What I've Been Playing Recently

I finally got my gaming rig sorted out.  I ended up upgrading the sucker, put an i5-3570k in there, new mobo and 32gb of ddr3 1600 memory, ssd for the os.  Thing smokes.  Problem is, it kept BSOD'ing on me, and I'd have to restore.  Seemed to happen when I was trying to reinstall SWTOR.  Finally, I pegged it down to a bad RAM stick - ran memtest86+ on it, and one stick threw 10000 errors by pass 4.  The remaining 3 all reported 0 errors after 6-7 passes individually.  Ran all 3 together and 0 errors.  Replaced the bad stick, so back up to 32gb, and after 8 passes, there were 0 errors.  So, that's working just fine now.

I recently got back into Diablo 3.  I had abandoned the game shortly after launch due to the fact that I was busy and the guy I was playing with kept playing.  On a lark, I decided to boot it up again and have had a blast.  I made it through normal with my Wizard, and then kept playing and got through Nightmare mode.  Just a very fun game - despite lacking some in depth storytelling.  I played Diablo 2 back in the day, but didn't really keep playing it after beating it the first time.  In Hell mode, I feel very squishy, so I am taking some time off to let that guy who passed me early on catch up.  Given the fun I had with D3, I decided to finally give Torchlight an honest try.  I'm about 30 hours in and it's okay, but I don't really see what all the fuss is about.  It's very repetitive, the boss fights are more endurance than anything else, the loot drops are poor.  It's decent, but does not live up to the hype.  I'll continue playing it some more, and then grab Torchlight 2 when it inevitably goes on sale for Steam's Thanksgiving sale.

On the console front, I've gotten a ton of games recently.  I thought I had some easy achievements with Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy (my lady wanted them, honest), but after taking the IE update on the 360 dash, they don't work - I get to the press start screen and nothing happens.  These both work fine on the kid's xbox, which hasn't been updated.  Oh well.

Forza Horizon - I suck at racing games, but like them.  I played this a bit and had a lot of fun with it, but then, it got repetitive quickly.  It's decent, but I envision it more as a pick up and play here and there type game, and not something I'd want to spend a hundred hours on in one chunk.   I checked out some reviews on NFS: Most Wanted.  While I'm not really a fan of NFS, I learned that it's more of a spiritual successor to Burnout Paradise.  Now, I love me some Burnout, so I bought it.  I played it immediately after Bama's last minute win against LSU, so I don't think my mind was quite right - pissed off at poor play, but adrenaline buzzing over pulling out a win despite playing crappy football (I won't even go into this weekend's abortion against TAMU). In any event, NFSMW didn't feel right to me.  The cars felt too "slidey" and I just didn't have a good time with it.

Borderlands 2 - I picked this up, thinking it would scratch my dungeon crawling itch.  I had an okay time with it, but at the second boss (some pirate guy) I got slammed, fell off the platform, and landed at the bottom, having to start all over again.  That doesn't sit well with me, and is one of my biggest pet peeves - having to replay large sections of shit I've already done.  So, Borderlands 2 has been shelved.

Assassin's Creed 3 - I am so/so on Assassin's Creed in general.  I had a pretty decent time with AC3, and got to a mission early on where I had to rescue some prisoners.  I did this, quite well, I must say, and then left.  Went to the pub to get my next mission and then quit.  Went to play the game again, and what the fuck, I was back at the beginning of the rescue prisoner mission.  With that, AC3 was shelved.

Dishonored - Finally got around to playing this one on the PC.  The game is good, maybe too good.  The atmosphere is very engaging, and the game demands excellence.  While I like stealthy games, they do tend to stress me out in the quest for the perfect kill.  I really like this game, but I fear that it will intimidate me further on.   Really looking forward to some more time with this one.

X-Com - Another very good game.  I haven't had a chance to play it much. I bought it for PC, and played through a couple missions.  I just haven't had the time to get fully into it, but am looking forward to being able to give it a good six hours consecutively.  

Halo 4 - Picked this up last week.  So far, it's pretty good.  I find myself having more fun with Spartan Ops than the campaign.  Is it me, or does MC seem a bit more vulnerable than in the past?  I tend to take the Halo games for granted, but when I play them, I'm always blown away by the atmosphere, presentation and gameplay.  It just feels very polished.  The score brings a lot of mood to the game, and it feels like a cinematic experience unfolding during the gameplay.  Very nice.

Dungeon Siege 3 - I put this in the other day, while wanting a good dungeon crawling experience on the 360.  This is the second time I tried to get into it, but I just can't.  Maybe I need to go back to Too Human?

Medal of Honor: Warfighter - I thought the last MoH game was good, not great, but I had fun with it.  After the football game this weekend, I had a jones for a military shooter.  This one starts out well enough, but I got frustrated in a sniper mission.  Earlier in the game, I would notice that some headshots wouldn't register, but chalked it up to user error.  I must have played the sniper part 10 times, and my shots were on target, but I kept missing.  Tried to adjust for the bullet dropping, but I would have mixed results.  So, I got pissed and shelved it.

Modern Warfare 2 - I stopped playing this game after the No Russian mission.  My thirst for a military shooter not quite quenched with MoH, I decided to give this some attention.  I ended up playing through the campaign last night, and had a good time with it.  I think I forgot about the impressive narrative of the CoD campaigns and this one offered up some tense moments.  After finishing, I immediately popped in MW3.  I've only played through the first mission so far, but am liking what I am seeing.  Hopefully, I'll get through this one by Wednesday and be ready for BlOps2.  Given the fun I had going back to a game I lost interest in 3 years ago has me wanting to revisit Bioshock 1-2, Gears of War 1-3, Dead Space 1-2 and Fable 3.

On the MMO front, I've done a little with WoW and SWTOR, but nothing really of note.  I'm dreading the influx of free players to SWTOR, which I feel has gotten a bad rap, but what can you do?  Lack of endgame content has hurt this game, but the the storytelling fits in well with the Star Wars license.  

When Target and Best Buy had their B2G1 sales, I also picked up Transformers: Fall of Cybertron and WWE 13, but haven't had a chance to play either.

Reading over this before submitting, it sounds like I bitch an awful lot, doesn't it?  I don't intend to be negative on my gameplay, but given my job stress and not having as much time to game as I would like, I really don't have time to let games grow on me or replay significant portions of due to (what I perceive to be) poor design.  In the case of AC3, after a mission has been completed, why doesn't it auto save?  In the case of BL2, does it really need to have MMO like respawns?  I'm not saying don't respawn ever, but if I just cleared an area out, why repopulate it immediately?  It just takes me out of the experience.  I have some friends who are deep into BL2, and their answer to me is "don't think of it as having to replay an entire section, think of it as an opportunity to gain an additional level and maybe get some better loot".   If I had multiple hours per day to play, then yeah, I could probably tolerate some nonsense in order to push the game forward, but the way I see it, there is way more variety out there to experience, rather than copitulating to archaic or at least annoying design.