Hello, my name is Paul, and I’m a collectaholic

Collecting has always been a part of videogames. Mario went after coins for extra lives, Link had to gather slew of weapons/items to further travel Hyrule, and Samus was always on the lookout for new toys and upgrades. Roleplaying games gave players the chance for amass weapons (Rogue Galaxy, for example) or pieces of music (Eternal Sonata) or even books (Fable II and the Elder Scroll games do this pretty well). Other games took this even further, often to the point where they are trying to drive those with ADHD crazy. Case in point: Assassin’s Creed and its myriad of pointless flags.

But one of my all-time favorite games for collecting random pixels is Animal Crossing: Wild World, especially with its incentive to play every day and check out what new items were up for sale. Hats, shirts, furniture, wallpaper, and more. Mmm. Granted, I haven’t played in many months now (my villagers probably assume now that I’ve gone off the deep end and am in county jail), but the crack collecting is still deep in my blood, which I why I stopped and stared at the following game tonight in the game shop for a good ten minutes:

Ah, Magician’s Quest Mysterious Times. The obvious clone to AC: WW. But that doesn’t matter. For those not in the know, here’s its description:

Magic academy is in session and enrolling kid wizards! Attend classes with your friends to learn the mysteries of magic and the art of casting spells to experience the wonders of this mystifying land. Exchange secret letters and spread rumors about other students in order to become the greatest magician of all time. Creating or sabotaging relationships will determine the way the adventures are told. In this magic adventure, time flows as it does in the real world and each week your wizard skills are put to the test in a new magical adventure. Solve these quests by gathering information from friends and mythical characters you encounter and by using all the magic you’ve learned. Experience a world of magic, mystery and adventure just waiting to be told!

Truthfully, all I took notice of was the claim of “Collect and customize over 350 varieties of currency, clothing, furniture and more!” How I walked away from purchasing the piece of collect crack, I’ll never know.

Okay, I do know: I’m poor. $29.99 is too much for crack. But still…

Giving Mass Effect a second chance

My first playthrough of Mass Effect was a bit…disappointing. Not in terms of gameplay or story, but rather in that it was clear from my list of gained achievements, I had not played enough of Mass Effect. For one thing, here’s four that I did not get by the time credits were rolling:

Scholar (25G): Find all primary Alien: Council Races, Extinct Races and Non-Council Races codex entries

Completionist (25G): Complete the majority of the game

Soldier Ally (20G): Complete the majority of the game with the Alliance soldier squad member

Krogan Ally (20G): Complete the majority of the game with the krogan squad member

Upon initially meeting my multicultural cast of playable characters, I picked Ashley Williams and Urdnot Wrex as my partners in crime saving the world. They stuck out to me as interesting people/dinosaurs, and I faithfully used them in every mission possible. Granted, I really only followed the main storyline. Did some hopping and skipping around the galaxy, but the amount of planets was overwhelming, and the select few I picked to visit seemed to be nothing but barren wastelands. So yeah, I guess I missed a ton of sidequests.

So last night I loaded up my previous save and started a second campaign with my existing Paul Shepard. He’s already at LV 40 so we’ll see how it goes. I’m, however, for the sake of things, contemplating using alternate characters just to experience the story differently (I’m also being a total renegade/poophead to people). I know, I’d like the above achievements, but really, any two ally achievements will be good enough for me because it’ll at least show that I’ve played a “majority of the game,” whatever that turns out to be in Mass Effect.

So, any suggestions on who to go with for the second playthrough? I just arrived at the Citadel, and I dig the Throw and Lift abilities, mostly because my Shepard is an engineer and lacks the Jedi oomph.

Once more, this time with feeling

Wow, my last post here was in the middle of March 2009. Yeah, let’s get down to the meat and potatoes: I suck.

But we’ll try again, as I do love thinking about videogames and such, especially since I’m now the fancy owner of one of these things:

Only took me a billion years to get it, too.