Time Poor, Cash Rich Gaming

Seems the next few casual gaming tasks that I'll be undertaking will be related to the current craze of Magic The Gathering that has swept my workplace. This is all due to me picking up Duels of the Planeswalkers for 400 points on the Xbox during a sale and now closing in on 100% on all DLC. As the game has cost me around £15 so far (2080 MS points to be exact) and I've put in 100+ hours of play time I really don't feel hard done by.

The physical card game has always been on my radar (I was gaming when it came out but laughed at the price structure) but now seems a good time to jump in and play. Presuming that there aren't many more expansions for Planeswalkers on the 360/PS3 my total spend will be under £20. So my aim is to make a decent set of magic cards to play with (multiple decks) and compare the experiences. I'm starting with a Deck Builder's Toolkit (out this week) and then moving on from there. I know what my two main ideas are, but it depends on the cards, and naturally what the 3 other people I'll be mainly playing with go for. All seem to be choosing different options for acquiring cards which keeps it interesting.

Also I'm only buying one videogame a month (not including live points) as I've got a massive backlog. So far this year it's been/will be:

Jan: History Channel Medieval Battles (360)

Feb: Prof Layton Timey Wimey Thing (DS)

March: 3DS + 2 games

April: Portal 2 (360)

 

Again – this isn't cash flow problems, I just don't see the point in buying stuff that's going to be cheaper by the time I get to use it. Will keep you posted.

Stop Press: Half Price Puzzle Quest 2!!

Just found out that Puzzle Quest 2 is only £10 at Amazon for pre-orders at the moment. As the game is likely to have a RRP of £30 this is a bargain so I'd jump on it now if you like puzzle games or RPG style action!

Update - SPIRITOMB is out for a stroll

Went on holiday, had assignments & now have 2 exams next week.

Played a bit and got the 5th gym badge but on the train back from the coast I met and got beat by the Steel Gym leader.  All of my Pokemon are under level 30 and some of hers are lvl 35 so I may need some more levels.

I've popped Spiritomb on the PokeWalker and may do the same with a Growlithe I caught so hopefully by the end of the week when all the chaos is over I'll be ready to play.

My Pigeot is lvl 54 now too, but I'm not using that in battles as it's a little overpowered.  I guess that it's proving without an extra edge you can't causally play Pokemon though.  It might be interesting to take into the Gym battle for backup (instead of my level 14 Fly Zubat...)

Day, Um, MissingNo. - Relax and play with Morty

Well I broke down and played on HeartGold for a good few hours between last night and now.

I wasn't getting anywhere due to all the story getting in the way.  I had to do the burned tower, then the gym, then I lost to Morty and could either get some high level cheap Pokemon on the team or see what else I could do.

I wandered on to the next city, finished the lighthouse but discovered to REALLY finish the light house I'd need surf. Which means beating Morty's Gengar.  Went back up (with lots of new moves and extra Spec.Def points) to help out and was down to 2 Pokemon left (Spiritomb 23 & Oddish 20) to 3 of Morty.  For some reason this time Morty decided that Gengar should not use Hypnosis or Shaddow Ball to beat me, but the lesser moves which meant that I Spiritomb could use my dark moves to wipe him & the other 2 Pokemon (Haunters) out of the way.

This whole trip took longer than I'd expected but I was relaxed and in the groove so I let it carry on.

Pidgeot is back on the PokeWalker for all of this, I thought that lvl 44 with healing moves Vs lvl 25 pokemon was a bit excessive and decided to keep him out of it all.  I think that Spiritomb needs no different moves to what he has through breeding now so can just pop her on the PW for levels too.

Psyduck now has Surf, Strength, Rock-Smash & Head-but and although only lvl 11 may become a big part of getting my team from A to B.

Going to explore the Bell Tower and town some more in the next 30 min session then go fetch the 'medicine' from the far away town.  Why I can't get my mom to go shopping and send it to the PokeMart for me like everything else I'll never know...

56 Pokedex, 4 Badges, 12hrs 30min (oops!)

Day 18+19 Short sessions & Trading

I haven't been able to sit down with the DS this week for much time, but I have been keeping up on the Pokewalker - Pigeot is lvl 43, my next highest Pokemon is Oddish at lvl 19...  I now need to actually level it normally to replace Tackle with Roost on level up, but I'm not going to use it for the trainers & gyms as it'd make them a push over.  Hope they get round this on the next version - no EVs for the PW Pokemon is penalty enough to stop the hardcore relying on it so let me have my casual fun & new moves!


Gamewise I ran through North to the next city (no idea what it's called - i just saved there) and caught a few new Pokemon such as Spinarak, Stantler & Growlithe on the way.  Couple of cool twin battles also, but the only real threat to the team was a Stantler who refused to get caught.  I killed it and in turn evolved Totodile to Croconaw.  Should keep him in team more now.

Egg still not hatched - it's one I transferred from Plat so maybe should have just hatched before transfer.

Also did some trading with friends so now have 9 hr 30 on the clock and 52 Pokemon caught/traded.  Still only 3 badges - I aim to rectify that over the weekend though.

Day 17 - The Bug Catching Contest Isn't On

So I finally made it through the top of the last area only to discover that the building at the top isn't the next town but the bug catching/Pokethalon area!

It being a Monday it isn't on today but as it's on tomorrow I thought I'd have a short session and stick around for tomorrow.

I have an egg to hatch and a lvl 4 Ghastly on my team which is traded from my Platinum so a speed leveler.  I decided to fight hte trainers in the area before moving on and did so with only a bit of damage.  On leaving the area I found a psychic trainer who's insistence on acc lowering moves and decent speed meant that I only had 2 decent poke left by the end of it.

I saved by the 'mysterious tree' for tomorrow, but I think I better run back to a PokeCentre beforehand to heal and to stock up on decent balls.

Caught two Smoochums on the PW and took Pidgeot to 38.

Stuck Ditto on there for wandering around the house, it'll probably level him up as he's only 10, and I'll use the watts to shoot for Pikachu as I'm over 8,000 steps.

Day 15 - The Hunt For Ditto

So carrying on North from Goldenrod (after running back to check the GTS for status - must link my Wii like on Platinum) I noticed the grass path down the side and thought that I'd take a detour to get the items.  After all - the really hidden items like that tend to be TMs and I'm short on moves on a lot of my Pokemon (like lvl 36 Pidgeotto - DLC who has three moves one of which is Tackle).

I popped into the grass after a couple of trainer battles while watching Dr. Who Confidential on the iPlayer and happened to get down to the bottom fairly easily just using the Dratini (learned his new move so can go back in the PokeWalker now) then Pidgeotto (whose mighty tackle destroyed the wild lvl 12 Pokemon).  I picked up the TM with a few mins to go to the 30 mark and ran back up to head back to the PokeCentre.

That's when it happened - Ditto attacked!  Now I've been breeding Pokemon like mad on Pearl in the past, and transferred all the key players & legendaries across to Platinum so I could trade it in (I don't like to keep too many games).  Unfortunately I ignored my boxes full of unhatched eggs and in the process left my two Ditto and my 'incubator' fire Pokemon behind.  Not a problem on Plat as I hadn't planned to breed as I had everything I needed, but now on Heart Gold I have no ditto so limited breeding potential.

This ditto represented my ability to give friends the Pokemon that I have stored from Platinum without loosing the originals or resorting to dodgy means (hey - my rival is called Piracy, real trainers don't use ROMs...)

Unfortunately I decided to go straight for the kill with my one Ultra Ball (only level 10 so I thought it was worth a go) and didn't get it.  Ditto transformed into Pidgeotto and proceeded to slowly 'tackle' my Pokemon, with the odd 'Feather Dance' and 'Twister' thrown in.

I swapped to less deadly Pokemon right away and chipped away at it's health to put it into the orange.  My Geodude was doing great with it's 'rock smash' fighting move taking just enough off each time to be controllable and then it happened.  Ditto used Struggle. Ditto Fainted. As DLC only had 3 moves, two of which have low PP he'd burned through all his attacks on GeoDude (i'd spammed defence curl) and run out! This was annoying...

I then decided that this should be an hour long play session - i was still in bed, the TV was playing away and it was the perfect way that a casual player would find a nice chunk of play time on a Sunday.  Despite this extension of time 20 mins passed with me running up and down on the same area, returning to the PokeCentre to get better catching Pokemon (using sweet scent too occasionally although it seemed to attract the Drowsee mostly) and using DLC to tackle the wild unwanted ones out of existence.  DLC then levelled up, learned Wing Attack & evolved into Pidgeot.  I took him out of the lead of the party and when finished put him back in the PW until the next decent move level of   Roost at 44.  If I manage to switch Pokemon at lunch and walk to work I should still gain 2 levels a day.

A few mins after the evolution I gave up and flipped the DS into sleep mode.  I had stuff to do and there were only 10 mins left in the hour anyway.

In the break I managed to breed 9 Squirtle on Platinum while helping my GF to migrate her old laptop onto the new Windows 7 one (works perfectly with network cable) so if you need one let me know in the comments.  All male.  I set up a team on Platinum of 6 old Pokemon (a few bred starters etc.) to put into Gold ready for later on, and opened Gold to head back to the Pokecentre.

I gave myself 3 more attempts to get a Ditto on the way back - and on the first one he appeared.  I swapped to geodude immediately so that he would transform into someone fairly harmless and keep defending.  I swapped to Ghastly next and tryd Hypnosis.  Worked first time.  I then tried a normal PokeBall at full health to the Ditto. Caught first time.  I guess that transforming into a fast Pokemon last time hadn't helped matters, but was glad to get my Ditto.  I named it 'Breeder' and went back to the Pokecentre to save, trade off the team (resulting in the time being 8hrs 10 mins now) and pit the Pidgeot onto the PW.  He really fills the screen so it looks quite good.

Busy PokeDay...