LEGO Harry Potter, Years 5-7 is done casting Crucio on me

It took the whole weekend, but it’s done. All characters and character variants unlocked and bought; all Hogwarts House crests grabbed; all students in peril saved from peril, whether that peril was a man-eating plant or them just being lazy and oversleeping in a hammock; all gold bricks found; all Achievements acquired. LEGO Harry Potter, Years 5-7 is now completed as a whole, and I’m happy to be moving on from it finally.

Unfortunately, the grinding these LEGO videogames demand is detrimental to their overall quality. I’ve written about this before, and will most likely continue to write about it for the next half-dozen of forthcoming LEGO videogames. I mean, it took how many iterations to get Traveller’s Tales to add a new camera system and voices to their LEGO beings? Yeah, change does not come fast to those developers. So expect the obtuse and exhausting collectathon to continue on for a good while. But since I’ve already gone on at length about that annoying aspect, let’s talk about something else pertaining to LEGO Harry Potter, Years 5-7: glitches and unforgiving level design!

For a game series constantly billed as co-op friendly, it’s strange that some goals can only be completed solo. Meaning you have to look directly at the person next to you, take their hand gingerly, and say, “Sorry, but you‘re the problem; I need you to drop out.” That’s a pretty cruddy thing to do–to anyone, really–but if you want to unlock the following Achievements, you gotta bite the magic bullet and kick them to the curb:

O Children (20G): Complete the scene where Hermione and Harry dance in the tent

Weasley Does It (25G): Use a Weasley box with every Weasley

What If? (20G): Defeat every Harry freeplay variant as Lord Voldemort

Tara and I tried unlocking all of these as we played the game. We did everything we thought we were supposed to do, and yet nothing seemed to work. I even began thinking outside of the box, using Hermione as a Weasley. For a time there, I thought we were losing our minds, but no, all we had to do was kick my wife out of the game and have me do everything all over again by myself to get them to ping. Boo to that. I mean, all the other Achievements were not like this, and so it has to be labeled as strange. Wonky, even.

More frustrating than the above is the bad level design on Magic is Might from Year 7. In this level, players must make their way through the Ministry of Magic in hopes of stealing a plot-vital item from Dolores Umbridge. After dueling with her, you are chased down a narrow corridor by a swarm of Dementors; this level is set up in the “Indiana Jones and the rolling boulder” sense, with you running towards the screen as danger follows behind. A Hogwarts House crest is hidden behind a golden statue off to the side, and for me, this was the last crest I needed to get; however, time is an issue, and you have to be quick to grab it. If you touch the statue or wall near it, you die, and the Dementors attack your respawned body immediately, pushing you forward. You cannot go back to get the crest without replaying the whole level again, which means you get one chance, and one chance only. Also, if you try to walk past the statue and then go behind it, you die. You can only acquire it by being Fang or Griphook–someone small or fast–and going behind the statue without touching it or the wall. I replayed this level four times before I learned the errors of my way and figured out what to do. Ugh.

Thinking back, LEGO Batman had something just like this, and the proof is in the post. Here’s what I wrote about it way back in the day in October 2009:

LEGO Batman. Sure, I “beat” it months ago, but every now and then I pop back into it to grab some missed items and trying and unlock everything. And I’ve gotten just about everything…that is, but three collectibles. Now, one of them is painstakingly annoying to obtain. Trust me, I tried three times in a row last night. In one of the Penguin’s villain levels, you have to guide your characters down an icy slope, going through five specific flags to unlock the hidden canister. Sounds simple enough, yes? The problem is that if you miss even one flag you are then dropped into the level’s final boss battle room and cannot return to try again. Meaning you must replay the level again and again and…again. I’ve had zero luck so far. Insert heavy sigh.

Gee, that’s the exact same sort of level design used years later for LEGO Harry Potter, Years 5-7. Whoever comes up with these parts, please stop. I don’t care if you think they are a barrel of fun or there for a reason. Just stop. No one likes replaying levels again and again for a single collectible.

So that’s it. I’m done…until LEGO Lord of the Rings, that is.

Check out my sweet Claptrap Bobblehead collection

As you’ll recall, mostly because I only posted about it one week ago, I’m back in Borderlands for a bit. At least until Borderlands 2 comes out, and then I will never return to where it all began because…that’s just how it goes. I don’t know. The shinier and newer toy is always more appealing.

Anyways, I’m not mindlessly running around blasting skags in the mouth. I do have a few goals. None require obtaining more killer weapons; I’m pretty set there. First, I’m trying to hit level 61, and it’s slow-going, but I’m creeping up towards level 58 at the moment. Second, I’m working on playing through the Secret Armory of General Knoxx DLC of a second time. Third, collecting all those annoying collectibles that drop from Claptrap enemies, such as oil cans, bobbleheads, and pizza slices. That last goal has required some serious grinding in the form of multiple boss runs to take on the MINAC, a huge, robotic death-machine capable of releasing endless amounts of Claptraps to shoot for parts, but only after you take out all of its turrets. Most drop gears and motherboards, but a few leave behind the good stuff. Still, I swear I’ve fought that dang thing at least six or seven times now, to the point that it has become extremely tedious, especially when I walk away with only one, two, or three desired collectibles, but whatever. Grinding down, y’know.

Well, just as I picked up what I believed to be my eleventh Claptrap bobblehead after scouring the landscape post-MINAC fight and reached for my pen and paper to mark it down, this beautiful thing pinged:

Bobble-Trap (10G): Collected 15 Claptrap bobbleheads

Oh…cool. I guess at some point before I actually began writing down when I found a collectible in this game that won’t just track these things for me…I found some collectibles. I just don’t really remember picking up four other bobbleheads, but that’s memory for you–sometimes it’s strong, and sometimes it is long in the years.

And so, if my notes are correct and I don’t actually have more than I currently believe I do, I need 13 more oil cans and six more slices of pizza to unlock the other two collectible-based Achievements for the Claptrap’s New Robot Revolution DLC. Isn’t that exciting? You don’t have to answer all at once. I’ll get there, though I think I’ll move back to my other goal of getting through General Knoxx’s armory for a second time, now on a tougher playthrough. The enemies were grueling at level 54 and level 55, but now I’m sitting cool at level 57 and feeling much more confident in my shooting skills. This is also the place to gain some good EXP, and the higher I get, the less times I have to use Second Wind to slink my way through a fight. Plus, always in the back of my mind, that giant crab monster, the one associated with a quest called You. Will. Die. Mm-hmm…

Breaking on through to the other side of Devil Summoner Overclocked

Let’s travel back in time. About a year ago, a crazy hurricane named Irene tore through the eastern side of the United States, doing insane damage and just being overall terrible and freaky. Let’s hope she never returns. It also forced Tara and I out of the house we had just begun renting, pushing us to stay with her parents until power was restored in the Pennsylvania area. Before all of this happened, as a handheld gamer is wont to do knowing that a lockdown is imminent, I bought a new game for the Nintendo 3DS to help…ahem weather the storm. That’s the second time I’ve used that joke, and no, I’m not apologizing for it.

Anyways, that game was Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner Overclocked, and it seemed like something I’d like at first glance, but proved a little too difficult early on to overcome. Which is a shame, as the story was very promising and had all its hooks in me. And so I set it aside, disappointed in my second retail purchase for that nifty videogame system that displays things in three dimensions with no use of special glasses, only to pick it up nearly a year later to try again and knock down the wall blocking any and all progress. The main reason behind this? Well, I have finally begun watching the lengthy and amusing Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 Endurance Run at Giant Bomb, and all the talk of fusing different Personas and casting of spells like Bufu and Zio and growing relationships amid chaos and disaster reminded me that I had a game quite similar to that. Just a SRPG instead of a JRPG, that’s all.

And so, I hopped back into the thick of things. If you’ll recall, I put Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner Overclocked down at what I assumed was a boss-like battle early on during Day One of the lockdown in Tokyo, but was really just a traditional battle that stood in the way of the story progressing. My problem with it is that monsters would encircle a character and his or her team of Personas, and then they would KO super fast, then causing the other teams to follow just as speedily. This time around, I strategized and planned to move my trio of teens directly at the toughest enemy on the screen, killing it as fast as possible while keeping everybody close to each other. Also, I learned how to better use certain spells like Aggravate and Dia, as well as exploiting certain weaknesses for specific enemies, which then grant extra turns vital to staying alive. And lo and behold, I was victorious.

As Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner Overclocked continues on, I’ve entered a few more battles like the one that stopped me in my tracks before. It can be a little frustrating, but I’m beginning to see my mistakes and how I can handle things better. The opening few turns really do foretell how things will go, and one can grind on free battles if they need to level up their teams and Personas. In short, I’m definitely getting the hang of battles more, and I hate–with the deepest and darkest passion you can hold in the blackest spot of your heart–the demon Moh Shuvuu. One thing I still haven’t learned is to not attack her unless you can kill her in a single fight, because she will just Dia (heal) herself immediately after.

Last night, I completed Day One of the lockdown, and am now waking up to Day Two, with the counter on our collective deathclocks reading…one. Aww, boo. The story’s still fantastic, and Yuzu says some hilarious things, especially when nonchalantly talking about summoning demons from handheld COMPs and that one time they all took down a snowman. The voice-acting has really helped keep me engaged as the battles are most stressful than enjoyable, though I have only just gotten into them at this point. Learning to steal skills from enemies gives me a good goal towards perfectly the Personas currently in my party.

But yeah, I’m pretty stoked to have broken down that wall and gotten to continue on in the game. Don’t quote me on this, but it’s looking like I won’t be getting a new game until late September 2012 when Borderlands 2 drops, and so re-visiting a number of games from my backlog and continuing on with them is a good thing. Saves me money and makes me feel better about some of these purchases. Well, maybe not Game of Thrones: The Game; maybe not ever.

If you love corridors, you’ll love Rage’s final mission

Admittedly, I never payed too much attention to the story in Rage. Once I saw that Rage was not another take on Fallout 3 or even Borderlands, and that it was much more about shooting mutants and racing, I just kind of zoned out, played the game in short bursts, focusing simply on completing missions, which meant going to X, shooting enemies until enemies stopped running at me with guns locked and loaded, finding the sweet spot, and then doubling back to whatever town was nearby to turn in the quest. Once I got to the sewers, which meant the second disc on the Xbox 360, I gave up trying to find all the recipes, cards, race trophies, and jump ramps. The only direction was forward, with blinders on.

And so, just last weekend, I sat down to play Rage some more, intending to finish up another mission or two. Y’know, inch my way on. I was still in Subway Town, sleuthing by the locals and speaking in whispers with my team of rebels hiding even further down below the sewers. They had a plan to attack Capital Prime and unearth all the other buried Arks in the wasteland. Or maybe the world. I remember seeing a global map at some point. But first, I had to take out the defenses on the Authority Bridge, which was simply done. After that, it’s off to Capital Prime to start the revolution. Here’s how rebel team leader John Marshall tells me before I head out:

This is it, what we’ve been planning for so many years. Now, we hit the Authority where it hurts.

Take this Code-Cipher. You’ll be able to access any Personnel Entrance near Capital Prime’s main gate. Be careful, it will be heavily guarded. Once inside get to the Ark Control Center, and Upload the data from your ID Drive. That will trigger the emergence of the remaining Arks.

Mankind’s future depends on you now. God speed soldier.

Upon re-reading the mission text, yeah, it sure sounds like this could be the final mission, but it also seems like the “kick to the groin” mission, the swift attack before the actual smackdown, and then we get one last push at defeating the mysterious and shadow-wreathed Authority. Surely we’ll navigate a complex city structure and then have to take down some big baddie akin to that boss battle earlier in Rage, where scope got served and a monster the size of a building crumbled and bled through the walls and dramatically changed navigation. I mean, someone has to be telling these Authority goons what to do–it has been strange to not have a clear antagonist all this time. General Joe M. Authority is my guess.

Nope. Instead, we get narrow corridors. Filled with Mutants and Enforcers, which are easy to deal with since you receive basically the BFG before the mission starts, which obliterates anything alive. And then more corridors. More Mutants and Enforcers. You begin to suspect copy/pasting is at work. I mean, you hear the name Capital Prime, and one immediately imagines a futuristic and bustling city-state, a place where people live and work and get things done. Not just a bunch of hallways that all look the same. Ugh. Eventually you get to ride a three-tiered elevator ride, with each stop bringing out a wave of mutants to shoot and a button to press. Touch that third button, and the game is over. Cue badly rendered cutscene and confusion. That’s it. Back to the main menu screen select. It’s over fast and unexpected and strangely without any kind of final boss. I honestly emitted the following words after pushing that third button, and please note that I was completely alone at the time: “Wait, what?”

So, a disappointing close to a pretty mediocre first-person shooter with decent mini-games. I’m curious to see if there will be a Rage 2, as the non-ending implies more things are happening, what with every Ark across the globe turning on and resurfacing, but I’m not holding out much hope.

Outernauts and the nature of the human being to face challenges

It seems like, once a year now, I try another Facebook game. I gave The Sims Social a go for a decent bit back in late 2011, eventually moving away when my house full of trees and bushes took forever to load, as well as the fact that I was running out of complete-able quests. Before that, in 2010, I enjoyed my short time–and I do mean short–as a chocobo rancher. I don’t really desire gaming on Facebook other than the occasional round of Words With Friends, and I’m totally aware of its constant trappings and never-yielding plot to annoy my online friends, fill my wall up with ridiculous claims, and attempt to have me spend real cash-money on things like Sim coins and star gems and poodle bucks.

And so, here we are in 2012, and I’m just getting into Outernauts. It’s got some good and some bad, and, for the time being, I’m willing to overlook the bad to embrace the good. But I can’t see this experience lasting for very long though.

Right. So, Outernauts. Basically, it’s Pokemon in space. And there’s nothing wrong with that. At all. In fact, it’s a stellar idea, and I’m somewhat surprised we haven’t seen it yet; if a game like this already exists, I missed it or it didn’t shout its premise loud enough for the world to hear. I mean, there are plenty of Pokemon clones out there–Digimon and Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker, for instance–but neither of those focus on space critters and traversing different galaxies. Outernauts does, and it makes much more sense when you realize that Insomniac Games is behind it. Yes, more from the creative minds behind all the zany weapons, monsters, and planets in the Ratchet and Clank series. That’s actually what grabbed my interest first before the whole “gotta catch ’em all” aspect.

For a free-to-play Facebook game, surprisingly, there’s a story. I can’t remember the specifics or names, so I’ll just use this generic text from Insomniac’s website for Outernauts:

As a member of United Earth’s elite Outernaut force, you’ll encounter both friends and foes as you uncover the riddle behind the mysterious “ancients” while battling pirates and evil corporations seeking to control the galaxy.

All in all, you’re looking for a thing, and so is an evil corporation, and to stop them from getting the thing, you need to battle and beat them with a team of exotic beasts. You level these beasts up by battling them and tweaking their abilities.

Right now, my cosmic team of battling beasties consists of these:

Note that those are the nicknames I gave my beasts, not their actual names. I think my leading one is a…Pumasear? Scorl is a Scorling. Can’t tell you what the other two are. I don’t remember. I have too many ‘mon names in my brain to differentiate this from that and that from this. Anyways, Purrburn is my strongest beast, mostly because I used all my Star Gems on it, not knowing that those are the “FarmVille bucks” of the game, limited and then only acquirable thereafter with real money. Oh well.

The music and artwork and design of everything is great, classic Insomniac charm. Colorful and inventive, with the gusto of space opera and pomp of Buzz Lightyear. Everything is easily explained and clear, and there’s lots of carrots on sticks to chase after. However, as with all Facebook games, the most disappointing and distrusting element is…energy. To battle, use 3 energy. To clear a path, use energy. To gather fuel, use energy. Need more energy? Pay up or wait awhile. The point is, you run out of energy real fast, and so playing Outernauts quickly becomes a game of management over experiencing, and that’s not too much fun. But I’d rather do as much as I can at once rather than blow my time on a wasted fight, which ends with my beasts being knocked out and unable to battle any more.

I’ll keep logging in for now to give Outernauts ten or fifteen minutes of my attention each day, but eventually I’ll walk away. Too many strange limitations in how many beasts I can have in my party and what I can actually do in a certain span of time, and I can just easily go back to my copies of Pokemon HeartGold, Pokemon White, or Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker to fill in the gaps.

Harry Potter and the LEGO videogame logjam

Let’s start with a quote from one wise and mysterious Professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore:

Dark and difficult times lie ahead. Soon we must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy.

We’re there, evidently. The dark and difficult times in particular. That not-so-sweet spot in every LEGO videogame where one must grin and bear it to collect everything that remains because OCD demands it, as well as the fact that a straightforward playthrough unlocks a minimal amount of the game’s actual content. For LEGO Harry Potter, Years 5-7, we’re talking about red bricks, gold bricks, unlocked characters, Hogwarts house crest pieces, and students in peril.

Since completing the main part of the game earlier this month, Tara and I have been diving back into the world of magic and magical mayhem to chip away at the tower that is a 100% completion rank. It’s a slow process. Unimaginably slow. Like Dumbledore falling off the Astronomy Tower slow. Thankfully, we finally unlocked enough red bricks to turn on numerous stud multipliers and rack up the LEGO-based cash, quickly earning this zinger:

Knuts and Vaults (50G): Collect 1 billion studs (Single Player only)

So, we’re rich. Just like Harry Potter was in the beginning of his school career. Which is great, as now purchasing all the characters we’ve unlocked isn’t even a concern. But the problem is mainly finding the characters to unlock. Let me tell you this–there is nothing more tiring and/or disappointing than replaying a level via the free play format and then complete it without finding all the hidden secrets in it. Your mind immediately brings the hard truth to the front: you will have to play this level again. Possibly a fourth time if you are not diligent enough or paying attention to the level design, because sometimes building a specific LEGO piece completes the level, and you might not have been ready to do that yet. Whoops.

But we’ll keep on keeping on. Two more red bricks to go, about 35 gold bricks, and maybe 60ish more characters/character variants left to find. Oh boy.

The LEGO logjam has also been heavily present in LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean. For a long, long time. I only have three Achievements left to unlock for that game, but they also require me finding everything. Which I’ve tried time and time again. But like I previously wrote, there is nothing more fun-sucking than replaying a level to not find everything and then knowing you’ll have to do all that again. Ugh.

At some point, I’m going to have to play these levels with a step-by-step guide open next to me on my laptop. And really, that isn’t how it should be done. But it’s the best guarantee at breaking down this dam.

Level-5’s Fantasy Life surfaces after too much silence

At long last, some news about Level-5’s Fantasy Life.

Don’t worry if you forgot that a game of this name even existed, as it’s been some time. Years, in fact, when you consider this blog post of mine from August 2009, in which I am excited and jumpy and full of anticipation for what looked like a great life simulator with a retro look to it from Level-5, a company that I hold in high beams of holy light. That Mother 3-esque visual style eventually got scraped, as did the idea of putting the dang thing on the bereaved Nintendo DS, but the game has still been in the works, now brimming with polygons and a plan to hit the Nintendo 3DS. From a gameplay standpoint, everything still looks the same: create an avatar, select one of twenty jobs, and then do whatever you want.

Some new news is that Fantasy Life will mainly take place in a single city called Kulburk, which will serve as a hub. The city is divided into three sections: the main street, the craftsman’s ward, and a downtown area. The main street houses Kulburk Castle, the library, barracks, and various shops. The craftsman’s ward contains different workshops and will likely be a regular location for players with crafting jobs. The downtown area serves as an entertainment district, with a bustling marketplace and hotspot for social gatherings.

But it’s not just all about running fetch quests for neighbors and decking out your sweet abode with green-themed furniture. This YouTube video clearly reveals moments of combat in what looks like a dungeon. So yeah, that’s cool. Doesn’t seem turn-based either. Hmm…I wonder if only certain jobs get to fight though.

And so we got a bunch of Japanese text-laden screenshots this morning, as well as the promise of a release date by early next week. Here’s hoping this slides on in before holiday 2012 is dead and done as I need some kind of life sim–any life, but my own, really–for my 3DS now that I am totally finished with Professor Layton’s London Life, and it definitely doesn’t seem like Animal Crossing is coming out in the states any time soon. Sigh.

Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy is one earworm of a 3DS game

In case you’re not up to snuff with your urban dictionary terms, an earworm is “a song that sticks in your mind, and will not leave no matter how much you try.” This can be either a good or bad thing, depending on who you are. For me and for Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy, it’s a delightful problem to have right now. To hammer home this point, let me inform you that I haven’t missed a single daily Rhythmia bonus–extra points alloted to those that play every consecutive day–since I bought it on release day, way back on July 3, 2012. Mm-hmm.

But what is Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy? It’s a good question, and one nobody should be afraid to ask. The answer is both simple and strange: it is a music rhythm game à la Elite Beat Agents, as well as a “thank you” to fans of the Final Fantasy series.

For the rhythm part, you tap the touchscreen via three different on-screen prompts to the beat of a song: a single tap, a tap and hold, or a directional swipe. Sequences vary in difficulty, and you play them across three different types of scenarios. The most enjoyable for me are Field Music Scenarios (FMS), which has the leader of your party of four strolling across the screen from right to left while you handle all the prompts. The other two are Battle Music Scenarios (BMS) and Event Music Scenarios (EMS), both of which are enjoyable, but can be distracting due to too much happening outside of the button prompts. For the EMS, you’re basically tapping over a movie playing, and it can be hard to not focus on Zidane chasing after Garnet, especially for a fanboy like myself.

Speaking of that, the other half of Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy is all about the fans. Whether you think Final Fantasy IV is the best or still can’t get over your nostalgia and claim that nothing beats Final Fantasy VII or are somehow head over heels with the latest hall-walker Final Fantasy XIII…all the mainstay games from the series are represented here. Each game seems to get three songs (with each song getting three different difficulty ranks), and for your party of four, you can pick some recognizable people, all with their own skill sets. And this is where rhythm game and RPG fuse, letting your team level up, earn items, and unlock spells to cast during events. My team of four–all now around level 50 or so–has been like so since the get-go: Zidane (leader), Squall, Vaan, and Terra.

At first, the game seems to be limited on things to do, but after just a bit you’ll have opened up new levels of difficulty, as well as Dark Notes and CollectaCards and music not tied to a specific game. And those Dark Notes…oh man. They are basically randomly generated levels, each containing a FMS and a BMS, but you won’t know which ones until you try it out. Often, they are extremely tough and really challenge your response time, but clearing them successfully is an exhilarating feeling. When you beat one, you unlock another, which is always a higher difficulty. However, there is plenty of reason to replay Dark Notes as you fight one of three potential bosses, and they all have a chance to drop rare items or colored shards, which you use to unlock new characters. Right now, I’m working my way towards getting Vivi on my team–see ya, Squall! I know, you’re surprised.

So, it’s a surprising game, and might not be for everyone, but I’m enjoying it a lot. Not enough to consider buying DLC at $1.00 a song though, as I think there’s plenty of tunes here for my enjoyment, but yeah. For those curious, my favorite songs to play are “Mambo de Chocobo”, “Terra’s Theme”, and “Over the Hills”. What’s your favorite Final Fantasy song? You are not allowed to answer with “One-Winged Angel” by the way.

All right, back to it. The music, it’s a-calling…

The highs and lows of playing through Deus Ex: Human Revolution a second time

Clearly, I forgot to buy an intelligence-at-reading-menu-options augmentation while playing through Deus Ex: Human Revolution for a second time on its hardest difficulty. Because I got through it, struggling in a several sections, but otherwise racking up Praxis Points and bullets for my silenced Machine Pistol with ease and blasting down anybody that got in the way. Because I beat it using a mix of stealth and sniping  and straight up shooting and watched the credits roll and waited patiently for that bloop that would confirm I did it, that I mastered a game on its most straining setting, from beginning to end. But it never popped. The one for viewing all the different endings did though. Confused, I went back to my last save to check my option settings, and there I discovered that no, in fact, I was playing on medium difficulty…the whole time.

::frustratingly funny facepalm::

But man, it sure felt like a harder difficulty than that.

If you’ll recall, my first playthrough of Adam Jensen’s journey to living a new life and stopping…whatever did not go smoothly. With a battle plan of full-on stealth, I struggled to take down two of the three main bosses, sadly learned that I goofed up a non-lethal playthrough by rewiring a robot to kill enemy guards, and then ran into a nasty door glitch. I decided long ago that I’d play it all again, this time throwing quietness to the wind and shooting down dudes when it seemed like a quicker and simpler solution. The actual doing of this took longer than I expected, but we’re in the dry season currently for exciting videogames, and so I found some time recently over the last two weekends to plug away at this.

It went much easier the second time around, as well as quicker. I no longer had to wait and watch a guard until he turned his body ever so slightly to slip by him; this time around, I merely poked my head out, aimed with a silenced weapon, and dinged him in his dome. Sometimes I’d drag the body away. Sometimes I wouldn’t. Fearless, this Jensen he be. The boss battles were a snap thanks to Typhoon ammo and a ton of augmentations I missed the first time around, and I only had a hard time in certain rooms full of dudes where ammo was scarce and enemy count was high. It did seem like Jensen lost health super fast until I upgraded his skin perks, and that’s probably why I felt like I was playing on the hardest difficulty the whole time. Hacking emails and doors is still a strangely fun minigame, if a bit daunting at first. Towards the end though you’re breaking into level 5 rooms and emails like a pro, which does feel rewarding in its own way.

Anyways, here’s a few of the Achievements I unlocked on my second go in Deus Ex: Human Revolution that I’m pretty pleased with, especially considering that I’m probably never going back for a third time:

Deus Ex Machina (50G): Experience all the different endings that Deus Ex: Human Revolution has to offer.

Good Soul (15G): Against all odds, you saved Faridah Malik’s life.

Lucky Guess (10G): Next time, Jacob better use a more complex code to arm his bombs.

I only wish that I had been able to get either one of the really hard Achievements (beat the game with no kills, beat the game on its hardest difficulty, or beat the game without setting off an alarm) to show off my mad Deus Ex skills. I guess all I’m doing now is showing my lack of ’em. But you won’t tell anyone, right? ::tosses a gas grenade:: Right?

Still a hundred and one things to do in Skyrim

Over the weekend, after putting some healthy time and work into my newest and craziest comics project thus far, I played some more Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. I kind of wanted to see if I needed the recently released DLC Dawnguard just yet or if I could hold off for a wee bit. Aye, seems like I need not rush. Will explain more on that in just a moment, but for right now, check out these two Achievements I pinged after over 90 hours of traversing the realm and being all sneaky and meticulous:

Thief (30G): Pick 50 locks and 50 pockets

Delver (40G): Clear 50 dungeons

For the Thief one, I most definitely picked over 50 locks a long, long time ago. It was the pickpocketing that took forever. Despite my love and desire to always play a sneaky sneaker, I generally roleplay it in the way that keeps me a great distance from enemies and people. So there is little chance for me to steal from bandits since I’m filling them with arrows from across the room, which leads to me robbing from unaware citizens of Whiterun as they snoozed or were out for a morning walk. Shame on me, but whatever. The Delver Achievement one just requires you to kill all enemies in a dungeon/cave, and sometimes I wanted nothing more than to escape back out to sunlight, leaving a single dude or bear still breathing. Didn’t take long to clear out a few, especially since I was working on a lot of miscellaneous quests where you are tasked with killing the bandit leader, often hiding out in a cave.

Oh, and that miscellaneous quest log? It’s never ending. Still there, still growing. I cleared out a few, but still have plenty to keep me busy, as well as the larger, more story-driven quests. Mainly trying to restore the Thieves Guild to its former glory. I think I’m two-fifths of the way there, as I’ve now gotten to complete two big quests to get cities to support us and bring in new merchants to the Ragged Flagon. But it’s slow going. Basically, you have to do a bunch of small thieving jobs in a randomly picked city, and once you do a certain amount you can then do a special task for Devan which will then help you improve the Thieves Guild. All in all, a whole lot of back and forth, which in Skyrim terms means fast travel loading screens.

So, right now, with a long laundry list of things to do, I just don’t see Dawnguard happening immediately yet. But I will get there, if only for the crossbow action. Not really interested in being a vampire. But spearing one from afar with a magical crossbow? Yes please.