A Single Shot from Bioshock Infinite

 Still browsing through old screenshots and realized I only seem to have one from the game Bioshock Infinite.  I enjoyed pretty much every game in this series and the premise behind Infinite was bonkers.  So much going on in that game.  My guess for this screenshot is I hit the button by accident, but that's OK because it makes for an easy post all these years later.

Bioshock what now

Steam Backlog: Bioshock, Bioshock 2, Bioshock Infinite

 For Blaugust 2023's "stay motivated" week I told myself I was going to play games in my Steam backlog, but then New World decided 8/21 was the day of days to drop transmog. So no backlog games played today, but since we were still in the Bs and next on the list was Bioshock it still qualifies as a game I can cover in my Steam Backlog series!

  Bioshock is one of my all time favorite games and those that know the game probably can guess why.  Even all these years later I hesitate to spoil it for anyone.  It's a must play!  Bioshock was more of an experience than it was a game, but that is not to say the gameplay wasn't great.  This game was an amazing marriage of story telling, game play, and that final satisfying twist.

 While Bioshock was more of an experience its successor, Bioshock 2, was more of a game.  The story featured some interesting choices and like the first game I'd rather not spoil them.  There was more game here as well but I am not sure it was for the better.  Some of the "more game" took away from the story aspects of the game but it was still a great game and story.  There was also a multiplayer mode.  Why?  I don't know. It was not needed and I didn't enjoy it.

 

 The most recent Bioshock entry is Bioshock Infinite and marked the series departure from the deep sea to the skies.  Like the first two the story elements of the game are best left unspoiled.  The underlying world that they are building is just fun and the expansion into floating cities in the sky was well done.  

 Bioshock was more experience.  Bioshock 2 was more game.  Bionshock Infinite was more of both game and experience.  Infinite is one of the few games where I feel like story telling and action combat are done well together.  And there is plenty of action in infinite with mechanics that on paper seem impossible, but the game somehow pulls it off.  

 Over all if I had to stack rank the games it would be:

• Bioshock Infinite
  
• Bioshock 1
  
• Bioshock 2

 Bioshock 1 is a must play, but if you've played it you know why you likely aren't going to play it much more than that first play through.  Bioshock Infinite however is fun to jump back into as there is so much fun to be had and different ways to traverse the game.  1,2, or Infinite - all of them are worth your time!

 This post is part of my running series: My Steam Backlog (see all MySteamBacklog tagged posts).

What I bought in the Steam Holiday Sale 2010

Bioshock 2 - $10
Dragon Age: Ultimate Edition - $25 (Includes original, Awakening expansion, and all content packs)
The Witcher: Enhanced Edition - $5

The Secret of Monkey Island - $3.75

Total: $43.75
Christmas Cash: $50

Yay, I still have $6.25 left to spend on non-gaming items!  And damn it, how did I miss Puzzle Quest for $1.50!  Anyways, this is how I feel after Steam Sales:

My son turned one and other things I did in August 2010: What I'm Playing/What I'm Paying

August was the month that my son turned one year old. It amazes me how fast time flies with children. It feels like only yesterday when I was welcoming "the dude" (as we call him) into the world. He can walk (run), talk (ask repeatedly for mom), and sleep (for short periods).

It's been a long first year to be honest. Our son has only slept through the night a handful of the time. He fought acid reflux, viral infections, and ear infections for the entirety of his first year. His birthday present was a trip into surgery for tubes in his ears (which helped finally get rid of months-long ear infections). It is kind of amazing to think my wife and I have gone almost an entire year without more than a few hours of sleep per night.

So, as I look at my /Played time for August, it echos my entire year: I play the same number of hours per month as I used to play in a single weekend (day even). However, he is a cool kid; pictures to prove it:

I have embedded the new What I'm Playing/What I'm Paying spreadsheet for June below. The overall spreadsheet (includes previous months) can be found here.

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Game of the Month

NONE. I chased my son around all month instead :)

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/Played

Bioshock

I finally got around to beating Bioshock. The setting is absolutely stunning with an amazing story. I am unsure why I didn't get into it the first go around. I elected to save all of the little girls, so was greeted with the "happy ending". I hit up youtube for the "not-happy ending" and was like "meh". When Bioshock 2 goes on sale for under $10, I am all over it.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2

It's Battlefield and a great game. I put a good amount of time this month into unlocking all the weapons. Now I am working towards getting Bronze Stars (25 kills) with each weapon. Also, working on my spreadsheet each month, I realize I need to play this game A LOT more to justify its initial cost.

Left 4 Dead 2

The parrot on my shoulder says: "...working on my spreadsheet each month, I realize I need to play this game A LOT more to justify its initial cost." I love the Bridge finale for "The Parish" campaign. It's everything I want in the zombie apocalypse.

Freedom Force

For $1.87 I didn't expect much from the game. After about an hour of play though, I'm bored with ot. I thought it would move faster (being a Super Hero game and all), but I'm finding it to have a glacial pace and it feels constrained. I will give it a better shot at some point. Any tips?

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/Paid

Total spent this Month: $0.00
My Value Rating: n/a

I made no gaming purchases in August.

Fixed: Bioshock error "This game is currently unavailable" w/ Steam on Alienware m11x

I love my new Alienware m11x laptop, but I was about to lose my cool this morning because I could not get Bioshock to run via Steam.  I was getting the dreaded "This game is currently unavailable" error message when launching the game.

Steam support has a great guide for this problem.  Unfortunately, the step I needed to take was towards the bottom and it took me a long time to get to it.  I first did the Windows 7 troubleshooting, then driver updates (which are not easy on the m11x thanks to Dell's m11x vs. m11xR2 branding), and then I ran every option on the list; except for one that I didn't think was needed: Verifying Game Cache Files (GCF)

It took a few minutes to verify Bioshock's files and in the end it found 5 missing files.  A few seconds later Steam downloaded the missing files and Bioshock now works.  So, lesson learned. Do the simple steps first and then worry about going ape shit with deleting/reinstalling/etc.

April 2010: What I Played/What I Paid

As promised over a month ago, I am finally catching up on my What I'm Playing/What I'm Paying post (subbing d's for ing's, past tense and all that).

April, as a month in gaming for Heartless_, was as exciting as watching the Detroit Lions play a random High School football team. 

I have embedded the new What I'm Playing/What I'm Paying spreadsheet for April below.  The overall spreadsheet (includes previous months) can be found here.

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Game of the Month

Cost: $13.39 (Steam Holiday Sale)
Played: 2 hours
3-words: Better price = $13.37








Don't let the total playtime fool you.  I liked Bioshock, but between a bugged out Big Daddy and failed game save backup forcing me to restart twice, I just didn't make any progress.  By the time I turned around, April was over and I was scheduled to be out of town most of May.  My poor laptop just couldn't manage Bioshock reliably enough to provide a good play experience.  I've shelved the game for completion and commentary at a later date.

Upcoming Game of the Month  for May: Torchlight (because it runs like a dream on my laptop!)

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/Played

Allods Online

I stuck in an hour playtime with my Melee Healer in Allods Online in April.  I still enjoy the game and wish I could dedicate more time to it.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2

I continued my enjoyment of BFBC2 in April playing a few games.

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/Paid

Total spent this Month: $0.00
My Value Rating: n/a

I made no gaming purchases during April.

Lifehacker has impeccable timing

Lifehacker is one of my favorite websites.  Not because of the great writers, but because of their timing.  Everytime I need something, Lifehacker finds out and posts something useful.  I swear they are spying on me.  First it was a detailed Thunderbird tweak guide, then Dropbox hacks, both published within days of my installs of both.  The list goes on.

The newest example is a post today about GameSave Manager, a tool that backs up saved game files for over 400+ games. It was not a month ago that I gave up playing Bioshock after losing my save files during a reformat of Windows 7.  This was after already restarting the game one time because of poor planning.  Oh, and I was making backups the old fashioned way, but the one day the backup failed is the day I decided to reformat!

Also, recently I lost several hours of progress in my save game for Mass Effect.  After that incident, I implemented my backup scheme for saved games by syncing the folders to Dropbox.  That way I have saved files on all the computers I connect to Dropbox with.  It works wonders for Civilization 4 games since I am usually manually saving them. 

However, it is annoying to have to add other games by hand to my backup scheme.  Even more so when it takes five minutes on Bing to find out where the actual saved game is stored in Windows 7.  GameSave Manager takes care of all the prep work and then makes it easy to restore from the backups it makes.

Lifehacker, again, saves the day.  <3

March 2010: What I'm Playing/What I'm Paying

My March gaming was a battle.

I have embedded the new What I'm Playing/What I'm Paying spreadsheet for March below.  The overall spreadsheet (includes previous months) can be found here.

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Game of the Month

Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Cost: $49.99 (Limited Edition)
Played: 30 hrs
3-words: Full of destruction!






My game of the month was Battlefield: Bad Company 2.

I am a fan of the entire Battlefield series, more so than any other shooter series, and Bad Company 2 fits right into my playstyle. It's a first person shooter first and foremost, but it offers class-based team play that allows weaker FPS players to enjoy success.

I spent the majority of my time on hardcore servers where bullet damage is increased and some of the UI elements (map, target marking, ammo count, weapon info) is hidden. The "normal mode" works fine, but it can be frustrating sometimes when it takes a dozen bullets to take down a target. Also, normal mode encourages the use of only the high damage weapons and abilities; making a lot of the weapons completely worthless. In hardcore, all weapon types play a role as speed and accuracy, but lower powered weapons are still lethal.

As with Battlefield 2, I find myself playing medic in BFBC2 a lot.  I am not a horrible FPS gamer, but I'm not that great either.  The medic class in the Battlefield games has always been a balanced option between killing and support.  This hold true in BFBC2 and with a focus on squad play, I am able to rack up the points keeping my squad going.

I've really enjoyed my 30 hours in the release version of BFBC2.  Sure there has been some server and punkbuster issues, but most of them existed for less than a week.  It has been smooth sailing for the latter half of the month.

Game of the Month for April: Bioshock 

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/Played

My /Played  section is a bit short this month.  I put most of my time into BFBC2 and had a mid-month lull when I took over a week off from gaming.  I hadn't intended to take the week off, but between watching Lost (in the middle of Season 2 via Netflix) and a non-sleeping 6 month old, it just happened.

For the record, I did play some LEGO Universe, but I am not allowed to talk about it due to the NDA on the closed beta.  Also, I am still engaged with Allods Online, but just didn't find any time to log in this month, which is fine as I do not have to pay a monthly subscription to keep my Allods account active.

Civilization 4

I put another hour into Civ4 this month. I was sort of inspired by reading up on Elemental, a 4x game that will be launching later this year.
 

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/Paid

Total spent this Month: $0.00
My Value Rating: n/a

I made no gaming purchases this month.

Dec 2009: What I'm Playing/What I'm Paying

Previous months: Nov 2009, Oct 2009, Sept 2009

I'm not embedding the spreadsheet this month because with the birth of a new year, I am planning a new approach to these posts. The "What I'm Playing/What I'm Paying" Google Spreadsheet is still there for the previous months.

What I Really Did This Weekend

If you've been following along, I had some spare time to game this weekend. Here is what I played:

Bioschock demo - Downloaded via Steam. Great graphics, killer atmosphere, and exceptional game play. However, I can't help but admit that my first person gaming skills have passed me by. I just could not get a decent grip on my aim to hit any of the mask-wearing freaks in this demo. After finishing the demo, I definitely have thoughts about buying the game.

ET:QW demo 2.0 - I don't know if it was just an error or something, but the demo would not allow me to play online due to "Punkbuster not being installed". Every other Punkbuster game I own works fine and Punkbuster is most definitely installed. Doing a bit of research it turns out that demo 2.0 clients can only connect to Punkbuster disabled servers. I don't have enough time to fuck around with a demo, so I canned it before even trying.

Pirates of the Burning Seas trial - Oops, they don't have a open trial offer. The only trial is through a buddy key program and unfortunately nobody I know bought the game. Well thats a lie, I did find one person who offered to send me a key, but never actually sent it. If I do get the key I will probably give it a go.

Peggle Extreme and Peggle Deluxe Demo - Peggle simply rocks, and not just because it is available via Steam. Peggle Extreme comes packaged with The Orange Box, but I had never paid much attention to it. Due to some no-Internet time (bad storms this weekend), I played a good bit of Peggle. I was thoroughly enthralled with the game and downloaded the Peggle Deluxe Demo as well.

The game is very casual at heart, but definitely hits on some hardcore gaming tendencies (high scores, replays, combos). I found myself alt-tabbing into Peggle repeatedly while playing World of Warcraft and Portal, but often not alt-tabbing back! The actual game costs only $9.95 through Steam and should the wife approve the purchase order, I will own it soon.

Portal - Also part of The Orange Box, Portal is an award winning puzzle game. I admittedly have never finished this spectacular game. I am actually still sort of stuck on a certain level, but I forget which one. If it wasn't for Peggle I would of probably beat the game and downloaded some fan-made bonus levels.

World of Warcraft - Sadly I must admit that I played an unhealthy dose of World of Warcraft on top of everything else. I deleted my warrior alt and started a new warrior alt. Why? Because Undead are cooler than Trolls.

I also spent a good amount of time running battlegrounds on my main, Tanglefoot the Troll Shaman. I earned enough honor for a new piece of Vindicator's gear and am halfway to another piece.

I also got around to grinding honored reputation with every faction needed to gain access to all the Heroic Mode dungeons in The Burning Crusade. Now, I haven't actually tried a Heroic Mode dungeon, but at least now I can if I so choose.

Gaming Impasse

I've found myself at a gaming impasse. My wife, bless her heart, is out of town all weekend. That leaves me (plus the dog, cat, and rabbit) alone to game. Unfortunately, I don't know what the hell to play!

World of Warcraft has once again brought out the true Heartless. I spend more time cussing, bitching, and griping than I do playing. I could probably bypass the pain by avoiding battlegrounds and PvP all together, but then what would I do? I don't really enjoy PvE and I'm not really ready to sign up for any raids. My gear would probably get me laughed out of the room anyways.

I could try a new game, but I don't really want to spend the money. Looking at some demos and trials that are out, I have some choices to make. So, I put them in a nice little list.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Demo 2.0 - I played the original demo, but felt the game was a bit messy. Supposedly, the developers have heeded the call and updated the demo to reflect recent changes to make the game more accessible. I guess it's worth giving a try. Bonus: its available through Steam.

Bioshock demo - Game is supposedly great, so hopefully the demo will be as well. Bonus: its available through Steam.

Pirates of the Burning Seas trial - This was supposed to be my next MMOG, but the delay and SOE publishing announcement fizzled my enthusiasm. Lackluster reviews have kept me away since. My worry with the trial is that I will not have enough time to actually enjoy the game. I don't want to spend a couple days grinding for nothing.

Anyways, anyone have some thoughts to spare? I may end up just vegetating in front of World of Warcraft. I'm sure my wife will love this when she gets around to reading my blog again :P