Just What am I Playing? March 2011

I will keep this post short, because I don't have a lot of time to spare right now, but I wanted to get my monthly post done, so here's what I'm playing in order of most played to least played:

1. Two Worlds II (Xbox 360)
2. Tekken 6 (Xbox 360)
3. Lead and Gold (free weekend on Steam, also on sale - 75% off)
4. Torchlight
5. Monday Night Combat
   
6. Robot Unicorn Attack (free flash game on Facebook)

Out of all of these games, I recommend staying away from Tekken 6. It is simply awful. That said, I hope everyone gives Robot Unicorn the attention it deserves. It is a great game, and it has catchy music, too!

Just What Am I Playing? February 2011

JWIP3 involves me playing some more Robot Unicorn, both versions, and Fable 3. I also took the time to play some Red Dead Redemption yesterday.

Anyway, Robot Unicorn never gets old, and I mapped a Xbox Controller S to the two buttons it uses, Z and X. That simply made it better, easier to play (kind of), and cooler to show off on webcam.

Fable 3 is kind of cool, but it is not as enjoyable as Fable 2, and I think the original Fable was way more fun than both of them combined. Read my review: http://getlives.com/reviews/x360/fable-3

Anyway, I was playing some games on Kongregate to pass the time when I was feeling kind of depressed, over the weekend, and I found a game called Flight. I played it for more than a hour. Not bad for a game I didn't have to pay for and which did not offer any high scores.

Finally, yesterday, I played some RDR or Red Dead Redemption, because I got a month of Xbox Live Gold. I enjoy that game, but not many people play it any more. Single player is the reason to keep it, not multiplayer.

Just What Am I Playing? January 2011

I think this blog series might need an acronym, so here's the second JWIP:

I stopped playing City of Wonder around Christmas. I was sick and tired of it, and I was too busy playing other games and doing various personal tasks to play a casual Facebook game. Steam has a sale, OK?! Anyway, around the end of December, I had to get back into school, and I started toying with a few more Facebook games.

I went through a lot of text-based games, and none of those worked all that well, except Dynasty Wars. However, I didn't find that game fun, so I tried a bunch of trivia. I sucked at Popcorn Hero, so I moved to arcade games, and I found Robot Unicorn Attack.

I love that game! It has very simple controls and an addictive gameplay mechanic: jump over stuff. You also get a dash power, and you will find times when you have to immediately jump, dash, land, dash, and jump in that order. Yes, it can be hard, but it's always fun to see how long you can last or how far you can go. There's a score board, too, if you're into that sort of thing.

Another game I'm playing on the side is Monster Fantasy. It has a very unoriginal title, but it is one of the few actual MMORPGs I've seen that work entirely through Facebook, and it looks pretty. My only problem with it is the loading screen doesn't always finish loading, and I have to refresh the page and even empty my cache to even load the game. If you're looking for a MMOG to play with your Facebook friends, try Monster Fantasy. You could also try RuneScape, but hey, whatever.

Just What Am I Playing? December 2010.

This will be an on-going, monthly article detailing games I've started playing and found strangely addictive. These games will admittedly be free browser-based games most of the time. Anyway, for the past few weeks, I've been playing a Facebook game titled City of Wonder. It is a civilization-building game of sorts, but it's very watered down, and it relies a lot on timers and Facebook invites.

City of Wonder does have a sense of gameplay hidden within its Facebook satire. If you look past the invites, you'll see a very friendly community of players. Almost everyone is willing to share items and help others out, because they benefit from helping others. You are even encouraged to send gifts to other people in order to have a good chance of them returning the favor.

The true fun is in designing the layout of your city. You can rearrange buildings and roads as you see fit. This isn't SimCity, so realism isn't the focus. I find it fun to just see if I can make a nice layout with the items I've unlocked, however, once you get to about level 20, this becomes more of a chore. Money gets harder to get and items get harder to unlock over time. Also, a lot of the items require real money (or what they call gold), so a lot of the buildings are off limits to most people.

Ironically, I find City of Wonder somewhat fun. It's hard to say why. Maybe I just enjoy the scenery. Perhaps I simply enjoy the social features. My best guess is that I'm simply addicted to it. This game constantly changes, so that may play a part in my addiction.

0 A.D,

0 A.D. is a freeware (but not open source) RTS game. It looks awesome, and I suggest we all try it out!

Open Source Real-Time Strategy Engine

There's an awesome RTS engine on the rise called Spring. It already has many games and is documented well. You could make your own RTS game!

Torchlight Demo - Get it!

Torchlight was made with an open source 3d api, but it's a commercial product, so it doesn't belong on this site, right? Wrong.

Torchlight has a downloadable demo. The demo is almost as good as the real thing! I played the demo and loved it so much I got the real thing. Until January 4th, it costs only $10. After that, the game goes retail (physical copies will be available) and sells at the original price of $20.

Get your copy of Torchlight as soon as possible!

http://www.torchlightgame.com