Movies: I'm Hungry

Since Valve and Riot refuse to make any updates for their respective games, I've had to be more creative on what to entertain you kids about, so I thought of something I did a couple months ago, when I saw Sherlock Homes: A Game of Shadows back when it had just come out, so I thought back, and realized I saw The Hunger Games about a week ago, so I figured, why not put up my thoughts on that?

I know that this movie has been really quite popular, just another case of how Hollywood likes to cash in on poor, defenseless movies, and turn them into juggernauts, and put enough hype onto it that everyone, including people who didn't read the book, will want to come see it. Now, I'm not saying that it isn't a good strategy; Hollywood loves to make exorbitant amounts of money on books that are somewhat popular, look at what Brad Pitt's doing to World War-Z. Horrible. A love story with zombies in it? Come on, I don't know whether or not to be more disappointed that Max Brooks would allow it to happen, or that people will go see it. I will, just for the principle of reviewing, don't judge me.

So I don't spoil the story for the 15% of you out there who haven't seen it yet, here’s a synopsis:

"Based in a post-apocalyptic United States, now known as Panem, the Hunger Games follows Katniss Everdeen, who volunteers her district (district 12 out of the total of 13. District 13 however, was destroyed, after resisting the might of the Capital) after her sister gets chosen to be a tribute, to save her. As a tribute, she must go up against 2 kids from every other district in a bloody battle to the death, nationally televised, in a sadistic way of saying "We still have lost of power over you" by the Capital."

Now, for everyone else who is a man and saw it, hit the page break for our continued, interesting discussion on characters.

And Now for Something Completely Different

For those of you who regularly read this blog, you may have noticed that I pretty much only write about video games, and every now and then I get bored and yell at things involving the internet.

This is about to change.

Yes, for today I'm going to do something that I have never attempted to do before. I'm going to do something so horrendously brash that I may regret it forever.

I'm going to review a product.

At this point of time, I don't have the project, but I will have it in a couple of hours, and that's when Ill use a page break to give you all the lowdown on how this thing works. Its called that Gamescon 377, made by Altec-Lansing back when it was still owned by Plantronics  still owned the company a couple years ago. About a week or so back, I had a cheap little headset that I bought from Walmart last year, it dies while talking to my team during a heated session of League of Legends. May it rest peacefully in Silicone Heaven.

So, I began my search for the newest piece of hardware immediately. It didn't take me to long to find it. The specs, and reviews seemed promising, so I bought it. Checking the UPS transit data, I saw that it was arriving today, giving me a perfect chance to yell at plenty of other perfectly nice people who unfortunately stumble onto my blog. But, if it does turn out that this is a fine headset, which is on-sale for a very reasonable price, then who knows what I can do next?

Here's the page-break, click on the article to read on for the full review.

Why I No Longer Play Minecraft, and A Personal Thank You

Not my house, just as a little example

This is another game I meant to spotlight about two months ago, but seeing to my big bout of other random things to cover (since my audience seems to respond well to TF2 and League of Legend posts) I have since changed my normal posting schedule. But here it is, my favorite sandbox style game.

for those of you who can't guess the game from the picture on the right, I'll give you a hint. Its Terraria. Does that tell you which one it is? Yes, it is heavily inspired by Minecraft, but its not. Made by the minds at Re-Logic (a group with only two people in it) have taken the original free-play concept, and turned it into a 2d platform game. As a person who really hasn't been in touch with side-scrollers since the old days of the original Mario games on the NES, this was a pleasant surprise.

I've owned Terraria for around a year now, but I didn't really start get back into until about a week ago, when a few of my friends pulled me back into it. Since then, its been grabbing at more of my time, which is quite the challenge as I'm still trying to push my current unusuals into promos, which takes a lot of time. Terraria is undoubtedly a more combat oriented game, with the ideas of "leveling-up" (now in the form of collecting more hp and mana, to getting ore wealth to buy new weapons) to innovative bosses (The eye of Cthulu, wall of Flesh, the giant Skeletor looking beast) it all ends up being a fun experience for everyone, and by everyone I mean a server of 5 people.

Yes, this may be a fantastic way to spend a couple of spare hours while I cool down from a rage inducing round of Ranked of League of Legends, but it is a few steps off from perfect. I can name a couple of times that I cursed my garrpling hook for not going out farther, or myself for not taking the initiative to put down a few wooden platforms so I don't fall into lava, but thats human error. Anyone with half a mind (and a bit of creativity) should look into Terraria. With low graphical needs, its a great game to play on any computer. (I am certainly not suggesting work.)

--Santa

PS: I logged in yesterday to find that my post on the Jax updates had hit 90 views in a couple of days. I had no idea you like the Grandmaster so much, and this brought me over 500 total views, which I find to be just astounding in 5 short months of blogging. Thanks for all of you readers out there, and all of you who aren't just coming to see the pretty pictures. If you want to, vote in that pole, and I'll keep in mind what you guys want to see.

Skyrim: Game of Every Year-- Since 1911

Not my character, but a pretty cool one, its his.

You thought I was done, didn't you? WRONG! I'm here to continue on about my impressions about the greatest game of all time, beating up Arkham City pretty hard by so far winning both the Inside Gaming GOTY award and now Spike TV's GOTY award.

Seems like my brother's prediction's may be a bit off, eh?

In any case, I want to continue on talking about some of the features in Skyrim that just makes it well, better. Its taken huge strides since Oblivion, and feels like a completely new game. 

But is this necescarily a good thing?

So, on my main account I've logged around 63 hours. I have 19/20 shouts (and 47 out of 60 words), I've destroyed Alduin, stopped a civil war, killed an emporer, become the archmage, and become a werewolf. 

Not to mention the 37 or so dragon's I've vanquished, or the 17 poor defenseless bunnies I've slaughtered, or the 76 nirnroots I've mindlessly plucked from the ground. I've spent a miniscule amount of time in Skyrim compared to Oblivion, but here I am, done with 3 major quest-lines, and close to done with 5. The game moves fast, which is something I like, but I still find it irking that I have only so little time put into it and I've accomplished so much. I'm only level 36, what will I be doing at 47?

Now, it is true that I have been really only focusing on doing questlines, I will admit, I finished the Alduin quest in 4 days because I rushed it. But, that doesn't mean that it couldn't be longer. I have ten and a half million misclaneous quests, but the main dragon story is only 10 hours long? Seems a little obtuse. When am I ever going to actually remember to bring that mammoth tusk to that one guy? Or find gold ore? It just builds. I'll get to them when I have absolutlely NOTHING left to do. I'll probably have all of the crimson nirnroots by then, god forbid. 

The other problem (which is true with every game put out by Bethesda) is bugs. I've been stuck on one part of the Thieves Guild quest for so long that I just gave up and made a new character. It just wasn't worth it. There are other points where I cry with laughter, like using revive on a dragon's skeleton. IT's really quite hilarious. Although these quirks are nice at times, the pro's do not outqeigh the con's.

Overall, Skyrim truly is a remarkable game, that pushes everything to preform a little bit better to keep up with the status quo. It does deserve game of the year because of its changes, but it shouldn't be hailed as perfect since it isn't, but no game ever has, or will ever be. But, until then I have Skyrim. And TF2. And League of Legends. Toontown...

Until next time,

--Santa

THE POWER WITHIN (Skyrim)

Ladies and Gentlemen, it IS time for my opinions! Get ready, you know that I've got my soapbox out.

11.11.11. Best day ever

So, I was waiting in live with these two bros when I got my game. At midnight. 21 days ago. I got the Xbox version, and begged my friend for his statue. My statue of Noble Team is getting lonely, and I forgot to get the special addition of Arkham City. I even offered him 60 bucks, but no, he claimed that he wanted does. What does he think I'm made of, deer? I'M NOT.

So, I get home at 2 am, and install the game onto my Hardrive and wait. 10 seconds later, I launch. By this time I'm already falling asleep, and turn up the volume of the opening cut scene. So, I get to the point of character building, and my life purpose becomes clear.

So of course one of my favorite things about Oblivion was making people horrendously ugly. It wasn't quite as easy to do this in Skyrim.So, there I was. Sitting at ease in m La-Z-Boy, just about ready to fall asleep when  I pushed myself together! Who was I to sleep when there was Skyrim to play? I MUST PUSH ON! 

And so I did. As I looked onto my options, I decided that I was going to do an Imperial. I'm not quite sure why, but I did. Don't judge me. I then decided to make a chick, something that I somewhat regret. But, there I was, sitting with my Female Imperial, and all I needed was a name. A name stupid enough to roll together the Imperial-Female combo. And so, Virginia was born.

Going through the main tutorial, almost being executed and dodging fire blasts from that horrible monster Alduin, Virgina got to the point where she could choose her own destiny. Well, I chose it for her, she wasn't the brightest bulb on the Hanukkah Tree. But, I went to bed. It was 3 am, and I was horribly tired.

I woke up the next day with a horrendous disease, and found myself unable to attend school. To regain my strength, I had to keep playing Skyrim, I knew it was the only cure. I found this world: wide open with many possibilities, and all in 1080p. I found myself cured in no time. 

So, some big changes from Oblivion to Skyrim is the lack of a class system-- everything is equal. Every level goes toward your next actual level up. Leveling up now occurs up to 50 times, and comes with a cute little. you also get a health point, mana, or stamina boost, and stamina will also boost your carrying capacity.  All of this together makes leveling up easier, and more enjoyable. It also makes minor skills less. Finally, I can level up just by making 27,083 Iron daggers! My dream come true! However, I don't like the new pickpocketing skill. Talk about a waste of time and effort. It'll take me years to train. That level 50 achievement is a doozy.

the new combat system is a dual wielder's dream. Taking a cue from Bioshock 2 they've made it so your spells can be continuous, or you can place traps. You can still use giant balls of death if you so choose. There are two handed weapons, swords, shields (which you can now bash with) and staffs. Don't even get me started with the wonders of Wabbajack, it'd take me hours. They have also added shouts. Like fire breath. Frost breath. Force breath. Get the point? You use your voice to kill people. It's like when someone has a knife up their sleeve when you're playing poker and they draw it on you.. Except you have a flamethrower in your mouth! Yeah, nice job, Mr. Knife. Ha!

A lot of nice little small changes have happened too. Like voice acting. The guards share like 3 voices, but its better than what they used to do. Normal NPC's are very different, and you find that it gives the game a lot more range. There are a lot more easy-ish side quests. Your favorite guilds are back, and Shadowmere is one bad-ass horse. Yeah, there are dragons, too.

The two main quests revolve around the Civil war in Skyrim, and stopping the evil dragon Alduin. Alduin is the guy who just hates everything, but ironically saves you from being executed for whatever reason. He probably wouldn't save you again, seeing to the fact that its your job to literally eat his soul, but I won't give away too much for those of you who are slow at quests. The other revolves around the Imperial Legion and the Stormcloaks, who I have dubbed the "Shitcloaks." You can guess who I've sided with.

So when playing Skyrim I only have one problem with it: its addicting. Seriously, it was bad timing for it to come out right before finals, I had to really fight myself to study. But, finals are over, and I have another term to completely screw up! So, until then, I'll keep up on Virginia, for all of you out there playing along side me, power to you. Keep slaying dragons. I have more souls than I can keep up with finding words, but I'll get there.

--Santa

PS- FUS RO DAAAH

Updates- The Thanksgiving That Santa Forgot

Okay, so maybe I basically forgot about blogging over Thanksgiving. I'm human, I forgot. Okay, I lied again. I totally knew about doing blog posts, I just didn't WANT to do them. I was playing Skyrim. And League of Legends. Arkham City.
And Toontown.
But that's besides the point. The point was video games. And I played them. A lot. But, I have a few announcements!
Guess who bought Graves on LoL and hit level 30? This guy. Now I spend all of my time banning trolls on the Tribunal. I'm just that great.
I finished the Dragon quest on Skyrim. And the Civil war quest for the Empire, and then I killed the Emporer. I can now safely say that I can review this game.
It's pretty much the best game ever.
Yeah, I'm saying it, I'm dethroning TF2. I didn't think it was possible, I mean really, there are hats in TF2. BUT THERE ARE HATS IN SKYRIM TOO. Thats why! Skyrim has everything I've ever wanted.
Hats.
Swords.
Fireballs.
Dragons.
Killing.
And wood cutting!
That's right, kiddos, you can do ANYTHING you want. Well, except fly. Okay thats not true, YOU can't fly, but DRAGONS can. And that's everything I've ever asked for.
Dynamic questlines, good voice acting, the retun of Sheogorath, not to mention improved Wabbajack. Oh yes, Wabbajack. From turning people into chickens, to making them explode, I have found the reason I like Skyrim so much. Randomness.
And now, I can only imagine putting Wabbajack on different items.
Thanks for sitting next to me, kid.
Well, until next time kids, remember to eat your vegetables. I know I enjoy my pizza too.
--Santa