Facebook's The Vampire Diaries Get Sucked In -- I've Started Playing Again

I stopped playing after feeling like the game was a one-armed bandit forcing you to pay to play if you wanted to get further in the game. On a lark I decided to give the game another shot, and I've started playing it again. Needless to say, I'm really behind. When I stopped I was stuck on Bonnie telling me to go clear my mind in the Salvatore Woods. It took me forever to finally get an Elm tree.

It's really like playing a new game, as they've added a lot of new stuff since I last played. Like the trophy book, which is very nice. It makes you feel a feeling of accomplishment as you fill it up. There's also the Daily Missions. So the game has really grown since I last played it.

Thankfully, if you put your mouse over a place you're about to enter, it tells you which items you can find where. I have noticed random items can also show up that are necessarily listed that you'll find in the area. Like food items, nuts, flowers and sapphire rings in the Salvatore Pond area. It's actually nice because some of those items help you to complete a collection that enables you to get vervain tea, which is the best power-up, as it allows your stamina to be fully restored.

Another new thing I like is that Damon gifts your with a treasure trove of stuff if you play the game five days straight. You get several different power-ups and if you're lucky you may even be gifted with an item. That's a huge benefit and it makes you want to see what you get each day you reach day five.

Story-wise, I wish they weren't following the storyline from season one. I just helped to open the tomb and Damon found out Katherine wasn't inside. I've also probably gone as far in this game as I can, as I have to invite three friends to lift the tomb spell and none of my Facebook friends have the least bit interest in playing this game. That's a problem with this game in that it demands you invite friends to help and if your friends won't help, you're basically stuck. Or if none of your friends have a Facebook account.

It's because of stuff like this I don't mind doing what I consider to be a cheat on the game. It's something I tried with Garden Of Time which is actually even worse than this game is with either having a friend help or forking out the money to get past the task. If you sign up for an extra Facebook account using another email and another name you can friend yourself and it helps tremendously with these games. If you need something you can send it to yourself. It saves you a lot of money.

Now let's talk about the games. Trivia is the best one. I noticed they've corrected some of the errors they had in the trivia questions. I like the Forgotten Objects, but the biggest problem is the game needs to be full-screen. You can't see exactly what the objects are because the game is so small. One of the reasons Garden of Time is such a good hidden object game is they let you make it full-screen so you can really see the objects and be able to find them. The absolute worst game is Mystic Pix and I really wish they'd just get rid of it all together. Some of the pictures are so bad that the difference in miniscule there's no way you're going to find them in the require time, let alone be able to complete more than one. And Mystic Pix seems to come up more than any other game. I really hate that game.

The current situation I'm stuck in in the game is exactly why I quit playing before. Instead of there being a way to find a way to unlock the tomb you've got to either invite three friends to play and have them accept or fork out money, and that just irritates the crap out of me. They're taking away your free choice and trying to force you to do what they want or you can't progress any further in the game. It's like they're cyber mugging you. Do this or else.

Granted, I get why they're doing it. If they can get more people to play their game, they can increase their profits. But they should also consider you may have friends who don't like playing games or don't like playing the same games you like to play. And when that situation has you're being forced to either pay to play or just give up playing the game and go somewhere else.

I think the visuals and atmosphere are great, but as I mentioned above there are some things I really don't like about the game. I'll probably continue to play the game to unlock some locations and hopefully complete the trophy book, but I won't be progressing any further in the game. I'm not going to pay them to progress further and none of my friends are going to play this game, so I'm literally stuck.