PixlBit

I got my rental this weekend, The Dwarves, and played it on XBO. This is an interesting game but the battle system annoyed me after a while. Then I played Borderlands 2 where heard a Shakespeare soliloquy and shot fire balls that would've made old Ironsides turn and run. 

Every so often, I get autobiographical and want to review my history with video games. This blog on Pong is the first in a long series I'm planning.

I think I'm going to avoid going after achievements anymore. It's making me into a bit of a jerk especially when it comes to co-op play. I'm forgetting what it's all about, and that's having fun. It's going to be an effort for me to not think about them or steer my playing in that direction, but I think it's necessary if I want to have friends to play with. The Borderlands series especially brings this to the fore, because I get really frustrated going for achievements in this game. It's just not a healthy way to play. It's sort of obsessive. It's like I'm becoming one of the characters in the game - one who has a wildly out of control neurosis.

I got a text from my old manager yesterday that said, "check out Exton Square Mall Round 1". I thought it might be some horrible news of a fight or other disaster. Instead it was a new entertainment center called Round 1. They have locations on both coasts. Today, I went there to check it out.

I finished the Tiny Tina DLC today, the last major piece of DLC, playing co-op with Mark and started chasing achievements.

On a whim, I went to several stores on my way to Mark's to see if they had any Halo Hot Wheels. I found them at a Toys R Us. I couldn't resist and got all five. Here's a pretty terrible pic:

That's what I was doing today in Borderlands 2, or, at least in the second half of the day. The first half was me playing the main campaign again and getting super frustrated with it. Then I had Mark jump in the game and we finished the Mr. Torque DLC and began the Sir Hammerlock DLC. That part became fun. Here's some more detail. 

My weapons package in Borderlands 2 failed miserably today. First, I couldn't finish off Captain Scarlett's big, ultimate beast, and then I started getting knocked down by lower level minibeasts from the main game. I couldn't stop them from putting me on my knees, making me gasp for my second wind. Sometimes I'd get back in there, and sometimes not. It was so frustrating, I almost gave up for good. 

After a lot of frustration in this game, I think I've started to get handle on it. I failed in Mr. Torque's Baddass Crater of Bassassitude playing on True Vault Hunter difficulty, so I returned to the Captain Scarlet DLC to do the side missions I missed and grind for levels. I did fine there and rebuilt my equipment loadout to something better. Clearly each DLC is a notch more difficult than the previous one. Also, when I switched to True Vault Hunter after beating the main game, I didn't go back to the main game to play it again. So I may have been underleveled for Mr. Torque, or underequiped maybe. Point is, I'm enjoying myself again. 

I'm going to listen to a lot of music from 1969. I figured I might as well extend that to books, so I'm going to read Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander. I saw the movie and thought it was great. What about the video games?  Well, there were several space flight sim computer games made on mainframes, which makes sense because this was the year of the Apollo 11 landing on the moon. I tried to play them and then any others I could find. The results are recorded below.