PixlBit

Well Happy Freaking December Pixlbit Nation! This is my favorite time of the month because we drag a perfectly good outdoor tree inside, throw a bunch of stuff on it, and throw boxes wrapped in wacky designs and sing about snow, wonderlands, and a dude in red breaking into your house. Yes, THIS.IS.CHRISTMAS SEASON! Why do I like Christmas? It’s not the gifts, but they play a big part of it. It’s the celebration. In school craft day we would make the fun things like cutouts of snowman, candy canes, and have music in the classroom. In band we would play songs I actually knew (seriously who knows some of these marches that marching bands play?). This time of year also reminds me of the JC Penny catalog where in the back there was a ton of pages devoted to toys and later on video games. Younger Chris would study that thing like no other. Just think if that were an actual textbook I’d be a rocket scientist. Anyways

 

Yes it freaking is!

 

So Pixlbit the Thanksgiving break was fun, I spent a lot of time eating, and eating, with some power naps sprinkled in, and my big purchase of the weekend was some wood and duct tape. Yes I like to think I could survive in Alaska now just like those TV shows…as long as they have a Home Depot nearby. So my goal this past weekend was to play the heck out of the games I own, and I took down one game from Mount Backlog! Yay! Anyways let’s recap what Chris Played

 

Infamous Second Son – PS4

I started playing this game and I am enjoying it far more than Watchdogs. I haven’t progressed very far into the game’s story but being familiar with the Infamous games, this is picking up with the fun environments. I can’t wait until I level up and collect all the powers because that is when the fun begins.

 

NBA 2K14 – PS4

Video game Chris is getting screwed on minutes. I went from 22 minutes a game to 19 because the coach expects me to carry this team from the bench. I get in a grove, and I get benched. Its nuts. I can’t wait for free agency so I can take my talents to another team.

 

New Super Mario Bros. 2 – 3DS

I jumped into this game thinking it would be like the last 3DS Mario Bros game I played and it is, but now collecting coins is a big deal, and I’m supposed to try and collect a million coins. That is a lot of playtime especially since I went through World 1, and maybe collected 2,000 coins. This will take awhile.

While checking on my 3DS I noticed I had a new Street Pass visitor, and I’m assuming you good folks had the same visitor

 

He had to go and one up my hat

 

I have no idea who he is but I’m assuming he’s a bigwig at Nintendo, especially since he one-upped my hat.

 

Spider-man Ultimate – iPad Air

 

I hit a milestone in playing this game. This is the first time I actually achieved the goal of the weekly tournament. There was no way I was touching the points lead because I don’t know how those players can play that long but I’m glad I hit this mark, and I unlocked a new Spider-man. Who knew there was 10,00000 Billion Spider-man variations (I might be one or two off)

 

Simpsons Tapped Out – iPad Air

 

Good ol’ Gil is back and he was having a Black Friday Sale on items that were missed by players. You could buy these items and get a donut rebate. I’m happy for you folks who picked up items you have missed.

 

Lego Batman 3 – PS3

 

The biggie, the one I was neglecting for a couple of days, and I finally sat down and played. Heck I played it all day Sunday! I believe on Saturday Night instead of going to the Swapmeet (I forgot) I took down the final level, cheered and then watched the credits. I mean c’mon if it’s Superhero based you have to watch for the credits. This Marvel way of thinking oozed into my belief that it will happen with DC.

Lego Batman 3 picks up from previous Lego games with familiar controls, and this time they brought back the item wheel from previous Lego Batman games so you can switch between various versions of certain characters. I mean who doesn’t want to play as Scuba Suit Batman? The game is more of the same with your character playing through long levels split up into sections by savepoints, but I would say the last half of the game the levels are shorter. The best innovation in my opinion is during free play you can go in to each individual section and it will give you a count of what specialty items are available in that section. This is a time saver especially if you played the previous games and had one shot at getting a minikit at the end of the level. There are tons of pop culture references in the game that would make any Batman fan or casual observer happy. The one item I absolutely loved is during game play if you used Superman, or Wonder Woman their theme songs would be played. Oh that 1970s goodness of the Wonder Woman theme song!

After a couple of days the DLC finally appeared in the store, which I promptly downloaded and played through on Sunday. I don’t know the exact cost of the DLC but they are just one level of gameplay with a handful of new characters. The Man of Steal level had some funny pop culture references, and each DLC could be completed with two playthroughs.

 

I am just missing two silly trophies from two of the sets, which are easy to get, I just need to unlock some characters.

The one bad thing I have to say about Lego Batman 3 is that I found some problems with the character select screen. With Superman every time I tried to call up the screen he would change into Clark Kent. I would have to use the shoulder button option to change to another character, and then bring up the character select screen. Another problem I had is with the characters that use the item wheel. When I changed into say regular Batman, and then wanted to go to Space Batman, I would hit the triangle button and then highlight the Space Icon. It would take a full second or two to recognize this and then change the player. If I was already Batman the change would be instant. This could be considered nitpicking, but if every other character was fluid I should be able to expect the same from these characters.

Overall Lego Batman 3 provides a lot of content, and tons of unlockables. There are celebrities of all sorts showing up, and you can’t go wrong with the humor of Lego games. Looking back I probably should have purchased this game for the PS4, but I am perfectly happy with it on the PS3. Lego Batman is filled with nothing but enjoyment and I would give it an A.

Alright Pixlbit Nation, I am off. I have a bunch of blogs to read because you folks were busy posting some good stuff so I will read through those, while enjoying some Christmas Music!

 

That’s all for now, more later!

-Chris