PixlBit

That’s the stage I was at in Minecraft: XBO Edition earlier today. In my never ending attempt to make this game more focused, I’ve created stages of progress and named them. First I was a Caver, then a Villager, Miner and now Nethernaught. Later I will become a Scholar and then an Ender, at last. Let me break these stages down for you:

Mark and I got the “Map Room” achievement done today in Minecraft: XBO Edition. I jumped into his world and helped him sort out his 9 completed maps and where they should go on the wall. Once he placed the last one, the achievement unlocked. Then I removed one and replaced it and I got it too. I don’t consider it cheating. I did spend an awful lot of time building a Nether Subway system and mapping 4 of the maps in my own world.  It was just a matter of time. Wandering around and mapping is not all that interesting. Figuring out novel ways to do it, like the Nether Subway, is. This isn’t the end though. There is still one more achievement I want.

SWAP Force was the third Skylanders game and featured figures that you could split in two and swap parts to create different hybrid characters. Since there are more characters than in any game so far, I have cropped my photographs to full Super Pananvision 70mm, or 2.2:1 ratio.  Yea! Just like Laurence of Arabia.

These are in order of release date, earliest to latest. Click the hyperlinks to go to the official pages. 

Here are the variant figures I have for Skylanders Giants.

So, I was going to finish Halo 5, but I felt a little down, and so I played some Minecraft instead. I continued the world I'd started a few days ago and tried out some interesting things with Nether Portals to help me get the Map Room achievement. It was fun, but I can tell already that it is clearly not the fastest way to the goal. 

I played about 7 hours of Halo 5 today. After every level, I felt like I was near the end but that's probably because every level has a massive finale that seemed like it could've been the end of the game. It became, after a dozen levels, kind of exhausting, really. 

Friday I played Halo Spartan Assault and Halo 4: Spartan Ops. Then I started the install for Halo 5 and, after a full night and day, it's at 80%. So I played Minecraft while I waited and found myself in a strong position to go for the "respawn the Enderdragon" achievement. I also saw Pirates of the Caribbean in IMAX 3D. 

Here are the legendary Giants figures I have. All of the legendary characters have slightly better stats than their regular counterparts but otherwise have the same skills and upgrades. 

I've finally had enough of Minecraft. I'm totally sick of the incredibly annoying enemy griefing in this game. It's unbelievable. You gather resources for hours just to lose it all when a Creeper appears in the worst possible place at the worst possible time. Or, like today, when I went into The Nether very cautiously to scout for the Fortress, found it, and on the way back was absolutely bombarded by mysteriously appearing Ghasts shooting at the fastest rate I've ever experienced. It's total B.S., and in my mind, completely unfair game design. It's like, remember those monster closets game devs used by in the 90s? You'd pass through an empty room thinking your six was safe when suddenly you would be attacked from behind by a hoard of enemies that seemed to appear for no good reason and in no explainable way. That's Minecraft in survival mode.