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Smoke and Mirrors

Well, episode 2 of The Wolf Among Us is just as good as the first one was, and I loved the fuck out of that. This game just looks so beautiful on iPad – my platform of choice for all Telltale games – and I’m still really digging the story and the characters. As big a comic geek as I am, I never did get into reading Fables – I think because it started at a time where I was suffering from Vertigo/Sandman fatigue – but playing through this series is making me want to go back and give it another shot.

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Out There

I’ve had a lot of fun playing this on iPad, even though I still can’t seem to get past 16,000 points. The premise is simple: try to get to the objective (a far away point) with your ship, finding ways to refuel, repair, etc. along the way. There’s no combat in the game, and it’s all about exploring new planetary systems one after the other, until you die (either with your ship destroyed, running out of air, or what I tend to get the most, running out of fuel). There are fun story bits that add flavor to the game as you enter new systems, alien encounters, new ships to take over, and I quite like the illustrated aesthetics – it sorta feels like you’re playing through a comic book. Can’t recommend this enough, it’s surprisingly addictive.

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Angry Birds Epic

Oh boys, what to say about a new big free-to-play game on iOS, and an Angry Birds one at that. Since they’re marketing this as an RPG, I was curious to try it out. The combat is surprisingly fun, and it feels well developed – although not super advanced, you do upgrade both the classes and weapons/armor of your characters, which adds strategy to the mix. But it’s an RPG in fighting mechanic only, as there’s not much story going on – about as much as you experience in any Angry Birds game – and although I was able to play a couple of hours without having any trouble (and it says I’ve cleared close to 20% of the game), I did finally get to a point where I can’t really win my current battle unless I grind a bit to get ingredients for more potions. But I do prefer being able to grind – basically just go back to old battles, to get the items/ingredients that allow you to build weapons and create potions – instead of the energy systems that just stop you from playing. 

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Far Cry 3

I picked this up back in January on one of those big PSN sales, but just now am I finally getting around to playing it. I’ve put in about 4 hours, and gotta say that I’ve been having a blast running around this island, driving around in old jeeps, swooping around in hang gliders, and hunting to give me upgrades (although this is taking a bit longer than I’d like – being stuck with just one weapon that quickly runs out of ammo is no fun). As much as I appreciated a lot of Far Cry 2, I never did finish it, but I’m still feeling the urge to jump into this and liberate more bases and the like, so I’d say it’s an improvement over the last one. And I’m also excited at the prospect of a Far Cry 4 set in the Himalayas (as current rumors suggest), traversing snow-capped mountain tops like a mad man.

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Free to Play

A documentary – that you can watch for free on YouTube – about DOTA 2 and the big 1 million dollar tournament that was held a year or two ago. At first it feels weird to see something like this about MOBAs with no mention of League of Legends (of course, since this is produced by Valve), but since the focus really is on the tournament, you sort of just accept it, and appreciate the profiles of the top players and teams, and the drama that comes out of wanting to find out who will come out as the winner (I had no idea). Quite enjoyed this.

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Symphony of the Night

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I’m usually not particularly interested in playing old games – the experience rarely, if ever, matches the memories I had of playing them in the first place – but this week’s revelation that longtime Castlevania creator Koji Igarashi was leaving Konami to make games on his own got me feeling very nostalgic for Symphony of the Night, and so I picked it up to play on my Vita. This is also the first time I play it in English, as my original playthrough was of the Japanese edition (that I played while I was a student in China), and it was also responsible for the first bits of Japanese I learned – I still regularly quote the “arigatou gozaimasu” from the shopkeeper. I’ve played a couple of hours now, and am really enjoying the gameplay again, but my biggest annoyance is when I die – it takes at least a minute to be playing again, since you first have to go back to the start screen. Dying in games is not the frustrating part, it’s how long it takes before you can be playing again (and of course, how much progress you’ve lost). I am very happy that I’m having a good time with it, still digging the graphics and music, and the pure satisfaction of killing creatures with my sword thrusts and flinging axes. But man, fuck those jumping monkeys – they annoyed me way back then, and they still annoy me now.

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Awesomenauts Assemble!

I still haven’t really played much of the two big MOBA games out there – DOTA 2 and League of Legends (a bit of the latter) – but I have found that I actually do quite like this style of game, and was having a good time with the Lord of the Rings-themed Guardians of Middle-Earth MOBA that came out 1-2 years ago. The reason I stopped playing that was because not many people were playing it, and so I would mostly end up not being able to connect with others players online, and was tired of playing just against the AI. I was always curious about Awesomenauts – it’s been out for a while on PC – and finally took the plunge when this updated edition came out on PS4 recently. I really like the 2D twist on regular MOBA play, and the cartoony presentation is really fun. I’m also finding that it’s a terrific game to play with Remote Play on my Vita, because of the simple control scheme (Remote Play falters when you have a game that has complex controls, that wants you to use shoulder and trigger buttons). Playing Towerfall: Ascension’s Quest mode in Remote Play is really great too.

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Towerfall: Ascension

OK, so I only have one PS4 controller – for my second one, I want the blue version, which is currently out-of-stock – so I haven’t been able to play this against someone else, like you’re supposed to, but I’m still having a blast with it. That’s because the game now includes a “Quest” mode that you can play alone or co-op with one more player, which is basically you facing off against hordes of enemies. Fun. There are challenge screens too. Can’t wait to play this with some friends over, as we hurl insults in sync with the arrows slicing through everyone’s soon-to-be-dead corpse.

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Luftrausers

A dogfighting game with minimal 8-bit graphics didn’t sound like something I’d be really into playing, but it’s gotten to a point where I’ll buy anything by Vlambeer on day 1, and so that’s what I did with this. I got the Vita/PS3 (cross-play) version, and so far have only played on Vita, which is how I really wanted to play it anyway. This game is incredibly addictive, and the way that you just start up a new game so quickly (flick up) after you die makes it so that it’s hard to stop. I really dig the controls – it’s not a twin-stick shooter, you’re giving your plane a boost by pushing up on the analog stick, and steering by pushing left or right. Stop shooting and you can heal yourself automatically. I was having a blast going in controlled stalls to get in a better position to shoot down my enemies, and the upgrade system – you unlock new parts for your plane – gives a nice variety to the gameplay. 

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The Wolf of Wall Street

Well, no matter which way you fall on this movie, you gotta admit it’s pretty entertaining. It’s 3 hours long but I felt it fly by, with pretty great performances by everyone involved – especially Jonah Hill. Yes, these people are all despicable, but it sure is a fun ride to see them reach their lows of lows.