Epic Journeys Conclude, What Next ?

2 games today !

And a book maybe too.

I'm attempting to settle my bouncing between games down to just about 3 or 4 at a time ... Elite and the flying is one, a first person shooter style will be another and the last game will be much more hands off, letting my dodgy wrists recuperate a bit.

The hands off game is currently transitioning from Motorsport Manager over to probably Pathfinder Kingmaker. That's a role playing game set in the Pathfinder rules set that is essentially an offshoot from D&D. It's a curious start so far, although I've been faced with having to remove and reinstall the game tonight in order to reverse damage due to mods ... (oops, no additional portraits for now). Probably more on Pathfinder at a later date, although that's much less impressive in the visuals compared to games like Elite or Mass Effect Andromeda.

One fun thing about Elite is the lighting. You can usually depend on the lighting to change on the planets between landing one evening and taking off the next.

Same place, different day. I do like landing on the edges of the canyons. The surface features are interesting, especcially with that shadowing in there in the abyss.

Found some nice places on the way back.

But every journey comes to a conclusion at some point and this is Tea-89's final docking at Medupe Station. I've switched back to the big Tiamat's Chariot now, although I haven't played since docking up on Thursday.

I have names and a callsign for 2 more ships now ...
Dolphin or Beluga class : Chasing The Rainbow
This one is named after my last Warcraft guild, Chasing Rainbows. I didn't stay in the game for too long with that guild but they were a fun bunch led by the lovely pair of Katherine of Sky and Caledorn the Tentacle Lord and after hearing that Caledorn was using the Sleepydwagonman name in his Stellaris play through, I thought I had to give something back. Chasing The Rainbow needs a callsign though.

Type to be determined : Tea and Medals, callsign VOLT-5.
This one is for the Eve Online people, some of who I still keep in touch with. There's some very good friends there. I haven't played Eve in years but Tea and Medals fired off a "That's fun!" and I do like to indulge that. The name is for my first corporation in Eve, Back Home In Time For Tea And Medals and the callsign is for the 5 founder corporations of our alliance.

I think Dark Mercenary might appear as well at some point as another WoW themed name and there are many more people I'd love to name ships after as well. But I am a little limited by wanting to keep real life friend names off here ... and all the ships will be captured in Inara and EDSM (links to the right) so the names would appear on the internet at some point.

After hearing one of the best of its music come over the iTunes just now, I'm tempted to have a look at Teslagrad. It was a freebie acquired through Humble Bundle and its music is magical. Here's a link to the theme. When I transferred my library over to the new laptop, a lot of the game soundtracks didn't make it because they're a bit too bland and non-memorable. But even though I haven't played the game, the Teslagrad soundtrack stood out.

I've enjoyed Mass Effect Andromeda, although at 76 hours to complete the game to 96%, that felt like a decade !

There are some amazing visuals in there.

Creepy, mysterious locations.

Spectacular places.

Otherworldly structures.

I'm glad I went back to this one and finished it. It had massive criticism when it came out, most of which I think was down to the Star Wars factor where the fan base becomes massively unsatisfied with what comes next with their favourite series. In the case of Mass Effect, the story was well and truly concluded at the end of Mass Effect 3, so where could they go with the next game ?

Answer, an epic quest to another galaxy. The Andromeda galaxy. A new place, with new challenges, fresh enemies, interesting allies and updated ways of playing in the universe. The combat was genuinely more fluid than what we've seen before, with movement playing much more of a part. The setting was a more peaceful set up, with an unarmed scout ship and an unarmed rover. It was fun doing Mako Mountain Climbing in Mass Effect 1 but I really disliked the hovertank of ME2 and I can't remember ground vehicles being a thing at all in ME3.

Another reason ME Andromeda got a bad rap when it was released was because it was released unfinished. Animations and faces came out weird. There are bugs in there around the quest and journal system (although these are nowhere near as bad as the ME3 bugs). Sara Ryder, the female option for the protagonist and your character, was described as ultra derpy. I actually liked this, added to the charm. Plus as the story goes, she (redacted) as a chronological 22 year old. She's allowed to be just starting to figure things out at that age.

What I find weird is that finding fault in things like that, graphics that look as good as that.

And they do look really good.

There are elements to the game I don't like. Couldn't stand Liam, loved Peebee. Game went on too long ... but this meant there was a lot to do. Some of the time, that felt like busywork but it spaced out the heavier themed main missions more. And the enemy was pretty brutal too.

I don't think I'll go back to this game for a good long while because it did take a long time to finish but it was a good journey.

The next game of this style is probably going to be Deus Ex Mankind Divided, because the series on this by Hannah Lomadia is coming up on my upcoming video playlists and I'd like to play it before it does. I also played the hell out of Deus Ex Human Revolution, loved that game. Mankind Divided is the sequel but I bounced off it when it came out because my machine at the time wasn't really up to playing it.

Definitely more to come there.

What else is on the list ? Maybe a bit of No Mans Sky as well. This one is another space exploration type game that I bounced off, also due to trouble getting it to run. (It didn't like the monitor scaling I use on this 1440p screen).

I think I nearly mentioned book as well. I have abandoned a book ! First time in a while. I was highly intrigued and interested by Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C. Clarke, so when Rama II appeared as, I believe, a Humble Bundle thing, it went on my list of things to read. Trouble is, Rama II isn't really an Arthur C. Clarke book, it's a Gentry Lee book and it shows. Whereas Rendezvous With Rama was a short, tight, hard scifi book that came in, told its story and waved good bye again quickly, Rama II is not about the scifi and it's definitely not short or tight. I read a third of it before giving up. It took that long for them to get to the second Rama. Most of that third was tedious interpersonal human drama between instantly dislikeable characters. A lot of it was wasted with heavy handed over descriptive prose about concepts that Arthur C. Clarke would have conveyed to the reader with nonchalant efficiency.

After getting a bit sick of the book after that third, I looked up reviews which pretty much confirmed what I thought already and ... said it would get worse.

Next up is Redemption Ark by Alastair Reynolds. It's the sequel to Revelation Space, set in the medium future (27th century) where humanity is among the stars and both different and the same. A few interesting characters have made themselves known so far and one characteristic of Alastair Reynolds characters is that while you're in their heads with the prose, you never really know where they're going to go.

I think I'll be enjoying more of that book in about 1 minute after hitting post ! Well, maybe 5 minutes after catching up on Twit/Book and Discord.

See you soon, stay safe, be well.