First, a quick question: How many English NESers do we have and how many Scottish NESers do we have, and what are views on today's referendum? As an American, I'm hoping the Scottish finally do what we started and put a final sword into the heart of the British Empire.
So, since I need to appear productive at the moment and typing random stuff appears productive, here I go with a bit of a story and my thoughts on a number of video games. Every so often when I'm highly anticipating a new game, I enter a phase where all of my old games begin to bore me and I struggle to figure out which one to play. This year, with barely anything good coming out until 2015 (only Beyond Earth to look forward to in the foreseeable future), I've hit these doldrums pretty hard. I've done what I could by playing Civ5, Crusader Kings 2, and a heavily modded Skyrim. One by one though, each of these games have completely lost my interest and I've been desperate for anything new and interesting.
So first I tried Blitzkrieg anthology and beat that in a single sitting. I don't recommend it, too easy for anyone with the slightest experience at strategy games. All you have to do is use your artillery to slowly demolish everything, and the AI is pretty lousy at responding, slowly driving or walking across the map to your entrenched positions, while your artillery reduces them to nothing.
Then I tried Ageod's Civil War 2, and frankly wasn't that impressed. It has a lot of detail sure, but the UI leaves a lot to be desired, and it doesn't seem like that much of an improvement over the original.
My brother bought me Dark Souls for my birthday this year, and I tried that too, and decided I could achieve the same level of enjoyment by punching cement blocks in the hopes of breaking them. I know people rave about it, but frankly, I found the whole grinding business monotonous, as though someone distilled the absolute worst parts of RPG mechanics and put it into a game. Maybe it gets better with more time, but after two hours, I just couldn't be bothered anymore.
Then came State of Decay. I had been sort of eyeing this ever since it came on Xbox Live, and I bought it when it first came out, but never really had the time to come back and try it out properly. It's an interesting take on the zombie apocalypse and comes fairly close to being an awesome experience. However, when you get right down to it, all the characters are interchangeable, and while permadeath is present, there was rarely any emotional kick to it with a couple of exceptions. Also the controls really suck on the PC and are dodgy at best on the 360. Also, I was really unhappy at the persistent world thing, as I didn't even know it existed until I didn't play it for a week and came back to find everything in chaos.
Then, over the past two nights I believe I have reached the promised land of zombie games, or at least a vision of it. The game Dead State is probably tied for best zombie game out there with DayZ. If you've ever read World War Z (screw the movie) or the Zombie Survival Guide, this is pretty much a game taking place in those universes. It also very heavily borrows from the Walking Dead. It's not official, but the zombies are the slow shambling types, and the creators of the game got the zombie genre right: It's the people and the choices they make that create the true horror and drama, not the zombies themselves, who are not much more than a walking hazard or environmental threat. The graphics aren't bad, and if you were ever a fan of the original Fallout games, you'll recognize a lot mechanically. The tutorial is nonobtrusive and easily skipped if you've already done it. The writing, while not incredible, is solid, and people speak as people actually speak. Similarly, the characters you talk to will change their statements based on what you've said to them in the past, and nothing you say or do exists in isolation. All characters can die, and if you die, that's it. I haven't completed the game yet, and it has proven to be an actual challenge on top of strong mechanics. My only problem with it at the moment is the inventory system, which is a bit clunky. Other than that, I really recommend that any of your who like the old style PC rpgs like Fallout or want a zombie game that's more about building a shelter and survival, but don't want the multiplayer experience of DayZ, this is the one you're looking for.
