Black Friday sales and me…

A couple of years ago, I had never even heard of “Black Friday”. Then I knew what it was because gaming websites reported about it. It also “helped” that the German Amazon website introduced their Cyber Monday week. This year, I even heard the term “Black Friday” on radio ads for regular local shops as well as bigger chains. I still think it’s weird, because we don’t have anything special during that week and I’m pretty sure that if you asked the general German out there, he/she would have no idea where “Black Friday” even came from. Anyway, being a gamer, I am now well aware of what those terms means and I know the terror my wallet must go through during those days. However, I was a good girl: I only bought a couple of games. :p

I bought “Double Dragon” on GOG. I don’t even remember if it was part of the Black Friday deals. I just saw that name, saw that the trilogy was on sale and had to grab the game, no matter what! In this case, it’s not even that I want to play the game again. It is pure, 100 % nostalgia: I have an older brother, but to be honest, we never got along… except for a few “game” moments. One was when he taught me how to play table-tennis (I was never good, but good enough for him to play with sometimes). The other was when we built cars with legos and drove them against the door of our guest room (which we used for playing with our legos) as hard as we could (my mum hated that we did that because the lacquer on the door suffered – it was ooooold lacquer on an ooooold door, though – and it was loud. :p). If your car was the one sustaining the longest, you won. And then there was Double Dragon… I remember how we would play this game together and my mum would call us for lunch and we both just yelled: “Yes, in a miiiiinute!” – It took much longer. My mum was actually quite angry as lunch had gotten cold. At the same time, she was also quite happy, I think, because me and my brother had been playing along peacefully. In fact, he had even said how he enjoyed playing that game with me and how I was quite good! Since I’d been about… oh, I don’t know… 10 years old or so (him being 15 or 16 years old at the time), this was quite the compliment! :p

I bought the game now, tried to play it with my keyboard and quickly gave up. I either got REALLY bad in the last 15+ years or – probably more likely – I need to use my controller to play the game. ;)

Another game I got was Clockwork Tales: Of Glass and Ink – Never heard of it before, but I currently like playing games that don’t require my constant and fast reaction, especially given how many times I’ve fallen asleep in front of the PC in the last few weeks. No, don’t tell me to go to bed earlier! I’m trying to keep my sleeping schedule. :p My body just needs to adjust to the lack of light outside. I haven’t played it much so far, but the few minutes of playtime that I did get, the game seemed to be cute and had quite nice voice-over.

Crookz – The Big Heist: I played the demo before the game got released and like that game’s genre. Having it set in the 70s is a nice twist. The last game like that which I played was Shadowrun. I like Science Fiction, but I just get “enough of it” after a while (unlike fantasy settings). I decided not to get the game for full price and definitely not before launch and before more reviews had gotten in, because I just wasn’t sure I would really like it. It has gotten a “Mostly Positive” on Steam which is good enough for me. I liked the demo (basically, the tutorial), I like the setting and I think I really can’t do anything wrong for 6,24 € here. I also still go by my “movie theatre”-rule: If I can get about 1.5 to 2 hours of entertainment per 7 € spent, I get as much entertainment as I would out of a movie.

And then there is Sherlock Homes: Crimes and Punishments. This game had not even been on my wishlist until a few days ago. Nor had I heard of it before. I don’t even remember where I’d seen it, but it had immediately caught my attention. Somebody was playing it on Twitch, I think. Solving crimes – or puzzles rather – is nice and I saw a comparison to L.A. Noire in some player’s review. While yes, the review said it “falls a bit short” compared to it, it was still nice to see that game’s name there, as I happen to love L.A. Noire! Unfortunately, I get simulation sickness in Sherlock Holmes, as I can’t move the camera further away from my character and it’s shaking a bit too much. But well, I’ll just slowly continue playing it and I think I will be fine.

And as a “last minute” shopping spree, I bought the last remaining DLCs for Tropico 5. 3 € per DLC is much too expensive if you ask me. 0,74 € is okayish… actually, considering that some development time went into the DLC (but not much, I would guess, considering the DLCs are very “light”), it’s a good deal. I just don’t know if I’ll even use the new buildings that came with the DLCs. Then again, it is now complete and I have everything. Also, I am at 103 hours played right now. So I am preeetty certain I got my money’s worth out of the game either way.

I don’t even want to think about Christmas which is coming closer… there will be more sales then, right? I know I won’t have the time to play the games I just bought until then… oh dear. But I’ll try! :)