Well it looks like I have finally found a way to outsmart myself! Hooray?

After deciding for this month’s challenge that I wanted to focus simply on play, I made some decent ground. Last week I finally completed Rise of the Tomb Raider, and I am well on my way to completing The Order: 1886 in the next 24 hours.

As excited as I was for Tomb Raider, I had a few issues with it, and by the time I reached the end, I was more than ready to move along to something else. The camera was never quite on my side, the game wouldn’t always recognize my button presses, and I wasn’t hot on the story (especially the last section of the game). Did I love it? Not especially. Am I glad I played it? Yes.

As for The Order: 1886…I’m not even sure what to say. It’s easily one of the most beautiful games I’ve seen from the current generation of games. I just wish it allowed me to play more, or that it gave some direct indication that a 10 minute cutscene was about to require me to press any number of buttons seemingly out of nowhere. In one chapter, I spent most of it walking (slower than any person has ever walked ever) short distances down hallways between cutscenes. And if you asked me to explain the story in any sort of detail, I’d have to check with Wikipedia first.

I was also not blown away by the gunplay (no pun intended), and I’ve found that certain gunfights seem to be drawn out for no other purpose than to extend the length of the game, and I’m never a fan of time-padding measures.

Oh, and the quick time events.

There are many QTEs in this game, and for a game that has so many, I’d expect them to function better than they do. So many times I did exactly what was required of me, only to find myself inexplicably dead and starting over. Due to some of these factors (and my waning interest in the game) I did something I rarely do: I changed the difficulty setting to easy simply so it would go faster.

I believe I have only done that once before (Alice: Madness Returns) in my life of gaming, and I have no regrets.

So while I am not necessarily enjoying my playthrough of The Order, I am glad to be having the experience.

But I’ll also be gladder still when it is completed.

I’ve already decided that the next game on deck will be to jump back in to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. This should be both wonderful and hilarious as I don’t recall the control scheme, or how anything works. I was only about ten hours in, so hopefully I am still early on enough to get the hang of things before I’m thrown in the deep end. I had so much fun with the game when I played it before (only stopping temporarily due to a potential glitch I wanted to avoid), and I’m anxious to get back in there and start…witching (whatever that means, exactly).

So there you have it: progress. I may not be playing as much as I thought I would be, but I’m plowing through none the less. I’m also planning on finishing the campaign of Call of Duty: Black Ops III this week, as well as going back to Dying Light to brush up on my parkour and perhaps dive in to the Cuisine and Cargo DLC in preparation for The Following DLC coming out next month.

As you can see, there is much gaming going on ’round these parts. It’s pretty great.

Do you have any goals for this month? If so, what?