Pokemon Moon

Date played: January 29th
Platform: 3DS

My daughter and I played a little bit of Pokemon together during the afternoon. Having completed the trials and beaten the elder on the first island, we finally moved on to Akala Island. This island is much larger than the first one, though I haven't seen a lot of it yet.

Akala island

Our ship docked in a small city where we were met by the island's elder and captain. They are both young women with a lot of energy and positivity. We also discovered that there are 3 trials on this island instead of just 1!

We fought a couple of trainers named Dexio and Sino. Once the battle was over, they gave us a special item called a Zygarde cube. Apparently, if we collect enough Zygarde cells and cores, which are scattered through the land, we will awaken Zygarde, a legendary Pokemon. After a bit of shopping and exploring the town, we went to Route 4.

Route 4 is pretty simple, but it's got a few new Pokemon. The funniest is a little donkey-like creature called Mudbray. My daughter also loved a little dog-like creature named Lillipup. After many battles, we found a little ranch where we earned ourselves a new rideable Pokemon, Stoutland. This guy is slow, but he can sniff out hidden treasures. That's all we had time for, but I think we're close to reaching Route 5!

Rocket League

Date played: January 27th
Platform: PS4

I went to visit my friend last night, and as a birthday gift, I bought Rocket League for her so that we could play together. She had enjoyed it when she tried it at my house, so she was really happy about it. We spent the evening playing it 3 player with another friend and had a ton of fun.

They both had very little experience with the game, so they were trying to learn how to control the cars and stuff, so it was really cool to see them learn. I was pretty rust myself, having not played the game in a long time. But, it's a lot like riding a bicycle, it came back real quick. I wasn't at my best of course, since it's been so long, but I was pretty damn good.

My friends did well too. It wasn't long before they were both scoring goals, making saves and making good plays. We played against a wide range of opponents, some were very new, and others were very experienced. We won a lot, but we lost a few as well.

Rocket League is the perfect game to play with a small group. It's easy to pick up, it's fun right away it's always very competitive. I loved playing it with new faces!

Overwatch

Date played: Everyday since the last post!
Platform: PS4

Today's hero is Sombra.

Role: Offense
Difficulty: ★★★
HP: 200
Armor: 0
Shields: 0
Total: 200

Favorite quote: "Hack The Planet"
Favorite map to play on: Volskaya Industries

Appearance
Sombra is the latest character to be added to game. She is a South-American woman who likes to wear very flashy, "techie" clothing. She LOVES purple! Her hair and clothing is all purple, even her gun. She's very mysterious... She is a very skilled hacker, even her head looks like it's full of circuits and inputs. She wields a sick looking submachine gun and speaks with a spanish accent. She's got a couple of great skins too, including some fun punk ones.

Skills

• Machine Pistol: A rapid-fire automatic pistol. It has 60 rounds and is best at close-mid range.
• Hack: Sombra can hack enemies or health packs. Hacked enemies cannot use any abilities for a short period. Hacked health packs cannot be used by the enemy team and regenerate twice as fast.
• Thermoptic Camo: Sombra becomes completely invisible for a short time. She cannot use abilities or weapons while camouflaged. She also moves much faster than usual while camouflaged.
• Translocator: A beacon that can be tossed a short distance. It allows Sombra to teleport to it up to 15 seconds after being dropped.
• Opportunist: Sombra sees heavily damaged enemies through walls, similar to Hanzo's Sonic Arrow and Widowmaker's Ultimate.
• Ultimate - EMP: Sends out an EMP blast in a wide radius, hacking every enemy within range for a short period.

Strengths

• Sombra is amazing at flanking and retreating, thanks to her invisibility and translocator.
• When used correctly, the EMP can turn the tides of battle really quickly. It works particularly well against a team that is heavily reliant on Reinhardt's shield, D.Va's defense matrix or entrenched Bastions and Torbjorns.
• Hacking health packs just might be Sombra's most impactful ability. Denying an enemy health pack in their territory can be the difference between victory and defeat.
• Sombra's gun is deceptively powerful. It's pretty accurate, it's very fast, it has a ton of ammo and it hits pretty hard.

Weaknesses

• Good offensive moves must be planned ahead... Sombra's abilities don't allow her to get out of trouble easily if she gets ambushed.
• If Winston or Roadhog get the jump on Sombra, she is dead meat unless she's already dropped her Translocator.
• While her weapon is very strong up close, and useable at mid-range, it's completely useless at long range.
• Invisibility is NOT invincibility. A single stray bullet will make her visible right away, and unless she's got a Translocator set up already, she is likely to be killed. Similarly, her hack is interrupted when she takes damage, making it a difficult ability to use against other heroes.

Comments
Strangely, Sombra and Tracer are very similar to play. They are both "hit and run" heroes. They go in, shoot shit up, then get out. The difference is that Sombra requires a lot more planning than Tracer and that she has more team utility. My favorite little play with Sombra is hack a health pack that is relatively close to the main battle, drop a Translocator beacon close to it, then run towards the enemy team. Before they see me, I go invisible, flank them and hopefully I can hack and kill a healer or a Bastion or something, then I teleport back to my beacon and health pack. Then I repeat. This all takes place within 15 seconds or so, so it's pretty quick.

The health pack hack can be a game changer, since it can deny the enemy team some healing while granting yours a bit more. It works particularly well when teams only have one healer. On top of that, many health packs can be hacked at once so it can be very powerful. I've had a few situations where Sombra hacks a health pack close to the battle, then Symmetra sets up a defensive perimeter around it with her turrets, maybe even dropping her shield generator nearby. It's a real nice setup...

While Sombra is strong overall, she does have a few glaring weaknesses... The biggest problem with her is that when she gets discovered, she is often very far from her teammates and is very likely to die. There's also a few heroes that are a real thorn in Sombra's sides. Winston is particularly scary as Sombra, since she can't really escape him without the Translocator being already deployed. Roadhog can be a bitch too, but he's kind of like that with more heroes. Widowmaker is surprisingly dangerous to Sombra thanks to her Ultimate that shows all enemies through walls.

It's interesting to hack people too. There are some heroes that become useless, while others are almost unaffected. For example, Mei, Tracer, Genji, Roadhog, D.Va and Reinhardt are very vulnerable without their abilities. However, others like Soldier 76, Reaper, Torbjorn and McCree are still very deadly, thanks to their powerful weapons.

Look, I love playing Sombra. She's unique, powerful, fast and very satisfying to play well. She's a real challenge though, and every match requires a lot more effort and concentration than most heroes. Sometimes, she doesn't work, and sometimes, she's fucking brilliant. In the end though, she's always fucking cool.

Worst enemy: Winston
Best teammate: Zarya
Most satisfying kill: Tracer
Rating ★★★★

Final Fantasy XV

Date played: January 22nd
Platform: PS4

I spent a bit of time in the afternoon playing FFXV, but I didn't continue the story. Instead, I went back in time to return to the main map and completed a few hunts, since I felt like just fighting some monsters. I received a call from Cindy saying that there were some earthquakes in the area. When I went to see her in Hammerhead, she sent me to another outpost to the south. All of the secondary quest givers were there and had helpful items for me. Then I went to the mountain nearby and discovered the source of the earthquakes.

It was a monster. A giant fucking monster called Adamantoise. Now, when I say it's giant, I am not really using the right words. It's bigger than any of the summons. In fact, the Adamantoise is like a turtle, and it's shell was the entire motherfucking mountain! It was unbelievable to see it move around in real time... Nevertheless, the thing is level 99 and clearly extremely dangerous, so I was forced to flee. There is now a hunt for this beast, which I imagine will be one of the last things I'll do in the game.

Later that night, I played again, but this time continued the story. We're aboard the train to Gralea to go find the crystal, and hopefully, Prompto, who we assume is in Ardyn's care somehow. We stopped at a big crevasse because ice was blocking the way for the train. It turns out, that crevasse is where Shiva's corpse lies. Shiva is the Goddess of ice, and it seems like she died there a long time ago, but it's unclear.

We got out and tried to find a way to get the train moving again. Of course, we were attacked by demons, but nothing too crazy. There was even a boss called Deathclaw. I think he was supposed to be pretty hard, but I was way too high level for him to be a problem. After the boss, as the other guys were getting on the train, Noctis saw Ardyn. Noctis chases him but clearly, there's some crazy illusion shit going on and he wasn't able to catch him.

Then out of the blue, Gentiana showed up, the lady who acted as a medium for Lunafreya earlier in the game. She quickly revealed herself to be none other than Shiva herself! The corpse in the crevasse must have been just a fake... Shiva is beautiful, has very little clothing and very nice curves, so she's quite attractive, even if she's a literal ice Goddess... She freezes Ardyn and the remaining demons, then Noctis slashes Ardyn's frozen body to a million pieces. Unfortunately, he returns a moment later and explains that he's immortal! Thankfully, he leaves us alone, but it was weird and very confusing to me. Oh, and somehow, he managed to disable Noctis' weapons!

The train is still frozen in place, so the guys go to the cargo hold and take the Regalia for a car escape towards Gralea. There's a whole slew of Empire weapons chasing after us, so the drive was pretty cool. I dodged enemy fire and swerved around some wrecks, it was great. Unfortunately, the Regalia was wrecked at the end of the chase... That made me really sad, but I have a feeling Cindy will find a way to fix it or replace it. During the sequence, Noctis was separated from Ignis and Gladio, so the King is alone for now.

Without access to his weapons, Noctis is pretty damn vulnerable, so he decides to finally put on the ring of Lucis to defend himself. It grants him the ability to cast a death spell, which kills enemies, but also needs a lot of charging time and consumes an absurd amount of MP. Noctis enters Zegnautus Keep to retrieve Prompto and the crystal with nothing more than a ring on his finger...

Zegnautus Keep is a huge dungeon, but since there's no traditional combat or even party members, the whole segment was really weird. In fact, I think this is worst part of the game so far. I had to navigate long empty corridors, hiding from the occasional enemy or taking out a few demons with the death spell. There are no humans here, which is weird as fuck.

After a bit of fucking around and exploration, I found a second spell, which I forgot how to use right away. Then I found a third spell, this time, a Holy dodge that deals damage when executed well. This became my main weapon rather quickly as the death spell was too long to cast and impractical. I then found Prompto locked in a cage, but when I managed to get to him, he was nothing but another illusion by Ardyn...

There was a kind of boss fight here also, against a weird demonic insect thing. Without any weapons, my only choice was to dodge it until it died. Not fun. To my relief, I scored a new Royal Arm, the king's sword no less. That means I can at least fight a little bit without resorting to long dodging contests. I'm on the last floor of the dungeon now, so hopefully I can get out of there soon. 

Tearaway Unfolded

Date played: January 21st
Platform: PS4

I had a bit of free time with my daughter yesterday, so we decided to play video games. She asked me to play the game where "there's a little paper girl". It took some discussion, but eventually we figured out that she meant Tearaway Unfolded.

It's been a long time since I played this, so the first few minutes had me stumbling around trying to figure out the controls, but it didn't take long before we were jumping around the beautiful paper-craft world and helping it's residents. Tearaway is all about it's fun controller interactions, like clicking on the touch pad to activate jump pads. We moved along the world, completing some platforming, fighting a few enemies all while trying to find a way to close the hole in the sky.

One of the best moments was when we had to take a picture of ourselves with the Playstation camera. My daughter and I gave a big smile and posed! Our picture was then put into the world in many locations, including on some turn tables and a bunch of other stuff.

Having our picture in the world was a nice touch!

Another great moment is when we got to ride a little pig! Our paper girl got on his back and we ran through the world, smashing stuff recklessly to the joyous sounds of our pig mount's squeals and grunts. The little fucker even farts loudly every once in a while... We found some cauliflower on the ground, and we tried to push it forward through the whole level, which was apparently very funny to my daughter. Eventually, I ran into a slope that was a bit too steep for my little vegetable companion, so we had to leave the cauliflower behind...

Tearaway leans into it's paper theme quite a bit, including many scenes where we had to help residents rebuild their faces or bodies with paper. We gave a dude a set of 3 eyes, we gave some sexy lips to an elk and we even designed some fancy butterfly wings.

We reached a wide open area filled with fun things to explore. Our objective is to find the key to a shack. Unfortunately, it was stolen by a murder of crows... We've been chasing the crows for a while now, then had to stop playing. Tearaway made for a very enjoyable few hours with my daughter.

Final Fantasy XV

Date played: January 19th
Platform: PS4

The team headed into the dungeon at the train station, looking for one of the Royal Arms. I had the choice of leaving Ignis behind or bringing him along, due to him being blind. I felt like he was part of the team and should come with us anyway. However, this turned out to be quite a pain in the ass because he walks real fucking slow. During the whole dungeon, I had to wait for him to catch up at every corner.

The dungeon was one of the bigger ones so far. I think it was some sort of mine before, so it's riddled with derelict equipment, including a giant machine that is blocking the path to the last area. I had to find a shed key, then turn on power generators, and finally activate a couple of machines. This allowed us to move the big machine out of the way.

That's where we fought the infamous Final Fantasy enemy, Malboro. As is tradition, the tentacled monster uses it's bad breath to inflict a series of status ailments to the party. I equipped a Rainbow pendant to protect myself from confusion, then unleashed all of my most powerful attacks. When the Malboro was weak, it started spawning little mini-Malboros, so I had to deal with those as I fought the big one. Eventually, the Malboro went berserk and forced us to retreat.

During the battle, Ignis seems to come to terms with the fact that his eyesight isn't coming back, and tries to fight anyway, using his other senses instead. It works really well, and Ignis is back in full force! He sends out a fire spell directly into the Malboro's mouth, killing it instantly. We picked up the new Royal Arms weapon and left for Tenebrae, Lunafreya's hometown that lies just outside the Empire's territory.

We took a long train ride towards Tenebrae, but were ambushed by the Empire's forces along the way. I fought enemies on the train with Prompto while Gladio and Ignis went to find a way to get the train moving again. Ardyn Izunia showed up and somehow, used magic or a trick to swap his appearance with Prompto! It was enough to fool Noctis... This led to Noctis throwing Prompto off the train as it sped away... Ardyn escaped, and we couldn't stop the train due to the risk for the civilians onboard.

Things got even worse after this because demons attacked the train... a lot of demons. I fought some, but at one point, I became overwhelmed. That's when Leviathan made a majestic appearance, saving the King of Lucis and his allies from the demons. It was spectacular and awe-inspiring to watch.

Leviathan saves the day!

We reached Tenebrae, without Prompto. We were greeted by Aranea, who has now left the Empire and runs her own little group of mercenaries. There wasn't much to do in Tenebrae except speak with a few people. The grandiose castles in the background are burning, thanks to the Empire's attacks. The people I spoke to in Tenebrae had great things to say about Lunafreya and her dedication to Noctis. It was pretty touching. It also revealed that Lord Ravus is Luna's older brother, and that he helped her fulfill her duties as Oracle, which is treason to the Empire.

Aranea agrees to help us reach the Empire's capital city, Gralea. She introduced us to Biggs and Wedge, two of her best engineers. This is a great moment because Biggs and Wedge have made appearances in many Final Fantasy games. They are always a duo, and they always have some sort of technical job. They will be our conductors as we take the train from Tenebrae to Gralea. The story is really kicking into high gear and I am finding it interesting and engaging.

Overwatch

Date played: January 15th, 17th and 18th
Platform: PS4

Today's hero is Zarya.

Role: Tank
Difficulty: ★★★
HP: 200
Armor: 0
Shields: 200
Total: 400

Favorite quote: "In Russia, game plays you."
Favorite map to play on: Oasis

Appearance
Zarya has a great, unique look. She is a large Russian woman with short, hot-pink hair. She sports a big tattoo on her left arm and wears heavy armor on her chest and legs. She's got a really nice smile and honestly, I think she's very pretty. She is a professional weight-lifter too, so she's got some big fucking arms. She speaks Russian very often during gameplay, and most of her voice lines are hilarious. Her weapon is gigantic and I think it just might be my favorite looking main weapon in the game. 

Skills

• Particle Cannon: Zarya's main weapon. It shoots a close to mid-range beam. Alternatively, she can lob an energy grenade that damages all enemies in a small radius.

• Particle Barrier: Zarya shields herself with an energy bubble that lasts for 2 seconds and can absorb 200 damage. Any damage absorbed by the shield is transformed into energy for the Particle Cannon.

• Projected Barrier: This is the same as the Particle Barrier, but it shields a teammate instead.
• Energy: Any damage blocked by the barriers is transformed into energy that boosts the particle cannon's damage output. There's a little meter that shows the amount of charge, from 0-100. The higher the number, the bigger the damage.

• Ultimate - Graviton Surge: Zarya launches a projectile that creates a sort of gravity well, pulling any nearby enemies into it, holding them in a small area for 4 seconds.

Strengths

• Zarya eats D.Va alive. D.Va's main defense system, the Defense Matrix, does not block Zarya's particle cannon beam. This means that Zarya can put a lot of pressure on D.Va and make her retreat, or die.

• No hero snowballs better than Zarya. She's a little tough to get going at first, but once you block a few shots and get that charge level higher on her gun, she can melt people's faces off real quick, a little bit like Symmetra can. Plus, her lobbed energy grenades can deal a lot of damage to a clumped group.
• Zarya is a lot more resilient than her 400 health pool suggests. While she has the least amount of hit points of any tank, half of it is shields that recharge, and her Particle Barrier is an extra 200 HP of protection. Zaray can survive some real tough shit.
• Graviton Surge can be one of the best Ultimates in the game. While on it's own is doesn't do that much, when combined with other Ultimates, it's fucking savage! All enemies are clumped up? Send out a Hanzo dragon, or a Pharah Barrage, or a Junkrat tire, etc. 

Weaknesses

• Zarya has no mobility options, so she is really slow overall. This makes her a good target for fast heroes like Tracer, Sombra and Genji. She is also really slow to come back to the battle from death.

• Using the barriers effectively is rather difficult. The timing on them is tricky and they really don't last very long. This means that they are best used when already taking damage, which can be risky. 

• Aiming the Particle Cannon's beam takes some getting used to. It's range is kind of hazy and tracking a fast enemy with it is rough.

• Graviton Surge is really easy to waste. It can be absorbed by D.Va, it can be deflected by Genji, it can be walled off by Mei, etc. It can also be blocked or escaped pretty easily by some heroes. Reinhardt and Winston can shield, Tracer can blink out, Sombra can teleport out, Symmetra can toss out her shield, etc.

Comments
Zarya is one of my favorite heroes in the game, maybe even my second favorite after Reinhardt. She excels on attack or on control maps, though I'll usually stick to Rein for defense. She is extremely durable, and she can dish out some massive damage once her weapon is charged up. 

Her strongest ability has to be her shields though. It's great at stopping a big attack, like a Roadhog Hook, a Reaper Death Blossom or even a D.Va self-destruct. It can save allies too, like someone that is being pinned by a Reinhardt charge or someone stuck by a Tracer Pulse Bomb. 

Because of the way her weapon works, Zarya often begins battles on the back line, then once she's shielded enough damage, she'll move to the front of the fray with her dangerous Particle Cannon. She works great against Genji too, since he can't deflect the beam.

Zarya is even better when paired with another tank, any of them really. That way, she can duck out to let her shields and cooldowns recharge. She works particularly well with Mei also... A frozen enemy is easy for Zarya to melt down. 

Reinhardt might just be the hardest hero to fight as Zarya. He can block all of her attacks, and can even force her out of position with a well-timed charge. I also have trouble against good snipers as Zarya, because her only way to defend herself is with the Particle Barrier, and when it's not available, she's a really easy target for Widow, Ana or Hanzo. 

I really fucking love Zarya. Not only is she a powerful and versatile hero, she's also one of the most engaging and fun heroes to actually play. Timing her barriers correctly and knowing when to duck in and out of combat is so much fun! She's also one of the heroes that makes you feel really powerful when things go right. You feel fucking invincible with her when things go well.

Worst enemy: Reinhardt
Best teammate: Mei
Most satisfying kill: D.Va
Rating ★★★★★

Final Fantasy XV

Date played: January 16th
Platform: PS4

MAJOR SPOILERS!

I continued the story after fishing a little bit in Altissia. I met with the serious woman, the head of Altissia I think. Her name is Camelia and she had a big old interview set up with Noctis, the King of Lucis. It was a really cool scene because I had to pick dialogue choices befitting a kind. It kind of felt like a cheap Mass Effect and it was great. I did pretty well with her I think, and promised to protect her citizens from the consequences of waking Leviathan. I also promised to take on the Empire. In exchange, she promised not to interfere and to keep Lunafreya safe. She seems to be playing games somehow, but I had no choice but to trust her.

The next scene was fucking incredible. Lunafreya wakes Leviathan, the goddess of water, and attempts to communicate with her. It goes relatively well, and she holds Levianthan's tsunami at bay until Noctis gets there to battle her. Leviathan is absolutely gigantic, dwarfing even Titan. She lifts herself up through the tides and casts a looming shadow over Altissia. Fighting her was amazing.

Leviathan

After a few hits and parries on the goddess, Lunafreya uses the last of her strength to grant Noctis incredible power. He's in full Armiger mode, with infinite MP and infinite health. The battle itself wasn't very difficult, considering health and MP weren't an issue, but it was still a long one. When I beat Leviathan though, the worst happened.

Chancellor Ardyn Izunia showed up at the worst time and confronted Luna. After a short conversation, he stabs her in the chest with a big dagger and leaves her to bleed to death. Noctis runs to her aid, but they both get swept up in the tidal wave left by Leviathan.

There was a very touching scene here where Noctis is in kind of a dream and he says goodbye to Lunafreya as she sinks into the depth of an unknown body of water. She gives him the oracle's ring then fades into the abyss, gone forever.

Noctis wakes up from a short coma. Gladio explains that he and Lunafreya were swept away by the tide. Noctis was found shortly after with the ring in his possession.  Even worse, Ignis was gravely injured during the battle, so much that he is now blind... I hope his eyesight returns because we fucking need him in battle! Noctis is very sad, and pretty depressed. Gladio tries to knock some sense into him, but to no avail.

The team boards a large train, heading towards the Empire so they can confront them head on. We rode the train in silence, the atmosphere is really tense. Gladio wants Noctis to snap out of it and do his job as King, for the sake of Lunafreya and Ignis, who sacrificed a lot to help him win the battle against Leviathan... We reached a new area that seems to have only a couple of shops and a dungeon. I nabbed a new pistol from the vendor, then stopped playing.

I am really shocked at the events of the Leviathan battle, and I'm surprised that Lunafreya is dead. I really hope Noctis wakes the fuck up and does his job.

Pokemon Moon

Date played: January 15th
Platform: 3DS

Well, I played a bit more Pokemon Moon with my daughter and once again, it was a great activity for us to do together. We talk about the Pokemon we're catching and fighting, we talk about where we found secret items, about where to go next, about what to buy at the shop, etc. It's pretty damn cool.

We made it through Route 3, but stayed there a bit longer to catch a few Pokemon. We then headed to town where we were congratulated by the island's elder for our victory at the trials. We were now ready to battle against him directly! The battle wasn't too hard, since we kind of grinded a little bit in the previous area. He did have a couple of sneaky moves, but we beat him easily enough. We were rewarded with another Z-Crystal, which grants our Pokemon a special Combat-Type attack. We are now ready to head to the next island!

Charjabug, I choose you!

During our journey, we had a couple of exciting moments together. The first is when both of our Grubbins evolved into Charjabugs! Grubbin was one of our favorite monsters, so we were both really happy to see it get stronger. The design of Charjabug is pretty great, it almost looks like a school bus with spikes... I love it. The other moment is when my daughter's Pichu evolved into the game's iconic mascot, Pikachu. What's really cool about this evolution is that Pichu doesn't evolve naturally through leveling. Instead, he evolves when he has a strong relationship with it's trainer. That's why I spent a good amount of time showing my daughter how to feed and pet her Pichu, so I was really happy that it paid off so quickly.

Final Fantasy XV

Date played: January 14th
Platform: PS4

I began by checking in on the black chocobo egg I had rescued earlier. It hatched and is now a pretty little black chick. This gave me the ability to buy the best greens from the vendor, so that's pretty cool. I also returned to the Malmalam Thicket to get some dog tags for Dave. There wasn't much for me to do there except fight through a few weak enemies.

At this point, my quest log was pretty empty, and most of the remaining ones were level 50 and higher, so I thought it would be a good time to move on with the story. I headed to Cape Caem and finally set sail for Altissia! The boat ride was pretty long, long enough for the boys to have a long conversation. They talked about Ravus, the stoic Empire figure, and Ardyn Izunia, the way too friendly chancellor. They talked about Leviathan and how the Empire was trying to reach him before our party. They talked a lot, and it was a pretty cool scene, if a little too long.

Welcome to Altissia!

When we finally reached Altissia, I was in complete awe of the city's design, architecture and size. This isn't Lestallum... Altissia is absolutely gigantic and full of people everywhere! There's shops, cafes and even a whole gondola system that takes advantage of the city's canals. It's a little bit like a mix of Rome and Venice. It's beautiful.

Cid got us through the checkpoint with an old pass, then we headed to a cafe called Maagho, a place that is supposed to have some friendly contacts for us. I spent a lot of time just exploring the city, though there wasn't much to find aside from a few cool shops. I definitely have more ground to cover, so I'm sure there's some cool stuff to find.

When we went to Maagho's, we spoke with the owner a bit, then were met by a serious looking middle-aged woman. She says that she wants to discuss Leviathan, so we'll go meet her soon. I love the change of scenery provided by the wonderful city, and I am excited to see how the story will progress.

Heroes, Rocket Cars and Sharks

Date played: January 13th
Platform: PS4 + PSVR

One of my friends came over last night and she loves video games, but she hasn't been playing as much in the last few years. I decided I should show her Overwatch, Rocket League and the VR game, Ocean Descent. Overwatch was confusing at first, since she is used to Call of Duty. When she started understanding that the heroes each had different abilities, movement and weapons, she started to get it.

We played a good amount of Overwatch together, swapping the controller at every death. She tried a good number of heroes too. She tried Genji, Junkrat, Reaper, Mercy, Reinhardt, Bastion, Tracer, Sombra, Ana and Pharah. She had her best moments with Mercy, Bastion and Junkrat. Mercy was cool because she just had to focus on staying out of the way and healing. Bastion was cool because he's just a big gun, so her Call of Duty experience helped here. Junkrat was the one that surprised me the most. While she struggled with the trap and mine, she was a real good shot with the grenades.

Then, we played some Rocket League online. While she enjoyed herself, she had a really hard time hitting the ball and couldn't figure out the flips and kicks. She still tried hard and she was usually in a really good position on the field, but the execution wasn't there. I know she could be a great player with some practice. Also, I had a bright pink and purple van while she had a "tough" looking car, perfectly expressing our personalities through our vehicle choices.

Ocean Descent is cool

Finally, she wanted to try out Playstation VR, so I booted up the Shark Encounter sequence in Ocean Descent. She was very impressed with the scale that VR communicates so well and she enjoyed the little adventure in the shark cage. She was clearly worried about fast movement, I think it made her woozy. It's weird, I love what VR can do, but my body doesn't like it when I play... It seems like it was similar for her because after the sequence, she said she felt a little bit dizzy. 

Overwatch

Date played: January 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th
Platform: PS4

Today's hero is Mei.

Role: Defense
Difficulty: ★★★
HP: 250
Armor: 0
Shields: 0
Total: 250

Favorite quote: "Sorry! Sorry! I'm sorry... sorry!"
Favorite map to play on: King's Row

Appearance
Mei is a bubbly Chinese climatologist who worked for the Overwatch team in the Antarctic. She looks quite young and has a sexy curvy body. She wears big black-rimmed glasses and a fluffy winter coat. She wields an odd little freeze gun. She also carries an adorable little robotic companion with her.

Skills

• Endothermic Blaster: One of the weirdest weapons in the game, Mei's blaster shoots icicles that are precise, have long range and hit pretty hard, but they need a bit more than a second to fire after pulling the trigger. The other firing mode is even more bizarre... It fires a cone of frozen air at close range that deals little damage. However, if it stays in contact with an enemy for long enough, they will be completely frozen for a few seconds.

• Cryo-Freeze: Mei instantly surrounds herself with thick ice for 4 seconds. She is completely invincible during this time and she heals herself for 150 HP.

• Ice Wall: Mei's most distinctive and impactful ability. She creates a giant wall of ice out of thin air. It blocks enemy attacks and movement. It can even be used to reach higher platforms.

• Ultimate - Blizzard: Mei sends out her little robot buddy who then proceeds to freeze all enemies in a large radius.

Strengths

• Mei is great at area denial. Almost all of her abilities are used to control space and they do it very well. She's particularly powerful on defense.

• Blizzard's area of effect is HUGE! This makes Mei really effective at defending a point or payload.
• Her icicle gun is surprisingly powerful. It's hard to aim, but when it hits, it hurts.
• Mei is at her strongest when she's moving with her team. She enhances almost every hero's abilities since she can slow down enemies, making it easier for her allies to get kills.

Weaknesses

• Mei is very vulnerable to fast heroes like Tracer and Genji. She is also an easy target for mid-long range heroes like Hanzo or Widowmaker if they have decent aim.

• She is a lot harder to use on Attack maps, since most of her skills are defensive. She can still work, but it takes a bigger effort.

• Her icicle gun is powerful, but it's lead up time is pretty long for a game like this. I think I still need to learn how to use it, but it's difficult.

• Ice Wall is great, but it's one of the only abilities in the game that can harm your own team if it's not used well. For example, during one match, I put an ice wall to block a chokepoint, but in the process, I blocked a Symmetra's shield and photon orb.

Comments
Mei is a powerful hero, there's no doubt about that. Still, she's one of the heroes I've used the least, along with Genji and Hanzo. I think I haven't used her because she's really hard to learn. The timing on the icicle gun is tricky, the range of the ice wall is tricky, the freeze gun is weird to use and Blizzard's range and throwing distance is complicated. So Mei is hard to learn.

However, I see that she's strong, and that she can be a real game-changer when she's played skillfully. I feel like I would need a lot of practice with her to be effective, but I enjoyed her in the few games I've played. I think I'll give her a bit more playtime. 

It helps that she's fucking adorable and cute... The iconic "Mei moment" is when she freezes someone, stands in front of them smiling then shoots the icicle gun in their face. It's soooooooo insulting to the victim! 

I love that her Ultimate can completely deny access to a point. Combined with the ice wall, Mei is second only to Reinhardt for area control. I really want to learn her some more because I know she's great, I just can't unlock her full potential yet. I love Mei a lot more than I expected. 

Worst enemy: Hanzo
Best teammate: Lucio
Most satisfying kill: Junkrat
Rating ★★★★

Pokemon Moon

Date played: January 11th
Platform: 3DS

My daughter and I had a bit of free time together last night, and when I asked her what she wanted to do, she told me she wanted to play Pokemon! We fought on Route 3, which is a cliffside road with many flying Pokemon. I caught a few new ones, but none that I wanted to include on my team. we fought some trainers and picked up some items, then we went to find the girl with the special Pokemon who needed our help at Melemele Meadow.

Trumbeak is one of my favorite Pokemon so far

This place was beautiful, with lots of little yellow flowers all around. It's filled with Pokemon, mostly insects. We fought our way through, catching any new Pokemon along the way, then found the stranded Pokemon for the girl. we're almost done with Route 3 now, but had to stop playing. I've been liking my Trumbeak a lot. He's a flying Pokemon with some combat moves, so he's really powerful in the right situations. I can't wait to see it's 3rd evolution. I'm also excited to see my Grubbin evolve, which I hope will happen soon!

Final Fantasy XV

Date played: January 10th
Platform: PS4

I had another fun night with FFXV. I began with a side quest for the guy who runs the Chocobo Wiz stables. Apparently, black chocobos are very rare, and he spotted one that was in distress. We went to the location and while we couldn't find the bird, we found one of it's eggs. We brought it back to the owner of the stable so that he can help it hatch. He told me to come back in a few days, so we'll see what happens.

Since I was already at the Chocobo Wiz, I figured I should try winning those last races since my chocobo is now at maximum level. Plus, the black chocobo quest rewarded me with some crazy powerful greens that boost all of the chocobo's attributes for a single day. It turns out, that made all of the remaining events really easy. The only exception was racing against Iris and her hot pink chocobo. It was a lot closer, but I beat her by a beak's length!

I felt like fighting after racing so much, so I decided to take on some of the quests that sent me to the Rock of Ravatogh. I picked up a couple of hunts at the nearby outpost, which led to another battle against Killer Wasps, but I was better prepared this time and while it was still difficult, it was a lot faster than the other Killer Wasp hunt I had done earlier in the game. The second hunt sent me to fight some Wyverns, a new type of enemy. They are kind of like mini-dragons, so they were very enjoyable to fight.

Wyverns are fun to fight

The dungeon itself is actually pretty disappointing. There were some fun battles, but there was a LOT of slow climbing. I mean, it is a mountain, but fuck, it was so boring at times. At least the battles were badass. I also completed a bunch of quests here. I took some pictures for the dude in Lestallum, found some giant eggs to make a new kind of Cup Noodles and I picked up an item for the crazy frog lady.

Unfortunately, there was no boss in this dungeon. I simply reached the royal chamber and picked up a new mace. I went back to turn in all my quests and called it a night. I think I need to continue the story now, there isn't that much left to do except hunts and weapon upgrades for now.

Final Fantasy XV

Date played: January 9th
Platform: PS4

More side quests! More weapons and weapon upgrades!

I stubbornly refuse to continue the story as I complete a myriad of side quests, gather weapons, explore and fight. I began with a quest for Dino to find a special gem, which led me to an area West of the Vesperpool. After fighting a few monsters, I found the gem on the ground, but I didn't return to Dino right away.

The gem was sitting in the early parts of a dungeon I had never seen before named The Myrlwood. It's probably the smallest dungeon yet, since it's mostly just a big forest with few paths. I picked up a couple of items, but was soon interrupted by the dungeon's boss, a Treant. This monster is a demonic tree of some sort that guards the forest. It was a really cool fight, but it was pretty easy for a boss fight. My reward was a brand new Royal Arm!

We battle against the Treant

When I rested at camp after the dungeon, I agreed to help Ignis cook breakfast the next morning. Unfortunately, his glasses were stolen by a black chocobo during the night! We went out to find the chocobo and retrieve his glasses. This has to be the worst fucking mini-game I've played in a long time... Ignis put down some Gysahl Greens as bait and I had to walk slowly towards a tree where the glasses were left. The trick is that I had to press L1 to "stay silent" when the chocobo turned his head. While this wasn't too difficult on it's own, it was kind of difficult to make out where the bird was looking. It was also excruciatingly slow and fucking boring. Thankfully, I got it on the second try and gave Ignis his vision back!

There was also a pretty nice fishing spot near the dungeon, so I spent a morning fishing, though I didn't catch anything spectacular. I want to bring up my fishing level so that I can try to complete the two fishing quests I still have.

Then, I decided to go back to one of the military bases to find the secret weapon I had missed. It's become obvious now that every base has at least one hidden weapon and so far, it's been machinery. This base was pretty low level, so I cleared it out easily and grabbed the Gravity Well, a weapon that can clump all enemies together.

Finally, I decided to complete another military base, but this one was brand new for me. Formouth Garrison Base. While the normal enemies here were easy, there was a giant boss battle at the end against two big level 50 mechs. They were really fucking tough to beat. At one point, my whole team was dead, and I was struggling to survive. After using a Mega-Phoenix, I put in more effort and finally beat them, but this was a real fucking challenge. Ramuh would have been very welcome...

Pokemon Moon

Date played: January 8th
Platform: 3DS

My daughter and I spent some time playing Pokemon yesterday afternoon. We made it through Route 2 and picked up some new Pokemon along the way. We also visited a Pokemon cemetery riddled with ghost-type monsters.

Some of our Pokemon evolved during these battles. My Popplio is now a cute Brionne. She's got a bigger skirt and some pigtails now. I also evolved my Pikipek into a Trumbeak. The small bird now looks a lot more menacing! My daughter's Litten also evolved into a Torracat, basically just a bigger version of Litten.

At this point, my team is Brionne, Trumbeak, Magnemite, Grubbin, Growlithe and Misdreavus. I feel like this is a pretty good mix for now. I have a water type, a flying/combat type, and electric type, an insect/ground type, a fire type and a fairy/psy type. I'm not a huge fan of Growlithe so far, and I'm still not sure about Misdreavus, but it's been working pretty well.

When we reached the end of Route 2, we got to go through our first trial. This was a small dungeon, similar to the way gyms worked in the past games. I beat a bunch of Rattatas in the beautiful cave, but was interrupted by Team Skull again. I beat them, then was able to battle against the cave's dominant Pokemon. These are giant versions of regular Pokemon, in this case, a Rattata. This guy was clearly a lot stronger than anything I've fought so far, and it even had the ability to call in reinforcements! In my daughter's game, the Rattatas were replaced with Yungoos and Gumshoos.

We beat the trial and were rewarded with our first Z Crystal. These are items that can be equipped to Pokemon and grant them a special, once per battle ability. It only works for Pokemon that have abilities of the same type as the crystal, normal type in this case. I gave it to my Misdreavus and she can now use a special Z move in battle that looks fucking great and hits like a truck.

We have access to Route 3 now, but we stopped playing before we got there. I fucking love playing Pokemon with my daughter... It's great to see her learn the systems, mechanics and Pokemon. She's also getting better and better at navigating with a map, a skill that will hopefully translate well into real life.

Final Fantasy XV

Date played: January 7th
Platform: PS4

I completed many side quests and upgraded many weapons yesterday. My main objective was to upgrade the Engine Blade III by finding a Sturdy Helixhorn for Cid. The horn only drops from Duplicorns, a rare version of the unicorn-like enemies. They are only found during a specific hunt, and the horn isn't even guaranteed to drop. Apparently, it's more likely to appear when targeting the horn during combat. It took a few attempts at doing the hunt, but eventually it dropped and Cid was able to upgrade the sword to the Ultima Blade, easily the strongest normal weapon I've got.

I fought many of these Duplicorns to upgrade my sword

Between my attempts, I also completed a couple of side quests for Holly, the engineer from Lestallum. She had me checking pylons and power stations. I also grew a lot of Caem carrots to trade with the restaurant supplier. For my efforts, I was rewarded with a bunch of new upgradeable weapons, including a great sword, a pistol and a shield. I also received some special berries that the chef from Galdin Quay needed for a recipe.

I also visited one of the Empire military bases to find a weapon I had missed there, the Noisemaker. I fought a bunch of lower level Empire bad guys and found the weapon in a small shack. I think I missed another weapon in the second base I visited, so I'll go back to that soon and see if I can find it. Noctis has reached level 50 now and I've been steadily upgrading my tech tree. I still have many side quests available in Lucis, but I'm starting to feel like I should move on with the story soon.

Overwatch

Date played: January 4th, 5th and 6th
Platform: PS4

Today's hero is Mercy.

Role: Support
Difficulty: ★
HP: 200
Armor: 0
Shields: 0
Total: 200

Favorite quote: "Take two and call me in the morning."
Favorite map to play on: King's Row

Appearance
Mercy is a blonde, Swiss woman. She wears a really cool, form-fitting outfit that can deploy giant wings in the back that allow her to glide through the air. By default, her outfit is mostly white, giving her a very "medic" look. She wields a giant staff that can heal allies or boost their damage output. She also has a small pistol to defend herself. Mercy also has many of the best skins in the game in my opinion, with her Viking-inspired Valkyrie outfit being my favorite. 

Skills

• Caduceus Staff: Mercy's main weapon. It's main function is to heal allies by auto-locking onto them at up to 15 meters. It heals for 60 HP per second. Alternatively, she can boost an allies damage output by 30%.

• Caduceus Blaster: A simple pistol and Mercy's only way to defend herself from attackers.

• Guardian Angel: Mercy quickly flies towards and ally that is within line of sight. 
• Angelic Descent: Allows Mercy to float a little bit as she falls, letting her glide slowly.

• Ultimate - Resurrect: Mercy revives any dead allies in a 15 meter range, restoring their health to maximum. 

Strengths

• Mercy is really easy to use effectively. She heals a single target almost as well as Ana, but it's a lot easier to pull off, making Mercy a very consistent and reliable healer.

• The damage boost ability works really well when used on an ally that is using his Ultimate. Soldier 76, Pharah and Genji are great examples.
• Mercy might just be the most mobile healer in the game, as long as she keeps line of sight on her allies to fly away with Guardian Angel.
• Resurrect is incredibly powerful and might just be the Ultimate with the biggest impact on a match.  

Weaknesses

• Mercy's biggest weakness is that she's completely defenseless while healing. While Ana, Lucio and Zenyatta can all defend themselves pretty well, Mercy's only option is to stop healing and pull out her pistol. Granted, the pistol is pretty strong, but it pales in comparison to the other healers.

• Mercy needs to be protected. She cannot be left on her own as flankers rush away and tanks move too quickly. 

• Resurrect is amazing, but it's pretty hard to pull off a big one since Mercy has to survive until she can resurrect. This is often a lot more difficult than it looks.

• Mercy can struggle with healing multiple allies in a timely manner. While she can heal a single hero better than most healers, she has a bit more trouble when many people are taking damage at once. 

Comments
Mercy has gone through a lot since the game's release. In the first few months, she was a lot more prominent than she is now. Back then, there were a lot of slow moving teams that usually used Reinhardt as their leader with his big shield. Mercy was great in these situations. However, as the game progressed, it also got faster and deadlier. She became harder and harder to use well. People also love to take out Mercy first to avoid her powerful resurrection.

I actually love playing Mercy, but at this point, it's usually a better idea to use Lucio or Ana. Zenyatta is a weird one since he's never really been good enough to be the only healer, so he works well with Mercy. At this point, I mainly pick Mercy when we have many tanks, or sometimes when we have Pharah on our team, since that makes the healer a lot more mobile and unpredictable.

Mercy's damage boost is cool, but it's pretty hard to use well since you're relying on the other person to be aggressive and accurate. it works really well with some Ultimates though. Mercy's pistol is also a lot more powerful than it looks at first glance. I've used it countless times to shoot through choke points. It's also one of the better weapons for taking out a Bastion at long range, or a Torbjorn turret.

Don't get me wrong, there are times where Mercy will be the only reason for a victory, but it's becoming a rarer thing than when the game first launched. Her resurrection is still a game-changer, but it's pretty hard to pull off well. Mercy is a great overall healer that is easy to use, but she is clearly outclassed by Lucio and Ana. Plus, she doesn't have the powerful offensive skills that Zenyatta has, so she's become kind of a niche pick. 

Worst enemy: Genji
Best teammate: Pharah
Most satisfying kill: Tracer
Rating ★★★

Street Fighter V

Date played: January 6th
Platform: PS4

My brother came over last night to play some games and have fun, and he brought his PS4 with him. He has Street Fighter V, so we gave it a go. I've played a LOT of Street Fighter IV, mainly with Dhalsim, though I can handle myself as Ryu, Ken and a couple of others.

The first thing I noticed is that the graphics and art style are pretty different from IV. I think it looks a lot nicer overall, though there's a few characters that look weird, Ken in particular. The game's handling is very close to IV too, though there's no longer an Ultra meter, which has been replaced with a thing called V Trigger. I don't quite understand it yet, but it's a bit more difficult to use than the Ultras.

I played Ryu, Ken and Dhalsim. Ryu and Ken are the same as ever and I did well with both of them, though I always have a slight preference for Ryu. His Shoryuken seems to be a little faster than before, which is nice. Dhalsim is very different from before. While he still has stretchy limbs and similar moves as before, his movement is completely changed. His jump is kind of floaty and his general movement is a lot slower. He hits a bit harder though, so maybe that compensates I guess. Also, I wasn't able to pull off his teleport, but I could do it easily in IV, so they must have changed the controller inputs.

I loved playing Street Fighter V with my bro, it was cool!