A Green Mushroom

Coming back to Legion with my Druid instead of the Demon Hunter was a great idea.  It started out with a bang.  It had a really cool intro with a decent story and fun cutscenes.  Then I immediately got thrown into my artifact weapon quest which is probably one of the best World of Warcraft quests I've ever played. After that I was set up in my Druid class hall and I loved it.  The class hall idea is so good and I've always loved the Druid stuff in WoW so it completely clicked with me. I was surprised to be given a choice of zones after that.  After researching a bit I learned that all the content in Legion scales to your level so you get to pick the order you do the zones in.  There was one that looked Druid themed so I dove into it and played through the whole zone.  It was a ton of fun. After that I had a high enough item level that I started queuing for dungeons while working on the next zone. But that's where I ran out of steam.  T...

After flying through Mists of Pandaria in one play session I jumped to Warlords of Draenor.  The story hooked me much more in this expansion.  It feels like the first time that the World of Warcraft team was actually good at telling a story instead of just setting up a scenario. I bought into the premise and had a lot of fun the first night.  Playing through the start of the story with all the cutscenes and digging into garrison building was a ton of fun. Then night two hit and I was essentially back to grinding on quests and the dungeon finder.  The leveling was slower than Mists so I actually got to sample all the zones.  I think I 100% the first zone and I did random quests in all the others.  But again, dungeon finder became the most fun because the drive of the story got lost in the shuffle. Night three found me almost give up on WoW again.  I was getting bored.  Quests, gameplay, and dungeons were all blending together and just fee...

After my trials and tribulations the first day trying to get back into WoW I dove into Mists of Pandaria with my main Druid who was sitting at the end of Cataclysm content at level 85. At this point it's obvious that they have made the experience grind in Mists of Pandaria much faster than it used to be.  I started shooting up levels just casually questing.  After only a few quest hubs I was able to queue for the dungeon finder and I started shooting up the levels even faster. I liked the setting of Mists of Pandaria, it was nice and relaxing, but the quest design and the zone flow wasn't any better than WoW used to be.  I mostly did the dungeon finder and that rapidly made me hit the Mists of Pandaria level cap of 90 in one afternoon.  I never even left the first zone for questing. But I had a ton of fun with the dungeon finder.  Dungeons were always my favorite part of WoW and it seems like that's still true.  I got to sample all the Mists of Pa...

After finishing up FFXV I had an itch to play an MMO so I bit the bullet and finally resubscribed to World of Warcraft.  It's been five or six years since I last played so I thought the best course of action would be to pick up the latest expansion and create the newest class at high level so I could jump right into the game. That means my first experience back was playing Legion as a Demon Hunter.  It did not go well.  The story was fine but I didn't actually like abilities and the way the Demon Hunter class played.  I did the entire intro which gets the Demon Hunter to level 100 and then I played enough of the expansion content to level up to 101... almost 102.  But the class never clicked with me. I didn't want to give up on my attempt to get back into WoW since I had just paid for the expansion and a month of game time so I moved on to the Paladin I had boosted. You see, to make a Demon Hunter you need a level 100 character on the server that you w...

Overwatch launches tomorrow and I haven't even talked about my beta impressions yet! I really like this game, it's already replaced TF2 as my evergreen FPS.  I don't think I'll ever start up TF2 again because this game fills the same spot in my library but it's better. Every hero feels unique and worthwhile.  The level designs are all around team objectives which means that the heroes need to gel and come together to complete objectives.  I just love it. We actually did an entire podcast on the subject if you want to know more!  You can find it on our feed if you're interested. Mostly, I'm just excited for the game to launch!

The Whispers of the Old Gods expansion is out for Hearthstone!  The new cards are fun, but the thing I'm most excited about is actually not the cards. Right around the time they launched this expansion they put out a new "Standard" and "Wild" format for Hearthstone.  Wild is what we had before, where all cards ever released are available but standard format only allows cards from the past few expansions plus the core cards from the very base game of Hearthstone.  This means the designers can finally redesign the game for balance regularly while keeping a few cards from dominating every deck. Long term the move to a standard format is a great move for Hearthstone. They also put pre-constructed decks in the game for each class.  You have to own the cards to create the deck, but if you do it only takes one click in the deck creation screen to have one of their pre-made theme decks. Personally, this had gotten me to play the game a ton more.  I love pilo...

Blizzard Games In this episode: Blizzard games have been a part of our lives since we were kids. Now, as adults, we are still loving and playing Blizzard games. From the original Warcraft to The Lost Vikings to Overwatch and whatever comes next, we will probably be playing Blizzard games our whole lives. Games like Warcraft got us hooked, Hearthstone being on every device we own keep us connected, and new takes on old genres like Overwatch keep us coming back. Blizzard breaks down existing game genres into their fundamental parts, builds them back up into a new product, and then polishes them until they shine. Weekly Geekery: Void - Spider-Verse Beej - Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Season 2 Health Hack: One day each week, eat no meat at all. It’s easier than it sounds! Check out MeatlessMonday.com for recipes and details on starting it. Be sure to subscribe to the Geek to Geek Podcast your favorite podcast app, drop a review so we know how we’r...

Lately I've been picking away at the Hearthstone single player adventures.  They're really fun, especially the newest one with the League of Adventurers.  The single player adventures give a new way to experience the game and they're not afraid to break typical rules.  It's cool to see. After finishing up the normal mode I jumped into the class challenges.  It surprised me to find that these are actually my favorite thing in Hearthstone so far.  You're presented with a match up of a predetermined class vs a boss and given a pre-made deck.  It's everything I want from this game. I like having a balanced playing field where the decks are fun to play against each other.  This mode provides that. It makes me realize how much I just hate the deck construction.  I love piloting a fun deck but I hate spending time trying to create my own decks.  I wish there were more modes in Hearthstone with premade decks.  I know that if there...

Ugh.  So.  I tried to get back into StarCraft II multiplayer after playing through the single player campaign the other week.  While I was immediately able to throw myself back into that single player campaign it was really hard to get back into multiplayer. I basically failed to get into it. I was placed in Bronze league and I lost a lot.  Bronze should be the easiest league in multiplayer with the newest and worst players.  I think at this point there aren't really any new players.  Bronze league was a great place to learn the game back in 2010 when it first came out but now the people there will tear a newbie apart. I'm sure I could buckle down, look up some current strategies, check out a few guides, and work my way back into StarCraft II multiplayer.  But I don't really want to.  That's a lot of work for something that doesn't seem very rewarding for me these days. I still think StarCraft II is the best RTS game out there right no...

While I got delayed by Fallout 4, I did get around to playing Legacy of the Void.  I've always been a fan of Starcraft and I think Starcraft II is the best RTS out there.  I'm not as big into the multiplayer as I was when it first released, but it's still an amazing game. Legacy of the Void is the final campaign in StarCraft II finishing off what started back in 2010 with Wings of Liberty.  The main campaign follows Artanis and the last of the uncorrupted Protoss as they try to regroup and then eventually retake their homeworld.  All the threads start wrapping up as the Hybrids, the relationship between the Zerg and Protoss, and the Xel'Naga are all explained. I loved the Protoss campaign because I got to play my favorite race in the game.  In all honesty, I think that Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm had more variety in missions and more unique missions.  But, I've been waiting more than five years to finally get the Protoss campaign and I e...

I'm starting to lose my current drive to play Hearthstone. I've been playing it daily ever since the Grand Tournament released in late August.  I've done my daily quests, weekly brawls, and monthly ladder.  At this point I've gotten a deck I like for most of the classes in the game and I have all the cards that I want. I'm kind of just in a holding pattern until the next expansion or adventure gets released for the game. And while I'm in this holding pattern the same old thing is starting to bug me, the quest structure.  The daily quests in Hearthstone aren't about playing  the game, they're about winning  in the game.  Most of the daily quests that are given out are win a certain number of games with a certain class. I hate this structure. My favorite days of Hearthstone are when I get quests about playing  the game.  Quests like "Do 100 damage to enemy heroes" or "Play 20 minions that cost 5 or more mana."  I love thes...

As I alluded to yesterday, I'm still playing Hearthstone off and on. The single biggest thing that has pulled me back in is the new Tavern Brawl mode.  It is a mode that is open from Wednesday to Sunday each week and it has a rotating rule set.  Every week is a new and crazy set of parameters.  As soon as you win your first Tavern Brawl game for the week you instantly earn a card pack. All of this together totally appeals to me. I highly recommend checking out Tavern Brawl if you've even played Hearthstone.  The rulesets are so fun and varied.  This is the most fun I've ever had with the game.

I've been trying to level up and finish the main story in Final Fantasy XIV Heavensward lately with my core gaming time, but I've also had little spurts of time to play mobile games on my phone.  They're all fun in short bursts and I've talked about most before, but I thought it would be fun to give a quick rundown. Spider Solitaire I used to play this for hours on one of my old Windows PCs before I had a gaming rig.  I found a great version on iOS and I've put much more time into it than I thought I would.  Spider Solitaire is my favorite form of classic Solitare out there. You Must Build a Boat A fantastic match-3 puzzler that is a follow up to 10 million.  I loved that game and I love this one too.  I've almost beaten it, at which point I'll retire the game.  It's really nice to have a match-3 puzzler with a definite end.  It makes me feel invested all the way through. Hearthstone I'm still occasionally playing Hearthstone on my phone. ...

Heroes of the Storm launched officially at the beginning of the month. I played it extensively in Alpha and loved the game until they made a change that totally changed the game for the worse, at which point I drifted away.  I heard from my friends that they rolled back that change almost right after it happened because the community hated it, but the spell was broken and I was on to other games. Now that it's officially released and I know my progress won't be reset I started playing again.  It's easily my favorite MOBA on the market.  I've been playing a little bit each day to finish the daily quests and earn gold.  It seems to be a good balance for me.  If I were to sit down and play it for an entire evening I would get burned out, but a few matches each day is perfect. It's the most approachable MOBA on the market.  If you've ever been interested in the genre but scared away by the horror stories, then this is the game you should check out. ...

Hearthstone is now available on phones!  As a result I've played it more in the last few weeks than I have in the last year. It's a great fit on phones.  They already have the touch controls perfected from the tablet versions of the game, they just had to make some minor adjustments for smaller screen sizes and the game is good to go.  I actually think the phone version may be the best version of the game since it can always be in your pocket. My problem now is that I'm really struggling with not having modern decks.  I don't have any of the expansion content and most of my good decks from when I initially played the game  just suck now. It's frustrating because I really want to get into it again, but I either need to spend a ton of time earning gold to unlock cards or drop a bunch of real world money on the same thing.  If there were a core pack of cards that I could buy for a flat fee to catch back up I would do it.  But I can't really just...

Well I had a crazy week.  I barely played any games at all.  But I had some time to scan the headlines and keep up with gaming news. I realized that there aren't actually that many games announced that I'm excited for.  I was thinking ahead to everything I know of that is supposed to release this year and I only game up with a couple that I'm really interesting in getting. Final Fantasy Type-0 is the game I'm most excited for.  I obviously love the Final Fantasy series and this is the first time Type-0 is getting released in the U.S.  It's a gritty, mature take on war and it has the Final Fantasy name attached.  It's also an action RPG which is a departure for the series.  I've purposefully avoided most information about it because I know that I'll pick it up day one.  I'll always give a new Final Fantasy game a chance and I like discovering the world on my own. Because of my love for the series I'm also excited to get my hands on Fina...

While working on my Final Fantasy Project I've also regularly been playing Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm.  Both are fantastic Blizzard games.   Hearthstone is their digital CCG and Heroes of the Storm is their new MOBA. It's extremely interesting to see the way their incentives are structured.  Both games use in-game gold to let players buy goods.  In Hearthstone you can buy card packs or arena entries and in Heroes you can buy new heroes to play with.  Both games let you earn gold by playing in various ways. The big difference is that Hearthstone rewards you for winning, while Heroes rewards you for playing.  I've found myself get more drawn into Heroes because of this. In Hearthstone three wins will get you some in-game gold.  In Heroes you get experience for playing any game whether you win or lose.  That experience causes you to level up and at each level up you get gold. Both games have daily quests.  Hearthstone da...

Once again I find myself between Final Fantasy games.  That means it's time for some evergreen games before I dive into the next entry in the series.  For me evergreen games are those that have self-contained play sessions and no real "end" to the game. First up is Mario Kart 8.   Even though it's not much of a change from Mario Kart 7 it's a lot of fun and I'm enjoying my time with it.  The biggest improvements are HD graphics and better online play.  It's Mario Kart.  If you like Mario Kart you will love Mario Kart 8.  If you don't like Mario Kart you should skip it.  You basically know what you're getting. Hearthstone has gotten a ton of my time.  Now that it's on iPad it's perfect to play while watching TV on the couch or laying in bed before falling asleep.  I love that the games usually run somewhere in the 5-15 minute range.  I know I can sit down and play without having to commit to long play sessions.  It's easily ...

There's a wave of hype building for Blizzard's new digital CCG, Hearthstone .  It's winning me over.  It's strange since I'm not normally a CCG guy, but I think this one could be for me. I've dabbled in various card games over the years.  I've used other people's decks and played a little bit of Magic the Gathering and the Pokemon card game .  I got seriously into the Game of Thrones Living Card game for about a year.  It helped that one of my friends owned every single card from that game.  I also picked up a starter kit for the Netrunner Living Card Game and loved the ideas in it, I just didn't have anyone to play it with consistently. So that's where I'm coming from.  A little of bit CCG and LCG knowledge paired with one year of fairly intense play (and a tournament) for the Game of Thrones LCG. Why does Hearthstone appeal to me so much?  Well, it's the first digital card game created by a proven AAA video game design comp...

I don't normally endorse game sales, but StarCraft 2 is half price from now until Monday.  This is my absolute favorite game from the past 2 years and I recommend it to everyone, even at full price.  I love it so much I've written a whole Newbie Guide about it.  If you are an RTS fan and you don't own SC2 you don't know what you're missing.  If you've ever been intrigued by Starcraft 2 now is the time to pick it up.