What I've been playing...
Vidjagames
Devil May Cry 1-2-3 HD (PS3)
I bought the digital HD collection a while ago, and I decided to finally give it a replay, and boy did I get my ass kicked badly! DMC1 is not a joke. It reminded me of Souls games right away, especially the first real boss fights. No checkpoints, no autosaves, no automatic combos, it's all you and it is both refreshing and frustrating. Sometimes being nostalgic for old school difficulty should just stay nostalgia. I've managed to kill the first few bosses after a few tries, but still, having to redo the entire level because of a misstep is ridiculous.
DMC1 takes place in a beautiful gothic castle and has a similar atmosphere and design to Resident Evil 1 and the Spencer mansion. I think the game still stands up pretty well if you prefer the more skilled based type of game that rewards performance and style I guess. You can buy Yellow orbs for continues, but really you just need to "gitgood" learn and memorize like a pro! Thats the appeal of these types of games anyhow.
I jumped into DMC2 and 3 for a bit just to see how they differed. I've already complained about DMC 2 earlier mostly because its easier and moves away from the pretty castle to ugly brown hallways filled with trash monsters. DMC3 brings the focus back to combat and skill challenge with more interesting set pieces in place of the castle from DMC1, but overall a better game. I'm trying to replay through all the games in proper order and so far I'm loving the atmosphere and overall visual style and combat of the games.
Have you played DMC series? If so why, or why not? Do you like challenging games?
Guild Wars 2
I think GW2 might be my Mario. At 1up there used to be this question of which game is like your Mario? or what game brought you into gaming and made you fall in love with gaming again like new? I've played around with many F2P MMOs.
The Secret World is my favorite for solo story content and atmosphere, I mean it drops you off in a zombie apocalypse by a seaside town straight out of a Stephen King novel. For comparison, most MMOs drop you off in a safe garden area and hold your hand throughout the entire single player campaign. TSW doesn't really explain itself that well to you, which might be bad, but it drops you off in a Walking Dead scenario where you need to go from safehouse to safehouse and get clues abou what is going on? The mystery is what propels you forward. It's being relaunched again this month with tweeks to combat which a lot of people originally hated, but in the mean time I'm playing Guild Wars 2 again. I'm playing other classes I missed out on like Necromancer and Elementalist and other races to fill out the story, lore of the world. I started reading novelizations of the game when it launched just to show how much it grabbed me. It also looks great and runs fine on mid-tier PCs. Very solo friendly too.
Have you played Guild Wars 2? What is your Mario? What is your favorite MMO?
Final Fantasy XV
I don't think I said much about this game. It is definitely one of those games that I couldn't put down and played it every night for a month and still haven't finished it. I got through the story content, but need to finish up all the hunts.
Television
Containment
One of my favorite new shows debuted last year with only one season that was based around a virus outbreak in Atlanta, a sort of prequel to Walking Dead (not Fear the Walking Dead that is actual prequel) but its the same idea. It was more of a soap opera with a day in the life perspective of people living within a quarantied zone in downtown Atlanta. It starts off very slow with a flu-like virus outbreak that requires a few people be quarantied in a hospital when doctors realize there are more infected besides patient zero. In particular a cop that was sent to arrest patient zero, a teacher and students on a field trip to the hospital, and friends of patient zeroes relatives.
There is also a bit of racial and political overtones which are a bit too on the nose but made things interesting nonetheless. I dont think that race is ever brought up in Walking Dead except for Daryls older cartoonish hillbilly brother Meryl in Season1. In Contagion, patient zero is a muslim immigrant who neglects to visit the hospital when he gets sick due to fear of deportation. The infection spreads after his hospital visit and becoming the suspected patient zero, the government and later media suspect a biological attack and fear and islamophobia is turned up. These political overtowns disappear as the show progresses and people start turning more desperate and aggressive towards each other.
My main issue with the show is lack of zombies, for a zombie apocalypse. I know it's supposed to be the beginning of an outbreak, but it could have become the Resident Evil TV show since its the closest thing to it which could have been explored with Season 2, 3 etc. I liked some of the characters and political overtones enough to watch the whole thing and it kind of answered questions about how Walking Dead started too. The whole thing reminds me of Resident Evil, and there is even a Chris from S.T.A.R.S look-alike as one of the leads and police involvement/control and tactics plays into the story. It's on Netflix.
Also watching and discuss later...
Legion
Riverdale
Supergirl
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