Recently

I’m not too creative with the titles for these posts, I think…

So, recently, I’ve been playing games recently acquired. Particularly, the games from the Humble Indie Bundle 6 are pretty incredible.

Torchlight, of course, I already knew to be awesome. I played a few minutes of it for nostalgia’s sake, but I’m not ready to get back into it seriously, just now.

Vessel is a great puzzle platformer. This happens to be one of my favorite genres, so I was pretty excited about it. I’ve only played it a little, but it really does seem fun.

Space Pirates and Zombies turned out to be very addictive and fun. I’m sort of a sucker for progress quests, anyway, and the dogfights are pretty fun. It’d be cooler if you could have more ships–imagine SPAZ with a few dozen ships all engaged in a simultaneous battle. That’d be awesome! Pity the size of the fights is so limited, then. Still, very cool game.

Shatter isn’t bad. It’s fun, and a nice distraction, though I’d probably never purchase it by itself.

Rochard is awesomely fun and funny. Scifi games are usually about members of some space-military, or sometimes pirates, or merchants, or even scientists. Rochard is about the working class. A bunch of miners, looking for space-diesel on an asteroid, when things go wrong. Very awesome game, and I really appreciate having a hero who isn’t generic-shaved-head-military-guy. Thanks, Recoil Games.

Finally, Dustforce turned out to be a supremely good and difficult skill-based platformer. Pretty much like Super Meat Boy. I’ve played for a few hours, and some of the levels are absurdly difficult. Plus, the top times are all way faster than I can do. I’m pretty sure they involve a combination of clever paths, constant dashing, and abuse of physics. I don’t generally care for games that make me constantly mash a dash button or some other distraction in order to make good times, but Dustforce is just so cool that I’m willing to accept this fault.

From another source, I got Escape Goat, another puzzle platformer. It’s pretty cool, too. It’s not so much distinguished from any of a dozen free puzzle platformers–but it’s certainly a good game.

I’ve played a few hours of Theme Hospital. I guess it’s what you’d call a ‘hospital tycoon’ sort of game–you design a hospital (lay out rooms, equipment, etc.), hire people, and manage a few other matters. It doesn’t take too much micromanagement, once you get things going, which I appreciate.

I tried out Restaurant Empire, a game which I guessed would be pretty similar. Not so much fun. It’s got a long, boring tutorial, which sucks. Bizarrely, the tutorial is voiced, but the conversations the characters have aren’t. Bad choice. My mouse also moves strangely in that game. Besides this, it’s just not so much fun. I don’t fully understand the mechanics, so it’s not clear to me what my choices actually mean. Eh, I may give it a bit more time before I give up, but I’ve not got high hopes for it, at the moment.

Reaching a bit further back, I’ve played a few hours of Xenoblade, which is pretty fun. I’m not too sure how much I like the MMO-like elements, but the game seems generally solid.

Finally (so far as I can recall), I played some Super Mario Land. I got to 3-1 or so, which is an improvement over my previous attempts. Still, the controls in that game are nothing like as good as in its console counterparts. Such a shame.