Finally an update!

Uuugh, sorry for the delayed replies, comments and posts folks. Life has kind of exploded with family, school and work and I haven’t had a chance to do much of anything!

Hello everyone. This is me in Pokemon land – just casually posing for my trainer license like a pro model.

1 thing I have been filling in my short breaks between commitments is the new Pokemon X game! I have bought and played through every Pokemon game since my original obsession with Blue way back when – and I must say, I’m between feelings on the new one.

If you don’t follow the games as I do, you may not know this already, but this is the game Nintendo announced was their start to changing the experience of the Pokemon gaming franchise. It has a big story, cut scenes, 3D animation and all that jazz (in addition to a bunch of additional internet connectivity and bonuses related).

So, here are some snaps I took of my screen while playing:

For starters, this game is a lot more customisable in regards to what you look like. So I took the general route of making my character “somewhat” like myself.
This is the wholly arrogant and obnoxious fist pump my character does when beating a trainer for plot required purposes.

I honestly don’t know if the change view makes exploring dungeons better or worse to be honest.

At least it’s pretty, I suppose?

As tradition dictates, I chose the fire starter. Now this is the second stage evolution (Braixen).

This thing actually pulls a ‘branch’ out of it’s tail and uses it like a wand. I actually hate it.

The main evil ‘TEAM’ in this game is a group named ‘Flare’. Now, don’t get me wrong, Team s always have a tendency to look rather comical.
These guys are absolutely no exception in that regard.

One of the things I do very much enjoy about this game is the customisation through hair cuts and various accessories.
For once I have a character I’m playing in Pokemon that I identify with.

At least it’s not the mushroom headed girl from Black, anyways.

And finally, another feature they have added is on occasion you encounter a sign with a camera on it. This summons a photographer to take a commemorative ‘snap shot’ of you on your adventures.
The DS responds in your hands the same way a camera would (ie. tilting the device, tilts the camera angle).

—

Other than Pokemon, all the painting I have been doing has been for my Rotten Harvest entry for the Wyrd painting competition and due to rules I can’t post anything about it. 😦

The only other thing I have managed to find the time to do, is to keep up with the ‘Paint-along’ thread for free handing. As of week 3 highlighting has been completed:

I found the highlighting on this really tricky, as there was no obvious ‘light source’ for where I had done the highlighting on the coat initially!
I ended up doing a few shades of the gold/yellow colour to highlight – but it appears only one shows in this photo.

I shall have to get a better picture when I do the next round of touch ups!!

Well, Love you all!!
Sincerely,
Ellie.

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Defiance of Thrones

I am finally getting around to watching the series ‘Defiance’.

The basic concept of this series is very much my style, and the idea of a series paired to the story of a current running MMO I found very appealing – I just hadn’t had the time to really watch it.

Three episodes in and my thoughts on it are only 1 repeating one:
This show is suffering from a SEVERE damned case of

‘We wish we were Game of Thrones’

2/10 for effort.

Legendary? Or just glad it’s in the past?

So, I got Legendary a while ago in a Steam sale for I think around $2AU.

It looked interesting, a bit of puzzle solving mixed with first person action? YES THANKS.

Little do you know, how bored you’re about to be.

So, I embark on my adventure and am dropped into this scene with a golden box in a museum. For some reason, I’m the kind of idiot that touches priceless artifacts (I didn’t want to be that guy, no body likes that guy…whatever) and get stabs in the palm for my troubles.

Apparently, stabbing me in the palm was a good thing…I think? and the action imbues me with some type of magical power.

Check it ladies, the pimp hand GLOWS with the energy of my testicles.

So far so good. Long story short, you run into the streets when DOOF, everyone is floating in the air like amateur super men and the city is attacked by a bunch of over-zealous chickens.

We should get capes, y’all.

It was around about now that it started getting really dull.
The game is very ‘locked into this exact path and no where else’, the action is boring, predictable and in-engaging.

The arrival of the first ‘you need to kill these’ creatures…

Anyone got a marshmellow handy?

…was needless to say, a strange fo. As given that this was still the introduction – had no obvious method to avoid it’s attacks while just being expected to randomly shoot at it from a confined space in the rubble.

I was far more interesting in what Gordon ‘The Destroyer’ Ramsay was saying in ‘Kitchen Nightmares‘ to be entirely honest.
Or at least, watching the show playing on my second monitor was actually more engaging?

Your main dish was so bad, it reminded me of that time I was playing Legendary.

I’ll give the game a proper go I swear – but so far, it’s definitely a $2 game.

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….

Ever wanted to date a pigeon?

Then have I got the game for you!

Hatoful Boyfriend is a Japanese dating sim based on the story of a girl attending an ALL PIGEON SCHOOL.
She is the only human character in this game (despite the male pigeons having human ‘avatars’), and the goal is to get to know and then date the male pigeon students.

Now, when I said that the male pigeons have avatars, this is merely a figment of the girls imagination, and the feature can be turned off via a setting in the game – if you would prefer to enjoy your male counterparts in all their feathered glory.

I have to be honest, while playing the game, I did feel a tad suss…

Normally, I don’t mind Japanese dating sims, or at least – the one or two I’ve played before – but there was something about the idea of fictionally romancing a bird that made me….uneasy.
However, that could also be the fault of the dialogue.

If you say so…

Either way, in the same rhelm as my previous post regarding ‘Umadonna’ I wonder how many others of these are out there?

Actually, I take that back.
I don’t need to know.

Haha, sincerely – El

Baking, Gaming and Speculating

Today has been eventful in my tiny world.

1. Successfully completed all my work with a few days to spare before the dead line – so now I can just sit back making everything pretty before presenting it to my client.
2. I baked some pizza topping stuffed Anpan
3. I bought a low end low tech low cost tablet.

First things first. Anpan!
Welcome to one of my de-stressing hobbies, baking! After watching RunnyRunny999‘s YouTube videos I wanted to have a go at Anpan.
He stuffs them with Anko (a sweet bean paste) however, I decided to go with tomato-paste, ham and a combination of Swiss and Parmesan cheese.
Actually turned out pretty well…

I will however be needing to cook them at a lower temp in future, and put more of an egg wash on those bad boys.

Slightly changing the subject to my new tablet (also shown, new awesome comic leggings)…

I downloaded the WordPress app for this device too and I have to admit, like it much better than the version for the phone.

I fully appreciate that more space is going to equal better functions and ease of navigation, but I really like the reader and posts views.
Nicely done WordPress. You got the right people designing those apps in my honest opinion.

This is the same post view on the phone, for reference.

In my next up coming post, I shall be reviewing a dating sim based on the concept of a human girl attending a school with ALL BIRDS.
I do not mean Bird men, or people with wings, or even birds with human arms! I just mean straight up, 15-20cm tall BIRDS.

Moshi Moshi? Oh hi! Haven’t heard from you in a while!
What’s that? You’re dating birds now?
…Sorry I’m driving through a tunnel. *click*

Sincerely,
Ellison

How do you record a game?

I watch a lot of ‘let’s play’ type videos, and what people demonstrating how to do something at a certain point – what is the best way/software to record you playing a game?

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

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.

Good Morning Coffee Drinkers

 

Ok, so I suppose it’s kind of expected that the first post in any blog is a ‘introduce yourself and the purpose of your blog’ piece; So in keeping with that tradition, here we go.

I am a heavily caffeine addicted female gamer (25 yo).
Now, I know everyone just rolled their eyes “Ugh, self proclaimed female gamers”, and yes I get that there appears to be a ‘geek sheike’ thing banging around at the moment, and comparatively to most of my male gaming counterparts I suck at almost everything – BUT, despite all of that gaming, television shows and coffee are some of my few true joys in life.

Now, what do I play? Anything and everything (except real time strategy games, could never get into those).
I primarily game on my trusty computer (named Ash), but I also enjoy:
– PS3
– PS Vita
– 3D NDS
– Wii
– My mobile phone

Recently I have been bouncing between plating DC Universe Online, Star Trek Online, Path of Exile, League of Legends and Dragon Age Origins.

So, I guess I will leave my intro post there, and I look forward to having an outlet for my incessant screen shot taking and need to tell stories.

Catch you all shortly!
Sincerely,
L