What I Played Today: February 7

Don't Starve, Harvest Moon

I checked out Don't Starve, because I hadn't in a while, and there surely must have been some updates. There were indeed! Research is now completely different, so it is less easy to just grind that out and have everything you need, and there's now a way to escape the island! Sounds exciting. So I jump in, walk over to a bird, then shut it off. Yeah, I don't know.

Also played a day on Harvest Moon: A New Beginning. It's going to be a long winter.

What I Played Today: December 8

Harvest Moon: A New Beginning, Peggle

I made it to Winter! Both in Harvest Moon, and in real life. It is superweird that you can still grow stuff while there is snow on the ground in Harvest Moon. I mean, it beats doing nothing, but still...weird. But hey, I might make it to spring and might just see the ending. Who knows?

Also played a bit of Peggle, because I was being boring today.

What I Played Today: November 29

Harvest Moon: A New Beginning

Still going at it! For some reason! Yeah, it's fall in the game, which means it's time for me to get superbored on Harvest Moon.

What I Played Today: November 27

Race for the Galaxy, Black Gold, Harvest Moon: A New Beginning

There was a clamor for Race for the Galaxy, which is cool I guess, so we played it a bit. Man, this game has/had a lot of potential. It feels like such an interesting piece that is just so hard to describe because everything on the cards looks bananas. So many times did people say, "I am not sure what I'm doing," and I ended up winning but going heavy-military planets and having a few good 6-cost developments.

Then Black Gold, which is an oil game with some auction elements. You drive your truck around to survey rigs, and build up your transport network, and so on. It's was okay; somehow we had this weird divide, where two players were doing really well and two players weren't, and it suddenly became a competition between them instead of between everyone. It just depends how screwed you get trying to sell your oil; if you can't sell it, then you just don't make any money. We had two players who just couldn't build more oil derricks for half of the game. I ended up in second place by a dollar because I misbid a couple of auctions, but I'm not sure how I feel about some of the choices and just how unlucky you can get based on placement.

I also made it to Fall in Harvest Moon. I keep trucking, I have a beehive now, and a paddy, and am spending every day just hoping that I find a brick or a goddamn chamomile in the wilderness. I kinda dislike that so much of the game is gated behind these random objects that I wouldn't even know the significance of when I first run into them in the spring. How was I supposed to know I needed to hang on to these honeycombs? Cheat?

(The answer is, in fact, cheat. I just found out one thing that I need won't be available until next spring. I almost want to start over, but that's kind of a horrible idea.)

What I Played Today: Thanksgiving Weekend

Harvest Moon: A New Beginning, The Walking Dead, Hotline Miami, Analogue: A Hate Story, Assassin's Creed 3, Persona 4 Golden, Persona 3 Portable

It was a long fun weekend! I will talk about it at GREAT LENGTH! I wasn't even trying to make a pun! Because that's not that funny!

Anyway, let's start with some handheld nonsense, which I played throughout. You've heard about these before, Harvest Moon, still working on that. Almost through the summer. I've managed to please the insane mayor who thinks I need to spend over $16,000 of my own money just to install street lamps around the city. Come on man, you know there is only one place I can get iron. Is this a racket? Are you shaking me down, man? Anyway, he gave me another list of demands, this guy, but it's the only way to unlock more houses, so there we go. Also some barber guy moved in. Sure whatever.

A little bit of Persona 3, heading for that perfect run, killed the first full moon shadow. I can't believe how easy this game is, especially considering:

Persona 4 Golden! Okay, so, it's still Persona 4, like, the first...um...eight hours is pretty much identical, with the addition of Marie, the new character that they keep talking about (she lives in the Velvet Room and is mean), and a huge incredible improvement to the actual gameplay. Big plus number one: less random nonsense. You now get to pick what card you want during shuffle time, and you get to choose what skills get inherited when you fuse personas. This is huge. It is so easy to get a nice little running crew, which is needed, because combat is pretty tough. They adjusted cost of elemental spells (you know, the spells that you are always using) so it's more expensive, and the first level benefit for your party member's social link is no longer the nice but broken "they will die for you." This is all little stuff, and I don't know why I am telling you. There are other little things; books are different; you can now go out and wander the streets at night, like a hooligan. (I like that you can only sneak out if Dojima's not home, otherwise he will yell at you.) Apparently the general store lady turns it into a pub at night? Wacky. ANYWAY, I like this package a lot. They did a lot to really pump up the game, even the textures look better. This was almost worth it.

I also played some Assassin's Creed 3 multiplayer, because I can. Good enough?

The rest of time, I was on Steam, getting caught up in the sale. I hear Hotline Miami is pretty good, and I played the first couple of levels of that, but I got stuck at the third level where there's this huge open lobby and some dudes with guns right off. How am I going to do this, guys? But yeah, good style, pretty fucked up, nice.

I also have had visual novels on the mind, so I played one that I bought a while ago and have been afraid to play. Analogue: A Hate Story. In the story, you play a space explorer investigating a derelict colony ship. Judging by the logs provided by the AI you run into, apparently society reset to that of Joseon-era Korea (maybe?) in which women were treated just absolutely awfully, and a girl with a terminal illness who was in cryostasis (who remembered when society didn't suck) gets woken up and forced to marry the emperor. It's interesting, written well, good interface. There was this weird gamey part that distracted me though, so I didn't get very far.

And the rest was The Walking Dead. I played through the whole thing, and man. If were not aware, The Walking Dead is an extremely depressing adventure game, in which you play Lee Everett, convicted murderer, who was on his way to jail when the zombie apocalypse happened. He finds a young girl named Clementine and commits to assisting her, and then a bunch of really fucking messed-up stuff happens. It just reminds me how much I am glad that zombies aren't a thing, because I would have no idea what I would do. But good character writing, good arcing, really interesting fast decision-making moments, you should all go play it if you haven't. Just...be prepared for a bunch of tough decisions. 

What I Played Today: November 20

Assassin's Creed III, Harvest Moon: A New Beginning

I went on a wacky binge today! I managed to walk away with five games! Three of them I wasn't expecting at all, so that's pretty great. Apparently buying Hitman: Absolution when I did also netted me the first three Hitman games as well. And of course I bought Persona 4: Golden. Why wouldn't I? Who do you think I am? I totally pasted on that goofy screen protector and changed my Vita wallpaper.

But I didn't play any of that. Saving up. Instead I spent a lot of time on the farm. A new person has moved in, because I built them a house, and it's...a newspaper delivery lady. Who looks 12. Okay, so I guess they're required to toss in their shitty lolita option in all these Japanese games because the concept of romance in Japan has its weird tropes, but man....why is she the second bachlorette to move in? Where are the other four? What is the hold-up? Why does it take so long to get more people? Don't give me realism, I just build an entire house in a day, and someone moved into it immediately. Why am I even complaining about this?

In Assassin's Creed III, Connor is a bit of a blowhard. He is not nice to anyone. And they keep introducing me to people as if I'm supposed to have any idea who they are. Some general who chomps on a cigar and has floppy hair? I still have no idea who that Christopher Lloyd guy was, haven't seen him since. Did he get shot? Is he dead? Also spent some time picking up some almanacs, and it doesn't make me visit Ben Franklin again, which is too bad, I want to see what that dude is up to. Instead it gives me one of his inventions to craft. Great, more stuff for the kinda pointless crafting system.

What I Played Today: November 18

Harvest Moon: A New Beginning, Rift

I spent most of the day watching some people play Wii U. They were playing a bunch of games I did not expect to see when you mention Nintendo, like Arkham City. It did remind me that I really should play Arkham City again. Maybe visit Calendar Man this upcoming Thursday.

Anyway, Harvest Moon, something goddamn happened, thank goodness. A lady moved in, and she is an architect. She told me how to build stuff. I can now build stuff, which changes things completely. Now I actually have something to do every day, gathering materials to improve the town. I finally have a home for chickens and a place to keep all these dumb rocks I am picking up. Now I work to build a newspaper office. Which makes me wonder where the newspapers are coming from now... I also lost a crop festival, that sucks.

Also a bit of Rift.

What I Played Today: November 12

Assassin's Creed 3, Harvest Moon: A New Beginning

More Assassin's Creed, spend a fair amount of time taking care of the homestead, building that up. Some stupid Quebecois jerk is falling in love with the hunter lady, so we get to watch that play out at a goddamn glacial pace. "Hey Connor, do you know what Myriam likes?" What the hell do you think, Frenchie? Just get her some damn flowers, which is, of course exactly what he does. There is this goofy, nonsense scene in which Connor walks up to the outhouse, and he's all like, "Hey, you in there?" And the guy is like, "Oh hey, one minute." Haha! It's funny because he was pooping! How does he not know what that little building is for? Surely he has seen an outhouse before and knows not to go rapping his fist against the door if he doesn't need to use it.

Also sailed my ship around a bit. Still not sure how I feel about it. I'm not sure why I am doing these things. That is, in fact, a big problem I'm having with Assassin's Creed 3. I am not supersure why I am doing any of this.

Also farming in Harvest Moon. No one else has moved in yet. Come on someone. Come join my crappy town.

What I Played Today: November 10

Persona 3 Portable, Harvest Moon: A New Beginning, Assassin's Creed 3

I stayed in bed ALL DAY. So a lot of handheld gaming; off and on between Persona 3 and Harvest Moon.

In Persona 3 the majority of the time was spent kicking so much butt in Tartarus (made it all the way to the highest floor possible already, then screwing around building up my money stock and waiting for these kids to get tired already. I must have hit a bug or something, because it took...at least two hours, and considering they are supposedly doing this in the "hour" between days, that seems off. But I finally did the right thing and am now moving along; although there is another trip to Tartarus on the schedule. UGG.

In Harvest Moon, just trucking along. Have a cow now, I pet it and feed it. My vegetables are coming in nicely. Got a good little surplus growing for when I need to start worrying about building more buildings. A girl finally moved in; apparently if I'm nice to hear she'll give me blueprints for tools? Maybe she can just give them to me now. What is she waiting for? Why do I have to bring her flowers? That's sexist, game. Also met the Harvest Sprites, who continue to be little jerks. For some reason they don't want to provide me with the music sheets that will give me access to different parts of the world. I have to find them.

Also played Assassin's Creed 3 multiplayer until the sun came up. I'm not proud. Well, I'm a little proud, I was doing pretty well. But I'm finally a high enough level that I can buy a lot of the stuff I want (about time I unlocked blender), although they seemed to be priced in such a way as to make buying Erudito credits (real money credits) very attractive. I don't want to complain, but can we please put some kind of stop gap in place with the whole freeium gameplay elements in full-priced games? It just seems...really greedy. I already threw down my sawbucks for the regular game, and I'm probably going to buy the season pass, don't throw up another price gate.

What I Played Today: November 5

Harvest Moon: A New Beginning, Fairway Solitaire

I'm on a farm, and there are only old people here in this crappy little town. Who am I supposed to woo, game? Why do I have to hang out with these old people?

Also, I got an iOS game for free, it's a dumb solitaire game, you know the one where you match cards either above or below? Anyway, it's actually mildly entertaining. There's a bunch of bullshit microtranactions nonsense, but hey, that's the name of the dumb dumb game.

What I Played Today: November 4

Harvest Moon: A New Beginning, Persona 3 Portable

So...I did a wrong thing. During my morning drive, I recalled that the new Harvest Moon game is out (which I technically played, but only through the tutorial), and so I went to the video game store and saw a placard that said I could get some faceplaces for my Vita if I preordered Persona 4 Golden. Then I walked over to the PS Vita display and had it in my hand and that's why I realized, "Oh crap, I'm buying this."

So I bought a Vita! And of course, the first thing I did after figure out how it worked is go to the PSN Store and redownload Persona 3 Portable, because the disc version of Persona 3 Portable I have can't be used. Then I played through the first couple of days of that as a male character. Yep!

What I Played Today: November 13

Rune Factory 3, Harvest Moon: Animal Parade

Mostly farmed today! Tried to make some progress in Animal Parade, managed to make some apple pie, that was neat, but it's still taking a long time to get anywhere in this game, so I quit out of frustration.

Also played Rune Factory, which was about the same.

What I Played Today: November 9

Harvest Moon: Animal Parade

I am back on the farm! Hung out with my chickens, I got some honey so now I have a bigger sack, that'll come in handy. I went to the fishing festival, and failed dramatically at fishing. I am so bad at fishing, you guys. Oh, and I can ride my cow around now, that's helpful. I can now move slightly faster. I hear the horse is faster, but I'm holding out for the ostrich. And...that's it! Each day is really long, so I never seem to make a lot of forward progress in terms of relationships.

What I Played Today: October 10

Harvest Moon: Animal Parade, Rift

I hung out on the farm today. Petting my ducks, giving flowers to girls. I met the last sprite, he's all pissy because people don't make wishes to him anymore, so I have to make friends with people so they will tell me their wishes so that I can tell them to the sprite so he stops acting like a jerk. And of course making friends with people is hard, because apparently talking to them every day doesn't work. You have to give them gifts and stuff. Ug, man, so difficult.

Also in Rift, I went into a dungeon and did dungeon stuff. It was the Iron Tombs...again. I'm really bored of the Iron Tombs! It's long, and there's a spider boss, and there's that asshole boss that you gotta keep ducking away from, and most of the bosses require special moving around...I want to try something else, is what I'm saying. We also wiped a number of times, once on trash and once on the not-really last boss, mainly because we didn't position ourselves correctly early on and the safe bubble spawned on the opposite side of the room.

What I Played Today: October 1

Rift, Harvest Moon: Animal Parade, Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes

Played a lot of Rift today; I've finally gotten across the first hump to get some more points towards my attunement, and holy crap, is this going to take a while. After 500,000 experience points, I finally received 100 points towards attunement, with which I could buy...nothing. There were no upgrades in my current attunement line that I could afford, so I had to wait until my next 500,000 before I could buy a measly 1% extra damage to a single type of creature. I understand that they don't want us to run out of upgrades, but jeezy creezy, it's going to be months before I am able to unlock Tier 2 on my current plate...and there are six plates! With three tiers each! What the hey!

I also did a lot of raid rifts today, as we just kept rolling, and it went well! I'm actually doing damage now, which is weird, and while I didn't get anything exciting, I did get some experience and some brownie points. I finally have enough tokens to buy a special planar key or whatever, still deciding if I want to do that. I also went into a dungeon that I'd never been in before and despite really kinda blarging along, we did pretty well, getting the super speedy badge for completion. Lot of fire though, oh man fire.

I played some Animal Parade, and made it through like a day. I thought the days were supposed to be pretty quick, but this particular day, in which I did nothing really important, took like 40 minutes. A lot of load time and a lot of standing inside, probably, but jeez!

Also, not sure if I can talk about it, but I made the beta for Wrath of Heroes, and...it's okay. It doesn't feel very...focused, especially considering you can change heroes whenever you want and the only mode is super deathmatch. We started off losing and we just keep losing. I'm not sure.

What I Played Today: September 27

Harvest Moon: Animal Parade

We have a fourth bell rung! Now nearly everything is back to normal. The storyline reward for this one is pretty crap; the only thing that happens is that it will be windy more often, which is dumb and noisy, and the mayor's son moved into town, and he looks like a complete git. But there is no thing but to keep trucking, as those youngsters say. I finally got a present from one of the girls, that was nice, but otherwise, it's pretty boring life in the countryside.

What I Played Today: September 26

Harvest Moon: Animal Parade

There was a goddamn typhoon! That wiped out nearly a third of my current crops, meaning I took a huge loss in income, and had to rebuild. Gosh dang, I say. But I'm still doing pretty well, I've got 8,000 bucks and nothing I need to spend it on immediately, hopefully I can build up a bit more wealth before I get hit with another absolutely necessary purchase. I just wish it wasn't raining so much.

Oh, I also finished collecting the ingredients for the Green Bell, transforming the Witch Princess (Seriously? Princess?) back into a human again, and got the bell. Now I just wait for the sun to come out, and we are in business. At least, some kind of business. I am also finally having some luck getting some hearts on people. People kinda like me! They really kinda like me!

What I Played Today: September 25

Harvest Moon: Animal Parade

I am all in, dicks! I may play this game for a month, I’m enjoying the experience that much. It is finally summer time, and I’m really gone overboard with my farming scheme, as I know have like 60 plots currently working. Hopefully I can make enough money to actually do everything I want to do with this next load. I should have the materials for the potion to cure that stupid Witch in a few days, just waiting for the corn to finish growing.

I did kinda peek ahead to see if there’s anything that I should be doing, and the answer is probably. There are a few things I did early on that I shouldn’t have, such as selling all my potatoes, chopping down one of my trees (which is finally bearing fruit) and not accepting a free calf when one was offered to me. Now there is no way for me to complete the circus animal quest until next spring, which sucks because apparently completing that would give me fast travel. Bah! But hey, summer is here, and it’s going pretty well, so I just gotta keep trucking. Also, giving gifts to absolutely everyone, because being friends with people is apparently very important.

What I Played Today: September 24

Rift, Harvest Moon: Animal Parade

I did a lot of PvP in Rift today, buying a near full set of the PvP armor with my extra favor to make me a bit more competitive in that space. It was real easy to duck in and out of games, so that went well. I have determined that I absolutely hate one of the capture-the-flag arenas because it has a stupid ruleset and is also absurdly large for its purpose, so I’m vowed never to play that one again. That’s something I can do. Who says I can’t?

Also put in a lot of time with Animal Parade. I have rung the next two bells, after performing a stupid segment in which I have to make five fish fall down a bit to hit some notes to play a song, and that requires me to roll a duck egg down a hill and send a rare black pearl into some…look, it was dumb. They might as well have told me “Yeah, I can give you the thing you need, but first I need these objects. Don’t fucking ask why.” At least then I wouldn’t have been bothered by the stupidity of this plot. But now that those are rung, I can go to a new island (with three whole people living there) and buy the good seeds, and nearly everyone is back in town again, so that’s neat. Now I just need to work to ring that last bell, which’ll take some cornmeal and butter, and we’ll see what happens next.

Oh, couple of other things. The circus is in town, and they’ve lost like all their dumb animals. They are apparently hiding the town, and I need to give them food in order to get them to rejoin the circus. Of course, the food in question is really hard to find, so who knows when I’ll complete that quest. I also made it to the top and bottom of the Garmon mines, and found some power berries, which increased my stamina bar length. That’s exciting.

What I Played Today: September 23

Devil Survivor, Gears of War, Ascension, Harvest Moon: Animal Parade

I brought my DS onto the train, and played a little bit of the Devil Survivor. It’s infinitely easier than I remember, although I did have a bit of trouble with the boss fight, having one of my teams die to the big bad yeti. But I am a bit further, and should be in the clear to get through the next day. They still haven’t unlocked demon combining yet, I remember it happening sooner last time I played.

Also tried the Gears of War board game again, and again lost about halfway through the game. I really don’t want to hate this game, and I’m pretty sure I don’t, I just wish there was something that I could possibly do to prevent the game from ending suddenly and angrily. You think everything is going well right up to the moment where suddenly you get a shit roll that knocks out all your cards without even asking. It really should be easier to resist outright dying if you’re in complete cover against one of the stronger enemies. The fact that there’s a 50% chance that a defense dice will be useless just makes it too easy to get headshot, and while in the video game it’s a case of “well, that’s too bad, reload,” in a board game it’s a bit brutal.

A couple of games of Ascension, which continues to be just right. I really don’t know why I hated the very idea of this game at first, it’s not bad. There’s a nice give and take, and the fact that there are two different means to victory and it’s hard to tell who’s doing well makes for some tense battles. Sure, it’s pretty random, but I’m starting to notice that there’s a weird flow to the center row, and being able to predict that can really swing the game. For example, if the early game has a lot of monsters, than chances are the late game isn’t going have very many, and going whole hog with Heavy Infantry will just slow you down in the end. Of course, this didn’t actually help me in the one game where I noticed it, as I still lost, but hey, at least I noticed it.

Also more Animal Parade. I don’t remember exactly what I did, because I’ve played at least five more hours since this point of my life I am chronicling, so…read tomorrow’s entry.