I had big plans for this blog (and other things) as of September you know. I imagine if it was written up on a whiteboard it would have been filled to the brim, covered in ideas and various plans for everything I was and wanted to be doing. But life has a way of throwing curve balls at you every once in awhile and just kicking you while your down and alas the whiteboard was wiped clean as priorities shifted given the current situation. Things have calmed down a bit now which is good but the ideas I’d imagined myself currently aren’t as simple as simply starting albeit a few months late. Instead what I think I’ll be doing is R&Ding October and November (for lack of a better term) and starting fresh in mid-December when I know I’ll have at least a few weeks off university and things have calmed down even more. I’m not looking for pity and there are far worse off people than myself but that’s life and there are times when you just have to take a moment and deal with it.

Taking inspiration (not just carbon copying) the idea of a weekly Sunday summary from Giant Bomb blogger / wikier @mento I’ve decided I want to do one of sorts for myself. The idea of a written gaming diary is appealing but I think what I’d like to do is combine it with a “Worth Reading” thing of sorts. A cross between my gaming diary and some articles, videos and whatever I’ve enjoyed and think are worth sharing from that week. I may throw in some wiki work (I’d like to get back on that as well) and other random stuff here and there but I’ll figure it out as I go.

What I've Been Playing:

This week I can safely say that two games have had all of my attention. Halo: The Master Chief Collection and Picross e.

With Halo there isn’t much to say as I’ve exclusively been playing the multiplayer though it has been interesting to play CE and 2 for the first time. My first experience with Halo was with Halo 3 and while I did go back and play the campaigns of CE and 2 (the latter of which is somewhat overrated in my opinion, it’s fine don’t get me wrong but probably the weakest of the Bungie games) I had never played the multiplayer modes of either game. Overall I’d say the multiplayer of those modes is fine, certainly not as good as that of Halo 3 or Reach but solid regardless. CE can be a bit chaotic but that may in part be due to my inexperience with it competitively.

I think I’ll probably take a look at the online only achievements and see how feasible it may be to go for the full 6000. That’s probably crazy and I’ll most likely never do it but I’ll at least take a look and consider bearing in mind the somewhat barren community which appears to exist there. Don’t get me wrong I can certainly find a match of Team Slayer or Swat when I want to play but I’ve the sense that there just aren’t that many people still playing the game. The fact that the game doesn’t display the number of current online players combined with the general lack of ability to get into some game modes and repeated matched players doesn’t fill me with confidence to say the least. I probably won’t go for the full 6000. Multiplayer exclusive achievements continue to be an instant “nope” in whether I’d consider going for the full set of achievements or trophies in a game.

Now onto Picross e my first outing into the world of Picross. In short… I really like Picross. If you haven’t played a Picross game before I implore you to search one out and give it a try. I’m somewhat ashamed to admit that Picross e is my first Picross game and while I did start it a few weeks ago it was this past week where I finally dug in and started really to appreciate how fun and addicting it can be. I’ve recently started doing a few puzzles every game as both a means of keeping the unique deductive reasoning skills that come with such games fresh as well as just an excuse to play a few puzzles everyday and Picross fits that goal perfectly. In short, Picross is great and I’m playing at least a few puzzles everyday.

That’s about it for what I’ve been playing this week. Next week I’m looking forward to more Picross, Halo and hopefully I’ll find the time to get around to starting something new. Actually scrap that last thought, I will have something new to talk about next week so check back in for that.

Consider This

I also said that I wanted to have a worth reading / watching section to this diary and while I don’t have anything prepared ahead of time this week I can think of 3 things you should definitely give some thought.

Danny O'Dwyer

The first is friend of the site Danny O’Dwyer’s new adventure with noclip. I’m a fan of his work from GameSpot (A Tournament of Lies is pretty good too but I’ll save that for another week) and his personal YouTube channel and so I urge you to check out the excellent work he is continuing to output with noclip. If you still need some convincing that he’s worth your hard earned money then at least check out some of his recent Twitch streams with his weekly series Random Encounters (of which a full list of episodes can be handily found here) as they are well worth a watch as well.

Lionhead: The inside Story

The second is an article over at Eurogamer from earlier this year which did the rounds upon its release but is still a great read regardless. Wesley Yin-Poole’s excellent piece Lionhead: The inside story, so please do yourself a favour and read through it in its entirety. I’ll just leave this snippet here which speaks for itself:

"We had a meeting," McCormack recalls. "We'd not seen him in weeks because he had other things on. He opened the door, walked in and goes, the hero has a dog, and it dies. And then he left and we didn't see him again for another month. We were like, what the fuck? That was it. That was the direction."

PS I Love You XOXO

Well we’ve had one video and one article recommendation so I’ll close this up with a podcast recommendation aside. I for one enjoy the opinions and insights of Colin Moriarty and Greg Millar over at Kinda Funny. Through their years together at IGN on the PlayStation team they’ve developed an extensive knowledge and insight on the PlayStation side of the industry. That’s their “journalistic beat” if you will in much the same way that a sports reporter might focus exclusively on one or two particular teams they focused on the PlayStation products. As such their PlayStation focused podcast PS I Love You XOXO is an excellent insight into the world of PlayStation. If your interested in either PlayStation or the industry as a whole and would like to hear discussions focused on that brand within in the industry then you should definitely give their podcast a listen too. It’s usually pretty short (at least compared to the Bombcast) and if like me you too love the glorious beauty that is the PlayStation Vita then you should definitely check out the new episode coming Tuesday 9 am PT.

In Closing

That about wraps things up this week. I’ll probably rework things better and play around with the overall format and layout of whatever this thing turns out to be over the coming weeks but thanks for reading the pilot edition of … I want to call this a Sunday Summary but Mento already has that name. Monday Musing doesn’t work because I want to put this thing out on a Sunday. Actually I've just had a better idea...