State of the Game: Time to Die

I had a little less time to game this past week because I went on a trip over the weekend and didn’t game as much. This is also why I am posting this a day or so late. I’ll talk about my trip more in a future post, but I do have a few tidbits to share regardless.

I have been plugging away at ranked in League of Legends, but I’m still in Bronze. The easy trip to Silver seemed within reach at the beginning of the season, but the more time goes by the more it’s become apparent that I’m going to be having to put in serious work to get to Silver this season. That’s alright, as I enjoy playing the game and each match is a learning experience, but it is rather frustrating to have several good games (even counting close losses) and then to have a game where 1 or more players really don’t understand basic concepts, or to have a team that fails at champ select. Disconnects and AFKs are still present as well. Some day I’ll get beyond this hell hole, but for now I’m still a full-time member. In more positive news, I hit 6300 IP again a few days ago, and though I wanted to save the IP for Bard, I decided to spend it anyhow. Taxes are coming, so I might just buy bard outright, especially if the initial champ + skin bundle is a nice one. So I ended up picking up Lissandra, which was a difficult choice. I was torn between picking up Jinx for another solid ADC, or having Lissandra for Top/mid duties. I’ve been playing more mid lately, and have had success with Lux, so I wanted someone else that was a bursty mage. Liss seems to be pretty popular in the top lane as well, so I’m going to try that out.

Most of my time on the PC has gone towards Diablo III otherwise. I was spending some time leveling my Crusader, and just the other day he rolled past level 40. I had him semi-twinked as I mentioned previously, mainly because I’ve found quite a few set piece recipes in hardcore mode, and since he was no longer a seasonal character, he was able to utilize said recipes. I also had a range of gems that were socketed right away, and soon he was melting faces. I felt like the difficulty wasn’t up high enough, so I thought I’d give some bounties and rifts a whirl on Master (a step below Torment). I did fine with the bounties, and the rift was going well too, but for whatever reason, I was amidst a huge battle with yellow and blue elites, right when the rift guardian spawned and it ended up being too much at once. My death prevention triggered, and I was still trapped, so the Crusader is gone now.

That’s 3 champs I’ve lost in hardcore this season alone. The Crusader now rests with my powerleveled Witch Doctor and a low level Barb who met an early demise. I still have my non-seasonal Monk, and my normal mode Wizard. I was discouraged from playing for a bit, but when I came home from my trip last night I decided that I wanted to start a new hardcore seasonal character, and went with a Demon Hunter. I’ve played the DH before, but don’t have one at max level. The same goes for Crusader, Witch Doctor and Barbarian, but having recently played all of those classes, I went with DH. In the past when I played the DH I wasn’t too thrilled with it, but having rolled over level 30 and having earned most of the kit, I find that I rather enjoy the class. I think I’ve just found a better build for my playstyle. Either way, I’m still plugging away at the game, having a good time with it.

I have spent some time with the Playstation Plus freebies for the month, and like I initially felt, it was mostly a disappointment. I tried CounterSpy, and enjoyed it for a time but it’s just not the type of game I want to play long term. The Sherlock Holmes game was rather boring and Papo & Yo has an interesting concept but it’s not really for me either. With that said, they’ve all been retired to the vault, where games I don’t really like go to die. Perhaps next month will be something rather awesome.

Lastly, I played around with a few games on my Steam account. You’ll probably recall the Shadowgate remake that released a few months back, I talked about it when I first received it and played it for a while. In an update somewhere along the line, the dev decided to add the original MacVenture version of both the original Shadowgate, and another game by the same developer, Deja Vu. You can play them in the original black monochrome or 16-bit (I think) color versions. I tried them both out and played for a little while, but man, between the dated graphics and dated mechanics, I just couldn’t see myself playing them ever again. Nostalgia, a cruel mistress. If you need further proof that these were some ugly games, here ya go: