PixlBit

As of Tuesday, first day of my staycation, I've played quite a lot of Diablo III: U.E.E. with Mark; bought Star Wars Battlefront, Mad Max and the most recent Skylanders Adventure pack; and almost finished Skylanders Academy season one. Details below.  

Diablo: 

I finally got the Dream Team achievement today. That's for getting all six character types to level 70. If you just played the campaign over and over, this would take a seriously long time. I only did that with my first character, the Witch Doctor. The rest I power leveled behind Mark's high level Warrior in Adventure Mode. After using various strategies, I found the best and fastest way to level up: play a Nephalem Rift with a high level character on a tough difficulty setting; the Rifts are full of enemies, much more so than on the Bounty maps. My last character, a Warrior, got his first 43 levels on one run of a Normal Rift. I think we did two more before he hit 70. Forget boosting gear for XP gain and all that, just have one high level character, play on the highest difficulty that character can stand (we did Torment III) and hang back and watch the levels raise all by themselves. 

It is a bit boring having to hang back like that though. As a low level character in such a high level environment, you can't even kill the smallest enemy in any reasonable amount of time, so I thought of other things to do. One was to pick abilities that supported Mark's high level character. I had one that put us each in bubbles that gave health regen. I also picked some skills that stun or confuse the enemy. I'd run into the fray, stun a bunch of guys, get out of there quick, and watch Mark turn them into gory skeletons. Another was to run around the area of battle and pick up every orb. I'm not sure what to call these orbs, but they pop out while you're fighting and give you various types of boosts; sometimes they give you double damage. I pick them up because they boost both of us. Also, I would run ahead and corral all the badies. They'd chase me, and I'd bring them back to wherever Mark was to make the battle even bigger. There were many very crazy moments. The chaos of war was very much in evidence. 

What to do next? Mark and I are going to play a bunch of Nephalem rifts and go for the "Kill 100 Treasure Goblins" achievement. Mark already got this when I was leveling my characters, but I need 55 more. Some of the Nephalem Rifts contain dozens of Treasure Goblins. We got into one like that twice. Unfortunately, I was still leveling and couldn't kill anything, so Mark racked it up. Now it's my turn. 

There are some more achievements I'd like to get but maybe they will be too annoying. One is for 500 Bounties. I've done about 31. Replaying bounty missions sounds kind of boring to me. Another is to break 50 objects, which sounds easy, but it isn't. You have to do them all very quickly without pause, maybe in some steady rhythm. You need a character with some sort of fast dash move, a powerful melee attack, and a location full of breakables. I've tried it many times in the course of playing for other goals, and now it seems a bit of chore and not fun. The last three are all in Hardcore Mode. You just have to get to level 70 and kill the last two bosses. I am going to try this. I have a level 10 Crusader right now. I'm not going to do it all at once though. I think I'll do an Act at a time, then take a break with something else. Which brings me to the next section. Stuff I bought recently I want to play this week. 

Stuff I Bought:

Well, I'm not going to get to Mad Max, but I will eventually. I got it for free on the Gamestop buy 2 get 1 free sale. I will get to Star Wars Battlefront, very likely tomorrow. I've already installed it. I saw my nephew playing it during Xmas and have to check it out. I may not get deep into the gameplay, but the Star Wars settings and characters are so well rendered, I may just run/fly around and look at stuff. Finally, I got the third Skylanders Imaginators Adventure Pack, Enchanted Elven Forest. I'd like to start the main game right after Star Wars Battlefront. I think I'll get to it. 

Skylanders Academy:

And speaking of Skylanders, episode eleven, that I watched today, introduced Crash Bandicoot and ended on a cliff hanger. I'll see if Kaos gets his way in episode twelve tomorrow. The writing in this series is pretty good, if mostly aimed at 8-12 year olds. There's the sly adult humor wiggled in there for any parents (or complete adult nerds like me) watching. Glumshanks (Kaos' assistant/slave) has most of the jokes aimed at the adults, and they have been good ones. I discovered that Bobcat Goldthwait does the voice of Pop Fizz, a perfect choice. It's a weird coincidence because I just picked up his first comedy record at the used record shop the other week. . . OMG! I just looked up the cast and Norm Macdonald does Glumshanks, another perfect choice. . . Catherine O'hara does Kaossandra? Excellent! Billy West is Food Fight and Kaboom? Wah? Awesome! The show's growing on me a little bit. There's supposed to be a season two sometime. I hope that happens. 

And that's the end of the first day of my staycation. More to come.