Category: Games

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Games

Among Us

I’ve been playing Among Us.

It’s a fun game. It also makes you think.

I don’t exactly know why this game made such a big comeback all of a sudden. I got into it because it seemed to be all over Twitter and Reddit. I first downloaded the mobile version on iOS. Later, I paid $2.99 to get it on Steam, even though I rarely spend any time on the Windows partition on my computer.

The game is fairly simple. You play as one of ten people on a spaceship. One of the people in there is an alien impostor. Your job is to find out who the impostor is and kick them out of the ship before they sabotage your mission and kill everyone. When you start a game, you’re randomly assigned a role as a crew mate or The Impostor.

If you’re a crew mate, you work on unraveling the mystery. You have to be constantly vigilant. And there is always a chance that your other crew mates would suspect you to be The Impostor and kick you out.

If you’re The Impostor, you have to lie masterfully and kill everyone without arousing suspicion. 

I won the very first game I joined, in which I played as The Impostor. I simply ran around killing everyone without getting caught. That led me to think that the game was quite easy, but subsequent games made me realize otherwise. Perhaps the people in the first game weren’t the sharpest tools in the shed. 

When I’m a crew mate, I usually focus on my tasks and try to get them done as soon as I can. I do get killed quite a bit while in the middle of this. If I am, I continue doing tasks a ghost.

When I’m the Impostor, I try to kill as many crew mates as I can when they’re isolated, while trying to play innocent during the discussions that happen after the dead bodies are found. This game might just have made be better at lying. Slightly.

I have yet to play this with friends. I do look forward to find out which of my friends are good at lying and pretending. Or do I?

Categories
Games

God of War

After 48 hours of gameplay, I have fully completed–or, as the kids say, Platted–Sony’s critically acclaimed God of War.

I enjoyed the game thoroughly. It is quite possibly one of the best I’ve ever played. Cory Barlog and crew deserve all the praise they’re getting. I had a few minor gripes with how the story ended, but having observed the story more closely post-game (by way of meticulous consumption of YouTube videos) I have changed my mind, and since decided that it couldn’t have been better.

On the whole, the story is masterfully embedded in the vast world of Norse mythology, letting us explore not just Midgard, but Alfheim, Nifleheim, Muspelheim and Helheim, too, through a travel room (think: a TARDIS for the Yggdrasil) built by the god Tyr.

Here are four gorgeous screenshots from the game.

  • At the edge of the Wildwoods
  • Exploring Alfheim
  • The First Mountain
  • The Last Mountain

If you have a PS4, you need to play this game. It’s an experience like no other.

Categories
Games

Witcher

After watching the Netflix adaption of The Witcher, I wanted to read the books and play the games. I had already played about 15 hours in the 3rd game, but I was not fully invested in the mythos there. So I started with the first book, and the first game.

The first game came out in 2007. So it was pretty badly optimised for my new hardware. I endured through it, nevertheless. The story was pretty good, but a little dragged out. The game totalled around 45 hours, if I’m not mistaken.

The first two books (The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny) were relatively fast reads. They’re collections of short stories. The third book, Blood of Elves, which is the first novel, is what I’m reading now.

It’s only after starting to read the books I realised that the events in the games take place after the events in the book series. But that didn’t affect my experience adversely at all.

I’m now playing the second game (Assassins of Kings.) I had some trouble optimising the game for my computer, but things are working fine now. I’ve played about 4 hours, and hoping to play more in the next weeks.

Categories
Games

Infinite

I just finished Bioshock Infinite, the last installment of the Bioshock franchise. It’s been almost 7 years since this game came out. I didn’t have a good enough computer, or the time, to play it back then.

I knew nothing about Bioshock going in. Since I hadn’t played the previous games in the franchise, I had no idea that it was a commentary on the American way of life, and mostly a critique of it.

I don’t think anyone reads this blog, but if anyone does, I don’t want to give away any spoilers. I can just say that it’s a game absolutely worth playing. You will only spend 12-15 hours playing it. But you’ll be thinking about it for a lot more.

Stick until the end. It will break you.

I will say this: I like to believe that the circle was broken.

Categories
Games

The Last of Us

I finished the game yesterday. It was one hell of a ride.

The pacing of the story was perfect. There was action just when you wanted there to be action and then there were heavy emotional moments when you wanted those. It felt more like a movie you could interact with, than a game. 

On top of the story being perfectly told, it was pretty challenging, too. Halfway through, I changed the difficulty from Normal to Easy, because some levels were a little difficult to get through, especially if you broke stealth. 

A sequel will be released in May. I’m looking forward to playing that.