Monday, June 3, 2013

May Brewed! Coffees Consumed & Games Played


Coffee Beans
It's already June, and that means E3 is right around the corner and I'm sure this will be a busy month with video game news. If you perhaps skimmed here occasionally during May, here is a recap of some of the posts from the month you may have missed, but possibly find interesting:
1) Do you enjoy FPS games and ever wonder how much FPS games on the Wii are/were played? If so, you may find the Conduit 2 official Nintendo Channel data report interesting, HERE.
2) Are you a Star Wars fan? Then you may find it interesting what the Wii's "least played" Star Wars game is, according to the average hours reported "Per person" in the United States, HERE.
3) What is the best Metroid game of all time? I don't know because I haven't played all of them, but Super Metroid is regarded pretty highly by many, and you can now buy it on Wii U's Virtual Console until June 13th for just 30 cents. If you wonder how many hours you might expect from the game, check out Super Metroid's official U.S. Nintendo Channel data, HERE.
4) The Wii U now has two Batman games that you can buy. One is Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition, a Wii U launch title, which my neighbor has played and really enjoyed on the system. The other is LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes which released last month for the Wii U. If you're wondering about how many hours you can get from the game, you can read the LEGO Batman 2 Nintendo Channel data report for the Wii version, HERE.
5) Did you skip Donkey Kong Country Returns on the Wii, but are perhaps interested in it for the Nintendo 3DS? Are you curious as to how many hours you might expect from the game? You can see the average hours reported for the game, "Per person", in its official Wii U.S. Nintendo Channel data report from last month, HERE.
6) Did you not own a Wii, but do own a Wii U? I think one big benefit of the Wii U is its backwards compatibility with Wii titles. If you own a Wii U and have a Wii Remote and Nunchuk, you might be interested in the Super Mario Galaxy games. While I only played the original, you can see how many hours you might be able to expect from Super Mario Galaxy 2, HERE, in last month's Nintendo Channel data report.

Now, what were two new coffee blends I consumed in May, and what was our most played Wii U game during the month? Brew yourself some coffee, let's take a look at what games I played, and coffees I consumed during May.

Coffees Consumed
May was back to being more "normal", than April was. In April, we only brewed up one coffee blend during the month, but in May we brewed four blends, plus I had an iced coffee drink as well.

Here's the short list of the coffees I consumed in May:
1) Maxwell House Gourmet Roast
2) Puroast Dark French Roast
3) Maxwell House Dark Roast
4) Beaumont Coffee Classic Roast
5) Dunkin' Donuts Iced Coffee

The lowest priced coffee we have purchased...
The Beaumont Coffee Classic Roast was the first completely new coffee blend for us, and Mrs. Coffee purchased it for us from ALDI. It was their store brand coffee blend, which made me wary of it before we even opened it. While I have purchased store brands of other items, we had never tried it with our coffee blends before. The container she purchased was 33.9 OZ (over 2 pounds!), and like the Maxwell House blends she normally buys, it said it can make "...UP TO 270" cups of coffee. So, if I (we) didn't like it, we would have a backup supply of coffee for a while.

The container even had a coffee roast guide that put this blend as a "MEDIUM" roast coffee, while letting us know the range for the coffee blends is: MILD, MEDIUM, MED-DARK, or DARK. The real question though, is how did it taste?

I was very surprised by it, in a good way, because it had a good solid flavor for a medium roast coffee. If you like your coffees more dark roasted, this might not be for you; but, if you are cheap (I think Merriam-Webster wants my picture for the word's definition update next year) and enjoy a wide range of coffee blends, I would highly suggest giving this one a try. Not only was this the lowest priced coffee blend Mrs. Coffee has found for us yet (only $5.49 for it!), but it surprised both of us by not being a weak blend. We enjoyed it so much, that after we finished the first container in May, Mrs. Coffee bought us another one that has now started June off for us as well.
This cup image was altered to make it look like my drink,
without cream and/or sugar. Yes, it's sad, I know.
The second new coffee blend I had in May, at least "new" in a while, was the Dunkin' Donuts Iced Coffee. This actually was a mistaken coffee order, but I decided to give it a try anyway. We had gone out for ice cream at a Baskin-Robbins location, which just so happened to be a Baskin-Robbins/Dunkin' Donuts joint location. We asked the employee to add a medium coffee to our order, but with the hustle and bustle of juggling multiple customers, he heard "Medium iced coffee". He asked if I wanted room for cream and sugar, and after I picked myself up off the floor from laughing, I kindly said no, and told him he could be a stand-up comic. (Only part of that previous sentence is the actual account of what happened.)

So, how was the iced coffee drink? Surprisingly, very strong. I don't drink iced coffee beverages very often, and actually I can't remember the last time before this Dunkin' Donuts Iced Coffee that I had one. If you don't like strong coffee though, you should definitely leave room for cream and sugar in this one. If you do like your coffee blends strong though, this might be something you can enjoy during the hot days of summer that are probably right around the corner.

Games Played
The following "Instant Coffee" list doesn't contain all of the games I "played" in May, as I was volunteered to play some by Bean 1, or I would hop on some to play for just a few minutes to help him out if he was having trouble. One of those games for example, was Fluidity, which he plays from time-to-time. While I would help him get through certain sections, I wouldn't play the entire level/levels.

The "Instant Coffee" list of games I played in May is: Kirby's Adventure, Kirby Mass Attack, New Super Mario Bros. U, Rayman Legends Challenges App, Tank! Tank! Tank!, Toki Tori 2, Nintendo Land, Trine 2, Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed, Mario Kart Wii, Mario Kart DSNew Super Mario Bros. Wii, and Super Mario 64. Instead of breaking down each individual game like I did last month, I'm going to talk about just a few them in a little more detail.

First, what was our most played Wii U game out those listed? It's kind of interesting, but between myself and Bean 1, Kirby's Adventure was the most played game on our Wii U in May. If you missed the video in last month's post, the following video is footage of Bean 1 playing Kirby's Adventure on our Wii U:

Bean 1 has really been enjoying Kirby's Adventure, and Kirby Mass Attack on his DS even more. If you have never played a Kirby game, just from my time with both Kirby's Adventure and Kirby Mass Attack, I would easily recommend both of them. If you own a DS and/or 3DS, I would highly suggest finding a copy of Kirby Mass Attack, because of the amount of content the game has and the fact you should be able to find it for under $15 now.

Nintendo Land received some decent play-time in May, not only from Bean 1 and me, but also from a cousin of Bean 1 who visited us for a few days. She had never played it before, and she really enjoyed playing Animal Crossing: Sweet Day the most. It was interesting, because she's a few years older than Bean 1 and she described the mini-game as, "It's like Easter, and hunting for eggs." When she said it, I thought it was an interesting description, and thought that Nintendo could have even released some free DLC Easter Bunny costumes for it, and changed the candies to Easter eggs to help promote the game and Wii U during Easter week.


I unlocked Trine 2's exclusive Wii U level back near the end of April, but I didn't play it in April. I finally played and beat the Wii U's exclusive level, the Dwarven Caverns, in the middle of May though. There was one spot where I encountered an audio glitch, and I haven't played back through the level to see if it happens every time, but it was a bit odd hearing it happen and makes me wonder if perhaps it was missed in QA testing, because it was a new level? The last level is challenging in certain spots though, with trying to figure out the mechanics of certain switches and equipment to progress through it, and I did enjoy my time playing through it despite the weird audio glitch.

While Super Metroid was my only "new" game purchase in May, I still haven't played it yet, but I didn't want to pass up its awesome sale price. As for the other games I listed above, if you have any specific questions (even thoughts) about any of them I played in May, feel free to ask me in the comments section below, or by emailing me at Scott(@)CoffeeWithGames.com.

Questions
Did any of you buy any new games in May, or perhaps any new systems like the Wii U Basic Set that I highlighted in a post?

Also, what games did you find yourself playing in May, and did you enjoy any new coffee blends in the month?

17 comments:

  1. There's a very 'Mario-heavy' theme there, no? I actually did get a bit of coffee in the last two weekends. My dad was up visiting from Florida, which always amounts to weekends where we get donuts, stop by Biggby for coffee and I get up about an hour or two earlier on the weekends than I normally would (hence the coffee). Biggby Best and Michigan Cherry were the two I had these last two weekends (and this morning).


    I... did not wind up getting the Wii U, despite the post and tweet. I won't say I wasn't tempted, because I was, but I have it in my head to dig through backlog and see where the consoles are at near the end of the year.


    My collection of games over the last month was pretty large, between a couple of newer ones like Metro: Last Light and Leviathan: Warships on my PC, but also churning through the entire Uncharted series and playing Persona 4 Golden (I'm about 35 hours into that game on my Vita), plus lots of Madden and a handful of other titles (like Journey, Zen Pinball 2, Bejeweled 3, Zuma, Plants vs Zombies... again, due largely to my dad and his preference for these more casual titles)

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  2. "There's a very 'Mario-heavy' theme there, no?"
    The Mario games were less than 50% of the games played for the month, we just have a wide assortment to choose from for Bean 1. BUT, Kirby's games are dominating in the time played category with Bean 1 recently.

    As for your dad being up and visiting (glad to see he is a positive influence in the coffee drinking area!), are you and him still playing Pure Chess when he's in Florida?



    Thanks for the comment and feedback!

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  3. Odd question, but where in Florida does your dad live? I live in Saint Augustine, so now I'm curious.


    Oh, how was/is Metro: Last Light?

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  4. I missed getting Kirby on the Wii U eShop sale :-/! Sounds like you've played quite a bit this past month. As for being cheap, just leave room for my picture :D.


    Oh, the DD iced coffee.....so good on a hot day. Of course, I'm not to the point of drinking it black, so I make sure I get cream and sugar to make it go down smoothly.

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  5. You MISSED the Kirby sale? A sale for an entire MONTH, and you missed it!?

    *this guy's picture will be next to the word busy

    As for the DD iced coffee, I think I have a good idea of what you're drink looks like. See the attached image, and that is the image I started with. Yes, I know I'm sad, but I didn't want to promote coffee snow cones using the original image from their site, so I edited/created the image in the post above to reflect what my drink looked more like.

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  6. Good to see Tank! Tank! Tank! and Toki Tori 2 getting some love. Those are two of my favourite Wii U titles.

    As for my month, it was quite Nintendo-heavy actually. I got around to buying Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate finally, and I do seem to be enjoying it more than the Wii game - not really sure why. Over on the 3DS I've been working through the insane mode of Fire Emblem with permadeath turned on (slowly, but I am making progress!), and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. In fact, my 3DS hours according to my gameplay log for May exceeded the total of all the other months in 2013 by a significant margin - I haven't played the console this much in a single month since December 2011 when it was still new and exciting.



    Aside from Nintendo, Microsoft got a fair chunk of my play time this month as I'm working through the Mass Effect Collection, finally. After completing ME3 on the Wii U I felt the compulsion to go back and play the originals. It's going to be a long time until I finish them all - I'm only 25 or so hours into the first one, but it'll be interesting to see how the three games develop on one another for the whole trilogy.


    Over on the Vita I'm working through Persona 4 again, after being encouraged to replay it thanks to Persona 4 Arena on the PS3. Trying out different relationships and such this time around.


    And finally the poor old PS3 was unusually my least played console for the month. Got a bit of time in on the as-yet unreleased ArcaniA, but otherwise nothing outside of the game reviews.


    Finally, we're moving in to winter now in Australia, so perhaps not as many ice coffees as I usually have for a while, but boy do I love my coffee chilled when the heat picks up.

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  7. Hello, Jeremy. :)

    He is over in Homasassa (spelling?) Springs. It's a small retirement community. I think he said he is about an hour from Tampa?

    I really liked Last Light. I know Coffee doesn't mind when I post links, so here's a copy of the review I posted on my site if you're interested:

    http://chalgyrsgameroom.blogspot.com/2013/05/metro-last-light-pc-review.html

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  8. He is definitely my coffee influence. :)


    Yup, we still play. He makes a move every few days, which is about as often as he hops on his PS3. I tend to get my moves in a bit quicker. It's almost like I spend a lot of time on my gaming systems at work... erm, at home! I meant at home! :P

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  9. Alright cool. Tampa isn't too far from here. Thanks for posting the link to your review - I'll check it out now!

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  10. "After completing ME3 on the Wii U"

    I still feel bad for the studio that ported the Wii U version over, because of how the whole thing happened with the Collection. From all the stuff I have seen, the studio did a very solid job porting it over to the Wii U, but EA really didn't handle that situation very well at all.

    As for Tank! Tank! Tank!, I played it when it became free, but haven't really put much time in it. Toki Tori 2 is nice, and I like the visuals (even took photos of my backyard weeds because of the game!) a lot, and the puzzles in it are pretty creative from what I have played so far.

    I agree on the "poor old PS3", I need to relocate ours, but where it is now I just don't play it. Bean 1 plays LBP on it occasionally, but his DS has been entertaining him more in that area now.

    And for, "I got around to buying Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate...", that is the Wii U version? Either way, Wii U or 3DS, it was nice knowing you and seeing DD run for as long as it was. :)



    Thanks for the comment and feedback!

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  11. Was a lower volume month than April time-wise. Lots of hot Melitta as usual. pfft, what's this iced coffee stuff?

    Purchases: Zelda Oracle Games, and funny you should ask about new systems. I did pass on the Wii U despite it being a nice deal, but did get a 3DS XL early for father's day. Maybe in 9 months I can muster up a blog post about it.. :-D

    Most played was probably LTTP and Oracle of Ages. Really trying to make it through Link's Awakening before moving to the oracle games in June.

    Games:

    Wii:

    - Rayman Origins
    - Bonk's Adventure
    - Zelda: A Link to the Past
    - Super Mario Bros 2

    3DS:

    - Zelda: Oracle of Ages
    - Gunman Clive
    - Dark void zero
    - Mutant mudds

    Very minimal to test out 3DS XL:
    - Zen pinball
    - Spirit tracks
    - Four swords
    - Zelda: Ocarina of time 3D
    - Link's Awakening DX
    - Mighty switch force
    - Professor Layton: Curious village
    - Donkey Kong
    - Zelda: Oracle of Seasons
    - VVVVVV
    - Dememtium ii
    - GTA: Chinatown Wars



    Was a very busy month at work and now that I guess I'm over the obsession of 3DS XL price tracking I can get back to the backlog. Not finishing it of course, adding more to it.

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  12. Interesting, he is less than 2 hours from where we were in FL and I've been through the area a number of times.

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  13. "Lots of hot Melitta as usual. pfft, what's this iced coffee stuff?"

    LOL, even editing the image to make it look more "black" gets me no credit?!

    "I did pass on the Wii U despite it being a nice deal, but did get a 3DS XL early for father's day. Maybe in 9 months I can muster up a blog post about it.. :-D"

    Ha! Maybe you will end up with another, EXTRA, Father's Day gift...after Nintendo announces the new Wii U bundle at E3 for only $299.99!?

    BUT, congrats on getting the new 3DS XL! I'll watch for the post in about a year.

    On the Wii side, it looks like the Virtual Console is still getting good mileage for the system, which is what we use it for the majority of the time, and the reason we still haven't done the Wii to Wii U transfer yet.

    And Bonk's Adventure is a platforming game right?

    On the 3DS side, I should be grabbing Mutant Mudds Deluxe for the Wii U this week (Bean 1 knew the date on the calendar it's releasing, not sure if he still does...but he did yesterday!).

    Speaking of your 3DS collection though, did you ever pick up Luigi's Mansion?



    Thanks for the comment and feedback!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Fair enough, props for the color editing. Still not sure about some of these people who stop drinking hot coffee when it's hot...

    Thanks on the XL. It's certainly different than the original and quite a beast with a case/grip. Pretty cool though on Mutant Mudds Deluxe though. Good to see them getting more mileage out of it before MM2.

    It does seem like we may hear some hardware changes at E3 and I'm certainly keeping my eye on the Wii U. But for now I am still getting lots of mileage out of the Wii VC. (yep, bonk is a platformer that had a different feel for it's day)

    Do you keep the VC on your original Wii for ease of use? I know you can access them in Wii-mode on the U, though am not sure what's involved.

    No, I haven't picked up Luigi's Mansion yet, have only played some of it in GameStop. It's still on my list with DKCR as far as full-sized retail games. Am being cheap at the moment, would like to see both of those under $30.

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  15. I have kept the Wii stuff setup for now, mainly because I use the Nintendo Channel on it weekly (sometimes daily).

    But also because Bean 1 is familiar with the setup of where the games are, and if he wants to play a VC Mario game, then I can sometimes sneak in play time on the GamePad.

    It's also been an extra source of Netflix, but now with the Nintendo Channel going away later this month, I may end up doing the transfer.

    Accessing the Wii-mode has 2 options now. If you want to jump straight to it, you can hold the B button when the system is starting, and it goes straight to it. Or, you can select the Wii Channel icon, from the Wii U's menu and it launches it.

    Thanks for the feedback!

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  16. haha - small world (well, away from me, where no one lives) :P

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