Plants vs Zombies 2 is now out on Android – First Impressions

This one honestly snuck by me, partially because I figured it would be iOS only for yonks yet, and partially because I didn’t really have that much interest in keeping tabs on it despite owning PvZ1 on three different platforms.

Anyways, since it is free, and now on a platform I own, I decided to download it and give it a bash. I think it was actually over 100 megs to download, which I’m not used to on my phone, but it went quickly enough over the Wifi. This will depend on your area and phone plan, of course.

Holding Fun For Ransom or Why the SWTOR F2P Crushes My Spirit

Star Wars: The Old Republic came out towards the end of 2011 and I jumped in from the beginning. I loved Knights of the Old Republic, and I still had faith in Bioware at the time, so it was a sure deal. I spent several months playing it, getting two characters to level 50, and adding several alts.

The first story I completed was on my Sith Juggernaut, and it was awesome. I felt amazing. Then I played through as a Republic Gunslinger, and while it had its moments, including some of the best lines, it was overall a lot more meh.

Then the Mass Effect 3 furore happened last year, culminating in the release of the Extended Ending at which point I basically cut ties with Bioware. Finally cancelled my SWTOR subscription as well, though I hadn’t really played much in the couple of months leading up to that anyway.

My dear friend Tech convinced me lately to play the F2P, as a thing to do while watching anime and such. So I figured I’d give it a shot, so long as I didn’t have to pay them any money.

Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm – Having a Gander

Oh yeah. We’re here. I didn’t feel like doing a proper review of this thing, but considering how much time I’ve already put into it, and how much I’m still planning to, I figured saying a few words would be in order.

There aren’t many things I can say about whether or not you should get this expansion. And it does work as an expansion. If you don’t have Wings of Liberty installed, you can’t play Heart of the Swarm, but you don’t need to have completed Wings of Liberty to start the HotS campaign.

If you like the Zerg, or you enjoy/are interested in the lore of Starcraft, you will like Heart of the Swarm. And if you’re in the Starcraft II multi-player scene, you’ve probably decided to get (or have gotten) HotS already anyway. If you still want to read my mini-review, please continue.

Warning: Some Wings of Liberty spoilers will occur.

Wii U – Early Impressions

So I’ve had my Wii U for nearly a week now, so I figured: Why not talk about some early impressions, both about the console itself, and the few games I’ve tried on it. For full disclosure, I got the Premium edition, which had a few extra bits and bobs with it, along with Nintendo Land (and is black rather than white).

Definite first impression when turning the thing on is that people are crazy talented. The amount of stuff they’re able to draw and post on the Miiverse when the only settings are three thicknesses, pencil and eraser is nothing short of amazing. I really can’t draw at all, so I am not about to try to step to any of this.

Trine 2: Goblin Menace DLC – Having A Gander

Trine was a clever and beautiful platform physics puzzler made by Frozenbyte that came out in 2009. It was not perfect, but it was well-made and well-written and should be in the library of anyone who likes platform and puzzle games. Trine 2 came out late 2011, and offered more puzzles, more abilities, a new story and tweaked gameplay, including an improved combat engine. And now in 2012 we have gotten the first big DLC expansion pack: Goblin Menace.

The Trine games seem inspired by The Lost Vikings from the 90s, and offer a nice dose of humour and likable characters to go with your physics and your puzzles. And there is a lot of physics and puzzles. Now I will apologise up-front to anyone who has not played Trine 2, as the rest of this article will largely assume that you have, because why else would you look into the DLC for it? PS! Small spoilers.

Black Mesa Source: Having a gander

So Black Mesa: Source came out last month, very shortly after it being announced that “Hey, it’s coming out now, you guys”. Having been believed to have gone the way of Vaporware considering it took eight years to complete, it is nonetheless out and free for anyone who wants to try it out. I finally got some time to play it through to the end, or at least the end of what is currently complete, which is everything before Xen; read: the good part.

I have played Half-Life many times, even if a lot of those times I have stopped at the point where I reach Xen. I have also watched every episode of Freeman’s Mind, many of them twice. So I have a pretty good internal map of what the original game is like, so making my way through Black Mesa has been a weird trip down memory lane. This project was entirely fan-made, so it was very interesting to see what they changed, how they changed it, and what was left as it was. So if you will stay with me; let me take you through my thoughts about this mod.

Remember Me – Gamescom Trailer

I may not be the one who pays the closest attention to all the gaming news any longer, but until someone linked me this trailer on Twitter I had never heard of Remember Me. Now that I’ve seen the trailer I feel very excited for it. (I do recommend watching it full-screen.)

Apparently we have Capcom to thank for this oddity, and my immediate thoughts were that it looked like Watch Dogs, mixed with Assassin’s Creed and starring a female protagonist. It looks really good, and I must say I didn’t expect anything too interesting to come out of the AAA scene from Gamescom.

Sword Art Online PSA

We are now in a new anime season, meaning a lot of new shows have been launched recently and are currently ongoing. Normally I don’t pay a whole lot of attention to this kind of stuff, but a certain title did break through my oblivious shell, and that one is called Sword Art Online.

Asuna and Kirito.

Transformers: Fall of Cybertron demo is out!

It’s on XBox Live and PSN. And I have played it. I heard the news via Destructoid last night, and immediately set the demo to download. It clocked in at nearly 2 gigs, and took a wee while for my unstable connection to get down. In the end it turned out to be 2 single-player mission excerpts comprising nearly 30 mins of your time if you don’t skip the cutscenes, and a limited multi-player mode that I have no interest in testing out. Each to their own, yes?

Minor spoilers for the missions below, so keep reading at your own risk.

Guild Wars 2 Final Beta Weekend

The final beta weekend for Guild Wars 2 is over. I dipped into it again to check out the new races, and found they had added a few other bits and bobs as well. I even spent a couple of hours following Reginald Cuftbert and crew around, just for the giggles, and got to try out the gem purchasing in the process. I have a feeling it might be seen as tad expensive in other, less rich countries, at least when it comes to server transfer. (I’ve paid more for less though.) Also, having to log into the game to buy gems and then logging back out to be able to swap servers seems needlessly convoluted.