Tomorrow I will be closing down Arcade Dad for the day to join in on the protest.
Skylanders, Rift, and Anno 2070
Life has been full of Digital explosions and leveling these last few weeks since Christmas. So here is a list of the games I have played and am exploring lately.
Skylander’s
I did a partial review of this awhile back and would like to expand on that.
If you have children, and don’t mind them playing video games, go and buy this game. Seriously, its that good. Expect to spend a ton of money on the figs though as you really need at least one of every type out there to complete the levels to 100%.
Arcade Son loves the game and is far more fascinated with the little things that make up each section instead of the overall gaming experience. Sheep are apparently the bane of his existence. Whenever we are in the main area he runs around chasing sheep in order to: Set them on fire, soak them in water, explode them, turn them into boulders, etc…. its actually pretty funny. (He occasionally shoots the quest givers, but they don’t really respond as well as the sheep)
His favorite character currently is Gill Grunt, who he has given a pretty epic Cowboy hat to.
Gill Grunt Minus the Hat
The game really rewards the characters that have Ranged attacks, and its honestly much easier to play when using these characters. The Melee style characters just get whomped no matter how fast you “spam” the main attack buttons. Still though Arcade Son likes to play each of them and he has this little summoning thing he does that’s a mix of Pokemon and Ben 10. Anyway, in order to back him up in his sheep shooting, treasure hunting endeavors I mainly play a character named Trigger Happy
Two Gun Mojo!
Parents if you do play this game, I highly recommend this as the character you use to support your kids as they rescue the Skylands. His attacks are all ranged, Powerful, and his special attack will even hit enemies that are on elevated platforms. You can sit back with ease and pummel everyone.
Two things I will say about the game that I haven’t noticed anyone else discussing:
A) You can revisit all of the previous levels. This is handy when working on helping kids figure out traps and puzzles. The game does a really decent job at slowly easing the player into what to expect. Also the previous levels always give experience and treasure, the revisit is essentially a repeat of how it was when you first visited, instead of a “you beat it but go again” setup.
B) The above is much needed as the Boss fights are RIDICULOUS.
Kaos the head bad Portal Summoner in the game likes to have you fight his minions for extended periods of time. Its actually nerve wracking at times and there is absolutely no way my son wouldn’t have made it through the fights on his own if it wasn’t for my vast experience with Zelda and Mega Man over the years.
Rift MMO
So I have been a Citizen of Telara for about a year now. This Christmas though Trion Worlds did something that no other gaming company has done. They won my loyalty and gratitude.
Typically in December I cancel all of my MMO subscriptions to better spend time with Family and have a little extra cash for the holidays. This year was no different however the few days after I cancelled something bizarre happened.
I received an email from Trion Worlds saying due to my being a BETA tester, as well as being a long time Subscriber, they were gifting me with XXX Amount of time to play for free. (I won’t go over how much time it was, but my head exploded, because it will last me damn near until my Birthday) for free.
I just had to sign into my account and accept the gift…….
Now like any Tech savvy person out there I assumed immediately this was some Nigerian Prince hacking my account to sell to Chinese Farmers. So I hit my own links for Trion’s Account management, and sure enough it was sitting there waiting for me to click Accept. It never asked for Credit Card information, or tried to lock me into some sort of contract of service, it was just a “Thanks man, here is some Game time on us”.
I took a poll on my Server, Defiant Faction only as thats the side I play, and apparently I was the only one to get this. I jumped on the Forums expecting others to jump up and say something, but nada…. Feeling sort of odd, I called Trion Account support and talked with “Helpful Tech Person#217″. She basically re-iterated the email, and said thank you for Supporting Trion Worlds and the Rift MMO.
~My head exploded~
Anno 2070
So this one is an odd one, and not something I would normally play these days. I didn’t even know the game existed until I saw it pop up on Steam a few weeks ago. That being said, I am addicted to this game. Addicted in ways reminiscent of SimCity, Command & Conquer, Master of Orion/Magic, Civ 1-X, etc….
I can’t honestly say that Anno 2070 is better than any of the games listed above, but if you like City management, building, and strategy style games, then you will like this game.
Full Harbor and warehouses
Anno 2070 has more of a “Mission” feel to it, even in the Open ended mode, than any other Strategy/ Simulation game I have played. Which was odd to wrap my brain around at first but its really good and becomes second nature to work towards those goals automatically. There was never a point where a mission would pop up and some NPC would need me to build X for them and I wasn’t already working on Building X.
The Storyline for the game is that Earth went through some horrible geological and climate upheavels and now the world needs to be rebuilt for folks…….. Honestly, none of that matters, I just pretend I am on some different planet and the game plays the exact same without being preachy.
There are Three Factions that the player can ally with:
Global Trust – Jerks that ruined the Earth. Think huge mega-corporation that now feels slightly bad about destroying everything and wants to fix it for its citizens but can’t quite shake off its horrible habits. (Building practices and tech trees are really solid for these guys. Power plants and pollution management are horrible!)
Eden Initiative – Eco-Hippies! They want to save the planet from further destruction, but haven’t realized that some industrialization is needed to prosper. (Great Pollution management, Best Power Plants in the game, but Tech tree for buildings is horrible and slow)
SAAT – The Scientists, and the only Underwater faction. Thats right, you can build underwater bases and housings! I love these guys, they are like the mid ground of the three Factions.
There is allot of management to be had in this game and while the speed that it moves does annoy me at times, I do enjoy the overall pace of the game. There is something fun in Controlling the Trading between your islands, and even figuring out how to break into other factions warehouses for goods.
Small Settlement
There is an online component to the game, but I have not interacted with it. Apparently you can reap some benefits from this, but I choose not to. I couldn’t explain why, and I get mail from the Ubisoft system about hte goings on with other players, but I just can’t jump out there. I prefer to enjoy my world shaping the old fashioned way.
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Horrible Santa Taunts child
This turns my stomach:
MEETING Santa Claus for the first time was meant to be a jolly experience for Cameron Sleeth, 6.
But the excitement of meeting St Nicholas turned into a nightmare his mother wishes she could forget.
Tammy Sleeth said her two sons, Cameron, who has Asperger’s syndrome, and Liam, 7, who has autism, were thrilled to have the chance to hear Santa say “ho, ho, ho, merry Christmas” and tell him what presents they hoped for this year.
But when she took her family to Logan Hyperdome, in Shailer Park, Queensland, on Thursday, what was planned to be a fun time turned into a distressing turn of events.
In a scene reminiscent of the film Bad Santa starring a foul-mouthed Billy Bob Thornton, the shopping center Santa made a mockery of her sons including Cameron who was wearing a T-shirt that read, “think before you judge, I have autism”.
“The boys went up to Santa, my six-year-old was so excited to see Santa and he was doing a little dance in front of Santa, I thought it was cute, he was happy,” she said.
“Then Santa looked at Cameron’s shirt and looked at me and said ‘has he had his medication tonight?’ and I said ‘excuse me?’. I was just disgusted.”
They were among dozens of children lining up to meet Santa.
Mrs Sleeth, from Boronia Heights south of Brisbane, said the boys started to tell Santa what they wanted for Christmas but she was left shocked at his response.
“They started saying what they wanted and then about two or three seconds later he said to them ‘what about a jail cell?’,” she said.
“After he said that I thought I didn’t hear right and then he said it again, ‘do you want a jail cell?’
“My six-year-old responded, ‘jail cell’ and I was mortified, I thought how dare you, he’s not playing up, he’s not being naughty.”
Mrs Sleeth said she was in tears after the incident and doesn’t want to take her sons to meet Santa again.
“I’m glad Cameron didn’t understand it and even after Santa said it Cameron was still giving him hugs,” she said.
“I certainly knew what he was going on about and I thought that’s disgusting, how dare he insinuate my child needs to be institutionalised.”
Centre manager Rob Mansfield said the man involved in the incident was being investigated and was no longer working in the center.
He said the Sleeths where being sent a package which included children’s toys.
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/national/bad-santa-taunts-family/story-e6frfkvr-1226224512408#ixzz1gjnuwiZM
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Life, Jerks, and being a parent
So we have been extremely busy with life lately, and I apologize for the lack of updates.
That being said here are two events that started the slide down:
#1
Just before Thanksgiving, Arcade Son and I were grocery shopping, we hit the local Winn Dixie and were headed to the checkout lane. One of Arcade Son’s “Stims” is to repeat things to himself, typically no more than a whisper in volume. This day was no different, and he was repeating some things to himself while standing next to me, he was helping me put things on the conveyor belt, while working through a conversation we had earlier.
Fairly standard stuff for him and I when we go grocery shopping.
The Girl bagging groceries took note of him repeating things, and proceeded to insult him and tell me how annoying it was for him to do that. I was floored to say the least (as was the girl ringing our purchase up), and for once in my life I had no idea what to say to this person. I still dont know if Arcade Son heard her enough to know she was being insulting to him. I just grabbed his hand, and we left the store sans groceries. He did clue in that I was upset when we hit the car and he was upset that we forgot the groceries at the Store.
Several dozen phone calls and emails later, the Winn Dixie reps for the area assured me that it would never happen again and the offending party would be let go as this wasn’t her first such incident….. I felt secure thinking they had handled the situation.
Fast Forward to Saturday 12/10, my son walk into Winn Dixie to get some groceries, and standing there bagging someone groceries was the girl from before. I sighed, turned around and walked out.
Arcade son looked at me as we walked across the parking lot and said “Winn Dixie is a bo-bo store, they are mean and controlled by villians that are jerks.”
Not much else needed to be said after that
#2
I pack a lunch and a snack for Arcade son everyday to take to school. Its always the same with the only variance being does he get “Gummie Chewies” (His name for little gummie fruit snacks, typically Spiderman or Capt America ones) or Oreo Cookies. The Oreo cookies are a way for me to surprise him with what he calls “Happy Daddy Day”, which is a day where I work from home, pick him up from school and then we go do something awesome like buy Comic books, take pictures of random things, wander the beach, build cities with sytrofoam/ lego’s/ and blocks, etc……
Two Fridays ago, I put Oreo’s into his lunch, and sent him off to school. The afternoon rolls around and I pick him up, and he is all super excited. We head home to drop off his book bag before hitting the store for some more of the new 52 from DC comic books. We walk into the house and he puts his stuff up and places his lunch box on the counter. I asked him “Buddy were your Oreo’s good?”, and he broke down into tears immediately. He hasn’t cried like this in a long time, it took me over an hour to get him calmed down to be able to tell me what was happening.
Apparently he “shared” his lunch with two other boys. (Note the quotations)
These two boys told Arcade son that if he didn’t share his lunch with them, they would go tell the teacher that Arcade son said something bad. Arcade Son, not wanting to get into trouble handed over his lunch.
I was livid to say the least and immediately called one of his teachers to discuss the issue. Apparently Arcade Son had been “sharing” his lunch for quite some time, and one of the teachers felt the need to tell him to stop doing such a few weeks ago.
Now I was Livid+1. I asked my son what was going on, but his time reference isn’t’ something that’s easily interpreted. (Common in Autistic kids . For him anything older than a few days is always “Two Weeks”)
This caused a whole slew of meetings and questions of supervision to pop into mine and Arcade Mom’s head. Luckily I can report that as of today, things have been addressed, and now we have to wait and watch to ensure that the school board handles their end of the situation.
In closing there are some small game updates I will be making soon:
Another round of Diablo 3 testing
Back to Karkand Expansion for Battlefield 3
Modern Warfare 3 Patches
New Products from Paizo, Privateer Press, and WoTC
Skyrim!
Anno 2070
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Diablo 3 ~sigh~
Diablo 3 Beta
So opposite of the SWToR beta I was in this weekend, I was actually excited for this one. I loved the Diablo and Diablo 2. I still play Diablo 2 and I jump on any clone games that come out for it.
Well a mud hole was stomped in my excitement for this game fairly quickly.
I’m going to go ahead and get the good things out of the way, and then hit the neutral, and then the bad.
Good:
Each class does play differently and has a unique feel to it.
Graphics were nice.
Sounds were pretty awesome.
They kept the random terrain and random dungeon layout.
You get a Horadric Cube wannabe that breaks down crap gear into crafting materials, this way you can avoid heading back to town every few minutes to offload loot.
Neutral (Yes we are here that fast):
Crafting, I have no idea why this was added to the game. I made a few items (mainly daggers and armor for my Witch Doctor), and then promptly forgot about it.
Auction House, I have no idea why this was there, but hey, whatever! Folks were using it, and I bought something to test it out
Breakable/ collapsible terrain- I found myself trying, hard, to use this to my advantage, most often the mobs would wander out of range of falling walls before I could crush them with it. I eventually started destroying it purely for the XP bonus it was giving me and that’s it
Storyline, I might just be nitpicking here but the first chapter revolves around killing the undead prince of a fallen kingdom that’s raising undead hordes to burn your town. (Sound familiar?)
Achievements
Quest tracking
Bad:
Talents, Diablo 3 should serve as a warning to everyone willing to put money down for any future Blizzard products. You have no choice other than do I use X spell at this time. You can’t create unique characters, because all characters get the same abilities at the same level. The talent tree is purely there for you to mark what level you have made.
This is horrible in my opinion, what if I want super huge angry Zombie dogs? Too bad, gone are the days of dropping more points into an ability to make it better more powerful
Why am I fighting regurgitated Diablo 2 mobs? Yes Blizzard in a few cases you gave them new names….. but that doesn’t change a thing and you know it
Zero competitiveness – I entered a few group sections and was underwhelmed, with all of us being cookie cutter examples of each other it was simple a Q&A session of “I’ll run X if you run Y” and then Bam! everything dies. There is no more tweaking of ridiculous builds, or talent trees to create the perfect Necro/ paladin combo duo (My favorite duo from D2)
It felt like I was doing the exact same thing as I did in the previous Diablo’s, there was nothing new.
UI – why can I only use 1-5 and then my mouse buttons for abilities, spells, potions, etc… And why do they each unlock at different levels? (Yes that’s right you have to level up to unlock them….) Was this an attempt to cover up the shitty skill progression?
TL; DR version:
If the final product looks anything like what I tested, everyone would be better served dropping $20 on Torchlight 2 and enjoying a vastly superior game.
Additional thoughts since I wrote this:
(Just general thoughts, you can view than as positive, neutral, or negative)
More so than any other the others, this version caters to Ranged combat, in a big way.
With the Witch Doctor I was able to use Zombie Dogs, and the With Doctors version of the Death Knights “Death And Decay” (Called Grasp of the Dead)ability to kill everything. Note: I didn’t use any other abilities purely summoned my dogs and then cast Grasp of the dead everywhere.
Once I got the Cleric/ paladin dude following me around, then I stopped casting Grasp, set the pallie to heal and just looted everything
Monks are far better starting out than Barbarians
the “Talent Tree” is here for each class:
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian
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