Guiding Angels

Today I celebrate the Angels and take a look at the way I’ve been running through games these days.

Two in a Row

My Angels are on a bit of a winning streak – woohoo!

Two in a row is a significant achievement this season, and as usual, when good things happen for my team this year, it is centered around Shohei Ohtani. Once again, he is pushing the Angels back up the hill to .500. He’s doing it with his pitching, where he threw 7 innings and struck out 8 to pick up the win in Friday’s game, and then showed up Saturday to hit his MLB leading 43rd home run.

Every day it seems Ohtani is pulling the Angels along, trying to make a decent team out of them. They’re just so incredibly heavy this year.

Walkthrough Anonymous

My name is Rambling Redshirt, and I use game guides and walkthroughs…

Yes, I admit it, I use training wheels when I play a game, but I think I do it for good reasons – immersion, story, and time constraints.

First off, when I’m cruising around Middle Earth, Eorzea, or just in the alternate reality of Secret World Legends, I really want to be IN the world. I don’t want to have to bounce out to check if I have everything needed for a particular quest. I don’t want to have to try to figure out which talent I want to select at my next level up or if I should run missions in a particular order. I prefer to know that in advance so I get to stay in the world. I have no problem with foreshadowing, and if I understand the story before I get to a particular part of a quest, I’m not gonna be upset. In fact, I’m gonna enjoy the game more because I don’t have to run off to the interweb to try to figure things out or get my bearings.

As for the story…If I’m checking out lore sites or wikis, I’ll have a much better sense of what is going on in the game world. I’ll be more knowledgeable about where a particular mission fits into the questline or how my actions in a particular area might influence other aspects of the game. It also lets me get into things before I encounter them in the game, which builds up a sense of anticipation that I prefer to the anxiety of having no clue what is coming – particularly in a game like Secret World Legends, which can get scary.

Finally, when I look at the actual amount of time I get to play games these days, I see no reason I should struggle through quests that are not moving me forward through the story or providing a flavor that I want to be experiencing. I just don’t have the free time to devote to figuring out every inane side quest in real-time. If I get the time and inclination, I can always come back or try them out with a different character, but if I can devote my time moving in the right direction with the fewest amount of difficulties, I think I owe it to myself to do just that.

With all that said, I do encounter plenty of game content that I have not researched beforehand. In some games sessions, I’ll push myself beyond quests I’ve looked up, or sometimes I’ll spot something off the beaten path that I’m drawn to. Those experiences just add a different flavor to my gameplay.

Ramble 14 Aardvark 14| Guiding Angels