Gunslinger, iKOTOR

Call of Juarez: Gunslinger (Steam) (5 hours)


I finished the game last night and it was great all the way through although I did find some tough difficulty spikes that caused me to have to revert to the normal settings on several occasions. The Mexican standoff was really hard as it had you facing two enemies and you had to switch focus between them while keeping your trigger hand close to your gun. I tried six times on hard and failed to even draw my gun on 4 of them, once I switched the difficulty I took them out on the first try. Once you beat the game it opens up an even harder difficulty level and supposedly more story so I will play through the game again and see what is different. I didn't find all of the nuggets of truth either so there is replay value and since the game is around 5 hours in length.

My favorite part of the game was the music. I thought it was outstanding and the O' Death song that is sung by Silas sent chills down my spine. The developer is Techland who is a Polish company and I guess they watched a lot of westerns as they nailed the music perfectly. All the sound effects were great as well, from gunshots to the crows overhead, they created an authentic feeling western game. You visit many common cowboy locations which keeps the game varied, I wished they had some kind of stagecoach robbery, but there is a cool sequence on a train. I was able to figure out the ending pretty early on, but the story was engaging and they did a good job of linking all the old gunslingers together.

I'm never good about choosing upgrade paths as I like a mixture of everything so I didn't max out one
specific skill tree. On the new game plus mode you keep all of your previous upgrades so I should be able to complete all of them on my next play through.

Star Wars: KOTOR (iPad) $9.99

It's amazing what you can play on a mobile device, in a couple of years they will be just as powerful as a gaming PC, the only problem is the controls. I do play some games on my iPad but mostly it's a time waster. The games are fun for a small chunk of time and they have little depth that keeps me interested for longer than 10 minutes. Board games work the best, and some of them I play quite a bit as it's easier than getting out all the pieces and arguing about the rules, plus there is almost always someone to play against since the install base is so large. I bought the surface so I could play the old point and click games from yesteryear like Baldur's Gate and the like. I did buy BG for the iPad but never touched it much since the controls were tough to use and the screen objects were pretty small.

I wasn't sure if I should buy Kotor since it wasn't designed as a touch game so the controls would probably be horrible and make the game unplayable. Luckily that isn't the case and the game is awesome. I've put in about an hour so far and the controls, while a bit touchy, work well once you get used to them. They didn't implement a virtual joystick like other games, you turn the screen by swiping left and right and move forward by pressing up. I did adjust the camera velocity down a few notches and I was able to move around without much trouble. Any item you can interact with just takes a tap and you move automatically to that location. Since the games combat can be played like at turn-based game and not require twitchy moves it plays perfectly on the iPad. You can queue up moves and select different targets easily. On dialog screens they place a number that associates with a response on the right hand side which makes selecting it very easy. Overall I'm impressed with how they implemented the game on a touch screen and hopefully more full PC games will make there way to the platform.

The game itself is just as awesome at it was before and it probably the best Star Wars story since the original trilogy of films. It's Bioware in their prime so if you have a IOS device and like Star Wars you should get this game.

New Releases - Quite a few new releases this week.
PC
Alltynex Second (download - $8) - No idea.
Gunpoint (download - $10) - Cool indie game that I have pre-ordered.
Kamui (download - $8)
Marvel Heroes (free-to-play) - Like Diablo and Marvel Super Heroes? This is your game.
Panzer Corps: Allied Corps
Penny Arcade's On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 4 (download - $5)
Prime World: Defenders (download - $15)
RefleX (download - $8)
Remember Me - Really thought about getting this game. Reviews are all over the place.
Scrolls (download - $20) - New game from Mojang, the MInecraft creator. Collectible Card game. In!!!!!

Xbox 360
Penny Arcade's On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 4 (XBLIG - $5)
Remember Me
State of Decay - If this does release it looks to be a cool survival zombie game.

PlayStation 3
Alfa Romeo Racing Italiano (PSN - PS2 Classics)
Remember Me
Ultimate Board Game Collection (PSN - PS2 Classics)

Vita
Limbo (PSN - $15) - Awesome game.
Quell Memento (PSN)

Nintendo 3DS
Animal Crossing: New Leaf - A new Debt simulator game.

PSP
Class of Heroes II (PSN - 15) - First game was great. In!!!