A Green Mushroom

This seems like it might be straightforward, but it's not.  If a game is un-fun should you keep playing it?  The answer should obviously be "no" but often we keep playing games we're invested in.  Or we put down a game and tell ourselves, "I'll come back to that soon." but we never do. I feel like these games have a mental weight.  For me they definitely do.  These type of games will be in the back of my mind in some sub-process of my thoughts until I explicitly tell myself that I'm done with a game and I let it go.  But it's a hard thing to do. Sometimes it feels like failure.  What if you've only played 30 minutes of a game?  What if you've played 40 hours?  What if you're right near the end?  All of these are valid jumping-off points but they all carry different feelings and can lead to guilt.  I know I feel it. One of the best ways I've found to let go of these games are to write about them.  If I can get my thoughts ...

It's Thursday!  Typically on Thursday night I have a standing business meeting with a couple of my friends/colleagues.  Lately, we've been trying to build extra time into the night so that we can fit in a board game as well as work. It's been awesome!  These guys are all gamers, so they're always up for learning a new game.  I'm loving it. So far I've gotten to introduce them to Lord of the Rings LCG from Fantasy Flight Games and Ticket to Ride from Days of Wonder. Lord of the Rings LCG is a co-op card game where you play together against the quest deck.  It can be very challenging but I've had a fantastic time every single time I've played it with a group.  It's not the most simple co-op game but it's also not the most complex.  It's truly a nice middle ground on the complexity scale which is why it was perfect for this group of guys.  I knew they would pick it up fast, and they did! Ticket to Ride is low on the complexity scale, ...

I'm traveling a bunch this week.  I'm probably in the process of getting ready to leave right as this post goes up.  There's going to be lots of time in airports and on planes for the next few days. I'm trying to figure out what games to play.  I always go loaded for bear when it comes to electronics and traveling.  I'll have my 3DS, Vita, iPhone, Nexus Tablet, and Kindle. Should I revisit old favorites or dive into the games that remain untouched on my 3DS and Vita?  Should I download a bunch of iOS games to play try out?  Look through my forgotten folders of iOS that I like but never play?  Should I just give up and read a book on my Kindle?  Should I read comics on my Nexus? As of writing this post I'm really not sure what I'm going to end up doing. I ended up grabbing the Mario Edition of Puzzle and Dragons.  I also have Persona 4 Golden sitting untouched on my Vita.  Those two games are top of mind for me, but I know I have ...

So... Destiny Expansions.  I guess I have them? The second expansion, House of Wolves, released last week.  I was browsing the PSN store and checking it out when I noticed a button that said "Activate Expansion Pass".  I clicked it and the PSN store said that I now have both expansions. Apparently what happened is that I bought the digital deluxe version of the game when it launched, but the expansion pass didn't activate automatically.  And then I forgot about it until last week. So now I'm the owner of both expansions and I don't quite know what to do with them. I only recently got back into Destiny by playing it almost every day while on my exercise bike for the past month or so.  When I started playing it while exercising I started a new character (a hunter this time) and that character is now level 23. The problem is that to get to any of the expansion content for the first expansion I need to be level 24.  To get into anything for the sec...

I tried Valkryia Chronicles in my massive Steam backlog playthrough earlier this year.  It was one of the few games I liked that I played in my backlog, so I made a mental note to come back to it.  Now that I have gotten back around to it I'm having a lot of fun.  It's scratching the Strategy RPG itch that I've had lately.  Valkyria Chronicles has been satisfying in a way that the Final Fantasy Tactics games just haven't quite been. If you didn't know, Valkyria Chronicles is a ported game from PS3 to PC.  It just released on Steam in the past year.  I picked it up during one of the big Steam sales.  Although I played it on PC I used a controller the whole time, and I would highly recommend it.  The game plays great with a controller. Valkyria Chronicles does some Standard tactical combat stuff but it also does some really cool tactical stuff too.  When you move a character you jump behind them into a third person shooter view and...

There was a free demo for the 3DS Mario version of Puzzle and Dragon on the eShop so I grabbed it to see what the game was about. I've never played Puzzle and Dragons before, but what I found was a game somewhere between a Bejeweled, Puzzle Quest, and Terra Battle.  If you're not familiar with those games, it's basically a game where you're trying to match 3 or more gems of the same color in a row or column.  Every time you start moving a gem it shifts all the others it travels through in order to get to it's final destination.  The game quickly becomes more about bumping other gems around rather than concentrating on the gem you're dragging.  Moving the gem around is timed, but you can freely move it as much as you want and as far as you want within the time limit. You end up trying to bump as many gems into combos as you can within the time limit to set up massive damage.  You have a team of characters sitting above the gems, and those team members...

Thor: God of Thunder is an awesome run of comics.  I want to tell you about it but I haven't done much writing about comics in the past.  I'm going to try anyway. By picking up a Marvel Unlimited subscription earlier this month I've been able to dive into the entire Marvel backlog of comics.  Without having to worry about price I've been exploring all kinds of comics.  I give a new series an issue or two to grab me and then I either read the entire run or I move on to something else. Thor: God of Thunder has been one of the best runs I've read. It requires no previous knowledge about Thor or the greater Marvel Universe.  This is a huge plus for people like me who are just starting to get into comics. The run comes in at about 25 comics, which is also a plus for me.  Long enough to tell some big story archs with weight behind them.  But not too long to overstay it's welcome. Thor: God of Thunder actually covers Thor in three different time...