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.

Recently

Beat Hazard got an update in preparation for the upcoming DLC. I’m not entirely sure I like it better this way, but the DLC looks like it might be interesting. I’m not so interested in the multiplayer aspect, but the boss rush, new enemies, and new perks look fun. So, anyway, I’ve been playing a bit of that.

Played some more Audiosurf, too. Still a great game.

Beat every level of Mario 1 and played a little of the second quest. It’s a pretty good game, but it’s really overshadowed by Mario 3.

I’ve played a bit of hardcore Diablo II in the last few months.

Played some more Super Meat Boy. Just a few levels left in the light world, and then I’ll play through the dark world.

Played Torchlight a bit. I’m wondering whether Torchlight 2 will be worth it–if it’ll be different enough to warrant purchase. I guess time will tell.

I learned that I’ve been played Palamedes either very wrong or very right, depending on how you look at it. Discovered that by collecting the right blocks and pressing down, you can remove several lines at once. By removing every block manually, as I had been doing, you get a 50,000 point bonus at the end of the level, though. I got up to stage nine, I think, that way. I haven’t yet tried playing by getting rid of lines, but I imagine I’ll get much further and have a much lower score.

Played a demo of Vertex Dispenser. It isn’t too bad, but I didn’t really like it that much. Certainly not well enough to buy it.

Beat Torchlight Again

Beat Torchlight with Dante II after a little less than 7 hours. I’ll aim for under 5 hours next time, but that was still pretty good. I think I’ll play around in the shadow vault for a while before making Dante III.

Games on Steam

Recently, I got several games on Steam, due to the awesome sale prices.

Portal: free, a while ago. I beat this one just recently–around 2010-07-03, I guess. Awesome, awesome game. I’ve got 6/15 achievements.

Beat Hazard: $2.49. Neat game, and worth the price. I have 13/25 achievements.

Audiosurf: $2.50. Another cool music game. I have 2/17 achievements.

Torchlight: $5.00. At that price, who could resist it? I’ve got 9/67 achievements. My saves were even compatible, so onward I go.

Civilization 4 complete: $9.99. Civ 4 provides enough gameplay that, compared to movies or something, $10 per playing session wouldn’t really be overpriced. $10 for the whole set (Civ 4, Civ 4: Colonization, Civ 4: Beyond the Sword, and Civ 4: Warlords) is a totally good deal. I spent four hours playing it last night. I was playing on easy, and it was indeed very easy. I’ll have to play on the next difficulty up next time. I was about ten turns away from getting a diplomatic victory (by having enough votes to just vote myself in) when the game ended and I got a time victory instead. I wasn’t far off from a domination victory (is that right? Having most of the map and population. That one.), either. Great game, but at 4 hours for an easy game against a few computers, I remember why I stopped playing before. It takes so long! Still, I’m sure I’ll play it enough to get my money’s worth.

All told, I spent about $20 during the sale on several extremely worthy games. I’m satisfied with the value I’m getting, which is unusual. Definitely I’ll make sure to put aside some money for the next sale like this. Who knows what gems might reveal themselves? There were lots of other great games at great prices, though I already owned several: they had Freedom Force and its sequel for less than $2 for the pair, but I already own Freedom Force. They had similar extremely low prices on various shooters and other games of types I don’t like, so not much temptation there. Still, a dollar or two isn’t two much to pay for even a less-than-stellar game, so I’ll look forward to next time.

World of Goo, etc.

I’m playing World of Goo, now. It’s pretty awesome. I’ve only beaten the first chapter so far, But I intend to finish it.

Also done a few Hell and Nightmare cow runs, which involved getting my cow-opener through Hell. Not so easy, given that she was made the cow-opener due to being impractical.

Tried out Dr. Mario Online Rx, but it doesn’t seem any different from the NES version in any significant respect. Maybe some mode I didn’t play is new and worthwhile.

Retired my alchemist in Torchlight. I think I’ll make a string of them and see just how powerful a first-level character can be.