Blogger Tag: Best Games of 2014

So, in going with the write tag given out by ‘What’s your Tag?‘, I am going to do a quick list of the best games I played in 2014.

Now, I would like to re-state the ‘I PLAYED IN 2014’ part. These are not necessarily 2014 releases, and they are in no particular order other than the one my brain remembered them in!

Pokemon Alpha Sapphire (Nintendo 3DS)
– To be absolutely fair to all other games, this made it to my list partially because of my love for the Pokemon series of games. It is highly probable that the reason I thought it was an amazing game, is because of the same reason I loved all of it’s predecessors. BECAUSE, GUYS, I DON’T KNOW IF YOU KNOW BUT YOU CATCH BADARSE PETS WITH SUPER POWERS. What’s not to love?

The Last of Us (Playstation 3)
– This was just one of the most epic games I have ever played. To be absolutely honest, I felt like I had been thrown into the middle of this amazing movie and told to hit the ground running. I plan on buying a PS4 soon – this will be being re-purchased purely to play it on my new console. I’m not even kidding.

Beyond Two Souls (Playstation 3)
– Basically, see above. Epic story. Amazing acting. Love love love. Also, you may not have heard, but there was boob.

7 Days to Die (PC)
– I’m sure most people are familiar with this title, but I have literally not stopped wanting to play this game since I got it. Originally recommended to me by the Painting Sage, I was somewhat hesitant to purchase an alpha game with such a hefty price tag ($30AUD) – but it turned out to be money well spent for all the hours, with all the different friends I have spent killing zombies and building ridiculous looking forts.

Don’t Starve (+ Together BETA, PC)
– This, for the same reason as 7 Days to Die, made it on the list for the sheer amount of time I have enjoyed running around with friends quickly hording supplies for our camp – and adventuring off on my own to discover underground monster caves filled with fresh carrots and glowing bushes, this is a game I am happy to have spent my money on.

Well, I might leave that there, at a shortish list of a couple of games that particularly stood out to me over 2014 “vidja gaming”. I’m sure I’m forgetting a couple of epic things I played, but for right now – this is it.

I wish you all a fantastic 2015 and hopefully by 2016 I’ll be posting “Best holodeck games I played this year” … no? pipe dreaming? drat.

~ Always, Elison

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Eating, Gaming and Miniature Painting!

Heeeeeey, that title kind of rhymes?

So, I’ve been ridiculously stressed out lately. University Exams were on, at the same time as my job get’s super busy, at the same time as a number of my friends suddenly dissapear off the face of the Earth (Not dead, just avoidant!) and yea – you get it.
*First world problems, right?*

Well, I explained that because when I’m stressed out I cook – so the other day I find a fishmonger selling Moreton Bay Bugs, so I nabbed a few and did them in a garlic, butter and parsley dressing, sprinkle of rock salt and optional lemon.

Yea, kinda tasted like … fish prawns. Very meaty.

Another stress release, painting up my new Malifaux miniatures! Arrived safely in the mail the other day and I’m having a crack at painting up Myranda first.
Now, please keep in mind:
1. I am not very good at this
2. Any level of ‘success’ I achieve is because I’m planted next to a professional painter who’s saving my arse every time I stuff something up hahaha.

So this is her with skin and blue fabric done so far.

Oi, El…You’re not leaving me GREY haired are you? This is awful.

With the FLASH on looks really bad, but wanted to show that I’d painted on shine…even though, yea it kind of looks like smudge like this hahaha.

Other than these two activites, got in a little Neverwinter time, kind of dull now that the Event is over – but either way got to questing.

I was sent into this dungeon when a lot of sections of roofs have caved in and you walk up the debris to get tot he next ‘level’ of the dungeon and I discovered a somewhat glitch.
Was stuck here for a good 10-15 minutes trying worm my way out of the crack.

Don’t step on a crack, or you’ll fall and break your….ability to move forever.

Dragon Age: Inquisition

So stoked, can’t wait!! …Now to finish Origins hahahaha.

Dream out, with your Steam out

So, I have discovered that one of the easiest ways to distract me from study is to queue up and old faithful TV show and check out Steam sales.
I think the Steam people ACTUALLY know when I have my university exams, and put on all their good sales at that moment.

Even though I am swearing to not play even a minute of Neverwinter, Dragon Age or ANYTHING ELSE while exams are right around the corner (4 days = I hate life), I saw that Anna (A game I have been curious about for a while) was on sale so nabbed it up.

In addition to now wanting to download it immediately and try it out, I’m holding myself back under some kind of pretext that I can still read study notes while rocking out the story lines that were Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Dem special eeeffects

Despite this, I do thoroughly enjoy my Trek, and it’s made all the more amusing when you see Wil Wheaton in his younger years on TNG and know that he grows up to be an awesomely respected super nerd. Good going, bro.

Although…I would have reconsidered that jumper….

My Face?

I’ve mentioned in the past, that I like to use myself as a basic template for my in-game persona’s. By this I mean I like to keep them female, short, long black hair and blue eyes (and when possible, I’ll attempt specific facial features and body shape as well, but that’s often not much of an option).

So, I thought I’d put a short collection of some of the ones I have shots of at the moment. I wonder if I over-layer all the images, I would see my face?

Skyrim.
Oh how I love this game. I was playing it on PS3 and this image was taken with my phone, hence looks a bit warped sorry.

Star Trek Online.
I do not in fact have pointed ears and extremely slanted eyebrows.

Dragon Age: Origins.
I actually love the characters faces in this game. They’re not overly ‘pretty’ all the time, and makes them a little more realistic.

DC Universe Online.
Yea, can’t really see her face but without the mask she basically looks like the STO girl. Her long black hair is in a ponytail but I didn’t have a good screenshot on hand showing it.

Neverwinter.
My current love. This is actually a really nice angle for this character to be shot on. Straight on she has A LOT of white in her eyes, making her look a bit creeper.

Well! That’s all for today!
🙂
~ El.

Neverwinter, Neversummer

Hello friends! So, my adventures in Dragon Age Origins appear to have been placed shortly on hold to make way for my new found addiction to Neverwinter.

To be entirely serious, I would have to say that this is one of the best games I’ve played in a while. And it’s an MMO? Surprising, given that most new F2P MMOs actually somewhat annoy me due to their keyboard warrior type player communities.

I had the opportunity to party with a group of people doing a PvP. It’s a kind of ‘capture the flag‘ but a little more – capture the ‘magical spiral tower’.

Ello ello ello, you gots a purdy mouth

Started healing a random person on my map who turned out to be very friendly and took me on a tour through some dungeons.

T’was great fun!

Ended up queueing up for something that was a daily dungeon event? Or something similar? Unsure – either way, joined with a random group of 3 and off we set.

And if you’ll look directly to your right, you will see a supernova in it’s natural habitat.

Our groups bravery was rewarded with a big treasure chest.

That yielded EXTREMELY little for me. Poo!

Went on dungeionearing by myself and found this one that involved turning these giant statues to activate hidden pathways.

There you go, ladies. A nice view of the park.

I am actually in love with looking around a lot of the dungeons and buildings in this game. They are actually quite pretty to look at. Most of my screenshots aren’t for this blog, they’re because I’m like ‘woah that’s cool, lemme get a picture’.

I shall call her Lydia.

Got myself a few nifty treasures for getting levels. The first of which is my beloved companion named ‘Mr. Meat Shield‘.

He’s a tad full of himself…

If you look at him up close, turns out he has green eyes and a bridge scar.

Oh Mr. Meat Shield. Cut yourself shaving again?

In addition, upgraded my head to have some level of defense. Unsure what was protecting it before, but it makes my characters eyes look far less…er…creepy.

Any my personal favorite, I GOTS A POOOONY.

Don’t kick, Neighneigh. You might hurt someone.

Oh, and due to some people taking advantage of a fault in the games ‘Auction House’ the entire server got rolled back by 7 hours (I think?) losing a few completed quests of mine, but no big deal.
As compensation, the admins decided to give everyone a gift.

This is my ‘I survived Caturday’ cape.
Uhhh….I don’t think I’ll be rolling about in THAT somehow.

Dragon Age: Origins – Part IV

Saddle up! Time for additional adventures on Dragon Age Origins.
Please be aware of spoilers, and keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times.

Recently I have taken up to running Let’s Play videos while I’m playing – I like listening to the sound of someone commentating their gaming experience.
For those who are un-familiar with the concept of a ‘Let’s Play’ – it’s where someone screen captures themselves playing a game in video feed, and often has a commentary with it.

I would highly recommend checking out TrendKiLL’s video’s. His are my favorite to listen to – but be aware, he drops the F bomb a lot hahaha. https://www.youtube.com/user/TrendKiLLv01?feature=watch

But, onto the show!

So not a lot interesting happened after the rescue of the boy and his uncle, so I headed off to discover this magic ‘Urn’ that will hopfully cure Alister’s friend the Arl.

I ran into this guy that that I chatted to quite pleasantly for a few minutes and then went to leave his house.

Oh but of course kind lady, you are the most beautiful creature I have ever seen.

Before I leave I thought, might have a quick lookie loo around his home for any freebies and go to enter the last room and he jumps up with ‘don’t go in there’.
I get involved in some dialogue choices and decide I want to know what’s hiding in the damned room and this results in him attacking me.

Now, him attacking me wasn’t the bad thing, when I went in the room I found this.

CREEEEEEEEEPPPEEEEER

Who the F was I just talking to then?

I don’t know if this means something, but I did notice a doll next to the body.
Now, I also noticed this same doll next to the beds when I was in the fade rhelm battling naked purple girl with horns.

I’m going to guess who ever the archdemon causing all this is, really likes plush toys.

After this, I make a trek to a town called Haven.

Welcome to haven, please enter at your own risk.

Despite it’s welcoming name, the towns people are anything but. This entire town are mass murdering cult freaks.
I walk into a room with an alter and blood coated all over it. Turns out, my dog can distinguish between human and animal blood and tells me so.

So, Dog. Remind me again how you can taste that this is a deceased human Caucasian male of approximately 37 years of age?

Based on Dog’s professional DNA analysis we move onto the chantry to find out what the hell is going on.

Apparently a Justin Beiber fan club congregates here to discuss new singles.

After slaughtering every last one of the trigger happy stoned out cultists, I find a man I had been looking for laying on the floor in an adjoining room. He thanks me to saving him and informs me that he believes he has found the Urn I want.

Lead on bald man! If I lose you, glint your head in the sun as a beacon. K, thanks.

So the Urn is apparently in this…er..snow castle. Which of course is filled with confusing rooms, which are of course in turn filled with annoying foes.

Can’t you just go get it, dude?

Last save point, I had started fighting these Ash demon things. Not as tough as they look, but a royal pain in my behind when trying to fight off 10 plebs in armour.

Not as cool as a Zerg, but he’s trying.

Well, time to stop blogging and start playing again.
It was mentioned on my blog that I’m soon going to encounter a twist. AAARGH THE ANTICIPATION. Can’t wait to see how this ends.

Love you all 🙂
Sincerely,
El.

Dragon Age: Origins – Part III

** DISCLAIMER: By reading this post you agree to potentially opening yourself up to spoilers regarding the content and storyline of Dragon Age Origins. Also you owe me a small skim milk cappuccino with 1 sugar.**

Last I left you, I was off to the Redcliff castle.
So the catch up is a woman comes out and convinces Bann Teagan to go into the castle to help her save her husband and child because it demanded she bring him.
Bann sneakily gives me a way via a secret passage to follow him.

SO – before I can head to the castle, I’m enlisted to help defend the village.

Please assist us, Great warrior. We want the battle over before the new episode of Grey’s Anatomy airs at 8

I actually think this was the most frustrating part of the game BECAUSE there’s a stupid bug in it that means that if a certain ‘support/side’ character in the army dies it just doesn’t progress.
I ended up constantly pausing and ensuring ALL my party members were defending him to get it to work.

Either way, they gave us a nice honoring speech.

Pretty sure Dog thinks all these people are here for him.

Get into the castle and it’s a lot of expected run through rooms, clear out zombie ladies.

Come ‘ere woman, I have something shiny for you

I did discover something cool though. If you set off Morrigan’s transform into a spider ability during battle and she lives, SHE STAYS SPIDERY.

Them legs would look nice in tights and heels

As it turns out, the woman the lured Bann T into the castle actually neglected to mention that it was her SON possessed by the demon.
WHAT.
A BITCH.

I will take a cheeseburger, fries and a large serve of DEATH TO THINE ENEMIES

He forces Bann to attack my party. Now this I didn’t like, because he’d been so nice in the story and now I was meant to kill him? Bummer 😦

Snap out of it man. The kids half your height for crying out loud.

Mage dude roles in and is all with the ‘I can help, but I need to kill one of you and send Morrigan to the fade rhelm’.

Hey look, Morrigan! Someone actually WANTS you for something!!

Of course the kids mum volunteers are human sacrifice, and damned if I was going to suggest a replacement from my team – so off she goes.

Fade rhelm was just a quest of ‘locate boy’, ‘boy reveals as demon’, ‘fight and win’.

I did however find it amusing that the demon ever stopped touching herself in the cut scenes.

I wasn’t born with it. It’s definitely Maybelline.

Well, that’s all so far! I have now been set on the path of finding some healing urn to save self-sacrificing woman’s husband – who also happens to be the guy Alister was easger to see.
So hey, I’ll do it for my bro – but it seems all a bit hocus pocus kids. Like the nutritional value in a happy meal – don’t put too much stock in dat.

Talk soon my lovelies!!

Sincerely,
El

Dragon Age: Origins – Part II

**BEWARE OF DOGS** …also spoilers.

Onto my recent adventures in Dragon Age!!

So, after I defeated the big monster at the end of my last post, we ended up having a cut scene basically about everyone having their shit ruined – and they had even less chance than usual because for some reason, one of the leaders retreated his entire army at the last minute, abandoning everyone – WHAAAAT A PUSSY.

Morrigan, the daughter of the wild witch of the forest, has joined my team and although a loved member of the group – is a big rolling ball of negativity and complaining. UGH, just what I wanted.

Shut up Morrigan, not body cares about your opinions

I’ve also been discovering some of the extra options around my war dog. I just found that I can actually pat and play with him, and surprise surprise, Morrigan hates him. It’s actually fairly amusing to listen to her or Alister’s banter with the dog. Neither of them like him, but both are terrified of him.

Who’s mummy good little boooooooy?

I think someone wants a belly scratch

I’m unsure if this quest was put there to see if I was an arse-hole, or if I was just REALLY compassionate – but, I play the game the same way I would if I were adventuring in real life. Very polite, help the innocent.
Now, up until now, the good vs bad choice has been fairly obvious except for this dude.

So, the town has caged him to act as a type of ‘bait’ for blight/enemies. Morrigan comments that this is an awful way to treat such a noble and brave creature (apparently she’s a fan of this particular race) and suggests we let him go.
He’s fairly polite to speak to, but then drops a bombshell in the middle of conversation like ‘I killed a bunch of people….oh, and their kids’….remiiiiiind me why I wanted to help you again??
I actually ended up abandoning the quest half way through because I didn’t want to continue on the path of letting him go, hahaha.

I’m also enjoying the side quests.

Red = Part of active quest. Green = Side quest board

Just give me a little XP and a small break from the big cut scene filled main story line (Man, does this game have a LOT of cut scenes). The only thing is that I wish the side-quests were mostly geographically located in the area you got it in, I hate all the moving between cities and camps – is annoying.

Kill a bunch of wild rampaging GIANT SPIDERS. Shit.

Now someone commented on my blog here that they enjoy reading female gamers reviews of games as they often differ from that of males.
This is probably just me, and I don’t presume to speak on behalf of female gamers (or females for that matter) but I think this is why.

I become emotionally involved in my characters. When I had the option to switch Morrigan, Alister or my war dog for a different character – I emotionally didn’t want to. I didn’t want to leave my friends behind? This might happen for everyone, but I tend to find more of my female gamer friends feel a real connection to TV or game characters – more so than most of the males I know.

So Alister hears me having a nightmare and explains that this happens to the wardens. That they all see a dragon in their dreams who is the Archdemon, and that I shouldn’t worry – I will learn to push the dreams away in time.

Why tell me scary stories around a camp fire, right after a nightmare? That’s just mean!

Later we find out that he is actually the illegitimate heir to the throne. Cut scenes like there, where he talks about ‘being close enough to tell me this thing he’s never told anyone before’ etc, is what invests me. Morrigan’s playful hatred of Alister while we walk around, invests me. My dog wagging it’s tail, invests me.
It’s interesting how that works.
Oh, and Alisters winning dialogue.

“That’s what im here for, to deliver unpleasant news and witty one liners”

Anyhow, last save point, I was speaking to the leader of Redcliffe when a woman runs to him and says that a demon in the castle is holding her Son/Husband hostage and demands she brings back only him. I want to get into the castle too, so before following her to his likely demise, he gives me his ring that acts as a key to a secret passage.

Hopefully I’m going to find this guy inside that is a friend of Alister’s and cure the mans illness – but who knows.
Well, talk to you all again soon! I’ll leave you with a few random screen shots and captions, and see you all next time.

Sincerely,
El

Inventory! Not particularly interesting, but grabbed a shot in case anyone wanted to see what it looked like.

Stoic posing. Because I’m a boss.

Why do I flash on occasion? Also, the boobs need some severe work in this game. They seem, not attached to my characters torso somehow.

“Take this oh so sacred *scratch scratch* blessing from the *scratch scratch scratch* make of all *scratch scratch* – STOP IT DOG, SHOW SOME RESPECT”

Two Posts So Close Together?

Yes so, in the spirit of “I’m on a role”, here’s another post.

The topic for, er, this hour is Star Trek: Online.

Now, I don’t know how many of you know Star Trek, but I’ve been watching this show since I was a kid. It’s a proverbial ‘staple’ in the diet of my families TV watching. For some reason despite it’s release some time ago (Wikipedia tells me it was Feb 5th 2010 for the Australian’s in the audience) I hadn’t really gotten around to playing it until now.

So, I thought it was kind of a nice touch to allow you to ‘create’ your own uniform.

Look! I flash and what-not!

The biggest thing that I suppose that appeals to me about this game, is my own personal history with the franchise. Being about to hail my own ship and get them to beam me up, is probably more tantalizing for me – and far more tedious to others.

Beam me up, plebs. I need a coffee.

Now – I doubt anyone noticed this, but maybe as time goes one someone will see it – but all of my ‘customizable’ game characters look similar.
They follow a suit of short, slender, pale, longer black hair and blue eyes (Except my Dragon Age character is rocking green due to a miss-click).

I look so pretty in the glow of a shuttles dashboard….

I don’t know the psychology behind it but there is something cathartic and personal about being able to base my ‘in-game’ character on the basics of my own appearance (although, let’s not think for a second that I in fact LOOK like a body rocking Vulcan from the future).

AAANYWHO – this game takes place in 2 modes, character controlled and ship controlled.
The character controlled side I find far more engaging than I do the ship. Running around as part of an away team taking scans and shooting aliens is just my jam. Space shoot’em ups, not so much.

As you can see, the green arrows are directing you to how I control movement, speed and weapons, and the red in an indicative that my forward shields are losing power (or at a lower % of life than the others).

Again, fancying myself a pho-digiter, digi-tographer, snap-happy camper … whatever you call them, I took some shots.

We come in peace! Ready the torpedoes boys.

Crew members on LSD taking up my sick bay beds.

And finally…

A level of nerdy excitement ensued here. I love the IDIC symbol.

All in all, I’d give this game a 6/10. It get’s points for being ‘Trek’, and kind of engaging – but there’s something about most of the free-to-play MMORPG’s coming out at the moment that doesn’t really draw me in for the long term. Basic repetitive type quests, too many items/buy now/upgrade to premium rubbish all over the joint and an unfortunate abundance of keyboard warriors claiming you’re a noob after they’ve played the game ‘hardcore’ for at least 4 days now.

Dunno, bring back subscription for some I think? Just because then at least I was partially guaranteed that the people that were there did really like the game and weren’t just bumming around looking for a troll-op harbor.