On a whim, I rented Uncharted Lost Legacy from the library yesterday and played several hours of it. Then I returned to Xbox One and played almost the entire first Gnomes Garden in one sitting. Mark was still playing Borderlands 3 trying to get better weapons. Further details follow.
Pixlpeeps what is up? Today’s Quick Hits will mostly (probably all of it) be a pickups blog so if that isn’t your cup of tea, it’s cool and we’ll talk on Monday…or Tuesday, whenever I get the other blog off the ground. For you folks that are sticking around let’s get started!
BOO! OK so these reviews aren’t really that scary, but it is getting near Halloween so here’s my not-so-scary themed latest batch of reviews I’ve written recently over at GamerDad.com. Please click on the links and read as many as you can, and maybe even post a ‘like’ or comment or two. I’d appreciate it. OK let’s begin…if you dare!
But, apparently, they don't like long walks. So it says in the story of Gnomes Garden 3.
Right now, I'm playing Dragon Quest XI S on Switch, along with Astral Chain and Ni no Kuni. It is an amazing game and is currently battling it out with Fire Emblem for my GOTY, so if you haven't played it yet, I strongly recommend it.
I took a break from Borderlands 3 today. I downloaded Destiny 2 because it was free. Of course, the slow doanload for a 95 GB file made it impossible for me to play today, so I played some Gears of War 5. Getting a bit bored of that, I switched to PS4 and played a more casual game called Gnomes Garden 3. I got hooked on that and then downloaded the 3 game bundle on Xbox because it was on sale. Details . . .
I just took the trash out because I’m that house that doesn’t drag the cans to the curb the night before. I have a weird phobia that the cans will be knocked down and I have to pick up all that garbage right before the truck gets here. Anyways I am here sitting, typing waiting for my breakfast to be ready so I can get started with the rest of the day. I knocked a game off Mount Backlog, which is nice, anyways let’s get started.
Beyond Borderlands 3 achievements; thinking of a very Switch Christmas; wishing, and trying, to find time for my DS; thinking about how to play PC games on my Xbox; these are some things on my gaming mind lately.
A little backstory before I dive into today’s theme: a couple of weeks ago I was on hold with my insurance company. Usually I’m ok with this but I kept getting the run around, nobody knew what the hell was going on, and finally I talked to a nice lady who helped figure out what the solution to my issue was which opened another box of issues. Long story short, I’m no longer with them, and the proof I needed to help resolve some new issues was lost. After this annoying time (I went with a different insurance company while on hold with these people) I decided that I was going to finally get organized.
As I sit here looking back on what I’ve played during the past week I’ve noticed that I still haven’t really sat down with a “real” game, I mean I’ve wandered back into the F2P area of gaming, and to be quite honest it fits me right now. I really don’t want to jump into a full game where I have to camp out in front of my TV, remember things, and then if I don’t play it for a week I’m lost and lose interest. Right now I’m in a place where I want to jump in for a couple of minutes, play something and then move on. Here are a couple of examples of my couch gaming during commercials:
So, in the last 4 months or so since I posted a blog entry, the only big life change was when, at the end of July, I was in my first fender bender. It was an accident and it was my fault (I was cited for failure to yield) and no one was hurt (thank god), but the 1999 Honda CR-V was totalled. The front passenger side looked like it was caved in. I didn't have the car for very long (6 months shy of 2 years) but it was a good vehicle and it hurt to see it go. Again: accident, no one was hurt but I liked that car.
So it is a cool Saturday morning and I am in bed debating on if I should go visit the library later on today and follow it up with hitting the thrift stores that are down the street. I know their selection isn’t that great right now but there is that wonder that I might find something good, or should I wait for next week when I finally get paid and check out the local mom and pop. I might do this. Anyways it is Saturday let’s get started with Quick Hits.
You know, for a long time, I have really preferred handheld gaming over console gaming. With the DS systems, the PSP, the Vita, and even the Wii U, I have enjoyed many hours of gaming. But - and this might upset the faithful - as much as I love the Switch, I just really have a hard time playing it for longer than thirty or forty minutes. It gets uncomortable to me in my hands. It's really not very ergonomic, and in addition to that, the thumbsticks are total crap.
Last month was a great month for gaming. Seriously. It was better than some years of gaming. I went on a buying spree I haven't been on since I was a young adult buying PS1 games.
I very thoroughly explored all the levels in Borderlands 3 on Normal mode. I'm amazingly still missing some named locations and other things,. I started True Vault Hunter mode at level 47, so soon I'll be at the current level cap of 50. What net?
So I held out on writing an update until today because I thought just maybe I would play something different than the usual two freebie games with a sprinkling of old Madden but alas here we are and I played the two freebie games with a sprinkling of old Madden. So here we are.
One of the much touted features of the new Apple iPad operating system released last week is you can now connect a PS4 controller or Xbox controller via bluetooth to play games. This works for regular iPad native games, but also for the PS4 remote app and the Steam link streaming app, as well as Microsoft's future Project X Cloud streaming service (where you can stream Xbox games on mobile devices without owning an Xbox). I fooled around with PS4 remote streaming on my iPad the other day, and it worked great! I tried out Red Dead Redemption, which looked great - my iPad Pro screen is much nicer than my ten-year-old Sony flatscreen TV.
Years ago I bought an Intellivision at a flea market and a bunch of games and tried out Mattel's Shark! Shark! from 1982. I was surprised that it was so similar to a PopCap game I was playing on PC called Feeding Frenzy. Clearly one inspired the other.
Lately I’ve been watching a series on Netflix that I’ve really gotten into. It’s The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. And it’s REALLY GOOD! I’m a big Jim Henson fan and a lot of his works were a huge part of my childhood. TV shows such as Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock, and The Muppet Show, for instance. And movies like the original The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth. Heck, the very first Muppet Movie was the first movie I remember seeing in a theater. The new Dark Crystal series feels like something I would’ve watched as a kid, and I don’t want to make too many assumptions, but I feel like Jim Henson would be happy with it. So I highly recommend you watch it if you have Netflix. It makes me really want to play the upcoming video game that I saw at PAX, even though I don’t like tactics strategy games. Can you guess my favorite character from the new series? I’ve given you a couple of easy clues, so you should be able to figure it out.
Good morning Pixlpeeps! It is a breezy 9:15am here in sunny Southern California and I have been awake for about three hours and I figured it was time to update my Quick Hits since I haven’t done one of these in a while so let’s catch up. I wanted to do this on the usual Friday but things got in the way and before I get going and cleaning up I wanted to do this update. Since my Aztecs are on a bye week, I’m thinking about skipping football completely but I kinda watched parts of games yesterday and I’ll probably watch parts of games today. We shall see how I feel about watching on Sunday night because Dallas is at New Orleans.
Mattel Electronic's Frogs and Flies is a 1982 console game that was originally on Intellivision as Frog Bog. Frogs and Flies is basically the same game but with even simpler controls. Something about that made it even better.
Mark and I beat the main story a few days ago. The game's far from done though. I'm still doing side missions and exploring for collectibles. At some point, I might try True Vault Hunter mode and replay the game, but maybe I'll just pick a different character and check out their moves.