I am not a HardCore Gamer #52 (10).

Odd week as plenty of ‘real life’ stuff popped out this week but my body was able to handle most of it which is a nice thing for a change. Gaming wise it’s been rather one sided as Dishonored  2 has taken up most of my time which it’s nothing bad as the game and the story itself is very well constructed and this game joins my list of –why no one turned into a movie yet– alongside Bioshock for example.

Is it Luca or his body double…?

Anyways, the story reached its end and it was an ugly sight in Corvo’s play through as High Chaos brought up a lot of dead bodies and to some extent left few things still not fully revealed.

Going High Chaos results in a lot of bodies lying/ hanging around…

Emily’s play through with Low Chaos involving going for trophies requiring no killing or not being spotted is yet to be fully finished.
It actually takes a lot of time (sometimes retries) to get through stage spotlessly clean but it is so much fun and it does allow for a huge amount of immersion and enjoyment from the story. Great stuff!

Beautiful views from Dreadful Whale.

Having an off season gap in Madden 17 worked well for me as it allowed me to get most of Dishonored 2 done plus a bit of career in NBA 2K17 but football should be back as we held draft this weekend (which didn’t go that well for me, despite drafting SS WR) and HPL League’s 4th season is a go. I know I could get to play offs if I limit stupid decision making process and just think lol

Got unluckily drafted by the Nuggets. Face scan ok. Hair style not real.


I’m hoping to put a bit more time in 2K17 with the career to see if I can make my character a useable player but it takes time as VC don’t come easily despite using the companion app to raise extra funds (still great idea and nicely done app, I wish EA was better at implementing things in the smartphone world, sigh…).

In mobile world there was very little activity as Gems of War continue a downward trend for me and other games/apps are more of check ins – do the things- move ons type of things. So yeah a bit lazy here.
Weekly trophy count stands at 12 for a grand total of 82 in 2017. How’s your trophy/ achievement progression going?

I am not a HardCore Gamer #48 (6)

In between life, health problems, hospital appointments (where I bumped into professor Stephen Hawking!!!!) this week could easily count as a holiday from gaming week really as most evenings I was just too damn tired to even bother with any serious gaming sessions and this included mobile gaming too.
My main poison this fruitless week has been “Crew” as I carried on with my merry way of helping my son to raise some funds for New cars, spec parts or some paints and stickers. Since I’m a bit of a sucker for photo editing I have also messed about with in built photo mode that really shines once, one spends some time with it.

Photo mode in Crew allows for plenty of creativity resulting in such beauty shots as this one.

Given how easy it is to drop in and out of the game, how arcadey feel the driving model has, it is actually a good choice of the game if you don’t know how long you will play in one session. You don’t get too engrossed in the story (we finished it first time playing it when the game was initially released) so it’s easy to stop but you also don’t get too bored so this week it’s been a winning compromise for me here.

Multiplayer lobbies offer you the usual “dose” of madness found in public lobbies.

Even Madden 17 got very little love as I had a bye week in HPL League and only played one game, although it took us four or five goes as we kept on desyncing. Bloody annoying issue that’s recently bugged EA release.
On mobile front I have been sluggish too as I even failed to reach 1st tier in PvP this week. The active guild’s members have been contributing and I paid in as much as I could but, yeah… It’s just been one of these weeks where gaming just wasn’t something to rely on…
I have managed to start with Dishonored 2 and I went with Emily as my first play through and as I was getting through the first mission I thought that maybe starting another save with Corvo could be a doable option to have simultaneous alternative experience as there’s plenty of save slots, I’m just not sure if you can move the story along simultaneously…
I hope the next week is going to be better, although the kids are on break so it might be mayhemic here.
I hope to move faster with Dishonored 2 as this game has long been overdue. What games of yours are awaiting some gaming time???

The weekly trophy count looks really poor with One lone trophy this week for a total of 31 this year so far.

I am not a HardCore Gamer #47 (5)

Hey! I have finally pulled it off and got to the end of the war in “This War of Mine”; there were victims though and it wasn’t all that plain sailing really.
In the effort of pure survival I have missed several other tasks and the platinum trophy for that game remains locked. I’d imagine a fourth play through to clean these up but from looking at the internet couple of them might be tricky as these involve getting all starting characters through, including a child as in my third play through, Misha kind of glitched around depressed/broken transition and I couldn’t do anything to him and eventually he left with another adult… Ah…

As I’ve missed only few trophies I decided to start another save, this time set to 20 days in order to see if I can collect these few tricky trophies for my 11th platinum but yet again I came up short on three more trophies and since it’s been a while since my last platinum (Fallout 4?) I thought I’ll grind some of the monotony out as one of the trophies involves teaching child everything which is a bit time consuming but hey, persistence pays off and with the end of the week coming soon I have finally heard the jingle trophy sound and here she is… 🙂

And in the meantime, somewhere else out there I had a rapid progression through Gems of War as I ended up in tier one of PvP in a matter of a day due to using this week boosted characters, so I focused on completing kingdom quests there which saw me seeing finishing two full kingdoms. The guild tasks have been doing well too as the new members have been contributing fairly well.

Aside of Madden 17 league games I have also put some time in Crew as my son rebought it since he fancied some driving around and there aren’t many open world car games on PS4.
So I decided to do some races and challenges to help him out rise some funds for new rides, parts and modifications and paints.
I mean it’s a painless process really as since the game isn’t much of a simulation I find it easy and refreshing to find a PvP lobby for few quick races here and there. Police chases are added bonus but the game feels old as we had completed the story the first time around somewhere in 2015.

For those who never played it Crew- Ultimate Edition is a steal as it comes fairly cheap with a wealth of great DLC content the developers released since the game was out. For those interested you can get your copy of Crew Ultimate Edition here. It is a fun drving/ racing game and there’s not many great titles out there for the current gen of the consoles.
Yes, I still have not gotten around starting Dishonored 2, I’m terribly terrible, I know.
And for the weekly trophy county show we have 9 trophies this week, including a platinum one! and that brings total for this year to 30 trophies, with 1 platinum. What trophies did you, gals and guys, secure recently?

I am not a HardCore Gamer #45 (3)

One eventually needs to get going in the right direction but one also has to think about 167 or so various things to consider so… again, it’s been fairly slow week in terms of gaming.
I attended the draft at HPL and grabbed myself few decent rookies and we are set to start third season on Madden 17, we have a solid group and I think I should try to get into play offs this season but the time will tell.

The offense based on A. Luck and CM chemistry mainly.

Beside the league games and team management I have also spent some time in MUT, where I completed few solos and sets relating to TOTY and I finally got my team to ovr 92 as seen in pictures here.

Defence built around Seattle chemistry, featuring my best card, 97 ovr (boosted) Chancellor.

I have also unloaded loads of bronze cards for badges and I’m going to clean my folder now and see how many elite badges I’ll get. I think as far as regular visits and collecting stuff on MUT, I’m done although I’ll pop in here and there sometimes. Perhaps to put my team to test in H2H or something. I have also thought of taking part in some tournaments and signed up for ESL Gaming maybe in the future I could compete for prizes and such…

One must not forget the special teams. (I wasn’t pleased to get Tucker as a reward card).

I completed first run through This War of mine and unfortunately I didn’t make it through. On the 27th day Cveta, Irena and her niece were all gone. Pavle died few days earlier in combat…
Luckily it’s only a game so I set myself my own story with one of my created characters and I’ll see if I can make it through and also try to get platinum trophy for that game.

The stories behind characters of my first play through of ‘This War of Mine’.

The 2nd go is hopefully my main play through in attempt to obtain the platinum trophy. I have had a cheeky sneaky peek to see what they are and I think I can achieve them by playing smart.

This time I am in charge of guiding Marko, Jonny Poo and an old fella, whose name I can’t remember, who’s there with his grandson.
I have set the length to 40 days and chose a rather easy set of game settings and I’m going to see how I manage the second time running. So far I’ve reached the week Mark and everyone’s alive and most of them are ok.
The mobile gaming saw me further evaluating Bridge Bandit and I came to a conclusion that I’m not that serious about bridge at the minute to invest money into the app. I mean Bridge Bandit seems like a really great and innovative way of learning/ playing Bridge but I don’t think I’m that into it as I first thought.
So basically Gems of War remain my main mobile fun and I’m plodding about slowly but this week I haven’t found much enjoyment in colour matching world.
I’m not sure where I’m headed next week as far as gaming goes but I hope to finally start Dishonored 2 once the upcoming update comes to ps4 on Monday.
As far as the trophies are concerned I have got 5 more this week, all of them coming from This War of Mine and my total in 2017 stands now at 15.
Keep on playing guys!

I am not a HardCore Gamer #44 (2)

The stress and hardships of the Wastelands have finally got to Bertha. While she was occupied in a undercover mission for DIMA in Nucleus, Bertha’s radiation levels reached her in the ugliest of fashion of an EXIT save being lost and teleporting her back days earlier after all this efforts. She sat down and cried silently but there was no one to hear it.
On the more serious note, getting through this gameplay on survival turns out a bit too harsh for me and the dying, replaying parts is a bit too much at the minute so I think I’m going to take a break from Fallout 4 for a while and perhaps come back later to it.

Twas a summer to remember, my friend!

I think it is high time to get stuck in Dishonored 2 I got for Xmas from my son but before I do that I think I’ll have a slight detour towards This War is Mine, a little game that keeps to the Fallout scenery.

It was just the three of us, Pavle, Katia and Bruno and over 20 days later Maria and Bruno are sadly gone but Pavle was lucky enough to meet Irene and her little niece. Whilst the war continues and the winter is ever so close let us not forget Katia and Bruno.

Katia. Let us drink coffee in your memory!

Ah, Katia. That crazy coffee lover who could talk herself out of any issue; she pushed it once too many times at the garage and got shot, she made it home and was pushing through it like a good old fashioned camper but eventually her body gave up on her. We buried her under the tree.
Bruno was gone shortly after. He just given up one day and died as a disease was eating him from inside. He never moaned but then, he also wanted extra food so Pavle didn’t feel as sad as when Katia kicked the bucket.
And shortly before he died Pavle and co we visited by a man with a woman and a girl. It was Lydia with her aunt Irene. They were Pavle’s last hope of surviving so he let them stay…

Ah. The grumpy smoker. Hopefully he now has enough smoke…

With my health woes continuing it was actually really handy that I had no games to play in the HPL League as we reached the play offs (well, I didn’t really with 6-10 record), so Madden 17 got very little love this week. Ihave done some bulk buying and set completing but nothing much more. Just waiting for another draft where I hope to get some help on the defensive side of the ball.

Since it was another week with little energy, I have managed to push my Gems of War progress, including completing another kingdom quests and getting few more member to my guild as well as obtaining couple of legendary troops. Not a bad week here actually.

Bridge Bandit, a unique way of learning and playing Bridge.


There was some new stuff too (beside installing Dishonored 2) and it turn out to be another mobile (android) experience, this time resulting in me checking out Bridge Bandit a cool app for those who love or would like to learn to play the very strategic card game known as Bridge.
I’ve always s wanted to learn to play Bridge (I mean the bidding process is the hardest thing to grasp) but never had enough people to get going but finally, after the strange moment of wanting to play some card games I stumbled across the Bridge Bandit and all of sudden I needed to be back to Bridge.
So there, the app has few modes beside the traditional way of playing (against humans and/ or AI), including Mini mode, where one learns some simple way of bidding and trying to meet the contract, and Blitz mode where one plays three hands of Bridge. There’s plenty of options, the user interface is near and slick but it comes at a price of over £5 per month or over £42 a year. Luckily one gets 30 days to evaluate and possibility to earn some more by inviting friends, or having the app make a facebook post. I’m still early in the phase of trying it all out but it is looking really good.

And now it is time to count all these trophies I hunted this week and I can say there have been 3 trophies this week for a 10 total in 2017. How have your gaming been going lately gals and guys?

I am not a HardCore Gamer #43 (1)

2017 in gaming sphere in my world started as the 2016 finished; rather lazily, sluggishly and with very little gaming actually done. Part of the slow start has been my health that limited my pool of energy. That’s life and not much I can do about it besides manage it as best as I can.

Anyways… The games that welcomed the 2017 were Madden 17, Fallout 4 and This War is Mine. I’ve promised myself not to start Dishonored 2 until I’m done with Far Harbor and Nuka World DLCs from Fallout 4 but with the unexpected release of This War of Mine for free on PS Plus things got a bit more complicated and I’m not sure how I’ll squeeze it all in.Anyways, Madden 17 seen sporadic action really. I’ve only played two league games (my game is improving, I think) and spent little time on MUT, completeing some solos and sets.
Fallout 4 meets me past the introduction of Acadia members and Bertha is now on voyage towards Children of Atom. I’m glad I went back to get Nick to accompany me as his story is only adding to the taste of the journeys through the creepy island.
I’m actually amazed how much stuff Bethesda managed to cram into this DLC and I wonder why I didn’t get going there earlier… Hey better later than never.

This War is Mine dropped on me suddenly and I was pleased to see it free to grab for PS Plus members. I had thought of getting it before but never had the funds or the time. Now I have no choice other than play it and see how well I can manage.
It’s nothing fancy, graphic wise, although the way it is done seems cool and eye pleasing. The mechanic are fairly simple and the objective is clear: Survive.
I have played through few days so far and I have already managed to get one of the characters shot and I also robbed an old couple. Ah the choices…. It still appears to be a nice game with a lot to offer for those who like making choices.

Since my health has been failing me I got to play a fair amount of Gems of War and I also managed to get a couple of members into my guild. The weekly events that boost cetain classes definately made me try to choose other cards and build teams around variety of classes/ genres.
Other than that there haven’t been many more fireworks; I have also decided to try to include a count of trophies I amass through the year. An idea that I got from reading blog of 1 Broke Gamer Girl. I’m not sure I’ll remember to do it weekly but I’ll try.

Weekly Trophies Count

Trophies obtained: 7

Trophies total 2017: 7

I am not a HardCore Gamer #42

Well, I hope your 2016 has treated you well and that 2017 will not be worse than last year and it delivers to all of you on grounds of family, health, friendships, personal growth and of course, gaming!
This last week of 2016 has turned out rather anti gaming as with the Xmas spirit and all of that I sort of was engaged in other things and I barely managed to get any gaming done making the future gaming harder as there’s already some sizeable (for me) back log creating…
Gaming wise gift from Xmas resulted in a copy of Dishonored 2 which I’m dying to start playing but first I gotta finish off Far Harbor and Nuka World from Fallout 4.. Sigh…
I like exploring all these virtual places and it really takes me a long time to get through this all stuff but I did manage to drag Nick Valentine to Acadia and that’s where I am now really.

I have ticked off some Madden play through my league games and a bit through MUT. I have also done a bit of Gems of War but as I said this week has been not a gaming one really.
In 2017 I think I’ll look into Witcher III as I got a loads of books by Sepkowski, Polish writer, the series that inspired the game. Funny thing, he started becoming popular as I was about to leave Poland and never got a chance to read his stuff, now I do, just in English 😉 I also got cool book with art stuff from the game so I think that will be one of my resolutions. To play Witcher III. Oh that’s all.

I wish you all to have a great fulfilling year 2017 that brings joy across all parts of your lives, including gaming. Keep well!

I am not a HardCore Gamer #41

No more -aka Game Week Load- phrase in the title. With Xmas spirit in full swing it was time to retire that bit for good and save on those precious digital letters.
Even though I’m not huge on Xmas the ever so busy spirit that hits people this affects me to some degree and it reflects in rather lazy and lousy week of gaming.
I got sucked into MUT on Madden 17 with the Ultimate Freeze thingy. The solos were nicely spaced out in time and there weren’t many to do at once- 8 released every other day- so I gave it a go and since I started I had to finish, sigh…
I have also completed few of team of the month hero sets and spent all 50 badges on 95 ovr Kam Chancellor and my team rating reached 90. I’ve done my league games and sadly I am struggling everywhere but I did sneak a win against cpu as the owner of the team didn’t have time to play. Never mind.

It’s the second week in a row I skipped Skyrim in favour of Fallout 4 as I really would like to get on with finishing Far Harbor and Nuka World add ons before moving on.
I’m really pleased with the size of the map and additional quests that are there to be found but my son recommend me to bring Nick to accompany me through the main path of quests there so I’ve headed back to the Commonwealth to invite Nick to join me but the thing is, I don’t remember where I saw him the last time…
The struggles of surviving on survival carry on, especially at the Island it is noticeable when I accidently walk into some ugly looking creature but so far I managed mainly thanks to Cait who would just go all nuts at the enemies giving me some room to breath. 

That was some party to remember!

Sadly, she eventually got too busy with Trappers and I couldn’t assist her due to low amount of power core juice so she left me, wearing the greenish Vim Armour. So there, plenty of blood, swearing, shooting and sadly redoing stuff due to sudden deaths have been my main theme for Fallout this week.


I haven’t put a lot of time and effort into Gems of War and with the trend of losing members despite my efforts to gain new members I’m slowly getting a bit frustrated as we, as a guild, can never finish many tasks and I suppose the members that leave my guild land in bigger ones.
Well, it’s been a bit topsy turvy week and the next looks to be the same. I expect to at least finish the Far Harbor or at least advance it by a chunk or two. I know I’ll be spending a lot of time with my son playing his new Skylanders Imaginators reading some books and playing some board games as Father Xmas dropped the goodies to us.
For all of you that travelled with me through my weekly gaming struggles and for those who didn’t, I wish you all, peaceful, healthy and fulfilling Christmas with plenty of what you wish for under and around your Xmas tree. Merry Christmas people!!

I am not a HardCore Gamer (aka Game Week Load) #40

This week has been so odd so far that I’m already putting a first draft of my blog on a Thursday. I think it’s due to the fear of Xmas spirit arriving soon than I found myself in some sort of gaming depression of a nostalgic nature.
There was Madden 17 played, mainly games and franchise’s stuff in the HPL league. I have touched a bit of MUT but it wasn’t a lot really and quite a chunk of the time I spent on auction house trying to grab cards cheaply to complete few team heroes sets and doing few Ultimate Freeze solos as another program arrived to MUT. Sigh…

What hasn’t yet been played this week is Skyrim and it’s mainly due to a weird stubborn wish I felt recently about completing the DLC stuff for Fallout 4. I think I’m not allowing myself to fully immerse my character in the Skyrim world until I can fully get the post apocalyptic world of Fallout out of my head.

Those who read this column (if there are any) know that I have played second play through on a survival difficulty as Bertha Burps. She came back this week only to really die a lot as I struggle immensely at the moment.
I actually thought of really calling it a day with Fallout and never fully exploring Nuka World and Far Harbor due to so many deaths and so few beds in between to save that little progress I made but I think I’ll try to soldier on for a bit longer and maybe I’ll find my Fallout Mojo…

Cait and her complex issues travel along Bertha.

I mean I managed to get to Far Harbor eventually after so many deaths and successful ressurections and I’m quite happy I did as the atmosphere of that fairly big island is really cool, especially if it is played at night, and having the sound outputted through my Ear Force headphones.
Given the price I paid for the season pass, just the two DLCs with new areas (Far Harbour and Nuka World) would be enough really, the rest is just icing on top of the post apocalyptic cake.

Cait used to work as a model for a holiday agency before she went a bit weird.

I’m getting to a point of struggling after completing few quests, I gotta start scrounging for a bit as I’m in need of repairs of my and Cait’s power armours (it took me a while to figure it out how to make it wear it but eventually my gray mass succeeded). Doing it all in survival mode adds that element of extra caution which at times results in some cool creepy actions. I’m really enjoying this add on and Skyrim will have to wait a bit longer.

None knows what occurred here…


The last bit of gaming world belonged to Gems of War on my android phone. I’m still enjoying the game but I have slowed down a bit as I’m struggling to come up with some cool teams and I kind of got bored with my undead team but I keep it as I’ve got a decent success with it.
I wish I had more luck with recruiting people to my guild but I think it’s not going to be a great feat, especially that it is kind of part time game for me, just a bit of fun when I’m too tired to roll on a console…
What games have you, gals and guys played recently?? Are you expecting new titles comes Xmas day?

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?