Cheap computer games

[alias_sqbr]

Thank to the Steam sale, I've been playing a bunch of computer games. Some of these are still on sale for a while and they're all pretty cheap.

Magicka: fun silly little mage RPG. Got through the tutorial level, enjoyed it, but didn't feel motivated to continue. Possibly because I'd just set an innocent NPC on fire by mistake.

SpaceChem: Finite state machine puzzles for creating molecules! So much fun! You do not need to know what finite state machines are to enjoy this game (I may be misremembering the specifics myself). You don't need to like chemistry either. But the SCIENCE aspects did add to the appeal for me.

Ecco the Dolphin: classic Sega game I loved as a kid. I am currently stuck on the first screen, I intend to figure out what I'm doing wrong once I'm less obsessed with the others on this list.

Elder Scolls IV: Oblivion: Old-ish RPG. I'm quite enjoying this, it's weird having no backstory or party(*) (unlike the Bioware and Square RPGs I've mostly played before now) but it's really well suited to my "wander around exploring and getting distracted by lots of different shiny objects/quests/people" style of gameplay. Have yet to set anyone on fire but I have accidentally pickpocketed, attacked, and killed people, leading to shouting, jailtime, and being turned on by my allies respectively. Also the levelling system UTTERLY CONFOUNDS me, I may eventually have to resort to cheats or possibly never sleeping again. (Another useful tip from the wiki: corpses make a convenient container for extra items) On the plus side it has adjustable difficulty and quicksave :)

(*)I currently have some people with me on a joint quest, but they don't have any non plot related dialogue and I can't control them in any way.

Comments

[lian]

Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, to me, is "that Alchemy game I never finished".

I was playing it solely for its ressource-finding and crafting system for a while, until even that bored me to TEARS. I seriously rate it as one the most boring games I've ever touched, and won't finish it. I just...with no character-buy in or interesting story, I could not muster an ounce of motivation. It was fascinating how less than little I cared. I've been weary of Bethesda games ever since to the degree I haven't even touched Fallout on multpile reocmmendations. Oh well.

[alias_sqbr]

I can see myself getting bored at some point, but it endeared itself to me near the start when I went for a random walk and encountered a village of invisible people who gave me a free room when I helped them out. I love Bioware games but they lack much sense of exploration and have a very railroaded (if multi-tracked) plot, so I'm enjoying the change. I should finish FF6 one of these days...

[lian]

I know I'm being very uncharitable with the game, but I was flabbergasted about how much it doesn't appeal to me, because I love exploration, and I adore games that give me a very strong sense of place.

/(one reason I tend to give to friends for why I'm gaming is that while they like to travel to foreign places, I like to travel or revisit places in games -- say, Sigil from Planescape:Torment has a very luminous spot in my mind. Also why I adore the tumblr places in games.)

It made me realize very acutely that exploration doesn't mean anything if you don't have an emotional connection to the world or some kind of narrative pay-off, though. I mean, clearly you got that with the invisible villagers, so maybe I'd have been happier if I'd stumbled across them as well, but I didn't. As it were, the sidequests were more like the terrible delivery quests in DAII, where I was mainly so disappointed because I want at least a little story attached to, oh, Sister Plinth's bones.

So... seeing that contrasted, it was interesting to me how vastly I prefer "internal" or narrative exploration (and character-centric one, at that) over external or environmental exploration. (I suppose my lack of negative reaction to DAII's recycling just affirmed that personal priority.)

Give me only a shred of [to me] meaningful payoff, and I will roam all the plents in Mass Effect for you. (I'm a completionist by nature, althought this extends more to "explored every possible nook and cranny" than "collect every item.")

/ramble. haha. *facepalm*

[sqbr]

That was an interesting ramble :)

I think I'm more interested in narrative/character exploration as well, but I do like actual physical exploration too. My enjoyment of Oblivion may partly be a response to having just played Dragon Age 2 three times, since it's good on the first but not so much on the second.