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Monday Gaming Diary: Reuniting with old friends in Mortal Kombat X

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kenshi-mkxAfter turning the difficulty down at bit and running through the tutorial in Mortal Kombat X, I’m having a far more pleasant experience in getting through the story mode. I’ve played a lot over the last few days, and while learning some of the new characters’ abilities is fun, whenever a chapter stars a character I used a lot way back in the day, it feels like putting on a comfortable shoe. Even though I’m not playing these characters on a similar game device and the combos are not the same, for whatever reason, I’m far more comfortable playing as Subzero, Sonya Blade, and Kitana than any other characters.

I just slip right into their special move repertoire and can easily repeat the button presses. For any other character, I’ll try my own combos, see something cool, and then I can’t recreate it or find it in the move list. I can’t find it most likely because I don’t follow what they name certain moves.

I haven’t worked my way through the entire story yet, so there are plenty of characters I haven’t played as. I could find a new character that I love more than Sonya Blade, I’m sure this is possible. But for now, I feel as comfortable with her as I did over 20 years ago with all of those hours playing Mortal Kombat on my Game Gear. It was unreal how easily I just slid right into her move set without even looking over the complete list first. Kitana was the same way, and so was Subzero. I suppose that’s why I’ve seen Subzero dominate my leaderboards in the Faction section. Well, that and he’s crazy popular; always has been.

I also picked up a fightpad to play the game with, and I like it, but the location of the L1/R1 buttons is taking me a long time to get used to. I did try to go back to the DualShock 4 controller, and that suddenly felt way too heavy. So bizarre.

Monday Gaming Diary: Overpowered in Diablo 3

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I introduced my eldest to Diablo 3 awhile back, and we played on the PS4 a couple of times, but ever since the baby figured out how to walk and get into EVERYTHING, it’s really hard to find time to play together. But he’s been insistent, and when the little one went down for a nap, I loaded the game up for us. However, I decided to play the PS3 version so he could help me with that extra 10% of gold drops to earn that final trophy. I’m not letting this go, I will get this Platinum and I will get it this year, so help me God.

I created a new character for him, a monk (because he’s like a ninja) that he immediately named “Dino Hunter.” I pulled in my Paragon 7 Demon Hunter to help out. I figured the kiddo wouldn’t understand that you don’t rush into every fight, and he needs a ranged fighter to help him out. I lowered the mode to Normal and the difficulty to Easy. Holy cow was I overpowered. In fact, I was so overpowered, overpowered may be an understatement.

I killed the Skeleton King in one shot. One. Shot. I did nothing but use my basic attack. Never pressed any other buttons unless I was dropping useless armor I accidentally picked up. My armor BROKE and I never died once. I wasn’t even aware that could happen. You know those fat enemies that explode with snakes or minions when you kill them? I killed them so hard, none of them exploded.

He had fun. I had fun. We laughed at how easy it was for me to kill everything. I let him pick up all of the armor, and then I’d have to explain why he has to sell it or recycle it and he can’t hoard it all. He was pretty excited about recycling, though, which turned into a lecture (him to me) on why recycling was important.

We only made it to the Skeleton King before he was too bored to go on. He’s six; his attention span can only go so long before he needs something else. Of course, then the baby woke up, so it was good timing. I promised him we’d play more together soon.

Perhaps he will be the one to help me get this last trophy. Yes…yes, I like this plan.

The Corner of Randomness: Curse You LEGO

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LEGO DimensionsFor those that might not know, I take pictures. I take an absurd amount of pictures of various toys living life out in the human world. This addiction started with my LEGO minifigs. Needless to say, I have a terrible LEGO addiction and so the announcement of LEGO Dimensions makes me both happy and worried.

The amount of LEGOs I have stored in my basement, combined with the amount I carry with me on photo excursions, borders on obscene. I decorate my house with various themed sets, mainly during Halloween and Christmas. I have a LEGO R2-D2 on my desk. I also have no issue dropping a Benjamin on nothing more than a handful of minifigs. I also enjoy the LEGO video games. They are just stupid fun to me.

So this announcement has me excited and oh so scared. I love that this is following the likes of the Skylanders and Disney Infinity, and Amiibos to some extent, types of games. What I dig the most is that instead of just being some paint figure you place on the “portal” type device, you build the figure, and the portal for that matter, as though it were a real set. This makes it more customizable and oh so true to the brand.

I am scared because I fear I’ll be bankrupt by the end of the year. I am afraid my wife will divorce me when I drain the bank account to buy up all that this game has to offer. I worry I will not remotely be able to keep my addiction in check. I guess I could always sell a kidney to fund this first run of figures and such. NAH!

I look forward to seeing what further news LEGO kicks out as the release date for LEGO Dimensions draws closer. I already have a feeling this is an instant buy for me. Hopefully, I will be able to keep my addiction to these friggin’ tiny plastic blocks in check. Yet, I highly doubt that is even possible for me.

Monday Gaming Diary: Easter Gaming Break

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We took a fairly unplanned trip to visit my family over the Easter holiday because my sister had her baby a couple of weeks earlier than she planned. Earlier than she planned as in she had a scheduled c-section due to her first child drama and then her blood pressure caused her to have her second child sooner than even that. Good news is that new baby is all precious and happy and healthy. And super tiny. I got my tiny baby fix and happily handed her off to her mother when she got super cranky.

I debated bringing any electronics for gaming this trip as I am reviewing Axiom Verge for work and I have Majora’s Mask that I still haven’t touched. My eldest asked if I would pack up the PS4 in the GAEMS so he could play some LEGO Batman 3. I went back and forth in my thinking, and I ultimately decided to bring no games whatsoever on the trip. The GAEMS stayed home, the 3DS stayed home, and the Vita stayed home. I brought my Surface only because I may need to work while I was at my parents’ house, and the Surface has zero games on it.

At first I was afraid I would twitch from the lack of gaming, but it was nice to not have any pressure at all to play. And honestly, we were so busy the entire time, I’m not sure when I could have played.

My Mom and I did teach the eldest child how to play Go Fish!, and that was more fun than any of my video games could have been. Once he got the hang of it, he did not want to stop playing, even when he lost! That’s a huge deal for this kiddo, who unfortunately got my perfectionist streak with games and rage quits with his 3DS more quickly than I do with nearly anything else. When he noticed it got harder the more people who played, he also noticed it got way more fun! It made me so happy to have fun with him playing cards. I can’t wait to teach him Uno or Skip-Bo next.

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But now we’re back in town, and that means back to the grind. I’m already in the process of setting up a meeting with my boss for this afternoon (night his time) and planning out my reviews and articles for the week. Getting out of the routine was nice for a few days at least, but I think if I delay working on the strategy guide for Final Fantasy Type-0 HD, I’ll have to get down on my knees and beg for forgiveness from Prima Games when I visit them at E3 this year. That and I’m getting the agonizing twitches of guilt from not finishing something I should have. I’m crazy, I totally admit.

I hope everyone had a fantastic Easter holiday!

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