Continuing the efforts to do these more often and thus keep them to a manageable length. Let’s talk about what I’ve played lately.
Lost and Found: A This Bed We Made Story
In the “pleasant surprise” department, we have this standalone expansion to Canadian indie narrative game This Bed We Made, which I played and mostly enjoyed aways back.
Lost and Found is very short — I finished it in a single session that ran a bit under two hours — but entirely pleasant. It’s more of an extended epilogue than anything. While it still deals with some heavy topics, it’s overall much lighter than the original game. It feels like a bit of a response to how difficult it could be to get the best possible ending for the original game. The point of Lost and Found seems to be to let you know that no matter what, things worked out okay for Sophie in the end.
It’s almost a little too saccharine, but Sophie is such a lovable character I’m not going to complain about her getting the chance to sail off into the sunset. Especially with how bleak the world can be these days, a nice happily ever after felt like a lovely palate cleanser.
Despite this seeming like it’s intended as a conclusive end, there is also what seems like a teaser for another story at the end. That’s a bit of a confusing choice, especially as it’s a teaser that seems only relevant for one romance choice (is it a different teaser if you romanced someone else?), but at the same time I can’t say I’d be sorry to continue Sophie’s adventures in the future.
World of Warcraft
I’ve just re-upped my subscription to play through the new Curse of Ula’tek patch. I’ll probably write up some detailed impressions of the new stuff for Massively once I’ve played more. So far, I’m finding the amount of stuff to catch up on after just a two month break absolutely exhausting, which is the subject of another Massively column I just finished writing.
The first few days back in WoW are always the least fun, though. It always takes a couple days for the Stockholm Syndrome to reassert itself. I imagine I’ll feel better about it in a few days.
Not planning any big changes to my roster or approach this time around. No plans to level any new alts or otherwise shake things up majorly. I plan to back burner the demon hunter a little, and I may not play the death knight at all.
Since farming transmog is my main longterm goal these days, a lot of what I focus on is determined by which tier sets I best like the look of. This tier, that’s monk and warlock. I wanted to show my monk some love anyway; haven’t played her that much so far this expac. She’s been my choice to play through the new campaign.
StarCraft II
Honestly I’m surprised I didn’t already have this achievement, but then I did play mainly on hard for the first year or two.
Even with my growing burnout with co-op described in my last round-up, I did end up getting good use out of that co-op XP booster. I finished re-leveling Alarak and Zagara, finally got Swann to cap, and prestiged and releveled Fenix to try out his Ahkundelar talent.
It did feel a bit like a chore at times, though. It remains true that my passion for co-op is flagging after all this time. I did have a little more fun with Fenix. Partly he’s just generally more enjoyable than the others, partly it’s that Ahkundelar turns out to be a pretty fun talent.
It does feel a bit cheesy because it’s one of those prestiges that’s pretty much just the base commander but better. Even with the longer cooldowns, you’ve still got Fenix available for pretty much every major fight, so you’re just playing with a super buffed hero with no real downside. Fun power trip, though.
I remain hungry for a new Blizzard style RTS. I’m a bit fatigued of the breakneck pace of SC2, but I still want something faster and flashier to balance out the slower pace of Age of Empires. Even with the news it’s supposedly funded to 1.0, I’m not super optimistic about ZeroSpace’s longterm prospects. There’s a rumour of a new Warcraft RTS in production, but I’ll believe it when I see it, and I’m not sure Blizzard can equal the greatness of its past efforts in that genre these days. Godsworn is great, and I’m impatient for it to finally leave early access, but it is built more as a one and done campaign experience.
I increasingly fear we’ll never see the likes of StarCraft II again.
Overwatch
Despite my rage over Stadium’s abandonment, I still play it, though less often than I did. I don’t know if you’d call this a silver lining or salt in the wound, but I figured I had nothing left to lose and made one last attempt at learning D.Va, and, well…
Don’t want to jinx it, but it’s been a couple weeks of (admittedly light) play, and my overall career winrate on her went from about 45% to around 55%. That’s a pretty decisive turnaround.
I’m not even sure what’s making the difference. I changed up my build some, but it’s hard to believe that would make such a difference. I’ve been using the new options to buff her in pilot mode so I’m not a free kill when de-meched, and I’m abusing Three Tap Tommy Gun, which seems pretty good even after its nerf. Don’t think it’s really securing any kills for me, but it’s good at applying pressure and farming ult charge and Stadium cash. I also find Martian Mender has been helping a lot in the late game; D.Va moves around so much it’s hard for her healers to keep up, so the self-sufficiency is welcome.
The Division: Resurgence
Not much to say about this, but I’ll include a note of it for the record. Usually after I write an impressions piece for Massively, I stop playing once I’ve got enough thoughts for a column, but I liked this one enough to keep playing for a week or two. It’s very much a mindless time-waster, but it serves that function well.
I probably would have played more, but the story is clearly just there to tick a box on a features list, and as always I struggle with motivation to keep going when I’m not invested in a game’s story. Still might go back and finish it at some point, though.
The First Descendant
Not actually playing this right now, but I did want to make mention of it. They’ve just released their new season with the final showdown with Karel. It’s pretty clear by now that the developers don’t know what they’re doing and aren’t likely to improve, but even with the story as bad as it is, I still kind of feel like I should see the Karel arc to its end and get some closure.
Not sure when I’ll get around to it, though. Between Curse of Ula’tek, upcoming Age of Empires DLC, and the impending Western release of Aion 2, my dance card is looking pretty full for the next month or two.
Superior Realities 