I want The Division

I mean just check out this trailer.

Dust: An Elysian Tail

Dean Dodrill has done an amazing thing with Dust. As a game developed almost entirely by a single individual, he has really done a good job of creating a tight combat system, many reasonably well designed levels, and a compelling story with decent humor sprinkled in. On top of all that good design, the artwork is beautiful, and the voice acting is high quality. If you're looking for a high quality side scrolling action game, I highly recommend Dust: An Elysian Tail. It's available on Steam and maybe xbox.

I got my OUYA

I had my OUYA delivered today. I haven't had much time to play with it yet, but I'll post some more about it soon.

Busy Time

As always seems to be the case, my life has been busy. I haven't had much time to play games lately, but I'm hopeful that the future will bring more gaming opportunities. I had a request today to play on a ranked 5s team in LoL this summer, so hopefully I'll make some posts about that. Mostly I just wanted to check in and make a post to prove that I'm still around and still thinking about games occasionally.

Riot released the ARAM queue today. It's pretty good I guess, but it probably should have been released 2 years ago. Still, it's better than nothing.

Also, why do they seem to want to punish players for playing how they want? I recognize that leavers disrupt the games of people who don't want others to leave, but why not encourage good behavior through more rewards? I actually think reasonably good rewards would keep the number of leavers quite low, and wouldn't require Riot to ban or police all the bad leaving behavior. Just my two cents.

Planetside 2

I've played some (more) planetside 2 in the last few days, and there are some things I really like about the game. For one, I like that there are 3 teams fighting over an area, so even if you're pushing one team back easily, you need to be ready in case the other team starts to attack you from behind. Another thing I like about the game is how it includes vehicles, both ground and air, and they are interesting to fly and ride in. FPS gameplay gets pretty old to me pretty quickly, so it's nice that there is some decent variety there. I also like the built in voice communication.

There are lots of things to not like about the game too. For instance, there are heavy cash purchase options, and many of the higher tier upgrades would take months of playing to unlock each one. Either that or I haven't found the right way to quickly earn certifications yet. I don't believe the higher level characters have significant advantage over lower level characters, but you still get a good chance to vary your gameplay by purchasing upgrades. I have one friend that really hates the game, so it's certainly not for everyone. I recommend giving it a try however.

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

I must not have been paying very close attention because I don't know exactly when this was announced, but I believe it was today, as much as 3 hours ago. I noticed a twitter message suggesting watching the announcement cinematic. I've embedded that cinematic here below. It seems like the game will be an interesting strategy card game if nothing else, so feel free to check it out at the official web page. I hope it will be a fun game!

League of Draven

I recently bought Draven with some of my IP in an effort to have a new carry that I could play in League of Legends. In the week or so that I've had him and have played him, I've discovered that I really enjoy his play style. The laning phase where you should try to catch his spinning blades gives me an interesting minigame to play on top of the normal lane phase. The other good thing about Draven, is that I've won a bunch of matches with him. I was definitely quite bad when I first picked him up, but I've gotten significantly better with him since. I'm sure there's still a ton of room to improve, but it's fun to have a new hero to play. For your viewing pleasure, here is video of my first game ever with Draven.