Summer and Spaceships

 It’s Monday Monday Monday, I’m only too happy to finally be on summer holidays and what better way to celebrate than with some video games?

 Meet the new ship, same as the old ship.

I thought this would be a week of obsessing over the Fallout 3 DLC but for days I found myself engrossed in Mass Effect 2. It’s been a long wait to play this game but it’s definitely been worth it. One of the things that appealed to me most about the first Mass Effect was the brilliant sci-fi world it was set in and that world comes through just as well if not better in the sequel; the characters, environments and backstory are all very impressive. The second game also seems to have shorter missions but a larger number of missions and so far I’ve found that’s added a welcome variety to the game. The combat has been a step up from that of the original Mass Effect and this Mass Effect certainly seems to be a lot more technically stable, although I have encountered a small number of bugs and technical weaknesses. My experience has benefitted greatly from me importing my Mass Effect 1 save file and being able to see the full consequences of my actions play out, one of the most powerful moments in the game so far has been meeting up with the woman my Shepard loved in the first game and seeing that certain circumstances had pushed Shepard and his former love apart. The game has been awesome up to this point and I’m expecting great things to come.

 Sun, sea and tyrannical leadership.

My friend NinjaDuckie has bought me Tropico 3 this week (thanks to him once again) and while I enjoyed the demo I didn’t think I’d find myself liking the game quite as much as I am. I’m certainly not skilled at it but I think I’m getting the hang of it and watching your tropical island transform from a few humble shacks to a sprawling mass of buildings is very satisfying. The campaign missions also present some rather clever scripted scenarios which require you to make political decisions often with unexpected outcomes. I also downloaded Portal for the PC as Valve seem to have gone crazy and made it free until May 24th (or maybe I’m just crazy for owning three different versions of Portal) and despite some issues I’m also pretty interested in acquiring rhythm-based shooter Beat Hazard.

 
Possibly the low point of my gaming this week has been Lego Batman. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s certainly not a bad game, it has the thorough sense of charm and attention to detail you’d expect from any Lego game and at its best smashing your way through Lego models and beating up villainous henchmen is quite fun, I’ve found the vehicle levels to be especially enjoyable. The game all seems a little simple though and scrounging around for studs to fill up your stud meter isn’t always the most exhilarating of tasks. I’m going to finish the game but with a backlog of sadly higher quality games I don’t feel like my heart’s fully in it.

Well, that wraps up this blog, I hope whoever you are you are enjoying your games and thank you for reading. Oh, but no blog this month would be complete without a little something from the Halo: Reach Beta:

  

-Gamer_152