Game playing is largely unfocused at the moment. Scattershot, across the spectrum.
Donut County - After hearing the staff of Giant Bomb gush over the title (their weekly Giant Bombcast podcast is, in my opinion, essential listening for game enthusiasts), I picked it up on iPad for five bucks. I then spent the better part of the next two hours making things fall down holes. It’s non-committal, plucky fun, and I mostly just breezed through the text/story portions to get to more hole-dropping goodness. The art style and music are kooky but catchy. It’s money well spent.
Batman: Return to Arkham - Arkham Asylum - The original release of this game was one of my favorites from last generation, even though I had to turn it down to Easy mode to finally be able to immerse myself in it. But once its hooks are in you, they’re in deep. Even in the limited time I have to devote to playing games, Arkham Asylum drove me to 100% completion, and I will probably continue that on this version, although I’ve been kind of plodding through it, a few missions at a time.
Hearthstone - Another game that I’ve had downloaded on the iPad for quite a while, but never had the fortitude to stick with it to the point of getting into it, I finally pushed forward through the tutorial and came out the other side with at the very least, a basic understanding of the game, which was more than I could say when I first installed it. I don’t know if it will hold my interest for long, as I’m not much for these kinds of card games, but at least I made it to the game proper and even won a match against a human opponent (who quit midway through the game, but a W is a W, amirite?).
Pokemon GO - The journey continues with more seemingly unreachable goals, achievements requiring a lot of perseverance, patience, and the understanding that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. I evolved my first tier 3 Pokemon, only to learn that to continue on my progress path, I would need to do it again, and I burned through my opportunity to gather that achievement too early. Hindsight is 20/20, but that one burned my ass. Either way, it’s still a fun organization simulator, forcing me into regular Pokemon inventory purges, and subconsciously filling my head with Pokeinfo that I never thought I’d amass.
Play on.
Matt