Other Games

Microsoft Flight Is Microsoft Flight even a game? It’s barely even a flight simulator. Whatever it is, it’s dead now. Released to lackluster reception last spring as a free download with day 1 DLC, it was officially killed a couple days ago. I downloaded it when it went F2P. You don’t get much for nothing; a light sport plane (the Icon A5) and the big island of Hawaii. Microsoft eventually released the rest of the Hawaiian Islands as DLC, and eventually Alaska as well; better performing aircraft cost extra. You supposedly get to fly a Stearman biplane if you join in with Windows Live, but it requires a product code and I don’t have one. For me, Microsoft Flight was just flying from airports to grass strips and back and buzzing landmarks. ...

Level 23 The ironic part was when I was saying something stupid about avoiding dying, and Calrain said, “Like I just did?” And I looked and yup, he was dead. The game removed his character from the party and deleted her, and the forces of Hell grew slightly weaker for a moment. Calrain made a new character, and we did the shuffle which got the character up to us in Act II. For some reason I can’t recall, we were back at the beginning of the Black Soulstone quest, though not all the way back to the beginning of Act II, as I’d suggested. ...

Tipa the Substitute Monk Am I the only one still writing about Diablo 3? Most (all?) of the people in my circles appear to have moved on. I admit to thinking of the game as a fairly wide miss before I went to hardcore. I just am not all that wild about games in which you grind and farm. But now, I’m totally into it. The reason: because I don’t want to lose my character and have to restart. I finally had a reason to look up information about my class, get advice and recommendations, all the sort of stuff I used to do in EverQuest but never had to do in Diablo 3 because, if you die, you just tweak something and try again. ...

Current roster Team Spode continued through Act II in Diablo III last night, edging our way closer to the chapter’s fight against Belial. So far, though, the boss fights haven’t been that much of a problem, as we’re excessively paranoid about those. The problem is just the good, old-fashioned mobs. Mobs here in the literal sense, as they do tend to swarm, and I came close to dying a couple of times. I do have a couple get out of jail free cards as a Monk; the group heal of course, weapons that heal me when I hit, a special move that goes around hitting lots of stuff making me invulnerable while it is active, and potions. ...

Ooops. Dropped your sword. The thing about hardcore mode is how nervous I get. It would be hard enough on my own; I could go as slow and careful as I want, and if I died, meh, I died. With three other people to watch, that’s just… exponentially more stressful. And this time, I picked the healer… so when someone dies, it’s my fault. Instead of yelling “TRAP! TRAP! TRAP!” into the microphone, I have to yell “HEALTH! HEALTH! HEALTH!” ...

The instance group... in Diablo 3 I’m very “anti” boring stuff in games these days. So after I finished my first run through of Diablo 3 and joined a public group to bring down Diablo him herself in one of the most telegraphed, least surprising twists EVER – anyway – I started in on Nightmare mode and found myself doing the exact same things over again. Same everything. So I moved on. Lots of games, after all. Not being paid to play the same game entirely through over and over again. I know people like the challenge, but even on Hell mode, it would be just the same thing, only much harder. ...

Kalarel's chamber We’d battled our way to nearly the deepest depths of the measureless halls and caverns beneath the demonic Keep on the Shadowfell. We’d met slimes and jellies and bug-lizards and drakes and gnomes and goblins and goblins of the hob variety. We’d fed Splug to a carnivorous pool. We’d waded through hordes of skeletons and waves of zombies and spoken to a ghost. I got trapped in a room that was filling with water with no escape. ...

In Tim Schafer’s first post-funding update for his Kickstarter-funded old school adventure game, he’s stunned and overjoyed that the project attracted over $3 million in funding for a desired level of just $400,000. A recently cancelled game had left the future of Double Fine uncertain; there would have to have been layoffs, but now it’s all saved. Double Fine’s success led to equally successful Kickstarters for such nostalgic titles as Wasteland, Shadowrun and even Leisure Suit Larry. ...

Wenn der blaue Schleim jemand angreifen, stirbt jemand The screenshot tells the story. Me and Wenner unconscious, Sheeoil dead, only Bryn alive to finish the fight against the ravenous but somewhat stupid blue slime. And what of Splug? What of the goblin who gained our trust and betrayed us, literally backstabbing us? What of Splug, indeed? Splug After we finished scraping off the lizard-bug juice from our boots (Bryn, Sheeoil) and feet (Wenner, myself), we decided to go have a look at the corroded bronze door near which Wenner had discovered some tasty and deadly pudding. The door had words scraped into it, “Do Not Enter!!!11!!! SRSLY!!!!”, but we’re not big on warnings and text speak just enrages Bryn, so we were hot to see just what was behind that green door. ...

FTL I’m a big fan of ABC’s Shark Tank. I make no apologies, I like “some” reality TV. I don’t talk about it much on the blog anymore because I don’t think people are all that interested, but I still watch. If it’s a decent show and it’s shown on Netflix or Hulu Plus, it’s something to watch while gaming. Anyway the premise of that show is that five actual real businesspeople, the “sharks”, listen to pitches by would-be entrepreneurs, the “chum”, and if they like what they hear, they invest. It’s an American version of the UK’s “Dragon’s Den”, a show I have not seen. ...