Category: Otaku

Worse Than The Pezzes?

December 21, 2014

That’s a shot of a hot wheels car I recently purchased. It’s beautiful isn’t it? Bernard certainly thought so, as he unwrapped the one I sent him yesterday! Looking at the back he saw the other models and seemed to love this one even more:

Maybe I should have sent him all of them?

So you’re thinking “Why did he buy these?” and the answer is quite simply that I don’t know. No one knows. But I did and now they live in the same box as the Star Wars pezzes I showcased the other day…

Now the story should have ended here. But, sadly, there’s more. I went out shopping the other day and beheld an employee putting out new product in the toy section:

OMG! More – different – SW hot wheels?!? I don’t like toy cars, never buy them but once again was suckered by the packaging! (Plus they were only $0.88 each!)

The cars aren’t even anything special! But I dug through the display like a mad ferret and hastily gathered all eight:

So that’s 13 (dreadful) Star Wars themed hot wheels I’ve bought in the past two months. As I delicately placed them into a storage box where they all reside for all eternity I dearly hoped I’d never buy any more ever again 🙂

2014 in Games

December 20, 2014

During 2014, my game collection saw its smallest growth in 17 years, but I ended up spending more in total than I had in the last 4 years. How was this possible?

That’s the answer: I went into 2014 without a Vita (PSV), and will leave the year with a Vita and 20 games for it. This isn’t to say I adore the system (it has many flaws…), but it does have many of the sorts of games I like to play and since I believe the system is dead, I rushed to buy them all this year before they became difficult to find.

In total I bought 46 games in 2014 and spend a total of $1613.90. That’s an average cost of $35, which is a big increase over previous years. This is because I bought zero iOS games this year, and instead concentrated on 3DS and PSV software.

Here’s the charts:

That’s the breakdown of units sold per system, with the Vita at 20 and the DS at 1. Despite being owned for longer than the Vita, at only 5 games purchased the Wii U isn’t seeing much use…

That’s the dollars spend breakdown, and you can see the Vita ate the lion’s share of my spending. The tiny sliver for the DS is because the only game I bought cost $5 🙂

As for the games themselves, and my playing habits, looking back on 2014 I would have to say it was a mixed bag. The entire first half of the year (and into summer) was a bit of a drought, with me not playing much at all. In particularly I barely ever turned on the consoles (PS3 and Wii U) during those days.

But then something clicked after my summer vacations and I found myself become re-interested in gaming as the year moved into the fall. In particularly I very much enjoyed some Vita games like Toukiden and Demon Gaze and by mid fall the 3DS had me entirely under it’s spell with two masterpieces (see below).

BeforeI get to my favourites, two games deserve a special mention…

The first is Super Smash Bros for 3DS. This year Nintendo released Smash Bros on both 3DS and Wii U. I purchased the 3DS version, and will eventually get the Wii U version as well. The 3DS version however was, in my opinion, a bit of a square peg in a round hole. While Nintendo did an admirable job of stuffing a massive amount of content in, the game suffered from poor controls and a design not ideal for such a small screen and I put it aside quickly, with the intent of saving myself for the Wii U version.

The other game is Puzzle & Dragons, last year’s game of the year winner. Yes I’m still playing it (>580 days played now), yes I’m still loving it and yes I still think you should play it too. But I won’t include it in favourite lists this year since it disqualifies having won last year!

So my favourite games of 2014, in reverse order:

3) Hyrule Warriors (Wii U)

This one came out of nowhere! Koei stuffed Zelda into the Dynasty Warriors engine and produced a game almost better than both! If you like hack-and-slash games then this one is for you, and the astonishing amount of content could take hundreds upon hundreds of hours to beat. Bravo Nintendo!

2) Theatrhythym Final Fantasy: Curtain Call (3DS)

Curtain Call took everything that was good about the first game, multiplied by ten, and produced maybe the best sequel ever. I played this like a demon, leveling every character to maximum (sometimes more), SSS ranking every song and collecting all the cards. This is a music game ever that can stand along side Ouenden, and took over my life for a month or so earlier this year. While I was playing this I would have said it was a no-brainer for game of the year, but then something else came out…

1) Fantasy Life (3DS)

Level 5 have created an action RPG with near perfect controls, beautiful graphics, and vast amounts of stuff to see and do. In addition to the usual systems (fighting monsters, casting spells, talking to NPCs etc) the game includes twelve classes (from Paladin to Cook) and you can go fishing, brew potions, make (hundreds and hundreds) of items, armor and weapons and recruit followers. It starts off easy and a little confined, but after a dozen or so hours of play you realize how mind-bogglingly big it is and how much time you’d need to max everything. Which I did. Including all the expansion ($9 on the 3DS store) content! All told I played for about 150 hours before putting it aside, but I suspect one day I’ll return just to finish off the (very difficult!) ‘Master Quests’. This isn’t just the best game I played this year – this is one of the best games I have ever played. Highly recommended.

As I always do I’ll end with a question: how was your year in games? What were your favourites in 2014?

Into The Dungeon!

December 17, 2014

Some months ago I purchased this at a con:

This is the Dungeon! board game, based on Dungeons and Dragons and originally released in 1975. This is the 1989 ‘new’ version, which added a couple of player classes but in all other respects is identical to the original. Our set is in fantastic condition except for one omission: the rules are missing! Luckily they were only an internet search away!

Here’s the board all set up and ready to go, with only the player selection yet to happen:

Each room has a treasure and a monster. The rules are simple: kill the monsters, take the treasure (each of which is worth a gold coin value), and collect as much as is required by the character you are playing. Here’s what we chose:

Both these classes require 30,000 gold to win. The wizard (me) can cast spells but is weak at melee combat. The Paladin (KLS) is a melee fighter than can heal themselves. Within a few minutes of play we had easily plundered most of the level 1 treasures and KLS had obtained two +1 swords (making her more powerful at combat):

It’s a fun game since both the monsters and treasures are hidden, and there’s an element of strategy involved in planning your route and deciding if you’ll take it carefully and stay on the upper levels (with the paltry treasures) or delve deeper and risk terrible foes for big treasure rewards. I mostly did the former, but KLS dove ever-deeper in search of big ticket items.

Here’s me fighting off a green slime on level four:

The yellow ‘-‘ means it is immune to fire, which was half my arsenal. Luckily I had a lightning bolt (grey) and took it out easily. While I had amassed a kings bounty of treasures, their average value was low and KLS was fast catching up as she entered level five.

And then she entered this room:

Now on paper this battle didn’t seem that bad for her. With her two swords she only needed to roll 8 or better on two dice to kill it. She didn’t though, and the dragon counterattacked. This meant it got a 2d6 roll of it’s own… and it rolled a 2! This is the only way a character can die, and it has only a 1/36 chance of happening. Madelyne the (alliteratively named) Paladin was dead!

This meant all her treasure – about 15k worth – stayed in the room with the dragon. KLS had to restart with a new character, and she picked:

The warrior is a no-fuss type, lacking special skills but needing much less treasure to win. With her powerful melee attack, KLS planned to mop up the remaining level 2-4 rooms for a quick win. There was also a big pile of treasure in a Wight room that the wizard had dropped fleeing from a failed combat.

The race was on – me heading toward the dragon to cheese it to death with spells from outside the room (and therefore avoid counter attack) and KLS barreling to the wight to get the stuff I had dropped. As it turns out we both reached – and defeated – our monsters about the same time, but since I was closer to the dungeon exit I made it out first and was very narrowly crowned victor.

We both enjoyed the game far more than we thought we would! For such a simple design it’s a lot of fun, especially with the uncertainty of which monsters and treasures are where. We didn’t even venture into the deepest level (6), since the level 5 beasts were challenge enough. But next time we play we’ve decided to play cooperatively, and go for the full dungeon clear of all 80 treasures. That will be fun 🙂

Robot Claw