Gaming With GADD

Week ending 7/8/14

Once again this week Valiant Hearts is the only thing I have plans for, and maybe I’ll be able to finish it this week? It doesn’t seem horribly long from what I’ve played of it thus far, and I really like it. I honestly have no clue what I’m going to play this week, it all just feels really blah to me right now.

NOTE:  Valiant Hearts goes more specific into spoilers this week.  As was the case last week, tread lightly there.

Wednesday

Trials Evolution
I started out with the intention of beating the third extreme course but quickly rage quit out after I got stuck on either the fourth or fifth checkpoint. I can’t tell, did the Extremes get harder, or did I just get worse and/or have less patience with them? Either way, I didn’t play this for very long at all.

Valiant Hearts: The Great War
This was another really short play session, as after about 20 minutes I decided I really wasn’t in the mood for some seriously depressing shit, which is where this game is starting to head towards.

NBA 2K14
Why the hell do I play this so much? It is SERIOUSLY flawed and not even as good as the previous gen versions, but I keep coming back to it. Probably the instant gratification factor that you get from sports games as you don’t really need to put much time into it to feel like you did something good. Speaking of which, I got my second career triple-double against the Lakers, and had it by the third quarter. I’ve become really good at rebounding, especially for a PG, as I’m averaging over 7 RPG in my last 10 games. The game had a cutscene where my agent told me that if I scored higher than my average in my next 10 games, I would get signed to a Sprite sponsorship deal. I’d really like to believe that actual corporate sponsorships get worked out this way, “Sorry LeBron, you only scored 22.4 this month. We have to pull out of our deal.” Either way, it was rendered even MORE ridiculous as my agent told me that I had the deal after just 3 games, in which I scored less than my season average (18.0 to 18.6) so even the horribly scripted shit doesn’t even play out the way it’s supposed to.

Thursday

Mercenary Kings
Played the rest of the Major rank, and holy shit I just HATE the temple stage that the majority of the Major ranking takes place in. We got up to the final boss of Major rank and he completely destroyed us, and when it finally looked as though we were figuring out a pattern, Hurricane Arthur came by and said “fuck yo power, bitch!” After a few hours, and the “worst” of the complete disappointment that was Hurricane Arthur, had passed, I got back online and we beat the boss, even if just barely, to complete the Major rank. In beating this rank, I realized one other problem I had with this game. I made a joking mention to my co-op partner that it seems hilarious that as soon as we rank up, he’s always checking new missions while I’m checking out…new color palettes for your main character and new banners for your hut. At first I thought nothing of it, but eventually I realized it’s actually a big flaw in the game. After you rank up you get a list of new gun parts, knives, bio mods etc that you can make. But you NEVER have the required resources to make any of these new items, because they just haven’t been made available to you yet. While I imagine they assume you’ll look at the new stuff and see some awesome weapon you just HAVE to make and use that as your hook to keep going, I have just gotten to the point of “Whatever, I know I can’t make any of the new shit, so I’m not even going to bother looking at it.”

Trials Evolution
Played some of the tournaments that were added in an update a few weeks ago, and initially I was shocked at just how few people were on the tournament leader boards (as in, less than 150 in the first tournament I competed in) eventually it make complete sense. The only thing you have to gain from competing in the tournaments is XP, but XP in this game is completely worthless, so you basically have no incentive to compete in these.

Mercenary Kings
I may have logged back in on the middle of the night and spammed some trophies without my co-op partner, but he doesn’t need to know about that, right?! Let’s just keep this between us!

Friday

Just couldn’t muster up the desire to play anything. You ever have those days where you want to play something, but nothing is appealing at the time?

Saturday

Valiant Hearts: The Great War
Played through the end of the second chapter, and damn, shit is starting to get REAL. They just killed off one of the main characters, which, granted, I was kinda expecting based on their E3 trailer, but still. I gotta say, I REALLY don’t like the boss fights at the end of chapters in this game. While the vehicle missions are also video gamey as hell, they’re really fun and a nice break between seriousness; however, the boss fights just feel foolish and really interrupt the severity of what’s going on.

Sunday

Mercenary Kings
So the boss at the end of the first stage of Lt Colonel rank was something never seen before and it took a few times dying to him to even get a grasp on his attack patterns…so of course the game makes him the boss of the next three fucking stages with very slight variances. Way to go! You’ve gone from new to stale in record time!

NBA 2K14
Had a game against the Pelicans, which is who my career mode story rival (also not a real NBA player) plays for. Lost the pre-game bet about who would score more, and lost the game, AND the Pelicans clinched a playoff spot with the win. Just a pure trifecta of shit here folks.

Doki-Doki Universe
Well I ATTEMPTED to play this at least, but instead my PS4 decided to just shut itself off instead. First time that’s happened. Let’s try it again. Hey, whaddya know? It actually worked on the second attempt! Now that I’ve actually played a small amount of it, I can officially say this is a really weird and fucked up game. You play as QT3, a robot who was abandoned on a small isolated planet by his human owners, and is found by another robot who was sent to reprogram him, but QT gets a chance to prove he can have a human side, and so the game’s main gameplay consists of you going around to different planets and trying to connect with people, in order for them to give you presents. You typically (at least in what I’ve played so far) do this by giving them things they enjoy (via a Little Big Planet-esque sticker system) or picking them up and throwing them around the planet. The tutorial says some people will give you presents when they’re mad, rather than happy, but I don’t think I’ve encountered any of them yet. After you decide to leave a planet you hop on your steed (in my case, a floating piece of cheese. Just go with it) and travel to another planet, or go to an asteroid and take part in a personality quiz. Because sure, why the fuck not, right? Oh, also, your only friend is a talking red balloon. It’s all really quirky and really weird. I might continue to play this, but I also think it’ll get repetitive really quickly. If you have a PS4 or Vita though, might as well get it since it’s a PS+ free game in July.

Monday

Mercenary Kings
Got to the very end of the Lt Colonel rank which, for the record, was WAY easier than the previous General rank, as most of the enemies in these levels were just souped up versions of previous enemies, as opposed to brand new enemies with asshole attack patterns like in Major. Got to the final boss of the rank when PSN started desynchronizing like crazy and shit just started teleporting across the screen. So we’ll likely finish Lt. Colonel at some point next week.

Valiant Hearts: The Great War
More playable characters introduced at the start of chapter 3, or well..character, singular. And not so much “introduced” as it’s just the first chance you get to actually play as Karl, the German stepson of Emile and current POW. As of yet he doesn’t appear to have any specialized gameplay elements like Anna and her healing, but I’m sure his story will be just as tragic as the rest.

Tuesday

NBA 2K14
It’s kinda ridiculous that this is the only disc-based game that I play on my PS4. I’m using the power of the Playstation for sim basketball! Granted, it’s nowhere near as ridiculous as the 6 month period that the XBox 360 became my $400 UNO machine, but it’s close. Finished out the regular season and won Rookie of the Year while my Suns finished 4th in the West and have a first round date with the Timberwolves. I’d like to think that I’ll call it quits after I finish the rookie season, but who knows?

Man, this article has gotten REALLY boring, hasn’t it? I’m just stuck in a horrible gaming rut where not only do I just play a few games now, but I play so little of them that it’s crazy! Am I sure that I like video games? I’m starting to question my own beliefs now. I know I say this every week, but I desperately need to take the three damn minutes it would take and hook up my 360. That’s where all my damn variety is at. Just sitting here in a bag in front of me, taunting me, knowing I’m lazy.

QUESTION OF THE WEEK:

Do you ever have moments like what I’m going through right now, where your gaming habits are in such a lull and nothing is really exciting you? What do you do to combat them? Do you just take a break from gaming for a while, or do you plow through and hope to find something that catches your interest again?