PixlBit

Monday, Mark and I beat the Ender Dragon in Minecraft. That was a crazy, crazy time. First I used the Eye of Ender to locate the underground stronghold that houses the End Gate. Then we had to get 12 Eyes of Ender to put in the End Gate to activate it. Then upon entering it we realized there was no way out except to die or beat the Ender Dragon, which looked really formidable. You have to destroy eight crystals put on high pilars of unbreakable Obsidian first. They heal the dragon. Then you go to the central nest and the dragon attacks you. Well, the dragon, and his Ender Men henchmen, are always attacking you, but now it flies right down and lands. Now is the time to attack it.

Gerald: Sure you will. Let me introduce you to the man with the silver knuckles. 

I filled my swag bag a little early this week and came to a decision. It's no use looking for specific music in used bins anymore. I rarely find what I'm looking for and it ends up amounting to a lot of wasted time. I'm tempted to buy via download, but I'm not that discouraged. I think, I'll just do my search and destroy missions less fequently and pick up anything interesting instead of looking for specific titles.

This week I'm celebrating 1988 in the arts. In retrospec, '88 was a pretty good year, but at the time I was not involved in consuming media all that much. I was at college in upstate New York kind of isolated from a lot of stuff. Plus, I was going through an anti-TV phase and steered away from any fellow students who watched their favorite shows everyday. I wanted to get away from the life I led at home: school, TV, homework, bed. Yuk! I grew to hate that routine, and I still do. But I'll try and remember the good stuff here below. 

I brought over to Mark's place several arcade collections I had today: Data East Arcade Classics for Wii, SNK Arcade Classic Vol. 1 for Wii, and Taito Legends vol 1 for Xbox. The Xbox game wasn't backwards compatible with 360, so I put that aside. Then I got a bug to play Culdcept Saga instead, and when I did, I realized I could update my rig shot with the new TV. Pic below:

This is going to have to be done in three parts. Sorry for the length, but it's impossible when you're playing retro arcade games. You can rip through so many of them so quickly. They were designed to be played in less than five minutes at a time. What are modern games average play time, ten, maybe fifteen hours (not counting phone games of course)?

Some swag this week. No games yet, but there's always time for that last minute. We'll see. Pics below:

Yes, I'm getting into more of my music game this week with 1987. The rest of the media is just coming along for the ride.

Took a trip to Longwood Gardens today with Mark to take some photos. When we got back, I set up my PS3 and downloaded Namco Museum Vol. 4 for the game, The Return of Ishtar, the sequel to Tower of Druaga. It was $5.99. Then it was going to take almost half an hour to download, so I switched feeds to my 360 and started playing Minecraft again in Mark's created world. Well, it was 11pm and time to stop before I checked in on my download. I installed the game and booted it up just to see if there was some kind of opening scene. It looks like it will be something like a side scrolling beat 'em up with swords. Of course, I didn't have time to actually play it. This Minecraft just carries me away. 

As is my usual weekend activity, I headed over to my friend Mark's place. First thing I did was set up my NES, but then I booted up the 360 to check the sales and watch the Fallout 4 announcement trailer on youtube. Sky ship? Oh yes! Then I put on Netflix and looked up something to watch from 1986 in keeping with this week's theme. Mark and I watched season 1 episode 3 of The A-Team and about half of Ferris Bueller's Day Off before something crashed the system. Thank you MS for having such a reliable system for doing non-gaming things (sarcasm). I thought that was what you wanted it to do most. But it was just as well, because I was getting a little bit tired of Ferris Bueller and wanted to get to some gaming.