Looking for Party – Pure Steamin’

Over the festive period, and for the first time ever not owning a console, I embraced the ever so beautiful thing that is Steam.

I have had an account for years but lack of a powerful enough machine to play anything worthwhile meant it sat away in its little corner of the internet, gathering dust. It took the closure of Final Fantasy XIV and several broken game consoles to even consider plugging a controller in and firing up games I had never gave a thought to playing.

Now I want this to go on record: I am a complete fool. I have honestly been kicking myself up the arse since November for NOT looking into this sooner. Once we tidied up my profile and added lots of people on my friends list (if you were some of those people awaiting replies to your requests – I am so sorry!) I would check the Christmas sales every few days. Over the new few weeks, the other half would gift me the latest indie bundle and then a few titles he knew I would enjoy (mostly Street Fighter games) and I found myself playing with an arcade stick again. A stick! Completely unheard of! It has been years since I played to a semi decent level on a stick. Much to my surprise I preferred it to a 360 pad and feel far more at ease now. The comfort of sitting at a PC desk mixed with the stability of the stick case means I am once again a happy bunny.

Whilst rummaging though the bundles I received as gifts, Kody and I found a little gem called Dungeon Defenders. Admittedly I am extremely late to this party, but a ridiculous amount of fun it is! The aim is to defend your map from oncoming mobs of monsters, each wave more intense than the last. It is simplistic fun but as the game progresses on you have to use tactics rather than just maul your way though the onslaught – which, funnily enough, was my approach! We teamed up with a few friends and completed the basic story levels in an evening. We then set about upgrading our characters armour and pets and tried it on the harder difficulty settings.

We found custom maps, downloadable content and seasonal stages, too, and it kept us going though a pretty rotten holiday period – both of us wound up with flu on Christmas day and were confined to duvets and hot water bottles! It is hilarious fun and I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a casual game.

What really surprised me was the player and community content – it is so much bigger than I expected. The only online gaming communities I have really had experience with have been Xbox LIVE and FF Online games so the size of this in comparison was huge. I have joined a few groups and had a little nosey over some of the discussions going on there and to my surprise its is a friendly and helpful atmosphere.

I am rather miffed at myself for joining in the fun so late on. I have had this PC for almost a year now and have only ventured into a massive gaming goldmine in the last few months, but I guess you live and learn. I am certainly doing my best to make up for lost time.

And then, this sorta happened…

After a talk with the other half, we decided to hit up the old haunt via Steam until FFXIV: RR starts again. It has been a lovely few days, catching up with old friends, seeing the old sights and having a massive fight with the PS pad to recognise via the game. The last one was a complete lie, it has been HORRIBLE. Also, we need to remember how to play. This is a very different game to FFXIV and reverting back it not going to be easy, but that will be tackled and dealt with!

I now have the wonderful task of we-writing all my macros again for Parubati, including gear and weapon swaps for various things. And as much as I would love to pretend it will be me writing them, in reality it will be Kody. He just doesn’t know it yet… and now he will once he reads this (I love you and I am sorry).

Whilst awaiting the update to Street Fighter X Tekken due in the next couple of days and keeping an ear out in case Steam announce any more sales, possibly becoming a new shopping addiction for me! I am collecting games and then forgetting I have them… oops!

So thank you, Steam. You have kept me sane and topped up in gaming needs. I promise not to ditch you back in that dank, dusty corner again!