Fri–er, oops. Saturday. Video games. Let’s talk anyway!
My family and I have been incredibly busy this week and we’re having another garage sale this morning, so I completely spaced putting up a Freakin’ Weekend post while it was actually Friday.
Not a lot of free time this weekend, so what little I do have will likely go to WoW again. I have my three characters leveled to max and still have a handful of reputations to grind out to revered for Legion flying, but we’ve been making steady progress here and there.
God of War released yesterday to stellar reviews and I’m certainly interested in playing it at some point, but I’m not in a hurry. I’ve never been overly attached to the series. This seems like a drastic departure and more my speed; I just don’t have 20-30 hours to spare right now that I can devote to a lore-heavy experience.
Anyone out there in readerland pick it up? What about the new Nintendo LABO stuff?
I did rent Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers on Switch and I’ve been having a lot of fun with it in short bursts. Street Fighter II is one of the most important games of all time for me, so it’s worth noting that I do have a bit of a personal bias here. The new art style is hit or miss, depending on the character, but it feels pretty solid and still offers the retro style for purists. I haven’t checked out the new modes or hopped online yet, though. Not sure it’s $50 good, but I definitely dig it.
Behind the scenes, I’ve been working on a list of my “100 favorite games of all time” and plan to release them in sets of ten. It’ll have to wait until things slow down here, but it seems like a fun batch of posts. Splitting them into groups should provide a steady flow of content here as well. I saw The Well-Red Mage doing something similar via Twitter, so it appears we’re once again connected to a spiritual hive-mind!
This is another short weekend wrap-up for me, but what are your gaming plans this weekend?
Cheap Boss Attack 
Hear your about good of War. Definitely interested and reviews make it sound incredible and also looks more up my alley than other god of War games. But I’m also waiting for the right time to jump into it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Timing is everything! I’d hate to go in not ready for it and end up shelving it in favor of something else. Happened to me with Horizon: Zero Dawn twice before I finally stuck with it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Busy is good! I hope that you have a great time at your garage sale. There’s still snow on the ground here so that type of thing is still really, really slow if not nonexistent.
I’m really looking forward to your 100 greatest games stuff! I’m always curious what other people are into, and I don’t know if I’ve even played 100 games through. It’s a pretty staggering feat!
I’m probably going to continue playing Pokemon Blue this weekend. I played Faxanadu a few days ago and want to keep playing that over and over again, but that’s not conducive to moving forward in my various quests. I’m also going to try to keep recording Ultima IV if I can figure out a game plan that’ll make for a good video snippet. The planning is the hardest part!
Anyway, hope you have a great one!
LikeLike
Thanks! We did pretty okay tofay, although this isn’t the best area to try and sell off games. Sold through some furniture and tools and stuff, at least.
Faxanadu is so good, though! Pokémon Blue is a lot of fun too. Is this your first playthrough?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yep, first time all the way through a Pokemon game for me and figured I should start at the beginning. I have dabbled a bit in Sapphire and Heart Gold, but never got anywhere close to finishing the game. I’m late to the party, as always!
LikeLike
They hold up well!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nice to hear the yard sale went well. I didn’t have much game time this week, but I’m getting in some early am streaming Sat midnight, and I’m sure Sunday night I’ll get in a few hours of Splatoon 2 with a few people who picked it up recently. I hope to get through a game on Monday to be able to review. Life stuff got in the way this week so I was unable to.
LikeLike
Thanks! I saw your stream info a few hours too late, haha. I ended up crashing at… 6pm. I was exhausted.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It should still be up archived for a short time if you want to see any of it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Have a great profit on your garage sale. God of war is a promising game. I’ve played some series of it. But haven’t play the latest yet. I”m into ML (mobile legend) now, got hook to it.
LikeLike
Thanks! It definitely looks promising.
LikeLike
I’m reading this on Sunday evening so I hear ya, haha. I’ve always wanted to get into the God of War series, but I’m in no hurry.
I’m addicted to Mass Effect now. I’d say I’m finished a good chunk of the first game. My goal is to beat all 4 games by the end of August.
LikeLiked by 1 person
They get bigger with each entry, so august is a good time frame lol. Especially Andromeda. Glad you’re digging them! Who is your favorite companion in the first game? I’m a Liara loyalist.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Definitely Liara!! And not just because she has the same voice actress as Lightning, haha. She’s awesome and kicks ass real good!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Liara was my main squeeze throughout the trilogy, although she was largely absent in 2.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Doesn’t have time for God of War… maxes out multiple characters in WOW… does not compute! :-) I have no interest in the Labo. Buying cardboard makes no sense to me, although I am sure families will get a kick out of the construction process. Right now I am playing the second Batman Telltale game. Good stuff, just like its predecessor.
LikeLike
Haha, I know it doesn’t make sense on the surface, but leveling a character in an MMO I’ve played for 14 years versus playing a narrative-focused 20-hour game are totally different experiences for me. If I have an hour I can mindlessly level in WoW by slamming out the same quests I’ve already done before, but I want more than an hour at a time to sit and digest God of War.
FWIW, WoW has “heirloom” gear you can buy and equip that increases XP gains by up to 50%, so leveling 100 to 110 takes maybe 7 or 8 hours.
Are all of the episodes available now for Batman S2? I liked S1 but typically wait for everything to release before diving in. Made the mistake of buying into Life is Strange during episode 3 and the wait for episodes 4 and 5 was agonizing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Batman (season two) is out in its entirety. I too wait for the whole series to come out before buying. That was a lesson I learnt after having to wait forever for Wolf Among Us to finish. The gap between episode one and five was huge.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ohhh, good to know! I wonder if Red Box rents out season 2. That’s how I played season 1.
LikeLiked by 1 person
At least two people have told me I need to play GOW, one in a Facebook message lol. I plan to watch a Let’s Play of it since I’m almost done watching Mario & Luigi: Dream Team. I actually picked up FFV and got out of Karnak Castle, though I was too paranoid to get all the treasure since the timer ran out last time, but I’m okay with that. I’m plugging along with it. I need to get back into the groove of the game and remember what the hell I’m doing.
I also finished Thimbleweed Park,so I need to write a review of that. I downloaded a bunch of demos on my Vita and I bought Actual Sunlight for $5. I kind of want to start playing something else on a handheld, since that’s been my preferred method of gaming lately. It’s just so convenient!
Mr. Panda’s YouTube review of the Labo makes me want it even more. I love Nintendo’s ingenuity so much. Of course I’ve seen some haters about it, but it’s geared towards kids! I’m sure it’s expensive, but from what I’ve seen, I’d enjoy it greatly and it looks like a fun family endeavor…which is what Nintendo has always been about.
LikeLike
Haha, congrats on making it out of Karnak. FFV is probably my least familiar in the series. I have it somewhere but haven’t put much time in.
And a second congrats on finishing Thimbleweed. That’s a tricky one, even with the hint line. Actual Sunlight hit me pretty hard. Hopefully you enjoy it. It’s only about an hour long.
I know LABO isn’t for me and I’m not its target market… mainly because I have three cats and cats love to destroy/sleep in/on cardboard.
I’ve been on a FF kick lately. Finished FF7 (which felt super weird, as I explained on Twitter) and juggling IX and X currently. Also been thinking A LOT about NG+ for XV.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m not sure where I’m going to rank it either. I did just get a HUGE revelation in the plot, but it just seemed dropped out of nowhere lol. The other games a little bit more subtle, but it’s okay.
Yes agreed. I had to turn to trusty google a few times, and I was playing on Casual! I watched Cry play a little bit of it. He only did it for about an hour and I wish he had a full LP of it, because I forgot how hilarious he is. I finished watching Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, which was cute, and Christopher Odd has an LP of God of War that I’m going to dive into tonight. I have blogger AND IRL friends telling me to experience it.
Ooooh that’s a good point…I’d have to make sure I put it up if I got it.
I saw that! I think what can happen is when you’re away from something and all your hear are opinions, they start to affect the way you think about it. Hell I remember before I’ve played things, I’ve let my opinion be swayed and it’s almost always to my detriment. I think FFVII probably has some of the strongest opinions about it in both directions. It’s amazingly divisive, which used to surprise me, but I think it’s because it has a lot of controversial points, which tend to do that. FFVI doesn’t have that, which is why you don’t generally hear any bad things about it (I know I haven’t). This is of course just one of my wild and crazy theories lol.
I might give Actual Sunlight a play tonight if it’s that short. I can say I finished two games these past two weeks. There were some things in Thimbleweed that were a bit too “game-y” like using toilet paper to get a blood sample? I’m not going to think like that! I did figure out the tape for the fingerprints, but I’m kind of annoyed there was no point in gathering the mushrooms. Madam Morena didn’t give me anything. I think it might be more important in hard mode *shrug*
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yeah, VI seems universally beloved for that very reason. I like it a lot, but it didn’t stick with me as much as the post-VII FF’s did. All of my top 5’s are VII+ (VIII, XV, VII, X, XII), which typically draws ire on social media — especially VIII being the personal favorite and the “other” FF folks love to hate. *shrug*
It’s just weird that I got the itch to play FF7 last week. That was my high school best friend and I’s favorite game at the time and we played it together quite often. And then to read he died the day after I finish it nearly 20 years later was kinda… weird, I guess. It’s hard to think about.
LikeLiked by 1 person
*rolls eyes so hard* Yeaaaaah, I’ve gotten into arguments with a “friend” on Facebook about FFVIII. He hates Squall, but out of all the main characters, I identify with him the most. His whole personality makes perfect sense when you think about what he experienced as a child. He has abandonment issues! Then they complain about the Junction System, and I’m fine if you don’t like it, but it’s certainly not worse than FFII’s horrible level up monstrosity. Once you figure out Junctioning, the game does become really easy but I’ve never seen that as a downside, and you can always make it harder, by switching the magic around. I think VIII gets more hate than it deserves, but then again these are the same people who rag on FFIX, so their opinions are quite suspect. That’s one of the things I hate about the FF fandom. The “my favorite is the best and if you have another favorite you’re wrong!” mentality. I see it less in bloggers, people who break down the pros and cons, and I remember that I was definitely like that when I was younger.
Damn dude. It’s like when you get hit, you get hit hard :(
LikeLiked by 1 person
I actually mentioned the friend in my FF7 20-year anniversary retrospective.
https://cheapbossattack.wordpress.com/2017/09/07/the-most-important-rpg-in-console-history-celebrates-its-20th-anniversary-today/
LikeLiked by 1 person
I don’t know what’s up with FFVII and death stuff, but I’ve talked to quite a lot of people about FFVII and death stuff and I’ve got mine, too. It’s ultra weird because a lot of the focus of the game centers around death (and rebirth). It’s like how certain macabre movies have someone die during their production, and FFVII Is one of the more morbid Final Fantasies, so I don’t know. I proclaim to be all rational, but deep down, I really do wonder about these weird connections.
LikeLike