PixlBit

I saw the movie Pixels, played 90 minutes each of Victor Vran, Battlefield 1, Dragon Age II, and Eternal (a card game). 

Pixels: What is up with Adam Sandler? I've never seen him perform this unenthusiastically. I think he was on psych meds or in a depression. He just seemed really restrained. It's very unlike him. The movie was fun though. Classic arcade characters are used by aliens to attack Earth. Funny, you never get to see the actual aliens. I found that weird. Oh, and Peter Dinklage was clearly doing a Billy Mitchel impression. At least the character in Pixels eventually fessed up to cheating, unlike Billy. 

Victor Vran: Picked up where I left off at level 20. Got to level 23 and began to realize the kind of gameplay that gives you just a little bit more, over and over, to keep you going endlessly. I wasn't going to be the game's fool anymore. 10% better stats for a weapon or equipment? Who cares about 10% more of anything? It's a trick used by credit cards and marketing teams everywhere making you think it's some great deal. It's peanuts and I'm not doing it in a game, much less in real life. 90 minutes and I was out. 

Battlefield 1: Rolled around in a tank for a while. They kicked me out of it though to do stealth missions. Are you kidding? I wanna be in the tank. I did the stealth missions but not the way they wanted me too. I ran around like Wolverine sticking my shovel into necks full speed. I chased around mini tanks with dynamite and ran over krauts with my horse. Eventually though, the weapon's selection mechanic really got to me. You can't just hit "y" to scroll through your 4 weapon slots. You can do that for two of them but then you have to use the d-pad and I'm still not sure which direction on the d-pad got you to which weapon. Who uses the d-pad anymore, especially for weapon selection? It seems like a thing a PC game ported to a console would do. Old school. 90 minutes of that and I was out. 

Dragon Age II: I didn't like the demo years and years ago but I liked the full game today. I picked the Rogue character and then specialized in bow-and-arrow tactics. Of course, you still can't keep these mad suididal enemies from getting in your face even when I selected appropriate tactics for my 3 other AI players. At some point I was doing missions for the templars and one of them got my whole party killed. Why do you have to bring up a menu wheel to use a potion? Seems a very slow way to replentish your health in a fight. 90 minutes and I was done. 

Eternal: This is, I believe (because I forgot where I downloaded it deep within Xbox's digital store) a free-to-play card game styled exactly like Magic The Gathering. It has a similar art style too. You start a kind of tutorial/single player/story mode and it kept going. I got my 90 minutes in before I had to stop for the night. I'll probably return to it tomorrow and see when it starts to beg me for money. Then I'll be done with it. 

I don't know, I'm just skipping around digital games I've gotten on Xbox for free or through Game Pass right now with no real direction. I just like to see some new things. If the game really grabs me I stay with it but so far no luck with that, but I'm kind of glad because I don't want another 100 hour game. These 90 minute blasts are like old school movie length and seem just right for me right now.