Monthly Archives: December 2011

Fortune Street, house rules

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After playing my first round of Fortune Street last night, I’m not sure I’ll be able to go back to playing regular old Monopoly again. I played a game against some low-tier opponents (the blue Slime, a Platypunk, and the Princess of Moonbrooke from Dragon Quest II), and it still somehow managed to stretch to 90 minutes. I can’t imagine that would be conducive to long online play, although I’m surprised Nintendo and Square Enix saw fit to add that to this game, which is kinda awesome. Not awesome: the fact that I’m going to need to win or place 2nd in a minimum of 36 games in Tour Mode (18 “Easy rules”, and 18 “standard rules”) in order to complete this thing. That’s a lot of gaming hours.

It brings me back to the days of playing Monopoly and Monopoly Jr. at school and never actually being able to finish a game because no one would ever go bankrupt, and because I only knew how the actual rules were supposed to go because I’d played the game on NES a while after my first real game. We used to skip auctions when we played, because they took too long and nobody understood how they worked.

I’m starting to think that games like Monopoly and Fortune Street are the real reason GameFAQs was invented. I feel like I need a minor in microeconomics just to understand how to play it.

(Also, thank whatever console god – small “g” – you believe in that the ability to quick-save exists in this game. Otherwise, you’d probably never get one done.)

‘Tis best to give AND receive

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2011 was a pretty good Christmas, though not a completely fun one…I decided to go to work today in order to earn some extra post-holiday money. Luckily, there wasn’t a whole lot of work to do, so I got through the day pretty stress-free. Here’s a quick breakdown:

Stuff I gave out:

  • two albums for Dad: Thin Lizzy’s “Shades of a Blue Orphanage” and Grace Jones’ “Inside Story”
  • The Help on DVD for Mom
  • Pokémon Ranger: Guardian Signs for Sara
  • a $25 iTunes gift card for my sister
  • Batman: Arkham City on PS3 for my brother

Stuff I got:

  • an LG Optimus V phone from Mom and Dad
  • a $10 GameStop gift card from my aunt
  • Kirby: Mass Attack on Nintendo DS from Sara
  • the Ico/Shadow of the Colossus collection from my brother
  • some money and clothes (including a shaving kit)

Gift I’m most excited about: the phone, since I can use it to get stuff from the “official” Android App Market, which I can’t do with the tablet I bought a few weeks ago. That, and I can also upload pics properly again (Virgin discontinued the picture uploading service I used on my own phone).

Gift I’m the most surprised about: Kirby: Mass Attack. I’d told Sara about in passing in an e-mail one day, but I wasn’t sure if she would actually be able to get it. I hope she enjoys what I got for her, too.

There’s a Nep for That, Chapter 6

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While still technically under the employ of Avenir for the time being, Neptune and friends are determined to stop them and break their hold over Lastation. In their quest to do so, they learn of a sinister connection between Avenir, the Basilicom, and the recently-cancelled Technology Exposition…

TV Tropes Link – Chapter 6: The Great Tech Expo Exposé Continue reading →

There’s a Nep for That, Chapter 5

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Neptune and friends (and their new employer) agree that something has to be done about Avenir. Since the Basilicom won’t help them out, they choose to take matters into their own hands. However, there’s still the lingering matter of obtaining the Key Fragment to help Histoire out of her predicament. Will the girls be able to gain new information that could lead them to kill two (very large) birds with one stone? Let’s find out in:

TV Tropes Link: Chapter 5: Heart Full of Black – The True Name of Evil

Continue reading →

Random non-Neptunia updates

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I spent the last week or so waiting for an update from DCCC to determine how many of my credits could be transferred from my college degree to be applied to my attempt at scoring a professional certificate in web development. It turns out my English Comp I and Calculus I credits transferred over, but I won’t need to take those. Instead, I’ll use the credits I got from taking Intro to Computer Science and skip those and take Web Page Development as one of my first courses (the other being Networking, where I’d have to understand and explain TCP/IP and other such concepts). I haven’t used Dreamweaver since I first started to learn HTML, but I suppose there’s no time like now to start learning it again, even though I prefer using notepads to code.

I also bought an Android-based tablet computer from CVS last week (the Sylvania one, not the Craig one) as part of my first steps into tablet computing. It’s decent if you’re looking for something simple to carry around with you, but I have some complaints about this device:

  • Short battery life (only three hours, and the battery indicator doesn’t seem to work properly)
  • Can’t access the Android App Store, as it’s only licensed to work with certain Droid tablets and cell phones. Your best bet is to go to the Amazon App Store, as their selection is way better than the built-in SlideMe App Market.
  • The USB ports don’t seem to work properly. I tried connecting it to my computer, but it wouldn’t recognize my device. I sent a tech support inquiry to Digital Gadgets (the manufacturer); hopefully they’ll have a solution for my problem.

I won’t be doing the “Gift of Game” feature this year, or any sort of “Top X Games of the Year” list. I have played a lot of games, but haven’t given all of them enough attention to make decent write-ups. Maybe next year once I get myself a Nintendo 3DS or a PlayStation Vita, I may consider bringing the feature back.

And last but not least, if you haven’t played Sonic Generations by now, you should. It’s quite a good game, and not bogged down with most of the problems that many of the other post-Genesis Sonic titles had. I just finished it a few days ago, and now I’m ready to go back through the old levels to try to get the rest of the Red Star Rings. I think I may actually have a chance to get a Platinum trophy on this one, if I can sink enough time into it.