Torchlight Adventures: Day 4 - Frustration

Day 4

The frustrations of having a hard core character has hit me.  My easy hardcore character got killed by spike traps over in the dwarven fortress.  The nice thing was I manage to reach the dwarven fortress in 2+ hours.  The annoying thing is that again I have no character to play the game with.

I'll probably do a very hard run with a non-hardcore character.  The deaths of my characters are so frustrating, I can't stand it anymore.

Torchlight Adventures: Day 3 and Review

Day 3

It seems as if the mines would devour all would be adventurers.  So I guess, the super very hard difficulty is just too much for most characters.  I hear that the easy difficulty would not be much of a challenge and it's true.  In just about an hour and a half of game time, I've made it all the way past the overseers library.  Boss monsters would fall against the well placed fire trap or two taking no more than a few seconds to kill them.  It's a sharp contrast to ordinary trolls in very hard where my characters would have to go hit and run.  My pet is more of a tiger than a cat at easy difficulty.

Review

I think Torchlight's biggest flaw is the ability to select the enemy.  Large monsters can't just be clicked anywhere and using a melee skill won't make your character run up to the nearest monster to perform the attack.  You might even be wasting mana by attacks that don't hit anything.  I also don't like the fact that there are basically 2 stat points - damage and defense.  Strength, dexterity and magic are your damage stat points.  It would appear that the best way to get a good character is to pick one damage stat and put the rest in defense for survival.  Weapons and armor don't seem to have a specific strength, dex, magic or defense requirement.  You might pick up a really good piece of armor and the only thing you need is a high enough level to use it.

The good points of Torchlight is that it's pretty addictive and you're free to spend your skill points on any skill.  You might even have a summoning Destroyer with the aid of spells.  Game mods also add in the value of the game especially with certain aspects like grabbing the shaped gems mod would let you identify which gem is better by just looking.  The various skins for the characters also make a refreshing look for your playthroughs.

I do recommend grabbing Torchlight while it's on sale at $9.99.  It's a great deal at that price.

Torchlight Adventures: Day 2

Adventurers Log

Day 2:

There were 3 adventurers today that arrived in torchlight.  The first was Oxygen.  He called himself a chemist or was that alchemist?  His cat he called Hydrogen.  This weird fellow came wielding an assortment of magical wands and staves.  He also annoyingly shot a bolt of magical energy out through his room for no apparent reason.  He claimed he needed more sunlight for his room.

Anyway, the chemist died after beating the 5th floor.  I heard some skeletons surrounded him and stabbed him in the back.  You see, his spells were quite powerful but even I could beat him to a pulp if I wanted.

The next adventurer made my jaw drop. A French swashbuckler named Pierre.  With a Fedora hat and a golden pistol she made short work of the invading monsters.  She was unstoppable, going down floor after floor without stopping.  She was pretty hot too in her two piece attire yet sadly she died somewhere in one of Hatch's portals.  I think a spectre surprised her and she didn't realize that her life was being sucked right out of her.

Well for the last fellow, I don't like him.  He's big and yellow.  He has yet to really venture deep in the mines at this point.  I took a picture of him cause he's quite unique...

Torchlight Adventures: Day 1

Innkeepers Log:

Day 1:

A mighty fellow named Woodstuck has arrived in the mining town of Torchlight.  We have recently been attacked by the evil hordes that came out from the ember mines.  This muscle bound man pushed back a wave of invading rat men along with Brink and Syl, two of the town's promising students.

Woodstuck charged in the mines with his dog, Snoopi Doggy Dog.  Here, they battled hordes of undead skeletons and zombies, waves of tribal people and lizard men.  They reached the old dwarven fortress deep within the mines in order to activate the forge.

Woodstuck grew in power - smashing his opponents with a Titan Stomp or a flurry of blows - Devastate he called it.  Syl was even kidnapped and rescued by this burly adventurer.  Yet alas, after reaching the 32nd level, he was slain by a group of elementals.  They say he got reckless - charging in on the enemies without hesitation and his health potions could not keep up with the amount of damage thrown at him.

Here I await the next adventurer who will try to save the village of Torchlight.  Woodstuck was kind enough to leave the most rare and valuable items over in the town stash for future adventurers.

Adieu Woodstuck - May you join with the Ancestors.

Torchlight Hardcore

I was off smashing my way through Torchlight yesterday. It turns out that my melee Alchemist is having a real difficult time on the 15+ floors and the first thing I thought was to find a respec. It turns out, there is a respec mod. So after installing, and grabbing the respec potion from the vendor, it turns out that it only respecs skills. My character already had loads of points dumped into Strength and Defense but near none in Magic. So bye bye first character.

The next character, I decided to do a hardcore very hard alchemist since by doing that, I'll grab most of the achievements on difficulty in one run. I made a summoning character this time and though it took like half an hour to beat the first boss, I manage to do pretty good.

I then jumped into the portal quest and got killed by a teleporting dude. Bye bye hardcore character.

Determined, I made another hardcore character but on the hard difficulty instead. I'm going for the Destroyer instead (I do have a Vanquisher on easy hardcore) and let me see where this takes me.

Happy Holidays (and bah humbug!)

Happy Holidays to everyone!

Yet I am not so happy as Mass Effect has actually crashed so much that it crashed Steam. I had to uninstall Steam and reinstall all of my recent games again. It's a good thing that I kept backups though redownloading Mass Effect (a 10 gig download) will not be happening anytime soon.

I'll just finish up Torchlight and once Mirror's Edge gets downloaded, start playing that one instead of Mass Effect. I wonder when Valve's doing the sale on their own games...

Mass Effect Rants

With the holiday break, I've just started playing Mass Effect in anticipation of next year's Mass Effect 2. Compared to Dragon Age, Mass Effect looks far better and the way the dialogue plays out is much more fluid.

My rants however come in when the game freezes like every 30 minutes. This is far worse than Dragon Age. I've tried turning off sound hardware acceleration, lowering resolution and settings to no avail. I'm using the latest video card drivers and my system is way above the system requirements. I'm already using the latest version of Mass Effect and still it crashes here and there.

I'm getting frustrated. I'll just go kill some zombies.

My Wishlist

My wishlist - stuff on sale now until January 3 that I want to have.

Steam:

Rome Total War - Complete - 2.49
The Witcher Enhanced - 13.59
Stalker: Clear Sky - 4.99


GOG:

Commandos 2 + 3 - 7.49

I'm actually begging if someone would gift these to me :P Though most likely, I'll grab these for myself.

How to Handle Game Sales

With the onset of the holiday season, there are so many sales. Just take a look at the different digital distribution spots - Steam, GOG, and the others. Steam has like games up to 80% off until January 3 and with all the good games on sale how should a gamer handle it.

Unless you're swimming in money, you probably can afford let's say a maximum of $60 worth of games. That means, maybe 1 triple AAA new release on console or maybe 1 triple AAA release on PC and maybe an on sale game for $10. Let's first prioritize your gaming sale buys.

Step 1: Know what kinds of games you really like. If you're an RPG fanatic, there are a lot of old RPGs that you might not have played before that could take hours to finish. With that in mind, you could buy something good that's on sale and still have a lot of money for other games. If you're a multiplayer shooter fan, it might be in your best interest to pick that triple AAA game. Most of the players will be in that game early on and you can keep on playing the game with new people to have a different experience every time.

Step 2: Make a list of your choices. Rate your games to be must have or can wait. Those that can wait, should be your last priority in buying - remember, there will be sales later on which you can buy that game or the price will be lower in the future anyway (like early holiday Steam sales are now on sale again).

Step 3: Play your games that you haven't played first. Don't buy games and let them sit on your shelf. Unless this is a console game where a digital copy is not available in the future, you are better of playing your backlogged games and enjoy those first before going to newer ones (unless those are new games you want are multiplayer based).

Step 4: Earn more money. If you can find some way to earn more money, then great you have more options then available to you. This is usually the hardest especially with the recession and all but if you can earn even just a few dollars, then great.

Dragon Age Expansion?

I have been playing the different origin stories of Dragon Age with various characters and difficulties. I've enjoyed some and found some really easy. It's also kind of funny when you create characters and they don't seem to fit in the story. Like for the Human noble (which I played on Nightmare difficulty and still found it easy), I created a dark skinned, white bearded old looking character. My father and mother were light skinned and I seemed to look older than my own mom. Yet the funny thing is that my dad keeps calling me pup and treating me like a little boy.



I am really interested in the Dwarven Noble origin story. Especially at the start when you were doing politics and felt you were actually a lord. I wonder if Bioware makes an expansion making you feel like a lord. After beating the evil darkspawn, you become the lord of a land and then it's up to you how you rule it and treat the people. You'll do politics with fellow lords and maybe eventually become lord of all the lands.



I'm disappointed in certain things with Dragon Age when you compare the depth of actions available to you in Fallout 2. In Fallout, you can push through a lot of missions without getting in combat and bluffing your way through situations. Here, there's the formula of reaching the end of a dungeon, and fighting a group of monsters with a big bad boss monster. There is almost no way to avoid that sort of battle.

Torchlight 50% off this weekend

This just in - Torchlight is on sale at 50% off on Steam and it adds several dozen achievements with it.

Oh man, this game will keep you occupied until Blizzard releases Diablo 3 and that won't come till 2012 (just kidding, they say it might be 2010 but you know Blizzard).

Hard to Find Deals on the weekend of December 19

Steam has given Team Fortress 2 a free weekend and is on sale at 50% off. I like what Valve did with TF2, lots of free dlc and the community is pretty much still going strong. The sad thing though is what they are doing with Left 4 Dead 2. I mean for PC users, free DLC for Valve games seem to be the standard with the upcoming DLC, it looks like it might be a paid one.

I guess it might just be that TF2 only has PC players (as the 360 version isn't really that great).

For Gamersgate, we have Trine and Insecticide at 50% off. I'd advise to go and grab Trine, it's a great deal at $9.99.

Now for the sneaky Impulse deals, we have Galactic Civilizations 2 for $1.99 only for today! You have to click on my link though as you won't see it on their sales as this comes as a pop up on Impulse Now. I find that looking at the codes for their 24 hour Impulse quite a hassle as no one is always at their desktop or laptop 24/7. Impulse also has Europa Universalis 3 complete at a lower price than Gamersgate - $11.99.

DoW2: Last Stand

Dawn of War 2 had an updated a couple of months back that introduced the Last Stand multiplayer mode. It's technically a survival mode where you beat successive waves of stronger enemies. You get to pick one of three hero types and with three other players go against the hordes of opponents. Finding games takes a while for me but once you found a game, you can stick with the same group as long as you want.

You basically want the highest score and this is done by killing opponents. To increase the bonus multiplier, you have to capture both the strategic points, kill enemies quickly and make sure your heroes don't get knocked out. For every game, your hero will level up - to a maximum of 20. Increasing levels don't actually make your hero stronger - you only get more equipment to improve your customization of your hero. A low level team can reach probably wave 9 (or higher) with the right team work.

I started as an Orc Mekboy and played a couple of games. I used a big shoota which would take down single enemies really quickly and for groups, I'd throw some mines. I would also teleport around the map killing critical targets like Zoanthropes and Shuriken cannons. The farthest level which my team reached was level 9. I was a level 2 at that point along with a level 4 Space Marine Captain and a level 3 Farseer.

I then tried using the Space Marine Captain. This guy at low levels is a tank. He can soak up damage and take on groups single handedly though he moves slow and doesn't have much power to take on huge groups. I was joined by 2 high level heroes - a level 12 SM captain and a level 13 Farseer. We managed to push until wave 16 - (the evil mirror fight). The Farseer was really the champion of the fight. She would teleport us away to the corners - recharge her energy and release eldritch storms on the incoming horde. The mirror fight was the problem as we could down one of them but they would just revive each other. I can't believe that a 1 on 1 fight with my self would end in a stalemate - our hits would heal ourselves so we couldn't technically damage ourselves.

I'll probably try and post some Last Stand strategies the more I play.

Need More Waaagh!

Just got utterly crushed in Dawn of War 2. Dawn of War 2 doesn't have as big of a community as the Company of Heroes community. It maybe because the game hasn't even been a year old or maybe it's the style of gameplay - micro to the extreme.

DoW 2 automatically finds games and it there are either very few players or only the good ones stick to it. I got matched up with a TrueSkill (a trademark term apparently) of 20 and I was just level 1.

Big Sun Bozz was my hero. The dreaded Warboss of the Evil Sunz clan and I was up against the evil warlock Eldar. My initial skirmish left a guardian squad and the warlock dead in exchange with one of my slugga boyz. I managed to push pretty deep and take an early lead but then I underestimated the guardian squads versus the slugga boyz. Against the computer - hard, my warboss would tear guardians apart and guardian squads wouldn't even dance (running back shooting) but against a human opponent ...boy that change.

My opponent then fielded a horde of guardians, which quickly took down my slow moving warboss. A falcon grav tank also appeared taking down my troops quickly and I couldn't handle the difference in tech so in the end...bye bye orcz. I gave up when my army was wiped out even though I still had around 200 victory points to spare, defeat was inevitable.

Any way.. it's a start maybe I should really just stick with Space Marines...rather than Orkz. Hopefully, I can find a lower level opponent in later games.

Weekend Sale - 2nd week of Dec

Another mediocre week (for me) in terms of game sales. Steam has Counter Strike: Source (it's amazing how this game is still going after almost a decade) at just $5. There's also another (newer) shooter that's on sale (and has a free weekend) - Dreamkiller. It's at 25% off or you might as well try it for free this weekend.

Impulse has their regular non-AAA titles on sale but there are a few goodies. New titles to check out are - Cities XL, Dawn of Magic 2, Dawn of Discovery, Elven Legacy and East India Company. Check out the deals page on Impulse.

Impulse also has the 24 hour Impulse where they give off 1 day game deals but you need the Impulse client to give out a pop-up (which is annoying if you're not at your computer). Today's game is Aveyond (a simple looking RPG - like those old SNES RPGs) - the code you enter at check out is AVEYOND199 to grab the game at $1.99.

For GamersGate - check out East India Company and Elven Legacy there but you should definitely go see Majesty 2 at 75%! off. Hearts of Iron 3 is also at 60% off for those super grand strategy lovers.

Dawn of War 2: Space Marine

I'm about to start my rank skirmishes in Dawn of War 2 (yeah I've been compstomping just to get the
hang off things first). I'll start by using the Space Marines as I've always liked them ever since
Dawn of War 1.

From my initial impression of the SM army, they're far tougher than all other races. A tactical marine
squad has only 3 members, costs 500 requisition and are far tougher than all tier 1 enemy races.

As for the heroes, they're pretty well balanced. The force commander isn't the slow brute that the Ork
Warboss or the Tyranid Hive Tyrant is. In fact, I think the force commander can be better against
those 2 factions especially with his mighty hammer weapon.

The only thing I don't like about the Space Marines is they move so slow. Since they're also expensive, I won't be fielding a horde of space marines to capture a lot of territory, I kind of like capturing a lot of territory (which can be seen in my Company of Heroes games).

The strategy guides for Dawn of War 2 are quite rare. There are several single player walkthroughs but not much for multiplayer. I hope that what I write here could turn into an actual battle guide and hopefully, the DoW 2 community grows with it.

Smart Zombies

It's kinda funny that being a mindless instinct based infected in Left 4 Dead requires a lot of brain power. You can't be like the rest of the horde of infected people rushing to the 4 remaining living people. Doing that will get your head blown off. You have to rely on cunning and strategy to grab a tasty bite from these survivors. The only dude that can probably handle a head on attack is the tank with his super steroid body. The charger, one of the new infected in Left 4 Dead 2, is like the younger brother of the tank but all he seems to do is charge like a bull. If the charger misses, then it's more likely they die.

Other infected like the Smoker (why do they call him the smoker besides going off in smoke when he dies?) and Jockey require more skill as they're main purpose is to pull the survivors away from each other.

I'm starting to get the hang of versus mode though I have yet to successfully pounce someone as a hunter, puke as a boomer or crush people like ants as a tank. I still enjoy the moments when playing the infected and I manage to strangle someone as a Smoker or bash someone to the ground as a charger. I guess it depends on the opponents I face. I also get the feeling of being a badass when my infected human opponents fail to actually put up a challenge.

Oh yeah, I had a funny moment in the finale of Dead Center. The finale of Dead Center starts when the survivors make their way through the mall hallway and elevator towards the car. Well this was in versus mode and we made our way to the elevator. The elevator goes to the ground floor but the door wouldn't open. A charger, tank and smoker was outside the door pounding their way in while we 4 survivors were shooting the door out but nothing happened. We waited like 5 minutes and the door seemed to be stuck seems like what Nick said – we either run or stay here and die, looks like we stay here and die.

There are some rumors of Left 4 Dead 2 DLC coming. I wonder if they'll allow 4 vs 16 matches where your 16 opponents aren't special infected but regular infected that deal more damage and respawn instantly upon death. The 16 people would have to charge and rush strategically if they want to overwhelm the 4 survivors. More pistols would be great as melee weapons seem to be my choice of secondary weapon. Dual Pistols are fun and the magnum is pretty powerful but I want to see more. Perhaps a stun gun which can stop several infected with a shock or maybe a double barreled sawed off shot gun, as good as a regular shotgun but only has 2 rounds and takes a long time to reload.

With my Dragon Age adventures done, lets see how long I'll enjoy mass murdering the infected.

Deals for the Weekend - 1st Week of December

After the awesome Thanksgiving sale weekend, we now get... not so awesome. I'll only recommend 3 games for this weekend one from each major online distributor.

For Steam, they have Tomb Raider Underworld. It's another Lara Croft sale whopee, guess you should be playing one of the games you bought last week instead.

For Impulse, they have And Yet It Moves. This is an indie platformer with a unique art style.

For GamersGate, they have Red Faction (complete) which includes Red Faction 1, 2 and Guerrilla.

That's it, go play the games you bought last week unless any of these 3 interests you.

Some Dragon Age Comedy

Zure, an elf mage, has to deal with a lot of things. Not only has she finished her Harrowing (an extremely deadly mage exam), she has to deal with the daily scandals of every day life in the Circle of Magi. Just take a look below...this isn't what it looks like for sure...




Funny how you can take off the clothing of characters and make them have really awkward cutscene moments. In-Game Cutscene ...FAIL.

Dragon Age: For Money and Glory

I've finished Dragon Age with my first character - Gunter. I've been reading some forum posts about how some people were asking how to make the best warrior or mage or rogue. Like there's this one person asking why does he only do around 30 backstab damage when his dexterity and cunning is 40 (that's pretty high). I say, what's the point in doing those min maxing on a single player story based game. I could pretty much do a higher backstab - around 55 with the same dexterity and cunning (I only reached that level near the late level of 19). I didn't really cared that my stats were maxed or that I was dumping a few stat points in Magic where a dwarf rogue would have very little benefit.

I can see why sometimes one wants to have the glory in battle. SPOILER ALERT:


. ... you get to battle Loghain in a duel and this is a required battle. Since I was a rogue, I'd definitely use one of my companions as the fighter (I used Sten). Gunter tried to deal a first strike as a one on one battle isn't actually a good thing but in the chaos of the fight, the council still decides to have a 1 on 1 duel. It also appears that Loghain can be one of your companions if you spare his life. Gunter was a vengeful dwarf and the only mercy Loghain got was a quick but bloody decapitation from Gunter.

The final battle against the monstrous archdemon dragon was a bit easier than expected. The armies you recruited around the nation - dwarves, elves, templars will aid you in the final battles. Using his quick thinking, Gunter mans the balistas on the tower to fire upon the archdemon - a much better damage than dealing nicks and scratches through a bow.

It's kinda funny that my main character usually avoids big fights and lets his minion companion do all the work. In the end however, he gets the glory since he's the main character grey warden. I guess it does make sense since he isn't really a “good” guy.

After the battle, Gunter asks for riches and an estate but according to the game, his adventure has yet to end...an expansion perhaps?

I also started a new character - Zure the female elf mage. Seeing the world from a different point of view and meeting and getting the backstory of the other characters in the game is quite interesting. Turns out Jowan - the blood mage in Redcliff castle, is just an apprentice mage here in the Circle of Magi.

Looks like the end of the story of Gunter, I'm not sure if I'm going to go to posting a whole lot about my new character and I'll probably be back in Dawn of War or Left 4 Dead 2.

GamersGate - Cyber Monday Sale

GamersGate has their Cyber Monday Sale up.

The big name games to look at are mostly strategy games:

Civilization 4 Complete
Hearts of Iron 3
Medieval 2

all at 60% off. Command and Conquer Red Alert 3 is also on sale for US/UK people at 20% off. Check the list out for other lesser known titles and other games on sale.

Impulse - Cyber Monday Sale

For November 30th, Impulse has now released the games which are on sale for just 1 day. We have 4 games for only $1.99 - The Politcal Machine 2008, The Corporate Macine, Bullet Candy and Lightweight Ninja.

There are 2 games at 50% off - Elven Legacy (too bad it doesn't include the expansions) and Aztaka (I'm checking this one out now).

For those space ship sim lovers - Evochron Legends is at 20% off at Impulse.

Steam Pre Holiday Sale - 11/29

It must be MMO indie day today...it's the fourth day of the Steam 1 day sale (that didn't sound right).

For today we have Guild Wars Trilogy at 50% off along with the free economy Eve Online: Apocrypha at 75% off.

For shooter fans, we have the massive multiplayer - Battlefield 2. For those who don't like shooters but like competing in a world wide racing leaderboard - there's Trackmania United Forever.

For action adventure gamers, there's this nice platformer - Prince of Persia which is the latest reboot of the series at half price.

For those puzzle lovers, Steam has two indie games - Lucidity and World of Goo.

Check again tomorrow for the final (and I bet the best as it's Cyber Monday) pre-holiday sale on Steam.

Left 4 Dead 2: First Run

I just got Left 4 Dead 2 yesterday and played my first quick game a few minutes ago. I had to wait sometime to update yesterday and I had to test my settings so my first real game was today.

What do I have to say about it? It's pretty much like the first Left 4 Dead 2 but with more weapons (variations of the assault rifle, sub machine gun and shot gun). There's melee weapons now which replaces the pistol. It's awesome to go slashing zombies with a machete or bashing them with a guitar. I haven't got the chainsaw yet but I heard that was awesome. The situations have varied, like instead of defending one spot, you have to charge towards the escape in order to survive.

My first game was pretty OK. I had a ping of over 300 but I didn't really notice much lag nor did it affect my performance that much. There were a couple of times where zombies or my team mates would just suddenly pop in front of me but considering I still got the highest kills and damage to special infected, I guess a ping of 300 doesn't matter.

The mission we were playing was the Parish where the final part was a run on the chopper. We had to shoot our way through a zombie infested bridge. I took the lead this time as it's a pretty straightforward place. One of my companions who played Ellis died pretty quickly and I didn't notice if he fell off the bridge or some infected go to him. A Chinese guy (he head a Chinese name so I assumed it as such) played Coach rushed to the front after Nick and me (I played Rochelle) had to fight off a tank. He just kept charging forward while both of us were left moving forth. Near the end, there's a truck with a machine gun. Coach headed straight to the chopper while I manned the gun and tried to kill another tank who was after Nick. I managed to take the Tank out but a horde of zombies mobbed me and I went down. Nick was now idle and the AI self went and help me at the cost of being mobbed by more zombies. I fired several shots off with my shotgun and tried to help him up but the mob was unstoppable. Coach was probably at the chopper now and I said to hell with Nick and left him to be eaten. Still, zombies charged at me and I defended myself with a machete while struggling for the chopper.. In the end, I managed to escape and look at the evil number on my record:

Steam Pre Holiday Sale - 11/28

This is for Steam's Saturday sale...though it's Sunday in the Philippines.

On to more games on sale - we now have a new list in Steam.

First, we have Resident Evil 5, for 50% off. We also have Spore at 50% off. The first Left 4 Dead is at 75% off (though I think most people have already migrated to the sequel).

We also have Trine at half price. In addition, there's a huge 75% cut off the price of Order of War. Finally, we have Borderlands at 33% off.

There's 2 more days of sale...check back again tomorrow!

Steam Pre Holiday Sale - 11/27

This is Steam's Friday -sale (though it's technically Saturday here). They've added the awesome Left 4 Dead 2 in the list of games at sale. There's also Knights of the Old Republic - only 2.5 bucks. Enjoy the horror of Dead Space - now only for $15.

They've also got Majesty 2 at $10 (damn...got it from GamersGate at 15). Cities XL (the Sim City wannabe) at 50% off. Mini Ninja's and Madballs in Babo: Invasion is also on sale at a big discount. Check out tomorrow for more Steam games on sale.

Thanksgiving Sale

Thank the almighty thanksgiving date for this weekend sale, I'll only go through Impulse and Gamersgate as Steam is doing a huge sale daily.

For Impulse, well it isn't that special. We get the Meridian 4 games sale. The best thing to look at Impulse for this weekend is the only two unique games that you can get at Impulse namely Galactic Civilizations 2: Ultimate Edition and Sins of a Solar Empire. These 2 games are at 50% off and are unbelievably great strategy games which you can only grab at Impulse (or your retail outlet).

You should also check out these other games that's on sale over there - Sword of the Stars, Resident Evil 5, Gun and the Gas Powered Games sale.

Over at GamersGate, no super triple A title on sale but we have...Tropico 3 at 25% off. The super grand strategy - Europa Universalis Complete is on sale at 65% off (you have more strategy games to last you a lifetime if you grab this, it's every damn EU game). The Guild 2 Platinum and Gothic 3 are at 33% off. Last but not least, Serious Sam 2 is at 50% off. You should check their offers page on other titles which I'm not familiar with.

Steam Pre Holiday Sale - 11/25

Steam has started the holiday sale with a bunch of games at big discounts. Each day, a different set of games.

Games for 11/25:

Batman: Arkham Assylum - 50% off = Awesome!
Dragon Age: Origins - 25% = Cool! (grab this now! - EA asia pricing is still cheaper though)
Grid - 75% = Dirt Cheap (this isn't Dirt though)
Far Cry 2 - 50% off - Nice
Osmos - 2 US $

Check this blog out daily or the Steam's page to see the games on sale.

DA: Good and Evil

There's a reason why I find Dragon Age to be the next step in video games. Let's first look back at some of the older games - Baldur's Gate. Baldur's Gate (and the earlier Fallout and Fallout 2 series) were RPGs where you had a lot of freedom in your choices. The problem however of these games was the stories were pretty black and white. You could be good or you could be evil. Baldur's Gate, as it was following the Dungeon's and Dragons system, had a very specific way of creating a character class - you had to pick your alignment. So you could be Lawful Good, chaotic good, true neutral or chaotic evil and all that. This technically means that you are bound to act and roleplay as your created character however this was never the case in the game.

Situations in Baldur's gate was always good versus evil. An evil lich, an oppressive noble or a slaver had a power an you could either go against this or help them. In general, these situations would lead you to play the good guy for two reasons. One, being good had huge advantages of having lower merchant prices and two, you usually had better rewards. Playing evil was only a choice you'd take for trying to experience the game differently. Though the best characters of their class were evil - Edwin - Mage, Vicona - Cleric and Korgan - Warrior, you'd still probably use them in a good way but avoid reaching a high reputation to make them stay in your party.

Knights of the Old Republic is similar. Being bad is now at par with good in terms of rewards but again the story is still evil or good. You'd be an evil character for the sake of having evil sith powers not because you feel like taking one side for another.

Dragon Age pushes the story differently. This is the best aspect of the game. Situations are more ambiguous. For now, (and SPOILER alert) I'll talk about the situation with the elves. The dalish elves are over at the forest and you need their help to combat the darkspawn horde. However, there are werewolves in the forrest and attacking the elves so the elvish leader won't help till you kill their leader - the white wolf. So I agree, thinking that werewolf = evil and I need the help of the elves. The werewolves also oppose me and so I decide to fight them. However, the closer I push towards the white wolf, I start to have doubts. The werewolves keep shouting to guard the lady...who is this lady? Are the elves actually attacking the wolves and not the other way around? So I push further in to these ruins, taking out dozens of werewolves and other forest beasts. Finally, their top werewolf asks to parley and speak with their leader - the lady. Parley? Weren't I told that these wolves were bloodthirsty beasts? I decided to agree. Here I learn that the lady tells the story that the elf leader - created the white wolf to punish the humans who killed his daughter. Lycanthropy was the punishment to humans now affected his own elves. She asked me to take the leader to them and I agreed - I hated being lied to. So just outside the wolves lair, the elvish leader was there waiting. After much questioning, he claims the lady is the white wolf and this was a trick so I didn't know who to side with.

The 2 leaders confront - the elvish leader and the lady / white wolf. The lady asks to lift the curse but the elf leader refuses to unsummon and stop the lycanthropy curse, this time I sided with the wolves and beat this elvish leader up. He decides to release the curse after he's all bloody from my attack. This removal of the curse would take both the lives of him and the white wolf. The werewolves return to human forms and all is well.

So who's the evil one? The elvish leader who cursed the humans (centuries ago) or the werewolves who just wanted peace and now attacked the humans? Since this is a discussion of good and evil and my character was pretty annoyed by the hassle of this quest he decides to kill the former werewolves now human. This time, the humans proved to be no challenge and were massacred by my character. Thus, I am really the true evil, squishing their heads - as Shale, my lovely golem companion agrees with me. This is what makes Dragon Age a step further in storytelling.

Loading screens also tell my story, amazing!

Gyromancer

Well, my PC monitor is fried from dragon fighting in Dragon Age. So I'm stuck back to my ancient laptop. I could go and play Torchlight but there's this new game from Pop Cap and Square Enix called Gyromancer. So let me take a look and see.

So you get the super casual game company Pop Cap and merge it with the RPG world of Square Enix and you get a Puzzle Quest rip off. It's basically the same thing - instead of RPG combat you get Bejeweled combat. You match at least 3 blocks / gems /whatever and that is basically it. I'm sure if you liked Bejeweled or even Puzzle Quest, you'll definitely like this game as the art is far better.

To tell you the truth, I'd rather just go and get Puzzle Quest as they are the one that started this concept. I was expecting more of a casual RPG considering the big companies that made the game maybe in the style of Penny Arcade Adventures but without their humor. I liked Puzzle Quest but I never loved it (Bejeweled bores me to death after some time). This isn't a game for me but if you did enjoy that - go ahead and try it first - they have a demo available now.

I'll be waiting to either get my monitor fixed or grab a new LCD (though I could just grab an old CRT and spend the money on games...). For now, Torchlight awaits me.

Games of the Weekend - Nov 21, 2009

It's the weekend sale again so here come the games:

Over in Steam, they have a sale on Frontlines: Fuel of War which is a modern day shooter. I've heard it's pretty average but the thing that makes it stand out is it's huge multiplayer rooms. You can get it at 75% off this weekend.

Now in Impulse, two big games - Supreme Commander and Prince of Persia are on 25% off. Prince of Persia is only available in North America though but then I would not really be playing a platformer over on a PC - I'd rather do that on a console.

Finally in GamersGate, King's Bounty: The Legend is 50% off. If you want to play a cheaper version of the sequel - King's Bounty: Armored Princess then here's a good chance to try it. Majesty 2 is on sale NOW (daily deal) grab it before it turn's Saturday in the whole world. There's also Tropico: Reloaded, Sango 2 & Takeda 3 bundle and Evochron Legends on sale there.

Dragon Age - Difficulty

I have two big difficulties that stop me from enjoying Dragon Age. The first and the most critical is the annoying freezing of my PC randomly. I'm using a 4770 and according to my searches in the internets, there seems to be a problem with the ATI driver - upgrading to the latest one seems to have solved this problem as I have not yet had a crash in the game.

The second is a gameplay thing. Like Baldur's Gate and similar open world games - once the world opens up you can go anywhere naturally. Well the stuff I've been blogging about - about the dwarven quests turns out to be one of the most difficult one in the game. I've beaten the elven quest quite easily and my current escapades in the circle of magi quest isn't providing much difficulty now. Well I guess all games can't be perfect. I recommend people to stay away from the dwarves until you do all other places first.

Besides this two flaws...Dragon Age is still my game of the year.

DA: Anvil of the Void

Again spoiler warnings... read this if you have done this area or don't really care about playing Dragon Age.

So the thieving grey warden made it to Branka? It's amazing how far a common thief has reached in the world. Battling demons and darkspawn, looters and bandits while making a pile of gold for himself. Gunter has reached Branka only to be trapped in the area with her unless he finds the anvil of the void. It was a difficult task considering Branka has been there for some time and still hasn't gotten past the traps and the guards.

A horde of darkspawn first blocked Gunter's path. With the stealth and guile, the group managed to lead one enemy at the time to their hiding spot and beat the crap out of them. The darkspawn numbers thinned until it was but an ogre and a couple of archers left. Gunter's team charged in taking out their enemies swiftly. Ogre's were no longer a problem to them despite it's massive size.

Next came the first room with traps. These traps were no match for the raw experience of one of the greatest dwarven thieves. A few screws removed rendered the blade traps useless but this was not the only threat. There were several stone golems in the room and they awoke once the party was in the center of it. Yet Gunter had his own golem companion, Shale. With the aid of the berserker rage of Ohgren, they take out the golems quickly.

A problem has arisen for the team suddenly. Gunter's double dagger fighting isn't effective against these stone golems. Gunter has never been the fighter and he relies basically on his speed to take down enemies and against rocks, all he manages to do is chip off the top layers. (In a game note, the dagger damage is broken - it only takes strength for damage when it should be half of strength and dexterity. There's a hotfix but it boosts the power of bows so it seems to be a worse tradeoff as enemy archers outnumber your group 5 to 1). Morrigan's staff also seems to deal no damage against these constructs. Blasts of cold and lightning merely slow down these living robots.

Gas filled the second chamber which Gunter had to pass. More golems blocked their way and Gunter's backstab attack did more than break his own dagger. The golems broke off some floor tiles...large floor tiles and hurled them at Gunter, knocking him out. The muscle of the team managed to shatter the golems and revive Gunter after the battle.

The third room was different. There was no traps but 4 anvils surrounding a strange totem. As the adventurers approached, the totem sprung into life. It had 4 sides, 4 faces facing each anvil. The eyes of the totem burst into bluish flame and summoning 4 spirits to defend itself. As the team takes out a spirit, the anvil glows allowing them to send a magical strike against the totem. The blast shatters one of the faces of the totem. The team quickly realizes that it must destroy all four faces to defeat this construct. After the four faces of the totem crumbled, the team was able to move on.

Finally, the group approaches a gigantic chamber surrounded by flowing lava. There a huge metal figure stood. Gunter cautiously approached the figure. This golem turns out to be the old paragon - Caridin, the creator of the golems. Caridin asks to destroy the anvil of the void as the anvil may create golems at the price of dwarves giving up their lives. Branka arrives and says that the anvil may be used to fight the darkspawn and finally push them back. Morrigan agrees with this - the power to become a god - a creator. Shale however realizes that he was actually a she, the only female dwarf who became a golem. Shayle will not join Gunter should he side with Branka. Ohgren can see the madness that has consumed his wife but should he attack his wife due to the madness?

So it's decision time for Gunter. He sees the power of the anvil but he schemes of a better plan. He'll first take out Branka for trapping him and the hassle of the search for her. Next, he'll take the anvil for himself - take out Caridin in the process. Kill 2 birds with one stone and all the glory for him. The fight against Branka should be easier, he thinks, as the room is filled with golems.

Morrigan and Ohgren disagrees but still the join in fighting Branka. Branka takes out a control rod - subdues Caridin and takes several golems under her control. Bad news for Gunter. A grand melee ensues, golem against golem, dwarf against dwarf. Dealing with Branka is just as tough as golems since Gunter's daggers barely hurt her. He had to retreat and start using a bow for offense. Branka was a monster despite not being one of the warrior caste. She beats up her husband, Ohgren, with ease (quite an insult for a warrior caste). Morrigan can barely hurt her as dwarves naturally resist magic.

Finally, after Shale and Ohgren falls, Branka appears to make the kill. Gunter rushes away and pelts her with arrows. Morrigan attempts freezing her several times but fails. Morrigan soon falls to Branka's might. Branka charges Gunter knocking him down only to find a dagger sticking inside her. Gunter then fires arrows striking her head - finally killing the mad dwarf. Out of exhaustion, Gunter collapses. It appears that he won't have the strength to take Caridin out too. He decides to help and destroy the anvil instead thus gaining Caridin's help.

In the end, Gunter gives a crown to prince Behlen declaring that he was the choice of Caridin. The chapter ends as Behlen grants armies to the Grey warden and sentencing his rival to death. Gunter agrees, says goodbye to his sister and asks one little favor of the prince ... his face on one of the gigantic statues.

Sorry for the super long post – the journey for the dwarves assistance is a hundred times longer.

King's Bounty Armored Princess

Just to take a quick break from Dragon Age (saving the world from Darkspawn is stressful), I grabbed the demo of King's Bounty Armored Princess. I ranted around half a year ago on the greatness that is King's Bounty. It's a game where you have a hero - recruit armies, battle monsters and save the world. We now have the follow up - technically a stand alone expansion for the original King's Bounty.

Armored Princess is more of an expansion as it merely adds upon the first game. There's a lot more creatures - robots, lizard people and additional troops for existing races. There's a few more spells like the first one that caught my eye was the guardian angel spell which would deal damage to enemies if they attacked your creature (like a counter attack). Also, the rage abilities are now on a dragon who looks like Stitch from Lilo and Stitch. The abilities are pretty much the same with a few new additional skills. You take the role of the princess in the first game but all grown up now. I have no idea why the title is armored though, she barely wears anything...

Graphics are slightly enhanced but it generally looks the same as the first one. The interesting new graphic feature is the 3D mode where you need one of those regular 3d-glasses (the red and blue ones not those super fancy 3D monitors). I've tried it out a bit, it sort of works but it will definitely strain your eye.

Personally, if you liked the first game and want more of the same - you will definitely like this one. However, if you never tried the first one but are interested in this - go grab the demo and if you like it, grab it when it comes out this Friday, November 20.

DA: Adventures in the Deep Roads

Spoiler warning....don't read if you don't want to be familiar with the story in the game

Well let's continue with the adventures of Gunter. Gunter was tasked by the dwarven prince to do some dirty work so that the prince may be elected king. The latest quest involves going to the Deep Roads - the abandoned dwarven subway system which are now controlled by the evil darkspawn. The goal of mission is to find this living hero dwarf - Branka and convince her to vote for the prince which would automatically mean victory for him. The problem lies with the fact that Branka has been missing for 2 years and is deep in enemy territory.

Our search starts out by traveling to the ruins of an old dwarven city, Aeducan Thaig. Ohgren, Branka's drunken husband, accompanies our anti hero in his quest. It turns out this mission wasn't going to be easy... Gunter faces off with hordes of darkspawn and the evil Hurlock andGenlock mages who nearly takes down the team several times. After passing an old dwarven city, they go to Caradin's cross - the last known location of Branka. Here they discover a path to Ortun Thaig - another old dwarven city. Discovering this was not easy, the team has used up all their health potions and herbs to get this far. Gunter has one of his arms cracked and he's coughing blood (yup - inuries have those names) and they decide to return to the surface first before proceeding further.

The motley group of adventurers travel to Berchan forrest first to try and seek the aid of the elves. Here they manage to do it easily but this I leave to another story. They resuply and head back to Orzamar bringing back a new compainion - the golem Shale. Gunter also seems to be involved intimately with one of his companions - the swamp witch Morrigan.

I also am starting to feel the pain of not creating a character that would beat the game. I created a role playing character who has a mix of skills and not someone who min/maxed his skills for the greatest damage potential. In the deep roads before meeting Branka, Gunter has engaged with two powerful bosses - the Corrupted Spider Queen which was easy compared to the monster that lived in the Dead Trenches. The Corrupted Spider Queen brought fear to the group as she wrapped them in her web. It took the brute power of Oghren and Shale to finally take down the spider. Yet as I mentioned, this was not the only boss - the Dead Trenches was next.

The Dead Trenches is the old fortress for the legion of the dead. The legion were a suicidal group of dwarves who fought the darkspawn knowing that they will not return alive. After navigating the fortress and hearing the madness of one of the former companion of Branka, we come upon the horror. The monster called Broodmother. A fat disgusting slob of a beast with tentacles erupting from the ground. The dreaded beast would wrap it's disgusting tentacles and capture and strangle our dwarven warriors. Gunter falls as several tentacles trap him. Shale and Ohgren continuously smash and stab the beast while Morrigan fired lightning bolts and drained it's life. Several darkspawn join and aid the monster. Ohgren gets crushed as Broodmother swoop him up and gives him the motherly hug of death. This leaves the mighty Shale and the witch Morrigan. Morrigan has depleted her mana potions and lyrium dusts by now. Luckily, the darkspawn that attacked had some lyrium potions with them. With this, they manage to scrape a victory (after retrying twice) against the demon mom.

Thus, the adventurers push deeper in the Dead Trenches to seek Branka. They find her only to be trapped with her. Turns out she's still alive but she's gone obsessed with finding this anvil of the void. With this, she claims that an army of golems can then be built to fight against the darkspawn. She has sacrificed most of her companions to get there. Boy, does Gunter want to gut this dwarf when he gets the chance. Gunter can't stand psychos and finding the anvil of the void for himself will be quite interesting. As of now, this is where their story ends - I'll continue on once I finish this area.

Impulse and Gamersgate - weekend of Nov 14

I've showed Steam's weekend deal a few hours ago so I'm going into Impulse and Gamersgate now.

For Impulse we have Demigod as the big game that's on sale now. It's a Defense of the Ancients (DotA) style of game with good 3d graphics. It's at 50% offf now. For those indie game lovers, we have Hacker Evolution which is also at half price. I don't know much about this game though. Finally, for the old school gamer, we have Tropico Reloaded. It's Tropico Gold (1 and expansion) and Tropico 2. If you liked Tropico 3 or want to play the a cheaper version of Tropico 3 (albeit at old graphics) you can try this game. Tropico 2 isn't as great though as the theme is totally different. There's also Titan Quest and Children of the Nile on sale over at Impulse.

For GamersGate we have the all time favorite - Company of Heroes complete. This awesome RTS is at 50% off which includes Company of Heroes Gold and Tales of Valor. There's also Stalker: Clear Sky which is the second game of the Stalker series. It's at half price so if you picked up the original Stalker a few weeks ago and want more - go try this one out.

Dragon Age: Level 11 now

For those who want to see my character, Gunter go over to the Bioware Social page for him. It doesn't update as fast as I hope. My character still shows he's level 9 when he's already level 11.

I think I also stumbled upon an infinite experience bug which I don't think anyone else has but since the experience given is a measly 50 xp, I wouldn't really bother with it. You also have to talk to someone in Redcliff over and over again to get the 50 xp (I won't mention it now).

Also, I'm finding that adventuring is getting tough. I seem to be running low on health potions, and going into these long dungeons with no way to beat groups of enemies. I've ended up using a strategy in Baldur's Gate, to lure just a few goons and beat those guys up before engaging the main mob. I've backed out on one quest for the meantime to increase my level first.

Steam: Overlord Crysis

Well this weekend, Steam has dumped out 2 awesome deals. The first one is a 50% off on the most graphically demanding games at the moment - Crysis and Crysis: Warhead. Though truthfully, Crysis in CD form is still technically cheaper. EA Asia has a much better pricing scheme than most publishers out there that let people pay the same amount regardless of where you live in the world. Also the Steam package - grabbing Crysis and Crysis Warhead is more expensive than grabbing each one individually...I mean - 15 + 15 is not equal to $45!

The second deal of the weekend in Steam is....Overlord. It includes Overlord 1 and 2 and that stand alone one - Raising Hell. It's an interesting game which I wanted to play since it kind of reminds me about the old Dungeon Keeper games. You can grab it at 75 % off which means if you just want say Overlord 1, all you have to pay is $1.50...awesome

Dragon Age - Choices

The best thing about Dragon Age: Origins is basically the story and the moral choices you get to make. This isn't the old "good" or "evil" in Baldur's Gate or even Knights of the Old Republic. The choices here really make you think. Like there's this choice now that my dwarf has to make.

A bit more on the background of my dwarf, Gunter. Well like I said, he isn't exactly the most lawful and respectable member of society considering he's part of the dwarven casteless society. He lived his teens and early adult hood being a pickpocket, mugger and thug for the crime lord Behraht. Well spoiler alert.... his sister claims she has found a suitor. Well Gunter becomes a Grey Warden and leaves his dwarven homeland. Eventually, the blight of darkspawn (the evil) must be defended against so he has to go back to his home to ask the aid of the dwarves for help.

Well it turns out the last dwarven king has died. Politics and in-fighting have caused a high amount of tension in the dwarven city. You hear rumors that the prince, son of the former king, Behlen poisoned his father for the right to the throne. The other dwarf who is gunning for power is Lord Harramond who is somewhat a lenient lord.

So in order to secure the aid of the dwarves - there must be a king. So you as a grey warden can pick who you want to support. I sort of wanted to go for Lord Harramond thinking that maybe the caste system might be abolished through his rule or at least ignored. I decided to see how my sister was doing first - turns out the dude she got to marry was Prince Behlen. Uh oh. Do I go for family or for freedom?

Well this was a tough choice. I didn't like the rumors of Behlen but technically my character values his sister above all else. I decided to support the prince and see how it plays out....

Mass Effect Sale

Oh yeah, we have more RPG goodness from Bioware! Mass Effect is now on sale over at Steam at 50% off. For those interested in this space RPG, you should get it now before Mass Effect 2 ships because you're character (and story) can be transferred to the sequel.

Over at Impulse, we have a Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl at 50% off which is the same as the Steam one last week ($5). Go check out their other sales at Impulse.

Over at GamersGate, it's Paradox month so all their games will usually have a daily deal. A good time to maybe pickup Mount and Blade or Majesty 2 but wait for the sale to get some savings. They also have a Painkiller series sale - all at 30% off.

Dragon Age: Origins

Got Dragon Age: Origins yesterday, the much touted spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate. Well from my initial impressions, it is kinda like Baldur's Gate. You can zoom out to make it go to the tactical view which is technically the perspective you have in Baldur's gate or you can zoom in and it becomes to the chase cam like in Neverwinter Nights. You only get 3 classes to start out with though (well if you looked at the D&D Baldur's Gate classes, they're basically just 4 anyway) - Fighter, Thief and Mage (there's no cleric/priest class). Character's can then become specialists later like thieves turning to assassins or bards.

The unique thing about Dragon Age is the origin stories. Depending on your race, either Elf, Human or Dwarf, you get 2 different origin stories for the race you pick. So you basically have 6 starting paths and back stories to your hero character. I decided I would be a dwarven commoner who is a thief. So I named him Gunter and thought he would be a thief, not very good one at that but he knows herbalism (a skill in the game which makes potions). He was a cast out dwarf forced to do drugs and steal to live his daily life.

Well I started the game and the game gave me a back story (no more making up stuff like in Mount and Blade). Well it turns out I have a sister and we're both forced to work under some dwarven crime lord to make ends meet. Gunter was technically a casteless dwarf - an outcast in dwarven society. I love that the game is fully voice acted (except for your hero of course) and I decided I'll be a dwarf who did everything for money to get by everyday but he's also a dude who's overprotective of his sister. Well some spoiler (I guess it's the first thing anyway so it's not so spoilery) your sister is being turned into some whore by that mob boss. Gunter got really angry but he couldn't dare strike against his boss.

Well that's my first take on Dragon Age. I'll be probably filling more blog posts on character fanfic again like in Mount and Blade so stay tuned for more Dragon Age stories.

The Last Stand

Got Dawn of War 2 and started playing the campaign yesterday. It's annoying I can't grab my save game from the demo as I recalled I did better back then. Now, my squad seems to get knocked out and my final rating isn't that good. Anyway, I've taken out both Gutrencha and Skykilla in the campaign and I played against a few easy skirmish. I can't believe that the easy computer is so weak. I mean it took me around a minute to look around the interface and start capturing the power and resource nodes. By 5 minutes, I've taken like 80% of the map and the space marine enemy were no match to my Evil Sun Orks. Dakka Dakka.

I've noticed my squad gets suppressed quickly and this type of suppression feels like the Dawn of War 1 type. Once you get suppressed, it means run away as your troop doesn't shoot and take more damage. I've gotten quite a bit used to CoH's suppression where your troop doesn't attack but takes reduced damage as they seem to duck for cover.

For the graphics, I like the graphics better than Dawn of War 1 or Company of Heroes though I seem to like zooming in a bit more. I sort of remember in Dawn of War 1, units were slightly bigger at the same resolution I'm using now. I like all the flashes and the explosions but too much can get annoying.

I like the interface better as the hotkey of a specific ability is now written on screen. That really helps quite a bit for new players though you still have to know what the ability does though. I wish that the icons were larger and the character portrait a bit smaller though.

Haven't tried any real multiplayer. Hopefully, I'll be able to get some games going later on.

Halloween Sale

Well there's one over at Direct2Drive so check that out (not for us non-North American people however).

We've got the Witcher Sale over at Impulse. There's also the Dawn of War collection ( I sound like a broken record, that game seems to be on sale at a different place every week) on sale over there. AAAAA! A reckless disregard for gravity (I know there's about around 14 A's missing from the name but it's annoying to type it all out), the indie game is only $9.99 over at Impulse. Also, CoD4 is on sale here as with....

Over at Steam, besides the other sales which I mentioned last Thursday, there's also the weekend sale for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare at 40% off.

Over at GamersGate, there's the 30% off on all JoWood games. They also have Legendary, Street Fighter 4 and Space Siege at HALF price. Go over there if you're interested in those 3 games.

Torchlight

Diablo enters the cartoon world. Well, Torchlight is a game made by the original developers of Diablo and the Mythos. It's a slash and hack loot grabbing RPG. You go around a town and enter dungeons, kill monsters, grab items and improve your character. This game doesn't have any multiplayer though until they release the MMO version maybe next year.

I like the graphic style of the game. It reminds me of some cartoon I can't remember. The game runs well on all systems - it can even work on a netbook with it's requirements (it even has a netbook mode in the settings). The graphics aren't jaw dropping awesome like the screens and videos of Diablo 3 but since it's stylized, it holds up pretty well. It can get confusing though with all the sparks flying and damage numbers popping up here and there.

You also get a pet who functions like a mercenary. You can equip spells and amulets on it and when you feed the pet fish it can transform. Depending on the fish you feed, the pet transforms to a different monster for a limited time. The best thing about the pet is that he can carry items back to town to sell them (pretty smart dog/cat) while you're off battling demons in the mines.

I'm not so big with the skill system as of now. I haven't played much to see if the lower tier skills will scale on the later levels. Currently, all higher level skills don't have a lower level skill requirement like the skill tree in Diablo. All it has is a level requirement.

I like this game more than Titan Quest but I still feel that Diablo 2 has the better gameplay and has multiplayer. It's just $20 if people want to buy this game (same as Titan Quest).

Steamy Week Sale

There's so much stuff on sale in Steam this week that I have to put this out since it isn't the weekend yet.

First, we have a $5 Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl. The first person shooter with some RPG and open world mechanics. Great game.

Second, we have East India Company on 60% off with it's expansion. A good strategy management sim in the old days of shipping to India. (that was a bad description I know...)

Third, until October 29 only! go grab The Witcher at 50% off. That's today! This super RPG is now available worldwide!

There's also a Crazy Machine sale over at Steam so go check it out now.

Scary Games?

I've never trully been scared at playing video games compared to watching a horror movie. Take for instance the Silent Hill series, it isn't scary. Certainly the monsters are disturbing but they aren't scary when you have near infinite ammo in the late game. The Resident Evil series is the same. It's basically a shooter with zombies as your opponents. Horror games will certainly try to creep you out but I think if you get older, you won't get scared.

The first ever game that I felt some form of fear was Alone in the Dark 1. I found it scary cause I was a kid at that time. A lot of enemies also had a trick in killing them like I was stuck at the twin monster by the stairs for the longest time. There was no internet to look for FAQs on how to defeat it, eventually I guessed right and placed a mirror to take those monsters down.

Fatal Frame is another game that I got creeped out. Until you get used to the fact that the ghosts that pop up here and there aren't really going to kill you. Also, once I got good at shooting the camera, I started feeling like a ghostbuster.

Actually some of those old school western RPGs creeped me out. Especially when you get lost in the level and you were lazy to make a map. You'd suddenly be attacked by several monsters and you were going to die in hell. Now that was scary. Then again, I was a kid with a hyperactive imagination. I doubt I'd feel that way if there was a dark horror Etrian Odyssey.

Mount and Blade Flaws

I think I've played more than enough to see the flaws of Mount and Blade.
Certainly the concept is great though it does have several failures. The
biggest failure is probably the repetitive nature of the game. Most of the
quest will require you to kill either bandits or someone, deliver a message
to a lord, escort a caravan or give a ransom payment. Without a story or
some background, it's really up to you to keep the interest up. Other
games are also repetitive like say Diablo where basically you kill
everything so I guess you don't have to fault this game for that. Second
flaw of the game deals with the walls in any arena. The AI on horseback
would usually get stuck on a wall thus rendering him useless in combat.
Well walls do give boundaries but I wish the AI would turn around and
maneuver more when it reaches close to it. Third, I guess this is the flaw
of being a 2 person development team - poor graphics. Well I guess it runs
pretty well on older systems so that's good but graphics aren't very
special to look at. I do like the fact that your clothes get bloodied
after killing dozens of people - that's a good thought in the game.

I also kinda like the game at the easier damage setting. It's so
frustrating to get killed so easily by an axe throw or being stabbed in the
back. Anyway, I'm trying to be evil in the game now with all my village
looting yet my honor doesn't seem to drop below 0 (or is that the lowest?).
I've just got Dawn of War 2 recently and once I have my brand new vid card
- I'll be playing that soon so stay tuned for Dawn of War Adventures hehe.

ARMA 2 Sale

Arma 2 - the realistic first person shooter is now on sale at 50% off in Steam and GamersGate. It's more of a first person shooter simulator as a bullet is enough to take you down.

Over in GamersGate, it's their turn to have a THQ week but they don't have Dawn of War 2 (as it has Steam and Games for Windows requirements). They do have the original Dawn of War with Soulstorm package at a discount and others such as Company of Heroes, Red Faction and Titan Quest. There's also a Elven Legacy (with the release of the expansion, Elven Legacy: Ranger) and East India Company sale.

Impulse has Call of Duty 4, Elven Legacy and Red Faction: Guerrilla on sale. Check those out over at Impulse.

Fix it

I got it running! Yesss! the machine is nearly alive. I've stick and jabbed so many wires in it that I can feel the power (or the static electricity). My only problem now is that my OS won't boot cause of all the new stuff. I can probably only get into safe mode so now I have to get a hard disk, install the OS before I have it up and running. Hmmm, this may take a few more days considering the time it takes to format and install an OS and downloading all those drivers.

Well I got a new 500 GB hard disk better than the old 80 and 40GB that was in the old one. I can remember having an 800 MB one waaaay back. It's amazing that 800 MB was huge back then when now 1 TB is now commonplace.

Now I can put in my old win XP but there's Window's 7 coming out and 64 bit seems the a good choice for the future. However, 64 bit compatibility might be tough even today. Ho hum anyway, with this new rig I can't wait for Dragon Age that's soon to be released. All that's left to complete it is a video card.... the ATI 5770 looks pretty awesome.

Crashing Halt

Well my gaming has come to a crashing halt because my system wont start up. I can't tell whether the problem lies with the motherboard, processor or the memory of the system. The hard disk and power works cause I've tried it on a different system so it lies with these 3 main parts. If the PC was a car then my car could turn on the headlights and radio but won't really start. The fans of the video card and heatsink cooler would turn on so that's a good thing but still no start. It's not the video card since I've already used the card with another system.

I remember in the older days that computers would beep if they didn't start and those beeps had a certain meaning. A few short beeps might mean that the memory is bad and needs to be changed. I realized that my case and probably all the newer casings don't have that sort of speaker anymore nor do motherboards come with an internal beeping speaker. What a failure and holidays are fast approaching...I got to get this rig up and running quick.

Well there's a real reason for buying a branded one rather than building one on your own. You don't get the damn frustration of wondering what's wrong with the system or how to set the system up.

Something in me tells me that it's the motherboard that has the problem but I'm not 100% sure. It is a locally branded one and awfully cheap so I'm not really sure of the build quality. Hmm, I have a feeling I'll end up taking this back to the shop...

Gordon Freeman Sale

Since Dr. Gordon Freeman has won greatest video game hero of all time in Gamespot (I have no idea why he won...must be his booming voice), Valve has declared a 55% sale for all Half Life games over at Steam.

Red Faction games including Guerilla have a 25% off sale over at Steam since it's still THQ week.

Also, THQ week along with the Dawn of War 2 update has a sale on all Dawn of War games - 50% off.

I don't see any sales of interest over at the other sites, Impulse, Gamersgate and Direct2Drive but feel free to check them out as they do have lesser known titles on sale.

Dragon Age: Origins can also be pre-ordered at Steam for international people. Impulse and the others only allow US and Canada for that game (annoying isn't it).

Mount and Blade: Fall of The Don

I made a crippling mistake with The Don last night. Well you see, the castle which wasn't awarded to The Don fell to the enemy. The Don managed to take it back and also go to another castle Domsumting castle and take that over. The Domsumting castle was awarded to him along with the small village that came with the castle. Well The Don was proud of his new castle and had his top Huscarls garrison in it.

Yet defending the castle against the Vaegirs wasn't easy. The Don has crushed even the Vaegir king seeking to take his holdings. The castle near Rivacheg was retaken by The Don and again he asks that it be awarded to him. King Ragnar again rejects his proposal and The Don decides to be his own king. He breaks away from the Nords and forms the Kingdom of Nord Rebels (yeah a bad name). The Rhodoks have amassed an army and was heavily harassing that area where The Don was patrolling. Soon, a charge had surrounded The Don and here the mistake was made. I pressed an attack against 300 men without joining into battle. I had let my 80+ cavalry and heroes die to the blade of my enemies as The Don watched. With this only defeat, The Don surrenders and is captured by the Rhodoks and locked in prison.

The Don manages to escape - with no troops but a lot of money. He decides to retire and be a thief and smuggler over at Tihr.

Anyway...I think this will be my last Mount and Blade adventure that I'll be typing in for now.

Zombie Alliance

Since it's close to Halloween, I was thinking of a game I want to play. I'm not sure if there is a mod for Jagged Alliance but it would be cool to see zombies in that game. Think about it, it's a tactical turn based shooter against hordes of zombies. It would be like Jagged Alliance / X-Com meets Left 4 Dead. You basically start off creating your character and the initial characters you'll get to pick from a list. Any new character you find can join you against the zombies or be an infected or zombie themselves. A few characters would be immune to the zombie disease but you won't be able to know who. Your own created character can turn into a zombie and you then must be killed.

The game would basically be surviving. You'd control your team to take key locations by assaulting the mass of zombies there. You can then barricade the area to defend against a zombie attack. The end game is when you find the main source of the zombie infestation - a hive like biological lab which holds the boss zombie that infects everyone else.

I was also wondering why they haven't made an Underwold game..oh wait that's Vampire: The Masquerade.

THQ Week Sale on Steam

There's a THQ sale over at Steam this week. For October 12, we got Titan Quest at 50% off. Each day there will be different titles on sale - probably Company of Heroes, Dawn of War, Stalker and Full Spectrum Warrior on a different day.

If you have any liking to any of those games go grab them now.

Mount and Blade: The Don

Before I go into the continuing adventure of The Don, let's see what has happened to our barbarian. Davion was last seen making camp near a Nord town when he finally decides to end his adventuring. According to the news, he goes to become and abbey assistant (very strange for a brutal killing machine, but hey that's what happened to agent 47 in Hitman). He doesn't end up being famous nor rich but I guess he lived a peaceful life away from all the warfare.

So let's go back to The Don. The Don started off by becoming a great merchant trader. Buying low and selling high was the name of his game. He would travel from end to end selling his different wares. His mercenary company grew as much as his own wealth. During his travels, he eventually ended up helping several Nord lords against raiders and Nord farmers against bandits.

One day, The Don received a message from King Ragnar of the Nords asking him to be a vassal and this town of Ruval will be given to him. Deluded by greed, The Don accepts without realizing that the Kingdom of the Nords was at war with 3 other kingdoms and that King Ragnar was imprisoned over at a castle. The Don was required to travel and search for King Ragnar to give a formal oath to the king. So this is when it gets crazy. The Don had about 50 men by this time and he marches off in the heart of enemy territory to talk with the Nord king. I found out that you could pay off the prison guard to see the prisoner since I tried talking to the lord but there was no option to speak to the prisoners. Well, in the prison, The Don swore oath to King Ragnar. It doesn't seem that The Don can just bust out the King so he leaves the castle and heads for his new home. Unfortunately, he was behind enemy lines. Facing 100+ enemy soldiers is never a good idea so The Don was forced to retreat twice losing 20 men in the process. His group seemed displeased by this act but better lose 10 than lose all.

Our story goes pretty generic for several game months. The Don joins a military campaign and fights against enemy rulers winning all of the battles. During the day, he would battle and during the night, he would rest. One interesting battle is when he captures an enemy king and eventually ransoms him off for a huge sum.

Eventually, The Don decides to take on a castle on Rivacheg on his own. So he besieges the places taking out 2 lords who challenge him. He manages to take the castle in a direct assault as waiting for 30 days to starve the enemy isn't a very interesting option. The Don gets disappointed that the castle isn't awarded to him. Sadly, The Don still decides to remain a vassal of King Ragnar.

This blog is turning out to be the Mount and Blade adventures blog....sheesh

Hitman Sale

Now you can hire the famous agent 47 for a special low price of $9.99 over at Steam. You get all 3 Hitman games - Agent 47, Hitman 2 and Blood Money or you could buy 1 for $4.99. Now you can be that badass silent assassin you've always dreamt to be. But wait there's more! Hitman is always about doing the killing your way so why not check out Rebel FM's podcast (link goes to their game club find the episodes on Hitman there) on the Hitman Blood Money. Playing Blood Money and listening to the podcast is a great way to find out how people worked their way into this game.

Again, Direct2Drive doesn't offer much international games. It's their wargame / strategy sale week. Funny how say World in Conflict have "This product is a multi-language version and contains English, French, and Spanish." when it's available only in US and Canada. Well I guess there are a lot of French Canadians and Latin Americans....

Over at Impulse, Sins of a Solar Empire is on sale. They're probably doing this for the upcoming expansion: Diplomacy. It's a great game where it's Galactic Civilizations meets Homeworld.

Gamergate doesn't really offer anything interesting. If you are interested with Velvet Assasin though, feel free to check that out.

Mount and Blade: Combat

I wasn't able to get my Mount and Blade fix yesterday as I had a blackout last night. I did manage to go around the countryside a bit as The Don but the power went out. The nice thing about setting the game to Save and Exit is that it auto saves I think every game day and every time you enter town.

I've heard of the multiplayer expansion coming for this game called Mount and Blade: Warbands. I don't know how this expansion will change the single player game but multiplayer would be really game changing. Think of a MMO with action combat.

The combat in Mount and Blade is deceptively simple but quite deep once you start looking at the intricacies of it. Let me first explain melee (on foot) combat. The game starts with the default of an auto direction attack though you can set this to manual. Basically, you can attack at 4 different directions - left to right, right to left, vertical slash and stab/pierce. Pressing and holding the attack button will then create a stronger attack. Blocking then creates an added complexity. If one has a shield, pressing and holding the block button will block all attacks (until your shield breaks). If one doesn't have a shield, blocking gets more difficult. One has to wait for the enemy to ready his attack (whether horizontal, vertical or stab) before pressing the block. If one holds the block, your enemy can change the direction of his next attack to avoid your block. Thus, a vertical block will not be able to block horizontal attacks.

Range combat are done with three types of weapons - bows, crossbows and thrown weapons. Basically, bows have the longest range yet are the most difficult to use. Crossbows are easy to use but have a fairly short range. Throwing weapons are fairly easy to use and are generally very powerful but have barely any range to them. Since the game takes into account gravity (there isn't any wind in the game so you don't have to worry about that), at longer distances, one has to fire higher to hit the target. I'm not fond of range weapons as I can't really hit anyone with them and shields can block them easily. I tend to use most ranged weapons at point blank range since then I'll be sure to hit my targets.

Mounted combat changes things up. Holding a melee weapon still has the same 4 way attack (except for polearms). One can slice to the right side or left side of the horse, slash vertically and stab. Generally the vertical slash and stab are used against other mounted opponents and the side slashes are for enemies on foot. A polearm changes things since now you can charge and lance your enemies. This is done automatically when you ride your horse at a certain speed. Your character will automatically position the polearm to the side and moving your mouse changes the aim of the pole slightly.

Seems simple enough until you add in your weapon attack types and your armor rating. There are 3 attack types, cutting, piercing and blunt. Swords can do cutting and piercing while other weapons like clubs can do blunt. In general, cutting has the highest damage of the 3 types but do significantly less when your opponent is heavily armored and carries a shield. There's also a thing called speed factor. When running forward and you attack with a stab or vertical slash, you usually gain a bonus as your whole body is propelling your attack forward. If you're moving backward while attacking, the opposite happens, you do less damage. The distance between attacks also modifies damage. Stabbing a person with a spear in very close quarters will deal very little damage. Think of it in real life since you can't pull back your spear or aim it properly you'll probably hit with a very small amount of force or hit them with the stick instead of the blade of the spear.

I'm not so sure but I believe feint attacks can be performed by pressing the block key while you are preparing to attack. The block key cancels your attacks with ranged weapons but I'm not so sure if it's the same with melee attacks.

Mount and Blade: The Merchant Prince

I seem to be addicted to this game now. Anyway, I made this new character of noble birth and who had a childhood as a merchant. So I increased his intelligence and charisma. I also increased his trade and leadership skills and placed points in most of the charisma and intelligence related skills. The good thing about being of noble descent is that I have a pretty good riding skill so I can use the better horses at the start.

Well Mount and Blade is technically an RPG but it's combat is very action - sim. You can certainly beat enemies of way higher level as long as you dodge and attack at the right moment. However, when you yourself are surrounded by butcher knife wielding farmers, you still can lose even if you have a the latest armor and skills. Even though my character isn't a macho barbarian, he can pretty much hold
his ground against enemies.

What I first did for my new character - The Don, was to train him in the training grounds. The training grounds give 100 xp per level you beat and it does help in training your various weapon skills. If you complete the melee combat training, you're bound to go up to level 2. I actually made the Don once but didn't go to the training grounds. I recruited some peasants but was immediately ambushed by sea raiders and I was killed (though there was 2 enemies left) and I decided to restart the game but this time, take a few more extra troops and train myself up before venturing in the world.

The amazing thing about riding and starting with a staff is that you can be a lancer right from the start. In those movies where you have knights jousting, you can pretty do that in this game. All you have to do is have a polearm (spear, pitchfork, quarterstaff) and a fast horse. You charge your horse towards the enemy and try to aim the lance (takes some skill actually) at the person. If you do it right, you'll be able to do a huge amount of damage (usually kill them outright).

I started this merchant prince with a large army right off the bat. I recruited 10 Nords and bought linen and sold them at another town for a good profit. I also managed to get a charger horse (a horse that's really quick and does good trample damage) and get myself a decent spear (instead of that wooden quarterstaff). I got to pick a banner at the start of the game unlike my first character. I'm not really sure if I could become a lord or even king later on but my primary goal of this character is to amass a huge amount of wealth and bring a large army along. Now, The Don has an army of 15, with a horse archer hero and some mercenary cavalry to complement his Nord Footmen. Let me see if The Don will achieve his dreams of wealth and fortune.

Mount and Blade: The Barbarian

Anyway, let me continue with Davion's story. It won't be too long as I sort of didn't like what was happening to Davion. See, when we last saw him, he joined forces with this swordswoman who was actually bent on revenge. So they set off to the northern lands (non-Nord) and start forcing villages to give them cattle and any goods they have. Davion does this to so many lands and finally returns to Tix (it's actually named Tihr but I can't really remember these names so I'll just use the names I made up). He recruits more people to join his band - a female blacksmith, a skilled crossbowman and several mercenary cavalry. His renown has spread and the lord of Tix offers him to be a mercenary for the kingdom of the Nords.

Davion gladly agrees as being a mercenary will greatly improve his fighting skill and his search for powerful opponents. He was ordered to go to Taj Castle in the north with at least 8 men to fight with. Well, Davion rushes off to Taj Castle which was already under seige by this King Gandalf (not the real name but I don't really remember). As Davion arrives to Taj, King Gandalf sallies out the seige to take on Davion. Davion, being a reckless barbarian, charges in battle with out even thinking about tactics. The odds are against him with the King's army numbering to 170 men to Davion's meager 16. Outnumbered and overpowered, all Davion's men were either killed or slaughtered. Davion himself was taken prisoner.

Several days pass, High Marshall Arthur and Lord Hammon engages King Gandalf. Davion manages to set himself free during this confusion and decides to launch a counter attack against the king. This time the odds were in favor of the Nords, 170 to 150. Davion charged in battle without his horse. The battle went well for the Nords capturing and killing most of the invaders. However, King Gandalf manages to escape and the only companion Davion finds is the blacksmith.

In anger, Davion charges in a nearby village and proceeds to loot and raze it by himself. He takes out several angry farmers with his throwing axes. He maims several with slashes on horseback. Showing his barbarian prowess, he dismounts and proceeds to kill several dozen farmers on foot. In the end, he has taken out around 40 men and women. With that achievement, Davion thinks of retiring.

I didn't play much of this character anymore cause I made a new one - the merchant lancer. I'll tell more about him on my next post.

Mount and Blade: The Adventure Continues

Let's see where we left off Davion the Nord Barbarian. We last saw him entering this large town - for simplicity I'll call it Syx. He sells the goods he bought from nearby towns and loot from his enemies over at the marketplace. Davion looks for work and the Guild Master asks him to take out as many looter bands in the area. Each looter band will give 40 denars (the currency of the world).

Davion agrees as it is a quest fit for a barbarian. Davion rides off to nearby towns to recruit some more Nords to his cause. With a decent party of 8, he hunts down looter bands in the area. Looters would then flee from the gruff barbarian. Yet nothing escapes a barbarian's bloodlust. He maims several bands of looters before heading back to town. Proud of his achievement, Davion turns over the heads of the looters to the Guild Master. The Guild Master was pleased and happily gave the bounty over to Davion and his crew though part of him wanted Davion to leave as all the rotting heads created a foul stench.

While leaving town, a very well made axe caught the barbarian's attention. It was a well balanced throwing axe. Finally, the weapon of his dreams. He quickly drops the hundred denars to claim his prize and leaves the town. On the fields, he sees King Ragnar facing off some looters and Davion rushes to aid the king (not that the king needed any aid). Crushing his foe with his raw might, Davion roars in victory. King Ragnar approaches the barbarian and thanks him for the aid. He offers Davion a mission to find a murderer over who hides in Oxville (not the real name but it sound's better than the gibberish names the game gives). Davion agrees to find this murderer and though his party is still wounded, sets out to Oxville.

The trek is long and tiring. The wounds of the previous battles have yet to heal. A few more hours trek and Davion would have reached Oxville yet it was not to be. A group of sea warriors ambush Davion and his men. Davion charges through them killing all 9 but alas, he is wounded heavily and his Nord recruits have all been killed. A group of looters then raid the weakened barbarian. Davion has no choice but to surrender and become their prisoner.

Davion was tortured and his loot taken from him. He watched as the raiders pillaged and captured some farmers. One late night, the raiders had too much to drink. Using his berserker strength, Davion rips out from his chains and manages to reclaim his horse and weapons before riding out to the town of Tix. ( one thing in the game is that you can never really die - the only way to end the game is if you retire). Davion drags himself to the bar and drinks due to the loss of his men. He sits beside a short haired blonde. Eyeing the blonde suspiciously, the woman stands up and raises her sword. She reveals herself to be Matthas, a swordswoman. Davion thinks that this person might be handy to use in battle and they talk.

What will happen next to Davion and this swordswoman? Will they start a mutually destructive relationship? Find out as Mount and Blade adventures continue!