Last weekend was the second of the Guild Wars 2 Beta weekends and it did not fail to disappoint (not really anyway). Of course there were bugs and issues but that can’t be helped but they added a whole new region among other things.

I also got to play through the story mode of the Ascalonian Catacombs dungeon. For those who don’t know there are several dungeons in GW2 for different levels. Each dungeon has a story mode which is often a lower level requirement to the alternative which is explorable mode. Story mode involves the players running the dungeon with some kind of back story, while explorable mode has the players running around the dungeon with different bosses and a different setting. I believe that each explorable mode dungeon has 3 different paths to be taken, each resulting in different bosses and loot. Anyways, this dungeon was fun. It wasn’t especially hard. I was in a group for 4 other random people and we only had to run from a fight once. This bosses we defeated first time and most of the trash (normal enemies around the dungeon) didn’t pose too much of a threat. What was disappointing about it was the fact the final boss, King of the cursed humans from 200 years ago, was incredibly easy. The only time player went down was right at the end of the fight and they got straight back up again when the king died. Here’s to hoping that explorable modes are harder.

They added a new region called Gendarran Fields. There wasn’t anything especially different about this place but, by god, there was some beautiful views to be had. There was a lot of water which is always pleasing to the eye in this game. The water graphics are gorgeous and they are even more awesome when you dive below the surface. The sky is brilliant too. With the clouds being separate to the skydome (the static part of the sky i.e. the moon, stars, blacknes etc.) the view when you looked up was delightful. The place was also filled with pirates. Yarr.

ArenaNet have gone all out with making the game more about exploring the world and having tonnes to do. One example is the new underground section to the World vs World PvP map: “Eternal Battlegrounds”. I had the joy of running through this and filming it and it is wonderful. Of course if you don’t like jumping puzzles and have a very short temper then you’ll hate it completely, but for me it was awe-inspiring. If you died you had to begin at the very start as there are no waypoints (a bit like checkpoints in this case) other than back at the base above ground, this invoked a sense of danger and improved the feeling of pride when you get to the end. There is a dark room, which is exactly what it sounds like. A dark room. Before you enter you get a couple of torches and the ability to throw said torches or place them on the ground to create light. This dark room is pitch black with the exception of the odd torch or other lighting and so using these torches is required. This room is so atmospheric and it’s is absolutely brilliant how they’ve used the dynamic lighting as a game mechanic.

I cannot wait for this game but unfortunately I can see it taking a good few months before we get a hold of the full release.

Thanks for reading,

Marshy x

Well… ARMA 2: Day Z is probably the most immersive game I’ve ever played. Holy crap do you want to survive.

For those who don’t know Day Z is an open world zombie survival mod for ARMA 2: Combined Operations. ARMA 2 is known for being “a realistic fps” and I have to say that its probably the most realistic I’ve played. In Day Z you find yourself roaming a 225 square kilometre map, moving from village to village, city to city, deer stand to deer stand looking for supplies to survive as long as possible. You need to eat and drink or you’ll die, you have to keep warm enough or you’ll die and you need to keep your blood count up too. The more blood you lose the more you screen will spaz out, leaving you severely impaired. In fact the last time a disconnected I was on about 30% of my total blood and my screen was very bright and things were blurry. I took refuge in a church.

Maybe it’s the whole if you die you lose your character mechanic but I found myself prone crawling past the zombles more than shooting them, just because I didn’t want the rest of them to hear the gunshot and come running. With most weapons it’s definitely possible to kill large groups but starting with the peashooter A.K.A the Makarov on spawn you seriously don’t have a chance. You either have to move away from the coast to a smaller farm or village to find a decent weapon, or brave a larger town or city near the coast (where you spawn).

There are some nice mechanics in there like performing a blood transfusion to restore blood and hunting animals for their meat and chopping wood to make a fire to cook this meat. It all adds to the immersion and you genuinely feel like you are trying to survive day-to-day rather than just racking up the highest zomble kill count. This is probably what I love most about it.

Unfortunately, since the mod is still in alpha there are a few problems. Connecting to a server is a pain in the arse. Most servers are full and the half the time you can’t even connect to the ones that aren’t full due to errors. There have been a few times where a zomble has walked through a closed door to get to me as well as zombles attacking through a wall. I’m pretty sure we are supposed to be dealing with zombles, not zomble-ghosts. Now this next point isn’t a graphical or mechanical glitch kind of problem but a personal one. ZOMBLES RUN AT ABOUT 60 KM/H. This means you can’t outrun them. If you run out of ammo and you aggro a zomble, they will chase you to the end of the map and the only thing you can do is find another player (bear in mind that each server holds around 30-50 players and the map is 225 square kilometres) and hope they help out instead of following until you give up and die to steal your gear.

Thanks for reading,

Marshy x

After playing some ARMA 2 singleplayer I have come to a conclusion. I don’t know what to make of the game. 

It’s almost *too* realistic. You could be prone about 200 metres away from an enemy and they get a lucky hit on you. This would most likely mean death, or if you are lucky you get severely injured. At one point I was stuck at the beginning of a mission because I would move down the hill and either my whole team would get wiped out, or I would.

My team can’t make up its mind about whether it wants to be good or not. In the first mission I found that most of the enemies were killed by my boys before I even saw them (It was a stealthy night mission). But then on the next mission they world continuously get downed.

Saying that though, due to the whole 1 hit 1 kill thing the guns felt nice. So far I’ve only used an M4 (I think) but the game very much forces you to be tactical or will die. Gun sounds are pretty good too, they give a real feeling of being in a gunfight and hearing bullets whistle past your head really does get you moving.

The graphics are pretty nice, however to make this so they have to fade assets out if they are a certain distance away. This looks kind of rubbish when you are in an area with tonnes of foliage. Nice tall grass on the floor and things, then you look into the distance and floor looks bare and ugly. The animation quality of the NPCs is cringeworthy. They act like machines. In a short helicopter segment I was sitting with my squad being flown into the mission area. I watched how they move and, I swear, they were inhumanly still. Like 0 muscles involved at that point. Then when they turned their heads it was like it was on a pivot and it rotated around this pivot at constant speed. 

The game just needs to throw me a sniper rifle and my enjoyment will fly through the roof of my mountain lair. Yes I have one…

Bring on Day Z!

Marshy x

Hello, Just thought I’d post a little this and a little that about what I plan on doing. I have recently obtained ArmA 2 as well as the Day Z mod. I plan on doing a series about that mod until I die. It could last a while, it could last half an episode, who knows?

The mod itself looks as fun as throwing eggs at David Cameron and I figure I’m going to enjoy it very much. It is an very large, open map in which other players and zombies occur. You must scavenge villages and towns and even power plants for ammo or new weaponry as well as food and water to prevent death. If you are shot in the leg you cannot move without morphine, if you are attacked and are bleeding you will continue to lose blood unless you bandage yourself. If you don’t you will end up falling unconscious or maybe even dying.

I also plan on doing a playthrough of Thief: Deadly Shadows. I’ve never played the game before but I hear good things and I sure love to stealth. Hopefully that doesn’t suck and the channel will have a semi-steady stream of videos being uploaded.

Thanks for reading

Marshy x

Hey there. I’ve just played the beta for the last 3-4 hours and I’ve finished it. It took 3-4 hours to get to level 18 on the second hardest difficulty. Although I did have the advantage of finding a super powerful two-handed sword which one-hit most enemies and killed bosses in no more than 10 seconds of wailing on them. 

Anyways, to the points! Torchlight II is fun. Fun and satisfying. Hack ‘n’ slash games are all about making enemies explode and searching their entrails for loot (Let’s be honest) and TL II does this well. With enemies turning into mush left, right and centre I found it difficult to hate the game. The combat feels very meaty and the weapons very weighted which added to the satisfaction. 

Loot was common, but not common enough to be changing gear every 3 seconds. They got the time it usually takes to find an improvement pretty much bang on I think. However, a lot of the loot was completely useless and didn’t even sell for a decent price. I found my self stumbling on a small bandit camp at one point. After murdering the lot of them and looting their stashes I rescued a captive that they had tied up to a post. After giving me a few words on how grateful he was he proceeded to give me a reward. The choice between a piece of crap, piece of crap and a piece of crap. Each piece of crap being worth about as much as a loaf od bread. Gee thanks.

From what I could tell they reused a lot of sound assets and background music from the first game. Although this isn’t unheard of (obviously) and sometimes is worth doing I wasn’t exactly impressed by it because I never really liked it in the first place. The particle effects are fun though. As an engineer fire tends to fly and at one point in a large bandit camp and was able to set some huts alight. This made it burst into flames (obviously) which was pretty awesome. Not only that but a couple of bandits came running out panicking. The little things eh?

Thanks for reading anyway, there will be a few videos coming up on the channel.

Marshy x

Yeah, I had a weird urge to start playing creative again. I tend to binge on construction in Minecraft because I’m not too interested in survival anymore. Only the problem is that I build a tonne of stuff and then get bored of the game. The game is fun but has no progression or clear objectives to keep one going.

Not got too far at the moment but here is the floor to my new village:

It is several blocks above the natural floor and I plan on placing a few columns to hold it up. Buildings will be built. Circuitry will be wired (hopefully). Things will occur.

Marshy x

I LOVE YOU TOO WOODY *sob*

I may be a little late on this (I can guarantee it) but I have just found out there is definitely a CoH 2 on its way!

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/05/22/first-look-company-of-heroes-2/

Personally I loved the original.

Tanks were actually worthwhile, unlike some games where the best tactic is usually to spam as many as possible. In Company of Heroes each tank is precious and only a limited number can be built due to a population cap. I’m usually on the fence when it comes to pop. caps but in the case CoH I’m all for it. It feels more “realistic” (I hate using that word when describing games, but in this case it’s true) as in WW2 there weren’t 30 tanks rolling toward the enemy. The only way to destroy them would be high explosives or other tanks/anti-tank weaponry. 

Instead of bases you would have a “Headquarters”. A large house that had been converted into a temporary base of operations. I thought this was awesome, further adding to immersion because really, who can build a massive command centre in the short time before attacking? The structures used to produce units etc. were tents, not factories. Again, who can build a massive factory in such a short space of time? Instead there are makeshift tents with machinery inside.

Cover. Not like chest-high walls everywhere. I mean anything in the environment. Trees? Walls? Buildings? Rubble? Haybales? All cover. Now, you might be thinking: “How is cover going to help in an RTS?” Infantry can be placed behind this cover to give them a better chance of surviving. I don’t particularly enjoy leaving my men in open areas just to be shot when the enemy attacks.

Many more things to be said, but I feel this has gone on for long enough (also it was a while ago when I last played it xD).

Thanks for reading.

Marshy x

So, the beta lasts until Thursday 24th May and I have finally got around to downloading it. I’m going to make the most of Wednesday and play as much as I can, most likely film a bit too for the YouTubes.

Once I’ve played the game a bit I’ll slap together some of my opinions in a post on here.

I’m going to play the engineer class. It can effectively use ranged or melee, as well as use turrets and stuff, by the looks of things

Marshy x

Just as a first post I’ll throw in a bit of explanation. I’m bored. I figured I would start up a little blog and mention some of the games I’m playing and what I think of them. Anyone reading this or my game posts, thank you :3

Marshy x