Tag Archives: Games

Fatigued

Posted on by
Reply

Winnie the Pooh in Stormsong Valley!

I like this picture. I like that Blizzard put Winnie the Pooh into their game with all his friends. Its one of the many easter eggs of Battle for Azeroth. But it’s not my topic for today. Rather I’d want to talk about fatigue on multiple fronts. A type of fatigue I’ve been noticing a lot lately and which I want to talk about to get it off my chest.

The past three years I’ve been working for a big Dutch retail company at their headquarters. I started out as a simple Data Entry employee getting paid thanks to a w2 generator top tool. Along the way my role shifted to less entry work and more organizing work. Yet the 8 hour screen days stayed. Right now I’m in a role where I am a direct link between a part of the commerce department and the data management department. Even though my screentime has been reduced a bit and has been replaced by meetings I still feel like I’m a slave to the machine so I try to take a lot of breaks away from staring at a screen all day.
The funny thing is though that as gamer when I come home from staring at a screen for approximately 8 hours each day I then spend my evening staring at a screen again. And this is causing me some fatigue issues. I just can’t bring myself to spend so much time infront of screens anymore. I’m trying to stay away from any and all screens the moment I get onto the train home untill after dinner. This means my eyes and my brain can rest a bit and I actually do take that time, which is about 1-1.5 hours to lay down and rest. I feel like I need to reset and restore my energy for the rest of the evening like that and if I don’t I notice that I get headaches and sleep worse at night.

This fatigue is also causing me to start to dislike gaming in general. I just can’t seem to bring myself to play anything on certain days, mostly because my brain subconciously steers me away from the screens. There is a screen overload, especially when you factor in smartphones and tablets, and I’m pretty sure as human I’m not supposed to treat my body or my eyes the way I do it now. I’m lucky that I don’t have to wear glasses yet and that I know when to take breaks away from sitting down too long or in a wrong position. I’ve never experienced RSI or any discomfort in my shoulders or neck due to sitting the wrong way. But I do experience fatigue and tiredness when it comes to screens and instead of powering through it I think I need to learn when to step away and do something else. I’m trying to start a workout routine where I just spend time at the gym or at home doing some light workout for about an hour. It’s a nice way to empty the mind and to not put strain on the eyes while also keeping my body used and it’s most definitely better for me than sitting on my butt 24/7.

Does this mean that I’m going to give up gaming completely on some nights? Maybe I will. I’m not really sure about that yet, maybe I’ll restrict myself to only playing for an hour. Maybe by the time I finish my workout I’m so tired that I just want to take a shower and go straight to bed. I’ve done this before where I’d go to the gym and get home around 21.00, take a shower and something to drink and then just head straight to bed. Other nights I’d have a bit more energy and I would game for an hour or so before giving up and closing down shop for the evening. When I did this though I felt less fatigue when it came to staring at screens but also less fatigued when it came to gaming itself. I wonder if I get back to that routine I will have more joy from gaming aswell. I guess we’ll see in the near future. For now though I will probably spend one of two evenings less on a game filled night and more on recharging my batteries and making sure I don’t ruin my body and my eyes too much.

Blaugust Topic: Getting to know me!

Posted on by
Reply

In the spirit of Blaugust’s “Getting to know me” week I guess I could write another more personal post. I talk about personal stuff on this blog from time to time and it always feels a bit weird to tell your “life story” as it were to complete strangers online.

I mentioned earlier that I got my first gaming console, a Sega Genesis, when I was around the age of 6 and my first handheld around the age of 9. I never really was a big gamer growing up though. I was the outdoors girl that was always playing outside with my childhood best friend and her little brother. We grew up in an amazing small urban area with lots of green and lots of places to hang out as kids. We had trees and structures we could climb. There were parks with playgrounds nearby and we had mothers who didn’t work fulltime and thus could take us to indoor playgrounds or the forest to play. It was mostly a carefree time and the only time I really played my games was during the evenings when I couldn’t go out to play or when it was really really bad weather outside. 
At some point my bestie got a Playstation one and we would alternate between my and her house when it was bad weather and just play whatever console (or handheld) was available to us.

Around the end of elementary school I got my own computer and I slowly got into PC gaming as result. My very own computer was really a hand-me-down from my dad but I could play games on it that I loved so I was happy. Back then I really enjoyed the A2-Racer and Redcat games, both published by Davilex, a Dutch gaming studio. Google the titles and be amazed!
After that I slowly rolled into Rollercoaster Tycoon and Zoo Tycoon and then ultimately the Sims. I was blissfully unaware of online games and I didn’t spend that much time playing games at all. I remember getting myself a Playstation 2 near the end of it’s cycle and a Nintendo DS a bit before that. Even though my DS saw a lot of game time, with Pokémon Black taking the cake with most hours played, my Playstation 2 never saw the love it deserved. I still have it together with a pile of games that I always inteded to play but alas. Maybe somewhere in the future I’ll find the time for it.

When I was around 17-18 I was introduced to World of Warcraft by my then boyfriend. I found it a fascinating game. It looked amazing, the world was huge, I could make and customize my own character and I was hooked on it from the first minute. I’m still hooked on it today. WoW has been the high and lowlight of my life. I’ve made friends through that game, even boyfriends, and lost people aswell. As I grew older I kept upgrading atleast my handheld. I still own multiple 3DS today (and 2DS). I also jumped on the Playstation 4 wagon fairly early on and I have gotten some decent gameplay out of that. I picked up a WiiU two years ago and have picked up a Switch last year.
 
I only now realize that I’ve put myself in a bit of a pickle where I just own too many consoles and too many games to really be able to enjoy them. The simple times where I only owned one thing are gone and making decisions on what to play become harder every day. This also has led me to try out multiple MMO’s over the years. Guild Wars 2, Wildstar, SWToR, the Secret World and FFXIV all passed the revue. Only the latter stuck. And even now I find it hard to maintain my presence in both WoW and FFXIV even though if I plan it right I should be easily able to play both. And that’s not even factoring all my single player games in. It’s probably a struggle that will never end for me and I hope that I someday find out how to handle my time better than I do now. And if I don’t well.. We’ll see.

When Gaming is Unhealthy

Posted on by
2

Today I took of my mother’s wedding ring. I’ve had this ring on my left middle finger for years. I’ve never taken it off. Yet today I have. Because today I realized that if I don’t take it off now, they may have to cut it off my finger in a few years if I keep going the way I do.

I’ve never been an extremely skinny person. Well maybe as a kid. I used to be a gymnast and would train two times a week followed by competitions on the weekends. I also swam and played outside a lot during those days. I was skinny then. Healthy, happy and pretty strong for a girl my age. 
When I hit puberty I started getting curves. I had, and still have, above average breasts. I suddenly got hips and I started to get a bit chubby. However with our mandatory gym classes and me dancing two times a week you didn’t really notice. During high school I’ve never once felt fat. I’ve never once felt the need to lose weight or to look at myself in the mirror and feel like my clothes didn’t fit me right. I was normal, or as normal as you could expect any 16 year old to be. I also didn’t game.

When I started University I also started to gain weight. I spent a lot of my time gaming and quit sports alltogether. I managed to get back on track around the end of my education when I was working for the Dutch National mail. Especially the two months of summer where I would be delivering mail 5 days a week. I walked 3 hours a day then, atleast, and was at a healthy weight which made me happy. I didn’t game as much then and was much more focused on my social life and being healthy.

Right now however I’m the heaviest I’ve ever been. So heavy infact that it’s starting to give me issues. I have a lot of backpains. I’ve developed asthma. My legs, and calves in particular, hurt a lot when I have to walk for an extended amount of time. My feet have gotten wider and I have painful spots on my toes that I’ve never had before. All in all I am in the worst shape of my life and I have no idea where to start breaking this circle. A large part of it comes down to me not getting enough movement in during the day. Especially on the weekends where I like to sit and game a lot I notice that I should be up and about instead. It’s hard and it’s affecting my health. I’ve always noticed a correlation that I become unhealthy when I spend more time on games. Games are a way for me to escape the harsh reality that I should not sit on my ass all day and evening and instead do something more healthy with my time. It’s hard to motivate yourself though, especially when just sitting down and gaming is so easy.

I’m trying to take more breaks from my games. I try to spend more time on the crosstrainer we have in the attic. I try to spend my lunch breaks walking in town so that I get a bit of movement in. I don’t really live in a very wooded area or an area where you want to go outside and walk. Yet I think I’ll have to find some way to enjoy myself outside and away from games more. Before they do actually have to cut off jewellry…

It’s 2017?

Posted on by
Reply

It’s really odd coming back to my blog after this long of an absence. I’ve not really been in the mood to write for a long time now. Mostly because I feel I don’t really have something to say. But I guess I’ll take up my pen (well technically my keyboard) and start some writing again, because it’s 2017 and I get to start fresh!

I remember making a huge list of gaming goals for 2016, one that was probably a bit too enthusiastic. Mostly because it entailed finishing about 6 very long RPG’s while knowing that I can’t manage time for shit. So I want to throw that list out and start anew for 2017. No more year lists. Instead I want to draw off of other people’s blogs and make a monthly “to do” list for my games, something I have done in the past.
If you are curious about what I did manage to accomplish in 2016…

On the MMO front I have gotten three classes in FFXIV to max level. Almost four. My Astrologian is about 1/4th off a level off dinging 60. I’ve gotten all but three 2.0 relics and I do plan to go back to those and get them, but right now I want to focus on getting all my battle classes to max level. In August my FFXIV routine got severely disrupted with the launch of Legion. I’ve been immersed into WoW ever since and my Warrior is geared up nicely and has two Artifact weapons sitting at rank 35 (Fury) and 34 (Protection) respectively. Speaking about weapons… I am working on the current Ninja relic. The Umbrites and Sands step is taking quite a while though, but I am slowly progressing through. Seeing as how I’m planning to play more I should be able to make a lot of headway on gathering those materials.
I’ve also dabbled a bit in the Secret World, something I want to continue doing about once a week or so. I really like the different style of MMO that it represents and I hope that I can run it even better once I am able to obtain the new PC that I’m planning to buy around my birthday in March.

On the other games front I’ve played a little bit of everything. I’ve spent a lot of time on various platformers on my 3DS and also playing Pokémon. I’ve finished Kirby: Planet Robobot, New Super Mario Bros. 2 and the 50 and 100cc championships of Mario Kart 7 on my 3DS. Next to that I’m slowly working my way through Pokémon Moon at the moment, and have just arrived at the third island. After I finish up the mainstory of Pokémon I’ll probably pick up a game on my PS4 to play, most likely FFXV, while I’ll fall back to a platformer for my 3DS. I’ve realized I can only handle one RPG at a time, while I can play platformers to keep myself busy.

So yeah. I have been playing games, just not writing about them. I have been taking a lot of screenshots aswell, especially in WoW so I will share them when I have the chance. I want to take a lot more screenshots in general, so look forward to that!
And maybe, just maybe, once I start writing a little bit more again, I’ll start producing some better content. For now though I wish everyone the best for 2017 and let’s make it count gaming and blogging wise.

June Recap

Posted on by
Reply

A bit late, but I want to look back at June, my gaming goals, and what I’ve achieved from them.
I didn’t set that many goals for myself since I really wanted to take my vacation time to relax and I knew once I had to go back to work there was a big chance I’d be working for 40 hours a week… And I was right. That seriously cut down my gaming time, but well.
Let’s see what I’ve done!

MMO Goals

  • Level Machinist to 50 on FFXIV
  • Unlock all 3.3 content on FFXIV
  • Do the Golden Saucer event on both my Moogle and Cactuar character
  • Get 100k gold on WoW Alliance side (currently sitting on 83k)
  • Start working on the 300 toys achievement in WoW (currently sitting on 102)

Blizzard Games

  • Reach rank 20 in Hearthstone
  • Reach level 15 in Overwatch
  • Finish Chapter 4 of the Diablo Season
  • Play HotS and unlock another Hero (Lunara or Chromie)

Consoles and Handhelds

  • Defeat the second gym in Pokémon X
  • Defeat the 4th gym in Pokémon Blue
  • Play through chapter 8 and some side missions in Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright
  • Play through the House of Gales in Legend of Zelda: A Link between Worlds
  • Ratchet and Clank: PLAY IT!

In FFXIV I’ve made some decent progress. I’ve gotten my MCH to 50 and my WVR to 60! The introduction of the Moogle daily quests have boosted my crafter a lot and it’s the first one to 60 for me so I’m super proud of myself. I’ve also been working on my relic upgrade and am only 20 items off now! Just the final push left to finally being able to upgrade my daggers.

In other games, well I’ve done my rank 20 in Hearthstone and I have played some Overwatch, just not to level 15. I’m way over 100k gold in WoW and I have gotten some toys… Most notably from the Midsummer Festival.
Although I only defeated the second gym in Pokémon X from the list I’ve also finally managed to finish New Super Mario Bros 2 on my 3DS, one of the games I wanted to kill the endboss of this year! So I’m really happy about that and I’m also happily fighting my way through DKC: Returns on my 3DS aswell.

All in all I’ve gotten some stuff done and other stuff not so much. In FFXIV I’ll probably be mostly focussing on finishing my relic next month and as for the rest… I’ll have to think.

Sun, Games and Planning

Posted on by
Reply

IMG_1261

It’s always a sad moment when you find yourself sitting in your room, typing up a blog post when only two days ago you were still enjoying the amazing sun in Lisbon, Portugal. I really wanted to go down to southern Europe for a vacation or citytrip this year. Here in the Netherlands the sun is scarce and temperatures are often cold. We don’t really have a summer to speak of, not in the way southern Europe has so I never really get a chance to tan or enjoy the weather here. So way back in March I decided I wanted to go on a citytrip to Lisbon, dragged a friend along, and there we were.
I have to say it’s a seriously amazing city. The weather was great, even though we had clouds on our second day, the food was good and cheap and the people were nice and all spoke English very well, something a few other countries can learn from *stares at France*. The climate alone has me wanting to go back to Portugal for atleast a proper vacation. It’s a beautiful country and I really want to explore more of it, but that will be something for in the future. Now real life has started back up again and I’m only 4 days off going back to work.

Super Mario Time
I took my 3DS with me to Portugal and managed to get a lot of time to play New Super Mario Bros. 2. As you all may remember, or maybe not, one of my goals for this year was to finish that game since it’s one of the first games I bought with my original 3DS and I never really finished it. So 3 hours back and forth on an airplane would be an ideal time to atleast work through some of the levels… And I have! When I started out a few days ago I was still sitting at the first level of world two, now I’m halfway through world four! Which means I only have two worlds left to complete after this.
I’m not running a perfect game, when the big coins you get in every level are too hard to reach I just skip them, but I do try to obtain them wherever I can. Then there’s the issue of seeing hidden levels and not really knowing how to get there, not even to mention the two complete worlds that you need to access via a special way. I will look up how to get there eventually, but for now I just want to aim to defeat the last boss… And then go back to unlock additional stuff.
Next to Super Mario I’ve also spent a lot of time playing FFXIV. I have unlocked all the patch 3.3 content there is on my Moogle character next to being on time to finish the Golden Saucer event on both my characters. I also dinged my MCH level 50, so I’m quite a way in when it comes to my gaming goals for this month! I even switched over to Monk now and she is sitting at level 42. I hope I can push that to 50 aswell before the end of the month.
All in all my gaming comes along really nicely. Which brings me to my next topic…

Planning my life
I am hopeless when it comes to starting and completing things. A lot of my time is spent either staring into the abyss or lying on my bed feeling tired when I’m home from work. I have real issues deciding what I want to do on any given day, and when I have decided it takes me forever to get my butt into gear and go. I think the foundation of this lies in the fact that I’m a very chaotic person who on top of that is quite unmotivated to do a lot of things. So I decided to set things straight and start using Google Calendar to plan my days and sync said calendar to both my iPhone and my tablet. Although I don’t really plan every minuscule detail for every minute there is a bit more structure to my days now, which allows me to actually get stuff done. As example I “reserved” an hour to blog today (from 10-11am). I probably won’t use the entire hour this time, but sometimes when I have a bit of a writer’s block I do need an entire hour to blog, so that gives me some space to work with. It also helps me settle down and actually write instead of thinking “I should blog sometime today” and then just not do it.
The same goes for planning my gametime. I realise that sitting on my butt and gaming all day on my days off is just as bad as sitting on my butt in the office all day… So I’ve been hacking my gametime into 1 or 2 hour periods inbetween doing other stuff like chores, working out or appointments. I’ve also decided to already fill in those chunks of gametime because I know myself too well. If I don’t plan in advance what game I want to turn my attention to I will never play anything but FFXIV, and that’s seriously a shame. Obviously 1-2 hours isn’t enough to really get into the big RPG’s and thus I’m saving those for the weekends when I have more time to play and I can fill more blocks with one single game. Instead I’m choosing mostly platformers that I want to play and can play for an hour or so and then just shut down without feeling like I should be playing more or that I forget where I was.
This whole system is still more or less in a testing phase, but I do hope that I can start using my time better and actually feel like I’ve accomplished something, instead of now where I wish I had done a lot of things in hindsight.

The Backlog part 3.1: Oldschool Handhelds

Posted on by
Reply

A few weeks ago I did a backlog post of my current games on my current generation consoles/handhelds and PC. In the first post I promised I’d also do a backlog of all my older games, to show you all the collection I built up over the years and to sketch how my gaming habits and ownership has changed over the years. Seeing as my oldschool backlog is quite big I’m splitting it up into two or three separate posts, the first of which will be today and will cover my gaming career on handhelds.
So without further ado, let’s start with the first 10 years of my life in gaming which was dominatied mostly by Nintendo and their Gameboys.
IMG_1181

As you can see I have a reasonable collection of Gameboy games. I tried to divide them up by placing them under the type of Gameboy that was needed to play them, hence the “weird” row placements. I started out with a Gameboy Pocket and Pokémon Blue when I was about eight or nine years old. Pokémon was all the rage at the time and a lot of my friends were playing with Gameboys. Add up the fact that we would travel to birthdays and family a lot during the weekends, and those drives would take 1-2 hours every time, my parents decided to get me a Gameboy to keep me busy in the car and at some family events where I would be the only kid. I can’t even begin to describe how many hours I played on that thing and of all the games you see in the left row there’s literally three I haven’t 100% completed. These are Super Mario Land 1, Kirby’s Dream World and Bugs Bunny. I’m pretty sure you couldn’t really complete the Bugs Bunny game though, it was kind of like pacman where levels just got gradually harder untill you died. Super Mario Land didn’t have a save option so although I’ve played it a lot I could never get to the endboss of the game in one go. Kirby is actually a game I picked up way later and played for a bit, but never completed. I think I spent the most time on my Pokémon games. As you can see I own a lot of them (the only Gameboy game I actually lack is Pokémon Leafgreen, which I did own but gave to an ex-boyfriend as birthday present). Unfortunately Silver and Gold no longer work due to empty battery, but I don’t want to know how many hours I’ve sunk into all of those games.
The Gameboy Color generation was next and there I’ve only not completed Hamtaro (I remember being quite far in though) and Animorphs. Animorphs I didn’t really understand, but I’m willing to pick it up again. The Tetris game was more one for my mom to play with and I believe she still has the high score on that particular cassette so I don’t really want to touch it.
I got my Gameboy Advance SP after my mom passed away. I’ve played with this for about 5 years untill I bought my DS Lite. Unfortunately I’m missing two games on this picture which I think I left at my ex’s place and thus will never see again. I managed to rebuy Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories but I’m still looking for the original Sonic Advance to complete my collection. I’m also considering getting Pokémon Leafgreen again just so I have all the old Gameboy generations complete. I have completed less of those games than on previous generations. I gamed less during highschool and only got introduced to WoW when I was 17 and that took up so much time that I didn’t really look at my handhelds anymore. I did complete quite a few games, most notably the Pokémon games and the Crash Bandicoot games. I do intend to go back and play through the rest, starting with my recently re-obtained Kingdom Hearts game.

On to the next generation!

IMG_1200

When I was about 18 I bought my first Nintendo DS with my own money. Although I never really acquired that many games for it, I think I had enough to keep me busy for a while. I bought it when it was out for quite a bit already and the bundle came with Need for Speed Most wanted (which I completed) and Fifa 06 (which I honestly didn’t touch at all). Again I have  quite a few Pokémon games and I have completed all of them except Diamond, which I didn’t acquire untill much later. Children of Mana was a game which I played a whole lot aswell, it was very grindy and hard but fun to play. I don’t think I’ve defeated the last boss so technically not completed, but boy the amount of hours I sunk into that. Zoo Tycoon was very much a nostalgia buy and I played around with it for a bit. Nintendogs was just plain cute and I did unlock a lot of puppies, but eventually my enthusiasm for the game died down. Sonic Rush was a gift from my ex and Bleach I had to buy as fangirl, neither games I have completed though.
Kawasaki’s More Braintraining was very hip at the time so I obviously had to have it, and I did use it a lot. As far as Final Fantasy III goes. I do remember playing a bit of it, but I never finished that one either. The only thing on this picture that I really regret buying is the Nintendo DS Browser. Before the smartphone area Nintendo offered a way to use the internet on your DS. I bought it and used it a bit but in hindsight it was a real waste of money. Oh well, you can’t buy awesome things all the time right?

I hope you guys liked looking at my “oldschool” handheld collection. I have actually completed a lot of these games, especially the Gameboy and Pokémon ones. I think it’s due to being a kid and not having that much money to spend on yourself. I would only get new games when I had saved up enough pocket money to buy one or when it was my birthday or a special occassion. I guess lack of choice makes you appreciate more what you have and actually play it fully before moving on to another game. Now that I have more money to spend, and I like getting my hands on new shinies, I get new games almost every month, which distracts me from the game I was currently playing. This buying habit, combined to looking back at my old games and the amount I actually completed has more or less woken me up and strengthened my resolve not to buy that many games anymore and focus on completing the ones I already have.

In my next and (hopefully) last backlog post I’ll take a look at my two old consoles: The Playstation 2 and the Sega Genesis. Stay tuned!

The Backlog part 2: PC games and MMO’s

Posted on by
Reply

Welcome to part two of my backlog series!
In the previous part I talked about the catalog of games I own for my Playstation 4, WiiU and Nintendo 3DS.  With a list of about 40 games to complete there you’d think I would have my work cut out for me. Well guess what! Next to my consoles I’m also an avid PC gamer with a (not that big) catalog of games going on there aswell.
Like most people who play on PC I have a Steam account. Even though I never really got into Steam in the first place, I was forced to make an account so I could play Tomb Raider. Ever since then I’ve been selectively buying the games I would like to play. Steam sales are therefore never really an attack on my wallet because I’m not the type of person to buy a game just because it’s on sale. There’s plenty of games I will never enjoy and thus will never buy, even if they are 80% off on Steam sales and thus “worth” buying.
Because it’s easier to just post a screenshot of my Steam Library than to type up the games I have manually I’ll do just that… And then comment on the games that are listed.

As you can see I don’t really have that huge of a collection of games, resulting in me actually having played atleast an hour or more on most of them. There are a few there which I haven’t touched at all yet which are Child of Light, Rayman Origins, Jet Set Radio and Sega Genesis & Mega Drive Classics. The latter two I got for free with a SEGA/Steam special collaboration. Child of Light was one of those games I was always attracted to but never purchased untill it was on a very big sale. Rayman Origins ties in with refusing to install the damn Uplay client.
As I said, I have put some time in almost all the games that are listed. Usually making my way through atleast the first level or the introductions or whatever. The two games I have played most are DuckTales Remastered, where I am actually close to finished and Civ 5, which I have played on a few weekend nights with my ex. We would start at 22.00 and play untill 04.00 and still not be finished with our playthrough. I have very fond memories of these gaming sessions and although I haven’t really touched the game in a while, I think it was more than worth the money I spent on it.
As you can also see most of the games on there are platformers, my favourite genre. I do really want to start working through these games and I think I’ll pick up where I left off on Ducktales first. It’s the game where I’m closest to actually finishing so that should not be a real issue.
As far as other games on the list go, I am doing a Trine 2 playthrough with a friend and I really want to get into Stardew Valley. Although I have started a playthrough I feel like I messed it up already and I’m a bit lost as to where I was so I think I’ll start anew and stick to it for now.

Non Steam Games
I have a few games that are not tied to steam hanging out on my shelf. I haven’t played much of these at all. Not more than playing past the tutorial anyway. Which is kind of a shame since they are all good games! The (tiny) list consists of:

  • Assassin’s Creed III
  • Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag
  • Warcraft III + Expansions

I never played any of the Warcraft games and the third was the only one still readily available so I picked it up a few years ago to see how it plays. I played through a bit of the initial campaign but due to being busy with my studies and other stuff I didn’t really have the time to dig too deep into it. Same goes for my Assassin’s Creed games.

MMO’s and other “neverending” games
Here is the section with my favourite game genre: MMO’s. Although many games try to fit into this category for me it just means the MMORPG’s like WoW, Wildstar, FFXIV and the like. I have gamehopped quite a bit throughout my MMO career and still have about 4 big MMO’s lying around, of which three are waiting to be picked up and played again. With other neverending games I mostly mean games with ladder systems like MOBA’s and Hearthstone for example. Games that keep you busy and reset themselves often so you’re never actually done with them. Here’s the list of games of that type that I have installed, own and/or play.

  • World of Warcraft. Although currently being on hiatus untill Legion I don’t want to look at my /played time. I think I’ve sunk most of my time into this game out of all the ones out there.
  • FFXIV. My current MMO.
  • Wildstar. Bought it at release, never got past level 20 though, sadly.
  • Guild Wars 2. Same story as Wildstar. Liked the game a lot, but never got past level 25.
  • Diablo III. Still actively playing. Season 6 just started and I have a level 70 character! I just really want to get the rewards so I should start working on finishing up Chapter 4.
  • Hearthstone. Somewhat active play. I make sure I get rank 20 atleast in every season for the card backs and slowly work my way through the adventures. I don’t do serious ladder play.
  • League of Legends. Dormant at the moment. Ever now and then I fire it up for a game. I don’t seriously rank.
  • Heroes of the Storm. See League of Legends
  • Overwatch. See this game isn’t technically out yet, but I know I’ll be playing a lot. A LOT of my friends pre-ordered it and from the beta stuff I’ve seen it’s an awesome game so I’m really looking forward to putting time into this. Not sure if I will ladder, but you never know!
  • I’ve also dabbled around in Blade & Soul, Lord of the Rings Online and Star Wars: The Old Republic but never really enjoyed those games so uninstalled them and never looked back.

This really concludes my PC “collection”. Most of the games I own are in my Steam library and I have a lot of games that I play that I can’t really finish. I’ve tried playing multiple MMO’s at once, but just couldn’t make it work. I really hope I can keep up playing both FFXIV and WoW when Legion launches, but I’m sure my other games will suffer for it. Especially with me being in the working force I just have much less time to play games than I used to have. And now I regret not using the free time I had before to go through atleast a part of my games catalog.

For part three I will have to dig around and dig up my old games collection. Although I have gotten rid of a lot of my old games (we used to borrow stuff from family and copy it with CD-key, yes I was a pirate of the digital times from very early on!) I do have a lot of original copies of stuff lying around. I also still own all my old SEGA games plus the console, all my old various Gameboy games and old Nintendo DS AND a Playstation 2 with a nice catalog of games. Not sure when part three will be arriving, but I’ll do my best to not keep you guys waiting for too long!

The Backlog Part 1: Consoles and Handhelds

Posted on by
Reply

game coll

Although I can’t really boast the size of the massive game collection shown in this picture, I have quite an impressive backlog of games of my own. Owning two consoles, a PC and a handheld I have accrued quite some games over the past years and I haven’t played much if at all of any of them. I mentioned it in my previous post that I’m notoriously bad with playing through my games, and I’m really not joking. I’ve actually gotten to the point that I’m now forbidding myself to buy any new game (unless I already have it in pre-order) untill I have finished atleast some others that I have decorating my shelves or my harddisk.
I’m really embarrassed by the awesome game collection I do own and that I can’t really tell anything about most games because I simply haven’t played through them at all. Ofcourse I also own some games that you never really “finish”, mostly being MOBA’s, MMO’S and TGC’s but you can boast about atleast achieving some stuff there by defeating X boss, attaining X rank or even levelling to max level. Especially in MMO’s I see max level as the real big achievement, seeing as I’ve started so many chars in so many different MMO’s and never leveled them past the level 20 or 30 point.

This year I made a gaming goal list, which mostly consists of goals for FFXIV, my main MMO. However I really want to start working through the catalog of games I have lying around, and just so you guys get a glimpse of what this means, I made a list of stuff that I own. Because this post would become a monster if I would list everything in one go, I’m keeping this first post to console and handheld stuff. Part two will be about PC games, MMO’s and other “neverending” games. I also want to take a look back at my older game collection and share with you games that I have owned since my childhood, many of which I have actually finished but keep around for nostalgia sake, so that will be part three.
Let’s start out with…

Playstation 4
My first “next gen” console, decorating my room since 2014. I have about 15 games on that, not really counting the free PS plus indie ones since most of them are garbage that I never download anyway. So let’s take a look shall we?

  • Knack. Actually finished this one (as in defeated the last boss) so not really counting that. I stilll have a ton of trophies to unlock though, hence it’s on the list.
  • Thief
  • Final Fantasy X/X2
  • Final Fantasy Type-0
  • Ratchet & Clank
  • Tales of Zestiria
  • Disney Infinity + All Star Wars playsets + Inside Out playset. I consider the playsets the things to finish really so technically these all count as separate games.
  • The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
  • The Division. Again I feel like I technically finished this. Reached max level, grinded out good gear. Just not much to do in the game right now. I’m only 4 or 5 trophies short of getting my first platinum. Something I do really want though.
  • Destiny. I have one max level character there (my Warlock) and I have actually played a lot of endgame, so technically “finished”.
  • Driveclub
  • Fifa 16

All in all my Playstation catalog isn’t that horrible. I do consider some games “fiinished” but monsters like the Final Fantasy and Tales games I haven’t really set foot in much. I am slowly working my way through Ratchet and Clank though so that’s a thing. The only game I really regret buying on this list is FIFA 16 since I haven’t even played 10 minutes of it..

Next up: Nintendo! I own both a 3DS and a WiiU now, with the WiiU being very very new. Even so I acquired a lot of games. Splitting them up for the list!

WiiU

  • Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
  • Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two
  • New Super Mario Bros. U + New Super Luigi U
  • The Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker HD
  • The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD
  • Xenoblade Chronicles
  • Yoshi’s Woolly World.

Of the above mentioned games I really only played a bit of Yoshi and Windwaker. As said, the console is brand new so not having played much isn’t that horrible… Right?

3DS

  • Animal Crossing: New Leaf. I did play some, but never really got into the game. One of those games you don’t really finish either.
  • Big Hero 6: Battle of the Bay. Only just got this one on a discount. Haven’t played it.
  • Bravely Default
  • Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D. First World played through.
  • Kingdom Hearts 3D
  • New Super Mario Bros. 2. First World played through.
  • Pokemon Alpha Sapphire. Played for about 12 hours I’m past the 6th gym and recently picked it up again.
  • Pokemon X
  • Super Monkey Ball
  • The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. Completed the first 3 day challenge, almost done with the second.
  • Pokémon Blue. Technically finished this when I was 10? I had 148 Pokémon and had beaten the elite four like… a lot.
  • The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. See Big Hero 6.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Picross. This one is 100% finished!
  • Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer. This came with my new 3DS and I did actually play it a lot.
  • Epic Mickey: The Power of Illusion. First World and Second World played through.
  • Earthworm Jim
  • 3D classics: Kirby’s Adventure
  • Sonic the Hedgehog Triple Trouble (Virtual console)
  • The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (Virtual console)

So yeah. I have a decent Nintendo backlog, but a lot of these games I have actually played more than I thought. I sunk quite some hours into Pokémon. Pokémon X I have restarted a few times, but with gaining a lot of legendary Pokémon I’m determined to see it through. For the rest I have made decent starts in both Donkey Kong and Super Mario Bros. In both games I have atleast beaten the boss of the first world and in Donkey Kong I’m halfway through the Second World. Off all the games in my backlog I have been actively playing my handheld ones the most, thus the most progress in them.

All in all this part of the list alone contains 38 games, most of which I have barely touched. I really do want to start going through this huge backlog though. It’s so much money invested and so little time gotten out of it. The easiest ones for me will probably the 3DS games since I actually play them a lot on the train. For a game like Mario I manage to do 1-2 levels every train journey, so that’s 2-4 levels per workday. As far as the RPG games go, I defeat a bunch of trainers in Pokémon and make small steps towards my end goal. These bite sized chunks are really nice for me and it also helps with finishing games. I also feel like it’s easier for me to pick up my handheld and just lie down on bed and game a little. I often don’t feel like starting up my consoles or PC to play anything, especially when I’m tired.

So yeah. This was the first of a three part post about my “big” game collection. It’s nice to see it all listed, gives me a nice overview but also shows that I have quite the spending habit. I really wish I could say that I have played through a lot of these games, but the reality is I just really haven’t. And that’s such a shame. I do hope that I can clear out this backlog a bit throughout 2016. If I plan my gametime right, I should be able to do it.

Stay tuned for part two: PC (Steam) Games and MMO’s coming later this week!

End of April – Gaming Goals

Posted on by
Reply

We are almost 5 months into 2016 and I’ve decided to look back at the Gaming Goals I’ve set in January and how far I’ve come so far.

In FFXIV I’ve been making steady progress. I’ve leveled up my Bard to 60 and have turned my attention to some other classes aswell. Most notably my Astrologian made it up to level 52 and my Monk will probably sit very close to level 35 today after I’ve done my level and guildhest roulette.
In the old relics department I only really need Scholar. Monk and Warrior done still, which isn’t much at all. I’m planning on picking up Scholar somewhere this week and then it just depends on which classes I level up first to get those last two relics.
Next to my battle classes I’ve also leveled up my Botanist to 52 and I’m slowly but surely leveling up my crafting classes. I expect all of them to be atleast level 20 by the end of the weekend, with currently only Armorsmith and Blacksmith sitting sub level 20. Ixali dailies help a lot with this!

In Blizzard games I’ve opened up another wing of Naxxramas on Hearthstone and I’ve been commited to getting all the card backs for this year, not having missed out on one so far!
I’ve been barely playing Heroes of the Storm though and am unsure if I can make the goal of battling up to rank 1 (or as close as possible).

As far as all the other games go, I’ve only made real progress in Donkey Kong and Mario on my 3DS with finishing the first world in both of those games. All the rest have more or less fallen off the radar since I’ve been purchasing new games that have drawn my attention, like The Division and Ratchet and Clank.

So, what’s in store now?
For this week I really want to finish up a few things on mostly FFXIV. As  said in my previous post I want to get both my Monk and Machinist up to 35, but seeing as that goes a lot faster than I thought I’m adding a bit more gaming goals for this week to close out April with a bang! So here’s a small list of the things I want to work on this week:

  • Level Monk to 35
  • Level Machinist to 35
  • Level Armorsmith to 20
  • Level Blacksmith to 20
  • Complete Scholar Zenith Relic (2.0)
  • Get to and defeat the second Gym in Pokémon Blue (this will be my train game!)

As you can see, enough to do, but not too much for a week. I really hope I can accomplish this all before May 1st, but seeing as I expect to be able to level both the Monk to 35 and the Armorsmith to 20 this weekend it should be more than doable.