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Briste's Diary of a Madman


Briste

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Nicely done on Overcooked! I played the sequel and really enjoyed it. I would love to see more games in the franchise, as those types of games are my favourite to play in co-op. I also started Rayman because of the glitch. It’s actually a really fun game! I was looking for a new Vita title to start, so this came at a perfect time. And I’m sorry to hear about your ankle - wishing you a speedy recovery. Hopefully some good games take your mind off of it. I’m going to follow your checklist if you don’t mind ☺️

 

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4 hours ago, Briste said:

The biggest reason that I found it reasonable is because I was able to beat all of the levels (up to 6-1 anyways) without using the speed boost.

 

What speed boost? You mean the dash? :D 

 

 

4 hours ago, Briste said:

The game was going good for the first hour or so and after our second halftime (remember, we're all around 40 so need lots of breaks lol), I ran out for route as a Wide Receiver and heard/felt a pop and felt like someone kicked me in my ankle area and I hit the deck. I initially thought that the guy covering me just tripped me, but when I got up to yell at the guy for being a dick, I saw that no one was around me. I went to get up to go back to the huddle and just collapsed from immense pain in my ankle area. I politely told the guys I was done for the day and hobbled over to my car.

 

At the time, I just thought I pulled something so the plan was to just walk it off' My wife wanted me to go to the ER, but I wasn't in a ton of pain (unless I tried to walk) and I told her it wasn't an emergency. I said if it felt worse on Monday I would go to the clinic. Well it felt worse on Monday and I went to the clinic. The clinic basically told me I was a jackass for waiting a day and that I needed to go to the ER. I went to the ER and they told me I had ruptured my Achilles and told me I had to go to an Orthopedic specialist to determine if I'd need surgery. Yesterday I made that trip and the doctor told me it was fully ruptured and that I could elect to not have the surgery, but it may not heal properly, in which case I wouldn't be able to run or jump or stand on my tippy toes again since my Achilles would be f*cked. I'm too young to risk not being able to do those things, so I have elected to have the surgery done. I will be having my Achilles repaired next Friday and will be laid up in my chair for at least the first two weeks and potentially longer. To keep from dying from boredom, I'll probably be playing my Vita quite a bit.

 

Aaaah ? Man, I ruptured my Achilles when I was 11 years old or so, and I don't think I've experienced anything as painful since ? I didn't have surgery back then, but luckily everything healed just fine. I hope your surgery goes well! 

 

 

4 hours ago, Briste said:

What's that you say? Oh, right.....this might be a good time to work on SMB again.....well, you're probably right....I might take this 'opportunity' to hone up on my SMB skills and see if I can't get that plat. I was going to save it for plat 200, but I'll be pretty bored for the foreseeable future, so might as well take these lemons and make some lemonade. 

 

SMB on the Vita, mhm? ? Well, it's definitely a perfect opportunity to get some practice in... Good luck! :D  

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Ouch, I really hope your surgery goes well and your ankle heals. I personally have been extremely lucky to have never broken or ruptured anything (of course, saying this is basically asking for the universe to punish me any time soon, but eh), but as a guy that stubs his toe on the desk and feels like resting for the entire day, I can only imagine how painful it must have been.

 

But good luck on SMB! Not really knowledgeable about it, but can't imagine Vita being the best console to play it in... but hey, more challenge is more fun, right? :awesome:

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On 12/9/2021 at 1:11 AM, papert0wng1rl said:

Nicely done on Overcooked! I played the sequel and really enjoyed it. I would love to see more games in the franchise, as those types of games are my favourite to play in co-op. I also started Rayman because of the glitch. It’s actually a really fun game! I was looking for a new Vita title to start, so this came at a perfect time. And I’m sorry to hear about your ankle - wishing you a speedy recovery. Hopefully some good games take your mind off of it. I’m going to follow your checklist if you don’t mind 263a.png

 

Thank you! I'm hoping the gameplay on the next two entries mirror the first game since that was what I enjoyed about it. I got the plat for Rayman on the PS4 a few years ago and had a lot of fun with it. The grind to max Awesomeness is a bit brutal, but I'm in no rush to finish. I had thought about playing this version of it for a while and was pleased to see this platinum blocker was available. Absolutely follow :) the more the merrier! 

 

On 12/9/2021 at 3:02 AM, Arcesius said:

What speed boost? You mean the dash? :D 

 

lol yeah the dash....hey man, I'm old....sometimes words are hard :P so I beat 90% of the game without using DASH so the times and scores are very fair.

 

On 12/9/2021 at 3:02 AM, Arcesius said:

Aaaah 1f631.png Man, I ruptured my Achilles when I was 11 years old or so, and I don't think I've experienced anything as painful since 1f616.png I didn't have surgery back then, but luckily everything healed just fine. I hope your surgery goes well! 

 

Thanks. The odd thing is, it isn't really painful unless I try to walk...but just sitting around isn't so bad. It's a dull pain at this point....we'll see how it feels after the surgery but I'm happy to hear you were able to fully recover from it! Gives me hope!

 

On 12/9/2021 at 3:02 AM, Arcesius said:

SMB on the Vita, mhm? 1f605.png Well, it's definitely a perfect opportunity to get some practice in... Good luck! :D  

 

On 12/9/2021 at 6:00 AM, Eagle said:

But good luck on SMB! Not really knowledgeable about it, but can't imagine Vita being the best console to play it in... but hey, more challenge is more fun, right? :awesome:

I've actually played it virtually exclusively on the Vita. It is a cross-save game and I had logged in on the PS4 to try it, but I couldn't figure out how to download my save from the cloud. It just wasn't there.....of course I opened the game to see what it looked like and found out my save transferred automatically when I downloaded the game but by that time I had already gotten as far as I have. I'm not sure I'll be able to beat the last few levels on the Vita though....it's kind of a small screen when precision is important. The controls felt slower though on the PS4 so I was nervous about having to 'relearn' how to play it. The good news is I'll have time to try 'em both.

 

On 12/9/2021 at 6:00 AM, Eagle said:

Ouch, I really hope your surgery goes well and your ankle heals. I personally have been extremely lucky to have never broken or ruptured anything (of course, saying this is basically asking for the universe to punish me any time soon, but eh), but as a guy that stubs his toe on the desk and feels like resting for the entire day, I can only imagine how painful it must have been.

 

This is the first time I've ever really hurt myself either. Until last Sunday, I had never broken a bone or ruptured/tore a ligament or muscle before either. I played sports all the way up through college unscathed and an hour with the guys at age 40 was enough to blow my ankle up lol At this point it is more an inconvenience than it is painful. I'm not very graceful at all with the crutches. I live in a split level house so we have half flights of stairs to get to each level, so that has been a bit of a pain. I haven't been in my game room much the past couple of nights because I didn't want to mess with the stairs. My wife has told me I could move the PS5 up to the living room if I want....but I might keep it where it is just so she can still have some space too. This is putting a lot on her so I don't want her to feel like she doesn't have a sanctuary either.

 

On 12/9/2021 at 1:51 PM, Rally-Vincent--- said:

Hope everything goes well with the Op and you recover fully.

Thank you! I appreciate it!

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21 hours ago, Briste said:

Thank you! I'm hoping the gameplay on the next two entries mirror the first game since that was what I enjoyed about it. I got the plat for Rayman on the PS4 a few years ago and had a lot of fun with it. The grind to max Awesomeness is a bit brutal, but I'm in no rush to finish. I had thought about playing this version of it for a while and was pleased to see this platinum blocker was available. Absolutely follow :) the more the merrier!

 

I really need to get my ass going for this game. Even as a competent player I hear it still takes a few months of dedication to get max Awesomeness. Just need to play those events every day.

 

21 hours ago, Briste said:

I've actually played it virtually exclusively on the Vita. It is a cross-save game and I had logged in on the PS4 to try it, but I couldn't figure out how to download my save from the cloud. It just wasn't there.....of course I opened the game to see what it looked like and found out my save transferred automatically when I downloaded the game but by that time I had already gotten as far as I have. I'm not sure I'll be able to beat the last few levels on the Vita though....it's kind of a small screen when precision is important. The controls felt slower though on the PS4 so I was nervous about having to 'relearn' how to play it. The good news is I'll have time to try 'em both.

 

I have no idea how you managed to get as far as you did on the Vita. I tried both Cotton Alley light and dark on the Vita and I couldn't get the timing down to jump over those small gears. With a small screen to work with you need the utmost precision.

 

The penultimate level for Cotton Alley dark can glitch on you if you end up practicing for a hour or so. Usually you have to quit out to the XMB and go back to start the application. Just something to keep in mind if you ever get around to doing those levels.

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4 hours ago, AJ_Radio said:

I really need to get my ass going for this game. Even as a competent player I hear it still takes a few months of dedication to get max Awesomeness. Just need to play those events every day.

Yeah it takes so long since I think you need something like 2k points from challenges beyond the points you earn from regular game play. Diamonds get you through it quickly at 50 points a pop, but those are damn near impossible. Bronze are only worth 1 point so if you could only get bronze....you could get 16 points a week (2 a day from daily challenges and then 2 more for the weekly) and it'd take you about 125 weeks to finish :o These glitched challenges only come along once in a while and one this easy never comes around so it was nice to get that 50 point boost early. It's a lot harder to get a gold/silver on the Vita since there isn't as a big a player base and the top players are insanely good. The main game isn't too hard, it just takes a big commitment to get that last level of Awesomeness.

 

4 hours ago, AJ_Radio said:

I have no idea how you managed to get as far as you did on the Vita. I tried both Cotton Alley light and dark on the Vita and I couldn't get the timing down to jump over those small gears. With a small screen to work with you need the utmost precision.

It's probably why I got frustrated and stopped for a while. It was really hard to even get where I'm at.  I could beat all the levels in Rapture Dark within like 2 or 3 deaths, but couldn't string together more than a few levels in a row without dying. When I pick it up again, I'll probably do it on the PS4 so I'm not going crazy. I found the controls to be very smooth on the Vita, but it is really hard to see lol

 

4 hours ago, AJ_Radio said:

The penultimate level for Cotton Alley dark can glitch on you if you end up practicing for a hour or so. Usually you have to quit out to the XMB and go back to start the application. Just something to keep in mind if you ever get around to doing those levels.

Yeah, I ran into that glitch when I was playing it through normally the first time. No matter how perfect I ran the level, the areas were closing up before I could get there. Fortunately I only tried for like 30 minutes or so before I looked it up to see wtf was going on. I'll probably start with that one when I'm doing the no death runs since I'd murder someone if that happened when I had a streak going.

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@Briste wishing you a speedy recovery my dude! This may seem strange but as an older lad myself - who recently took a tumble that caused a lot of damage, feel free to reach out if you need anything.

 

Putting together structured plans to rehab injuries for athletes and even non-athletes is part of my professional work, so honestly if you need anything in that regard just let me know. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 12/12/2021 at 4:37 AM, KindaSabbath said:

wishing you a speedy recovery my dude! This may seem strange but as an older lad myself - who recently took a tumble that caused a lot of damage, feel free to reach out if you need anything.

 

Putting together structured plans to rehab injuries for athletes and even non-athletes is part of my professional work, so honestly if you need anything in that regard just let me know. 

Thanks! Surgery was on Friday and went well. I didn't have any pain really for the first 24 hours because they did a 'knee block'....now that the block has worn off, it's been pretty sore. I have a large regimen of pain pills from prescription Acetaminophen and Ibuprofen to Oxycodeine. Have spent a lot of time sleeping the past couple of days, which is nice :)  They have me set up for physical therapy starting three weeks after the surgery so I'll be interested what I'm able to do at that point.

 

I hope you are recovering ok from your fall! Was it similar damage to your legs? It was kind of comical when I was at the hospital actually...the nurse who was preparing me for the surgery asked what happened and I relayed the story to her. The nurse in the next area over called over 'Let me guess...you're 40!' I had to laugh and she was like 'Yep, a lot of men your age don't know when to hang them up and end up in here...' It was funny to learn I was the stereotypical demo for this.

 

Health concerns aside....I was actually productive the past few days with some games. I've made decent progress in Rayman Legends (vita) and I have re-100%'d KH3 :) The Risk-taker trophy was quite challenging. It actually made my overall experience of the game much better however. I think the DLC would have been far better if it was just a boss rush DLC instead of having to replay the entire game....that made this trophy pretty painful since I didn't care at all about the story this time through. For those of you that don't know what the Risk-taker trophy is, you earn the trophy for getting an 'A' rank using the 'Pro-codes' for most of the boss fights. The Pro-codes basically tie your hands behind your back and ask you to beat the bosses and sub-bosses of each level. Some examples of Pro-codes are: you have to fight with the default stats, no cure, no items, no form change, no shotlock, no links, HP and MP slip (drain), etc. You need to earn 365,000 points in order to get an 'A' rank and you can only earn around 175,000 points from the main game. The rest are earned from the Organization XIII fights from the DLC.

 

The sub bosses in the main game can earn you 5,000 points while the main boss can earn you 10,000 except for Dark Inferno, who is the only main game fight that can get you 20,000 points (that is if all the Pro-codes are turned on). For each code you have turned off, you get less points based on how many stars are attached to the code. For example, default stats is worth six stars where as no attractions is only one star. I beat every boss in the main game with all of the Pro-codes turned on except for Skoll and Lump of Horror, where I turned on Shotlocks and I accidentally had them all on for Lightning Angler and got 0 points there. For some reason I had remembered that boss being something different and I just thought he was a beefed up heartless. It wasn't until I got to Davy Jones that I realized I missed him. That was a complaint of mine actually for this mode. It would have been cool if the game told me I got 0 points for that fight so I could have gone back to my prior save to try again. It'll tell you how many points you earn if you earn any, but it won't tell you that you earned none if you have all the Pro-codes off. The only reason you turn them off is because you only need the Pro-codes on for the boss fights. You can breeze your way through the rest of the game. So after finishing up the main game, I was only 6,000 points behind the max I could have had, which gave me some leeway for the DLC fights.

 

Anyways, other than those three fights, I was at max points going into the DLC. For the Organization XIII fights, I turned off default stats, MP slip and No links and left the rest on. For those fights you can get 25,000 points per fight and with those three turned off, I got 18,125 per fight. The only exceptions here was I put everything on except for items for Luxord which got me like 23,000 points and I put the items on for Young Xemnas and got around 16,000 points. I did not have to fight Xion, Master Xehanort or Yozora and the trophy popped. Most of the fights weren't too bad since the Ariel link will heal you and is long enough to get you through a lot of the DM's unscathed. Saix and Terra-Xehanort were the hardest for me and each probably took me a good 30-45 minutes to beat. Dark Inferno was also pretty challenging, but mostly because I insisted on beating it with all the Pro-codes on. I could get through the first two phases untouched and just couldn't get through that third phase for quite a while.

 

I didn't do much farming to boost my stats up. Based on what I read, it takes like 35 hours to max the stats and make the default stats Pro-code meaningless and I did not want to invest that amount of time into the DLC. I wanted to see if I'd even need it before investing that much time into farming. I basically farmed for Strength boosts until I hit level 99 (I was like level 55 after beating the main game) and then just went with what I had. It didn't take long to level fighting in the Battle Gates and that little farming was enough to make 18 boosts and that was pretty noticeable from a damage standpoint. Each combo I unleashed would get rid of about two full bars of health. Despite doing that kind of damage, you can't just spam :cross: and expect to win. You really need to learn the fights to get through it. Fortunately, most of them are pretty quick to learn, it's just a matter of getting the reaction time down to block and then counter to get into your combo. While the DLC was not easy, it was also not impossible.

 

This DLC redeemed the game a little for me. I actually enjoyed learning the battles and seeing my improvement in each fight until I was able to finally win. As I mentioned, the DLC really should have just been a boss rush since the Pro-codes were not needed at all except on the bosses in order to get the trophy. It took me about 35 hours to beat the DLC and probably could have been around 15 if I could have cut out the main story. It also would have been nice to be able to retry the main game boss fights as you could in the DLC....but at least the DLC made it so you had to learn the combat a bit more.

 

It was still extremely overpriced and really didn't add anything to the game. It should have just been a free DLC with the combat challenges, but it is what it is. I'm very happy to have this game back to 100%. I'll probably finish up Shiness next....but I'm not sure yet.

 

Hope everyone has a nice holiday and everyone gets that game they are wanting!

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On 21/12/2021 at 2:53 AM, Briste said:

Thanks! Surgery was on Friday and went well. I didn't have any pain really for the first 24 hours because they did a 'knee block'....now that the block has worn off, it's been pretty sore. I have a large regimen of pain pills from prescription Acetaminophen and Ibuprofen to Oxycodeine. Have spent a lot of time sleeping the past couple of days, which is nice :)  They have me set up for physical therapy starting three weeks after the surgery so I'll be interested what I'm able to do at that point.


Hey man, I’m really glad that your surgery went well and that you are healing up!

 

I too was lured into a false sense of security re pain. I remember getting home and being sat up thinking “well that wasn’t too bad, I feel ite” - until the drugs wore off ?

 

On 21/12/2021 at 2:53 AM, Briste said:

Have spent a lot of time sleeping the past couple of days, which is nice :) 


Yeah I definitely had the chance to catch up on sleep, too! I was pretty out of it for quite a while. 
 

On 21/12/2021 at 2:53 AM, Briste said:

They have me set up for physical therapy starting three weeks after the surgery so I'll be interested what I'm able to do at that point.


Sounds like you’re in good hands then? Well if you need any additional support or info, just drop me a message dude. 
 

On 21/12/2021 at 2:53 AM, Briste said:

I hope you are recovering ok from your fall! Was it similar damage to your legs?


Kind of ? - long and short of it, I collapsed under a very heavy weight squatting in the gym. Broke my ankle, partial tear to my left quad, full groin tear that needed surgical repair and mangled my right wrist/hand. I’m getting there though, bud. Appreciate it!

 

On 21/12/2021 at 2:53 AM, Briste said:

It was kind of comical when I was at the hospital actually...the nurse who was preparing me for the surgery asked what happened and I relayed the story to her. The nurse in the next area over called over 'Let me guess...you're 40!' I had to laugh and she was like 'Yep, a lot of men your age don't know when to hang them up and end up in here...' It was funny to learn I was the stereotypical demo for this.


I can confirm that I also deal with a lot of injuries from us older lads going too hard in sports. Most often football or rugby. I didn’t get any jokes from the nurses at the hospital - but my mum did call me a dickhead ?

 

Sounds like you had a good bit of fun with reclaiming your KH3 completion. Well, aside from having to play through the whole game again to get to the bits you wanted to! Hope you’ve had a good Christmas my dude ?

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On 12/26/2021 at 5:29 PM, KindaSabbath said:

Kind of ? - long and short of it, I collapsed under a very heavy weight squatting in the gym. Broke my ankle, partial tear to my left quad, full groin tear that needed surgical repair and mangled my right wrist/hand. I’m getting there though, bud. Appreciate it!

 

Ouch...jeez dude...you in a wheel chair for some time? How did you move around with all that damage to you leg and a broken wrist/hand? Takes crutches out of the picture I'd think. So I guess the moral of our stories is....don't do anything athletic once you hit 40 lol That's a lot of PT right there for several different areas. I imagine you have to do it all at once too...I can't even imagine...

 

So far so good on my end. I've fallen a couple of times going up and down the stairs on the crutches here. Fortunately, neither fall was terribly far, but it has discouraged me (and my wife from letting me) use the stairs unless I'm going to be somewhere for a while. My gaming area/PC is located in my basement, so I haven't been using it too much in the past week or so. A lot of time on the Vita.

 

With that in mind, I finished up a non-plat game this week in...

 

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Sparkle 2

There's really not a heck of a lot to say about this game. I got it for 'free' with PS+ a few years ago and figured I'd get to it at some point since I enjoy puzzle games. This was one of the games I started over the summer when I was on vacation to keep my trophy streak alive. No other reason than that to be honest...I'm really happy though that I decided to play the Vita stack of the game instead of one of the other ones that were included. I could see how this game would be exceptionally hard without a touch screen.

 

So what is Sparkle 2? It's a puzzle game that mirrors a lot of the puzzle games out there where you have to match three of a kind (or more) to remove the object, and continue to do so until you have completed the level. In this particular iteration of that style of puzzle game, each level has some sort of snaking path. Most of the levels have one entrance and one hole at the end, where orbs come out of the entrance pushed by a pusher lol and if the orbs reach that hole, you lose and have to retry the level. There are some levels with two entrances and holes and a handful that have three of each. On normal mode towards the beginning of the journey, you have only three colors and the orbs don't move particularly fast. As you progress, a couple more colors get added to up the challenge. You have a shooter/launcher that loads a randomly colored orb that you must try to fire into the snaking line of orbs to make three of a kind at a minimum. You can see the orb up to be shot and the next one in the queue (there is an enchantment that lets you see more, but I didn't use that one) If you do make a three of a kind (or more), those orbs disappear and you continue to fire away until all of the orbs are gone or they fall in the hole.

 

The layout of the snaking path and the position of the launcher are what can make a level challenging. There are times where the orbs along the path will be blocking other orbs on a different section of the path and you are forced to eliminate the the middle of the chain. In the higher difficulties, this can be challenging because it isn't one continuous line coming from the entrance. They come in waves and each wave has it's own 'pusher' that moves that segment. The only time the pusher disappears is when you have removed all the orbs from that wave or the wave behind catches up with the previous wave (the pusher slows as it gets closer to the hole). If the front pusher gets blocked by the next wave's set of orbs, you could lose the level even if you are doing ok on the other wave. I found that it was sometimes beneficial to let the second wave catch up with the first wave before removing orbs from that wave. It made it so they were one long continuous line of orbs and was much easier to manage overall.

 

The shooter has a bunch of 'runes' around the outside of it and the more sets of three you make in a row, the faster you gain runes and/or special shots. The runes are important because once all the runes on the shooter are lit, a special move will happen that usually removes a ton of orbs. The other thing making consecutive groups of three or more in a row do, is create pop up orbs that are special abilities. One such ability is a meteor shower that rains down and destroys orbs it  touches; one is to summon a bunch of butterflies from the exit that removes orbs from the end of the line (one for each butterfly). There are several different types of special shots that will help you on your journey and the more consecutive matches you make, the faster you get to use these helpful shots. The only other little wrinkle they have are enchantments you unlock as you progress through the story. The enchantments are there to help you on the journey. An example of an enchantment is tar, which slows down the speed of the orbs. Another is tranquility, which makes the levels easier but longer. You can have up to three enchantments going at once and once you unlock them, they stay with you through each subsequent playthrough.

 

That is pretty much it....the game tries to have a story. You are on a journey to a portal (see image above) and you need to collect five keys in order to unlock it. You will find them all on the way and it's just a vehicle to make the game seem like more than just a puzzle game, but it's extremely thin. One playthrough has 92 levels and each level probably takes 3-5 minutes to beat. The layout of the levels are the only thing that adds any kind of variety, but the objective never changes in the main story....remove all the orbs before they reach the hole. The biggest downside to this game is that the difficulties do not stack and you need to beat each one in order to get the 100%. 92 levels isn't a lot of levels, until you have to do them three times....then it is a lot of levels. While Nightmare difficulty was quite a bit harder than hard, the only level that really gave me any trouble was level 60 on Nightmare mode. In this level, the placement of the shooter is right next to the hole and as the orbs get closer to you, there's not a lot of available orbs to shoot and it gets very hard. This level took me a good 20-30 tries to beat while every other level I was able to beat in three tries or less.

 

There are two additional modes they added in survival and challenge mode. They are both the same thing as the main game, it's just in survival, you have to stay alive in the level long enough to earn five stars. Earning five stars didn't take as long as you would think and wasn't very hard at all. Challenge mode was just as easy. You play the same level a number of times starting on easy until you get to very hard. There are like 25 levels I think? And you have to do each of them between three and five times. There wasn't much to it.

 

As I mentioned in the beginning, playing this with a touch screen made the game much easier (and more fun I think). You could just touch where on the screen you wanted the shooter to launch your orb and it would pretty much go there. With the other stacks of the game, you'd be forced to use the analog sticks to aim, which is significantly harder. When I started playing the game, I didn't realize you could use the touch pad and was using the analog on the Vita and it was pretty hard to aim accurately. I found out you could shoot by touching the screen by accident and it made the game a lot more fun. If you got this game for free as I did and want to play it, I would only recommend playing the Vita stack. I think the other's would be far too frustrating.

 

Overall the game is fine. I wouldn't recommend spending anything on it really since it wasn't that good, but if you like those Candy Crush/Bedazzled kind of games, you just might enjoy this one.

 

On my other gaming front, I've pretty much completed everything I can do in Rayman Legends except the awesomeness. I have six trophies left, but all but the awesomeness and lums trophies will pop once I beat the last music level. I'm saving that Diamond Cup for the end because I read that the awesomeness trophy sometimes doesn't pop correctly when it is the daily challenges that pop it so I am waiting until I have 5945 points of awesomeness before beating that level. Beating that level will give me the last of the lucky tickets so I can get the last of the creatures. For now, it's just logging in daily to do the challenges. Getting anything other than a bronze or silver is much harder in this version than the PS4 version. There's less than 200 people playing this game right now so to get a gold you need to be pretty good. I haven't gotten a single gold yet and I haven't even been close really to be honest. It looks like this grind is going to take a while since I can only reliably get silvers. I'm hoping there's another glitched diamond at some point to help boost that number, but I won't hold my breath.

 

On the console front, I've been playing Genshin Impact quite a bit. I'm having a lot of fun with it but it is going to be a grind. There is still a lot I have left to learn, but at least it's been fun so far. I hope everyone had a happy New Year's!

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 02/01/2022 at 5:01 AM, Briste said:

Ouch...jeez dude...you in a wheel chair for some time?


I had a wheelchair briefly but it didn’t get much use as I was bed bound for around 6 weeks because of my groin repair. By the time I was up and about my wrist was strong enough to use crutches ?

 

The Forgotten City sounds very cool. I’m a big fan of more obscure games by small teams so I’ve added this one to my wish list. Thanks for writing about the game! Hope you’re well mate! How’s your recovery coming along?

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13 hours ago, Briste said:

I need to start this review by giving credit to @realm722 for why I picked this game.

 

Woohoo! I'm so happy to read this ?, my job is accomplished if I'm able to convince just 1-2 people to check out the games I love that they otherwise wouldn't have played so you made my day. It really is the perfect brief game to play while you're embarking on lengthier experiences (in my case, Dragon Quest 11). 

 

I absolutely love the idea of someone repeating the same day over and over again and being in a time loop. If you love Groundhog Day, you may like a film from 2017 called "Before I Fall". I'd describe it as... Groundhog Day meets Mean Girls without the comedy. It's about teenage girls in high school so it may miss the mark but it scored a 8.7 / 10 for me movie wise. 

 

SPOILERS FOR THE FORGOTTEN CITY SO IM QUOTING IT

Spoiler
13 hours ago, Briste said:

I picked the one where I was an undercover agent or something which made me a 'Warrior' and gave me a gun. You only get 10 bullets for the duration of the game no matter how many times you loop, but when I was figuring out the controls, I shot someone by accident and broke the 'Golden Rule'...a few seconds later, someone was running at me and I thought they were attacking me so shot them....turns out that is the bad ending lol This game rewards conversation and investigation over brute force and it didn't like me going all 'Terminator' in an ancient civilization. The good news, is that is needed for a trophy and you can start from your last save right away so it was no big deal. One thing I liked with the different endings is that there is a 'Canon' ending for how the writers intended the story to be told, so it is good that you have to do that one.

 

LMAO - that's hilarious. If you're following the trophy guide that's actually what you're told to do. ? The image of you shooting Sentius as he's running at you thinking he's a bad guy and the game just ending must have been really damn funny. Then you discover later on he's actually a horrific person and all of a sudden don't feel so bad about it anymore. 

 

May I say - I also loved you noticing an aspect of the "skipping dialogue" that I appreciated in the moment but didn't include in my review. That design choice is genuinely brilliant. I remember getting peeved at Ash of Gods since if you didn't click the X ever so delicately, you could skip dialogue or add way more skill points to a power than intended. Very subtle, but hugely helpful design decision that also makes flying through the game a breeze without any headaches while cleaning up for trophies. 

 

Super happy to have you back around here again and look forward to more posts the rest of 2022!

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  • 2 months later...
On 1/20/2022 at 2:00 PM, realm722 said:

Super happy to have you back around here again and look forward to more posts the rest of 2022!

lol oops 

 

It's amazing how much dust collects when you neglect something for a while...It has been about three months since my last update and I have no real good reason other than I just haven't finished any games...I was bitten by the Genshin Impact bug (Thanks @Mesopithecus!) I've invested almost 400 hours in the game since Christmas. I'm enjoying it a lot (obviously) but will save anything I have to say for that write up. Considering how much time I've spent in the game, I'm saving that plat for a milestone since it deserves a spot on my wall.

 

While not finishing anything in a long time is a big reason I haven't posted, the biggest reason is mostly I've chosen not to. It's gotten crazy busy at work and I get a couple hours a night to myself and I've chosen to play games rather than write on the forum. I really haven't even read it much to be honest. I'll browse from my phone, but for the most part have been MIA from the forums. I enjoy the community quite a bit so will try to be better about making time for the forums since this site is a big reason why I enjoy trophy hunting so much. While 375-400 hours has been committed to Genshin, it's not the only thing I've been playing. I've just been playing some slogs. I've put another 50 hours into the Langrisser series, about 20 into Horizon (I'll probably finish this up next), been doing the Rayman Legends (vita) challenges each day (the struggle is real there), and I just put about 50-60 hours into my next completion...so without further ado....

 

Platinum #162

RJfUh4c.png

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

I have never been a COD fan. I played one of them once at a friends house on the XBOX after it came out and got absolutely murdered online. It wasn't a lot of fun and I just had written the series off for the most part. Flash forward a couple years to when I buy my PS3. When I bought the console I bought two games with it...Batman: Arkham City and Call of Duty: MW3. Why did I buy COD when I knew I didn't really like it? Well because I foolishly thought I might have a friend come over one day that would like to play it so wanted to have an MP game just in case. Needless to say, it stayed in the shrink wrap until a few months ago lol. I wasn't really planning on playing it, but last year's PS3 event got me to finish almost my entire PS3 backlog and I figured I paid full price for it...I should probably just play it. Turns out....I kind of like it.

 

The campaign was fun. It's not terribly long, but there's some challenging sections and it's a game that has very forgiving check points so you don't feel like you've wasted a ton of time if you take an unlucky grenade to the face or a GD dog jumps you from behind. Due to how friendly the check points are, Veteran difficulty didn't prove to be that tough (for the campaign anyways). There's not much to say about the story, just your generic kind of war story but the controls are tight, the graphics are good and it scratches an itch for an FPS game that I don't get too often. While the campaign wasn't too tough...Jeeesus some of the Special Ops missions were brutal.

 

Since I generally try to pop the platinum as my last trophy, I did all the DLC Spec Ops missions before doing the main game ones. They were pretty challenging on Veteran, but none were ridiculous. I was able to beat them all on my own without too much trouble. There were only a couple spots where you had to beat a timer and rush, but pretty much if you take it slow, you'll be able to beat the DLC missions since there didn't seem to be any infinite spawning points. While the DLC missions were doable solo, the main game missions were much more challenging.

 

Now I don't usually play these games since I mostly avoid Online Co-op/MP games like the plague. COD games have a reputation (at least from what I'd heard) for being a community of angry children who yell at you on their headset and I'm just too old for that shit. I avoided this game mostly for that reason and was determined to do it alone. While doing the DLC Spec Ops, I got a message from someone on PS that made me feel I was right in not doing it Co-Op (I'll have more on this later). But, the first Spec Ops Mission made me change my mind.

 

The very first Spec Ops mission is a training obstacle course that you need to complete in less than 28 seconds. When I say you have to hustle, I mean you have to hustle to get the mission done in time. I tried for a solid hour by myself and couldn't get it under 29 seconds. I watched a video and tried to mirror it and it didn't really help too much. It did show me that changing weapons was faster than reloading, but I just couldn't hit the section with 4 targets while I was moving and needed to stop to clear that section. You need to use pistols to do it quickly and I just couldn't get the timing right. I decided that I was going to have to try and make a gaming session to get someone to help me clear the missions. I had taken a couple of days off from work to relax since it has been crazy there and figured it'd be a good opportunity to try and get this done.

 

I made the session and got no hits for several days and thought I was going to be SOL. But, a couple days ahead of time I got a message from someone that was interested and then another wrote a message on the session and yet another signed up. I felt my odds were going to be good to get it done. While I wanted to do it with the person who messaged me first, I felt obligated to do it with the person who actually signed up for the session. One dude dropped out since he signed up as a place holder and wasn't actually available to play when I was able to play. One guy was very nice but just not terribly good. I'm not a great player and I was getting 15 kills to his 1. It took us two hours to beat the second mission (we skipped the first one) and he had to go. Thankfully, the first person that messaged me still wanted to give it a go and we were able to get five or six missions done in the next few hours. I lucked out in that he was better than me lol I carried my weight, but he was the true MVP and I have to give a thank you and a shout out to @VLAAMINGK_N1. Super nice guy and I had so much fun playing with him that I bought COD: MW2 so we could play again together (plus there's a trophy on there I want on my wall as #8000).

 

We had a good time playing and were able to knock out all of the Spec Ops trophies and Survival trophies during the past week. The hardest mission by far was Smack Town. The mission starts with you both totally exposed in a helicopter and if one of you dies, the mission ends. The good news is you will probably die early, within the first 30 seconds, so it isn't a huge waste of time when you fail, but the frustrating thing was just how weird the AI and game mechanics worked for that part. You'd blow up a truck with a grenade to have two guys jump out and start shooting at you. The hit box seemed off in that level and it took longer than both of us would probably want to admit to get through that section consistently. The good news is that is the hardest section and once you get through it, it's just a matter of taking your time and being safe and you can beat the level.

 

Anyways, the game ended up being a ton of fun and it was mostly due to how fun it was to beat the Spec Ops missions with someone. It was a bit grindy to wrap it up, but none of it felt like that much of a chore. I obviously like it enough that I bought MW2 and I won't necessarily shy away from these games going forward. Not sure how much I want to play 'Zombies' mode or if I want to spend the money on the newer ones, but I'll definitely play the Remasters probably at some point.

 

So, back to my weird interaction when I was working on the DLC....

 

Question: Is the term carry generally viewed as a derogatory term? Like I get it could be if it is said like 'you suck so bad you need a carry'...but like is it a taboo word to use in these games? I'll post my conversation below, but I super offended this person because I used the term carry. I think this dude was a bit sensitive, but since I never play these games, I was genuinely confused at the response and just wanted to get some thoughts on here. 

k4PPjcX.png

 

Was what I said offensive?

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Congrats for the Call of Duty, I am just here to say....

The actual difficulty of the game does not lie in the platinum, but in figuring out what the heck was that guy's problem in the screenshots xD that was some 5D chess level of convoluted thinking he was having.  Guess too much CoD eliteness does affect the brain...

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@Briste sounds like they might have some mental health problems. The word carry does insinuate that you play and the other person is passive due to lack of skill or effort on their part but the response was so disproportionate. A normal response would have been to thank you but say I’m not looking for a carry. 

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On 4/17/2022 at 4:21 AM, Rally-Vincent--- said:

That guy's problem is not with you, he has some issues he carries around. Oh no, did I insult his issues? Didn't want to, his issues clearly can hold out on their own.

lol considering the follow up conversation I had with the dude today, that clip is even funnier

 

On 4/18/2022 at 2:41 AM, Copanele said:

Congrats for the Call of Duty, I am just here to say....

The actual difficulty of the game does not lie in the platinum, but in figuring out what the heck was that guy's problem in the screenshots xD that was some 5D chess level of convoluted thinking he was having.  Guess too much CoD eliteness does affect the brain...

thanks! That's kind of why I kept talking to him, I couldn't figure out the chess game and legitimately was wondering what the eff was going on. I've considered changing my username to Almighty_Briste after that conversation....but I'll let that stew for a while.

 

On 4/18/2022 at 4:31 AM, DrBloodmoney said:

Cripes... there's only really one reasonable response to that dude...

 

wth-what-the-hell.gif

 

This speaks to me lol I didn't close the door fast enough but the look and the baseball bat about cover it

 

On 4/18/2022 at 5:04 AM, JoesusHCrust said:

@Briste sounds like they might have some mental health problems. The word carry does insinuate that you play and the other person is passive due to lack of skill or effort on their part but the response was so disproportionate. A normal response would have been to thank you but say I’m not looking for a carry. 

That's part of the reason I kept the conversation going as long as I did. The guy seemed to be extremely stressed out and if that's how most of his social interactions go....I can imagine it is hard for him to find someone to play with. Some times everyone just needs someone to talk to and I was trying to apologize and start over, but he just wasn't interested.

 

This is also the reason why I responded when he messaged me today. At this point I can't tell if he's a troll that keeps messaging me since I'll respond to him or if there's some serious emotional issues going on here. After this conversation though, I'm leaning toward the latter.

qnNaNF6.png

I legitimately hope this guy gets it some day...seems like this is all he has going for him. It's a bit creepy that he stalked my profile to see if/when I 100% the game so he could call me a liar. In all honesty, I still would have helped the guy if he asked or at least carried on the conversation like a human being. I still won't block the dude just in case he wants to have a civil conversation some day. 

 

Not to poke fun at it after but a little to poke fun at it after....at least he had some pretty meme worthy sentences he threw at me.

 

I made this one as a joke with my Discord buddies:

 

UhLr24k.jpg

 

and then someone else in the group posted this one:

 

prB7DGQ.png

 

 

Edited by Briste
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4 hours ago, Briste said:

 

I legitimately hope this guy gets it some day...seems like this is all he has going for him. It's a bit creepy that he stalked my profile to see if/when I 100% the game so he could call me a liar. In all honesty, I still would have helped the guy if he asked or at least carried on the conversation like a human being. I still won't block the dude just in case he wants to have a civil conversation some day. 

You used the word "carried". You triple insulted him there. You shouldn't have gotten 100% COD with that language sir!

 

Damn, that dude is wild xD I've had many weird chats with weird people before, but never to this extent. Getting flamed for some random word that wasn't even an insult, then completing a game just to be stalked and called a 

star-wars-anakin.gif

 

Yeah that's on a complete different level ? that COD completion was really worth it lol.

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