Game Two - Defcon

Hmm, Defcon. I got this in the Humble Introversion Bundle, and have played it for the grand total of 18 minutes… It’s a game I really thought I’d like more. The aesthetic is beautiful; eerie music, paired with a lo-fi graphic style of glowing green vectors. I can’t remember why I didn't play it for longer, so now’s the time to remind myself.

…

So, the main problem I’m going to have with this game is its multi-player only. I've gone off multi-player games in recent years. As I've gotten older I really can’t be bothered with the aggro of playing with strangers. But, I gave the tutorial a go. Aside from a couple of bugs which required a restart of a particular section, it was quite an entertaining way to spend an hour. The way the game mechanics combine certainly get you thinking about how to approach the nuclear war in different ways.

But after finishing the tutorial, enthusiasm waned. It’s a bit… depressing. Obviously, nuclear war isn't going to be like skipping through a field of buttercups (assuming you like buttercups… and skipping. Like I do). Combine it with the foreboding tension, and it’s just not my thing any more. I'm too old and tired for this now.

So I think I'm done with Defcon already.

On a brighter note…

Bad Company 2 is completed! The campaign is done, and I quite enjoyed it. The storyline is rubbish, as they usually are in FPS, but unlike in a CoD:MW, you stay as the same character throughout. So by the end I became quite attached to the soldiers I’d fought alongside for six hours. The ending though… oh dear. Stupid only begins to describe it.

I even gave the multi-player a go. It was a waste of time, but I gave it a go. I died continuously, killed two people more by luck than judgement, and at the end of the round my XP bar moved two pixels. At that rate it’d have taken a month to gain a level! So, sod that.

Odyssey progress so far :-

Completed: 1

Bounced off: 1

It’s time to discover what the next game will be.

Game One – Battlefield: Bad Company 2

A quick Google brings up a random number generator, and with my Steam library set to display “installed” with a grid view, 2 random numbers give me a row and a column… and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is what comes up.

Purchased in the Steam winter sale of 2010, it was a casualty of being bought along with Mass Effect 2, and has never been played. At the time I was in the mood for a multiplayer FPS and this came up cheap, so was an impulse buy. Unfortunately ME2 was far more enticing, and then my WoW addiction blinded me to all, so Bad Company 2 joined the other unloved games. Now Fate has decreed it’s time to play. I’ll skip the multiplayer for now, and give the single player campaign a try on easy. Here goes…

…

OK, so it’s yet another derivative man-shooter with a nonsensical storyline, but I like it. It has a certain charm, the guns feel good and I'm warming to the characters in my squad, even if they are clichéd character types (nervous geeky one, swearing grumpy one etc...)

The last game of this ilk I played was Modern Warfare 2, and that was hard work. I only got through the single player portion because I wanted to start MW3…. But that remains un-played too! Hopefully the electronic dice will give me a chance to play sometime.

For now, Bad Company 2 is playfully tickling the testosterone fuelled part of my brain quite nicely. I shall continue to play, hopefully to the conclusion of its campaign.

Thanks Fate! What game will you let me play next?