More X-Box Fun

Sorry for my continued habit of making non-board gaming-related posts, but I'm assuming gaming in general is at least tangentially of interest to most here. Plus, posting random thoughts on this blog is a healthy catharsis of the brain cells after a night of overstimulation, so I beg your indulgence.

Anyhow... I spent last night trapsing about the dusty environs of Rock Star's Red Dead Redemption. Over the course of a few hours I had a wide variety of adventures, including a duel, slaughtering various outlaw gangs, and a failed attempt to rescue an innocent man being hung. I had to shoot the rope he was dangling from while fighting off the evil lynch mob. Unfortunately my accuracy was a tad sub par, and the poor guy is now with the angels. In addition, my cowboy is now officially a one man wildlife killing machine, slaughtering all manner of critters that crawl, fly, run, or otherwise slink about the Wild West, skinning and selling the by-products of each.

So... my overall assessment is that this game is GTAIV with horses and cacti, much better graphics, and packaged in a no less interesting sand box. The game is still intensely gritty, with racism, murder, rape, prostitutes, and all the other stuff Rock Star is known for. Multi-player is way different, feeling almost like a full-blown PvP MMO, with up to I think 18-players in an instanced world, free to team up or take each other on, and lots of mini-adventures to take on. The game tracks XP in multi-player and seems to dole out nice toys at regular intervals. Right now my guy rides a very uncooperative mule and only has a terribly inaccurate, short range pistol, so I'm assuming I'm still Level 1.

Anyone else have this game? If you see me there, please go form a posse!

Oh... here is a stretch, but the game has a fairly involved poker mini-game built in as well.

On to Mass Effect 2....

Yep. After two years, I'm done. I have to say, just like the time it took me two years to play my first game of War of the Ring, I feel pretty silly. What a great game! ME1 was way, way better than Dragon Age, in my opinion. In a fit of geekiness I even picked up the ME1 soundtrack.

Anyhow.... I have ME2 loaded in the tray and ready to launch tonight. I expect it to be rudely interrupted by Red Dead Redemption next week, but I'm looking forward to continuing the ME story.

What is everyone else playing these days?

BSG Achievements

I don't visit BGG very much anymore, but there is an outstanding thread there now that combines our love of BSG with the addictiveness of the XBox achievement system. I belatedly want the "Who's Flying This Thing?" achievement, for getting everyone to evacuate Galactica for fear you will reveal with the Brig power, then early-jumping three times to zero the population.

Since we're discussing electronic stuff

... I figure I'll mention my recent purchases for the XBox.

BioShock -- Solid. Decent story, hella atmosphere. Good sneak and smash shooter. More importantly, a nice duration. Four or five sessions (~3 hours each) and I'm done. I could go and redo it at a higher difficulty, but that's fine.

Oblivion something (IV?) Elder Scrolls -- Came with BioShock. I'm not into RPG games, and despite SIR Patrick Stewarts voice acting, nothing has changed. I was bored inside of an hour.

Left 4 Dead -- Nice shooter. My "I have 20 minutes" game of choice (apart from Rock Band). I like the team work aspect, and I think this would be a good game for a Saturday get-together. No complicated back story, and teamwork is mandatory. Not bad as a single player (computer controlled team-mates). I'm sure that the harder difficulties are beyond me.

Fallout 3 -- Uh, I thought this was more shooter than RPG, I was apparently wrong. Still, it's a post-apocalpytic setting. I almost turned it off after 30 minutes, but lasted another 30 (past the introduction). I'll probably give it another few hours.

So overall my purchases have been hit and miss, but seeing as how I got all 4 games for ~$60, I'm pretty happy. And with no Bloodbowl on the horizon, they'll do.