prettyunsmart

I just had a fun series of fights with Aldrich. Two fights in a row, here's where his health bar ended up: This time around, I finally won, only to die immediately after thanks to the cloud of purple ghost things he had just shot off. Yay?

By the glowy enemies do you mean

I'm working my way through the catacombs and I just died in a way that would have been annoying if I didn't find it so funny.

So I just finished it up ("I did it!"). It turns out, I was making a few key mistakes. I wasn't wearing gear with fire resistance. I was refusing to switch from my giant mega mace which was too slow to sneak in hits during openings in their combos. Also, I had misunderstood what the bone shards were for, so I was still working with a base level flask in spite of having found three upgrades for it. Whoops. In any case, I made it through. I'm sure it all gets easier from here. Right?

Wow. So I feel like I hit a wall difficulty-wise. I've fought the Abyss Watchers more times than I can count and all I can really think to do differently is to "stop getting hit." I don't want to summon a Sun bro and just take the easy way out, but right now I don't see myself getting past it just by grinding a bit. Logically, I know that this is one of those "walk away from it for a while and it will be better when you come back" kind of things, but for now, each time I try I just get and more discouraged.

I'm in one of those loops where I keep fighting a boss and the boss keeps killing me even though I know exactly what I need to do to beat it. Probably time for a break.

I only got to play a few matches as my Saturday turned out to be really busy, but I really liked what I played of it. I really liked playing medic with Mercy. Zooming from ally to ally keeping everyone healed and buffed was pretty fun, and doing it with an ability that basically let me fly was pretty neat.

Fashion Souls: Working my "Hollow Darth Revan" look. I had my first real moment of exhaustion playing this game in the Cathedral of the Deep. I was so relieved when I found a shortcut back to the bonfire I had been using. But the map just seems to keep going and going.

I've been running with the Butcher Knife for a little while and while the stats aren't the greatest, the health recovery has been really nice to have. And I figure that the A scaling will make up for the "meh" stats as I level up. The moveset is pretty fun too. Faster than you'd think it would be for a giant hunk of metal. EDIT: Actually, I just switched over to the first boss soul weapon. It is really slow but damn does it hit hard. And it looks funny with my skinny little dude carrying it one handed.

I tried to do something different this time around and play a caster, but around the time I hit the first major boss after the Tower bonfire, I just wanted to put on heavy armor and swing a giant sword. So, like with every Souls game before, I'm starting over with a different class after a few hours. Whee!

So I ended up buying Turbo after reading some reviews and watching the Quick Look. The look and feel of the game are both really great. Everything surrounding the races (menus, UI design, etc.) is all a massive improvement over the ManiaPlanet setup. Jumping from environment to environment online or solo is also pretty great. Online races just don't feel as good. I miss the Jurassic Park dubstep remixes of the Giant Bomb server and the unreasonably complicated user created tracks. I even miss the stupid horn sounds. I ended up playing Turbo for as long as I wanted to play by myself and then switching over to stadium when I wanted some weird music and online play.

Trackmania Turbo comes out tomorrow for PC, and Giant Bomb's Quick Look left me feeling unsure about it: I thought seeing Jeff play it would help push me one way or the other, but I'm still not sure if I want to pick it up. How are you all feeling about it?

When I think the best of myself, I think that playing the game for 5 minutes at a time throughout the day is a nice way to take a break from whatever I should be doing. When I think the worst of myself, I think that a game that reminds you to play it every 3 hours (even if only for five minutes) is probably not a smart thing for me to get into.

Against my better judgment, I started playing Clash Royale after hearing Brad from Giant Bomb talk about it a bunch. I only just started, but I can see why people get hooked on these things. The matches are nice and short, but there's way more strategy to it than I would have thought. The progression and deckbuliding mechanics are pretty well done. I haven't gotten in deep enough to really feel the pressure to spend any money on it, but I'm sure that will happen eventually. Has anyone else made this horrible life choice? EDIT: I will say that the way the game handles rewards after each match is both brilliant and evil. You get a chest for every win that takes 3-24 hours to open, or you can use premium currency to speed it up. If you refuse to pay, it makes you open the app consistently throughout the day, which I'm sure is meant to lead to some habit forming behavior.

I bought the Star Wars Humble Bundle, but I already have copies of: KOTOR 2 Battlefront 2 Dark Forces Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight PM me if you want any of them (50 post, nice person rules apply).

I find myself agreeing with this RPS non-review, which is appropriately titled "Why The Division Is Better Than You Think." It's a well made cover shooter that's a lot more fun when played with people, but it has a story that's mostly forgettable and some tasks and enemies repeat too often. Somehow, though, when I'm in the middle of a mission, or when I find a better piece of gear, or when I'm waiting for the helicopter in the dark zone, I don't mind the repetition too much. I'd say that it is "good" (probably not great) for the kind of thing that it is trying to be, which you could sum up as third person Destiny. But I am enjoying it quite a bit.

Yeah, the fact that you can trap someone at the exit by attacking them sucks too.

That is good to hear. I had been feeling like the game was mostly alright as I was playing it as a co-op shooter with some friends. But once I got into the Dark Zone, it really started to grab me. I wandered around for a while with an IRL friend and Dewar and it was pretty great. We ended up teaming up with another group and even got to fight a couple of over confident rogues.

I like that boss fights can break down into a big bad and a bunch of little guys, but I'm a bit disappointed that many of the big bads seem to be pretty similar. And most obnoxiously, many of them seem to be built on the "large flamethrower man" model, just with varying degrees of health. The encounters and the environments vary enough, it's just kind of underwhelming that there isn't much uniqueness to each boss character.

My approach has been to save the repetitive side stuff for when I'm just roaming around by myself (usually while listening to podcasts). Then I can save the meatier missions for when I'm grouped up with friends. So far it's been really great. Except for that time when two of my group members who had just finished the tutorial thought it was a great idea to set a level 8 mission to hard mode our first time through. That did not go well for us.

So far I've only played up to the missions that were in the beta, but I'm really enjoying it so far. Division Agent dress up is clearly the best part of this game. I found a fuzzy hunting hat and I've been wearing it proudly. I'm smart.89 on Uplay if anyone wants to team up. EDIT: I'm on PC, if that matters.

Seriously, super rad. It's not unusual to see people give away extra keys from Humble Bundles, but a brand new $60 game is super generous.

For anyone who is still on the fence about this game, . It's not a review, but at least its a way to get a look at the final product ahead of release.

I'm planning on waiting a few days after release to see how people find the full game. I enjoyed the beta, but I'd like to hear how it all holds up for more than a few hours. If I do end up getting it, I'll be playing on PC and would like to team up with other thumbs for fun and profit.