PixlBit

It threatened to snow so much, they closed my library. Turns out all we got was a dusting and some ice. But I didn't have to work, so I gamed it up with my gaming buddy. I played on Wii-U and Xbox Series S. 

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze: Before I actually played this, I tried to get a SD card to work in the Wii-U by inserting it in the SD slot in the front but nothing happened. I watched some videos and figured it needed to be formated on a PC first. But rather than do that, my friend had a USB adapter, and so I plugged the SD card into that and the Wii-U saw it and formatted it. I then tried to reinsert it into the SD slot, but no go. It only reads it through the USB port. Interesting, and weird. So now I have an extra dangly thing attached to my Wii-U for an extra 32GB memory. I might get a smaller adapter. 

DKCTF is quite a game. It really mimics the first DKC in terms of music and how the overworld looks. Levels are really different but they have the same sorts of secrets, like the barrel segments and banana levels. I love how the barrel segments are done in 2.5 D instead of just straight 2D. You get shot into the background of a level and back again. Very cool. You also have a boss battle after several levels to end the chapter just like DKC. 

I only made it to level 2.1 before I got a game-over screen. These levels are dense with challenges and you won't get them the first time through. It takes practice and foreknowledge of what's ahead. But man, this game looks great. 

I also logged in all my amiibos into the Wii-U. Not sure what you can do with them yet, but I guess they appear in certain games like Smash Bros. I don't think DKCTF used them. I didn't see any options for them within the game. 

Gems of War: Darn this game eats up a lot of time just to run through the daily encounters and try and knock off a few campaign challenges. I discovered how to speed up the gameplay and cranked it all the way up to 4X. It's kind of hilarious that way, but I kind of like it. The speed actually highlighted for me some of the strategies going on and how my team doesn't work together quite as well as they could. I got rid of my legendary dragon and added a lych card that uses a gem color the others in my team don't use. I found myself hardly ever using the dragon because another card higher in the order always used up the same color mana first. Now I'm getting all four cards casting spells regularly for more devastating, and faster, battles. 

Asphalt 9: Ran through the daily challenges as always. I get the feeling this game is just endless and that I'll never really get to any particular goal. I'm really kind of missing Forza Horizon 5. I've got to get back to that sometime. 

Guardians of the Galaxy: This is not the TellTale point-and-click game but a new third-person action game just released on Game Pass. I love the movies, so I thought I'd try it and it's pretty good. Even the story is interesting. My favorite part is being able to direct the other members of the team during battles. You can send Drax in to melee an enemy or Groot to entangle them. Groot also can create bridges. Gamora fights with a sword and can cut things and Rocket shoots a rocket or unlocks doors. So you use them in battles and for traversal of the environment. It's pretty good. I think my friend is going to start playing this as well in the coming week. 

St. Patrick's Day next week. I'll be working but I might think of something festive to do that day.