Hiatus

Well, I keep saying I'm going to come back to this, and I keep not having time. So I guess I'm officially announcing a hiatus. Maybe I'll manage to post a review every now and then, but since this has always been a zero-income project, I just don't have the time when I'm working long hours 6 or 7 days a week. I hope I'll be able to come back to Post-Launch Reviews soon, but until then, many thanks to loyal readers and the r/patientgamers subreddit!

Checking in... again

I really haven't posted here in a while. Damn.

Haven't had a lot of time for gaming recently, but I'm working on finally finishing Shadow of Mordor's DLC. I'm also just about ready to write up a review of Destiny and its expansions, so I'll try to do that soon.

In other news I got a heavily discounted copy of Far Cry Primal, so even though I don't normally play or review games when they come out, I think that might just be my next one after I wrap up those two I just mentioned.

Hopefully I'll have a Shadow of Mordor DLC post next week and Destiny after that, but we'll see how it goes.

Checking in

No review yet, but here's an update on what's happening.

I currently have a few games on the list.

• I spent a month playing Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns when it launched, but I've lost interest or been working on other things - still haven't played it enough to be comfortable with a full review, especially since I haven't tried raids. 
• I need to get back to Shadow of Mordor's DLC so I can properly finish up that review.
• I'm slowly picking at The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask while I'm on transit, but keep getting distracted by Pokémon Shuffle updates. The other thing giving me trouble is that I want to play with sound, but my ears have problems with earbuds, and I got rid of a bunch of hair so regular headphones leave my head super cold in Canadian winter.
• Got access to an original XBox hard drive so I can finally play Halo 2 and maybe Silent Hill 2 (unless I can borrow a PS2 and play the original version), which would be next on my list, but...
• Got peer pressured into picking up an XBox One and Destiny a few days ago, so I'm going to be distracted by that for a while.

I'm also working on some other projects on top of my job, so my schedule's tight. Hopefully I'll have something to post soon!

Slowing Down

I meant to post this earlier in the day - sorry!

I regret to inform you that the review schedule will be slowing down from one per week for the foreseeable future. Between a new job, a writing project, the Guild Wars 2 expansion, having a social life, and one other issue, I'm finding it difficult to find time for reviews.

That last issue is one that's kind of cropped up before, but this time it has a new spin. I started these reviews because I was playing tons of games anyway so I might as well do something with that. A couple of times over the last few years I've started to feel that the weekly review schedule was becoming a chore rather than a fun hobby, but each time I've pushed myself to keep playing and got over it.

This time is a little different. I've been feeling more and more over the years that the more games I play, the fewer games truly impress me. Either that, or they start to blend together in my memory when I play over fifty games a year. Ask me what I've played recently that was good and I'll probably have to check this site to remember.

So yeah, slowing down for a while. I'll still be posting reviews, but at a slower pace. We'll see how that goes.

New header!

You may have noticed the classy new header image for the site! All credit for the design goes to my awesome brother Jacob, whose work you can see here.

Finally, a review!

Red Dead Redemption review is written and ready to go live on Wednesday. My schedule's opened up a bit, so hopefully I'll be able to get them reviews back on track.

Next up is the sequel to one of my favourites and a game I've been itching to play for a long time: Lost Planet 3.

Not dead

I said a while back that my posts would slow down with this new job, but I didn't anticipate it'd be THIS slow! I think it's the combination of having fewer hours to play games, and the particular game I'm working through at the moment. So, lest ye think I've abandoned this blog, know that I am currently (and slowly) playing Red Dead Redemption on my XBox, and there will be a review... sometime.

Review Slowdown

If you're a regular reader you may have noticed that I didn't post a review this Wednesday like I usually do. That's because I got a new job - and a pretty cool one too, working at a major tabletop game store. But this job allows me less free time for video games than my last one did, and it's already throwing off my review schedule. Plus I've been getting back into Guild Wars 2 a lot more recently, so that also cuts my time for new old games.

That doesn't mean I'm giving up video games - it just means I'll have less time to work on reviews. I'll try to post something as often as I can, but I probably won't manage a full review per week anymore. To compensate, maybe I'll post small updates as I play through a game, and then do a full review when I finish.

Actually, I'm now finally starting a game I've been excited for since it came out two whole years ago - Tomb Raider. So if it really hooks me I'll have a review sooner than later.

Thanks for reading!

Delayed review this week

Been playing Bravely Default and I was hoping to get it done for today, but I haven't played a lot of JRPGs and I underestimated how long it'd take. Think I'm over 60 hours now.

In the meantime, enjoy this related comic by Katie Tiedrich at Awkward Zombie:

No review again this week

I have once again failed to produce a review this week, due to a combination of work, appointments, bad luck with movies, and Dark Souls 2.

So instead, here are a couple of Dark Souls 2 videos I enjoyed:

No review this week

Between some doctor/hospital visits, starting work again, and Dark Souls II, I didn't end up completing a game for a review this week. I might miss next week too because of work. Probably, but we'll see.

Sorry!

PS3 maybe broken

As I was about to finish up the Left Behind DLC for The Last Of Us tonight, the game started losing sound and eventually glitched out completely. After that my PS3 just stopped recognizing any discs in the drive. The Last Of Us disc may have suffered some heat damage but I'm not sure because the rippling is present under one of my lamps but not the other.

A forum post recommended repairing the file system, but that didn't work. I backed up all my data and now I'm waiting on a full reformat, which should finish in the morning (estimated at nine and a half hours, ugh). If that doesn't work then I'm looking at a hardware problem, which would suck completely. I got the PS3 used and I bought it over a year ago, so no matter how you look at it I've got no warranty claim, so if the reformat doesn't work I might try opening it up to see if anything looks obviously damaged.

Really hope I don't have to replace the whole system, especially when I'm mostly done with PS3 games anyway.

Thoughts on Facebook + Oculus

(before I get into this, here's a disclaimer: I haven't been following development of the Oculus Rift super closely, so I may be lacking in detail. Also, a lot of this is pure speculation and might be crazy or completely wrong. If that's the case, feel free to rant in the comments.)

I've had a bit of time to think about Facebook's acquisition of Oculus, and here's where I stand.

If I had pre-ordered a Rift headset, I would cancel it. Of course the worst-case scenario is that the Rift will be tied to your Facebook account and every time you play a game you'll face an apocalyptic rain of advertisements before you get started and between levels, but that's not really what's important right now.

Steam Controller

There've been announcements for Steam OS and Steam Machines, which are cool and all, but this is the announcement that really has my attention: the Steam controller.

Trackpads instead of sticks? You have my attention.

Tropes vs. Women in Video Games: Damsel in Distress Part 1

Before I say anything about this video, I'll reiterate something that Sarkeesian herself says right at the beginning: you can look critically at the problematic elements of something and still enjoy it at the same time. In other words, you can still like Star Fox Adventures (to use an example from the video) even if its portrayal of Crystal is pretty dumb.

PS3 Time

Starting next week, it's time to get serious about those PS3 reviews.

SSX has a pre-order promo code in it even though I bought it used. I wonder if the code is still valid or if the previous owner used it. Guess I'll find out Monday when I get back to my PS3.

PS3

I got a PS3! Expect reviews of PS3 exclusives.

Eventually.

EA's PC sales surpass PS3 sales

So the sales of EA's PC games have earned more than their sales of PS3 games this quarter, and almost as much as XBox. This is great news.

But not great in an elitist PC master race way. I'm not saying "finally gamers are doing it right". What I'm saying is that these kind of numbers force developers and publishers to acknowledge that PC gaming is a big thing, and therefore paying more attention to and increasing the quality of PC releases.

As a PC gamer, how many times have you played a console port that has no graphical settings, or awful default controls and no remapping, or no support for your display resolution? That's happened to me too many times. I prefer gaming on the PC (personal preference) so I almost always buy games on the PC when I have a choice. Hopefully with PC gaming moving into the spotlight again, we'll see more work put into ports, and maybe even see more titles developed for the PC first.

Steam Summer Sale!

As you may have heard, this year's Steam summer sale has started.

I don't know about you, but I'm very relieved that this year it's just a sale. I'm not sure I could handle another giant treasure hunt thing, both because of time and bandwidth restraints.

Every time a Steam sale rolls around I think I won't buy much this time, I got pretty much everything I wanted last sale. And every time I'm proven wrong. I don't know if my standards are lowering - as I get the games I really wanted, I move down to the ones that I kind of wanted - or if I just never realized how many good games there actually are.

Anyway, I'll be spending probably too much money again, and end up with a giant backlog that won't even be fully cleared by Christmas.

Have fun with the sale, and don't get carried away!

Comment Moderation

I've had a couple of people ask me about this, so I thought I'd explain in a post for everyone who's interested.

If you've commented on the site, you've likely noticed that comments are submitted for moderation before they can become visible on the relevant page.  If you've been wondering why I moderate comments on my blog, you may be surprised to know that it's not to filter out trolls or differing opinions. I actually enjoy a good debate over the qualities of a game, and comments that disagree with my review can offer interesting counterpoints (as long as they remain civil and rational).

Nope, the actual reason I've been moderating my comments is spam.