Blood in Space: Templar Battleforce Tharsis

Two turn based games with death among the stars.

Templar Battleforce

With deadly xenos threatening to invade the colonies, it is up to you and your battleforce to save the day in this turn based strategy game. Don't let the simple cover art fool you, despite the many similarities this is no Warhammer 40K as you need to manage more than just the endless swarm of xenos (and other enemies)... each of your templars are in battle suits which have a huge problem in that they overheat & explode!

Not so bad if you just have to hold position (overwatch is awesome) but in the majority of the levels, speed is the key to victory (and engineer turrets help). Do you risk losing your men to win the mission? Especially when said soldiers level up through the campaign with you? Highly recommended for tactics buffs, and there's a decent story to boot. Three Spear Cutters out of five.

Tharsis

Going to Mars was never going to be easy, but no one expected it to be this hard either! Left in command of a damaged space ship, you must organize your crew to survive the many hazards en route. In an interesting twist, most of this is by dice rolling, and those dice can do various other things depending on the character and the location they are in meaning you might be tempted to not fix every problem.

Eat the weak. Muahahahaha!

With such a strong board game feel you'd think I'd like this more, but I guess it just feels too random. Got a few bad rolls? Welp, that's probably the beginning of the end as things just pile on without any hope of getting better. Two mini meteorites out of five. Not really recommended. 

Tales of the Blight II: Band of the Hawke

[Part of my Dragon Age 2 play through. Spoilers ahead!]

One of the tasks Hawke's team undertakes is to be the unsuspecting assassination target in place of elven ex-slave and mage hater Fenris. This results in Hawke and company killing their smuggler employer and moving onto the more lucrative task of clearing out some baby dragons nesting in the local mine. Soon after, Hawke finds Fenris' counterpart, ex-Grey Warden mage Anders who hates all the things that oppress mages and is willing to donate some maps for the Deep Roads expedition.

Finally ready with a heavy coin purse, Hawke and Beth join the dwarves on their expedition - spelunking with Varric, Bianca (his crossbow) and Isabella, an ex-pirate captain and tavern regular with low morals who is on the lookout for some special relic. During this time Varric's brother finds a cursed idol and abandons the team in a bad spot, resulting in Beth's demise but the rest of the party return richer than before... so much so that Hawke buys a mansion in the posh high town over the next three years (another time skip!?) for his mother.

Isabella is a klepto.

During this time, Aveline is promoted to guard-captain, Merrill now fully exiled from her clan moves into Kirkwall's elven alienage in the low town slums, Anders continues being paranoid in the dark town sewers, and Isabella and Varric waste all their earnings at the tavern. Before he can get too out of shape, Hawke is summoned by the viscount of Kirkwall for a most important task: to keep the peace between the populace and the Qunari who have been given an encampment down at the docks district.

Insight: If you play a thief, get stealth ASAP. Without it you get smashed easily. With it you are OP as you can just wait for your potion cool downs or even run off to abuse enemy leash mechanics, meaning you can come back to pick off piece meal what was once a big group.

Squid Game (Korean TV Series)

Might make you want to try Squid Game. :P

Drowning in debts and desperate for money, Gi-hun decides to join a mysterious game that involves hundreds of others who are in the same financial situation. To win a massive cash prize, all they have to do is pass six games. The only catch is being eliminated means you die.

There is a lot of elimination.

Backed by a high budget, good acting and a really great script this has easily become one of my favourite series. Obviously this also means there's a fair bit of violence, gore and a high body count but it makes for some excellent viewing. Highly, highly recommended and I would definitely watch all this (currently) one season show again. Four squid games out of five.

Tales of the Blight II: Kirkwall Refugees

[Part of my Dragon Age 2 play through. Spoilers ahead!]

With darkspawn coming from all sides, Hawke flees with a handful of other refugees into the wilds and is saved in the nick of time by a huge red dragon, who turns out to be the witch Flemeth. In exchange for delivering an amulet of hers, she helps them reach the harbour where Hawke and the remaining survivors sail to Kirkwall (and not to Dunwall, too many Dishonoreds there) to meet his uncle at the gates. Alas said uncle has squandered the family fortune, so he sells Hawke, his sister Beth, and traveling companion Aveline into a year of indentured service to some smugglers while taking Hawke's mother through the city gates.

One handy time skip later and a year has passed, during which time the Hero of Ferelden stopped the blight. Knowing this is the prime time to enter the Deep Roads (home of the darkspawn) in search of treasure, a dwarf named Varric and his brother begin setting up an expedition to delve below. Hawke is welcome to join if he can front the gold as a partner, and knows this is the opportunity to change his family's fortunes now that he's no longer a slave. With zero coin to his name it's time to look for work, starting with his old friend Aveline - now part of the Kirkwall guard who is so good at her job, she finds proof the current guard-captain a corrupt scum and gets him fired.

Guess who is back to eat more of her daughters?

With Beth, the trio can finally also deliver Flemeth's amulet to the Dalish gypsy camp up the mountain where apprentice in exile Merrill performs some blood magic at a mountain top altar, revealing the necklace was a phylactery. Her spell revives a thankful Flemeth, who transforms again into a dragon and flies off. Since none of this really helps his financial situation, the trio soon head back to the smugglers to look for work - at least this time they'll get paid!

Insight: Inventory space is limited so always sell the junk treasure and buy the bag that increases the holding capacity. Also, geez - what a decrease in quality from Dragon Age: Origins!

Tales of the Blight II: More Dragon Age

Because there's more than Dragon Age Origins, and I've only gotten around to playing it now. Once again edited for my amusement but there are still spoilers for those who haven't played it! Be warned!

Dragon Age 2
Chapter 1 - Kirkwall Refugees
Chapter 2 - Band of the Hawke
Chapter 3 - The Peacekeepers
Chapter 4 - Champion of Kirkwall
Chapter 5 - Blood Politics

Dragon Age Inquisition
Chapter 6 - Trevelyan
Chapter 7 - Varric
Chapter 8 - Iron Bull
Chapter 9 - The Herald
Chapter 10 - Blackwall
Chapter 11 - Cole
Chapter 12 - Vivienne
Chapter 13 - Solas
Chapter 14 - Cassandra
Chapter 15 - Dorian
Chapter 16 - Sera
Chapter 17 - Hawke
Chapter 18 - Leliana
Chapter 19 - Morrigan
Chapter 20 - The Inquisitor

This story has ended! Thank you for reading!

Saints Row the Third

Introduces Professor Genki's Super Ethical Reality Climax!

When the Saints, now local celebrities, are captured by a rival crime syndicate it is up to you and the gang to claw take their island city away from these scumbags piece by piece. Much like the previous game, this open world has a lot of activities to do on top of the actual plot and is quite funny. The wide variety will ensure that while there are some you will hate, others will be very fun and nothing ever really feels grindy especially as most of them are optional. There is a good deal of customization too and thankfully the vehicle controls are pretty good, because you'll be spending a lot of time in them.

Even more crazy than last time!

While there are no huge story branches I did like that there were choices to be made during the main story which had some minor effect. Alas I wasn't too keen on the radio stations this time around - less catchy tunes I suppose and there was one mission where the NPCs kept failing the mission for me (colliding helicopters lol) which required a fresh restart of the game. Also Steelport, where this game takes place, feels inferior to the Stilwater map from the last game. Still very fun and quite addictive, I give this three penetrators out of five.

State of Decay 2: The Forsaken

[Part of the Diary of Zombies]

With more and more enemy enclaves appearing Kraken takes the lead and begins sending out execution squads to eliminate all of them, especially when informant Guy arrives seeking asylum with a warning that all these groups are banding together under a new coalition. Daniel manages to locate some of these and Kraken takes Guy to confront and kill them, leaving the last one alive: it's Chavez!?

He spills the beans on the coalition HQ at a nearby factory then somehow dodges Kraken's execution shot and escapes (bugged out as she fired the completely wrong way). Kraken and Guy race to the factory and kill what they think is the coalition leadership, returning to Fort Marshall in victory. Elsewhere the true leader, Ray Santos, meets with Chavez and IzzBee - saying Kraken's group have killed more humans in the past few days than the zombies. Chavez indicates Beebo Bee has already modified the Haven protocol at the base, all that is needed is for IzzBee to send the kill order against these Forsaken.

Unwilling to be part of another mass murder/accident IzzBee refuses, but Dr. Hoffman has no qualms about testing CLEO's capabilities and sends the order herself. Everyone at Fort Marshall is suddenly wracked with excrutiating pain as their brains begin to boil and one by one their heads all explode. They aren't so much different from the zombies after all, and CLEO is happy to continue to meet her mandate of "protect the most humans". Community killed from legacy screen - only Beebo Bee survives!

Heads go pop!

Insight: It was fun to revisit Trumbull again after Heartland, I just wish IzzBee's Red Talon drop quest wasn't so repetitive. Also at a guess, there's a good chance Quincy, Helena, Keesha and Isaac are dead too from the Jurassic Junction incident as those are all optional characters to play/encounter. On the flip side Captain Logan has a better chance of showing up again than those four as he is a mandatory character from Heartland.