PixlBit

Just a few but with some interesting death throes in most of them. 

DS

Dragon Quest IX - I thought I was going to go deeper with this, but I got a party wipe in a very typically Dragon Quest way that made me take a break. 

I got beaten by The Wight Knight. I was happily grinding for levels in the field when I took one step too many towards the Wight Knight location and got locked into the battle with no escape possible. I had just created three companions, equiped them and leveled them to match myself. Why is it in every darn DQ game does an encounter come out of the blue that you can't win and which also doesn't let you flee? It seems a harsh and unwarrented punishment. 

Well, I'll try again sometime, picking up where I left off. I'm going to do that with most games I'm playing this year. If I don't finish them, I'll keep the save and return to them later (probably next year). 

Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes - I was so into this and DQIX, that I was playing them at home outside of MK's game room (where I do all my gaming). I did, unfortuneately, come across an impass where I had three battles, all above my level, none of which I could beat. So I put it down. That's weird, because I've beaten this game several times before on different platforms. I love the puzzley battle mechanics a lot. 

Xbox 360

Fallout 3 - Well, then. It's always interesting how crazy my sessions are with this game. It's kind of the same with every Bethesda game: these big open worlds with a myriad of options and little to no guidance. They just cause me no end of trouble. This time it was breaking bad without actually intending to do so. Here's the story. 

I got out of the vault and went to Megaton, like you do always in this game. I was doing fine until I decided I had better bunker down and get some sleep. But, for the life of me, I couldn't get a free bed anywhere. All were owned and no one would give one up, so I just continued playing.

I ran across the sherif of the town and told him about this guy in the saloon who was trying to get me to blow up the bomb in the center of town. We went over there to confront him and he killed the sheriff and threatened me. I went back to the sheriff's house, and since he was dead, and started filching everything I could because I needed caps to buy the only bed that seemed available, the one sold by Nova the prostitute. Well, my karma must've gotten pretty low because villagers started attacking me, and the next thing I knew I was fighting everyone all over town until they got me by shear numbers. I made a mess out of the Brass Lantern. That was a blood bath. My last words were, "I just wanted a bed. . . ah. . ."

The bed thing seemed so weird to me, because I remember one time getting a bed in the Common House no problem. Ah, Fallout. What a wacky, weird game world it is. 

I'm going to tell this story to my Fallout super fan coworker, and he'll likely laugh at me. I'm okay with that. It's a funny story. 

Rock Band - I picked up a Fender Strat Rock Band guitar at a Goodwill a while back for $5 and thought I'd give the series a shot again. The guitar works ok, but its motion sensor seems broken. It's only used for Overdrive anyway.

I played through all 58 songs on easy and bloodied my index finger strumming the strum bar so much. I use my finger like a pick. They suggest using index and thumb to move the strum bar back and forth, but this is a very unnatural and unrealistic feel to me since I've played a real guitar before.

Playing Rock Band guitar took me some getting used to because you don't exactly play it like a real instrument. Rhythm wise you do, but the fingering is oddly different because you often hold down buttons on the fretboard before you actually strum them to be heard. It throws me off at times, but I tried to just follow the rhythm and not let the visuals and the different timing of the fingering get to me. I enjoyed it quite a lot and will tackle medium difficulty next time. My fingers were hurting. 

I looking into the posibility of downloading more songs for it, but it seems that you can only buy the songs of Rock Band 4 in the Xbox store. There are some other ways to get them on a 360, but it's more involved, and I'll just wait till I play RB4 sometime later. I have Rock Band 2 and Beatles Rock Band for 360 and will probably pick up Rock Band 3 sometime soon. Those are songs enough. 

Also, I was trying to play the bass parts in this game, since I used to be a bass player, but you can only do it in multiplayer or quickplay. You can't play a solo carreer as a bassist. Rats. 

Years ago, I used to own the mic and drums for this game but no more. The drums seem the best because they actually simulate real drumming fairly well and will teach you actual drumming to an extent. One of these days, I might pick one up if I see one for cheap. These plastic periferals are expensive in game stores right now. Who would've thought that? They must've made millions of them. 

And that's my week and the end of my vacation. It's back to work tomorrow and I'm not sad because I love my work at the library. I wish I could work there more hours than I do. 

I'm off to see the Guy Richie film Into the Grey.