A Green Mushroom

Gauntlet (2015) was free through PS Plus in December and I finally got around to trying it out. It's an example of the basis of all Hack and Slash games.  It makes sense since Gauntlet itself was one of the main origins of the entire genre. This one has been updated and modernized a bit, but it's a hack and slash game at it's core. I played a few levels of single player to see what it has to offer and quickly realized that this game is truly made to be played with friends in local co-op.  I'm going to keep it installed for the next time I have some people over who would be interested in local co-op.  It's not that great single player but with friends it could be so much fun.

I tried to go back and explore some endgame of Fallout 4 with my character who had completed the story.  It wasn't as compelling as it had been when I was pushing through the main story.  So I did the thing that made the most sense. I started using console commands. Player level 35?  Let's just crank that up to 300.  Then activate every perk. That was fun for a night. The next night going back to it and I was kinda over the normal loop of exploration in the game.  So I turned on god mode.  Want to know the best part of god mode in Fallout 4? Infinite Ammo. I basically spent an entire night charging into groups of enemies wildly firing the fat man.  If you haven't played Fallout 4 the fat man is a handheld mini nuke launcher.  I don't think I had fired it the entire time I played the game because I only ever had a couple shots of ammo for it. Running around and firing off fat man mini nukes all over the place was a ton of fun for ...

I'm still catching up on some of The Force Awakens tie-in novels that slipped past me in the months leading up to the movie. While I basically read every adult novel of Star Wars as it comes out, I skip over most of the young adult or early reader books.  Generally this has served me well, but occasionally there's a Star Wars young adult book worth my time.  It turns out Before the Awakening is one of those. It's a book broken into three parts, one for each main character in the movie. Finn's story is all about his stormtrooper training, relationships with his squad, interactions with Captain Phasma, and his first deployment.  It's really good backstory. Rey's story covers a few months of her scavenger.  It explains where her mechanical and piloting skills come from as well as giving some more information on how she views the world. Poe's story ties in most directly with it basically leading right up to the point where the movie starts.  We lea...

I have a confession to make.  I'm playing a dumb, grindy, exploitation, micro-transaction, f2p, mobile game. If you couldn't tell from the title of the post, that game is Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes. It's so out of character for me in most ways.  I really like engaging and unique mobile games.  I typically can't stand this low-input waste-away-the-hours  check-back-frequently type of game. But this one is Star Wars.  And it's grabbed me. At the bare minimum I've been doing the daily quests every day.  Most days I've been checking in a few times throughout the day. I'm upgrading gear, giving my characters new moves, unlocking new characters, leveling them up.  All the things you would expect from this type of game.  It's actually not that far off from a game like Final Fantasy Record Keeper.  Except that it's Star Wars.  Apparently that makes all the difference to me. In the global arena ranking I generally hold my own and ...

After trying out Final Fantasy IV: The After Years over the past couple days and bouncing off the game I thought I'd try the other iOS Final Fantasy that I've been putting off, Final Fantasy Dimensions. This one is a little different.  All the other Final Fantasy games I've played on iOS were remade, remastered, and ported over to the system.  They were mostly the mainline Final Fantasy games and they were really good. Final Fantasy Dimensions is the first Final Fantasy game they made specifically for mobile... and it's not very good.  The controls aren't nearly as responsive or intuitive as all the other mobile Final Fantasy games I've already played.  You can tell this was one of their first attempts at the platform.  It just feels rough. Not to mention a story that starts off overly heavy on exposition and with some pretty bad player guidance.  It makes for a lot of frustration right off the bat. This is my second time really trying to get ...

I needed a break from Voyager after flying through the last couple seasons, so I thought I would sample a few other things from my "to check out" list. Parks and Rec After hearing about this show for years my wife and I finally sat down and watched a couple episodes.  It took a few for us to get the style of comedy they're going for but now we're into season 2 and it's getting really good. Galaxy Quest After Alan Rickman died I heard this movie mentioned everywhere.  It's essentially satire and comedy about Star Trek.  It's ok, but not fantastic.  It's obvious that it's a late 90s movie.  I'm probably never going to rewatch it but I'm glad I watched it once. Stargate Universe This one was the biggest hit of the show sampling for me.  I watched the first episode and already I'm interested in the characters and the overall premise of the show.  If I wasn't specifically doing a sampler I would have immediately...

After having Final Fantasy IV: The After Years on my iOS devices for awhile I figured it was time to actually try it out.  The structure of the game is broken into "tales".  Different characters are highlighted in each tale but ( according to howlongtobeat.com ) altogether they add up to about the length of a typical JRPG. This game is the same world and lots of the same characters as Final Fantasy IV.  It's a direct continuation of the story, only years later.  One of the main character's is the son of Final Fantasy IV's main characters. It really feels like I'm retreading old ground when I'm playing The After Years which is probably what some people want, I'm just finding it boring instead.  I don't think I can force myself to push through and find the fun in this game. Although I want to try all the spin-offs from the Final Fantasy series, I feel no desire to force myself to play through a spin-off if it isn't engaging.  Where I re...