Week in Review - 8/17/2012

I'm post dating this to yesterday for my Friday column. My life has been a bit chaotic lately. Lots of things changing have made it difficult to sit down and write out a good, quality article in a while. I have a lot of things on my mind that I want to share with the world, but really just lack the time and peace of mind to sit down and write about them.

Just a brief taste of the things that have changed in the past few weeks, at 9:50AM on 8/17/2012 my third child, and second son, was born. We're still working out the details of his name, but he's real cute. I am home now with my other two kids for a few hours and I miss that little guy like crazy.

Anyway, I did get a chance to play a few games over the week while preparing for the big day.

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PC

• Final Fantasy XIV

Shai with Cid & Merlwyb

I haven’t had a lot of time to play XIV this week, but I’m working on finishing up the quests and missions that sum up all the story of “Version 1” which will be ending soon. The evil Empire has summoned one of the world’s moons to come crashing down into the land we protect in order to wipe out the Primals who oppose their dominance. It’s something like that. I haven’t sorted out all the details. I’m now a Chief Storm Sergeant of the Maelstrom and working on getting my commission to 2^nd Lieutenant. I’ve also unlocked all jobs except Paladin and Dragoon. It’s been fun so far. 

•  Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale

My family was watching TV so I popped on something quick, fun and easy by the name of Recettear. The game is about a girl who wakes up to find herself in serious debt and turns her home into an item shop to make ends meet. You have an ever-growing quota of money to pay to your loan shark partner. I made it to the final week, but couldn’t come up with the 500,000 pix to finally pay off my loan. I only came up with 250,000. I’m now in a New Game + where I kept all my items and merchant skills. It’s much easier to make ends meet.

•  The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Arch-Mage Neeka the First

Determined to actually accomplish something worth note in this game, I decided to dive back into Skyrim. I haven’t come up with the money to buy “Dawnguard” yet but it’s on my Wishlist. I decided to make a new character that is focused on Illusion, Stealth, and a touch of Destruction. I’ve never played such a true mage before and I’m delighted to find that it’s extremely fun. My sneaky Khajit has already amounted to Arch-Mage of the College at Winterhold, and marks the first faction I’ve actually completed!

Playstation 3

• Cross Edge

This game has vexed me for a few years now. It’s possibly the hardest role-playing game I’ve ever tried to conquer and I’m constantly finding myself hitting brick walls where I’m left with the option to grind (age old solution to RPG difficulties) or change my tactics drastically. It’s safe to say that I’ve spent enough time in the last week (thanks to some Record of Agarest failures) getting to know and understand the basics of the combat system (which they share). So I decided to give it another go, and on Hard mode! I find myself farther than I’ve ever made it before and still going strong.

 

• The Walking Dead - "Episode 1: Brand New Day"

FYI: I love cel-shaded graphics.

I decided to sink some money into the Playstation Plus program in order to get access to some free games for a nominal cost. In fact, just when I signed up for $50, there was over $250 worth of games available to download and play for free. Not games I’d necessarily buy, but they tide me over. As such I decided to give The Walking Dead a try and found the term “video game” not necessarily accurate. I’d call it an “interactive graphic novel” but as such it was extremely fun and interesting. I hope the rest end up being free to play for PS+ members, because I like where it’s going.