Progress 10/5-10/6

I have decided to combine these two days since what I played through was Dragon's Age Origins. Truly an extraordinary quest adventure, I recently recruited a drunken dwarf fighter into my large rotation of characters, and now its time to head into the Deep Roads under Orzammar, the thaig of the Dwarven nation.

Also where Gatorade is manufactured.

Axe. Check. Arrows. Check. Let's go kill stuffs!

10/4 Progress

Time to close down the Strategy Category! Space Empires 5. I'm not too keen on this game yet. It is the last one on the entire list that is sketchy. But, with no suitable replacement at this juncture, we'll press on!

Last time around, I had tried to make a treatise with the alien race that appeared near my initial space clusters. And they were complete A-Holes! They turned down both of my fair offers and countered with self-centered schmucky offers. When I turned those down, they assaulted and took an unprotected acquisition alone in a recently charted cluster, and destroyed a few of my scouts who were just minding their own business. For this, I begrudgingly respect these guys.

THIS MEANS WAR! Too bad I have no real warships. That is a situation that obviously needs to change. And so, awaaaay we go!

I realize that all I have in the system where those bastards took my colony, is another colony ship. I decide to move it the hell out of there, and I'll leave that situation alone for now. My primary problem appears to be a giant colony that I want to build lots of stuff on but can't because there's no resources available. I set up some ships to go over there and hopefully if I understand how to do it right, they will drop resources in a few turns. We'll see if that works out.

I gain a technology level in Medical Science. I drop that to zero and put some research points into Storage Facility research. Six more turns until I gain the first major technology area I put tech into: Mathematics. Based on what's in my first two systems, my next big one will be researching how to colonize Ice Planets. That will take 200,000 research points and I only get 5000 per turn right now to use. I clearly need to build research facilities on future colonies.

Here's my main system. All of the Red Bull Horns signify ships or planets I control. Yes, my symbol is Cattle or Beer, or Cattle Beer. That should strike fear into the hearts of my alien competitors!

Over the course of the next few turns I build a few more escorts and blaster ships, and start to move them into already existing fleets. Its going to be a long time before I am really battle ready for conflict with anyone else, especially since I am just learning the ropes on how to play this game.

Here's the second sector of space I have claimed as my own. Lots of ice planets! Brrrr!

I am starting to get a handle on the micromanagement aspects of this very complicated game. And as a result, it is starting to grow on me. I will continue to play this one and see what I can make of it, so our 48 game roster is, in fact, complete. It's clear that this is a very slow moving entity, which is a nice change of relaxing pace as compared to most of the PS2 games.

Ooh! News report on current events in the Empire! Neato Mosquito!

After a few more turns of examining building queues, and setting up existing colonies to build facilities a little smarter than I originally did, an hour has expired and my third round turn on this game is now up!

But, this game is starting to grow on me, like moss!

That's a checkmark!

___________________________________________________________________

The Scoreboard for Round 3:

Three games to go, and two of them I just never got around to attempting this round. Once I complete one more of the three, I will have access to Round 4, that's one of the rules of my system, so I don't get stuck with the last two games. But, since the only one I've attempted and failed is the Ace mission on Mercenaries, we'll see if I can blow through Assassin's Creed and Dragon's Age Origin next.

MIND TEASERS: COMPLETE
Chess Titans - 3
Gabriel Knight - 3
Mahjong Titans - 3
Sherlock Holmes - 3
Spider Solitaire - 3
World Series of Poker - 3

STRATEGY: COMPLETE
Civilization 4 - 3
Gladius - 3
Master of Orion: 3
Space Empires - 3
Suikoden Tactics - 3
World of Mixed Martial Arts - 3

SHOOTER: COMPLETE
Crysis - 3
Fallout 3 - 3
Killzone - 3
Medal Of Honor - European Assault: 3
Ring of Red - 3
Star Wars Battlefront - 3

PURE ACTION: COMPLETE
Devil May Cry - 3
God of War - 3
Gran Turismo 3 -  3
Madden Football - 3
Soul Reaver 2 - 3
Soul Caliber - 3

SWORD SLASHERS - COMPLETE
Champions: Return to Arms - 3
Dark Cloud - 3
Drakengard - 3
.Hack Infection - 3
 Oblivion: Elder Scrolls - 3
Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams - 3

EPIC - FANTASY - 5 of 6 defeated
Dragon's Age Origin - 2
Dragon's Quest 8 - 3
Final Fantasy 12 - 3
Suikoden 3 - 3
Suikoden 4 - 3
Suikoden 5 - 3

EPIC - OTHER GENRES 5 of 6 defeated
Kingdom Hearts - 3
Marvel Ultimate Alliance - 3
Mercenaries - 2 (Super Long Ace Mission!)
Rogue Galaxy - 3
Star Ocean - 3
Xenosaga - 3

ROCKSTAR MISSION BASED 5 of 6
Assassin's Creed - 2
GTA: Liberty City Stories - 3
Hulk: Ultimate Destruction - 3
Manhunt 2 - 3
The Warriors - 3
Urbz - 3

GAMES THAT GOT THE BOOT DUE TO SUCKAGE

STRATEGY
1) Europa Universalis III

SWORD SLASHERS
1) Shadows of Rome

SHOOTERS
1) Freedom Fighters

10/3 Progress

Gah. Too much work today for gaming! Back tomorrow!

Progress 10/2

We're down to four games left in Round 3! Time to play The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, the longest game ever created! Today I'm back to the main quest!

Martin, the heir to the throne, needs me to get him a giant rock in order to help open a portal to where the evil cult is that assassinated the royal family so we can get even-stevens with them, by slaying them all! There is one in a dungeon called Miscarand, according to Martin's research.

Right-O! It's dungeon-crawling time. The place is clearly marked on my map, and I get on my horse and teleport there through the game's nifty instant-travel technique. If you've been somewhere once, you can simply teleport there again. Nice.

What? Just goblins and skeletons? Cake Walk City.

I go to one of my houses, and dump stuff that I won't need for this particular quest. I go to the shop and sell stuff off that I'll never need, and then I'm off to the dungeon. I get attacked by a pair of goblins outside, and slay-i-fy them in mere seconds. Once upon a time, those kinds of low-level monsters constituted a threat to me. But I have done so many side quests and of course, helped out the God of Insanity a bunch already, and my character is souped up both with stats and weapons/armor.

I enter the dungeon and after the initial stairwell, headless undead charge at me. HA! I alternate whacking them with arrows, fireballs, and giving them the whatfor with my spare sword. I always keep two swords on me, because my main one has a nice frost attack on it, but those take up charges. There is no way to turn it off and just use the sword. So you don't want to use it on low level monsters and then have nothing left for the big boss later.





Ah, a locked gate. Guess I need to explore the level.

I defeat plenty of goblins and undead, which vary between skeleton warriors, skeleton archers, and headless zombies (How do they know where to go?), until I come to a locked gate. Bah! I consult the map and start heading towards the areas that I have not explored, until I find a big blue button in the wall. That's not obvious or anything!





Should I push eet? Could be something gooood....could be something....baaaaad.

I push the button. Nothing seems to happen, but I know better.  I head back to the area with the gate, and wah lah, it's open! I head into the next area.

And get immediately charged at by a whole lotta undead, and some goblins too! I cast a huge fireball, draining most of my mana, but the goblins and zombies are burned to a crisp. Now I just have to deal with six skeletons! Gulp! They surround me and start their fun game whack-a-hero!

Fortunately for me, I have superior armor, shield spell, and of course, I switch to my kickass sword. It takes quite a few minutes of battle, but eventually, all six of those suckers go down! Yee-Ahhh! Finally, there was a challenge worthy of me.

I use some healing potions and spells, and fix all of my armor and weapons before moving further.

Pretty big map. The architect of Miscarand had a big job.

ooh, shiny!

Heading further into Miscarand, I begin to realize that the goblins and undead don't like each other, and fight whenever they see each other. There are goblin corpses spread around. HAHA! So basically, the goblins were all like "This looks like a good new place to live." And the Undead were all like "Oh no you didn't!"

The enemy of my enemy is still my enemy though. Both groups immediately attack me when they see me, so that makes the politics quite simple. I cut off their heads, then loot the bodies!

Not a lot of treasure in Miscarand. That's been the case with most of the mission dungeons. Fortunately there's over 100 other places to loot in the game environment, so I haven't had problems going on treasure-raising missions. Not today though!

The door to the third and presumably last section of the dungeon. Hoo Hah!

I head through the door and into the new area. Aside from some random goblins, I don't seem to be under siege. That's a little too quiet for THIS GUY's liking. It's a trap, I smell it. There are a bunch of stairwells that I can't access because they are blocked by stone blocks. That's very odd.





Er...me no can get up the stairs. I smell a trap.



I backtrack to an area on the level I haven't been, and find a backdoor route up another stairwell. Ah HAAAH! I walk right into a chamber with the largest, shiniest stone I've ever seen. That must be what Martin wants.

I'm in a Prudential commercial. Okay, I'll get a piece of the rock, damn it.

I take the giant rock. I put it in my bag. That's how video games work. So there!

That's right! Quest Updated. Who da Man?

But every good adventurer knows that the quest isn't completed until you escape from the dungeon. So I turn to---

AAHHH! The King of Miscarand, who happens to be a levitating Lich, teleports in. Those blocks guarding the stairs slide away, turns out they are directly under my current position. A horde of Headless Zombies storm up all four of them. I try and take a picture for your benefit, but they start whomping on me, sorry! I have to fight, ya'll! 

Okay then! I blast the zombies with small fireballs. Not my big one, I need to save my mana for healing and shield spells. The King sends some nasty magic my way, silencing me. GAH! I change my amulet to one that absorbs magic, and pull out my magic sword and begin to hack away at him. He's immune to frost damage. GAH! But fortunately, not immune to the normal damage that comes from the magic sword. Good.

It takes a few minutes but I hack him to his second death. Then I clear away the Headless Zombies one at a time with fire and swordplay.

They go down, and I only lost half my health. Not too long ago, this battle would have been too tough for me, but my character is nearly maxed out these days. So neener to you, King of Miscarand. I loot his body, there is a key on it. 

I head to the portion of the dungeon I haven't been to, thinking the key must lead to major treasure! I unlock a door with it, kill some more Headless Zombies, and find some minor chests that all together lead to 300 gold pieces. At this juncture of the game, that's like, nothing. Bah. 

Another dungeon conquered. I'm the hero!



I leave the dungeon.  Time to head to Martin's headquarters at Stone Peak Mountain. He's there conferring with Jaufre, the guy who recruited me and helped with my initial training and is now preparing Martin to eventually become Emperor.

I give Martin the stone, and he realizes we now need its opposite number, which can only be found in HELL! Great. I keep going through portals to hell, I've done it like six times already in the game, with plenty to go. My goal in there is usually to close the portal to protect the territory that was threatened by its presence.

Now Martin wants me to talk to the leader of the city Bruma, which is close by, and tell her that we're going to intentionally allow the enemy to open the portal in Bruma as they plan, so that I can get in there close enough to a major citadel on their side and steal the big Sigil Stone that we will need to pair with this one, and gain the opportunity to kill the big bad guy.

Martin has a plan! A suck plan, but a plan nonetheless.

Ergh. Well, eventually I'll play messenger and do that. But not for awhile, as it'll be side quest time next round! That's a checkmark! Sword Slashing Category COMPLETE!

______________________________________________________________________

10/1

Again, no games due to, ah I can't lie, I discovered I could watch the entire eleventh season of The Ultimate Fighter, including the free 2 hour special, and over the past few days, that's what I've been doing with my free time.

I love that show! Tomorrow, its back to games.

9/30 Progress

Busy today! No games for me! Bah!

Progress 9/29

I start out today ready to finish the chapter in Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened and just like with Gabriel Knight, I have come to realize that each chapter after the inital ones are now much longer than initially anticipated. Therefore, earning a checkmark will occur with a definitive story progression. After the last session that I played this game, where I started as Dr. Watson and then watched as Sherlock slipped in, in the disguise of the murdered detective we found in London, then busted out of my cell and started prowling around, I feel I am close to that progression. We'll see.

Last time around I drugged the male nurse guarding the laboratory. He's out for the count, but now I have to lurk about and find some clues as to why various foreigners were abducted to London and shipped here in crates. If anyone can figure it out, it's THIS GUY, while being Sherlock F%$^%! Holmes!

I go up a flight of stairs to poke around up there, and unlock a closet with a spoon! Holy Handy Smurf! Inside is a doctor's jacket, which I promptly steal, because I am the good guy, and as we've well established in this blog by now, good guys always steal stuff!

Now I can move around more freely, since I fit in better. Goody. I walk around and find a bunch of doors locked, but there is  huge open area with a bunch of birds inside a gigantic cage. A brunette is yelling at one of the other crazy dudes, Bauer, to stop. He's agitating the birds and he's got their seed. He wants to let them all out and fly around the place, that would cause the nurses to all stop their duties and havok would ensure. Hmm. That's a good point, crazy dude. Thanks for that.

Aww, she loves her birdies. Bah!

I need the key to the birdcage, but neither of these wackos seems to know where to get it. I go back downstairs, time to talk to some of the other residents of this evil nuthouse.

After some exploration, I find a woman named Gerta who is lamenting the loss of her friend Heidi, who abandoned her. So sorry! By the way, yer crazy!

I progress to the other end of the asylum. There are more nurses with whistles wandering about, so I have to be careful to avoid them. I get to the cell of a guy named Becker. He wants his medicine. Its made with those strange pink crystals I found in the laboratory. What's that, create a concoction at the direction of a crazy house patient with no actual medical degree? All right, I'll do it! Especially when Becker says he has some valuable information for me.

Becker wantsies his druggies.

I head back to the lab. I take the pink crystals. I need some water, there's a fountain up by the birds. I head up there and fill a cup with water, then deposit the pink crystals in there. Yeah! Becker's "medicine" is all ready to go. Maybe it'll turn him into Mr. Hyde and he'll bust out of the cell! We'll see.

Mmm-Mmm! Them's good drinking water

I give Becker the pink drink, and suddenly he's a lot more lucid than before. We have a chit-chat about the foreigners that were brought in. He wants to tell me more, but he's afraid that the guards will overhear and hurt us both. I need to get rid of them somehow for him to tell me more. Drats.
Becker tells me that crazy Gertrude may know how to open the bird cage, that the doll in the lab belongs to her. I kind of figured that one out already, but the game wouldn't let me pick the doll up earlier. Armed with this knowledge, I head back into the lab, and snag the weird looking doll. Hello Heidi!

All happy to be reunited with your icky doll.

Gertrude is very pleased to have Heidi back in her hands. She tells me that Heidi was taken from her as a punishment. A large guard took her to a private room and tried to make her do, uh, unsavory things, so Gertrude rewarded him by cutting off his head!

Nice!

The staff punished her for her murder by putting her in an isolated wing by herself, separating her from Heidi, and not letting her see the birds anymore. The woman who lives in the room now has the key for the birdcage, Gertrude tells me. She also tells me she was afraid the guard whose head she cut off might come back for her, so she stole the key to his room. Right. The room with the key for the bird cage! Heidi hid it in her belly, Gertrude says, and pulls the key out of the doll and hands it to me. Yes! Crazy people rule!

I head upstairs, and sneak into the right room, and after stealing random things off a desk which might be useful later, I find the key to the bird cage.

"Fly! Be Free!" -- Mork from Ork, to a carton of eggs.

I head into the aviary, and much to the delight of Bauer, I release the hounds! Well, the birds anyway. The nurse/guards all freak out and chase after the birds. The birds fly into the lobby and out into the streets. The nurses completely abandon their posts to try and retrieve them. HAHAHA! Stupid nurse/guards.

I head back down to see Becker.

He tells me that when they were first brought in, they tried to communicate but couldn't because they all had different dialects. Becker was sure that none of them were crazy or in need of being institutionalized. Weirdly, about a week after they were brought in, they were all speaking the same language, and saying the same thing, some kind of chant or something.

AH HAH! Culty-Cult brainwashing is it? Okay then. I promise Becker I will rescue him as soon as possible, since he's a prisoner here too and clearly not insane. I make that promise because I'm Sherlock F$^&! Holmes!

This is a story progression checkmark. Time to move on.

The Scoreboard: Round Three! 43 Down! Only 5 games to go until we're onto Round 4.

MIND TEASERS: COMPLETE
Chess Titans - 3
Gabriel Knight - 3
Mahjong Titans - 3
Sherlock Holmes - 3
Spider Solitaire - 3
World Series of Poker - 3

STRATEGY: 5 of 6 defeated
Civilization 4 - 3
Gladius - 3
Master of Orion: 3
Space Empires - 2
Suikoden Tactics - 3
World of Mixed Martial Arts - 3

SHOOTER: COMPLETE
Crysis - 3
Fallout 3 - 3
Killzone - 3
Medal Of Honor - European Assault: 3
Ring of Red - 3
Star Wars Battlefront - 3

PURE ACTION: COMPLETE
Devil May Cry - 3
God of War - 3
Gran Turismo 3 -  3
Madden Football - 3
Soul Reaver 2 - 3
Soul Caliber - 3

SWORD SLASHERS - 5 of 6 defeated
Champions: Return to Arms - 3
Dark Cloud - 3
Drakengard - 3
.Hack Infection - 3
 Oblivion: Elder Scrolls - 2
Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams - 3

EPIC - FANTASY - 5 of 6 defeated
Dragon's Age Origin - 2
Dragon's Quest 8 - 3
Final Fantasy 12 - 3
Suikoden 3 - 3
Suikoden 4 - 3
Suikoden 5 - 3

EPIC - OTHER GENRES 5 of 6 defeated
Kingdom Hearts - 3
Marvel Ultimate Alliance - 3
Mercenaries - 2 (Super Long Ace Mission!)
Rogue Galaxy - 3
Star Ocean - 3
Xenosaga - 3

ROCKSTAR MISSION BASED 5 of 6
Assassin's Creed - 2
GTA: Liberty City Stories - 3
Hulk: Ultimate Destruction - 3
Manhunt 2 - 3
The Warriors - 3
Urbz - 3

GAMES THAT GOT THE BOOT DUE TO SUCKAGE

STRATEGY
1) Europa Universalis III

SWORD SLASHERS
1) Shadows of Rome

SHOOTERS
1) Freedom Fighters

_________________________________________________________________________