PixlBit

Got a very late start. Felt like crap. Went to Mark's. Played a few games that knocked me around a bit. Had to break for a family dinner. Came back and was in no mood to be challenged or fight for my life in a game, so I turned to some low key board and building sim games the rest of the night. 

I started with Pilotwings for SNES, which I downloaded from Wii Virtual Console. This game looks great and seems like it would be awesome except that I forgot that flight sims drive me nuts. Why does a plane have to control so sluggishly? I have a hard time believing this simulates the real thing.  Anyway, I prefer my flight games with arcade controls and not like "I must be driving a truck with three trailers". The parachuting challenge was ok. I got the hang of that one, but not the jet pack thing. That thing drove me batsy. I was in no mood to learn this curve, so I bailed out.

Then I got back to Bulletstorm on Xbox 360. It was crazy fun, but I wasn't much in the mood for it. I felt a little overwelmed by the number of controls you have to think about, plus trying to kick a guy into some spiked wall was getting to me a bit. I just wanted to do a Doom and run around with a shotgun. Eventually I did that, combining it with kicks and the occasional leash thumper. I wasn't really into caring about my point score. I just wanted to blast things. 

Then it was a break for dinner with my mom. A couple of hours later, though, I was back at the gamin' pad with Mark. 

I was really kind of stressed out, so I took it easy on some more casual games like World of Keflings. I built a nice town and directed my Keflings to their resources. Then a random online player arrived and seemed to be helping, but it was hard to tell. I was watching Mark playing Ticket to Ride by himself and decided to join him. We played a few rounds and I decided the game was actually a bit boring because there is really only one best strategy and that's to build coast to coast railways. I hate when there seems to be one strategy that wins most of the time. So I dropped out of that and turned to Minecraft. I created a new world, found a town, and started settling down. I put the game on Hard though so there'd be lots of monsters. One broke down my door and I had to make an iron one to keep them out. Turns out you need a button to open an iron door too. I explored a natural cave a bunch and then the night was over. 

I'd say I was cured by casuals, because what started out as a stressful game-day became a pretty relaxed affair. I'm all for that right now.