Week 1

   Only 1 week in, and already I question if this is do-able. Maybe it's because I've read more about South Park the stick of truth (which sounds like it's gonna be really long (not that I have anything against that, hell, I'm all for it, but it makes this challenge more difficult)). Maybe it's because I got really confident over the first couple of days, which I was off work for, but since then it's really been difficult to make much headway. Nevertheless, I shall endeavour to finish.

   So, what have I been playing? Well, let's start with what i said would not count (and still doesn't) the Last of us: Left behind dlc. So, I've talked about the last of us before, so I'll skip that. Left behind is a couple of hours long story from Ellie's perspective, split between 2 times, firstly, before the main game begins, and then during the part where in the original game it says '6 months later' (or some time period, that was a total guess). So, in the part missing from the main game, you (Ellie) have to head in to a shopping centre or 'mall' (if you insist on Americanisms) to find medical supplies for Joel who has, of course, landed on a big spike that went through his gut. It is in the ha;f of the game where the majority of the fighting takes place, because this is after Ellie has been forced to learn how to handle herself, unlike the prequel section, where she's just scared.
   The major problem i had though, is that it seems like much of the fighting was forced. I can't remember now what it was like in the original game, and sure, I can appreciate that the game needs some gameplay, and that's what this half of the game is for really, some full on gameplay, but the situations encountered just seemed to be so squeezed in that they didn't really make sense, and you could really tell it was a game. There is a part where you turn on a generator and then get swarmed with enemies, and it just felt so gamey. The ending of this half of the game too, led you in to a shootout with a large group of human enemies, that seemed the antithesis of what the game was supposed to be.
   The prequel section was much more story focused though, ad Ellie and her estranged best friend, Riley, as they too go in to a shopping centre to have some fun. They go to a toy store and muck about, play videogames (sort of), use one of those photo booth things, there's even parts where you can do the run/balance across small wall edges that we all used to do as children. Also, there's a carousel

   Now, nobody tell Ellie, but they're actually really lame. This childish fun however turns out to be the cover for some bad news Riley has for Ellie, but they get over it (despite her evil deception) and carry on. From here. I'll stop talking now, because it's about to get spoilery.
   Overall it was good, but I think it would have been nice to have less forced combat sections (although I'm not one of these people who have been lobbying for having no combat in it, that's be well boring). If you have still got the Last of us, this is a must buy.

   Right, on to what counts So, the only game I did finish this week is Mark of the ninja. what this is then, is a 2D platformer stealth game. The story is fairly light, basically pertaining to you having some special tattoo's that grant you powers (like Far Cry 3 (or am i just thinking of Far Cry 3?)). The tattoo's will lead to your forced death, because to have these makes you a deadly assassin (which was required for your mission) but also drives the user mad, and it is tradition inside the (ninja) tribe to kill their selves after whatever their task is, is complete. There is a twist though, but if you're anything like me, you'll see it coming from a mile off (that is, if you didn't from that blurb, which is more or less just a synopsis of the third level). The good thing to say about the cut scenes though is that they are beautiful.
   The whole game looks great, the in game graphics look brilliantly cell shaded, and pulling off a stealth assasination kill brings you in to a close up, that shows you how close the in game actually looks like the cut scenes. The main problem I had however, was my lack of ability at it. It may have had something to do with me playing it on this old crummy laptop (I got it on a sweet humble bundle deal (yeah, i do my part for charity when it benefits me)) which led to a lot of slow down on the game, sometimes making it nearly unplayable, but I forced my way through it, but if the game weren't so good, nor was I challenging myself to this 12 games in 12 weeks, I probably would have given up. Anyway, that excuse went off topic, and it's probably not the reason, it's more to do with the fact that I'm not very good at being sneaky.

   Now, that's how it should be played, and sure, sometimes this is how it would work out for me, but more of often than not, it would turn in to...

... a shootout I was ill equipped for. Especially seeing as levelling up seems mostly based on being sneaky, and not being spotted, granting you better weapons and so on, but of course, I got stuck in the classic videogame vicious circle of sometimes, when you're not very good at a game, you don't get the weapons or abilities you need to make it easier, so the fact that you're finding it difficult makes it even more difficult because you can't get the tools to make it easier, and these are given to the people who are fining the game easier in the first place. It's like why so many people give up at COD online.

   So I said that I was going to force myself in to playing two games at once, and I have been doing so, and it's another game that I got on the Sly (get it), this time from Playstation Plus, GRID 2 (ha, gotcha!). It was difficult to think what genre to go for, as I was thinking to have a platformer go as the second game to whatever I was playing as the 'main game' if you will, but as Mark of the ninja was a platformer, I had to consider my choices. Did I want to make Mark of the ninja the B game? It had such great reviews (91 on metacritic) that i had to consider that if this game is so great, then it deserves to be the A game, which meant I needed a B game that wasn't a platformer, so I searched through what I already owned, and it seemed inappropriate to have many of them as B games, such as story driven FPS' and long winded action/adventure games. So I thought, what about a racing game? I haven't played one of those in a while. So, I saw GRID 2 downloaded from Playstation Plus (a fantastic service BTW, but more on that another day), but as it was a racer, I wondered if it really had an ending, in a traditional sense. With Games like Gran Turismo that can just go on indefinitely, I wanted something with a distinct ending, and as it turns out, yes it does, so I fired it up.

   

Even though I don't play online I thought as this was during a crash, it seemed most appropriate for me

   Okay, so firstly it is beautiful, although most racers do as there's really not that much to animate, plus, when you add in you own livery, it's even better, especially as mine always looks like a bad trip at 70's themed nightclub. This is a racer with a story too (well, loosely). Basically, you're some billionaires puppet who has to bring his 'World Series Racing' (WSR) idea to life, by travelling around the world and getting famous racing clubs to enter. This involves pre season races to beat these clubs, and get their best racers onboard. It is also an opportunity to add some interesting race types to racers. Of course, there's the usual racing, checkpoint challenges, drifting challenges and so on, but there is the more interesting 'faceoff'. It's a simple knockout 8 car tournament. 1 lap, winner goes through, with as much contact as you like (just how i like it). I was quite impressed by this idea, though simple, it added a new interesting spin on the racing game (it's probably been done before, but whatever that was on, I didn't play it).
   What didn't impress me so much was Togue. This is also i 1 on 1 race, but this time against the same opponent each time, and no contact is allowed. This goes completely against how i play racing games, as far as I'm concerned, racing should be a full contact sport, hell, it's good that racing games these days seem to have this rewind feature to go back and correct your mistakes (GRID 2 inculded), but with Togue, I ended up using almost all of these trying to simply pass my opponent, but that car would end up cutting me up, and I'd plough straight in to the back of him. Now granted, this is great defensive driving, but when I'm sitting there for an hour, trying to do this one race, it makes me want to kick the TV in.
   Another thing that's in it is 'live racing' where the track changes as you go around. Now, this seems tough, and is, especially as it doesn't even give you a mini map in the bottom corner, so it's difficult to judge how sharp a corner is until you're half way around it, which also leads to you using a lot of your rewinds. However, this mode is made easier as it seems the AI is dumbed down somewhat for it, as I'm pretty sure I've won every one so far (something I can't claim in any other mode).
   After all this malarkey is done, you head in to the eventual WSR tournament, where you come across the names you now recognise from sending hours courting them. It's interesting that, even though there's many racing challenges in here (mostly consisting of small, 2 to 3 race tournaments) that there is no running tally of how each racer is doing, and in the end, it just comes down to how you do in the final tournament to determine your final standing. The season is then wrapped up by some guys off ESPN (I don't know if they're real people on ESPN, and nor do I care) yammering on about how the world is getting i to it.
   The main point to remember here is that I'm not yet finished on GRID 2, in fact, I'm pretty much halfway, as I'm halfway though the third WSR tournament, and there are 5 of them in the game. So, hopefully, I shall have knocked this out by this time next week (so long as Donkey Kong doesn't take up all my time (or house of Cards season 2, which is amazing)).

Finished : Mark of the Ninja
Underway: GRID 2

Games completed: 1


(this section will make more sense in a few weeks when there's more here.)