TESO: Old Friends

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

With the Covenant halted, I managed to get in touch with the Prophet again. After finding him hiding in a not so nearby cave/hovel, he tells me that Molag Bal's plan to take over Tamriel must be stopped. Well, duh... some mages have low INT I guess? I need allies first though, which makes sense since the local war mage committed semi-suicide, and the first one that pops into his mind is Lyris so once more he opens a portal to Coldharbour and I'm tasked with putting her back together (figuratively, since dremora enjoy mindbending torture). Somehow this involves much slaying of dremora but we escape just fine this time.

Alas, almost as soon as we return the Prophet wants us to go back to rescue someone else! Sigh. Unfortunately this time the region he sends us to keeps crashing me to the desktop so much (GFX overheat?) that I end up abandoning that game-breaking piece of shit mission, telling him to let Lyris handle it. Not happy TESO. Instead I decide to explore a dwemer ruin to look for some lost books for the Mages Guild. I guess it's like working for a library? Anyway, one such book spawns the spirit of Archmage Shalidor who asks my help in retrieving... more lost books. And an island. From Sheogorath.

Seems they have a long standing feud.

I found Shalidor's four tomes really easily once I stepped through the gate he opened to the Shivering Isles. The guardian clanfear was really troublesome though, forcing me to learn how to quickslot potions. Of course Sheogorath wasn't going to just let me take all five tomes, instead he let me take one - offering the rest when I earned them. After taking the book back to the Mages guild for decyphering (Sheo cursed the books so that Shalidor couldn't do that), I was free to decide which way to travel so I hopped on my horse and headed North West to Riften! Because I needed to check on my daughters. o_o

TESO: Summon Cheese

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

After a side track to (re)apply for membership to the Fighters, Mages, and Undaunted (dungeon delver) guilds, it was time to defend Davon's Watch - Not that the city needed help - the Dunmer warmage and region general, Tanval was here and he summoned a flaming bone golem, called "a brother of Strife", who simply cannon balled out to the Covenant fleet and destroyed most of them.

A few ships managed to dock further up the coastline but dealing with them was not as bad as dealing with the now rampaging Strife golem who was happily destroying the rest of Stonefalls - not because the scamp summoning pussy was hard to beat. Getting up to the part where you can rebind him was the tough part.

Good thing he's not a walking cheat code when I fight him!

Once re-imprisoned in his volcano we could then focus on the main Covenant general who moonlights as a necromancer. He wasn't very hard either, especially when he transformed into a more hideous but weaker form. The douche somehow still managed to kill Tanval's son in the battle which enraged the war mage - causing him to depart and summon the second brother of Strife because anger clouds judgment. Sigh. This one was a lot tougher and only when Tanval realized his error did he sacrifice himself so that the monster could be sealed like its brother.

With that the Covenant advance was halted in the most "shoot your own foot" method possible.

TESO: The Snake has Two Heads

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

A Dunmer templar Dieannin Avery decided to team up with me in rounding up all the townsfolk at Bleakrock which made the job really easy. Since the local "bandits" turned out to be advanced scouts for the Covenant, it wasn't really safe to hang around any longer and so we set sail down the coast all the way to the Argonian settlement of Bal Foyen in hopes to avoid the Covenant fleet. A plan that failed since the Covenant were already attacking there.

While interrupts are good, killing an enemy is better.

The quest branched at this point giving the option of either defending the fort with civilians or the docks with soldiers with grave connotations for the one we opted to neglect. Dieannin and I simply shrugged and decided to do both: he'd go with the Dunmer She-Captain to the docks while I headed to the fort... where Covenant were gating in. Really? What's the point of walls?

Regardless, both defense points were successful. I slew the mage themed Covenant commander while Dieannin Avery handled what sounded to be a more brute force type leader who killed the Dunmer She-Captain. We were then tasked with alerting the next town along of the impending threat and hoofed it on to the walled city of Davon's Watch. At its gates I finally part with Dieannin. Thanks dude!

TESO: New Life Unlock

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

For some reason Friede's words "Thy place of belonging" kept ringing in my mind and with the Fire Keeper's help I used my significant soul fire to teleport me somewhere closer to home.

I awoke in a very weakened state in the familiar landscape of Coldharbour. Lucky for me not five minutes goes by before a towering Nord lady named Lyris frees me from my cell, informing me that my current undeath condition was caused by some scum named Mannimarco. With no intention of keeping the silence this time, I took great pleasure in eviscerating all the dremora in the way to our escape route: another prisoner called "the Prophet".

I can still backstab with a two handed sword!

The old guy manages to open a portal back to Tamriel for us, but thanks to Molag Bal's interference Lyris doesn't escape. Just want to note that it is fortunate the Prophet's portal opened over the sea because it was pretty high up! I washed ashore on a snowy little island called Bleakrock and was soon conscripted by the local Dunmer She-Captain into gathering all the townsfolk for an emergency evacuation since Covenant warships were spotted headed this way.

Despite the "rush" I happen to come across a friendly Argonian He Alve who teaches me the art of lock picking, which is now a simple mini game. Simple when someone explains it anyway! Just push down on each tumbler and let go when it starts to shake. More importantly just -remember- when it starts to shake so your second attempt will always work. After this two minute crash course, I've not failed any. Thank you He Alve!

This is the Police

Who knew being a corrupt police chief could be so... boring? Guess that's where the donuts come in!

After an impressive animated opening with a unique, soft and semi abstract art style you quickly find yourself in the boots of an aging police chief who is on the way "out" - since the scumbag Mayor is forcing your retirement in 180 days. Alas future cut scenes are done in a more comic book style format, but it is still cool and the voice acting is pretty decent.

This is what you'll be staring at most of the time.

The mayor is far from the only scum bag though, as you have to deal with the mafia, serial killers and everything from pranksters to terrorists. If you guessed that this is a management game, then good work detective - you are right! The chief of police sends out other people to handle all the 911 calls. You must handle your staffs time and needs with what the city needs and wants... and more importantly what you need and want.

Want to make an easy 80k? Just send three of your officers to a trap and leave their bodies in the morgue. Yes, you can be a very dirty cop. For me there are two main problems with the game: 1 - too few song choices. In the 3rd "act" you get even less songs which makes it feel rushed or incomplete. 2 - The game is too long. 180 days of managing calls is very grindy, heavy on reading, and honestly not very compelling. Majority of them you will be zoning out on autopilot and possibly wishing for donuts.

It's not a bad game, but it's not a fantastic game which is a shame. I really think it could have been better than what it is. In its current form I give it 2 and a half side jobs out of 5. If you like management games, it might be worth a look - otherwise, it might be worth a skip.

Serena

A single room story.

This entire "experience" takes place in a small cabin with you playing as the moping protagonist who is looking for his wife - the titular Serena. While it's one of those "quite different" games, it is very linear, has a short play length and lack of choices/player agency. Most of the descriptions are read out by the sad sack protagonist and if they were going for a sad sack voice they picked the right guy.

The whole story happens in here.

It is quite annoying that he refuses to do many things, simply to keep you constrained in the cabin or until you've unlocked that part of the "story". Click on a cabinet and you might get "I don't feel like doing that right now". Yeah. One of those games. If you want to kill 10 minutes on a freebie from Steam then you might want to consider this. If you have longer then you might prefer to check out one of the many other free titles. Even Trick and Treat is better. For all the reasons above, it's hard for me to give this more than 1 picture out of 5.

Today I Smiled: Reconnected

For those of you wondering why I missed a few days of posts, it was due to annoying internet issues. As of today though, that should (hopefully) all be fixed and I can get back into the swing of things! :)

My Dark Souls story is taking a break - but don't worry I'm sure there's more to come with that next DLC in March... haha. In the meantime here's some stuff to make you smile - like Russian Soldiers marching to Barbie Girl, or Ragnar (from Vikings) being naughty, how people can make "fake news" with a web cam, or perhaps my favorite of this lot made for John Wick fans... Dog Wick!

As usual I also have some music links for you - starting with Brian Mcknight's Back at One (Piano and Voice only), the entire Wizardry Online BGM Piano Suite, and a Castlevania Medley guitar duet (played -very- cleanly)! There's also a Castlevania 3 Medley by the same duo if you liked that.

That's it for now - I'll leave you with a question, and that is - why would a burger joint need an Ad that hits you in the feels? No idea. But I sure would like some Jollibee right now. :P