A Total Surprise – Weekly Gaming Check-in for 12/8/19

Weekly Gaming Thoughts

I’m rarely surprised by gaming. More specifically, I’m rarely surprised by my reaction to a game. Much of the time I’ll play a game, enjoy it for a bit and move on. The rare game, I stick around with for longer. Even rarer still is one that grabs me by the short and curlies and doesn’t let go. Yet this happened this past weekend with 2013’s Tomb Raider reboot.

Why Tomb Raider, and why now? Well, in the new Humble Choice, besides a ton of great games, one of them was Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the third in the rebooted series. I realized I’d not played any of them, so I figured I’d give the first game a try. When it came out, I wasn’t sure it would run on my machine, but I got it cheap somehow and then kinda forgot about it. Now, of course, it runs like a champ on my beast of a PC.

In the last two days, I’ve put in two four-hour sessions into this game. That rarely happens. Usually, I play an hour here or a couple of hours there and move onto something else. This game has something about it, a momentum that keeps me wanting to play it. To see what happens to Lara and how she overcomes the mess she’s me thrust into.

It helps that the story is great, the acting is superb and the gameplay just FEELS right. I have to say, I’m just shooooocked about this one. I’m around halfway through it at the moment, so I hope to finish it and start the second game, Rise of the Tomb Raider, over the next week.

What I’ve Been Playing

• Tomb Raider – As I said, I’m shocked at how good this is.
• Air Hauler 2 – As specified here, I got this on the Steam sale recently because I kept hearing good things about it. Well, so far it’s neat, but I’ve not been able to get into the meat of it because I keep failing the test one needs to pass in order to actually start taking air freight missions. I’m super rusty with Flight Simulator, so I keep failing the landings. I’ll get it though.
• Lord of the Rings Online – I’ve come to realize this game just relaxes me. If I’m stressed or have a headache or whatever else, playing a couple of quests in this virtual Middle Earth really calms me.
• The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut – This was on sale recently, and the chatter about it got me back into playing it. I’m still a bit lost on where to go to actually complete quests from the main hub, but it’s fun regardless.

What I’m Planning on Playing

• Strike Fighters 2 – I started a new campaign with an A-10 and only did a mission or two before Air Hauler 2 took over my sim time, but I’ll get back to it.

So yeah, a busy week of gaming. What have you folks been playing? Can’t wait to hear what’s taking up your gaming time. Have a great week!