Mister Adequate recently blogged about what he’s looking forward to in games this year. Myself, well– I’ve got too many old games to plow through to start thinking about new ones!
Firstly, I’d like to finish my goal of playing through all the Final Fantasy games, a goal which has been pushed to the side a bit because I keep getting distracted by other things. Fear not, though; I’m nearing the end of Final Fantasy 2 (I think) and then I am going to acquire and play FF3, another FF that I haven’t actually played yet!
Secondly, I would like to put at least a few solid hours into every single game I have on Steam. That’s a lot of games. Over 160, last I checked. And if it’s something you’re all interested in, I think I’m going to chronicle that little adventure on this blog this year. I’ll dedicate one post to every game I have. Sound good?
It’s going to be an exciting year filled with… old games!
Happy New Year from us at The Android’s Closet! Thanks to all our readers and commenters for helping make this such an enjoyable little project for Pike and myself! Here’s to another year of ponies and discussing old strategy games! (We’ll try to branch out a bit, we promise!)
Now, to business – what are you looking forward to in gaming in the year 2012? Here are some of those I’m interested in:
Dead State. A turn-based zombie apoc RPG? Yes. VERY yes. I know every game and its mother has zombies in it these days, but there’s a big difference between having zombies and actually being a zombie survival game. I may blog about that at some point in fact. Or did I already? I can never remember.
Mass Effect 3. I know it’s probably going to be even less like 1 than 2 was. I know it’s almost certainly going to ignore all the decisions made in 1 and 2. I know they’re going to spend more time writing the romances than the main plot. But I’ve been with this series since the beginning, and damnit, I’m going to see it through to the end!
Something like this, yeah.
Final Fantasy XIII-2. The original was a guilty pleasure. I know it’s not a very good game, and not up to the expected standards of a Final Fantasy. But I had a buttload of fun playing it anyway, so I’m looking forward to more running through linear corridors!
Crusader Kings 2. This is the real meaty one though, a new Paradox game that updates one of their most trolly and looks almost as though it will be playable on release. I’m sure it won’t be, but it’ll hopefully need fewer patches than usual to get into such a state. Incest, bastards, and court intrigue is always a recipe for hilarity though. Also from Pox is the expansion to Victoria 2, A House Divided which focuses on the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5. Oh no, my mistake. It’s about the US Civil War. They never make games about the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5.
There should also be a new version of Dwarf Fortress on the way, with all kinds of crazy things like vampires and new NPC cities and improved trade. Very exciting!
There are others, but those are the main new releases for me. What about you all? What has you excited in games in the coming year?
Taking after my co-blogger Pike, I thought I would take a look back on my year in gaming!
January
I started the year in the middle of a huge Civilization IV kick, and it was by far the most played game of that month I am sure. I sampled a multitude of mods for it, such as Caveman 2 Cosmos and Fall From Heaven 2.
February
Feb was still plenty of Civ IV, but there was a great deal of Dwarf Fortress mixed in there as well. At the end of the month I also fired up my good old WoW account, a little before Pike did likewise.
March
There was plenty of WoW this month, at least for a couple of weeks. Once that was done I believe I started a huge SimCity 4 kick that lasted for a couple of months.
April
In April the new fan version of Hearts of Iron 2, known as Darkest Hour was released. I pretty much immediately fell even more in love with HoI thanks to this and played little else.
Sadly I did not play any Pony Alert 2
June and July
I didn’t spend terribly much time on any particular game during the height of summer, I was more concerned with not melting! A wide variety of things were dabbled with here. I think there was some Minecraft.
August
In August I sat down to replay an old favorite on the PS1, Breath of Fire III. It really is a wonderful, charming game with all kinds of hidden depths, and it was time well spent.
September
September was when I played the majority of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which surprised me as much as anybody else by not only being good, but by being a worth successor to the original DX!
October
In October I started on a long-lasting space 4X kick, which includes Galactic Civilizations 2, Master of Orion 2, Space Empires IV, and Star Ruler.
November
November was when both Skyrim and Saints Row: The Third landed, and I spent a huge amount of time with both!
December
I’ve spent most of this month with the Kaiserriech mod for Darkest Hour, and I’ve just now started up Dwarf Fortress again.
And so we come to the close of 2011. It’s been an exciting year filled with things like, well, this blog starting up, for one. I’ve also played quite a lot of games, of course. Here’s a look back at some of the things that have struck my fancy this year:
JANUARY: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney was what I was playing at the beginning of the year. I’d never actually played a Phoenix Wright game before and I borrowed this one from my sisters, who are big fans. I regret to say that I didn’t finish the game because I got sidetracked by other things, but the first three-quarters or so were an enjoyable, if somewhat benign, romp. The whole gameplay premise was new and interesting and the fun characters kept you interested during parts that may have otherwise lagged. I did have to give the game back to my sisters after a while but I hope to finish it some day!
Dashie gets things done.
FEBRUARY:
February is when I started playing Civilization IV, which I had somehow never played before. Shameful, I know. Regardless, life would never be the same.
MARCH:
March was the month that Mister Adequate and I started this blog! I was also still playing a lot of Civ IV. I think this was also the month where Mister Adequate and I, both old World of Warcraft vets who had since quit, resubbed for a month to give it another whirl. There were a couple weeks of fun as we ran around as Tauren paladins, but those couple of weeks only lasted, well, a couple of weeks and then it was back to Civ.
APRIL:
I played a lot of games on-and-off throughout April, including Hearts of Iron 2 and X-Com: UFO Defense. There was, I think, still a lot of Civ going on.
MAY:
May was when I finally got around to playing SimCity 4. Considering that I grew up with SimCity, it’s pretty terrible that I didn’t actually get around to the fourth installment until now, but there you go.
JUNE:
Ah, June. The month that I finally sat down for a proper playthrough of Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri and was immediately smitten. I don’t know if a game had ever captivated me quite the same way that SMAC did that month, and I feel safe telling you six months later that there will always be a special place for this game in my heart.
JULY:
This was the month that I finally let myself be consumed first by Minecraft and then by Terraria. I’d resisted for so long and finally could resist no longer, and I spent most of this month derping around with a mining pick. I haven’t played either game in a long while, but I won’t lie: they were nice to spend long, lazy summer nights with.
Yours truly, having been caught in the act of playing Minecraft for hours on end.
AUGUST:
In August I headed back to Civ IV, because I just can’t quit it. Many, many multiplayer shenanigans happened involving Mister Adequate and I, partially because we both love Civ and partially because we can’t seem to get any other games to work with multiplayer.
SEPTEMBER:
September was a busy month that involved me moving back to my home state and getting a new job. Still, there was enough time for a lot of old favorites, as well as enough time for Mister Adequate and I to discover that Sid Meier’s SimGolf is a thing.
OCTOBER:
In October I played all of Final Fantasy. The one with no numbers after it. It was definitely neat to look back at an older JRPG like that and see just how much the genre has changed (or stayed the same.) Mister Adequate and I also gave WoW another spin, which lasted all of about two weeks. Ah well!
NOVEMBER:
This was the month that I jumped right into Final Fantasy 2 and also fell in with a lot of other great games, such as Space Empires IV and The Binding of Isaac. Somehow, though, between all of this, I still managed to win NaNoWriMo. Oh, I published a book, too. Guess that’s worth a mention!
DECEMBER:
December has been a month of two things: Paradox games (Darkest Hour and Europa Universalis 3, specifically), and Skyrim. The Paradox games come as no shock to anyone, I’m sure, especially because I’ve played them before, but Skyrim really took me by surprise. I wasn’t expecting it to be quite as engrossing as it is. Great way to round out the year, though!
My response to the end of the video-game-playing-year. Also, this post is apparently Rainbow Dash Edition, which I'm okay with!
