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The Corner of Randomness: Debating what to Play

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Why must you be so addicting?

Why must you be so addicting?

If you listen to the SGR Coffee Break, you know I am immensely addicted to Elite: Dangerous. I can now add Pillars of Eternity and Bloodborne to that list. When I want to sit down and dive into a game, I don’t have any shortage of quality time sinks. While these all will be continuous contributors to my Stack of Shame, it also causes a problem. That problem: WHAT THE HELL DO I PLAY?

Don’t get me wrong, I am pleased with the amount of greatness sitting on my plate. I even look forward to adding dessert thanks to Mortal Kombat X. However, this also causes me to spend a hefty amount of time debating what game I want to play. I mean, Pillars of Eternity is a game I swear I’m only going to play for an hour or so, and then five hours pass. Bloodborne isn’t a game you don’t devote your full attention to, or the game will eat you up and spit you out and not even shed a tear for your rage broken controller.

There are days it actually takes me more time to figure out what I want to play than the time I then spend playing the game. This only becomes more complicated if there is a stream on that I want to watch as now I have to consider the game environment in which I will visit. This is probably why Elite: Dangerous gets so much love. I can just sit and mindlessly mine asteroids with little to no worry.

I fear the only solution to this “WTF do I play now” question is to probably start flipping a coin. Or just completing one game befo……right, I can’t even finish that sentence with a straight face. In the end, having too many great games to play is a blessing and a curse. Can anyone clone me and mind link to my clone so we can play different games, but I still get the experience of playing? If you can do that, you’d probably be stupid rich! Until that time comes, I’m just going to sit here and stare at my heap of games and try to figure out what I’m going to play while sipping on this coffee.

Monday Gaming Diary: Taking a Break with Diablo 3

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boon-of-the-hoarder1The last couple of weeks have been a little insane for me at work. As I ended the week with turning in my review for Pillars of Eternity, I talked with my boss on Friday about working on Life is Strange over the weekend so I could get that review done. He ordered me to take off the weekend.

I looked at my workload. Yeah, I need to review the second episode of Life is Strange for work, and I also need to review the strategy guides for Final Fantasy Type-0 HD and Pillars of Eternity. But I need some sanity time first.

You know what I still haven’t done yet with Diablo 3? Gotten my Platinum trophies.

And that is what I did during all of my game time this weekend: played Diablo 3 on the PS3 to farm that gold. I’m at 2.6 million, so I’m over the halfway hump. With the armor my Barbarian has, and the ring that will occasionally summon a Treasure Goblin to appear, I think it will happen this summer if I can keep devoting time. I may just make Fridays my official Platinum Trophy day to work on any games I need to Platinum, unless I have a review I really need to work on for work.

I have to say, it was really nice to game just to game and not for any review, even if it is a game I’ve played countless times. I also would like to finish Dragon Age Inquisition sometime this year, not to mention several other games I started but never finished last year. However, this was about taking a break with something familiar and relaxing. I can’t imagine a better game to do that with.

But the weekend is over, so it’s back to work. My goal is to get Final Fantasy Type-0 HD done this week, which shouldn’t be too hard with only 2-3 chapters left. I have to admit that I wept a little bit looking through the guide and seeing everything I missed in the earlier chapters. I suppose that means I’ll just have to play again sometime.

The Corner of Randomness: The Digital Download vs Physical Media Debate

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The addiction is real.

The addiction is real.

For the longest time, I’ve been a physical media person when it comes to console games. Well, I must now confess that I have broken that habit thanks to Bloodborne. I had no intention of doing a digital download for this game, but excitement got the better of me. Curse you excitement…and streamers!

However, this wasn’t a spur of the moment decision. I have been teetering on the edge of digital downloads for console games for some time. I did my research to learn I’m not saving any space on my PS4 hard drive with physical disks. I never keep my game boxes, so it’s not like I’m trying to show off my game collection. Downloads have drastically reduced in size thanks to compression technologies getting better. I mean, Bloodborne requires 24 gigs of space, but only required a download size of 5 gigs. That’s a big savings when it comes to my stupid data cap that the cable company feels they need to impose on me.

Then there is my contributing source of ‘Stack of Shame’ titles: Steam. I have long questioned why I am fine with buying a game on Steam, but not on Xbox Live or PlayStation Network. Is it because I joined Steam way back when it first came out and I have just grown to accept it for my PC gaming needs?  Meanwhile, I’ve always associated physical media with console games since starting out on the Atari 2600?

I admit that the fear that my most recent PSN purchase is now in the hands of Sony. At any point they can just send a signal to my PS4 and kill my new game. I can’t just load a disk in and play it whenever I want. Yet, at the same time, this is also true for my ComiXology library, Steam library, and Nook books. Yet, the fear that Sony can take away my toys is very real.

I should also note that I almost never loan out my games, therefore that is a non-factor for me. I also never trade my games in, so I don’t even think about trade-in values. I know I can “loan” Bloodborne to a friend with game sharing, if that is ever a thing I need/want to do. So the two big advantages I’ve read about with the whole digital vs physical debate is not even a thing for me.

Will I continue to buy my games on PSN? Probably not all the time. This is especially true for collector’s editions as I like all the books, soundtracks, statues, and toys that tend to come with those. Yes, I do feel dirty for this recent action. Yet I got a game I wanted and I never left my house. I mean, it’s cold outside. It’s scary out there. I have to deal with people. I’d have to change out of my pajamas, and who wants to do that? That all seems like so much work now. I’ll just wash away my fears by dying over and over and over and over again in Bloodborne!

Monday Gaming Diary: Adventures in PC Gaming Continue

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PC-rage

It was just last month when I wrote about my woes dealing with PC gaming, my sad PC, and Homeworld Remastered. Well, the fun continued over the weekend.

I have a review copy of Pillars of Eternity, and I did not want to play it until my husband could set up the new graphics card. I got in maybe an hour’s worth of gameplay before the PC stopped recognizing the graphics card. As my husband went to work on my PC once again, I decided to try playing the game on my Mac. Oh wait, what’s that? My processor isn’t up to the speed the game needs because I didn’t buy the $2500 MacBook Pro. Silly, silly me. Guess I’ll continue waiting for my husband to finish his surgery on my PC. He worked on it for nearly five hours before he gave up. I asked him if I should buy a new motherboard. He showed me that a whole new computer would be cheaper.

So off I went to Best Buy at 9:30 at night with a credit card in tow. I mean, this review has to get done. I can’t email my boss and Obsidian’s PR with a sob story about how much my PC sucks. Well I could, but then I might lose my job, or worse, earn disappointment from my boss and Obisidian may cross our site off of their press list for reviews and other information. It’s only money, right? Who needs it, really?

I now have a new shiny PC that can easily run Pillars of Eternity, Homeworld Remastered, and probably most else thrown at it. I’m not sure it could handle The Witcher 3, though, as that game seems to be a beast. I wouldn’t play it on PC anyway; I’ll probably always prefer a controller on a console game over mouse and keyboard. I’m so ill-equipped at that control scheme with PoE, it’s rather pathetic as it is.

That said, though, now that I am playing PoE, at about 5 hours in, I really like it. Of course, we all know that 5 hours in to a hardcore RPG like this one is diddly squat.

The Corner of Randomness: Happy 16th Birthday EverQuest

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The addiction was real!

The addiction was real!

This week marks the 16th birthday for the original EverQuest. I have so many fond memories of this game. Sixteen years ago, I had just built my first 400 MHz Pentium computer, complete with a 3dfx Voodoo graphics card, 56k modem, and 64MB of RAM. Yes, just let those stats sink in for a moment. Broadband was not even a thing yet and man did waiting for a few hours for a patch to pull down because your girlfriend kept picking up the phone and disconnecting your modem suck. However, I waited it out and fell in love with my first MMO experience!

I remember working at Electronics Boutique and my manager and assistant manager couldn’t stop talking about this game. They were sharing stories of how they were exploring the world and finding all these cool mobs. They complained about having to do corpse runs after they died and they didn’t want to lose their gear. This new “raiding” thing sounded pretty kick-ass. I listened to their tales for a few hours while I sold countless Pokémon cards to various kids. By the end of the work day, I picked up the game and raced home to install it only to find I had some patching to do. Talk about buzzkill!

Eventually, the patching finished and I logged into a strange world. I rolled a Gnome Cleric and immediately got lost in my starting city known as Ak’Anon. Within mere minutes, I fell off a bridge and couldn’t get back to dry land. Eventually, a GM (Game Master) helped me out, gave me some gold and wished me luck. I eventually found my way to the city entrance and stepped out into a big, and beautiful, world. It was the hook I needed. It was new. It was intimidating. IT WAS AWESOME!

Over time, I found a guild. I made some great friends. I quested. Hell, this game took over my life. I’d get up two hours before I’d have to leave for work just so I could do some crafting. I’d race home after work and login and play until the wee hours of the morning. I lost so much sleep, but to this day I still think it was worth it. I mean, I still remember slaying my first dragon and praying to the gaming gods I’d get something special.

As my game play hours skyrocketed into numbers that shall not be mentioned here, I would follow my guild to other games such as Dark Age of Camelot, EverQuest 2, Guild Wars, World of Warcraft, and various other MMO type games. Sadly, just like the drug it was, nothing would capture that initial awe that was EverQuest. Sure, other games were fun, but after that first taste, it was nothing more than hopes and dreams to relive that high that I originally had. To this day, I still play the occasional MMO, but they all still pale in comparison that that first dip into the EverQuest pool.

EverQuest, thank you for the countless hours of fun. Thank you for making me excited to get my first broadband connection so I could play you with less lag. Thanks for making me appreciate not having to call up guildies, drag them out of bed, and force them into the game to help me recover my corpse. Thank you for the countless memories that you helped create! EverQuest, this beer is for you!

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