Star Trek Fleet Command (Mobile)

Honestly, there isn’t a ton to say about this game, which saddens me. As a Trek fan, I was hoping for something special and fun, and it is a decent enough game. What it is tho is a free to play base building game with both PVE and PVP elements to it. It is also just like any other more or less pay to win. You can obviously grind out the materials and such to grow strong enough to play, but you will never compete with the people sinking money into the game,

The one thing I did like tho was while you are waiting for the inevitably longer and longer times to tick away you can use your ships to kill CPU enemy ships or eventually other human players. It was a pretty nice touch but it isn’t enough to really change it from just being more of the same. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Breath of Fire 3: Under Rated Classic

Breath of Fire 3 was the first Breath of Fire on the original PlayStation. It is the classic turned based JRPG that like every Breath of Fire tells the story of Ryu and the dragon clan. The characters are well written, the transformations were amazing and for their time were quite original. The battle system also lets you examine enemies during your turn and certain moves could be learned this way if they used them.

The game is loved by many but it surprises me how many people actually prefer Breath of Fire 4, a game I feel is far inferior in both story and battle system. From the very start of 3, your attention is drawn into the young dragon that becomes a young boy that is found by other orphans Rhi and Teepo.  Later after they get into trouble you struggle to find them and end up with a princess and guardian. The story explodes from there but always the quest to find your friends Rhi and Teepo continues. Breath of Fire 4 never really had that for me. At no point was I truly attached to the characters or really cared what was happening to the world like I did 3.

For me, Breath of Fire 3 is one of the greatest games of all time, yet for some reason, people I know continue to look at 4 as the better game and I don’t understand it. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Beyond the Beyond, The Game I Enjoyed That People Seem To Hate.

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Beyond The Beyond is a game I played as a kid. I liked the characters and the turn-based battles and just the graphics at the time. The game isn’t perfect and is well known for having an insanely high encounter rate, dungeons that were long and insufferably annoying and even had a character that spent half the game cursed and was pretty much useless. All of this is true, and I enjoyed it anyway.

Don’t get me wrong, all the criticisms of the game are warranted and have merit. You really couldn’t walk 6 feet without a battle and god forbid you wanted to simply attack with Sampson, the guy I mentioned was cursed the entire game. The story was also cliche and cliche comes. A child turns out to be the chosen one, fights a great evil that is controlling an empire. Nothing special at all, yet I still loved the game, and I can not truly explain why. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

 

Civilization VI (PC)

With the new expansion coming soon, called Gathering Storm, my friend got quite excited and wanted someone to play with. So with Black Friday sales abound I get an email on steam, turns out my friend decided I was the one to play this game with. I was a huge fan of Civ 2 and Revolution and I put a little time into Civ V so I am hardly a noob in the series, but this one is quite a bit different.

First, very few upgrades are built in your cities. They now are built by aptly named builders, units with limited uses. Districts are built in tiles around your city, just like farms and such would be. Another addition is governors, each one has their own abilities and skills to help run your cities.

Outside of a few of these finer points, the general idea of the game is actually quite the same. Build units and towns, grow your empire and win certain types of victories tho now you can win a religious victory. For me personally, I have enjoyed this Civilization game more than most and I suggest picking it up. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Samson Meteor Mic Review

Lately, as many of you know have been toying with the idea of starting a podcast with @torstenvblog and as such, I had to pick up a microphone. I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on it tho. Enter the Samson Meteor Mic. It cost less than $100, comes with everything you need to hook it up to your computer an record with no installation required. The legs are adjustable and stable. I have had nothing but good experiences with it. Obviously, there are better-sounding equipment on the market but if you are looking for something to get you started and are on a budget, this may be the one for you. I am also including a video as a 2nd opinion and an Amazon link in case you want to pick one up and help us out at the same time. Amazon Meteor Mic

 

The Forest (PS4)

The Forest is a survival horror game much like many others. It is also sort of like the TV show Lost. You crash on an island with weird stuff going on and you have to survive. The twist here is the cannibals running around that steal you son right after you crash.

Your mission here is to survive on the island, unravel its mysteries and find your son. Sounds easy right? Well, a lot of things sound easy. But can you find food and water while building a shelter all while avoiding people that want to eat you?

The cannibals are smart, they will watch you and occasionally strike but not always right away. Sometimes they will circle around and try to catch you when they think you have left. They also will many times retreat as opposed to dying and will even come back with friends or simply not attack at all if they don’t have superior numbers.

The cannibals aren’t the only enemy, the weather also plays a part. The rain will soak your clothes and getting cold is also an issue. I won’t cover all the dangers, as some of that I will leave as a surprise for those playing the game. As a huge fan of 7 Days to Die Revisted I have to say this game is probably better. At the very least graphically it is, tho it is not perfect. It does have the occasional frame drop and rendering does take a second on occasion in heavily populated areas but none of this is too bad, tho admittedly the game is pretty dark even if you pump the brightness up. Regardless, the game is well worth the $20. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Dragalia Lost

Dragalia Lost is a mobile game from Nintendo with quite the good story. It works quite simply with the touchscreen, simply use your hand to guide the character and taps to attack and choose abilities. The story itself is a tale of wonder and dragons as you search for a stone to keep the fiends at bay. This is why it pains me to say I can’t honestly recommend this game for everyone.

The issue is quite simple. The game is huge, but it doesn’t start that way. You start with a small download, then get hit with another one that is about a gig. Then each mission hit me with another. None as big as the gig but the game takes up quite a bit of space, space that many either don’t have or won’t want to part with. Added to this it does have the usual buy stuff with real money to get better stuff, but by now with a free game, this is expected. You do get a full party for free tho and they were quite useful during my time with the game. Regardless, if you don’t have plenty of space you are willing to part with this is one you will want to skip. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Sega Heroes (Mobile)

Sega Heroes is a new mobile game from, of course, Sega. It is a puzzle game much like many of the other puzzle fighters out there. You match colors to make your characters attack the enemies, all of which are Sega characters.

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The game is fun and quite honestly easy to play, my only real issue is if you want to collect all the heroes, it is going to cost you some money. Now the game is free, so obviously they need to make their money, my issue is you can’t really choose which characters you buy. I would love to collect all the PhantasyStar characters and I would even be willing to drop a few bucks on them, but I can’t simply buy them, I have to hope that is who I get and that is an issue for me. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Smallville Season 3

Smallville Season 3 is a bit wild. This is where the show starts to see our your friends go from more or less innocent kids to adults making real choices and real life or death decisions. This season starts with Clark Kent returning to Smallville after a crime spree that could only be described as momentous and epic. This, of course, brings the attention of one Morgan Edge, a true crime boss.

This season is quite a bit different from the past two, and this is a good thing. We start to see some of the overall stories coming together such as the love triangle with Clark, Chloe, and Lana. Of course, they don’t close out but things start to come together.

The ending is also as you would expect quite a cliffhanger with some people missing, one in jail and others quite possibly dead. We lose a couple main characters this season as well. This season is honestly the first time in the series you realize things won’t always be happy in the end and is a nice change of pace. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Yu Gi Oh!: The Dark Side of Dimensions (2017)

After a long hiatus, in 2017 Yu Gi Moto returned to theaters in the 2017 movie The Dark Side of Dimensions. The movie took place about 3 years after the original series, after the duel between Yu Gi and the Pharaoh that left Yu Gi alone and without the puzzle and the Pharaoh back in his rightful place.  An old prophecy has come to pass have and the Plana have received a magical power that will allow them to reshape the world into a better place free of evil. As we know however absolute power corrupts absolutely,

The movie will see Kaiba attempt to reconstruct the Millennium Puzzle so he can finally defeat the Pharaoh in a duel which will cause Diva of the Plana to attempt to stop him and kill Yu Gi so the power of the Plana will be safe forever.

The movie is well done and has something for fans that wanted something new but also gave fans what they also wanted, which was a duel with Yu Gi and Kaiba as well as new monsters, one of my favorites was Deep Eyes White Dragon.

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Tho Gandora-X The Dragon of Demolition was pretty cool as well.

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The movie did an amazing job demonstrating that Kaiba is obsessed with something to the point of almost insanity. That obsession also brought back old enemies long since forgotten and defeated and are more dangerous than ever. For Yu Gi Oh fans this may very well be the definitive movie and ending they always wanted. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.