Wednesday 20 May 2015

The Past and times of Yore: Grand Theft Auto 3, the new chapter

Release Date: October 26th 2001
Genre: Action/Adventure
Publisher: Rockstar Games
Developer: DMA Design/Rockstar North
Platform: Playstation 2, PC, XBOX, Android, OSX
Players: 1
Classification:M

Well this is it, probably the most influential and groundbreaking of the Grand Theft Auto games to date, Grand Theft Auto 3 one of the most popular games for the PS2 and one of my favourite games ever. As many of you might know Grand Theft Auto 5 has come out recently on PC which I am now avidly playing, so I thought it would be a good time to review the first of the series to pioneer the 3D aspect and one of my favourite games of all time. Having first played the original GTA and GTA2 It took me awhile to get GTA3 as we didn’t end up getting a Playstation 2 for awhile and I was stuck playing Driver 2. Not that it was a bad thing of course it’s just most of my friends had PS2’s so I was kind caught out and even when we had sleepovers/parties etc we did that whole “pass the controller around” thing playing GTA3 on the PS2 which I understand now why it’s good to do it that way because especially at parties you want to sort of have a go then chillout not be playing constantly. But I had brought my PS1 specifically with all these multiplayer games and all these controllers (and the multitap) and it seemed like a bit of a waste but anyway that’s what happened.

Our antihero, the then-nameless thug
We eventually got a PS3 and GTA3 was the first game we got I’m pretty sure, I think I’ve played it through about 6 times now including the one on my Asus Nexus 7 tablet though I didn’t make this a an Android and his Nexus post because I’ve only played it once on that and besides it’s really for Tablet games only. I suppose I don’t really need to explain this but in the beginning the original Grand Theft Auto was a top-down birds eye view style game which I loved but was kind of redundant with no ability to save and was pretty damn hard in some cases especially when you could die with a one hit kill and couldn’t really aim your gun. GTA2 made this a bit better with the same top down view but much better graphics and lighting inc the option to play the game at night. It also had a better weapon selection and of course saving ability. 

Grand Theft Auto 1 and 2
But this was nothing compared to what happened next, GTA3 on the PS2 brought true 3D, bird’s eye no longer. I can still remember the wonder we all had when it came out, it just looked so damn good, and even without ragdoll physics, running over pedestrians, stealing and smashing cars, shooting people, blowing stuff up and all the things you do in the game had never felt better. This was one of the games I loved playing for the first time as it had one of those start-from-nothing starts that I love so much though it can be argued that you never really amount to much anyway but we’ll get into that later. Other things I loved about most of the starting area was just randomly exploring and experimenting with the world and mechanics which is what made GTA great. While not being the first this game was one of the earliest and most popular sandbox for its time and the series was part of the reason for the massive success of the Playstation 2 console.

"My Stallion!"
So let’s get into it shall we, the story of GTA3 begins with you being betrayed by your “love” Catalina which most people will remember from the events of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas which apparently happened before the events of GTA3. I’ll sidetrack a bit here to explain about GTA’s protagonist who you play, he is basically a no-name thug who was betrayed and jailed and escapes then works his way back up also never speaks for some reason. We didn’t really question this as we were having too much fun to care until San Andreas where we find that he is actually mute and when the 10th Anniversary edition of the game came out that his name was “Claude”, but we didn’t know this back then and it didn’t really matter. 

Claude is betrayed by Catalina
After the betrayal you are travelling in a prison van when the bridge gets blown up in a prison break attempt by the Columbian Cartel in which you and your prison friend 8-ball are able to escape. You then basically go on a crime wave of various different jobs for a Variety of gangs inc the Mafia, Diablos, Yardies and Yakuza plus a range of other singular characters, the game had a much deeper and cinematic storyline then the previous games as there was actually full cutscenes and you also had a much bigger sense of presence being much closer to the action so basically any of your actions had much more weight to them, especially killing people which went from comical to slightly less comical but was still confronting at the time leading to various controversies.

Fist fighting (this shot is taken on the Android version of the game hence the action buttons on the bottom right)
The main weight of the story is you getting revenge on Catalina for her betrayal as she is the main antagonist of the story though you do make more enemies as you go along. This game does not have the previous “Respect” system that GTA2 had you basically do various missions for the different gangs with the end result of some attacking you on sight though unlike the previous game you cannot simply gain the respect back by attacking either gang making it much more dangerous to go back to old areas meaning that it was advisable to do nay alternate or collection quests before doing the story missions. 

The Triads from Chinatown in Portland
The game map is loosely based on New York City, starting on the Portland (Industrial/Brooklyn) district you gradually make your way through Staunton Island (Business/Manhattan) to Shoreside Vale (Residential/Staten Island) by doing the main story missions. This was the first of the GTA games to be on a single map and feature blocked access preventing you from gaining access to other areas, this is done by various methods inc: bridges being blown up or under repair, tunnels being blocked off and preventing the protagonist from being able to swim thus drowning if they fall into water. The map was notably bigger and obviously not split into 3 different levels/cities as per previous games though there was a short loading time when you switched islands. 

Map of the City from the game case, you can see most characters displayed around it.
The world was plenty big enough back then and there also seemed to be a little more nature areas then before though the main thing was the change to 3D and all of the experimentation that came with it. The graphics though nothing by today’s standards with polygonal faces and round balls for hands but back then it was pretty damn good, sure there’s was a bit of clipping and tearing as there were a fair few buildings and objects that the camera could clip through and there were some instances where the camera got a bit annoying  but for the most part it was ok, it was everything you could want in a  city really, lots of people, lots of cars, lots of cops :P the level of details was pretty good. 
The world was essentially fully working.
This was the first GTA on console and the PS2 controller worked absolutely fine, controlling your character was basically just like an RPG with one stick moving and the other stick to look around you soon got used to walking, running and jumping around, stealing cars, punching people and it all looking so much better in 3D. Although there was no ragdoll it was still fund to see the physics engine in motion with full 3D rendered models as you just didn’t get this in the previous two games. The aiming system though much better than the original two games did have drawbacks as it was relatively hard to free-aim at things and using weapons like the Sniper rifle were quite difficult which is why nowadays I usually play GTA games on PC with a PS3 style controller for backup.

Guns could now be aimed and you automatically followed your target when locked on.
As this was a GTA game there of course the weapons which contained basically all you needed inc a Baseball bat, Pistol, Molotov Cocktail, Uzi, Shotgun, AK-47, Grenades, M16, Flamethrower, Sniper Rifle Rocket Launcher. With most of which utilizing the “lock-on” feature by pressing one of the shoulder buttons of the PS2 controller whereas the others were either thrown or used scoped aiming, this helped immensely with aiming as basically before you just pointed yourself in the right direction and hopefully didn’t get shot first  or just sprayed your bullets though it did look kind of funny when using a one-handed weapon while running around and shooting as you bent your arm in all sorts of directions. But for the most part the combat was good, it was fun punching random people or smacking them with the baseball bat and blowing people up or setting them on fire, the weapons had a very punchy feel inc the Shotgun (obviously) an the Sniper Rifle.

Doing this was very satisfying the first time.
 I liked most of the weapons but my favourites were probably the AK-47 with its raw rattatat sound and animation, the M16 which was scope aimed for some reason (despite not having a scope) and was ridiculously powerful, it could explode a car in a second and made mince meat out of anyone who got it the way, both of the weapons could be fired straight and level without aiming too which made the great for multiple targets. The Flamethrower was another of my favourites due to the fact that it just looked so good, the particle animation was still way better than the ones in Vice city and San Andreas.

Fwooosh! it's burning time
This wouldn’t be a Grand Theft Auto game of course without the cars, driving was heaps more fun too due to the obvious fact that you could actually see the road ahead of you this time, though interestingly enough you could actually switch back to using the top down view if you wanted too though I don’t know why you would as you couldn’t see anything when under a roof or bridge and the Portland area had the railway line on the top most of the time. One of my favourite pastimes was doing doughnuts on grassy areas using the Stallion which was also one of my favourite cars, driving using the controller was quite simple you just used the triangle button to get in (or jack the car) accelerate with X, brake with square and the to shoulder button to handbrake, then there was the extra things like looking behind and to either side to do drive by shooting. Drive by shooting was a feature actually introduced in Grand Theft Auto: London, 1961 by way of a power-up but was not freely available to do at any time in most cars until GTA3 though only if you have the Uzi equipped as this was the only weapon that could do drive-by shooting. 

Drive by from "in-car" view
That wasn’t the only thing though, in the new 3D Universe (which the Playstation 2 era games were called) you could now roll and flip your car all over the place and in addition to this many Unique Jumps were placed around the city which were pretty awesome as you knew they were triggered by the slow-mo where you could watch yourself win (or fail) with style. Similar to GTA2 there were no motorcycles available in the game but the amount of cars was enough as with previous games you had a whole range of vehicles to choose from cars, trucks, emergency vehicles, gang cars and of course a solitary plane (sortof). 

The Dodo, probably the most popular vehicle in GTA3 and one of the GTA's most iconic vehicles in the series
GTA3 was the first of the series to have proper emergency vehicle and taxi missions. No longer do you just get into a Taxi and a random pedestrian just gets in and gives you money to take him wherever you want to go, this time around you can actually take fares, ferry people to the hospital and even be a Vigilante with various rewards such as cars, health and bribe pickups. These missions were kind of fun but very hard in a way too, especially getting top the highest level with them, the Taxi missions were only 100 fares so was pretty easy as you didn’t have to use the same car. The Police and Paramedic ones were incredibly hard as if you crashed your Ambulance it was game over, the Vigilante missions gave you 20 seconds out of your Police car to either shoot the criminals or find a new one but often there was none to be found and keeping yourself and your car intact was no mean feat especially when some criminals were armed with shotguns. 


Sometimes it's good to actually help people.
This also wouldn’t be a GTA game without the sound and music, yes the radio was back again and in full force this time with a variety of different radio stations inc the first ever (and possibly the most popular) talk radio station Chatterbox FM and was possibly the first appearance from Lazlow who has been in every GTA game since. The Radio stations unfortunately still were not updated with more popular music instead compromising of various lesser-known bands and music which was actually written and performed for the game itself. The lesser-known music was probably used as the licences for more popular and well-known modern music was either unavailable or too expensive however I was very fond of the Double Clef FM radio station which had a truly spectacular version of La Donna E Mobile and a great selection of other classics as well (damn I’m even sounding like Merryweather) and there was also rap, techno, pop/rock, 70/80s, drum’n’bass and Reggae stations. This wasn’t too bad as a lot of the music was pretty catchy and is remembered today and when Vice city came out GTA started having proper popular tracks in the radio. Each gang car had their own favourite Radio station too, such as Double Clef FM with the Mafia Sentinel

La donna รจ mobile!
The sound and sound effects were pretty much what you would expect, I liked all the gun noises and explosions though there really isn’t much to say as it sounded fine to me. The biggest addition of course was the dialogue as the previous two games had basically none at all except for the cutscenes, the game was now almost fully voiced (funnily enough except for the protagonist) and even the pedestrians say random things as you walk by and react when you steal cars attack other etc. I spent a few times fighting the police and it was fun to hear the banter of the two in the helicopter saying things like “stop police!” “just shoot him!” “I can see my house from here!”

Tony Cipriani, The Mafia Capo
Speaking of the Police they are back in force for this game, you have up to 6 wanted stars as per usual, the cops in this game are pretty annoying as you can't really have much fun without getting at least a 1 star wanted level as their pretty touchy. As with GTA2 the police have a similar level of escalation going from casual to serious to all out with a helicopter and roadblocks, then to SWAT Vans then to the FBI with fast cars and machine guns then finally to the Army with M16's Trucks and Tanks. I've only got to this stage a few times but you don't last long.

5-0 in force
  Gangs make a return for GTA3 though are not the main forefront for the game as in GTA2 they are involve a large part of the story missions, other gangs and random missions not in the storyline are accessed through answering ringing payphones in various areas, they do still patrol their territory and have their own vehicles moving around which you can make use of, the most prominent threat they create is that when you pass certain points in the storyline a different gang becomes hostile to you (for example the Triads after you blow up their factory) this makes travelling in that area difficult and trying to do extra missions such as Hidden Packages, Unique Jumps and  Taxi and Emergency Vehicle missions extra hard as you are constantly being attacked and pulled out of your car. Speaking of which there is variety of extra activates and missions you can now do in addition to the Taxi and Emergency vehicle missions which I have detailed below:
  • Go on Rampages and shoot as many gang members as you can with a different weapon each time.
  • Go off roading in the off-road missions.
  • Blow up gang cars in the Remote control car missions.

Ah the elusive hidden packages, spent a bit of time getting these
 I tried several times to get the %100 but failed at %98 twice I think, after that the GTA games just got bigger so I didn’t even bother, the extra activities were a great addition to the series as they gave you something else to do as well as all of the random things. Other things I liked was all the easter eggs you could find inc one really strange one where you can drive through this old rail tunnel and find a bunch of bums with Molotov cocktails. But anyway GTA3 was one of my all time favourite games and although I got to it late (as with most games) I played the absolute hell out of it, I think I’ve finished it at least 6 times now, several of those going for %100 completion which was time consuming even then. The game was not free from controversy of course being banned in Australia (due to prostitution and bashing of hookers etc) shortly after release but of course that only increased the popularity.

Te "Liberator" mission
So the graphics may be outdated and the features may be small compared to the newer games, but all would agree this was one of the greatest and most groundbreaking games to come out of the 21st century so far and has turned a already popular series into a massive one.

Well at least I think so.

JD


The free world

Friday 1 May 2015

Hustlin' through the Old Republic - Revan's back and Interior Decorating Star Wars style

Hello again damn it’s been a while since the last post, a good 7 months since the last Hustlin’ through the Old Republic post and about 3 months since the last post of any kind, So welcome back and here we go. Of course as I had to mention in the title the Shadow of Revan expansion has arrived along with a new storyline and missions, new flashpoints, new planets a new level cap and a the new Discipline system which I’m still not sure I fully understand. Revan who if you didn’t know is quite an influential figure if his SWTOR wiki page is anything to go by but I spose all you need to know is the Dread Masters are gone so and he’s the new big bad boss guy of SWTOR. I must say I really enjoyed the Forged Alliances storyline lead-up quests to this point as I never really saw it coming but it all made sense in the end.

The main players in the Shadow of Revan Expansion: Satele Shan, Jakarro and C2-D4, Theron Shan, Lara Beniko, SHae Vizla and of coure Revan!

(NEW EXPANSION SPOILERS AHEAD!)

I must make a brief recap of the events that started the Forged Alliances questline which basically led to the Shadow of Revan Expansion. Your character started off by talking to a droid on the fleet as per usually who sends you to a new mission floor of the fleet, there you find either Colonel Dark and Theron Shan or Darth Arkous and Lana Beniko (plus another random third person) who tell you that they are setting up an attack on the Jedi Temple/Sith Academy on Tython/Korriban. So you go to the enemies homeworld and attack and kill a few bosses, however after debriefing you then find out that your own planet is being attacked then race to defend that one however once you repel the invaders they mention something about a grand plan and that your efforts are in vain blah blah blah etc so there’s definitely something up. This part is represented by the Assault on Tython and Korriban Incursion flashpoints which is part 1 of the series whereTheron and Beniko (Now working together) have worked out that Dark and Arkous must be working together.

Korriban Incursion, Empire Side - Save the Sith Temple!
The next part has you travelling to Manaan which is quite a beautiful looking planet all covered with ocean, it’s here that you undertake the Depths of Manaan flashpoint where you meet Jakarro and C2-D4, and raid the lab of a a Selkath geneticist who was constructing cyborgs and shipping them to Darok and Arkous. It was at this point that Shan and Beniko understood that the two were now part of the Order of Revan, and the cyborgs were in creation to serve Revan himself, who wanted to recreate the Infinite Empire in his image.

Manaan - Quite a beautiful planet
In the third and final part of the You then go to Rakata Prime which if you didn’t know is the home planet of the Rakata species and the central world of the Infinite Empire though they are now reduced to Tribal culture. You fight through them and the Revanites and eventually the initial soldiers of the new Infinite Empire and shut down the newly created Star Forge. You eventually confront and kill Arkous and Darok and then Revan and his fleet appear and he tries to bomb you to smithereens after a short speech about how he’s back in full force with the Revanites in tow. You manage to escape of course and Theran and Lana announce they have been accused of murder by their respective organisation and will go into hiding thus ending the Forged Alliances questline leadup to the new expansion.

Rakata Prime - Home Planet of the Rakata
 (End of spoilers)

And that was that for the time being well now return to your regular programming of my new character! That’s right after getting my Assassin to 50 I decided it was time once again to create a new character. Now I was at a bit of an impasse with this one as ever since I created my Jedi Guardian I’ve wanted to create a Jedi Sage but told myself I already had a Jedi and Sith character so needed to create a non-force user to which I thought I should make another Empire character such as an Imperial Agent. But I eventually decided on a Trooper Vanguard which although it was a non-force user it was Republic again so I was forced to create an Imperial character for this time. The thing that was stopping me from creating an Imperial Agent (or a Smuggler for that matter) is that I wanted a character with healing abilities but the Operative and Scoundrel DPS trees were largely focused on stealth and close range attacks, something that was pretty much exactly what I did as a Sith Assassin so I wanted something different. The only other choice left was a Bounty Hunter really so I decided to go a Bounty Hunter Powertech as they have a healing specialisation and abilities and also a DPS specialisation (Arsenal) that focuses on long-range combat which was what I wanted to do.

Heehee, look at me and my little pea shooter.
 I must take this point to mention that the new Discipline system was not in effect then but is no so I will now refer to the talent trees as disciplines er paths I think it is. There is an online discipline calculator at Dulfy.net here, Dulfy.net is a great resource for SWTOR news guides and info and is possibly the ONLY place you can find certain things like the Discipline calculator but anyway

The discipline system makes picking your talent points and skills ever so easy in fact it’s practically the same as WoW’s new simplified talent calculator which adopts a style akin to Diablo 3 where you choose one of three talents every 15 levels and also get rewarded one or two abilities every 15 or so levels. The SWTOR version works in relatively the same way, you follow a line of main abilities and talents as you level up, then you pick your “Utility Points” on the right which are sort of like extra talents which let you specialise your role. And that’s basically all you have to do, tbh I was glad SWTOR still had the old talent trees as I was kind of sorry to see them go, but then again I really wasn’t the type of person to chop and change around my talents so I guess this streamlined way is better for me I guess.

Video describing the new Discipline system

So anyway I created a bounty hunter named “Txan” and because I had unlocked the Miraluka race for all classes I decided to go with them. The blind Miraluka races special feature is the various eye-coverings and headdresses that they wear which look pretty cool though the majority of them are very big and outlandish with bright colours that obviously do not tie in with the unify colours option. I found that although they are initially only available to the Jedi Consular Class they still have a variety of technological eye coverings one of which was particularly subtle not like a damn sheet over your head

It's Txan!, he has probably the smallest eye covering option the Miraluka had, goes well with the scar
Playing the Bounty Hunter was pretty fun, wasn’t too much of a scrounge-from-nothing story but it was good enough, you join a ragtag  bunch of mercenaries/slicers/hunters etc and they want to nominate you for the “Great Hunt” which is apparently some big bounty hunter thing, you meet your first companion Mako right then and there as well, and man is she cute, even before I selected the customisation that made her white, damn I’m racist. I’ll to take time again to state that the rocket boots are awesome and I loved zooming around on them.

Mako! with Customization 2
For my advanced class I decided to go a Mercenary for their long range DPS and healing capability, I went with the Arsenal discipline as it’s the main DPS one. I must admit it’s fun being long range most of the time unlike my Trooper who is either tanking or spends most of his time shooting and smacking enemies up close my Mercenary is able to finish things off from afar which was much more relaxing doing flashpoints as I wasn’t in the thick of it for once. I even tried my hand and healing and didn’t find it too bad, just had to change the Cylinders to the combat support one, one interesting thing at that point was that when you had the healing cylinder on you could shoot a ally with your rapid shots default attack and it would heal them, but this has now been replaced with a separate ability which kind of sucks but meh.

Not healing here but meh it's group work
I spent quite a bit of credits, well not me I guess my richer characters have for my Bounty Hunter, ever since the Cartel Market packs had come into play there was always hundreds of speeders on the Galaxy Trade Network most of which were with ‘adaptable’ sppeds so you could use them no matter which skill you were at. I originally started out with the Amzab ZB-8 but didn’t like it cause of the leaning-over position then went with the Ubrikki Crimson Claw which I got for free from a guildie as they were going for a dime a dozen. Then while looking on the Cartel market on my guardian I found the Razalon family which looked pretty ridiculous so I went with the FC-6 as it was the flashiest cheap one there was, the end result being that I know have 3 speeders on the one character, oh well lol.
The Amzab ZB-8
The Bounty hunter story is ok I guess, Mako is mostly Light-side orientated though there’s been at least one time where she’s preferred dark which kind of surprised me, but damn the amount of times I watched a dark side option with my finger on the escape key was a lot and damn you’re a badass, smacking women to the ground then shooting them, it was pretty damn graphic for Star Wars at least. The ship you get is kinda cool though it looks a bit too much like the Jedi one inside but ok I guess, space missions were fun. The starting world Hutta wasn’t exactly pretty, just a Toxic waste dump where your constantly working for Hutts of course (and some Evocii)  Having finished Dromund Kass I have earned a pretty silly looking suit of armor (especially the helm, I’m now up to Balmorra getting used to the changes.

You lookin at me?
So then it was time to get back on my Ass or Assass, or Sith Assassin that is. As far as I remember I had finished my Story quest and given the title Darth Imperious and was basically up to questing on Ilum. Though I actually started out by doing some of the new Forged Alliances Flashpoints including the Battle of Rishi, Assualt on Tython and Korriban incursion, all out of order unfortunately (doh!) Ilum is quite a pretty planet (especially the sky), so I finished off the quests there and did the Battle of Ilum and the False Emperor and it was good to see the Empire Side of things though it did make me wonder who would be the new leader of the Sith (maybe me?) lol. So then I decided it was on to Oricon! as I now knew it gives you a new set of gear, though technically I hadn’t been in my Eradicator armor that long.

Ilum, some very nice sky

Oricon Empire side wasn’t too much different, just dealing with different people. The Pristine Seeker’s armor is pretty damn cool, very demonic looking, it was pretty funny as you do the quests you get a different piece of armor and mashing it up[ with the Eradicator armor looked kind of weird, there was one point where I wasn’t even wearing a robe lol. I was experimenting with more dyes and tried the primary purple dye which looked ok.

Oricon, not a very nice place
After that it was finishing off the level 50 extra tidbits inc Section X on Belsavis and the Black Hole on Coreilia, not that they meant much just wanted to see the Empire Side of things. I completed the Depths of Manaan flashpoint and a few others and pretty soon pimped out my Pristine Seeker Gear with 172 mods from the Rishi mod vendor and moved my black/red dye module from my eradicator gear to my new gear and was looking pretty sharp.

You dig my horns baby?
After that I decided to finally claim my Dromund Kass stronghold (or apartment), yes as part of the Galactic Strongholds expansion each subscriber gets to purchase the Coruscant or Dromund Kass apartment for 3 credits! Yes 3 credits. I wasn’t really too enthusiastic about the player housing as you had your own ship that was enough in my view and was scared to try it out as you know what I’m like with interior decorating especially in Minecraft, though it wasn’t too bad as when you purchased a stronghold you automatically got a set of basic additions such as chairs, tables, couches, beds, banners and carpets. Your mesley 3 credits only give you access to three rooms, one being the entry foyer, so I said to myself that’s fine with me! As you can to spend quite a lot of credits and/or cartel coins for the full thing, so I just decided I’d make these three rooms look as good as possible. So I began decorating which was pretty easy, you just have squares to put things in and you can move them around a small area once placed, in addition to the decorations you can buy from vendors, the GTN and the Cartel market you can also gets decorations as loot from questing and doing flashpoints which was nice.

Your Dromund Kass Stronghold/Apartment tower
Look it's me! though you actually have to pay to get the balcony.
I made the entry room sort of like a utility room with Decoration vendors and the three banks: normal cargo hold, guild cargo hold and legacy storage. As you may have guessed legacy storage allow you to store items that can be accessed across all characters which is a great feature, I also installed a Galactic trade network kiosk which is kinda weird because it can only be placed on a wall but when you place it it’s way too high and you can’t get it down low enough but anyway. I made the large room a hangout for my companions with beds and entertainment and made the other room my bedroom with Ashara there of course. Last things were some lights and banners around the wall and roof and you also get various commemorative paintings and pictures of bosses you have downed in raids. With everything added the place looked a lot more homely though I don’t like the way it’s ALWAYS raining on Dromund Kass.

Some shots of the different rooms, really do need to give it a bit of work.
So that was that for Uxan, next up was Makeb and the Hutt Cartel Expansion (finally!, I feel like i’m way behind with him). It was then on to my Trooper Gxan who was just starting Tatooine, nothing really groundbreaking just got through the story missions, with one particular interaction being  interesting as a girl asked what she could do to show her gratitude and you could “insinuate” that she could have sex with you but boy Elara didn’t take that well when I tried it out at first. The other funny thing was that there was an option to tell Elara that “I won’t let her get between us” I also  got those damn datacrons on the Sandcrawler by riding the incredibly slow balloon again , this time with no trouble though. I finished the story mission on Tatooine meeting Fuse who been imprisoned after he refused to harm innocent civilians and I chose to stop the self-destruct of the bomb but let the Imperial Commander escape,

Ah the beauty of Tatooine.
I also let Fuse live cause of his change of heart. I then went on to Alderaan where I got all political again though I did like the story where you have a prisoner from house Ulgo and rescue their wife and daughter, I had a lot of fun choosing dark side options just to see what happened (basically smack the crap out of him) then going back especially where right at the end you could betray them and leave them to be executed. Nothing much else happened apart from a Empire guild raiding house Organa’s cantina, so I confronted and killed Gearbox in his battle mech, wasn’t fond of that guy anyway. Always loved going back to Alderaan though, really is (or was) a beautiful planet.

Alderaan Politics, even worse then ours, and that's saying a lot
Sadly though it was very beautiful, much more so then Tatooine
Oh c'mon guys this is just silly
The last part I had to do was confront the final two members of the original havoc squad, Wraith and Harron Tavus aboard their ship The Justice (hah ironic name right?) So you sneak aboard pretending to be a fellow Republic deserter and then kill Wraith then confront Tavis and choose to either kill or capture him. I chose capture as he was an ok guy. So that was that for the time being, we destroyed (almost) the entire traitorous Havoc Squad and now we’re the new Havoc Squad, not fully manned yet of course. So then that our Commanding officer orders us to get some R&R and report back to my ship’s holo when I’m ready for duty. This was quite a departure from the other two Jedi and Sith story missions where they didn’t seem to stop just kept going with the next thing that had happened. Maybe the life of a humble Trooper is less glamorous and more orderly lol.

"So, we meet again Lieutenant"
 So that was that for that month or two months maybe, I’ve actually started another session since then, dang it has been awhile since the last post. Well hopefully I’ll be able to do more in the near future now that things have slowed down, can confirm in my last session I bought and pimped out my Stronghold on Coruscant, got my Guardian to 60 and finished off the Shadow of Revan expansion, and also did Balmorra on my Bounty Hunter before stopping to play GTA5 yes GTA5 I’m finally gonna do it wooo anyway cya for now.

We shooty-shoot-shoot it up in the Taral V flashpoint
JD

A Jedi's house is neither a Castle nor a Fortress