Slow news day

A while back, it occurred to me that reviewing games does come with the unfortunate downside of having to constantly find new games to play — which in turn presupposes new games worth playing come along on a regular basis (which is, sadly, not the case). As such, I find myself in the novel (if uncomfortable) position of not having anything to write about today.

I was going to cobble together a piece on Pandemic Studios (focusing on Mercenaries 2: World in Flames and The Saboteur), but – honestly – if you've played any GTA-like, you can probably guess what they'd amount to: fun settings, outdated mechanics, repetitive entertainment... Mercenaries 2 also had frequent loading times and pervasive QTEs (which were used in vehicle capture attempts and, oh yeah, to resolve the decisive moment of the entire game); while The Saboteur felt like it was right on the cusp of breaking genre limitations – and then didn't.

Both remain eminently playable (I've kept 'em installed for years), so if you've a hankering for some brainless, shooty fun — have at it, but — temper your expectations.

Fat Normandy flies again

In Endless Sky, I finished the Emerald Sword plot and got myself a massive (if questionably useful) addition to my little fleet. One thing I'll say about the undertaking is the game, once again, did a great job crafting an immersive experience with little more than text.

Instead of simply finishing fetch quests and getting a ship, at every turn, the plot elaborated on the history and culture of the race that made it, giving you an insight into who they were and how they spent their last moments among the stars. As a result, by the time you finally got the ship (which had to be repaired and adapted to tiny-human use), it wasn't just a thing – it felt like a character, with its own backstory and all...

I know I've said it before, but – in terms of storytelling – Endless Sky does more with far less than any game in recent memory. If you want to see how to successfully employ narrative in a game (or simply enjoy some good yarns while flying wee spaceships), I highly recommend giving it a go.

Oh, and I finally found a solution to not losing ships as often: the saves for Endless Sky are in text format and located at AppData/Roaming/endless-sky/saves.

Slim pickings

That's all I've got for today and the immediate future doesn't look that promising, where new releases are concerned.

Void Shadows (Rogue Trader's first DLC) doesn't come out until August 8 and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 won't drop until September, at the earliest... There is a little IF title called Vampire Therapist that sorta piqued my interest, but I'm getting wary of narrow-scope indies (as they tend to work only if their core premise pans out). I might give it a try when it comes out. We'll see.

If I can't think of anything worthwhile for next week, I might do a retrospective on, I don't know, Wing Commander or Deus Ex or something... Or I might just skip a week.

Until then, happy playing: reviews to the contrary, it's the most fun you can have with a game.

Pig — out.