Life is a Mind Bending Puzzle

I have been experimenting with the premium tier of PlayStation Plus which allows streaming a limited selection of PlayStation 3 and 4 games to a PC. This allows non PlayStation owners to experience some of the platform's highly regarded exclusives.  The up front cost involved the purchase of a second hand PS4 controller (€20) and a one month subscription to PlayStation Plus Premium (€16.99). The lower tiers of PlayStation Plus do not allow streaming. Although other controllers can be gotten to work the PS4 controller is highly recommended for maximum compatibility. Apparently even owners of newer PS5 controllers need hacks to get them running with the service.  For some reason the PS Plus app requires the controller to have a wired connection even though I can connect it to the PC via Bluetooth and Steam recognises it just fine via wireless. Google and Reddit sent me down several rabbit holes trying to get the wireless connection to work but in the end I gave up and just went ...

 I am currently playing FTL:Multiverse. This is a massive overhaul mod of the 2012 kickstarter hit FTL. The mod is enormous. It massively expands on every aspect of the game with many new races, new weapons, new ships, new mission content and a massive amount of new lore to support it all. I am really enjoying multiverse and highly recommend it to anyone who enjoyed FTL but that isn't really the point of my post. Instead I want to briefly comment on the process of acquiring and installing the mod. First off you need to have the original FTL game of course but then you need to find three separate packages from three separate modding teams. The packages need to be unzipped and installed in the FTL install folder on your machine. Then you need to un-patch your installed FTL to an earlier version to ensure compatibility with one of the key packages. Then you need to use the mod manager (one of the three packages) to locate and install the multiverse mod file itself. This step is compli...

 I am currently stuck on a boss called Ixillis   in Remnant from the Ashes and I have tried and died over a dozen times so far without being able to overcome it. Stepping back and thinking about this makes me realise that while I really enjoy the sense of achievement I get from overcoming difficult challenges in games I don't actually enjoy the process of repeatedly trying and failing that is required to do so. I like the destination but I don't like the journey. I am beginning to think that this is a problem.  It is a problem because the repeated cycle of trying and failing can pull down my mood in the real world. It is a problem because even though there are other games I could play instead, the lingering shadow of an unresolved encounter diminishes the pleasure I would get from other games. It is a problem because experiences like this make me fearful of hitting similar challenges in future either in this or in other games. It is a problem because I really do want the ...

I am a "classic" subscriber to Humble Choice. This means I get to choose ten from a selection of about a dozen Humble Choice games for a monthly fee of $11.99.  This is a pretty good deal considering the standard subscription rate is $14.99 for three games and $19.99 for nine games. The only trouble is that I have to stay subscribed or I lose this classic plan forever. It feels like I am trapped with a set of golden handcuffs.  I am on the classic plan because I was previously a subscriber to Humble Monthly the precursor to Humble Choice. In Humble monthly there was a smaller number of games every month but you had no choice you just got to keep the random six or seven games they gave out every month. Even though I rarely played more than one or two of the games every month (and often went months without playing any of them) I loved Humble Monthly. The list of new games came out on the first Friday of every month and it was always special learning which new games I had gotten...

Ireland is making tentative steps out of a four month lockdown imposed to halt the spread of Covid 19. Given the how utterly bizarre the situation is it is somewhat surprising that I have yet to write in the blog about it. The truth is that while the pandemic is an event of enormous global impact the personal situation it has enforced is rather tedious and extremely repetitive. Thankfully none of my immediate family have caught the illness even though we have friends and acquaintances who were hit hard. For us us life under lockdown has been a depressingly repetitive cycle of sleep at home, work at home, play at home with occasional short trips for exercise or essential shopping. We are lucky I guess,  that we have been able to continue working remotely through the pandemic and indeed we have been very busy dealing with its impact. Aside: My father was born in 1913 and passed away in 1984. He lived through two world wars, an armed rebellion, a war of independence, a civil war, th...

Inspired by a video from Bombchu on Youtube I decided to review the games I have enjoyed from the last decade and pick my favourite game from every year. Nerd that I am this involved a lot of data crunching and heavy use of Excel but here are the main ground rules: 1. My sources of games are Wikipedia's "20xx in video games" pages . These pages give an unbiased and fairly comprehensive list for every year in a fairly standard format. I did spot a few omissions but none that would change my ranking. Example page for 2010  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_in_video_games 2. Windows games only and games are listed in the year that they were released. I believe Wikipedia uses the US release date.  3. I only consider games that I have played myself for a substantial time, long enough for me to form my own opinion.  4. I consider DLC and expansions to be the part of the original game.  I take them into account when ranking the main game.  4. Pleas...

It has been on the cards for some time but Xbox game pass was the tipping point for me. We are now most definitely in a post scarcity environment when it comes to gaming. I have a huge backlog of unplayed games on Steam, Humble bundle, GoG, Origin and other services. I have new games coming in all the time via Humble Choice and Xbox Game pass not to mention Epic and other give aways. I   am struggling to come to terms with this abundance and I find it increasingly difficult to decide what game to play next and how long to play a given game for. One approach that has been useful for me is "gaming projects" where I immerse myself in a particular game or game family for a few weeks. I did a complete play through of the Halo games last year (I bought a second hand Xbox 360 for the purpose). Since Christmas I have done the same with Gears of war (playing older games on my Xbox and newer ones on PC game pass). I didn't love all the games in the series equally but playin...

A recent  post on Tobold's Blog got me thinking about the number of games I play and whether I like to flit between games or spend a lot of time in one game. The truth is I get far more satisfaction from investing a lot of time in one game than from flitting between games and never the less I still do flit. Sometimes flitting is an inevitable consequence of a game not appealing to me as much as I thought it would. If I move on from a game because I am no longer enjoying it then I don't feel particularly bad about it. Sometimes however I just get distracted by something else and temporarily take a break from a game I fully intend to come back to. Unfortunately these days there is such an overwhelming choice of games to play (often at very little cost)  that such temporary breaks almost inevitably become permanent. This ever growing list of  unfinished titles that I intend to get back to some day is a source of frustration for me. To illustrate the above with examples ...

I am finally taking a break from Total War after almost a 2 year period of total immersion in the Warhammer series. I will certainly return for Total War Warhammer 3 but for now I am enjoying other games.  Harebrained scheme's excellent Battlemech has kept me entertained for the last few weeks. This turn based strategy with big stompy robots is fantastic but now that I have a stable of fully trained pilots and well equipped mechs much of the original challenge of the game has diminished. There are lots of ways to increase the difficulty but I am happy to play out the main campaign and move on.  Halo Master Chief collection has finally come to PC. I celebrated by replaying Reach, the only episode released so far. Still brilliant even though I played it as recently as last year on Xbox 360 during my Halo binge .  Gears of War: Pretty brainless and unoriginal third person cover shooter but a lot of fun none the less.  The Outer Worlds. This game is the re...

I am playing The Outer Planets thanks to the Xbox game pass (pc) €1 trial month. This is a great deal from Microsoft and a lot of gamers are signing up to it but I wouldn't be surprised if I and many others stay subbed after the trial period ends. Even though others like EA Origin Access have tried to push gaming as a service with a monthly sub for some years now I feel like this could just be beginning of a seismic shift in the way most people get games. I wouldn't be surprised if in five years time the majority of my games come this way. Twenty years ago I bought games in physical boxes that I proudly kept on display. I still have a bunch of them on the shelf in my office. Having a physical copy gives a real sense of ownership  and occasionally  I go back and play some old time favourites. But ... even when I do go back to play an older game I am more likely to play a Steam, GoG or Origin version than to physically insert a disk. It is just much more convenient so I have pic...

Humble Monthly is generating a bit of press this month due to having CIV VI available at its lowest ever price. I have been a  subscriber since May 2016 so it is a good time to review my 2017 acquisitions from the Monthly.  January 2017: Extensively played Neon Chrome.   Dabbled in Jotun February 2017:Extensively played Steam World Heist. Dabbled in XCOM 2, Project Highrise March 2017: Extensively played Total War Warhammer April 2017: Extensively played Black Mesa.  Dabbled in The Witness June 2017: No monthly games played July 2017: No monthly games played August 2017: Extensively played Overcooked September 2017: No monthly games played October 2017: No monthly games played Nov 2017: Dabbled in The Elder Scrolls Online Dec 2017: No monthly games played.  This suggests a fairly good hit rate early on falling off entirely in the latter half of the year. The truth is that Total War Warhammer (which I got from the March Monthly) a...

Today was somewhat unusual in that I finished campaigns in two separate games: Total Warhammer 2 Lizard men campaign and Vanquish single player campaign. Of course I had played the majority of bot games over the last few weeks and it is just coincidence that I managed to finish them on the same day. The Lizard-man campaign (Kroq Gar to be exact) is perhaps my favourite Total War campaign of all those I have played. I just love the tough Lizard units and big stompy dinosaurs are awesome. The Vortex campaign is much more story line focused than previous Total War games which is an great direction for the series to go in. You race other factions to take control of the vortex through a series of rituals which spawn increasingly challenging waves of Chaos and Skaven armies. The race is a bit artificial because apparently even if one of the other factions beats you to the final ritual you get a second chance to stop them in a fairly easy final battle. I guess Creative Assembly had to inclu...

I don't have a moral objection to DLC but as a general rule I don't buy it. I don't go for cosmetic enhancements and I already have  too many games and too little time to play them so mission packs don't make sense. Furthermore the modern trend is for DLC to retain its price even after the base game has been heavily discounted. "Game of the Year" bundles with all DLC included used to be a thing but that practise seems to be dying out. The net affect of all of these things is that I don't buy DLC ... Except .... Occasionally I enjoy a game so much that I just want more of it and in those rare cases I am happy to spend the money. Two cases in particular come to mind. Several years ago I did a marathon play through of  the Mass effect trilogy and I got so sucked in that I really wanted the additional story line DLC. I spent far more on DLC missions than I did on the games themselves but I didn't regret it at all. I even felt happy to give a bit mor...

A combination of Winter sales, Christmas spirit and a few days holidays always puts me in the mood for some video games. Here are the titles which have gotten some of my time since the start of December:  1. Neverwinter Nights 2: A buggy launch cast a shadow over this sequel but fully patched it remains an engrossing gaming experience. Even though I have a boxed copy I rebought it from gog.com to save the hassle of patching it myself and I got all the expansions as a bonus. This is actually the third time I started the main campaign of NWN 2 and each time I get about half way through and then move on to something else. That is still many hours of gaming goodness each time however.  2. Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone. Witcher 3's expansions have been on my wishlist for quite some time so when isthereanydeal.com  informed me that they had finally fallen into my price range I jumped and bought them both. I have only played the shorter"Hearts of Stone" and it was excellen...

I have been subscribed to Humble Monthly for three months. There are usually one or two games I like along with a bunch of stuff I have no interest in or already own.  Every month I dither about whether or not to cancel my subscription so I have decided to go about this in a more scientific fashion. I present to you the Humble Monthly personalised value spreadsheet. The spreadsheet takes a conservative approach and values games at the lowest price they have ever been on sale at according to isthereanydeal.com . I have multiplied each price by my own level of interest in the game on a subjective 0-100% scale. In this way games I have no interest in are valued at zero. I have also set the value of games I already own to zero even though I may be able to find a home for some of the duplicate keys with younger relatives. The summary shows that the Humble Monthly bundles are worth an average of over $21 to me which compares favourably with the monthly subscription of $12. Also of n...

I used a gift voucher to buy three PS3 games I don't have time to play. I am feeling somewhat perplexed about it even though the voucher was a gift.  Over the years I have paid real money for hundreds of PC games I never got around to playing but somehow this feels worse. Most of those PC games are digital products that can be hidden away in my Steam library causing no offence to anyone. These PS3 games however will sit accusingly under the TV, increasing clutter and reminding me of the fact that they add negative rather than positive value to my existence. 

To be more specific I don't like the combination of permadeath and random chance that is a hallmark of all true rogue-likes. It has taken me a while to admit this because serious gamers are supposed to like rogue-likes and respect the many classics of the genre.  I know that permadeath is supposed to make a game more engrossing by increasing the stakes. I know that it makes your achievements seem more worthwhile when you finally do overcome the game's challenges.  I also know that randomness makes a game interesting. It means you never know what to expect. Randomness is one of the things which differentiates a game from a puzzle.  However when you combine randomness and permadeath you condemn yourself to the bitter despair of losing many hours of effort due to a random toss of the dice. In most true rogue-likes a pointless unavoidable death is almost certain. You may die nine times out of ten. More likely you will die ninety nine times out of a hundred but the ...

Divinity Original Sin: This is a wonderful content rich turn rpg that manges to combine old school turn based party combat with modern graphics and a lovely bright aesthetic.  I have over 130 hours played and still plenty more to do in game. Civ V (again): Despite having 70+ hours in game I don't think I have every finished a full campaign of Civ V but it is a perennial classic that warrants revisiting over and over again. Just Cause 3: I actually bought this to entertain some young nephews who were visiting. It did the trick and after they left I played through the campaign myself.  It is temperamental (on PC) and the story is rubbish but it retains  the whacky go anywhere do anything and blow everything up style of its predecessor. Call of Duty: Black Ops III: Even though I have long since given up any hope of keeping up with teenagers in multi player shooters I still try to play each Call of Duty single player campaign. Black Ops III is actually one of the better...

I am in a unusual position (for me) at the moment that I am actively juggling several games and not getting frustrated by it. I am playing a long campaign of Rome 2 Total War (Iceni start) which is true Total War fashion is sometimes very engrossing and sometimes tedious. It makes sense to intersperse my Total War sessions with a it more action so I have also been playing "Call of Duty Ghosts" single player. If you want a militaristic on rails interactive shooter movie then Call of Duty is probably still the best in the business and I do enjoy short bouts of shooty entertainment. However I do tire of the bizarre morality of modern shooters so when Call of Duty tires me I switch to "Blades of Time". This is a fantasy third person action adventure in which a scantily clad young heroine slaughters hundreds of assorted chaos monster who have taken over a mythical land of treasures. Blades got mediocre reviews but I am enjoying it a lot. It is very linear but the combat ...

January is the cruellest month for gamers trying to keep their backlog of unplayed games under control. The combined impact of Christmas gifting and online game sales has ensured that our Steam, Origin and other digital libraries are stuffed with unplayed titles. Here is a list of titles acquired since Christmas that I fully intend to play but haven't gotten around to yet: Warlock 2: The Exiled Assassin's Creed Unity Guild Wars 2 Rome Total War 2 Batman Arkham Origins LA Noire I am particularly vexed because I thought I had become much more selective of late.  I have stopped buying bundles of games I never heard of simply because they look cheap. I am restricting my purchases to games I genuinely intend to play and I have broken an insidious habit that I had fallen into of treating myself to a new game each week whether I needed one or not. I do intend to play the games above but I have been playing Dragon Age inquisition exclusively since Christmas day and those tit...