1 October 2024

New Month

World of Warships

Some days I hate playing this game simply because it's a grind and raises the stress level. But you take the bad with the good, as you do in life.  One more day of the Event Pass to go after today which means two free crates left to go. After that new stuff being foisted upon us (ugh!). Roll on Christmas.

Just a reminder to myself: for all the money spent on this game over the past five years, nothing belongs to me. It's the nature of electronic games, and therefore gambling per se, these days: you pay for the privilege, for the access; but in the end the product does not belong to you. Unlike actual physical products like boardgames or tabletop miniatures. How attached therefore are we to our minis and boardgames when the lure of online gaming becomes more intrusive and prevalent these days?   

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Space Marines 2

Finished the single-player Campaign. The ending did not surprise me but the praise for Titus by Lord Calgar made the eyes misty somewhat. Testosterone gaming is good sometimes. 

Will attempt Operations next but not today.

EDIT: Correction. See below after Black Myth Wukong.

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Black Myth Wukong

Visuals are simply stunning for me. Love playing this just for the meditation spots. Still treading my way through Chapter One. A game like this is meant to be savoured not rushed through. Which is a shame when one has to battle when it's much more preferable (for me at least) to simply explore this visual smorgasbord of landscape.

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Space Marines 2 (continuation)

Jumped back into the game because I was curious about earning Achievements. Naturally, that led to my rejoining the game this arvo and playing Operations solo. I confess that the truism is accurate: you do advance through your mistakes. Chose the 3rd mission - the transition from eliminating Tyranids to executing Chaos Space Marines and their lackeys  - as a plain Tactical marine. Interesting progression. Bolter rifles are indeed weak as many have pointed out already. I think the emphasis is more on close quarter combat than the standard blat-them-from-afar situations with ranged weapons, but I am no doubt wrong in my assessment. Which seems odd given the potency of these weapons and whoever's wielding them. And a Tactical marine the basic loadout is good for nothing, to be honest. But you need to build up your XP (where have I heard that before?) in order to access and customise your loadout, especially on the armour.

Fortunately I saved no screenshots because I forgot in my excited enthusiasm. But be assured; it was a productive session nonetheless despite defeat after defeat after defeat after defeat after defeat...! 

One step forward, two steps back as they say.

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Crusader Kings II

Apart from the tiny writing making viewing difficult, it looks intriguing. I know it's the follow up to the successful first version which I have never played but seen from afar. The major appeal for me is the time period - anything medieval is a winner as far as I'm concerned. And the starting tutorial is set on the Iberian Peninsular so that's another plus for me. Will see how far I get once I've read through the various elements of the game play.

 

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Solaris

A space conquest game that has been sitting in my online Steam library for a year or so. On logging in though soon learned that it doesn't cater to solo play, but then maybe I was put off by the need to log in even though I was already playing it through Steam. 

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Terraformers

Had the prologue version (Terraformers: First steps on Mars) for a while now. Finally jumped into it tonight and enjoyed it enough to pay for the full game. 

In the same vein as Surviving Mars but with differences. It also reminds me of The Planet Crafter only in a dissimilar way. I do like my exploration games so I am discovering; it's always been about the journey not the destination with me. Somehow there is a bit of a let down when you get to the end because there won't be a continuation and there is that natural feeling of depression. But you are soon buoyed by the understanding that the end is always the start of a new journey. So I kid myself. Cheers.  

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