PixlBit

Bunch of pick-ups in the last few days, but first a Halloween pic of a yard full of ghouls I took while on the road at work. 

I've been making slow progress on Dragon Quest VII on 3DS during the week. I just got to Alltrades Abbey after 26 hours of gameplay. So far I haven't been mightily challenged by the game but there's been a few moments when things got tense, and I nearly lost my party. Be prepared, when doing seemingly mundane things, like searching rooms and opening chests, a rare surprise might have you fighting for your life when you least expect it. 

It's that time of year again, Halloween. Time to pull out the inflatables. I saw this one last Saturday while delivering pizza. 

So I raised my town to level 3, and now I can't get new quests without tearing everything down or restarting. Apparently, you have to build within the original 32X32 grid of the town as you found it or the rooms don't give you points towards leveling. At least, that's what I've read. I extended the town because it's pretty small and built a nice barbeque kitchen and armory with flagstone flooring but neither counted for more than just plain rooms because they were just outside that original grid. I had extended the wall, and they were both within it, but that didn't matter. Nothing in the game tells you this is a rule, so I'm really frustrated. I really don't want to take apart this town I've built over ten or more hours. I had to stop and play Minecraft with Mark to think about it. I still don't have a satisfying solution. I may be done with DQ Builders. I don't know. 

I bought two copies of COD: Advanced Warfare today so Mark and I could check it out. Each was under $10 at Gamestop. But as I was waiting for the install, I started playing some Gems of War and couldn't stop. Then I finally played four or five missions of the campaign in COD: AW. Details below. 

So, I put about 9 hours into DQ Builders this weekend. It's pretty fine but I got a little bored after a while. It's very much like Minecraft but with a very directed approach. You start with a busted up town and a single villager and she gives you things to do that bring more villagers to town and teach you how to build buildings and craft items. More villagers give you more quests and the game goes on from there teaching you new things as you go. There's not a lot of figuring things out. You fight in real time in the wilds and even have to defend the town occasionally.

So I got Titanfall today with some birthday money, two copies, one for me and one for Mark. They were $8 each for XBO. I always wanted to try this game out. Well, while waiting for the install, I played a bit more Doom II and then this free-to-play game Battle Islands. Details follow. 

It's very frustrating to lose soldiers you've carefully customized and promoted after several victories. One mistake in a mission and you pay with lives; not just with injury, but permadeath. It makes one want to stop customizing these soliders. What's the point when they will die just after making lieutentant. 

Started the day with some XCOM 2. Made some progress on my restart of the game. I got a "Flawless" rating on one mission and I haven't lost a single soldier yet. I'm focusing on weapons upgrades and built a Guerilla Training Facility that gives rookies some skills before their first action. I'm beginning to figure out how to use Overwatch and how to move soldiers across the battlefield without getting caught in the line of fire. This game reminded me today of the board game Squad Leader I used to play. There's a lot of choices for types of action every turn and there are environmental hazards like fire. Note to self: don't take cover behind a buring car. Usually they blow up after a turn or two killing everyone. 

So I finished up with Skylanders Superchargers. I got every achievement except the one where you have to beat the game on Nightmare difficulty. I played several levels at that setting and it was fine until I hit a certain boss that seemed mostly unfair. The difficulty being just that you take much more damage from hits than other skill levels. I went through every Skylander I had and then played it again with my highest level ones first and still couldn't beat that thing. I can only imagine how bosses in the later stages of the game will be - nigh impossible. Of course, as you level up the portal, you gain abilities that help with Nightmare mode but I was well over level 70 and didn't feel like grinding a whole lot more. I did pull out all the Skylander characters I had and tried them out. That was fun. Each figure has very unique abilites that evolve as you level them up. I almost wanted to just level up all the figures just to see their special powers. Maybe with a half dozen level 20s (max level) I could handle Nightmare mode. It just seemed more work than I wanted to put into it. Maybe I'll dive in again someday when I want a serious challenge. I'm not trading in any of this stuff. I like them too much.