Daggerdale, quest progression, and respawning barrels

I couldn’t really think of a zippy title for today’s post so instead I just listed what I was specifically going to talk about in relation to Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale: quest progression and respawning barrels. One’s more of a problem than the other, but both stick out enough that they get me all grumbly inside, and thus, I’m writing these words in the early hours of the morning.

To start, I’m still on the first main chapter of Daggerdale, where the quest “Rift in the Ruins” asks that my hero, the ever stoic halfling wizard Wiltirn Soldshort (see the 7:45 PM comic for a real zinger from Tara), goes out deeper into the cavern-like dungeon and destroy eight goblin mine shafts. Not a terribly challenging task, but the snag I kept running into was that I would play Daggerdale on my lunch-break, get two or three mine shafts destroyed, and have to stop due to being needed back at work. Naturally, I saved my progress and shut the game off. Upon reloading my save slot later, I had to start the entire quest over from the very beginning. Grrr. Yet, seemingly, everything else saved, such as my character’s level experience, new equipment, gold, skill upgrades, and so on. Just not whatever you’ve done in the current quest. This has happened twice now. So yesterday I made sure to schedule enough time to complete the quest fully so I wouldn’t have to mindlessly murder oodles of goblins yet again.

Moving on…barrels. Daggerdale has them in droves, and they are just asking for you to smash them into bits. Sometimes they contain a healing potion, and sometimes they contain nothing at all. Most of the time they drop a pinch of gold. That’s all well and good until you discover that those numerous barrels you destroyed in the entirety of the underground dwarven city-state of Mumblehall all respawn whenever there’s a cutscene or loading screen or any kind of smallish transition. And, having videogame OCD, I then have to go back around, slashing and stabbing, until all barrels everywhere have spilled their literal guts. It’s sickening and funny and I guess a means to filling up my pouch with gold, but it really doesn’t make that much sense.

It’s an okay hack-and-slash dungeon crawler. The loot is good, but not as interesting as it was in Torchlight, and the action is less chaotic. Maybe that’s a good thing. Going solo as a halfling wizard was probably not the best idea, as my dude gets pounded on constantly when he can’t keep swarms at bay, but whatever. I am a stubborn hobbit in real life, and so it is. I’ll keep going at it for a little longer, especially now that I know a quest needs to be fully completed before I save and shut down for the night. That part was a total mindmess as I kept second-guessing myself, believing that I wasn’t using the save button properly. Nope. That was just Daggerdale, missing its saving throw.

::cymbal hit::

Thank you, thank you!

Games Completed in 2011, #38 – Half-Life 2: Episode One

Much to my disliking, I was unable to finish Half-Life 2 due to an annoying switch glitch, and had to move on to the next adventure in the series in a non-traditional manner, with large gaps jumped and story bits left behind. Upon starting Half-Life 2: Episode One, I was pretty confused plot-wise and spent the first hour or so trying to piece everything back together, much like Gordon and Alyx were doing in-game.

However, I think that was my favorite aspect of this bite-sized experience. Not that it was straighter, stronger, and had less driving sequences, but that it paired Gordon and Alyx together for nearly the whole time, and she’s one of the better AI companions I’ve had the pleasure of working with. Her dialogue is believable and delivered emotionally, and it made going forward a less lonesome affair. Plus, y’know…appropriately punny jokes. A digital woman after my own heart. Gameplay still involves shooting enemies until they fall down and solving some light puzzles, mostly involving the Gravity Gun. It’s all very polished, much like in the former Half-Life 2, but just condensed into a nicer-sized package, perfect for running through in a single afternoon.

I think it took me about four hours to complete Half-Life 2: Episode One, and those four hours were amazingly strong, save for a tiring elevator sequence that saw me trying and trying and trying over again to not let falling debris crush Alyx and Gordon to death. Eventually I solved it, but man–it took a handful of attempts. Otherwise, it’s generally clear where to go and what to do next, something I’ve struggled with in Valve’s games up to this point.

At some point, I’ll give Half-Life 2: Episode Two a spin. And maybe even see if I can get past that broken switch in the larger, original game. Maybe. I dunno. I really don’t want to play the majority of that game again, naming the driving sequences and shooting down those attack choppers. Seeing as the Internet is constantly salivating over any and every slip about Half-Life 2: Episode Three/Half-Life 3, of which are constantly turning out to be red herrings, I’m in no rush.

Also, this is the final videogame I completed in 2011, bringing the total number to thirty-eight. Not too shabby, I guess.

Activities from Saints Row: The Third in order of fun

Last night, as I continued to chip away at slowly conquering all of Steelport in Saints Row: The Third, as well as earn that Achievement for playing for at least thirty hours, I finished off another activity fully, earning this little prize with a funny name:

Porkchop Sandwiches (20G): Completed all instances of Trail Blazing.

At around 83% completion and a logged 23 hours, I’ve now done all instances of three activities: Guardian Angel, Professor Genki’s Super Ethical Reality Climax, and Trail Blazing. The first one is completed by just playing the story as there is only two instances of it, and the other two had six instances each, but were ones that I actually enjoyed playing, meaning I sought them out. The other seven activities are…eh, not terribly entertaining. And some are just downright difficult, and it’s always frustrating to get to the very end of an activity and fail by some small mistake.

And so, because I’m in the mood for a list, here’s what I think are the best activities in Saints Row: The Third, from most fun to least fun:

• Professor Genki’s Super Ethical Reality Climax – It’s a gameshow, wherein you run around, shot mascots, and dodge fire/shock traps. When you’ve earned enough points, the exit opens up. It’s quick, tense, and padded with colorful commentary.
• Trail Blazing – Riding around on a deadly quad, hitting checkpoints, as well as innocent civilians and vehicles for bonus time. When stuff starts exploding, it’s just pure chaos.
• Mayhem – You get a time limit and a bunch of deadly toys to hit a threshold of damage points. I’ve tried this one instance of it over and over, but I keep dying at the very end. Me thinks I need to wait until I have unlocked the “take no damage” perks.
• Tank Mayhem – Like Mayhem, but you’re in a tank. One might think this would be more fun than generic mayhem, but it’s just way too easy to rack up points in a tank. You don’t even have to look at the screen to win.
• Guardian Angel – Watching over a friend with either a sniper rifle or rocket launcher. I’m not the best sniper that ever sniped so this wasn’t a stellar session.
• Escort – This comes in two forms: tiger and non-tiger. You basically have to drive someone or some animal around, keeping them calm while every car tries to sideswipe you.
• Snatch – Rescuing hookers. I couldn’t figure out how to get them to get into my car. They just stood there.
• Trafficking – You ride around as the passenger as your ally drives to and fro to take care of some business. Just protect them for as long as you can. Need “unlimited ammo” and “instant reload” perks to make this much easier.
• Heli Assault – Helicopter controls are the worst. It’s like controlling a balloon of swooshing water. I hate it, and end up hitting my homie’s car more often than not with tossed rockets.
• Insurance Fraud – Throw yourself into traffic and earn points by bouncing off cars. It’d be nice if there was actually traffic to throw yourself into, but every time I get to a “hot spot” it is devoid of automotive life. Meh.

I think  my next sit-down with Saints Row: The Third will be spent on getting the remainder of the collectibles–there’s like 10 left–and wiping out some more gangs. Eventually, I’ll get back to these activities. Yes, even the non-fun ones. It’s the completionist in me. At least this is all helping me get closer to the 30 hours Achievement. See, the silver lining. Sigh.

Achievements of the Week – The Sideways Explorer Turns the Tables Edition

I’m too lazy to check if this is actually a first, but a goal I made on last week’s edition of Achievements of the Week was actually met. Which one? Um, keep on reading, loyal readers. I also did fairly well in some other videogames, but they don’t deserve the spotlight quite like Rhaegar does for hanging out in the Mojave Wasteland and shooting the crap out of evil automatons. Oops, guess I spoiled it.

Here we go!

From Fallout: New Vegas…

Curios and Relics (15G): Cause 10,000 damage with unique Mojave Wasteland weapons.

Last week, I knew I wanted to get this Achievement, but I had no idea how close I was to the actual 10,000 threshold mark. I’d been playing for some time at that point–maybe around 25 to 30 hours–and while I wasn’t using unique Mojave Wasteland weapons all the time, I was making a conscious effort to whip out That Gun as much as possible. Guess I was right near the finish line as it was only within an hour or so of playing again that this baby popped.

From Marvel VS. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds…

Excelsior! (10G): Perform 10 Team Aerial Combos. (Arcade/Xbox LIVE only)

Turn the Tables (10G): Land a Team Aerial Counter in a match. (Arcade/Xbox LIVE only)

No idea how I got these; I just mash those buttons like a crazy man.

From The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim…

Explorer (40G): Discover 100 Locations

Sideways (20G): Complete 10 side quests

Sure, these two Achievements seem like natural fits for unlocking after playing a game for over seventy-five hours. I can understand the location-based one, as I’m a homebody and creature of comfort and do not enjoy venturing out into the wild too much, content to spend time in my Whiterun house or within the secretive lair for the Thieves Guild.

The side quests one? Hmm, maybe that needs a whole blog post for explaining. Yeah, that’s it. More content spread out over this hip and happening place of mine. Stay tuned.

From Quarrel…

Just blogged about this wonderful wordy game and the three Achievements I unlocked this morning.

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That’s it for this week’s edition. It seems like, with each week, Friday gets here faster than before. Go figure. And it looks like yet another busy weekend. We’ll see if I make any further progress with the almighty, all powerful, and all too important Achievements list.

For those readers out there playing Skyrim, have you hit 100 locations yet? Do you remember your 100th one? Mine was Broken Oar Grotto.

I have no quarrel with Quarrel

I am a word nerd. Always have been, always will be. I guess this is obvious if you know me in real life, as I’ve been a copyeditor for the past seven to eight years. I see letters, I see words, and for the last chunk of life, I’ve been correcting misspelled words. It’s a disease. I just can’t help but notice errors or better ways to write something. And so I was very delighted to see a Quick Look of Quarrel over at GiantBomb, which is a game that’s been out on other platforms for some time now, but I’ve never heard of it because my cell phone is pre-600 B.C. I was sold immediately, especially at the appealing price tag of $5.00 (or 400 Microsoft Points) on Xbox Live.

Anyways, Quarrel…it’s a mix of Scrabble and Risk. Maybe some Boggle, too. Basically, each player is given different cuts of land on a shared map, and to capture enemy territory, you have to create a better word than them from a mix of random letters. The size of the word is limited to the number of soldiers you have when attacking, which can be increased by making kick-ass words or recruiting them from other controlled slices. It’s also a race against time, as sometimes you and your opponent will enter words worth the same value, with the winner being decided by who was the fastest.

Check out the three Achievements I’ve unlocked so far, which clearly show off my supreme wordage skills:

A Rag Man (5G): You made your first ever Quarrel anagram.

Unbeaten! (20G): You capably captured Starfish Bay in Domination without losing a single quarrel.

Incrediword! (15G): You made a whale of a word worth at least 20 points.

The aspect that I’m loving about Quarrel so far is how quickly a match can swing from being in your favor to being your worst nightmare. Last night, before bed, I decided to do one more match, a four-way between me and three computer-controlled opponents: Malik, Caprice, and Dwayne. I got picked to go last, so I sat, watching as the other players duked it out, trying to make anagrams  during their fights. When my turn came, I began dominating, since most of my enemies’ territories were now down in size, squashing their “OH” and “IT” with “SCRUB” and “LAZY”. I was able to take out Caprice and Dwayne, stopping to earn some new recruits. Then it was a back and forth between Malik and I, with me eventually flubbing up one too many times, and then he destroyed me. Even if you have eight troops to make an eight-letter word, a player with a four-letter word can still pull the rug out from under you.

But yeah, Quarrel! I’m gonna play some more this weekend, hopefully. Seems like a great chaser between stress and trying to get done a thousand and five artsy things for MegaCon and MOCCA. It costs $5.00, and you should get it, and then we should wage war against each other with words. Seriously, find me. Message me at PaulyAulyWog. Word!

Wreaking havoc with unique Mojave Wasteland weapons in Fallout: New Vegas

Last week, I received some bad news. Which I misinterpreted greatly. The bad news remained bad news, but now I was all conflicted and confused and mad and angry and depressed with myself as a person, as a Pauly. I felt disgusted and in fear of a public shaming. So, desperate for some kind of comfort, I opened the disc tray for my Xbox 360, removed whatever game was currently in there, and quickly replaced it with Fallout: New Vegas. I needed a little time in the shadow of the valley, so to speak. Tara literally gasped with excitement when she came out to the living room and discovered I was back in the Mojave Wasteland.

At first, I just meandered around, no quests tagged as current, trying to remember who my character was and what he was trying to do. It slowly came back to me: a Mr. House run. But before that could happen, I took care of Boone’s personal sidequest to get him his new armor and such, and then headed back to the strip to begin the lengthy affair that is known as  The House Always Wins quests. I did most of these before during my first playthrough, but switched sides to Yes Man at the very end. You can’t tell from reading a blog post, but I got them shifty eyes. For The House Always Wins, II, the Courier needs to enter a secret bunker within Caesar’s Legion’s main base to turn some Securitrons to the dark side. Easy peasy, really, even with all the radiation creeping in.

Well, after shooting some guard robots in their metallic faces with That Gun, I finally earned this little zinger:

Curios and Relics (15G): Cause 10,000 damage with unique Mojave Wasteland weapons.

Don’t get the above confused with the Master of the Arsenal Achievement, which I popped way back in October 2011. Oh, and I also ticked off a one-star challenge. Woo, progress. Small progress, but still–it’s there.

At this point, now that I’ve unlocked Curios and Relics, I can hop back to using whatever weapon I desire, as I was constantly making a conscious effort to use only unique Mojave Wasteland weapons for as much as possible. That’s not to say I won’t use That Gun again–I will, as it packs a pretty (bullet) punch. But there’s some really nice rifles and shotguns in my inventory collecting digital dust. For The House Always Wins, III, I need to gain the help of the Boomers, which requires a number of mini-quests to earn their loyalty. Can’t wait to use some new weaponry to blow up a bunch of mutated ants.

Achievements of the Week – The Be Gone All Fresh Meat Edition

Y’know, I just don’t have any witty or elaborate intro to this week’s edition of Achievements of the Week. I played a few games on the ol’ Xbox 360 when the living room wasn’t terribly frigid, like Saints Row: The Third and more Fallout: New Vegas after too long of a hiatus, but nothing popped in those titles despite my hardest efforts. So yeah, normally, I’d pick a bunch of my favorites to show off, but I only unlocked three Achievements over the last seven days and so I have to dub these as the best of the bunch for no other reason then them being all that’s there.

Enjoy, readers.

From Rage…

Fresh Meat (10G): Complete a public Road RAGE match

MVP (20G): Get first place in a public Road RAGE match

I already wrote about how I cheesed my way to earning these nuggets earlier this week. Mmm cheese.

From Marvel VS. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds…

Be Gone! (10G): Perform 10 Snap Backs. (Arcade/Xbox LIVE only)

Instead of using your filled up super bar thingy to unleash a flashy special attack, you can spend it completely to knock a character from your opponent’s team off the screen and out of the match for a short time. I think I did this each time by accident as MVC3 is a button-mashing game for me. Be gone, Deadpool! You are annoying!

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That’s it. My one goal for this week is to earn the Curios and Relics Achievement in Fallout: New Vegas, but my problem is actually finding a unique Mojave Wasteland weapon that I like to use. Rhaegar has no points put into melee or Energy weapons. I’ve been rocking That Gun for awhile now, but have no idea if I’m even close to the 10,000 damage threshold. Wish there was a way to check, but I’ll just keep soldering on down the path of Mr. House and see if it’ll just pop on its own.

What about y’all? Any goals during the slowest month of new releases ever? Tell me about them in glorious details below in the comments.

The Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning demo is brimming with color

Chances are high that, thanks to some quality time with the demo for Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning, I won’t be getting the full release when it drops next month. Boo hoo. And that has nothing to do with how the game plays, as it’s quite a fun action-adventure RPG with bright colors and the potential to be huge and vast and a total timesink. Nope, that’s all well and good. Alas, it suffers from tiny text syndrome.

Why can’t every game just be like Saints Row: The Third? I mean, when that game tells me to drive a tiger around the city and keep it calm and relaxed by not running into other cars, I can totally read those instructions on the screen with no problem whatsoever. Big and bold font versus what seems to be a growing standard of tiny and scrunched. It’s all I ever want

But let’s start at the beginning. The beginning of the demo, that is. It opens with a lore-heavy cutscene, voiced by a woman that desperately wants to evoke Galadriel telling the tale of those rings forged in darkness. Amalur is a world of many races–gnomes, elves, magical beings called Fae, and smelly ol’ humans–and, from what I can tell, a Winter Fae named Gadflow and his followers, the Tuatha, have decided to kill all the younger races. I think it has something to do with a prophecy. And you, whoever you are. You are dead at the beginning of the game–SPOILERS!–brought back to life by the Well of Souls, something the Tuatha also want to see destroyed. Plot-wise, it seems like you will be investigating how exactly you came to be reborn, as well as get mixed up in all this bitter conflict.

The escape from the pit of dead bodies is clearly a tutorial level, wherein you’ll learn how to use weapons, equip stuff, kill rats and giant spiders, have some dialogue, and fight a rock troll. Afterwards, you are given 45 minutes to explore as much of Amalur as you want, doing whatever you want. The game even makes it explicitly clear that the 45 minutes will pause during dialogue so nothing needs to be skipped. Regardless, I skipped a lot of dialogue; it’s not the game’s strongest bullet point.

The game looks like Fable II and plays like Dragon Age II, and you can interpret that how you like. Vibrant colors abound and combat is fast, heavy on action and rolling. I really like the visuals in Amalur, with all the flowers and colorful trees and billowing grass. Even dungeons look nice and non-gloomy. In an industry washed with browns and grays, it is nice to see something a little brighter, even if it draws comparison to World of Warcraft‘s cartoony style. I did notice some odd quirks during the demo that have me worried about the game as a whole: my avatar glitched in and out of cutscenes a few times and everything seems to glow, which can be overwhelming once outside in the wild.

I mentioned combat is fast, but it doesn’t have to be. There’s a play style here for everyone. You can do range with bows and staff spells or stealthy with sneaky daggers or full-on force with swords and such. From the selection of weapons so far, I actually prefer to just go in swinging contrary to my normal stealthy ways. Third-person stealth is always harder to do for me than first-person. The magic spells and Fate Combo Thingies look pretty fantastic, with nice particle effects all around.

By the end of my 45 minutes of free time, I had killed some smugglers, froze a bear to death, found a magical sword, and stole some peasant clothes from a stranger’s house. Y’know…RPG stuff. I liked the demo a lot and can see the potential here, but alas, I won’t be picking it up until I get a new TV, which might never happen. Sorry, citizens of Amalur. Save yourselves.

This fresh meat is Rage’s latest MVP

I’m still not completely enamored with Rage, which is somewhat striking considering its similarities to Borderlands and Fallout 3. Granted, it’s not exactly the same as those other games, but it has elements or an essence of, such as kooky character designs, a barren wasteland thriving with mutants and bandits, and the use of vehicles for getting from point A to point B.

Evidently, Rage also has some online multiplayer, and it’s on a separate disc, too. Split into two types, there’s the Legend of the Wastes co-op challenges and Road Rage matches. The former are specially created missions meant to be played with a partner, and the latter consists of racing around a map, shooting other players and collecting special nodes to acquire points and hold the lead. Chances are I’ll never get to play Rage co-op–unless someone reading this has a copy of the game for Xbox 360 and wants to be my friend, then please, by all means, message me (gamertag: PaulyAulyWog)–so I did some Road Rage matches for about half an hour, climbing from a Level 1 wasteland racer to a Level 4 wasteland racer. Woo. I also earned the following two Achievements:

Fresh Meat (10G): Complete a public Road RAGE match

MVP (20G): Get first place in a public Road RAGE match

The first one’s pretty simple, but let me tell you how I got the second one. Sure, there’s a story; there’s always a story. For Road Rage, I ended up getting into an online party consisting of two little boys (both Level 1s) and some male adult (Level 20). Yeah, it was a little awkward. Anyways, the first few matches consisted of the Level 20 guy murdering us; me, I was still learning the rules and how to play, and the kids, well, they were little kids, not too skilled and very vocal about it. Eventually, the Level 20 guy mentioned he had to use the restroom, but that we should continue with a match anyways. And so we did. The two kids, who I assume were friends, ended up getting stuck in rocks or the landscape right from the get-go, begging each other to shoot the other in hopes of respawning–which never happened–and so I was free to roam the map, collecting all the power-ups and points and killing an idle Level 20’s vehicle over and over and over. I won the match with ease and never said a word to anyone.

So, yeah, I cheesed my way to the top of a match, but whatever. I probably would’ve gotten it eventually, as Road Rage isn’t too difficult to figure out. It’s somewhat fun, but there’s not a whole lot of incentive to keep playing; leveling up earns new vehicles and weapons for these vehicles, but I did just fine with the little ol’ scout. You can also unlock new badges and skin jobs, but meh. Plus, and here’s where y’all can call me a whore, there’s no more Achievements left associated to Road Rage matches.

Back to shooting mutants badly in Rage and running out of ammo, I guess.

Achievements of the Week – The Gangsta in Space with a Lead Foot Reality Climax Edition

Well, after the crazy catch-up from the last Achievements of the Week, this edition is going to look somewhat slim. We can blame that on the living room being way too cold and that my gaming time this week was limited since I began working on a new minicomic, as well as put together a fancy All of Westeros postcard to give out at some upcoming conventions. I did, however, beat Saints Row: The Third over the weekend, and so most of the Achievements come from that title, with Rage slipping in one as I slowly get my way back into that game.

Enough rambling. Let me show you some shiny Achievements.

From Saints Row: The Third…

kill-deckers.exe (25G): Completed ‘http://deckers.die’, 01100010011011110110111101100010.

Readers of Grinding Down might recall I was having some trouble with this mission. Thankfully, after letting the Xbox 360 sit unused for a whole day and reloading the mission from a different hard save, I was able to continue forward with the boss battle, kicking Matt’s ass like only a Saint could. Anyone know what those numbers translate to?

Gangstas…In Space! (30G): Completed Act 3 in another way.

I edited this Achievement’s text to keep y’all unspoiled, but this is basically the one you get when you finish the final story mission. It’s a hoot, y’all.

Have A Reality Climax (20G): Completed all instances of Professor Genki’s Super Ethical Reality Climax.

My favorite activity in Saints Row: The Third, and so it is also the first activity I completed each instance of first. Well, not counting Guardian Angel, but those activities were tied to story stuff. Loved all the funny commentary as I ran around, shooting mascots and dodging flamethrower traps.

Gender Equality (10G): Played for 2 hours as a male and female, we’re an equal opportunity offender.

Yup, I made the switch. You just go to a cosmetic surgery shop, drop some moolah, agree to the fact that this change will be permanent, and poof, there goes your look. Though I did try to maintain as much of my former male self in the process, keeping the weight, hipster glasses, and facial hair in place. I think I make a decent lady and an even more amazing superheroine:

From Rage…

Lead Foot (10G): Win a Race in the Campaign

So, I finally arrived at Goodsprings…I mean, Wellspring, which looks like the main hub city of Rage‘s wasteland. Here you can shop, store vehicles in your own personal garage, play multiple minigames, and race for money. I did the first race available on the easiest level and breezed my way to the finish line. I can only suspect–and hope–that they get a little more challenging down the line.

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That’s it for me. As always, I aim to do even better this week. Gotta play clean-up with Saints Row: The Third and maybe give Rage another shake or two. How did you all do this week? Any long-term Achievement goals for 2012? Speak up in the comments section below for all to read.