After almost two months of intermittent playing, I’ve finally finished Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. It was a lot of fun, even if I struggled with just how many collectibles there are (though the game gets points for giving you the ability to eventually unlock map icons for all of them) that I just did not care about. Honestly, the thing I was most-consumed with hunting down was enemies, so I could unlock the extensive collection of skills that were made available to me over the course of the game (and I’ve still got about a third of them to unlock despite having run through as much of the game as I care to at this point). The variations in combat options was incredibly refreshing, as was the variation in enemy combatants. Sure, it could be frustrating at times if my loadout was absolutely not the right set of powers and moves to be using in a given combat situation, but the number of options available within those loadouts meant only that I’d need to be a little creative to overcome these limitations. Throw in an interesting plot, some fun references to the greater Star Wars universe, a cast of great characters, and I’m willing to overlook the buggy and visually lackluster experience I had playing the game.
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Getting Stuck On Visuals in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
I’ve begun to play Star Wars Jedi: Survivor during what limited time I’ve been able to put toward video gaming (which isn’t much between unpacking, settling in to my apartment, recovering from total exhaustion, and my busy day-job). It has been a lot of fun, even if it feels like a weird experience compared to what I remember of the first game. I’m not certain the game itself is any different, but the way I’m experiencing it very much is. I played Fallen Order on my PC the first time, struggling through what felt like odd computer controls as I stubbornly refused to consider playing it on a console. I’d already bought it on the PC, after all. Why should I spend MORE money on it just to make my experience better? Eventually, my protests faded away and I played my two subsequent play-throughs (one full and one partial) on the PS4, though most of that was during my “listen to a podcast while playing a video game so my eyes, ears, and hands were completely occupied at all times” phase, so the experience of the game didn’t really stick with me.
Continue readingMy Biggest Gaming Influences
One of the first games I actually bought for myself was Age of Empires II (the special “The Conquerors” Expansion edition). Up to that point, I mostly got games for birthdays and as christmas presents, and I didn’t get very many since most games up to that point had been console games and my parents had set up consoles as “family owned” objects so no kid could claim ownership. When I bought my own laptop at 13, a few years after The Conquerors came out, I bought a handful of computer games to play on it. Knights of the Old Republic and KotOR II were two such games, but those came later.
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