Only at the very end of the evening did I play the opening levels of Battlefield Bad Company 2, but I feel like I can take a long break from Minecraft now.
In my desperate attempt to make it to the End City on Survival Mode in Minecraft, I have been beaten and battered so much that I became willing to do just about anything to get there. So I had Mark do a "Mission Impossible" on the Mansion to steal every book in there. He cut a hole in the roof and snuck in under the noses of the Vindicators to rob the library. While he did that, I dug into mines and grabbed diamonds and obsidian. Together we built the enchantment table and put the glow on our armor. Then we laid waste the Nether Fortress and pulled the blaze rods from the living Blazes as they died. Neither Wither, nor Ghast stood in our way; each felt the sting of our flaming arrows and expired.
I loaded up my 3DS with Project STEAM the other day. It plays a whole lot like Valkyria Chronicles, maybe exactly like it. The battle system is the same. It’s turn-based, but you move freely about the field. You can save your action points to use when it’s not your turn. This is called overwatch mode, just like in XCOM, and it lets you automatically shoot at targets that move into your line of sight. The world is steam-punk and you fight an alien menace. I’m liking it.
I couldn’t resist going after several more achievements in Minecraft today, but I managed to tear myself away long enough to finish Halo 5, play a few rounds of Capcom's arcade game 1943, and start the install for Halo Wars 2.
I was going to get back to playing Halo 5 today, but when I heard there was new content and achievements in Minecraft, I went right back to it. By the end of my night, though, I was getting pretty tired of it, and I decided would put it down for tomorrow (my weekend right now is Fri-Sat).
You'd think Minecraft was a peaceful game of mining and crafting, but I spent a lot of time killing things and watching things get killed today.
I couldn’t get interested in any other game today, so I played Minecraft. I’ve decided that the ultimate fun in this game isn’t killing the Ender Dragon, but gaining the ability to enchant all your gear.
Over the week I completed my Ender Dragon Quest in Minecraft. Then I kept playing, sometimes on my own, sometimes with Mark, until I got really tired of it. Now I have my rental game, RiME, and will start that sometime this weekend.
I've finally had enough of Minecraft. I'm totally sick of the incredibly annoying enemy griefing in this game. It's unbelievable. You gather resources for hours just to lose it all when a Creeper appears in the worst possible place at the worst possible time. Or, like today, when I went into The Nether very cautiously to scout for the Fortress, found it, and on the way back was absolutely bombarded by mysteriously appearing Ghasts shooting at the fastest rate I've ever experienced. It's total B.S., and in my mind, completely unfair game design. It's like, remember those monster closets game devs used by in the 90s? You'd pass through an empty room thinking your six was safe when suddenly you would be attacked from behind by a hoard of enemies that seemed to appear for no good reason and in no explainable way. That's Minecraft in survival mode.
I thought I'd done all the Survival Mode achievements in the Xbox One version of the game but a few days ago a new one popped up when I tamed a horse. That almost had me looking at the achievement list but I avoided it. Today, though, I got bored trying to get to the Enderdragon and looked at the list. Here's some I got and some I didn't.
Mark and I played a bunch of Minecraft today. We played on Survival mode as usual and tried to gather all the matterials necessary to get to the Ender Dragon and beat it. In our first try, we got into The Nether and found ourselves on a island like structure high in the air with the fortress set to one side and seemingly far below. I tried to build some stairs down but eventually just jumped for the end of a broken walkway. I somehow survived it but then had to fight off multiple Blazes, Withers and Ghasts. It was a disaster and I kept dying, my equipment scattering all over the Fortress walkways.Each time I would respawn with no gear back at the town and dash back to The Nether to try and recover my stuff. This was, of course, folly and as soon as I picked up my gear I got killed again. Mark had similar issues and after a while it got too frustrating to continue.
In this post, I'll give a rundown of what I've been playing since the beginning of last fall, or at least the highlights.
I didn't blog on Wednesday because I got a stomach virus. I was fine the next morning but that didn't get in the way of gaming both Wed and Thurs. Here's the breakdown:
Played mostly Doom today and cooled down with some Minecraft. I should've switched to PS4 and played some No Man's Sky, but I was waiting for Mark, who had to reinstall Doom, to start up again so he could try out the map I made in Snapmap mode. I was going to go back to Doom when the reinstall finished, but it never did. For some reason the last 25 GB or so slowed down to a crawl. Anywho, here's a breakdown of what I played today.
I got Doom this weekend on a Gamestop sale - $20. Then I traded some stuff in and got it for $2. Then I was going to play it all weekend, but got sidetracked by Minecraft. I just saw my friend Mark playing it and decided it was more fun to play with others than by myself.
So I got Titanfall today with some birthday money, two copies, one for me and one for Mark. They were $8 each for XBO. I always wanted to try this game out. Well, while waiting for the install, I played a bit more Doom II and then this free-to-play game Battle Islands. Details follow.
Yes, out of work again. I guess I'm just mad. Or insane, or not mad, just annoyed - maybe stressed beyond tolerance, I don't know. Anyway, I needed to escape so video games to the rescue. Too stressed for serious stuff, so Minecraft it was.
I ended today thinking, this is the last of my great gaming binges. It may not be, but I kind of feel like a change is happening. This weekend I have plans for other things, and next week I'll begin a new schedule; although, not a new job - yet. I'm not sure how gaming is going to fit into it all, but we'll see. Anywho, here's a breakdown of today's gaming.
It wasn't all fun today as I helped Mark (who's wheelchair bound btw) build some shelving and move some cabinetry around his apartment. But then it was all fun. Mostly the same as yesterday. Defense Grid 2 and Minecraft.
Mostly too down to really say much but I'll say this, I do like a bit of permadeath when playing Minecraft. Set the game to not regen health, hard difficulty, survival mode and don't allow yourself a respawn. The game lasts, for me, around 25 minutes to an hour before something terrible happens and I die.
Trying to ease my mind again today as I wait for a call to work. It was play-food and tv-games on the XBO. The play-food was a chicken parm grinder, fries, and a diet Dr. Pepper. And the XBO tv-games were Defense Grid 2 and Minecraft, just like yesterday.
Troubling times for me this week, so I kept it simple with Minecraft and Defense Grid 2.
Started Monday playing Halo: Master Chief Collection. Mark and I are playing the cross game playlist that includes all four games. We were in the last parts of Halo 2 when the power went out in the neighborhood due to a storm. I'm feeling like 343 has tweaked gameplay in Halo 2 a little bit. It feels less like a run-and-gun power trip and more like a strategic cover based shooter. Weapons are less powerful and enemies are a little tougher. I used to melee enemies with one mjolnir powered fist, but now it takes several hits. It just doesn't feel right. A grunt should go down with one punch from a Spartan. Anyway, I'm feeling like Halo has gotten the COD treatment across all the games now and it disappoints me. This is not a realistic game. You're supposed to be a super soldier not just another vulnerable combatant. That being said, it was still fun, just not as fun as it could have been. After the power outage, Mark and I played Minecraft instead.