One of the things I like about having had this blog for so long — and one of the reasons I was so upset at WordPress fucking around with it the other day — is that little “Random Post” option in the menu. Click it, and it takes you to a completely random post. And there are a lot of posts here. So I thought we could go on a little journey together today.
I’ll do all the randomising, don’t worry. If you want to read the full post, just click the title.
#oneaday Day 145: Wotcher, Witcher
This is a post from 2011, when I was playing The Witcher. The first one, albeit in its “Enhanced Edition” form. This was back when you could still get physical copies of PC games; I remember buying a copy of this from Game and being excited to give it a try, then somewhat disappointed that my PC at the time wasn’t really up to the job of running it very well. I kept hold of it, though, and gave it a proper go when I upgraded my PC, and enjoyed the experience very much.
It’s kind of funny to think that back then, CD Projekt Red was a little scrappy Polish developer, and this, their magnum opus at the time, was equally scrappy to a charming degree. Sure, it was technically quite impressive — I recall comparing its visuals favourably to Xbox 360 games that were around at the time — but it also had its fair share of jank, such as heavily repeated NPC models, questionable animations and a dodgy interface.
What really shone through even back then, though, was the quality of the writing, and the fact it felt properly like a game for adults — and not just because of the collectible boobylicious “sex cards” you were awarded for bedding the various ladies of the game world. It was a game with proper consequences, not just “press A for the good answer, B for the evil answer”, and that carried through into its two successors.
Overall, my enjoyment for the series tapered off a bit after the first Witcher game; the second one felt like it was tuned too hard, and the third one’s open world aspect was, to my mind, completely needless. But I have fond memories of the series, and they started right here.
2022: Video Star
Here’s a post from 2015, in which I was having a play with the PlayStation 4’s ShareFactory app, which I suspect is mostly forgotten today. This is back when I was first experimenting with YouTube, and before I really got into making videos. I found, having experimented with both formats a bit, I enjoyed making pre-scripted videos a little more than freeform “Let’s Play”-style ones, because at the time, in the latter case, I worried about running out of things to say.
I’m still not 100% sure which style of video I actually prefer to this day, as both have their benefits. But if you’re curious, here’s a very early attempt at a pre-scripted video, created using ShareFactory on the PS4 and recorded using a distinctly shittier microphone than I have now. (If I recall, it was actually the Guitar Hero microphone!) I have better equipment and a better workflow now, but I was still quite pleased with this when I first published it.
#oneaday Day 890: Glorification
This was a 2012 progress report on my journey through Sierra’s Quest for Glory series, which I’d never played prior to this runthrough, but had always been curious about. Quest for Glory IV in particular was one I was really looking forward to, as it’s a full “talkie”, featuring the legendary John Rhys-Davies on narration duties.
I compared Quest for Glory IV to the Elder Scrolls series, using its similar “use it to improve it” skill systems as a point of comparison. I had already started falling off the Elder Scrolls bandwagon by this point, and games like Quest for Glory reminded me why; I simply preferred a much smaller, well-crafted environment with things to do rather than a vast open world with not much of actual interest in it.
Quest for Glory and The Elder Scrolls are very different series, of course — if you’ve never come across the former, I recommend exploring it; the blend of role-playing game and point-and-click adventure is still unique and fresh-feeling — but I find it a bit of a shame that one approach very much became “the norm”, particularly in the PC space, while the other languishes in gaming history. In fact, I bemoaned this very fact in this post; why haven’t there been more attempts to recreate the Quest for Glory formula?
2485: The Value of Short Experiences
Off to 2016 for this next post, and a reminder of something that I like to try and remember every so often: sometimes it’s nice to cleanse one’s gaming palate with a game you can finish in an evening or a weekend. At the time, I had just come off the horror game Outlast (which I didn’t like all that much) and the visual novel Negligee (which I liked very much) and come to the conclusion that Not All Games Need To Be A Thousand Hours Long.
This is something that today’s games industry is still struggling with. The triple-A space is still obsessed with making us all grind through epic amounts of Content rather than just providing a neat 10-hour experience that doesn’t outstay its welcome. This has only become worse with the rise of live service games — and, worse, single-player games that appear to want to be live service games.
Thankfully, short-form games do still also exist. And I recommend you spend some time with some. Because you might find that they offer a lot of value.
1473: Ruined
Back to 2014 now, and a look at EA’s desecration of Dungeon Keeper by turning it into a tap-and-wait free-to-play piece of shit for mobile phones. Back then I said “it pretty much is reasonable to brand free-to-play mobile games a universally bad thing… I can’t think of any good free-to-play mobile games offhand”. This situation has changed a bit since then, most notably in the “gacha games” space, because they actually have a bit of a game attached to them now, but I still swore off free-to-play mobile games a while back and haven’t missed them.
Dungeon Keeper was an absolute monstrosity though. It was one of those games that was posing as a strategy game, but which actually required no strategy whatsoever; only deep pockets. Crazy to think this was ten years ago now, and EA hasn’t learned a fucking thing since.
Board Gamery
This post from 2008 makes me a bit sad, because it represents an age of my life that seems to have come to an end, and not through my choice. It’s a rundown of some board games I particularly enjoyed playing, posted during the time when we were having regular (weekly-ish) board game sessions and trying out a wide variety of weird and wonderful games.
Sadly, the folks I played those games with have mostly become boring grown-ups with families since then and never want to do anything any more, so I have a cupboard full of board games that don’t get played. Which is a shame, but oh well. That is what happens as we all grow old.
Anyway, on that melancholy note, probably time to call it a night. If you’re new ’round here, feel free to hit that Random button and check out some posts from years gone by; just remember to check the date on any posts you read, though, before you get mad at me about something I said 15 years ago!
Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.
