a bigger overall story takes center stage and leaves the player very eager for the next installment, and left me at peace with how the first game ended. Downloadable chapters "The Battle of Forli" and The Bonfire of the Vanities" roundout the Assasin's Creed 2 package. Forli is an all-out battle for one of the cities, and Vanities is a series of advanced-level assassination missions. Good luck with the boat one.

Word has recently arrived that this fall Ezio will be back for more in a multiplayer spin-off called Assassin's Creed : Bloodlines, but hopefully Assassin's Creed 3 is in the works, because that's where I really want to go next.