Monthly Archives: September 2015

good games that are good, non-wow

Good Games That Are Good: Super Mario Bros. 2

Ah yes, Super Mario Bros 2.  The Star Trek V of Mario.  That weird game that was originally something different entirely: a non-Mario game called Doki Doki Panic.  Those of you who have played it know what I’m talking about, and there are many accessories to play this games as monitors or headsets that are easy to get from sites like HotRate online and others.  Those of you who haven’t, well… it’s a game that involves going around throwing beets at things.

Super_Mario_Bros_2The really fascinating thing about this game, when I was a kid and first played it, is that it’s filled with little secrets.  For example, you can throw a magical potion on the ground to make a door.  This door takes you to an alternate version of your current location for a few seconds, where you usually do things like collect a couple of coins. For more fun games just go here and try this 7s to burn online slot.

gaming-super-mario-bros-2-nes-5Here’s the catch – you can take the magical potion wherever you want (so long as you don’t drop it), and occasionally you’ll find some really unexpected stuff in that alternate universe.  Like warps to levels much farther along than you are currently.

Anyways, this was all very fascinating to me.  More so than any other classic Mario game, SMB 2 felt like the world was full of really weird hidden mysteries.  Sure, the original SMB had the hidden warp pipes in 1-2 and SMB 3 had the whistles, but something about stumbling on warp vases in that dark alternate universe was really mysterious.  It may be the weakest of the original NES Mario “trio”, but it sure made up for it with the hidden surprises factor.

Also you could play as Toad.

Which is awesome.

thoughts

Holiday Ends – Stuff n’ Things

1 Comment

Quick and Easy Back to School Shopping Tips

Here are the most common tips and tricks to make your back to school shopping an on-budget breeze.

1. Remember priorities

It’s easy to get caught up in everything your child could want or need for school. Remember that your priority as a parent is to buy what is on their school list and to send them to school in clothing and shoes that fit, everything else is a bonus.

It is not worth it to go into credit card debt for locker mirrors, the trendiest, brand-name shoes, or school supplies your kids simply don’t need. Before you go out and shop, set a spending goal that will cover the priorities and whatever bonus spending you can afford.

Don’t forget to include sports fees, doctor costs for physicals or immunizations, classroom parties, or any other items associated with school. I fully suggest checking out these cougar paper deals.

2. Compare online

Compare prices online before you leave your house. Wal-mart and Target fight over back to school dollars as well as many office supply stores. If you need pricey items like that scientific calculator, check Ebay, Craigslist, and Amazon too.

3. Print out coupons

If you know you will be going to Old Navy for clothes and Target for pencils, do a quick search online for store coupons. Retailmenot.com is a great place to look for online shopping while Savings.com is good for in-store shopping and sales information.

4. Group shop

All the kids in my neighborhood go to the same elementary. If you know other parents of children in the same grade, perhaps suggest splitting the list and sharing the load.

If might seem too much to comparison shop 40 items for your two children, but if you can get a group together, perhaps each parent can handle finding the best deal on only five items.

5. Keep your receipts

Perhaps you bought the wrong type of school paper, or those shoes start pinching your son’s feet. Make sure you can make an easy, no argument return by keeping your receipts.

6. Consider other stores

The Dollar Store, Dollar Tree, and Five Below might not come to mind when you are thinking of school supplies, but competition in these low-priced stores is fierce. These stores are also typically located next to a Target or Walmart.

Stop in here first and see what they have before going to other locations. If you find something cheaper elsewhere, you will be right next door and will have your receipt.

The Dollar Store and others are also a good place to buy very inexpensive little birthday presents needed for class parties and other invites throughout the year.

7. Stock-up

If you find an amazing deal on something your children need throughout the year, stock-up! Maybe there is a great deal on granola bar packs at the Dollar Store, or watercolors that your daughter loves.

Stock-up for a months worth of snacks or hours of painting time (and an easy birthday party gift) while you are out. Just remember your budget and stock up if only a truly great deal.

transmog, weapons

Five Awesome TBC Stat Sticks For Your Upcoming Survival Transmog

3 Comments

So Survival is gonna be a melee spec in Legion, eh?  Well, I don’t really plan on respec’ing, but I am glad I’ve got all my old favorite stat sticks squirreled away just in case.

What’s that?  You want to know which ones I’m talking about?  Alrighty then: Pike’s list of her Five Favorite TBC Stat Sticks.

Sonic Spear

sonic spearSonic Spear was the first item on pretty much any fresh 70 hunter’s list, and for good reason: it was just about the best thing you could get until you were halfway through Karazhan.  Having one of these suckers meant you were serious about getting into heroics and raiding, and it just looked super cool to boot – especially when enchanted.

Terokk’s Quill

quillThe “alternate” Sonic Spear, Terokk’s Quill was especially great for Survival hunters with all of its agility.  This is because back then Survival hunters had a raid buff called Expose Weakness which scaled based off of the hunter’s agility, so you wanted to stack it.  Oh, and like Sonic Spear, it looks super awesome.

Legacy

legacyA true Rite of Passage for any hunter beginning raiding, Legacy was one heckuva weapon.  It was tough to even see it, because it only dropped from one Opera event (picked at random every week) and then only 22% of the time.  But once it did, you’d be wearing this thing for a long time to come and with its distinctive design you could show off in town that hey, you were doing raids and stuff!

Halberd of Desolation

desolationA drop from the first boss of Black Temple, Halberd of Desolation was a true sign that you were playing with the Big Kids.  The fact that you had to be in a BT-ready guild to get it, combined with its appearance and super cool glowy affects, meant that having one would earn you the envy of all the little baby hunters in Stormwind and Orgrimmar.

Shivering Felspine

felspineShivering Felspine is dropped very rarely by Sunwell trash, which made it another highly coveted high-level item.  Its design matched many of the Sunwell gear drops quite nicely, and back in those pre-transmog days it was neat to have a weapon that matched your set.

So there you go.  Five really cool stat sticks to start farming now if you want a neat retro transmog for your melee hunter.  Or maybe you’re like me and have got ’em all in your bank already.  Hey, I knew being a packrat would be good for something!

alts, screenshots, thoughts

I Was Gonna Delete These Characters, But…

5 Comments

So the other day I figured I’d do some Spring (uh, Autumn) cleaning and delete a couple of old characters that I haven’t played in years.

Then I made the mistake of logging in on them to see if they had anything cool.

CPDhKGlUAAA2AIm.jpg largeHunters with intellect gear!

CPDhRAKUwAANDItHunters with quivers and arrows!

But what really got me were the pets.  The above troll hunter had a snow leopard from Dun Morogh, so presumably I ran her up through Stranglethorn Vale at level ten all the way up to Ironforge.  I also had a tauren hunter, similarly low-level, with an owl.  From Teldrassil.

Teldrassil!

Now I suddenly find myself loathe to delete these two characters.  I’ll probably never play them again, no.  And yet they remind me of a time long, long ago, when hunters had mana and arrows and when I’d take each one on a weird little journey to find the most unusual pets for them.

Do you have any characters like that, who you don’t want to delete?

meta-wow, non-wow

I Kind Of Think I’m Done With FFXIV

Yep.  I think I’m pretty much done with A Realm Reborn.  Oh, there’s nothing wrong with it.  It’s pretty fun.  It’s very good looking.  There are a lot of things that it does better than WoW.  But when it comes down to it, well… I’d still rather be playing WoW.  Or Diablo 3.  (I’ve kind of been playing a LOT of Diablo 3 as of late.)

So yeah.  It’s certainly not something I’d be averse to trying again in the future, especially when I have more time.  But for now… I think I’d rather be in Azeroth.  Or Sanctuary.  (Mostly Sanctuary.  Can’t lie.)

Playable Triple Triad was a really nice touch, though.  Now, if only I was any good at it…

thoughts

#wowconfessions

3 Comments

So this #wowconfessions hashtag was making the rounds on Twitter for a bit this morning.  My two token contributions were:

  • I still get lost in the Exodar and have to hearthstone out

and

  • In all my time spent playing this game, I have only ever leveled two classes to max.  (One druid and three different hunters.)

Honestly I could probably think of more confessions, given a bit of time.  But those were my two big ones.

What are your WoW Confessions?  Confess them to me, my child.  Then go, and sin no more.

lists, thoughts

Four Reasons Why I’m Still Playing WoW

These days it feels kind of… well, not really embarrassing, but weird to admit that I still play it.  It’s like saying “I still write checks” or “I still have a VCR” or something.  Isn’t WoW that game that everyone’s moved on from by now?  Aren’t all the hip and happening gamers playing FFXIV and Dota 2 and Hearthstone and all that other stuff?

And yet eleven years after its release, I’m still here in WoW.  Why?  Well, I imagine everyone has a different answer to this question, but for me, it comes down to four main reasons:

1.) WoW Token

Wow_token01For me, this is definitely the biggie.  If I still had to cash out real money for this game, there’s a good chance I would be either on hiatus right now or heading to hiatus very soon.  But since I can make enough gold to pay for my subscription just by doing garrison stuff every day… why not stay subscribed?

2.) WoW is a Theme Park Game

1f3a0-Theme parkIn a way, WoW reminds me a lot of those games that were big in the late 90s.  Stuff like Super Mario 64 and Banjo-Kazooie.  The gimmick in those games were that there were a bunch of mini-worlds inside a big overworld, and you could go to whichever mini-world you wanted to go to.

WoW is similar.  It’s been around for so long and there’s so much to do at this point that it just feels like its own mini theme park.  Even if you don’t raid, there’s stuff to do.  It’s a lot of entertainment for free (if you’re using the WoW Token).

3.) I Like the Lore and World

ElfArcherIt’s probably a little silly but it’s actually one of the things that keeps me invested in the game.  If I didn’t find the lore and characters as interesting as I do, I don’t know if I’d still be playing.

And, finally…

4.) It’s Just Comforting

Potato_Soup-iconBecause I know all the little nooks and crannies of this game, I can sit down at the end of a long stressful day and shoot stuff without thinking or worrying.  It’s pretty nice to have a ready-to-play comfort game.

So yeah.  It’s 2015 and I’m still playin’ WoW.  Hey, I’ve also still got a CD player in my car and I still wear a watch.  It’s all good.

good games that are good, non-wow

Good Games That Are Good: Diablo 3

Yup, it’s finally time to talk about the game that has devoured my life recently: Diablo 3.

Diablo_III_coverI’ve long been a fan of ARPG lootfest style games like this, but I didn’t actually start playing D3 until the expansion hit.  Various things about it kind of turned me off to it, and I preferred to stick with spiritual successors like Torchlight.

Then the expansion came out and with it a ton of quality of life changes.  I picked up the game and was pleased to see that it was an extraordinarily fun romp, especially for couch co-op (yes, I first played this game on console with a controller.)

Not only is Diablo 3 a very solid, well… Diablo-clone (to use a phrase coined by the very series itself) but there are a lot of little things about it that I like.  The music is unsurprisingly fantastic, as are the cinematics – those are two things that Blizzard has pretty much always done right.  But I am also very fond of the way that the game’s difficulty is so adaptive.  You can set it on an easier mode or you can make it devilishly difficult, and the latter will have your character rolling, jumping, and teleporting around frantically as you try to dodge the dangers all around you.  Throw in the account-wide paragon system and you have a game that is also very friendly to those with limited time.  The result is a game that is as hardcore as you want it to be.  And that’s a really good thing.

If you haven’t played Diablo 3 yet, then now’s a fantastic time to do so.  The new season recently started so everyone’s kind of getting back into it.  Check it out – and be prepared to get addicted.

thoughts

All Work And No Play Makes Pike a Dull Elf

Aaaaaahhhhhh I’ve been so busy lately.  Day job work!  Freelance writing work!  Work work!

Relevant. And unintentional, actually, but.
Relevant. And unintentional, actually, but.

Finally it’s time for some video games though.  I think I’m going to continue leveling some of my alts in WoW (I’ve got three that I’m cycling through who are in their mid-60s!), try to actually get some FFXIV done, and work on my new seasonal wizard in D3 (because I can’t stop playing wizards now).  There are other games I want to play but they’re not a top priority so we’ll see how things go.

So yeah, them’s my weekend plans!

Sorry there haven’t been any particularly interesting posts here lately.  Just, ya know, busy.

non-wow, thoughts

That Weird Problem When A Game Is Really Fun, But…

1 Comment

Have you ever had that problem?  Have you ever had a game that you find really fun, but there’s a “but” attached?

That’s kind of where I am right now with FFXIV.  I’m having a lot of fun with it.  But… work is busy, and I’ve been playing other games, and if I had to drop something right now it would probably be FFXIV.  Not because I dislike it.  But because, well, my time is limited.  And right now I’m feeling other games.

So as it stands, I’m not so sure I’ll subscribe once my free month is up.  Granted, I’ve got two weeks left on my free month, and a lot can change between now and then, so nothing is final.  But right now I’m not seeing at as something I’ll play long-term.  Not right now, anyway.

Meanwhile, I’ve been playing absurd amounts of Diablo 3.  Especially wizards.  At some point I’ve gone and gotten myself addicted to wizards.  It’s magic, I ain’t gotta explain nothin’.