It might be the 8th day of the new year, but I haven’t posted yet this year so why not do it now. So what have I been up to lately? First of all I’m taking a little break from my Zelda 100% completion project. Phantom Hourglass decided to die on me pretty randomly and it was a while since I saved when that happened. And at the moment I just can’t get myself to play it, I’m not too fond of some parts of the game, like the Temple of the Ocean King, and all the randomness involved in getting all ship parts. I’ve also started playing Ragnarok Online again. It’s probably the game I’ve spent the most time playing since I first tried it. It’s pretty old, the graphics isn’t that great and the game got some annoying bugs, but it’s still one of the best MMO games ever made, in my opinion. If you ever play on Essence RO, drop by Payon and look for a member of the guild Valkyria if you wanna bother me in-game.
The other game that takes up a lot of time is League of Legends, I’m not playing it as much as I used to thanks to RO, but I still try to play a game or two each day. It got a pretty steep learning curve, and I’ve got a long way to the top. But it’s fun and I’ve improved a lot according to myself. Still make some newbie-mistakes from time to time though.
Something that most gaming site’s did in the end of 2011 was to announce their favorite games of the year. Here on Rawr Gaming I’ll do a shorter version of it. The three games released last year that I’ve enjoyed the most is Portal 2, The Binding of Isaac and Bastion. I’ll probably write a bit of all of those quite soon, but for those of you who haven’t tried them yet to it. Portal was, if I’m not wrong, a short game/tech demo that was included in the Orange Box together with a bunch of Half Life 2-games and Team Fortress 2. I bought it because of Team Fortress 2, but the game that really amazed me was Portal.
I pre-ordered Portal 2, and even though I beat it quite quickly, I really enjoyed it. Especially the co-op mode. I love multiplayer games, especially when you get to cooperate with someone. And while playing with different people I discovered that there is some different strategies that can be applied. Voice communication makes everything a lot easier though and is recommended.
Most of you have probably heard of Team Meat, the guys who made Super Meat Boy, another great game. Their latest game is called The Binding of Isaac and is a rogue-like with a story inspired by some part of the bible, there should a be a short article about it by me at ctrlaltelite.se, where I got that info included. The graphics feels like a mash-up of the The Legend of Zelda-dungeons and Super Meat Boy. The gameplay is also zelda-inspired, combined with Super Smash TV. The thing that gives the game a lot of replay value is that almost everything is randomly generated and there’s loads of powerups to get and a couple of bosses which is also random. And of course there’s a couple of playable characters with different strengths and weaknesses. It’s a great game, try it out and check back in a while to read a more detailed post about it.
The third game I’ll mention is Bastion. Big thanks to Blair who gave me the best christmas gift of the year. Don’t forget to check out his site www.nerdtome.com for gaming and movies-related articles, reviews and stuff. Bastion is actually a pretty simple hack’n'slash-kinda game where just run around and kill stuff. But the story, the graphics and especially the music got me hooked at once. Sure, it’s no Torchlight, but if you haven’ tried it, do it. The dynamic narration that actually follows what you do is pretty interesting and as I just said, the soundtrack is wonderful! This game is actually gave me an idea what I should write about.
Remember the Best of Video Game Music-series me and a couple of friends did? As you probably understood I really enjoy game soundtracks and video game-inspired music. So I’m going to write about that. Soundtracks to games and remixes of game music that I think are worth mentioning. If you got suggestions feel free to write a comment or mail me at varg [at] rawr [dot] se. I’ll try to get the soundtrack if I don’t have it already and if I like it or think it’ got something interesting. You might see it here on Rawr.se.
If you got any other suggestions please tell me. I want to update more than I’ve done but I’m not sure I’ll be able to just yet.
Don’t forget to check out www.speeddemosarchive.com for their Charity Marathon “Awesome Games Done Quick 2012″. I’ve seen some pretty awesome speedruns livestreamed already. If you missed Metroid Zero Mission and Ocarina of Time I feel sorry for you. They were AWESOME! And that’s all for this long wall of text, which probably is one of the longer I’ve written for Rawr.se.