Blog: Video Games of January 2016.

A little while ago, I decided that I'd like to put together a "Game of the Games I Played this Year." This tends to be a little difficult though because I never actually remember what I've been playing after a little while. So, I thought it might be fun/a good idea to keep track of what I played this year.

I seem to have pulled it off, so far, and now, by time played, I have six "top" games for the month:

1. Europa Universalis 4 - I played a lot of EU4 and I did it all in about 4 days (see the chart below). I don't think it would be weird to say I have some very mixed feelings about it, and not just because I'm now terrified of the Commonwealth.  
   
   
   
   
   I like EU4. It has a lot of depth and strategy, (which I'm still miles away from mastering) and the AI is good and not cheating too obviously.  Whenever you sit down to play it's always engaging and you get to make interesting choices and plans.
   
   It's also the worst "one more turn" game I've ever played. I've sat down to play an hour or two and stood up four or five hours later feeling a bit like you've lost control of your life. I found especially I'd only quit after the game punished me badly for making poor choices (see Polish Commonwealth) and so I'd leave with a mixed, my life sucks because I've played one damn game all day, and my life sucks because I just killed 100,000 troops and had to give up six provinces.
   
   EU4 also gets into your brain. I found myself spending a lot of time thinking about plans for the Ottomans and how I was going to expand, or fix a treaty, or get those damned provinces back from the Polish. This tended to make it a little to easy to fire up EU4 and start up again. I had to make a pretty conscious effort to put it away so I could a) actually get real work done and b) play anything else (like Final Fantasy).
   


2. Final Fantasy VI (or 3) (for Super Nintendo) - Since I broke up with Ogre Battle (which I'll write a post about some day), I still feel like the dark days of winter are the days when you're supposed to play fantasy RPGs and Final Fantasy VI is a great game in that category.
   
   
   
   
   I was playing on my original SNES. Which gave me the full Woolseyized text, son of a submariner and all. I tend to think of the SNES version FF3 (with the arabic numeral) verses Final Fantasy VI (with the roman numerals), which applies to the later versions of the game. That may be a crazy thing to do, but it's what's been going on in my head for a while.
   
   Generally I've been having fun. The story feels a little strangled by the translation, but generally is good and once you get going is fun. Combat is good, but random encounters are evil (especially when you're trying to tell a story). There are slightly too many characters for the game to manage and not quite enough reason to trot them out in any quest. There's a button you can push that makes a ninja drop from the ceiling and you can fight him. (Also why are all ninjas undead?)


3. Dishonored - I really like Dishonored (which should really have a u in it somewhere). It's fun and it's easy to slip back into, even if I haven't played in a while. Beyond that I'm feeling excited that we'll get to see Dishonored 2 some time this year (hopefully) and I also want to try my hand at a Let's Play and this seems like a good game to start on.
   
   
   


4. Mini Metro - Holy crap! This little strategy game where you manage a metro system on a metro map is awesome. I played it a little bit when they had the web-only beta version running a while ago. Then it came out for real. I lost a day (oops) to the web-only version on my laptop then looked it up again when I got home and realized that the Steam version was on for $10 (CAD). So since then I've played a lot. I seem to max out most maps at around a 1000 passengers, but I like the variety of maps they have and the daily challenges. The only problem I seem to have (other than the lost day) is that it seems like you can't do the daily challenges all at once.
   
   
   


5. Super Mario Maker - I don't usually set out to play Super Mario Maker that often, it tends to be a game where I see the box sitting by the TV and think, "Oh, I should play an hour." I really like designing levels as an exercise in thinking about game design and I also try to spend at least a little time playing other peoples levels since I think the game is a little low on players vs creators. Since I'm thinking about it, I do have two levels that I made recently that I'm kinda proud of, New Buzzy Lair and Always a Way. You can also see my profile page.






6. Hearthstone - I don't play Hearthstone everyday, but I do like to play at lunch when I can and then occasionally while I'm watching the hockey game or as a way to wind down before bed. I'm not good and I'm lacking a lot of the high end cards to really get me moving (one day, Dr. Boom, one day), but I still have fun. It may not be exactly fair, but I do enjoy that feeling of watching your opponent make a mistake and leave you the opening to get your board control up and stable so you take the game over.
   
   
   

If you're interested, here are my total times in January for every game I played:

The units are in hours, I'm still a little baffled about pivot tables.

and I have a chart of which games I played on which days:

Sorry this looks janky, I'm definetly still trying to figure out how to embed google docs.

Blog: Thoughts on Dishonored

I skipped over Dishonored when it first came out. However, enough people talked about how much they enjoyed it and how cool it was that I decided to catch it the next time it was on sale.

As it turns out I really enjoyed the game. I was a bit surprised since as I was playing through I felt like the game was too dark and the characters were too wooden and that there wasn't enough interesting to do. Once I was done playing I thought that I wouldn't pick it up again, however as it sat at the top of my Steam list it kept being easy to just click and slide into the world for a few hours. The game actually offers quite a wide range of choices in how to approach it and there's enough variety to make doing things over again remain interesting.

Below I discuss several of the things I liked, disliked and noticed about the game and look at a few of the things I'd include in a game I was making. As will all my Thoughts On posts there will be SPOILERS so if you haven't finished the game and care, beware.

Things I Liked

The thing I most liked about Dishonored is the feeling of power the game gives you. Once you get good at the game (which took me a little while), you feel like you can move anywhere and remove any enemy, in any way you want to. This is where the fun of the game lay for me because it always felt good to do whatever it was you wanted to do. It's also nice that this power isn't based on on upgrade, you're powerful from the very start, the upgrades just make things a little bit easier.

Need a giant pile of soliders? Good news, Corvo is up to the task.

The game also has a lot of breadth in how it allows you to handle problems. Unlike some games which punish you if you don't finish enough of the optional content (I'm looking at you Mass Effect) you can plough straight through or be as thorough as you like. They leave enough power ups available on the main track of the game that you're never exactly underpowered (even if you do have to make some choices) and even at very limited amounts of powere there's still a lot you can do. The breadth, and being able to

I also felt that the world building they did for this game was extremely well done. While you aren't able to move freely whereever you like in the city, the levels are laid out in such a way that it feels reasonable that people once lived there. At the same time the roles of the people you meet (both the higher ups and the rank and file guards) all feel reasonable and real (for example you'll see guards at different posts that actually make sense if they were trying to hold access points in the city, rather than just being video game obstacles).

If it weren't for the plague and the rats, I could see living here.

The story telling in the game was very well done. Between the books left around (which also contributed to the world building) and a lot of the subtle information you can pick up by listening carefully to the people around you (at least when they're not trying to gather for cigars tonight). Overall, Dunwall has a strong sense of history and culture.

Things I Didn't Like

Dishonored is  short and ends rather abruptly, but that may actually be a strength of the game given how dark it is. It's really dark, but at least it's short. There isn't enough evolution to the powers, but at the same time you can do everything you need to with the powers you already have. The game is quite tightly balanced and the more I've played it and the more I've thought about it the better it's seemed.

The biggest thing that truly held the game back was the shortage of personality in the enemies in the game. One of the reasons I picked the game up is because of a description of how you could use the heart to listen in on the thoughts of the guards in the city. Unfortunately I've found the heart doesn't actually do that and further the guards all have the same 5 pieces of dialogue (unless they actually have something plot relevant to say); which they will repeat one a minute, forever if you don't do any thing.

It would be nice to see the world populated with more believable characters. It would give the world more texture and give you more options in how and why you play the game. The way I preferred to play Corvo (especially once I got a handle on how to control him) he left the guards alone as much as possible since they were being loyal to their institution, (which presumably he would have had some control over in his role as Lord Protector), but being able to play an avenging spectre would also have been interesting.

The other thing I didn't like about the game was that the plot was a bit straight forward, even though the world and general story was quite good. I knew, from the first or second mission that I'd be betrayed by my "allies" at the end of the game. This might have been a good chance to let the ending emerge from the game play (we can't leave the empress with that freak he's murdered hundreds of people so far and he keeps materializing out of thin air or I thought this Corvo guy was going to be a monster, but he's actually really upright so I won't betray him). Alternatively it would simply have been a good point to show better writing in video games.

You shouldn't be too shocked about this one.

Things I Noticed

One thing I thought was interesting in the game was the way people (your allies especially) reacted if you used your powers around them. I like that in-universe it's weird that this guy appears and disappears suddenly and shows up in strange places doing strange things.  The surprise is always mild through which I think is a bit sad. I understand that Samuel, who's a man of action and works on the edges of society isn't shocked that you can do these occult things, but it should affect the your other alies more. It would be nice to see as you get more and more powerful your allies getting more and more afraid of you if you keep using your powers in front of them. This would have expanded the opportunities for the ending of the game, where it goes beyond whether or not you where chaotic, but into how people felt about you directly.

If you see the world like this long enough, it changes your brain.

Another thing I thought was interesting as a result of my first play through was that my Corvo became less and less violent as the game went on, because I was getting better and better at using his abilities and playing the game. The story this creates, of disoriented, angry Corvo regaining his bearings and being influenced by his daughter and dead lover to be better to the people of Dunwall. This was definitely something that

Things I'd Include in a Game

The biggest thing from Dishonored that I would include in a future game is the feeling of power and control. The developers did good work on this aspect of the game and at every point in your play through you're in control and a threat to those around you.

The other thing I'd like to include is, as I mentioned in the things I noticed, having people react to the way you play the game and the things you choose to do in general, not just at set decision points. You can expand this with word-of-mouth style interactions between the NPCs and this would let the city have a feeling about you without you necessarily just proliferating "badness" into the environment.

Things not to include in a game, chair on a platform hundres of feet in the air.

Final Thoughts

I've now played a really surprising amount of Dishonored, and I have to say it's going to be a game I come back to on a regular basis. The flexibility of the design and breadth of interesting things to do, make up for the wooden AI and make the game more compelling that it might have a right to be. At the end of the day Dishonored is going to be one of those games I look to when trying to make a quality title.

Save the Lady, save the world...