PixlBit

So I am at the point in Lego City Undercover where I'm debating on whether I should just go ahead and finish the game to 100% or move on to something else. See I am cleaning up little things in the game, collecting random items in story mode, and looking for the remaining five or six minifigures in the city. I could finish this if I want to put in the extra couple of hours but is it worth it? On one hand yeah because I like finishing the Lego games, but on the other side I am kind of over playing Lego City Undercover. I don't know which path I will take so we shall see next week.

Pixlpeeps other than that crazy nonsense involving a game that is built on plastic bricks I did play other games and I finished the big draw for one of them, and the other is a new tablet game. Let's start with the important thing...Chris' goal of organizing his two backup drives!

 

Chris' Photo And Media Drives

A couple of weeks ago I started the crazy project of organizing my photo drive. I have a bunch of folders, sometimes with dates, other times with vague descriptions and I was on my way to organizing my photos by year. For the most part I finished up everything that I copied over to the new Photo Drive, erasing all the duplicates, and got maybe 99% of the photos in their respective years. My old camera at some point I did not adjust the date so some pictures taken in 2012-2013 will have random 2007 dates. For the most part everything is easy to find but I'd also like to further organize the photos by file format within the folders. Talk about super nerdy.

I've started to do the same for the Media drive and what do I find on it? More pictures including blogs that I thought I've lost but are in a different hard drive. I still need to go through my burned DVDs and pull whatever content I haven't sorted through yet. I also need to look for a stack of discs that have a ton of mixtapes that I'd like to add to the music library.

 

Actual Video Games Talk!

 

NBA Playground – Steam

 

So I bought this game for $20 from Steam. I showed my cousin how easy it was to buy a game, while sitting on the couch by using the Steam app. This is the new basketball game that is based on NBA Jam (I reserve my Boomshakalaka for later). At first glance it has all the goodies of NBA Jam, two on two arcade basketball with a cartoon-like art style, power-ups, and crazy off the wall dunks. What this game doesn't have is the fast paced game play that previous NBA Jam's offered. The game feels sluggish, and doesn't have the sense of speed. After all this is supposed to be an arcade version of conventional basketball, yet runs at the same speed as an NBA 2K. Another aspect of the game that has a learning curve is shooting. Run and gun is nowhere to be found, and instead you have to shoot at the highest point in a player's jump shot. This might not seem like a big deal, but in my first couple of games I struggled to score any points including dunking. Why is an arcade game being more sim than arcade?

This game has a lot going for it. For one, I did not see any micro transactions. It seems like we got a full game. The game is built on earning packs of cards. These cards are the way to unlock players and to unlock packs is to either level up, or to win one of the six tournaments within the game. If you get duplicates they become XP for your player. Cards start out as Bronze and they can be upgraded up to gold. Also there are varying levels of cards. There are the regular base cards of what I like to call the “filler” players. Epic cards which have better stats are reserved for star players. Then there are the top tier Legend Cards, which are reserved for Superstar players. They have the best stats.

My lineup I used for running through the six tournaments is Legend Shaq, and Epic Kevin Durant. I got the best (from what I had) of a defensive presence that could dunk (Shaq), and the crazy 3 point shooting of KD. Both offered decent steal ratings, and I had no problem running up the score during the championship games.

There isn't much game wise. Playgrounds only offers Exhibition, Tournament Mode (six tournaments of five games each), and online play. As you progress through Tournament Mode you unlock different boosts that help you in game. When you fill up a special meter (kind of like being on fire) you activate one of these special boosts like unlimited stamina, 2x points within a certain time period, 12 sec shot clock for your opponent, and special scores when shooting from a designated spot. Also in game if you hit a perfect shot, you get an additional point.

So is this the best basketball game on the market? Nope. NBA Playgrounds has its issues, but I do like the return of arcade basketball that rewards players with packs of cards the more they play instead of whipping out a credit card. Once you get the hang of shooting, and find a perfect squad to use in game, the games are a lot of fun. Since I completed the Tournaments, and I'm not a fan of online play, to grind my XP so I can earn new packs, I'm building up my players by using them in exhibition. If you're a fan of basketball, miss NBA Jam, and I believe this game has couch co-op, give this game a spin. It's $20 and offers a ton of entertainment. Just remember to get the timing of your shooting down.

 

Injustice 2 – iOS and Android

This was the big release last week for me, and I've been playing a bit off and on.

 

Injustice 2 seems like a more complete game than the previous swipe to fight game. Now there are more controls, like swipping up for an aerial attack, and swipping back. On the actual game mode side

 

There is quite a bit to do. There is the campaign, where you take your team of three into groups of I believe 5 or 6 battles against some of DC's finest (sounds like a police force), Operations where you send some of your characters to battle and I think gain XP without you having to grind, Resource Missions where you fight to earn resources, Arena where you play against other players from around the world (I'm assuming its just their lineups), and story mode which I believe is ripped from the upcoming console game. Most of the battles run on the lightning bolts with the exception of Story Mode, and each fight usually takes 6 lightning bolts. I currently have something like 200 or so saved up, and they regenerate so this is your freemium cap. One piece of advice if you play online is that the game tends to hang, or crash after a match or two. It's frustrating.

 

Every three hours you earn a free basic chest where you unlock some goodie. Usually its something a replay chip so if you don't want to actually replay a fight while grinding you cash one of these in. For the truly lazy competitor. I decided to check out whats in the fancy chest and I spent 300 jewels, the premium currency and unlocked

 

Since I unlocked three achievements by buying these two I got 150 jewels back so one of these fighters was a freebie.

Injustice 2 is your typical tablet fighter, with the additions that were seen in the Transformers game. There is a lot to do including taking part in what I think is a watered down version of the Story Mode but if you want to see the cut scenes before the game is released here is your chance. I2 is a good time waster, and eventually I'll get rolling with some solid multi-star ranked superheroes to do some real damage.

Alright since this is the magic of the internets I started writing this on Monday, stopped for a bit and finished it off on Tuesday morning before all the fun starts. Have a good week!

 

That's all for now, more later!

-Chris