Midnight Suns: Coming Doom

[Part of Superhero Stories]

By the time Blade, Illyana Rasputin and Nico Minoru found Tony Stark's body, the sun had set and the battle was long over. Screams and a familiar scent from below caught the Daywalker's attention. "Vampires," he muttered to his companions, clearly eager to do his job. "Go get them dude," approved Nico, the defacto leader of their little Midnight Suns group. "Illyana and I have got this." With a nod, Blade put on his shades and leapt off the building.

"I didn't know he could fly," said Nico in disbelief. "He can't," replied Illyana cooly. "I just opened a gate for him over the edge to help him land safely. Now are we going to get the name or what?"

Game wise Nico starts pretty weak where as Magik is consistently strong.

Nico nodded. Due to the Darkhold seemingly always falling into evil hands there was a fail safe: the final page was ripped out and given to a guardian care taker whose name only two people knew: the sorcerer supreme Doctor Strange, of whom nothing was left, and Tony Stark. "Who has the final page of the Darkhold?" she asked Tony's corpse, followed by planting her Staff of One between them like a microphone. "ANSWER!" she commanded. In a sickly fashion Tony's corpse opened its eyes and responded with a whispered "Johnny Blaze" before being still once more.

"Looks like we're going to the circus," said Illyana non-nonchalantly as she used her sword to open a portal there and right into danger. The Quentin Carnival was already on fire and Johnny - an ex-Ghost Rider - was already having the Darkhold's final page extracted from his body by Wanda/Lilith herself, guarded by a mind controlled green giant who angrily looked their way. "HULK SMASH!" he yelled but before he could do anything, Nico used her staff once more. "SLEEP!" Overcome by the magic, the brute transformed back into Doctor Bruce Banner and collapsed limply at Wanda's feet, just as she finished retrieving the page from Johnny's fried corpse.

Not wasting a beat Illyana then warped herself right beside Wanda and stabbed through the Darkhold right into her with a special dagger. "It's made from a piece the dark god you were trying to summon," she explained with a wry smile to the perplexed villain. "You little bi.." started Wanda as she grabbed hold of Illyana's arm. Suddenly the space around the Darkhold warped, sucking in Wanda, Illyana, Johnny's corpse and the sleeping Doctor Banner into it. "NO!" screamed Nico as she moved forward to the book but suddenly took a bullet to the head, killing her instantly.

"Amateurs," spat Doctor Doom dismissively as he calmly holstered his Mauser pistol and picked up the Darkhold. Everything was going according to plan.

Doom Eternal

Doomguy exalted.

This FPS follows on from all the previous Doom titles and like those continues the trend of you fighting horrible demons in violent encounters while exploring a map for secret passages and power ups. As you are able to climb and swing off things there is an added jumping puzzle element here but that's very minor. The biggest difference is in the combat, as based on what you do to your enemies you might be generating ammo (chainsaw), health (melee gory kill), or armor (set them on fire then hurt them) or all the above.

As most major combats take place in arenas now you need to get really good at doing all the above (which by default means you can't be too far away) while under pressure. Enemies have their own weak spots too: the shoulder launchers for revenants, arm cannons of mancubi, tail for pinkies etc - just to keep you on your toes as you fight a more and more mixed bag of enemies with your ridiculously large arsenal of weapons, most of which have two modes of fire which you can switch mid battle as well as upgrade! All up a very solid entry to the Doom franchise.

Doom Patrol

Characters destined to lose?

Focusing on a DC superhero group that is anything but, this four season show starts of insanely strong with characters so deeply flawed its almost like everything they do is growth. Unfortunately everything goes wrong at season three mark where, despite still having a few moments of awesomeness, the  script really just circles that shitter with characters stringing out expletives just to be edgy, fill time, and/or try "cover" poor writing every few sentences to the point that my wife gave up on it. It also seems to suffer a similar problem which Titans did in that characters reverse their growth/progress each season which is annoying. Usually I'd say check out the first few seasons then drop out when it gets bad but in this case, maybe just avoid it altogether.

Waiting for Duviri: The Frightening Fifth

After all that fighting it's horror time!

Slain - Back from Hell

This pixel platformer beat em up is basically the same plot of Altered Beast, but with a more metal backing track and less impressive graphics and game play. That's kinda sad as Altered Beast was released in 1988.

Rising Hell

Another pixel platformer with a very vertical slant as you need to escape from hell by going UP while taking souls on the way. Interestingly you get a power up shop to spend said souls almost every 30 seconds which is awesome and goes a long way in breaking the tedium of doing the same thing over and over. Now you get to do the same thing over and over... with breaks!

Darkwood

A top down horror survival where you must scavenge for gear and can only see active threats the direction your character is looking. This means checking your pack and crafting lets you see NOTHING. The lack of color is certainly a stylistic choice, but one that makes the game very bland to look at. That said if you like skulking around dangerous places and having to board up your doors and windows at night (because that's when they come for you) and don't mind a non-intuitive interface and clunky combat this might be for you.

Hell is Others

In this top down horror shooter (which has the same visibility constraint as Darkwood), you need to feed your bonsai with blood while doing a bunch of fetch quests in the horrifying city streets prowled by monsters and "others" (other people: because PvP is easier content to create). Luckily bullets grow on plants because you'll need them... if the matchmaking ever finishes loading. LOL. Should be renamed, Hell is Matchmaking.

Doom64

Ever miss the days in a FPS where you didn't need to reload guns that were smart enough to shoot up and down without you looking up or down, where pistol ammo was the same as chaingun ammo, and where pushing on every wall was the way to open secret passages? If so this nostalgia trip is for you. It's just Doom, with new maps.

Ring of Pain

This is a strange game that displays your encounters as a ring of cards and you can either deal with or try skip a card on the left, or a card on the right which rotates the entire ring. Finding the exit card brings you to the next ring and so forth, provided you are still alive by then as the monsters get very dangerous quickly - and you'll probably only be wielding a bent spoon and have rainbow socks for armor when you meet them. Props for a different idea and art style but not one that could hold my interest for long.

Amnesia: Rebirth

It's time to forget again! After Dark Descent and A Machine for Pigs, this new protagonist suffers the same memory loss as the previous ones but her story has much better graphics, much better dynamic lighting and ... much more boring!? What? Yep, a stupid protagonist and way too much walking to make space for narrated exposition doesn't help - to the point that I lost interest in it entirely. If you are looking for short and sharp horror, this isn't it - instead go for the original game with the Justine DLC which remains my favorite, proving again that simple and elegant will always beat something fattened with filler.

Blaugust About Me: My Favourite Things

I'm continuing with a few more of Belghast's writing prompts today, namely - write about three favorite items from any video game ever, and about any goal I achieved in the past and what it was like to work towards it and eventually get it.

My first favorite item are consumables: Health Potions or Medkits (things that keep you alive) - specifically the type you can carry and use at will rather than the auto-use on pick up. I guess this habit goes back to my Ultima Online days where there was no delay or limit on potion use and has carried on since, despite the Potion Poison mechanic in Mabinogi (debuff from overuse) and cool downs in Neverwinter.

Second favourite item is the Berserk Sphere in Doom. I am a fan of unarmed combat, and while I was ok with the regular brass knuckles in this game getting the power up that let you smash demons into pieces with your fist was amazing, especially when coupled with an Invulnerability Sphere. :P

Last item for this list also contains a previously achieved goal. This is the decorative trophy pet: Mini-Liadri from Guildwars 2, which you can only get by succeeding in the fight against full-sized Liadri, the original final enemy of the Queen's Gauntlet. It took me many, many attempts over 6 days and learning from others both through exterior sources (like Jeromai's guide) and through watching other players attempt the fight.

Because it was so difficult for me, that victory tastes all the sweeter.

Question: Do you replay games?

Simple one I'll leave up for a few days... in this age of MMOs and game backlogs, how often do you go back to replay a "finished" game? Replaying due to DLCs or "new/updated content" does not count. I'm talking along the lines of winning say Doom 2 or the original Warcraft. Will you ever play through the whole thing again?

Blacksite

It's like first Person XCOM except everyone is an idiot.

I can forgive a FPS for being linear and for having a strange story filled with plot holes. I also am ok with it using a checkpoint system, having standard "exploding barrels" in odd spots, and a questionable physics engine that sends exploding cars flying around the map. AI that usually doesn't use cover is around the Doom II era but sure, I can look past a highly trained squad of marines and their foes lining up in the open like in the American Civil War to shoot each other with modern assault or futuristic energy weapons.

"It's ok Sir! We don't need cover against that!"

What I don't like? Unskippable cut scenes. That is my biggest pet peeve in this game, and given it is single player - one that should not exist at all. I was also annoyed that there was no option for subtitles and that all the video settings are not handled in the "video settings" menu, but via squirreling around with game files themselves. That just reeks of bad design. Enemies popping out of thin air is also a bit cheap and the final boss is a HP sponge with no indicator if what you are doing is right.

There are positives though. The game features a good array of poorly explained enemies, a unique squad system where their performance improves or declines with morale and it has huge vehicular stages that have small optional bits apart from "the way forward". Steering is done via mouse though, so don't expect to be able to check your mirrors without turning the vehicle.

There are way better shooters these days (and there were probably better shooters when this was released) and only takes one afternoon to complete, so I give this 1.5 clipping helicopters out of 5.

Shadow Warrior (2013)

There is a demon apocalypse and only one man can stop it! Erm... and the Space Marine from Doom is not available... *cough*

This remake of the original Shadow Warrior game is, in a word - fantastic. The graphics are beautiful (which is weird for a FPS), the action is fast paced, the controls easily mastered, the plot better than decent and the comedy top notch. Well, for low brow comedy that is. I mean the hero is named Lo Wang after all. Throughout the game you can power him and his many weapons up however you like - I played on Insane and didn't get enough to unlock everything so that means it all comes down to your preferred style of play.

There are two features that really sucked me in this game, the first of which is the sword. I -LOVE- melee, and the way they have done it here is awesome as the katana can become uber powerful if you put your skill points in that area. There is less, hide behind cover and shoot, and more crazy hectic evading that keeps your heart rate up. The second one is that your left hand can be controlled independently of your right. Using a rocket launcher? That's cool, you can still swing your sword with your other hand. Or you can akimbo some uzis. Or you can be using a healing spell while hacking stuff with your sword (that was me, most of the game).

Blood and Gore is a plus!

As expected the game play is quite linear but there is ample opportunity to explore to find secret areas but the main problems come from two spots which turns the game into a chore instead of an exciting experience. The first is ALL THE BOSS FIGHTS. They are damage sponges, who face you in spots where ammo spawns freely because the creators knew this and thought it was a good idea. End result is repetitive dullness. People need to learn that bosses need not be damage sponges. A fast fight where you die or they die in a few hits is WAY more effective (like the final zone in Mission 16, where you fight waves of demons - that is challenging but fun).

The other spot I didn't like is Mission 13. In previous levels I was averaging around 30 minutes to clear but slowly this timer kept increasing after every stage. Mission 13 is the culmination of "lets make a long level for no reason other than making it long". 2 hours to clear for me. It's not even because there are hard fights, it was simply because the level design is so expansive, like someone didn't get the memo of keeping things short and to the point. The fights themselves didn't help since it was the same configuration of bad guys just in different rooms - Them in a circle room. Them in a hall way. Them in a lobby with stair well. Really? In MMOs the term for that is GRINDY.

Lo Wang, you are an improvement over your predecessor but failed to reach total enlightenment - I give you 4 out of 5 demon hearts.

Hotel Inferno

[Post #10 of the Blaugust Challenge]

Yet another offering from Necrostorm (who made Adam Chaplin and Taeter City), this movie is entirely shot in the first person perspective of a hitman which is VERY cool. A simple assassination task in a hotel goes very weird, slightly scary and very violent when it turns out that the hotel is actually crawling with psychos and a demon. Plot wise it's pretty interesting and the lack of acting skills don't really matter here as most of the acting comes from the protagonist who you never actually get to see and his off screen contacts so it's really just voice acting which in the dubbed version anyway, is good enough.

One of the worst places for a vacation, that's for sure!

While the gore is still higher than your average movie I believe it's been toned down a tiny bit from the previous two movies. Strangely what lets it down are the FX. It doesn't do as good a job as its predecessors in tricking your brain that said person got smashed with a hammer or got exploded, though they are brave to do some of this in broad daylight and otherwise well lit areas.

Much like other first person horrors some people might experience motion sickness while watching this, but where this is different is that while the protagonist is running around he manages to kill a LOT of the baddies chasing him. Score wise I give this two and a half bullets out of five. If you've seen the Doom movie, liked the first person segment there and can stomach a bit of blood then this is probably for you.

Blaugust Bonus: Air pistols and air rifles are the extent of my firearms knowledge and experience. Tried a .22 once and the recoil made every shot miss so I didn't really get into higher caliber weapons. I really should try that again now that I'm stronger and a fair bit older. I got a firearms license before I got a drivers license!

Adam Chaplin

[Post #8 of the Blaugust Challenge!]

Starring and directed by Emanuele De Santi this Italian film at its core is a revenge story that happens to be VERY VERY GORY. The basic plot is that Adam comes home one day and discovers something nasty done to his loved one. Seeking vengeance he does what any normal person would do: summon a demon from hell and sell your soul to it to become ultra powerful. Then you can smash and dismember all the bastards who did it and anyone else who gets in your way!

Yup. I seriously summarized the plot in that paragraph, but what a fantastically bloody journey it is to behold. From the very first moment you see Adam you know that he's more angry and violent psychopath rather than tortured hero out for justice. Also you might notice he is super fit!

This is one of the tamer parts of the movie.

There isn't much good acting in the movie (Adam himself might be the only passable one), but each new person that appears is a potential bloodsplotion waiting to happen so you tend to enjoy more fodder showing up... if you like your gore and violence that is. However, if you don't like seeing people getting their faces exploded, cleavered, set on fire, impaled, dismembered, chopped in half, and literally torn apart into seas of blood and intestines then this movie is probably not for you.

For everyone else I give it three righteous fists of demonic fury out of five!

Blaugust Bonus: I don't really have a problem with gore, maybe its because my older brothers let me play Doom when I was a child. The other thing they made me do is learn the weakness of all the creatures in Monster Manuals I and II of Dungeons and Dragons in case I ever ran into them. I still think that's pretty cool.

Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army

The only good Nazi is an... undead Nazi?

 

I've had this game for awhile now so I'm a little surprised I didn't do a review of it yet. Some of you may recall the annoyances I experienced while trying to play it cooperatively, which killed the game for me. However, I decided to go through it again solo after being uplifted by playing Sniper Elite v2 which obviously eliminated the severe flaw of frequent disconnects and then being unable to reconnect to your friends problem. That said it still crashed out on me twice.

While the story is shallow ("and then there were zombies!") the gameplay itself works well with the sniper vs undead theme. Most enemies require head shots (or heart shots) to be put down permanently and there is ample opportunity to snipe and survive waves of the walking dead during the story... and by walking I mean at a leisurely and casual pace.

Given that the majority of your foes need to melee you, this actually makes the game easier than the original (where grunts would shoot back, take cover and lob grenades) as you can even avoid them or kick them down with your own melee strike. The few enemies with firearms can be a bit of a problem, depending on where they catch you but generally distance is your friend and that very useful cover system is made quite redundant as long as you have Doom level shooting experience.

Most of the maps will also be familiar from v2, though they are heavily modified decor wise. Overall it is still a fun game which is easiest cleared if you keep your cool from the jump scares and shoot carefully because really, these zombies have no chance against a well armed marksman. I give it 3.5 bullets out of 5 (for solo play).

Sacred: Anducar

[Part of the Sacred Journey.]

Turns out I had to first kill the Elite Guard who tried (and failed) to ambush me before Anducar himself would show up, so after using the lure and kill method the robed wizard himself popped out and explained that Vilya was actually working for him in exchange for him to resurrect Prince Valor (she's dumb), and that everything was now in place as he planned - including me being there. Why were your guards so frigging annoying then?

Anyway, so begins the epic combat where the old man runs slowly around the room, and throwing very slow moving spells. Erm... Looks like the few potions I have left will suffice in this combat. Unlike Shaddar he is even susceptible to BFGs so it is with ease that he is defeated... and then he transforms into a demon which I think gives Vilya a heart attack because she just dies outright at that point too.

The fight now is a bit harder with a lot more fast potion usage to survive his attacks. Well, his one unfair attack that you cannot evade anyway. All the rest are easy to side step or soft enough to eat. Eventually he dies and in a cutscene Valor's ghost takes Vilya's ghost away from the collapsing temple, leaving me stranded there in the deepest heart of a demon army that just lost the one guy that was keeping everything together. Awesome. >_<

I suppose something like this happens next.

And that is how Sacred ends! There are more games in the series which might see a continuation of this story but for now its au revoir and thanks for reading. :)

NBI: Talkback Mixed Bag 2014

While Doone seeds the proper topics I thought I'd try my hand at answering some the suggestions that weren't picked up, rolling most of them into this post! He did invite people to just go ahead and post about them anyway so I invite you all to do the same! :)

What pen-&-paper RPG (D&D and the like) deserves to be adapted into an MMORPG, why, and by which development house?

Vampire the Masquerade and the rest of its cousins, all rolled into one (or if that's too hard, just the Masquerade). I think it has the best chance to succeed over my other choices here (the others being Gamma World and Lovecraft based stuff) as there are enough fans and enough lore to work with in terms of plot, factions, abilities and the like there already. CCP Games had the same idea and tried this with World of Darkness but had to cancel development. I think I'd like to see Cryptic take a shot at it because I like their model (f2p), and that they'd probably have a foundry (mission creator), and because while they don't really have standout games the ones I've tried are rather enjoyable.

Will any MMORPG ever overtake WoW as the leader of the genre? If so, what game will it be, and why?

That's a pretty open ended question. "Ever" as in - till the end of time? Then yes. Something will definitely overtake WoW. The "Why" is easy: new technologies and new IPs will emerge. Will your great, great grandkids be playing WoW? Maybe. But more likely they'll be playing something else... WoW 2, or maybe Starcraft Online? I'm sticking to Blizzard themed IPs since they have  the best resources at the moment (funding and players) to make a game to rival WoW. It would be much harder for a small unknown company to oust them but hey... maybe an Attack on Titan MMO would bleed the WoW base enough to take over. Who knows?

What 'failed' video game deserves to be remade or brought back under new management?

Wizardry Online. SOE failed big time there, leading me and many other disgruntled Wizardry players to avoid any further SOE games. It should also be remade to be more violent, with a higher risk of character permadeath balanced off by slightly easier content. As it is you literally had to suicide your spirit against reapers if you wanted to lose your character or be extremely unlucky/unprepared in dice rolls. Even then, the "Soul" system that your characters shared meant that losing one guy didn't remove all your work anyway, just giving you a minor-moderate set back.

Click the image too see the consistency of SOE!

What game series would you like to see remade (updated graphics, but stays to the original story/gameplay) or rebooted (completely re-imagined with familiar bits)?

I'd like to see id-software's Doom series remade into an MMO. Maybe a survival MMO.

If the NBI formed a guild, would you join it? Where would you want the guild to play?

Unlikely, and if I did it would probably not as a regular member. A number of the NBI folk are people who are always sitting on the cutting edge games, new releases, betas and the like. Another bunch enjoy games that have a pay wall. I prefer sticking to free games that I can enjoy whenever I feel like. I'm also not sure how many of you are in my time zone to play with anyway! ;P

Is the 'holy trinity' really holy? (Coming from the removal of a healer in GW2)

I've spoken about this before but I don't mind repeating the important part: To me, the MMO Holy Trinity is a piece of shit. If you can't do everything yourself, you aren't much of a hero to begin with. I don't mind playing with other people or grouping to do content out of choice. It's when grouping becomes a necessity that I take issue, because it means the game is not letting my character evolve the way I want him to. Especially in games which tout "be whatever you want to be", or "the world depends on you" I generally lose interest when I realize it actually means "be what we catered for" and "the world depends on you... and all those other guys because individually you all just suck. Now check out this cool, unfair, boss whom you cannot solo!".

When you're deciding if you like a game or not, which aspect weighs the heaviest and why? 

Fun! That's a no brainer. There is no point in spending time doing things you don't like. If a game is fun right off the bat or I can see will be fun when I get better at it I'll stick with it. If it's just tedious or of a genre I dislike I'll leave it alone.

Sacred: BFG

[Part of the Sacred Journey.]

One of the skills available to a Seraph is called "BeeEffGee", which summons a large, holy spear that shoots destructive heavenly energy at things. Magic works with different rules to that of conventional weapons in this game. With conventional weapons there is a roll to hit section to see if your opponent parried etc. With magic, if the graphic touches you - you are hit. You take damage. The end. This particular skill puts out a truck load of magic damage, firing a shot (which goes through all enemies) as fast as I can press the mouse button. Takes a while to recharge and a little bit to cast but the effects are impressive.

Guess how I killed DeMordrey's Dragon.

With all the enemies dead (and starting to respawn), Wilbur and I continued on our journey - handling an evil magician in his mansion and a cave full of slavers with captives that were all freed before coming to the small town of Slaters Grave which had its own share of bandit and slaving issues. We were less fortunate in the rescue attempt there as the local Hill Giants were faster than the women we freed.

We then pushed on North and finally reached the Sharuka encampment - the one supposed to reinforce Prince Valor at Wyvern's Pass. Upon showing the Count's signet ring though the Captain revealed that that was in fact, the signal to kill us. At that instant the other guards attacked and slew Wilbur instantly before freezing in terror. Apparently I was a few levels too far above from what they'd normally aggro. This made executing them one by one all the more sweeter.