Double Milestone Celebration

The recent Steam Summer Sale had pushed the total number of Personal Computer games I have into the 500+ mark - it is currently at 507 as of 07/22/2012 to be precise. Those inductions also propelled the total count to 2600 games cross platforms! With the bloated influx of recent inductees, it should be obvious that I am still suffering from a severe case of Steamoroid. This means that things are definitely going to slow down when it comes to the actual hunt and the focus will shift more towards the application portion of my video gaming hobby. My hunger for new gaming experiences is insatiable but ever since I contracted Steamoroid, that desire becomes less overwhelming. I can tell because normally throughout the day, I would be feverishly looking for gaming things that are new and interesting to me but I haven't been doing that lately. The only bad thing about having Steamoroid is that gaming outside of the PC matters less these days: rubbing Rx ointment on my Wii to start the healing process.

The future 500+ additions will be all digital I am sure. Love that pleasant thought!

Games Played 07/23/2012 - 07/29/2012

- 07/23/2012 -

Bejeweled 3 - PC

Diablo III - PC

Krater: Shadows Over Solside - PC

League of Legends - PC

- 07/24/2012 -

Bejeweled 3 - PC

League of Legends - PC

Waves - PC

- 07/25/2012 -

Bejeweled 3 - PC

Diablo III - PC

Dungeon Siege III - PC

League of Legends - PC

- 07/26/2012 -

Beat Hazard Ultra - PC

Bejeweled 3 - PC

Diablo III - PC

Dungeon Siege III - PC

League of Legends - PC

The Lord of the Rings: War in the North - PC

- 07/27/2012 -

Bejeweled 3 - PC

Diablo III - PC

Dungeon Siege III - PC

The Lord of the Rings: War in the North - PC

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine - PC

- 07/28/2012 -

Alan Wake - PC

Audiosurf - PC

Bejeweled 3 - PC
Diablo III - PC

League of Legends - PC

N3II: Ninety-Nine Nights - X-Box 360

Sid Meier's Civilization V - PC

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine - PC

- 07/29/2012 -

Audiosurf - PC

Guild Wars - PC

League of Legends - PC

Screenshot of the Week:

Real men do not smile.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine (Personal Computer)

Pulse Check: Yup, Vita's Still Dead

The spouse asked this really interesting question to me the other day: "How come I don't hear too much about the PlayStation Vita in the media?" And of course I responded with, "Because it's been dead for a while now hun." Meanwhile, I got an email from Sony in regards to their new Vita promotion. I am sure that after you look at this thing, you know how flawed this deal truly is:

Take out that "Never" and you get yourself the perfect Vita slogan.

Let's list the problems of the above promotion:

• It's a GameStop deal. Gamers should never do business with GameStop whenever possible.
• Those 4 games to select from clearly show the handheld's lack of great software.
• 4GB Memory Card? That kind of storage solution only works if we were still living in the '90s.
• The offer expiration date: an illusion that the Vita is still in demand when it is not. "While supplies last"? That's just plain insulting.

What Sony should have done to sell more Vitas:

• It's time to reduce the price of the handheld: A permanent promotion! We already know it's not even close to being able to produce current console-quality graphics. It's not even 720p and in this day and age, to make such bold claim you have to at least hit 720p.
• The 32GB Memory card should be free with the Vita. Better yet, make it 1TB and nothing less.
• Make all PlayStation 3 games playable on the Vita and all Vita games playable on the PS3 without having to purchase those games twice. No exception.

We should just allow the Vita to die peacefully as we enjoy our other systems.

Zelda Poster Puzzle Resolved

Took me two months but I finally got all of the latest Nintendo Zelda posters properly posted on the wall. Fortunately, I didn't have to place them on that wall behind the entertainment center in my Game Room like I originally planned. Apparently, if I look hard enough, there are still several secret places where they can reside. I did make an attempt to post one in the hallway but the spouse already had enough of that since one Donkey Kong poster was able to actually make its way out there sometime last year...

Accomplished by displacing the decorative Netflix discs.

Almost broke my back placing this one above my wall shelves.

Link has slain the moo-moo wind chime.

Fridgeroo Drama

The mini refrigerator turned gaming fridge has been struggling to find a permanent spot in my house but I believe that I have found the perfect location for it - in the hallway right outside of the Game Room. That's right, I recently moved it out again because it just didn't look quite right in the room. The gaming fridge may be small but it is still a bit bulky. When I went out to do some grocery shopping with the spouse today, I made sure to get enough goodies for the fridge. I think it's a good thing that I have to actually walk out of the room to access it to discourage me from depleting the supplies too quickly.

Don't be sad for being kicked out of the room for I will come visit you often.

Games Played 07/16/2012 - 07/22/2012

- 07/16/2012 -

Diablo III - PC

- 07/17/2012 -

Diablo III - PC

League of Legends - PC

- 07/18/2012 -

Diablo III - PC

League of Legends - PC

- 07/19/2012 -

Diablo III - PC

Krater: Shadows Over Solside - PC

League of Legends - PC

- 07/20/2012 -

Diablo III - PC

- 07/21/2012 -

Diablo III - PC

DOTA 2 Beta - PC

League of Legends - PC

- 07/22/2012 -

Diablo III - PC

Greed: Black Border - PC

League of Legends - PC

Screenshot of the Week:

Beating the Chit out of Kulle on Inferno.

Diablo III (Personal Computer)

Loner, You Dirty, Dirty Gamer

Only 13 hours left before the end of the Steam Summer Sale and I am frantically adding quite a number of discounted games into the cart. I feel dirty for inducting so many games within just a period of one week. Not that I have never done it before. It always happen with the arrival of some crazy Steam promotional period. It's funny too that it seems like there are just an unending amount of games to get from the service. There are games that are still expensive even after the price cut and those are the games that I decided to wait upon until next year's offerings, which I am sure by then that those games will be cheaper. I guess this circle will never end... Not that I am complaining. Still, I feel really dirty. I need to wash something to make me feel better... Oh, I got an idea:

Yes, I feel much better now.

360 Loving...

No, not that 360! I am referring to my 3 60s in Diablo III for the Personal Computer. I have played this game for 220+ hours of combined gameplay and I would say that the most fun I am having in the game mainly involves leveling up my characters to the maximum level instead of doing the end game stuff which involves a lot of persistence and patience to find the best loot to survive the fun overpowered denizens of the Inferno difficulty mode. Am I ready to press on ahead? I feel that I am but part of me just want to go back and get the last two heroes, the Demon Hunter and Abstinence, to level 60. I suppose once that happens, then I will be forced to finally play through Inferno. Then again, I may just start playing the Hardcore mode. Bottom line: This game is a bottomless cookie jar. Some people say they get bitten when they reach in too far. I however have felt nothing but a moist tongue licking my hand gently from deep within.

Magic mallet of doom.

Chit the Mascot

Do you know how much I love the ability to add custom image to the grid view of the Steam client on the Personal Computer? I spent a good hour or two creating just the right one for Diablo III as well as downloading the ones that were made available by the community. After deleting so many of them, I think that I have finally found the one that I am going to keep.

I was able to fit my lovely banner in there as well!

Instead of just displaying the logo in a variety of crazy ways, I have decided to actually add an image of my favorite character in the game, Chit the Monk! The only problem with this is that I may have to update the image once she is fully equipped in a full legendary set. Oh no, maybe I need to replace this with something more permanent. Here's the image if you would like to invite Chit into your Steam client. Just promise that you will take really good care of her.

Everything from the Steam Grid

Steam makes playing video games on the Personal Computer an incredibly orgasmic experience and this latest edition to the Steam client further solidifies its sexual - I mean - gaming prowess over everything else... I really can't believe that this feature has been made available in the beta client for over a month now. I can be pretty behind when it comes to reading update notes but today, when the client needed to be restarted, I actually took the time to read about the fixes and that was when I saw that you can add custom images to your library grid. This is a feature that the community has been begging from Valve for like an eternity and I really am ecstatic that it's finally available. Basically, this will make you want to add non-Steam applications to be launched from your Steam library because now when you do that, they don't look out of place anymore: Before, they were represented by small icons in large blank grids. You do have to put some work to make things look right - you have to either find a grid image or make one yourself: 460 x 215 is the recommended pixel size. The result is extremely satisfying, so much so that I plan to have all my non-Steam games linked to my Steam account and access to play them from there exclusively! I have only added one so far, but I am working to get the rest of them in. This feature is also not limited to the non-Steam games - if you like, you can even replace the default images for the grid icons of the Steam games of your choice!

Of course I am going to use the stunning Leona as the custom grid image!

Update Note: 7:00pm - Well, this is interesting. Since I have never launched a non-Steam application from the Steam client before - I was totally discouraged to do so because of the previously ugly grid panel for non-Steam games - I didn't know that doing so will enable in-game access to the Steam Community - like it's just another Steam-installed title. Even the Steam Screenshot works! Cool.

Steamoroid: A Deadly Disease

If you are a gamer who plays on the Personal Computer and has knowledge of this digital distribution service called Steam, be warned. If you are not careful, you may find yourself afflicted with Steamoroid, which is a really serious mental condition that will may inflict irreparable damage to your video gaming routine.

What is Steamoroid? It's a psychological disease where the patient suffers from a convincing epiphany that the suggested prices of new game releases are severely and painfully overpriced. The patient also becomes engulfed in a state of ecstasy where the only kind of game purchases should happen in bulk and they should happen on a daily basis for the succession of a week or so. The result of such powerful self-realization leaves the patient unable to persuade him or herself to ever acquire video game titles outside of Steam promotion periods, like the extended sales that is occurring at the moment in celebration of the summer time and the one that will occur when fall arrives. When the patient is unable to experience low prices, accompanied with the excessive acquisition, the patient's potential consumerism hibernates until the next occurrence of relapse.

A patient experiencing a Steamoroidic episode.

Currently, there is no cure for Steamoroid. Those who fear that they will lose the desire to obtain video games on a constant basis throughout the entirety of the year and those who are afraid to will feel guilt when paying anything more than $20 for those games are strongly cautioned when using the Steam service. Remember, maintaining a healthy video gaming habit is very important and it is not something that any self-respecting avid gamer should ever take lightly.

Games Played 07/09/2012 - 07/15/2012

- 07/09/2012 -

Diablo III - PC

League of Legends - PC

- 07/10/2012 -

Diablo III - PC

Theathrhythm Final Fantasy - 3DS

- 07/11/2012 -

Diablo III - PC

Divine Divinity - PC

Irem Arcade Hits - PC

Mario Kart 7 - 3DS

- 07/12/2012 -

Diablo III - PC

League of Legends - PC

Rocket Knight - PC

- 07/13/2012 -

Diablo III - PC

- 07/14/2012 -

Diablo III - PC

Irem Arcade Hits - PC

Two Worlds II - PC

- 07/15/2012 -

Diablo III - PC

League of Legends - PC

Screenshot of the Week:

Those illusions are always fun.

Diablo III (Personal Computer)

Nintendo Going Platinum Poor

It's that time again, the time to select a Platinum level reward for Club Nintendo. This time around, Nintendo is providing seven different rewards which actually include some games. Before you start shaking that Wiimote excitedly however, the selections are not as awesome as you may think:

I think by now, everyone already have The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask...

So yeah, you get more to choose from than previous years but these selections don't feel so grand. Platinum members get two extra options on top of those available for the Gold members and we are now allowed to downgrade ourselves by choosing a Gold-level reward but why would anyone want to do that? The right way to approach this is to allow Platinum  members to select one Platinum reward and one Gold reward and Nintendo is still unwilling to do that. There's probably a budget cut over at Nintendo because they are too busy working on that Wii U instead of enriching the original Wii... Which one of these disappointing rewards did I choose? Well, like always, you will have to wait for the answer until the reward actually gets here.

Great Timing for a Steam Sale

After what must have been an incredibly suspenseful wait - I really thought they would skip it this year because it took so long - the Valve's Steam Summer Sale is finally here. Which is a bit irritating actually because my Personal Computer is sick at the moment. Yesterday, it caught a potent little Trojan that pretty much rendered it absolutely useless. I am not even sure where it came - I was scouring several gaming forums when my security measures went completely bonkers. I have tried everything I could to eliminate the threat and spent all night into the wee hours of the morning working on it but alas, I was left with the option of a clean install. Thankfully, there is nothing that I am particularly interested in from the sale today and I am also taking this clean install as an opportunity to relocate my User and ProgramData folders out of my C Drive because these monstrous files take up so much space. Even if there was something that I wanted however, I could always make a purchase to my account - digital download is such a beautiful thing.

It was definitely the nastiest PC virus I have ever encountered in my lifetime.

Of course this means that my PC is pretty much out of commission for the day and when all is done with the installation and updates, I will have to reinstall my games. With my recent Internet speed bump, the process will be less frustrating but truth be told, my only concern is to get Diablo III and League of Legends back onto the PC as quickly as possible. Speaking of Diablo III, yesterday for the first time, I felt a huge wave of boredom creeping in while I was leveling up my Wizard who is in the 40s at the moment. I kept nodding off both in single and public games until I decided to do something else - which of course led to the virus infestation, so perhaps the lords of hell had something to do with this whole mess. I have been playing the game too much so it's important that I stop forcing myself to play it just because I am impatient about getting all of the classes to max level before I start going through the Inferno levels again. It's not like I don't have other games to play but I have a feeling that some extended LoL sessions will do the trick to reinvigorate my passion for Diablo III. Ah, it's a time like this that I really need a nice warm hug but the spouse is out of state travelling for the rest of the week! Oh well, at least Yoshi is here.

Games Played 07/02/2012 - 07/08/2012

- 07/02/2012 -

Diablo III - PC

League of Legends - PC

- 07/03/2012 -

Diablo III - PC
League of Legends - PC

- 07/04/2012 -

Diablo III - PC

Double Dragon II: The Revenge - Wii

Gate of Thunder - Wii

League of Legends - PC

- 07/05/2012 -

Beat Hazard Ultra - iPad

Diablo III - PC

- 07/06/2012 -

Diablo III - PC

Devil's Crush - Wii

League of Legends - PC

Ninja Commando - Wii

SingStar - PlayStation 3

Soldier Blade - Wii

- 07/07/2012 -

Diablo III - PC

Sorcery - PlayStation 3

Tales of Graces f - PlayStation 3

Theathrhythm Final Fantasy - 3DS

- 07/08/2012 -

Diablo III - PC

Theathrhythm Final Fantasy - 3DS

SingStar - PlayStation 3

Screenshot of the Week:

My first multi-million gold sale!

Diablo III (Personal Computer)

Back to Being a SingStar!

Now that my PlayStation 3 is back in action after a brief period of sleep, I decided to celebrate its recent 1TB upgrade with booting up the best karaoke software on the planet: SingStar. I went to the store page to check out the new songs that are available to be downloaded and oh my galaxy, what is this? They have Lana Del Rey's Born to Die?!

No, this doesn't make me sad but it will certainly make me cry.

Now you can call Lizzy Grant whatever you want to call her because of that questionable performance on Saturday Night Live but the select songs that I have heard from both the new album and the old ones are just plain beautiful. As a matter of fact, Born to Die is one of my favorite songs ever. It even has a really epic music video as well. Now when it comes to singing, I don't discriminate between songs from male and female artists, to the surprise of my friends on karaoke nights, and I have probably sung this song to death while I am sitting here doing non-gaming stuff in the Game Room. So of course I am going to download this and it would be a pleasure to sing this one on SingStar over and over again - sorry hun! I have to mention however that they actually censored the word "high" in the line "Let's go get high" and I thought that was hilarious.

Also worth mentioning is that they have now included support for the wireless Bluetooth headset to be used with the game. So I tested the official PS3 headset that I own since 2008 on Radiohead's "No Surprises" and it worked flawlessly. It seems that the vocal reduction of the original artist's voice is working better too because I can barely hear it anymore. Not having to hook up all of those mics and wires will make it much much easier to play this game a lot more often! Now I am not sure if I just never noticed this before from the 4.40 patch but when you use vibrato, you can now see quivering wave on the highlighted note, which actually looks pretty darn cool. Great job, Sony! Please continue giving us quality songs to download!

Pitch perfect with the Bluetooth headset.

Update Note: 07/08/2012 - I discovered that even the music video for the Born to Die download was also censored! I don't think people would have been offended by the removed sequences but I suppose they want to make the software family friendly even though it was rated Teen and you know that our teens listen and watch worse things than a Lana Del Rey music video. Also I want to note that the voice recording with the Bluetooth headset is not as pristine as the wired microphone so one has to choose between quality over convenience. If you don't plan on uploading any of your singing to your online page, then there is no downside to using the Bluetooth headset.

June 2012 Gaming Analysis

The results shown below are of course based on the combined data from the Daily Game Log which should provide a clear indication of a game's usage frequency. Bear in mind that even if a game is played twice or more during a particular day, it would still register as 1 in the Day Count column below. In a sense, "merits" are given based on how often a particular game can make me play it again throughout the entire period of the month on a daily basis. A game that makes a gamer play it over and over again or at least spend a lot of time with it... Isn't that what we mostly want from a great game? I don't think it's really fair to count all the way down to the number of hours played since some games only require a short amount of time to properly serve their purposes.

OVERALL BREAKDOWN:

Total Games Played: 27

Last month showed a sudden dip in the total number of games played, no doubt caused by the two prominent games that sit at the top of the list. And can you believe this? After being the number one most played game for 12 consecutive months, League of Legends for the Personal Computer has fallen to the number two slot! Diablo III on the PC took over last month - is this a mark of a new era where it will remain the most played game for months to come? It is extremely hard to stop playing that game and there is no reason to because it is incredibly fun. Does this mean it's a lot more fun than LoL? Hardly. I made sure last month that I would always have some time to spend on LoL and I continue to do that even to this very day.

This Month's Inductees:

Total Inductions: 38

PS3 1TB Collagen Injection Complete

The 1TB 2.5" hard disk drive that I have ordered for the PlayStation 3 has finally arrived this afternoon and it didn't take long to get it placed inside the console. The restore process is still rapidly in progress at the moment and just like the back-up, the estimate time of completion is merely 2 hours. This reminds me of the time when I upgraded my launch PS3 with a larger HDD - I considered 120GB large enough at that time, quite funny is it not? - but of course that unit died yeah, I don't plan on owning future launch consoles for the rest of my life.

You know that you are intimate with your PS3 after you have flipped it upside down.

As for the old 160GB, it has now become my latest external Personal Computer HDD.

Chit Chat

Remember that declaration I made not too long ago about dedicating all my energy and strength on Chit the Monk in Diablo III for the Personal Computer? Well, to say that I have been adhering to my goal is not a statement of truth but at least I can say that I did get her to level 60. I did spend the majority of my playtime with the game playing Chit over the past one and a half week but I did jump back and forth between her and my lower level heroes. This is really just a testament to how distinct and insanely fun all of game's character classes truly are and it is unthinkable that one could spend a lot of hours getting all of these heroes both fully leveled as well as properly geared and I plan to do just that! My favorite is still Chit however and if any of my heroes are going to finish the Inferno difficulty first, I have a good feeling that it will be her... but what is this? Why does this mask that just dropped have to look so bloody awesome?

That mask is the best looking piece of equipment I have seen in the game thus far.

As soon as I have that mask equipped to my Witch Doctor, I immediately started playing him again and I was reminded of the reasons why he was my first love. The demented spells, that spirit-obsessed speech, and his summoned minions. And then I got killed repeatedly by a group of elites as I tried to gear him up in Inferno Act I... There's still a lot of work yet to be done in this game.

Games Played 06/25/2012 - 07/01/2012

- 06/25/2012 -

Diablo III - PC

League of Legends - PC

- 06/26/2012 -

Aliens Infestation - NDS

Diablo III - PC

League of Legends - PC

Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles - PlayStation 3

Thor: God of Thunder - NDS

- 06/27/2012 -

Diablo III - PC

League of Legends - PC

Radiant Historia - NDS

- 06/28/2012 -

Diablo III - PC

League of Legends - PC

Radiant Historia - NDS

- 06/29/2012 -

Diablo III - PC

League of Legends - PC

- 06/30/2012 -

Diablo III - PC

Kyotokei Demo - Wii

League of Legends - PC

- 07/01/2012 -

Diablo III - PC

League of Legends - PC

Screenshot of the Week:

Magical overload.

Diablo III (Personal Computer)

LoL's Proving Grounds: Well-Proven Fun

Perhaps the reason why you have been so hesitant about playing League of Legends for the Personal Computer, a game that I consider to be one of the greatest games ever made, is because the maps where the battles take place are just too big and complicated. Well now, a small 1-lane map has made it into the live client: The Proving Grounds. There wasn't any big announcement in regards to this addition except for a post in the forums, which is a bit strange because a lot of people have been wanting to see this map active for a long time. Apparently, it's been there for a couple of days and I myself just found out about it today. This is the map that you get to see when you go through the game's simple tutorial but now, it has been enhanced to make it fully playable. Just like the "Dominion" mode, playing on this map comes with its own set of fun rules - rules that were used in custom games on the larger maps before by players but was impossible to control when a player gets mad and decides to not follow the rules anymore - basically, you can only buy items when you respawn and that you can't heal at the base. This resulted in a fast-paced, delirious game and for those who llike to play "all random all mid" before, you no longer have to worry about people cheating because there is only that one lane. Though this map was apparently inspired by ARAM plays, you don't have to play it with random champions because all other mode like draft and blind are available to be utilized. Too bad that this map is only available as a custom map - you still get Influence Points fortunately - but I am sure that they will make it readily available for matchmaking soon. You can do it Riot Games!

The Proving Grounds is aggressive and fast-paced unlike any of the maps that came before it.

By the way, I just finished playing one game on this map and let me tell you, it was probably one of the most fun sessions I ever had with the game. This map may present the simplest form of LoL gameplay but it doesn't mean that you won't have a blast playing it. In fact, I can see people who would swear to only use this map from now on. Play the game now by signing up for your account by clicking here. The game is 100% free to play, no lies, so it would be rather idiotic for one to not even at least take the game out on a test ride!