Dub's Playlist of the Week

Even with Steam's awesome sale there have been only two games I've been playing this week, Empire: Total War and Alpha Protocol. Empire continues to be my game of choice while at work, its turn based campaign and the ability to pause during combat make it ideal.

There is a gameplay mode in ETW called The Road to Independence which tells the story of how America won its independence from the nasty British. The campaign itself is made up of four scenarios, with chapter four being the most interesting of the bunch. Honsetly, RtI is really just a glorified tutorial, but it's the only way to play as America because in the grand campaign they are not playable.

I actually met the victory conditions for the game awhile ago, but you are given the option to continue your game, so I did. I wanted to see some of the later military units and try for an achievement or two. The campaign by now is past that plateau of difficulty and is pretty easy; I have the largest army in the world, I'm making more money than I can hope to spend and I am pretty close to having every tech in the game researched.

So rather than continue with that game, I decided to try the grand campaign as Poland-Lithuania. So far I am having fun; I have been able to build up my infrastructure enough to support a couple of armies, made a deal with Prussia that gave me East Prussia for West Prussia (I came out on top in that trade), made a few alliances and even went to war with Prussia which saw me wipe them from existence!

Eventually I will be making my way over to Napolean: Total War, but for now I am still enjoying Empire too much.

The other game I have been playing is Alpha Protocol for the PC. Review scores for this game have been all over the place, with the PC scoring higher than the console version. I have a feeling I know why - Alpha Protocol is a third-person action RPG, and it's too easy to try and play the third-person action part and forget about the RPG aspect of the game. Alpha Protocol is like the first Mass Effect with regards to combat. The higher level you get, the more points you can invest in skills, the easier it is to kill things with guns.

There are a few other problems with the game as well like bugs, but I am hopelessly addicted to this game. I have completed the story twice now, and have already progressed about a third of the way through for a third time. Chances are looking good that I might even try a fourth play through because I would like to see how the game plays out if I make some decisions I have yet to choose the other times I have played. Hope that made sense.

The game made a lousy first impression for me, but something has worked cause I can't put it down. Even now as I write this I am looking forward to going home and playing. Maybe not worth fifty bucks, but I do think it's worth playing at some point for those who may be interested in the game.

So that's what I have been playing for the week. As of right now I don't know if that will change much for the coming week, but who knows, I did purchase an ass load of games from Steam during this insane sale and I may hop back on WoW and finally get my Pally up to level 80.