Jona (brother) bought me the Game Of The Year Edition of this on steam. I've already almost completed it on Xbla (Xbox360 Live) (only got one achievement left to get - 40 waves on endless) but I really like my tower defence games and this one is rather good (that and steam had a sale~). It's pretty user friendly, it's basic enough that it's accessible to almost anyone but has enough difficulty that it isn't boring. The graphics are cheerful and the music isn't all that bad.
I've already completed the first play though and I'm well on my way through the second. I'm not sure why I find this so addictive but I do. Do you want to know my favourite part? The Zen garden. I'm not even joking, my favourite part (after completing the main game) is growing plants and picking up new plants from either Crazy Dave or on other levels. As the name Zen suggests, it's soothing. The music is nice and I like finding out what new plants I have acquired. It sounds ridiculous I know, especially when I'm so absolutely terrible at keeping plants alive in real life.
Any way, essentially I love this game because you can just turn it on and play for a short burst of time. There's no plot at all so that's not an issue and each level is about 5 to 10 minutes long (except for each last level of the area which is a double level).When my 360 was in my room I would play it a lot on that and now it's on my computer I'm playing it a lot at the moment. 'Chievo hunting (because the achievements on Steam are different to the Xbla ones).
Ahh good old Minecraft. I don't actually play this as often as I seem to make out. In fact I haven't played this in a couple of months and have only just reinstalled it today after the windows overhaul. Jona mentioned that the sheep had been altered so they are producing wool again after shearing (which I was having a major issue with last time) so I thought I would open it again and have a mooch. They've also added apples a a tree drop which is fab.
I do love this game, mostly because I just like building a nice house and then going off on a wander around the countryside and through the caverns and caves. I like exploring, although really I should head off to the Nether and the End at some point but that's kinda where all the scary things live.
I tend to play this game solidly for about a week (in a darkened room because it makes it easier) and then after that week appear, bleary eyed and blinking at the sun, and don't play it for about a month. It is a good game but I overkill on it. This is how I play most games really. I play them for hours each day and then stop. Then when I finally get back to them I'm all "dude, why did I stop? This game is AWESOME!". As it is I'm in the early stages of building a house (making the walls out of dirt and any other random materials that don't require tools to gain, because I like to play it out perfectly and dirt is easiest to change). I have already found sheep and pigs near by and I'm situated next to the sea. It should be fun so I'll let you know how I get on.
On Xbox I'm playing this: Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 3, another game that Jona bought me (this time for christmas). We are somewhat collecting these games (currently own DW1 (PS), DW2 (PS2), DW3 Strike force (I think, PS2), DW5 Empires (Xbox360), DW6 (Xbox360), Tactics (PS2), Warriors Orochi 1+2 (Xbox360) and DW Gundam 1, 2 (still with Anth, I really should get that back) and 3. DW in original format is about the Romance of the Three Kingdoms in China and the warring that happened then. You generally play as one of the factions (Wu, Shu or Wei) and as a person from one of those. Throughout the game you unlock new people to play as and stuff. It's hack and slash in the extreme (press x to win). Orochi takes DW and Samurai warriors (a spin off from the same game company) and some demons and makes them all fight because some demon dude called Orochi decided that would be cool. It's quite fun because Jona and I are sitting there going "you don't fight together, you hate each other!" or "Lu Bu!? No one defeats Lu Bu!" and then steal his horse Red Hare (the fastest in any of the games). It's certainly interesting but the plot is pretty meh whatever. Mostly we have it for more co-op game play and because, like I said, they're fun. Hack and slash is awesomes.
Gundam is basically the same except with mechas. 1 and 2 followed the same formulae and were almost ctrl+c, ctrl+v of each other with some slight graphics changes. The story was the same, the campaigns were the same. It was the same game. Kinda disappointing. Actually one of them has the option for Japanese speech and the other doesn't. I don't remember which one but the American voices aren't too good (especially when they keep saying the same thing when they take a base/kill a named guy/kill x amount of people).
DWas of yet. Also the plot is different (although essentially the same as Orochi). There are also a million chapters and missions to do (mostly copy/paste but that's fine) so I'm going to be taking a while on it. It is good if you're angry, upset or insomniac though. Many a night has been spent on DW6 with Jona and they're good fun. Just don't play them for plot, or interesting things happening. They're all kill loads of guys and then kill the big bad boss at the end. Sometimes there are "save this guy" or "don't let X die" but mostly "kill Y to win".
Again one of the best features about it is that I can normally complete a mission in about 10 mins (they give you a time limit of 90mins. I think that would be soul destroying and really hard to require that length of time. I reckon my AI allies would defeat everyone in that time if I didn't :P) so I can pick up a controller and quickly kill some people and then go do something else.
Finally when I'm out and about I've been taking my Gameboy color with me to play this. I've already mostly completed it on emulator years ago but I finally picked up a copy for cheaps off Amazon. It's a very basic game with a similar layout to the original Red/Blue in the way that there are gyms and you defeat 3 people then a gym leader. There is also a rival (who I can't remember the name of) who turns up every so often. You get to choose your starter deck (Bulbasaur/Charmander/Squirtle and friends) and off you go. The cards that are used in the game are from the base, jungle and fossil sets with the promo Meowth (Blackstar 10) that was originally released with this game also used (I didn't get one because it was second hand but I can get one off ebay pretty cheap).
There isn't much to the game but I quite enjoy it and sadly I also rather enjoy thinking "yup I have that card in reals". It's a game about collecting things and in my family that's quite a trait that we have. I'm not very far in it but I'm still having fun remembering how to play the original TCG (the updated version I play on TCGOnline is better but nostalgia!).
So you may have noticed that very few of my games at the moment are plot driven. Really only DW:G3 can boast any kind of plot and even that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. It's mostly because at the moment I don't want to be thinking "so I have to go here to talk to this guy to get this quest to get to this part of the game to find out blahblahblah". All I really want is action at the moment. At some point I'm going to go back to my pile of incomplete Squenix games (Persona4, FFXIII, Last Remenant, other FFgames) and Mass Effect (finally got for Christmas) but I feel like it would just be too much (I also need to find a synopsis for the first disk of Last Rem because I haven't played that in about 3 years and I need my maps for FFXIII and probably need to restart VII, X and get a synopsis for I and III). See! Look at how much effort plot driven games are when you are a sporadic gamer like me! Maybe after these games I'll go back to Theme Hospital (with no plot) and finally complete it (on consultant level because I enjoy it hxc on there). I should also go back to Pokemon.... Soul Silver, Black, start Diamond and Emerald. We got them all at roughly the same time so I have a major backlog on that front.
And then I have other things I need to be doing other than gaming! :P I need to start applying for a second job (bleh), reading all my hundreds of unread books (le sigh), tidying and decluttering my room (all the frikking time!), getting a good night's sleep for work the next day (very important!), sorting out the Iolanthe files so I can send some to Hazyshade (because I've overkilled my mind on copying up the score and it's just a little too much and he is fabulous and keeps offering, also 70 page 1st act finale anyone?!). I also want to be practising my instruments more and learning how to play the ones I've bought but never learnt (or acquired) but I don't seem to have enough hours in my day! I agree with Blue on the thought that sleep is such a waste of time but such a damned necessity!
Now I should make a checklist for tomorrow and go to bed because it's almost 00:30 and I should have been in bed an hour and a half ago so goodnight all my lovelies and may all your dreams come true (just the good ones and not the nasty nightmares).
Lemonses and butterflies, Buttercup xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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