Overwatch launched and immediately became super popular, but I wasn’t sure I would like it. I’d never gotten into Team Fortress 2, Counter Strike: Global Offensive frustrated me, and my time playing DotA 2 and League of Legends was short-lived. Somehow, despite Overwatch being likened to all of these games, I love Overwatch alone.

I kept hearing about Stardew Valley on Reddit as well as seeing friends on Steam playing it. It was priced at $15 with an extra $5 to get the soundtrack. I very rarely dislike video game soundtracks so of course I had to get the soundtrack, too. I wasn’t sure how well I’d like the actual game, but /r/girlgamers was talking about it and it sounded cute, with $15 being cheap enough that I was willing to give it a shot, especially to support an indie game. The few screenshots I’d seen put Minecraft in mind because of the item bar across the bottom of the screen, and there was a pickaxe. So whatever, I figured I’d try it.

Jon got me The Witcher 3 as a gift on Steam shortly after it came out because I was replaying Dragon Age 2, again, and he wanted me to find a new game I might love. He had been watching Destiny stream it and thought it looked up my alley. I had heard of the game and had seen it getting rave reviews on Reddit, but I was dubious since it forces you to play as a set character. I’ve not had much luck getting into games like Tomb Raider, Uncharted, and even the first game in the Witcher series; I prefer games like Dragon Age or Skyrim that let you create your own character. However, the bits of The Witcher 3 gameplay I’d seen looked cool, and it’s a super pretty game, so I tried it. I’m so glad I gave it a chance.

I made another thing! This time, I made my first game. Well, the first game I’ve ever finished (I’ll get back to you someday Mahjong). It’s a JavaScript web implementation of the game Blicblock that your Sims play in The Sims 4. I built it using AngularJS, my new loves Yeoman and Bower, and Bootstrap. You can try it out in your web browser and view or contribute to the source code on Github.

I found SimCity Plus on sale on Origin for $20 last week. I checked on Reddit if it was worth it and was told that with the inclusion of the Cities of Tomorrow expansion, which came with the Plus version, it was. I bought it and was super excited to try it because I’ve been really enjoying Tropico 4 and wanted to experience the new SimCity.

It was the middle of the night. I was surrounded by four shirtless men bearing torches and deadpan expressions. One of them threw raw chicken breasts at me and told me to eat them, or they’d kill me. Maybe they’re being nice I thought. Maybe they can see I’m hungry and they’re trying to save me. So I ate a chicken breast and immediately began vomiting–I had been poisoned!

I got the Supernatural expansion pack the other day off of Amazon, for The Sims 3. I had been hoping for such an expansion ever since Makin’ Magic for the first Sims was so awesome. Supernatural has been pretty good so far, enough to where I’d recommend getting it. I can’t say the same for, say, the Generations expansion.

I started playing a new game of Dragon Age 2 last night after about five months of not playing it. As I play through it again, I can’t help but get frustrated all over again with the laziness shown in the game. I thought the game was okay, but like many fans of Dragon Age Origins, DA2 didn’t feel like a proper sequel. There are so many little details that add up to make it seem like the developers were either incredibly rushed or thought the fans were idiots. Lots of things in the game give the feeling of rushing you along, instead of making you want to pay attention to detail and immerse yourself. The lack of item descriptions, for example, along with boring item names. You find dozens of Rings, Belts, and Long Swords, items with completely generic names like that, and items in DA2 have no description, unlike in Origins, so I tend to disregard them as soon as I get them. In Origins, even if I got a plain amulet or a wimpy mace, it had a bit of descriptive text that I wanted to read. “This mace is deceptively heavier than it looks”, something like that, so that even everyday items encouraged a second look before confining them to the junk heap.

Though I hadn’t seen any reviews of Late Night on Metacritic, I went ahead and bought the expansion pack after reading a positive review on Cinema Blend. It took me a good two hours to be able to play the game, though, because it kept crashing. This didn’t really surprise me because The Sims 3 has got to be one of the most unstable programs I run, based on the number of crashes I get. I’m on a Windows 7 64-bit machine, which I’m sure contributes to it based on all the problems other people seem to have on 64-bit machines with The Sims 3. Why EA/Maxis isn’t preparing for the future (not that 64-bit machines are particularly futuristic anymore, but that just makes EA/Maxis look even worse) is beyond me.