Movie time and slight gaming, Child of Light

On Friday, my friend bought me a ticket to see The Avenger: Age of Ultron. Wow is that such a great movie. This movie is AAA worthy to be seen. It really leads up for the next series in Marvels Phase 3 plan. I won't go into spoilers too much but I highly recommend going and seeing it.

Outside of awesome movie stuff we are coming into the closing weeks of our pregnancy. It won't be long now. Abby wants for our baby girl to be born on May 15th but I have a feeling she will be coming May 9th. So we shall see when she comes and you will be the first internet people to find out!

To the gaming. My gaming time has been a little lack of luster this week since next week is my last week of schooling for this semester and exam review and exams are here. I took two of my exams this morning and have my final class next Thursday. I am taking my summer classes off to help my wife take care of our child and I will be going back in the Fall hopefully. Let's talk about school another day and get back to the gaming side of life. This week I have been playing a bunch of LoL and Borderlands: 2 still with my friends. Playing these games with friends makes them better because you get to joke with them and have great moments not found in single player games. It is a great way to share in the fun.

Last month with games for Gold on the Xbox One was a game called Child of Light. After reading my blogs and my future blogs you will come to find out that I am not a big fan of indie games and usually steer clear of them. A few days ago I decided to give this game a try and have really enjoyed my time with this game. The movement is side scrolling with a combat similar to a mixture of Final Fantasy 1-10 and the newer gameplay of 11+. Combat is turned based but on a bar at the bottom. Using the firefly pal I was able to "slow" down my enemies "Face" bar so mine would move faster. It has been quite a blast so far since it made me think about my moves of defending and who  I needed to freeze to take a win in the battle. There is a bit of voice acting in the game but it is heavily based in text. The sentences are in rhymes so they are nice to read and have a little pizzaz added to the menu. If you haven't tried this game out yet I would suggest giving it a shot even if you do not like indie games. This game gives me hope and will be the first of many indie games I will play.

Follow me on twitter @the_gaming_dad to keep up with news and streaming times.

Monday!

Quick update.

This weekend has been a busy one. I didn't get a single chance to play any games. My mother-in-laws birthday was today and we spent most of the weekend preparing for her birthday and spending time with her.  Yesterday I ventured out of my comfort zone and tried duck legs and can I tell you they were amazing. Picture the texture of a fairgrounds turkey leg with the flavor of a chicken. Oh man was my mouth watering. I think I will try alligator next. Streamed for about an hour earlier playing Borderlands: The Pre-sequel and still enjoying it. What should I stream next? Let me know @the_gaming_dad on twitter.

Mortal Kombat X review

This has been a very busy week and weekend. Last week, I picked up Mortal Kombat X and gave it a playthrough. My experience with it was outstanding. Playing Mortal Kombat 9 for a while and coming over to X was a huge change. The graphics and replayability skyrocketed through the roof.

Throughout the week I played the storyline, towers and versus online. 

STORY LINE:

It came no surprise to me that they picked X up from where 9 left off. For a new Mortal Kombat fan they do a good job making it accessible for them to pick up and play however playing through the previous games will help with background and references throughout the game. Mortal Kombat story lines are my favorite part of the game because I am terrible playing against a person. The stories replayable factor goes down significantly after the first playthrough unless I wanted to see how fast I could beat it.

TOWERS:

One of Mortal Kombats major components are their towers in which a player starts at a first fight progressing through a number of fights. Each time the player advances the opponent gets stronger and harder to beat. This mode is where I found my self more often than not because I could start at an easy opponent and work my way up to a harder one instead of being thrown straight into the fires of Versus mode.

VERSUS:

This mode is for the players who like to test their skills all around the world. Fighting games are not my specialty and it is clear after I jump into the ring with a few fighters. I won 1 games out of 8 but slowly got better and understood when to attack and when to block. The game is like a faster version of chess where one piece is moved and is countered by the opponent. It felt like I got countered most of the time.

During my playing time with Mortal Kombat X I noticed how beautiful the game has become for a fighting game. The rain actually made the clothes wet and water rain down the players faces. There wasn't any blocky hands or faces in this game. 

I am always up for a challenge so give me a heads up on twitter if you want to play @the_gaming_dad and I will stream our match.

I give Mortal Kombat X an 8.8/10

Mortal Kombat X

Disclaimer report: Fighting games are not my forte and will never be my forte so if you watch my twitch channel you will probably see me die...and die...and die again many times. 

I will probably win 1 out of 20 matches against real people. I never really got into fighting games because I loved the fantasy games and role-playing games. They gave me more variety and didn't have to button smash to win. Fighting games were tough because I like to plan my moves ahead of me and fighting games never really give me that chance. The decisions are always split second on whether to block, punch or grapple someone and it interferes with my order of playing. This is one reason Final Fantasy 10 will forever remain one of my favorite video games of all time.

Even though I am terrible at fighting games I always loved the Mortal Kombat games for their story and gameplay animations. "GET OVER HERE" has an immediate familiarity to it that any gamer will recognize even if they do not play fighting games. This is about as far as I can go this week on the game since I purchased it mere minutes before making this post. 

Most of this also consisted of me playing LoL and going 10-0-20 with Lux (Lux is an amazing character is used correctly) against people. It was a snowball effect that made the game amazing. I am always up for playing with fans, Add me, Baldorax.

That is it for this week. Look forward to a beefy post next week as I do my week review of Mortal Kombat X.  So follow my twitch stream @the_gaming_baby_daddy and follow me on twitter for updates @the_gaming_dad

Neverwinter and Borderlands: The Handsome Collection

   

   On Tuesday Neverwinter dropped on the Xbox One and I tried to play on launch day. That is never a good idea to play an MMO on launch day even though I keep trying. It was a typical launch that was buggy and extremely laggy. From the part that I was able to play it became clear that this game is clearly set-up for a huge money sink on the consumer side. Most MMOs that are F2P will allow a subscription model to allow more character slots, bank slots, inventory bag slots, etc.... Neverwinter's only option is F2P with purchasing. 

     There are six starting classes I was able to choose from; Trickster Rogue, Devoted Cleric, Control Wizard, Scourge Warlock,  Great Weapons Fighter, and Guardian Fighter. I play classes unlike anyone else and that is aesthetically. My classes are usually the flashy mage classes but with this game I couldn't bring myself to play the Control Wizard. That is because after I cast an ability and walk the character walks extremely weird with her hands in the air. So for now I am maining a Trickster Rogue because out of all the classes I tried this class had the highest DPS.

     I only made it to level 10 before I had to switch to another game due to lag but overall this is a fun game and I am glad to see more MMOs making their way to consoles.

   

    Another game I have been playing for a few days is Borderlands: The Handsome Collection which includes Borderlands 2 and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. At first, I was not going to buy it because we are very tight financially this month but a friend I play with was gracious in helping me out so we could play together.

     This game is extremely fun to play solo or with friends. The graphics are made to have a cartoony feel to them but thanks to these graphics this game is it's own game and can't be compared to others. The humor in this game is top notch at every turn. When I bought this game it came with both DLC characters for both games and a few skin/head customizations. There is a class for ranged, pets class, and up close and personal. Any play style I wanted I could choose. So, I went with the Siren and a Mecromancer because I love the ability on the Siren and being able to have a "meat shield" with the mecromancer.

I plan to stream both of these games so follow me on twitter for updates on when I am streaming @the_gaming_dad

Evolve and Dying Light

     This has been a beautiful Friday....I mean Tuesday evening. This post was set to drop on Friday of last week but I was 5 hours away from my laptop or any of my consoles for that matter. I was visiting my grandmother in the mountains of North Carolina. Even though I didn't have my consoles with me. I did have my 3DS bu because I didn't want to be rude I didn't play any over the two day trip. Once I got back and finished my work around the house and spent time with my pregnant wife (10 weeks to go!) I finally made it upstairs into my game-room to play some video games. Over the weekend I played a variety of games from the Xbox One to the PC.

First up is....EVOLVE!

I picked this game up recently but didn't pre-order it so I didn't snag the 4th exclusive monster. My time has been shorter than I wanted in this game because I have been so spread out recently. The time I have spent in-game has been worth it though. There isn't much of a single player/story mission to this game and is geared towards competitive mulitplayer gameplay. 

     The game is a 4v1 playstyle meaning there are four hunters and one monster. The four hunters are assault, trapper, support and medic. So far there are only four monster types that can be played. Playing for a few hours I realized that I am a better assault class than any of the other hunter classes and the monster. 

     As a hunter or a monster, I am given four abilities (man, this game has a thing for the number 4) and one versatile ability i.e. jetpacks for the hunters and the climb/jump ability for the monsters.

This game is played the class abilities are a must know and how to use them in combination of the other classes. This game is teamwork based and really works well when the four hunters can communicate together. During the time I played, I didn't run into any other person who had a microphone turned on. Which means, we weren't able to coordinate our attacks together and trap the monster to our fullest potential.

     Playing as the assault class means I didn't have to worry about my other teammates as much. I could fully focus on the monster and let loose all of my attacks. As the other classes, I need to know the abilities and when to use them. Either heal another player, give a boost to a player, or trap the monster. Multi-tasking in a fast-paced game like this is not easy.

   All in all, this game is put together really well. The world itself is beautiful. I had to resist my usual urge to stop and just stare at the environment because this game is stunning. Since I am a story driven man, I couldn't give this game a high rating because it had no story outside of the banter between hunters which was comical. 

Dying Light is next...

     Dying Light is another game I wish I could take a week off from work to just play. This is how massive this game is. I have had this game since it has came out and have only progressed about 13% into the story. Granted, I do like to get sidetracked on side mission and just enjoy the scenery but this game has a really good story. It has a story similar to most zombie stories where the main character needs to find a way to survive and find out what happened in a zombie outbreak. Outside of the normal zombie progression it slowly gets harder as I progressed through the story and steadily gets harder the further along you get.

     I will be streaming this game most often right now because it is the game I can play more often. When I play GTA V online and their newly dropped heists update my party chat isn't recorded and streamed so only my voice is heard. Fix this please Twitch and Microsoft.

Tabletop Simulator

This game is available on PC and is a ton of fun when I want to bring together multiple people to play anytime of board game or poker (as seen above). I am currently experimenting with this game and seeing what I can play. It comes with a ton of base games to play but the modding community is where the fun games are at. I think I saw the counter at over 2k community created games so far.

You can find my Twitch stream at http://www.twitch.tv/the_gaming_baby_daddy

and don't forget to follow me on twitter for updates @the_gaming_dad

First Post in March

As the title suggests, this will be my first post in March. My last post was last month, February 28, last Friday. A lot has gone on between then and now. We took an hour and a half trip out east to visit some friends and one was having a baby shower. Let just say, they are quite entertaining, plus we got to eat and the food was really good. We also had some free time on Sunday and was able to spend it with friends in our neighborhood. Not as much time was spent playing video games as I had hoped. Plus, a friend introduced me to a very addicting game on my phone.

The line-up of games played over the weekend include, Dying Light, GTA V, MH4U, Pokemon and AdVenture Capitalism. First up, Dying Light. This game is still holding my attention but every time I go to play it someone wants to play GTA V with me. I inevitably give in to the demands of playing the massive area of Los Santos for the rest of the night and tuck Dying Light away. One day soon, I am going to go invisible on my Xbox One and get a full days worth of gaming into Dying Light because the game deserves some play time. It is such a beautiful game. I find myself stopping and just watching how the grass moves or how the leaves on the tree sway in the wind until a zombie grabs me from behind and snaps me out of the moment.

Next on the list of weekend games is Grand Theft Auto 5. This game has been in my possession day one both times. From the last generation to this generation, it has held my interest as long as Skyrim and Fallout games do. This is a game that will be on the back shelf whenever I have my baby girl in the room and probably won't get much play time. Over the weekend, I played this game the most. I usually started off in single player or playing Dying Light when friends want me to jump over and play online missions with them. Now more than before because heists are launching on MARCH 10th. I think I need to say this again. HEISTS ARE COMING MARCH 10TH! *clears throat* In preparation, we are playing as much online as we can and amassing as much money as we can to buy all the cars and new guns. Sadly, I usually end up spending my money before I have a significant amount.

Pokemon took up some of my free-time during the baby shower. Most of last week was spent beefing up my current hand of Pokemon getting them ready to take on the first gym leader, Roxanne. I think I spent to much time leveling them because it took no time to defeat her. Mainly because all of my Pokemon were ten levels higher than hers. After I beat her it was on to the next area which I stopped my playing at for the weekend. My mission for the weekend was accomplished and that was to beat Roxanne.


Picking up from there, I swapped out Pokemon for Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate and was able to play one 2 star mission before it was time to head home. I am slowly progressing through this game only because playing a hand held usually means I get distracted easier. Being able to close it, go eat, pick it back up in 4 hours and be at the same spot hurts my playing time. With a console, I usually have to give more time dedication to it and having a controller and tv means less distractions unless my wife needs something which I immediately put the controller down. Games I can always come back to.

That's it for the exciting Baby Gaming Daddy's weekend. I will not be streaming tonight due to an influx of homework since we missed two weeks of class. Streaming should be possible another day this week. Follow me on twitter to stay updated @the_gaming_dad.

The Affordable Daddy Gamer

I am a guy who likes to find the most bang for my buck. Playing video games is a field where I can drop a large quantity of money without seeing much of my investment returned money wise. What I do get back is precious moments playing a video game where I get emotionally attached to a character, hate an NPC (non-player character), even have a good belly laugh that could last minutes.

As it stands we have next-generation consoles that are a little over a year old. I currently have an Xbox One and a Playstation 4 hooked up to my tv. I also have a Nintendo 3DS close by where ever I go for the quick gaming sessions. The Playstation 3 is also close by because a large amount of my games are on the PS3 and with the PS4 not being backwards compatible. That leaves me having to reconnect my PS3 to play the last-gen games I love.

PRICING

Lets talk about pricing.

Xbox One: $349.99 WITHOUT the Kinect Assassins Creed Xbox One Bundle

The Xbox One is my main console I play on when I get a few hours to play. It is where I stream mostly because my laptop does not like streaming with two graphics cards. This console is something I use for EVERYTHING. I have my media, video services (Netflix, Amazon TV, etc.), and of course, my gaming. This is the go-to console for all of my needs. There are a few glitches with party chat, but hopefully they will have a patch out to fix that soon. During the launch of the Xbox 360 and the PS3 I started out as a Xbox 360 fan but soon switched over to the PS3 due to free online play. Mainly because I was a kid/teen who didn't have any income and I didn't want to burden my parents with buying a console AND paying for a monthly subscription. With the next-generation launch I have a flexible income (for now until the baby is born) and can afford to pay a monthly subscription. Luckily, I have an amazing wife who bought me this bundle for Christmas WITH a year subscription to Xbox Live. For the price since they first came out, you can't get much better on pricing than here. For a little over $350 with tax it is still a little high for the affordable Dad but a must if you can swing it financially. This bundle also comes with Assassins Creed: Black Flag and Assassins Creed Unity. The series have been around for a while and this iteration has only been polished since their earlier games in the series.

Playstation 4: $399.00 WITHOUT the PS Eye The Last of Us Remasterd PS4 Bundle

At launch, Sony's Playstation 4 had the upper hand on pricing against Microsoft's Xbox One but after a year Playstation has fell behind with their least expensive bundle being $399. Playstation has always boasted being a gaming console more-so than Xbox One where they promote being an all-in-one entertainment system. In the category of just gaming, I would say that Playstation 4 comes away on top. The last generation for Playstation didn't see many exclusive games and privileges which was Microsoft's forte. This generation however we are seeing titles exclusive to Playstation and games like Destiny showing favor to the PS4 console with exclusive content. With this bundle, you are getting the remastered version of The Last of Us which is a great single player game, set to give your emotions a virtual roller coaster ride. For the affordable dad, the PS4 is still out of reach unless financially flexible.

Wii U: $269.99 Wii U Bundle with 3 Games

The Wii U, Nintendo's upgraded version of the Wii. Currently, I have a Wii and not a Wii U but it is a purchase that will be made in the future. For dads, this is a console you will want to look at when you play games with the kids. Nintendo has a good reputation for making decent kid friendly games.

Nintendo 3DS: $199.99 Nintendo 3DS XL with Mario Party

Next up is the Nintendo 3DS, a hand-held system that gets many hours of use for the price. It comes with Mario Party. Mario has been around for a very long time and Nintendo keep making ways to bring his endeavors to fruition every year. Almost all of the Mario games are enjoyable from Mario Tennis, to Mario Kart, and Mario Party. Other games I would recommend for this system include Pokemon, Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate and The Legend of Zelda. The current Pokemon games out are Omega Ruby and Alpha Saphire which are remakes of the 3rd generation Ruby and Sapphire. There has been no announcement if or when the next Pokemon game will be. Pokemon is family oriented with parts that can interest adults as well. Pokemon isn't just for kids but is a complex system of numbers and charts for people to do battle with one another. Priced at $39.99

Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate is a game that is more geared towards teens to adults as there is an extensive customization and heavy slope learning curve to the game. It brings a fantasy game to life without the magic but focuses on melee and ranged weapons. There is no player level or stats to upgrade like traditional RPG but relies heavily on the customization of weapons and armor. Priced at $39.99

The Nintendo 3DS is a system I would highly recommend for the fathers and daddies to be. It is priced at a point where it doesn't hurt as much as a TV console and can be taken anywhere. There are many versions of the system that if you chop around you can find a better priced system or a 2DS which doesn't offer 3D capabilities at a better price. Owning the original Silver DS for many years I was finally able to convince my wife to let me purchase the 3DS and it came at the perfect time. I snagged a limited edition Pokemon Red X version see below and love every minute I spend on it. For the money, I have recouped it with the amount of time I have spent on the 3DS.

Altogether, I am looking at $1,218.97 plus tax for JUST the console bundles without shelling out $60 a pop per game that releases in the future. That is a lot of diapers. I own all but the Wii U and was able to purchase them over time and with a loving wife who understands my passion for gaming.