PixlBit

 

Oh NCAA Tournament, why do you have to be so mean? Well my Aztecs ran into Cinderella, and are out of the tournament. The Aztecs had a roller coaster season, and it ended with Florida Gulf Coast. I can’t be depressed, bummed for a bit, but this was the forth straight season SDSU went dancing, something like 10 straight 20+ win seasons, and for the first time in history, the entire season was sold out. Compare that to when I was there and it was empty arena, 5 win seasons, and just talk of looking toward Spring Football.

 

Both Men and Women were in tournaments this season

 

Aztec Women were in the WNIT and beat UCSB, and the Men beat Oklahoma in the 2^nd Round of the Dance. It was a fun season, and I finally got to see them take on UCLA (a certain school who won’t play us in a home and home) at the Honda Center in Anaheim

 SDSU Doing the I Believe That We Will Win Chant

SDSU's Uprising Chant

 

Awesome experience to watch because anytime anything UCLA came on the scoreboard/timeout mini games on the court/giveaways it was met with a chorus of boos. As an alum it was awesome to experience because it wasn’t like that when I was a happy undergrad. There were no chants, traditions, and as much as we tried, we could get a student section like that (SDSU’s Student Section The Show started the Big Heads in the crowds). So no matter what SDSU does in the dance, I’m never gonna be one of those fans who bitch and moan, about only winning a game, or only getting into the tournament. It’s something that should be celebrated, and there are a bunch of folks who will gladly trade spots with them, because maybe their team hasn’t been in the dance, or has had that level of success. Like Marshall Faulk said, “Aztec For Life”

 

In other NCAA Tournament news, my bracket should be renamed Scorched Earth with all the red ink on it, but seriously who has a clean bracket?

 

 

My Midwest portion seems ok with only a couple of changes (sorry CSU fans, I should have picked you because you’re in the MWC)

 

 

The West looks like my old Spanish II tests from high school, red all over.

 

 

Oh the South…I had SDSU going to the Sweet Sixteen before being beat by Georgetown (SDSU had problems keeping big men off the glass this season) I want to see FGCU get to the Final Four.

 

 

The East, not a lot of red

 

 

Final Four. Yep I had New Mexico in there. I thought they had a really good team. For my final I have Michigan State vs Miami with Michigan State winning. No reason really. I think a Tom Izzo team can catch fire during the dance, and I think Miami is really talented but their magic will run out.

 

So that’s my bracket and that is taking up all my TV time. So what am I playing? I haven’t really played any God of War since the first couple of days I bought it, and the only time my PS3 has been fired up is when my brother was playing Skate 3, and I went to download the PS+ freebies. I have been spending time with the Nexus 7 playing a couple of games

 

 

I finally sat down and played this game, and well at first I had mixed reactions. I do like that this game plays like NFS Shift, but I’m not too excited about the fake people you’re racing. I get what EA is going for having user names (which I’m assuming are from people who use Origin) but if you’re gonna make it seem like you’re racing real people, then turn it into a multiplayer game. If not then just give them made up names and be done with it.

 

 

Another thing that annoyed me when I first started playing is that it too 5-10 minutes to change the oil, upgrade the car, buy a car, etc. As you start to earn more cash and have a couple of cars in your garage, you can just get into another car, and race, but when I started out, I had to wait, so I did other things, and forgot about the game.

 

There are some positives to this game in that it feels like real racing. The AI follows racing techniques, and you should too if you want to advance in the race. I don’t win every race I enter now, and if I do want to be number one, I’ll have to update the car, and learn the track instead of bumping people like many arcade racers let you do.

 

 

When you finish in the Top 3, you earn a trophy, and get to try out another race in a grouping. You also earn money that can be used to upgrade/maintain your vehicle and purchase new ones. There are also these helmet tokens that seem to be earned by leveling up your driver (this can be accomplished by doing well in races, finishing in the top spots) these tokens can expedite the wait time for upgrades/repairs, and delivery of cars. I tend to save these tokens because I can wait the 10 minutes to play.

 

The game is fun, and you can’t go wrong with a solid FREE racing game.

 

 

This is a new game I got into because my baby cousin has it on her Nexus. The game is very simple in that you try to cover up all the squares on the grid by connecting two same colored dots. The rules are your paths to the various colored balls cannot cross each other, and you have to use up all the squares. Easy? Yeah but then it gets challenging

 

Presentation is very simple. All you see is multicolored text on a black background. No frills, but this is refreshing considering all the bells and whistles a lot of games seem to have now.

 

(mini spoiler of one of the easier puzzles)

 

 

This is your game board, and that is your objective. If you can accomplish covering the board in the set number of moves, it’s considered a perfect board and you get a star. My younger cousin would play the same board two or three times, get the correct paths, and then play for the perfect.

 

Flow Free is a fun game that can be played during commercial breaks, or waiting in line. I tend to try and only play 3 or 4 boards at a time or else I’ll get hooked. Again another fun, free game for you Android folks.

 

This wouldn’t be a What I’m Playing blog without mentioning Simpsons Tapped Out.

 

 

There was an update last weekend where the green water was removed, and the addition of some new stuff like a mountain with Carl’s face on it (I need to earn 30 more donuts to unlock). Lenny and Carl appear when you build the Buddhist Temple. I’m currently building the Community Learning Annex next to it. EA also added a Level 27, which took a day and a half to play through. I’m on the same level on Android, except I haven’t unlock Lenny and Carl yet because I have a handful of unlocked buildings that I need to trigger the storylines for.

 

 

Lisa Simpson now has a Buddhist Temple.

 

 

Pickups!

 

This is over the past couple of weeks, and I took advantage of a couple of sales:

 

 

I bought these two sets using my gift cards from God of War, and I think it cost something like $15 total. I already own the Endor Rebel set but I like the speeder bikes, and it doesn’t hurt to have more Storm Troopers. The A-Wing is one of my favorite vehicles because it’s small and has a cool shape. I’ve been watching it bounce around in price (see Toys R Us kick it up from $25 to $30 bucks WTF!) and Target had it at $25 but finally dropped to $20 during their weekly special…I forgot to mention it also comes with Admiral “IT’S A TRAP” Ackbar! I just need a Yoda minifig now…

 

 

Same night as the A-Wing I bought the Y-Wing at Toys R Us. Using a coupon I think it came out to $48, which is a much better price than the $65 they usually want. I’m impressed with the quality of this set. There are a lot of little details, and the main body of the ship is really solid. It doesn’t feel frail like my 2004 Millennium Falcon, and even the sticks that make up the engine feel solid. It’s a nice set, and this ship always reminded me of a 70s car. I think it’s the shape of the front of the Y-Wing, with a grill.

 

Oh wait there’s more Lego Pickups

 

 

My cousin gave me his Lego Pre Order minifigs. I already have the LotR guy (I call him Agent Smith because I have no idea what his name is in the LotR movie) but it’s cool to have a loose copy. I was told that Lex Luthor was from Lego Batman 2 Pre Order.

 

 

I actually bought four of these packs, still looking for Marilyn Monroe look-a-like figure but I got figures I already have. I still need like 3 or 4 to complete this series.

 

 

I finally broke down and bought this jet. I want to complete my Avengers set, so now I have Black Widow, and the only set left is the one with the Hulk (I ended up putting it down last night because I didn’t want to spend over $100 on two sets).

 

 

I bought six blue plates from Toys R Us because it’s Buy 1 Get 1 50% off again. Funny that the Green Plates are a dollar more than the blue plates. I think it came out to $9 per two plates. I need plates because I’m gonna stand up all my minifigs for a picture…and then maybe build a tower.

 

 

My cousin informed me about a sale at Best Buy where this game was $5 bucks, and he put three on hold (one for me, and one each on PS3 and 360 for himself) Props to my cousin for putting one on hold for me

 

*Game Reseller Rant: Since a number of websites now post gaming deals, I see a lot more people buying up cheap games in bulk and turning around and flipping them to GameStop, and this bugs me. Yeah I get that you think you’re turning a profit by buying a bunch of $5 games, flipping them for $6 bucks that you put towards some pre-order, but seriously a $1 profit?

Do people not factor gas, and their own time? So you knock off $20 bucks from the price of the game, big whoop, here’s newsflash: If the $60 price tag is too much, don’t buy it. Save up, wait for a sale, buy it used, don’t screw over other gamers out of an inexpensive game just so you can “make” a quick buck. There was an unwritten rule on Cheapassgamer when it first started that if you found a really good sale on a game you bought one or two (a copy for a friend) and you left the rest for other gamers. Now, it’s people who think they can make a little by screwing over their fellow gamers.

 

Going back to the actual game, I enjoyed the first one. It wasn’t something that was really great. The story was average, but I did like running up buildings and then gliding around, and for $5, if I can do the same things in a new city, it’s worth the $5 bucks.

Final pickup is in the form of new music

JT's album would be pretty good...if every song wasn't like 8 minutes long. A lot of the song times need to be cut in half. There is a bunch of extra music that really doesn't belong, and ruins what would be a very good album. I wonder if Part II will be more of the same. Also when did Justin Timberlake start to sound like Robin Thicke?

I didn't know who Kacey Musgraves is or what her music sounds like so it was a blind purchase. So far it's okay, a little more country than Taylor Swift.

 

And with that we shall call it a blog

That’s all for now, more later!

-Chris