I took these a while back while playing, obviously, and never got round to writting anything about it. So this is a sort of retrospective I guess.
So instead I am simply letting them speak for themselves. Enjoy.
Maybe I should re-title this post Alice: The Selfies .
If you are a fan of either martial arts or action films then I really recommend The Raid 2. The trailer (that hopefully is above this text) gives you a fairly good idea what to expect. Though unlike the first film, this one takes its time setting up the plot. For those that didnt see the original (and you really should) an Indonesian SWAT team goes to a high rise tower block to remove its criminal element. Once the film gets going it rarely lets off the breaks until the credits. This is quiet different in the sequal. It feels like a far more thought out story and while given the time to breathe it could do with some trimming in the first half. For me, the change in pace really differenciates it from the first film. And not in a bad way. There are still massive punch ups, brutal voilence, and this time we even get some vehicular violence.
The first half might be a bit flabby but the action sure as hell makes up for it. I’ve seen a lot of martial arts films and some of the stuff in this still made me wince. Plus it has a deaf assassin which I havent seen since Sympathy For Mr Vengence. (NOTE – i’m sure there have been more films with deaf assassins since Mr Vengence but sadly I cant watch every film ever)
Now I realise that I am a little behind on this but I have been playing my first MMORPG. A friend has been playing Guild wars 2 for a long time and I kept getting more and more curious. Until I got to watch him play, and Dark souls 2 being pushed back for the pc version, I finally caved and got it.
It has taken me a while to learn just what to do, where to go, what things mean and how to really find what I find the most enjoyable about playing a massive multiplayer online role playing game. I made a female human ranger, which I named Blackirara, as I’ve always liked bows and you get a pet companion for close range attacks. When I was first just running around getting killed at the drop of a hat, chasing after everything I could with my bow and really not exploring that far. But it wasnt rewarding. Leveling took ages with the petty amount of experience gathered from the creature that I could handle. But then I started paying attention to the chat and to the group events. Then I fell in love with the game.
At first I was taken back by seeing this many people. When I first caught wind of a Champion training route. Basically doing a round trip of decent experience mini bosses in an order.
So imagine my brain when I started seeing this.
And this just blew my mind.
Plus this made me laugh, I think my female armour is a little bit different to their’s haha
Even the silly april fools day bobble-heads made me smirk a bit. When just chillin by a fire waiting on bacon hill for the train to start.
So yeah. I’m smitten with this game. Even more so with no monthly payments and even managed to get Colin here to get a copy.
Let the good times roll.
As I have gotten to the 25 hour mark with this game, I’m enjoying it. While the combat isn’t as good as the previous games in the trilogy (the paradigm system is my favourite FF battle system), it’s an interesting change. It also helped that I picked up a few pointers from looking at the primer section in the strategy guide (apart from the primer section I don’t look at a guide until I have finished a play through myself). I had been making my set ups too similar rather than a debuff/defence, magic and beat the hell out of them set ups that tend to work rather well against the more traditional fodder enemies. What is hard in the battle system are the main bosses. I thought I would do okay as the mini bosses on the lead up were fine. Then the boss wiped the floor with me on my first go. Both the main bosses I’ve beaten was by the skin of my teeth. All out of health items, phoenix downs and EP. They were tricky, but in a nice way.
Plot wise, for the most part I’m really liking it. The whole Lightning being Jesus is kinda funny but I’m just going with it. The main quests so far have been enjoyable and mixed things up. Any time I get to name a chocobo I’m happy, I called mine Bruce. Some of the quests can be tricky as the info doesn’t show up on the map and I think this is where the Demon/Dark Souls influence has come in. There is a lot of fetching or looking for items you have no real idea about their location. This might be made easier as like the Soul’s games there is this network that can be accessed online during the game. I haven’t looked into this as I’m worried for potential spoilers. But I got the idea that people could leave messages. Once I’ve finished it, I’ll turn it on when I go for a full run. While the main story is fairly serious, I like that there is some fun to be had in the game. Like making Lightning fight in a coliseum (that spelling looks wrong but it’s what dictionary.com is telling me) in a ball gown or being attacked by cats for carrying a specific potion. Some of the stories told in the side quests are also nice, though some of the voice acting lines could have been better written. Speaking of voice acting, Ali Hillis, once again does a great job of voicing Lightning and the ever popular Troy Baker returns as Snow, and is also rather good.
There is a system in the game that seems to act like Dead Rising. Run out of days and you can start again retaining your health, strength and magic boosts earned previously. Part of me is tempted to run out the clock and start again with my upgraded Lightning, but I’m not sure if you gain the bonuses from missions again so for now I will stick to my normal game. So far, at 25 hours it more positive than at the 5 hour mark, hopefully this enjoyment continues.
Colin
tiskatrowa
Geek Pub Talk 