Life often catches up with you, that much we all know to be true. Lately, between working my ass off and spending time with those I love I haven’t had many chances to do what I enjoy- which is play video games. It happens to most of us, eventually you become a responsible adult, and you run out of time to do the things you enjoy most. Unless, of course, you make a living playing video games, and if you do well then cherish that shit like there’s no tomorrow. Regardless, the point to all of this is that I haven’t had much time to play games.
This weekend my girlfriend is going away to visit a friend, and aside from a little extra work and some school assignments I have nothing planned. That being said, guess what I’ll be doing all weekend! If you guessed lounging around in my underwear playing hours upon hours of video games, then you guessed right! Sure, I’ll have to throw some work and schoolwork into the mix, but who cares about all that jazz.
So, without further ado, here are the titles that I expect to play this weekend and why (if you don’t give a shit then move along, it’s all I have for you):
Final Fantasy IX
I don’t know why, but I’ve had this serious fucking hankering lately to throw it back old school. I’ve been thinking about a lot of classic games that I really enjoyed, and Final Fantasy IX is actually one of them.
I know, many Final Fantasy fans prefer other titles in the series like VII or even X, but what really got me about IX is that the theme reminded me so much of Chrono Cross. Chrono Cross is definitely a much more expansive game with tons of endings and replayability, but I actually play it quite often on my PSP (when I have time anyway).
I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to play Final Fantasy IX, possibly on my PSP, via a PC with an emulator or maybe I’ll even dig out my old disc and PSX system to do it true retro style. Either way, I know this is a title I’m going to waste a few hours on this weekend.
Guild Wars 2
I rarely spend time with MMOs, because eventually you reach this wall where everything just seems to stop being fun. I have no fucking clue how people are still wasting time on World of Warcraft, but hey that’s a personal opinion- more power to you folks.
Guild Wars 2 is expansive, and the world is dynamic, which means it’s always changing. In addition, it’s the sequel to my favorite MMORPG of all time- Guild Wars. What I love about the original is that it actually took skill to play PVP, because it was balanced well. Most MMOs you win based on skills and level alone. Even though the developers have upped the level cap from 20 to 80 in Guild Wars 2, the skill balance has remained pretty much the same.
There’s a ton of shit to do while playing too. In fact, the game has expanded so much that I hardly even know what to do with myself anymore while I’m playing. Believe me, that’s a good thing. You can bet your ass I’ll be wasting some of my time in the world of Tyria.
Tales of Illyria
I know, I know you’re probably thinking “Jesus the fucking gall this guy has.” I can understand why, it’s yet another shameless plug for a game that I had my hand in developing. Seriously though, it’s a fantastic game, and even though I helped write some of the events I didn’t actually develop the combat and gameplay mechanics- that stuff was done by another group of team members entirely. The game is still a pretty fresh experience for me too.
On top of that, I recently picked up a HiSense Sero 7 Pro tablet from Wal-Mart ($149), which is like a Nexus 7 clone. I’ve been playing the hell out of games on it, and it works damn good thanks to the Tegra 3 processor inside. Tales of Illyria is one of the games that I’ll be wasting time with. I also plan to add a few new events to the game over the weekend, so if you do play there’s that news too.
Humble Indie Bundle 8
HIB8 is a pretty big indie bundle with a ton of games (it was Vulgamified recently too so be sure to check that out). Naturally, since I bought the bundle I’m going to play the included games to get my money’s worth. I want to experience what some of the titles have to offer. Plus, there’s the fact that the Humble Bundle is always adding new games to the deal after the fact, and they just added four new ones. I have to go play those too.
Minecraft: Pocket Edition
Yes, I’m a shameless lover of Minecraft. I’ve heard many call it a construction sim for dorks, but I find it to be so much more than that. Of course, the desktop and Xbox 360 versions are way more expansive than the Pocket Edition.
However, Mojang just introduced the 0.70 update for Minecraft: PE which implements several new features like:
- Alpha of Realms servers
- Buckets
- Fire
- Smooth lighting
- Spawn eggs
- Chat
- Egg, milk and cake
- Connecting players inventory is now saved on server
- New menus
In other words, they added a whole bunch of new shit, and now I’m going to go play the game to see what all the fuss is about. Plus, I love Minecraft. Did I say that already?
That’s my weekend incarnate
Well, there you have it those are the titles I’ll be playing this weekend. If you cared enough to read this far, why don’t you leave a comment below and point out some of the titles that you’ll be playing.
Oh, and I expect to make this a monthly thing. I’m pretty sure I can handle posting once a month on this. Maybe… I dunno, we’ll see.
