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Gaming Diary: Another Successful Extra Life in the Books!

October 24, 2017 By Keri Honea Leave a Comment

I returned home late last night from an amazing Extra Life weekend with the best gaming friends I could ever have. The four of us gathered at Chris’s house, ate all his food, moved his furniture, and used up his datacap all in the name of playing video games and raising money for children’s hospitals. We laughed, we made fun of one another, and we caught up as if we just saw one other last month instead of two years ago. It made leaving yesterday very hard.

Of course I missed my house and my family, but I was sad to leave my friends. We really have to do better about getting together, even if it’s just to play a game together. Something where we can all talk instead of type.

I brought a number of games with me to keep me occupied across the 24 hours, but I was not prepared to only touch two of them. I thought I was nearly done with Ys VIII when I started the event, but I was over 14 hours away from finishing. Thanks to the abysmal boss rush of an ending, I think I’m done with JRPGs outside of the Square Enix realm. I’m good with Final Fantasy and Star Ocean, but I’m tired of this pattern of a game being way too easy until the very end, where even after doing all the side quests, you’re still way too underpowered to fight the final bosses. Sorry you have nothing left to do, but you’re going to have to grind up at least 10 more levels before you can even think of tackling these bosses. Oh and I hope you have enough potions with you, because there’s no time to get more in between. Ugh it was frustrating beyond belief. Finally said fuck all and lowered the difficulty because I was completely out of potions. The only way I could get more was to reload a save point at the start of the final boss rush. I had zero interest in doing that.

But hey, it’s done, and I’m not sure I want to do many more.

The Division lolz

I also finished The Division with Blake, and that was absolutely thanks to Chris. He was so overpowered, he carried us the entire rest of the way. While Blake and I huddled together (so we could heal one another) and took cover to pick off enemies one by one, Chris would just run straight up to them, no matter their strength, and kill them with his pistol. Yes, his pistol. It was both amazing and humbling.

As much as I would like to tackle another game on my backlog, quite a few with guides are releasing this week, and I need to keep focused on those before I head back into the stack of the shame.

Filed Under: Gaming Diary

Gaming Diary: My Album Went Double Platinum Over the Weekend

October 16, 2017 By Keri Honea Leave a Comment

Double Platinum

This weekend somehow turned into one of finishing things. I platinumed in two Vita games and finished a book. Now I’m wondering what I’ll do next, handheld-wise, as I have plenty to do console-wise.

I honestly wasn’t expecting to finish either Vita game so quickly. Last week I reviewed a visual novel, Bad Apple Wars, for PlayStation LifeStyle. I know if I actually take the time, I can easily Platinum a visual novel, even though I’ve never done it before. Usually racking up the trophies in a visual novel requires multiple, multiple playthroughs. For the review, I played through it a few times, which was incredibly easy since there’s so little gameplay. It also helps that the game has an auto-play feature, allowing you to skip through dialogue you’ve already read and auto-scrolling through dialogue you haven’t read. Anything I could do one-handed, I did while holding my Vita and watching the movies play out. You make 1-2 decisions in the beginning, and then simply watch how it all unfolds. There’s some touch screen gameplay mixed in, but that can be done while doing something else one-handed.

After playing through each character’s ending once, I spent the next two days with the game on almost literal auto-pilot while I worked. When I realized on Friday night that I only had the bad endings to sort through, which I could start at each character’s chapter 6 (out of 9 chapters), it was game on from there. I have to say that the bad endings were some of the most depressing things I have ever seen in a visual novel, which is saying a lot. It probably wasn’t the best thing to end my night with, but the Platinum Trophy pop made it worth it.

Before I had to focus on Bad Apple Wars, I was trying to console myself over missing out on the Platinum trophy for The LEGO Ninjago Movie Video Game with LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens on Vita. LEGO games on the Vita are often a bigger pain-in-the-ass than on console, but this one takes the cake. It’s not LEGO Marvel Superheroes on Vita bad, but it’s in that direction. Thankfully, the strategy guide included the handheld strategies (they often don’t lately, only online), which was an immense help in trying to figure out some of the minikit locations in the levels. You’d think that with the Red Brick turned on to point you toward collectibles would be enough, but it certainly was not. I almost did better ignoring the markers completely than trying to figure out what in the world they were pointing to. When you have to destroy X number of things, don’t mark where the kit appears; mark the things you’re suppose to destroy. It was absolutely ridiculous.

The one trophy that might have prevented my Platinum glory, however—the one that requires killing 10 enemies by deflecting blaster shots at them. If you hold down the square button, the lightsaber wielder stands in a defensive position, almost like a batter trying to bunt. It was fairly easy to do this to kill the enemies, but it never counted. If I had the Red Brick turned on to allow perfect deflects, the trophy wouldn’t pop. So, okay, I turn that Red Brick off and all the other Red Bricks, just to be safe. Then I replay one level over and over to bat back blaster shots at stormtroopers. That still didn’t work. Out of extreme frustration, I read the trophy description one more time. It says to deflect as a Jedi. A Jedi. I’ve been using Kylo Ren, so could that be what’s preventing the trophy pop?

Once I switched to Luke, the trophy popped very quickly. It helped that by this point, I was a goddamn pro at deflecting blaster shots. Trophy popped, Platinum trophy popped, victory dance was had, and then it was time for bed.

Not sure if I’ll have any other productive weekends like that one, but it was nice to clear games off my plate when it feels like all I do is pile them on.

Filed Under: Gaming Diary, In Pursuit of Platinum

Gaming Diary: That LEGO Allure

October 9, 2017 By Keri Honea Leave a Comment

LEGO Star Wars the Force Awakens Vita

After my huge disappointment with LEGO Ninjago Movie Video Game, I’ve turned to another LEGO game to satiate my Platinum trophy woes. Well, that and I want a fun LEGO game to play. LEGO Ninjago had many grand ideas, but it was so rushed, it wasn’t much fun to play.

I’m currently working toward a Platinum trophy in the Vita version of LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens. That one is at least fun, although the challenges for Gold Bricks and some of the collectibles are a pain in the ass. I thought that the Red Brick to point out collectibles would help, but it’s made everything more confusing instead. I finally pulled out my strategy guide, wondering if it even included the handheld versions of the game. Thankfully, it does, and it has cleared up so much confusion with obtaining minikits in both the levels and the hub worlds.

It hasn’t been very useful for the challenges, which is a shame, I must say. Although I must say it’s not entirely the guide’s fault; the challenges are a muddled beating. I just wish that for challenges like surviving a cover mission without getting hit, the guide would have suggested activating the Stormtrooper Red Brick, which prevents all gunfire from hitting a character thanks to bad aim.

Need to get this out of the way now, since October 27th has way too many games and guides releasing. I need to start putting my pennies aside now. I should have been putting them aside awhile ago.

Filed Under: Gaming Diary

Gaming Diary: No LEGO Ninjago Movie Video Game Platinum for Me

October 2, 2017 By Keri Honea Leave a Comment

I came down with a bit of a head cold over the weekend, so I thought it would be a nice time to hang out in a comfy bean bag and earn that Platinum trophy in LEGO Ninjago Movie Video Game. Apparently that wasn’t meant to be. I am lacking one gold brick, and even with the collectible detector, I couldn’t figure out for the life of me what I was missing. Since there is no strategy guide, I turned to YouTube. Thanks to a kind YouTuber, I learned that I wasn’t missing anything; the game was missing it for me.

@TTGames this glitch is all that’s keeping me from the last gold brick & a plat for @ninjagomovie game. 🙁 Help? pic.twitter.com/l9YtSVuRGq

— Keri Pwny Honea (@crunchychocobo) October 1, 2017

As such, unless TT Games patches in this fix, which I doubt will happen, there will be no Platinum trophy for me. Obviously, there is a way it will appear, so not everyone is afflicted with this glitch. I could start over and hope it will be fixed, but dear Lord; this game isn’t THAT good. So unless it gets patched, no Platinum trophy for this LEGO game, which is more aggravating than I care to admit.

To try to get over it, I started LEGO Star Wars The Force Awakens on my Vita. Maybe that will motivate me to finish the other LEGO games on my consoles. It’s always nice to knock games off the backlog, which is seriously way too pathetic.

Still chapped over LEGO Ninjago Movie Video Game, though. That will sting for awhile.

Filed Under: Gaming Diary

Gaming Diary: LEGOs and Ninjagos

September 26, 2017 By Keri Honea 3 Comments

Friday night, we took the kids to see The LEGO Ninjago Movie. I knew it wouldn’t be as good as the previous movie or even the TV show (it’s pretty darn good, actually), but we enjoyed it all the same. This wasn’t set strictly off of the TV series’ lore; it was more of a reimagining of Ninjago’s defenders. This Green Ninja Lloyd was taken out of The LEGO Movie, where he was a Master Builder. As long as you went into the movie not expecting it to follow the show, it was enjoyable. Besides, how can you not love Jackie Chan voicing Sensei Wu?

LEGO Ninjago Movie Video Game

A review copy of the video game of the same name also arrived that day, and I opened it right after we returned from the movie. I am so glad I waited, because if I played this first, I may have put off going to the movie. I can’t get into too much now since my review still isn’t up, but just know that the voice actors in the game ARE NOT the same from the movie. The voice acting in the movie was done well. This was terrible.

I wasn’t a huge fan of The LEGO Movie Video Game, but that might be slightly better. Movie tie-ins rarely work, especially when they’re rushed to release upon movie release date. LEGO Jurassic World was fantastic until you reached the fourth film. It was there that the game-breaking glitches surfaced, the camera worsened, and the game crashed quite a bit. The LEGO Ninjago Movie Video Game suffers the same fate.

Am I still going to try to Platinum it? YOU BETCHA. It’s so rare I can snag a Platinum trophy in a game at all, so you best believe I’ll do it in the games I know I can.

Filed Under: Gaming Diary

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