I am not a HardCore Gamer #50 (8)

Even doctors get sick. Life’s harsh for everyone and as I was nearly half way through my journey to hospital, I found out my appointment was cancelled. There, so much for getting up at 4am to get ready…
I knew this week will be messed up as travels to the hospital usually take a lot of energy out of me so gaming was on second plan this week; still I got some of it done regardless.

She isn’t watching anymore rrwally but shhhh…

The main offender has been Dishonored 2 as I really got pulled into the story and the atmosphere of the game. I’m evolving two stories simultaneously with Corvo having the first run of a mission to get a feel for it; this is high chaos run so I’m not bothered much about stealth and I’m trying to gather information that will allow easier run with Emily where I’m aiming at ‘Shadow’ and ‘Clean Hands’ trophies. Depending how well I manage with some of the collecting items trophies I might play the game third time in -no powers mode- but at the moment we are somewhere in a middle of the story with Corvo and not far behind with Emily somewhere around chapter 5 and the Royal Conservatory.

Clockwork soldiers. Easy to deal with when in hibernation.

I must say that Madden 17 was fairly neglected this week as I haven’t touched my offline franchise and only played HPL League games and collected some items in MUT for some season stars cards although I’m not sure why I still bother since I barely played any solos or H2H in this mode. Ah, we all have to have some craziness in us lol.

On mobile platform there was Gems of War struggles as this week, weekly events were uninspiring for me so I struggled with putting a team together but finally I managed and I levelled up a bit some cards, kingdoms and hero classes and my guild seems to be stable with 11 members, 8 of which take part in playing regularly. I’m stuck at finding fresh blood there though…
I have also carried on with CBS Footbal Franchise Manager and got myself to level 25 which unlocked ‘Showdowns’ which reward some nice things once player win some games. I think I’ll carry on with it as it is like twice a day, check in job taking up 30 mins or so.

And the trophy count this week comes to 10 for a total yearly amount of 53.

What games got you going this week?

I am not a HardCore Gamer #49 (7)

Ah… I sniffed another platinum trophy and I might try to get a run for it and this unfortunately saw me restarting Emily’s side of Dishonored 2 story as I realised I made few kills in first mission and I’d not be able to get the “clean hands” trophy that requires to go through the game without killing. Emily will also go full “shadow” trophy no matter how many times I’ll have to restart after some spots me. With Corvo I’ll try to cover trophies that require some kills and the such and then, once I gone through both playthroughs I’ll see if there’s chance for me to try to aim for the platinum.

Some NPCs in Dishonored have tough choices to make.

It’s been a quite a decent week of gaming for a change. I am at 4th chapter of Dishonored 2 with both characters and I’m enjoying the ride even though some considerable amounts of restarts are required.
The game looks really great, feels really cool and plays nicely regardless of the way one plays. There’s plenty of things to collect, many ways to approach objectives and a cool story developing so, yes, it finally felt like I was doing some serious gaming.

Enjoying a bit of music from some street performers.

I have also put some decent amount of time in Madden 17 where I got my offline franchise going finally. The aim for the first season is to give all the teams, except the Colts, the wins/losses they experienced during the season (bar the two ties that there’s no way of awarding) and play Colts’ schedule mainly via Play the Moments and see how well I compare to real world coaches and managers when getting the Colts through the 2016/17 again.
After the season concludes it’s a case of looking into the future through FA and draft for which I still use the scouting tool developed by a very clever gamer whose blog can be found here, worth a read really if you enjoy Madden 17 and like to build your teams. Phew… As I said, quite a gaming week and I still managed a bit of mobile gaming.

I have also redownloaded NBA 2K16 as I fancied a bit of basketball action and there’s not much room in my wallet to get the current installment of the game. Again, if the year was longer I’d probably end up buying 2K17 but as things stand, I very much doubt I’ll have time to invest myself heavily into another sport title.
And as always, there was some mobile gaming done, the usual suspects with Gems of War giving up some time to console gaming that resulted in less financial contribution into the guild. I’m still yet to get any of the mythic level cards but I’m not having much luck. I have levelled 2 kingdoms to 10 level but I’m not sure what class of cards to invest levelling into as I’m usually just picking cards from the weekly events to play during a week.
I’m still on CBS Franchise Manager but that’s just twice a day check in really not a game.
Next week I have a ‘big’ appointment in a hospital and there’s hope that I might find some solution to my troubles but due to the uncertainty in regards of the treatment effect, I’m not sure how (in)active I’ll be in the world of gaming. Time will tell. What games are you gals and guys playing currently??

And as per usual it is time for the weekly trophy count: This week I have added 8 trophies for a total of 43 trophies

I am not a HardCore Gamer #48 (6)

Well… Year seems like a lot but I just realised it really isn’t. In about 6/7 weeks MLB The Show 17 will drop in on us and if I have money to play with, me and my boy will get the game and the relearning of baseball will resume and it seems like it was few weeks ago that I was whacking home runs on the Show 16… And hey, I have started my offline franchise in Madden 17 and the aim is to play mainly Play the moments mode and focus on building a long lasting team but I can’t see myself getting through at least 10 seasons as… Well, one year is not much of a time for serious gaming unless you’re a like really hard core gamer fully commited to get to spend every wake hour playing games… Well. I’ll try my best but among health issues, family life and other stuff that needs to get done and things will getting quickly tricky and tiring…

Simple Concept od matching three of one kind mixed with card collecting game.

Anyways… Another ‘off’ gaming week here but with some light at the end of the tunnel which started flickering towards end of the week. Between constant issues with Madden 17 de sync while trying to play online league games and some Gems of War PvP there was a new mobile game that I came across and I also immeresed myself in Dishonored 2 and i realised that having two saves, one for Emily and one for Corvo, and having the story developing along is a viable option therefore the plan is to go high chaos with Corvo and then return to the mission with Emily for some stealthy action knowing the mission and critical areas where I might fail. This way I might finish two playthroughs in one go. So to speak.

One of modes of CBS Franchise manager includes playing pro teams.

The other mobile game I came across was Franchise Football Manager by CBS Sports. It’s a pay to win or wait to play type of a game but it only takes like 30 mins a day to progress through the games that are available and i can see that it’ll take ages to build a decent squad but why not? It’s a bit of management fun although I hope to have something done on Madden 17, that I could perhaps share here once I got my offline franchise through a whole year…

No idea what I witnessed here but I blew all the candles as it is my “thing”

Anyways. That’s that from me really. This week has not been great in trophies as I only collected 4 trophies for a total amount of 35 this year.
How has your gaming been going on recently?

I am not a HardCore Gamer (aka Game Week Load) #39

It has been a very slow week in my little gaming world. I mean really slow and I think partly it was due to me wanting to ‘check down’ so many things that it eventually put me off playing on some days but still, I managed to immerse myself a little bit more in the digital world of sports, adventures and glitches.

Madden 17 got a short handed deal this week as I’ve only completed the December Gauntlet and played few league games, one of which I lost 0-34. 😦
MUT is slowly wearing out on me as EA keeps on adding new cards and I can’t be bothered to keep playing the same challenges over and over again (yet I did 60 solos for the Gauntlet); I’m also realising that my own offline franchise might not get off at all as somehow I’m quite fulfilled with the HPL League and I have few players I like watching as they grow…

T. J. Green becomes some sort of Fumble Specialist in his second year. Here, sacking Cousins in a surprise win by the Colts over the Jaguars.

Speaking of growing… My Skyrim journey is taking me to weird places, most of which are not related to the main story or even the side quests…
I’ve tried sticking to the quests that are not in the miscellaneous list but it seems there’s so many little things to do that eventually me and Lydia take a detour.
I like Lydia even though she’s a bit daft and gets stuck in places or goes ‘huh’ from time to time. She’s also not the best conversational partner but hey, one can’t be picky, especially if one is Dragonborn.

I have managed to progress the main story as I went to see the Grey Beards and also popped in to Solhsteim (never knew there were more map areas beside the main map) and quickly left really as I wanted to stay with some of the areas near Wildhelm. It is hard life and there’s so much to do and collect that I fear I’ll never reach any acceptable ending I think.

There are some happy Skyrim members able to just chill…

My Gems of War guild took few steps back sadly as quite a few members left my guild and completing tasks became a bit harder and slower to complete.
The game itself is what it is but the hero/troop collecting/levelling up can get quite a day to day job.
It is amazing actually that there’s so many ‘free to play’ games and those games have regular gamers, communities and they keep on going; it is as nearly whole world discovered smartphones and realised they liked some gaming entertainment… Ahhh. XXI Century.

I’m not sure what is going to entertain me next week but I can assume more Skyrim journeys and some Madden games will be there for sure.
What games have you enjoyed or planning on getting this rainy and cold December?

I am not a HardCore Gamer (aka Game Week Load) #37

Ahh… Another week is slowly passing by and I’m failing at being disciplined to a certain degree.
The MUT curse is alive and well as it “forced” me to finish the ultimate season solos, which I was going to do once a week as they were first given to us before EA released the last 6 or so in one bunch for the completion of mid season master.
At least now I think I’m done as I haven’t touched any other solos really beside the daily ones that give thanksgiving food (I doubt I’ll collect enough to upgrade the Hilton card though).

As pictured above it is my Ultimate Season offensive chemistry from the ultimate season I have completed that eventually started awarding some elite cards so I’m going to keep that set for funsies, especially that I have also put a defensive chemistry from the ultimate season solos which is pictured below.

The EA advertised that chemistry as a wanted one due to +2 speed and acceleration but I think with the flooding of so many cards this set is somewhat a big miss.
Anyways, enough talk of Madden. I’ll only add that my first two league games were simmed so I don’t know how well my team plays when I’m controlling it. One game I was warned and given a chance to play that dude’s CPU but I took my chance for last minute apperance by the fella. The second game arranging was a mess from the beginning and eventually I told the commish to sim it as I went away into Skyrim world…

Mammoths and their Giant.

Speaking of Skyrim… I’m still not getting very long sessions clocked in as I have been getting distracted by some new things which includes learning some solid basis for excel as after using the scouting tool for Madden made in excel I reminded myself how much it can be to use excel. The thing is last time I was able to use it including some formulas stuff was like 15 years ago so I decided to shake off some rust for which I allocated some of my gaming time.

Nevertheless, I still managed to slay two dragons (I took screenshots of their skeletons but then -quick finger accident deleted them- so no photo proof here 😉 ).
I have completed several miscellaneous quests as these pop out all over the place preventing me from getting busy with main story. I don’t mind though as it is my most common way of going around the games like that.
I also bought a house in Whiterun but now I gotta find a steward to decorate it. Gotta find that girl looking for a parent so I could adopt her. I would also love to find some salt mine as I usually run out of salt when cooking stuff…
Yes. Yes. I know it is not the main objective but with poor combat skills any means of keeping that health bar full is welcomed.
I’m pretty sure the journey will finally blow up fully and immerse me to every available second to spare. In the meantime I can remain to be seen as a steady average person playing games as opposed to a maniac with red eyes…

At the end of a day I usually jump for some bed fun with Gems of War but I think if I want to improve my game there I should read up a bit about the classes, magic, manas and how to get the most out of my cards as recently I noticed I started to struggle against humans in PvP and at times in kingdom’s quests.
The guild itself is doing well as we have couple of huge contributors in terms of coins, trophies and completing tasks. I’m actually amazed I managed to gather some people that are actually commited to a common goal.
Other than that there’s nothing much else to report I plan on increasing my Skyrim time, putting some effort into excel and carry on with Madden and Gems of War as usual, perhaps with less MUT madness.
What has kept you busy this week in your leisure time gals and guys?

I am not a HardCore Gamer (aka Game Week Load) #36

It’s been a strange week as far as gaming goes. There was gaming but there was little passion into it. Perhaps the passion got eaten up a bit by some viruses and bugs that came with colder November weather, or perhaps it was just one of those weeks.
Madden 17 and MUT got finally a boot up their butt; with EA release of 22 differnet elite chemistry solos to complete (each requiring at least 4 players with each of the chemustries) I was finally able to let it go as I realised the chase was over I was never going to keep up with it.

Madden itself isn’t dead as I have second season of our HPL League to go and thanks to a scouting tool developed by one of the fans of the game I was able to get three starters to my team. Sadly the best pick turned out to be a slow dev but I’ll play him every game and hope he records a great season that might increase his development trait.
By the way, more about that scouting tool can be found in this blog which is really worth reading through if you are into CFM experience.

Skyrim was my second pleasure this week and I’m beginning to enjoy that game but I think I play it wrong lol
I’m not really sure what phases me out but there’s some level of being overwhelmed there that stops me from fully drawning in this game same as it happened with Fallout (speaking of which- mods support dropped on us so out of nowhere and now I’m getting really into realms of impossible gaming as there’s simply too many games I want to play…)
Anyway back to Skyrim, as I only tested couple of mods in Fallout to see for my self, the problem I’m having with Skyrim there is not enough salt piles (LOL) and it gets into way of me cooking some soups and roasts so I can utilise the healing properties as I constantly forget about the magic healing I have coming out of my hand and potions run out quickly with my poor combat skills.

Utilising some black magic to bring the dead to help me out.

On a bit serious note I think the clumsy UI and item selection system puts me off a bit this game and lack of VATS from Fallout as I find combat quite hard at times. I suppose I just need a bit more time with the game to learn its quirks and work out in my head what perks I’d like my character to have as at the moment I have only couple of skills in 30s and few in 20s. The whole levelling up system is a bit puzzling but still, the game looks really nice!
Rest of the gaming time was filled in by Gems of War, although this week I must admit I was slacking as I did some reading as opposed to playing in my ‘can’t sleep time’. Luckily there’s few people in my guild that keep on things going on nicely for us all.
Not a great week for gaming but hey, we are still alive and in one piece. Keep well friends!

I am not a HardCore Gamer (aka Game Week Load) #28

Another week is coming to an end and there’s been x amount of activities going on around the world. Some of the action came from my household and some of it was related to gaming. Yay! There was some fiddling with OpenBVE, an open source train simulator, as my son is, safe to say, pleasantly obsessed with trains. I had to find some London Underground routes for him to drive around as well as some rolling stock. 

There was always some digital card collecting entertainment provided by NFL 17 Huddle and GridIron apps. The Huddle one sometimes crashes and refreshes very slowly but at least you ‘get to play’ your cards on the game day. As far as console gaming is concerned there was more of Madden 17 and Fallout 4 on the menu.

EA, came out with the rush uniforms and also included them in MUT so it meant more solos and more collectibles needed to get new shiny things. Since I dig the Colts rush uniform I kind of made sure to do all the daily solos to collect needed items and after buying couple more collectibles and few days of playing the solos I finally got the uni but the Madden Fever carried on.

 Since I had nearly 20 tickets for entering either Draft Champions or Salary Cap ranked modes I decided to spent the tickets as at the end of the day I was guaranteed at least a pro pack. Thanks to two people quitting on me and some perseverance I actually managed to string together 6 wins without two losses and reached the top rewards for it. Since it all happened on Friday evening I also grabbed myself some FND badges. That was cool.

The uncool face of Madden was the connectivity and ridiculous lag which nearly made me quite the HPL League as my last game was pretty much unplayable for 3/4 of it but I soldiered on and finished it and my team is 0-4 so far. Yeah. I suck and I know it well.

I am yet to start my own CFM but I can’t get organised to get going on my own against the AI. And that has been most of the gaming time this week really. Once the weekend arrived I finally managed to switch off and jump into the Fallout 4 world.

Bertha’s escapades across the Commonwealth have stalled recently by quite a lot. She has left the Nuka World to help out the amysment park’s factions in completing some random tasks. One of them involve collaring a poor soul in GoodNeighbor but her charisma level might be preventing a successful accomplishment of said quest.

So there, Bertha life got quite complex and busy and the fact I’m not good at fighting it gets even harder at times. One of the encounter with Super Mutants took me an hour that involved few re runs as I kept on dying. Due to the location of one of the randez vous I was able to pop in to Vault 88 just to see how things are there and I realised I’m still yet to fully complete the introductory quests relating to the vault. I was welcomed by bunch of hungry and angry folks as simply I hadn’t thought about making the Vault 88 a nice and an organised place.

And that was it really. I’m yet to do many quests involving a re run of the mechanist with Bertha and a proper look at Far Harbor as I never ventured there. As far as Fallout 4 is concerned I can see myself still playing it in 2017 with the current time commitment. It’s not an end of the world though.

Next week I’m hoping to finally got my own CFM going on Madden 17 and use it to learn to switch my usering onto linebackers to improve my skills. I will also continue with Fallout 4, my card collecting apps and perhaps some trains with my son on our exhausted PC.

What games keep you going nowadays folks? Leave me some comments to get the discussion going. Until next read!

I am not a HardCore Gamer (aka Game Week Load) #27

More of the same here really. Except that huge heat wave that apparently broke UK’s record for the hottest day in September in like… ever. Luckily our PS4 have had an easy week really and somehow it has managed not to overheat and melt. This week Madden 17 and Fallout 4 were yet again the stars of my show. I’ve managed to download ‘Lords of the Fallen’ but with all the Nuka- World excitement and Connected Franchise Mode which I finally have had a taste of I can’t see myself starting a new game but then never say never!

The ever evolving line- up of my MUT fantasy team in Madden 17

Madden 17 was the star of the week despite my slow realisation that MUT is not going to be as much fun as it used to be as I find earning coins and contracts to be harder than previously. I mean this mode is really ‘pay to win’ one but this year the EA has made it that little bit obvious.

Trying to build a fearful defense in MUT mode.

Luckily there’s Franchise Mode and this was the culprit that even got my Fallout time a bit disturbed. I’m a member of an online league and we finally got going so it was nice get to see new additions for CFM such as practice squad, practice drills that actually make you earn your rewards accordingly or formation subs menu which seems like a blast. I’m 0-2 in my games so far but the game provided me already with some thrills and excitement. Happy days ahead I think.

As for Fallout, I haven’t made a lot of progress yet as after initially sniffing around Nuka World I proceeded with the initial quest there and met the leaders of Nuka World factions and then I decided  to claim some territories but several deaths later I have had a change of plans and decided to first complete the faction relevant quest which brought me back to the Wasteland.

There’s always place for some random craziness in Fallout 4.

At least I could go back to Red Rocket to pick up Ada to take her for another journey which sadly didn’t last long as I forgot to stock up on repair kits so Ada came back home after some encounter with a crazy dude blasting bullets from his machine gun. I met up with one of the Nuka World gangs and helped them, I also found the target to collar in The Third Rail but due to low charisma I’m yet to put a collar on her.

Bertha Burps wearing OverBoss’ unifo…erm… power armour.

Lastly, I realised how many original quests I’ve still got to finish so I actually did venture out there and started getting busy really. I’m not sure why I went after ‘The Gilded Grasshopper’, perhaps the location was close by to my recent quests but I’m pleased I have gone for it (and completed it) as I realised I somehow missed it during my first play through. 

Hopefully it’ll look nice in my cabinet of Wasteland findings. Once I make it… lol 

All in all it was a fairly productive weekend session of Fallout although I know I must progress my character a bit further and hopefully faster as I’m only on level 39 and I still have a lot of the original story to cover and I’d like to finish it at some point of my life. lol

Ah… Digging around cementaries is such a relaxing hobby.

What about you guys? What games have you played recently? What games you want to finish? What games you can’t wait to get?

What if? The Madden Way. Time goes by, so do people…

 

Patience is a funny thing and sometimes it simply runs out. There were plenty of changes within the 49ers, first the offensive coordinator was gone, the newly appointed one moved Marcin Magician to number 2 and apparently there was talk of trade if he wouldn’t deliver any results. There was also change of offensive philosophy and it was all meant to pay dividends.
It didn’t though. San Francisco went to play Tampa Bay and they lost badly 14-28 while looking more lost than ever in the season.
The only person to find a mojo was Magician as he finished with 6 catches for 98 yards. Fans could see him smiling a bit but it was all sour sweet as the team was 1-6 at this point and there were no sign that things would be better.
Washington’s fans uplifted after last win were hoping for more and knowing that the team employed a new quarterback coach to go along some virtual technology there were hopes that Liam’s game would become less erratic.
It didn’t. Most of the day Liam kept missing wide open targets and then he’d go onto squeezing the ball into tight windows for 238 yards with one touchdown and one pick on 23 completions out of 40 attempts, the Redskibs left the turf beaten up again. 17-34 was a brutal sight on the scoreboard. At this time of the season 2-5 record was not what was expected of the team.
But not all was lost in the world of our characters. Griswald’s Colts went to Jacksonville for a very important divisional match up and left victorious with big time beating of Jaguars 31-13. Luck didn’t do much with 187 yards (15-20, 2-1) but he didn’t have to.
Running backs had the game under control with Jackson racking up 92 yards on 23 carries plus a touchdown. C. West filling in for injured Talbot carried the ball 15 times for 57 yards and a score. Was it a sign of changes? 3-4 Colts were hoping for that as they needed some good games to become a serious playoff team.

What if? The Madden Way. Can’t keep loosing.

 

As the old saying goes. If you lose you can’t choose or something or other. Our characters found themselves in this desperate hole where they so badly needed a win, a good performance that would lift their moods. Their coaches were grumpy, fans weren’t so cheerful and the life in general sucked like nobody’s business.
It was time for changes, but would their effort work? Indiana travelled to Tennessee for this very important divisional match up, they really couldn’t afford to lose and somehow they pulled an upset when with 1:30 left and Titans driving they did enough to cause a fumble and preserve their lead 31-27 to then it into a win. Andrew Luck had a sluggish game and was again outplayed by opposing quarterback but his 225 yards with no interceptions was enough, especially that his passing was really good with 17-23 ratio. Griswald was happy to win and there were few smiles around the team.
Washington was hosting Baltimore and the Skins were very determined not to let their fan base down plus they really needed the big W so there was plenty of motivational speeches from the coaches and team captains. The day was a great one for a family day out and the stadium was packed, Liam Magician was pumped up and he delivered a great game stealing the the win in last minute with a 65-yards pass for a winning touchdown. The Redskins won 29-26 and Liam had 261 yards (23-37, 3-1) on his account. The problems were not over yet but things looked a bit better in Washington.
Were matters weren’t improving was in San Francisco. Battered 49ers travelled to Arizona for well needed win but yet again they came short losing 17-24 after series of few mental drops and couple of unusual drops by Marcin Magician who finished the game with career low of 13 yards and one reception. It was obvious things were getting to Marcin and he needed to sort his brains out sooner than later as the coaches were thinking of making him number two receiver due to his ineffectiveness with a view into benching him altogether.
There were tough times ahead of Marcin and some fans still believed in his hidden skills and that he’d deliver a game that would lift his confidence up.