Games I played during the week of 1/22 – 1/28/2017
Codenames
Played at a family get together. Currently writing a review that will be up later this week
Megaman Battle Network 3 Blue
One of my favorite series on one of my favorite consoles (GBA). The more I play this game the more I love it. There is a surprising amount of depth in the mechanics, the visuals are colorful and cartoony, with a playful and surprisingly funny world. Working on a review for next week.
Dark Cloud 2
I decided to pick this up during a PS4 flash sale after I realized I didn’t actually have a hard copy. One game I didn’t give enough attention to during the PS2 era that I’ve always meant to revisit. Going in I knew it was a dungeon crawler and town builder with fantastic visuals. I’ve only just started dungeon crawling and I’m already surprised at the amount of complexity in exploration and item crafting. This explains why I didn’t play it more back in the day, but now I’m excited to give it another try in the coming month. One aspect that has really impressed me are the optional tutorial videos in the help section. They are fully voiced by in game characters and give detailed instructions with demonstrations. I found them to be very well put together for something totally optional, but very handy for a game with as many systems as this one.
Heroes of the Storm
I’ve been playing MOBA games since off and on the original DOTA Warcraft 3 map in college. While dabbling in some LoL post college, it was HOTS that really captured my attention. The streamlined character progression and variety of maps is what really won me over. I also love the Smash bros style franchise mashup of different Blizzard titles, being a long term blizzard fanboy. HOTS mostly serves as a social activity for our group of friends. I mostly like to play support and ranged assassins, Malfurion and Lunara being my favorites (the fact they are both druid themed deer people is a coincidence, I just really like HOTs ((heal over time)) and DOTs ((damage over time))). There have been loose attempts to “get good” and play on a semi-competitive level (laddering) amongst others in our group. I’ve been dipping my toes into that realm a bit, but they play too late at night for me to participate as much.
Cosmic Encounter: Cosmic Eons
Saw this at the game store and picked it up, mostly to keep my CE collection complete. I haven’t had the opportunity to play it yet, but looking over the new aliens it may take awhile to get added. These aliens powers features the most text of any I’ve seen in the game, probably a result of extreme complexity creep (this is the 6th expansion, each one adding at least 20 aliens). But to be fair, I haven’t actually read them yet, so I’ll have to make the inclusion call after I do.
Hearthstone
Played the djinn priest deck that Disguised Toast made popular. Got my butt kicked and haven’t played much since.
Cantrip 