State of the Game: Playing & Watching

Another week down, more stuff played and watched. I mostly have blurbs this time around, because I spent the majority of the week playing League of Legends. I did play some other stuff as well as keeping up on TV shows so let’s jump right in.

League of Legends

I played a shit ton of League as I said. I mostly played ARAM, but did get some team builder matches in as well. As a result, I earned my support icon from the mode. I did end up buying one new champion, as I hit 4800 IP. Riot has been keeping up with their policy of dropping one champ from the 6300 tier down to the 4800 tier each time a new one releases, so there were some extra options. I was tempted to just continue saving until I hit 6300, but I ended up purchasing Fizz. I haven’t played him a whole lot, but in ARAMs where I got him (due to being in the free rotation) I did fairly well. Plus my end goal is to eventually own them all, so add one more to the pile. I believe at this point I still have 36 to collect. Meaning I own like 70-something. Not bad, but considering the amount of years I’ve played the game you’d think I’d have more. I had a rather good performance with Janna within the last few days, so I’ll just leave this here:

I have been keeping up on the World Championship matches. This weekend I watched Samsung White utterly DESTROY Samsung Blue in the first semi-finals match on Saturday (early – 1 am) morning. Going 3-0, SSW will be representing Korea in the Finals. This morning I watched OMG and Royal Club as well; it was a better series, but RC advance to the finals for their second year in a row after a 3-2 victory. This will be the second year in a row we see a China vs. Korea final, with RC falling to SKT T1 last year. With the performances this week, I’m feeling pretty positive that Korea will take it all in the end, again.

Other PC Games

I gave a rundown of the newest Alpha build for The Forest along with some screens of a recent playthrough in this post.

I played some Starcraft II over the course of the week, finishing up a few more missions. I believe I am nearing the end of the Terran campaign, though it’s interesting the amount of missions you get to play the Protoss. Their missions help to break up the monotony of playing only one race for so long. I like the Terrans quite a bit more in SC2 than I did in the original. I didn’t like the Zerg all that much when I tried them in multiplayer, but I know that when I get to know them again in the campaign I’ll probably be back to loving them. I’m hoping to complete the first campaign within the next week or so.

I hadn’t touched Orcs Must Die in months (since I purchased really), but not so long ago I was gifted a copy of the sequel by Welshtroll and decided it was time I beat the first game so I could move on to the second. I played quite a bit yesterday, completing a handful of missions. I have a handful of levels left to beat, but also have expansion content because I bought the complete pack so I’m not sure how much I really have yet to do. Either way the game is fun for short bursts, or longer sessions. Hopefully by this time next week I’ll be ready for the 2nd game. I’m steadily moving through my backlog, despite not being able to focus on one game at a time 😛 The last mission I completed was pretty straight forward, but the one I’m on now where they introduce “the pounder,” is completely unfair. I failed twice, so I gave it a rest.

Bring on the horde!

The Path of Exile event played out on Saturday. I was a little late to the group so I had to sit out for a little while. I played my Witch solo for a bit, and hit level 23 (I could have sworn she was a bit higher level than that). When I joined in with the group, I played a Ranger I had created previously but hadn’t used much. It worked out as everyone had created new characters and they were about level 6 at that point which was the same level as said Ranger. We played for a couple more hours and I leveled that Ranger from 6 – 14. I got to experience some of the newer content in that the boss battles were more intense, but also had some new instances/events added in from one of the expansions. I didn’t take any screens… I don’t know why I keep forgetting.

The past week’s flash game for Bragtoberfest was called Axon. Initially Doone posted a laughable score, and I beat that rather quickly, posting one around 25k. Next thing I knew Jeromai made a post where she had hit 66k, completely blowing my score out of the water. I commented there that I was done… but then I decided to take another stab at it.

I think I get to take crown now. Challengers? pic.twitter.com/hOeYPfZ6xs

— Izlain O’Lantern (@mevsmyselfandi) October 9, 2014

It didn’t take long for Murf to answer back at over 98k, and then Jeromai iced it with 108k. Now, I’m officially done. Next week’s challenge might play out differently.

Playstation Plus

I totally skipped over doing my typical Playstation Plus post. It was mentioned a few times in my circle so I just let it ride. I did dive into the games though, beating Chronicles of Mystara in one sitting. It was ok, but would have cost a fortune in the arcade where it originated. Those games were purposely designed to rob you of your lunch money. I played some Spelunky as well, and though it’s fun it doesn’t seem to have anything going for it as far as using it in Bragtoberfest. Maybe the daily challenges? sort of unsure about that. Giving us Batman Arkham Asylum seemed dumb. They already gave us Arkham City (the sequel, which I never played). Would have made more sense to give us Arkham Origins, but either way I’ve already beaten Asylum so that’s lame.

On TV

Hell on Wheels – took a mid season break, not sure why AMC is so fond of doing this. Been good so far, lots of intense scenes between the new governor and the main character. Was shocked that Common’s character was still alive but he was not himself after indians nursed him back to health. Sad that he had to be put down.

Boardwalk Empire – final season has been slow moving, but the weird part is the fact that they keep delving into Nucky’s past.. like why didn’t they care to do that in the first 3 seasons? Watching Capone be an idiot is fun, I love the actor playing him, as he was good ol’ Tommy in Snatch and that’s one of my favs.

The Strain – Season finale just happened, sorry to say that the “master” got away. Crazy that he could withstand direct sunlight, didn’t see that coming. Great show, can’t wait for next season.

Sons of Anarchy – Shit is getting really thick. Not only is there a huge gang war brewing between the bikers, the chinese, the mexicans and the blacks, it seems that Jax has played all ends against the middle. This is typical for SOA, there’s always these backhanded deals going on, but it’s hard to keep up with who is doing what. Then Gemma is “taking Juice out of town to safety” and he catches on that she’s gonna try to kill him. He looked like he might kill her. Sad thing is that he’s in the shitstorm for doing things for Jax and for her… yet they want him dead. No idea where this is going, but oh yes, there will be blood.

American Horror Story – I can already tell that this season is going to be much better than the last. For whatever reason I couldn’t get into Coven, but Freak Show has already started off great. The special effects for all the freaks (though I think some bits of that isn’t special effects) are great (particularly the two headed main character). The creepy factor of the serial killing clown.. man it’s gonna be a good season.

The Walking Dead starts later today. I cannot wait. When we left off, the crew had just made it to Terminus, and the consensus among fans is that they are cannibals. This wouldn’t be the first time the subject had been broached in the walking dead universe (season 1 of the game had a nice little farm with em). With the crew locked up in a train car, who knows how they’re going to bust out. But Rick didn’t look too happy going in there. He’ll be back with a vengeance.

So that’s about all I have for this week’s edition. 1.5k words later, I’m spent.

#stateofthegame #roundup