Barrels and Baddies

On 12/05/2016 at 12:48 AM by KnightDriver

Pretty much played Doom all day but I stopped a few times to look at what was going on in the community section of Xbox Live. Then I played some more Darkest Dungeon.

First the community stuff. I saw Oblivion and Medal of Honor Airborne got added to backwards compatibility. I saw a performance of music from Doom on the The Game Awards Show; Doom won for sound design. Then I checked out a trailer for Stardew Valley coming to XBO this month. I shouldn't, but I may, play this. Then I got back to Doom.

I hooked up my iPod and played Xmas music from Billboards Hot 100 list while I started Doom. I kept laughing as things exploded, or I got gibbed, during Silent Night. I stopped that nonsense after a while and got serious.

I went after collectibles in Doom's campaign. Along the way, I tried different difficulty levels and went for various weapon, level, and rune related challenges. There's an achievement for playing Ultra-Nightmare, but I think you have to beat the game on Ultra Violence and then on Nightmare to unlock it. I played Ultra Violence for a while and it was fine, but I fear the frustration coming with some of those boss fights.

I'm using a walkthrough for the collectibles. I found a lot of them already after beating the game days ago, but after several levels of additional searching on my own, and not finding any more, I went to a walkthrough. I did seven of the eleven levels today, getting all the collectibles and finishing every level challenge.

What's next after those four more levels? Well, there are a few achievements that have to be done on one playthrough of the game. I think you have to find all the argent energy chests and all the chips from the dead marines. I missed one chest on my first playthrough and probably five or six chips. I may go for that challenge, but I may not. It's going to be time consuming and has the potential to be very frustrating. Try playing through a twelve hour campaign and missing one collectible to ruin the achievement. That would suck.

There are a few other achievements I can get. Two are in arcade mode and then there are the multiplayer achievements. I'm not much of a multiplayer guy, but I might jump in for a little bit just to see how it is and maybe get a few of the achievments.

Mark is building levels in SnapMap, mostly single rooms full of barrels and baddies (should be a name to something) so that there will be a colossal explosion. It sounded like fireworks and got some giggles out of me. I'm impressed this game never slows down no matter how many enemies, or in Mark's case exploding barrels, are on the screen at once.

Finally, Severed. I got stuck on a puzzle I can't solve and so started Darkest Dungeon. My only issue with it so far is that the text is so tiny on my Vita that even my reading glasses don't help much. I may want to play this on my PS4 instead, but I'll stick with it a while to see how it goes. I only finished the first quest so far.

And that's a day. I hear there is a Stern Pinball collection coming out this month. I'm excited to see a trailer and find out what tables are in it.

Bye.

Cary Woodham

12/05/2016 at 03:03 AM

It's funny to have music playing during a game that doesn't quite fit the mood. A long time ago, when the first DOA Volleyball game came out on Xbox, my friend got it and wanted me to come over to play it. I really didn't want to play DOA Volleyball, but I wanted to see my friend, so I went over there anyway. But I brought a few of my CDs with me. Some Xbox games let you upload your own songs to play during the game, and DOA Volleyball was one of those. So when my friend left the room, I secretly uploaded some songs from my CD to his Xbox hard drive. So when he got back, he had to play volleyball to the tune of the DK 64 Rap and Pac-Man Fever. That was so funny!

KnightDriver

12/06/2016 at 01:27 AM

So many people listen to music while playing games. I've really never been into that unless it's for comedy purposes. I like to hear all the in-game sounds.

12/06/2016 at 02:22 PM

Yeah normally I just listen to the game's music, but I couldn't resist in this case.

Matt Snee Staff Writer

12/05/2016 at 02:06 PM

ah that sucks about Darkest Dungeon. I was thinking of getting it for Vita too. Seems like a perfect Vita game, but if the text is too small. I have that problem with playing PS4 games remotely sometimes.

12/06/2016 at 01:15 AM

It seems like a perfect handheld game in terms of the art and gameplay, but those menus, yikes. Even if i had my 20 something eyes, I think I might have an issue with it.

Nicoleb1989

12/05/2016 at 08:13 PM

I really want Darkest Dungeon. I shall try to buy it one of these days. Doom was fun but it just didnt hold my interest like I thought it would. I ended up getting rid of it but I might give it another go one day.

12/06/2016 at 12:59 AM

Darkest Dungeon is really engaging me, but I'm really struggling with the tiny text. Even with reading glasses it's a strain, and there are a lot of stats and equpment menus to look at. I may have to swtich to PS4, but I don't want to. I'll see how it goes.

Doom's story is sort of interesting, but you kind of have to read all the codex collectibles to get it; however, there are a few moments of dialog with those few main characters (like two of them, not including yourself). That being said, I thought the ending was really cool. There's few moments of drama, but they're well done.

PixlBit