That was the year it was: 2015

Well here we are at the tail end of 2015. The festive season is well and truly upon us so now is the time to step away from this blog and spend some time with family and friends - which is what we all should be doing around this time.
Therefore, this will be the final post for Game Tumour in 2015.

This year has been a quiet one: Its not just because I choose to scale back the amount of time and effort in this blog due to outside commitments.
No, much of my time has been invested in playing Star Trek Online. But if playing World of Warcraft has taught me anything it is too easy to fall in the trap that is common with MMORPGs: You find it is the only thing you play, the one thing you invest the most time in that the other games tend to get neglected and because you're continually investing money in this game you convince yourself to make the effort not to make the investment going to waste (WoW with the subscription, STO with Pay-as-you-go). But being in that trap doesn't mean you can escape from it.
Why, in the past week I've found myself moving away from Star Trek Online and enjoying an old favorite, Dragon Age Origins, again.

Still it's not all been bad news: I've knocked down more games off my Hall of Shame: System Shock 2, Curse of the Azure Bonds and some of the Leisure Suit Larry games.
Other highlights of 2015 have been:

• my delight at seeing the Gold Box finally make it's way to GoG
• Convincing a friend to play Divinity Original Sin and both going into it blind - and both of us finding it quite enjoyable
• Meeting Bajo and Hex
• In another coup for GoG, the arrival of the original Star Trek Adventure games!
• Obtaining a copy of New One Lives Forever (and defying the legal confusion preventing it's re-release)

So what can I take away from 2015? Well, I think the less time I spend on MMORPGs, the better. Yes they are time-sinks - hell, that's what they're designed to be! - but the amount of hours invested in a MMORPGs can really be better invested in working on some of the many games that I have left untouched.

You know, I've been playing a lot of Western RPGs these past few years that it's been quite some time since I last played, and enjoyed, a JRPG.
Therefore, I think I will, in 2016, play Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky...

So this concludes Game Tumour for 2015. Thank you to everyone who has visited this blog over the past twelve months and I look forward to speaking to you all again in 2016 :)

System of a Down

Another game has been cast down from my Hall of Shame (and the first for 2015 too!). Goodbye System Shock 2!

Man oh man, has this game got a reputation and a half: the father of Bioshock, a complete reinvention (alongside Deus Ex) of the First Person Shooter genre, one of the scariest games ever made, one of the greatest villains ever conceived in gaming history.

And you know what? In this case the reputation is justified.

Okay so I may have been using a heavily modded version of the game, that resulted in updated graphics, reworked environments and high level textures but even such modifications can;t take away that this is a game dripping in atmosphere. There is real tension with danger lurking around every corner, there is dread invoked with the sound design and there is a real sense that this is survival horror done right (ie you're all alone and no one else can jump you & nick your gear).

However whilst System Shock 2 may be pushing sixteen years, it still stands as one of the toughest games I've played. Never mind the careful selection of skill allotment (it's been well-established that this game is unforgiving to a point that if you chose the wrong skills, you may find yourself unable to complete the game), I had to contend with weapon degradation, constant threats, never having enough ammo, and dying over and over again. Even the boss fight with the Many was a real nightmare - one that somehow made the eventual confrontation with SHODAN seem tame by comparison. That being said, I think I can now understand why Bioshock was made easier - and may have contributed to greater sales. Still, beating any tough game is certainly an achievement and that certainly was the case here.

Not much else except to say that System Shock 2 is a great game. And it is finally great to play it when it was lost in the legal limbo for so long.
Now, about No One Lives Forever....

Truly no one lives forever

Recently I came across this depressing piece of news: the classic PC games No One Lives Forever will never be re-released on Steam or GoG due to no one knowing who really owns the rights.

I'm disappointed to say the least. I've heard a lot about No One Lives Forever 1 and 2 and I've been eager to play them.

Still, if Warner Bros/Activision/Fox can't make up their minds, at least I can go to eBay, hunt down both games, locate some patches to make them work, then it's my money Warner Bros/Activision/Fox/whoever won't be getting.