Last Week's Games

On 01/13/2020 at 05:07 PM by KnightDriver

I played a bunch of stuff, chasing Microsoft Rewards points and playing one co-op game.

Pathlogic 2: ID@Xbox game I played for rewards points. It’s a horror/mystery adventure game. I walked a lot, talked a lot, searched drawers a lot and first-person punched a few times. It actually reminded me a bit of the Sherlock Holmes games I played in that you are trying to uncover a mystery by talking to people.
It starts off very confusingly as your character isn’t sure what he’s experiencing, but it becomes clearer as you go. You are a doctor returning to his home town after, or during, a horrific event. The location seemed like a Slavic town circa WWII. I liked it to a point, but I got tired of searching for food to keep myself from starving.

Blair Witch: This is an adventure game I played for rewards points. It’s pretty simple. You just walk around looking for a lost kid in a forest and give commands to your dog. I stopped because I came to a dead end in the forest and couldn’t find anything new. My dog found a few objects but nothing very helpful. I kept walking around the paths in circles asking my dog to search with no results. I’m sure I missed something.

Dead Cells: This is a very cool rogue-like Metroidvania a game I played for another set of rewards points. Just like Castlevania, it is gorgeous to look at. I didn’t mind the rogue-like elements that much because everything time you die the 2D maze of rooms and the things in them change. Fighting is solid and fun. The upgrades are cool too. You can find special items like freeze balls and bear traps. Each time you die you lose some souls you get from kills. These souls can be spent to get permanent upgrades. So there is some carry over from each death. I would’ve kept playing but co-op was calling.

Styx Shards of Darkness: This was a Games with Gold freebie and a good one. It’s a stealth game in a beautifully grungy environment. You play as a goblin thief robbing and stabbing humans to get loot and sometimes payback. The goblin character is played with a very funny attitude ala Crypto from Destroy All Humans!. He’ll berate you when you die.
What’s really great, and what keeps me – a stealth game hater – playing is the ability to do each level any way you want to. You always have to be stealthy, but you can do so many different things in a level. You can sneak past guards, set traps for them, outright stealth murder them, or shoot them with darts. Controls are perfect. You can craft items from found materials, and you can level up different skills. I went with improved killing at first but then put some points into stealth so I could kill from a hiding spot like a cabinet. You can hide in drains in the floor, cabinets, barrels and trunks. You can even play it co-op. It was hilarious watching Mark perform kills as I lay in wait hidding inside a cabinet.
I eventually got tired of sneakin’ around and stopped for the time being. I never thought I’d like a stealth game, but here it is.

Minecraft: I’m still trying to get 1000 emeralds by trading with villagers. I started a new world, found a village, and started trading. Soon, though, the mobs killed, or zombified, most of my villagers despite there being a golem on guard. I left, found a ghost town, then a good town and started trading again. All that was there were two farmers who wanted potatoes and one cleric who wanted rotten meat. I worked those guys and tried to bring a fisherman into town by setting up a house for him. He never showed up. Sometimes one shows up if you provide a house with the right equipment. I’ll have to try for a stone mason next time. I’m going to keep this world for a while and see what I can do with it.

WItcher 3 Wild Hunt: Also for rewards points but I wanted to get back to this anyway. I restarted and got to the first Griffon fight. I avoided side missions for the time being, but I paid for it by being killed by the Griffon several times. I needed to do side missions to get more health and learn about sword oils like I did last time. I think next week I’m going to restart on story mode. I just want to get through the game once to see everything.

And that’s a week. Kind of a lot, really. Next week (or later this week now) I’ll probably chase the remaining rewards points for the month by playing Minecraft and Witcher 3. Then I’ll look up something new and current. I got a list already.

Matt Snee Staff Writer

01/13/2020 at 10:05 PM

I think the thing about Witcher is some of the best parts of the game are the side stories. I think if you try to rush through it you're really missing out on a lot.

KnightDriver

01/14/2020 at 03:45 PM

Well, maybe with the pressure off fighting in Story Mode, I'll get obsessive about side missions.

01/14/2020 at 08:00 PM

It has that option? I might try it myself. I've noticed that as I've gotten older, and my skills are rusty because I don't game enough, I shy away from reflex oriented games cause I'm not so good at them anymore. That's why I mostly play turn based games now.

01/14/2020 at 09:13 PM

For me it just takes longer to get through things having to fight a lot. But it depends on the game. Sometimes I really get into it. Witcher's combat is pretty good, but you have to do all this preparing and combine spells with sword play. It gets a bit complicated.

Machocruz

01/14/2020 at 09:57 AM

I had a village close to my spawn point wiped out by a Pillager raid because I killed some of their people who were lurking near my base. I didn't know about this mechanic and I was in the middle of expanding the village farm when they attacked. Also had no food on me to heal. I spent some time searching for another village, but so far nothing. Any tips on finding one?

But yeah, do not be near or awake in a village at night. One of the first things you should do is put up fencing or walls around the village.

01/14/2020 at 03:44 PM

You can use a seed world like the Stronghold Village (this on Xbox) to get a village right away near the spawn point but I like to randomize and see what comes up. Usually I climb a mountain or build a quick tower to see farther around me. If that doesn't work, I start boating because a lot of towns are on rivers and oceans. I like hunting them down, but it's time consuming.

I started sleeping at night thinking that might help, but ultimately it didn't. Sometimes the Golem gets stuck somewhere and neglects the town.

I was thinking of walls but it's so time consuming in survival mode. I've done moats before and earthworks. Fences might be good, especially stone ones. I usually have a lot of stone anyway from mining. I'll try that next time but there is one problem. Sometimes mobs just spawn anywhere there is a shadow or sometimes just anywhere, like in a house. If I keep the place lit, though, I think I'll be alright.

I also need to remember how to heal a zombie villager. I remember it was a golden apple and maybe a potion.

01/15/2020 at 12:52 AM

Don't know why a stone wall would take longer than a stone fence, since you have to take the extra step of crafting the fence. As long as the wall is one or two stones high, it's enough. But you've played far more MC than me, so I don't know.

And yeah, light the town up. Treat it like you're own base or anywhere else you want to make safe.

Probably going to give another try searching for a village on this map. I've put so much work into it so far, and the idea of starting the whole mining and diamond searching process over doesn't thrill me right now.

01/15/2020 at 04:54 PM

They may take the same time, I guess, but I'd be in favor of a stone fence because you only need one level of it to keep stuff out. One block of stone wall can be climbed over by mobs. You need a lot of wood for fencing. Stone is easier to mine and convert to fencing.

Mark and I used to race to see how fast we could mine the basic matterials for a nether portal - that's diamond and obsidian. I can do it lightning fast now: spawn in, dig to level 12, mine 'til you get some diamond (not too long on that level), make the diamond pickaxe, find some obsidian (also doesn't take too long to find at that level), chop the obsidian, build the nether portal. Done.

goaztecs

01/15/2020 at 12:14 PM

I think it's time for me to give Witcher a try. It's sitting in my Steam library, I might give it a go in 2020.

I wonder how creepy Blair Witch gets. I remember when the movie came out someone hung those Blair Witch cross things in the trees on campus. A little creepy but a cool way to promote the movie. Going back to the game I bet you, there's a simple solution to that point where you'll say "Oh that's how it works." I tend to hit those points, take a break, and when I come back it just clicks.

01/15/2020 at 04:41 PM

Witcher is pretty great. I love riding horses in games.

This part I played wasn't creepy at all. I think it's weird how scared people get of forests, so I was kind of making fun of the game as I played it. But, it probably does have jump scares and such later on. If only I could get on a new path in that woods. It doesn't let you bushwack through certain areas.

PixlBit