Madness and Money, Payday 2 Part 2

BANG! BANG!

That's not the sound of gunfire, it's the sound of me slamming my head into the wall.

This isn't due to the difficulty or repetitiveness of Payday 2. My self inflicted concussions are because of the derpiness of the PS3 Payday 2 community. Now not all of the players I meet go full retard but it has happened enough that I am afraid it's becoming an epidemic.

My full purpose behind this article was not meant to be a rage filled review. The more I played online the angrier I became. Mission after mission I had to give up on the higher amounts of money due to people charging the front door, ignoring all guards, civilians and going straight for the mission.

Now before I hear people say "What's wrong with that? It's what they're supposed to do."Understand that setting off alarms can make missions harder, longer (that's what she said) and give a bigger chance of failure.

One of the first missions in Payday 2 is a simple bank heist. The players only have to find a way around four guards, cameras and then have to control the handful of civilians in the bank. The players are given a chance to scope out the bank before starting the mission to see where the guards and cameras might be. This is a great time to do any planning. At least that's what I thought until playing with others online.

In my first few matches I played with actual people they just ran in the front door every time like madmen. They would ignore all cameras and guards going straight for the safe, getting the police called on us immediately.

Although really the NPC AI isn't much better. "No, guys, I need to finish my smoke break. Y'all can wait 'til I'm done."

Certainly these other player's veteran level didn't reflect the "madness" that has overcome them. As my level grew so did my distaste for the others that joined me. Time and time again I saw the "madness" creep into their ever so slightly sane head as they start shooting every living creature informing everyone in the city to our position and actions. What was happening to these people?

Why was this happening? Was there something wrong with the community or was there something else possibly following me around causing these people to lose all touch with their sanity?

Check out part three, when a madness of my own arises.

-Aaron

The Do's and Don'ts of makin' Moneeeeeeeeeeey

While we (not so) patiently wait for Aaron to (finally) come up with his Payday 2 Part 2 post, He and I have come up with a miniseries of sorts. 

As you'll (eventually) see in his next post, there are right ways to play and wrong ways, at least to his fussy eyes, something we'll be documenting in the Do's and Don'ts of Payday 2

Enjoy!

In Memoriam

Today was going to be yet another post about Pokemon. Why not? People love Pokemon. I love Pokemon. But late last night I updated Guild Wars 2 in quivering anticipation, eager to take the next step in a freshly Scarlet-less Tyria.

What's next? Will the freshly awakened dragon arise and lay waste to the land? Will the Aetherblade Pirates, Toxic or Molten Alliances continue their rampage to fill the vacuum left by Scarlet? Will Quaggans rise up and take over the world?!

Hell if I know, and hell if anyone will know for a while. The Living Story: The ever changing, ever evolving events of the world, is gone.

Just...Gone.

Somehow this moment actually became sad, in spite of the kite-wielding quaggan. 

Arena Net did warn of the Living Story's impending hiatus, however the future is still uncertain. While Arena Net has said it will bring the Living Story back, it neglected to state when, adding that when it does return it may be completely different. Or not. They haven't decided yet.

It's as if a void suddenly exploded into being. We've spent almost a year dealing with Scarlet's shenanigans, and now there's seemingly nothing to replace it.

Not all is lost, however. While there isn't a current chapter in the Living Story and none for the foreseeable future, that's not to say it's gone forever. Scarlet's madness had a method, and more insanity is sure to arise.

I just haven't the foggiest idea what to do with myself in the meantime.

Running with Moas can only entertain for so long

Yankin' My Chains

One of my favorite things in Guild Wars 2 is something called the Living Story (or Living World. It got changed at some point, but I prefer the old name), which is a great overarching story line that affects the entire game, rather than a small instance created for a player(s). The story so far has been running for about a year and a half, with the rogue Sylvari Scarlet Briar as the delightfully insane antagonist.

Now, I won't go into details about what's going on so far (find those here!), but long story short Scarlet has managed to build an army consisting of Tyria's least desirable forces: The mole monsters Dredge and the Charr's fallen Flame Legion make up the Molten Alliance, the worm-like Krait and the Sylvari's Nightmare Court joined as the Toxic Alliance, and the Aetherblade pirates all joined to help Scarlet achieve...Well, we don't really know what she's after. Not exactly yet. But it involves alot of watchwork robo-butts.

And robo-stilettos.

As of this posting Scarlet's great watchwork Marionette hangs above the Shiverpeak Mountains in Lornar's Pass. Defeating her is a trial requiring literally a hundred great warriors and mages to band together for the goal of cutting her down.

And there in lies the problem.

See, I play in the server Dragonbrand. And Dragonbrand players...are dicks.

"Oh nooooooooo, I don't wanna go fight the marionette...I already finished the thing and we'll just fail anywaaaay"

Well with that attitude we will, jackass!

With barely enough players to fill one of the five lanes needed for the fight (around 20-25 are needed for each) it became almost impossible to pull off even a single chain cut, let alone the five needed to ground her. Sick of my server's lack of enthusiasm (and frankly, their overall bad attitude), Aaron and I paid a quick visit to our original sever, Tarnished Coast.

Why...Why did we ever transfer? This place..it's almost magical how much more seriously the players take the Living Story... and the game overall. They actually discuss the game's lore, instead of moaning about how unoriginal and boring Scarlet is. They encourage each other rather than belittle...

The best part of all? Despite this being its final night, people are still doing the current Living Story: The actually marionette has five full lanes! We're still failing, but damn it there's effort!

Really, a little effort is all we can ask in light of robo-nipples.

While Aaron and I collect the necessary resources to make our stay in TC a little more permanent, a dark wind begins to blow. Scarlet has her next target in her sights: Tomorrow, the most prominent city in all of Tyria, a central hub of trade and activity, will fall.

This-is-gonna-be-AWESOME.

Griffe de l'amour

Happy belated Valentine's Day and Singles Awareness Day! I believe my recent tardiness to be excusable, as I have been stuck in bed for two days! Yay!

Valentine's Day has come and gone. Some couples spent the day of love on romantic candle-lit dinners or exchanging tokens of their affections.

Aaron and I exchanged germs.

Now, being sick on Valentine's day would ruin most couple's plans, but not us. We spent our holiday vacationing in beautiful Tyria, in the province of Frostgorge Sound. A chilly local to be sure, but perfect for hunting Claws...of the Jormag variety.

Yes, we spent Valentine's Day (and today. Don't judge us, we're still sick) on the ultimate multiplayer game: an MMORPG, and Guild Wars 2 was the perfect choice.

Now, the Claw of Jormag fight is a type of event called a world event, one which is both more difficult and more rewarding than other events. The Claw is an icy level 80 dragon, lieutenant of the Elder Dragon Jormag, and can be, quite frankly, a bitch of an event.

Isn't he cute?

Now, usually the group taking down the Claw numbers in the dozens: 30, 40 players all manning bazookas or protecting bomb wielding golems.

Usually.

On this day our numbers were closer to ten. Just ten players to take down the Claw's protective wall, while besieged on all sides by the Claw's minions. Players would be rezzed only to drop again seconds later. Yet despite the overwhelming odds against us the Claw's defenses slowly but steadily fell. It seemed we may yet stand a chance...

As the Claw again took to the air the NPC forces on the ground shot it down, grounding it a short distance away. For this leg of the battle we were lucky to be joined by another ten or so players, but the clock was still ticking down. We had very little time to chip away a whooping half of the beast's health, something we could only achieve if the bomb-carrying golems managed to survive long enough to deliver their packages.

With but with two of our thirty minute time limit remaining we finally felled the beast. It was by and far the most satisfying Claw battle either of us have ever taken part in.

Sweet, sweet challenge.

Finally Free

A day late sure, but I did save my best (at least favorite) free game for last. It is a game that Aaron and co. have hounded me to play in the past, but being the stubborn mule that I am I left it until now. Realm of the Mad God is by and far the funnest game I've played this month (not including Catlateral Damage).

Let's have Steam give us the low down:

Realm of the Mad God is the first ever free to play Bullet Hell MMO. Team up with dozens of players and battle through the Realm of the Mad God, Oryx. With a retro 8-bit style, Realm is an evolution of traditional MMO gameplay. A dozen classes and hundreds of items to discover means Realm is easy to play but difficult to master. Players can jump in Realm for 5 minutes or stay online for hours because there is nothing to install or download.

The beginner classes are Rogue, Wizard, Priest, and Archer, with each of the other like 20 classes unlockable via either paying money (boo!) or leveling up with the other classes. After beating the tutorial you get sent to the Nexus, or the base area where players gather and merchants reside. From the Nexus you can enter the Mad God's domain.

It can get a little....Mad.

WASD to move, left click to fire. F to drink a potion and E to high-tail your cowardly ass back to the Nexus. I spent hours running around like an idiot, never taking my finger off the fire button. Why would I? There's nonsense to kill literally everywhere. But that nonsense is there to kill you too, a fact that becomes especially painful once you realize death is permanent. Period. You could be level 19, half an experience bar to the level cap of 20, and be just as perma dead as the level one that pissed off an enraged bunny out of the gates.

My first Wizard got squished around level four. I'm still not entirely clear on what did me in. All the better for my foe, as my vengeance is swift and burns like the sun.

My second Wizard, like my first, skipped gleefully from quest to quest, swarm to swarm, until about level 11. About that time caution pokes its ugly head from its dark and sweaty hole, screeching "heeeeeeey better be caaaaaaarefuuuuuuuul or you'll have to staaaaaaaaaaaart agaaaaaaaaaaaain"

Can it, asshole, I know.

Nothing excites the caution monster more than the frantic cramming of the F key while a Tree Ent Ancient attempts to make me fertilizer.

No no, I make the sound effects, you do the work. 

Remember, though, this is a multiplayer game! I was joined by my good buddy Elpizo, aka 'Mat' in the 'Real World', with his level 20 Ranger, who proceeded to wreck face while I kinda 'helped'. However, not all was well, as I encountered a far more dangerous foe than any the Mad God could throw at me: A crappy connection. Every few minutes or so the game would chuck me out on my butt. Well crud.

After hitting 20 with my Wizard on Realm's website I switched over to the Steam version, which is connected to the website version. Besides handing me an additional character slot (you only get one. Delete your character or die to get a new one. Or buy more slots), it also proved to have a better connection. So I repeated the tutorial with a brand new Ranger, who was promptly smashed into oblivion at level 14.  Le sigh.

Play It or Pass It: Play it. Realm of the Mad God is a game that you can either pick up for 10-15 minutes or play for hours. Definitely a great pick to end Free in '14.

Play it yourself! Get it on Steam, or play it here:

http://www.realmofthemadgod.com/

Happy Hemorrhaging

WARNING! The following game is a bit...Gorey.

Happy Wheels is a game I've wanted to play for a while now, and with Free in '14 month coming to a close in a couple days, now's as good a time as any.

I...I don't really know how to explain Happy Wheels...Most of its content is user generated, meaning the levels are created by anyone and everyone. The most basic theme is avoid the obstacles and make it to the finish line alive, or throw object A at target B and pray it doesn't fall in trap C resulting in insta-death from weapon/giant rock/missile D.

It's death by my hand or the spinning axes below us. Choose, worm.

Level difficulty runs from 'nap in the park' to 'God, oh God why is this happening?'. At least three of the levels I played required little to no input from me, while others resulted in my impaling myself head first mere inches from the start point. Lost limbs are almost guaranteed. Character selection ranges from fat guy on a lawnmower to an old man to Santa Claus in his sleigh. Level design ranges from riding a bicycle across a sea of glass bottles to navigating a swiftly narrowing funnel of spikes. Each level comes with complementary 50 gallons of blood.

Play It or Pass It: Play it. As I said before, the game has a thing for blood, and the controls are (to me) awkward as hell. Despite that the game is also one of the most hilarious things I've ever played.

Strap on your helmet and grab your elves, here's the link!

http://www.totaljerkface.com/happy_wheels.php

Three 4 One Deal

I've got a good excuse this time. I haven't been posting because I've not been playing free games, and I'd rather be unreliable than a liar.

Instead I've been enduring the long push from level 70 to 80 with my Charr Warrior on Guild Wars 2. She's riiiiiiight theeeeeeeeere, so I've been a bit preoccupied. Since I've once again been a bad blogger, and because my usual squirt bottle is currently empty, I'm making up for my transgressions with three, technically four, games instead of one. Evens out, right?

All of today's entries come from good old Kongregate, a site I've come to lean on quite a bit since starting on my free quest. Does that make me lazy? Probably, but who cares.

Don't worry...Most of this is mine. 

My first game came directly from the homepage: Dojo of Death. You are the white ninja, defending your pixelated dojo from other ninjas hell bent on your messy demise. Or something, there isn't much to this one. Click in a direction to launch yourself blade first. The game seems deceptively easy, but sometimes an arrow in the back of your head proves otherwise.

Play It or Pass It: Play it. It's a great time waster, super easy to pick up with little to no downtime between rounds.

But Dojo of Death is a bit similar to my usual fare, so let's see what looks different... Hmm, Gun Disassembly looks good. While I myself don't particularly care for guns, I come from a family that does. It's kinda the same thing, right?

This...isn't a game. It's a detailed simulation...of taking guns apart, and putting them back together. It looks great, with pretty decent 3D models of the firearms floating in a skybox. I spent my (very short) time 'playing' just clicking on an AK-47 until it came apart...then I clicked some more when it needed to go back together. Riveting.

Play It or Pass It: Depends. If you want to play something with guns, stick to shooters.

With that...um...interesting pick muddying my thoughts, my brain ran for the safety of comedy and cuteness. Burrito Bison looked adorable, what with gummy bears being the apparent antagonists and all.

Burrito Bison is an upgradable launching game, just like Learn to Fly from earlier this month. It starts with a musclebound bison grocery shopping before being sucked into a bag of gummy bears, where he must fight (?) his way back out. Like Learn to Fly, you launch yourself into the air, trying to gain as much distance and altitude as possible, bouncing off gummy bear spectators to get more distance and/or money. Buy upgrades to fly faster and bounce higher.

I also looked into Burrito Bison's Revenge, which shows our bovine buddy free from the gummy bag. But whats this? He left his wallet behind! How can he pay for his grocerys now? So back into the bag he goes, flying through a now derelict stadium.

Play It or Pass It:  Play it. It's fun and adorable, even more so than Learn To Fly. It did, however, make me crave gummies like nobody's business.

Wanna play any of these? Here are the links!

Dojo of Death: http://www.kongregate.com/games/nicotuason/dojo-of-death?acomplete=dojo+of
Burrito Bison: http://www.kongregate.com/games/JuicyBeast/burrito-bison
Burrito Bison's Revenge: http://www.kongregate.com/games/JuicyBeast/burrito-bison-revenge

And if you want to, you know, takes firearms apart... Here's this too.... *shrug*

http://www.kongregate.com/games/vklimov/gun-disassembly?acomplete=gun+di

HOURS OF SEAT-OF-YOUR-PANTS GAMEPLAY!!!

Sidenote! 

The links don't seem to work, but copying and pasting should work. Sorry!

CATastrophe!

Every once in a while one finds a game that speaks to them in some way. Maybe that game made them laugh or cry. Maybe they saw some of themselves within the protagonist, something which added to both the fun and immersion of the game.

 For me, that game is Catlateral Damage.

You play as an asshat cat bent on vengeance for being locked in a bedroom (presumably. True motive is neither known nor important). Jump from the bed to the desk, from tables to shelves, laying waste to every upright object in your path. WASD to move. Left mouse controls the left paw, and the right mouse button controls the right. Space to jump. Two minutes to rack up 100,000 points. Two glorious minutes of absolutely wrecking some poor bastard's bedroom.

I wonder if I can hit the TV from here...

I once spent nearly an entire game smacking a single book around on top of the bed. Two whole minutes of book beating. I spent another trying fruitlessly to jump on a (slightly too high) shelf. Only once in my dozens of games have I reached 100,000 points, but I'll be damned if I care.

In my last game I spent 30 seconds stuck in a trash can, then another 45 seconds trying to smack a coat hanger. Almost had it too...

Play It or Pass It: PLAAAAAAY IIIIT. It's a hilarious look into kitty's life while you aren't home, and once you discover how addicting knocking crap over is, maybe you won't yell at Mr. Mitten's quite so much next time he does it.

Or maybe you will. That's Mr. Mitten's problem.

Play the alpha here!

http://www.catlateraldamage.com/play

That's No Sheep...

While drinking my morning coffee and perusing facebook today I happened upon a blast from the past: eBaum's World.

Many hours were spent in my high school years using the library's computers to play flash games, either on Yahoo games or eBaum's. It was one of the first (if not the first) of such websites I ever used, so I was excited for my trip down memory lane. But like the boy bands and Myspace of my youth eBaum's World didn't seem to age well, having transformed into something neither recognizable to my inner teenager or appealing to my outer adult.

I remember the site for flash games, but I had a hulluva time finding any games. The homepage is a mash of fail videos and Buzzfeed articles, but nary a game in sight. The categories tab did little to aid my search, instead helpfully pointing me toward 'WTF' 'fail' and 'sports' options, themselves leading to yet more videos and Buzzfeed fodder. It was only after scrolling down some distance that I found a 'popular games' box on the side of the page giving me a whomping four options to chose from (clicking anywhere on the box took me nowhere). Defeated and feeling a bit impatient, I clicked on one of the four options given: Elephant Quest.

As per the game's description:

An evil sheep has stolen your hat. Prepare for an epic adventure with 45 areas to explore in your quest to get it back!

A sheep has stolen my hat? Maybe it was made out of his grandma...

Elephant Quest begins with a rather adorable storybook-style introduction:

Admittedly, that is a pretty sweet hat.

Wait, he's got a hat... It's totally his problem if he wore a stocking hat in summer. Moron. Also, I may not be an expert on ovines, but last I checked they didn't have tusks...

...Or trunks. Either that's a mammoth or it's a study on ugly duckling syndrome, only the ugly duckling grows up to be a dick instead of a swan. Childhood teasing can be rough in any flock.

The game itself is a 2d platformer with a maze like quality. The controls were pretty simple: WASD to move, but they tripped me up pretty badly. Usually the space bar is use for jumping with WASD controls, but space just brings up your skills page. W or the up arrow is jump. Interacting with anything is the S or down arrow. Attacking takes the mouse and...

...Wait...This elephant has a back mounted lazer? Where was this before?

You also need to collect balloons and find items for other elephants while you traverse caves, forests and the like, all culminating in a twist ending that will either warm your heart or boil your blood, depending on how vindictive a person you are.

Play It or Pass It: Play it. It's pretty deep for a simple game, and adorable to boot.

Play it here!

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/games/play/81408105/

A Cultic Classic

Monsters Den Chronicles is a click-to-move dungeon crawler on the website Armor Games.

That... That's about it. It's very... Basic? Basic's a word...

Well, let's start from the beginning. Monsters Den Chronicles starts just like many other fantasy RPG's before it: Party formation. You have four classes to choose from, each with two versions of that class. Pick your pals and choose your difficulty level.

Naturally I kick it kindergarten style at 'beginner'. The game also allows you to choose your own punishment should you die: Lose experience, items, or game over/go home. A neat little choice, one which lost much of it's novelty as I entered minute five of trying to decide which fate was worse.

After choosing the first campaign I get dropped in a dank labyrinth of a dungeon with orders to hunt down some cult and figure out what culty things they're up to.

Game play is as simple as it gets. Click on a room, walk into the room. If the path you're walking is red, you're about to have company. The battle mechanics are pretty basic too.  Shuffle your guys around your side of the field until you're ready, then it's good old fashioned turn-based combat.

Most of the enemies you encounter are Cult Guardians or Acolytes, the latter of which have a chance to summon a Void Stalker. Kill the baddies, get TEH MAD LEWTZ (or the treasure, in functional human-speak), then click yourself around the next corner.

Iunno, Parthan, my old one was even more purple...

Like other RPG's you can upgrade your armor and weapons, usually after finding new gear killing monsters, because clearly the rusted piles of pure tetanus you find on the floor of a dilapidated dungeon make for better protection than whatever scraps you walked in with. My brave warriors are also kind enough to point out "nah, I like what I got on" whenever I try to equip them with anything slightly rustier than their current garb.

Prima donnas.

Play It or Pass It: Play it. It is a 'click to move fantasy dungeon-crawler'. Nothing more. Nothing less. Pure Vanilla.

Like predictability as much as I do? Play it here, and let me know what you think!

http://armorgames.com/play/13132/monsters-den-chronicles

Don't Judge a Fairy Tale by its Cover

I mentioned before how I could fill an entire year's worth of posts with free games alone. That statement was a bit inaccurate: I could fill an entire year off the gaming site Kongregate alone. Since I had such great luck with my last Kon game, I decided to head back a second time.

It didn't take me long to find something eye catching: Crazy Fairies. Who can resist a name like that?

The game's description just added to my excitement:

"Turn-based projectile shooting game with online, cross-platform multiplayer. Set in a crazy fairytale world where all your favorite characters come to life and battle to death."

I have a massive thing for fairy tales, having owned (and subsequently worn out) three copies of Grimm's Fairy Tales. 

I loaded up the game and immediately paused: As with many other online multiplayer games, this one has different servers to choose from, but with only one server available. The game was made in mid-2012, so maybe it's a final remnant of a game past its prime.

Character creation was fun. Character descriptions were clever and funny, and I totally dug the art style, with the big heads and tiny bodies reminding me of a certain awesome kitty (me. They reminded me of me), and wings! Angel wings and fire wings...

The bright colors and adorable backgrounds were icing on the already delicious looking cake. Naturally I choose the Master Cat character, clicking through the costumes until I found an outfit and wings to match. Let's see how good this pretty cake tastes...

The first few rounds were, of course, tutorial. I was given different (well, two different) weapons, A cannon for physical attacks and a staff for magical ones, to try out on an odd little cyclops monster. I didn't have any wings, figuring they would come with one of the next tutorials.

But I had another pang of hesitation: See, I knew going into it the game was turn-based. What I hadn't counted on was how sloooow it was. When it's just me and the one-eyed training dummy it isn't so bad, but once I entered my first match it became glaringly apparent the game had pace issues.

My first match was two on two, on a somewhat hilly battlefield. The whole match was around ten minutes of us taking turns chucking stuff at each other. Shoot my cannon, miss. Get nearly hit by a spell or throwing ax. Wait. Shoot a cannonball. Repeat. Nobody moved from their spot (there is little incentive to do so) and all of us took several turns to dial in our aim. My first three shots missed their target. The next two were dodged. With my sixth round I made contact! 55 points of damage! I've got him now!

Above us our partners duked it out, with my partner sustaining heavy damage early in the fight. Down below I made another hit, 55 damage. Then another. My foe was living off a sliver, my next strike would finish him! Above me my severely weakened companion felled his own quarry through some miracle or witchcraft and, having a faster turnaround speed than I, lobbed an ax at my prey.

...You kill-stealing sunuva bitch...

*Deep breath* Well, at least I won my first match.

Despite my victory I still couldn't get my mind off wings. Wings, man. Did I have to buy them? The short answer is yes, you do. The store had a bunch of wings for sale, all for 300 gold, a wee bit over my 150 silver I was working with. As luck would have it, two of the wings were only 50 silver! A pair of demon wings and a pair of angle wings. Now we're in business!

For the third time I paused: Like all other items in the game, the wings had a description detailing the bonuses they imparted on me. Unlike other items, the end of both descriptions had the words "Warning: Only" at the end in red. "Only" what? "Only" for noobs? "Only" for ferrets? I had no idea, but I shrugged away any suspicion and bought the angel pair.

I entered a new match, this one in the 'adventure' category, which pitted me and another player against a giant with about a dozen eyes and three noses. My wings didn't show up, having forgotten  I needed to equip them. Same frozen molasses game play. *Yawn*

Back at the character screen, I go to equip any new items I have. After all, with both the tutorial completion and my victories in-game I had earned quite a few new trinkets and baubles to wear.

All those trinkets? Every one of them bears the same name but lower stats as my beginning gear. Those wings? The "Only" stood for "Warning: Only members of last week's winning second place clan can use these wings". What? Then why are they available to everyone in the damn shop? if it knows I can't wear them, why doesn't it know not to let me buy them?! And why didn't that warning show up in full before purchase?!

I just...I just wanted to fly...

Play It or Pass It: Pass it. Long story short: It's boring. The game is absolutely adorable and witty, but it takes more than a pretty face for a recommendation. Boring is boring, no matter how much makeup it wears.

Wanna try it anyway? Here's the link!

http://www.kongregate.com/games/Spicyhorse/crazyfairies

(non)Flying Fowl

With a foot of snow on the ground and temperatures at a tail-shriveling -20 degrees Fahrenheit (with windchill), my mind turned to wintery fun. I could build a snowman, or maybe find a nice steep hill and go sledding! Maybe Aaron and I could build snow forts in the back yard and have a snowball fight!

Or we could sit in our nice warm house with a cup of hot coco and play games. Yeah, that sounds good...

Going with the frigid theme of the day, and in compliance with my Free in '14 month I clicked on over to the gaming site Kongregate and picked out a cold one: Learn to Fly.

Penguins have long suffered humiliation for their flightlessness, but no more! With a little boost from gliders, rockets, and some good old fashioned personal recklessness, this little penguin will take to the skies!

It's a dream...Come true...

Learn to Fly follows that penguin on his guest to make aviation history. To play,you chuck a penguin down an icy ramp, controlling his trajectory with the arrow keys, or A and D keys upon launch. Your distance is measured once you land in the water below. Now, I couldn't find a way to measure my actual distance, rather my distance was measured in cash. There are several 'stages', distinguishable only by differing achievements. The achievements range from distance traveled to time spent in the air.

I decided to see how far I could get in 25 flights. The first few went about as well as can be expected. I more or less fell off the ramp into the water, getting about $12 for every belly flop. By my eighth flight I was able to afford a hole-riddled glider, bringing up my average to $37, a number that jumped again to $59 when I bought the rocket.

Flight number 19, I launched as usual, but early in the flight I accidentally hit the 'D' key, sending my penguin rocketing toward the water. I hit 'A' out of desperation, only for it to shoot my avian friend skyward once more. $105. BAM.

By my final run I figured I had the hang of the game, and I felt pretty confident in beating my highest score of $136. I raced down the ramp at a breakneck speed, launched into the air, and immediately dive-bombed into the water. I had about a second to come to terms with my abysmal ending to the game, when from the watery depths my penguin shot back toward the heavens as though propelled by a cannon. I finally landed some distance away, with a score of $171.

Huh. Cool.

Learn to Fly 2 follows the same principle, with various updates. You land in snow instead of water, they're are more upgrades available, and your score is measured in actual feet (I think), calculated along with your speed, altitude, and a few other measurements.

Play It or Pass It: Play it. Both Learn to Fly and Learn to Fly 2 can be a bit tedious starting out. Both games involve alot of face planting in the beginning, and upgrades come slowly. Get past the initial hump and it's smooth sailing, having almost an addictive 'one more round' quality. While I personally thought the first Learn to Fly was more fun, both make excellent time wasters.

Want to play it yourself? Here's the link!

http://www.kongregate.com/games/light_bringer777/learn-to-fly

Go forth and FLY!

I wanna go to DUNGEONLAND!

I have a habit of procrastination.

Go on, get your laughs out now so we can focus.

Anyway, no one is more familiar with my behavior than Aaron, who was kind enough to give me a little boost with my Free in '14 quest by downloading a bunch of free games off Steam for me.

Thaaaaaaaaaaanks baaaaaaaaaaaaabe.

Of the four downloads on my screen one stood out: Dungeonland. Mostly because of the bright colors (I might have a short attention span...maybe), but also because it had the word 'dungeon' in the name. Can't go wrong with vanilla fantasy, right?

Dungeonland is a three-player action/dungeon-crawler with a colorful, cartoonish style and sense of humor. The game takes place in a theme park which is worryingly devoid of tourists, unless you count giant caterpillars and skeletal archers as tourists. As per the requirements, it is free to play, but almost immediately upon loading the main menu screen I'm hit with a mustachioed jester's pitch:

HEY! YOU! FILTHY NERD! HERE! BUY THIS ARMOR SKIN PACK!!! ONLY $2.99!!!

Filthy nerd? Why, I've never been so insulted in my life! Hrumph! HRUMPH I SAY!

Pleasantries aside, The game isn't bad. Dungeonland has a heavy emphasis on teamwork, giving you two AI partners if you can't play online or with friends. Like other fantasy games, you have a choice of classes: Warrior, Mage, or Rogue. Within those classes is a little customization, such as running a fire or lightning based type mage, or an assassin or ranger type rogue.

Predictably I ran a warrior my first time through. Controls were about as basic as one can get: WASD to move, 'space bar' to dodge (or hip thrust, in the case of the mage) and left-clicking to attack. Only two of the six levels are available in free mode: DM Tower and DM Mode. I hit 'DM Tower' and braced for whatever the crap happened next.

What happened next wasn't bad. Not the best game I've ever played, but certainly not the worst.

You just run through the level, wailing on garbage cans for loot and fried chicken while killing anything that moves...and isn't your AI buddies. The enemies attack in mobs at certain points, and a separate mob with a mini-boss attacks at random.

My first opponent was a sheep. A sheep that promptly rolled onto its back when I ran up to it. Do you have any idea how hard it is to slaughter a defenseless, innocent sheep? It's so fluffy, for crying out loud.

Not hard at all, actually. Easier after I learned sheep drop fried chicken and hamburgers upon excruciating murder.

After clearing two levels of their skeletons and chicken you finally reach a boss. You know, like a real dungeon!

Naw, man, I'm good to *hic!* fight...

The big baddy of the DM Tower was nothing less than worthy of the 'Boss' Title. He was the dreaded...The terrifying...

...The Beer-Holder.

The lush proved to be quite a challenge, despite his inebriated and gassy state. My battle strategy consisted of dying a bunch, getting rezzed by my AI team mates, then running like a bitch until I needed rezzing again. 

He never saw it coming.

With the day saved and my interest piqued, I figured I'd see how much the other levels cost to unlock. I like the game enough to drop 2-3 bucks on a little expansion, so I clicked on the 'store' option. 

'All Access Pass'... So... I can't buy just one level? That's cool, I suppose I could swing a few extra bucks if I get all of them...But where's the price? *click*

Clicking on the 'Pass' icon took me completely out of the game and into the Steam store. The Steam store homepage. I had to hunt down Dungeonland to find the pricing, and even then I couldn't find an 'All Access Pass'. Instead I found the option to buy the whole game. 

For $16.99. Nope.

Play It or Pass It: If you have a Steam account absolutely give it a try, a free try. If you don't have a steam account, fix it because clearly you're broken, then give it a go. 

*click* *click* COOKEHS! *click* *click* *click*

Video games may not have been around for very long in the grand scheme of human existence, but since its creation it has left an eternal and irreplaceable mark on our species. Gaming has the ability to draw its audience into fantastical worlds in ways movies and books never could, making heroes of men, women, and children alike.

Gaming as a whole is inherently good.

Once in a while, however, a seed of evil is planted. Hiding among the good sprouts until it breaches the soil and blooms into the world, these games are unrepentant in their wickedness, drawing victim after victim down into the abyss.

Now, I'm not talking about bad games, I'm talking about evil games. This brings me...To Cookie Clicker.

Cookie Clicker is exactly what it sounds like: Clicking cookies...To get more cookies.That's it. That's the game play. All of it. You click a cookie to make more cookies.

But you can't get very many cookies simply by clicking! No, you need far more cookies than mere clicking can allow, so the unbreakable chain begins. See, you can spend the cookies you've earned (by clicking the cookie) to buy tools, such as additional cursors to click for you, and grandmas working 'round the clock on production. As your CPS, or cookies-per-second, rises, so does your cookie making empire. You build farms and mines to strip the world of its natural cookie resources. You send ships to the deepest parts of space in search of planets with cookie dough cores to bring back home. You create a time machine so you can reclaim cookies before they were ever eaten.

Well Agnus, if you and the BINGO club hadn't called the Board of Health on me demanding insurance, I would still be paying you...In cookies. 

The game preys on a player's worse levels of OCD. Click the cookie, get a cookie. Click a cookie, get a cookie. Just click the cookie, one more time. Hey, now you get two cookies when you click the cookie. Now three. Now four. Now you get 16 cookies when you click the cookie. Spend a few cookies and buy a couple upgrades so you can now get 1,898 cookies every time you click the cookie. Spend a few more cookies and hire a few more grandmas. What do you do with all the cookies from your grandma army? You fund scientists to open portals to other dimensions so you can get their cookies too. Just a couple more clicks, and you can afford a new antimatter condenser, since all antimatter might as well be cookies.

This is your existence. All of it.

The numbers also skyrocket at a pace I didn't think allowable by physics, rewarding the player's frantic clicking with enough cookies to feed several small countries. Enough cookies to conquer the universe.

How pervasive is this disease? Aaron was the first victim, quickly becoming a sort of Typhoid Mary of cookies. He started playing sometime yesterday evening, and as we speak is thinking up ways to automate the clicking for him...As a click withheld is a cookie wasted. His first convert was our friend over at Kitsune Dream, who when tasked with cookie clicking laughed. Surely a game so ridiculous couldn't be so addictive, so all consuming, as Aaron claimed. A bold statement made while clicking away the entire time...A clicking that was still going strong three hours later.

I became the next sacrifice to Big Cookie. The elation I felt as my CPS rose higher and higher rivals that of my first meeting with Aaron. I wanted, no, needed more cookies. At time of writing my CPS is at a minuscule 879,787.9 cookies, compared to Kitsune's 52 million and Aaron's mind numbing 254,000,000 cookies per second...

Now I'm at 888,267.9 cookies every second, with an additional 17,877 every time I manually click on the cookie. I have 97 grandmas, three farms, a mine, three space ships, four alchemy labs, 16 dimensional portals, and seven time machines, all working to make all the cookies.

All of them.

*click*...*click*...*pause*...*click*...*click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click*

1,013,658.3 cookies per second.

1,388,831.4 cookies per second.

Update!

2,779,009.9 cookies per second.

Caaaaaaaalling Mothership

Wha....Where...Where am...I....

What year is it?

Starbound certainly has that affect on people...Minutes, hours, days go by with little or no recognition of the passage of time. Seriously, what's time when you can be flying around the universe exploring planets? In a space ship?

You start, of course, like many other games: Character creation. There are six races to choose from:

Avian: Zealot Bigbirds
Floran: For you vegetarians out there
Hylotl: Fishy fish...Fish...
Apex: Simian savants
Glitch: Robots who like to get medieval
Human: Booooooooooooriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing

As an old fan of Sesame Street I choose Avians...

...And then I began my career as a professional locust.

I travel from planet to planet, sector to sector, and leech. I mine all surface ore. I raid any and all settlements, because I may not need a giant rabbit statue or 14 refrigerators, but dammit I want it. What the hell is a robot doing with a wooden toilet, anyway?

Hey there big guy, ya mind runnin' this up to my ship? I gotta run back over to that village to the east, I think I might have left a chair or something. Make it fast, Brain Trees leak somethin' fierce this time of year, and I can't have their ooze staining my new curtains.

Starbound, like Terraria before it, brings out my worst hording tendencies. I pocket anything and everything what isn't nailed down, and some things that are. I once partially dismantled a Glitch village because I figured I might use the thatch roofs for something down the road...Maybe.

Starbound is a massive undertaking. There are literally thousands of systems and planets within the game, each with it's own unique flora and fauna. Alien monsters are built using a randomizer, so you can see a myriad of terrifying and adorable creatures, some of which may or may not melt your face off with acid... And or fire. The planets are also randomized, consisting of anything from snow to brains to jungles to grasslands.

The game is currently in beta, so issues and updates are common, but even early on it's proving to be amazing. Even an update-related character wipe a few days ago failed to dampen my enthusiasm, although it is heartbreaking to lose a diamond pickaxe just after acquisition.

Frackin' Fractals

New Fractals have come to Tyria and Guild Wars 2, and with their arrival I decided to finally try them.

They certainly weren't what I expected.

meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow 

I mean, who expects to fight giant cat golems? Who? I didn't. Nor did I expect to bow to a billion story tall man-statue, dance with holograms, or get eaten by swarms of piranha. But by gum those things happened.

Fractals are more or less like the dungeons of the game, but rather than following the story mode followed by three separate explorable paths model, Fractals consist of three individual instances, generally unrelated to each other, and each with a mini-boss and a treasure chest at the end. After completing one you are teleported to the next, and so on. After the third instance you enter a fourth, consisting of a larger boss. 

And what a pain in the tail they are. My first boss was a giant, and I mean freaking huge, tentical...thing. I don't really know what it was, but it was big, covered in tenticals, had one ginormous dripping eye that haunted my nightmares and waking mind for about three days afterward.

I think tonight I might try and...What's this? A gift on Steam? 

STARBOUND!! I GOT STARBOUND!!!! TEARRIA IN SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!!!!

Come, Meatliver, the universe awaits!!

Seriously. Started up character creation, and the game named me Meatliver. Who am I to mess with perfection? 

Thanks John!

Tower of Nighmares

It's been quite a weekend here in my own little nerd hovel, what with the Doctor Who 50th anniversary special and just all the Guild Wars 2.

You see, in GW2 there's something called the Living World: a series of worldwide events that change every two weeks or so, generally flowing as an overarching story. Our current predicament began on the game's first birthday, with the introduction of the delightfully insane Sylvari named Scarlet. With her Aetherblades, Molten Alliance and other minions she's been carving a crazy scar down the middle of Tyria.

Her most recent plot lines involve the Tower of Nightmares, a shoddy skyscraper made and inhabited by Krait, a rather nasty race of evil glow worms. The tower itself is a three tiered gauntlet, where one's only hopes are that the zerg aren't far ahead or behind, for when your ass inevitably hits the ground.

Glow worms aren't know to be particularly talented architects...Their talents tend to be more centered on fish acquisition.

Seeing as the Living World achievements will be finished up with the newly released one on Tuesday, my party decided to wrap up any lose ends in one go. Up the tower we climbed, stopping here and there to revive a fallen loner, or demolish a hallucination brought on by the tower's toxins because it gave us a funny look. We dodged exploding plant pods and giant champion wurm AoE's, we slaughtered Krait and Twisted Nightmares alike.

And we waited. Holy cow we waited. See, several of the achievements required one to enter and clear various chambers within, themselves consisting of instances with two rooms to fight smaller foes, and a final boss, usually taking the form of an ally (you know, with all the hallucinogenic bs in the air and all). However, you can't simple run up to a chamber and hop in. No, you had to wait for it to open first! So there we would stand. 20 minutes sometimes, waiting. Sure we'd pass the time, run to get a drink, fight a nearby baddy, but mostly we just stood there. Talking. or having drinking contests (Thank you, Aaron, for bringing the Belcher's Bluff table!).

All was worth it in the end, for now I am the proud owner of an awesome gas mask helmet skin I'll probably never use that will take up precious bank space and a seriously cramped thumb (from using it to steady the keyboard as I frantically whacked at the WASD and number keys for god knows how long...)

Ah gamer problems.

It's raining comics...And Asurans

Well would you look at the time...

Well hello hello again! Hi, remember me? *lip quiver* Do you?

Yes I know, I've been scarce. However the game called life decided to suddenly pump the difficulty rating up a few notches. One move to a new town and countless job applications later, things still suck. But it is high time I pick this back up!

As of late I have only really played a few games, mostly of the pump-in-hour-upon-hour-and-still-be-no-closer-to-anything-resembling-a-conclusion variety: Terraria and Guild Wars 2.

Terraria is more or less 2D Minecraft,  in that it involves heavy exploration and the ability to build random nonsense out of blocks. It's crazy fun and massively addicting, and if you have the gaming service Steam I
highly recommend it.

Behold! The splendor of my fortress! Countless hours of my life have bled into its very foundation! BEHOLD!!

Meanwhile in good old GW2 I've had a bit of a surprise: I don't hate my Elementalist!

Like, at all. I actually kind of l.....l.....li.....liiiiii......liiiiiiike her. Despite spitting in the face of all my previous expectations of gaming (a game is only fun if I can wail on a poor beast with a giant rusty ax/hammer/sword), My tiny, squishy, kind of bitchy Elementalist has managed to survive her early beginnings taking beatings via large poisonous bugs (and literally everything else she tried to fight), now surviving quick fights with small handfuls of baddies, as long as they're relatively low level. I...I'm actually quite proud of her.

COME AT ME BIRD!

Oh...Oh god, what am I saying?! Quickly, to the warrior character!!!

Call that a knife? THIS is a...Well, it isn't a knife, but it is sharp!

Ah, that's better!

Now, to the future, specifically Geeky Cat's future. What with the ongoing job hunt (which would be, like, way easier with quest markers) and other RL priorities, posting every single day isn't exactly feasible.

Thusly, starting, oh, now, Geeky Cat will be posted on a three-plus times per week basis: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, with occasional posts on the weekend.

Onward to the future!