Happy Holidays!

The holiday season is here and it's time to throw the ol' Yule Log on the fire and enjoy some relaxing game time.  As for me, I'm doing a lot of reflecting about some of the games I'm currently playing and some that I've played in the recent past.  Yup, I couldn't even cobble together thoughts about one game since I've been jumping back and forth between several games.


The Winter Steam Sale
That magical time of year where oodles of great games go on sale has finally arrived...but on a much less flashy scale.  Steam sales of times past have been huge events filled with strange mini-games, flash sales, and pressure to buy games that we know we'll never play (just admit it!).  Why the changes?  There was always something exciting about Steam sales.  The addition of all the goofy little competitions and mini-games made them feel like a real event.  I'm not sure exactly how I feel about the change.  Part of me wants to celebrate the move away from using gimmicky psychological tricks (like the countdown timers) to pressure people to buy games.  On the other hand, there's this whole other part of me that liked the excitement of getting what felt like a great deal.  So far I haven't bought anything and haven't really felt pressured to buy anything.  I still explore my discovery queue every day to get my three free trading cards but this sale just feels a lot different...much more low-key.

Diablo III--Season 4
I'm not a hardcore Diablo player but I really appreciate the fact that when I do decide to play that there is always something new or interesting.  About a week ago I looked into the new (but almost over) season of Diablo III.  After months of not playing I found a reason to renew my adventures and level a new seasonal hero.  I enjoyed the fact that there were goals associated with your advancement through the season that ended with the reward of a portrait frame and pet (I'm such a nerd for pets--seriously, if there's a pet involved I will accomplish those goals).  The goals were highly obtainable, even for someone like me who started very late in the season.  I also noticed some minor changes to how some things worked--there's a whole new zone available in Adventure Mode that features a unique crafting item, Kanai's Cube.  The cube allows players to do several very useful things like extracting special powers from legendary items and allowing them to be placed on your current gear or using accumulated crafting materials to turn rare items into legendary items.  The cube is a creative way to address many of the items that become useless as players advance through adventure mode.

Kanai's Cube features several unique recipes.

It really feels like nephalem rifts have become a lot less important and bounties are more of the focus.  Kanai's Cube requires special legendary crafting materials that are found in the horadric caches that are rewarded upon completion of a string of bounties.  These crafting items are also required to craft the many legendary items available to the blacksmith.  I also noticed that the horadric caches seem to drop a lot of blacksmithing and jewelcrafting plans.  This is a nice change and allows set pieces and individual legendaries to become much more accessible.

Even though Diablo III threatens to give me a raging case of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome I still find myself clicking away.  I've always been a fan of Blizzard games and I am impressed with the way that they have kept a 2-3 year old game fresh.  Season 4 ends on December 30th and Season 5, which starts on January 15th, promises a new zone and other enjoyable features.

Santa has had enough.

Viscera Cleanup Detail:  Santa's Rampage
Seasonal twists on games always make me laugh.  The space janitorial sim Viscera Cleanup Detail features a not-so-jolly holiday map that requires players to cleanup after Santa has had some sort of mental breakdown.  The resultant gore includes a number of slain elves and some unfortunate reindeer.  The level is strewn with presents, toy guns, TNT, molotov cocktails, and clear evidence that Santa had been drinking off the stresses of delivering presents to all the children on Earth.  Although the map is relatively small it's an entertaining seasonal distraction.

The Witcher 3:  Making you feel bad for horrible characters.
My personal game of the year pick would be The Witcher 3:  Wild Hunt.  I was captivated almost every minute I played and found the story options refreshing from your rote good/bad choices.  The world of The Witcher 3 is very rarely black or white and is more frequently a really dark shade of grey.  I found this most noticeable in the many characters who populate the game.  The Bloody Baron is the best example of this dynamic.  The guy is a lousy drunkard who beats his pregnant wife until she miscarries.  He leads a band of soldiers with questionable ethics who are looting the war-torn countryside bare...but he also has a giving heart and takes care of Ciri when she shows up wounded at his castle.  You really want to hate the guy but he's just so....human.  He's not perfect and that's what makes him a great character.

The most recent DLC features another character, Olgierd von Everec, who is very similar to the Baron.  Olgierd seems like an alright guy--the leader of a pack of bandits, but with some morals--very Robin Hood-esque.  It's only as you progress through the story that you realize there's much more to his story.  Eventually you learn that he's made a deal with the veritable devil (Gaunter O' Dimm, the man of glass) in an effort to restore his family's wealth and name.  The story leads you through the tragic tale of his beautiful wife who died from a broken heart.  But, like the Baron, he's just a man who made a lot of bad choices.

Here's wishing everyone out there a happy holiday season.  I hope it finds you spending time with loved ones...and maybe some light gaming :)