LEGO Lord of the Rings

Where one CAN simply walk into Mordor.

Following the events of the movie trilogy, this LEGO retelling is much more humorous despite using the same voiced lines. How much more humorous? Well, Strider managing to lock the Nazgul in the toilet in the Bree Tavern is a good example.

Who do you get to play during this? Well, everyone. In story mode you can switch between active party members at will, and will need to as different people have different skills. Sam can make plants grow, Gimli can smash rocks, Legolas can jump higher etc. It's also not too challenging, though some bugs towards the end might require a few mission restarts.

Had to replay the Black Gate battle a few times...

Speaking of bugs, I also needed to reduce the resolution to get it to run smoothly, but YMMV. This is definitely designed for collectors though, because after finishing all the story content I only had 33% completion. The rest is found in the open world "free play" which is both massive and for me, empty. Still, this was a fun and mostly relaxed way to relive the movies so I give it 3 rings out of 5.

Uukrul: HOYAMOQ!

Part of the Fate of Heroes series - spoilers ahead!

After the close call against Thurazz last time, Balthazarr decides to take the team on an upper level patrol again for experience, and to keep an eye out for stone hearts that they supposedly will need to defeat Uukrul. That last bit of knowledge was courtesy of Helga now being able to access the higher tomes in the magician's circle.

As expected, there is not much that can challenge them now - but through careful navigation and searching they do find secret doors they previously missed (or in two cases, missed due to floor spinners). Secret doors are annoying. Most cannot be forced. A few have levers that open them. Some need a magic word.

For all other times, there's Hoyamoq. A prayer to the god of knowledge. Like most prayers, it doesn't always work and even when it does - you need to repeat it. Many times. So poor Andraste is there praying in front of a wall, reciting "Hoyamoq, hoyamoq, hoyamoq..." over and over until the door opens. Helga found this hilarious, but later on she'd find variations that need the wizard spell "Talis". And yes, it also requires repetition.

So at what point can I just cast fireball or something to explode it open?

Despite the silliness, it's actually quite a productive (albeit long) outing - netting a variety of treasures and three stone hearts!

Dark Souls II: Gesture of Friendship

Tales from Dark Souls - spoilers ahead! You can follow the rest of the story here!

The interior of the Iron Keep is pretty well guarded by very "Eastern" knights wielding katanas who do a good job in giving me a hard time. An explorer named Magerold is here too, selling wares and talking about a shrine of dragons somewhere as well as Lucatiel who finally joins my party. I also should note this is the first area of the game that I've seen player summon signs, and get my very first co-op cleric named Lee.

The more the merrier!

The three of us make easy work of a smelter demon boss (1st go), which causes my team to disband. Lee waves vigorously as he vanishes. I only realize now that there is no actual method of communication beyond in game gestures and slow to write messages, so I spend a few minutes after the battle to learn and practice the gestures my character knows. In case you are reading this, thank you Lee!

The next area is some type of foundry which really kicks my butt with enemies knocking me into lava or just overwhelming me. Takes awhile before I find an alternate route (hard to see during combat and fire traps) above the gauntlet, defeating Oliver the Collector and finding a switch to turn off all the flame traps in the keep. Then I found the inappropriately dressed Manhunter O'Harrah nearby who accompanied me onto a lake of lava to face this guy...

Didn't Gandalf deal with you?