A Green Mushroom

Wow, that post title looks weird with multiple colons in it. Anyway.... HELLO! This is my first Final Fantasy Sidequest post.  I've been playing Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call a little bit here and there ever since it released on 3DS last September.  I thought it was finally time to write about it. It's really good! I rarely play it for more than 15 minutes in one sitting, but it keeps drawing me back for more.  It's been out for over four months and I'm still playing it.  That should say a lot about it. It does have a huge pedigree of amazing music to pull from.  That's easily the best part of the game.  The music selection from the Final Fantasy series is just fantastic.  They have it sorted by game and music type which makes it simple to find the track you're hunting for. The main thing that makes this so much better than the original Theatrhythm Final Fantasy game are the control options.  I tried the original ga...

The title of this post could be taken a number of ways, but I didn't mean it in a good way.  I'm less than a month into Final Fantasy XIV after more than four years away from MMOs... and I'm already getting sick of the grind. After playing so many single player games I can easily see where they are artificially inflated grind between meaningful events.  I know it's because it's an MMO and they need to extend their content.  They need to keep people subscribed.  But, this amount of extra time and grind would never hold up in a single player game. I'm already sick of it less than one month in.  I'm pretty sure that doesn't bode well for my future with MMOs. I knew this was liable to happen if I tried out a MMO again.  I just didn't anticipate it happening so fast. It makes me realize how much I wish I could check out other MMOs for the core content without all the MMO trappings.  I would love to experience all the storyline quests in S...

The rumor of the last couple days, backed up by tweets from employees of the company, is that Joystiq is being shut down by it's parent company AOL. That sucks. Joystiq is one of the best places for gaming news online.  I've had them in my RSS feed for as long as I can remember. From time to time, as I've played various MMOs, I've also followed the work of their subsites like WoW Insider and Massively . Joystiq does such great work and they're one of only three gaming news sites that I actually look at every article they post.  If they're gone their is going to be a hole in my gaming news and I don't know where I'm going to turn to fill it. The other two sites that I look at every article from are Polygon and Rock, Paper, Shotgun .  But I need to get news from multiple sources.  If Joystiq really goes under I'll be in search of a new general gaming news site.  I would rather not turn toward the Kotakus of the world.  They don't ...

I hit level 30  in Final Fantasy XIV earlier this week and the pacing came to a grinding halt.  And I do mean grinding. I was jarred out of the main story because suddenly I needed to go start a secondary Class from level 1 and get them up to level 15.  I've been playing an Archer, so in this case the secondary Class I needed was Pugilist.  I needed to get my secondary Class to 15 so that I could pick up an advanced "Job" that goes on top of my main Archer class. The Class and Job system isn't really explained well in the game.  I needed to ask some guildmates about it and do some research online to actually figure it out. In the end, I got Pugilist to 15 which let me pick up the Bard Job for my Archer Class.  It took multiple days and it totally broke me out of my groove. I finally got back to my level 30 main Class/Job which is now Archer/Bard and found that after level 30 the leveling slows down a lot.  No longer could I fly through the...

I'm not a comic book guy.  I never really have been.  And while I love webcomics like Penny-Arcade I don't think I've ever bought a physical comic book in my life. There have been two times when I waded into the shallow end of the comic book pool. The first time was when one of my roommates in college gave my PDFs of comic series he thought I would like.  It basically ended up being the entire run of Walking Dead and Y The Last Man.  Neither series had been finished at that point but I read everything that had been released at the time.  While it didn't get me to run out and buy the next entry in each series, it did show me that modern comic books aren't all boring superheroes rehashing the same events and situations. My second exposure was a year or two ago on free comic book day when I learned about Comixology .  It's an app , web interface, and online store where you can buy comics digitally.  They were offering something like the first issue...

I finally got around to trying out NES Remix 2 on my Wii U yesterday and I found it surprisingly fun. I bought and played NES Remix 1 when it released but was underwhelmed by the game.  This series takes small portions of various Nintendo Entertainment System games and samples them.  It gives a taste of each game while giving you minor challenges and teaching you the basic mechanics.  Then it gives bonus stages that remix everything you know about the games. While NES Remix 1 wasn't fantastic, it was an interesting format.  It's major failing was the games that it sampled from.  They were all very early NES games and the majority weren't great. NES Remix 2 solves this problem by pulling from later NES games.  I'm having so much more fun with this second entry in the series than I did with the first.  It's giving me a feel for a bunch of games that I never tried, which is really fun.  It's also a blast from the past since it gives me a cha...

I should really write about all the health/fitness apps I use, but for right now I want to talk about MyFitnessPal.  The others might come up in the course of writing this anyway. One of the things to do when you're trying to get healthier or change your diet is to start counting calories.  Since I'm doing that right now I wanted to write about this app because it's the best calorie counter that I've found. It's an app and also a website.  All the information syncs between the two. It has a huge library of food that is easily searchable.  Any user can submit new food to it.  Other users can then confirm nutritional info as correct and it will end up in their general library for everyone to use. The last time I used it was over 6 months ago and since then they've added a new feature.  Scanning barcodes!  I can't believe how easy this makes it to track calories.  Just point your phone at the barcodes of food or ingredients as you pull t...

I know we're almost done with January already, but I keep reading articles and posts about most anticipated games of 2015.  And nothing has really released yet this year. This got me thinking.  What's my most anticipated game of 2015?  When I took some time to think about it I was kind of surprised by my answer. Bravely Second! I've obviously been on a Final Fantasy kick lately, and Bravely Default was my favorite game of the last year.  So when I really looked at games targeted to release in 2015 it's Bravely Second that stands out above the rest. I loved Bravely Default's JRPG style brought to us with some updates for the modern era.  If Bravely Second maintains that and evens out the pacing of the story it should be an amazing game.

I'm pushing 30.  At least that's what my wife says to me when we're being sarcastic with each other.  Don't worry, I say it right back to her. I'm 28.  30 doesn't really scare me, but I do know I'm getting to the point in my life where I need to take better care of my body if I want to keep it for the long haul.  My body won't just maintain itself like it did when I was a teenager or in my early twenties. For the past 6 years I've been trying to exercise regularly and mostly failing.  I started running for fun and exercise about a year before my daughter was born but was never able to get on a regular running schedule.  Between our pregnancies, having kids, and a few job changes I just haven't had a steady schedule for any long period of time. It's hard to make fitness a habit when your schedule changes a lot.  But I keep trying. I try to do something physical every day.  Typically this is a run, but sometimes it's walking or gett...

This is currently the last entry in the mainline series and I needed to give it a shot.  I was actually really excited to get into a MMO since I haven't played one since World of Warcraft in February of 2011 . Before I start, you should probably know where I stand with MMOs.  My first true MMO was Everquest when it originally released.  I played it for the first years of it's life through the second expansion.  I tried out a few MMOs after that but World of Warcraft was the only one that ever stuck for more than a month.  I played it a little bit with each expansion through Cataclysm.  Basically, I would play until max level and then let me subscription lapse.  Overall, I've probably sampled 10 different MMOs over the years for a month at a time. Final Fantasy XIV is my first MMO in almost four years. As I understand it, I'm actually playing the second version of the game.  The original game launched in 2010 with tons of issues and cause...

I COMPLETED MY GOAL! But... I don't feel like I'm done.  It took a long time, but I did it, I finished Final Fantasy I through XIII!  I'm super proud of myself, but now that I've done it I feel like I have at least one more thing to do. I need to try out FFXIV. I wrote a post for FFXI with my impressions from long ago even though I had originally intended to skip the MMOs altogether.  I should at least devote a post to FFXIV, but that means I need to play it. I wanted to weigh in on every mainline game in the series and I would feel bad if I left out the fourteenth entry in the main series.  I'm not promising I'll reach endgame or anything.  It's still a MMO and will never actually end.  But, at this point, I really need to give it a shot.  I don't want my Final Fantasy Project to be missing a crucial game. The other thing I'm going to continue to do is my Final Fantasy Project Sidequests  series.  These are offshoots of the ma...

Earlier today Nintendo gave notice that they're discontinuing their Club Nintendo program.  I've been a member of Club Nintendo for the past couple years and I really liked it.  I'm sad to see it go. There have been times when the club reward offerings weren't great, but there have also been times with fantastic physical and digital goods exclusive to Club Nintendo.  I picked up my 3DS XL charging cradle through the program as well as the soft case I use to carry my 3DS XL around in my backpack.  Not to mention the handful of classic Nintendo games I've grabbed for virtual console through the club. It's not all bad.  I truly hope this signals Nintendo's intention to turn over a new leaf when it comes to digital offerings. Historically, Nintendo has been really bad at online stuff in general, lagging far behind Microsoft and Sony.  They're infamous friend code system for adding friends online.  The bad matchmaking and often unplayable online ...

I'm a runner.  I run for exercise multiple times per week.  At least, I do when it's not winter. This is the first full winter that my family has been in our house.  We live in Minnesota which means that running in the winter isn't a viable option.  There's either too much snow or it's too cold out (-15 F last week) to run outside.  In the past I've had a treadmill while living with my parents, going to college, and living in apartments with my wife.  We don't have room for a treadmill in our townhouse but I decided I needed to do something  to stay active all winter. So I found a stationary bike that doesn't take up much room and can be folded up and put away if needed.  It was ok at first.  Not as good as running but still ok.  It gave me the something  physical I needed even if it wasn't as enjoyable as running. But very quickly I realized I could move the bike over in front of our main TV.  This is the TV with our PS4...

I finished the game!  This one felt a like it took longer since the holidays happened while I was in the middle of playing, but I finished it!  And, surprisingly, I really liked it. Before starting the Final Fantasy Project I thought that Final Fantasy XIII was going to end up very near the bottom of my list.  I hated this game by the time I finished my first playthrough of it.  I thought I would have to suffer through the entire game again.  Imagine my surprise to find myself truly enjoying the game. It's not without it's flaws, but the biggest difference this time around were my expectations of the game.  Every person has a different expectation for a game with Final Fantasy in the title, and the first time I played Final Fantasy XIII my expectations were so different than what the game actually was.  Now, years later, the game hasn't changed at all but my expectations of it have. This time I went into the game knowing that it would be li...

One of the coolest parts of being a parent is watching your kids turn into fully functional human beings.  I guess what I mean by that is watching them grow up. For so long you're stuck in state of constantly taking care of their every need.  And they need a lot.  But then, eventually, they start to do some things for themselves. They get better and better at doing things and then one day they are basically a fully functional, but little, human being. I bring this up to say that my daughter is four and it's awesome!  She plays games with me on iPad and Wii U all the time.  We just got her first console (that she's in charge of) for Christmas when we got her a 2DS.  And now she's starting to play tabletop games! Yesterday I got home and was greeted with her asking, "Daddy, will you play Go Fish with me?" I'm trying to raise little gamers, so whenever she asks to play something I always say yes.  And it was a blast!  I love watching her...

I Played a lot of Games In total I sampled 66 Steam games that have been sitting in my library, unplayed.  The last 22 posts leading up to this one have been my impressions of them.  While it may seem to you, dear reader, like I played them over the course of many weeks the truth is different.  I crammed all these games into the space of one week, between Christmas and New Years. It gave me a great chance to put my new PC through its paces and it finally let me sort through my huge Steam backlog. What did I learn?  Let me tell you... Having a Controller is Key There were so many games that I tried which would be next to impossible to play with only a mouse and keyboard.  There is another big selection of games in my library that can  be played with mouse and keyboard, but are much better with a controller. My go to controller is from my dead Xbox 360.  The console is dead, but the controllers are all in fully functional.  I keep o...

This is my twenty-second set of Steam backlog game impressions.  It's also my last set!  I've finally tried all the games I've been meaning to in my Steam library! Expect a couple more follow-up posts reflecting on the 66 games I've tried.  Now I've definitely put my new computer through it's initial real world test. For now here are the last three games. Civilization Beyond Earth I had high hopes for this game.  I ended up very disappointed.  Civilization: Beyond Earth is not a bad game, but it's not a great game either. I thought this game represented the Civilization series being handed over to a new generation of developers.  They were setting it on new planets beyond earth and revamping all the game systems.  I thought incorrectly. This is basically like every Civilization game before it, but with a sci-fi look and feel.  The main difference during actual gameplay is that there are aliens everywhere and they're much more diffic...

Endless Legend Endless Legend feels like someone took the Civilization series redesigned everything about it that felt stale and dropped it in a fantasy setting. After only an hour or so with this game I already love it.  This will easily supplant Civilization V from my favorites and take its place.  It scratches the exact same itch, but I like this game better.  I recently picked up Civilzation: Beyond Earth and haven't tried it out yet but it and Endless Legend are going to have to slug it out and see who comes out on top. I've already deleted Civilization V off my hard drive and added Endless Legend in its place among my Steam favorites list.  It's really good. Endless Space This is a space game made by the same developer as Endless Legend.  While Endless Legend was a new release from 2014, Endless Space came out in 2012.  It's a 4x space strategy game. While I was able to get my head around Endless Legend quickly, I had more trouble und...

Chaos Reborn Chaos Reborn reminds me of chess... if chess had creatures to summon...  and wizards.  I like it a lot.  You are a wizard and get a deck of spell cards.  Each card is a creature or ability.  These are your spells and on your turn you can cast one.  Spells have a percentage chance to succeed, with really good spells and monsters being harder to cast. The cool thing about spells is that you can summon and illusionary version of any creature and it has 100% chance of succeeding.  It also has 100% of the abilities of the creature.  The only downside is that the other wizard can choose to call bullshit and disbelieve your creature.  If they're correct it costs them nothing and they continue their turn.  If they're wrong they don't get to cast any other spells. I really like this game.  I'm not telling you to go pick it up yet, because it's still in early access.  It's one I already know I'll be playing a bunch...

Bulletstorm When I picked this one up I didn't realize it was a Game for Windows Live game.  I've had enough trouble with that service over the years to know not to even try to make it work. I got the game to launch but it wouldn't let me play without signing into Games for Windows Live and jumping through all the hoops.  I gave up right there. Goat Simulator It's unexpectedly fun to be a goat!  Well, a goat with a super headbutt who is a jerk to everyone.  Goat Simulator is a ton of fun! I spent most of my time in the first two areas they originally included with the game and I already feel like I got my money's worth.  I haven't even touched the Goat MMO Simulator expansion that they added for free.  I'm going to be revisiting that soon. The Banner Saga The Banner Saga has come a long way since I played it in Beta.  I'm actually pleasantly surprised.  I love the core combat of this game.  If I didn't already have a c...

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II - Retribution I've never been a huge fan of the Warhammer 40k universe, but I'm always up for a good strategy game.  That's why I picked this one up.  I don't know why I've waited to play it, but that's why it's called a backlog.  Games are just laying there in wait. I was ready for a cool strategy game but I only found an ok one.  It seems like this is built on the Company of Heroes engine.  Company of Heroes was a World War II RTS that had ideas like suppression and firing arcs.  This has those exact same ideas, but in the Warhammer 40k universe. Playing this RTS just served to remind me how good Blizzard is at making RTS games.  I would much rather go play Starcraft 2, or even Warcraft 3, than play more of Dawn of War II.  It just doesn't hold up. Saints Row IV I played Saints Row 3 for awhile and enjoyed it.  I never beat the game or felt truly drawn into the world, but it was a fun game to ...

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Oh man, this was a mixed bag.  I played enough of the game to remind me that I love this game.  It's one of my favorite games on the original Xbox, but it's seriously showing its age. It seems like all of the Star Wars games on Steam are from the PS2 / Original Xbox era and none of them have been updated or optimized for modern PC gaming.  I had to give up on Knights of the Old Republic on PC after less than half an hour.  I couldn't deal with the bad controls, crazy resolutions, and old menu interface. I played enough to make me miss this game in it's original form.  So, I looked around and noticed that an updated and optimized version exists on iOS.  I picked it up in a heartbeat.  I'll definitely be playing that one soon. Jade Empire: Special Edition Don't buy this game.  I couldn't get it to launch.  I fought the good fight and did almost an hour of troubleshooting because I really want...

Viscera Cleanup Detail: Shadow Warrior Remember how I mentioned that Shadow Warrior is super bloody and gorey?  In this game, you clean up the mess you made.  You're basically given a mop and some rubber gloves and told to go to town. It's set in the same location as Shadow Warrior after all the action has taken place.  Someone has to clean it up and it's you.  It's a really weird game.  I was oddly fascinated for about 5 minutes, then it was just gross.  There's no way I can recommend this one. Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut I kickstarted Shadowrun Returns and when it finally came out I was disappointed with it.  The pacing was too slow and there wasn't the ability to save anywhere.  Those are two things that will absolutely kill a game for me. Shadowrun: Dragonfall is the stand-alone expansion to Shadowrun Returns and I got it for free because I was a backer.  It seems to have fixed my main complaints about Shadowrun...

Super Time Force Ultra Initially I didn't like this game.  The story seemed kind of dumb and I wasn't a big fan of the particular pixel graphic style they went with for the game. The gameplay is what truly won me over.  Super Time Force Ultra is a side scrolling shooter and at any time you can pause time, rewind, make a copy of yourself, and continue playing.  This means death is instantly reversible and the levels keep flowing. It also means you can have 30 copies of yourself on screen at the same time destroying enemies.  It's so much fun, especially the boss battles.  I don't know how many total stages there are but I played a little more than an hour.  I played enough to know that I'm going to come back and finish this game once I wrap up this Steam backlog playthrough I'm doing. Shadow Warrior Do you want a bloody first person sword fighting game?  This is for you.  It's super bloody and super sword fighty.  Your first, and...

Half Life 2: Lost Coast I've beaten Half Life 2, but I never thought it was as amazing and revolutionary as most people.  I had this game sitting in my library and thought I would check it out since I had no idea what it was. Half Life 2: Lost Coast is basically a glorified tech demo for Half Life 2.  It has a minor scenario that gives you access to all the weapons in the game and puts you up against a bunch of enemy types, all within 30 minutes or so.  It was an ok diversion, but I'm still not a big fan of Half Life in general. Half Life 2: Episode One While I was on a Half Life kick I thought I would try Half Life 2: Episode One.  My brother has told me for years that Episode One is much better than the core Half Life 2 game.  After trying Lost Coast, I figured I would finally give Episode One a try. I tried it and I still don't care about it.  I seem to despise the physics puzzles in Half-Life.  I don't care about the story.  ...

Darksiders This game didn't click with me at all.  From the forgettable hack and slash combat to the biblical/apocalyptic setting, I just didn't like it. I know it's supposed to turn into some mash-up of God of War and Zelda eventually, but I was so bored of the game that I couldn't stick with it.  I had to put it down and move on. Just Cause 2 Another game that didn't resonate with me. It's kind of cool to fly around with the parachute and the grappling hook.  Beyond that, the game hasn't aged well.  I suppose it's been out for almost 5 years already.  I think I'll just wait for Just Cause 3 to jump into the series.  I like the basics of movement mechanics, but the series needs a modern overhaul. The Lord of the Rings: War in the North I was under the impression this game was a turn based RPG set in the Lord of the Rings universe.  I was wrong about the game type, but right about the setting. The Lord of the Rings: War ...

Skullgirls Fighting games are very hit and miss with me.  Sometimes I'll find one that will just click with me, but besides Smash Brothers it's extremely rare. Skullgirls has a really cool look and feel to it.  I love the animation and art style in the game. The biggest downfall, and the reason I didn't enjoy Skullgirls overall, is that I suck at fighting games.  I'm really bad at them and I don't have the patience to sit and learn until I get better.  I like to button mash my way through a few fights and then move onto the next game. I actually got stuck in the Skullgirls extensive tutorial section.  I couldn't get very because of my lack of skill.  I'll be sticking to Smash Bros for my fighting game needs. Star Wars Republic Commando I remember being blown away by this game when I played it on the original Xbox.  I'm a huge Star Wars fan and I was completely the target demographic for this game.  A first person shooter set dur...

Spacebase DF-9 Spacebase DF-9 is a game by Doublefine, who have a fairly good track record for games.  When I started playing this game it instantly reminded me of rymdkapsel.  You need to build a base in space while harvesting resources from around you. Luckily, this game is much better than rymdkapsel was.  There are a lot more options and tools to control individual parts of your base and assign workers to different tasks.  If I had to pick between the two games I would choose this one for sure. That being said, it's still not a very thrilling game.  Not much happens while you build your space base.  It almost feels like playing Sim City, but in space.  You need to keep your citizens happy and meet their demands.  It's not a bad game, but I won't be going back to it soon. Papers, Please Papers, Please deserves all the praise it gets for having unique gameplay.  You are a laborer in a made up eastern European country and you...