What I Played Today: May 5

EVE Online, Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World

I discovered a neat trick to get a lot of money quickly. All those Loyalty points I've been building it can be turned in for these data discs that sell for about 4 million ISK, and I turned all those into a fancy new cruiser and bought a whole bunch of weapons and ammo and some target painters and I'm ready to take on the world! So I took on the storyline quest with 10 branches I had waiting for me, went to the staging arena, and wholly crap is this mission stupid hard. Like, I'm fighting five OTHER cruisers that slam me for 100 points of damage per hit. I managed to get through the first mission with lots of planned retreats, but the third mission is just worse. I need to figure out how to improve my shield strength. Screw these dumb spaceships. I feel like I can totally take on those dumb drone that killed me the first time though.

Also played Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World for, like, ten minutes. I made it to the Todd fight and it got hard. Stupid Todd.

What I Played Today: April 27

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, Cards Against Humanity, Ascension, Spaceteam, Artemis, Trivial Pursuit

Hanging out with some old as chums today, got to play some cool games. Played a few moments of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, which was a weird game to pull out, but hey, I still like it. Apparently it's easier now, I should finish that game...

Then a very long game of Cards Against Humanity! We laughed at awful things! There was a terrible Trayvon Martin reference! There was a quick game of Spaceteam in there while someone went to the bathroom! I like Spaceteam!

Then a few of us played Artemis, which turns out is surprisingly fun once you figure out what the fuck you are doing. There was probably a full hour of trying to get it set up and trying to figure out what on earth we were doing, but we eventually managed to fly through space without too much trouble. I got to play the captain as well as Communications, which is nice, so I got to tell people "Hey, go over there and shoot that spaceship." Pretty fun. We completed one mission successfully, then tried another and ended up dying when the program crashed. The program is very crashy on the iOS versions, but now that I know how to play, I want to do it again.

Then played a new Ascension, which is pretty neat! It has a new resource to gain, which allows you to get benefits if you have enough of it on a given turn, and the majority of the time, it doesn't choke up your deck. The way you get the treasure needed to gain the new resource is a bit slapdash, but it really makes the game a bit more interesting.

And then an endless game of Trivial Pursuit, using the original Genus set. Guess what doesn't exist anymore! That's right, Western Germany.

What I Played Today: October 23

Kongregate, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

I played a lot of flash games on Kongregate today, too many to count, mostly games I found myself getting frustrated with. There was a shoot-’em-up that was all drawn on paper and then converted, but there was a serious game design misstep, in which the scale up of the weapons provided did not match the scale up of the hit points of the enemies. The best consistent weapon dealt 33 damage without upgrades, while every enemy is the last level has over 250 hit points at least, while flying at you five at a time. It’s impossible to kill enough enemies to get the cash needed to purchase the upgrades, and…it sucks. I also played a game that was more educational, as it taught you about various diseases and asked you to diagnose patients. It failed in general because it taught you both diseases that were too similar, and ones that were too different. It was just too painful to get the upgrades to the next level.

I also may have made a significant purchase, and in order to test this purchase, I of course chose to play a game that would show off my purchase the least, an 8-bit game. Well, it still looked good, and I played through most of the 3rd stage until those two bodyguards killed me after their second resurrection. Stupid stage looks like it’ll be a lot shorter than you’d think, except that enemies keep spawning to attack you. There’s also no store, which is weird…at least the 2nd stage has a hot dog shack. But hey, I guess that just means I have to go back and buy some sweet stuff from main street.

What I Played Today: September 7

(undisclosed), Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

I had a whole post written up about the game I played today, only to realize that, oh hell, I agreed to a NDA, so I guess you get to know that I played...a game.

Also played Scott Pilgrim vs. the World! Got past Lucas Lee, which I wasn't expecting, because damn is he unreasonably hard. The block button is your friend. I've also leveled Kim Pine enough to have her perform a lot better than before, able to actually dish out some damage.

What I Played Today: August 29

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, Persona 3, Heroes of Might and Magic Kingdoms

Played more games, and went to a gaming auction, in which I got some cool stuff for pretty good prices, including Key Harvest, which is one of those games I assumed I never would own, just because the Key series is pretty rare. But I didn’t actually play any of them, so can’t talk about those…

I did play Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World and failed out twice on Lucas Lee, who is a huge jackass, by the way. The second he gets his hand on that skateboard, you can kiss your lives goodbye, as it grants him an attack that deals 50 damage in a single difficult-to-avoid volley, and even with full lives, I couldn’t take him down. So I must collect coins and level up, I guess.

Also played more towards the eventually conclusion of my Persona 3 male game, and realize with clenched teeth that I’m nowhere close to max social links. Much further than the first time I played, of course, but I really wanted to see all the stories. And of course the ones I’m going to miss out on are the ones that only appear late in the game, which means if I want to see them I’ll have to play all over again…gah.

My favorite sidequest happened though, the one where the lady who assists in the Velvet Room asks to see “your room,” for exactly all the reasons you think she wants to see it. I love that the MC is such a mackdaddy that not only can he bag five chicks, three of whom are all close friends with each other, but also a robot and an outerworldly being. He’s got mad skills, you would say.

Also got lassoed into another browser game…but I got in on the ground floor, baby! It’s another ridiculous city management game, but the approach is pretty good so far, as there is a huge PvE aspect, in which in order to get anywhere, you have to fight the game first, rather than your fellow man. My only complaint so far is that it is slow, with each 24-hour cycle only netting you the resources to build one building, maybe, and needing a hero to do anything at all, and you only get three total in the free version of the game. So it’s not something you can really devote some time to. Which I guess is the point…but it sucks giving one order and then coming back five hours later to see what happened.

What I Played Today: August 27

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, Plants vs. Zombies, DJ Hero, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

I finished two games today! That’s quite an achievement, if I say so. Sure, I was on the last level on both games, and was just a matter of finishing things up, but hey, they are done. In the can. Boosh.

I first completed Plants vs. Zombies. Finally figured out that the big damn zombies are just, you know, big, and a cherry bomb will take out half their life, so that they were actually defeatable before they squashed all my stuff. Also, screw that little zombie. But the true test was the Zomboss, who has a giant robot. I had to look up a hint so that I didn’t lose all my dude, but after about five tries, he was dead, and I got to “enjoy” their cute little ending song. Ug, cute songs. So, now I need to grind levels until I can afford the ridiculous prices for the cool stuff. Luckily, pretty easy on the early levels, which I finally have access to.

Also beat Lara Croft: the Guardian of Light, which I had been reviewing (review should be up early next week), after finally slogging through the second to last level and killing the huge damn demons that hold the keys to the door, and then I had to fight Xolotl, who has a stupid complicated name. It was only tough because of the first level, in which the entire floor is covered with spiketraps, which would occasionally catch me. But the game made it easy by handing me the ultimate weapon halfway through the boss level, so...thanks.

Also played DJ Hero some more, which is neat. I want a new DJ though...all the beginner DJs look like complete idiots. But man, I wish I had an interest in the scenester scene, because the mixups are really fun. Speaking of scenester stuff (I forget, are scenesters douchebags? I think they’re cool), I downloaded Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and played as Kim Pine for a while. Best part about Kim Pine? Her Knives attack is a reference to the coolest part of Volume 4. It’s pretty awesome. But the game is good. The only problem is that a lot of the action happens at the edge of the screen, where I can’t see anything. That’s not where action should happen. Just saying.

What I Played Today: August 25

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Dominion

My friend brought over Scott Pigrim vs. the World for me to try, and soon we were running and punching through the 8-bit frozen suburbs. The game uses a lot of images and designs from earlier video games. The character select screen looks like Super Mario 2, the shops all look like River City Ransom, the exit stage animation is reminiscent of Mega Man, it’s just laden with in references. There are also a lot of minor characters just chilling in the background, which is a nice touch. I think I’ll be picking this up as soon as I have a chance to.

Also played a couple of games of Dominion, with the Seaside expansion because I had forgotten how much I liked this. Turns out I like it a lot, there’s a lot of great interactions, and even though some cards look and act dumb, they work pretty well. I lost both games though…my tendency to get rid of estates as soon as possible doesn’t really work in a 2-player game, as the game ends sooner than I expect and without the advantages of those few points, I lose. Guess I’ll just have to reexamine my strategies in such cases.