Category: Minecraft

Play PC Games with an Xbox One controller

On By Michel McDonaldIn EverQuest, Games, MinecraftLeave a comment

XpadderMinecraft

Ok so I’ve been struggling for years with PC games and not being able to play them with a game controller. I think that’s why I love my PlayStation 4 so much, because it has a game controller. I bought a game controller many years ago, I think back when I still had Windows 98, and never could figure out how to get it to work. It didn’t work with any of the games I had, and the program it came with didn’t seem to help.

I played EverQuest with a keyboard for 6 or 7 years and got used to it because I didn’t have much of a choice. I hated that I couldn’t use a game controller, but I learned to live with the arrows for moving my character and pressing the Q button to auto attack, I for inventory, and many more buttons and button combinations.

Last year I bought Minecraft after I bought my Xbox One game controller since I figured it would work since Microsoft now owns Minecraft, but apparently that doesn’t matter since it didn’t work. It actually started to piss me off that I wasn’t able to play a simple game with a simple game controller. It’s like why don’t these things go together like Peanut butter and Jelly, or Macaroni and Cheese for crying out loud? You would think they would automatically just work, right? Microsoft Windows… Microsoft owns Xbox and Minecraft… Hello?

Ok so finally today I searched and found Xpadder. It was $10 and I just happened to have $20 in PayPal, so I used that to buy it. I’m broke and that $10 could’ve been a couple items for groceries, but that lasts 5 minutes, this lasts a lifetime. Then again so does the food, am I right?

So you will notice in the image above that I had to make the up arrow down and the down arrow up, and the reason is simple. If I use the right stick to look up, my screen looks at the ground and if I use the right stick to look down, you get the sky. I also bought the Windows 10 version of Minecraft (before I bought it from Mojang) and it looks at the sky if you use the right stick to look up. I don’t know why it doesn’t work right in one but not the other.

XpadderEQ

Here is Xpadder for EverQuest. I’m not sure if these buttons will work for me yet. The Alt 2-4 are the spell gems and I is inventory, Q for auto attack. Ctrl X I believe is camping and Ctrl S is sit/stand. I forget what C is lol. The left stick moves my character and the right stick actually controls the cursor/mouse. I will change Ctrl X to the space bar for jumping since I probably jump more often than I camp out of the game lol. I tried running around in the Plane of Knowledge, and it was a bit tricky because I’m not used to it, but I can see me starting to play EverQuest again now that I can play it with a game controller. And any time I need to change a button to something else, I can just put EQ in windowed mode and change it, then go back to the game. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

I feel like Xpadder was well worth the $10 I paid. Sometimes I regret things I buy, but I do not regret this at all. It’s wonderful.

PS Vita for Christmas

On By Michel McDonaldIn Christmas, Gadgets, Games, Minecraft, MMORPG, Products I Like, PS Vita, PSPLeave a comment

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Most normal people exchange Christmas gifts on or before Christmas day. We’re not normal lol.

My partner bought me a brand new PlayStation Vita Borderlands 2 bundle at GameStop last week, and it arrived yesterday. It arrived at the house at 1:43pm, but there was nothing on the doorstep. I thought he got it, but hid it from me to give to me on Christmas, so later that night when Dominos rang the doorbell, I asked if it was UPS and he said it wasn’t. Long story short, our driver hid the package from us and it took calling them to file a stolen package report for them to reveal to us the location of the box. They’ve never done that before. Grrr! The note on the tracking said it was left on the front door, but it was behind our hose.
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So back to the PS Vita. I thought it would be much smaller from what I’ve seen in videos, but it seems to be thicker and it feels heavier than my PSP Slim. It does feel good in my hands, but I find myself punching characters out and accidentally tossing grenades when I don’t mean to because of the back of the device. I like that it gives you more options, but it’s too sensitive.

Games that are meant for the PSVita play great with the front and back touch screens as well as the 2 analog sticks. I actually like that I’m touching the correct tool or block on the front screen in Minecraft even though I can use the directional buttons. It just seems faster to touch the screen.

Some of my older PSP games don’t access these newer features. Like you can only use the left analog stick to move your character around. I think using 2 analog sticks is easier. My old PSP is temperamental though, so I’ll be running to the right, and my character is either running to the left or in circles. That’s why I love having 2 analog sticks because the one on the left is propelling you forward or backward, and the one on the right is allowing you to run in many directions. I also love that they made the R button your trigger as opposed to the X button to allow you to continue running while shooting.

The guy at Game Stop told us the 8gb memory card that comes with the bundle will be completely used by the game that comes with the PSVITA. Borderlands 2 comes with 6 add-ons and yes it does use most of your card, but you’ll still have a few gigs to add more games.

Anyway, I did buy a 32gb card on Amazon that night when we came home. It’s actually a pain in the ass to have to completely shut the PSVita down when I want to switch from the 8gb card to the 32gb card or vice versa. Why can’t they just give you more than 8gb knowing it will use most of the card? Or why not just sell the hard copy of the game instead of a download?

I was watching someone play the Vita version of Minecraft on YouTube, and there were moments when the game seemed to lag. I haven’t had that issue, but there was a moment when the game froze and I had to close it and I lost all my progress.

One of the reasons I wanted a PSVita was because of the remote play feature. I have a PS4 in my bedroom, but I spend a huge chunk of the morning and afternoon in the living room. I was looking for ways to play Destiny and Star Wars Battlefront in the living room. That feature is only available on Sony phones and PSVita. That was the huge selling point for me. I mentioned earlier that you accidentally throw grenades, I was referring to Star Wars Battlefront. No one said anything, but I kept doing it and I quit playing because of it. I don’t have an issue with Destiny. In fact, I actually love playing Destiny using remote play.

I think if you have a PSP and you bought this as an upgrade for the new games, go ahead and keep your old PSP and the old games. Don’t install your old games on the new system. Just switch back and forth I guess.

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I took 2 pictures of my PSP Slim with the new PSVita, and you can see that they are pretty much the same size, and I looked and they seem to be about the same thickness. The PSP Slim screen is much smaller at 480×272 pixels and 3.8 inch screen, and the PSVita has 960×544 pixels and a 5 inch screen.

The PSN membership gives you 2 free games every month. 2 free PSVita games, 2 PS3 and 2 PS4 games. So if you have all 3 consoles, congratulations, because you get 6 free games. Some of the games work on all 3 consoles. In fact, some of the games I bought for my PS4 have PSVita games, which is how I managed to get these on the Vita. I’m really enjoying the PSVita version of Minecraft and Terraria. This is an awesome gift and thank you to my partner for buying it for me, and thank you even more because I’m able to play with it during my broken leg downtime.
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Minecraft Pyramid

On By Michel McDonaldIn Games, Minecraft, PS42 Comments

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I recently blogged about finding my old home in Minecraft. Well, near that old home is a NPC village which is right next to a desert. I wanted to build something that you would normally see in a desert, but wasn’t quite sure what to build. I heard someone say something about Egypt on TV, so that brought my mind to Pyramids, so that’s what I started to build.

This pyramid has taken at least more than a week to build. There was a sand mountain in the spot where I built my pyramid that I basically had to demolish while I was building the pyramid around it. The reason I chose this location was because it was right next to the NPC village, and I could use the material from the mountain to build the pyramid. First you have to turn 4 blocks of sand into 1 block of sandstone. To make the stairs you need 6 blocks of sandstone just to make 4 stairs. There is a specific block that I like to use called Chiseled sandstone that has a Minecraft logo on it. I use that for the floors and for the middle of the walls throughout the pyramid. I use the chiseled sandstone for the floors because the regular sandstone looks dirty on the bottom, and you don’t want a dirty ceiling. The chiseled sandstone is clean on the top and bottom.

Pyramid walls

I found a video on YouTube of a person who was showing off a game generated pyramid (from a mod) where it has mazes and a treasure room at the top, so that gives me an idea of what to put inside the pyramid. At first I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it, because I’m not that creative, but I found a website that generates random labyrinth’s, so I will use that as a guide for each floor. The labyrinth’s have long hallways and rooms and dead ends. It’s similar to a maze, but with rooms.

mazeHere is just an example of how the labyrinth will look. I think it will be very neat to build. It would be neat if people could actually come visit my pyramid and walk through my labyrinth. I’m sure it will take me another month just to gather the material (mining sand and sandstone) to build the labyrinth on all 6 floors. There will be 7 floors, but the very top floor will most likely be a treasure room since it’s going to be very small. Of course, that requires treasure, of which I am very limited lol. I guess I could add some emeralds, gold and iron ingots and some food. I don’t really have anyone who will visit my world who would benefit from it.

Well, hopefully it won’t take me too much longer to finish this. This is the biggest building project I’ve worked on so far. I’ve actually gotten kind of bored with it because it’s such a huge job. I find myself falling asleep while my fingers are pressing the button to mine the sand and end up going deeper than I wanted.

I will post a video when I am finished with the labyrinth, but in the meantime, here is a video I made a couple of days ago before I finished the outside of the pyramid.

Minecraft PlayStation 4 Maps

On By Michel McDonaldIn Games, Minecraft, PS4Leave a comment

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I got my PlayStation 4 in December, the week before Christmas. Why a week before? We like to exchange gifts earlier than most “normal” people because, well, that’s just how we roll lol. Actually, my partner decided on a whim that he would take me to go buy it and he didn’t know what I wanted, so he told me he was getting it. After a few “Oh no we can’t afford it” he said shut up, you’re getting it lol.

Ok, so back to the subject at hand. I got Minecraft and played for maybe a few weeks on this little beach. I didn’t know I could even play the game in peaceful mode, and I died so many times trying to escape the skeletons with their damn bows and arrows. I even got blown up by creepers every now and then. I worked so hard to build the house that I built with what little experience I had with the game, and I think I did pretty good. I felt like exploring, so I would leave my home with my bed and I would sleep when the sun went down. I would explore, return home, explore, return home etc. You get the idea. I saw something so neat that I had to explore it, and I went a bit too far and got turned around and couldn’t find home. I wandered around in a complete panic for literally a couple of hours trying to find it, but never found it, so I decided to find a new spot that I liked and built a new home.

Over the last couple of months I went exploring knowing I could find my way back home with maps, but I never did find my home. I’ve even gone as far as going into creative mode to fly around looking for my original home, but that didn’t work. Finally tonight I thought, let’s try it again, so I did, and I finally found it. Check out the picture below which is a close up of the giant map at the top. The star on the top is where I live now, and the bottom star is where my original home. It’s funny because they are so close to each other too. That white part at the bottom is where I got turned around. It was the first snow I saw and it really messed me up lol.

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So now that I have finally found my original home, I can relax. I mean, I was relaxed before. I honestly don’t care about the house or any of the crap in the chests and in the house, it’s just the idea that I lost something that I worked so hard to build that I couldn’t find, and it bothered me to no end. I have it back now and I can use it to my advantage. I don’t know how, but I will think of something lol. For one there is a NPC village near that house in the sandy area at the bottom left of the map. That’s actually where I saw the giant carved out mountain on the bottom of the map which lead me to the snow that got me lost.

Speaking of NPC village… during my mapping, I found many NPC villages and pyramids. I have not yet marked them on the maps, but perhaps I shall go back into creative mode so I can fly to those locations and then add some icons to the map lol. I still have the bottom 2 rows to map out, so perhaps I will do that in time.

Anyway, so I am overly excited and thanks for reading.

450px-KelethinUpdate: I actually think I have an idea for how I will “take advantage” of the situation of the old house. I used to play a PC game called EverQuest, and that game had a forest called Kelethin in the Greater Faydark. Kelethin is a city in the trees, and that old house has a jungle, so perhaps I will start building platforms in the trees that already stand, and add houses to them. Not that it will make any difference to anyone since I’m the only one playing, but it would be nice to remake something to remind me of the good old days in EverQuest.