PixlBit

Well Good Morning Pixlbit Nation, how are you on this Monday morning? I just noticed the date and it is 3-16

 

And that’s the bottom line, because STONE COLD SAID SO!

So the past weekend I didn’t spend a lot of time gaming because it was tournament weekend and I spent the majority of time watching various tournaments, not jinxing my team (but I eventually did, sorry SDSU) and channel surfing looking for the next big upset. My Aztecs made it to the MWC Tournament Finals and we came up short. If you follow me on Twitter you saw my disgust for some of our older fans who once again were living their lives through young men and blaming them for not winning. Yes its like having all those Little League parents who failed at sports yet are putting pressure on their kids to be the next Babe Ruth. Oh yeah, I do like the qualifier this “fan” made when he said “in his 50+ years of being a fan.” Yup it proves that old dogs don’t learn new tricks and they were once A-hole, they are still A-holes.

 

Anyways my Aztecs are 8^th seeds and will play St. John’s in the dreaded 8-9 game. The committee knows the story line about Dwayne Polee and they paired his former school against is current school. Interesting note is that if the Aztecs make it to the Sweet Sixteen, and if a certain Stephen F. Austin makes it out of the Portland Regional, Super Step’s Lumberjacks take on my Aztecs. Pixlbit Civil War!!!   Another fun fact is that this is I think the 4^th or 5^th season the Aztecs have sent Football to a bowl game, and basketball to the dance. If we can send baseball to the post season SDSU will be the only school to send all three for three straight years. Also for you folks who love to use emoji’s when texting the Washington Post created these NCAA emoji’s so you too can show your school spirit.

Ok enough basketball talk, let’s get down to a game I finished on Saturday, The Lego Movie Video Game on the Playstation Vita.

 

The Lego Movie Video Game follows the trend of previous Lego Franchise games being completely different from their console counterparts. Instead of following a long levels that advance the storyline, the handhelds follow more segmented portions that have different challenges to complete.

 

In this version each Level is comprised of three short missions, usually built on trying to locate the main goal to finish the level along with the usual finding a minikit, red brick, and collect a certain amount of Lego studs. One of the new mission designs I found fun are the falling/racing through the level where you just steer you character or vehicle away from harm and try to collect various items. Once these missions are completed you earn a new character

 

These new characters are available to use after completing the three missions in a level. At this point Free Play is unlocked and you can go back and try to collect the gold bricks for doing various side tasks

 

The Story Mode is really short, and I found I was able to complete it in three sittings. If played consistently it would maybe take a couple of hours. The real charm to this game is going back and trying to earn the gold bricks in Free Play. Since the missions are really short, it doesn’t feel like a chore to replay the same mission 3-4 times trying to earn all 10 gold bricks. I need to unlock a character that can blow up Silver Objects so I am currently playing through random sections to find such a character. One of my favorite gold brick challenges is the multi-challenge brick. This challenge is made up of three objectives, which are usually, time, lose no hearts, and collect a certain number of studs. You don’t have to achieve all three at the same time, which makes it a lot easier to play through.

 

The controls are similar to previous games where you can either use touch or buttons to activate special moves, switch characters, turn objects, build items, and break items with certain characters. The graphics are on par with other Lego Vita games, and the sound is nice. During every end of mission screen you will hear Everything is Awesome. This doesn’t get old in my opinion.

My one gripe with the game is this

 

During my push through the Story Mode I saw this screen at least 3-4 times. This can be a frustrating especially if you had a good grove going. As for smaller gripes, I had problems climbing up a wall in a certain level where it looks like the character can climb/move a little bit more but feels like they are stuck.

The Lego Movie Video Game is a solid Lego Franchise game that is challenging enough for younger players, but has enough rewards to keep them coming back to play. Even though this wasn’t one of my favorites out of the Lego franchise, I did find enough improvements to be excited for future releases. I would give The Lego Movie Video Game a solid B.

 

In other games I played

 

NBA 2K14 – PS4

The Super Knicks are around game 64, in a full 82 game season and once again another Shooting Guard goes down with an injury. Jamaal Franklin was lost for the season after being player of the game. Once again the Knicks are short at this position because Iman Shumpert also went down with a minor injury, JR Smith is still out, and the team only has two healthy SG’s left. It’s a good thing there is a lot of production out of the Forwards or else it might be a rough end to the season and into the playoffs.

 

Simpsons Tapped Out – iPad

 

Old Gil is back and this time he is selling The Homer. It’s a little steep at 82 donuts but I have one sitting in my Springfield.

 

Spider-man Unlimited - iPad

I have found a groove in this game. I found that playing one or two games in Free Run Mode earns me a free portal to use on a regular Spider-man character that I in turn into XP for my stronger characters. I am currnetly running with four of the Legendary Classic Superior Spider-man characters, trying to get them all into Level 100 Characters. This is by far my favorite runner game. 

This week I hope to jump into one of the games I bought a couple of weeks ago. They are just sitting on top of a stack of PS4 games that I am trying to finish. Heck I should just finish off inFamous First Light and move it off of my PS4 hard drive. Either way I should continue my quest of pushing games off of Mount Backlog.

Well Pixlbit I feel it is time we end our chat for this week. I am still going through BaD’s I’ve missed and if you see a reply from me in your message box for something you wrote in February, you know why. Anyways have a good week!

 

That’s all for now, more later!

-Chris