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Thread: Ferrals Gaming Blog

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    Ferrals Gaming Blog

    I have been informed by Zak that I'm buying way to many games as of late, and you know what, hes actually right!!!

    I see all these deals round the net and think its cheap and just grab it, my collection is absolutely huge with me only playing a few of the games at a time. I normally get into something then towards the end just stop playing and it gathers virtual dust on my many virtual shelves.

    So, I have decided to do a blog on what I am doing, gaming or otherwise!

    This is to help me stop going insane!!

    So to kick off a bit about me personally, some may know that a lot of the time I am house bound. I have Joint Hypermobility Syndrome and in agony most of the day and night, so getting out can be difficult (have severe problems walking, exercising, cooking, cleaning and the like) and I can no longer work and I'm only 39 years old. It can be sickening, so I spend my time gaming, exploring the virtual worlds.

    **************************************************************************************

    I actually managed to get out the house today, spent 3 hours watching my wife with the horse this morning. I gave him a bit of a groom but come midday I was starting to get a little bored and was checking GOG on my phone for todays new releases, Bioforge, something I can live without I thought to myself.

    Got back home and zipped about my usual haunts, HEXUS, new articles on Eurogamer, Gamespy and had a look on the GOG forums.

    Ahhhhh, all quiet & nothing new, so what to do, started watching GOLD on TV, Open all hours was on and a few other classics, seen them all before but better than sitting just going round in circles looking at the same sites every few minutes to see if theres anything new. From a gamers point of view, its no wonder I buy stuff and don't play it, I'm to busy looking to see if theres anything new going on in my favorite topics.

    Come 4pm I finally gave up, and thought I need to do something after the kids had their tea. I then remembered I bought Viking Battle for Asgard from Greenman yesterday and it wasn't working. No text in the menus or the game, is it my PC or a larger problem. Scooting abouts Steams forums it turned out that everyone with an Nvidia card was having the same issue, crap, have to wait for SEGA to sort it. Then on thinking that the old ads for them came to mind and was hoping it wouldn't take AGES for them to sort it out, I know its sad really!

    Thankfully there was a patch for it about 5pm tonight which sorted the text issue so good to go.........

    Crap again, now the controller settings are borked for users with wireless 360 pads, A = X, right stick is start and that type of thing, no surprise that its happening to others on Steam also, so thats where I'm at with that now. Doesn't help when people with the wired versions rub it in your face as its working fine for them.........just go away, its working for you, you got nothing constructive to say then don't bother adding to others misery. Go play your game, enjoy it, we have to wait on SEGA again (AGES this time methinks). I can use mouse and keyboard on this, but a hack n slash game like this needs a pad and being able to sit back and play it relaxed as you dismember enemies Viking style.


    Time to head to GOG now for the CD Project conference, its 6pm. Hmmmm its supposed to start at 6pm, its not happening. Lo and behold some genius works out its actually GMT+2 so not starting till 7pm, may as well check out Steams daily and weekend deals. Payday which I got free with this months PC gamer and its installed and ready to play, Sleeping Dogs on offer, awesome game, been there and done that already, ah well. Switched 3D on daily.....meh, never even heard of it.

    Greenman Gaming have a sale on at the min, so I decided to grab Darksiders and The Darkness 2 for £4 each, played through Darksiders on the PS3 a few year back and enjoyed it, traded it in after finishing it so thought why not. Thankfully installation went without any hitches and my wireless 360 pad works just fine. Serious lack of graphics options for a PC game, then remembered the whole shebang when it was released about it being a port. Ramped up the resolution to 1080p (1920x1080) and the textures are actually razor sharp and it still looks good, don't actually care what others think, its still a damn fine game, Zelda for older gamers.

    Darkness 2, not bad, still not sure if I like it though, playing it with a pad and the aiming is skew with the firearms so using the 2 tentacles in a gunfight, haha orange jump suit running away as I pick up one of his mates by the lower leg and rip him in half......cool an attack called wishbone. Aiming with guns though, its just plain weird. You start moving your gun round the screen, either aiming down the sights or shooting without aiming. Thing is though its moves at an ok speed but say you are going from far left side to someone far right the further you are moving the crosshair it suddenly speeds up and you end up over shooting and missing. Think I will stick with the tentacles.

    Get over it, I'm a PC gamer that actually prefers using a pad now as mouse and keyboard hurts my hands and my back with usually leaning a bit forward, I don't care, I do my thing you do yours!!!! Just let me know how well you get on with Dark Souls with mouse / keyboard, messes you up at the best of times!

    Cool its nearly 7pm, time to see what GOG and CD Projekt Red are up to. Waffling on about Mac, 50 games now available and 28 of those have never been available on the Mac. Think the other 22 are just things like Machinarium, hmmmmm thats out already on the Mac and easy enough to get running as its Java based games, so are a few of the others. Interplay, GOG seems to love these guys, they are awesome classic games, even better they now have an offer on Interplay games, lets see what available.

    $10.99 for 20 Interplay games, cool will be having that, the minimum for 20 will only go up, grab it while its cheap (theres that bloody thinking again, bought it now, oh well).........Zak mate I know, buying more games, I know!! I'll tell him theres another flight sim in there, then he will see I've just got another sim to get my teeth into...........

    Text message goes (not word for word) :

    Zak : Ask in wanted for a joystick to go with IL 2 Sturmovik as its impossible with keys

    Me : Pleased Bunji has entered my Bards Tale competition (only one bloody entry and it closes next Monday) and that I've now got FA 18 Super Hornet

    Zak : Stop buying games!

    Me : Well I got it in an Interplay bundle for £7 and then mention Darkness 2, Darksiders and Viking yesterday.

    So to stop buying games he said why not do a blog on HEXUS, so here is my first entry. Something else to think about instead of buying more stuff!

    So where next, may jump back in to Borderlands 2 for a little while after Men Behaving Badly finishes, got the DLC, hope Gearbox are sorting the stuttering out, they have done something that has knacked the physics. May just play a bit of Darksiders or start installing some of those Interplay games I have just got..............

    hmmmmmm, decisions, decisions!

    I will be updating this regularly, keeping it as a locked thread as I just want to be able to add to it.

    If anyone feels like chatting about it feel free to start a separate thread

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    blueball (21-10-2012),Bunjiweb (18-10-2012),chuckskull (23-10-2012),Disturbedguy (24-10-2012),Output (21-10-2012),stevie lee (20-10-2012),Zak33 (19-10-2012)

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    Re: Ferrals Gaming Blog

    So, started today in a similar way, madly awoken by the sounds of close quarters battle coming from the third floor of the house................the kids were up, need to haul myself out of bed and get them sorted for school.

    08.20 and it all goes quiet, woohoo, wife has taken them to school, so do my usual, cuppa and lounge about reading the net. Usual places, check to see if theres any reported posts or anything that needs taking care of here, anything interesting on Eurogamer that is worthy of my time, GOG forums, don't know why I bother there half the time, you really get some extremists there when it comes to this whole DRM free revolution.

    Checked to see if there is any news on the Steam forums about getting my wireless controller working on Viking, nope nothing as of yet but there is a small third party config type app thing thats worth giving a shot, download that and extract it into the Viking folder. Time to fire it up and see if it works...............

    Wahey, all the buttons and right stick are actually doing what they are supposed to, turn it off though for the time being as I can't actually be bothered to start a new game at the very moment in time. Jump back on the Steam forums to confirm that the fix worked for me and notice one of the guys from the dev port team has jumped onto the thread about missing text and is profusely apologising to everyone for their mess up sending the wrong code.

    Its not often that you see this level of humility, owning up to something that had made a mistake with. Good on them I say.

    Decided to have a mess about with Darksiders, fired it up and made a little progress, those huge flaming (literally on fire) dudes that explode when you kill them are a pain in the rear. Fought my way to the area where there is a seal and released Samael who grants me wings to be able to make longer jumps and glide to other platforms. So working my way through the mangled subway system and getting annoyed with the fact you can't actually kill the things that pop out from the climbable walls. Make my way through and reach the area with all the gravestones, hate this bit, tougher enemies are ok but mix them in with the flaming exploding dudes and you are getting seven shades knocked out of you. Clear most the area to then be attacked by 4 tougher enemies and one exploder, frick I've died, can't be bothered to start again and just quit out of it, maybe go back later and level them as I now have full health.

    Started looking through the Interplay stuff I bought yesterday, installed Earhworm Jim 3D, FA18 Super Hornet and Freespace.

    Now Earthworm Jim I fondly remember from many years ago on the SNES and Megadrive, this is the first 2 games, side scrolling, cow launching comedy at its best. This 3D one, its actually pretty good, Jim has lost his marbles after having a fridge and cow dropped on him for playing a tune, so you have to traverse Jims mind collecting marbles! Controller almost works on it, just need to assign some of the buttons for camera and few other actions but is playable. You can see the creators were cashing in at the time with titles like GEX coming out in 3D so everyone was doing it.

    Played for about a half hour but didn't save as I need to sort the controller before carrying on, at least its working!

    Time to fire up FA18, double click and an options window opens up, set everything to high etc and start it up, screen goes black then I see the familiar Borderlands wallpaper I use. OK, are you supposed to do that, try again, maybe its me going senile?! Nope screen goes black for a second then back to desktop..........way to go GOG it doesn't work! Try the usual tricks like compatability, run as admin, desktop composition etc, still no go (I don't install any of the GOG into standard install directory, always use D drive so its not UAC causing the issue). Typical, can't be chewed to mess about on this, better things to waste my time with, will keep trying to source a cheap joystick with hat switch for IL2, that is something I REALLY want to get in to.

    Give up, what next, ah yes Freespace! I never could get into Elite in the old 8bit days, always used to crash when trying to dock, never made enough to actually buy the docking computer, but you had to actually be able to dock in the first place to buy the damned thing.....go figure.

    Fire it up, no black screen this time, nice looking intro. Looks promising and interesting, get to the main screen and greeted with a large hangar with different doors for options, play and exit. Do the usual, turn everything up as high as possible in options and then make a start. 20 mins later I have done the 3 tutorial missions, blowing up some deadly cargo crates with space junk in them........yeah......space junk....oooer missus! Final tutorial mission, take out 5 lots of 2 drone fighters without dying, come on this is just a tutorial, ah well give it a shot, 5 minutes later I am told I have succeeded in my training....awesome. Then turn it off as it remided me of Freelancer, time to go digging through the cupboards and find it.

    Well, that wasn't much of a challenge, it was the first thing I came across, install, options and away you go, do a few missions then call it a day for the time being.

    Think I'll bug Zak at work and let him know I have discovered an awesome classic in Freespace, turns out he has already played it to completion many moons ago and its awesome the further you get into it. Short conversation then, talking to myself, if I text him enough he might just reply! 3 or 4 later from me and I get the text that says Freespace is awesome, haha!!!!

    Got to talk to someone or I will go insane talking to myself.

    So now got even more stuff installed ready to play, really need to invest some time into them and see what they have to offer further down the line. Speaking of the line, I need to finish off Spec Ops which I bought the other week when one of the suppliers had it for a fiver, damned good 3rd person shooter, bit harsh / shocking in places but such a good game. And yes my controller works on it, why is it that Viking is the only thing that doesn't like my wireless controller out the box, bizarre.

    So now its just after 17.00, need to watch last nights Red Dwarf as caught up with this weeks 2 episodes of Supernatural last night before hitting the sack, Friday Night Sky1, The Middle is on tonight also, need to be watching that and I think Modern Family is also on sandwiched between umpteen episodes of the Simpsons which are repeated constantly. There are hundreds of episodes of The Simpsons but only a handful really ever get aired, no doubt over the coming weeks it is going to be Treehouse of Horror over and over.

    Ah well, the night is young, blah, blah, blah as the old saying goes. Catch up on TV, bug Zak via text (has to be done) and probably set out playing Freespace or Freelancer, maybe even Lionheart which I bought AGES ago (see what I done there!! ) and started playing it to get sidetracked with something else.

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    Re: Ferrals Gaming Blog

    Ah sweet sounds of silence when I awoke this morning, 9am and not a peep coming from the third floor, Saturday & Sunday adults should be able to lie in given that you have to be up for school runs, work etc during the rest of the week. Quiet, peaceful, obviously we offloaded our 13 year old to her grandma last night so nothing was going to boot off this morning.

    If I quietly venture downstairs then maybe the son won't hear me for at least 20 mins, complete bliss. Time for my usual morning routine, feed the dog, cuppa & smoke.......sorted!

    Let the dog up to the front room, trying to stop him bouncing up half a dozen steps at a time (staffie, what you expect!? ) so not to wake the wife or child, to late the child is up, but the wife isn't! This is going to take some juggling, dog is doing his usual daft half hour knacking his toys and son is waffling.....ITS TO EARLY.......QUIET, don't wake your mam up!!!

    So venture back downstairs with son while he has breakfast and to medicate him (ADHD), followed by dog thinking feeding time, what you having for breakfast?!

    Sat at the table in the kitchen my son starts saying his friends at school have a card that you can put loads of games on with their Nintendo DS, now my son has one of these, but never has he had a pirate game on there as I'm against it, on his there is a C64 & Spectrum Emulator with loads of the oldies.

    But my friends....... as he always does, so for the next 20 minutes end up chatting to him about piracy, how it affects new games coming out etc. Hes pretty bright for an 11yr old and understands now what implications doing that can have on stuff in the future. So he then starts asking me about my days when I was younger and how the C64 ruled high over other 8bit machines. Sorry I was a biased 14yr old Commodore fanboy, Spectrum, yeah right, had one for an afternoon, couldn't get it to load anything off a tape so it was took back and replaced with the trusty C64.

    Thing is though, these machines were around in the 80's and used to wow us older ones, the closest thing to true 3D gaming and visuals were games like Driller, Total Eclipse, Castle Master and 1 or 2 others. On the 8bit machines these ran at around 2 frames per second, on the 16bit Amiga & ST at around 12 frames per second. Not exactly ideal, but Total Eclipse was cool (I had the C64 version), WAY COOL I tell you. Explore a pyramid and solve its puzzles before the sun came back up to be able to escape, never finished it but it amazed me, same went for Castle Master on the Amiga.

    So today been thinking on the old days of gaming, how some of the stuff when you see it and play it now it hasn't aged well at all. Tusker on the C64, find the elephants graveyard by solving puzzles out in the desert and surrounding jungles. It looked amazing but the controls were just pants, thing is though at the time I actually managed to get through it without any struggle, same went for Vendetta & Myth, all games by the legendary System 3. I still to this day every few month go through The Last Ninja Trilogy on the C64, these games had charm, just something about them. Granted they were very linear but the gameplay and setting captured you and your imagination. Yeah, there were a few tedious jumping bits in the series where pixel perfect precision was required but once you knew the spot you needed to be you could do it without losing a single life. Then the music, simply stunning, each piece captured the level you were playing perfectly. Central Park music on Last Ninja 2 to this day is my favorite most memorable piece of gaming music ever, very powerful piece and just thinking about it takes me back to standing on the band stand getting ready to go after Kunitoki in modern times.

    The Ninja series did land on the 16bit machines, updated graphics & sound but I always felt the sharper visuals took away from the core experience, the rough edges of the 8bit versions I felt captured the essence of the series so much better.

    So.......... back to my sons conversation after we cleared up why I wasn't going to try and get things like Zelda and Pokemon, he was telling me that he tells his friends about the Spectrum and C64 and how he loves games like Skooldaze, Target Renegade, Bruce Lee etc. His friends are buzzing about the way he is talking about machines that started their life early 80's even though most of them have never even seen one, played an 8bit game and in a lot of cases never even heard of Specdtrum 48 or Commodore 64. My son has an appreciation as to where we are now due to pioneering / ground breaking games of the past, it was a cool, collected and quiet conversation that was so vivid at the time, I felt like a child again, excited about the 8bit machines and the games.

    After the conversation he disapeared off up stairs to look on his DS Speccy & C64 Emulators to look for some of the games we had talked about prior. His XBox controller sitting neglected on the front room coffee table whilst he relived my days as an 8 bit gamer.

    So now it was time for me to chill and have a scootch about the net, like I always do when I get up after everything is sorted, nothing new really today, after all it is Saturday and journalists in gaming tend to take weekends off. Read a Digital Foundry article on Doom 3 BFG, what its all about and performance etc. It is literally an updated version with a chopped bit re added of the Xbox origional from 2004, now instead of using the superior PC code they used the old console code and updated that, why id why? Then they have also used the old console code to do the PC version, what a joke!

    Doom shouldn't be all shiny and well lit, you are on a remote hostile planet before hell decides to invade. Take Ridley Scotts Alien, imagine that getting remastered and they put extra lighting in so you can see the Alien mooching about the ship, it would lose the tense dark claustrophobic atmosphere. As a matter of fact it did get remastered, tidied up and the cut bits put back in, the updated version is equally as good as the theatrical version.

    Ah well, I will stick with the original and expansion, there are a few great mods out there for it as it is, so no need to buy the BFG version.

    So today, after doing a bit of reading on the net decided to play Darksiders, I REALLY do enjoy this game, War himself is a complete badass, the character THQ created is very memorable. Even though after the events of the Apocalypse you are stripped of your power you can still clash skulls pretty easy chaining multi combos with numerous weapons. Thought today I will get through the first dungeon, Twilight Cathedral and the boss Tiamat. The dungeon runs on Darksiders are very similar to the Zelda games, work your way through the traps, enemies etc to gain a new weapon, then you use said weapon in the boss fight, its a formula that works well.

    Last time I played it took me numerous attemps to take Tiamat out, a huge bat type vampiric styled harpie. This time she only got the better of me once. Pick up non ignited bomb, throw at beastie, maybe do a few more just for the sake of it then aim & lock crossblade (huge 4 pointed shuriken) at torch on outer edge and then bomb. Bombs get ignited annoying Tiamat making her come in and run the ground with claws and fireballs. After doing this phase a few times she gets downed. Heres where the fun starts, mano e mano against a creature about 8 times the size of war!!

    Quite an epic battle for a first boss, Tiamat stalks you and occasionally jumps in the air to a depth charge type attack, when she hits the ground you get an area of effect blast radius, easy enough to dodge. Next up is 3 fireballs, just dodge to the side and she misses, keep doing this while hitting her with the crossblade charged up. Gets annoyed and charges you, button prompt, hit B, doing so makes war uppercut her and she flies to the opposite end of the arena dazed, run in and wail on her with trusty sword, repeat this a few times until you get the kill prompt. War jumps on her head, rips her wings off then has a conversation briefly before ripping out her still beating heart to give to Samael to open up another way from the crossroads. War is the ultimate videogame BADASS!!!

    So here I am writing up my thoughts for the day, going to keep this blog alive, enjoying putting my thoughts to paper as such, hope everyone is enjoying it as much as I am......

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  7. #4
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    Re: Ferrals Gaming Blog

    Woken at 7am this morning, thankfully it wasn't the kids this time, the tones of Faith no Mores Angel Dust. My wife needed to up with our daughter to go to a horse show today. So much noise, doors slamming shut, heavy footsteps and every light on in the house. I was planning on staying in bed for another hour but the noise woke my son up and that was that.

    Everything went quiet at about 7.45 when they left the house, day to myself after loading the dishwasher and having a quick tidy round. Son upstairs playing on his DS.

    Sheer bliss!!!

    Eurogamer this morning did an article on the late great Mike Singleton, creator of Lords of Midnight & Midwinter, he passed away in the last week of cancer. He was one of the grandfathers of modern gaming and started out on the ZX81, he done a compilation of 50 games, he regularly sent his work to Clive Sinclair and got recognised for his talent, the rest is history. I REALLY suggest reading the article, its touching and a fitting editorial for an amazing guy.

    After finally waking up decided to play Darksiders, concentrating on just one game at a time to get through my back catalogue. I have found that albeit challenging I kind of remember what is coming and the dungeons aren't taking as long to get through this time around. There are bits I genuinely don't like, some of the arenas where you collect the dungeons specific weapon, you get swamped by monsters becoming more powerful with each wave, some easy enough to do but where I'm at currently getting the female reapers that can become transparent and the rhino style monsters that you have to do the kill move on twice. It can become a little tedious, thankfully they don't last to long and the combat does free flow. Your chaos gauge fills up pretty quickly be the time you meet The Angel of Death as your sword levels up whenever you use it, tight situations you can just transform into the huge red demon and thin the toughest enemies numbers out.

    Today I went through the section with The Black Hammer Ulthane, The Grievers dungeon and also took out the Sand Worm and about 2 hours ago killed the spider demon. I beaten Ulthanes kill count and took out the 3 bosses first attempt, knowing what to do is actually half the battle. Each boss you have to use the weapon you find in the respective dungeon one way or another, its literally just like Zelda in the way it works, I know I've said that already but I do like games like this!

    Currently freeing The Angel of Death, done the first beam and remembered how much I actually disliked this section last time around. Essentially its another dungeon but you have to get a beam of light from A - B, using Darksiders equivalent of a Portal gun, you can see the designers loved Valves masterpiece.

    Decided to check which achievements I currently have and half the ones that you get by just doing the story haven't registered. So do the usual and check Steams forums, its a common fault / problem with this game, few different solutions but nothing solid that makes sure you get them, guess its no biggie, the screenshots alone show how far I gotten in the game.

    Checked my profile on Playfire earlier on today to see if my gaming timeline is updating, has a habit of going funny and not registering. This seems to have started happening since Greenman Gaming took them over.....go figure.

    Whilst looking though I noticed another badge was there......1000 Steam Hours gaming. Thats not just logged on, that is actually time spent playing games on Steam since I joined, worked it out and that is 41.66 full days playing games since late 2004! When Half Life 2 landed and Steam was forced on everyone, yeah we were all quite peeved by being forced to launch and unlock HL2 through a client, but over the past few years Steam has become the most essential tool for a serious PC gamer.

    Roll on Monday, should get through the last bits of Darksiders tomorrow and then decide what to play or finish off next, thinking on Sly Racoon 2 on the PS3, Farcry 2 or just do a run through Darkness 2, after all bought it so would be a waste not to play it.

    TTFN

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  9. #5
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    Re: Ferrals Gaming Blog

    Nothing major this morning, wife fell asleep on the couch so had the bed to myself last night, not that I move about much in my sleep but its nice being able to sprawl once in a while! Kids got up late so literally 5 minutes after they got up they were out to school!

    Wife told me to be ready to go out when she got back, had a rep at the horse yard the other day recommending feed for our horse, she also went round the yard doing the same for everyone elses, of course my wife being the way she is had to have this feed, time for a trip round the north east. Nowhere stocks this feed as it isn't purchased that often, yeah everyone can order it in but not held in stock. Found an alternative to one of the recommended ones which worked out one hell of a lot cheaper than the reps brand.....go figure!

    So after trailing around for over 3 hours we headed into Chester Le Street Queens Head pub for a bite to eat, this place has changed so much over the past 10 years, its now quite elegant in the wood dressing round screens on the wall showing music vids that customers up & down the country select via mobile, not on to loud though so you can talk and just enjoy the ambience. Wife went for her usual, Hunters Chicken which is the breast topped with BBQ sauce, bacon & cheese, served with peas, onion rings & chips, huge plateful. They didn't have any burgers left which is my usual thing so went for a mixed grill, 2 cumberland sausages, 8oz medium cooked steak, 10oz gammon with 2 eggs, chicken breast all topped off with peas, chips & onion rings, not forgetting washed down with a cold refreshing John Smiths shandy. Midday, I don't like drinking at the best of times, its literally once in a blue moon thing with me so the shandy was pretty sweet and refreshing, really enjoyed it.

    By the time I got home was in agony being trawled around the north east. So put Gold on and watched the usual afternoon stuff, Porridge, My Family, Keeping up Appearances etc so been laid up till around 6 tonight........

    So chucked on Darksiders again and done the second beam to free Azrael and now working through the third one. The portal style puzzles are now just getting plain annoying and outside the bit where there is the third beam is wave after wave of enemies, big demons fully armoured with shields. Before you can kill them you have to knock all the bits off their armour then shield, then wail on them again to finally kill them. 2 of them together finally got the best of me so decided to save the game and call it quits for a little while.

    Will probably give it another shot in about a half hour, this time holding back on using chaos form so I have it to use when the 2 of those armoured mofos appear!!!

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    Re: Ferrals Gaming Blog

    So today......

    Like I said in my previous post was going to finish off freeing Azrael on Darksiders last night, did that and used Chaos Form to take out the 2 guys that were standing in my way, equipped a rune also to make my chaos form charge quicker with each hit, pulled it off nicely with plenty health to spare.

    The puzzles on this bit were mind bending to say the least, headache just thinking about them, creating portals to allow the beam to traverse the areas, hitting switches to move mirrors about in sequence, was pleased to see the end of it. After setting Azrael free though you have to first face yourself in Eden to banish the darkness within you as you have been tainted and then collect the 7 parts to the Armageddon blade. This has you revisiting areas from previously and using the Mask of Shadows to see the parts and not forgetting the odd puzzle. At this point it was starting to feel like pointless busy work so did my best to dummy run, fighting as little as possible and just getting the parts to take back to Ulthane to reforge it. Then after reforging it you have to ride across the desert yet again to get back to Azrael so he can send you skyward for the final battle.

    I forgot how much I actually disliked this battle, so had one quick blast and got levelled by Abbadons first form and decided to call it a night as it was heading towards midnight.

    Noticed I had a Steam notification and it was Bunjiweb adding me as a friend so I could send him his prize for entering my Bards Tale competition, has everyone read his entry, its absolutely brilliant! So sent over the game, hope hes enjoying the quadrilogy and hit the sack.

    This morning was much the usual stuff, except the youngest gave the dog to many pork rinds, pigs ears etc yesterday and he had puked all over the kitchen, huge lumps of rawhide if cleaned could have easily been resold! Bandit, you are supposed to chew that, not swallow it whole! Needless to say I didn't clean it up, couldn't bend down so my wife had to do it and of course ripping the mick had to be done, comments like finger lickin good, make sure you get none under your nails etc......Its funny seeing her wretch at foul jokes, works everytime! Its like yesterday after all that meat on the mixed grill, we headed into a local pet store that specialises in horses, oh yes, I got my own back for trailing me round for 3 hours. The air was green, I walked off as the sales person arrived at the till, then noticed the guys nose twitching and my wife was going red in the face, he thought the stench was coming from her posterior!!

    Got grief no end once we got back in the car but I just couldn't stop laughing every time she mentioned it.......payback!!!

    So once my wife went out to the stables this morning decided to have another pop at Abbadon, took me a good hour to finally get it right, I was trying to take out his first dragon like form on foot, then noticed that Ruin (his horse) was available, this evened the playing field considerably and took him out pretty quickly. Phase 2 involved him in human type form with a giant katana type blade and chucking boulders at you after a quick time event where swords are crossed, after a third succesful QT event finally levelled him and watched the final sequence of the game, its actually got a pretty good ending which opens up the way for Darksiders 2 and future titles, hence why D2 is now on my wishlist.

    For all its flaws and similarities I did enjoy playing through Darksiders again, yeah there are a few bits I hated with a passion but the good far outweighed the bits I didn't like. I also received 3 achievements, now they decide to work, 2 for completing easy and normal mode and 1 for finishing the game.

    So after chilling and reading the net for a while decided to fire up Viking Battle for Asgard. I loved this game and couldn't put it down when I last played it 2008 on the 360. Now though I am actually finding the combat a bit tedious and its a bit long winded, done the first island about 4pm, the huge battle at the end kept killing me as you have to take out the shamans first. They respawn enemies constantly so smashing their totems while getting mullied by their guards is just plain irritating, get killed and run back and try take out another one as the totems don't reappear. After killing 2 shamans had 2 dragon runes so took the third one out with a low flying dragon blast, job done. To finish had to kill the guy in charge of the camp which took a few mins then a QT event to finish him off.

    Started the second island but its just more of the same but larger area with more to do, free captive Vikings from various encampments then storm a key point on the map, rinse & repeat. Its actually quite boring after the first few hours play, shows how much tastes change over the years. I do love the fact though its Vikings, they are just badass marauders.

    Bought RUNE classic on Steam a few month back, played through it when it was first released early 2000 or so. I actually prefer this title to Battle for Asgard, I feel it captures the whole Norse Mythology and setting much better. Think I will give Rune a bit of attention tomorrow, its a better more enjoyable game to play.

    So thats about it for me today, enjoy

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    Re: Ferrals Gaming Blog

    Today I have invested time in the excellent RUNE on Steam

    This is one of the games that created a bit of a stir when it was released with the dismembering and beheading etc Its a mighty fine game though, rich with Norse mythology.

    When it was initially released there were a few annoyances which tended to make the game drag on a bit. You start out in caves and have to make your way through Hel's domain back to the surface. There are fairly long sections near the start that you will find yourself swimming about through huge underground lakes and it was so easy to get lost. This version however they have added glowing white fish which generally point you in the right direction making this section less tedious and easier to navigate. Then storm Hel's underwurld fortress going through puzzles and killing the various undead denizens that inhabit it. After a few hours you will finally reach the surface after a good few jumping sections & elevators. Now make your way through the interior mountains filled with goblins and reach civilisation and a rather large keep. Odin informs you that one of your fathers killers is in there and it is time for you to take your revenge, so at the minute working my way through this large keep. I had to turn it off in the end though as I was starting to get a bit of a headache looking round trying to find the hidden paths and ledges I could grip onto to make progress.

    Its an awesome game, wish someone would do another decent Viking game like RUNE, Battle for Asgard is a bit of a letdown and very long winded and samey even when you are making progress. One of the things I like about RUNE re release is that they have updated certain bits of the game to make it better to play today. Unreal Tournament engine is looking dated now but I have been able to run this with native widescreen and 1920x1080 resolution, all detail set to max understandably. The lighting effects to this day on the aging engine are surprisingly good as are the shadows and textures.

    If you have never played RUNE I suggest heading onto Steam and buying it now, think Tomb Raider style gameplay and puzzles but with a Viking / Norse setting so swords, maces & axes instead of guns understandably.

    After giving RUNE a bit of a rest after playing for 2 and a half hours or so I decided to re install The Saboteur, Pandemics last game before the studio was shut. Last time I played this had to run in low resolution and low - medium settings on my DV6 lappy. Now though full 1080p and everything maxxed out. Pad though was acting up, not as bad as Battle for Asgard the other day, thankfully had the wireless fix files already to copy / paste from what had happened previously and once in the main directory was ready to go with no issues.

    My old savefile was still there but trying to play it was getting seven shades knocked out of me its been that long since I last played so have bit the bullet and started again from scratch, losing around 12 hours play. I'm not overly bothered though, seeing this now in all its glory is simply mesmerising. It is a bit long winded at times with the missions but as you remove the German occupation color is restored to freed areas of the map and makes the local Parisians start ignoring your antics. It is literally a WW2 sandbox, you can do anything you want in any order, do more side missions makes it easier to navigate the city as there are less soldiers on the streets heading to objectives.

    Its kind of similar to the Assassins Creed games in the way it plays out, its just a shame that we will never see a sequel to it now. Its one of those games that in years to come will probably have a cult status I should hope. If it interests you buy it on EA Origin for a mere tenner now.

    Well thats it for me today, may get a little gaming in tonight after had tea...........

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    Re: Ferrals Gaming Blog

    No update yesterday as I only got to play The Saboteur for about 20 minutes so was a little pointless doing an update!

    Ah......The joys of PC gaming and even more so console ports!

    So today I have plowed a good few hours into the Excellent Saboteur, the thing is though after playing for a good few hours now I have started seeing bugs and annoyances cropping up. There are a few minor annoyances and one pretty bad bug that didn't get fixed due to EA shutting down Pandemic.

    The major bug is with the full screen map and 1920x1080 resolution (Always going to refer this as 1080p from now on, you all know what I am talking about). So you have your side missions and also the main missions, each with their own color markers on the map. When you are in a vehicle it will always route you to a story based yellow mission marker. So you go onto the full screen map and set your own marker to one of the side missions. Now in 1080p when the map is zoomed out everything is pretty small so most people I should imagine will do what I do, zoom in to place your custom marker to direct you. Here is where the problem lies. The map is dual layer, the base layer is the land itself and sits in the background, the upper layer has all the markers on it. Now what happens is that if you zoom in the background of the map stays in the background and for the want of better words static, doesn't move from the zoomed out position. When you zoom in just the top layer does the zoom so you end up with 2 mismatched pieces as you move about, place a map marker while zoomed and it tags the area on the background of the map wherever your pointer actually is. So with this happening you end up in a completely incorrect location, so if playing in 1080p you have to keep the map zoomed out if you use custom markers.

    Its a shame that this bug was never addressed or fixed either, I have had to knock the resolution down to 720p as the map was actually starting to annoy me something rotten, but now the visuals look a little on the fuzzy side and similar to console visuals. Looking round the net anything above 720p and you have this map issue.

    Then there are daft little things, beep a vehicle horn and most the time people don't even acknowledge you have done that and just creep across the road. You can't just run them down either as if you do you can end up in the bad books with the resistance and they come after you! The pedestrian thing can become really annoying when you get a group of 5 or so walking across the road with a small gap between them.

    Another thing that has happened a few times is for some reason the AI vehicles will suddenly just decide to do a turn in the road, this can be a little tedious especially if followed by a few other vehicles who don't seem to realise what is happening and just plow into you or the turning vehicle. Then occasionally you will get this happening and one of the AI vehicles will bump into a German soldier, fuel depot or military vehicle and set off an alarm and they will chase you down even though you didn't have anything to do with it! Finally though the cars can't decide what side of the road to drive on, a lot of the time they just drive down the middle or wrong side of the road so you are weaving in and out of traffic even at slow speeds!

    Just daft things and you adapt to them but I wish Pandemic were given a chance to sort this stuff out. It is still an excellent game and the sandbox is fun to just go and do something you want to. See a base that inevitably you will be doing later in the game, go for it, decide you want to take out all the observation towers you can do that, its really good and fun to explore.

    After all the gripes though I can't put it down! Today I have been just concentrating on the story missions and a few of the side missions, trying to add a bit of color to the overall map. Highlight of today for me was doing a one manned assault on a Zeppelin port, using a trusty sniper rifle on the guards in the towers and taking out everyone ground level with standard machine gun. Alarms raised and the area is alive with activity all aimed at me, time to speed things up and take out the various markers in the port. After taking out the fuel and the big Zeppelin up onto the roof surrounding the area, man the AA gun and took out 1 high docked Zeppelin, but another minor gripe, the crosshair isn't going red when aiming at the other 2 airships, you guessed it, out of range even though the shells are hitting them dead on. So the last 2 took out with the machine gun and then the color spills over and you have liverated another section of the map.

    Another great highlight today was chasing down a main protagonist in an airship that is on fire due to a few rogue gunshots, you have to give chase through the balloon section as it is burning jumping across flaming broken gang planks and escape. You aren't timed here but the setting is fantastic and it is very tense, your guy gets away and so does the German officer you were chasing, he lives to fight for another day.

    So thats me for today, hopefully will get some time in tomorrow with a few other titles

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    Re: Ferrals Gaming Blog

    So, I haven't done one of these in a few days. Kids off school so gaming is last on the agenda!

    However, I have managed to clock up a little time on a few titles and also got ripped off on Sunday morning

    First up, I noticed that Team Fortress 2 was doing the annual Scream Fortress Halloween event, I uninstalled TF2 a good while ago as I was getting sick of the constant updates with my internet being 2mb at best, thankfully on Sky Fiber now so the updates are really fast and barely noticeable. I must admit I am actually enjoying a multiplayer only game, I normally steer well clear after such a bad experience and abuse getting thrown at me on Battlefield Bad Company 2. Not everyone has been playing online shooters every waking moment, some of us just want to play for enjoyment and fun.

    So this Halloween update came with a comic which was amusing to read and sets the scene why Merasmus is wanting to get his own back, so there are 4 maps I think it is all with a boss on them which gives out a Halloween hat. Managed to get the Horseless Headless Horseman head / hat which looks really cool and suits the heavier set characters just right. I tried a few of the different classes and in all honesty the way I play the Pyro actually suits me down to the ground. One point there was someone saying report Ferral, hes cheating as I managed to get a 7 kill streak. Nope I wasn't cheating, just found an ideal character to be playing as and was having a blast. No VAC ban or anything so that says a lot in its own right.

    I have actually found that the TF2 community and players seem a bit more mature than the mainstream multiplayer games. One point yesterday afternoon everyone on Blu & Red were just taking turns to do the capture point to make the boss appear to try and take them out, there was no battle at all between the teams. It was pretty cool and quite a sight things being peaceful & quiet. So I think I will be getting more into TF2 when I want something a bit different.

    I have played a little of the Saboteur over the weekend, done a few story missions and added colour to a few areas of the map. The Arc de Triumph is now liverated and looks amazing in all its beauty. Just unlocked the Southern part of the map now so must be around two thirds of the way through the game. I am enjoying it immensely, just need to take a bit of a break for a few days playing something different. Clocked up so many hours on this one, its a huge game world and worth anyones time.

    Actually, if you take a look on Gamersgate Today they have The Saboteur for a mere fiver, pay so homage to the late great Pandemic and pick it up while it is excessively cheap.

    Speaking of cheap, I was looking about on Gamersgate this morning and came across a game that I thought had only been released on the Wii. Everyone remember seeing the adverts for it a few year ago thinking that it looked cool and wished for a PC version. The game I am talking about is Cursed Mountain, survival horror game where you are a mountain climber dropped off in the snowy region of the Himalayas to find your missing brother. Weird and wonderful supernatural things start happening due to events that had occurred before you arrived there. Visually its on par with the Wii, only option you have for the visuals is the resolution which goes up to 1080p. Thing is though this game has atmosphere by the bucket loads, getting attacked by spirits during a heavy snow storm is chilling to say the least. Then throw in a bit of Buddhism for the story and you actually have something special and intriguing. I got this game free this morning as I had blue coins available from past purchases, thing is though its only 2 quid.....GET IT!!

    So getting ripped off............I had 2 copies of The Bards Tale on Steam, one of which went to my competition winner Bunjiweb, the other copy I still had in my Steam inventory and would have given it away at Christmas as a gift to one random HEXUS member that I have as a friend on Steam. I had however put it up for a trade on GOG though so if someone was wanting it they could have done a fair swap, the way you do things.

    So I gets a PM on Sunday morning on GOG from a member, looks about their forums and finds the member, good reputation and been around for a while. So a copy of Urban Chaos for Bards Tale, sounds fair to me. I send the gift via email to this user on Steam and I don't receive the agreed trade. Someone had setup a dupe account and put a full stop in the name which I didn't pick up on, they even used the legitimate users avatar. This same user had also set up a few other accounts doing the same thing with the purpose of ripping people off, I wasn't the only one this happened to. I done a bit of digging round the net as this user had actually added me as a friend on Steam so could see their other aliases. Lo and behold they have been doing this on Reddits GiftofGames and other places that do trades.

    Sent as much info as possible to Steam support, I know I can't get the game back from this other user but hopefully they will be able to close and ban the account that is being used to defraud people round the internet. One day that person will get their dues in one way, shape or form.

    Ah well, the legit user with the right user name traded me Dawnguard for Skyrim for a copy of Sanatarium, cool acceptable deal. Really nice guy from Germany, had a chat via PM with him and he wasn't happy that someone was impersonating him and shocked and upset that a few users had been ripped off by this other individual using a very similar user name. All went smooth so I now have Dawnguard, like I hadn't spent enough time in Tamriel and surrounding areas over the past 6 years or so! I am still yet to finish the main campaign on Skyrim and 72 hours in, just captured the dragon with the Jarl of Whiterun and been dropped off by said dragon. I must be getting near the end of the main questline, I still also have loads of side quests to do as well as finish off Mages guild and restoring Thieves Guild to its former glory, probably another good 20 hours plus now with Dawnguard to have done eveything thats available!

    Elder Scrolls games are just so EPIC in scale!

    So thats it for today, will try and update even if just small entries over the course of this week, the kids are off school!!!

    Game on everyone

    .................................................................................................... ......................................................

    Links to Saboteur & Cursed Mountain in that order :

    http://www.gamersgate.co.uk/DD-TSAUK/the-saboteur-uk

    http://www.gamersgate.co.uk/DD-CURMO/cursed-mountain

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    Re: Ferrals Gaming Blog

    Last few days I have actually finished a few bits and bobs, woohoo!!!

    First off I finally finished the main quest on Skyrim, 78 hours clocked since I got it for Christmas last year. I still have loads of misc quests, radiant quests from Dark Brotherhood & Companions, returning the Thieves Guild to former Glory and also most of Mages Guild quest line. So quite a bit of time has been put in already and still so much to see and do! The ending to the main Skyrim story was typical of most Elder Scrolls game, big fight then things kind of return to normal. The end of Oblivion sees you in an arena type fight at the end, then the final boss turns to stone and you get a set of armour for your deeds to the empire. You do early on in the game get people saying theres the hero of Kvatch but no real recognition for stopping the Oblivion crisis. Same goes with Skyrim, you kill the final boss with 3 champions from a past age, this takes place in The Elder Scrolls equivalent of Norse Mythology Valhalla. Once you off the main dragon there is nothing else to do in Sovngarde, you can have a wander but thats literally it, you get told by the guard on the dragon bone bridge that when it is your time you have earned your place in the banquet hall and then returned to the mountain top for a brief talk with Parthanax (Elder Dragon)

    Then you literally go about your usual questing and exploring the world, all done for the main quest line, even the priests that teach you the needed shouts don't have much to say about your victory! So I decided to start Dawnguard, Vampires are causing bother in Tamriel again, these aren't the silly sparkly things you see on Twilight, these look more like Kain from the Blood Omen / Soul Reaver games.

    So I join the Dawnguard and have to go find out what these neck biters are actually doing and find a young woman (not so young you find out shortly) with glowing red eyes. She has an Elder Scroll which you can't get, now what would a friendly vampire, locked away in a tomb in a long winding cavern be doing with that. So you return her home to be offered the gift of being a vampire, I decided to decline.

    I declined as I had joined the companions already and werewolves are cool, especially when they are modeled in the same way as the werewolves in The Howling. Now I don't do the whole night stalking thing as a wolf, I use it when I need to get out of a scrape and thought ideal weapon against the bloodsuckers! I also remember the chew on getting vampirism cured in Oblivion and didn't fancy going through the same thing in Skyrim. Being a werewolf also stops you getting any diseases, granted you get no bonuses from sleeping as a wolf but its better than an annoying quest to cure being a vampire.

    So now I am officially a member of the Dawnguard, Vampires watch out!

    Now one of my favourite games this year has been Sleeping Dogs, absolutely wonderful, highly playable, excellent story and the neon lit streets of Hong Kong just capture the imagination. I clocked up 38 hours playing through this game and loved every minute, its one of the few games I am prepared to buy DLC for (story, not cosmetic) and look forward to a sequel. Nightmare on Northpoint was released for £3 a few days ago, as soon as I seen it I had bought it and was ready to fire it up. Literally a no brainer, more Sleeping Dogs is always good, I was sat through the entire campaign with a huge grin on my face akin to Smiley Cat who is the mainbad guy in the DLC!!

    This DLC is absolutely crazy and instantly brought back fond memories of the old Kung Fu movies with a good dash of Big Trouble in Little China which is one of my all time favourite movies. I was gutted when I finished it though, but for 3 quid getting around 2 and a half hours play including the side missions is fair enough and it was superb. It kind of added to the main story indirectly as Smiley Cat is referenced in the main game. Apparently he was a gung ho looney tune of a triad so death was sanctioned by the grand dragon, his body was put through a meat grinder and mixed in with Smiley Cat brand cat food hence the name in the DLC. I literally can't wait to see what United Front come up with next for this awesome game.

    Now this morning I gets a text message from Zak, hes got OCD over Sol Survivor.........believe me!

    Hes been trying to get all the medals on the earlier levels, kind of similar to achievement hunting which some of us do occasionally just to get the 100%. Last night he managed to get a medal that has been evading him for some time, he finally managed to get it so was punching the air shouting he was that chuffed. Personally I think he needs to cut down on the coffee or maybe start going for decaff!! Either that or he needs one of those jackets that button up at the back!!

    When I finally beat Dark Souls a few month back it was relief that I had finally got through it, I calmly put the controller down, my wife was also watching the ending. Looked at her and said something on the lines of : After 90 hours, finally I can now put the bloody disc away and maybe go through Demons Souls again, its nowhere near as annoying.

    There was no punching the air and shouting and guess what.......I don't drink coffee!!!!!

    I also decided to purchase Painkiller Black Edition on Steam, I have the vanilla disc version and thought would like to see the additional levels and Black Edition has the expansion. Also just bought Tomb Raider Anniversary and Legend this evening on Steam, bought and played through Underworld a few month back and really enjoyed it start to finish. I never played any Tomb Raider game after Last Revelation set in the Pyramids which was really good but then felt the series went off on a wrong tangent. Bit of luck will enjoy these 2 games though.

    Went to play Divinity 2 this morning, haven't played it for a few month and it is an excellent game. I had spent 10 hours on this game, seen the first bit with the dragon and moved onto an island. Fair bit of play time that I enjoyed immensely. Unfortunately though my save game has vanished into thin air so I am having to start over again, lord only knows where it has gone, its not a game that saves to the Steam cloud so it has disappeared off my hard drive. I don't really know though if I can actually be bothered, sometimes RPG's can be a slog to get through and I remember bits that I really disliked on Divinity 2, the temple before you go to the island comes straight to mind.

    I think play it a little at a time to gradually get back to where I was, more so that the game has now been updated on Steam to the Directors Version that was recently released.

    So now I am deciding what to be playing, installed Dead Rising 2 this morning as haven't played it in ages, last time I didn't have the pad and control wasn't to good. Mind you, playing this morning the same things can be said, the controls are pretty awful in the fact that they just feel sluggish even if you up the sensitivity on the analogue sticks.

    Ah well, see what tomorrow brings!

  20. Received thanks from:

    blueball (12-11-2012),Bunjiweb (12-11-2012)

  21. #11
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    Re: Ferrals Gaming Blog

    I know, I know......Sorry I haven't been updating this over the past 2 weeks (well nearly), crikey, thought it was only about a week! Time flies when it is getting close to Christmas.

    So my gaming activity has been almost daily except when the headaches and joint pain have been kicking in and been laid up, but I have been having a right mix on what I have been playing recently. Jumping from one title to the next, its been a bit erratic except for one game that I will mention later on.

    So I actually decided to tally up the games I actually have on PC alone. At my current count I have :

    Steam : 281 Games
    Origin : 17 Games
    Gamersgate : 32 Games (A few are free unknown titles) when you sign up
    GOG : 80 Games (About 6 of those again are free when you join)

    So doing the math on just digital alone that is a whopping 410 titles on 4 platforms, then throw in loads of disc games I own for the PC, then around another 25 or so on PS3 means I have way to much stuff to be playing! This is why my gaming has been a bit erratic, just been installing loads of stuff to actually see some of it for the first time, I now have over 1 Terabyte of storage taken up by just installed games!

    I finally got round to actually starting Ultima 7 for the first time ever. I tried Ultima 4 Quest of the Avatar which was one of the freebies on GOG but hated it, that was earlier this year, just could not get my head round what you were supposed to be doing. It kind of tainted me to stay away from the Ultima games thinking they were all the same. I then bought Ultima 9 when it was released on GOG a few month back, this was the most hated Ultima game by the fans, personally I enjoyed it as its own RPG, if you took away the Ultima prefix I think it would have faired better, granted it is a bit clunky with movement and combat but the 3D transition gives it a really nice looking game world. Same can be said about Arcania Gothic 4, take away the Gothic name and in its own right is a damned fine 3rd person action RPG.

    So back to Ultima 7, I had tried this a while ago and thought its ok but only played it for 5 minutes for it to gather dust, discarded on my drive. I fired it up and started to read what was going on instead of just clicking through the text like I do on a lot of RPG's to get the quest and be on my way. The dialog is brilliant, giving tidbits of information that you need to piece together the murder and where you are supposed to be heading. After around an hour I had the information I needed to give to the mayor to allow leaving the town and head off, after answering the questions he gave me and the old school look up this in the manual type thing I was ready for the off to shores on the other side of the map. Now here is where it gets interesting, you can charter a ship to make the journey, but to do this you have to get a fair bit of wealth, so I am thinking I need to manually traverse the long way round and see a bit of the world. One of the things I enjoy about this game is that it does not actually have a journal or quest log, any tasks you are given you need to get the good old pen and paper and take notes yourself, quest givers and locations need to be covered here for when you do actually manage to complete something, its absolutely brilliant!

    I have also been putting a fair bit of time into Populous 2, the first game in the series was superb, the second game expands on this in every way, loads more powers to use and you can specialise in the different elements (Fire, Air, Water etc). At first the save wasn't working, managed to work it out though and have so far taken out the first 2 opponents. Thing is though you have to battle each deity across a few levels, it seems to go more in your favor initially, then his and then anything goes for both of you! Its kind of difficult when they are launching loads of stuff at you and converting your guys to theirs so you will find yourself zipping about your land mass repairing damage trying to amass enough people to launch the final assault with very few powers available. This works both ways though, you can obliterate entire townships with fire and heroes while building up your guys, decimate their lands with swamps, rain fire down on them and set columns of fire running through their villages, it pays to be a megalomaniac when playing this game, as soon as you have enough mana start hitting them as hard as possible and soon enough the colliseum at the top will have loads of your blue guys and a handful of their red, hit armageddon and watch as another land is won! Thinking about it Populous is one of the first Red Vs Blue type games, forget HALO, Populous is where its at!

    Thinking back on the awesome games that Bullfrog released it was a shame to see them go. Peter Molyneux is a legend in the industry, he knows how to create something that people are interested in. Look at how many complained about Fable 3 on PC, but equally look at how many actually enjoyed it from start to finish, personally I loved it, simply a fun game that didn't require to much thought to play and you could kick back and relax with controller in hand and take it in. Isn't that what gaming is all about, something away from the everyday hum drum life, a second life in another world where your actions can mean something in one of a few pre determined outcomes. This is why I love RPG's so much, there can only be a certain amount of different choices, but in that world, it is yours to do what you want and your decisions matter. I felt gutted on Fable 3 when I needed cash at the end game for the army to try and save as many people as possible, I decided to drain the lake, the once beautiful landscape was now marred by musky industry, I hated myself for doing it but felt there was a greater good to achieve.

    Speaking of Mr Molyneux, has anyone else tried Curiosity yet on the phones and tablets. Tap away at small blocks to try and get at the center which has some sort of video link that is going to be life changing for the lucky person. When it is done the person is going to be on the news and everywhere apparently. I have so far removed around 5000 of the blocks on my phone, must admit though it is getting a bit on the tedious side now. Just out of interest I removed a single layer of blocks from one of the sides and zoomed right out, I couldn't see what I had done, each layer is no thicker than a thin piece of paper so this cube is most likely going to take months if not longer to get through.

    The last few days I have also started playing Ultima 8 and Underworld, there was a lot of dislike for 8 due to poor jumping bits and a bit of a flaky story, I have only just started out on it though so will no doubt have more to say as the coming weeks pass and I get further into it. Now Underworld on the other hand, I started playing it a few days ago and I am hooked on it, controls are a bit weird starting out but once you get used to them its fantastic. For a game that came out around 1992 this game oozed with charm and innovation, it actually moved away from 1 tile at a time dungeon crawlers like Dungeon Master and Bloodwhyche, you have full 3d movement and environments. The underworld games really pushed the boundaries for the time and we can still see it today in the big name first person RPG's, not to forget Arx Fatalis in this, Arx is very much like the Underworld games, a huge dungeon to be traversing in first person filled with traps and enemies. Free form movement and combat, this is another innovative game that passes many by. Granted Grimrock came out earlier this year but I personally feel the old tile based movement system is now a little to dated, I understand the draw and enjoyment many get out of it but the tile movement system has been something that has put me off a little from buying this yet. I am not sure if I would have the patience to play this game unfortunately.

    So its time to finally mention the game I have been playing most!

    Hands up all those that have been begging for KOTOR 3......Myself included!!!!

    For those noy in the know, KOTOR is Knights of the Old Republic. 2 Star Wars games that to this day have everyone talking. If you like Bioware games you can see where Mass Effect came from. The stories told in either the main one that takes you from start to finish or the smaller arcs from your companions or NPC's. The universe is rich in lore and every bit of dialogue or text is interesting to take in and enjoy.

    So as many will know the MMO set in the Star Wars universe is set to become free to play on 15th November, just a few days away now.

    I decided to set up a trial account which gives me access up to level 15, this means I have a bit of a head start when the F2P launches with my Jedi character. I am thoroughly enjoying playing this game, essentially it is a single player RPG built into an MMO with raids, flashpoint missions (longer lasting group missions / dungeons). The story though is superb, typical of a single player game, there is a fair bit of back tracking with it being an MMO with larger areas but there are fast travel stations (instant travel) you can use and also travel by essentially a taxi to make getting from A-B quicker which is what I have been doing.

    I definitely recommend everyone check it out once it goes F2P, well worth playing just as a single player game to get a decent Star Wars fix!

    Well thats it for me today, enjoy your gaming now the dark nights have come in

  22. Received thanks from:

    blueball (12-11-2012),Bunjiweb (12-11-2012)

  23. #12
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    Re: Ferrals Gaming Blog

    Its been way to long since I wrote an entry so thought I need to do a catch up.

    In all fairness though I have been decorating much to my dismay and pain and a few days doing the Christmas dinner so gaming was only coming in small doses.

    So what I have I been doing.

    Lately I have been playing a fair bit of Tachyon, the old space sim from Novalogic, the guys who done the Delta Force games. What I like about Tachyon (Freespace 1 & 2 and Freelancer also thinking about it) is the fact that they aren't as complicated as the likes of the X series of games. The X series take so long to get in to and with them needing so many keys to pilot the ships with mouse and keyboard combo you have to have multiple pairs of hands to be successful! What drawn me to Tachyon in the first place is that the main character is voiced by Bruce Campbell (Evil Dead fame), he does some great voice work and helps bring the story alive with the events. Its an absolutely fantastic game and the universe is quite alive and still looks pretty damned good to this day.

    I have also put a few extra hours into Borderlands 2, I got the season pass shortly after it was released. Somehow they borked the physics on the Scarlett DLC so stopped playing for a few weeks waiting for the fix. Once sorted though it was venturing back to the Oasis and following the story of another vault. It is definitely a worthwhile chunk of DLC and the characters you meet whilst not quite as memorable as some of the main ones from the main campaign they do have their own quirks and zany ways. The final boss was actually pretty easy to take out and I thought it was pretty cool walking over one of its arms to get across the chasm and into the vault. I have also started playing through Torgues Campaign of Carnage which is a wild ride, get some noms for Tiny Tina, she wants choc chip cookies but it all goes awry when the last batch are raisin. She goes mental and asks you to destroy the vending machines. I don't like arena type DLC (akin to Moxxie from the first game) but Torgue does mix it up a bit and there are some good areas to explore. One of the arenas is a bar fight type setting, hence my sentiment to being a bit different. So far on Borderlands 2 I have clocked up 92 hours and love it, can't wait for the Hammerlock DLC somepoint in January I believe.

    Of course Christmas always brings games, Steam sales, gifting others games and receiving them back.

    I received most of the Tom Clancy games over Christmas, only ones missing now are HAWX (first game), Ghost Recon Future Soldier, R6 Lockdown (purposefully avoided) and Endwar. Firing up Rainbow Six which I received from a member at GOG is an awesome game, yeah it looks really dated now but the gameplay and tactics you can employ are fantastic. Rediscovering old games like this I feel is something that the younger generation need to experience. I actually think I appreciate the earlier Ghost Recon and R6 games now, it had been over 10 years since I last played them and tended to just run and gun. Now though I take my time, planning and the execution, following teammates in rather than running in and hoping for the best that they will have my back. The newer R6 Vegas games do actually capture the feel of the original games quite well. Same goes for the PC versions of the Ghost Recon games, console versions sees third person cover based shooters. PC though its back to first person and you can control your men and their route through an area with the tactical map. Its absolutely awesome planning out your tactics and watching events unfold moving and clearing an area.

    I did purchase for Christmas from my wife (she told me to get myself something from either GOG or Steam). I grabbed the Medal of Honor Allied Assault Warchest, I do own the deluxe edition on disc but it doesn't have Breakthrough and you have to get all the various patches manually. I also bought the Call of Duty Warchest from Steam (CoD 1 & 2 and the United Offensive expansion). These 2 games were the ones that kick started the WW2 games, MOHAA came first then a year or so later we saw Cod. Personally I think the last decent CoD game was actually World at War which still has a decent online community. I preferred these titles as old style WW2 shooters, I haven't bought into the newer games. I did play through MW and part of MW2 but they just don't have the same appeal as the older titles. If I want modern world style scenarios then Ghost Recon are the titles I prefer. I can honestly say I have been loving playing through the first CoD game again after many years, it is extremely hectic and you have to think and move fast to succeed. I would recommend anyone to pick up either of these 2 Warchests, fantastic games to this day and easily stand up against their modern counterparts.

    Going to leave this here and will carry on in the next few days, there has been plenty other stuff I have dabbled with!!!

  24. Received thanks from:

    Zak33 (31-12-2012)

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