Blogger Tag: Best Games of 2014

So, in going with the write tag given out by ‘What’s your Tag?‘, I am going to do a quick list of the best games I played in 2014.

Now, I would like to re-state the ‘I PLAYED IN 2014’ part. These are not necessarily 2014 releases, and they are in no particular order other than the one my brain remembered them in!

Pokemon Alpha Sapphire (Nintendo 3DS)
– To be absolutely fair to all other games, this made it to my list partially because of my love for the Pokemon series of games. It is highly probable that the reason I thought it was an amazing game, is because of the same reason I loved all of it’s predecessors. BECAUSE, GUYS, I DON’T KNOW IF YOU KNOW BUT YOU CATCH BADARSE PETS WITH SUPER POWERS. What’s not to love?

The Last of Us (Playstation 3)
– This was just one of the most epic games I have ever played. To be absolutely honest, I felt like I had been thrown into the middle of this amazing movie and told to hit the ground running. I plan on buying a PS4 soon – this will be being re-purchased purely to play it on my new console. I’m not even kidding.

Beyond Two Souls (Playstation 3)
– Basically, see above. Epic story. Amazing acting. Love love love. Also, you may not have heard, but there was boob.

7 Days to Die (PC)
– I’m sure most people are familiar with this title, but I have literally not stopped wanting to play this game since I got it. Originally recommended to me by the Painting Sage, I was somewhat hesitant to purchase an alpha game with such a hefty price tag ($30AUD) – but it turned out to be money well spent for all the hours, with all the different friends I have spent killing zombies and building ridiculous looking forts.

Don’t Starve (+ Together BETA, PC)
– This, for the same reason as 7 Days to Die, made it on the list for the sheer amount of time I have enjoyed running around with friends quickly hording supplies for our camp – and adventuring off on my own to discover underground monster caves filled with fresh carrots and glowing bushes, this is a game I am happy to have spent my money on.

Well, I might leave that there, at a shortish list of a couple of games that particularly stood out to me over 2014 “vidja gaming”. I’m sure I’m forgetting a couple of epic things I played, but for right now – this is it.

I wish you all a fantastic 2015 and hopefully by 2016 I’ll be posting “Best holodeck games I played this year” … no? pipe dreaming? drat.

~ Always, Elison

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Pixel Life and Video Games

Ok, well first things first – what have I been playing? As it turns out, I have never heard of RimWorld and Prison Architect. How did I completely miss these amazing resource management/architect/survival games I will never know – but yes.

RimWorld. All I can say is GET ON IT.
I discovered the game by watching through a bunch of quill18 let’s play videos, and stumbled across this little gem.

So the concept is that you are 3 little guys that have crash landed on the surface of a planet, and you need to try to build a functional colony to survive, collect resources and build an escape ship WHILE defending your colony and people from rogue animals, waring neighboring colony’s and natural disasters.

So, I began my little colony with no concept that you were able to “re-choose” you starting people. I thought that what you got was what you got. I started my little base with limited success but soon found out that “Valentina” was a useless bitch.

Olivia was stuck being the sole hunter/bread winner and defender, while Zeppy rolled about casually constructing walls.

I finally had a little battery and power supplying my tiny compound when tragedy struck and a fire started pouring in over the walls. I am pretty confident that Olivia and Zeppy had a pretty good handle on things, when a pirate decided to take advantage of the situation, walked in the door and shot everyone dead.

You had 1 job, Valentina. Watch the flippin’ door. But no, you decided to nap didn’t you? Boo, you whore.

Attempt 2 went somewhat better. Now that I could start again, and try to select some potentially decent friends, I started my base.

Now, I constructed an extra room in case we got a new friend willing to join us, or a pirate we captured and swayed to our side.

Sadly, the pirate I captured, was Porcene. Porcene had suffered a gun shot wound to the head at some point and as a result permanently moves at 50% speed, and tends to spend her days moving my “stuff” from one pile to another. Great.

Maybe I could sell her to the exotic goods traders for parts? Turns out, they deal in body parts.

Don’t worry, Porcene. We still love you. Even if you did just move all my steel to the other side of the fence.

Prison Architect is also very good, although – I’m not finding it as fun as I find RimWorld. The concept of this game is to build a prison that can successfully house “x” number of prisoners.
That number of prisoners is influenced by what kind of prisoners you are willing to take in (if any), such as low security prisoners come in larger numbers than high etc etc.

One of the things I love about alpha indie games, is their “incentives” to purchase their games. PA offered people the opportunity to “write” a prisoner profile. So you often encounter some award winning dudes.

“The Fatness”. Sounds terrifying.

I did notice, that a number of my friends that had been playing for a while were totally unawares of the new intro offered to learning how to play the game.

I began my adventure, being told the story of a prisoner on deaths row – for which I was tasked to build an electric chair to execute.

What was his crime? You may ask. WELL, let me tell you – the game does not leave you hanging and gives you his entire confession by way of pixel acting and some weird-o polaroids.

Turns out, dudes wife was cheating on him so he shot her and her lover in his home.

What I would like to know, is what happened to the existence of his wife’s right leg…or was she an amputee?
Also, dude, that guy is obviously a unich. You got nothing to worry about.

I last left the game at this point. I have some happy little prisoners in cells, one peeved because he’s still stuck in the holding area napping on a bench and a shower that insists on over-flowing every. damned. time.

Well, hope to talk to you all soon! I have been recording some amateur Let’s Play videos and posting those on YouTube, but due to the fact that my microphone is now permanently busted I can’t do anymore of them at the moment until a replacement is sourced.
Will post a link here if I happen to record anything particularly interesting though.

Love you all! And a miniatures update is coming shortly! I got some new loots. Woo woo.

~ Sincerely, Ellie

P.S Have a fantastic New Years everyone!

Sushi Go!

So I recently had the opportunity to attend a new local table top gaming club (mostly focused on boardgames and card games than miniatures) and got to play a little card game called Sushi Go!

I have to admit, I had an absolute ball with this game! Rules that probably took under 2 minutes to explain and comprehend, coupled with some very cute packaging and art made it an attractive game to want to invite others to play.

Please note: This image is not mine, it was sourced from Purple Prawn

The basic concept is:
1. Each person is dealt 8 cards from the deck.
2. From these 8 cards you pick 1 and place it face down
3. Hand the remaining 7 cards in your hand to the person next to you
4. Once everyone has handed over their hand, they flip over the face-down card and then pick another card, face it down, hand on the 6
5. Repeat process until all cards are used up, tally up your cards and put them into the discard pile (leaving pudding cards out in front of you)
6. Deal another fresh 8 from the deck to everyone and continue in this manner until the deck is gone.

The idea is that you want to collect cards to obtain the most points. From the image above, the green “sashimi” cards, need you to collect 3 of them to get the 10 points, but the blue “dumplings” merely grow from a minimum of 1 point with each additional dumpling and so on.

Image source: IndieGogo

If you’re looking to have a games night with some friends that aren’t into the bigger board games, or want to game with kids, or merely need a simple ice-breaker for a new gaming group I would definitely recommend this!!

All of my friends are getting a copy of this from me this year. Hahaha.