What I Played Today: January 17

Dance Central 3, Guild Wars 2

I finished Dance Central 3 today, the ending boss fight is a lot better than the boss fight in Dance Central 2, but still challenging. Although I suddenly now realize that I have fallen into Dr. Tan's trap by turning off breakdown sessions! Oh no! Anyway, the end credits feature 16-bit images of all the characters, include those two weirdos that haven't even shown up this game. And they are all wonderful and I want all of them on my computer. They are great. DJ MacCoy is still a buffoon.

Also played some Guild Wars 2, because I can. Apparently the weird frog people are helping the undead army by accident? And there are pirates everywhere, but they are never, ever actually sailing around. They are just being pirates.

What I Played Today: January 15

Dance Central 3, Don't Starve, Guild Wars

Dance Central 3's story continues to be insane. I was able to defuse mind-control helmets by exhibiting that I had swag. I think what I like is how just completely straight they play the entire thing. "Oh yeah, dance crimes are a real thing, and we use time travel to combat it."

Don't Starve has been updated, and now food rots. Because you didn't have enough problems. They also changed how your stomach works so it isn't so easy to eat your fill, three carrots will no longer do it. Well, the game probably needs to be a little harder, that's fine. Plus you can build a refrigerator, so that's fun.

Also did another clear in Guild Wars classic, for no particular reason. Just felt like doing it.

What I Played Today: January 8

Guild Wars 2, Don't Starve, Dance Central 3

I dicked around Guild Wars 2, played some of my Engineer, and I kinda like the Engineer a lot better than the Mesmer. The Engineer has, like, two weapons available to 'em, which is weird, but their range of additional spells, which gives them both a pretty good utility AND a skill on their utility belt, makes for an interesting dynamic. And there are utility skills that just completely replace their weapon set, which is also awesome.

But then I got bored, so I played my Mesmer for a while. Just doing my thing.

There was an update to Don't Starve, but it was super dull, only a cosmetic change that allows you to dig up the turf underneath you and relocate it. There'll be another update next week that'll actually add something.

Also more Dance Central, got through the 90's section. Guess what the dance craze of this era is? Don't guess, I'm going to tell you. The Macarena. Yep, I know how to dance the Macarena. Five stars.

What I Played Today: October 21

Dance Central 3, Cook Serve Delicious, Guild Wars

Okay, so, the story mode in Dance Central 3 is supposed to be hard. That is the only explanation, because when I play regular, it's not that hard. You just dance! It's easy!

Put in some more time in Cook Serve Delicious. I managed a perfect day, did a catering gig. They keep promising that I might get robbed, but it hasn't happened yet. Until it does, I won't be paying the $500 to put a paper sign that says, "Don't bring guns in here, stupid." Which...you know what? IF I saw that sign on a restaurant I was entering, I would not want to go in there. I would order my food to go.

Also for some reason, I logged into Guild Wars the First? And did a vanquish of an area? I don't know, I was in a mood. Although funny thing; I started vanquishing that region because I had a quest to clear a particular area. Got about...halfway done when I thought to hit the map button and found out I was in the wrong area completely. Nowhere close. It would not count towards the quest. What was I even doing?

What I Played Today: October 20

Dance Central 3

OOOOF you guys. Story mode is kicking the crap out of me. I am four stars behind in the 80's, and I only have four songs to get it in, so I need to do absolutely every song better, and I just can't. I might have to step down to easy, and then that's going to be lame. I don't want to be lame, you guys. Why do I have so few songs at my disposal? And why are you forcing me to listen to "The Right Stuff?" Come on.

What I Played Today: October 16

Avalon, Risk Legacy, Dance Central 3, Rift, Super Mario 3D Land, Pushmo

Got to try out Avalon, the Resistance sequel? that adds a bunch of roles, and I like it because roles are awesome. Good lost because of a couple of failed early missions, and while we did manage to get four known goods, we just didn't have the wiggle room to get more info later on. And Merlin was a non-starter, so there's that. Although, I ended up being super-trusted somehow, which was weird.

Then a game of Risk Legacy, that I hadn't played in five games, and apparently things had gotten nuclear. I was pretty much a non-entity, just kinda hanging in North America, slowly building up my hand, but the zombies snuck a victory before I could release my game winning, packet-opening maneuver. That sucks.

Then Dance Central 3! I love how goddamn stupid this story is. "Yeah, Dr. Tan is building dance robots and taking over the world with time travel? Don't think too much about it, just get out there and dance to 'I Will Survive.'" Although medium is a lot harder than I remember it being. Either that or I am a fat asshole.

I logged into Rift and did some Instant Adventures, which took me to a starting zone and deleveled me to 14. For a second there, I thought it was doing the Guild Wars 2 trick, but it turns out I could have bumped my level back up if I really wanted to. I don't know...the expansion comes out in a month. Maybe that'll be worth it?

Then I dicked around on my 3DS while watching Homeland. Finally beat that one level in Pushmo that had been giving me problems. Don't know how, but I did it.

What I Played Today: October 11

Dance Central

I danced. I danced until my heart stopped. Or, until I got mildly tired about 20 minutes later. One of the two.

What I Played Today: February 7

Dance Central 2

I beat Dance Central 2 today, on easy. Take that, dancing robots. I'm a bit disappointed in the ending credits, because they are just boring old ending credits, not the usual Harmonix "let's get zany" ending credits, which is disappointing. Well, hey, maybe the the ending is different on hard or something. It is funny that I was able to make a building explode by dancing.

Also, F(uck) You is really good. The bridge is probably the funniest dance sequence I've ever seen, and I love it.

What I Played Today: January 23

A Tale in the Desert, Dance Central 2

Running in the desert! I've decided to knock out the principles of the Obelisk, because it's actually relatively easy to do at a low level and I won't get too worked up to try and actually pass any tests, because I'm just kinda hanging anyway, I just want to experience all I can. Plus, I can have an adorable little obelisk at my home site, how cute.

There was a clutch of trolls hanging out in my zone, a few jackasses I saw earlier on my adventures, and who started to annoy me for no discernable reason. They didn't actually DO anything; they showed up in the chat, demanding a tribute of linen that they didn't get, then talked about poop. The most annoying part was probably how they figured out how to add a weird banner to all their names, so that it was hard to ignore them when they were nearby. But...they were just there, and it was remarkably easy not to engage them. I mean, I'd think they would run around building wood planes everywhere. (In fact, I think that's what they threatened to do, and just didn't bother.)

I also played Dance Central 2 again, meeting the Glitterati and passing their level easily. Their songs are definitely more Gaga and European, but their challenge song "Born this Way" is ridiculously low contact. But then, after passing that, the game just thrust me right into the marathon boss fight, and I was kinda too tired for it! I made it throught two songs okay, but I wasn't quite hitting the third, and the option was either retry that song right away, or quit and have to start over. Having already danced for 25 whole minutes, I balked, but man, that was kinda nuts that it didn't even ask me if I wanted to start the marathon battle. Come on guys, this is legitimate exercise.

What I Played Today: Christmas Vacation

Saints Row the Third, Rift, Skyrim, VVVVVV, Dungeons of Dredmor, Pushmo, Dance Central 2, Agricola, A Few Acres of Snow, Sentinels of the Multiverse, Various

Listen, I'm not going into great detail of all the games that I've played over the past few days, in which I was not working very hard. So let's hit a few highlights:

I beat Saint's Row the Third, and the ending is pretty good. I won't be ruining exactly what happens, but there is a part where you have to choose which ending you get, and "Holding Out for a Hero" starts playing, and it is great. Also, the after-the-finale mission really confused the hell out of me for a good three minutes until I remembered, "Oh right. This game is crazy, but not that crazy." But yeah! Great game. Although I think, from hearing some gibber-gabber, that I watched the "bad ending," which makes absolutely no sense to me. Oh well, they left the final mission replayable so I can see the other ending if I want.

I partook of a few board games over the Internet, one being a deckbuilding game that I sure wasn't going to buy, A Few Acres of Snow. It's not that great... I have decided that I just don't like Martin Wallace, and he can get over it. His games feel crunchy to the point of boredom, simulating a lot of things that don't really need to be. In this, you're trying to gain control over a certain amount of the board by playing location cards and connection cards, and to build up territories and bleh. You spend a lot of time cycling your deck because you do not get the locations you need, and I only won the game I was playing because my opponent kinda refused to actually attack me. I also found a poor man's version of Agricola online, which is just weird and wonky. This guy bought 12 physical copies of Agricola and hid them in his closet, so technically you are playing with those sets. The interface is way wonky, and you better know exactly how to play the game, because nothing is automated. If you need to pay food, or gain food, or anything, you gotta do it yourself. Still, nice there is a space where I can play this by myself, because I've completely lost my actual copy of it.

Also on Rift, my guild completely up and switched servers, which is apparently really easy to do. So I followed, and screwed around some. I ran a couple of regular dungeons that were way too easy for someone of my level, but I wanted to actually see them before I tried them at Tier 2. They also added an Instant Adventure mode, which immediately teleports to an area and tells you, "go on, kill 10 boars. Kill 10 boars until you die." It's good for experience I guess, but not as good as chronicles. But it's handled pretty strangely.

Also played other stuff. I won't go into any details, but I acknowledge that I played it.

What I Played Today: October 25

Dance Central 2, Batman: Arkham City

I played a little of Dance Central 2 today, showed off for Riptide. I don't know if I was just picking fast songs or if I'm out of shape, but the movements seem a lot more complicated. There is a lot of variation in this, and it wasn't until the challenge song that I started noticing moves from the first game. But I managed to impress them enough that I can rep for them with the other crews, so...that's nice, I guess. I'm not really sure what that means, but that's nice.

I also was Batman some more today. I went back to Joker's house to track down the last TITAN canister and get some thing that Mr. Freeze just kinda forgot about, and got into the worst fight ever. I died like five or six times on just a crowd of ten guys, mainly because this crowd had access to four guns. It took a lot of variation to figure out just what I needed to do. Ignoring them did not work, and I was having a lot of trouble keeping them shut down, so I had to really work the variations and used also all my gadgets, which made things really easy. The freeze bombs works really really well for just shutting down an asshole you don't want to deal with right away, and it still took a few tries to really get it right. But I finally got it! Also, you'll never guess what Bane did. But it turned out okay, because I'm Batman.

What I Played Today: October 17

Dance Central

I danced a little. A very little. I felt like it. Get over it.

What I Played Today: August 26

Penny Arcade: Gamers vs. Evil, Quarriors, Nuns on the Run, Dance Central 2, Mii Plaza

PAX guys. It's a big thing! Today was the day where I got a good look at the floor and purchased stuff, not worrying too much about getting a lot of play in but making sure to get what I wanted before they were sold out. I also brought along my 3DS to try and do some Streetpassing, which does not work as well as you'd think! You can only collect ten people at a time, so you constantly had to log in and check on guys. It was pretty annoying, and eventually I just decided to give up.

Around 4 p.m. I had successfully scouted the area and found what I needed to buy, and then bought them up, only skipping the Gears of War board game because it was about $10 more expensive than I expected. After I loaded my hands up, I went to the Dance Central 2 booth and did a dance battle. This is exactly what I wanted, and I will buy it when they will let me.

Then at the hotel we cracked open a couple of boxes. Penny Arcade: Gamers vs. Evil is another deck building game, but with a lot more jokes. It's really simple, with two currency sources, tokens and power, and almost every cards provides you with one or the other. Tokens buy strong cards, power buys cards with victory points. Each player also has a character that gives them a unique ability and determines what their starting deck layout. It's pretty fun, although I have heard the TouchWeiners joke about fifteen hundred times already.

One of the vendors had Quarriors, which I heard was all sold out, so it was bought, and I really like this one. It's another dang deck building game, but with dice instead. Each dice provides either currency, a creature, or a spell effect, and the basic premise is to keep all your creatures alive to your next turn while killing your opponents. But it's fast and highly customizable, because while there are 130 dice, each dice set has at least three different versions, so while you may be playing with the blob dice, it will work differently in one game than it did in another. It's pretty good.

After a panel that we got kicked out of early (the nerve), we played a game of Nuns on the Run, which I didn't know the rules to, and am still uncertain about! After some mishaps, we almost got the hang of it, with the secret movement and the hey-hey, but I managed to catch the other players a few times, ending the game. I'm not sure I like this, because it's a deductive game that puts too much emphasis on a single player doing all the deducting, and there's just too much randomness.

Back at the hotel, a few more games of stuff I already talked about, they are still good, so no more. To sleep.

What I Played Today: April 28

Rock Band, Dance Central

Playing with some new strangers tonight, who surprisingly had some good energy and were willing to try a lot of things, which is a good quality to have in strangers you invite over to play games. We played some Rock Band, with a lot of people willing to sing, and some Dance Central, which continues to be the new bar, and people just are still pretty afraid to try it. I also was forced to play through the Abbey Road Medley for the second time in a week, which wasn’t that big of deal, because all I had to do was back-up sing this time, but it’s interesting how things repeat themselves.

What I Played Today: March 20

Time’s Up, Rock Band, You Don’t Know Jack, Dance Central

Party night, with a lot of times playing games, switching around from one to the other. We started with Time’s Up, an old classic at this point, although we constantly seem to pull two different things whenever we play. A) Really obscure albums and movies that dart around the table with nobody getting them (this time it was Zorbo the Greek) B) Ava Maria, a clue card that seems to come up every single game. I really don’t know why so many cards have those two words printed on them. In a weird case of synchronicity, there was a clue that was the name of someone in the room, and once again, the person whose job it was to guess the name didn’t pick up on this, and guessed “Mama Mia.” Not as bad as yesterday, but still very weird that it happened twice in one weekend.

Two quick dance battles on Dance Central, although I did find out that a couple of new songs that are really good were released as DLC, “Weapon of Choice” and “Straight Up” by Paula Abdul, which I need to pick up as soon as possible. Then we went into the usual marathon Rock Band session, which was pretty fun. We tackled “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” which I think went really well, but otherwise the play eventually fizzled.

Then we moved on to You Don’t Know Jack, which I continue to like, despite the fact that it seems people do not know useless trivia as much as I do, because in a large group, it came down to a two man competition. But I like sharing the humor of the game with people, it’s probably the only trivia game that can play to a crowd, because if you aren’t playing, at least you’re being entertained.

What I Played Today: December 16

Space Hulk: Death Angel, Dance Central, Thunderstone

Games with friends this evening, which was a good time. Space Angel hit the table again, because I hadn’t played in a while, and although the game seemed to be going pretty well, it started going downhill pretty fast once we plodded towards the last room, in which we lost when the broodlords appeared and sliced through the remaining six members. We managed to last longer than we thought we would, but it still was a matter of six on one, which never goes well for the Space Marines.

Then a marathon session of Dance Central to get the Dance Battle badge, which requires 10 dance battles in one session. I realized about 8 songs in that I probably could have done this alone, but we were too far in as we matched 1-for-1 on wins. I eventually flagged late in the game and started losing more than winning, but it was a fun time, if a bit exhausting.

And onward to Thunderstone, which hasn’t been played in a while. It was fine, featuring some neat cards, but it also got really awful at points because of the inclusion of death traps in the deck. There are two kinds of traps included in this little addition, pit traps, which might kill a hero from your hand if you don’t have a rogue in your party, and boulder traps, which will unequivocally kill three heroes at random from your deck. The difference in severity between the two cards is a huge fault in design to me, and the fact that there are three boulder traps included means that without a doubt, you are going to lose nine heroes. In a five player game, that is 45 heroes DEAD, in an environment that only supports 78 heroes in total, assuming no one levels a hero. That is nearly 60% of all available fighters killed by this horrible, horrible card. It also makes no sense from a flavor point of view, how is the boulder rolling into the village and slaughtering great warriors who weren’t even involved in tripping the trap. I’m sorry, but I really hate this card; in the wrong environment, it makes the game impossible to win.

What I Played Today: November 29

Alan Wake, Costume Quest, Dance Central

And…we’re back. I’ve been playing a few games today and yesterday, but they were the same games, so I’ll go ahead and count them both.

I received Alan Wake in the mail from Gamefly, and I’m liking it a lot. The story has a lot of mystery to it, and the atmosphere is great. I do find some of the shooter aspects annoying, mainly because shooters are somewhat obnoxious when they get long in the teeth, but I like the philosophy of breaking up each of the action shooter scenes by causing you to drop pretty much everything you’re carrying between areas. Of course it makes sense to hang on to the shotgun that you found in the woods, but whoops, some maniac started shooting at you and you had to leave it behind! So it’s pretty fun.

I purchased Costume Quest, and while it feels like a low-end RPG, the flavor of the game is definitely there. It has a nice low-key humor, the over world a typical suburban neighborhood, overflowing with Halloween trimmings, while whenever you get into battle, it’s high concept combat with giant robots and Lady Liberty versus giant goblins. It’s cute, and even though the battles are a little difficult after a bit, there’s just enough strategy there to make it interesting. Probably the most jarring part to me is how quickly the game starts rolling after you get past the suburbs, but I haven’t gotten much further beyond that, so there we go.

I completed Dance Central today, and yes, Eliot is a robot. A robot wearing a tie and a jaunty hat! So, I danced through about 15 songs worth of routines (it only took about 7-8 minutes, shorter than I expected, because it seemed like it would require doing bits from EVERY SONG, but not so), and then after that there’s a short cutscene that makes double-plus no sense, and then the traditional Harmonix ending, with the entire staff showing off how awesome they are, and then about six minutes of scrolling credits. I always like the pages of the staff showing off, mainly because it’s cool to see the people behind the game, and also because everyone who works there looks like they are having an awesome time. It also doesn’t hurt that a lot of them are fairly photogenic. So hurray for passing a game, now to try to get through all the medium level routines…and then the hard level…and then try a couple of no-flashcards…oh geez.

What I Played Today: November 8

Dance Central, Picross 3D

Um, not a lot to talk about today. Just playing games to fill the time, like Picross 3D. While I like the puzzles, I am getting frustrated by having 100’s of them to do. It just seems like a impossible challenge, and the fact that I can’t change the level of difficulty I want without completing every puzzle of the lower difficulty first is confusing to me. I don’t think I need to sharpen my teeth on DOZENS of easy puzzles before I can handle a medium one. But there you are.

Also been getting into the habit of playing Dance Central to exercise, which is working out pretty well, although noticeably more low-intensity than Dance Dance Revolution is. I am sweating some, but not “oh god this is awful” sweat, but I’m sweating off about 50 calories every five minutes, according to it, and it’s really on me to work out better. But I’m having fun. I love the dance move names and how varied they are. Keyboard Cat still remains my favorite, but I like Love Warrior a lot.

What I Played Today: November 5

Dance Central, Your Shape Fitness Evolved, Innovation, Back to the Future Card Game

I played more Kinect this evening, breaking the plastic of the third game I got, the fitness game. It is exactly what you think it is, although I don’t think the camera is doing enough. I mean, it says that it’s diagnosing me, but it doesn’t make any suggestions besides “Start at the beginning,” which I was going to do anyway. But I won’t be talking about it unless it does something fantastic, because I plan to use it a lot more, and it’ll get boring to talk about after a bit.

Also played some more Dance Central, and my opinion of the game hasn’t changed. They do a lot of things right, the flavor is good, the game works well, and while it sometimes doesn’t give you credit for your dance, you soon realize that it’s not that big of deal, you can still do pretty well as long as you’re doing it right. I actually goldstared a song on easy, which I wasn’t expecting to do, so that was neat.

There was also a moment when the magic technology was really kicking our butts, so some analog games were played. Innovation hit the table, and I lost pretty soundly…my opponent was able to get a few good cards that ramped up his score while keeping me down, and it was down to a situation where I had to drain his score pile quickly, which isn’t really all that possible. I had the card, but it was in my hand, not on the board.

I lost the round of the Back to the Future Card Game too. I hadn’t realized how many cards allow you to dig for the card you need; there are five rewinds in the deck, which let you play a card from the discard, and three others that allow you to search the deck. The game doesn’t have a lot of tension with two players; you’re basically just trying to screw the other guy with cancellation cards, but most likely you won’t interfere with each other on the timeline.

What I Played Today: November 4

Rock Band Unplugged, Kinect Adventures, Dance Central, Picross 3D

Guess what day it was everybody! It is Kinect release day, and I had my preorder at the Best Buy, so after a doctor’s appointment that required me to fast all day, I went down and picked it up, convinced by the doctor’s appointment that I really need this, because it means more exercise.

So I got a friend and together we started our Kinect adventure with Kinect Adventures. It’s the minigame fest that comes with the system, and it does a good job of showing off the hardware. We played all the minigames, and they all show off a different obstacle, easy to figure out but intriguing. I think the minecart one is my favorite, with 20,000 Leaks in a close second, just because the premise is ridiculous. The raft one is exhausting, because you’re always jumping and it’s hard to steer with two people. But it’s fun for a try, even if the living statues are kinda beyond silly. (Side note: We’re in a shark!)

Then we moved onto the real meat of the system, Dance Central, which is every bit as great as I thought it would be. Fun songs, fun actions, fun intro, lots of objectives to complete, it just works. Probably my only complaint is that the responsiveness is not complete (but what do you expect) and every song has a freestyle mode, which I don’t get. I understand that one of the gimmicks of the system is “it can totally take your picture,” but I really don’t need to be shown a picture of myself every five minutes. I know what I look like while I’m in my living room. But I look forward to playing even more of this.

Played a little bit of Rock Band Unplugged on the train, because I hadn’t yet, and it was like a time machine. The graphics were all Rock Band 1, and the songs were all old classics. The Frequency style gameplay is fine, although I was weirded out by the vocal track, because it looked like all the rest, but I think it’s pretty competent. It’s way too hard on hard difficulty for me yet, though.

Also finally got to play Picross 3D, and I could not put it down. Picrosses are probably my favorite puzzles, and this twist on it counts for a lot. It’s really clever, the fact that you don’t know the numbers for some columns, the requirement to think in three dimensions, the implementation of how you handle the interiors. It’s a bit wonky to get used to, but once you do, it’s pretty awesome. Hopefully I can unlock the mediums soon; that appears to be where the action really heats up.