I got to thinking about how to create a Random Encounter Table for PS3 games, because I always loved those things from my DnD days way, way back. Here are my results from the top 200 PS3 games on Metacritic.

Here's my "waiting for a car repair" blog about the 2011 games that I played relatively close to release date in order of Metacritic rating for that year. Also, I'm just noting the system I played the game on, not all available systems. 

I downloaded every 2000s era game I owned digitally on Xbox and started going through them. I added a bunch to my wish list as well in case a sale comes up. 

My Twin-stick shooter fascination has branched into a genre that is similar but not exactly the same. What I played this week is more along the lines of isometric multidirectional shooters. Really, the only substantial difference is that you use a trigger to shoot instead of using the right stick to both aim and shoot. Overall, it kind of feels pretty similar but maybe with less of a bullet hell feeling. Anyway, here's what I got into this week. 

A half-a-day left to game, but I had some time to write, and so here's what I've played so far. 

These darn brick-breakers, that is. I've been trying to play the earliest gaming styles on Xbox to coincide with my console Gen 1 theme this month. It's been a struggle, and compromises have been made, but it's also been fun, if at times frustrating. Gen 1 might get a miss from me next year if I do this again.

Over the Thanksgiving holidays I played quite a few games on Xbox. I'll try and list them below, but December, which starts today, is going to be nothing but Switch games, especially the Super Mario RPG remake I got last month. I've discovered that if I don't put the Xbox away, I will never get to anything else, so into a case it goes. I have plans for 2024, so I may not use it again until next September. More on that later. Onto the last two weeks' plays. 

The 3DS was released this year. Minecraft came out of beta. The highest rated games were Batman: Arkham City, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and Portal 2. Here's a list of what I put the most time into that year followed by stuff I played later and then a wish list. 

These are the games I played last Tuesday when I was off work. The routine is somewhat different every time I get to play. Like last week I played some Gears of War Judgment in four player co-op. It was fun and I'm going for a hardcore run of the game that way. I didn't get to Gears last Tuesday though. Here's what I got to. 

I guess I don't have one game I'm totally obsessed with right now, so it's jumping around a lot from game to game. This will change on Nov 5 (I think) when Forza Horizon 5 drops. 

Again I'll break it down between games played for Xbox Game Pass/MS rewards and my own choices. All Xbox One this week. Wish I could mix it up more with the other console makers, but I only have room for two systems up at once at my friend's place and right now it's Xbox One and Xbox 360. 

I'm really trying to play more stuff but Minecraft has my soul at the moment. Mark and I are just playing it like there was no other game in the world. What can I do? It's endlessly interesting. However, I did squeeze in one other game this weekend. 

...a wild variety of games as I complete Game Pass quests and try and clear my hard drive going from smallest file size to largest. Sometimes I even add a new game or get a new addition on Game Pass just because. Makes for a chaotic but fun and hyper game session - just how I like it. 

Gaming on Sunday. Absurdist lunacy filled in the gaps between games and all during. Appearing that day were such dadaesque creations as Captain Crunch (The one who crunches too much, not the cereal character) and Boo Bop from Tway (the one who speaks the undecipherable nonsense language which strangely sounds like variations on the McDonalds "I'm lovin' It" jingle). Read on if you dare (actually much less crazy than this opening paragraph).

Only a hundred years until the events of Rush's 2112 album. I can't wait. 

Some more EDF Insect Armageddon (sounds closely like Sharknado in a way) and Kingdom Hearts III today. RIP Wynton Marsalis. 

I played a lot of different games the last two days, mainly for rewards points, but also for fun. I would start a game for rewards points and then stay with it until it started to not be fun anymore. My real goal was to get to my legacy game, Bioshock, and delete all these Game Pass games so I would have enough memory to install Bioshock: The Collection. So here are all the games played.

My attempts to recreate Cary's turbo horse in Minecraft have been fufilled.

I'm still in choice paralysis, but when Mark invited me into his Minecraft world (survival mode), I had to go. So we played that a good long time. What's to tell? Just a lot about frustrating hidden treasures and cats, lots of cats. 

i struggled to complete the second tutorial exam in Final Fantasy Explorers. Mark and I challenged each other in various Atari Flashback Classics Vol. 3 games. We watched Blade Runner 2049. We played Minecraft in co-op, survival mode for a good long time. That's it in a nutshell. 

I did another time trial in Minecraft again. I took 90 minutes to build the enchantment table and apply magic to all my gear. I wanted to continue on, but I hadn't solved the distance issues. Since the Bedrock update on the XBO version of Minecraft, I've been very annoyed by how long it takes to find things like a village or woodland mansion in survival mode. The world has just gotten bigger and things are usually farther away. I don't want to hunt endlessly for these things. I'm thinking of a method to make it shorter. I may look up a seed. It feels like cheating, so I may not do it, but, I may. 

Wolfenstein II took all day to install but mostly because I kept pausing it so I could play Minecraft with Mark. Minecraft online gets really laggy if you are installing a game at the same time on Xbox One. So it never did complete, but it will be done tomorrow. Here's the other stuff I did instead. 

Today I nearly finished Battlefield Bad Company, mulled about in Minecraft for a bit, tried the Screamride demo and got into Puzzle Quest. I think I want to play some RPGs next time. 

I finally got screen shots and video I took on XBO to upload to OneDrive. From there I can embed them here; although, I've been having trouble with the video. I'm given a code from Onedrive that begins with the word iframe, but it doesn't show up when I use the video insert option above. I tried different settings and I get nothing. I really want to get that to work so I'll do more research to try and figure it out. It's possible there are some plugins needed that aren't supported here. I know if I try to select other than Flash I get a "plugin not supported" message. HTML5 and iframe selections give no results either. I'm stumped. Well, here are some screen shots at least. That's a great improvement. 

I finally found a good formula for playing Minecraft co-op. Mark has additional ideas, but for me it's perfect when we load an overworld in creative mode and make the enchantement table and a box of XP potions, then switch back to survival mode. This way you start at level 30 ready to enchant gear. Everything can be done faster, and you can get to the fun of gathering resources to make gear, build things and find The End Portal in some reasonable amount of time.