DLC Quest

I was browsing through the Xbox Indie section on Xbox 360 last week and amongst the tons of crap, I found a gem called DLC Quest. This is a satire game that pokes a lot of fun at the gaming industry and the current trend towards paid DLC.

You start the game with only the ability to move to the right. There is no animation, no sound, and you don't have the ability to jump or move to the left. As you glide across the screen, you collect a few coins and run into the merchant who will sell you DLC with the coins you just picked up. Once you buy your first DLC, you can now move about with all those extra moves that "should have shipped with the game".

What makes this game so much fun is how much humor there is in the dialog and interacting with the world's characters. I laughed plenty during the playthrough of this game.

The worst thing about this game is the length. It's far too short, but what the games does have is well done. Fortunately the sequel, Live Freemium or Die, is much longer and even funnier.

If you're looking to kill a few hours and need a few laughs, I recommend picking these games up. Not only are they funny, but they're good, simple platformers too. Plus, they're only $1 each on Xbox 360 (I guess they're on Steam too, but I'm not sure the cost there).

DLC Quest Link
Live Freemium or Die Link

Minecraft - Still Mining

Happy New Year everyone! Fear not, I haven't disappeared! I simply haven't done much to warrant a new post yet. The "little project" I started back in December is taking a lot more work than I thought it would, especially since I'm doing it all by myself. I never really thought it through when I had the hairbrain idea in the first place. On the plus side, I am inching closer to my goal of creating a surface to bedrock pyramid underground.

Minecraft - The Next Project

Okay, so I just can't stay away from this game for long!

I started a new world on the Xbox using the seed "yolo" and in this world, I only play Survival with monsters on. It really makes it a whole new game and experience doing this. Before I 'officially' started playing this world, I explored it in creative and I must say it is going to be an interesting place to explore once I really get started. There are lots of villages and ravines, abandoned mineshafts and at least one stronghold. I don't remember where any of them are, but they're out there somewhere. (I deleted the creative world and started again with the survival one) I spawned near a desert village to the far south and that place has become my home base. So far, I've been fortifying it and building up supplies. I have managed to find a little bit of iron for a few tools, but not much yet. It's still a ton of fun except those darn Endermen keep taking my blocks...

Back in my first world, I have began yet another massive project. Or at least it's turning out to be massive. I didn't think it through just how big it would get when I started. I went to the very center of my map at 0,0 and created a 3x3 hole 1 deep where the center of the hole is the exact center of the world. From here, I proceeded to dig down and create an underground pyramid so each layer down gets bigger by one. At first, it didn't seem to bad, but I'm about 25 layers down and each new dig is taking more and more time to do. Thankfully, I have a ton of TNT stored up. In the very center, I left a pillar and have a ladder going all the way up to the top as my only entrance.

When I'm down at the bottom looking up and what I've done, it truly is an amazing view and I can't wait to see what it looks like when I hit bedrock.

So far, I have been pretty lucky in that I've only hit one water block and a few caverns. I predict that luck will run out soon when I get deeper as this region of my map has a ton of lava in it. Luckily I now have a ton of gravel to get rid of it all. I'm also running out of room in my store room for cobblestone. I'm working on filling chest number 17 with cobblestone and I have a long ways to go.

Borderlands 2

As annoyed as I am with the Black Thursday Friday sales, I did get a new game for my collection at an amazing price. Thanks to an awesome stranger who grabbed the copy for me, I now have Borderlands 2 on the Xbox for $25.

I had played it a bit split screen with my brother-in-law before, but this was my first opportunity to play it solo and full screen. Needless to say, I had a blast! I played it about an hour or so by myself before a great friend jumped in soon followed by my brother-in-law. The three of us played co-op together until the wee hours of the morning. We ended with us arriving in Sanctuary and taking care of a few things there.

This game is so much fun to play, especially with others. I'm just glad that I get experience for their kills as they are all several levels over me and were tending to kill everything that moved before I had a chance to join the fight... Oh well, still fun.

I also like the graphical style of the game and the massive size of the levels. Being a big fan of large world and loot games (Diablo, Fallout, Oblivion), I have also been enjoying exploring the world, opening as many containers as I see and finding as many guns as possible. I just wish I had more backpack space.

Right now, I've been working on an Assassin character and am almost level 11. I'm looking forward to trying out the other classes as well and eventually getting the DLC, probably via the season pass. I can tell you right now, this game is probably going to take up a lot of my gaming time now and is a welcomed break from Minecraft. 

Update: I guess I'm a 'bad blogger'. Here is yet another blog I've had drafted for well over a week and haven't posted yet. I'm now a level 12 Assassin and still loving the game. I just met the Firehawk when I left off.

New Game Acquisitions and Playing

Yes, I do play other games than Minecraft. I know it's a little hard to believe, but that is the truth.

In fact, I've almost finished the first Ratchet & Clank game in the Ratchet & Clank Collection. I'm to the point where I'm battling Chairman Drek, but I've been going back bolt collecting to buy the RYNO. This game is still a ton of fun, but I want to finish it off as much as possible first before moving on to the next games in the trilogy which I enjoy more.

I have also had a chance to play some Borderlands 2 on the Xbox 360. That was a ton of fun and I love the humor and style of it. This is definitely a game I will be getting in the future, but probably after Christmas unless someone buys it for me as a Christmas gift *cough*blackfriday*cough*...

In the meantime, a good friend of mine lent me his copy of the first Borderlands game on the Xbox 360, so I do have something Borderlands to keep me occupied. I know the very general story from what my brother has said, but am still looking forward to experiencing it myself.

While said friend was over, he brought his newly acquired copy of Halo 4 with him and we played co-op through the campaign. I have been playing Halo games for a while now, but this one just blew me away with its beauty. We were watching the opening cutscene and it took me a long time to realize it was CG and not live-action. I knew they had done a lot of live-action promotional videos and thought they had continued it into the game. Amazingly beautiful. I'm really liking the new enemies and characters too. It mixes it up a little and brings some new life into the game. He left before we could finish the campaign, so now I'm left hanging until I can get it myself. Unfortunately, that's probably going to be sometime next year.

For my latest acquisition, which just happened this week, I finally picked up a copy of Ghost Recon: Future Soldier for the PS3. I'm looking forward to our first Friday Game Night to get into the game and play. So far, all I've done is download the update and do the data install.

In Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition, the 1.8.2 bug fix update just came out and added several new fixes, the best of which is the option to turn the void fog off. I miss the particle effects, but am glad it's gone! It's nice to be able to see my creations once again. Since the patch, I have also expanded my underground wheat garden to a second room with pumpkins growing in it. I now have an unlimited supply of Jack-o-Lanterns.

I also created a new world and have been playing it from scratch on Easy. Luckily, there was a village nearby so the first night's shelter was taken care of. It's a desert village that is almost secure from monsters. There are still a few dark corners that they can come from, but that will be taken care of once I find more coal. I secured my village by surrounding it by a wall of Cacti all the way around it. It's a much larger challenge to start off with monsters on and get a base setup than I thought. I'm enjoying the challenge though. Once I get my base secure, it's off to the mines in hunt of diamond and other resources.

So that's what's been going on recently. Lots of fun and more to come.

Minecraft: Kakariko Village Completed

I think I burnt myself out with creating Kakariko Village. It finally came down to forcing myself to return to it in order to finish off the last few details so that I could get it off my plate. Don't get me wrong, I think it looks great, but I'm glad it's done. I'm ready to move on to more useable spaces that don't necessarily follow a blueprint or preexisting design. But before I do, I need to post the last few screenshots from Kakariko.

Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition Update Has Landed

(NOTE: I drafted this blog the week after the update was released, but just now got around to finishing it and posting it. Oops...) The latest update for the Xbox 360 Edition of Minecraft has hit the network for release and I finally downloaded it over the weekend. I had been holding off in order to finish filling my chest of ill-gotten resources before the furnace duplication "feature" was removed. With plenty of diamond, iron, gold, TNT and other resources safely tucked away, I decided it was time and I let the update download. I really like some things, and really dislike others.

Minecraft - Kakariko Village Part 3

My Minecraft recreation of The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past's Kakariko Village continues as I finish up the main buildings and get ready to begin working on the Blacksmith's house. Overall, this project is moving along very quickly, much faster than Hyrule Castle.

Minecraft - Kakariko Village Continued and Other Projects

Work has been continuing on my recreation of Kakariko Village as well as a few other side-projects within my Minecraft world. I have also been spending some time on Minecraft PC, but I'm not finding it nearly as fun as I thought I would. I guess I'm too used to the Xbox version. Anyways, lets get into it and I'll show you what I've been working on.

Minecraft - Kakariko Village

After completing the entire castle from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, I decided to continue on with another Hyrulian build. I had always planned on building a small village for NPCs to live in (once that update comes) and that easily transitioned into creating Kakariko Village from A Link to the Past as well. And that is what I'm working on next.

Minecraft - Fun with TNT

Since the Xbox 360 Edition of Minecraft does not have Creative Mode (yet), everything we build is much more special because we have to harvest the raw materials one block at a time. If you want a cobblestone house, you need to dig the stone out of the world. That of course changes when you discover glitches, or "features" as I call them, that allow you to do things you shouldn't be able to do. In this case, it's a duplication "feature" that allowed us to duplicate any block we wanted, and we had a blast doing so.

Minecraft - The Escape Route

After months of working on the Link to the Past Castle and other areas of my world, an update was finally released that added Pistons (among other things) to the Xbox 360 Edition of Minecraft. With these in hand, it was time to move onto the next phase of my build and create a hidden exit out of the throne room and into the Sewers. But first, I would have to find some slimes.

Minecraft - Agahnim's Tower

Play time was over now. I had a nifty train depot build and my recreation of Hyrule Castle's main floors, dungeon and throne room completed. Next step was to move on and build Agahnim's Tower, all eight floors of it.

Minecraft - I Think I Can... I Think I Can...

Double Post Sunday! Okay, so I actually had this post already drafted up, but had to wait to get screenshots of the Throne Room to add to the other post first. Gotta keep everything as close to in order as possible.

Anyways, I had previously experimented a bit with rail tracks and had created a short track from under my old base to my new house basically going from one basement to the other. I had also created a second track that went from under my house around the big shaft from top to bottom. I decided to add a third one to go to the bottom of my Hyrule Castle, but I didn't want it to be the same old thing. I wanted to create something different and better. After spending some time on minecraftwiki.net, I found a tutorial on creating an automated train station. It sounded like fun, so off I went creating it on the second level of the shaft under my house.

Minecraft - Fit for a King

The building of my Link to the Past Castle was moving along very nicely. I had completed most of the first floor and had a roof over everything. Next it was time to move onto the Throne Room and Dungeon levels, each of which posed their own unique challenges from heights to dealing with the natural cave.

Minecraft - Hyrule Castle Photo Tour

Last night, I took some time and got a ton of photos of my castle. If I had the PC Adapter to record video on my computer, I would do a video walk-through since even the photos don't do it justice. Unfortunately, I don't have one at the moment, so these will have to suffice. Even in still photos, it is impressive if I do say so myself. ;)

Minecraft - You Wanna Build What?

According to Raptr, I was about 40 or 50 hours into the game by this point in time. I only recently finished this project I was about to start, and now Raptr is telling me I'm at over 200 hours of game play. That should give you an indication of the size and scope of the project I tackled. Without further ado, my big project is...

Minecraft - Hole in One

Let's run this down. House? Check. Lots of chests? Check. Diamond Tools? Check. Nether Portal? Check. Lots of material? Nope. So, what's a nice easy way to get a lot of materials that is both useful and cool? You dig a huge hole in the ground!

Minecraft - Through the Portal

Several days after I had finished my house in Minecraft, I was showing it off to my brother-in-law who was quite impressed with my creation. I believe he said he was having a deja-vu moment since he had just helped us move in not that long before. We were messing around in my world a little, so I grabbed some Obsidian and a Flint-and-Steel, and together we ventured off into the Nether for the first time.

Minecraft - The Building Phase Begins

By this point in time, I was pretty familiar with the basic functionality of Minecraft and began to have a good understanding of how the world worked. I also had a nice pile of resources sitting in chests under my water covered base. It was time to start doing something with them, so I tackled what was at the time my biggest project. I began to recreate my real life house in Minecraft.