zwolanerd

A few years ago the very idea of playing games with a social element to them elicited a hearty “meh” from me. Farmville was the shining example and it had no appeal to me whatsoever. But, as we’ve talked about before, somebody had the idea to put a Simpsons wrapping around Farmville and I’ve been hooked for 6+ months. Now it turns out there are a few games I play with social elements and it’s simultaneously neat and frustrating. Good thing there are still non-social games a person can play, I guess.

So here are the games I’m playing these days, in no particular order:

• Jetpack Joyride (Windows Phone) – I resisted this one for a long time because it didn’t look like the sort of thing I would enjoy. But the allure of a free game with Gamerpoints was too strong and I caved. Turns out I really enjoy it!  The mission structure is such that I want to complete them and move forward in the game.
• The Simpsons Tapped Out (iPad) – Yep, still playing it. The most nefarious new addition is Krustyland, and it makes me a little nervous. It’s kind of a separate game only tangentially related to the main game. you still need your characters to do tasks to earn things, but you’re building a theme park and trying to make it good enough that people will come.  There are a lot of random Springfieldians wandering around the park, which makes it hard to find your characters, but adds some nice ambiance. It’s kind of like Roller Coaster Tycoon without the ability to design your own coasters. We’ll see how it goes.
• AlphaJax (Windows Phone) – I generally have 3-4 games going on at any one time.
• Scrabble (iPad) – I have one opponent who plays regularly and a several others who disappear for weeks at a time.  Very weird. Also, I lose more than I win anymore and that’s depressing.
• Fairway Solitaire (Windows Phone) – I played this for a while on the iPad, but when it came to Windows Phone I slapped down cash for it, even though there aren’t any achievements for it.  I’ve 3-starred all the main courses and don’t have enough in-game cash to buy the extra courses. The Windows Phone version doesn’t have the daily challenges like the iOS and Android versions do, and that’s hampering my progress. I’m hopeful they’ll add that functionality soon.
• The Sims Freeplay (iPad) – They have now added the ability to visit your friends’ towns, and it’s really cool to see what they’ve done.  Two problems, though: a) I always want to get their Sims to wash and eat and whatever else because their levels are always low, but I can’t; and b) I’ve turned into one of those “hey, I need to play the guitar in your town, can you buy one?” guys.  I mean, I’m willing to do that for others who need me to, but I doubt that excuses my badgering.
• My Muppets Show (iPad)- Newest addition to the bunch and maybe the scariest, as I’m going to be highly motivated to Get All The Muppets.  This is genius. Frequent commenter bd showed me this one and it might end our friendship.
• Final Fantasy XIII (Xbox 360) – I haven’t played a Final Fantasy games since VIII, and I’d forgotten how odd the tone in a JRPG can be.  It’s going to take me a while to get used to it.
• Fable III (Xbox 360) – This was the free-to-Gold game for last month and I’m done with the main storyline, I’m just mopping up some of the outstanding quests. I like the Fable series, but this one suffered because the map system was loathsome to me.
• Q*bert (PlayStation) – I have this game for my Dreamcast, but I don’t have a good place to have my Dreamcast permanently hooked up, so I bought the PS1 version because it will work in my PS3. The Adventure Mode is a lot of fun, and I’m doing better on the original game than I have in a long time.

What are you playing?  Any good suggestions for me?

Tags: WIP