End of 2015!

End of 2015! I'm pretty surprised with how quickly this year has gone by but then, I was warned before having my son that times passes quickly!

I'm thinking of some wrap up posts but for now, I'll just say that I got a Ninja blender/prep for Christmas (unrequested) and I made my first breakfast smoothie today. Loved it!

And as I type this, I'm making some fantastic banana bread muffins. It's going to be a great new year.

As for my activity gaming wise, I was disappointed to learn that the PS4 version of Rise of the Tomb Raider isn't until December 2016. Bad form guys seriously, from what I hear, it's a great game and the fact that it's an XBox exclusive will not make me purchase an XBone. Sorry. I have a 360 but I'd prefer to play the game on the new generation consoles.

So instead, I fill my free gaming time with Terraria (just got it for 3DS, soooo good), Animal Crossing: New Leaf, and Story of Seasons.

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from my family to yours! Spending the day enjoying a classic cuban eggnog (yum), some roast beef for dinner and enjoying watching my 1 year old open presents!

Review: My Week with Fallout 4

I had intended in the weeks leading up to the release, to play the game for a few hours, get some experience and share my initial thoughts. Well, it's been almost a week since the game was released and I've managed to play at least an hour each day which should tell you something about this game.

So far, it's everything I wished that it would be.

At this point, spoilers are everywhere, but I'd like to keep this review spoiler free. If you want spoilers, all you need to do is google.

To make playing this long awaited game possible, I arranged to take release day off from work and made plans that while I'd be home for the day, that I'd be playing the game rather than resorting to typical mommy duties as I do. Also a large factor in gaining enough game-time during release was a last minute decision to attend the midnight release.

Copy of game in hand, I loaded it up at 12:15 and was carefully crafting my character at 12:40. I spent a little more time than I should have on character creation, not because it's unimportant to get the likeness correct but because I was under the assumption that I had to craft both the male and female characters on the startup screen.

The brief tutorial ended (without me even really noticing it- nice job Bethesda) and I was off into the full Commonwealth wasteland.

I managed to get 11 hours of play in during that first day. An achievement in itself. I actually had to stop playing at one point because my eyes hurt too much, not having properly marathoned a game in over a year, my eyes were not used to staring at a screen for so long!

By now, I've read a few other reviews (because when I'm not playing Fallout 4, I'm thinking of it) and I wanted to address one major point here. Settlements:

I'm not sure why the gaming community as a whole seems to be so frustrated by the lack of instruction on how to operate the settlements (which are completely optional and only seem to enrich gameplay) but I find myself laughing each time someone writes about how they didn't know how to set one up. I applaud Bethesda for the execution of settlements and the lack of intruction. It really has helped with the immersion factor for me. Also, it's not like I had everything about settlements figured out, there were a few things that I was stumped on but someone else had figured it out!

This game to me is all the good of Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, Skyrim, all rolled up into one wonderful package with improved graphics. Yes, there are some of the "usual" release day issues (I only had one though, and it was because I behaved in a way the game didn't expect) and there's the characters speaking/weird mouth matching up thing.

One minor spoiler- I haven't heard "Sweet Caroline" yet. This game is set in Boston. If I don't hear the song, I'm going to be a little disappointed given where the major city of the game is!!

Ok, time to go play more!

Extra Life: Today's the Day!

Friendly reminder that I'm participating in the Extra Life Charity in support of Boston Children's Hospital. If you're feeling so inclined, please donate if not to my page then to one of the other's.

I'd love support in reaching my goal! Follow my twitter, I'll be live tweeting quite a bit today and I hope to do my first ever stream of the game Big Pharma as well!

Also, Happy N7 Day!

Geeky Music

Something I haven't discussed so much yet is the fact that I enjoy playing piano. I had a piano growing up and played some recitals. Until recently I had a half-keyboard but it really wasn't doing it for me. So I purchased a nice MIDI full keyboard.

I hope to be able to share some covers of game music, the sheet music for which can be found on great sites like NinSheetMusic, they have some really fantastic compositions on the site, some of which are pretty challenging.

Recently I've been working on a cover of Jonathan Coulton's memorable "Still Alive," from Portal. It's been interesting starting to use Garage Band, software that I've had on my imac for ages (and the imac before that) but never really used. 

Hopefully I'll get to share some of my covers soon!

Mass Effect Special Edition Loot Crate- Sold Out!

I had planned on writing this post telling those of you who had interest to hop over and grab the Mass Effect Limited Edition Loot Crate before it sold out, but too late! I managed to purchase mine yesterday afternoon during my son's nap and I tweeted about it then. So I guess the lesson there is that my twitter is often more up to date!

Regardless, I know for a fact that I'm getting a sweet N7 hoodie that I've wanted for a while and the rest is a surprise! I'll definitely have an unboxing when it arrives!

Also in special edition crate news, waiting on my Fallout 4 crate to arrive and I couldn't be more excited! I've generally avoided spoilers so far, so I'll do the same for all of you. I'll post an unboxing but will try to hide the unknown contents farther down the post and provide plenty of warnings!

Product Review: Juice Bluetooth Speaker

Recently I was over at my parent's house when my dad excitedly pulls me aside and showed me this little speaker; Juice. He was very excited because our local hardware store had a customer appreciation day and these were on sale for 6 dollars. He showed how it was a wireless (through bluetooth) connection to his phone and the audio quality was pretty nice for a 6 dollar (normally 50) speaker.

Intrigued, I ended up purchasing 2 of them for 9.99 (with Amazon Prime), they arrived this weekend, I charged them both up quickly and I'm pretty pleased.

One of the speakers is for my car, I purchased my car in 2002 brand new and had a CD player put in, but nowadays obviously vehicles come with USB plugs for smartphones and bluetooth feeds to the vehicles speakers. My vehicle has none of that, but it can play CDs!

I want to listen to audiobooks on my commute and I've recently just been blasting the sound through my iPhone speaker. Enter Juice.

I used it this morning and it was perfect. Good sound quality, easy and quick to connect and best of all, it's small and I can simply toss it in my glovebox during the day.

The other speaker is devoted to my laptop at home and again, my iMac has reasonable sound but it's not great when I'm trying to play my MIDI keyboard through GarageBand. Enter Juice.

I'm a little less thrilled with this application. Although the speaker still works great for normal sound applications (streaming youtube, netflix, amazon prime, etc). There is a big delay from my MIDI keyboard through the speaker. Now, I can plug in the audio with a normal jack, but then there is a lot of static. I'm still working on resolving all that. I suspect that issue isn't the speaker's fault though, just the application of bluetooth.

Review: Mostly positive!

PROS:

• Easy to use
• Compact (I have small hands)
• Quick charging time through USB port (an hour or so)
• Supposedly long use per charge (I'll update if that is not the case)
• Good sound quality

CONS:

• Large delay in MIDI application (may not be fault of speaker)
• Static from audio jack (again, checking to see if this is the speaker or my iMac)
• A little challenging if there is interference, audio quality sinks significantly.

Gaming with a Baby, Now with More Posts!

In honor of NaNoWriMo this year, I'm giving myself a goal of blogging more! I've wanted to for a while now but was having difficulty committing. With my little about to turn 1, things should hopefully start to run a little more smoothly but at the same time, there is no way for me to write 50,000 words.

So, I'm writing more blog posts! Some will be gaming relevant since Fallout 4 is coming soon!! And some will be related to Christmas shopping (since that's on my mind) and then some random scattering of content.

My goal is to keep this page gaming related as much as possible but I'd also like to post more, so there will be some elements that shift a little bit.

Please bear with me as I find myself and I promise to generate some worthy content.

Extra Life: Play Games. Heal Kids.

I'm so very excited to be participating in Extra Life Fundraiser this year. I'm participating for my local Boston Children's Hospital. That link takes you right to my donation page but if you want to participate or donate to another user, that's completely cool too! The point is to raise money for the kids.

Since having my little guy,game time has been obviously limited. But he is almost a year old and we are starting to play little games together!

I've put the very modest goal of 100 dollars to make it achieveable but I also want to raise as much as possible! The good news is that with the help of one generous donor, I'm 30 dollars away!

Review! Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer

I've spent about 9 hours since Friday taking in as much Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer as possible and I have to say that I am very glad I purchased it! I love Animal Crossing: New Leaf, it's one of the first games that I got on my 2DS when I finally dove into Nintendo's current handheld platform. It took me a while to get the hang of it and really appreciate the playstyle I enjoy.

Designing houses has never been super enticing to me in New Leaf. Probably because when you first start, you have to build your catalogue piece by piece and I'm apparently a pack rat, so I quickly ran out of storage room in my museum as well as my closet. Then factor in Lyle and his creepy inspections employees and points and the clunky controls to place furniture...

Let's just say that HHD gets the placement so right! I've read a lot of reviews both over in /r/achappyhome and elsewhere and I would agree that you really need to take New Leaf and HHD together as a unit. HHD is a full game but the pacing is different from that of a standard Animal Crossing title.

At the moment, I only have 1 amiibo card (my local gamestop looked at me crazy when I asked for a pack) but I have my first pack coming. I got Kapp'n, and I half expected him to sing me a song! While Kapp'n isn't my favorite villager, it did give me a nice look into using the cards. I like the functionality so far!

I'd give this game 4.5 stars out of 5! I'm definitely addicted, I'm having a hard time putting it down! Even when I know Big Pharma is here on my mac and I so desperately want to play that more as well.

Gameplay: Addictive and creative design capability with much better controls for object replication and placement than previous titles.

Child-friendly: Extremely. Cartoony-style, fun graphics.

Playability with a baby: If he's not grabbing my N3DS, great! Able to get in small chunks of gameplay no problem!

Playing while breastfeeding: This is when most of my playtime as been during his breastfeeding naps! Really good, again, as long as no grabbing on his part!

Super Mario Bros 3 Nostalgia and Super Mario Maker

I have a lot of nostalgia lately for Super Mario Bros. 3! I'm not sure if it's because of the release of Super Mario Maker, which I would love to play but as I'm lacking a Wii U, that's not possible.

What I love is that whether I go visit home where my SNES resides (and still works!) or if I just sit on the couch with my Nintendo New 3DS XL and play it in small form, it's my absolute favorite Mario game.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I love the original. That's where all the classic and recognizable music comes from. But Super Mario Bros. 3 is in my blood.

My dad and his best friend used to play every Thursday and Sunday, I gather there was some beer involved, I can't blame them now that I'm old enough. I used to try to stay up with them as late as I could, I had the guide book!

After a time, I became their own little encyclopedia. I knew which blocks to squat on to go behind the scenes, the secret of the warp whistles and I was pro at getting the white mushroom house to appear. They actually more often than not let me play the matching card game because I was so good at it.

I'm so glad to have the ability to play this wonderful classic on my N3DS, sometimes I just need a good platformer and I like the routine. I also have some fun little quirks like firing off a fireball along with the musical score or seeing if I can beat my record for most lives obtained by the end of World 1 (my record is starting World 2 with 51!).

I can't wait to pass down my love of this game to my little man, C. I hope that he enjoys it as much as I do!

And I really hope that I manage to get a Wii U soon! In addition to Super Mario Maker, there are also several other games (looking at you Splatoon) that have caught my eye!

Big Pharma- The Addiction

Image credit: BigPharma website

I promise that this blog won't become the Big Pharma blog but the game definitely warrants some posts! As I mentioned, I made it a day and then I bought it (on Steam because achievements rock) and I've been playing it as much as I can!

I'd really love to do a Let's Play series on Big Pharma, so I'm quickly learning the ropes. Today I found myself sitting in a meeting at work talking about manufacturing lines and line-speed and all I could think about was routing my production lines in Big Pharma!

I'm planning a post on similarities and differences of the game to real life. Look for it soon after I have played a bit more!

I made it a day...

So, I made it a day and I just downloaded Big Pharma from Steam! Review coming soon! I'm actually thinking of doing a "Let's Play" once I get some recording info.

Also, this month's Loot Crate arrived, loving the Pikachu hat!

Content Updates

It's been far too long! For that I apologize, you'll notice that I'm a fairly active tweeter but recently have gotten a little too caught up to blog. I am actively trying to fix this!

Some content that's upcoming:

1. I'm a proud Loot Crate subscriber and also have gotten some Loot+ Upgrades in the accessories pack. I plan on reviewing those each month individually but I'll do the past ones in one swoop.
2. We went to King Richard's Faire! I'll post a bit about that trip.
3. Games!! I am actively looking forward to Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer and I just read about a game called Big Pharma over at GeekMom that I am so very excited about!!

So there's some previews! I can't wait to write these and as usual, you can follow me on Twitter (over on the side) for a more active post structure!

Stocking Stuffers

Just what every child wants for Christmas... batteries!

I get it, I do. But I'm looking for a nice list of stocking stuffers (see top of search results) and batteries are the first thing to show up.

Review: Shadow of Mordor

So, I know... I'm pretty late with this review. In my defense, this is a blog about gaming with children, specifically young children. Also, I didn't get my PS4 until February of this year.

This game is fun. Really, really fun. 

Part of these blogs will be to talk about how friendly this game is for children, particularly in my son's age bracket. Obviously, in terms of gore and violence, probably not a child-friendly game.

However, in terms of pick-up-and-play quickly type of game, with good gameplay and story. This game rocks! In the 10 - 20 minute intervals I usually have with my son playing with one of his toys, I can easily pick this game up and kill a few orcs, maybe take out a warchief or two, free some slaves.

This game has all the playability of Assassin's Creed series, but has improved upon it! The combos are really entertaining and as you upgrade yourself and unlock more finishing moves, your orc slaying gets somewhat easier. However, I have a tendency to get the higher level orcs as my enemy and some of them like to travel in groups. What's great is the challenge that this presents!

As a girl, I'm glad that my game of the year edition comes with a female skin. I'm happy to report that she has a very deep manly voice and completely cross-dresses for cutscenes! She's skilled!

Yes, it would've been nice to play a game in the Assassin's Creed style with a fully fledged female character right off the bat. But I do appreciate the skin!

My one complaint about this game is what I hear about the ending being anti-climatic (haven't finished yet) and also, the pauses in the game where the captain you're fighting is all "oh I'm here, gonna kill you" and then the retreat speeches. At first, that was super fun, but when you're right about to slice their head off and you're getting someone else's entrance speech or the orc you're about to kill gives a retreat scene, it breaks the immersion!

Gameplay: Fantastic, really like it! Improves upon Assassin's Creed style.

Child-Friendly: Lots of gore, so probably not when children are aware. I'm looking at you orc-head rolling down hill.

Playability with a baby: Able to get some gametime in with smaller chunks of time. Very friendly towards parent's.

Playing while breastfeeding: Haven't pulled this off yet, but my son is bigger and likes to wiggle. Maybe with longer sessions of feeding.

Animal Crossing: HHD

So the cover art has been released for Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer (or AC: HHD), it reminds me of the toys I had when I was little, those sticker books!

I have to say, I am so much more excited about playing this game since E3! I'm pretty excited about this new take on the Animal Crossing Series and working for Tom Nook! I'm slightly wary of the Amiibo cards but I do have a New 3DS, so at least I won't need to purchase a card reader as well! 

From the trailer, it appears that putting down furniture is a lot more straight forward that before! Also making news is the addition of customized skin tones! If you can have bubblegum colored hair, you definitely should be able to choose your skin tone!

Press X to Start

I've wanted to start a blog for a while now. 

Scratch that.

I've started a few blogs over the years, and they haven't gone anywhere. This time though, I'm hopeful. You see, while I rarely have time to play games of any kind as of late (we'll get to that later), I do think about games and follow big events like E3.

So, I grabbed a twitter handle, a blogspot and I'm about to go find an instagram handle right now.

A little intro:

• 31 years old
• Married
• My son is currently 7 months old (and is awesome)
• Science by day, parenting by night, blogging whenever I can

All things gaming:

• Favorites: The Sims, Skyrim, FallOut 3, FallOut New Vegas, Animal Crossing, Pokemon, Minecraft
• Board games and card games are cool too!
• Introducing my son to games as he grows

I'm working on thinking how I'd like this blog to go now, but there will be a major gaming focus, maybe some recipes from time to time. 

Other interests:

• Reading
• Marathoning TV (Grey's Anatomy, Orange is the New Black, etc)
• Movies
• Crafting
• Looking at crafting inspiration- who doesn't love Pinterest?!

Anyways, I send this post out and hope as I grow some content to have some fun discussions!