Synced Century: Age of Ashes Maid of Sker

Another trio of epic games.

Synced

This futuristic shooter that involves nanites reviving the dead and somehow using one zombie as your ally actually has no future any more. Outside of the tutorial I wasn't able to create a character as the servers are shutting down on September 9 2024. Just wasn't cool enough I suppose?

Century: Age of Ashes

Of the dragon flight simulators (or large avian flight simulators) that I've played this one certainly is up there in terms of graphics as well as having an easy control scheme. Of course, it also stands apart in being purely a team versus team arena albeit with various missions while killing each other, and dragon collection and customization on the side. A little slow to load up but pretty quick to find matches so thumbs up for that too. Alas, I'm not into PvP so its not for me but its definitely worth checking out.

Maid of Sker

In this first person horror sneaker you must make your way through a creepy hotel to save your girl, and while there are heavy Resident Evil vibes with the hotel's structure and map (but not enemies) it plays more like Thief in that you must sneak past everything (though there is an alternate "escape the hotel" mode where you get weapons and can just fight your way out like a horror shooter). Because all the enemies are blind and only work using their hearing, sneaking is super effective but your character happens to be a moron who has a penchant for ringing bells, answering telephones and coughing at the worst time which is a negative for me. Oddly there's a "safe mode" that removes all enemy threats but still can creep you out with many jump scares if you just want to enjoy the pretty decent story. Thumbs up!

Floppy Knights FIST The Falconeer Rawmen

A triple F from Epic (F for Failure)!

Floppy Knights

This turn based card strategy game with cutesy art is a mishmash of things that hurt my head. It starts out where you need to fight goblin bandits meddling with antennas by using your strap on computer (oh my) to create holographic flora based forces and send them forth into battle? And make no mistake battling is the only thing you can do as you are set on a railroad of them from the get go. Not recommended.

FIST - Forged in Shadow Torch

In anthropomorphic China, you are one of the oppressed masses - an angry bunny with a robot arm who must traverse this side scrolling and platforming game to beat up the bad guys to earn enough currency to unlock more skills to better traverse and platform previously passed routes. This leads to one of my most hated game designs... back tracking. I know that's just a me thing, it really killed what otherwise was a decent if somewhat dated game. Cool graphics though!

The Falconeer

On an ocean world, mankind is stuck in towns clinging to rocks save for being able to travel on the back of giant eagles and dragons with lightning guns (and also via ocean ships and flying ships, just don't ask where the wood comes from)! So yes - this is basically a flying simulator with some story attached and while the controls take some getting used to there are some cool ideas like flying into a storm to recharge weapons and diving into the water to cool down but the game play loop isn't great as most objectives are go here, fight stuff there and then repeat. Might still be something for flight sim enthusiasts but for everyone else, skip it.

Final Bonus: Rawmen: Food Fighter Arena - it doesn't start with "F", but it has a terribly long load time followed by failing to even start the tutorial so I'm not wasting any time with this trash.

Skyrim: Miraak

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

Why read books when you can do this?

To keep my end of the deal with Hermaeus Mora, Sero and I returned to Frea's village where I rather easily convinced her shaman dad to surrender his secret knowledge of horkers (walruses). The daedric prince took it in a most violent fashion (involving tentacle insertion) and then kept his end of the deal, giving me a dragon shout that could counter Miraak. Humorously enough, to reach this final mission I simply had to read a black book in my backpack, which transported me near Miraak's temple in Apocrypha.

After the usual shenanigans with the resident abominations, I finally got to use my fully powered Bend Will shout on one of Miraak's dragons which let me mount it for some pretty cool (and quite uncontrolled) dragon flight. After a short jaunt, it set me down at the temple's summit to face his old master who was nice enough to talk first before starting the duel.

So shiny it hurts my eyes...

Miraak's use of dragon shouts was indeed impressive. He even had one which absorbed his remaining minion dragons to fully heal himself which was pretty cool. He was actually dangerous enough to convince me to use my swords too (I started by using fists, just to savour the combat). Ultimately though, Hermaeus Mora stole my kill and ended Miraak once and for all. Death by tentacle insertion. 

Miraak got raped. :P

The only worse fate is for your enemy to then make a stuffed figure out of you.

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

Merry Christmas 2015!

Just a quick Merry Christmas post to you all! I got some nice goodies this year which I'll probably blog about at a later post, but for now please enjoy a safe and happy holiday season! Since it's the correct time to post it - here's a Casting Crowns carol courtesy of Aywren who made me aware of this song. =)

Coming up next on the blog is the "continuation" of my Darklands tale, which I think I'll be trying to switch back to a daily schedule for. As for New Years Resolutions I'm only going to try have one for next year, and that is simply to Create more and Consume less - a simple yet undoubtedly difficult plan.

For your Christmas bonus links: Here's a site called Flight Aware for those interested in seeing how much metal is overhead and how much traffic Santa's had to contend with this year. You can search for specific flights or by airports. Supposedly Heathrow is the busiest, but just scroll out to see the madness worldwide!

Lastly here's a spot you can watch this crazy anime called One Punch Man for free. I briefly mentioned it before, and continue to recommend it as something crazily different from the standard fare. Your mileage may vary.

Sunset Six: Up into SPACE!

[Part of my Sunset Six story.]

Continuing with the discipline of Art and Music, that gearbox lesson from last time was required to build the thing I am most proud of currently: my fountain for Test of Dancing Waters. Also found it cool that ants make glue! Most people have a number of basins that shoot water from one into the other but for me, I just put one basin, two el cheapo nozzles and made it shoot in one direction: up.

Up into SPACE!

Pleased with my showery design, Lazybum was kind enough to donate an explosives package ("with enough gunpowder to level River Plains") to assist me with the Test of Fireworks. In it you must design and display a fireworks show and basically be among the best to pass. It's an expensive hobby, requiring a bunch of materials to make each type of effect but thanks to the package I've got mine ready to go. Just need to be online the next time an official fireworks test is on.

Very cool to play with.

Keeping with the aerial theme, the Test of Flight has you construct a raeli glider port and build gliders from treated boards to put on pretty displays for everyone. No, you can't ride them but there are functional hot air balloon ships you can use in game. The only problem with them is that running is supposedly way faster. :P

My glider port was boring - this is a much better example.

Sojourn at Entropia: The Crashed Boat

[Part of my Sojourn at Entropia story.]

I picked up a new task to investigate a late delivery being shipped in via the river.

Didn't have to go far to find the answer.

I wasn't the only one interested in the wreck however.

That's a hoverpod!

I decided to team up with Ana Hernandez who was looking for the ship's captain.

The signal transponder led in land so I gave her a lift on my Valkyrie (car).

Unfortunately the captain was dead.

Because we were closer to a different outpost over a mountain, 
Ana decided to give me a lift... in her helicopter! :D

I was a little scared since she flew pretty close to the ground!