Well I just wrapped up playing the beta for the weekend, having reached lvl 20 with the Necromancer to get whatever free rewards they are giving for the full release. Overall I am very excited to play the full game and I do believe it has potential to be one of the best games of the year. I played on PS5 primarily, and did try it on my old PC. On my PC it runs but is very laggy so I will be getting the PS5 version. My PC is due for an upgrade very soon. The console version played great with virtually no lag, and with cross play I am able to play with my fiance while she is a PC player.

The core gameplay is mostly the same as D3, but I think the open world is fantastic. The area is big (and this is just even the first area). There are tons of dungeons to do and discover and loads of side content on top of the main quest line. I like alot of the streamlined changes such as equipment taking up one inventory slot no matter what size it is. I also found it very easy to compare gear and quickly see if a piece was better. I think overall the menus and such were a little more clunky in past games having come of playing D II Resurrected. I very much enjoyed how much more accessible overall the whole game has been.

The necromancer was a blast to play. By the end of my time in D 4 i had the ability to raise 8 minions and decided to focus on a strong blood lance build. Ive seen alot indicating that the classes all are not balanced perfectly with the rogue and necromancer being the best. My fiance didn't seem to think the Druid or Barbarian were good at all and need to be made way stronger for balance.

The visuals are also great too especially on the PS5 compared to me running it on low on the PC. It seems there is more of a focus on story and cutscenes as well compared to DIII which I am excited for as in the past Diablo has been mostly a gameplay heavy game with story kind of taking a backseat.

Overall it was a great experience, and it is just a shame the game comes out the same month as Final Fantasy and Street Fighter, so this summer will be full of awesome games. I sunk about 6 HRS into the beta and I do think that everyone should check out at least a demo of the game or try out the beta themselves. If you have been scared to jump into this genre of games I think D IV would offer a nice entry point especially to primarily console players.

I want to set some goals for myself to help me stay on track with gaming. I have a hard time keeping focus due to my large collection and backlog, plus all of the great new games coming out. My first goal was going to be Forma Excalibur in Warframe for my build but I already did that today since it is a double XP weekend in Warframe. April is also the start of my busy time at work so it is possible I will fail all of these lol. I will update my progress through blogs. This weekend is the Diablo Iv beta.

Main Game:

1) High on Life---This is my next main game playthrough up, I wanted something fairly quick (compared to FF VII which I just completed) My goal here is to beat the game and get all the achievements doable in about 20 hours or so of gameplay. 1000/1000 should be easy enough to get just taking a quick glance at the list. My first run I always will just do whatever and then go back for achievements or trophies. Giving myself a deadline to get 100% by the end of April. I can probably do that quicker but MLB the show is coming out this week plus other stuff I want to mix in here and there.

Secondary Games:

2) MLB The Show 23---Coming out this week, will play on gamepass. Looks like easy trophies/cheeves, but I will mostly play Diamond Dynasty First probably and other modes. No real goals here other than enjoying the game. My favorite and probably the best sports title out there every year.

3) Fifa 23--I already have most of the trophies I want in this, but I want to play a little more online before I shelf it. My online ranked record is 7-0 right now, I want to play another 25 games before the end of April and see what my record is. I have not enjoyed Fifa as much over the years. I would play 100's hours every year from like 06-2015 and since then its just gone downhill.

4) Missle Command---Atari/Evercade---I picked up an evercade vs and EXP but haven't played either yet. I want to set them up and try to set a high score in Missile command for the 2600. No real ending to the game so not sure how long this will hold my attention for, but I at least want to try and set a score.

5) Super Mario Bros--NES--I want to play this on the switch online (since I rarely play the switch) and beat the game without warps. I have never beaten the first Mario but of course played it a ton growing up. I enjoy SMB 3 more of course, but I figured I would run through the Mario games and here is where to start. I want to play at least once every other week and maybe get a beat run by the end of April

6) Crypt of the Necrodancer--Switch/PS4---I have both versions, I at least want to play it a couple times and try to put some runs together. A game I always wanted to play but never got around to it. I doubt I will get too many trophies on ps4 (they are tough) so might just play on switch. Want to play this 3-4 times before end of April.

7) Genshin Impact---I started playing Genshin a couple months ago and it really took a backseat to warframe/overwatch and other games. I would like to continue with it, and I am going to make an effort to play it once a week in april for at least a couple hours.

8) NHL 23/NBA 23---Playing through player careers in both games....they are both okay I enjoy the gameplay but some of the career storylines not so much. I just want to continue on, and I think NBA is a way better game so I will likely play some of that. I usually play these types of games while watching sports/videos ect. Or listening to tunes just to chill. No real Goal here other than to make more progress.

9) Overwatch 2/Halo Infinite/MW2----These have been my primary shooters/online games for the past 2 years lol...Im kinda over all of them, but not ruiling out that I will play some more of either one of these. OW2 is the best of these, Halo is pretty good, MW 2 is just meh. Im kinda over wasting my life on multiplayer games but might make an effort in the next month to play a couple times.

Happy Sunday everyone! It has been a blast watching March Madness BBall the last few days. I decided a few weeks back that i should start to get back to writing about my hobbies including gaming. I will try to post more blogs on here. Its been about 12 years since I last posted one LOL!

Lately I have been making more of an effort to finish games from my backlog (also while checking out newer games) and playign less multiplayer stuff as over the last couple years I have really hit the multiplayer games pretty hard pretty much putting my backlog to a stand still.

Ive Beaten/Completed 2 games so far in 2023.....Grabbed By The Ghoulies and Final Fantasy VII. Grabbed By The Ghoulies was interesting but very frustrating. My review was featured on the community spotlight on Giantbomb, which is another reason I wanted to blog again! I have a review up on here if you want to see my full thoughts. Final Fantasy VII of course is a classic and one of my all time favorites. I was replaying it after last playing through it completely about 12 years ago. I was glad to see the PS4/PSN version had trophies, and I just wrapped up the platinum trophy yesterday after about 48 HRS of gametime.

I am thinking about taking on a project similar to some others such as playing all the games from a console, series, or genre. As I review games already I rank them on a list. Will see what I come up with.

The next game I am going to play single player wise is Ugh, Balan Wonderworld. I picked it up for $5 from amazon for the PS5 and figure why not. Easy but time consuming platinum trophy so we will see how far I can stand it lol.

Peace Out

Well I did follow through and play madden career....after playing 1 game with my Qb and throwing 5 interceptions. I decided to lower the difficulty and start a new career at a different position. I started a RB on the Denver Broncos, and I am having a much better time with the game. I was able to play four games of the season and had close to if not over 100 yards rushing in each game, and in one game vs the raiders I caught two touchdown passes both were over 70 yards each. I am frustrated with the AI as they do the dumbest shit. As a QB the receivers would drop wide open passes, and as a RB now my AI controlled QB will make the stupidest throws. I was playing my qb career on all-pro and I was getting intercepted every other pass, and while playing as a qb on Pro (the next lowest difficulty) i completed pretty much every pass. There is no middle ground with the difficulty at all and that sucks. Career is not the strong point of this game although it is still fun to play, and it passes down time you have really well as it is a long ass mode. After work tonight ill try to play another few games tomorrow morning!

Thinking about doing game progress update blogs as I have more free time working overnight shifts now. I work 4 days in a row and then I get 4 days off which is nice, but its hard to adjust to any kind of normal sleep pattern on off days. I find myself sleeping in mostly 4-5 hour blocks nowadays. I am gonna try and stick to one game this week. I usually play for an hour or two on my work days, and a lot more on off days. Working the next 3 days. I have chosen Madden 13 as this weeks game, particularly the career mode. I am on my second season as a Quarterback for the Carolina Panthers I believe (haven't played in a little while). My goal was to get some of the career achievements by having players at different positions, but they are way to grindy and long so I have no idea if I will get any. Ive sunk alot of hours into madden so far in the online and ultimate team modes (about 120 hrs in total). Its a fun game, and I havent owned one since 2010. I always love playing ultimate team modes in any sports games, mostly fifa.

QB Career Season 1: 6-10 record (missed playoffs).....4,202 passing yards......332 rush yards.....25 pass td's (5 rush td's)......42 interceptions......need to get my int's way down for next season. If I can do that we should make the playoffs, and also to not my qb can run I built him sorta like Cam Newton.

Career progression is pretty slow so I am hoping to get through 3-4 games a day of playing this week. Peace.

Downloaded a few things today including Madden 13 Demo, Counter Strike GO, and Dust 514. Madden 13 demo was pretty good. The game plays really smooth and I had fun with it. I have the game preordered, and I havent gotten a madden game since 2010. Needless to say I am looking forward to it and looking forward to the new career mode and ultimate team. I bought counter strike go on the ps3. It's installing now and I will spend some time with it tonight. I have never played CS before and this will be my first time. Dust 514 is an MMO FPS that is free to play. Not sure if this is just the beta or the full game, but I am looking forward to it non the less. I think its exclusive to PS+ right now. I have work for the next 4 days so I won't be playing too much, and after those 4 days I have a few days to make some videos for youtube possibly. Ill also try to post some impressions of these new games today. Peace.

the microsoft show was ok at best, modern warfare 3 and battlefield 3 both look pretty good, Battlefield looks like it will definitely give cod a run for its money this year.  The sony conference was ok at best too, the vita looks really good and im super excited for the new ps3 exclusive games like uncharted and resistance 3....Nintendo's was great the new WII U looks simply amazing!

Mystery dungeon explorers of darkness is what ive been playing on the Nintendo DS. In true pokemon style the other version of the game is explorers of time. The game is alright, being only an hour and a half into the game I would say it is slightly above average. The game features very bright graphics and some pretty good game music. The premis of the game is to take your team of pokemon (you are a pokemon yourself) and fullfill different jobs by completing tasks in certain dungeons. Basically it is a rouge-like dungeon crawler built in the pokemon universe. A rouge like game involves losing your items and money whenever you are killed and you then have to do that dungeon all over. These games are known for difficulty, but this game isnt too bad being that it was built for the younger generation. The gameplay is ok. The dungeons so far have been slightly different but they are largly the same thing. It is an interesting take on the pokemon universe and is not a bad game. The things I like most so far included the story (which is pretty darn good), the graphics, and the music.

Early Rating: 7.5 out of 10 (slightly above average)

well about 3 years have passed since I put together a rather sloppy video and list of my top 20 games of all time......the video had 10K + hits. I figured that it is now time to go back and alter my list of my favorite games of all time......and the only way to do so is to play each of the games on the list again and add some other games that ive played since that last list was made........

20) Doom-PC, various other platforms....

I decided to start here at 20 with doom. Doom is one of the most well known and played early FPS games. My fondness started back in the 90's with the game on the pc. The version I am playing now is the xbox 360 download game....and I also own the sega 32x version. God this game is so much fun.

i ripped a little video from when i streamed the game the otherday on justin.tv. quality is pretty crap but all gspot vids are crap. Doom will no doubt move up on my list and could break the top 10. Having a blast right now.

The Prettiest Crap of A Game.

I really loved the mirror's edge demo.  I loved everything about it from the flow of the game to the controls to what you would be doing in the game.  The demo was the first level of the real game, and the demo is very deceiving.  When the game actually gets going after the prologue the gameplay has continually been on a downward slope from fun platforming to smash my head against a brick wall platforming.  If you are one second off or miss a jump by an inch you are promptly sent to the loading screen.  A few failures here and there are expected, but mirror's edge is over the top with them.  You will be playing fine for an hour and then get to a part that you will be stuck on for a half hour wither continuously missing a jump or trying to figure out how to get to where you need to be.  This game is the definition of trial and error, and be very cautious if you were looking to get this game.  YOU REALLY NEED ALOT OF PATIENCE.

As far as other aspects of the game goes the graphics are exceptional, the contrast between all white backgrounds and then brightly colored areas is genius.  The game is also very innovative and has basically created a new genre of first person platforming, which in future similar realese of the series or a different game fixes a lot of the problems this game has.  The story is also pretty decent, it is better than dead space, and the cutscences are in a different visual style than the rest of the game.  The story does however seem pretty thin as I am about 40% done the game already in about 2 and a half hours of playing, and there has been very little plot and character development outside some general aspects.

Overall I am enjoying the game, but it is ridiculously frustrating.  EA and Dice did a good job, but the actual gameply isnt enough to live up to how I thought this game was going to be.  Right now I give it a 6.5/10.  With a chance that the score could greatly improve, this is the lower end.  I def wouldn't buy the game.