New Year's Eve game playing: Ark, single player mode

Gaming in 2016: Terraria Otherworld, Terraria 2, Terraria 1.3.1, Minecraft 1.9, and more Ark!

Cheerful Ghost doodles, then Battlefront, then probably tequila, which will be followed shortly, I'm sure, by slumber.

In 2016, I'm looking forward to VR, and how that plays out. No Man's Sky and ABZU are my most anticipated non-VR titles. Beyond that, I'm determined to make my 2016 conclusively more positive and productive than 2015. I'm so done with 2015.

Glad you liked Civ 5! Funny, too, because that's the one game (genre could be lumped in) that I would love to play in a living room/couch/controller environment. Civilization Revolution just didn't cut it. I really appreciate these reviews from you and Jon. They are going a long way into pushing me toward picking up one of these magical controllers.

Four years later, do you have any additional thoughts you want to share? Are you still using it? I wonder why they've been discontinued, or in that they don't seem available on the Steam Store. I can get one from Amazon. I'm using to using an XBox 360 controller for PC gaming. I currently have two different brands of controllers. I just returned a third controller to Amazon, because it's been plagued w/ issues since day one. I'm thinking of getting a new one it it's place or just playing with one of the two I still have.

Decisions, decisions, decision. Dang it. I'm having trouble deciding on Triple A Game of the Year. I thought this was an easy win for one of those games, but another got included. I'm thinking I just may vote for the one I have more gaming hours logged.

I'm skipping out on Mobile Game of the Year. I don't know if Fallout Shelter has come to the Kindle yet, but I'm definitely unfamiliar with the others.

I just deleted a post where I had cast my votes in the comments, rather than going to the polls linked above. I'm a little slow today. Still recovering from the flu. Hope that didn't mess anything up!

One thing that was in that post was a vote to update the GotY system for next year. Triple-A vs Indie seems to be less relevant as the years go by. Maybe categories of technical execution, artistic impression, or even genre would be more evocative in presenting our tallies for quality experiences. Update of the Year was a nice addition this year. Something more like that. Anyway, just my $.02 .

@scrypt I hope you feel better soon, bro!!! I also like your categories ideas!!

As I kinda mentioned, this is pretty much why I decided to see The Force Awakens. I wanted to join you guys and I was so glad that I was able to.

Sorry I was late, I was busying playing Ark. =) I finished with Fallout 4 and moved on to Legacy of the Void, but I've run into some difficulty and Ark came out with another seasonal event.

=) It was cool being able to watch the roundtable live and particpate. It took me a bit to figure out how to ask a question, but I obviously figured it out. I'd love to join again in the future!

I don't know about the "have enough games for the next couple of months." Ark is in development and is frequently updated, so that could continue to keep me occupied. I took a break from it to play Fallout 4, but then finished with that. Legacy of the Void keeps snagging me. I saw some of the games on sale, including the Star Wars bundle I mentioned, but I still don't know. I can't really think of anything I really want. I absolutely hate the feeling of finishing a game and moving on to something else, or rather especially when I don't know what to move on to. That creates a hole I seek to fill.

Awesome loot! The only thing I got worth mentioning (other than a nice check from my grandmother) was a $25 Amazon gift card, which is what I wanted because I'm thinking about buying some e-books for my Kindle. I'm getting all kinds of great loot in Ark though because Raptor Claus drops presents every game day at midnight, which has been pretty cool!

Yeah, it's freaking awesome! There's a raptor flying around on a sleigh carried by 3 reindeer. You hear Christmas music and "Ho Ho Ho!!!" He drops packages, which fall slowly to the ground. So, at midnight, you find out where he is and hurry to get the packages to see what you've got. There's Mistletoe for crafting various holiday themed items like costumes for you and dinos. There's also Coal, which lets you summon DodoRex for 15 minutes, if you collect 100. Other random items can be contained in those packages too like dino saddles or even blueprints for stuff. It's fantastic! The entire map is snowy and cold. Some of the creatures that are bound to the snow biome are now roaming around the entire island, like prehistoric penguins and deer. Check out some of my screen shots: http://steamcommunity.com/id/gawoodruff/screenshots/

Ark has done a few holiday events so far and I've enjoyed the three I've experienced, although Halloween and Christmas are my favorites so far.

Congratulations on the child news!

But yeah, I enjoy holiday themed events in games like Ark and Terraria. It makes me want to play them more during those times to see what's new. I've skipped the last few Terraria events, but Vinny's been playing lately.

Cool interview, it made me want to play Starship Rubicon again! I like Jon's Jar Jar Binks question, but I won't hold Wick's answer against him. Hahaha

I think the neuroscience project he mentioned was really cool. I'm not really interested in neuroscience, but I think that finding a creative way to explain a complicated subject is interesting. I think it's cool that he's tried to make a program to help him and others learn more about it.

Keep up the good work, Wick!!

John de Lancie!!! I can't wait to hear that one!

I think in the end, I'm more of a Terran player. I like the Siege Tanks and the Battle Cruiser. I also LOVE being able to call down a nuke strike with Ghosts!!

I only slightly disagree with you here regarding difficulty. I've found LotV to be a challenge, even on Normal difficulty. Maybe it's because it's been a while since I've played any StarCraft. I've actually looked up some help on most of the missions.

Also, I'm having a video issue. It's hard to explain. I just finished helping Raynor and got the...what's it called again? Crystal? Rune? Something like that. When I freed the big ship and was able to select which planet to visit, I went for Korhal. So, I just finished those two missions. I went back to the Bridge because it said a conversation was available and Artanis was talking to a Terran, but because of a video glitch, I couldn't see his face. Something similar occurred before and I think it had to do with a shadow.

Also, take a look at the picture below. The panel on my Blizzard.net looks funky after I play the game.
http://i.imgur.com/goT9vR1.png

My drivers are up-to-date as of 12/21 at about 8am. But, yeah, you're right. I'm not sure how to get a screen shot in-game, which would be helpful to show Blizzard tech support. I could probably find out though. I do wish the game had an in-game browser like Steam, though.

I finished LoTV a month or so ago and I thought I'd share my experience with you, sorry this is so late. I'll be completely honest with you, I found it to be a bit challenging, perhaps a little too much for my taste. I know I could have turned down the difficulty, but I didn't. I was hoping to get those Normal Difficulty achievements, although what I'm about to tell you contradicts that. There are a few of missions that I decided to cheat on. That would be the last one in the main quest line and then two of the missions in the epilogue. By the time I reached those missions that I cheated on, I was ready for it to be over. I'm not saying it was horrible, but the difficulty was frustrating and I wasn't enjoying it very much. Two of those missions were VERY difficult. The last one in the epilogue with the Zerg, I decided "f" it, I didn't feel like continuing with the challenge.

It took a little while for me to get used to playing SC2 again and with the Protoss, but I managed to get through most of the missions on Normal difficulty without cheating. I often made as many peons (those things that mine minerals) as I could, that was helpful. I often used the ship's ability to harvest vespene gas for me. I enjoyed some of the other abilities with it, too. I did enjoy some of the units, in fact I think I really liked many of them a lot.

Anyway, I just thought I'd share with you my progress on the game. Like I said, I'm sure it's been a month or more since I finished it.

Well, that one character died in the beginning, that was unexpected. It'd be a spoiler to reveal his name, I think I remember it. I liked the John de Lancie voice over, that was cool. I liked how pretty much all the factions needed to come together. Ok, that's a bit of a spoiler. LOL. I liked the ending, I think. I liked that the two Terrans were reunited, one, it seems, was granted salvation.

I pre-ordered the new Ghost missions about the time I started playing LotV. I'm hoping they'll be more fun, kind of like when you control certain named powerful characters. I'm not sure if I recall any of those missions in WoL, but I believe there were some in HotS. There was at least a mission or two where you did that in LotV. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.