Magic: The Gathering, Pure Chess, Mass Effect 3... yup, it was the weekend

Good morning - I sure hope you all had a really nice weekend.  Mine was fairly uneventful - which is not a bad thing at all.  My wife and daughters were out of town since Thursday, leaving my son and I to sit around and kill time how we saw fit.  Generally speaking, that was video games.

One game he and I have both been playing a bit is Pure Chess.


I first heard about this title over at Digitally Downloaded, but unfortunately at the time it was not released on the North American consoles.  About two months later however, it did release and my dad picked it up, and my son and I both play it now as well.  I currently have games going with my son, my dad and Matt, who runs Digitally Downloaded.  I expect to lose them all, but it's still good fun.

I got some multiplayer in on Mass Effect 3.  I've actually enjoyed the multiplayer on Mass Effect 3 quite a bit, having stuck with it longer than I do most multiplayer components, and while I completed the bonus objective this weekend, I have to admit the online mode is growing a bit stale for me.  I logged a few hours with it, but nothing like the long stretches I had in the past.  The different characters, power leveling, attachments and new weapons do help to keep it interesting longer, but if this weekend was a proper indication, I may be playing it less and less going forward.

The majority of the weekend, my son played online games of the Call of Duty variety - Modern Warfare 2 & 3 as well as Black Ops.  I enjoy a few rounds on each, but I can't seem to play for the long sessions he does.  Far and away though, it appears that the Zombies mode is his favorite and he's been gobbling up as much Black Ops 2 info as he can get lately.

While the above games did help me fill some time, the vaaaaast majority of my weekend was spent working on decks for Magic: The Gathering.  As in the cardboard decks.  I don't even want to wager how many hours I spent on them this weekend.  With my wife out of town, I pretty much took over the bedroom in general and the bed in particular with boxes, folders and stacks of cards.  One of my friends at work who doesn't play Magic anymore had a bunch of older cards (revised through tempest), to go with my own older cards (Revised through Weatherlight) and my newer cards (Scars through Core 13).  Needless to say, there's some variety. 

Since I'm just playing casual with friends, I mix and match stuff up like crazy and have put together like thirty decks.  In addition to that, I broke down my commons into a large monster box organized by color, then by 'type' (summon/enchantment/sorcery/instant) and then alphabetized them.  Then I took out the uncommons and rares and put them in folders with the same kind of categories (but didn't alphabetize them).

The end result?  A much more organized system for when we are all trading.  I have to say it was interesting seeing all of the old and new cards.  It sort of gave me a laugh though, because while the game has seen a lot of changes, the more things change, well...

Lord of Atlantis - I had some Revised

The more they stay the same:

Master of the Pearl Trident - I had one from the latest Core 13 set

The exact same card just many years apart.  All in all though, probably the best part of the process was that when I was done with it, I sat down and played a few games with my son.  Sounds like he has an interest in playing some more as well so maybe I'll get him into it with me too.


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8 comments:

  1. Sounds like a super nerd-out weekend for you. Pretty sure my weekend was more awesome with painting some in the new house, received the new fridge and coordinating some other work we're having done.


    Gaming? Uh, my 3DS's battery was dead so I charged it, looked at the eShop and updated firmware. Does that count? :)

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  2. Sounds like a fun weekend! That sucks that ME3 multiplayer is getting stale, but I can't say I'm too surprised, it looks like a pretty standard deathmatch. Have you tried the free Lord of the Rings Online game for PC? Just thought I would suggest it, I'm slowly getting addicted to it, it has even (for now) replaced Team Fortress 2 as my nightly online game.

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  3. Yeah, i enjoy the ME 3 online still, but just don't find myself sitting in on it for hours at a time now.

    you know, i downloaded LotR but haven't actually tried it yet. I've actually been mmo-free since finally quitting WoW a couple of years ago, though I suspect that the announcement that Star Wars is going free-to-play this fall may change that for me. :p

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  4. That totally counts! I haven't looked at the eshop in ages it seems like. :)

    Don't envy you on the painting, but seeing as I could use a new fridge that's not a bad thing at least.

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  5. Gaming for the last 2 weeks has pretty much consisted of Mario games. New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and New Super Mario Bros. DS...a few of the Virtual Console games well.
    Oh, and getting the PLAGUE when going out of town? #winning


    Bean 1 is learning how to play all of the Mario games, and it's just a blast seeing how he has progressed.


    As for the, "Far and away though, it appears that the Zombies mode is his favorite and he's been gobbling up as much Black Ops 2 info as he can get lately." do you know if ZombiU caught his attention?

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  6. So basically, your household gaming is right in line with Nintendo's E3 conference - all things Mario? :)

    Man, this has been a brutal summer for illness it seems like. And the thing is, myself and other friends have all been getting the kind of crap you associate with winter time, like bronchial infections, pneumonia, pink eye, whooping cough, etc. yeesh. can't wait to see how winter actually is. :P

    He is super interested in that. He really wants me to nab a Wii U early on, but I'm usually not a brand new console adopter right out of the gates, and he knows that. Then again, I'm making more money now than I did 5-10 years ago too, so we'll see... but yeah, he has been watching the trailers and info on that and the Mario games and been eager to eat it up. Me? I thought it looked cool, but I need to know more about what the next gen consoles are going to bring to the table before I decide which one will be my first purchase. If I was basing it off of this generation, it would be the PlayStation.

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  7. "So basically, your household gaming is right in line with Nintendo's E3 conference - all things Mario? :)"


    Haha, that's only the half of it. I told Reggie since they don't know how to do proper marketing at E3, I would come on for half of his salary for half a year, and fix their 2013 E3 showing. I'm still waiting on a response, but after he sees Bean 1 beating SMB World 1-1, I'm expecting my phone to start buzzing.


    As for, "Man, this has been a brutal summer for illness it seems like. And the thing is, myself and other friends have all been getting the kind of crap you associate with winter time, like bronchial infections, pneumonia, pink eye, whooping cough, etc. yeesh. can't wait to see how winter actually is. :P"...
    The crazy thing, my mom said basically the SAME thing when we were visiting last week. Something like, "When I was younger, people would get sick, but usually always in the winter. Now everybody seems to get sick all year round."
    Very odd. And as of waking up this morning, it seems the plague has made its round back to Bean 1 and Mrs. Coffee, and I still feel like trash and we both have work in less than 24 hours.


    The joys of vacations, bringing back sickvenirs from other states, and not knowing exactly what they are.


    "If I was basing it off of this generation, it would be the PlayStation."
    For me, it would still be the Wii. I'm cheap. :) That's why I went with the GameCube originally. It was $200, compared to $300 for the PS2 and Xbox.


    Now with your, "Then again, I'm making more money now than I did 5-10 years ago too, so we'll see..." statement, if you are suggesting that making more money might be preventing you from buying a Wii U day one, I can give you my address and you can mail me the extra money that is a problem, and I will keep the economy going down here in NC. Just let me know when you need it.

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  8. Haha - I think Reggie totally needs to take you up on that offer!

    Sorry to hear that the plague's making the rounds though. Usually my house doesn't get kicked around by that until mid fall when the kids are around their friends at school and the noses start to dribble due to cooler temps.

    I will probably have to pass on the kind offer to help resuscitate the NC economy at this time, as my wife would simply kick my butt. :)

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