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.