PixlBit

Second weekend day of gaming today, but first last night after I wrote my Sunday blog. I got in some Pokemon Shuffle mainly to clear the street passes, but I played the main quest until I was out of hearts. It might have been about an hour. It's simple fun. I really liked the music actually. There was some that sounded like traditional Japanese music. I enjoyed that a lot. I think I wouldn't mind being surrounded by that sound more often.

Then I jumped into Fantasy Life, also to clear the street passes. In this game you can get 10 street passes at a time. You have to go to the office in the game where you change jobs. There you can look at profiles and recieve gifts if they have choosen to do that. Some poeple have logged a lot of time in the game. One had over 200 hours gameplay and his gift was something I couldn't recieve. I guess it was an item that shows up later in the game.

I couldn't resist playing some after this, even though it was late, and spent some time fishing. I'm doing the Angler job and it's pretty fun. You can fish at spots where you can see them swimming in the water. You get advancement in your craft by catching certain fish which are location specific and sometimes randomly appearing. I ventured into the Western Plains and did a lot of fishing and had to fight off some giant sentient radishes, snakes and some strange creature riding a large rock. I can still fight even though I am a fisherman now. You keep your skills from previous jobs unchanged.

I got to rent a horse and ride it by unlocking the horse license with my bliss points. You get bliss by doing the main quests. The horse lets you travel very fast, but once you get off, it returns to the stables, so you can't really use it to get back. I hope to do more in this game during the week.

Then today, that's Monday, I arrived at my friend Mark's place and plugged in the crossover ethernet cable I bought to both of our original Xboxes. We were able to access system link play in Links 2004 but it wouldn't see the other player within the lobby. I found out online that there was a flaw in the game that if both systems didn't have the same updates, they wouldn't be able to play system link. Well, I could've downloaded the patch that was issued back in 2004 and burned it to a disc to copy it to both our Xboxes, but I noticed the game was backward compatible on Xbox 360. So we switched, and since our Xbox 360s are both wired to the same router, we were able to do system link play there without any changes.

Just before we started playing, though, I checked the sales and such on Xbox Live. I watched the new Halo 5 trailers. What they are doing suggesting the end to Master Chief has me very worried. It looks like you will be given a choice whether to stay with MC or go with a new spartan, but I don't like even suggesting the game can do without MC. It's a whole new game, in my opinion, if that happens.

Then I checked sales and saw Deus Ex: Human Revolution for $4 and said, "oh heck yes!". I have a strong feeling that, even though I dislike stealth games, I will like this one.

Then we both booted up Links 2004. It allows you to play against friends in system link competitively and gain money for skill boosts, but I wanted to play tournaments and, of course, they are no longer available because they were online only. I wanted to play the sports game equivalent of campaign co-op where we'd both be playing in the same tournament. Oh well.

After a round playing competitively with system link we each went back to single player and worked on the career mode all the rest of the day. There's a lot to do in this game. Each mode from Rookie to Legends has multiple challenges in addition to the tournaments to play for money, new equipment with skill boosts, and ranking. It's really fun. 

Finally, with the last minutes I had at my friend's place, I put in The Masters: Tiger Woods PGA 12 just to see the opening presentation and possible take a swing or two to get a notion of the controls. You begin by reliving Tiger's last few strokes to win the Masters. The controls seemed ok, although, you don't do very much in this first part. It's mainly just an intro to the game showing you what you will be working up to in the main game.

Then I created a character. The character creator is pretty in depth and you can create bizarre freaks of nature if you wish. I wished and created what looked like a giant troll of a man. I can't wait to see it animated in the main game. I didn't have time to actually get to the first part of the rookie career though. Maybe next week.

And that's a weekend.