A Green Mushroom

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...

I'm through the first dungeon in Majora's Mask and I'm really enjoying the game.  I haven't played it since it originally launched on N64, so it's fun to dig in and discover things I had completely forgotten about. It's amazing how all the characters interact and have daily lives.  I love the three day cycle of this game, it's such a perfect fit with how they've constructed the world.  You can learn where characters will be at certain times on certain days.  They are all interconnected with quests, objectives, and masks. To this day, there's still no other game like it. I think the multi-day cycle is a really cool thing that other games could take and run with.  I would like to see it redone by modern game designers, but it seems like a concept that was left alone after Majora's Mask. At this point I'm mostly focusing on exploring the world.  It's really fun just exploring and doing sidequests for masks even though I'm onl...

As I mentioned yesterday, I'm having a crazy week of work.  I had a bunch of projects land at the same time, which is always a blessing for money but a curse for my sanity and sleep schedule.  I've been working 16 hour days basically the entire week. It doesn't leave much room for gaming.  But I do need to take the occasional break to clear my head.  Usually a break is catching up on twitter for a few minutes or listening to part of a podcast while I'm eating a fast meal. But 10-15 minute gaming breaks can be super refreshing mentally.  So, I've been playing a lot of Quiz Up!  I might dig into some other iPhone games I have waiting on my phone already, but for the moment Quiz Up is keeping me sane.  It's really easy to do short sessions and it takes my full attention. It's amazing how much better I can work after a quick gaming break.  Clearing my mind with breaks every few hours let's me keep being super productive and last through thes...

It's shaping up to be a busy work week for me, so I'm not playing a lot of games.  I did get to watch an episode of Archer with my wife while I was taking a meal break yesterday and I realized I haven't written anything about it even though I've been watching through the entire series. Archer is a really funny show.  I know everyone's humor is different, but something about it strikes a chord with me.  I usually laugh out loud at least once every episode.  That's super rare for me.  Most popular comedy shows don't do much for me and rely heavily on dumb humor that I don't appreciate.  Something about this one just clicks with my sense of humor. When I first looked into Archer I was turned off by the fact that it's an animated show.  I didn't realize how adult it actually is.  Looking at stills don't do the show justice. I would recommend checking out the show if you already have a Netflix subscription, since there are 4 seasons sitt...

I must lack some basic pleasure mechanism that allows me to enjoy Borderlands 2.  It's a game that I feel like I should enjoy and I keep going back and trying it because of that feeling. I never actually have fun playing it. Shooting with friends is ok, but the rest of the game just bugs me.  I hate their quest system, the crazy amounts of loot, constantly smashing the pick-up item button, figuring out which gun is better, and traveling around the world.  Not to mention how repetitive the gameplay and enemies are.  And the shooting doesn't even feel that satisfying.  Borderlands 2 just doesn't ever click with me. I should probably call it quits with the series.  I never really liked the first game either, even though I finished it in it's entirety. The promise of adventures in an interesting world is one of the main factors that draws me back in.  I mean, I loved the first episode of Tales from the Borderlands.  The story and the world...

I'm a huge fan of the Star Wars Expanded Universe.  For those of you that don't know, the Expanded Universe is anything Star Wars outside of the movies.  I've been reading novels in the Expanded Universe for as long as I can remember.  Some of my young adult novels were Star Wars Expanded Universe when I was still learning how to read. The Expanded Universe that I know and love is now wiped out.  They've officially made it non- cannon  to make way for the new Star Wars movies and all of Disney's future creative endeavors now that they own the intellectual property. A basic timeline of the Old Expanded Universe novels It was a major blow to me when I found out.  I've been invested in this Expanded Universe for as long as I can remember.  I didn't read a Star Wars book for almost a year after they made the announcement.   A New Dawn was my first novel after my hiatus, and it's the first novel that is part of the "New Expanded Universe"....

This week I finally got around to trying the Steam in-home streaming functionality.  It works really well! My two main computers are a Mac laptop that I use for creative purposes and my Windows desktop that I use for fun.  My Windows desktop is my main gaming PC and my household media server as well. One day this week I was curious to actually try in-home streaming .  I was on my Mac and needed a break.  I knew my desktop was on downstairs.  I booted up Steam and picked a Windows only game to play.  It gave me a basic prompt telling me that it would stream this from my other computer where the game was installed. And then I was playing!  It was super simple and a great experience overall.  It was easy to do and very playable. It's a feature that I had almost forgotten about entirely, but now that I've used it I'm very impressed.