What I Played Today: March 20

Fire Emblem, Pushmo

I was on a plane today, and I brought my 3DS. Still playing Fire Emblem, still closing the game down whenever one of my favorite characters dies. Stop picking on Donnel, you monsters. Although, now looking at it, it appears that Barracks events happen every actual day, not after each chapter, which I guess is there to keep you coming back.

Also tried some Pushmo. I'm never in the right mindset for Pushmo. Whenever I think I'm doing well and then I fall, my first instinct is just to shut the whole thing down.

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: 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: December 22

Pushmo

On the train, playing Pushmo. They introduced some new mechanics, buttons that jut the piece out and portals. It makes it interesting.

What I Played Today: December 21

Pushmo, Skyrim

I have been made aware of a new puzzle game that's pretty cheap and super-accessible, Pushmo, in which you have to push and pull pieces of a pixel art image to try and navigate your way to the top. It's pretty good! The cleverest thing about it is how super easy it is to share puzzles; everyone has access to the Pushmo studio, where they can create an image, and once it's been solved, you can share with a QR code and e-mail it to yourself. At any time, you can put your 3DS up to one of this QR codes and instantly grab and save a puzzle. It's really quick and great, the only problem being that you are limited to how large of puzzle you can make based on your progress, so you can't download the majority of the pixel art puzzles out there right off the bat.

Also played Skyrim for a bit, just for kicks. I had forgotten how to play a little, and died a couple of times trying to get to some jerk hiding with some thieves who are all dead now. Doing this earned me an upgrade to a set of armor that I didn't know was available to me! Apparently the thieve's guild provides all its member with clothing, and I just kinda forgot to pick it up. They are really helpful for full sneaky guys, but I'm not I want those bonuses specifically. Still, neat.