Defeat

Well, I'm sure no one expected me to actually finish this list.. And I'm sure a majority people won the bet of me 'folding out' early, but hey... I don't wanna be done with this yet. That list of games still taunts me... I just hit a block with Bioshock. Also, I'm tired of unfinished things I just drop early on. :|

I'm thinking about continuing on (and yes, on Bioshock), but I don't know if I can do such a generous schedule anymore.. I'll have to think of what I can do, but until then I'll keep you posted.

NINTENDO WINS!

Following the E3 conferences today (only caught the Ubisoft one yesterday, which sucked, and I heard the Microsoft one wasn't much better.. EA was okay, however), Nintendo brought out the old Fangirl in me with a huuuuuuge lasso of games I've been wanting on the Wii forever now. Not to mention the news of the 3DS and the huge support it seems to be getting. It's all Fangasmic.

Certainly put me in a good mood this morning.

Sony's press release had a lot to follow up against... Buuut they didn't really woo me at all. Personally, I have a little interest in at least things like Little Big Planet 2, but other than that I found it to be more of an endurance match of montages and technical fluff that only Sony fan-gits really cared about, if them. They did have some good titles, at least.

Perhaps I'm a bit biased... Being a bit heavy on Nostalgia (and what's more Nostalgic than the franchises you grew up with coming back all shiny?), but I don't think I'm the only one who really feels this way. I mean it's extremely awesome seeing console based titles making their way to the 3DS without too big a hit in graphics... It's also nice to know that Pit actually hit puberty at some point between Brawl and now.

Nevertheless!

WOO YAY NINTENDO! You win my wallet for the next year!

Bioshock and Alcohol don't mix

Surprising enough, for my love of Drunken Gaming, Bioshock hasn't been a very complimentary game to it. Both Saturday and Sunday I partook in it...

When I rented the game for 360 ages ago I stopped due to it feeling tedious... Getting to the point in which I had no ammo, no medpacks (I squander those things a little too easily), Wrench Only, Final Destination constantly against those Big Daddy bastards, I just up and said, "This is not enjoyable; good day game" and quit.

That feeling has still been around during my PC play through, but due to my determination to ice this list bit by bit, I press on as my viewers reproach my attempts (or cheer me on, you guys rock nevertheless). Add this to the fickle mannerisms of an inebriated mind and you have me walking off in random directions in pure bedlam, getting gunned down by turrets and wrenching Big Daddies in pure HATE. It's quite a Spectacle, I must assume, but eventually I get frustrated enough to flat out quit and fall face first on my bed to pass out.

But really... I've been enjoying the game so far for a good portion of it... The Atmosphere is definitely there and I can really appreciate the art direction they took because of it... Combat's all fun enough outside of Big Daddies, but goddamn... It is not meant to be played after 3 Coronas and a Sparks.

Probably doesn't help I suck at Pipedream too.

Blarghle. Delays and such already.

Well, it's official. Renovations of the house are starting tomorrow. The stream miiiight have to be cancelled, but I'm guessing more of a 3-4 hour delay.. I usually stream for quite awhile anyways.

:C

After Game Thoughts- Dragon Age: Origins (Spoilers)

Often in games, movies, books, etc... There are moments I start wondering "Will this end happily? Or tragically?" I always want to see a happy ending, naturally... But sometimes the tragic one is just so much more fitting.

Hence what brings me to my experience in Dragon Age. The game was great in normal Bioware fashion. It certainly had quite a few moments that made me laugh (intentionally or not, as you can see in my screenshot post) and all the characters were very rememberable and very well layered, but... The end of it brought me to tears.

Like many people who play these games, I try to stick as closely as possible to how the character would in games. In this case, my character Dia is a Do-Gooder to a fault... In almost Mary Sue-esque Fashion, she triest her best to do the best thing she can for others without breaking Moral codes... Safe to say though, this often leads to things not going 100% great for her.

For those familiar with the end of the game, the choice Morrigan gives you to save the life of Alistair or yours is available through a sort of Dark Ritual... If you're a female character then Alistair is the one who has to do the ritual... Alistair is also a main romance option in the game. In the case of Dia, she wanted dearly to do anything to keep both of them alive... Having been in love with Alistair, but... She couldn't bring herself to push him to go with the ritual. Thus she knew very likely one of them would die the next day.

Through the battle, the time to fight the Arch Demon finally came... I couldn't help but feel the emotional holding Dia would have on this situation... A moment before she'll never see the man she loves again, whether he or she fell... Naturally, she wanted one last moment with him...

After the a great battle with the Demon... Dia did eveything she could to be the one to kill the beast, to save the life of her loved one... Eventually managing to bring it down...

But to her despair... The beast was not yet dead, and Alistair had the same idea... He couldn't let her take the fall. Not letting her have a choice.

And thus... The Ferelden was saved, the Blight was over, Dia and her party were heroes, but... A lot of Dia was left feeling empty inside... Happy that she was able to save everyone, but once again, at the cost of things so dear to her. After the Victory ceremony, she decided to travel... She knew her duty to the Gray Wardens all too well, but she wanted some time on the road to herself, holding her memory of the Would-be King closely to her heart. Thus ending the fanfic... I mean Story of Dragon Age for Dia.

Knowing how It was going to end made it a little hard to finish the game, but... Honestly I feel satisfied with the ending.. Some day I may go back to my save before choosing whether to go through with the ritual or not to see how that turns out... Though it is ironic... For almost being a "CHARACTER WITH NO FLAWS", she has the most tragic endings in pretty much everything I've written with her in it comparetively to any other character, but... For now I feel its been wrapped up well enough, and it's time to get on with the list anyways. Safe to say, Dragon Age was to me, another great game from Bioware... They draw you in very well with their story and characters, connecting yours to you with the choices you make and ending it all very fittingly either way. I'm very glad I played through it. But as I said, next up is BIOSHOCK!

Also, I know this one was more Screenshot heavy than Drawings. Sorry about that, I'll try to make it up to you guys. I had a few planned, but Alistair is surprisingly hard to draw for me!

Past Dragon Age Screenshots

Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die!

With Dragon Age being the next game I plan to finish, I started thinking of how awesomely goofy the game can be. As said... I've already spent a lot of time in Dragon Age. Across 3-4 characters or so, actually. The best thing to come out of it are screenshots, just because there's some seriously "What?" moments that can happen in the game if you look at them from a different angle... I went through what I had in my file and picked out a few to share. Mind my cheesy captions. May have to click to full view them.

"If I knew The Joining involved gay sex I would've never agreed to it!"

...Yeah, Iunno, but I laughed.

First time I encountered this fire in cutscenes thing, I could not stop laughing.

I'm alright. It's nothing serious, guys.

Dia the Doomsayer.. Funnily enough I didn't take either of these screenshots with the other in mind.

Now this is getting hot... -Snrk-

FOR THE FALLEN! (Okay, I was just so happy to get this bitch down)

I like where this is going.

After Game Thoughts- Torchlight

I got Torchlight as a Christmas gift from a good friend of mine. I had previously tried the demo of it and couldn't help but feel everything was verrrry familiar...

I've had a fairly... extensive... relationship with Diablo 2, being a game my brother got me playing. We played online again, but eventually got bored and faded out. We got back into it when I ended up moving out of my parents house and into a house with him and my cousin before we had internet available (LAN POWER). Safe to say Torchlight has been both a huge case of dejavu, but also in some ways a breath of fresh air. I definitely enjoyed a lot of things... My Dog/Wolf named Zuul, being able to put points in skills without going down a long tree allowing for a lot more versatility, gemming things without having to worry about losing the gem or the socket, transforming my pet into various things for my amusement...

...And of course that feeling you get blasting EVERYTHING IN THE ROOM to oblivion with little effort at times.

Overall it has been a fairly fun and straight to the point game, but... It had some glaring things that kind irked me through it as well... For one, I found pretty much all Pistols were stronger than Rifles of an Equal level... So using a Pistol and a Shield or Dual Pistols (though Dual Wielding Combat isn't incredible, I found ) would still have more output than only having a Rifle.... Another odditiy is a lot of Rifles I found fired faster and had a lower average damage, which is a bit strange with the usual relationship between Speed and Size of Weapon. My friend reported the same thing for him with Melee weapons. The only other main thing that was a bit strange was... I started on Hard Difficulty because a friend said through normal he felt it was way too easy. Even on Hard the game was still fairly easy... In the second to last dungeon, hordes of enemies could get me down if I got swarmed or hit a couple times by some stronger ones, but not enough to stop me from chuggin them potions.

11111111111111111111111111111111

All the bosses were prettttty much pushovers as well... Some were a little more annoying than others (I'm looking at you, 2nd Dungeon Lich Boss thing), but no real threat...

The real challenge and bullshit moments came in at the final lonnnnnnnnnnnnnng dungeon (really, I started it about 2-3pm and ended it around 10pm). It was pretty much a massacre moments within stepping in. I could handle things that mainly meleed... Dragonkin, the Dark Zealots or whatever when not in huge groups... But what got me constantly were those dumb Zapper Skelly Summoning Bitches.

Problem, player?

They had a move that.. In true Diablo-esque electricity based magic style... Did like, 1-1,500+ damage. I was one shotted so many times I readopted the habit of dropping portals every where so I didn't have to pay the penalties to not have a longer trek back at times... There were also plentyyy of Hordes of enemies that'd give more trouble than previous levels, but those weren't a huge deal. Eventually after grinding, portal hopping and a sheer rage towards every daemonic creature in that hellhole, I did make it through. I didn't enjoy the Final boss, though... It's a bit of a Clusterfuck and a TEDIOUS GRINNNNNND... I died 5-6 just because of the sheer time he takes to get down, getting swarmed and just losing interest at times in the GRINNNNNDDDDD.... Which you'd think I'd be used to at this point.

Anyways... Overall, I did have my share of fun with Torchlight, outside of the final boss. It's a bit bummer it's Singleplayer only, but I do know they plan on making a MP version. Considering I got it as a gift and it was only like.. $4 during the sale I'd say I got enough out of it. I also only played it till I beat the story. After the final boss, you get an Infinite dungeon that matches to your level and such for new gear and shiz. Did I mention the Boss was a big grind?

Whatever, it's over now. 2 games down, many more to go!

Next up?

DRAGON AGE!