Hustlin' through The Old Republic: Keep your friends close when Starfighting

Well, well, well it has most certainly been awhile since my last post, actually it’s been a whole freakin year, more than that actually, goddamn really? where has the time gone? I got quite a shock when I saw my last Hustlin’ through The Old Republic post was from the 11^th of July 2013 so there’s gonna be one hell of a lot of ground to cover but anyway, here we go.

So after finishing off the Jedi Knight storyline I headed to Ilum to do the last bit of story that led to The Battle of Ilum and The False Emperor and wow what exciting flashpoints they were doing it for the first time with guildies Neffias and Areah *SPOILER ALERT* finally bringing down Darth Malgus was satisfying to say the least. So that was basically then end of the original set of story flashpoints. Pretty soon the very first expansion for SWTOR Rise of the Hutt Cartel had come out, bringing a new operation, species, planet and the experience cap to level 55. I had the good fortune to be invited by a Neffias to do a run of the Scum and Villainy operation and even more fortunate to be gifted a full set of modifications from him that would get me up to scratch to do the op as well, man he was such a nice guy I wrote a post about it in the forum. I wasted no time in deciding on a new armour set from the Cartel Market, I chose the Valiant Jedi set as I liked it from the cinematic as it was the armour that Jedi Master Ven Zallow wore, finally getting rid of my Tionese set though I still had my funky glasses!

Oo yeh Valiant Jedi Style

Scum and Villainy itself went ok, was with 16 people probably my first time doing that, we got to the end but unfortunately couldn’t finish off Styrak. I can’t remember at what point the Academy Exemplar guild I was in broke up to join Dawn (which is now called The Reclaimers) but it was around January last year that the guild leader Hawking decided to close Academy Exemplar and jump ship to Dawn which had a better and bigger playerbase, this was actually a very good move as I did much more raiding and instancing when I was with the new guild and started learning a lot more about end-game content. So anyway after I’d finished Ilum I decided to finish off several heroic areas of their quests such as Section X on Belsavis and the Black hole on Corellia. I had the idea to do these things in patch order because I had taken so long to finish of my story mission I needed to see all the content that had come out while I had been faffing around and also because I hadn’t purchased the game till the Aussie servers had come out which is kind of ironic now to be back playing on US servers.

I quite liked this picture of Makeb

 It didn’t take very long to finish off the pre - Rise of the Hutt Cartel content and soon I was off to Makeb which is quite a pretty planet indeed despite being wracked by earthquakes and instability due to Hutt Cartel Mining operations, I found Makeb to be pretty damn annoying as there were enemies pretty much everywhere and as the planet was made up of floating mesas it was difficult to avoid enemy npcs due to the tight confines of islands and bridges. But I got it done and it was quite a interesting storyline too.  Another note was I was as I had gotten T7 to maximum affection and I had achieved maximum Light side points and had gotten “The Pure” title. I was determined to use Lord Scourge though unfortunately this meant being evil, as he’s evil as fack and unfortunately an when I got to the first Dark side choice I just couldn’t, so that was that really. I continued on with Doc but lately it’s been kind of hard as you just don’t get enough story quests in endgame obviously.

Pure... but not simple

Sooner then I knew it, the Galactic Starfighter expansion had been released, honestly I reckon this was something they should have had from the start as when the game first came out everyone liked the on-rails starship missions but little else and they just trailed off from there. Don’t get me wrong the starfighter battles are fun but it’s little more than a feature and hard to play casually nowadays as you get massively upgraded people who you have no chance against though this happens all the time with PvP anyway. I had a bit of fun with it at the start when everyone was  new to it as well and it’s fun to dive in at times, can’t see myself playing it for a significant amount of time though. Around this time I finished off the Kaon under Siege and Lost Island flashpoints from the Rise of the Rakghouls patch, Kaon under siege was pretty damn harrowing I must say, with a few multiple NPC endurance bosses thrown in there.

Galactic Starfighter, well it looks pretty

Wham!, bam! shazam! Yeeeargh! Kaon under siege was a pretty chaotic affair

 After finishing off Makeb with Jxan, I got back on my Sith Inquisitor Shadow Kxan and set to work completing Belsavis which had quite an interesting part where I myself freed the Dread Masters, man wish I hadn’t done that now lol. Then I went to Voss and saw what the Empire side of the story was like, and it was actually pretty entertaining playing the trust of the Voss and getting their favour while making them scorn the republic, you even get into trouble by allowing a Gormak to leave Voss. Also I purchased a mobile security key so I could have access to the vendor to finally get the customization for Ashara Zavros where she has red-skin and white facepaint making her look much more appropriate to her new Sith identity, ironically after that  I managed to get her to full affection which was pretty fraught with uncertainty and timidness but we did end up doing it (I think) though not quite as much as with Kira Carsen man she was eager. She was probably the fastest companion I levelled up though as she liked most things Light side and I had racked up quite a few Courting gifts as well.

Ahh beautiful Voss

I then decided it was time to start a new character and this one of course would be a non-force user, I was initially trying to decide between a Smuggler and an Imperial Agent and even made forum post about it to get some ideas about the two classes. I decided against the two though mainly because I kind of wanted a more boss (dare is say it) Master Chief style of blasting away as an armoured soldier, but no so boss as to be a commando carrying a huge gun as a rifle was good enough. It was a huge conflict because my first two choices were pretty easy, I wanted a Jedi Knight first and foremost then I wanted to make a ‘good’ Sith so I chose Inquisitor Shadow for a few reasons as I didn’t want to do a Sith Warrior as they were pretty much the Sith equivalent of a Jedi Knight though I may make a Marauder in the future to cover that side of things. The other reason was that I wanted to create a Jedi Sage so I can use force telekinetics rather than a Sith Sorcerer where is mostly just force lightning. But this was different as it had lots of conflicting decisions for example there were lots of pros  and cons for each for example I knew I wanted to make a Jedi Consular so I technically should have gone Empire Side

Smuggler

Pros: Funny alternative storyline from Jedi and Sith serious stuff

Cons: Republic Side, Healer advanced class uses stealth like Sith Assassin, Gunslinger class used too much by other players

Imperial Agent

Pros: Empire Side, Awesome looking Ship

Cons: Serious story again unlike Bounty Hunter and Smuggler, Healer advanced class uses stealth like Sith Assassin, Sniper class used too much by other players

Trooper

Pros: Boss as boss, uses rifle new odd looking ship, easy to raise companions affection as will be Light side

Cons: Republic Side, serious story, another tank character....

Bounty Hunter:

Pros: Empire side, Powertech boss tank  “Rebel without a cause” story, totally hot romanceable companion

Cons: Ship interior looks too much like Jedi Ship, Can only use blaster pistol :(

So after trying both the smuggler and bountry hunter starting areas for a bit. I decided on Trooper cause I can kick ass with heavy armor and a rifle. Yes I was on Republic side but meh, I picked a male Zabrak with a tank body as he was meant to be a tank and yes I know I now have 3 tank characters lol went with “Gxan” as in G-troops heh realised after level 10 I had spelled it “Gzan” so had to use my free name change to change it lol. Starting out wasn’t quite the start I’d hoped, you’re a recruit of the famous “Havoc Squad” and are thrown into the action on Ord Mantell after your troop transport is attacked though I must admit my first time blasting weak enemies with my rifle was pretty damn cool and the rocket boots were so goddamn helpful in getting around. Ord Mantell itself was actually kinda pretty apart from the war going on.

Gxan lookin' boss

What a lovely cove/inlet, apart from the lizard

When the time came to get my first speeder the way I look at them is by going to Dulfy.net’s awesome speeder guide  then checking out what’s available on the cartel market. I had a look at what was available and man did the Rark K1-A sure stand out, and it was only 30,000 credits too with an adaptive speed licence, though technically that colour scheme and the badass-hog riding position may be more suited to a bounty hunter or smuggler, but screw it, my Trooper is badass. I’m kinda wishing that your companion had their own speeder instead of just disappearing when you mount up, the ladies could even share the one, or the men too, I’m just imagining Khem Val or Lord Scourge riding on your back on one of the standing speeders LoL. Coruscant was a pretty muted affair as I had done it before obviously, though it made for a couple of good screenshots.

Oh yeh, roll out the red carpet for me and my stupid hat.

LooooL at option 3

But of course then it was time to get back on Jxan and continue with finishing shit off and exploring new shit (their both technical terms or course) starting with the two Makeb datacrons where my very helpful guildy Tyr helped me to get the Endurance which is by far the hardest and scariest datacron yet.

We're almost there! *splat*

 Then it was on to the Macrobinoculars and Seeker Droid missions which were a bit different to the MMORPG norm I must say. The Macrobincoluars missions have you chasing a mysterious character called “The Shroud” and to do this you have to use these binoculars to find the Shrouds spy towers and solve puzzles while visiting a host of planets most of which you’ve been to before, it’s kinda like a nostalgic journey. I was glad that I decided to do the Seeker Droid missions as well as this, as they involved using this Seeker Droid bot (which works similar to the ‘Survey’ archaeology ability in WOW) to retrieve the Dread Seeds which have been buried on various planets, almost exactly the same ones that you’re sent to with the Shrouds missions I might add. The Shroud’s puzzles were somewhat fun but the Seeker Droid was a bit of a pain to use.

Oh man yeh I can totally see that, that's shifty as, man this guy is good.

But I got there and now I’m up to the final two mission for each but goddamn trying to finish them was a hell of a pain, I think I organised a night twice with my guild to get them done and missed it both times, I almost got the Macrobinoculars one done with 3 people but unfortunately didn’t get the credit the first time and then we couldn’t quite finish it the second time so I’ve still got them sitting there, oh well maybe a bit of spamming in Fleet chat may help.

End of the final Dreadseed quest which I unfortunately didn't get credit for.

During this time I completed quite a bit of end game content as the Dawn guild was pretty active during this time, I completed the tactical hardmode flashpoints such as Czerka Corporate Labs and Czerka Core Meltdown from the Titans of Industry patch, the Kuat Drive Yards from the Galactic Starfighter Patch, and the Assault on Tython from the Invasion patch. Tactical flashpoints are interesting as you don’t quite need a healer or even a tank as they are designed to be able to be completed without the “Holy Trinity” Tank/Healer/Dps setup, so they are based on quick fights and have healing devices which you touch to heal your group around boss fights. As well as this I finished pretty much all the operations I had missed before inc Eternity Vault, Karagga's Palace and Explosive Conflict, I also got to the end of Terror From Beyond but failed to defeat the damn thing even after 5 or so tries, and managed to down the first boss of The Dread Fortress. I earned quite a few pieces of gear and commendations for this and it was great to see the story mode for all the fp’s and op’s (Flashpoints and Operations). 

They call him... Soa! the infernal one himself

I also acquired the Desler Avenger from the Eternity Vault which although looking pretty boss was freakin huge and because of its size looks even slower than my current mount, though really I never expect much from this game’s mounts anyway.

Crusin at 30km/h in style

 I had collected a few new pieces of armor from the operations which made me look somewhat ridiculous, I was sad to get rid of the Valient Jedi gear but at least it will always be there in case I get decked out with modifications again.

Black Hole Pummeler gear, fitting name for looking like a futuristic NFL player.

Meanwhile back on Kxan I had acquired the companion Xalek who had beaten the last opposing apprentice by killing him even when he’d lost fair and square and to be honest having a look at his likes and dislikes I’m not too fond of him already but regardless he’s the first companion I’ve had that takes the same armor type so I finally can gift one of my companions all my old armor, and that I did. I had been using the same set of armor, well the helm and chest mostly for quite a while and I thought it was time for a change. I had a look at the various sets of armor on the cartel market and was first interested in the Investigator robe which looked kind of like the robes the Sith Inquisitor was wearing in the ‘Return’ cinematic which was pretty cool but the helm was actually similar to the “iron man” one I had before. I decided on the Eradicator armor as I reckon it looked pretty cool and was pants instead of a robe which was better for Sith Shadow spec, I also purchased the Vindicator’s Sabrestaff which looks pretty cool and had an odd sound and delay when lighting up. After they were purchased I used my mass amount of planetary commendations to purchase modifications from the Makeb vendor which is the highest you can get and once I was all decked out I looked pretty damn cool, and what made it a bit more fun was I got to deck Xalek out in my old gear.

Some pics of my Eradictaor armor dyed with the red and black armor dye module

Fack this datacron was a close call

So after that I finished off Voss and then headed to Corellia which is packed with Republic vs Empire Lore and I was eager to see it, and after getting some nerve wracking datacrons I had done the place and won Coreillia for the Empire (go me!) and as with the Republic side even got my own personal  crowd celebration. Since the Eradicator helmet is full faced I’ve gone against my previous vow and sometimes have my helm hidden (especially for important quest cutscenes) and managed to take a pick of Kxan looking very sensitive and not at all Sith like.

"Aw shucks guys"

So I destroyed Darth Thanaton and was accepted into the Dark Council with the title “Darth Imperius”, I can’t remember what the name meant though. I then had another ceremony where Khem Val of all people announced my ascension to the dark council and my new title with all my companions and some familiar faces I’ve seen on my travels all kneeling.

Hail to the king baby!

Man did I feel honoured though I’ll say it now that I hate the way your companions gear only keeps the “unify colours” feature when you have them summoned as they don’t retain it for cutscenes and look ridiculous.

See what I mean about the colours? and yes Talos' helmet does look a bit ridiculous

At this point my current guild Dawn had made an executive decision to transfer to the Harbinger realm, which had a much higher APAC server population, now I was all for this, my guildmate Shiki guaranteed the facts that group finding finding was quick and pick up groups for raids were always going on, plus there is always heaps of people on fleet. So I just decided to go the gung ho and head in, so I purchased an extra 2400 cartel coins for $20 which coupled with my existing coins was enough to transfer my 3 characters over which I did with minimal trouble. The problem came when I got to Harbinger, due to the higher population my “Jxan” and “Kxan” names were taken (wow they must sound better then “bui”). So I had to go with “Hxan” for my Guardian which sounded ok because he’s “Human” and a “Hero” lol and “Uxan” for my Inquisitor because I couldn’t really think of anything else and “Sxan” sounds too much like “Susanne”

 It was relatively quiet in the Guild after the change, I actually haven’t even been able to find the “Drunk before Dawn” guild or whatever the hell we’re called on Harbinger but goddamn did I feel the difference as soon as I got over there, there is so much more people! On at all times! There’s people doing everywhere going everything it’s so amazingers. But anyway I got back to leveling on Gxan, I was now up to Taris, and met my much anticipated companion Elara Dorne who as you probably guessed is a romance option for the male trooper, though she is not quite as hot as Kira Carsen I liked the difference customizations you could give her, and besides pretty much all females in this game have killer bodies so just going to say I appreciate that and nothing more. She has been an interesting one to romance with her straight-up-the-line-post-Empire-citizen attitude and demeanour but she seems a nice person on the inside which will be fun to play out.

Trooper companion Elara Dorne with customization 4 enabled, yawow she is cute.

 Speaking of companions I must mention that since I’d left Ord Mantell on my merry quest to vanquish the traitorous members of the former Havoc Squad I’ve had Aric Jorgen as my companion who does ranged DPS with an Assault cannon or blaster rifle. I went Trooper Vanguard obviously so it was good to have an assault-cannon wielding commando that I could blast shit up with. Aric interestingly enough is quite obedient to his superiors, I found myself picking darkside options at times where I normally wouldn’t so I wouldn’t lose affection with him as he seemed to be blindly loyal and obedient to the Republic at times even when making choices like keeping a deadly virus to be studied or destroying it, whereas Elara was content to tell sensitive information for the good of the Republic to the SIS against General Garza’s orders (boy was that fun to watch).

Aric Jorgen with customization 3

I finished off Taris and then Nar Shadaa, killing Needles along the way, I dunno who I like better out of the two companions, probably Elara but there was that sort of kick ass bros comradery with Aric, though at the finish of the Nar Shadda, I acquired M1-4X as well who’s pretty much straightforward to the Republic too (man we’re an emotionless bunch lol). It seems I’ve got my work cut out for me here, I’ve got two companions who both use the same armor stat and type that I do making them damn easy to gear up as they can equip my hand-me-downs and well as any quest gear meant for me that I don’t need, and I also do Cybertech which means I can make gear for M1-4X as well, man so many possibilities so little time.

This isn't my photo of M1-4X but it shows how big he is compared to a female Trooper. Going to be kinda fun having a big droid as a companion.

That’s the other issue as once you finish off your story quests there becomes fewer and fewer quests which you can use to raise companion affection especially since you don’t get it while doing operations and flashpoints. I’ve read some posts and information on it and people say that some daily quests offer affection gains and you can always do mission skills or even just purchase companions gifts but it’s an expensive way to do it which is why I’m hoarding all my gifts for the future. Nothing much else happened on Nar Shadaa, apart from story the missions are slightly different when you do them with a different class but not much, I’m liking the B-7 Thunderclap mainly because it’s quite unique and I like the name lol, inside is so non-linear it’s almost confusing and I get lost sometimes, it’s possibly the most original player ship in the game.

The BT-7 Thunderclap, one odd-looking ship

I finished up at level 29 on Gxan, yes I know what you’re saying I should have gone that bit more and got to 30 but screw it I didn’t want to start Tatooine early. So back on to Jxan I go! There wasn’t that much to finish off on Jxan in terms of quests etc I had to do. I finally headed to Oricon to start the “Assault on the Dread Fortress” storyline and the advice I was given was correct you do get given a decent set of “Artifact Quality” level 55 epic armor which includes gloves, helmet, chest, legs and boots so needless to say it’s best to head there as soon as you can, I’m probably going to go as soon as I’ve finished Ilum on my Inquisitor which finishes off the story mode for me.

You finally get a different "ship approaching planet" sequence then the norm for Oricon

 So I finished off that questline which was rather interesting and I got myself up to speed with the story of the Dread masters, I also finally got that bitch the Terror from Beyond down with a PUG of all things, took us a couple of tries on those goddamn “anomalies” bits but we got there. I also went to Tatooine to complete the Czerka corporation mission terminal there as I did on Makeb where you use your trusty Macrobinoculars and Seeker Droid, it’s a great way to see new areas of old planets after finishing those questlines as you can continue to use the toys. I also went there to participate in the Rahkgoul Resurgence even which is actually a continuation of the original Rakghoul Pandemic  event. This is where the T.H.O.R.N faction is located who I know that you can get the “infected companion” customizations from, why you’d want that I wouldn’t know lol maybe it’d make some of them look cool. I recently had to get my security key removed from my account due to me not being able to login but I think I might put it back to get some of the better "companion customizations" it's just pretty annoying to type in all the time though.

The Dread Fortress! *ominous music*

I was in the middle of doing the T.H.O.R.N missions and was travelling to a quest giver then it happened again, I got there and they were nowhere to be seen, this was of course because the event had ended so I was running around like a moron to get to nothing. This has happened before with the Bounty Brokers Association Week and now Relics of the Gree is back again where I once travelled all the way to Ilum just to find the NPC wasn’t there though I really want to do that one cause I orange parallel the way the Gree speak, just remember the dates I guess. One of the last things I did was the Korriban Incursion flashpoint, this was the first time I had finished this one and am looking forward to doing the Empire version of both that one and the Assault on Tython, apparently having now finished both of them there’s something more to this that has just started with the Invasion patch.

"Ahh screw you too!"

I couldn't stop laughing at this guy's "Jedi Cowboy" gear

As a bonus I got the Imperial Korrealis speeder wooo! though to be perfectly honest it’s just another huge impractical speeder that’d rather not use. I just want the Aratech Fire which you need to complete a quest to kill all these bosses from the first 3 operations which I have done though the problem is they have to be finished in friggin story mode which no-one does anymore, I mean seriously why is that restriction there at all?. Too many cool mounts are in the Cartel Market packs then are on the Galactic Trade Network for huge prices.

Well at least this one's two seater.

Well anyway my subscription ran out on the 18^th and funnily enough the Galactic Strongholds Early Access came out a day after, whodathunkit? Well at least I’ll have something more to do when I get back, lookin forward to finally having a house to myself in an MMO, as if personal starships weren’t enough now we have accommodation hah.

Oh Tatooine, one of the lonliest planets ever.

So that wraps up more than a years playing, was a bit brief but we’d be here forever If I was to explain everything, I’ll be back with a potential new character next time I play and will hopefully have a home for each of my characters. Also I hope the Reclaimers guild I’m in gets back up to speed, I seemed to be the only one playing for a bit, oh well, we’ll see, lovin the new realm though.

May the Force be with you bros.

JD

Howdy from Denova, the bluegrass planet, *plays banjo*

For what we've already accomplished, the future looks bright...

Minecraft Creations: Lanslide and Respawn Comp Roundup, Mesa Mario Kart, "Apple" Trees and Golden statues

I’ve done a few builds for Minecraft comps at lans over the past few months so I thought I’d sum them up in the one strip starting with the ones from Lanslide.

Mesa Biome Minecraft Mario Kart track

This was quite an interesting theme for a Minecraft comp as what was announced was basically create a Mario Kart track in Minecraft, though it doesn’t have to be an existing track in the Mario universe you can create a new one and also it doesn’t have to be flat. So I immediately thought, “how would we do hills and grades?” but of course I if remember the only Mario Kart I really play anymore is the SNES version and every track is completely flat so what the hell I’ll just use stairs. Funnily enough my though after that was “how would we do corners?” but I suppose I just had to deal with it and started thinking.

Basically I thought everyone else would do a Mario Kart track so I decide to pick a biome and do a track designed to the style of that particular biome. Finding one of the new Mesa Biomes I decided it’d be perfect with its flat topped mountains. I then had to work out what kind of materials the track was made out of, I missed around with various types of clay but then remembered that clay had no stairs equivalent so I went with smooth sandstone and sandstone stairs for the main body of the track with brown stained clay around the edges. I spose my intention was that you'd "run" through this track not drive a car as it's more suited to Minecraft and gives the hazards more meaning.

First shot of finished track

I didn’t really have a track layout or design in mind I just decided to build as I went (as I usually do with my Minecraft creations), I decided to make all the turns right-angled and zig-zaging with the blocks would be too time consuming and as it was becoming night I decided to light up the track with lightstone light poles. So I set the starting line on a relatively empty strip on one of the mesas then continued creating a rather elevated track for the first zigzag and left turn across the divide and onto the next mesa.

Zig-zagy!

As there was a lava pit on the next mesa I decided to run a bridge right over it and remove some blocks for a pit hazard which worked well. I contined on with a sort of elevated skybridge style until I though instead of just going above the canyon divide I’ll create some sort of underground section, and yes that meant that I needed to run the track downward and TNT a hole through the canyon wall and up through to the top of the mesa, was a bit messy but I cleaned it up and even put some lava raining down to act as another hazard.

Running smack into a lava flow, yeeeowch

The track then went through tunnel then up through to the top of the Mesa where it zig-zagged through the trees.

Oddly this was one of my favorite sections of the track, I must just like skimming through trees.

I then had to make one hell of a drop down the edge of the mesa to the red sand below. I decided to make this part of the track offroad, not that it made any difference when running of course, then wheeled it round the side of the mesa back towards the start of the track.

That's quite a drop

At that point it was suggested to me that I should make an alternate route. So at the first corner down to the sand I cut a tunnel through the opposite direction which went under the mesa and back out the south side just after the sand, had to add some lighting to the tunnel obviously.

From then on the track got a bit zigzaggy as I went round the mesa and down onto the beach for a small water hazard then right up to the start line again via this giant staircase.

Well it was a pretty good effort but unfortunately The team of people that partially created Royal Raceway ended up taking first prize with me in second, and yes the team of people, I don’t know how I was supposed to compete a team of 5 people but anyway, was a job well done and I didn’t need that new mouse.

Shot of finished track

Nightmode! and may I point out that unlike the winning team my track was usable during the night.

The Lanslide Apple tree and Logo

The category for this months comp was “Apple” and not specifically the Macintosh Apple that we know, just Apple in general so after thinking for a while I thought, what am I good at? trees, so I decided to make an Apple tree. I was determined this time to make a proper tree not a boxy thing with other trees stacked onto it like I did before, I contracted the trunk like a usual square Minecraft trunk but then added some other logs around it so it wasn’t a square mass, I also added some slight kinks to the trunk so it looked a bit more realistic to the photos of apple trees I had searched for online (yes I actually used photos for reference)

For the branches I found the best way of doing this was just flying backwards and holding down the right mouse button to place block creating a sort of jagged line and I dipped a bit to create a slight curve when making the branch. I used dark oak wood for the trunk and branches for a difference and had to do a bit of adding and pruning of the logs to look correct, also used Dark oak leaves in keeping with the dark oak theme, they ended up looking pretty good even though I just “sprayed” them on really by moving around and holding down right mouse.

Once I thought I’d made enough branches it was then time for the apples which was a bit of a dilemma. I first tried just throwing actual apples all over the tree, but they were too small to see and ended up disappearing anyway, so then I tried using red stained clay but that didn’t look any good either. So after some advice from others I decided to use redstone blocks as they were the most red thing I could use, I also tried creating apples out of pixel art but they ended up being too big. So I just made these square things that I could pass off as apples. Once I’d finished the tree I looked at it and though it needed something more, plus I hadn’t put the Lanslide name in there at all so I had to come up with something else. The only other thing about apple I could come up with was the Apple logo, specifically the 1980’s Apple Logo, so I reproduced it as best I could in the game along with the correct colours, and put the Lanslide  title around it matching the colours. Logo took a damn while to get right I can tell you.

Once the judging began the only other entrant was this guy who had made a man holding an apple, which was pretty good and when Nuke announced the entrants he didn’t even mention my tree just the logo above lol. In the end I took out the first prize and won a mousepad, oh joyous day, hah!

The Respawn “Fantasy” Trophy(s)

Before I start here I must mention that this was my first time at Respawn lan and it was pretty cool, biggest lan I’ve ever been to with over 400 people. I was even setting next to some guys who were fans of Minecraft.

ZOMG so many people!

The theme was quite interesting, and hard Your Respawn Fantasy. Man I was stumped for awhile before I though well I’d really like to win the Minecraft comp and I’d really like a big trophy for it, so I decided to make my own Respawn Minecraft Comp trophy. My first attempt was pretty weak but I got the design all right, a raised box down the bottom a stem and then a golden man with a pick and torch up the top. I added a plaque containing the winners name and details too.

Admins made a railroad through the super flat world

 I soon realised that to win this thing I was gone need something better than this. So with taking the advice of someone else I made it bigger MUCH bigger. When I’d finished the new version it stood almost 2 and a half times as tall and much bigger with the golden man on top reminiscent of my earlier statue of myself. 

Tah-dah! I named the smaller one the 2nd place trophy

Goddamn did they take awhile to get to the results of the competition, I was waiting around well after 12:30 waiting. Ended up taking out 2^nd place and a new mouse for my efforts, the kids from another clan next to me ended up taking out first with their Respawn fantasy “garden” which looked pretty cool I guess I didn’t need a new set of headphones anyway, I also didn’t need a new mouse and gave it to my brother lol.

All in all was a good event and glad I went for the first time.

Ahh a beautiful flatworld sunset

The Past and Times of Yore: Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, The Original Gangsta of all Trades

Release date: 29/8/2004 (PS2)
Genre: Action-Adventure
Publisher: Rockstar Games
Developer: Rockstar North
Platforms: PS2/XBOX 360/PC
Players: 1-2
Online Classification: M (ESRB)

Well well, I can’t really believe I haven’t done a review of this gem, and what a gem, it’s like a giant ruby, like the giant rubies I used to collect on the Forbidden Bridge, actually I’m not thinking straight as looking back now it’s like an old car that was amazing and cool for its time but now looks as unfashionable as baggy pants these days but you still drive it even if people ridicule you for it or in my case still wear the damn pants cause I CAN. Well actually I wasn’t wearing pants when I was playing, and before you all reel back in disgust it’s because I was wearing shorts, yes that’s correct. The reason being was during a particularly warm period in Melbourne’s summer where it was constantly over 40 degrees and I had moved in to my new apartment not so long ago which only had air conditioning in the main room (only fans in the bedroom) so playing on my computer would have been unhealthy for both me and it (goddamn I came home some days and it was 33 degrees in my room alone) When I moved I took the Playstation 1 and 2 consoles that my brother and I had both bought but not the PS3 as my brother played that much more than me, so I only had those to choose from.

Oh yeh, that's how we rolled back then.

 So for my hot weather couch gaming sessions I obviously needed to choose a console and a game, I chose the PS2 as I tried some PS1 games inc Tenchu 2 and Spyro the Dragon but they looked so awful on new TV’s I couldn’t do it. I actually have a Playstation 1 Emulator which I use to play the games as the anti aliasing you can get on them makes them look much better, unfortunately as the Playstation 2’s “Emotion Engine” is quite difficult to emulate PS2 emulator’s don’t work so well, one seemed to work when I tried it though they still look ok on newer TV’s. I needed a game which was long enough to last the period but also be fun in an nostalgic way. So I chose San Andreas as since I’m currently waiting for GTA5 to come out on PC, I needed a GTA fix again, and it would be good to reminisce.

The infamous Grove st cul-de-sac

So back on topic Grand Theft Auto San Andreas was quite a milestone in the GTA history, probably not so much as GTA3 which when it arrived on Playstation 2 in all its 3^rd person 3D glory, but saying that San Andreas was by far the biggest GTA for its time. After the success of GTA3 and then Vice City things just seemed to get better, and bigger, and when the next instalment was announced my brother and I hungrily anticipated what would come next reading over all the details and previews of the game. And when it finally came out it caused nothing less of a stir achieving the best-selling video game of 2004 and selling over 27 million copies as of 2011; it remains the best-selling PlayStation 2 game of all time. San Andreas is based primarily around the fictional state of San Andreas (which is actually an earthquake fault line in California) The “state” of San Andreas consists of three metropolitan cities: Los Santos, based on Los Angeles, San Fierro, based on San Francisco; and Las Venturas, based on Las Vegas. 

A fill landscape map of San Andreas, as you can see it's quite large.

 When you boot up the game and hear that excellent soundtrack you know that you are immediately going to be immersed in 90’s gang culture argued by some as to where it was at its peak in the early 90’s and undeniably in LA was where the action was especially with black culture. A few previous GTA games namely Vice City set in the Miami in the Mid 80’s and the older expansion for GTA1 London 1969 were based around parts of the world which had some historical significance around them at the time and San Andreas was no different. I always knew that GTA comes come with a huge amount of references and easter eggs through the game from movies and TV but I had no idea that it had this had so much reference to real-life events such as the rivalry between the Bloods and Crips street gangs, the crack epidemic, the Rampart scandal, and the 1992 Los Angeles riots. The different areas are also packed with movie referenced gameplay from Boyz in the Hood to casino Heist films such as Ocean’s Eleven but it could be anything really, in this game you do so much it’s hard to keep up with the story and remember you’re just a two-bit gangsta from the “hood”.

Your sworn enemy the Ballas gang, possibly akin to "The Bloods" of real-life LA

The story this time begins with Carl Johnson (CJ) who is the main protagonist of the game. Carl is a twenty-something black male who is returning to Los Santos to attend the funeral of his mother who has been killed, the opening scenes show him at the airport then being removed from his Taxi by the C.R.A.S.H Officers, Frank Tenpenny, Eddie Pulaski and Jimmy Hernandez who take his money and bag and dump him in enemy gang territory. This is the classic down-on-your-luck-slow-to-get-started kind of opening I like, you start off with nothing and you have to work yourself by starting off slow and everything is easy and simple to start with, too many games these days want you to “hit the ground running” I hated this statement in job descriptions and I hate it when applied to games. It’s happened in a few of the games I’ve played namely Battlefield 3 and most of the Need for Speed series they sort of just throw you into the action where you got this high end car or weapon and most of the time you have to win, it’s supposed to be a sort of “taste of what’s yet to come” and some people like this but frankly I don’t.

Ahh the classic beginning for an RPG, you start with nothing, no money, no weapons, nothing.

 But anyway as with previous GTA games you play as Carl throughout the entire game. The story revolves around the main theme of Carl who is part of the Grove Street Families (GSF) Gang and the C.R.A.S.H officers who were involved with the murder of his mother, their liaison with the Ballas (GSF’s rival gang) and their apparent vendetta against CJ’s brother and Grove Street Families Gang Leader Sean "Sweet" Johnson. The first part of the story plays out in Los Santos and shows how CJ decides to stay in the city and help his brother Sweet and their fellow OG’s Big Smoke and Ryder build their gang back up from the brink of destruction. A first it play out small time with you invading crack dens and shooting up gang members but then gets to some rather cinematic moments like car chases that could have been out of a blockbuster action film. Following the climatic ending to the Los Santos story you get booted out into a hick town in the country which is quite a difference from the cityscapes that you spent almost all your time in the previous GTA games. That’s right San Andreas had a quite large stretch of country woodland (and rocky desert on the Las Venturas part of the map) which was amazing to see in a GTA game, there’s quite literally a dense forest on the map and boy is it fun to hoon around in on a quad bike or buggy. I’m not going to describe in detail the whole storyline but basically CJ starts off in Los Santos then gets exiled to the (presumably LA) countryside then heads to San Fierro where he acquires a garage, then on to the rocky desert where he obtains an airstrip and infiltrates Area 52, he then goes on to Las Venturas where he helps set up a Casino and also helps do a heist on one. He then trots on back to Los Santos to finish things off with some high stakes shenanigans and a showdown with the main villain.

CJ with Smoke, Sweet and Ryder

 So as you’re probably thinking wow you go through 3 cities in the one GTA game this must be huuuuuge, and it is, it may not have been huge to early MMO’s but for an action RPG it was gigantic and you have so many extra real-life activities as well as the story. My brother mentioned at one point back then that his favourite part was in Los Santos at the start as when you get to the country and start robbing country town banks, doing high speed chases on quad bikes and using a flamethrower to destroy evidence of a weed plantation before the cops come it gets pretty silly not to mention what you do in the desert which is even more ridiculous and harder still to identify a young black male from downtown LA to be doing these things.

Now really this is getting kinda silly

But I suppose that doesn’t need to matter cause these things are fun and I had a heap of fun doing them. Controlling CJ hasn’t changed much from previous GTA games, you move around and run and jump using the same buttons as before. The lock on reticle that you used to aim and fire now has various colours to show the health of the enemy, going fright bright green down to red then black for dead. There is however some more advanced combat techniques that you get shown at the start such ducking and rolling to avoid fire and shooting a cars gas tank to blow it up, you can also now move while crouching which is used in a  few missions which require stealth as well as stealth kills with the knife.

The game now includes new lock-on and crouching mechanics

CJ can also climb and swim, bringing some much needed athletics to the GTA characters as it was kind of silly before where you could only do a small jump to get over things, Rockstar themselves said  “We added swimming because we got tired of people saying “why can’t you swim in the game?”” and goddamn rightly so if you ask me.  I mean seriously was that the only reason? It was kind of stupid how you couldn’t swim in the first previous games anyway though I think the real reason was that the water was there to act as a barrier to the other islands while the bridges were either broken or blocked off but in San Andreas you can swim or even take a boat to the other cities regardless of whether you have progressed there or not. They did put in feature though that if you did manage to get to another landmass before you were meant to be there you automatically gained a 5 star wanted level and that of course meant that armoured SUV’s full of FIB (no I didn’t spell that wrong) agents armed with MP5s pull up and shoot you to pieces, I would have thought this would be unnecessary but apparently Rockstar really want people to play the story mode through.

Swimming, underwater too (though there's not much to see) a much needed addition to the series

In addition to climbing and swimming there’s now various stats including Respect, Stamina, Muscle, Fat and Sex Appeal. Stamina is gained over time by running and walking while Fat and Muscle are both raised and lowered by eating and going to the gym respectively, for example if you eat too much you get fat obviously and the more you go to the gym the more muscle you get. The gym has various activities including dumbbells and deadlift for gaining muscle and exercise bike and treadmill for losing fat though fat can also be lost by not eating of course and just simply running around, you can also learn new fighting moves at the various gyms around the city. Respect can be gained permanently by completing missions or temporarily wearing certain clothes while sex appeal can be raised by wearing certain clothes and bulking up.

Yes, he does lift

The customization in the game is greater than ever before, most of the beginning missions teach that the player that they can change CJ’s hair, clothes and tattoos in various shops around the game world. To be perfectly honest though these mechanics were more annoying then useful, my brother and I got a bit annoyed with the constant nagging of the game that “you are getting hungry and need to eat” (or your muscle bar will go down) got pretty annoying especially when you weren’t doing the story mode just mucking around and we were glad that they were removed in GTA 4. Another thing I found quite a waste of time was the Girlfriends mechanic as when I tried dating girls it became more tedious each time, dancing to those annoying rhythm based minigames, going out to restaurants and of course you never saw the sex, well at least you weren’t supposed to. Goddamn it’s seems scarily akin to real life.

Don't do it CJ!

It’s amazing how large this game is, as it includes a hundred things that you can do but forget about inc Pool (8-ball), Arcade games, Basketball and even small things like being able to get cans and snacks from vending machines to replenish your hunger. Once Las Venturas is unlocked the player can also gamble in the casinos as well as gambling on Pool and other things. There are the usual missions from previous games including Vigilante, Paramedic, Taxi and Fire truck missions, you can also go to strip clubs or enjoy service of prostitutes.

Pool is cool, though hard, lost a bit of money to this.

While I won’t go into details some new extra features include:

Pushbikes: There are a variety of bicycles introduced (as wekk as a bike skill) for the first time to a GTA game, these include mountain, BMX and chopper style bikes

Mod Garages:  Los Santos has a Lowrider shop which allows you to customize lowrider cars, San Fierro has a shop called “Transfender” (lol) which is a haven for street racing which is a big feature in the storyline in and leading up to San Fierro and there is at least one auto shop in each city which caters for modifications including NoS and body mods depending on which kind of car you have.

Burglary: Introduced in the storyline and only available at night via accessing a certain black van in each city, you drive around and silently infiltrate houses to steal things like TV’s and Microwaves with a risk to alerting the police.

Import Export: Obtain various vehicles from a  list on the board near a freight ship and load them on with a crane for moneys.

Trucking Missions: Drive a truck and either get to a destination fast, carefully, or avoiding the cops depending on the cargo.

Train Missions: Unlocked in Las Venturas (though you can driver a train anytime) commandeer a train across the whole map again and again for cash, much exciting!

2 Player Co-op: The PS2 and Xbox versions feature a co-op mode, which allowed 2 players to either 'free roam' or go on a 'rampage'. This is limited in a way as both players have to be on screen at the same time but still created some hilarious scenes from my tiem playing with friends, it was quite annoying however that two player could only travel in a vehicle with two doors and two visible seats so you couldn’t both travel in vehicles like buses and passenger planes which was kind of stupid.

Bikes: Another welcome addition to the GTA series

 There are various boards with race meets similar to Vice city which involve all kinds of terrain and vehicles including offroad buggy races and time trials in planes and boats, winning these races is made easier depending on your skill with various vehicles (Bike, Boat, Driving and Flight) and there are 4 schools which have various lessons/challenges to complete and depending on whether you get Bronze, Silver or Gold for all of them gets you up to 3 vehicles spawning outside the school. All I can say is getting all gold is freakin hard especially in the driving school. There is also various events on at the stadiums around the world, from destruction derbys to motorbike "trial" style events.

Wooo Barnstorming!

San Andreas has the biggest list of Weaponry so far, with various types of each slot of weapon, a new feature is weapon skill which when shooting accurately with certain weapons allows you to gain skill with them eventually allowing you to move while aiming, and your lock-on range, accuracy, rate of fire, and strafe speed increase and eventually move while firing. The shooting gallery missions in the Ammunition stores also make a return allowing you to hone your skills there.

And you’re going to be needing skill with weapons as you’re going to be doing a shitload of shooting , most of east Los Santos and some other parts of the map are “gang territory” indicated by coloured overlays in certain areas. CJ’s “Grove Street Families” gang is green and around the area you can see your homies which when enough respect is gained, you can recruit to roll with you. When travelling around enemy gang territory they will obviously be hostile towards you and your homies will be towards them, it’s kinda fun to see them hanging out of the car while shooting and having to move around depending on which way you turn, you do quite a lot of shooting either while driving or being a passenger making the tec-9 and Uzi type weapons important. Gang territory can be won and lost and this is a large part of playing in Los Santos just remember it comes back into play when you get back to the city so don’t try to take over all the damn territories at the start like I did lol.

Gangsta shot

If enemy gangs weren’t enough there is also the ever present 5-0, the Police, like in Vice city thankfully aren’t always out to get you and might occasionally attack enemy gang members depending on who shot first, though most of the time it’s you. The tiers are relatively the same as before with four, five and six stars bringing in SWAT, FBI and the Army respectively.

Cops on bikes! yeeeow!

 Lastly the collectibles bracket includes more than ever before with most unique to each city:

Los Santos Gang Tags: CJ can spray over enemy gang tags with his own.

San Fierro Snapshots: Take photos of unique buildings/locations

Las Venturas Horseshoes: Nothing special here just collect for money.

Oysters: These are scattered underwater throughout the map which CJ has to swim to get to.

"Collectibles" are now kinda fun to do I especially like the spraying over gang tags and collecting oyesters

  Of all the good parts of San Andreas the graphics probably were the most lacklustre, I mean yes there were games that looked better but these graphics are slightly better than Vice City anyway and most people really didn’t care, I certainly didn’t. Most of the people I talked to at the time didn’t even mention the graphics, but reading some of the reviews now at least some people were disappointed. San Andreas at times can look really bad, like intermediate Tafe 3D animation bad and parts of the game can appear very murky, this is often felt at certain times of the day, I noticed that the explosions looked much better at day rather than night as at night there was this sort of neon-effect which gave the fire and explosions this green and blue tinge. You could really sense the hours changing as the game featured very orange sunsets and sunrises and for some reason there seemed to be this glitch that vehicles appeared very dark although it was sunny outside.

A bright day in eastern Los Santos, the cars look ok in this instance.

The world overall most of the time appeared quite bland of course you could argue that’s what it’s supposed to be like as based in gritty gangster neighbourhood LA but technically this doesn’t apply to the rest of Los Santos or San Fierro or Las Venturas for that matter, but hey let’s face it, the PS2 graphics although not spectacular were still better then the blocky polygonal people from the PS1 days and hey it looked and felt heaps better then GTA3. There are still some great scenes in the game, the desert and woodland country looks great and so does the raised flora including tall grass and wheat, the cities and towns although somewhat lacklustre are appropriate, with the right people in the right places, people around the gang territories predominately black or hispanic, people in the country are hillbillies and people in Las Venturas are extravagant, exotic and also Elvis, lots of Elvis.

Landscapes like this were unheard of in previous GTA games

A few people have said that the cars don’t look to detailed enough though I don’t know why, the interiors look more detailed than ever and you don’t even have an in-car view. The annoying Blur effect is still there however and you didn’t get a reprieve of this until GTAIV and I don’t even know whether the console version had the option to turn it off. For the most part the graphics are fine, it’s very hard to judge by today’s standards which are obviously much better than this. Just playing GTA4 I was amazed at the ragdoll physics and level of details that had come about but of course that’s what GTAIV was about, gritty realism, you didn’t go parachuting our of planes in that one oh no, and you can forgive them for giving up some graphical quality for a huge amount of game play in an immense world.

The cars looked fine to me, FOOM!

 The Radio and Music in general are spot on I reckon, it’s got that awesome smooth hip hop intro and all of the music in the sequences and film clips are great too, I especially like how there’s a sort of ‘theme’ for when the CRASH cops come into the screen. The Radio has a good selection of music, there the two appropriate rap channels which play modern and classic rap and hiphop respectively which are a given when you’re riding around the Los Santos Hood  and you also have a host of others inc modern and classic rock stations, party music stations and an excellent country music station that really gets you into the spirit when out in the er country (and desert). There is some excellent voice acting in the game mainly because Rockstar have managed to pull together quite a cast featuring Samuel L Jackson as Officer Tenpenny, Chris Penn as Officer Pulaski and James Woods as Mike Torreno who make some rather convincing villains (or semi-villians). Other voice and Radio DJ personalities include Chuck D, George Clinton, Ice-T, Wil Wheaton, Axl Rose and last but not least: Andy Dick.

From left to right: Samuel L Jackson, Armando Riesco and Chris Penn

 The sound effects are ok, everything is at it should most of the time, though some of the gun sounds are kind of muted and weird like they’re really low quality, but I spose everyone does their gun sounds differently and these sounds just don’t seem right or sound good for that matter and when sound effects don’t sound good that’s a problem. This is made kind of worse by other sound effects which are either not quite right or annoying being played over and over again in certain areas like the odd grinding sound of the minigun and the aircraft jets which make your ears hurt after a while. But apart from this most of the sound effects are ok, there’s some great sounding car engines and some very satisfying crash sounds, especially when you run over people.

Brakka brakka brakka! ironically t tried searching for a movie of the original San Andreas gun sounds but all I could find was videos for mods that chnage them to make them sound more 'realistic' who'd have though?

Summing up, If you haven’t played GTA San Andreas then I highly recommend you do, it can be purchased as a classic game on most stores inc Playstation Network, Xbox Marketplace and Steam store, it remains as one of the most expansive of the GTA games which may actually be overtaken by GTA 5 which I am yet to review I might add as I am waiting for a PC version to be released possibly next month but who knows. San Andreas was the biggest and most feature-rich of all of the GTA games by far when it came out, words can’t really explain how massive it is though looking at the maps for both GTA3 and Vice City I still really can’t see how people can say that one of the cities in San Andreas is as big as Vice City or the Liberty City from GTA3. One of the best things about this game is that you an go absolutely crazy, tear down the highway in a  truck, shoot up a store, hijack a train, steal a  fighter jet then jump out midair, the possibilities are plentiful.  The game is most rewarding to the player who doesn’t rush through the story but takes the time to look around and see what the game has to offer with its hundreds of other features, the replay value is huge and if you can be bothered striving to do everything you will be playing for weeks, even months.

Joyriding in a fighter jet, yep carjacking is for pussies.

 If there was a top ten list for greatest PS2 games Grand Theft Auto San Andreas would definitely be on it. It’s probably in my own top 5 as it’s one of the few PS2 and PS1 games I can go back and play without getting bored and the magic being lost forever, though I will state that as with most GTA games once you’ve finished the main story.  Even if you have already played GTA5 and haven’t played this you still should go back and see what things used to be like where you didn’t have 3 men, you had one, the original gangster of all trades.

JD

Crazy.... Crazy for feeling so lonely