Guardians of Justice and Batman: the Doom that came to Gotham

Variations on DC comics...

Guardians of Justice

This one season show isn't really from DC, but makes use of super heroes that mirror those in the Justice League. In the opening episode Superman Marvelous Man commits suicide on world wide TV, throwing the world into chaos so it's up to Batman Knighthawk to investigate why he would do that, or if indeed it was a murder instead. Interesting hook, but the use of mishmash media including live action, animated, pixel art, and claymation is very strange as is the subpar plot and acting though that may be intentionally for comedic effect. Not recommended.

Batman: the Doom that came to Gotham

In this 1800s version of Gotham someone decided to mix in some Lovecraftian lore for a story about cultists opening a gateway for some elder horror that will doom the world while the well known characters from the Batman franchise try to deal with it. As it is an Elseworlds tale this frees up the plot to freely maim, kill, and drive insane just about all of the cast which leads to a ... strange but unique story. The animation, like everything else is simply OK, but at the end I'm not sure this is worth a watch either. Not recommended.

Decluttering Day 5: Old iron.

Warframe: Monsters

Continuing from the previous gallery, it looks like creatures and monsters are another common subject people create in their dojos...

Waiting for Duviri: The Eigth Ebb

This time it's all ship and ocean themed games!

Call of the Sea

How can a Lovecraft inspired game not be horror? This first person puzzler certainly rocks that boat, and is pretty good to boot. Decent voice acting and gorgeous colored art helps usher you along from one puzzle to the next as the story takes you along for the ride. I have to say this has one of the strongest starting quest hooks I've come across in awhile but it lost me once I reached the trial and error puzzles.

Submerged: Hidden Depths

A pair of siblings work to "save" a flooded city being claimed by black tentacles, by making the tentacles ... not black? Despite the premise and the watery wasteland setting this is a very chillaxed exploration game with no chance of failure. Even the Assassin's Creed level of parkouring that takes place is all automatically handled by your regular controls which is a good change of pace. A little annoying that completing the main goal of an area returns you to the main hub though, meaning you might have to repeat it for any missed collectibles.

Maneater

In this game you are a shark out to eat stuff to get bigger and cause chaos in general. Nice graphics, decent controls and a cool mechanism that eating things both heals you and nets you a type of currency to evolve and become a stronger shark are quickly overshadowed by the annoyingly large grind present in this single player game. Since you start out small you need to be careful around the bigger carnivores in the water but gaining mass to challenge said enemies takes a long while. Quests can help, but when the quest is kill x catfish, but specifically catfish in this area and not the other catfish all over the place, that kinda pisses me off. Not recommended.

World of Warships

This popular multiplayer game is all about collecting and upgrading all manner of ships from around the world's history and then pitting them in missions against others which includes team elimination or area control. Small, fast maneuverable ships have less turrets and less hitpoints while the lumbering battleships bring lots of firepower and HP. There is no respawn when you die. You can either continue to watch as an observer or return to your dock and play another ship out to battle (as your destroyed one is locked for the duration of the match I think). Despite a mode of coop vs AI, the game quickly pushes you into the direction of PvP which is not something I'm interested in. The cash shop messages are also annoying.

Kerbal Space Program

On to ships of the space faring variety - this highly rated game failed immediately for me because as one can imagine, running a space program isn't all fun and games if you want to get anywhere. There's a heavy dose of reading, an unfriendly but functional interface (that might be by design) and my nemesis: math! The steep learning curve is to the moon! Blergh.

The Captain

This is the best old school point and click adventure game I've come across. In it, you must captain your space ship to find special macguffins and make it back to Earth in time to use said macguffins to win a war. Yes there is a timer, and you definitely start in a galaxy FAR FAR away with many potential stops on the way. And that is the beauty of it - everything is optional with each stop even having multiple potential outcomes. I basically sacrificed everything and everyone for the mission, and it let me. Best of all the puzzles are easy, even with the "future tech" terms. The weakest part of the game is the combat, but you don't need to fight a single thing to win the game. Highly recommended!

Cthulhu: Death May Die - Know when to Fold em

Featuring the fickle Lady Luck.

A board game session from Cthulhu: Death May Die.

A Las Vegas casino sets the stage for the next ritual, and to break it Father Luke (Juris), the Kid (mom), John (DL), Arielle (wifey), and Mario (me) must win SIX times at the casino, requiring to pay an item per attempt and only able to gamble if the casino has no enemies.

This proves to be tremendously difficult as cultists and hounds of Tindalos regularly appear on the casino floor thanks to the poor odds at the table and while the team gets half the required wins they are out of time as a full powered and immortal Cthulhu appears, nearly killing Luke (who is saved by catatonia). 

The hounds would fit nicely in a Warhammer 40k Tyranid army.

John lures the elder one and everything else away but before they can kill him it triggers his dependency, returning him to the safety of the casino with no enemies in tow. At this point a miracle happens as the last three wins happen in quick succession, weakening Cthulhu once more and pulling him to the party who beat him up!

Fleeing from the room, John goes and lures him back into range (most of the team have ranged attacks) which totally wrecks the tentacled beast, and it is Father Luke who finishes it off with a blessed pool cue in close quarters. AMEN!

MISSION SUCCESS (unconvincing victory here as we almost lost multiple times with numerous people almost dying prior to breaking the ritual, and having the doom track two only steps away from the end)!

Insight: Ugh, I hated the gambling mechanic! We had to learn the hard way that you want to have stress to spend AND a lot of items when using the casino. Not doing so (like we did at the start) felt like wasted turns. I dunno, it just felt really swingy.

Cthulhu: Death May Die - Holy Murder

Some priests are psycho.

A board game session from Cthulhu: Death May Die. 

Victorious from the forest, the investigators John (DL), the Kid (mom), Mario (me) and Arielle (wifey) headed to the nearby cathedral of Father Luke (Juris) to rest up. Alas, this was not to be as one of the other priests had been murdered and the sanctum was now overrun by cultists, ghouls and star vampires!

To break the ritual this time they needed to find the murderer in a possible pool of five NPCs by questioning each one. Focused on that, the team splits up as the Kid uses her magic to clear the initial star vampires before passing out from exertion (catatonic).

Arielle and Mario use the opening to begin questioning suspects while Luke and John deal with a new star vampire and star spawn that emerge from the underground crypts. While it takes awhile to get the information required (since proofs keep flipping back down when the elder one advances) through a process of elimination all signs point to the deacon, whom John executes.

This is correct and interupts the ritual (being wrong is pretty much instant game over), which summons a weakened Cthulhu into battle. After the elder one is bashed down he attempts to flee but takes severe damage from Arielle and the Kid's ranged attacks (who was one step to dying from insanity at the end). Luke attempts to finish off the big bad but rolls a critical fail and only by the love of Jesus manages to survive the counter attack leaving him with one hit point.

It's like this scene from Hellsing Ultimate. Just pretend Alucard is Cthulhu. :P

It is John then who takes it upon himself then to finish off the tentacled monster by using his strengthened bull whip to wrap around its neck and the entry way portcullis machinery to strangle and crush the elder one to death.

MISSION SUCCESS (first try and I really liked the mechanic in this one)!

Insight: When rolling, stars are often good especially for characters with arcane mastery. Not so much against star vampires who instantly damage you if you roll stars when attacking them! Mom had to go easy and cleverly reroll those.

Cthulhu: Death May Die - Ritual Heist

Saving the world with armed robbery.

A board game session from Cthulhu: Death May Die.

Apparently Hastur's yellow sign was much harder for Rasputin to recover from than the "usual death", so it was up to the Kid (mom) and John (DL) to head to Chicago to stop cultists performing a summoning inside a bank vault (props for creativity)!

Knowing they'd need help they also recruited an African amazon Adilah (wifey), timid little axe murderer Borden (me), and a well connected a priest (Juris) who manages to hire two mob bosses to assist in the job.  

Since John has psychotic tendencies he soloes the shorter path to the vault, taking on cultists and an elder thing en route while the others go the long way, fighting through tcho-tchos and a star spawn that Borden lures away while Adilah's special focus ability (which she chose Borden to pair) means when one rests so does the other (even out of turn) is great to counteract the multiple marked tokens the pair are receiving.

"Did you miss me?"

With the priest's gangsters, it is John breaks through the vault doors to interrupt the ritual summoning an angry Cthulhu upon himself and manages to fend off the attack which kills all the extra allied gangsters while the kid provides fire support from the next room before being swarmed by tcho-tchos.

This causes Cthulhu to flee right into the priest who badly wounds the elder one with his holy relics before a freshly summoned star spawn eliminates the man of god. John then charges the room and wounds Cthulhu enough to make him flee again.

This time, all alone on the dimly lit street, Cthulhu is ambushed by improvised explosives Borden had brought and is summarily chopped into pieces by the axe murderer - who gains so many extra free hits when there is only a single opponent sharing the space.

MISSION SUCCESS (first try though it was looking dire there for a bit. Recruiting gangsters at the start was quite annoying)!

Insight: Most mobsters demand payment before you can hire them, and if you can't you often get the "marked" condition which really sucks - think of it as random life draining so keeping your HP up is mandatory!

Cthulhu: Death May Die - Legend of the Moon

Dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight...

A board game session from Cthulhu: Death May Die.

Beth (wifey), Benchley (me), "the Kid" (mom), Rasputin (Juris) and new protector John (DL) could scarcely believe their eyes when they arrived at the observatory where the phases of the moon were changing every few minutes! "We need to get the lunar mirrors to the telescope room," muttered Rasputin. "Only that can thwart this evil science sorcery!"

You can tell you are insane if you see smiley faces on any of these.

Thanks to the compact layout of the building, this wasn't too difficult to do especially as the Kid found a spell to pull the mirrors an extra step right away. Rasputin and Benchley pulled the further ones to John in near the foyer, who passed it up to the stairs to the Beth in the telescope chamber. Beth too found a spell to quickly get the moon phases to their desired state to save time and summoning the King in Yellow!

The Kid then used the daggers of shadow and light (+3 dice in new moon/full moon) which she had been using to keep the halls clear of ghouls and cultists on the elder god, causing it to flee but not before the curse of the yellow sign on Rasputin triggered and killed him (which is a first, Hastur loves handing out yellow signs but this is the first death from one).

The team pursued the King in Yellow to the yellow gate and fired everything they had at him. Even John, who rescued a lady with a gun earlier, could finally attack from range. This enraged Hastur to advance at them but John was able to tank all his hits. Suddenly Beth emerged from the shadows and emptied all her bullets into the weakened elder god, killing it and once more saving the day.

MISSION SUCCESS (first try)!

Insight: It's a small map, but since you can't move mirrors if they are in shadow you can't delay when they are lit up - even if it means taking hits.

Cthulhu: Death May Die - My Heart Will Go On

The beginning of the legend...

A board game session from Cthulhu: Death May Die.

Jack (DL), "the Kid" (mom), Rasputin (Juris) and new hired guns Benchley (me) and Beth (wifey) arrived at the docks of the little port village where Rasputin detected the next cultist disturbance - this one involving human sacrifice! The task is simple: save three elders from house Allen and three from house Marsh by getting them back to the boat.

Benchley, who is actually the psychopath this round, decides to charge right through the cultists, deep ones and monstrous cthonian - clearing the path for his allies to rescue the elders in the vicinity, as well as other Marsh and Allen family members who even in these circumstances can't stop arguing with each other. With them in place, Benchley activates the lighthouse so the ship can go. This summons Cthulhu beside him along with all the other horrors that gave chase!

The Cthonian arguably looks scarier than the elder ones...

He does go crazy a few times to clear a few of the lesser foes, but through sheer luck (and leveling up the toughness skill instead of attack skills this time), he manages to survive long enough for the Kid to arrive and provide cover fire saving him as she cleans up the remaining monsters while Cthulhu flees to the docks to his deep ones.

Beth, Rasputin and Jack are there waiting for him and smack him hard enough to make him flee to the ship  which is about to depart! Rasputin and Jack hop on in pursuit but the ancient one flies into a rage, killing the Allens, Marshes, and crew before eliminating Rasputin (it's ok, he'll get back up) and mortally wounding Jack who was tying the monster down with the anchor chain.

Then from the docks a barrage shots rang out - it was Beth, using her sharp shooting to land headshots on Cthulhu and one last bullet into the boat's fuel line for good measure. The explosion capsized the ship and sent Cthulhu down into the deep with it.

The day and the village is (mostly) saved, and a crispy Rasputin is fished out of the drink sometime later.

MISSION SUCCESS (first try - but very close to defeat time wise)!

Insight: It might not look like it but this map is HUGE, and is made worse since a character can only ferry one elder at a time so get moving and get moving quick!

Cthulhu: Death May Die - A Night at the Museum

Even monsters can visit, just don't touch the displays!

A board game session from Cthulhu: Death May Die.

It was the middle of the night when Rasputin (Juris), Adam (me), Miss Ives (wifey) broke into the museum with new members "the Kid" (mom) who has latent magical abilities and Jack (DL with same character, but afflicted with psychotic tendencies). It is handy that the artifacts needed to disrupt the gates here are just lying around - they just needed to be collected and placed by two of the three portals simultaneously.

The first hurdle is the massive shoggoth blocking the way which survived the opening salvo from the ranged team members so Jack took it upon himself to lure the creature and other cultists to the South hall to stay away from the team. Sure enough, his psychosis triggers multiple times and what initially looks like a Jack suicide turns out to be the annihilation of everything chasing him!

Meanwhile both Rasputin and the Kid are arrested by the night watchmen, still on patrol and somehow oblivious to the gates, monsters and cultists around. It doesn't take the pair long to get free  and by this time the others are already in position with the artifacts and disrupt the ritual, summoning a weakened Hastur into the museum right next to Jack!

An epic brawl erupts between them as a pistol wielding Rasputin and a random golden retriever he found joins the fray severely weakening the King in Yellow. Miss Ives and Adam wearing an ancient queen's tiara provide ranged support blasting holes in the abomination but this enrages him, and quickly impales both to death using his tentacled throne (at least we hope its a throne) in one hit. Hastur just diced amazingly well - even through rerolls, everything was a hit. Twice! >_<

The kid arrives immediately after this, wielding a shotgun in one hand and Excalibur in the other - laughing manically as she puts down what's left of this incarnation of Hastur in what amounts to be an epic curb-stomp finisher.

Side note: There is actually an "XCaliber" Shotgun.

MISSION SUCCESS (first try, though I did make an error with the order of Hastur's AI cards)!

Insight: We got lucky with Jack's ability here especially since fighting a shoggoth makes it really easy to trigger. Also while the guards are annoying, don't be afraid to get arrested if you can get the artifacts next to the gates.

Cthulhu: Death May Die - The Ballroom Shuffle

Keep up with the quick beat of this killer song!

A board game session from Cthulhu: Death May Die.

Morgan (DL), Safir (Mom), Miss Ives (wifey), Adam (me) and Rasputin (Juris) were dressed nicer than usual as they entered the mansion where the party was already in full swing with dancers, cultists and exotic animals already all over the place. To stop this ritual, they would need to find the four sorcerers hiding among the dancers and get them all to the waterfront to be eaten by deep ones. Rasputin has some whacked out plans.

With no time to waste the team split up, Rasputin taking on a hunting horror while Miss Ives and Safir investigating the main ballroom leaving Adam and Morgan to handle the dancers upstairs. Finding the sorcerers is time consuming and just as all are found the ritual nears completion and a FULLY POWERED and IMMORTAL Cthulhu appears, right on top of Rasputin! "PAY BACK TIME, BITCH!" it yells, but not in a tounge anyone can understand.

It lands a mighty murderous blow but Rasputin is unfazed, as the (one shot) magic armor he had found and was wearing absorbed all the damage! The others are quick to usher the last sorcerer to the waterfront, fighting off stray deep ones in the process which reduces Cthulhu to his weakened, mortal state just as Rasputin leads him into range of Miss Ives' new hand cannon. The ancient one is sent reeling and retreats upstairs where his forces amass at the blue gate.

With no choice (since the doom track is almost finished), Morgan, Rasputin and Safira all charge the monstrous horde forcing Cthulhu to abandon his allies and flee to the entry way. Alas all three, along with Safira's gorilla bodyguard and flamboyant peacock are slain in the melee. This leaves Miss Ives and Adam to blast away at the ancient one... leaving him with one hit point just as the doom track is about to finish (and end the game in defeat - luckily the next card DOES NOT advance it)!

With his victory in sight, Cthulhu is laid low by a moment of de ja vu: Rasputin who has revived (only one death this game) flies down the stairs and punches the ancient one in the face - defeating it!

Epic victory after a first round loss!

MISSION SUCCESS (after one failure where we ran out of time, but I did shoot a king cobra out of my rifle at a hunting horror that round :P)!

Insight: Try to keep the sorcerers away from any "face down" dancers or they could try hide in the crowd again. Also, go fast. Time is really against you this mission.

Cthulhu: Death May Die - Dark Cata-Tomes

Reading books in the dark is bad for your eyes.

A board game session from Cthulhu: Death May Die.

To make up for their lost members from the last outing, Rasputin (Juris) had sent Morgan (DL) to do some recruiting - collecting another gypsy named Safir (Mom) and two hired guns Miss Ives (wifey) and the narcoleptic Adam (me). Having tracked new cultists to some catacombs, they needed to loot the correct sigils from them to be able to collect two of the four tomes powering another summoning ritual.

Adam was quick to show off his skills, eliminating all the nearby guards with his rifle and promptly falling catatonic just as a confused Cthonian (giant alien type critter) arrived to investigate the noise (enemies don't attack catatonic people - LOL). Rasputin and Morgan beat this horror down and advanced with Safir deeper in the darkness while Miss Ives covered the entry way with her pistol.

These cultists were certainly better armed, bringing tommy guns and unstable grenades but it was relatively easy for the squad to find what they needed - even while fighting past ghouls that shambled ever closer. As Safira picked up the second tome a weakened Hastur was summoned into existence! While the King in Yellow managed to snap Rasputin's neck, he was no match for the firepower brought against him (including a grenade thrown by Safira and Adam's powerful rifle - when he was awake anyway). 

Hastur seems to have more tentacles than Cthulhu...

Hastur fled behind a contingent of ghouls and cultists but still couldn't take the punishment meted out against him. Rasputin even managed to land a few blows before being immolated and dying again (by now he had leveled up to revive again anyway) before Safira, having been patched up by Miss Ives' medical kit, back stabbed the King in Yellow, defeating him - causing the ghouls to crumble and die and the remaining cultists to flee. Rasputin would wake up later with a slight headache.

MISSION SUCCESS (first try)!

Insight: Our tactic of having a harvest squad and a ranged cover squad seemed to work well here, with the cover squad basically only holding either the start room or the central chamber.

Cthulhu: Death May Die - Burning Insanity

When a burning building isn't burning enough!

A board game session from Cthulhu: Death May Die.

The university building was already on fire when they arrived, just as the gypsy Fatima (Mom) predicted. Behind her was their leader, the pyromaniac Russian Rasputin (Juris), who had assembled this merry band with the sole purpose of preventing the ancient ones from emerging into this reality. The other recruits were a crazy knife wielding nun (me), Morgan the safari master (DL) and crack shot Lucky Liz (wifey).

A janitor fleeing for his life was quick to tell them about the alchemical rituals being performed by the robed nut jobs and the team knew time was of the essence to wreck their labs... because the fire wasn't wrecking them fast enough! In a mad rush upon entry, they split into two teams: the nun and the gypsy stabbing the cultist guards while the others easily destroyed two of their targets.

The main stairwell became the rally point for both the team and the cultists though, with a flaming fire vampire (slug) and hideous star spawn (mini Cthulhu)  joining the ranks of cultists to hold the line. With cover fire from Lucky Liz's revolver, Morgan advanced cracking his whip at the creatures while the gypsy and the nun continued their stabbing spree.

This gave Rasputin an opening to run past them, and they all gave chase right to another alchemic table guarded by a byakhee (man bat). Before they could do anything, Rasputin destroyed the table with his fire, the explosion killing most of his pursuers - and his pyromania killing everything else!

Morgan, Fatima and Lucky Liz used the opportunity to take the stairs up while the nun remained to hold off more cultists spawning from the gates. She was quickly overwhelmed and stabbed to death just as Liz fired an impossible shot to destroy the final lab which brought Cthulhu into the staircase next to her - but in a weakened, mortal form.

While Liz barely survived the creature's attacks, she did not expect Rasputin - burning brightly from the flames that engulfed him, to charge up the stairs and use flaming magical Krav Maga on the ancient one, causing the entire staircase to explode and ending Liz's lucky streak as she too burned to a crisp! Terrified, Cthulhu fled but was pursued by the crazed Russian who once more pummeled the creature into further retreat.

The cultists covered their god's escape by stabbing Rasputin to death, but didn't realize Morgan and Fatima had caught Cthulhu at the entryway. In the melee Cthulhu managed to grap hold of the gypsy and devour her in his tentacled maw and then turned to focus on Morgan, who excelled at tanking damage. The squid face was caught totally off guard when familiar threat had returned.

The map tiles are quite small compared to some figures...

Rasputin had come back to life (that character's special ability), and nearing the edge of insanity charged one final, flaming time at the elder being... and killed him (without going crazy). With Cthulhu and his monstrous allies banished to the void once more, Morgan and Rasputin quickly left the building and sealed the doors from the outside - trapping the remaining panicked cultists within to die: once from the smoke inhalation, twice from the fire, and a third time for good measure as the building collapsed on top of them.

MISSION SUCCESS (after two+ failures where we were still learning)!

Insight: Use the fire to go crazy faster. Also, "recurring trauma" is almost an instant lose card. Just be aware of that.

Cthulhu: Death May Die

Going crazy makes you stronger, but go too crazy and you die!

This miniature heavy box includes six missions that you can play against either Cthulhu or Hastur, who each add their own flavor to the tasks at hand - and in all cases it is too late to stop the ritual that is summoning them. Instead the goal of up to five cooperative (and already unhinged) investigators is to disrupt the proceedings so the big bads are summoned in a vulnerable state and then kill them.

It's a big box with lots of nice figurines.

Each investigator has three abilities, one of which being unique to them only, which level up as you go more and more insane. All of them also have stress tracker they can use to reroll dice, and there is A LOT of dice rolling here. Enemy movement is also simple: either a card moves or summons them or, more frequently, they just chase anyone who leaves their board space.

This can result in an army of cultists and monsters standing with you in a tiny pantry, which would be much easier to do if the board tiles were of a decent size. I think this is the biggest complaint of the game: the board pieces are too small. My only other complaint is one of the insanities handed out at the start is way harder to deal with than the rest. Other than that, it is a truly fun cooperative dice throwing romp that we greatly enjoy. Recommended! I give it three and a half tentacles out of five.

Coming up next are write ups or our play throughs through the each mission!

Chapter 1: Burning Insanity
Chapter 2: Dark Cata-Tomes
Chapter 3: The Ballroom Shuffle
Chapter 4: A Night at the Museum
Chapter 5: My Heart Will Go On
Chapter 6: Legend of the Moon
Chapter 7: Ritual Heist (Season 2)
Chapter 8: The Burning Woods
Chapter 9: Holy Murder
Chapter 10: Dig Deep
Chapter 11: Know when to Fold em
Chapter 12: The King in Yellow

That's it for now - thank you for reading!

Insight: To track the health of monsters, I use a similar method used in Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion. I just put the markers on a piece of paper listing the monster names rather than following the figures as they shamble around the board. You only really need to track the non-unique big ones.

Skyrim: Shouting at Stones

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

With my new dragon shout prepared, Sero and I headed for the nearest obelisk: the wind stone. Just like shaman dad said, a single yell was enough to destroy the corruption from it - freeing the enthralled people. It also freed a lurker (fishman) from the dark world of Apocrypha though which succeeded in killing all but one of them. I probably could have saved more but I wanted Sero to learn how to fight these things.

Ia! Ia! Cthulhu Ftagn!

The beast stone was next, and was a lot easier for Sero since the enthralled reiklings nearly killed the lurker themselves! At the water stone Sero is lucky to survive, saving only one person and needed saving himself at the end especially since a wandering dragon joined in the fight. I killed it easily once I could get up to it, but Miraak absorb-blocked my devouring of it's soul. That's ok, I have 60+ spare.

The earth stone, back at Raven Rock summons two lurkers but Sero finally gets the hang of things and saves everybody! Good job henchman. It's time to go exploring Eastwards and we don't get far when we run into the guard captain fighting off ash spawn near a dilapidated farm. After assisting him, he asks us to find the source of these creatures and end them. I love a good extermination!

Because Veleth can't win against three of them apparently.

Skyrim: First Encounter

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

Miraak's Temple was near those Nords Sero and I assisted last time. It too had a mind-control stone and a lot more people working on it than in other places. The warrioress Frea was also here, trying to wake up her people to no avail. In true Nord fashion she then turned to me and asked for my help in killing everyone responsible. Hell yes! We go down into the depths of the temple underground, easily dealing with Miraak's cultists (side note: he has the smallest cult ever).

Pendulums, why is it always pendulums?

Near the base is another black book which I use to warp to Apocrypha but this time get stunned by Miraak's magic cutscene! Apparently the ex-dragon priest and self proclaimed "first dragonborn" now resides in this realm and has not only a few dragons under his command but all the horrible fish men too. Then he does the traditional bad guy mistake of letting me go. Guess he hasn't read the tomes on being a genre savvy villain!

I made friends with Cthulhu.

Back at Solstheim, Frea takes Sero and I to her village which her shaman dad protects with magic, just not very good magic since half his villagers are working on a nearby obelisk. Shaman dad tells me that I might be able to free those stones from their corruption with a new shout. Finally, a way to get back at Miraak - by yelling at his stones! That sounds like a job for a hero... :P

Skyrim: Familiar ash, unfamiliar Darkness

Adventures in Skyrim - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

Hey, I remember climbing that.

Apparently Solstheim island is part of Morrowind, which is cool in that you can see the ever active Red Mountain in the distance. The small town of Raven Rock is where BT and I make land fall, meet the locals (mostly dunmer as expected), and get a bunch of quests like hunting netch (flying jellyfish), clearing out ash zombies from the temple, and investigating a strange stone that seems to make people mindless zombies who want to build - something. Even BT began getting entranced by it.

BT: "It's just sooo big..."

An adventure into the local mine to find the remains of some guy's missing relative also leads to familiar looking ruins and even more familiar looking draugr. There's even a cool lazer sword inside, too bad it's kinda weak. While the enemies are no problem, the last pendulum blade hall proves too much for B.T. and she is cut to pieces half way.

At the end of it I find not only a new dragon shout, but an odd black book which warps me into the black/green/tentacled realm of Apocrypha. With walls made of books and scrolls it's easy to see why its ruler, Hermaeus Mora, is regarded as the prince of knowledge. There are some abominations lurking in there, but none really pose a challenge. Having a choice from three boons at the end of the level is a pretty good idea too.

Walls of books go well with Cthulhu.

Today I Smiled: Green Olympics!

I know I'm just over a week late but happy Green Olympics everyone! Sure there might be some holes that people are falling into, but it's nothing that can't be fixed with a little duct tape! They've got some skilled camera operators too, but that hasn't stopped some competitors from... not competing? You know those guys are good when they still didn't come last place. 

Too sporty for you? Maybe you can look forward to the bionic olympics instead! Or you know, just play computer games...

That moment when NWO turns into A Tale in the Desert.

I've not been on Neverwinter Online for awhile now though I suspect soon arriving "Storm King's Thunder" module will probably draw me back in a few days. In case you were wondering, no I've not been afflicted with pokemania, though I think it would be a good idea if some cops played a variation of it at awkward hours. Criminal Go: Gotta catch em all?

Instead I've been totally sucked into Dark Souls, which I am going to write about too because... that's what I do. :P It reminds me so much of Wizardry Online - just a way better version of it. Speaking of Wizardry Online, apparently Cthulhu is there now.

That's it for now, be safe/prepared if you are at or going to Rio. I'll leave you with this really cool Rubix Cube magic clip, and if you've already seen that - a family's reaction when a brown bear gets into their camp. Spoiler: Bear Hugs involved!

Watch Dogs

Where you play as a gun-toting wizard with a magical mobile phone.

Ubisoft has a thing for open world games, and in this one you get to explore modern day Chicago as a very flawed, hypocritical and ultimately boring murdere vigilante with a magical cell phone. This is to make up for his lack of parkour ability when compared to the other well known Ubisoft open world series: Assassin's Creed. The many nods to that game here are pretty funny.

The city is huge, and as expected there are a good number of mini-games to do and skills to unlock while exploring it. Fortunately getting around via train, car or boat is pretty easy once you get the hang of it - complete with a decent enough selection of radio music to listen to while traveling. Another thing to get a hang of is the magical phone which simply gives too much information on the many NPCs. You can turn off the profiler, but most/all the good things only happen when its up.

Doubles as a handy cultist finder!

While it is certainly an entertaining game (and possibly addictive if you like Grand Theft Auto type chaos) there are a number of things that I found annoying. First it's a soft game audio wise, I needed to turn up the volume a bit to hear anything. Also, the protagonist and most of the other characters (specifically those related to him) are morons. I guess it runs in the family? Some tasks fail because you killed the main target, despite killing all his henchmen, some civilians and possibly some police officers in the process, while others it's ok to just go on a killing spree? 

Also half the missions are working as the exact type of person the protagonist is supposed to hate (killers), but if you want total completion then... oh well? There's also one part where you run the same map three or so times (because plot device), when really if you just did the "third" time first it would have saved everyone a lot of trouble. At least the difficulty (on Realistic anyway) is good, but there's just something lacking. A likable protagonist maybe? I didn't really give a crap about him or his feelings throughout the entire game.

The game is alright for one ride but pretty much becomes "meh" soon after the first act. I give it two and a half stolen cars out of five. If you want an open world title where you actually care for the protagonist, try Assassin's Creed: Black Flag instead. Edward Kenway is awesome.

Tales of the Blight: Beginning of the End

[Part of my Dragon Age: Origins play through. Spoilers ahead!]

Riordan shares with Alistair and myself why Grey Wardens are needed to stop the blight. It is specifically because to ultimately kill an archdemon, the last blow must be struck by a Grey Warden or the fiend will simply reform itself elsewhere. Ultimately, whoever does that also dies due to some absurd magical reason. Morrigan claims that she knows of a blood ritual spell that can save one of us from dying, it just requires sex. Man that sounds like an awesome spell.

However it also turns out that this will result in an "old god" being reborn so I'm not keen on it. Especially the "blood magic" part. Despite my best negotiation attempts, Morrigan gets upset by me not letting her do her ritual and leaves on the eve of the battle. Oh well. It's not like mages are a necessity anyway.

Not willing to be making any more "old gods" thank you very much!

The next day sees the army march forth to Denerim which is already in flames. After rushing the gates and defeating the outer most of the darkspawn horde it is clear the army is badly out numbered. Riordan suggests the only way to win is to go after the archdemon directly and advises I take a small team with me to try do so.

It falls upon Quickly to defend the gates, though Leliana claims she can command the defense there to prevent darkspawn reinforcements from appearing while at the same time joining me deeper in the city. That will be an interesting feat!

Eldritch Horror

Cthulhu and other Lovecraftian monstrosities are again awakening and threatening to do nasty things to the world, and once again it is up to intrepid investigators to try stop them. Much like Arkham Horror before it, Eldritch Horror is  a cooperative board game where players must run around the board to shut gates and gain clues to defeat whichever main bad guy you happen to be playing against at the time.

Unlike Arkham though, Eldritch Horror has a world wide scale with a world map as the board and each Eldritch abomination has it's own specific way of being defeated by means of its custom tailored mystery deck. Simply solve three (out of four randomly shuffled, one at a time) before it wakes up and you win.

That is not easy to do as investigators go insane and/or die permanently during the course of the game (and often through events out of your control) it is not wise to get attached to your selected character. Player elimination is avoided by letting them pick a new investigator at that point (provided the main baddie hasn't woken up yet) however there are only 12 in the base game and one of the losing conditions is that if all 12 die it is game over. No resurrection here!

Picture post game: Defeat! >.<

Eldritch is still a big game and takes a bit of time to setup and play, but because of clever streamlining it is only around half the time it takes to setup and play Arkham. This is partially because out of the 40 or so ancient one cards available you only use around 16 per game, and once those run out the players lose regardless at what stage the game is at. That for me is a huge positive, and despite the board and the dice being rigged against you it still makes for an awesome experience.

Another positive is the customized research decks against each ancient one. For example while facing Azathoth (rather, trying NOT to face him), there'll be a number of meteor showers and most likely an alien moon showing up now and again which doesn't happen if you face one of the other horrors.

The double sided cards are another great mechanic, and you are not allowed to read the flip side until the time is right. Spells are a good example. There are many copies of the same spell, but where one might flip to reveal added advantages, others might flip to reveal that by casting it you've just woken up the ancient one a little more, or slowly go insane, or accidentally insta-kill another player!

It does have a minor problem with somewhat thin card decks which means seeing repetition within a single game, but other than that it all goes swimmingly well (usually for the ancient ones). This problem is quite likely fixed with the expansion Forsaken Lore which adds a whole bunch of cards.

For me it does replace Arkham Horror due to the speeded up and polished mechanics. I give it four and a half tentacles out of five.

Re-review score: Four tentacles out of five.