Week ending 12/17/13

HOLY SHIT GUYS! I’M BACK! For those of you who don’t know me, and based on how much this site has grown in my absence, that would probably be a lot, I started this article back in the infancy of Culture Crossfire and then had to leave for “a month” due to work and..yeah that month kinda turned into more. For those who have never read a Gaming with GADD article before, it’ll be the most confusing, insanely written gaming article you’ve ever read, at least on good weeks. This article is basically a chronicle of my thoughts on what I’ve played each week, but due to the fact that I’ve got Gaming ADD it will be completely disjointed with me likely only playing a certain game 2 to 3 days week at max before getting bored and moving on to something else. As a word of warning for those who haven’t read a GADD before, there will be excessive cursing at times and there will be spoilers. I’ll try to limit them, but if I need to talk about where I am in a game, I will.

Before anyone asks, no, I don’t have either of the new consoles yet. I probably won’t be getting one for a while either because there just isn’t anything worth playing on them right now and I’ve got too much backlog on the current consoles.

Tuesday

I didn’t really get a whole lot of chances to play today due to moving and getting re-situated back at home, never even plugged in my 360. But I did get a chance to play my PS3, and the first thing I did was punch in my codes for PS+ that I bought from the Amazon Black Friday sale (going on right…oh wait, yeah that was a few weeks ago. Sorry guys) and download a few free PS+ games. Didn’t play any of them but I did play

Beyond: Two Souls
I played this a little bit in my time away from the article and I dunno what to think about it. I was someone who really enjoyed Heavy Rain, but not without a bunch of qualifiers. I will say that I’m glad you don’t have to steer Ellen Page like a fuckin car like you did in Heavy Rain. I’m probably 3 hours or so into the game right now and the story is just failing to grab hold of me, and really that’s all you’ve got to keep you motivated in David Cage games. It sure as fuck isn’t the gameplay. You struggle through the gameplay to progress the story in Quantum Dream games. However it did shake the hell out of me when I discovered there’s a flat out KILL YOURSELF prompt in a certain part of the game. I actually sat there just staring at the screen trying to figure out if that’s what it was actually asking me to do. I stopped playing after that, not really cause of the prompt but just cause I was bored.

Wednesday

I was feeling burnt out on Beyond: Two Souls despite not playing that much of it, so I went with one of the free PS+ games I downloaded

Bit.Trip Presents: Runner 2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien
If nothing else it gets the 2013 award for best title. But seriously, this game is fun as hell. As the name would suggest, it’s nothing more than a runner style game, but NOT an endless runner because there are levels with clearly defined beginnings and ends. If you played the first Bit.Trip Runner it’s basically the same game, but with one major difference: checkpoints. There are now checkpoints in the level to keep you from having to redo the entire thing if you mess up, but the game will basically call you a great big pussy if you use them, because you get a 50,000 point bonus if you jump over the checkpoint like a MAN would. I ended up playing up to near the end of the 2nd world (which..each world has 25 levels each, I think?) and refuse to use the checkpoints, and will kill myself instantly if I miss a gold and won’t get a perfect run. Maybe the later levels will start kicking my ass and make me start using the checkpoints? I don’t know. If you have PS+ and haven’t downloaded this game FOR FREE, what the hell is wrong with you? If you DON’T have PS+, I’d still say there’s a good chance it’s worth the $10 or $15 they’re asking for it.

Thursday

Runner 2
Back again for more, didn’t play as much today, beat the 2nd world and played a little bit into the third. Got to the point where I was ready to rage quit on a level, so I took a break and then didn’t wind up coming back to it.

Marvel Puzzle Quest: Dark Reign
This is my first time playing this, so let’s see how it goes. As the name implies, it’s a Puzzle Quest game, but with Marvel characters, only this one is Free 2 Play, so I’m sure there’s all kinds of evil money sucking hooks built in. If you don’t know what Puzzle Quest is, where the hell have you been man? Get on that first one, that shit’s amazing! The big change to this game appears to be that you have to build a team of superheroes that you take into battle, and their levels are what determines how much damage you do with every match. However, they don’t level up with XP that you gain in battle, and that’s where the F2P hooks seem to come in. Instead you have to use one of the two currencies you can get in battle and buy a random comic book cover, which will either give you a new character or give you a level up for one of the abilities for a character that you already own. Once you apply the cover to level up, you then get the ability to use the same currency to boost the character’s overall level. It can be grindy as hell, but it doesn’t seem too egregious just yet. The other big F2P conceit seems to be that unlike the other PQ games, you don’t automatically heal after each battle, instead you have to either use health packs or wait a predetermined amount of time for your heroes to heal back up. As of the first 2-3 hours, the F2P elements are definitely there, and definitely noticeable, however they don’t appear to be affecting the amount of fun that I can have with the game. Maybe over time that will change, but I’m still enjoying myself and will probably play again.

Friday

I have to go out of town again for the weekend, so I’ll be left with just my laptop and a Wii (fuckin hell) for gaming options.

Marvel Puzzle Quest
Back to this again. Shockingly the game doesn’t have cloud support, so I was forced to start up a new game and build up a new squad, abandoning the awesome level 15 Magneto I got yesterday. I don’t really have much else to say, seeing as how I basically just replayed all the stuff I did yesterday. I think my tower PC team is better as of now, but the laptop team appears to have more room to grow. Who knows? I might wind up randomly getting another badass hero from the packs and abandoning this team altogether.

Wii Party
Yeah. That’s what happens sometimes when you game with family, you get stuck with Wii Party. Wii Party is basically what Nintendo put out when they didn’t have a Mario Party coming out for a few years, and decided something in that genre was needed. It’s actually not THAT bad, but what can you say about a bunch of minigames loosely connected by a farce of a larger overall game happening? However I can say that there isn’t NEARLY enough minigames in here. It seems like there’s only 20-25 altogether, as they started repeating quickly.

Saturday

Marvel Puzzle Quest
I’m starting to feel the business model kicking in more today. After being lucky enough to get multiple upgrades for my character skills, instead of useless heroes that I have no intentions of ever using, I’ve now realized that the only way to actually level characters up to being able to fully take advantage of the boosts is to either pony over some real cash for the Iso-8 currency, or grind grind grind your way through battles you’ve already won multiple times. The core match 3 gameplay is still entertaining enough that it’s not getting TOO frustrating yet.

Wii Party
I’ve now played enough of this that I have favorite and least favorite modes. I’m not really sure what that says about me. For the record Swap Meet is the best mode because it’s the only thing in here that feels like you can use actual strategy and isn’t 100% decided by pure blind luck. Meanwhile Bingo is the worst because..dude, it’s just Bingo. But it’s not even REAL bingo, it’s a fuckin 4×4 card. What’s the deal Nintendo? Even you guys know this mode sucks so much shit that people wouldn’t want to play long enough to get a bingo on a 5×5 card?

Sunday

Marvel Puzzle Quest
I think I’m still having fun here? MPQ being played 4 days in a row is entirely a result of me having limited options this weekend and it being a good game to play in 20-30 minute chunks. I’m not sure what else to say other than I’m still probably not even halfway through the fuckin prologue chapter, so there at least appears to be good length to be had here for (potentially) no dollars.

Wii Party
*sigh* LET’S MOVE ON OKAY?!

Monday

I didn’t get any gaming in today due to real life kicking in.
Overall this feels like a pretty weak return to GADD. Nowhere near enough random jumping around between games, but hey, if I forced it and played a bunch of shit just for the purpose of saying I played a bunch of shit for this article that would just feel lame and disingenuous. The GADD has to flow naturally or not flow at all. Hopefully next week will be an improvement. Will I continue to play Marvel Puzzle Quest? Probably. Will I continue to play Wii Play? Fuck no. Will I get off my lazy ass and actually unpack and plug in my 360? Strong possibility. THESE ARE THE CLIFFHANGERS THAT I LEAVE YOU WITH! Oh right, I need to do a