Got to be birds flying higher

I was so excited to start playing BG3 on Sunday, but my adventure ended quickly, and I gave up. It's almost impossible to play with keyboard shortcuts and a mouse on a PC. Controlling the camera was difficult, somehow I stepped on a burning area and lost too much HP, and managed to kill Lae'zel when she touched a pool of something.

Never before have I had such a disappointing start to a game, ever.

My friend was so bummed--she's been waiting for me to start playing forever so I can romance Astarion (hee!). Her husband suggested using a Xbox controller; fortunately, we had one in the basement. Our only game console is a Game Cube, hee!

It took a while to master the controls, but I was soon well on my way exploring the beach, reviving Shadowheart, finding Astarion and freeing Lae'zel. Whew!

My friends, husband and I have been playing Pathfinder's Abomination Vaults for what feels like three years--we try to meet every second Sunday to play for 4 or 5 hours. The GM keeps saying we're almost at the end, so now we're all thinking about our next character.

I really enjoyed playing a ranger, so I want to try something like a cockatiel tengu. Even better, my bird character could have a bird companion, LOL! I'm not sure how that will work out yet; I have some reading to do!

https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Kwanlai

https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Tengu

It's been over a year since I posted about https://Pillars of Eternity 2 and I finally finished the game. That's the upside of a cold--it's great for gaming!

I also wanted to finish it off before starting Baldur's Gate 3 :-D

To recap, I played a heroic ranger named Mauve. My main reason for picking ranger was the animal companion, which gets you an extra fighter. Since there was no equine option, I went with a stag and named him Swifthoof.

In the 12+ month gap since playing PoE2, the DLCs were added. I thought I was close to finishing, but had Seeker, Slayer, Survivor and The Forgotten Sanctum to also finish. Seeker, Slayer, Survivor is for those that like esclating battle levels along with some outside quests and The Forgotten Sanctum was a very cool adventure in itself. I regret not adding Fassina as a party member sooner because she was awesome in The Forgotten Sanctum. I took Aloth with me on most of my journeys, but he wasn't that great--even at high levels he still had the constitution of a wet tissue. There were a lot of tough battles in both DLCs and I enjoyed the idea of a fungus infected library in The Forgotten Sanctum.

With that out of the way, I ended up accidentally siding with the Vailians for the final battle. I read a little ahead about the ending, but not enough, apparently. The interesting thing about PoE2 is that there's no winners in the traditional sense. You may save the kingdom, but there are consequences to all your choices and actions. The ending was very in tune with the themes of colonization with all the factions out to conquer the Deadfire area.

The actually ending was disappointing, also in the traditional sense. There was no mega battle or cutscene to reward hours of playing. The story ends with static story cards and then begins a slideshow of what happens next for the factions, your actions and party members.

Again, despite the ending completely being in tune with the game and its themes, I just wanted a little more action! I still recommend playing it and would love the sea battle aspect to be spun into its own game with limitless ship battles :-)

Watch on YouTube

I'm getting annoyed with Evernote for eating notes, so hopefully second time's a charm! I'm playing Pillars of Eternity 2 now, thanks to hubs who realized he hadn't bought me a birthday gift. Nothing says "Happy birthday honey!" like a 1500va UPS :-D It's twice as powerful as my old UPS and when the stakes are high and swords are drawn, my PC just powers through it instead of locking up and wailing away. It's also a cheaper fix than a new computer, so huzzah!

I'm really enjoying POE2. Three recruitable party members have returned--Aloth, Eder and Pallegina. I could recruit the first two, but not Pallegina, which was a bummer. You can only have four companions in your party, however, so I imported my ranger from the first game. Rangers get an animal companion who is kinda like a party member and I went again with a stag, the creatively named Stormhoof ;-D Like the first game, there's also an abundance of pets who follow your party around offering various bonuses. You can switch out party members at any inn, but I rounded out my group with a priestess, Xoti, and a cipher, Serafen. I decided to dual-class Aloth and Serafen, which may have been a mistake...but we'll see!

So, in the first game, you obtained a stronghold, Caed Nua and restored it from ruin. In PoE2, you get a boat that needs staffing and resourcing. I don't game as much as I used to, so I'm finding the boat part rather unique. The game world is overwhelming large and expansive as you uncover islands and explore cities. Various crew members can be hired and it becomes necessary to feed them well--if your morale score falls below a certain point, the crew could mutiny :-D

There's also a naval battle component to the game where you can board, flee or use a turn-based system in each encounter. I didn't get the turn-based system because it seemed like changing sails didn't do much, so I'm sticking with the old fashioned battle mode.

We'll see what awaits when I finish the game--there is a lot to explore and discover, so it could take a while :-)

Whelp, got sucked into this for a few days :-D Somehow I missed Obsidian Entertainment released a spiritual successor to Baldulr's Gate. I looooove Baldur's Gate and this game really hits a lot of sweet points with me, from lots of reading to the nostalgia factor. Somehow I didn't know there was a Kickstarter for this, otherwise I would have thrown a bunch of money at it.

Watch on YouTube

One of the goals in Animal Crossing games is to collect all the fossils, fish, sea creatures, insects, and art for your museum. I didn't accomplish this in New Leaf, but I'm getting close in New Horizons. The fossils are the easiest part to complete. Fish, sea creatures, and insects are mostly seasonal and out at certain times of the day. Art is tricky--you have to patiently wait for Redd to show up with real art instead of fakes.

I finished the fossil wing within the first few months of playing. I finished the sea creatures one in winter. I caught the last fish, a saddled burchir, in June and I caught the last bug on Friday night. July and August is a short window to catch rare bugs like the golden stag, which my little character is holding. It took a lot of grinding, ie, running around in circles on islands. An easy way to catch certain bugs is to rid an island of all the plants, stumps, and trees that attract other insects. Then you run around and scare off the insects you already have in hopes of spawning the rare bugs.

My persistence paid off. Yahoo! I now have a recipe for a golden net and bragging rights on FB groups :-D

My friends Timban and Wolf gifted me two games for Christmas. We were unable to see them this year despite plans they made--there was the potential for a whole plane to be quarantined for 72 hours, which is how long they planned to stay in town. Ah well! Like everyone else, they had to be creative with their gift giving and surprised me with Oblivion and Skyrim.

I played Morrowind steadily for almost two years and remember thinking it was the peak of computer gaming. Then Oblivion came along and I was in love with those grass textures. Unfortunately, I didn't have a top end gaming PC at the time and passed, although my husband played it.

I feel old--Oblivion came out in 2006! And Skyrim in 2011. Fortunately I do have a computer these days that will play both. I'm going to have to hold off playing them until the end of next semester...it's too easy to get sucked into CRPGs! I did try downloading Elder Scrolls for the Switch, but I found the controls too dizzying and clunky to be enjoyable. Both games were a great gift since I wouldn't think to buy them for myself.

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

So, a few months ago I besmirched Awakening Kingdoms. In my earlier review, I wrote that I couldn’t imagine playing it for more than an hour. Hee...confession time...I play it everyday or at least log in to get the daily bonus. It's casual enough to just sit down and play for five minutes.

Having said that, it’s still not a stellar game. There are a whole bunch of problems with it now that the game server has been turned off. Oddly, you can still buy game money and gems. Here are some of the problems:

• The game will crash and zero out collectible inventory, meaning you have to collect those things all over again :-P Exiting the game doesn’t seem to help.


• The game will dicker with your money and gems. I was horrified to watch the amount of coins go down instead of up one day! Same with gems—I thought I accidentally spent them, but, nope. They disappeared.


• The exchange function on collectible sets doesn’t work. Any quests that ask you to exchange collectibles to finish a quest need to be skipped with gems.


• Recently, I hit level 47...but I’m stuck there because upon levelling up, the game zeroed out my experience. I can’t level up again until I replay 69,000 experience points.

The trick to enjoying this game is to figure out its rhythm and go along with it. The auction function, which is broken, was clearly a vital part of the game, especially when it came to making collectible sets. Not having this part available creates a challenge since you have to budget your money. Rack up enough achievements and you get rewards that boost your energy or gem count. Play long enough and the daily log in bonus multiplier increases and you hit that sweet spot where money isn’t a problem.

Perhaps it will come back one day. I imagine it was a learning experience for Boom Zap and Big Fish. I did buy some gems to see if I could...and I wonder if it jolted someone on the other end awake!

LOL I'm such a sucker for horse games no matter the skill level and I stumbled across one that checks all the boxes. Horse racing? Check! Resource based? Check! Nice graphics? Check!

I can't believe the quality of this freemium mobile game. You couldn't even get this kind of game on a PC years ago. We had DRF Horseracing and we had to like it!

Naturally you start with a low grade horse and work your way up by buying and breeding. I ran out of room in my stable after two days. You can change the name of your horses, but there's something about the generated ones. Sometimes they work out! Here's a filly I raised and sold named Priceless Banter. Her parents are Control Sequel and Chain Coffin. I'm going to have to sell Chain Coffin too pretty soon...awww...but I'm so attached, sniff! She's the mother of my other mare, Silver Tulip, who's a speed demon.

Some days I wonder what I'm doing with my life, whether it's spending almost 20 years on an unfinished art degree or passing level 5000 of Gardenscapes.

Never heard of Gardenscapes? Trust me, you've seen the ads:

Watch on YouTube

I used to play Words With Friends pretty heavily and Words With Friends played ads for Playrix games pretty heavily. They are Fishdom, Homescapes, Gardenscapes and Township. Eventually repetition breeds familiarity and I broke down and installed Homescapes and Gardenscapes. Both are match 3 games where you win levels to repair a mansion. Homescapes is not as interesting to me as Gardenscapes--the game play is sluggish in comparison.

The amount of ads in Words With Friends was a total turn off. Homescapes and Gardenscapes have no ads and it's easy to see why--Playrix is rakin' in the dough, I tell ya! I swear they throttle competition game play on the last day to encourage people to spend money. The amount of turns per level lowered, which also encourages people to spend money. Rewards are timed to keep you playing as much as possible. Sometimes you just need one or two more moves to win a level, which you can do if you hit "play on" and...pay money!

Other than the obsessive gambling feature, both games feature pleasant music and pretty graphics along with challenging puzzles and team competition to round out simple, straightforward storylines and mini-mysteries. After a while, the charm of Austin, your butler, and his friends, family and neighbours grows on a person. Most games ultimately fulfill some fantasy. If your fantasy is to have friendly neighbours and a helper who just gets all the chores done, well, this game is for you!

I do have to mention that if you are a new player, you'll encounter Master Akira around level 800 when the Asian themed garden is opened. Cringe ahead! Master Akira is a horrible Asian stereotype who talks backwards like Yoda and goes on about chi and balance and such. It seems the game as has gotten away from this in later levels, but the beginner gardens can be converted to a cultural theme. There's a Dutch theme, Greek theme, Western theme, tropical theme and a Mesoamerican theme.

Playrix must have realized that it made a huge misstep with creating a Pan-Asian themed garden. Unfortunately Asian cultures tend to get smushed together and that's exactly what Playrix did.

If you haven't started, please don't. It's a hard game to quit! I can quit anytime...but not today because the gold brick bonus challenge is on. Maybe after that...no...because soon it will be St. Patrick's Day and I have to win all the decorations for the mansion. Oh man...send help...or money! :-D