My Usual Spiel: Motorstorm Apocalypse, and I thought it couldn't get any crazier

Release Date: March 17, 2011
Genre: Offroad Racing
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Developer: Evolution Studios
Platform: PS3
Payers: 1-4 Splitscreen, 2-16 Online

I like my Library, the Yarra Plenty Regional Library is cool enough to have Music CD’s, Graphic Novels and Magazine subscriptions one of which happens to be the Official Playstation magazine. I especially like it when they have the newest issue out for the month and it happens to have a slip for 1 months free access to Playstation Plus which hasn’t been used yet. I suppose you can see what I’m getting at, I obtained Motorstorm Apocalypse for free through the Playstation Plus site plus other things though I wasn’t really interested in what else was there, oh there was LittleBigPlanet 2 and Infamous 2 and Just Cause 2 and Bulletstorm… er 1 though I’ve some of them already on PC or otherwise and others I really couldn’t be bothered though I did get some cool ‘dynamic themes’ for my PS3 menu. I‘ve had a little bit of history with Motorstorm as I may have detailed in my Pacific Rift review.

Since I saw Motorstorm as a launch title for the PS3 I always wanted to see what it was like, motorcycles and ATV’s racing against monster trucks and big rig’s? So when I finally got round to buying one I had three to choose from though I wanted to try out the first one as I think the Monument Valley canyon setting really suited the genre though I soon had to take it back as I hadn’t realized it was 1 player only which was pretty unacceptable for a game like this. So I bought Pacific Rift which was the second in the series and had a blast tearing up a remote volcanic island in the pacific and was even able to do it with friends and online once or twice.

Pacific Rift: "To hell with nature I've got a truck"

 I’d never intended to purchase Motorstorm Apocalypse as in my opinion one of these games was enough, though it was apparently said to be pretty exciting as it’s the first racing game I’ve come across where the track changes as you race. Apocalypse is set in a earthquake-ravaged city which is practically still quaking and has an ongoing war between the “crazies” who refuse to leave the city and an increasingly aggressive military security force. In case you didn’t realize, Motorstorm is in fact a racing tournament yes these people actually came to this place via some kind of unused aircraft carrier intending to build tracks and race around incredibly dangerous crumbling city, the logic is all there. The other two games were in at least believable places you could have a race tournament yet still incredibly dangerous but of course it’s just a game isn’t it.

This is what is a usual race is like.

There is a few new vehicles added to the lineup, the Superbike, Chopper, Super Mini, Muscle Car and Super Car are all new additions bringing the total up to 13.  The controls are slightly differently set out but are the same as usual, you basically go full bawl most of the time taking your foot of the accelerator and powersliding occasionally and sometimes actually braking though unless you do it perfectly the other racers always seem to overtake you. One of the most important features is the turbo boost which overheats your engine to get a temporary speed boost but you have to be careful to keep your engine from blowing up, you can also ram your opponents out of the way which also takes up boost. The graphics are largely the same but the racing is as hectic as ever this time with tracks set in the suburbs, the trainyards and subway, the shipyards and boardwalk, downtown, some place that looks a lot like the golden gate bridge and of course track set along the rooftops of buildings themselves.

Yep, Motorstormers are this crazy, though I'd like to know how quickly they got this track set up.

 You’ve got to wonder how they build these tracks but they all seem to have a hastily cobbled together sign proudly displaying the name of the current “track” that it’s the start of, sometimes the only way of knowing where to go is the yellow signs in the distance pointing left, right or sometimes down. But of course this is a major example of a game where knowing the track really helps especially with the multiple routes and chaos of the track as I’ve had to do some races twice cause I’ve needed the first race as practice specifically because this latest Motorstorm is possibly the hardest of all of them to see where the fack you’re going, it’s true I did feel sorry for anyone I got to play the game with me as if you’ve never played the game before and are racing at breakneck speed through a city that is sundering in itself with debris flying everywhere and the screen shaking all the while you’re playing 2 or 4 player split screen, not matter how big your TV is you’re going to have problems.

Actually it looks pretty clear in this shot.

 I only played this one split screen multiplayer briefly both at home and at a lan, and I didn’t see all that much difference. There was apparently supposed to be some kind of new singleplayer “story mode” but I wasn’t expecting much when I booted up my copy at home. In the singleplayer there is basically three different stages you go through rookie, pro and veteran,  there isn’t much in the way of story, in each section you just basically arrive to the city on the aircraft carrier and have an intro race then do races for a short two days (that’s all the adrenaline you need I spose) then you always seem to have this amusing outro race where you have to race the clock or someone else to the carrier, the end of the veteran one is quite epic. The singleplayer was fun and frustrating at times as usual and it didn’t take me long to complete, though the replay value comes with going for gold and completing all the extra events inc the Hardcore festival which pits you against a series of the same tracks except with faster meaner opponents and a time limit, needless to say I only did a couple of these before leaving it for some other time. There’s also time attack though the rules are interesting, instead of racing a ghost all you have to do is complete the course without crashing, which is sometimes a bit harder than it sounds. I found that this time around I didn’t unlock much by completing the story mode, only the hardcore events if I came first in them.

Well thats one way of getting back on the carrier.

 A lot of the unlocks are through playing Multiplayer, things like the Perks which allow you to modify certain things about your car handling, boost and combat for example: increased grip or faster boost cooling. There is also a “Weekly Challenge” where you complete 3 races of varying difficulty to unlock new vehicles and parts. You can fully customize your vehicles this time, not just change the paintjob completely you can spend hours designing the perfect vehicle even changing the parts to get a different look. With the drivers instead of random rough and tough looking individuals, this time around you get a selection of rough and tough looking named individuals some of which who you unlock in the story mode.

And this guy doen't even wear a shirt, seriously I do try to pick the most safety-conscious-looking person I can find.

 I felt a little discouraged that I didn’t unlock any more vehicles doing the singleplayer though it doesn’t really matter that much I guess. A thing I liked doing with Pacific Rift was to change all the colours of my currently selected vehicles to match my driver, I’ve noticed that they do this in the singleplayer mode and it looks awesome, though it’s hard to imagine needing 13 vehicles just to enter the tournament. I didn’t actually check out the numbers of who was playing online multiplayer but it would definitely be more than Pacific Rift, I’ll have to go on for a bash sometime as like Wipeout Fusion, playing against real people who have played the game before is a lot more challenging then both the AI opponents and random friends.

"oi, we're trying to have a race here"

I really don’t know what else to say that I haven’t said before in the other review, it’s really just a lot of crazy fun, this time especially. Apocalypse is the most feature-rich of the series so there should still be a few people playing it on the PS3 network, I wasn’t going to bother with it really until I got it as a freebie, but the experience has been fun, and extra fun with friends (who have possibly played it before) so if you’re in the mood for a cheap or possibly free game which is possibly the most chaotic and fun racing you’ve ever had where barrel through an earthquake ravaged city and crash spectacularly every so often then look no further.

JD

Speeding in a blind rage.

My Usual Spiel: Way of the Samurai 4, Samurai Swords and Sexy times

Release Date: 1 October 2012
Genre: RPG
Publisher: Namco Bandai
Developer: Aquire
Platform: PS3
Payers: 1



When a friend first told me about a “Samurai RPG” for the PS3 I was enthralled, after all I’ve pretty much given up hope about a new Tenchu game being on the PS3, being a Samurai in feudal Japan,? yes please. As a practitioner of "Iaido" a brand of Japanese sword art myself as well as fan of any Samurai movie, I couldn't wait. Though after some research I found that this particular “way” of the samurai was fairly comical as it involved ridiculous dialogue, over-the-top swinging and bodies flying in the air swordfighting and mini games such as torture and “Night-crawling” where you sneak through a woman’s house while knocking out family members in order to find her and take her to the inn for some more erotic games. The game also did not review very well with Metacritic giving it an overall 59.

Despite this I still had to buy the game to experience what it was like “to laugh at the game or with it” as one reviewer said. Well I’ve done one playthrough of it already so I can come to a brief conclusion that it’s quite short, but there’s a reason for this which I will go into. You  set up your samurai before you begin the story with a name and clothing though there is little or no customization options available the first time you start and the NPC’s with voice dialogue never refer to you by name anyway. The game’s storyline consists of the age old formula of you as a Samurai from somewhere or other coming into a new town and immediately getting plunged into a conflict where you are forced to take sides depending on what actions you take.

So for example the game takes place in the period in Japan after the arrival of Commodore Perry’s black ships where British settlers have come to a fictional Japanese town of Amihama. The story starts with me being rowed to shore on a  small boat where the arrival of a British ambassador (who looks about 12 or 13 years old) has caused a local gang of Japanese nationals called the “Disciples of Pajna” to attack the British as they obviously don’t like foreign invaders. So you have the choice of helping the local Shogunate law enforcement defend the British or attack them, this main story carries over the entire game which lasts only 4 days. It splits into three different options you can take which starts events for example you can help the British ambassador and her people,  join the Disciples of Prajna or help the local Shogunate government act as a mediator between the two.

Your humble protagonist.

The movement and combat is pretty simple I do like the sheathing and unsheathing of the sword but the combat is just a bit too easy, there’s a button for fast attack and a button for power attack and you can just mash them until you opponent is dead, I found myself trying to be realistic (as I usually do) trying to do the button combination moves, blocking, dodging etc to make it a bit less cheap. There was a few helpful message screens stopping play and coming up on how to play the game i.e. fighting which I am sure would annoy the hell out of less-tolerant people who just want to button-mash and work it out for themselves. I myself am patient, but I am rapidly losing my patience with this move I can’t do, it’s like this slashing power move that you pull back on the stick then press triangle but it never seems to work when I want it. But anyway the fighting is pretty basic, I just get into the groove of basic and power attacks and if they get close just block them and throw them. Basically you just get the hang of doing forward stab moves and slice moves and dodging your opponents attacks, you can do several moves in the blocking stance including small dodges, a grabbing throw and a short kick which also acts as a quick way to pick up swords and other loot.

"What, you aren't dead yet?, let's fix that"

Most of your items you acquire from defeating enemies, and the way you do it is quite ridiculous. You seem to be able to get items in two ways, you can search them after they have been killed, though most of the time this isn’t preferable as often once all the enemies have been killed it switches to a cutscene where you end up in a different place unable to loot the bodies. So annoyingly you have to loot them while you’re fighting and the way to do this is by ‘kicking’ them which looks pretty funny, once I defeat an opponent I kick his sword up into the air (which conveniently disappears inside my “sword bag”) then move on to the next. Then after the  battle I sheath my sword all samurai-like then proceed to repeatedly kick the dead bodies until whetting stones or onigiri pop out. You can also acquire new clothes from shops and accessories such as hats and masks from playing different parts of the game. I’ve found with the short length of the game it’s pretty easy to gain money fast by both doing the story missions and doing odd jobs around.

Buying new clothes can make you look pretty stylish, and the accessories can make you look pretty silly as well.

 A large part of the gameplay revolves around your weapons and fighting styles, for example you have to make your sword is upgraded with strength and sharpness along the way and make sure it doesn’t degrade so far that it breaks, I’ve had to resort to martial arts against sword-wielding adversaries because my sword broke in the middle of a fight, so you have to either repair your sword with a whetting stone that you find from defeating enemies or from the Smith. The Smith himself is your best buddy, he can repair your sword, make it do more damage, make it last longer before needing repair and even put “inscriptions” on it which give it more powers such as unbreaking.

"You want some work done on your sword boy? it's gonna cost ya"

 The town of Amihama is split into 8 areas, the Harbor, the Town, the Main Plaza, The Magistrate, Little Britain, the back roads, the shrine and the cemetery. Different story events happen in the different areas and the three factions having their home bases in different areas., you do a lot of running and the wait time between switching areas and going in buildings is sometimes annoying but it’s bearable. Throughout the game you can interact with others and do oddjobs like a normal sandbox RPG which include random jobs which could be good or bad, for example there’s a level of crime in the city and you can do jobs that will either raise or lower the crime rate. You can also start a Dojo and recruit members or do a quite funny but useless thing called “Night Crawling”. In order to do the Night Crawling you have to first approach a woman say the right 4 sentences (which are always random) then at night you sneak into her house and have to sneak around while avoiding or knocking out their family members and pulling the blankets of futons until you find them, all the while trying to do it before your opponent (yes opponent) finds her first. Once you found her you both go to the inn where you have a playfight and try to throw her on the futon which once you’ve  done you proceed to do some wacky jump onto her and then it fades to black and horse and sword sounds ensue.

"Ah hah! she must be under here, good thing there are no family members around to see, and what the hell does that thing on the left mean?"

 The story though is the mainstay of what you’re doing as I’ve mentioned before the game is quite short as all the action happens over the course of four days and includes choices at almost every juncture that change the story inc who you are aligned to and what events you can do and which ones you miss because you chose a different factions quest. The first time I went through the story I found myself just going from one event to the next not knowing where to go or what to do and ended up having my sword break in the middle of an important fight and having to give up where I received an early ending and a ‘shameless’ rating for my finish. Luckily for my next run through my brother was away so I could use his laptop and read Gamefaqs (which is a very useful site I must say) while I was playing otherwise like before I would have had no idea.

It’s amazing how much you have to resort to the walkthrough to make sure you’re doing everything correctly as you don’t get another chance if you muck it up, that’s why I save constantly in case I take a misstep. My second play through went pretty well, I read from a gamefaqs guide that there was different endings you could get so I went for the one where I join the local Government to keep the peace but try and stop the evil Magistrate and to do that you have to make sure you do the right events in the right order. Managing your sword and your money isn’t too hard, with clothes I just bought a similar thing to what the local constables were wearing to fit in with my role. The whole thing ended pretty quickly I did all the right sequences to get the ending I wanted though the real ending where you unite all of the town against the evil emperor is obviously the hardest to get.

The British with their 14-year-old-looking-and-sounding "ambassador" All the main British characters are all voiced by Japanese actors speaking Japanese which is kind of odd.

Overall the game didn’t turn out to be as bad as I thought, sure it’s kind of weird in parts and the writing and the combat is a little strange. The voice acting would annoy some people as it's all in Japanese with subtitles though I only have a problem with the British speaking fluent Japanese in Japanese accents which is really odd. But the story and replayability make up for it. You can be pretty certain that you’ll be playing through the game several times to see what different endings you can get , and as you play more you unlock more for future playthroughs as well as finding out new things each time. I’m glad I did buy it but if I can’t get a stealthy-ninja style game for PS3 do hope there is a Samurai RPG that is more authentic and historical and not quite as slapstick that can take its place.

JD


With a trailer like this, it's obvious the developer wasn't serious about the game either.


封建時代の日本を確認し、私が思っていたよりも滑稽。

Minecraft Adventures: Adventures with close Friends

I wanted to write a little bit about some experiences I’ve had playing Minecraft with people at LANS and the difference between online and LAN Minecraft.

A while ago I and my Minecrafty friends Brok and Richard attended the Bluewire Lan with the intention of doing a bit of LAN multiplayer Minecraft which went quite well. We were playing the 1.3.1 snapshot which introduced the ability to search for LAN games. We started off exploring Richard’s singleplayer world he had created as well as some other worlds he had found online and I must say his work was fairly impressive, I didn’t get many good shots but here’s a quick look.

In these screenshots I was using Misa's 64x64 Realistic Texture pack

The Railyway through Richard's very impressive man-made mountain.

The mountain at sunset

Richard's "Wolf Den"

A Cruise ship map he had downloaded, that is one freakin huge mutha

We then went on to create a new map that was all to ourselves and our objective was to simply survive as it obviously was survival mode, I must say it was pretty fun, we chopped trees, we mined coal and iron (and various other things) and we built, pretty soon we had a pretty cool looking house made of spruce wood with a basement and everything. We continued to build mine and farm until we basically ran out of time and ended up with this:

Our villiage by night, got quite a bit built

Ah what a lovely sunset, or rise... actually I think that's a sunrise

I enjoyed the experience though, it was great fun playing with people next to you and makes it so much easier to organize what you are doing. I can’t really seem to play singleplayer without mods anymore as I did for a while and keep making these grandiose plans that would take months to do if done in survival mode, but with multiplayer you remember to keep things simple and practical, and not spend too much time on intricate details and large scale plans unless you’re able to backup frequently. One of my favorite things to do in Minecraft (and most other games) is to start out again with nothing and get to the top once more, you know starting out by punching trees and gathering wood, hastily making some shelter before the first night, that sort of thing.

I did a similar exercise with a fellow enthusiast named Alex at the Lanslide League of Legends Tournament (we did play some LoL but aren’t very good at it) we basically did the same thing, exploring the different worlds and servers we had, Alex briefly showed me his multiplayer world where due to a botched server command he had dumped a layer of sand on 1/3^rd of the map, I didn’t manage to get some good screenshots but it looks interesting to say the least especially the jungle biome with sand covering it.

We decided to start a Minecraft map up and get surviving in between rounds of LoL, which we did, from what I can remember we spawned in a Jungle biome where we decided to make our home which was basically just a hole dug in the ground, I then went off to find a mine to get some coal and iron and we did find a particularly large one and also cleaned out a ravine in a swamp biome. Didn’t see any Witches or Witch Huts but we did see a slime  which as of the 1.4.2 patch can now spawn above ground in swamps which we were quick to hit off the edge of the ravine.

Speaking of the 1.4.2 patch here are a few things of note that were added, more detail in the link.

Command blocks

Beacons

Anvils

Wooden logs (thank god for this change, as a treehouse builder it was driving me crazy)

Changed placement: Instead of facing the player, it will face the surface it is placed on

Place it on the side of a block to get a sideways log.

Place it on the top or bottom of a block to get a topside log.

Item Frames

Wither

Wither Skeletons

Witch and Witch Huts in swamps

Bats

Carrot on a Stick

Anyway back to the story, so me and Alex took all our loot home and went to work on our underground Jungle home, I carved out a bit of the cave and we decided that jungle wood planks would be the quickest and most environmentally friendly blocks for the wall as jungle logs would be quite time consuming to obtain and would require us to level 2 or 3 large jungle trees. That said, I’ve always found jungle trees to be the quickest source of wood for three reasons.

The trunks are 4x4 instead of 1x1

You can climb to the top of them easily using the vines

They are up to 20 to 30 blocks tall

But anyway we weren’t in the business of deforestation, we had the supplies, we had the wood, now to get to work. So we walled up our home in jungle wood planks, I built a doorway to the cave and decorated the entrance and the inside with vines.With these screenshots I was using Faerielight 256x256 texture pack

We decided to cobblestone for the floor as we couldn’t think of anything else at the time as it would have been too much wood if we did the floor in that.

After some brief fixing up and adding some stairs, I started carving out a room for myself, Alex wanted to know how good I could make my room look so we switched to creative mode to make things easier. Making bookshelves, carpet and other things I needed would take a significant amount of time, as you all know that sheep and cows can never be found when you need them. It wasn’t my best work unfortunately but it still looked reasonable with the water feature though maybe a bit bare.

Alex then changed the main entrance to have a less-than-respectable name for our home as well as adding a dispensor so anyone coming or going would get dirt spat at them, charming

A riggeed welcome mat that triggers a machanism that shoots thing at people on the doorstep, this could be huge

I went over to my friend Richard's house recently do have a bit of a lan as they were very much into playing Age of Empires 2, which as well as Minecraft we did try to play but unfortunately weren't able to get it working so we played Starcraft instead which I was inevitably able to win.

But on to the Minecraft and after Richard and I were unable connect to each other in Lan mode we were forced to go online where I suggested we should delve into one of my old favorites Mikeland Survival. So we did and ended up having a pretty fun adventure. We jumped off the spawn area and ran and ran until we got to a ransacked NPC village where we found there was a chasm and a cave system nearby, we decided to venture into the chasm harvesting whatever resources we could find and made a hideout out of a circular cave. After much foraging for coal and iron and creating some much needed iron tools we eventually found an underground chasm below the one on the surface that had a mineshaft running through it. And man did we find a lot of diamond in there, all up we got about 15 or 16 diamonds between us which was a pretty good haul, I did some dangerous obsidian farming with lava right underneath but we soon had enough for a nether portal, some fancy iron armor and more importantly some diamond tools.

The bridge across the chasm to our hideout

So inconspicous I know

Boyz 'n' the Hood

We then went up to the surface and while Richard went did some sheep dye mixing resulting in coloured sheep all over the place, I went out to the taiga biome woods to find some animals to kill for food when I spotted a diamond armor clad other player in which I decided to run very fast away from and told Richard who came over as well, at this point supposedly seeing both of us the other player ran off. We then continued and I went off to gather some clay for bricks in large lake in the nearby swamp and unsuccessfully tried to make a chicken farm. While I was doing this Richard told me that there was two players coming towards him one of which could have possibly been the player we saw before. I ran back with my Diamond sword in hand to see them chasing Richard, they killed Richard and but I managed to take one of them down but couldn’t catch up to the other, while I waited for Richard to come back to get what was left of his items they both came back and amazingly I managed to kill both of them this time. One of them did say they were “Coming back for me” though we didn’t see them again, they possibly didn’t actually see where we were hiding. We got some supplies and some pretty cool enchanted iron armor from the experience though.

Our hideout before partial brick makeover

After partial brick makeover.

Well after that we prettied up our home a bit more with wool carpet, brick walls, pot plants and glass and we made a basement for the nether portal which we were quick to venture into. We did a quick run of the nether gathering supplies such as lightstone, soul sand and netherrack where Richard got a bit too enthusiastic with his Zombie Pigman killing.Afterwards we continued with the house and Richard planted trees around our chasm.

Our basement with the nether portal

Huge lava lake I saw in the Nether

Trees Richard planted outside our chasm to fend off prying eyes.

Shortly after that we had to finish up as it was time for a bit of Age of Empires, or technically Starcraft as we couldn’t get AOE to work. Haven’t been back to see if it’s still there yet, might have to take some more photos.

Throughout all of those experiences, I had fun, we had fun and that’s the main thing, I’ve found playing games with friends close by is getting harder and harder these days as developers don’t want to make games that you can play with people right next to you, they always seem to want you to “play with your friends” with all of you in different locations forcing you to use headphones and mics, I would rather be right near a person and be able to speak to them without having to much around with .

My brother did point out that there is only about 10 PS3 games made that have a co-op campaign or story mode whereas within out group of 15 or so PS2 games we have 3 of which have a similar feature. It seems that split screen is becoming something of the past with the net being so available nowadays. Though that is consoles and I’m mostly a PC gamer and it doesn’t seem to stop us that we have to cart our entire desktops around screen and all to various places in order to be able to play together, that’s absolutely fine.

My best creations have come out of playing by myself, but the most fun comes out of playing with others, and if their right beside me, it’s even better.

JD

With a lot of help from my friends.

The Past and times of Yore: Elastomania, la moto elástico

This one is a fairly short review of one of the games I played throughout my schooling years, and I did play a lot, even while at school itself, yes I’ll admit it but I sincerely doubt any person out there wouldn’t have played some kind of game at school, I for one played a fair amount especially during secondary school. Some of the most prominent non-browser based ones have been Blobby Volley, Liero and its successor Soldat, there has been some great browser games too for that time but I won’t go into those. Elastomania, was probably the best non-browser based game that I have every played throughout my entire education, it had something that you just couldn’t work out from the name, or couldn’t tell from watching someone play it.

Apple!

I could imagine all our peers walking past us wondering why we’re playing this game that looks like it was modelled on a colouring book as we ever so slowly riding this gravity defying motorcycle over some small hills that looks like triangles while throwing our arms back and forth to seemingly flip ourselves up the right way. It must have infuriated them not knowing how or why we were doing this, then again %99 of the time it was us nerdy guys playing and they would have just passed it off as some losers playing some silly game , but in reality they were the ones who were missing out and if they never experienced the joy of computer games in that period of their lives they will probably never enjoy as much as we do now.

Gonna get either my tyres slashed or a haircut here.

But anyway I’m being a bit too dramatic and I suppose I’d better explain the concept first. Elastomania is a (very) 2d platformer game where you control a motorcycle with super extendy suspension and have to navigate through various obstacles collecting apples (some of which change the gravity, of course), and when you’ve collected all the apples in the level you can go and get the flower which finishes the level, and you have to do this all without hitting your head on any part of the course, simple eh? Did I mention that in order to achieve this throughout the game you’ll have to vault yourself backwards and forwards to change the bike’s angle as well as magically flip the bike horizontally so the back wheel becomes the front and vice-versa all the while dodging hazardous objects.

Ah the flower of completement, always so far out of reach.

 This all might sound a bit weird to put together so I was going to provide a helpful video of me attempting a helpful video of me doing my best attempt at the first 3 levels of Elastomania then showing you a video of the pro's doing it, but unfortunately I had a bit of trouble filming the game using fraps. Now the fascination with this game starts with just simply being able to complete the levels then once you’ve done that it goes on to trying to finish them as quickly as possible below which shows speedruns from several Elastomania “pros” at work through the first 18 levels of the game

Holy shizow this guy is smooth.

This coupled with the very popular and essential level editor led to some quite crazy level designs and even Elastomania teams and tournaments.

A fairly silly elastomania custom level.

 
Team NSB Movie

So as you can see such an odd game became quite serious for some people, not for me though, it was just something for me to do while relaxing between study and also when I had nothing to do and needed to kill some time. The best part about it for me was probably the simplicity and the physics, you need to quickly work out what angle to need to push to be able to reach the platform or land correctly.  I loved hanging upsi-down while riding along facing backwards then coming off the rail and throwing myself forward so I land wheels down. It was a such a simple concept to start with but the player (and players) made it so much more with styles of playing, best times and new maps which again proves the old saying that a good community improves a game’s longevity and popularity.

A 'spiral' styled level, their quite popular

I can’t really explain the greatness that is Elastomania by way of words movies and pictures you just simply have to try it for yourself, this game kept me occupied when needed for a long time, I could play it again and again, even just the first 8 levels of the demo before I got the full game. Although I have gone on to other things, it’s hard to describe what kind of game it was the best of, I guess it was the best when-not-at-home, non-browser game that I’ll never forget.

JD

Ahh simplicity at it's best

How do you like them apples? very much sir thank you

The Important Pieces of Paper - Skyrim, I return much more quietly, Part 2

Here we are the second and final post of my recent epic second journey through of Skyrim and man o man it seemed even more epic this second time I reckon. But anyway let's continue

One thing my brother and I do love about this game is the armor sets as we think they look pretty damn cool when your character is fully decked out in them, Since I have now started the Stormcloak mission chain I decided to make myself a set of Glass Armor and two ebony swords as impressive as wielding the Dawnbringer and the Nightingale blade are they just don't do as much damage as ebony weapons

Ebony Weapons I used, the one on the right is the dagger, the sword is one of the oddest designs in the game I reckon

With the Glass Armor I made two sets, one for display the other to wear when I'm out fighting with the Stormcloaks. I recently started the questline which involves a lot of running into castles and forts and actively engaging the empire in full on combat, so suffice to say my Nightingale armor which is built for the theif playstyle, wouldn't cut it as the glass armor has a much higher armor setting. As you could probably guess "Glass" Armor isn't actually made of glass which would be pretty silly now wouldn't it? It's made of Malachite which apparently as well as Ebony, is the blood of a god which is explained in this interesting story and shows why Glass and Ebony armor are one of the strongest in the game.

"When the Divines learned that in order to create Mundus they had to sacrifice their physical forms and almost all of their power, becoming effectively dead or weakened, a lot of them rebelled against Shor and tore out his heart. Akatosh and his strongest lieutenant, Trinimac, assaulted him head on and tore out his heart. When the heart was plummeting towards the seas off the east coast of Tamriel, it dropped its divine blood across the face of the young continent. Since Lorkhan is an inherently split personality, he bled two colors - Ebony and Malachite. The Ebony ore is used to create Ebony equipment and Daedric, and the Malachite makes Glass. Most of these materials are mined from Morrowind, on the island of Vvardenfell that grew up around where the Heart of Shor landed. A lot of it fell across Skyrim on the way down. The reason Glass and Ebony are so damned strong is because they're godsblood."

My Glass armor set, sort of pales in comparison to what the rest of the Stormcloaks wear doesn't it?

You'll notice that I'm still wearing my Krosis, Dragon Priest mask even when it's actually lower armor and has a bonus to Lockpicking, Archery and Alchemy in which two I won't use in a battle situation as I have wasted a lot of arrows trying to hit moving targets as well as hit Imperials and not Stormcloaks and Alchemy I don't even do.I wear it because it looks freakin cool and I don't care if it's lower armor, I like being this faceless guy as no-one addresses me by name anyway,

"Got it from a Dragon Priest, yeh that's right though this armor, I made it myself."

Speaking of the Dragonpriest Masks I wanted to see if I could find a mod that changes the colours and/or the hoods so I could possibly find match it with my armor sets and also to see if I was able to obtain a mask which I could enchant myself, and I certainly found a good mod for that. Psychosteve's DragonPriest Masks provides different textures and colour schemes for the original 10 masks as well as a plethora of new styled masks with Mage style head coverings and well as the same new masks with the classic hood that the originals have, everyone of which are craftable and I can say look pretty cool..I also found this, which was also pretty cool but quite silly.

When browsing through the masks I decided to try a few on, and unfortunately to create them you needed a fairly random collection of items of which I really didn't have the patience to get as I really weanted to see how the different masks looked on my character so this resulted in a lot of console commanding in all the obscure resources that I didn't have in order to find out what various masks looked with my two different armor sets. I soon found that the maks from the mod with custom headcoverings were positioned different and thus I had parts of my face including my quite long elf-nose as well as my cheekbones sticking out through the masks, so unfortunately I could not use any of the custom headcovering masks.

"Sosjot" by Psychosteve looks very cool with the Nightingale armor but unfortunately if you take a closer look (click on picture) you can see my nose and cheeks portruding.

Furthermore I had kind of forgotten that the new masks were also seperated into heavy/lightcategories and some of the best looking ones were heavy armor that I could no use lest I lose my perks of wearing full light armor.

Here are another two, "Ikendov" and "Ved classic" style, both are great looking but unfortunately their both heavy armor so I can't use them anyway.

For my glass armor set I made the "Draal" mask with the classic hood obviously as I think it goes pretty well with my glass armor. I decided to keep the Krosis for my Nightingale armor as though the new texture isn't as dark as I'd like the mask has bth a 20% bonus to Lockpicking and Archery and I couldn't put both of those enchants on if I used another mask unless I had the final enchanting perk of course but since that's at 100 I don't think that'll be happening anytime soon.

"Draal classic" and the newly textured Krosis mask

I am proud to say I have succcessfully upgraded Skyrim to the 1.7 patch  without any hassle and was able to install both the SkyUI mod and the Skyrim Script Extender (skse) that it requires, also you actually have to load the game with the script extender in order for it to work which only causes a small loading problem at the start which isn't too much trouble. SkyUI is pretty good possibly even better then the QD Inventory mod that I was using before, as you can see it sorts things via symbols and has a function down the bottom where you can switch between your inventory and the merchants instead of scrolling all the way across.

(skyUI pic)

Well I've finally got the Daedric perk and can create my Daedric weapons, which I did after travelling across the world a couple of times and a visit to the Gloombound Mine I finally had enough Daedra hearts, Ebony ingots and Grand Soul Gems for creating, upgrading and enchanting them. Speaking of enchanting in case you didn't know the better the Soul gem you use for the enchant the better result and length of time the enchant lasts for (untill you refill it) of course so basically since I've got quite a large pool of money which is usual towards the end of my questing (120.000 gold at one point I think) I've ben purchasing Grand Soul gems where I can. Anyway I had used the sword and warhammer previously and the whole set looks pretty fearsome, the one-handed sword especially.

The Daedric Weapons

*Runs out of house* "Aaaargh! Rrrrgh! made new weapons! must spill blood!"

You'll notice in the last screenshot that I'm actually in Solitude near my Proudspire Manor house, this is because some reason when I'm doing my blacksmithing on my Asteria flying ship the framerate coitnues to drop (as is usual on the deck of the ship) and sometimes freezes the game forcing me to re-open it, I'm not sure why this is but I decided to move all of my blacksmithing material inc gems to my basement in Proudspire manor which of course still is the edited version, the one I'm using is Proudspire Manor Refurbished - ENG/GER by Ghaunador and has a compelte 'smithy' and other amenities with the possible exception of chopping block which was kind of annoying but I found one in Solitude anyway.

Basements, giving you high FPS since 1999

Seriously the wood's there now just get rid of yet another mannequin and place a damn chopping block. Sometimes I wish I had the patience use the Creation Kit.

Oh yes and another word of advice now I think of it, don't use console commands to get yourself another Blades Sword which I because I hadn't gone far enough into the main questline to get to the Temple of the Blades (where more could be found) but for some reason it mucked up my save and I had to revert to an older one. The blades swords aren't as good as the Daedric ones anyway but I just though having two katanas would be pretty cool, I might try again once I can get two of them legitimately but I'll make sure I do some saving beforehand. I was just looking up Daedric artifacts and was most interested in using th Ebony Blade when I make my warrior again to get my katana fix for that character, but probably will just use this mod as I don't like the idea of the enchant that the blade has.

The Ebony Blade, nordic samurai style yo

Stop everything! I've found another house, yes another house the Asteria magnificent as it was is unfortunately gone as I couldn't really work with a house where I couldn't use all the amenities without fear of the game freezing. I also wanted something a bit more huntery this time in which I did try Ranger Ridge by Eldiabs previosuly but it unfortunately wasn't supported anymore  So after a quick search and some testing my new house is the Riverside Lodge with Sauna by Lupus.Yes a sauna complete with a changing room too no less, my brother thought this was absolutley ridiculous but I like it. Many of the chests inside have an auto-sorting option where it has an interface which removes only certain items from yuor inventory for example ore/ingots which is very useful. Also the house is quite interesting as there's this book sitting near the entrance which allows you to customise the basement i.e. you have 3 options

• A room of 3 mannequins and weapon racks with a normal looking hallway with a bookshelf

• A "library" style room with a desk and lots of bookshelves and am "armory" style hallways with 6 mannequins and weapon plaques

• A full armory with 10 mannequins and many weapon racks and plaques

Full view of house, notice the gazebo thing sitting a bit too close to the raging river for my tastes

Multi-level design

Now thats a full smithy if I ever saw one, minus the chopping block of course but thankfully thats just outside.

I chose the library/armory option for the basement, the mannequins and weapon plaques are on the other side and yes all those books I did collect myself.

The "Spa" and Sauna House

The Sauna room, I like the greybeard statue being there like some sort of "Lord of the Sauna"

I'm pretty much on the home stretch now I'm finishing off the Dark Brotherhood and about halfway through the Stormcloaks.I've also done a bit more of the main storyline where you go through the back entrance to the main Blades hideout in Skyrim and I actually went outside into what could possibly be the main entrance of the Blades Hideout though it's on top of a plateau of a sheer cliff so it's possible the Blades could have actually rode Dragons at one point to be able get up there.

"Dramatic music" nice shot of my glass armor with Mask

I got into quite the fight recently when I was travelling to an Imperial outpost in the Reach all of a sudden a dragon attacked (an elder dragon no less) so I decided to just keep running to the war meetup and deal with him with my stormcloak buddies. Though it didn't technically work that way as as soon as I got to where they were waiting they automatically ran forward ansd the imperials started attacking so I had to cut down the imperials while dodging dragon breath then finally down the dragon himself. It was no mean feat and I wish I'd gotten it on fraps though I did manage to get this awesome shot of the dragon combusting.

Dragons: Even the way their bodies decay is awesome

I've got my +30 Archery helm on so I thought I'd take a picture of me actually wearing a full set of armor for once

 I'll add in here that I had another dragon attack while I was attacking an Imperial base, this time I just tried to kill the Dragon first instead of running in which worked alot better though I think it did still some some imperials.

 Well I am now at the pinnacle of armorness yes I have finally made my Dragonscale armor which looks totally badass of course.Got everything upgraded and enchanted fine though I realised that in order to get a light armor enchant I needed to use one of my custom Dragon Priest Masks as they had every enchant availiable enabled on them. So I decided to use the Kinbok Classic mask because it was the right colour and went really well with the Dragonscale. I also made a Dragonscale Helmet and enchanted it with an Archery bonus so I could use it with my :"dragon killing" extreme archery dragonscale gauntlets.

Me in the Kinbok mask and Dragonscale Armor with Shadowmere who is from the Dark Brotherhood Questline

Now I have downloaded the Dawnguard expansion though I just wanted to keep things vanilla at that point. So the only way I was going to get to have any Dragonbone weapons was to hit the Nexus and see what mods were out there, and I found a pretty good one though I noticed another was also pretty cool. Here's a comparison looking at the three main ones I found.

The official Dragonbone Weapons by Bethesda availiable in Dawnguard I especially like the warhammer which seems to be just a dragon's femur with a handle.

Dragon Bone Weapons Complete by KTA creations, I found the warhammer kind of odd lol

Wulfharths Dragonbone Weapons by Ashking Wulfharth, this is the set I'm using atm as you probably guessed I can't get enough of the katana-style sword

Well I'm almost finished goddamn this is taking forever I've just got the Dark Brotherhood, Stormcloak and Main story questline to go and I'm powering through it, I'm almost not even bothering with stealth anymore as with my Dragonscale armor and weapons I'm pretty damn powerful even with light armor. I can't block while wielding two swords but I find I can dodge pretty well and being able to do two attacks instead of just one works better, plus I've enchanted one of my katana's with lifestealing so I get some health back anyway.

Blackreach, The supposed location of the Dwemer capital city

Yep that's what an Elder Scroll looks like people, it's pretty trippy to look at too

Well it's finito, goddamn that took awhile 216 in game days and 46 levels to be exact throughout most of the final bits I just forwent sneaking/stealth killing altogether and just ran around slicing the crap out of things with dual swords. I was pretty damn overpowered having 100 smithing skill and being able to craft a full set of legendary Dragonscale armor compelte with Enchantments, only got up to about 66 for enchanting but thats pretty good I guess, plus the same with the Wullfharths Dragonbone Weapons mod which were pretty damn powerful too.

The second half of the Thieves Guild storyline got pretty interesting and pretty spectacular towards the end Possibly the most entertaining of the Thieves, Guild and Companions, I can't talk for the Mages Guild as I haven't done it. I also finished off the Stormcloaks questline which was the same as normal but while doing this my brother informed me of the below "meeting"


The Season Unending quest with the meeting of the power players of Skyrim.

Apparently this quest is called Season Unending and becomes part of the main questline if the Dragonborne reaches the part of the story where they have to capture a dragon in Dragonsreach but have not completed "The Battle of Whiterun" for either side i.e. so Jarl Balgruff will say to the Dragionborne that he can't help you trap the dragon unless a ceasefire is called, which results in this quest. I think I might do it next time as it  I do enjoy the politics (contrary to the person who made the movie) and it looks quite fun. Also doing this quest is the only way of doing the Blades quest to kill (or not kill) Paathurnax and be abel to recruit blades members.

Finishing off the main questline went smoothly, I found during the final battles up the mountain to the Sovnguarde portal were very heard to use stealth so I basically just used dual swords to slash enemies to peices while dodging arrows also poison, shouts and the Sanguine Rose did help.I killed good ol Alduin with relatively no trouble at all and that was that. Was relatively easy being level 46 and having full Dragonbone armor and weapons. I must admit I really enjoyed stealthing aroundand doing things the quiet way.

In saying that I will definately be back kicking ass again with a 2H Warrior with a new PC and a HD overhaul, oooh yeh, don't think I could ever go 1-hand and shield, too boring though I think I'll have to go a stuck-up imperial this time around too see that side of the story as well as make sure I do the Season Unending quest. My brother thinks the imperials are the 'good guys' though I beg to differ. I leave you now with some pictures of the near-end to the end.

JD

Full Dragonscale Armor

First Time getting the Oghma Infinium Daedric Artifact of Hermaeus Mora, I must look at what other artifacts are availiable from the Daedra.

The Stormcloaks Battle for Solitude

Sup Odahviing?

The aftermath of the Alduin defeat at Sovngarde

"Well I guess that's that Paarthurnax old buddy"

Final stats, thats a lot of Gold found.

I'm a Thief, I'm an Assasin, I'm a Rebel that was birthed by a Dragon.