Week of 3.9.13-10.9.13
Games include: Saints Row 4, Magic 2013, and Torchlight II
This is
the first episode of Currently Playing
and I hope to keep a pace of one episode a week even if it's short. In these articles I will lay down an overview
of games I played in the previous week.
I think I will consider a week Tuesday to Tuesday since, being in the
U.S., our games come out on Tuesdays.
This should allow me to sum up some hands on with a game that releases
the week before.
For the
first episode I have a fair bit to say due to the fact that last week was a
very good productive week in gaming for me.
And by a good week in gaming I mean my wife was out of town so I had unsupervised
time to play more hours than I should.
To
start off, I was a little over half way through Saints Row IV by the time that
Tuesday rolled around. I powered through and completed the game late Thursday
night. The ending was fairly easy to see
coming but it concluded well. There is
one surprise which doesn't seem to have anything to do with the end but was
quite ridiculous, which I suppose fits in with the absurdity of Saints Row
games.
The
subtle and not so subtle references to the Matrix universe was my favorite part
of the whole game. From the very first
escape from the first simulation world by defeating the town sheriff, who was
very much a copy of Agent Smith, to running naked from my fluid cell to be
rescued on my new ship while Haddaway's "What
is Love" played on the ship's radio.
I also enjoyed following the white rabbit and the training program
because of its Matrix feel. My favorite
nod to the Matrix was leaping into a
Warden's chest and bursting out of him as I absorbed his powers ala Neo
bursting out and absorbing Agent Smith.
 |
| Dive into the soul of the Warden |
I like
the superpowers though I could not fly (only glide) nor could my powers contend
well while I was being mobbed. Every
time I got hit it would interrupt my action (like super stomp or super jump) so
I could never pull off that sweet fight scene where Neo takes on hundreds of
copies of Agent Smith and explodes out from under their dog pile.
 |
| Bodies flying everywhere. It never happens like this in Saints Row IV unless you keep the enemy at a distance. |
On the
side of non Matrix references all the romance cutscenes were brilliant and my
favorite had to be the one with my male character and Ben King. I also enjoy the short snippets of an argument
between my character, Kinzie, and Keith David (the Vice President)about a mech
suit. My character was utterly convinced
it was a robot while Kinzie ( the computer chick) said it was power armor and
all the while the VP tried to explain the difference between the two.
I play
a male character with a British accent so for some reason him completely not
believing the mech suit is anything but a robot is very funny. I also get a kick that my British sounding
Saint is President of the United States and actively bags on two of his crew
for being MI-6. In case you don't get
the humour to be President of the United States you have to be born in the U.S.
and MI-6 is the British equivalent to the C.I.A stateside. That about raps up my summary of Saints Row
IV. It was a very fun game but it didn't
have a lot of depth to it. I give the
game a score of 3/5. See my Score Guide post for further details on my score
system.
The
second game I played and only briefly mind you was Magic The Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013. I only played a few hands in the campaign
mode and I thought it was decent enough.
Since I got the game free from Games with Gold it was worth the
try. I will have to play some more as I
don't really know any of the cards or what they do but from what I did play
I'll give the game a score of 2/5 unless you are into Magic the card game, then
by all means carry on.
The
last game I played which took up the bulk of my weekend was a co-op journey,
with my best friend Cob, into Torchlight II.
Originally our plans were to delve into espionage with the co-op on
Splinter Cell Blacklist, but due to my inability to procure a copy of this game
we settled on playing Torchlight II. I
had yet to play this game while Cob has a level 100 character which is the
highest level in the game. The game is
as Cob described a blatant rip off of Diablo II. This may be off putting to some, but seeing
as Diablo II was one of our favorite games growing up being a rip off is a good
thing.
 |
| My Outlander and his pet Parker the Badger |
We made
it through Act I and Act II. I don't
know how far into Act III we are. the
game plays very similar to Diablo II and I like that. They have made very smart improvements to the
game that don't change the core play style but rather just make the games
better to play. Such as easier use of
hot keys and potion use. Also there are
a ton of improvements to inventory. You
still have blocks of inventory but one item equals one block unlike Diablo
where a spear was six blocks in your very limited inventory.
 |
| Terrible space options. Diablo II |
 |
| Easy to mange and lots of room. Torchlight II |
Then in
Torchlight II there is a separate inventory for consumables so they aren't clogging
up your inventory. The best addition was
a pet with inventory space of their own and the ability to be sent back to town
to vendor trash loot for you so that you can loot everything and not worry
about going back to town all the time.
In Torchlight II there is a shared stash which is nice and this was also
added to Diablo III so meh. Anyway the
game is fun if you like Diablo II you
will like Torchlight II. I give the game
a score of 4/5.
As I
said big week of gaming for me which is not the norm. Next week on Currently Playing may be a little sparse but expect Episode 3 to be
a good one as I dive head long into Grand Theft Auto 5.
Have
you played any of these games? What did
you think of them. Feel free to comment
below. See you next week on Currently Playing.
