It’s about that time again: college is starting back up. So as a favor to all the readers university bound, allow me to give you some rules to live by. First, if you are a freshman, you are going to suffer. Your classes are all either boring and meaningless or they’re weed out courses meant to verify if you actually like your major. News flash: you probably don’t. Also, no one thinks you’re cool. Doesn’t matter if you were the hottest guy in your high school, no girl outside of your freshman class actually gives a fuck about you. And your RA is not your cool friend, he’s your shitty older brother who pretends he wants to be cool and let you break the rules just to report you immediately and try to get you expelled. Don’t make that fucking mistake. What should you do at this time? Learn. Learn what is cool and what is not (like wearing your keys around your neck on a lanyard like a fucking weirdo). This is also prime time gaming season, so stay plugged in heavily to PartyChat because I’m probably your only friend. Second, if you are a sophmore/junior, you are in prime time college season. You aren’t the new kid anymore, but you also don’t have to worry about what you’re going to do when you graduate just yet. If you aren’t out partying Thu-Sat every single week, you are absolutely wasting your this time. You will never again in your life have the opportunity to live like this every again, so take advantage of the fact that your liver doesn’t exist yet and hangovers only last hours instead of days like everyone over the age of 25. Also, do not for any reason have a significant other during college. At all. Stop thinking about it. That’s a future you problem. Current you needs to live a “zero fucks” lifestyle. Go walk up to the hottest girl in the bar and tell her she’s kinda cute in a weird way. She’ll be in your bed by the end of the night, which at this point shouldn’t be on campus unless it’s in a fraternity house. No one after their freshman year wants to shack at your dorm room. Finally, seniors: You’ve made it. You have one year left before you head off to the real world. Your grades are pretty much set in stone, you might have an idea of what the 3 months after college look like, now is your victory lap. If anything, you should be going even harder than the soph/juniors, but without losing composure. You need to look like the cool older kid who can drink everyone under the table but still walk home in a straight line without yakking (I was not a good example of that). Regardless of what your professors say, class doesn’t actually matter. You’re going to graduate. No college on earth is going to let you go 4 straight years with a B+ average and then fail you because you skipped every Friday morning class. That’s my guide to college, and I turned out fucking awesome. So carve these rules into your chest and you’ll be a god amongst men on campus. Slay bitch.
Let’s get back on track shall we?
Numbuh 3: Slay the Spire
You know how I said turn based combat games suck complete dick? Yea, well that is still an absolute fact except I actually enjoyed this game. For some reason my mind doesn’t think that trading card style games are turn based combat games and I don’t really know why. In college, I used to enjoy playing Hearthstone during class until my teacher noticed I wasn’t paying attention and decided to call me out in front of the entire class in the middle of a ranked match. Needless to say, I got a B- in Probability and Statistics. But I feel like I learned more about probability in Slay the Spire than I ever did in that class. This is a deck building game mashed with a dungeon crawler/roguelike pattern. You start off with a small base deck, and get to choose your path through the dungeon in front of you. You may choose a path with lots of enemies, giving you plenty of opportunity to build your deck but risking your HP. You may choose a path with more treasure chests and question marks. Either way, after you travel that path, you end up at the dungeon boss, which is very difficult. If you played wisely, you should be able to beat him and move onto the next act. If not, you die, game over, try again. It’s a very addictive gameplay loop, as you constantly are experimenting with different paths and characters to find your perfect match. I mean might as well call it DungeonCrawlersOnly.com. You can play as the strong guy, where you find out that you are no where near as strong at any time to kill the final boss. Or, you can swap to the witch doctor guy, who can cast lightning attacks that go *ZAP* and then throw a bunch of daggers like *SHING* and then turn your enemies into ice cubes. Or you can be really fucking stupid and play as a robot who does absolutely nothing fun at all. Cause that’s what a balanced game does, it makes three equally balanced heroes except they aren’t whatsoever.
Watch that. RedRiot did an incredible job making that summary of the game. No two playthroughs are the same regardless of your strategy going into the game. You may get relics that turn your character into a fucking tank. You may get a merchant that has everything on sale and makes you a fucking demon killing machine. You may get absolute fucking dogshit and have to figure it all out in two turns before the boss. I’ve had the scenario C happen too many times at least that’s what I tell myself to avoid the knowledge that I suck ass. It’s an incredibly addicting and challenging feeling that not many other games can offer. On top of that, it’s easy to pick up and put down, so for all those gamers with kids, a busy schedule, or looking for something to play at work without your boss finding out, this is the perfect title for you.
Slay the Spire is available on all consoles right now, and if you have the Xbox Game Pass, you can play fo free.
