Dad vs Videogames 🎮

After taking a long break from the game, I've recently come back to Ghost Recon Wildlands. This is a wonderful game if you like military shooters and an open world. It's kinda like The Division, but with more realism (no spongy enemies here) and the option for AI teammates.

This game requires patience and strategy, something you'll needs lots of once you get deeper into the game. That doesn't mean it's a bad game. It's just built different. Maybe even built for a different time (even if it only came out back in 2017). New games now are all about instant gratification. This game is more about delayed gratification, if that even makes sense. This game is more like Metal Gear Solid, where you spend a good amount of time planning your moves, then executing them perfectly. It's more like Chess instead of say Tic Tac Toe.

This review gives a good look at what makes Ghost Recon Wildlands great.

For someone who spent most of his time playing Fallout 4, switching to Skyrim was a breath of fresh air. You go from desolate wastelands, to striking scenery like these.

This first screenshot was taken right after you exit Helgen, which is where the game tutorial takes place. At this point, you've already seen a dragon, engaged in melee, range or magic combat (depending on your preference), and you're basically just itching to get out into the world to see what kind of story you can write.

Another day goes by and I've got another blog up on the net. This one is focused on the topic of video games. For someone who was getting exhausted at the number of websites I had to maintain, I surprised even myself with this one.

Anyway, this is not my first attempt at one. Back when I was first trying out Write.as, I was actually trying to replace a gaming blog that was built as a static website. And for awhile back in 2019, I had two blogs on Write.as: a journal and a dedicated gaming blog.

For one reason or another, I decided that I did not need a dedicated gaming blog. So, I moved all video game related posts to my journal. New posts on the topic of video games showed up on my journal. I even created new series — “Game Clips” and “Game Screenshots” — dedicated to video game content. That worked out for awhile and I was happy.

But as everyone knows, “The only constant in life is change.” And so here we are. My use of my journal and the content I want to show up in it has changed over time. And so I once again have a need for a dedicated gaming blog.

A compilation of goals from Pro Evolution Soccer 2019. All of these goals were from my Master League games.

Let's start off with this beautiful free kick goal from Arcas. I surprised myself here with the amount of curve he was able to put on that ball. Wonderful goal.

It's 2021 and I'm still playing Pro Evolution Soccer 2019. The game-play clip below is a great example of the core game-play loop that keeps me coming back for more.

After a few moments of terror, frantically trying to clear the ball out of the box, I get a second or two to breathe. Then it's straight into a counter attack. My excitement building as I start to see passing lanes forming before my eyes. It culminates into a shot at goal, at which point I get off my seat and silently scream (because the kids are sleeping), GOOOAAAALLLLL!

I previously decided to move my Game Screenshots series to my micro journal. That didn't really work out for me as I have since let my micro.blog subscription expire. So, the series is back on this site. And since I've been playing some Guild Wars 2 lately, I'm starting it off with a new post about Guild Wars 2.

This is my Human Guardian. He is the character I use the most in the game. In this screenshot, he is wearing the Luminous Heavy Armor set. You can only get this armor set on your sixth year anniversary of owning the game. I've been playing Guild Wars 2 on and off since 2012. Me and my wife were actually beta testers for the game. This is still the only MMORPG that I will go back to time and time again.

Found myself playing XCOM 2 and ended up frustrated once again. I very nearly got my whole squad wiped out in a “Retaliation” mission. The Muton enemy was so strong. It was able to consistently hit my soldiers who were in good cover and those who were on the rooftops with regular cover. Initially, I had it disoriented, which made it ineffective in combat. But I didn't have enough Flash-bang grenades to keep it disoriented until I could take it out.

I tried a new tactic of falling back into an overwatch position during firefights. The intent here was to avoid getting shot, while at the same time, giving my soldiers a free shot at approaching enemies. It works well against regular enemies. But it didn't work at all against the Muton.

I did learn one good tactic for a “Retaliation” mission that involves saving civilians. That is to make sure that the soldier approaching the civilians has a shotgun or a sword. And that the squad's sniper, has good line of sight to the civilian being approached. This is so that in the event that the civilian turns out to be a Faceless enemy, the sniper can shoot it, taking a good chunk of hp in the process. While the soldier who approached it, can finish it off with a shotgun or sword.

This is what my typical lineup looked like, during a game in the 2022-2023 Master League season.

Had an amazing game against FC Barcelona.

Due to the way they were defending, I couldn't keep the ball in the center of the field. Once I pass the ball to my AMF, he would have just a few seconds before he is dispossessed. It's just not enough time to build up an attack. So, I tried a different way of attacking. I went from sending short passes into the center of the field, to lobbing through balls over their defenders.

I noticed that Goios times his runs perfectly. But even after a perfectly timed pass, Goios is just not fast enough to get to the ball before the defender clears it away. This happened 2-3 times before I realized, it is not going to work with Goios. That's because Goios only has a Speed rating of 70.

So, at the 55 minute mark, I decided to take Goios out and brought in K. Gameiro — one of my more promising strikers. The important thing to note here is that Gameiro has a Speed rating of 90. That makes him the fastest player on my team.

Finished my 4th Master League season (2021-2022) and I finally won a title as a manager. My team, Paris FC, were crowned Ligue 1 champions. It was a welcome result after a heart-breaking loss to Real Madrid in the European Club Championship. For next season, my goals are to win the French Cup and progress farther in the European Club Championship.