What I've Been Playing This Week (aka Pile of Shame Sunday)

Gyrate Ct, huh?

The following post is part of a series of posts that are published every Sunday to update readers on what Mark G has been up to with respect to finishing off games on his "Pile of Shame". The games to target are picked by Choicest Games contributors Choona, Luke and myself. As I'll be talking about my progress through these games, there may be spoilers ahead, especially for games containing a narrative. Consider yourself warned.

Wasteland 2: Director's Cut

• Picked by Me
• Percentage Complete = 26%

Okay, I finally came across a scrap merchant in Prison Valley that has told me the location of Damonta, or at least a prisoner in the Ranger Citadel that can tell me about it. Damonta is apparently somewhere north east of the Prison Valley. I will need rad suits (which I already have, just hope they're up to the task) and listening to some "Mad Monks" on the radio will guide me there.

In other news, I've upgraded my weapons again so that all my assault rifles are now M16s and my sniper now has an M24.

There also some weird behaviour going on where when I level up, I don't get skill points anymore. I'm not sure if it's because I have to wait to level up twice or three times now in order to get points or whether it's a bug. Whatever the case, it's quite annoying.

Homefront: The Revolution

• Picked by Luke
• Percentage Complete = 21%

Ahhhh, "Hearts and Minds" now works... it seems like it only works in Yellow Zones which makes sense, since Red Zones are already lawless places I guess (so you've got no one to convince over there). I've got to be more careful in attracting attention in these zones since they'll continually spawn enemies unless you hide somewhere and wait for the alarm to stop (Assassin's Creed style). Oh, I also tried out a new weapon called a pneumatic pistol since I was hoping for the equivalent of a silenced pistol but it doesn't seem very effective at being a stealthy means of disabling cameras (it just ends up attracting more attention).

Police Quest

• Picked by Choona
• Percentage Complete = 32%

Been playing the old AGI version of Police Quest and it seems like I'm remembering what to do so far. Since Police Quest is so unforgiving when it comes to police procedure (e.g. it's game over if you don't check your patrol car's tyres) it actually makes the game slightly easier since next time, you just follow proper police procedure and you're done.

So, the first day for Sonny Bonds, besides being the first responder to a murder scene, is actually rather mundane and involves writing speeding tickets, responding to disturbances and arresting drunk drivers.

Driving around Lytton though is one of the most difficult tasks to do and funnily enough, I don't remember it being any easier in the VGA version (unless I'm confusing it for Police Quest III). Anyway, I've crashed the car multiple times already meaning lots of restored games. It's even more challenging when you have to pull cars over since you need your sirens on to do so, which means driving at ridiculously fast Code 3 speeds. You also require the physical map in order to find your way around Lytton since sometimes dispatch will tell you of the scene of a crime is at a certain intersection, but it doesn't help if you can't see street names in-game, unless you're happy to cruise around the streets of Lytton aimlessly searching for parked or crashed cars.

I'm currently stuck at arresting a drunk guy who always knocks me out when I open the back door for him. I may need to read the manual to find out what I'm actually meant to do as part of proper police procedure…

LINK:
[ The Pile of Shame ]