PixlBit

Today I nearly finished Battlefield Bad Company, mulled about in Minecraft for a bit, tried the Screamride demo and got into Puzzle Quest. I think I want to play some RPGs next time. 

Battlefield Bad Company: I nearly finished the game but got a little bit stuck on a later level fighting tanks that had a strange alertness for infantry. I'd poke my head around a corner and "BAM!" that big cannon would unload on my exact position. Also, I was usually not carrying a rocket launcher but an explosive device. I tried to get behind the tank, but they are surprisingly agile in this game. It was sort of annoying. But, the game is really great. I'm surprised how good it looks for a 2008 game. The dialog is funny and the characters are memorable. I'll probably go back and try and finish it sometime. 

Minecraft: I called my new world "The Blacksmith" because my goal in survival mode was to build the anvil and go find some enchanted books. This is in place of the previous goal of building the enchantment table and making the books myself. This is, I think, the best order of crafting. The anvil is much easier to build, just requiring iron, and you can find already enchanted books in villages and the mansion. I just want the least labor intensive route to enchanting your tools. Once you have enchanted tools, things go a lot faster. So, I played unitl I had built the anvil and then stopped, feeling a bit bored. 

Screamride Demo: I tried the demo for this game. It's a rollercoaster builder that also has a kind of crash mode ala Burnout and a career mode. I played a level of each and the game works really well. It's super easy to build track, and racing for screams in career mode is a lot of fun. The faster and more death defying your run, the more screams you get from the riders. This is by the same developer as Rollercoaster Tycoon and Zoo Tycoon which are both excellent. I'll pick up the full game sometime when I have the $20 or when it goes on sale for $10. 

Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords: Finally, I had a hankering for some RPG gaming and Mark was playing this old gem, so I loaded it up too. What a great game this is. It's a perfect formula of gem matching puzzle gaming and rpg leveling and story. It's too bad they didn't just repeat the formula exactly for the sequels. This one is the best among them by far. 

I'm really intersted in playing some rpgs next. I realize that my moods fluctuate from action games to tactical games to sports and E rated games (you know, like Lego, Minecraft and Skylanders). So I think I'll break my list up into those categories and go with my gut every week. I tend to make lists and then get annoyed by them because they don't exactly fit my mood. Maybe this will solve the problem.