I decided that rather than trying to come up with titles for the individual posts for this column it made more sense to simply number them. This is the tenth post of my weekly column, and I will probably keep this format for simplicity’s sake. The other part of my reasoning behind this was the fact that I didn’t play many titles this week, and there wasn’t any sort of theme. The Christmas holiday just passed, and it’s New Year’s Eve today, so gaming time was a bit limited. The playlist this week was League of Legends, Borderlands 2 and the Minecraft PS3 edition demo.

League of Legends:
I played League more than anything. I am really enjoying the Snowdown Showdown, and I did end up picking up one of the Snowdown skins. I was unimpressed with the new Sivir, Singed and Lulu skins because I really don’t play any of those champions. However, we were presented with the ability to buy any of the retired Snowdown skins, and of the ones on offer, Ziggs is my favorite champion. I have been playing him a lot in Showdown, and have wanted to pick up one of his skins for a long time. Here’s the splash art for Snowday Ziggs:

He’s so awesome 🙂 Because of “wearing a snowdown skin” I earned another of the event’s summoner icons. I have now earned a total of eight icons from various events. I would have to send a mystery gift to a friend and play in a premade to earn the final three, but I’m not in the gifting mood anymore, and I haven’t been playing other modes outside of Howling Abyss. Apparently the premade doesn’t count with Snowdown matches, as I did play with my Brother-in-law quite a bit the other night. Still, I think it’s a nice little feature for those of us who like earning new stuff, even if it is just fluff. Playing the game is still where the real fun is at, and for a free to play game it has held my attention for far longer than I would have expected. Here’s a shot of my icon collection:

Borderlands 2:
I mentioned it at some point or another that I had decided it was time to play some multiplayer in Borderlands. I finally followed through with that, in an attempt to level up my Gunzerker without having to grind through the same missions by myself. I still ended up having to play through some of the same content, but the added difficulty that comes from playing with other people makes it a little more “fresh.” Basically, adding another player to the game ups the difficulty, and when you get four players in the same game, enemies become ridiculously tough. So much that when I matched up with some players that were only a level or so above me, I was getting dropped left and right, but so were they. We never fully wiped but there were times when 1 or 2 of us would have to respawn because a revive wasn’t going to happen. This ended up being a lot more fun, but the looting system kind of sucks, in that everyone fights to grab the better colored stuff. I wasn’t too concerned though, as I never intended to play my zerker again after completing the trophy. Leveling from 15 or so to 21 occurred over the span of a couple of nights. I then retired to my own little world to try and earn the trophy. I found a few places where enough enemies spawn of lower level that I felt I’d be able to Gunzerk for 90 seconds, but as of right now I haven’t completed the task. That’s on the to-do list and after it’s been completed I will go back to my Siren, and attempt to clear the DLC content I have yet to touch, and in the process try to get her to level 50. I also have to finish up some of her challenges, and beat the final boss of the game (the raid boss from after finishing the storyline). At that point, I’d have a platinum trophy for the game. I’m unsure if I will buy the newer headhunter packs, the psycho, or the digistruct peak dlc. There aren’t additional trophies, and I may be burnt out on the game by then. We will see.

Minecraft:
The Playstation 3 edition of Minecraft released last week, and having played Terraria and seeing their obvious similarities along with hearing that my Sister has become addicted to the game, prompted me to download the demo and see what the fuss was about. The demo is fairly limited in that you only really get to play the tutorial. Aside from the graphical differences of 2-D and 3-D games, Minecraft and Terraria start off pretty much the same. I didn’t see day turn to night, nor did I fight anything. I just learned how to harvest and craft, and it felt like more of the same. The major thing that irks me is that I can see the appeal of “retro” graphics, but I have a strong dislike for crappy 3-D graphics. When I started playing video games there wasn’t 3-D. I can see the appeal of 2-D graphics because I grew up with them. I also grew up with 3-D graphics, but it took quite a few years for it to advance far enough for things to look decent. Minecraft’s graphic style reminds me of games on the Sega Genesis that attempted to be 3-D or early 32-bit games like Virtua Fighter and Daytona USA that had “3-D graphics” that looked like utter dogshit even at the time. So Minecraft’s “charm” isn’t so charming after all, and deters me from really wanting to play it. Pixellation in 2-D is still charming to me though. I guess I’m picky. Either way, I’m not dropping $15 for Minecraft, though I might pick it up if I can get it for $5 or less. I’m sure it will be on sale soon enough.

Looking ahead I am planning on playing these games more (minus MC), and possibly delving into some of the other more recently purchased games. There is only a PSVita game on offer this week from plus, as it is the last Tuesday of December. The plus offerings next month will definitely keep me busy when they finally come out, and I am supposed to be borrowing Bioshock from a friend so I can get started playing through that series in preparation for Infinite’s Plus release. However I did just get my car back up and running, so buying anything game related is going to be on hold for a while, as I have real-life expenses to take care of. The next month should be great for gaming nonetheless.