We are the warriors that built this town / From dust.

OH hi. Would you look at this I'm still alive. And studying! That's new. -ish. So life happened and it's been almost 2 years since the last update. And now I'm back! back to bring you, ladies and gentlemen:

Games of 2014 that I played and loved, top 3

So I actually think that year 2014 may have been the best year for gamers everywhere, and not just because our new and dear next generation of game consoles that I can't afford and hence scoff at. Is it just me or is there more variety and interesting ideas in gaming than ever before?

So I thought to take a break from playing all these marvellous games and write about them a word or two. 

#3: Child of light

This platformer / rpg game tells a moving story of Aurora, a child who ends up in the world of Lemuria and has to find the moon, stars and sun to come back home. During her quest she meets many interesting personalities and learns new skills. The whole game has a definite storybook-feel and is the prettiest game ever oh my god would you look at this game.

 Aside from it's unique looks, I think that the rpg element worked really well in this game and I liked how each of your party members had unique talents and uses - you can use two party members at a time and while you can beat the game and the boss battles without breaking out the tactics guide it was definitely loads of fun trying to figure out the best character combinations to beat each boss. 

The writing in this game is also something to write home about: the whole game is rhymed, which plays well into already fairy tale-like athmosphere, The story is not without it's darker elements, like all the best fairy tales. 

Aurora is a sweet protagonist, a resourceful and kind but not without her own bite which makes her more reminiscent of Ronia the Robbers daughter and other Astrid Lindgren girls than a Disney princess. Child of Light is definitely the sort of game I'm looking forward to seeing more of: something new that tests the boundaries between video games and art.

Image source kotaku.com

#2 Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!

I have mentioned in this blog before that I usually dislike playing in 1st.person. Well, Borderlands would be the exception. The Pre-Sequel is the third game in Borderlands-series, though it's storyline takes place between the first and the second game, explaining lot of plot points that went unanswered in the second part of the series. Whole game series is best described as shoot-and-loot action game, but beyond that simple basis these games actually have pretty convoluted plot to keep gamer like me interested (Can't get off without character development and complicated back stories) I'm actually not that far into this game yet, but for anyone who has played and loved the previous series in the game, there is only one thing that you need to know in order to loose your shit over this game: CLAPTRAP IS PLAYABLE CHARACTER.

Not ashamed to admit that I love claptraps. I love their hyper-annoy-you-to-death-while-unaware-that-everyone-hates-you-manner. I usually research all the character skill trees before making informed decision about the character I want to use, but this time around I couldn't care less. Because CLAPTRAP IS PLAYABLE CHARACTER. Game actually tries to warn you off of picking Claptrap, like three times, which is a good example of the brilliant humour that's integral part of the game series. As is the Claptraps action skill, which basically steals action skill from one of other characters, often messing it up somehow. I once ended up bouncing around on a rubber duck in a middle of a boss battle.

The unique humour, good characters and absurd and plentiful guns make this game super fun, hour-swallowing loot extravaganza. Also if you're into plentiful DLC:s? Pre-Sequel got you covered, as they released a series of reference-packed additional game content making sure to keep us addicted for hours and hours more.

#1 Dragon Age: Inquisition

I've spoken about my love for Dragon Age series before, and last year you can bet your ass I pre-ordered this long awaited ARPG as soon as I could. I had high expectations and man did this game deliver.

The story begins about ten years after the ending of the second Dragon Age game with brand new wold threatening crisis and brand new hero. As with previous games, Inquisition gives loads of options in character creation and brings back the option to play as one of non-human races in Thedas. Elves and dwarfs are familiar options from Dragon Age:Origins, and for the first time you have the option to pick Qunari character, Qunaris being the grey-skinned-horn-headed warriors from overseas.

My favourite part of Bioware games has to be companion characters you meet and befriend along the way, and Inquisition definitely has a cast of lovely (some of them almost criminally lovely I mean holy fuck Dorian turn it down for fucks sake) new faces. We also see the return of few old favourites.

Inquisition is the first Dragon Age game to have an open world that I for one enjoyed exploring for hours at a time. I think the open world really brings forth the extensive fantasy world of Thedas with all it's warring factions, religions and cultures. The best part of this is that you get to choose your allegiance and have a major part in deciding the destiny of the whole country. 

Image source: http://www.gamecrate.com

If I were a bumblebee and you were a puddle / would I drown in you anyway

Life's actually going fine for a change. I mean mostly work, of course. Even though I might not personally like all my coworkers, the job itself is mostly fulfilling, and I like the thought that I'm contributing something for as small cause that's doing lot's of good locally. But, as there's not actually not terribly much to share about that and I don't feel like delving into pit of snakes that is upcoming applying exams for university, here's another silly game-heads-up-thing.

You see, I found a game version of cotton candy called One and One Story. It's really simple and really short, so if you're up for non-violent puzzle game with bit of aww at the end, this will probably do the trick.

Basically, you have to direct two figures across the platform to each others arms, moving them in the way narrative tells you to. Gameplay truly changes trough the first person narrative that sometimes makes an attempt at sounding cryptic. ("sometimes, she was running away") Mostly though, the solution to these platforms were self evident and none of them required brainpower to work out. Story is pretty basic, containing trying to navigate in a relationship with a person who sometimes runs over the cliff and dies on you, or who sometimes drops heavy rocks on your head. Ending is pure fluff and corn syrup and gooey eyes. It's cute like a newborn fawn.
Points for the original idea, pleasant soundtrack and backgrounds. And once you beat it, you get a multiplayer mode, so you can play it with your significant other. Or something. Seeing as my closest thing to a significant other is a cat (thank lord for that), I don't think that's happening anytime soon.

On the importance of Perspective

What? Could it be? Another blog update!
I'm actually here today to gently draw your attention to this great, completely free puzzle game.

Perspective has really interesting concept. You are basically moving a little blue guy around, but while you exist in 1st. person perspective, the little blue guy exists in 2 dimensional world. You alternate between moving yourself and the blue guy to move between levels. Once you get a hang of controls first few levels are piece of cake, but they get gradually harder until getting god-damn-I-will-kill-whoever-thought-this-game-was-good-idea difficult. I haven't passed the game myself yet, so this is not full scale review. What I have seen of it, I warmly recommend it for the people who played the Portal for the puzzles or who want to warp their sense of physics.
Anyway, this masterpiece is downloadable from here.

There's nothing that I wouldn't do / Save lay my rifle down

Went to see the movie today, Skyfall. Maybe there is something in this whole James Bond-business..

This is actually just a notice to anyone who might be reading: I'm probably going to be dead to the world for a few months. I don't have any good, grown-up reason. But you might have noticed that yesterday was the release date for a certain video game I had been waiting for a very long time.

I do recommend playing all the Assassin's games,they are fully worthy of your time. This is not a review. I haven't yet played enough to give anyone a comprehensive image about AC III. I have liked - loved- what I have seen so far. I am yet again completely hooked. When playing this series, I don't notice time passing. Hell, I won't even notice if someone is talking to me. (Today, my father told me that his tyre got busted while he was driving. He said that I responded to his talking to me. Afterwards, I had no memory of this happening)

I don't know why I'm writing this, I could be playing.

See you in a month or so.

But the Lord said / go to the Devil

I found quite interesting online Flash-based game yesterday evening called The End.
It is basically ordinary puzzles and mazes-platformer, but what makes it different from the rest gazillion similar games out there, this one makes you think of your views about death.

Levels are not terribly difficult and the whole game can be passed in a few hours. (took me about 6 hours, because I'm not really PC gamer at all.) Some of the puzzles were very clever and towards the end levels started to get genuinely challenging. At the end of every level there is a philosophical Y/N question.

Game collects your answers, compares them to the answers of well known thinkers, the world, and your Facebook friends. It tells you who is closest to your views (I was closest to Machiavelli almost for the whole duration of the game. )

I liked the avatar maker very much, because it didn't force you to choose the gender of the avatar and yet was more diverse than most similar avatar makers. All in all game's visual outfit was consistent and appealing, and I liked that the different worlds had their distinctive outlooks.

Pros/Cons

+outlook
+avatar maker
+philosophical questions were well researched and interesting, game also directs you for further reading about every subject.

-occasional bugs and glitches, levers didn't turn/ character didn't always run or jump.
-it was fairly easy to break some levels

There's a disease spreading from organ to organ / And you are the white blood cell that fixes the problem.

There's been a lot of discussion in internet about misogyny in videogames lately. I felt like adding my voice to discussion, because this is one of the things that make me go to full rant mode pretty damn quickly.

To get started, there's this article (the pictures in article are NSFW) and video below:



They both put this issue much more eloquently than I ever can (which is good because you know, they get so much more attention than my little corner of internet ever will)

I don't get much shit personally when I play, mainly because I stay far away from games whose audience is mainly fifteen-years old angry teenager boys with something to prove, and I generally don't play much online. (ok, Assassins Creed MP is darn cool, but you don't have to personally interact with your co-players in it so I guess that doesn't count.) Also the games I prefer; long, plot driven action and free roaming games have this issue well in control. Here in my little bubble all is fine. But then Hutchinson from Ubisoft's creator team says something like: “It felt like, if you had all these men in every scene and (a female assassin is) secretly, stealthily in crowds of dudes, it starts to feel kind of wrong. People would stop believing it"
And: American Revolution "is the history of men". 

As a result, I feel disappointed and betrayed by one of my favourite games. This argument doesn't work no matter what direction you look at it for several reasons.
1) There was female Assassins on AC: Brotherhood and AC: Revelations. Also Ezio's sister is big part of the organisation even if she doesn't participate in actual killing people activities.
2) We have lots of historical figures for women in war: Jeanne D'Arc, Catherine the Great, Cleopatra, etc. There was women participating also on US civil war, as seen at this website.
3) If Ezio and Altaïr could walk stealthily in the crowd dressed in a cape and full body armor, armed to teeth and sometimes having an eagle jutting form their shoulder, so can a woman. If anything, woman is not generally seen as a threat: they get to places unnoticed, because they were basically second rate citizens.

Ezio "No one can see my crimes against fashion because
I'm so fucking stealthy" Auditore

4) After the debated article in question, Ubisoft revealed that there will be separate story line for a female Assassin Aveline. Oh irony!

I'm getting a bit side tracked here. And by the way, I am against the idea that the protagonist in AC III would be woman, because we can't forget that it's really Desmond all the time in the memories of his ancestors. While it would be very interesting to see how bleeding effect from a different gender would fuck Desmond up, this game is not a time or a place for such investigation.
Anyway! Sidetracks.

So, lots of support for Feminist frequency, Il Doctorine and the rest who have spoken about this issue. I appreciate the work you are doing that I and many, many others can continue enjoying games and maybe, in future, widen our gamer horizons to genres that haven't been really female friendly in the past.

This was a triumph / I'm making a note here: huge success.

Because I'm bored beyond belief and had an sudden inspiration, here is my

Favourite video game characters of all time in no particular order.

GlaDos  from Portal and Portal 2

This really needs no explanation, right? She may have the very best lines in the history of video games, ever. Priceless gems like:

• "Well done. Here come the test results: "You are a horrible person." That's what it says: a horrible person. We weren't even testing for that!
• "He's not just a regular moron. He's the product of the greatest minds of a generation working together with the express purpose of building the dumbest moron who ever lived. And you just put him in charge of the entire facility. [slow clap] Good, that's still working."

I don't think that I have ever laughed when playing a video game as much as I did when I played Portal 2. And I sort of really love how they redeemed GlaDos in the end. (Oh, wait. Spoiler alert, I guess?) I sort of really might have cried a bit when she said that Chel was her best friend and then played some syrupy Spanish turret opera for her. And I'm also very giddy of the fact that she is a she. As in ex-woman current science crazed robot. So, GlaDos, you will always have a very special place in my heart.

Still alive.

King of All Cosmos from Katamari

If you haven't ever heard of Katamari, you are obviously a moron. It is a game where things with tube shaped heads and cone shaped bodies roll around a ball, and everything big enough sticks to it. When ball gets bigger, you can pick up bigger things. (Like planets and giant squids and sumo wrestlers. You know. Ordinary stuff.) It is all very cheery and colourful.

Then add bipolar and megalomaniac king who somehow fucks the whole universe up and leaves the mess for cylinder head who is supposedly his son, The Prince and his seemingly endless flock of cousins while he sleeps for the whole duration of the Katamari Damacy and bitches about everything. 

Oh, and did I mention that he is totally fabulous?

Gorgeous and knows it.

Varric from Dragon Age II

Yes, yes, I know, DAII is complete shit compared to Origins and the plot was actually three separate little plots glued together (it was) story didn't have any major elements that would have gave it depth and meaning, like in DA: O (True), but I stand by my opinion that the followers were ten times better than in DA: Origins, except for Anders, that bitch. They are caricatures, definitely, but they make me feel like screen writers have really put effort into their backgrounds and attitudes. (Unlike scary slave-followers in Skyrim; most of whom have about three lines that they will contently say over and over again 'till I freak out and kill them. Is it really any wonder that I prefer raising zombies for my minions over hearing yet again "I am sworn to carry your burdens"?) I didn't like any of the Dragon Age: Origins characters half as much than I liked all the DAII followers. 

Why Varric then, and not Merril or Fenris or Aveline or whoever? Merril had that mirror business that she took way too seriously, Fenris just man angsted through whole game, (but I'm ready to forgive a lot for that voice. If that voice could be made into liquid and bottled, I would bath in it.) Aveline had too strict morals, Isabel needed to learn that sexual innuendos will get boring after a while... and they all have that one tick that makes them totally freak out and, I don't know, blow up buildings maybe (Oops spoilers. Anders you bitch.)

Except for Varric. Varric is just cool and unfazed through it all, he has some moral backbone but not too much, and he prefers using his wits instead of just butting his head against things he can't change until he has hell of a headache. (Anders I'm looking at you) He is my DA II bro for life.

Also, chest hair.

John Marston from Red Dead Redemption

If I could, I would make an ode titled: O, John Marston, the only male video game protagonist who isn't 30-something white brunette. Except he is brunette. And white. And male. And I'm not really sure about his age. Moving on! What I mean is that he really isn't from that same cookie cutter than virtually every other video game protagonist. He really seems like he has seen life, been to places, gotten tired of it all and settled down, and then been dragged back to everything he wanted to leave behind. He is being blackmailed and used by the very people who have been the villains of his whole former life, but he does their bidding anyway, with honor and poise. Because it is the right thing to do. 

Only thing I ever resented in John Marston was Jack Marston. 

You don't want to mess with him.

Shaun Hastings from Assassins Creed (all of them) 

I have very complex relationship with Assassins Creed as a game series. Because I know that they are not the best games I have ever played. They don't have best plots or best game play or best graphics. But they are the only game that will make me go batshit insane every time I get that new AC game to my hands, and the only game that I hate coming to an end so, so much. Every time I get to the end of one of them, I sit there, watching the credits mind reeling for the fact that even if I can play it again and complete the rest of the small side quests, it won't be the same again as the first time I got that game through. And I'm devastated. Until they announce the next game. 

So I had to include it in this list somehow. Luckily, we have the sassy history geek with an British accent. I have adored that guy from the first time he said to Desmond: "Hi, Desmond. Go away." He is one of those guys I look at and think to myself: one day, I want to be just like him. He has a passion for history. He doesn't put up with any bullshit. On the minus side, he is about the only character in the whole series worth mentioning (Except for Da Vinci, who is worth mentioning because he is Da Vinci. I adore him, too.) 

So, I will wait for AC III eagerly partly because I want to bother Shaun again for ten minutes in hopes he will say something new to me like he did in AC II if I remember right. I was very upset when I didn't get to do that in Revelations.

Hello. Go away.

+ 1: Character I absolutely hated so much that I couldn't be bothered to play through otherwise good game.

Cole Phelps from L.A Noire

Cole Phelps is a textbook example of what happens when what I think I am clash with the character I'm supposed to play as. I liked the concept and execution of L.A Noire, I liked the period of time it was set in, hell, I even loved the soundtrack to bits. But. None of that helped, because I cringed every single time the character that was supposed to be me opened his mouth. He was stuck-up and tense (and figured out the crimes much slower than I did.) When I wanted to accuse the suspect of lying, he shouted at suspects face and behaved violently. That was so opposite of what my own behaviour would have been in a similar situation, that it made me feel slightly ill. He is good character, and I wouldn't have minded him if he wasn't the protagonist, but as it were, the character made it really difficult to get into the game. 

And the problem could have been resolved, if they would have given player a bit more free reins and an option be a bit less goody-two-shoes. You can't even properly run over people with car in this game for fucks sake!

Killjoy since '47

I'm ready for the fight / and faith

I am excited. 


Snorted at the eagle tho.
Please please please don't let them make it into nationalist crap.