Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon

Date played: February 28th
Platform: 3DS
Session fun rating: 7/10

I played through a rather long level where Luigi had to recover pieces of a metal pinwheel gate from thieving ghosts. Using the newly provided water from the water pump, I was able to use buckets as watering devices to make some plants grow and reveal new secrets. I explored much of the dual tower mansion including a small courtyard, a shed, a creepy basement (with coffins!) and a special botanical experimentation room.

Luigi brings his loot back to the professor

It's in that room that I got stuck. I had to reveal a piece of pipe in the ceiling using my special light, but I never saw it. This pipe would send water down to a special plant that grew into a beanstalk and granted me access to higher levels in the mansion. However, after 15 minutes of exploring every nook and cranny of the level, I gave up and watched a Youtube walkthrough to find the secret pipe. It was still a lot of fun, this level is filled with cool contraptions and good battles.

Mario Tennis Open

Date played: February 28th
Platform: 3DS
Session fun rating: 6/10

Once again, I killed time in the waiting room of my daughter's dance class with a little bit of portable gaming. This time, I played Mario Tennis Open. I completed two Doubles tournaments, a Singles tournament and a Streetpass duel.

A powerful lob by Bowser

The Streetpass thing is exactly as you would expect, a simple, Mii vs Mii match, which I won easily. The Doubles were a bit frustrating though because the second character is AI controlled, which made it's mistakes really frustrating. I used Donkey Kong and naturally, I selected Diddy Kong as my partner. It was still fun to play, but I definitely preferred the Singles matches where I used Bowser. I definitely have a preference for power characters...

1 PS4, 2 Brothers, Many Great Moments

Date played: February 27th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 10/10

One of my brothers came over to visit my house last night and we ended up playing a ton of games on PS4, though we quickly found a game that really hooked us. He wanted to see some of the stuff I had that he didn't know about. We played short bits of games like Trine 2, OlliOlli and Velocity 2X.

We spent a good amount of time with The Binding of Isaac. My bro really liked the creepy, yet funny art and animation. I ended up playing two runs. In the first, I was powerful but careless. In the second, I had good speed and range, but I just couldn't do enough damage to make it through some of the tougher enemies and died.

Then we tried out a bit of LittleBigPlanet 3, though it didn't go as well as we had hoped... We played a weird level where we had to build a car to race another dude. It wasn't explained well at all and honestly, it was just really confusing. Eventually, we managed to build a car out of an ice skate. It had a front wheel that could be used to give us speed when landing from jumps and a balloon to help us get some lift.

The game that really got us going was Towerfall Ascension. This is a 2D, retro versus game where little archers shoot each other to death. It reminded me of BariBariBall in a lot of ways. Strangely, it also felt a bit like a very fast paced Bushido Blade. The big appeal here is that it only takes a single arrow to kill which makes everything really fucking intense. The movement is extremely fast too, so shit gets crazy in even the simplest matches.

My brother's corpse explodes as I contemplate the results of my carnage

There are tons of levels and variants available, so we messed with that too. Stuff like special arrows, exploding corpses, invisibility, etc. We must have played at least an hour and the entire time, we were shouting excitedly at every kill, every close call, every sweet victory and every bitter defeat. Now all I want to do is try the 4 player mode...

Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon

Luigi meets the large ghost guarding the water pump

Date played: February 25th
Platform: 3DS
Session fun rating: 7/10

I played a single level of Luigi's Mansion in the waiting room of my daughter's piano class. It's a new environment, a mansion with two towers. My objective was to reactivate the water pump at the top of the building. There were some cool new mechanics in this level like shooting objects at enemies and the environment. In another area, I used my vacuum on a balloon and used it as a makeshift flying device. It was really fun to use!

After a lot of exploration, I found the water pump and turned it on. Before I could leave, I was confronted by a very large ghost with a ton of health that spit dirty water at me... I captured it and completed the level!

Metroid: Other M

Date played: February 24th
Platform: Wii
Session fun rating: 9/10

I made my way to sector 0, where I hoped to find the metroids and destroy them. Along the way, I battled a monster that dropped the seeker missile upgrade. This allows up to 5 targets to be selected at the same time for missile launches. Later, I went through a very cool area where gravity was unstable. At times, it was completely reversed and Samus was upside down. Other times, it was heavier than normal and prevented me from using normal abilities like missiles and the speed booster.

Inside sector 0, just before reaching the objective area, I battled the awful, ghostly, bio-mechanical creature named Nightmare. It was a difficult fight in Metroid Fusion, and it was difficult here as well. Nightmare used a gravity well to pin Samus to the ground. I had to use charged beams and missiles to damage it, but avoid it's attacks. Without being able to jump, it became pretty hard. After beating it, I continued for a bit and was stunned to be face to face with a baby metroid! 

The cinematic here was visually impressive, but that's about the only good thing I can say about it. It's cheesy, badly acted and doesn't represent Samus as the strong, independent warrior that I know and love. She comes across as a too feminine, too weak character in this scene. In the end, Adam wasn't the deleter after all... He sacrificed himself to save Samus and destroy sector 0.

At the same time, MB, the Mother Brain AI, takes over the BOTTLE SHIP and puts it on a collision course with the Galactic Federation headquarters. Samus, grieving Adam's death, must now stop MB. I gained access to the Gravity Suit, which ignores the weird gravity sections and allows fast movement in water.

Nightmare, phase 2.

On my way back to the main sector, I was surprised by Nightmare a second time as I walked past it's inanimate body. Scarred, angry and weakened, it attacked me and gave me another difficult battle. This time, I had the Gravity Suit, so I was able to resist it's gravity well, but it attacked more fiercely and even had ways to change the course of my missiles in parts of the battle. Patience and quick reflexes granted me victory after a long battle.

Metroid: Other M

Date played: February 23rd
Platform: Wii
Session fun rating: 10/10

Wow, the game really picked up the pace! It turns out, I was just about to reach a boss fight when I last stopped playing. Armed with my new grapple beam, I battled with Vorash, a creepy creature with many eyes that swims in lava. After a few solid hits, the beast sometimes revealed a weak spot that can be grappled. Samus fishes the monster out of the lava and has a few seconds to get some free hits.

After the battle, I explored the next areas and ended up in the first few sections of Sector 3, but with the grapple beam, many more paths opened up. I fought the mysterious purple creature again, but it fled. Soon enough, I found it's corpse, spread open once more as it happened to the fuzzy white creature earlier in the game. It seems it had evolved again.

That's when it happened. Samus fought Ridley.

Samus vs Ridley

It turns out, the mysterious creature was a clone of Ridley that had to evolve from it's fuzzy white larval stage, to the teenage creature I fought a few times to finally become the fearsome dragon we all know and hate. I was granted access to the Plasma Beam and Super Missiles to fight the beast. Unfortunately, Ridley managed to kill on of the last soldiers on the ship, the large dude with the amazing gun.

The battle with Ridley was lots of fun and pretty difficult. He actually managed to kill me three times, which is more than I've died in the entire game so far... All I really had to do was dodge quickly and charge my beam for quick hits. After some damage, his skin would sometimes become dark and he could reflect beam shots, so I had to use the new Super Missiles to damage him. I knocked the beast out on the fourth try, but he quickly woke up and fled.

I ended up back in Sector 1 where I spotted a member of the Galactic Federation as he ran away. I think all that is left from the team is Adam and the Deleter, but I'm not certain. Adam is unreachable, so Samus decides to start using her famous screw attack and space jump abilities, which lets her jump across long chasms freely. As I was following the person, I ran into a young woman who turned out to be Dr. Madeline Bergman, the doctor in charge of the entire installation.

There was a lot of story stuff here, but the gist of it is that someone grabbed some metroid cells from Samus' damaged suit after the events of Super Metroid. The stupid fucks then cloned it and bred it. To keep control of them, they also had to replicate Mother Brain in some way, so they built an AI to replace the biological creature. Dr. Bergman told me to head to Sector 0, a hidden part of the BOTTLE SHIP, to destroy the metroids.

After Samus left, an unknown Galactic Federation soldier showed up and approached Dr. Bergman. It's either Adam or the Deleter I think... unless Adam is the Deleter...

Mario Tennis Open

Date played: February 23rd
Platform: 3DS
Session fun rating: 7/10

I bought this game used from a friend and finally got a chance to try it. Since my girlfriend loves tennis, we decided to play a few matches against each other using the always awesome "download play" feature on 3DS.

Mario Tennis Open is a simple, but deep game, kind of like real tennis. It handles very well and looks great. I picked DK and my opponent picked Peach. The game has a large variety of shot types such as spins, slices, straights, lobs, drops, etc. Often, special spots on the court appear where a certain type of shot will trigger a "special" that is usually very powerful and hard to return. For example, by performing a slice shot on a corresponding spot, the ball will have a HUGE curve to it, making it very difficult to hit. We also played a match as our Mii's. I won both matches, though my girlfriend did better on the slower clay court.

Costume Quest 2

Date played: February 22nd
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 8/10

I finished Costume Quest 2!

I was really close to the end when I last stopped playing. I went back in time and recruited the young Dr Orel to help me enter the evil dentist's lair. As I was leaving to go back to the future (!), I planted some rainbow candy in the ground, which grew a small sprout. In the future, I convinced a monster to give me some of it's fertilizer by putting on costumes that reminded him of a movie he saw once... I took the fertilizer, went back to the past and poured it on the sprout. When I went back to the future (!), the sprout grew to a gigantic beanstalk. After a ridiculously long climb through it's trunk, I reached the outer atmosphere and found a powerful new costume, the solar system.

Armed with the solar system, superhero and hot dog, I went inside Dr Orel's lair. Alarmingly, he built an entire fake town run by robots for the sole purpose of trick or treating, reliving his childhood fantasies. After a brief romp through the area, I found a robot costume that let me go into his room unnoticed.

Orel White DDS in his mechanical dentist armor suit

The final battle was a great fight against Orel as he rode his giant mechanical dentist suit. Yep. The fight itself was very easy compared to the last battle of the first game and it's expansion. I used a couple of powerful cards and fucked him without issue. We grabbed the talisman and fixed Halloween! The credits sequence has me finally attending the neighborhood street party, talking to all the folks that helped me during the story.

Costume Quest 2 had better battles, better costumes and much cooler environments, though it was a bit too easy compared to the previous game. I'm still glad I played it, but it would be nice if they changed the formula a bit more if Double Fine ever makes a sequel. 

Skylanders Swap Force

Date played: February 22nd
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 6/10

I played 1 level in Skylanders Swap Force with my daughter this afternoon. She loves to take the toys and lay them out in a little line on the floor, then picking out the combatants for me to use throughout the levels. Today, she picked a bit of Ninja Stealth Elf and the swap combination of Wash Kraken. The level itself was rather simple. I had to save a town of hilarious land shark cowboys by destroying 3 enemy air ships. I managed an upgrade to Ninja Stealth Elf's movement and Wash's piranha bubble gun.

Land sharks. Cowboy land sharks.

Halo 4

Date played: February 21st
Platform: Xbox One
Session fun rating: 10/10

I played the first half of Halo 4's 10 missions, the only game in the series that I've never played. It starts in the hull of the wrecked Forward Unto Dawn starship as Cortana wakes Master Chief from cryogenic sleep. She detected intruders on the ship which is weird considering they are stranded in deep space after the events of Halo 3.

Chief wakes up and investigates the threat right away. There are major changes that are noticeable right away in this game. For one, Cortana looks completely different, though I kind of like her new look. Also, the game looks very good graphically. It doesn't look old like Halo 3 did, it looks like it fits rather well on Xbox One... The lighting effects are beautiful. There is also a sprint button now, which was in Halo Reach, but not in any game starring Master Chief.

I really love Halo...

I quickly discovered that the invaders were the Covenant, though they seem to be from a different faction or something. There are no Brutes, but there are Elites, meaning these guys never got the message that humans and Elites are allies now... I fought a bunch of them, some of them during a great sequence outside the hull of the ship. There's a new weapon that I like quite a bit, the Storm Rifle. This thing is a Covenant assault rifle. It's fast, accurate and powerful, making it one of my favorite weapons to use.

On the horizon, an odd looking planet stares down at us and quickly starts pulling all the Covenant ships and the Forward Unto Dawn towards it. This is the first time a Halo game has cinematic first person sequences, similar to what is often seen in Call of Duty and honestly, they pull it off pretty well. For example, Master Chief gets pulled through debris as he crash lands on the planet below in first person view.

On the ground, Master Chief stumbles around the wreckage for a bit until Cortana locates a ship that we could use to escape. Cortana is going rampant due to her age. AI start losing it at 7 years old, but Cortana is 8 years old. This means that she is somewhat inaccurate, slow and sometimes downright scary. Not only does Master Chief want to escape the planet, he wants to save Cortana by getting her to her creator on Earth. Anyway, I fought more Covenant on the surface, trying to find the intact ship.

Eventually, we discovered that the signal from the intact ship was the USNC Infinity. A rescue ship! Unfortunately, we can't communicate with it just yet, though we found a weird portal while attempting to regain communications. We had a glimpse of some robotic entities that seem to be able to teleport at will before rushing out through the portal.

Using a Ghost vehicle, Master Chief escapes a dangerous area and reaches a relatively safe spot. From there, we saw the Infinity lose control of it's systems and crash land in the distance. I fought the new enemy type, Forerunners. These metallic enemies have new forms and behaviors, which is very welcome. Even more interestingly, they carry new weapon types. While there is the usual pistol, shotgun, assault rifle, burst rifle and sniper rifle, all of them feel different and look very very cool. They assemble themselves from pieces with a very awesome animation.

At first, the Covenant the the Forerunner units fought each other, which was nice for me. After a bit more exploration though, a powerful creature named the Didact was awakened. He clearly has malicious intentions, though I didn't quite catch what his objective was. Anyway, he flew to the location of the Infinity's wreck, so I followed it.

I met up with the humans who survived the crash and started helping out by clearing a landing zone. I fought alongside humans for the first time in a dense forest filled with Forerunners. It soon became evident that the Didact had convinced the Covenant to fight on his side against the humans. I got to ride a Scorpion tank to blow Covenant and Forerunner to bits.

Finally, I had to turn one large cannons to scare off the Didact's vehicle, guarding the Infinity. To do so, I rode an amazing piece of machinery, the Mantis. This bipedal mech is equipped with a powerful machine gun and some high damage rockets. This thing fucking tears through everything in a flash, including Covenant drop ships. In the next mission, the UNSC targets the gravity well that is keeping all ships grounded.

I really like what I've played of Halo 4 so far. One of the big reasons is that it looks just stunning. I mean, it's a last generation game technically, but boy, does it look great. The beautiful art style doesn't hurt either. It also plays like a more modern game with good level design and good set piece moments. 

Costume Quest 2

Date played: February 21st
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 8/10

I made some serious progress in Costume Quest 2. Our crew continued gathering candy deliveries for monsters in the hopes of reaching the dentist's headquarters and save our adult friends. Along the way, we tracked mysterious paw prints in city using the wizard's special light. There was a great side story about two monsters with competing casinos and fighting about billboard space and stuff.  Eventually, the paw prints led to a kid in a werewolf costume who gave us the costume right away! The werewolf is pretty good in combat and inflicts damage over time.

We then moved on to the last section of the game, the headquarters. I quickly found another costume here, the ghost. He looks cool but he's relatively useless so far. He has a move that hides a party member from enemies, but he doesn't hit hard enough. We found our friends and freed them, then started investigating ways to stop the evil dentist. There were a couple of boss fights too, though honestly, there was no real challenge here. I abuse the creepy treat cards and time my attacks and defenses well.

Hot dog power!

Along the way, I picked up my favorite costume in the game so far, a hot dog. Yep. A hot dog. In battle, it turns into a giant, three headed dog who attacks with regurgitated ketchup, mustard and relish! He's super strong too and hits all enemies at once. I think my team is set with the pharaoh, super hero and hot dog. I am definitely getting real close to the ending because we now have to go back to the first area to convince the dentist (as a child) to come back in time with us and open a retinal lock for us, which should lead us to the dentist. 

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D

Date played: February 20th
Platform: 3DS
Session fun rating: 10/10

I completed my first 3 day cycle. I got the password from the bomber kids to let me through to the observatory. I met an astronomer there who let me use his telescope... That's when I first saw it, the moon with giant angry face on it, rapidly progressing towards impact on Termina and the end of the world. High above the clock tower, I also saw the Skull Kid as a moon tear fell down below, close to the observatory. I picked it up and went back to town to find a way to reach the Skull Kid.

I gave the moon tear to a deku merchant in town, who gave me his piece of land in the town square in exchange. I launched Link from the flower spot and glided to a heart piece and the stairs to the clock tower's roof. It turns out, the door only opens at midnight on the third day, so I killed time by exploring Clock Town. When the time came, I met with the Skull Kid at the top of the tower. Clearly, he was angry at something and the fairies were both pretty pissed. To stop him, I will have to visit 4 areas, which are probably dungeons.

As the moon was crashing down on Termina, Link shot the Skull Kid with a bubble and recovered the Ocarina of Time. I played the song of time, which led me back to the beginning of the game and took away any items I had in my inventory. I'm not really sure how this will work, but I have to find a way to the dungeons now I guess.

The Unfinished Swan

Date played: February 19th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 9/10

I finished The Unfinished Swan!

Armed with my water blobs, I gained the ability to make vines grow on walls and structures. These became handholds for climbing and add a bit of color to the world. I solved a few platforming puzzles with these wonderful bits of flora. In one very cool segment, I even used a fire hose to shoot water far away to make the vines cross a river. I then hopped onto a sort of airship that led soon crashed into a very dark forest.

The dark forest was super cool. There was finally a lot of color in the game, but most of all, there was darkness. Looming in the distance was a large figure or statue of the King. Using ink blobs to turn on light sources, I had to avoid the darkness filled with dangerous spiders. It was creepy as fuck that's for sure. After a while, I found a pink glowing ball of light that I could move around by throwing ink at it. This tension filled sequence led me to the King's unfinished house.

The King's statue looms in the background of the forest

Being half built, the house needed some repairs before I could progress. Seemingly inspired by M.C. Escher, the game made me jump into a painting, or rather, a blueprint of the house so that I could complete it. The stark minimalism of the sequence was shocking after the spooky forest. I was also given a new tool that allowed me to build walls, ceilings and blocks on certain surfaces. I rebuilt the missing parts of the house with these tools and reached the top of the King's statue.

That's where I found the King himself, lounging on a chair next to his pet hippopotamus. Seriously, this game is messed up. The King told me of his dream, which I then played. Honestly, this last portion of the game was a bit less interesting in terms of gameplay, it was more like an interactive story and credits sequence. In the end, the child was given a paintbrush by the King and he was able to complete the titular unfinished swan painting in honor of his deceased mother.

I loved playing The Unfinished Swan. It's unique, has fun mechanics, is surprisingly varied and tells a cute story. I won't be playing it again though, it's kind of a one trick pony.

Mario Kart 7

Date played: February 19th
Platform: 3DS
Session fun rating: 8/10

I played another local multiplayer Mario Kart 7 Grand Prix, this time on the Flower Cup. My opponent is still learning the ropes of this version of the game such as gliding, riding underwater and learning the new tracks.

Mario Circuit is one of the best tracks in the game

Wuhu Loop is a fun track, though it was a bit difficult for my friend. Mario Circuit is one of my favorite games in the entire game. It has big, wide corners that allow for fantastic drifting sections. Music Park is another challenging track when first trying it out, so my friend had trouble here too, but I absolutely love it. It's fast and well designed. Finally, we tackled Rock Rock Mountain. Another well designed track with a few very fun gliding sections. I won every race and my friend did rather well as a whole, placing 4th overall. While we have limited time to play, local Mario Kart multiplayer is always a ton of fun and I can't wait to play again!

The Unfinished Swan

Date played: February 18th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 8/10

Another PS+ freebie, Unfinished Swan is a unique little exploration game with simple puzzle elements. It has an incredible look to it that really grabbed my attention. For the first few sections of the game, everything is completely white. I mean, the game starts and there is NOTHING on the screen except white. When a button is pressed, the character shoots out balls of black ink. These ink balls then reveal the geometry of the level. It's a really cool concept.

There's a bit of a story too. It's about a woman who loved to paint, but never completed her paintings. When she died, her orphan son was allowed to keep only one painting. He chose her favorite, "The Unfinished Swan". The game seems to take place in the kid's mind as he explores the painting. It's very dreamy and crazy, but it works rather well. The excellent ambient music helps set the mood well with it's soft xylophone chords.

I played through two areas and saw the beginning of the third. First, it was a large swamp without color or shadow because the King couldn't decide which colors would be best. Along the way, the Swan's footsteps guided me. I even saw it fly away a few times. After exploring the swamp and a large house, shadows were added to the world. This made it a lot easier and faster to navigate obviously. There was a watchtower that led to a gigantic maze which I didn't have to really explore, thankfully. I reached a hot air balloon, rode it, then fell out into a lake or pool of some kind.

The Unfinished Swan is wonderful to play

In this new area, my ink blobs were replaced with water blobs. As I got out of the water, I noticed a very large, sleeping (and snoring!) giant nearby. My task is to wake him. Using my new water blobs, I was able to solve small puzzles by throwing them at mechanisms to move stuff around. I scaled a large scaffolding. I then reached a garden area and when I shot water blobs at the dead bushes, green shrubbery started growing! I quickly figured out that I could make myself some paths by shooting the blobs where I want to go. It's very cool and I'm curious to see what I will discover next.

Mario Kart 7

Date played: February 17th
Platform: 3DS
Session fun rating: 9/10

On break at work, I played a bit of Mario Kart 7 with my friends. We played a 100cc Mushroom cup to get settled in and used to the game. Then we played 3 races on random tracks. Since we only have two game cartridges, Shy Guy was the only available character for one of my friends. I used him and the exact same kart setup so that things would be 100% fair.

I'm really good at Mario Kart in general. I drive fast, I corner well, I use items at the right time and I know the tracks fairly well. I also take advantage of coins, boosts and shortcuts. This means I win a lot when playing against other players. While Mario Kart always has an element of chance with the items, a good clean race helps win a race a lot more than people realize. On the N64 classic Kalimari Desert, one of my friends beat me by a few meters with a little hit of his Tanooki tail just before the end. On Rainbow Road, I dominated the entire field and got 1st place. Finally, on Bowser's Castle, I placed 2nd after an AI racer while my friends were in the very rear of the queue. It's a pretty tough track though...

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D

Date played: February 16th
Platform: 3DS
Session fun rating: 8/10

I started Majora's Mask 3D. I've never actually played it outside of a few minutes here and there when I was a teenager, so this remake was a great opportunity to finally play it. The game has a strong opening where a young Link rides Epona in the woods. A mysterious kid in a scary mask shows up, accompanied by 2  fairies and taunts Link. He then steals his famous ocarina and precious horse. He also puts a spell on Link that transforms him into a Deku, a weird, wooden creature. One of the fairies is left behind and decides to help Link recover his belongings. She also reveals that the kid is named "Skull Kid".

As a Deku, Link cannot use his sword and shield. He has an spinning attack and can duck into holes (flower holes??) to launch himself into the air and glide a long distance with spinning flowers. After a few tutorials, I reached Clock Town, the hub of the world.

The Skull Kid and his fairies

So the big thing about Majora's Mask is that there is a 3 day cycle. I'm not sure how this really works yet, as I haven't completed a cycle yet, but I believe that the world resets after 3 days and only a few things carry over. It's quite unclear at this point. For now, I have to find my Ocarina before the 3 days are up. I explored a few areas of the town, but not many. I played a little maze mini-game and scored some deku nuts for my efforts.

I met the Great Fairy, as per my fairy's instructions, but she was tricked by the Skull Kid and lost a part of herself to him. I first had to find a missing fairy for her. I found the fairy in the town and brought it back to the Great Fairy. She regained her regular, sexy form and granted me the ability to shoot aimed bubbles. Using motion controls to fine aim the bubbles, I shot down a fancy balloon outside the shrine, which got the attention of a gang of kids.

These kids seem to run the fucking town, as they are blocking access to a path I need to find the Ocarina. They challenged me to a game of hide and seek, but I only had until dawn to find them. At that point, it was already 3 AM in the game, so I failed. I had to find them again the next morning. They were scattered around town, hiding in boxes and on ledges. When I found them all, I was given a code to access the blocked path.

On 3DS, I find that the 3D effect works very well with action games like Zelda. The second screen also plays a big role as I could see the map at all times and can select items and eventually, masks, on the fly. Finally, the New 3DS' control stick works wonders in a game like this as it allows me to control the camera quickly, accurately and easily. I'm excited to see what happens next!

inFAMOUS First Light

Date played: February 15th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 9/10

I finished First Light!

It turns out, Shane is a real asshole... I did more work for his trading business, which turned out to be drugs of course, in the hopes of finding Brent with his help. What Fetch didn't know is that Shane had already found Brent and was using him as a way to blackmail her into doing his dirty work for him.

This led to more missions helping Shane, but the tone had definitely shifted. The DUP started showing up too of course, as I was causing a lot of havoc in the city. A conduit as strong as Fetch garners attention pretty quickly when she's "active". This means a bunch of new, stronger enemies to fight. The DUP uses other conduits as soldiers, so I had a lot of air battles and a lot more challenge.

I got some new powers along the way. The most useful is a directed blast of energy that puts enemies into stasis for a short period of time, making them harmless for a few seconds and easier to shoot. It can also blast enemies off platforms and buildings. The other is a homing missile power that needs ammo, gained from draining neon sources. It's powerful, but because it has ammo, it's a bit more difficult to use well.

In between some of the story missions, I was brought back to the arena at the conduit prison. I decided to try one of the arena challenges. Basically, it's a score attack mode where I must survive as long as I can and prevent hostages from dying to thugs. I played the first, and I assume easiest of them and got a high enough score to get complete all of it's associated challenges. It was pretty cool I guess, but I had my fill and didn't want to try the other modes.

At one point, the hacker girl from earlier contacted Fetch to offer her help. That's when I was given the opportunity to take down police drones in each district by hacking into their video feed to locate them. Shane killed the hacker girl for her disobedience...

Eventually, Shane asked Fetch to help him cut a deal with the cops so that they would stay away from the drug operations. I ended up killing a bunch of cops and feeling like a dick for it. Then it happened... Shane said he would release Brent because the deal with the cops went well. When I reached the meeting point, I was trapped and poisoned. In a fit of rage, I escaped by blowing out the walls of the building and decided to take on Shane head on.

Fetch had to sabotage Shane's operations by finding 6 of his delivery trucks, killing everyone inside them, destroying the drugs and tagging the trucks with taunting, neon graffiti. This was a long, fun mission, one of the best in the game. The DUP got in the way a few times too, but I took them out as well. Shane seemed like he would finally give in and release Brent.

When Fetch met with Shane, he quickly ambushed her and poisoned her as she walked into a DUP trap. In a weird, drug-induced sequence, I shot blindly at enemies and even had some weird flashbacks about Fetch's childhood. At the end of it, I accidentally killed Brent by mistake... It's a weird way to handle it, but it works pretty well honestly. After an emotional, last breath conversation, Fetch was captured by the DUP.

Shane must pay

I thought the game would end there, but Augustine, the head of the DUP, had a little surprise for Fetch. She brought out Shane! Fetch immediately attacked him, but missed. Her attack opened up a hole in the wall where both of them escaped, though Shane managed to hijack a truck. I stumbled through the snowy mountains nearby, fighting hordes of strong DUP agents and even a helicopter before reaching Shane. It was a great scene. Fetch punishes Shane until she just cracks and kills him.

I thought First Light was pretty damn cool. Fetch is a great character, her powers are fun to use and the story was good. I hope to play another inFAMOUS game sometime soon!

Costume Quest 2

Date played: February 15th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 8/10

I continued to explore the future city, gathering candy, discovering secrets, battling monsters, using new treat cards for battle and making new costumes. Nothing super exciting happened, except that I found 2 new costumes. The first is the Wizard, a hard hitting, but easy to kill damage machine. He hits all enemies at once when fighting, but he goes down a bit too fast for my taste... He also wields a glowing light that can open up new passages for our friends.

The pharaoh is the newest addition to my team

The second is the Pharaoh (mummy?). I think it will be my permanent healer since it has a powerful, single target heal and can revive an ally. It seems like the clown is on his way out. So my current party is usually the superhero, the pharaoh and the wizard. I kind of wish I had a more solid, damage dealing costume to replace the wizard. Maybe I should bring back the Pterodactyl? As for the superhero, it must stay equipped at all times on the sister of the group. My daughter says it's "her" and loves her very much. Replacing her would be sacrilege.

Wii Sports Club

Nerdy. Awesome.

Date played: February 15th
Platform: Wii U
Session fun rating: 7/10

A while ago, Wii Sports Club was automatically downloaded to my Wii U. I never touched it, having played my fair share of the original Wii Sports. My daughter was asking to play something with me, so I thought we could try Wii Sports. This is basically a Wii U remake of Wii Sports that includes online play and a weird pricing scheme. It includes a 24 hour free trial, so I played some Golf, Tennis, Bowling and Baseball.

There is some cool stuff added for the Gamepad, like a nice throwing and catching mechanic for Baseball and an awesome "ball view" for Golf. It looks nerdy, yet awesome. It's weird to put the Gamepad down at my feet as if it were a real tee. My daughter liked swinging the bat a few times during baseball, but found it a bit too difficult. The other games are more difficult, so she preferred to watch as I played. Bowling is still the best game too. Tennis sucks.