Month: October 2013

Grinkers Arcade in Eagle, Idaho / Arcade Outsiders Tournament

Posted on by GumballsPlaysGames

I was browsing for things to do in the Boise area this weekend and came across a post for the Arcade Outsiders Tournament at Grinkers Arcade this weekend. I hadn’t previously heard of Grinkers and only knew of the Spacebar retro arcade. I love retro arcades and am glad I discovered a new one in the area.

(Photo from the Grinkers webpage)

Vanessa and I headed over at around 4 this evening to check the arcade out. It’s a bit larger than the Spacebar and has more machines, but a similar feel. There’s a bar with food and drinks and a bunch of classic arcade machines and pinball machines. I had quite a bit of fun revisiting old games, some of which I’ve never played in their arcade forms. I played Off Road, one of my favorite games on the NES, which was quite fun. We also played Super Mario Bros (didn’t even know there was an arcade version of the game. Only made it to level 1-2 :/), Mario Bros. (also didn’t make it very far), Space Invaders (lasted about 2 minutes), Ms. Pac Man (didn’t clear the first stage), Mortal Kombat and a few pinball machines.

(Photo from the Grinkers webpage)

We didn’t stay long enough to really get a feel for the tournament action, but there were quite a few machines marked for tournament play and a handful of people playing those machines (much better than I could ever play).

Check out a few photos I took below. I also recorded a few videos which I’ll add to the post after they upload to YouTube.

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I’m not enjoying The Last of Us

Posted on by GumballsPlaysGames

So I’m about an hour and a half into The Last of Us, and while I know that’s not very far, I’m already quite bored. First of all the ‘boost me up’ and ‘help me open this door’ parts of the game are annoying and slow the game down for no reason at all. Second of all, screw stealth games. I know you’re supposed to feel like ammo is scarce since it’s the end of the world and all, but I don’t want to waste my time trying to sneak around while throwing bricks and bottles around. I’m playing on easy so I’m able to shoot a little more often than otherwise possible, but the idea that I’m supposed to sneak around and throw bricks is annoying. Heck there’s more bricks than ammo. If ammo is really that scarce, then why when I run out in the open do all of the enemies just unload their clips on me?

Lastly, I’m not finding myself caring about any of the characters so far. I thought that and the feeling of helplessness were supposed to be the strong points of this game.

I’m seriously debating trading it in toward FIFA 14 or something I’d enjoy more.

Finding a new theme

Posted on by GumballsPlaysGames

I’m working on finding a new theme for the blog and so far this is the only one I really like. Unfortunately for whatever reason this theme pushes all my widgets to the bottom rather than the right hand side and I’m not so sure I like that. I’ll have to fool around and see if there’s anything I can do to make it better. Maybe I’ll basically make all of the widgets into pages or something. Until then, please bare with the changes.

No new South Park tonight

Posted on by GumballsPlaysGames

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If you were planning on watching the new episode of South Park tonight you’d better plan on watching / DVR’ing something else. The new episode planned for tonight has been pushed until next Wednesday as a power outage prevented the episode from being completed on time to air tonight.

This is very unfortunate, I always look forward to watching a new South Park episode every weekend. What will you watch instead?

The Wolf Among Us is awesome!

Posted on by GumballsPlaysGames

I just finished Chapter 1 of Episode One of The Wolf Among Us and I’m incredibly thrilled. The voice acting is great and the artwork and music create an incredible environment. The combat feels a lot more involved than it did in The Walking Dead (Telltale Games’ previous game in the episodic adventure game genre) and all I can really say is I absolutely loved every minute of the first chapter (which lasted about 20 minutes or so).

My first PS3

Posted on by GumballsPlaysGames

I’ve never owned a PS3 and never wanted to, however as I mentioned yesterday, after seeing the Beyond Two Souls trailer I wanted one. I initially ordered one online from AAFES however it wasn’t going to ship for awhile, so I ended up driving back to base Sunday afternoon to pick one up (and I canceled the online order).

I just set everything up, downloaded all the updates and set up PS Plus (a one year subscription came with the bundle). I’m still figuring out how things work. I started downloading Saints Row The Third and Shadow of the Colossus via PS Plus and now I’m about to play Beyond Two Souls for the first time. It’s currently installing, but I’m quite excited to jump into the story.

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New this week: The Wolf Among Us

Posted on by GumballsPlaysGames

Episode 1 of Telltale Games’ The Wolf Among Us arrived this past week for PC / Mac and XBLA, and will arrive on Tuesday on PSN. The gameplay will likely be familiar for anyone who played Telltale’s The Walking Dead which was widely considered to be one of the best games released last year and the one that popularized the episodic release game type. I honestly haven’t seen or read a lot about The Wolf Among Us, but I picked up the first episode on Xbox because of how much I loved The Walking Dead.

I have not finished episode 5 of The Walking Dead yet (or 400 Days for that matter) but I’m excited to give The Wolf Among us a try and maybe it’ll get me in the mood to finish TWD.

Have you played The Wolf Among Us? How is it? I’ll be sure to post some thoughts after I play through episode one, possibly later tonight.

Gamestop: All pre-owned PS3’s $149

Posted on by GumballsPlaysGames

To this day I’ve never had any desire to own a PS3, however once I saw the Beyond Two Souls trailer on TV that changed. I felt a sudden, almost intense urge to play that game. Now I know it’s received some mixed reviews, but I still really want to play the game. It may be simply that I love Ellen Page, but it could also be that I love adventure games. Indigo Prophecy was one of my favorite games on the original Xbox and interactive story games like Telltale’s The Walking Dead continue to be some of my favorite gameplay experiences.Screen Shot 2013-10-12 at 1.57.12 PM

Therefore I was elated when I saw that Gamestop is selling all pre-owned PS3 models at $149 from now until the 24th of October (the original model 360 is selling for $99 and the slim is selling for $119 during that period as well). Unfortunately my budget won’t allow me to pick up a PS3 until the first of November pay period. Still, I may end up purchasing a PS3 to play through Heavy Rain and Beyond Two Souls in the near future. I’m not really interested in anything else the PS3 has to offer. I have a Blu-Ray player but almost never use it as I stream the majority of my movies in HD, or rent HD movies on demand via DISH.

Hopefully you can take advantage of this sweet deal through Gamestop. It’s really the cheapest way to get a 120gb PS3, as the lowest I’ve seen a 60gb go for on Craigslist around here has been $135.

 

Happy NFL Sunday

Posted on by GumballsPlaysGames

Love that commercial. The Ravens aren’t off to a strong start, but luckily neither are the Dolphins…No TD’s so far, just a pair of field goals for each. The Seahawks started strong, going up 12-0, but the Colts have caught up and it’s now 14-12.

Go Ravens! Go Seahawks!