Project First Contact and Targeted 10 Days

Games that are too simple?

Project First Contact

This feels like someone's early attempt at making a first person horror game, and with the vague explanation of an "alien invasion" you will be running down what is usually a single on the rails path to avoid some really bizarre enemies like cop clothes, floating heads, and burning corpses slithering on the ground? Then you get to the underground level and it becomes even more strange. Not recommended.

Targeted 10 Days

In this small game you must survive for 10 days until you can give evidence against a mafia don and the whole loop each day is going to the parking garage, looking to see if there's something out of place that could kill you, and then deciding if you are getting in your car or back in the elevator. If there's a trap, the elevator guarantees safety. If there's no trap, the elevator guarantees death. It's annoying at the start without knowing what to look for, but at least a map on the elevator shows where the last thing that killed you was hiding so you know to check there in the future. 

While the well hidden traps are annoying, it does make the super obvious traps very funny (like your car is COVERED in dynamite. LOL). And if you get too good at that you can switch it to anomaly mode which puts it very much into a Halloween style ghosts and goblins mode. It's polished enough to be a fun diversion for a few hours.

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.

The Cursed: Is this Azkaban?

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Down the well the party runs into a dead end by way of locked doors and without a thief or knock spell, they have no choice but to leave Durlag's tower for now. Instead they head North across the previously closed bridge at meet Flaming Fist captain Scar who asks them to investigate the Merchant's League at Baldur's Gate.

The smarty pants gnome cleric Quayle joins them for this task, but Catharina decides to detour to the unexplored Northern lands first - helping a farmer against a zombie horde and discovering the small settlement of Ulgoth's Beard. This quaint village is curious due to its fascination with Durlag and his tower. They even have regular tours to the place!

An arch-mage runs the town and he asks for aid in recovering his cloak. A simple task on the surface, but when Catharina accepts she her team are teleported to a wizard island prison where most of the inmates equal parts powerful and crazy. Shar-Teel is immolated by a flame strike early on, but the team manages to clear all the scum and recover the cloak, which earns them a return trip to the village.

Flaaaaamestriiiike!

Insight: Damage over time attacks such as Melf's acid arrow or poison works well against spell casters as it increases the odds of having their spells interrupted - basically wasting their move.

The Cursed: Durlag's Basement

[Part of the Cursed story line]

With the higher levels secure the team heads downstairs and finds a thief NPC who is leaving the grounds and basically acts as a EULA that the dungeon below is more than unfair. This doesn't stop the team from descending and being welcomed by a twin fireball trap! Fortunately Faldorn is pretty good at healing now.

Soon, they meet four ghost warders who each ask for a quest item before letting the team access the deep well down. While the ghasts and spiders on this floor aren't very dangerous, progress is terribly slow due to all the cheap traps but the team quickly learns to be on their toes around anything where there are already dead bodies.

Of course, upon giving the last quest item to the warders they all turn hostile and are walking cheat codes. One is a walking cloud kill generator for example. To defeat them, the team hides in an engine room while Party Girl, equipped with boots of speed, protective spells and lots of healing potions baits them into the "long hallway trap", easily spotted by the pile of bodies on either side of it.

It's called using the room to your advantage!

Her speed and buffs let her avoid most of the damage (I think it is lightning bolt x 6, fireball x 3) while the ghosts face tank the full blast... 3 times. Yep, she has to run laps before they are all destroyed.

Insight: A character moving fast enough evade lightning bolt traps as they are directional. Arrow traps and fireballs seem to be homing though, and no matter how fast you run you will get hit. Even through walls!

Today I Smiled: The Finisher

So this is what happens when Neverwinter Online refuses to let me play. I simply go finish other games like Gauntlet, Forced, Deathtrap, Torchlight 2, Off-Peak, Escape the Game, Blameless and Disturbed. Strange that after all the endless grind, having things that reach completion actually feels very rewarding!

Also ended is my Skyrim story for now with the Dark Souls "Tales at the Bonfire" taking center stage for awhile on this blog. Status wise the number of links (to blogs that post at least every three weeks) is pretty low these days. I'll be refilling that sometime during the Christmas and New Years break, so we'll see how many are still "alive" then.

Insert the regular "blogging is dying?" title here!

Other than that I've learned that lemmings aren't suicidal, eagles easily slay drones, and that fart collecting backpacks for cows exist. I'll finish off with two happy videos - one of a dog getting a life size Gumby and one of another dog being reunited with her pups. Have a good day everyone! :)

Skyrim: Tomb Raider

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

Nice place!

After a decent jog through the desert, we reach the city of Ben Erai where Rayya is waiting for us! She explains that this particular community of Redguards have lived here in isolation for generations waiting for me to arrive, to "help" me with the final tests to reach the Champion of Cyrodiil's mausoleum - his real tomb, which was around here somewhere. At least now I can understand now where Rayya was sending all my decorating funds.

That moment when you think you are in A Tale in the Desert.

I did have to ask how she got here though, and in the back of the Fortress I am shown working teleporter to Falkreath, for those who know the Ancient vision spell. You mean I could have just jumped here directly? That... would have been more convenient you know. Anyway, their version of help simply involves telling me I need a key and an amulet of cheetah friendship from somewhere in the valley to proceed. Of course they have a lot of other tasks such as hunting fire charrus and punching desert wolves.

Wolf punching.

The majority of the Eastern part of the valley was filled with tombs though, and I mean the huge sprawling type such as the one pictured above. They were filled with shades, skeletons, mummies and most problematic - STONE CRUSHER traps. Not really a problem for me since my light step doesn't trigger pressure plates anymore.

Unfortunately Rayya doesn't have that perk. Squish.

Deathtrap

Tower Defense meets Diablo.

Deathtrap is an odd nugget. You start out by picking a hero class (fighter, hunter, wizard) and then get a quick spiel of these magical islands which serve as the titular "Deathtrap(s)" that stopped monstrous hordes from invading the world. Those isles have long been abandoned though and now its up to you to stop the new invasion cycle by constructing your own death traps: like poison gas, fireball towers and gun turrets. It's also way more "mature" than say Dungeon Defenders.

While trap locations are set in that you cannot put whatever, where ever you feel like - there is a pretty good variety available to you which are strong against some monster types and weak against others. Also, before each wave is a "planning phase". There's no timer (that I've come across yet) so you have all the time to prepare the map how you see fit. You are also shown the paths each wave will take, and given a list of all the enemies + their strength and weaknesses + where they are coming from. With all that info it should be easy right? Not quite. :P

So many things to kill!

Each map has a variety of difficulties to choose from, and some have extra quests like kill this monster who isn't part of any wave. He's just standing over there - far from anything else. Oh, he's also invulnerable during the planning phase so you'll have to decide if you are going to hunt him or defend the portal. Monsters that get to the portal reduce it's HP, same as a player dying (insta respawn though, not like *cough*Insurgency*cough*). If the portal reaches 0 life then you lose. If you kill all the enemies, a chest appears and you get your Diablo style "shower of loot" and hefty XP and research points.

There's a ton of upgrades you can do between missions, to your skills, to each trap, to your equipment - you can even forge new gear though it's through a BS RNG method of having the materials then crossing your fingers you get the stats you want. Despite all of this, I found it really boring when playing solo. It's just tedious. It is way more fun played cooperatively, though you'll probably want to use Mumble or some 3rd party voice chat since it doesn't come built in with one. Though it does come with an editor if you run out of maps. :P

If you have a buddy or group that enjoy(s) tower defense to play with, then I give this two and a half monster waves out of five. If you plan on playing solo then give it a skip.