I had someone pick a fight with me this week over only spending 4.5 hours in Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth and giving it such an in depth review. Games that deep are easy to give long reviews. I would have loved to play it longer, but well free weekends and deadlines come up quickly. I have been noticing my Steam goes offline every so often, so I don’t get accurate tracking stats. Like my Marlow Briggs has 4 hours, but I know that I spent 7 in there. At some point Steam even acknowledged I had 7. That’s why I’ve got 100 screenshots to prove I went through that and all games.
Also on Steam I had a random add saying that one of my friends scammed him out of an unusual item. Well turns out I had blocked him, because I know a scammer when I see one and Steam is full of them now. Funny thing is there were two people in that friend’s profile bluntly warning people he’s a scammer. Whatever, who checks profiles for comments anyway? The random add wanted me to ask my blocked friend for his hat back. I suggested he just tell Steam and took him through the process.
Well with all that out of the way, here are the games I played this week!
SLAM JUNK!
This was an interesting game for all the wrong reasons. I played it for 2 – 3 hours and then I saw that the game can be completed in about 15 minutes. I spent so much time struggling against the game’s controls that it was just an awful experience. It was such a bad experience that I had a friend try it without telling him why I wanted him to try it. Within 30 minutes he had completed the game. Ouch. After that, I had to force myself to put in more time. After putting in more time and with the developer’s walkthrough video, I was able to make it through the game. There were still all sorts of glitches and game breakers that forced me to restart each short chapter, but now I can give it a fair review. The review is already done and in the cue. I’m trying to have a review come out once a day. I don’t expect a plug for this review, but that keeps me honest.
AN APPARENTLY NORMAL ROOM
This game was full of peaks and valleys that I’m sure were deliberate. It toys with your emotions, but I play games as an objective, a goal and I hope to have fun or be entertained along the way. This wasn’t entertaining or fun, but I see what it is trying to do. I played through it twice to see if the alternate endings and while one is better than the other, they both still lead to the same place. If you want a game that messes with your emotions, this is it.
ALIENS vs PREDATOR 2000
I have tried this legendary game twice, and both times, I have yet to get into it or even complete the first level. Its a dark game that gives you flares and night vision, but the only level that I played got me lost to a frustrating degree. I’m sure I’ll put more time in, but at the moment, I just don’t like it. I wonder how this game reached legendary status amongst early 21st century first person shooters. Is it just the multiplayer?
THEME HOSPITAL
Electronic Arts gave this one out for free and while it took me a while to get into it and figure out how to do what the game is telling you to do, I did get into it. It just took me about three attempts of playing to get through the first scenario. I do appreciate the fact that the game has several scenarios in its campaign. That’s something sorely missing from other isometric tycoon games these days.
SPLICE
Because it came out for PlayStation 4, I replayed this in the span of about 90 minutes. By replayed I mean the main campaign and not the brain twisting second campaign after the credits roll. While I like it, I don’t think that it was fun or entertaining so much as soothing and relaxing. Knowing how to solve the puzzles from the first time around made the second time around almost joyless to complete a puzzle. There’s just no replay value unlike the developer’s other puzzle game Fractal.
FTL: FASTER THAN LIGHT
I spent a few hours updating Star Trek Online which I never played, but in that time I fired up FTL to give it three playthroughs and two other quick deaths. I had one long run as the Kestral which was destroyed just before the final boss. Destroyed by a mere overpowered cruiser. The second and third runs were in the Kruos where I decided to cut all oxygen from the ship and constantly kill off any crew member that wasn’t Lanius. I did it for the achievement of course! Both ships made it to the final sector where they were both destroyed before the final ship.
SAINTS ROW: THE THIRD
To kickoff this week, I finished up and completed the story missions then went to the DLC. Even after the game, its still a lot of fun. The Trouble with Clones DLC was good, while the Gangstas in Space DLC was great. So great that I might have to play it again. After that I was 20 hours into the Steam version when I finally decided to check out all the cosmetic DLC. That’s when I found the Steam exclusive giant TF2 heads. I was in silly heaven. Everything is just so much better with novelty heads.
SUPER MARIO LAND 2: 6 GOLDEN COINS (GB)
I am continuing my retro reviews every Monday and in about three more Mondays after Zelda and Daikatana, you should expect Super Mario Land 2! I think that I can pump out a few of these retro reviews a day, because these old school games are just so fast to play through. Since I grew up on these, I know the ins and outs so while it might have been 20 years since playing some, they still go by quick. As for this game, it was fun to plow through it. The only real 30 minute challenge was Wario’s final castle.
DEAD SPACE 3
With Dead Space 2 complete, I installed Origin to play Dead Space 3. People weren’t kidding it is an action game at least in the first one or two chapters. Its as if someone played Uncharted 2 and said we need to be like Uncharted 2! Issac runs faster, he’s on a train rather than on a tram. He’s trying to find love. Back with Dead Space 2, I wrote 3 blogs making fun of how its a romance game even when there was no romance or love. Well the third game is all about “getting your girl back.” Its pretty funny to see that my joke became a reality.
THE SIMS 4
I spent 20 hours in the Sims 4 with another 4 hours trying to get it to work. Even with the time spent in the game, I still feel like I got no where! Nothing was accomplished and I can say the same in real life from playing this game. There were only two interesting things that happened in those 20 hours and that was one Sim started a cooking fire and the same Sim passed out and died, but not from the fire. Those same interesting things could have happened in any edition of the Sims, but since I own the previous three, I wonder why I need the Sims 4. Because its Origin exclusive like Dead Space 3! The review is already written, expect it sometime in the future.
BATTLEMASS 2
I played a few games of this for a total of 4 hours straight. Then I wrote a review, posted it and the developer liked it enough to put it on his Twitter feed. Not that he paid me or anything. Its just interesting to see this site gets noticed. I’ve had developers notice my reviews on Steam, but its usually to pick fights with me. Long winded rants from them at the end of my reviews. Heck two developers had their friends all write me telling me to change my review.
MELTDOWN
This was my astounding game of the week. One of my Steam friends bought a four pack and gave me a copy. Before I knew it I was 11 hours into the game in a 24 hour period. I had completed the game in the first 8 hours or so, but because every game completion is just another chance to get more prestige when you start all over again, I kept going with my second play through. I’ll probably return to it again, because its a never ending game that manages to have techniques used in micro transaction games while still keeping the game free from micro transactions.
Games That I Play 