PixlBit

Games played or just visited over the last week. 

XBOX:

Loop Hero: I jumped right back into this 8-bit RPG autobattler with a Necromancer character like I have in Diablo II. I built a workshop for research after playing several rounds, losing a few of them. The Necromancer character raising skeletons and other ghouls to fight with. You can increase their numbers with the right equipment. I really dig this game. 

PVZ: Plants vs Zombies: Only opened it because there is no real campaign mode. It's all multiplayer, which wasn't what I was looking for. I think it was it's sequel that had the campaign. 

Just Cause 3:

Restarted this after a very long break from the last time I played it. It seems very good so far. Vehicles and aircraft still control a bit wonky, but not as bad as in JC2, which had me quiting for bad airplane controls. I'm determined to keep this around on my hard drive so I can finish every bit of it. 

Shadow Warrior 3: Game Pass asked me only to boot this game for rewards but I stayed until I came to a game ending glitch or mistake on my part. A level wouldn't let me progress after clearing it of baddies. I couldn't figure it out. Aside from that, I loved it. It's a very fast paced FPS with swords, crazy weapons, grappling and chi powers. It's also full of humor. Gameplay was super fun and very reminiscent of the recent Doom games - lots of gore and fatalilties. 

NHL 22: Game Pass asked me to play an online game for rewards. I'd played it before and ran through the tutorial, but it was months ago. I eschewed the tutorial revist and just jumped right into an online match with no memory of the controls. Luckily, the game gives visual prompts to remind you of the buttons for shooting and passing. That's all I needed to score early in the match and make my opponent quit the game. People got no patience or guts. Seriously. I still got the credit for the game even though I won it by default. Score!

Merge & Blade: I bought the recent DLC for a buck. It was just another endless mode where you gather gems for the king by battling. My king actually died the last battle but I guess I'd accumulated enough gems for the win. Gonna have to announce a new king. Me! ha ha. My evil plan worked. 

EDF 2025: 

My friend and I got into this again and couldn't stop playing co-op with other randos showing up from time to time. You can play up to four players at once. It's so much fun but going after harder  achievements is very frustrating. I thought I could beat the game on Hard with my Ranger for an achievement but we got to 67 or so of 100 levels and things get very difficult and exhausting. We finally just dove into early levels on Inferno and had a blast with our most powerful weapons. There are level caps on armor and weapons in multiplayer for anything short of the hardest difficulty which is Inferno. 

I'm amazed that this game still works flawlessly online with all the masses of enemies on the screen at once, and that there are many players still playing it. The series has continued on PS4 but not Xbox unfortuneately. I bought the remaster of 2025, EDF 4.1, for PS4 but I'd rather play with my friend on Xbox. 

PHONE:

Mahjong by Microsoft: Couldn't quite make a perfect monthly run in May. Some puzzles at Expert level are seemingly impossible. I'll keep trying though in June. 

Microsoft Wordament: I surisped myself by beating the Expert puzzles and gaining a perfect run of all the weekly challenges in May. Now on to earning enough medals for achievements. 

Microsoft Suduku: I took a break from it second half of May because I'd already hit gold on the weekly challenges. I need a few more gold medals which means a few more months of daily games up until a point. I don't have to get a perfect run again or get a diamond medal. 

SWITCH:

Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom: My library manager pulled a coup and got me this game on the hold list. I played several hours and really took to the action in the game and the building aspects. Moreso than in Breath of the Wild which kind of felt less fluid and intuitive in the controls and fighting. I got stuck however in a location where I needed to make a sail for a raft and couldn't figure out how to get sail matterial. Anyone know how to do this early in the game, let me know. I can't progress at the moment. 

PLAYSTATION 4:

Horizon Zero Dawn: Guerilla games really knows how to use every darn button on a controller for use in the game. No control aspect is wasted or useless. I gained the abiltiy to controll the robots and soon had a mount to use, one of my favorite things to do in games. I became a Seeker, and entered on the next segment of the story and quest lines before taking a break to check out the new game I just bought mentioned next. 

Earth Defense Force 4.1: This is the remaster of EDF 2025 for PS4. I used to own it and now have it again as one of my favorite PS4 games. Thing is, it's best played with fiends, and my gaming buddy doesn't have a PS4, so I'll play this sometime solo. Maybe I'll even use this game as a excuse to get PS Plus so I can play with randos. The harder difficulty levels pretty much require multiple players to beat. I've beaten the game solo on Normal and nearly on Hard, but not Hardest or Inferno. No way. 

Tomorrow I'll be at a thing called Fan Expo in Philadelphia. I'm interested in seeing Sam Raimi there. My buddy is keen on getting signitures of a lot of celebs especially the key members of the 70s TV show Dukes of Hazzard.