Category: Gaming (Page 1 of 2)

board games, card games, rpg games and video games

Disney Speedstorm

There is a new game out now if you buy a founders edition. It will be out later in the year or early next year free to play. But the game is Disney Speedstorm and it is a interesting game. As soon as I downloaded and looked around I thought oh no it’s a typical free to play. Where they bleed you for money constantly. If you want to be good you need to pay for it and you do but you can earn it playing the game. There is also the typical season pass like any free to play game or now even some paid games. Then I started playing and it plays very well and smooth. I started out in the starters races and it guides you to different tracks and level ups and more. After every race or so you get a free loot box and if that is how it stay’s I will be fine. When I bought it there are three founders packs.

Me I went on the cheap and bought the standard edition for $30.00 dollars. Which gets me early access two golden pass credits, one players choice character unlock which I unlocked Baloo since I wanted to live out my rescue rangers and tail spin dream. I also received 4,000 tokens for what I think is for upgrades or new characters or something. After I started playing I really liked the game. It felt and played good.
After the first Mickey Mouse group of races Donald Duck unlocked and then I got him. It seemed like every race or two I got something in a loot box. Here is the thing if you want to play ranked multiplayer and want to have a chance at winning you need to pay for upgrades to you character and car and even the crew member you get. But if you want to just have fun and race you can play unranked multiplayer and everyone will be about the same level and such and you can just race and have fun. Or you can play with others on a track without many other people. Me I will stick to unranked and have fun unlocking things while playing. The game is so much fun to play. The way you drift is cool you get to a point your jet engine in the back gets full blue and you can get a bit of a speed boost, And like many other cart racers there are weapons and defensive things to pick up on the track and characters have specific things they can do. You can jump, boost and ride the rail when you see it. Fun game, easy to play and hard to put down but the shining stars of the game are it’s characters and tracks. The characters are from everywhere and time in Disney. From Mickey to Baloo and Mulan, Monsters Inc and Pirates of the Caribbean. The tracks are the same we have a Pirate track that is great and a track that in parts is black an white. Like I say fun to play. I have no wants to play ranked because I just like playing the game in single player and unranked.
I won’t make a full review till it comes out but maybe every season I will write a bit about it. Disney has made a real resurgence in gaming with Dream light Valley and Speedstorm. Here’s hoping the fun continues. And just for the two or three people that don’t know I am a huge fan of old Disney movies and shows. Some of the new stuff isn’t my jam but some is ok. Here’s to more fun gaming.

My addiction.

a quick view of one of the sections of my Minecraft realm.

Hello Everyone I am a Minecraft addict. Your probably thinking how do you become a addict to a building game. Well it’s easy, I have been playing Minecraft for almost a decade. And I love it, I played the PC Java version and ran my own server for me and my nephew and his friends. I also was a part of other servers like the one from the podcast Minecraft Me. Man I remember those days just building and looking at everyone else’s cool stuff they built. But I went into over drive when Covid started. From the very beginning of the pandemic and even a bit earlier I played on my Xbox one and had a good time. Now I play creative mode just to let out my creative side go. At my job I am a graphic designer but I work at a small mom and pop business. Like less than twenty people and everyone pitch’s in on fulfilling orders and when Covid started people started ordering like mad because they were stuck at home and wanted to build stuff.
It was so busy I would get very tired picking orders. I would get home around six pm because I had a fifty mile commute to work one way. And after I would eat I would be so tired I would just crash and watch TV or play videogames.
My favorite during the pandemic was Minecraft. it was low key and I got to build everything I always dreamed of. But this new map was to be different. I wanted to build a story into the map. So everything I built would have a reason and a story to it. I started on a medium sized island and after filling that I went to a small island or two and after that the main land. And the real work started.

After a few months it was so big I was worried about losing it, and my nephew and his friend wanted to start working on it So I created a realm and never looked back. The first island had a dock and a couple ships. After Ii filled the Islands and got to the main land I really cranked up the building.
Everyday after work and weekends were all about making things on my realm. And I backed it up once in awhile.
If you look at the first picture below the title it has a red brick building. It is my hotel. It’s three levels. It has a very long dock and a rail way to the hotel.
Level one has the bar, restaurant, offices, business center and so much more.
Second level are all rooms, the inside rooms are small and don’t have windows but the outer rooms are spacious and luxurious. The third and final floor are two penthouse multi room condo unites with their own staff. To the right of it is an airship and a hunting shack. To the right of that is a multi level home.

I am hoping to show you more and I am still building. The story of the map is half the fun. I will keep building and writing the story of the map. More updates and pictures to come.

Xbox Series S

Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

Two weeks before Christmas I went to update my Xbox one and it wouldn’t update. So I rebooted and after that it just turned itself off. I tried turning it on and nothing happened. Oh it might be the power brick. I had one die before and just went to Gamestop to buy a used one. that worked for a long time. So I went to Gamestop and bought another one. Got home plugged it in and still nothing.
So then I looked on line and it seemed like it might be a logic board or something.

So after Christmas I saved some money and after I came up with three hundred I looked for a new xbox series S. Well I quickly learned that it’s not a good time to buy a console right after Christmas. About mid January I noticed that Target had them right by my house. I zoomed right over and was told they are our but the Target five miles away has them. I never drove so fast and ran into the electronics department and asked if they had them. Yep there are three left.
Oh joy I almost danced right there. I bought it using my Target card and saved twenty dollars. Got home lickety split and plugged it in. Saw the wonderful Xbox logo and the message to go to the phone app to get it set up. There was even a handy dandy QR code to download it. I signed into the app and finished the setup. Took my five to ten minutes and I was ready to go. I already had a two terabyte hard drive with games on it from my old XBOX one.

Since I only had three hundred gigs of space on my internal ssd hard drive I download just a few of my favorites, and started downloading ones that were not on the drive. Thats when I learned even thought I bought the Xbox one version of a game It will update it to Xbox series S. So I downloaded Minecraft which was less than a gig of space and took just a few minutes to download.
and I was playing my realm while everything else downloaded or transferred to my internal drive. I learned fast that I have to be very careful on what games I put on the internal drive because I don’t have much space. I am having a ton of fun with my new Xbox and love how much faster the SSD is and the overall speed of the system. This isn’t a review, because that will be next but I am having so much fun. My next purchase will be the one gig Xbox drive but it isn’t cheap at $220.00. It will happen and after that I will get a external SSD drive.
If your own the edge of getting one or not. Get it and also get game pass ultimate and then you have a bunch of games to play when you want them.
I’ll keep having fun gaming and hopefully I will get the new internal drive soon.
More games more fun.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare Season Two

Hello Everyone.
It’s time for season two of Modern Warfare. New maps, new guns and new battle pass.It just started Yesterday Tuesday February 11th. This is a big update in more than one way. First it is a 68 gig download and next all that comes with it.


Right off the bat we get two new multiplayer maps, Rust and Atlas Superstore. Rust is an old favorite. We get another old favorite with Zhokov boneyard a ground war map. We also get a new gunfight map in Bazaar, I can’t wait to play. Gunfight is my new favorite mode, I also like the love they are showing it with new maps and modes within gunfight. They are giving us two new modes with Gunfight tournament and CDL playlist..We also get a new battle pass and with that comes more goodies for it. You can unlock two new guns the Grau 5.56 and the Striker 45. They are free unlocks in the free battle pass. I bought the premium battlepass at $20.00 dollars and that gets me the battle pass and the first 20 tiers unlocked immediately.
I plan on really digging into this soon.

The 68 gig download is to clean up a lot of the game files and such.
They say at the end the footprint of Modern Warfare will be smaller, but we will find out. Also right in the middle of the screen is a big restricted mode. I believe with everyone else this will be replaced with battle royal. I don’t see the need of it. If you want battle royal play cod black ops 4.But more is better I guess. My dream is that this year there would be no call of duty and just do another year of seasons and such.

Elder Scrolls Online Greymoor

The Elder Scrolls Online Greymoor

The Elder Scrolls Online is an mmorpg that has been around since April fourth 2014. And it has gotten much better since.

I have been playing ESO a lot lately. At least 4 times a week for a couple hours during the week or more during weekend.
The game is good but what Zenimax has done in the last few years is great.Their schedule of bringing out content is great. Once a year they do a new chapter. That is something big you need to pay for and more expensive, around 40 dollars or more. Then there are dlc game packs that are cheaper and can be bought in the in game store with crowns.
ESO has no monthly charge, it is free to play except the dlc and chapters. Me I pay $14.99 a month for ESO Plus. That grants me the dlc but not the chapters, except last years chapters come to eso plus.

Every year a new chapter or dlc is announced, this year it was Harrowstorm and Greymoor. Harrowstorm is the dlc and Greymoor is the chapter. This year we are going to Skyrim. Harrow storm will be the start of the new story and have two new dungeons. That starts in march and will be very exciting. Oh and we are just not going to Skyrim in Greymoor we will be dealing with some vampires.
Namely the vampire lord. And the vampire skill set will get a rework and much more story.
Since I have ESO Plus I will get all dlc and more. The more is 1650 crowns to spend in the store, Unlimited crafting material storage, more bank space and 10% xp and gold. It really is worth it just for the crafting storage.

Right now I am getting my necromancer healer leveled up to cap which is 50 then you level with champion points. I am doing tons of dungeons and some quests. Thank god for my guilds. Yep I said guilds you can join up to five. I am in three which play at different times so I always have someone to play with. I play ESO on my XBOX one.
So download it and start playing. Maybe I will be healing you next.

Ghost Recon Breakpoint Beta

Hi All. I played the Ghost Recon Break point beta this weekend.
I was a fan of the previous Ghost Recon and I must have been one of the few. The actual game is due out October 4th. And since the beta is so close to the release date we should get a good idea how this game will launch. I am sure there will be a day one patch. Most games have them now. And I hope it’s huge. This game has a bunch of bugs. I was playing on the Xbox one, There were movement and animation glitches and other time where enemies would just pop in. The worst was when it crashed my Xbox. Now I expect if the game is to crash that it crashes and I can start it back up. This shut off my Xbox and when I restarted my Xbox it went to the green screen when it’s a bad crash. The story doesn’t seem to be as good but the last one wasn’t the best either. But this one is you chopper into an island and some swarm of drones takes out all the choppers and they crash. Luckily some people make it and you are one of them. Shocking right. Your job is to find the rest of the survivors and then help the people of the island get off the island. The actual island is a high tech oasis that was suppose to be peace full then the CEO of the Company that owns the island used it to also make a ton of military things.

Here is the saddest part of the story kids. The micro transactions in this game are terrible. It’s come of the rails. It’s not just cosmetic things. It’s guns, xp and even skill points. You need skill points to be more powerful and buy skills. There are cosmetic things but i don’t like them either. It is something you should be given for playing the game.
I really hope they get rid of most of the micro transactions and patch this game up. The game come out on the October 4th. I hope to buy it and review it and then tell you more about the dreaded micro transactions. I hope the game gets better for launch, This looks like another half baked Ubisoft game that needed another 6+ months and they didn’t learn the lesson of other companies about micro transactions. Here’s hoping it improves.

Overwatch fun

overwatch logo

Hello All.
One of my favorite games is overwatch.
Right when the the game came out a few years ago, it was my favorite game and I played it far to much.The game is in my wheelhouse. Made my Blizzard.One of my favorite developers. I have played every Blizzard game back in the old days. It is a shooter kind of. It has Classes like World of Warcraft. Tank, healer and dps. Me I usually play healer then tank. I’m not fast enough or young enough to play dps well enough for competition or league play. I love to heal because even if I don’t do much damage I can help my team, it’s the same with tank. If I can help my team get a objective or keep someone from it I will. The fun part of overwatch for me is it is objective based. It’s just not about getting highest kill count. That becomes more important the older I get.

The first characters I mained (used mostly) was for Tank it was Reinhardt and for healer Lucio. Reignhardt is a great tank. He has a large shield to protect himself and the team. Where Lucio is a great healer. He can heal or make people faster. I usually heal except for in the race to the objective. He has a small heal radius always and every once in awhile he can do a big burst of healing.
My new favorite tank and healer is Sigma for tank and Moiria and Baptiste for healing. The game if a lot of fun. There are new characters and maps coming out and a semi regular schedule. If possible check it out and see what you think. It’s more fun than you think.

Minecraft

minecraft game cover art
Minecraft

In 2010 my nephew who was about 7 or 8 at the time, wanted me to play a game with him. It was a game called Minecraft.
A game of building and survival. I resisted for a couple months because I was into something else and it was not as easy to get it back then. I went to the game makers website Mojang and looked at buying it. But they were not an american company. They were way out in Sweden. You needed paypal to get it and since it was a purchase outside the USA it was a bit more difficult.

So after I bought the game I played it myself to make sure my young nephew could play it. Once we started playing we were hooked.
We were playing survival back then. I would go on YouTube and look for videos with hint’s and tips to build more and survive better. Recipes for objects were more difficult back then. I eventually found a book filled with all the recipes and tips and tricks. So my nephew and I would build and have adventures together. It really brought us closer because it was something he knew more about than me. He had a bunch of friends that played it at school and he learned much about it.

After a while we found the creative mode. A mode that would let you build anything without mining or gathering materials. That’s when things went from to a fun video game to something we could build and be creative and also be art. Eventually I bought a server so my nephew and his friends and I could build together in one place. That is when I really started watching videos and listening to podcasts about Minecraft. One of those podcasts was a show called Minecraft Me.
MinecraftMe was a audio and video podcast about Minecraft and that’s it. Chase and Joe would show us how to build and what was possible. They also had a server that people could build on.

After that my server became much better. We made much bigger projects and buildings. We made malls, office buildings, hotels and more. But eventually around 2016 or 2017 my love of Minecraft waned, but more importantly my PC died, So I couldn’t play anymore.

But earlier this year I tried playing Minecraft on my Xbox One, it wasn’t the same. I was so used to keyboard and mouse a controller was difficult to use. But I kept playing and eventually I got used to it and started building again. A month or so my nephew and his friends were on Xbox and saw me playing Minecraft and asked if they could join. Once they were on the server my nephew said it was a huge wave of nostalgia.Over the last few months I have become really in to Minecraft. They saw my map and how developed it was and were surprised. I was building on a large island and there were smaller ones nearby so I said they could have an Island to themselves.
They started building and it was like in the beginning.
Minecraft is back baby. It’s the tenth anniversary and it’s just as fun as when I started.

Video Games

arcade full of video games
Photo by Kyle Nieber on Unsplash

There has been a lot talk of video games lately. People saying video games make you violent. I am here to say “I don’t think so”.
I am a very nonviolent person. I am very Catholic/Franciscan , and can’t say if I have ever hurt anyone.

I have been playing video games almost my whole life.
I am in my fifties, and the first video game I played at home was pong.
I love arcades, always have. But playing a video game at home is great. Not crowd, don’t have to bring a bunch of quarters. Pong was a very early game. Pong had a few modes most were very much the same.
Then a few years later at Christmas Atari 2600. That changed everything for me. We didn’t have a lot of money, so it was family entertainment. Oh and we only had one TV and it was in my Parents room. So we usually played together as a family even my parents.
After a few weeks my Dad and I were developing Atari thumb.
After about 6 months my parents bought a small 12 or 14 inch TV for the Kitchen/Dining room. We ate in our kitchen in a small table and my parents had enough of us kids coming up at 6am to watch TV and play Atari. Because when I was a kid in the 70’s and early 80’s there were a ton of Saturday morning cartoons. So by summer of that year we had a small TV and this was the kids TV. A friend and I would take any money we could get our hands on and bike to the golf course a mile or so away and spend it on video games and a coke. We would play games like Defender, Joust, Space Invaders, Tempest and more.

As I grew older the video games got better. When I graduated high school I bought myself a commodore 64. I had a job at McDonalds and most of the money went to video games. Whenever I was at a mall, I would go to the arcade called Aladdin’s Castle. Ever since I had the Atari I would ask for games for Christmas and my birthday. Eventually I played Nintendo, Sega, PlayStation, Xbox video game systems. With the commodore 64 my love of computers started.
After my commodore 64 I bought the Commodore Amiga. It was so cool because when I would look at PC games there wasn’t much color and the Amiga had really great color and after about a year I was able to buy a Mac emulator for it. After that PC’s did color better so I bought a 386 and so on and so on.

Now we have more power in our phones than my old PC’s ever did.
I have an Xbox one and a PC that has an I7, Nvidia 1060 and a super fast SSD and a terabyte hard drive. Oddly enough my favorite games were the shooters. Doom, Quake, Unreal and more. The more violent the better it seems. Now I play Rainbow Six Siege, GTAV, Red dead redemption 2 and more. With all that video game playing you think I would be violent. Nope I’m just as chill as always. Now video games help me with my stress and help me chill out. The things that get me mad now are traffic, people not being nice and people taking advantage of others. I don’t yell or scream or anything. I just hop on to a game and the stress disappears.

Pathfinder Society

pathfinder society logo
Pathfinder Society

Hello Everyone.
Saturday for me is usually a Pathfinder day. I have a couple of gaming places within 15 miles from me and one plays Pathfinder every Saturday. I often play healers when i play role playing games. and my main healer is a level six dwarf life shaman. I have a really cool familiar raven named Poe. He speaks common. (English)

I like Pathfinder because it’s like playing an older version of D&D. I love creating my character, but i don’t like doing the math stuff I am not and never will be a math person. Luckily i have an a app on my ipad called hero lab and it does all the math for me.

Pathfinder Society is nice because you usually run modules for 3-4 hours, but every once in awhile they throw a bigger adventure your way. They might put in 2-3 modules at once and it might take 6 hours or more. Experience is easy to calculate in pathfinder usually on module is 1 exp. after three exp you level. So if you play the same character 3 times on the fourth the character will level. I love playing with different people because some people play good character some play evil. Me i try to play neutral or good.
Once you play you will get addicted. And you might want to play more than one module a day. At gaming conventions like GenCon and Con of the North you can play literally all day and most of the night.
Check out this website to look for a Pathfinder Society chapter near you. https://paizo.com/organizedplay

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