Lords of Midnight & Doomdark's Revenge

A sample of terrible UI.

In these dated and turn based tactical games you play as a variety of individuals questing across a fantasy land to stop an evil army led by Doomdark (or in the second game, invade another kingdom). On their turns, your characters can move individually in a pseudo 3D environment - hunting for treasure, recruiting armies, and obviously fighting enemies. The second installment is a bit better in that a few of those are automated, but in exchange puts pitch black tunnels to navigate through.

Luxor stop lining up with the enemy army!

This is a hard game to play mainly because the interface is terrible. Not only do places look the same, it's easy to get lost when hopping across different characters. The old school graphics don't help. Also, there's a lol-random factor occurring here, where your hero leading 10,000 troops can get killed by 4 goblin like things out of the blue - resulting in an instant game over. Really?

I like what was being attempted here, but ultimately cannot recommend these to anyone and give it 1 dragon out of 5.

Insight: Check the maps at the start to give you some clue of where to go.

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Blaugust Bonus: "Tell us about some of your favorite antagonist/s and explain why." -Naithin

Mr. Nobody from the Doom Patrol TV series (played by Alan Tudyk).  He's powerful and terrifying yet at the same time stupidly hilarious. I mean, he's the narrator!

GTFO: R3A2 - Purification

And now for the next GTFO walk through which we three manned. This map starts you off near a huge chamber full of vision blocking, poison gas (and usually, giants) so try keep your head above it. The ideal start is being able to sneak along the right wall up a "high road" which can get you to the door to the next chamber and main hub of this map: the generator room. Bonus points if you can quietly nab a power cell in the process. Always plug those into the generateor ASAP (except the last one) to lower the poison fog level.

You'll be spending a lot of time in here, so after hammering the sleepers within take the time to memorize the layout, especially since that huge horseshoe hole is easy to fall in when the fighting starts. There are three other exits from here, and you'll always want to do them in the order of forward, right and left (down the ladder into a pit). All doors have a ready wave of "awake" monsters so prepare before opening.

For the forward and right doors, DL would set the shotgun on the line of their travel - positioned to fire at their backs while Jim foamed the line ahead so the turret would get more shots in. I brought a mine layer and put one bomb per door, because you REALLY need to hold back until the end. We used the generator hub in the center for cover as usually shooters (big shooters) would come out from these two.

From the forward door you'll enter a small circular bit that has doors going left and right. Either will take you to the same huge area and while we normally go right for starters as there's a terminal there you can use to ping stuff, going left has a slightly more important function for later so go left and clear the room. If you follow the right wall from that entry point you'll find another door that leads into a short, dark hallway that leads to a larger area beyond - which usually has both the cell and a lot of enemies.

We used the dark hallway to lure the enemies in and with the standard shotgun sentry to hit their backs and foam the floor in front of it and a closed door for bonus time they got wiped out easily. With the cell plugged in it's time to go to the next area (the right door from the Generator hub) which branches off into two directions. Open both and close the door if you don't like what you see. We got lucky here as one side had the scout and the other didnt, and the side that didn't eventually led to the cell... phew!

At this point we decided to clear the the initial poison room as the lowered fog meant DL had more time to snipe, and luring them back into the generator hub gave a lot more room to fight. The last area is the door in the pit (left from the entry door of the Generator hub) and sometimes really unfair as the scout occasionally spawns back there. Again, on our winning run he's not there.

For this final door DL had the winning tactic of setting up all the way in the cramped dark hallway we already used earlier (through the front door). With some of Jim's foam to assist in buying me time to flee and them closing the few doors as I bolt past the remaining horde is easily put down once they reach our final stand.

Down into the left pit there's always fog residue which will poison you if you duck. There are also ugly spores on the wall that make noises and spit poison if you get too close, just stay away from them. You'll soon find yourself in a big chamber with a terminal near your entry way. There are actually two paths from here: left from the entry way or directly forward to a door hidden in darkness.

Our run brought us forward and into a hallway with a large broken pipe which served as a fantastic defense spot. With DL and Jim on top of the pipe, DL's shotgun turret pointing down the pipe (to hit them in the back) and me waiting with a combat shotgun on the other end of the pipe the next few creatures were easily slaughtered and the final cell retrieved.

Before putting in the final cell, gear up and prepare. You'll need to be able to navigate the generator hub in total darkness (glow sticks to mark the way are handy) and make your way out back to the original drop point. We took the high path we initially used to sneak in and this is where I placed all my last seven mines along the walls. This is because mines explode in the direction of the trip laser, putting it on the floor will only kill the one directly on top. Near our hold spot we placed the shotgun sentry and foam defense as usual, just being careful with the sentry angle so it wouldn't be shooting at us.

When ready, everyone needs to be in the generator hub when you put the last cell in. There is a single security scan red circle thing to stand in and as soon as that finishes and everything goes dark - RUN (obviously along the route with your defenses). You should be able to reach the position and ready your firing line (we actually also planned positions / left-right-center before hand), and get to about 50% completion before any of the scum reach you. Just hold for the remaining time and GTFO. :)

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Blaugust Bonus: "Tell us about some of your hobbies outside of the realm of your specific niche." -Solarayo

What specific niche? I blog about everything here! Haha! Well, my least blogged hobby are my music studies so I guess I'll have to start posting videos and giving up even more anonymity. Yeah. That's unlikely to happen.

GTFO: R3A1 - Resuscitation

Since GTFO is a really tough game I'm writing how my team achieved victory: one map at a time. Hopefully this might be of help to someone but yeah... this will be really slow going! Haha!

Our first map was R3A1 and is a good "tutorial" of the pain awaiting you. The first three rooms are a nice practice zone on how to hammer sleepers without waking the others up. As long as nothing is glowing, you are free to move and kill. Note: killing one while another in the distance is glowing WILL wake him up. Even if they wake up you still have a few seconds to murder it before it can scream and wake the rest of the room.

Room number four is where the path diverges. On our run, there were too many scum so DL opened the door and snipered a few before falling back to the first doorway where Jim, Morphius and myself waited. Getting hordes to funnel makes them easy to shoot. Remember to aim for the head.

Since the alarm door is next (make sure you open the correct one) Jim and DL put their shotgun sentries on the outside of the main door (parallel as to not assist in destroying it) and Morphius froze the door to give the guns more time to kill the wave. It's then standing on top of stupid red circles until the alarm deactivates, and when the enemies do break through they should be weakened and in lesser number.

Up next is the key card room which is always guarded by a tentacle head scout. Ideally I'd sneak this room, without killing anything but since it was too risky - DL simply sniped the scout and we fought the remaining enemies in the chamber by luring them out to the shotgun sentries again.

Once you have the keycard you gain access to the garden room which almost always has sleepers. There's a tight space just on the left near the entrance which is a great place for combat shotgun wielders to hold should things go loud. Afterwards it is the dark "speaker" hall and the large foyer to the cradle room. On our run we managed to just hammer our way through the sleepers.

Another alarm door blocks the way into the cradle room though so this time Morphius iced the outer "speaker" hall door and I did the same with the door between that hall and the cradle room foyer, while both Jim and DL's shotgun sentries were again outside. After two red circles I then rushed the to re-ice the door to buy the team more time to finish the scan sequence. This worked and we could clear the remaining scum.

Second to the last part is to revive the "baby" which came in with you. Before bringing it to the cradle we moved the restocked the sentries, put the last ice near the broken door of the foyer and assigned DL and Morphius to cover fire down the hall while I'd bodyguard Jim who would carry the baby back. Carrying it means he can't run or fight. We also did a "dry run" prior to putting the ice foam (which melts in 3 minutes) so that no one would get lost.

After taking the baby out of the cradle will come the final, endless wave. DL and Morphius did great in keeping the monsters at bay, and I took point with the combat shotty once we moved past them. As one, we made our way back to the drop point - sealing the start door behind us to buy more time. You need to hold the scan area back at the drop point to win.

Big thanks to Morphius who clinched this victory for us, even though that was his first time playing GTFO, his extra DPS was enough to get us to the finish line.

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Blaugust Bonus:  "Do you 'finish' games/hobbies/projects and move on or do you come back to the same things again and again?" -Nogamara

Game wise if I like them then yes, I try finish them but otherwise no, and I rarely come back to a game after moving on as well. Projects wise, well... its getting started that seems to be the problem. Need to get past that hurdle before thinking about finishing anything!

Borderlands 2: Boss Killers

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

Having completed our training, we leave Sanctuary STRONGER and absolutely murder an abomination created by Dr. Zed, assassinate a Hyperion DJ and clean up some skag piss as well as the stinky, leaky skags responsible. Even Captain Scarlett pops up again and threatens us with a new wurm who we DESTROY in under two minutes before running off again.

With our INCREASED MURDERICITY we then return to battle Voracidious and Chief Ngwatu, and this time with DL luring the Chief while Jim uses dual rocket launchers on the monster (I gave him mine as it makes sense tactically), and myself throwing 14 fastball grenades at it before going BERSERK in hand to hand - we win in a short but intense battle!

Afterwards we head back to challenge the main big boss BEHIND EVERYTHING... Master Gee! This guy and his baby wurms are still freaking tough, so instead of regular grenades we switch to gravity-pulling ones to keep him off balance. Despite this Jim and DL still go down, but I manage to find some cover and OUTLAST the Master in a long battle of ATTRITION. Once he is dead our job is complete - and the Borderlands are safe again... until we get more DLCs or the next game that is!

Krieg can become pretty invincible too, with the right build!

Insight: Voracidious and Master Gee are two complete opposites in combat. Master Gee is a lengthy survivability test while Voracidious is a fast DPS race. Prepare accordingly!

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Blaugust Bonus: "If you could meet any person you look up to, who would it be?" -Bhagpuss

My dad. It sounds silly since I already had years and years with him. I guess it really just is never enough huh?

Worst Restaurant Experience

Blaugust centric post today: "Write that one post you wanted to write so often, but always postponed. Finally do it!" -Easha and Poppy

Sure! Here we go... We've probably all had one or more of these, but I thought I'd share my worst restaurant experience to date.

It was Father's Day I think, so the place was visibly busy but we were seated in a short amount of time. Then the waitress comes up to us and says that we can order drinks but not food yet because the kitchen is "too busy". Um. Really? That's not a good look for someone in the service industry.

Anyway, sure - we got some drinks and waited around until said drinks were finished, all the time more people were coming in and being told the same of not being able to order food. So at that point we paid for the drinks and left to eat at a establishment that actually values its customers. I mean, even fast food joints like McDonald's knows to take your order/money ASAP so I'm not sure what these people were thinking.

I grinned with malicious satisfaction when the place closed a few weeks later. It doesn't matter how good your food is if your service is worthless. Turn people away at the door if your kitchen is running that far behind schedule!

Thankfully that space has now been replaced by a restaurant whose service and food are fantastic, and one we regularly frequent.  Here's a good example of why it's always good to prune out the worthless shits to make room for better things so ALWAYS, ALWAYS leave scathing reviews to burn those businesses to the ground! HELL YEAH!

What you think that's too far? Like the time I got a bus driver fired for being too slow? Sorry (not sorry). Time is the most precious commodity, and I'm not going to waste mine on the incompetence of others.

Oh that felt good. Maybe I should put more rage induced posts up! Thanks Easha and Poppy for the suggestion! (Now you know why I postponed writing it!)

Borderlands 2: Vanquishing Evil

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

The wizard Claptrap is as much of a failure as the regular Claptrap, but thanks to my awesome trap deactivation and jumping puzzle skills we get out of the mine and Jim rewards me with his legendary Fastball grenade because we're awesome (and he says it makes more sense tactically).

We then go up the mountain to Dragon keep, defeating the Handsome Dragon guarding a bridge and then SWORDSPLODING through an evil army before killing the Handsome Sorcerer and disemboweling his Drider-Daughter. With the villain defeated, DL sets free the beautiful rainbow queen of the land... BUTT STALLION! *NEEEEIIIGHH!*

Not so handsome after I'm through with him! Muahahaha!

After she poops out rainbow rewards for us, we learn of more evils that need squishing - starting with the whiney and cowardly prince Jeffrey (from Game of Thrones) who we take turns beating down. We then visit Murderlin's temple arena and survive all the rounds, even the bonus badass round, to learn various magic spells like fireball, chain lightning, and magic missile (regenerating grenades)!

Thus prepared, we revisit the deep mines to face the RAID DRAGONS - a ferocious foursome of winged beasts that we take down for a reward room unlike any other - we spend hours looting the treasure chest filled ruins and complete Tina's campaign!

Insight: You need to pull the swords out of the Immortal Skeletaurs to kill them permanently.

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Blaugust Bonus: "What is your earliest memory related to one of your core fandoms?" -Syp

That would be the D&D adventure where the party came across a hall full of lifelike statues with a locked door at the end, and I decided to bash it open and fall right into a basilisk den. Due to lousy initiative they got first move and I got turned to stone immediately. I was not useful that session at all. :P

Borderlands 2: Gaming is Training

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

And so we arrive in a desolate land plagued by skelemen and upon reaching the nearby town we find it filled with familiar faces. DL protects tavern owner Moxxi from some rowdy drunks, I chase down some crumpet thieves, and Jim explodes some of the town's scout blimps for Mister "Gatekeeper" Torque before we are allowed to move on to the Forest of Being Eaten Alive by Trees... THIS GAME IS GREAT!

The forest is home not only to angry ents, but also formidable orcs and scary looking spiders. Deeper in we even have to beat up some other adventurers who are camping a boss monster and save a crestfallen player from the invader "n00bkiller" before running into Roland "the White Knight" who is totally OK that Jim shot down the scouting blimp he was on.

Such a dork souls moment!

As recompense we help him retrieve a magic sword from a giant golem and as a reward each get a totally awesome SWORDSPLOSION shotgun which shoots a sword that explodes into more exploding swords! Thank you Mr. Torque! After fighting past dragons and giant skelemen kings we then enter the Mines of Avarice to forge an alliance with the dwarves who all look like Jim!

Everything goes smoothly until I "accidentally" explode the face of the dwarven king turning all the dwarves and their golems hostile. The little bastards even seal us in, but we find the wandering wizard Claptrap nearby willing to help us out... after we forge him a mighty beard taken from dead dwarves and power up his wand by inserting it into a number of magical creatures, before killing them. I DO ALL THE INSERTING!

Insight: Ents are weak to fire while knights are weak to corrosive but I like skelemen best as they're weak against melee!

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Blaugust Bonus: "Tell us about a person/s or thing/s that has greatly influenced you." -Chestnut

My very patient wife! She has me expanding my palate and perfecting another language.