h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's an interesting one.

FTL is random and chaotic and there's a huge amount of luck involved. I kind of enjoyed trying to limp on for as long as possible, at least for a while. There's a certain black humour to it, and something noble about getting further than you ought to, even when doomed. But I think there's only so far you can go before that gets irritating.

More generally on the difficulty issue, I think Dara O'Briain said something in a standup routine about the absurdity of being prevented from getting to "content" because you weren't good enough - I think the parallel he made was with a novel having a test halfway through. And it was interesting to see Mass Effect having a "storyline mode" of difficulty which was billed as letting players concentrate on the story rather than the combat, which presumably was much easier. I suppose it's only fairly recently that games have started having this kind of complexity to make this make sense.

I like having a range of difficulties to allow people of different abilities/experiences play and enjoy. Fact is, I'm terrible at anything involving fine coordination or reactions, so normal is generally fine for me in most games like Skyrim/Mass Effect/Fallout (though I did find Skyrim and Fallout 3 getting a bit too easy once my character got very powerful). But I'm better at strategy, so I'd expect the likes of Civ and XCom to have more to challenge me once I've got the hang of it.

"I suppose it's only fairly recently that games have started having this kind of complexity to make this make sense."
Not really. Adventure is one of the oldest PC game genres, and RPGs have long had complex storylines. As I recall Space Quest (1986) allowed you to adjust the difficulty of the arcade sections.

That said, there did used to be a whole lot of shooty and fighty games with no real storyline, where progress only let to tougher enemies against different scenery - I think that's become a lot less common.

Just finished the storyline on the latest GTA game... As usual with that series of games the storyline is pretty good, but once you've finished it you discover you've only done about 70% of what's actually out there to do...

You actually play three different characters during the game and can switch between them at various times, (time still flows for the other characters whilst your playing so when you switch it's quite common to find your character either in the middle of a conversaton with someone or lying drunk in a gutter somewhere (or in certain cases, stark naked on top of a mountain miles away from civilisation and clothing!)

It's also the only game I've ever played where you get to play a genuine psychotic, with absolutely no attempt to make him a good guy or an misunderstood character...

And the problem of difficulty is overcome in a quite novel way... Missions/tasks are broken down into sections, and if you fail a section three times the game gives you the option of skipping the section in question and advancing straight to the next section.

Sounds like the new Super Mario for WiiU if you fail in a level too often Luigi will come and play it for you while you watch.

We've just discovered Lego Chima Online. That looks fun.

What do you mean, it's a kids game?


Geggs

Back on the Wii to keep my parents entertained with Wii Sports. They're loving it!

Tomb Raider II. I'm planning to replay/play all the Tomb Raider games. The early adrenaline junkie version of Lara is an interesting contrast to the newest game. At this point they haven't added the backstory about her being an orphan - the manual to the first game merely said she was disowned by her family.

Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch and I must say is rather excellent. With Studio Gibli being involved i's beautiful to look at and plays just like like you'd expect a JRPG to. I've only just started but I have a familiar and snarky Welsh companion called Drippy. This is going to be brilliant.

I have heard very good things about Ni No Kuni.

It just a shame I didn't get the 'Wizard Edition' - I'd have loved the plush Drippy:

http://www.gameranx.com/img/12-Jun/drippy.jpg

I've just finished Assassins Creed Brotherhood which I enjoyed but can anyone explain what the end was about? I know they are using an Avatar to locate a powerful object but who was the alien/goddess hologrammy thing and why did our hero knife his workmate/girl friend - I am confused I would have been happier just hunting down and thwarting the Borgia.

My bf bought CivilisationV in a humble bundle. I think it's strange. It's kind of cute graphics-wise but I find its approach to history quite disturbing. Sun Tzu is a Greek general? Star forts in the antiquity? Greeks building Stonehenge and Pyramids?

I enjoy Civilization Revolution you do have to suspend disbelieve on the history side and it does irritate me when my Spitfires are shot down by archers or worse still by Greek Hoplites wielding pikes or tanks are destroyed by legionnaires with swords, but if you're patient you can nuke the buggers

Aparently it's possible to build the Internet before inventing computers as well.