Saturday!

I find myself with that extremely rare luxury, a weekend mostly to myself and nobody else interested in using the desktop with the big monitor.

It seems like it’s time to finally tackle some of those games I’ve had sitting around for the last few months while I was busy uhhh… not gaming. Yeah, that’s it, I’m totally not obsessed with Star Trek: Timelines or anything.  *cough* Anyway, here’s what I’m going to be trying out.

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing – I know literally nothing about this except that Jaybird thought I would like it several trips to Doha ago.  I think I actually opened it up and played it once?  And I think it was kind of like Diablo II only with Van Helsing, vampires, werewolves, etc?  But I could have dreamed that.  It may have been FPS.  Maybe it’s more like the Witcher? Anyway, several of my favorite games are the ones I’ve tried out with no expectations, so it could turn out to be pretty great.

D&D Lords of Waterdeep – it’s the board game only on PC.  Jaybird’s written about Waterdeep (both PC and board game versions) so many times before, I won’t even bother to link you. I’ve tried this out a couple times and found it way too addictive to start playing when I knew Jaybird would probably be asking for “his” computer back soon. Should be good company while I’m doing other stuff in other windows.

Baldur’s Gate Enhanced – Jaybird and I used to play this cooperatively on the console for many hours at a stretch. Many many many hours.  I mostly liked it because it reminded me of playing Gauntlet at the arcade.  Curious about a) if I still enjoy it without him around, and 2) if I’m still any good at it without him around.  My money’s on yes for a, no for 2.

Tacoma – Here is what I know about this game: the same people made it who made Gone Home.  Jaybird promised me this would be a spiritual successor to that, so I’m sold. Also, I expect it to be a story/exploration game, rather than a gaming game.

Guardians of the Galaxy – Like other Telltale games, this one is coming out in short episodes. I’d sort of prefer to wait until I have more than 2 episodes stored up, for reasons similar to why I bingewatch TV and read about 100 trade paperback comics for every single issue…. but it’s Telltale! And Guardians of the Galaxy! I’ll probably cave, play the whole thing, and then begin moping about wishing for the next episode. Telltale is probably my favorite game maker right now.  Even though they have way more story/cut scenes/etc, the decision making bits and the way they create the illusion of that being something you’re generating rather than choosing is always really great.  Even though Dragon Age and Mass Effect were the *obvious* inheritors of KOTOR and my alltime favorite game of All! Freaking! Time! Jade Empire, I feel like Telltale is somehow more closely connected to the spirit of those games than anything as massive as what Bioware’s been putting out.  Story and art and decisions are enough to make a game, and if you throw in some button punching, you’ll make me swoon every time.   Every time so far, anyway. We’ll see how this one holds up.

Not sure I’ll get to them all, but I aim to try.

So… what are you playing?