July 2021 Review: 20 is the new 80

I'm still in lockdown but it feels like I've been busy, with my Black Desert season corsair getting interrupted by lots of other games such as the full Banner Saga which I'll be posting about shortly. Neverwinter wise, Shintar has a nice recap of what was removed (Cryptic's theme) in Mod 21: Jewel of the North. Part of this includes being level 80, since level 20 is the new max. In exchange we get the return of soloable mini-dungeon Throne of Idris, some tidy up quests, and a lot of bribes reward chests. I quite enjoyed the surprise Valindra duel but otherwise its just business as usual I guess, so no review of that coming from me.

After almost a year at the helm of the alliance we finally shuffled again back down into a sword position while preparing for the final push to 20. Will there still be Strongholds by the time we get there? Who knows! Meanwhile our Friday night co-op has returned to being GTFO and Ghost Recon Wildlands since the fix for both problems was simply Jim getting a new computer. :P

For those interested Blaugust is starting up again next month, and for those seeking to escape Blizzard here's a handy list of alternatives by Belghast. And for a fun game: whenever you watch a TV series or movie and characters are "going to eat" something, take note if anyone actually eats anything. It's surprising how many times food doesn't even make it to their mouths.

Most Viewed Posts in the last 30 days:

BDO: Unfinished Gem
BDO: Row Row Row, you're Sunk
BDO: Across the Sea

It's nice that the Black Desert posts have been getting attention! Funny that these are also the ones I fail in the most. =)

Warcraft (2016)

The arrival of the orcs.

With their world dying (possibly because of a Blizzard fiasco), the orcs step through a magic portal to invade the world of Azeroth, but not if Lothar (Travis Fimmel) has anything to say about it! It is much more than a simple blue versus green story though, and the action sequences and CGI are absolutely top notch. If anything, it's the pacing which throws us all across the vistas of Azeroth which seems a bit rushed,.

How are opposing sides always color coded?

As someone who isn't familiar with Warcraft lore I can't compare it for accuracy/continuity so I can only credit it as a stand alone movie which I enjoyed quite a lot. Definitely recommended for fantasy action fans in the same boat as me (no Warcraft knowledge), I give it three and a half griffons out of five.

Ironcast

A steampunk match-three roguelike.

France and England are at war, but to make things fun they are fighting using steampunk mecha and as the pilot of one of these it is up to you to go on missions to take out enemy armor and ultimately the boss... via tile matching. Base tiles give you either ammo, energy, coolant or repair and filling up your reserves let you do various things on your turn such as fire, power up shields, run, etc.

Still a large element of luck as usual.

In between missions you can upgrade your mechs systems and gain abilities through exp points but if you die, prepare to start from (almost) scratch. Yes, its a roguelike but the further in the campaign you go the more campaign unlocks you receive meaning you can start with different pilots, mechs and upgraded stats. For such a simple game I had quite a lot of fun with this one and actually do recommend it for idle or non-gamers as it is super simple, yet quite addictive. I also quite like the France boss theme so I'm scoring: two and a half shields out of five.

Insight: You can chain diagonally and always kill enemies if you can for their salvage (unless you are going to lose). Also, its worth spending to upgrade so that you last longer through the campaign. Make it to the boss and you'll probably have enough to unlock some campaign stuff even if you do get killed!

BDO: The Second Questing

[Part of my Adventures in Black Desert Online]

Repeating the quests on my corsair has been a lot faster than the first time around because it turns out "knowledge", which is often required to be gained to complete a quest objective, is shared across your family (characters on the same account). Furthermore, this extends to the knowledge you gain by fight enemy types which make them progressively easier to combat. It's also interesting that there seem to either be new quests or quests I missed previously this time around, like this reliable source that Illezra isn't quite dead yet. Apparently she's fled into the new dungeon: Atoraxxion.

Anyway, my goal of getting her to level 61 (on par with my main) is now achieved. This is good, because she's currently stuck in both the O'Dyllita I (shadow wolves are annoying) and Dreighan main quest lines (which in turn blocks Star's End). All her big movements and super-armor moves don't help too much against Garmoth it seems. I'm also getting the inkling that the main game here isn't actually fighting monsters, but upgrading armor and weapons.

Apparently GM's here are winged plague doctors!

Insight: After your first time through, Valencia II and and the Chenga Tome quests are a breeze. Also, if you combo Mareca: Whale Song into Prime: Wipe Out there's a clothing glitch where the corsair decides to get naked, especially in areas of high particle effects. Even more noticeable if you are over burdened which makes everything you do move in slow motion.

Critical hit indeed!

Mazinger Z: Infinity

"Diversity is the problem."

After years of peace, ex-Mazinger Z pilot/now scientist Koji Kabuto is part of a team that discovers a gigantic Mazinger robot hidden in Mt. Fuji right about the same time that nefarious forces invade from a parallel universe to use it to rewrite reality! If that sounds super wonky, its because it is. I mean, there's a character who has a headless body and a floating head so when he gets into a robot... its a headless body and floating head.

Eye candy for the older Mazinger fans.

Also, everything Mazinger does must be voice activated because moves are yelled out all the time - and there are a lot of them! For an end of the world scenario, everyone is pretty chill too - and there's always time for comedic characters to somehow survive absolutely ridiculous encounters. Fortunately the animation is really good. Not just the fight scenes where no one ever runs out of ammo, but in particular just conversation scenes which I give an thumbs up for. Still not one I'd watch again, and only recommended to Mazinger Z fans. Two breast missiles out of five.

GTFO: R5A2 - Recollect (Extreme)

To get Archer another win we replayed the normal version of this mission then Jim cleverly suggested we try extreme mode, which is almost exactly the same as the normal version, with one main difference: you'll mainly be doing the whole thing in pitch black darkness. Loadouts for the Extreme run were as follows:

Jim: DMR/Shotgun/Sniper Sentry
Archer: Heavy SMG/Sniper/Auto Sentry
Me: SMG/Shotgun/Cfoam
DL: DMR/Sniper/Mines

The start is pretty much the same: find the early bulkhead key but this time unlock the "Extreme" bulkhead, which surprisingly has no alarm. Inside is a massive room where you need to find a terminal to "REROUTE_POWER". Before doing so, take note of the other security door in this area which you currently cannot open and remember where it is. Also, you might want to load up on glow sticks. Once ready, input the command in the terminal and do a regular non-alarm scan on it.

Then something goes wrong and all the lights turn off but the security door you previously could not open has now opened by itself. You need to get the bulkhead key in there, but look out for the pair of scouts patrolling. Fun facts: darkness doesn't help scouts too much. You can hear them walk, and when they stop and send out their feelers they light themselves up nicely. Thus, archer and DL did simultaneous head shots on these which was pretty awesome.

Afterwards, plug the bulkhead key back near the start to open the hard (regular main mission) bulkhead. The only difference now is the spawn will likely show up through the open extreme bulkhead door so prepare accordingly (still close the normal door though but don't bother icing). Other than that, everything else plays exactly the same as the regular mode - only in the dark, making this a pretty easy level to get an extreme win to help unlock the lower levels.

Airplane! (1980)

An oldie but a goodie.

Mainly following the story of how cabbie Ted Striker (Robert Hays) chases his flight attendant love interest onto a terrible flight filled with food poisoning, bad weather, and numerous suicides, this comedy and the effects are very entertaining despite its age. As always, some gags fall flat but for me those were very few.  

That's how you fly a plane!

Definitely not for everyone but give it a try and if you haven't enjoyed the first fifteen minutes, you probably won't like the rest of the film. If you like Leslie Nielsen comedies (he's in it too) then this might be one for you.