Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 - Expansion 1

With the recent release of return to Ravnica into the actual card game Magic: The Gathering, I was not surprised to hear that there was a release for the video game Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013.  What I was surprised by, was that the first expansion to the game actually contained no cards from the new Return to Ravnica set, but instead revisited cards from the original Ravnica set.  Giving players a bit of a taste of the Ravnica history, I cannot help but think that the next expansion will in fact support new mechanics from Return to Ravnica.

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The Splatters - Xbox Live discount this week

Good morning, everyone.

The Splatters was a title I really enjoyed and scored it an 8 out of 10 when it first came out.  It's a puzzle game with some serious physics at work, with a graphic style that sort of reminded me of the Worms series with its use of colors and odd animations.

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Busy weekend, probably a busy week

Well, I definitely got some gaming in over the weekend.  That was the good news.  The bad news?  My son may have picked up something very not cool on my PC at home.  This morning there was some annoying error message about how my PC couldn't be verified and I'd have to reinstall Win 7, which is obviously pretty shady to begin with, but on top of that most of the functions on it are now running doggedly slow.  Poor kid - I'm annoyed with him, but he sorta knew he was in trouble too.  He was sitting on the couch looking like he was either sick, or someone kicked a cat, and he's like:

You're going to want to see the error up on your computer.

Considering how little I use that PC lately, he didn't even try brushing it off as something someone else might have done.  For about the last 3 months, it's been 95% him.  Amusingly, I did use it some Saturday, but only for a pair of Steam games.  So, I suspect I'll be spending some time this evening trying to smooth THAT mess out.  So I'm plugging this article together on a far less effective laptop for the time-being.

So, how about those games this weekend?

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Orcs Must Die 2! - Fire and Water Booster DLC Review

This week has not been kind to me in terms of free time.  Here's hoping the weekend goes a bit more smoothly.  Any plans of your own for the weekend?

I was a huge fan of Orcs Must Die! 2 when it came out.  I knocked a lot of those ornery little buggers off and lost quite a bit more sleep than I had ever intended.  The blend of tower defense strategy and third person action really sat well with me, as did the spirit of experimentation.  There are just so many delightful traps for proper orc dismemberment, and their upgrades can be a ton of fun.

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LittleBigPlanet: Sackboy's Prehistoric Moves - PlayStation 3 Review

Little BigPlanet got a ton of play this weekend from my youngest.  She has always loved the series - pretty much fell in love with it since playing the first game, and she has enjoyed the series since.  It sort of amazes me how much time she puts into it, but she makes most of her online friends through the game, and spends hours upon hours creating and testing areas - often Pokemon themed.

I hope you all had a very nice weekend and got some gaming in.  I got obscene amounts of several titles in, and probably have upwards of forty hours in total clocked in on Dragon's Dogma now.  I am about halfway through the primary storyline, but have been keeping busy with all of the side quests.  I also have several online franchises in Madden that have progressed (more effectively than my Lions have progressed in real life).  I have some Magic: The Gathering to play tonight -and it should be interesting as a few of the guys I play with tonight attended the pre-release tournaments for the upcoming expansion, so I'll get to see some new cards in play this evening.

So, speaking of Little BigPlanet, I thought I would touch on one of the spinoffs from the primary series.

LittleBigPlanet is pretty big in my house.  My son likes it, but my youngest daughter?  Well, she loves it.  It is pretty easy to see the appeal.  I have never really gotten into the game myself, but with those design options I probably would have eaten this series up as a kid who learned BASIC for the sole purpose of creating Choose-Your-Own-Adventure stories on my TI99/4a.  So back when we had a move, Sackboy's Prehistoric Moves came out and then shortly after it was a freebie for PlayStation Plus owners.  My daughter was very excited to give this game a go.

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Hydrophobia: Prophecy - PlayStation Network Review

Halloween is right around the corner, and with it - my slighter darker themes and wallpapers for about the next month.  Hope you all have a good weekend planned.  Mine will (surprise!) consist mostly of gaming.  I have a few different things I'm juggling going into this weekend: Actually getting some decks revamped for my weekly Magic: The Gathering card night on Monday, reviewing the Magic: The Gathering expansion DLC for Planeswalkers 2013, catching up in my Madden online franchises (I have 3 and I'm behind in two), trying to make some headway in Dragon's Dogma (big game, and I've easily sunk 30 hours into it while only having gotten through about half the main storyline) and I've been trying to work on some new things for my MUD as we usually have a Merriment of Masks festival on there around Halloween.  We will see just how much of this stuff I put a dent into by Monday morning when I post here.  For now?  I have a review of a game that is not necessarily a horror one, but has some tense moments that fit decently with the site update.

I remember seeing some footage of Hydrophobia back when it was first announced for the Xbox 360.  The water-related physics and graphics looked pretty impressive and it was officially on my radar.  Then it came out to tepid overall reviews while I was in the middle of playing quite a few other games, so I just never bothered to pick it up.  Since then it has been re-released with the 'Prophecy' addition to the title, and by and large the reviews were much more positive afterward, claiming that this was the definitive release to try.

The game has a Tomb Raider in water feel to it.  You control a female protagonist who uses guns to deal with enemies while you solve environmental puzzles via lots of climbing and jumping.  It is a tried and true formula that has been imitated quite a few times over the years, with some examples being more successful than others.

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Super Penguins - iPhone/iPad Review

With my new iPhone has come a lot of new games to try out.  Most of them have been of the slower-paced variety like RPG or CCG style games.  However, it is nice to try out some other types of titles, especially those that make better use of the iPhone as a whole.  One such game I have been sinking quite a bit of time into lately is Super Penguins.

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Tuesday, huh? Pure Chess Gaming Thoughts

This will be a brief one - I spent most of the weekend and yesterday sick.  Never any fun.  The good news?  Even when sick, I was able to camp out in bed and play some video games.  Mostly Dragon's Dogma, Madden, Guardian Cross, Rage of Bahamut and Pure Chess.

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Diablo III - PC Review

Took me long enough to finish and prep my review for the following game - but here it is.  Also, sometime tomorrow I will be picking the winner for my Double Dragon: Neon PSN code giveaway.

In my mind, this was the most anxiously awaited PC game since Starcraft II came out.  Opinions formed on Diablo III often and early, ranging from the online connectivity to the style of the game's graphics.  Still, as we have seen in the past, great expectations can often lead to great disappointments.  We have seen that with other titles like Mass Effect 3, when many of its loyal fans felt let down by the ending, the multiplayer component or that it seemed more focused on action than tactical or roleplay elements.  The other side of the coin is something like Skyrim, that generally was well-received (though bugs - especially on the PlayStation 3, really hampered its release).  So how does Diablo III hold up?

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Reminder: Contest for a free PSN game

I haven't gotten much traffic on this yet - good news and odds for the few who have.  I don't have much to toss out today - hoping to have a fairly decent review up Friday though.  In the meantime - the contest for Double Dragon: Neon for PSN:

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Busy weeks, and a contest - quick Gaming Thoughts

This feels like a theme right now.  Lots of time spent at work, lots of time at home doing work for work, and then in my spare time spending what time remains sleeping or with family.  It does look like things should return to 'normal' (no one's ever actually accused me of being normal, mind you) this week, at least for a few weeks.  Sadly, my Lions let me down last night against the 49ers (I had a hunch they would, but hey - you can still hope.  That is why they play the games), but I've still had enough time to rattle off a few hours of gaming here and there.

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Double Dragon: Neon - PlayStation Network Review

I have a pretty longstanding history with beat 'em up style games, and for the most part I have enjoyed the genre.  Double Dragon still ranks as one of my all-time favorite arcade games, and I would guess I played through Double Dragons 1 & 2 on the NES several dozen times each.  I am one of the lucky few who still has the arcade version of Double Dragon on my Xbox Live account as well.  So it is safe to say I was more than a little excited when I read about Double Dragon: Neon several months ago, posting about it here at the time.

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Some quick Wii U thoughts

Like everyone and their mom yesterday and today, I have been pondering the various Wii U announcements and trying to figure out just what my thoughts on them and the system are.  I have come away decidedly mixed at this point, but then I have been since the beginning I guess.  I plan to get one more post up for the weekend by the end of the day (a review of a new game release), but I figured I'd hop on the Wii U conversational bandwagon real quick this morning.

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