Centipede, Black Widow and Death Coming

Three silly pixel games.

Black Widow: Recharged and Centipede: Recharged

These two top down arcade shooters could almost be the same game. In Black Widow you play a spider on a web that shoots a machine gun against incoming mosquitoes and bees to get points, while in Centipede you play just as a gun that fires at a variety of bugs, but mostly decapitation resistant centipedes who moves akin to the space invaders, only this time they have cover - not you. Not great games by any means. I suppose they might be more fun in co-op but with so many better games to co-op the question remains... why?

Death Coming

Does it pay well?

As death's apprentice, you must kill as many people as you can in the time allotted using the many death traps lying around each isometric map - and you get a bonus for killing three specific people too. "Death traps" is used loosely, because these could be anything from changing traffic lights when they shouldn't to summoning alien invaders. It's morbidly fun but quickly repetitive and is only made worse when angels show up to make your job more difficult. Not a bad game, but there are certainly better ones.

Developer Appreciation: Wizardy Online Permadeath

Death is a slap on the wrist in many MMOs these days with even "corpse runs" becoming extinct as far as I can tell. Even Dark Souls "punishment" is only a mild inconvenience when you think about it. Well, one MMO decided to go the opposite way and for that reason alone I really liked it. Wizardry Online was a tough SOB. It had unfriendly instructions, controls and difficulty spikes which really made it less than appealing for casual players to get into.

Yep, this party is boned.

On top of all that, there was a permadeath system in place that really put you on edge when exploring a new zone or even traversing an old one. The idea that your next death could be your last really pushed you to ask yourself if you -really- wanted to try fight those three monsters for a treasure chest, or if you should keep delving deeper despite already being wounded. All that, and it wasn't even guaranteed perma death - just the threat of it is effective enough.

This is because when you die there you respawn as a ghost and have to run back to a shrine / safe spot to resurrect. Reviving is simply a dice roll, with a base success of 90%+. You can even guarantee your revive by sacrificing items to whatever force is reviving you. The kicker is, when you run back to the shrine as a ghost all you can see are other ghosts, and reapers: apparitions of death that patrol the halls who can outrun you (hope you practiced dodging). 

Should they reap your soul, you get put back to the spot your body is at and can try run back to the shrine again. You also get a -10% chance to revive !each! time they do this. Fortunately, other players can pick up your body and move it somewhere closer to a shrine or even take you back to the safety of town (you still need to roll though). I thought it was a great system.

Alas, the rest of the game wasn't quite up to scratch and Wizardry Online ended up suffering its own permadeath. Still, if there's one system I would hijack from this game it is that one. RIP Wizardy Online. RIP. For those who want to see what it was like, I suggest watching Dremlock's short video on youtube.

Dragon's Dogma: Fool's Errand

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

After what happened last time I decide it's best to adventure outside the capital for awhile, and Madeline the busty merchant decides to tag along. She is unlucky as we run into night-time drake with an army of goblins encounter again, and since last time going for the goblins let the drake breath fire on our charge this time I went for the flying wyrm. It was a faster victory, but not fast enough as by the time I turned around Madeline was gone, abducted by the goblins.

Frustrated I decided to head back to Bitterblack Isle and hunt Death, because I found I had a "god arrow" in my pack. It was tough going fighting or running past the stronger foes such as greater goblins, hell hounds, giant saurians, and a dragon with a heart on it's back this time around. We did find the spirit though and the god arrow hurt it bad (and killed everything else in the area) but it wasn't enough to destroy it.

Well, this was a bad idea.

I was foolish enough to pursue the reaper into the sewers where I thought a run and gun tactic would probably work given enough time. A randomly spawning elder ogre ended that idea mid-chase and while managed to kill it, Rose, Lily and Ingvald were all caught by Death's "sleep AoE" lantern. All I could do was grab Rose and sprint out of the way as Death's scythe cleaved the other two in half with a single swing. After getting away I teleported out of there and back to Cassardis.

Dragon's Dogma: A Tale of Women

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

With my Port Crystals in place Captain Mercedes joins the team for a brief night patrol of the Shadow Fort, and of course we run into huge trouble in the pitch black forest. An army of goblins assaults us from all directions, combined with a drake from the air. I do my best to keep the goblins off her but she is downed by dragon fire and needs to be returned for medical attention after the combat.

Fortunately our next escort mission, to take the tavern keeper Inez on a short adventure is far more successful since she doesn't opt to go far, or to a very dangerous place. Once she is back to safety I am feeling pretty confident with the strength of the team so we return to Bitterblack Isle and we make our way back to the Bich and his undead dragon. This time Rose is using the same crazy spells it throws at us, Yennefer is whipping it with lightning, and Lily is tanking better since I'm silencing and poisoning the Bich with specially prepared arrows.

That's one p0wn3d bich.

Victory comes at last, and opens another shortcut back to Olra and another route further down which we follow into a flooded keep with stronger phantoms and problematic giant saurians who we need to sprint past, right into really tough evil mercs!? I have to abuse their leash mechanism to kill them. We have another encounter with Death in a sewer but once more outrun the giant spirit. We do have to fight a tough living armor afterwards and destroying that opens a door leading to an ancient city which feels so familiar for some reason.

Dragon's Dogma: Placing Ports

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

Near the Greatwall is a mini dungeon called Soulflayer Canyon which serves as a "not so shortcut" back across the map and is home to lots of ugly critters. While traversing it, Barnaby is once again put to sleep by snow harpies and this time since they also manage to ice me and have the rest of the team dealing with goblins one of them picks up the sleeping fool and spirits him away. Presumably to make baby harpies, followed by Barnaby steak. We never see him again.

Easiest cyclops kill in here!

We then journey far past a windy valley that doubles as a bandit camp and encounter our first golem! Again, good idea for this creature - powered by magic immune disks that serve as its weak spots. You can't pick and choose though, you need to get them all - and with one in the palm of its hand and another in the base of a foot it proves to be a good challenge. Eventually we reach the crumbling Bluemoon Tower we had seen all the way from the other end of the bay at Cassardis. I love the draw distance in this game.

If you are wondering why the heck I'm going to these places it's simply to place Port Crystals (as I mentioned to Coppertopper in the comments previously) so that I can just warp back to them later. It's certainly pretty handy for the cascade of hunting quests I've been assigned. Everything from rats to Death. Yes, there is a quest to kill Death and while I know where to find him I don't see how the heck I'm meant to do that one.

Dragon's Dogma: The Bich

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

Since the altar is closer to Cassardis, I decide to trek back there and recruit the towering Nord gal Juliana and take the team back to Bitterblack Isle with Olra's help. We are much stronger this time around so I decide to take on that Cockatrice we ran past previously. Keeping with good D&D, the damn bird has a petrifying breath and Rose and Juliana are stoned midfight just as a huge black boss wolf shows up out of nowhere, because that's a thing here. Randomly spawning bosses.

I manage to cure Rose in time but Juliana is shattered by the big bad wolf before both beasts are laid low. Despite her loss we press on and recruit another ranger deeper in named Monterrey before taking on the giant beholder that stopped us before. Not so this time as we have enough ranged attacks and raw power (from Lily) to take it out. This opens a shortcut back to the surface (ala Dark Souls) and a path deeper into an underground fort with undead.

What made it challenging is our good buddy Death showed up again, meaning the team had to sprint through all the scum to avoid his one hit kill scythe, right into elder ogres and a tough minotaur type thing. Fortunately the spirit vanished at that point and let us handle these tough fights properly. There's also an undead dragon we have to run past later but it doesn't matter since it catches up to us at the next boss fight with its partner, the Lich Bishop - or Bich for short.

This is probably not going to end well...

This floating Bich proves to be way too tough as he summons tornadoes and other BS magics on top of being able to resurrect the dragon at will so once again we have to warp out of there, promising Olra will get that Bich next time.

Dragon's Dogma: Stage One - DEATH!

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

Having earned some fame I am allowed (to create) my own bodyguard - who I design as Rose the sorceress (because, wifey!). I also recruit a warrior type lady named Anise and after some quick training exercises with Ser Berne, the sergeant at the encampment, we head back to Cassardis to hand in and complete a handful of other newbie quests (like flower picking). Since it is night time when we arrive, we find a spirit lady named Olra at the docks who asks for our help. I say yes, and we are warped to Bitterblack Isle.

That's not a big black curtain behind us...

This turns out to be an "end game" area but I don't care. We push through the insanely strong greater goblins and run into Death himself, who we have no option but to run from. Rook is too slow and gets beheaded by the reaper's scythe before it vanishes into the shadows. Undaunted, we push on - often having to run past things like giant skeletons, skeleton warlocks, a cockatrice, and gargoyles, until we reach a deep chamber which is the home to a giant floating eye.

This beholder is far too tough so we backtrack out of there for the time being. Fortunately we now have some pretty cool gear, enough XP to reach level 17 and a rather large sum of gold in the bank. :)

Skyrim: Meeting Death

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

Since those two kids are pretty independent, I just put in a word with the locals to keep an eye on them while I return to questing. Daddy's gotta work right? Well, no not if I'm this rich but more like.... daddy's gotta kill people. MUAHAHAHAHAH *scary face*. 

Sofia gets it.

After some regular bandit and vampire hunting Sofia, Bo and I arrive at the ruins of Azhgarfund - an interesting ruin with logic puzzles, fake walls that you have to jump backwards into, and a giant robot who almost kills both my companions simply because of how strong his armor is. The room was designed to weaken him upon luring him to the corners but the brute force method certainly felt more rewarding. He was ultimately tougher than the "summoner" mage at the bottom of the dungeon who basically didn't summon fast enough. :P

A true man shaped tank!

We then traveled to Dawnstar where an entire clan of Ebony Warriors (related to that first guy I guess) had taken over the Quicksilver Mine. The battle was ultimately fast but furious, and again the girls came near death but we walked away the victors. We were then tasked with finding a missing Vigilant of Stendarr caravan and suddenly a dwemer bot rolled up to us and teleported me (and only me) to some weird room with little explanation. I was now in the company of Nobby Nobs, Fred Colon and... Death?

He's as surprised as I am.

You are dying (Experiment).

Hi all! I'm taking a few days off from blogging so there won't be any new posts for two or three days after this one, at which point the Darklands of Arkania story will continue. Still, this gives me an opportunity to spring this little experiment on you!

All you need is either MS notepad, or a pen and paper (or a really good memory)! Please do try to keep it as serious as possible and at the end I'd like you to please put just the one result I ask for in the comments section below, if it isn't too much trouble. So, let's begin!

(1) You got some bad news and have learned you only have 24 hours to live. Write down what you would do with your last day. Please try be realistic on your timings - doing a world trip or going to the moon would probably take too long. Once done, draw a horizontal line beneath your list (or skip a few lines) and move on to (2).

Highlight the text to make it visible. :)

(2) Good news, your life expectancy has increased to one week! Continue your list of things you would do (don't duplicate things from above unless you really want to revisit them) with your final week to live, underneath the line or blank space (just to keep the list separate). Those overseas relatives might not seem so far now... Once done, again put some marker or leave a space and move on to (3).

(3) Amazing, you will now live for a whole month! Continue your list again now with what you'd like to do in your last month of life, no need to duplicate things you've already listed unless you really want to revisit them. Once done, put a marker or leave a space and move on to (4).

(4) Congratulations - you will now live for six months! Continue your list now (technically you have 5 months to add since your first one is already listed out). Don't worry too much about price and money stuff for this part - it can be your "bucket wishlist". Once done move on to (5).

(5) I imagine you would have a pretty long list now, and I'm sure some people would have longer lists than others. I'd like you to put in the comments below the only entry I'm interested in: 

What section did you put "play [my current mmo/game]" (or a variation there of) in? Did it even make it to your list? 

Please post your findings in the comments below. :)

Turn off the Engine

Just a small post in honor of my grandfather whose funeral was held yesterday. Having held a long, fruitful, and exciting life, Lolo (aka "the Avatar" and "Kantor" in Ultima Online) was a man of good character much loved by family and friends all over the globe.

A good portion of his 95 years was spent out at sea and when he would take people out on his (around 40 ft) sailboat that he built himself, one of his usual expressions would be to "turn off the engine" when the sails had caught the wind.

In his last days as he slipped in and out of the dreamland and in between making funny jokes and funnier faces to still make people laugh, he mentioned this again with a smile on his face. Eventually, his sails caught the wind and he was soon sailing off into the big blue sky.

Farewell Avatar. You will be missed.

Sunshine (and Death)

The sun is dying. The only way to save the world is to send a bomb into it to make a new star out of an old one (um, I would think that might vaporize a few planets but future science knows better!), so the movie picks up with the second and final (due to the first mysteriously failing and a lack of resources for a third bomb) vessel and its handful of crew going in to attempt this important mission. *thumbs up*

What could go wrong?

It's a very interesting premise, and in general all the characters are quite well portrayed and relatable. The effects are awesome too, which is good for a space focused movie. Now what I didn't like about it was how the final arc was shot. Earlier on the movie begins introducing flashes of still pictures into traveling shots and for a time they work well in what they are supposed to do - make you on edge and be thinking "what was that". The last part they use some of this again this time freezing the actual scene that's taking place for... more impact? Not so good. Either that or my DVD decided to stutter at just the right moments. :P

Despite that, Sunshine is a movie I can recommend, and give it three and a half solar flares out of five. Warning, the rest of the post deviates into real life.

For me, one of the more interesting questions posed in the movie is that of death. Do you just quietly go out into the night or do you rage against the forces of fate for at every inch? If your life was in someone else's hands, what would you want them to do? Documentary makers don't interfere when wildlife kill each other. Do they do the same if its a documentary about people? As some of you might know, my father suffered a massive stroke at the end of last year to the extent that he was there on the brink, half his body paralyzed and no longer eating food. Most of the medical staff we talked to suggested we just "make him comfortable".

It was interesting to see the reactions of my quite large family. A cousin tearfully admitted that if he were in the same place, to end his life. I, on the other hand, want to live forever even if it's just my brain left for infinite resuscitation. Many of the others were half/half, until they found out that "make him comfortable" translates to drug him up and don't feed him anything anymore. In my book that isn't "letting go", that's murder. The others agreed so we shoved a tube down his nose to force feed him, and a few days later he was awake, lucid, and managing to eat. 

Was that the right decision? Maybe it would have been easier to let him die? Then my mom wouldn't need to be visiting him everyday. She wouldn't have all those other expenses. With half a body, dad can't do the things he used to enjoy: carpentry, photography, dancing, jogging. He can't even go back to his own house since it's not access friendly and currently lives in the nursing home.

What is the right decision? I guess it varies from person to person and situation to situation. For me at least, I know what my answer is and I doubt it will ever change no matter how selfish it might seem. Yes living is hard, but as the saying goes "Where there is life there's hope."

He has since moved from very thickened liquids to purees to pretty much regular food. From being stuck in various beds, physiotherapy has improved his core enough to be able to sit in a wheelchair (still needs a lot of help to stand). A few days ago we managed to take him to the mall and eat out with other family members at the local Yum Cha where he was happily sharing jokes and feeding himself with his one good hand.

Don't ever quit on life.