I briefly mentioned IVAN in a previous article, and I feel that was unfair for this quite interesting little piece. Sure, it has permadeath, and is a great example of it, but IVAN is a much larger package than just dying.
I mean, that said, there's not actually that much more to the game than dying. Over and over. Sometimes violently (always violently), sometimes to something you didn't think could kill you (like everything, like fucking vomiting for shit's sake), and sometimes you'll just die and not know why (Your head starts to bleed badly! You die! Would you like to see your inventory?) The game is, simplified, Dark Souls except it doesn't want you to get better and it doesn't want you to ever, ever win. In fact, they say that the mere act of being able to finish the game through any of it's three endings is a bugged feature of the game. Funny, isn't it?
You start off in a little island village with your dog Kenny, after a brief and humourous intro that sums up how hilarious and violent the game will be, you're thrown into the underground passage to cross to the mainland and deliver a message to the capital. And then it gets silly. Soon you'll start finding weapons or armour, and equipping them is absolutely vital. Everything is absolutely randomised, so you might find a magic wand of door creation before you find a shoe.
The combat is fairly basic, but with an interesting twist. You've got your basic "press direction towards enemy to attack until they die" strategy going on, but the damage you and some enemies take vary across body parts. You have 7 places you can be attacked: Head, torso, groin, right arm, left arm, right leg and left leg. If your head, torso or groin are destroyed, you die, but you can lose any of your limbs and still carry on, at a huge debuff to your strength, speed or endurance.
But you can get them back. In one of the funniest mechanics in a game I've ever seen. In the game their are certain deity's that you can pray to, consisting of Good, Neutral and Evil gods and goddesses. Who you pray to depends on what they give you, some will give you a random magic ability, instantly refill your hunger, slay your enemies, summon a helper, polymorph you, change your weapon or armour's hardness, or do absolutely nothing. But almost all of them will try to give you your bodyparts back if something is missing. Pray to the god of war and metal, lol, now I haz an iron leg. Pray to the goddess of nutrition, yeyz, I gots mah leg back as skin. Pray to the goddess of famine and disease, uh.... poison mushroom leg...... yaaaaaaaay... Would you like to see your inventory?
The loot and items is a fairly impressive list. You've got a hardness level of all kinds of items, which you can enchant to make better or pray for a god to do it. You've got your swords, maces, full helmets, fairly standard stuff. But actually finding that stuff, well, that's a thrill of its own. You might encounter something incredibly hard and only have like 4 wands and a pokey stick. What do you do? Break all the wands to see what happens of course. You can either zap with or snap wands of all the different types, fireballs, lightning, cloning, necromancy, mirroring, all kinds of silly things. Hint: please do not snap a wand of acid rain. In fact, you probably shouldn't snap any of them. Would you like to see your inventory?
Each life will see you try and get as far as possible, kill as many enemies as possible, get as good loot as possible, mix risk and reward and try to attain the impossible and actually finish the game. The game tracks the score of your best 200 characters and lists how they die in a screen you see upon every character's death, and you'll see it a lot, and it's an absolute charm to see it every time. You name each one specifically, so you remember old Hedgehog or Snakebite. I usually go with the naming convention of the thing I died of last time. One of my best characters is "Acute Poisoning the lawful human".
We must discuss negative points! With a game as varied and interesting as this, there's little to mock. However, it seems to me that development stopped years and years ago, so we won't see much more than what it is now which is a shame. I would love to see it keep going and get some true recognition out there.
If you've ever played a roguelike before, you should pick this up and see how you like getting beaten, battered, destroyed and dismembered time and time again. If you've never played a roguelike before, you should pick this up and
see how you like getting beaten, battered, destroyed and dismembered
time and time again. What I'm saying is that you should pick this up.
As I said in my last review, IVAN is a free download and available here:
http://ivan.sourceforge.net/
Wednesday, 25 July 2012
Sunday, 22 July 2012
The Importance of Permanent Death
For some games, permanent death means game over, but for others it means the game is just beginning. It's not just a way of tormenting players, and it boasts a whole other level of depth over its infinite lived counter parts.
Permanent death is a feature that some games use in which the death of the character means that you must start from scratch. This is not always a bad thing, and it's one of my favourite game features. But it has the potential to be a great thing. It not only challenges the player, but combines the essential risk and reward factor with the player's natural desire to move forward in the game, mixing them together to make a very interesting feeling.
But it can't always be used. I've seen it done in some games where permanent death just means, that's it. But that isn't what permanent death is about. Permadeath games, and I'm going to use some examples in a minute, are about having your previous playthroughs form a sort of skeleton to base your future tries around. By giving the player some kind of goal that each character shares that continues after each death is really what permanent death is about, with an achievable goal behind hundreds of lost characters and dead adventurers.
Spelunky, as I mentioned in a previous article, is a game I've been playing that was only recently released. It sees the player dive into a randomized cave system in an Indiana Jones style 2D platformer. The only catch here is that once you die, you're out. All your items and hearts and gold are all gone upon death. But there is hope, like any good permadeath game has. Not only do you learn strategies and start to feel the flow and pace of the game (that just comes natural to all games) but when you each the end of each section there's a man who offers to make you a shortcut between the sections. You have to make it to this checkpoint multiple times, bringing him items he needs to clear a shortcut. This means each of your lives mean something if you can get to that shortcut, and start at a later point every time.
In games where there is no permadeath and you just start from a checkpoint have been getting more complicated recently. People have come up with a theory that each time you die, say in Call of Duty or whatever, and then you're suddenly back in the fray, you aren't immortal, come back to life; this is an alternate timeline where the character has yet to fail. Each death means you're flung into the eyes of that same person, but in a timeline where he's still kicking at it. By the end, there's about 100 dystopic future timelines where the Nazis win and take over the world because your guy failed. Because you know. One guy could stop the Nazis. My point is, this system, whilst being the norm in the gaming industry right now, could really use an overhaul. It could use a game that actually talks and thinks about that theory. Or it could use some permadeath like the one in my next example.
IVAN is another of my favourites. Permadeath of course, it follows the story of a random character (You gotta love randomized gameplay. If you don't you're a very sick individual.) from a small island village that needs to take a message back to the mainland capital city, but the only way to do this is via the underground tunnel system that has countless enemies, booby traps, and just downright silly things that can kill you. IVAN means "Iter Vehemens ad Necem" which quite literally translates "the violent road to death". Each life will see you navigate this tunnel system, and successful lives will see you get to the capital and the later dungeon. The point is, IVAN has a permadeath system. Each character is in the same universe and timeline, and you get a score after each playthrough, and can see your top 200 lives on the scoreboard that comes up after every life. What's interesting about this permadeath though, is that you can literally find the corpses of your previous characters, usually surrounded by a ghost or the monster that killed you, and can take their gear or items such as essential food and wands or weapons. It gives your current character just that little bit more hope as he pushes ever onwards, and I personally think this system is fantastic. You know your attempts matter if you yourself benefit from your old characters demise.
Dwarf Fortress. Maybe I just like talking about Dwarf Fortress, what's it to you? The point is, it's got a system similar to my beloved IVAN where each adventurer left behind can be found again to increase your chance of survival. But Dwarf Fortress does a few other things I like in this ever continuing struggle for permadeath. Dwarf Fortress documents it. Statues or pictures on walls and floors depicting people that have died tells us a story, or some that tell stories about what they did when they were alive. Other than that, Dwarf Fortress has the reclaim feature, a handy little thing where you can reclaim for dead fortress, or you can visit it with a specific adventurer and get gear from your dead military. I pretty much just wanted to say Dwarf Fortress again. Dwarf Fortress.
Haven and Hearth. Yes, it has permadeath. Yes, it has features that carry over from your permanently dead characters. Yes, it has a rubbish playerbase full of bear-cape-clad morons who kill you for no reason. But anyhow. Haven and Hearth is a survival game in which you earn experience points for discovering new things and studying items. Then when you are inevitably killed by someone, your character dies and leaves a permanent skeleton on the world, and your new character is labelled as a 'direct descendant' of that dead character, and obtains a percentage of their skills and only they can take gear off the character's dead body without stealing. Through other means, players can summon the power of the ancestors, all of your dead characters, and stack all of their strength and skills onto their own. This is a nice touch. It's a shame everybody's too busy killing each other to, you know, actually use it.
The point is, permanent death doesn't mean "LOL I gatta start over, lolol", because that isn't fun. Losing your data isn't fun. You think Pokemon would be fun if you couldn't save? That's what some people think permanent death is. Erasing your game. But as said before, permadeath should form a skeleton, enriching your current character's time in the world, hearing about past characters' achievements, finding their body, taking their gear, harnessing their skills, fighting their ghosts. I love permadeath. It's another feature that makes me keep playing, but it has to feel like you're not starting from scratch.
I've heard that the creatively titled Wii-U title "Zombie-U" has a permanent death system, and your last character even turns into a zombie. That, to me, sounds incredibly tempting, leaving me wondering what else this game could bring to the permanent death arena. But I digress.
Apart from Spelunky, all of the games I mentioned are a free download from their respective websites because I am a cheap parasite that refuses to stimulate the economy with all of my dollars.
Dwarf Fortress can be found here:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=59026.0
IVAN can be found here:
http://ivan.sourceforge.net/
Haven and Hearth can be found here:
http://www.havenandhearth.com/portal/
I suggest you give each of them a go, because they're all very special little gems in their own rights, and they're free and the biggest one is like 56MB, so why wouldn't you?
Permanent death is a feature that some games use in which the death of the character means that you must start from scratch. This is not always a bad thing, and it's one of my favourite game features. But it has the potential to be a great thing. It not only challenges the player, but combines the essential risk and reward factor with the player's natural desire to move forward in the game, mixing them together to make a very interesting feeling.
But it can't always be used. I've seen it done in some games where permanent death just means, that's it. But that isn't what permanent death is about. Permadeath games, and I'm going to use some examples in a minute, are about having your previous playthroughs form a sort of skeleton to base your future tries around. By giving the player some kind of goal that each character shares that continues after each death is really what permanent death is about, with an achievable goal behind hundreds of lost characters and dead adventurers.
Spelunky, as I mentioned in a previous article, is a game I've been playing that was only recently released. It sees the player dive into a randomized cave system in an Indiana Jones style 2D platformer. The only catch here is that once you die, you're out. All your items and hearts and gold are all gone upon death. But there is hope, like any good permadeath game has. Not only do you learn strategies and start to feel the flow and pace of the game (that just comes natural to all games) but when you each the end of each section there's a man who offers to make you a shortcut between the sections. You have to make it to this checkpoint multiple times, bringing him items he needs to clear a shortcut. This means each of your lives mean something if you can get to that shortcut, and start at a later point every time.
In games where there is no permadeath and you just start from a checkpoint have been getting more complicated recently. People have come up with a theory that each time you die, say in Call of Duty or whatever, and then you're suddenly back in the fray, you aren't immortal, come back to life; this is an alternate timeline where the character has yet to fail. Each death means you're flung into the eyes of that same person, but in a timeline where he's still kicking at it. By the end, there's about 100 dystopic future timelines where the Nazis win and take over the world because your guy failed. Because you know. One guy could stop the Nazis. My point is, this system, whilst being the norm in the gaming industry right now, could really use an overhaul. It could use a game that actually talks and thinks about that theory. Or it could use some permadeath like the one in my next example.
IVAN is another of my favourites. Permadeath of course, it follows the story of a random character (You gotta love randomized gameplay. If you don't you're a very sick individual.) from a small island village that needs to take a message back to the mainland capital city, but the only way to do this is via the underground tunnel system that has countless enemies, booby traps, and just downright silly things that can kill you. IVAN means "Iter Vehemens ad Necem" which quite literally translates "the violent road to death". Each life will see you navigate this tunnel system, and successful lives will see you get to the capital and the later dungeon. The point is, IVAN has a permadeath system. Each character is in the same universe and timeline, and you get a score after each playthrough, and can see your top 200 lives on the scoreboard that comes up after every life. What's interesting about this permadeath though, is that you can literally find the corpses of your previous characters, usually surrounded by a ghost or the monster that killed you, and can take their gear or items such as essential food and wands or weapons. It gives your current character just that little bit more hope as he pushes ever onwards, and I personally think this system is fantastic. You know your attempts matter if you yourself benefit from your old characters demise.
Dwarf Fortress. Maybe I just like talking about Dwarf Fortress, what's it to you? The point is, it's got a system similar to my beloved IVAN where each adventurer left behind can be found again to increase your chance of survival. But Dwarf Fortress does a few other things I like in this ever continuing struggle for permadeath. Dwarf Fortress documents it. Statues or pictures on walls and floors depicting people that have died tells us a story, or some that tell stories about what they did when they were alive. Other than that, Dwarf Fortress has the reclaim feature, a handy little thing where you can reclaim for dead fortress, or you can visit it with a specific adventurer and get gear from your dead military. I pretty much just wanted to say Dwarf Fortress again. Dwarf Fortress.
Haven and Hearth. Yes, it has permadeath. Yes, it has features that carry over from your permanently dead characters. Yes, it has a rubbish playerbase full of bear-cape-clad morons who kill you for no reason. But anyhow. Haven and Hearth is a survival game in which you earn experience points for discovering new things and studying items. Then when you are inevitably killed by someone, your character dies and leaves a permanent skeleton on the world, and your new character is labelled as a 'direct descendant' of that dead character, and obtains a percentage of their skills and only they can take gear off the character's dead body without stealing. Through other means, players can summon the power of the ancestors, all of your dead characters, and stack all of their strength and skills onto their own. This is a nice touch. It's a shame everybody's too busy killing each other to, you know, actually use it.
The point is, permanent death doesn't mean "LOL I gatta start over, lolol", because that isn't fun. Losing your data isn't fun. You think Pokemon would be fun if you couldn't save? That's what some people think permanent death is. Erasing your game. But as said before, permadeath should form a skeleton, enriching your current character's time in the world, hearing about past characters' achievements, finding their body, taking their gear, harnessing their skills, fighting their ghosts. I love permadeath. It's another feature that makes me keep playing, but it has to feel like you're not starting from scratch.
I've heard that the creatively titled Wii-U title "Zombie-U" has a permanent death system, and your last character even turns into a zombie. That, to me, sounds incredibly tempting, leaving me wondering what else this game could bring to the permanent death arena. But I digress.
Apart from Spelunky, all of the games I mentioned are a free download from their respective websites because I am a cheap parasite that refuses to stimulate the economy with all of my dollars.
Dwarf Fortress can be found here:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=59026.0
IVAN can be found here:
http://ivan.sourceforge.net/
Haven and Hearth can be found here:
http://www.havenandhearth.com/portal/
I suggest you give each of them a go, because they're all very special little gems in their own rights, and they're free and the biggest one is like 56MB, so why wouldn't you?
Thursday, 19 July 2012
Weird things we say while gaming
I've been playing a lot of Spelunky recently, as well as recently seeing Batman. You know. That new one. Which is pretty good. But that has unfortunately left little time for long, ranting articles to throw all over this blog of mine. As such, I'll just be compiling a quick list of weird things we say whilst gaming. This is whilst not drunk or under the influence of any kind of hallucinogenic, by the way. Things that normal people say to each other in a normal way, that out of context is straight up weird. (The list specifically applies to things I've said while playing the games I enjoy.)
These are in no particular order and I may add more.
Naturally, more than half of these can be used in Katamari.
#1 Smash all that guy's stuff for treasure, not like he's using it.
#2 Check the garbage can.
#3 Pick up that guy. Pick up that guy and throw him at that chick.
#4 See if you can jump on his head
#5 NANA, NANANANANANA, KATAMARI DAMACY
#6 Try standing still for ages and see if that does anything
#7 Give a rock to that guy as a present
#8 WHY DID THE PLANT EXPLODE?
#9 Roll over that guy (This actually applies to more games than Katamari, lol whut)
#10 Go grind on mushrooms
#11 LOL, Vacuum everything! It's so fun. (Curse you Luigi's Mansion for making us thinking cleaning is awesome.
These are in no particular order and I may add more.
Naturally, more than half of these can be used in Katamari.
#1 Smash all that guy's stuff for treasure, not like he's using it.
#2 Check the garbage can.
#3 Pick up that guy. Pick up that guy and throw him at that chick.
#4 See if you can jump on his head
#5 NANA, NANANANANANA, KATAMARI DAMACY
#6 Try standing still for ages and see if that does anything
#7 Give a rock to that guy as a present
#8 WHY DID THE PLANT EXPLODE?
#9 Roll over that guy (This actually applies to more games than Katamari, lol whut)
#10 Go grind on mushrooms
#11 LOL, Vacuum everything! It's so fun. (Curse you Luigi's Mansion for making us thinking cleaning is awesome.
Tuesday, 17 July 2012
The Top 10 Worst Feelings in Video Games
What's that I hear you say? "You're doing a top 10 list about games? LOL, SO CREATIVE!". Hush, you. At least it's not "My top 10 Call of Duty guns lol you're a noob" list. Some things need to be said.
It's obvious that games can make a player feel a wide range of emotions ranging from sadness, happiness, excitement, anger (< LeagueofLegendsLeagueofLegendsLeagueofLegends), love (Dwarf Fortress, sweet Jesus), and everything in between. But these feelings come natural. There are some feelings that just leave your entire being to sink into itself, and this list contains reasons for some of those feelings that should not belong in games.
#10 Not Saving
You've only got yourself to blame with this one, but that doesn't take away the devastating feeling that rushes through your heart when you turn off a game before checking if you've saved. We've all done it before, those Pokemon you caught, that checkpoint you made. Poof. It's gone.
And in the very worst case, you've got a date with a stalker mole that talks your ear off and doesn't want to leave because he has no friends.
9# Freezing or unexpected shutdown
Granted, this is almost the same feeling as not saving, as you're met with an almost identical problem, but it takes away the human error which makes it all the more cataclysmic. Some games have been known to erase themselves with unexpected shutdown, and what if it shuts down WHILE it's saving. They always tell you not to turn it off whilst saving. Let's hope we never find out, else my heart is probably going to shift south about 10 inches.
#8 Getting your stats wrong
This is one of the main offences for RPGs, typically for the old fashioned ones (I'd like to see you try and get your stats wrong on Skyrim or Diablo III though. Lolwhatstats) and usually ended up in you failing horrifically, especially if you were new to RPGs. Back in the day, every character class or play style pretty much only had one correct build, and any other would see you sporting around a very mediocre character with little damage output or survivability. And when you figure that out, well... it kinda makes you wonder where you are in your life, doesn't it?
#7 Boredom
The things in this list are feelings that personally stop me from finishing games, and this is right up there. I'm going to use an example of one of the types of boredom that I suffer from frequently. Typically, my play style revolves around needing challenge to keep me going, but oddly enough, I grind and seek out legitimate ways to get a huge advantage, that I probably shouldn't be getting at that point and such makes the game become remarkably easy.
Skyrim comes to mind. It sits in my pile of shame, because I journeyed around the map doing nothing and grinding skills instead of doing quests until I was ridiculously powerful. This type of boredom is typically an offence of the RPG's, and it's the most common boredom that occurs in a good or great game, but generally because I'm playing it wrong.
But boredom can strike in any genre. Is what I'm trying to say. But no game's boring on purpose. Except maybe Metal Gear. That awesome crap does some crazy shit on purpose.
#6 Buyer's remorse
"Oh hey, all of the reviews said this was a fantastic game, better go out, pay $80 dollars, come home and play the crap out of this bad boy!"
6 hours later. It's done. Good or not, you'll never play it again. Welcome to my life. Next.
#5 Missing out on something
For me, not necessarily for everyone else, this is the biggest offender, because I always feel like I must collect everything in order to justify playing the game. When something minor goes away, yeah, alright, I mean, I'm a little upset, but it's not the end of the world. But when you stuff something up like only happens once in a play through and you miss it, and you find out about it afterwards, that just makes me want to start the whole thing again.
#4 That one little thing
So many great games have this. You know when you're playing a game, and you get the feeling that you could play it forever? But then you play it for a few more hours and there's just something that ruins the whole experience.
A big one for me is the Harvest Moon series. It's got hundreds upon hundreds of hours of gameplay in it. It's charming, it's addictive, and it's a challenging little piece. But it's just so repetitive and slow. The Gamecube title "Harvest Moon: Magical Melody" comes to mind, and it's actually a very good game, but every little animation takes AGES to occur. I would probably be playing it right now if your character didn't take out the watering can, scratch his ass and drooling for a second, stand completely still and grab the can with both hands, then tip over, make a sound that is reminiscent of a pregnant cow in pain and then suddenly spray some water out of his dickcan. This is a huge gripe for me considering the game actually runs on an in game day system, where one day is about 5 minutes if you just stand there. It leaves hardly any time to do anything. Maybe it's a design feature, to make it feel like your work is taking a long time like a real farmer would, but it just feels out of place for me.
Guess what, I dun wanna be a real farmer, I wanna be plantin' sum fuckin' turnips'n havin' the time of my lyf, yo.
#3 W-what.... it's over?
What do you MEAN it's over. This is a different feeling to my reasoning for buyer's remorse; this is an unexpected end to a game you were just getting into. Something where, I dunno, they just reveal a major story plot point then you fight a boss and the credits just roll. Or, a game that doesn't have a REAL structure like the Katamari series or Warioware where you just unlock levels from completing levels. BUT THERE'S ONLY A LIMITED AMOUNT. IT DOESN'T GO FOREVER! NOOOOO!
#2 Molyneux Syndrome
Remember that game that was coming out, and you got so totally excited for it? And then it came out it just wasn't what you expected. Sometimes it wasn't how it was described or promised at all (MOLYNEUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUX!) We're all guilty of this at least once, but it's unfair to just say "Don't get excited! About anything!". Some things just sound so much better on paper or in your head. When you finally get your hands on that game you thought was going to be the absolute Bee's Knees of the entire gaming world, it just crashes and burns compared to what you thought it would be. Or maybe we should just start a campaign to get Peter Molyneux to shut his fat mouth, with petitions and everything.
#1 Spoilers
It's an obvious one but it's a good one. Spoilers can ruin an entire experience.I've known someone whose friend told the major twist of a move, then we saw played it. I thought that major plot twist was amazing, and a rather nice touch, while the other person in question didn't think it was that good because he knew it was coming, vastly altering our opinions of the movie. The same goes for games, considering they're vastly longer than movies, and if you know the plot twist leading up to it, you're not going to want to play it all the way, let alone just up to that bit. Too many a time I've been browsing the Internet for a game I was playing, and the first thing I see is MASSIVE SPOILERS. That ain't cool, and it ain't nice.
Well that's my list of Top 10 Worst Feelings in games. Top ten lists are rather fun to write, so I might write a few more in between gushing about things I really enjoy.
Please forgive the Dwarf Fortress review.
It's just really, really good.
It's obvious that games can make a player feel a wide range of emotions ranging from sadness, happiness, excitement, anger (< LeagueofLegendsLeagueofLegendsLeagueofLegends), love (Dwarf Fortress, sweet Jesus), and everything in between. But these feelings come natural. There are some feelings that just leave your entire being to sink into itself, and this list contains reasons for some of those feelings that should not belong in games.
#10 Not Saving
You've only got yourself to blame with this one, but that doesn't take away the devastating feeling that rushes through your heart when you turn off a game before checking if you've saved. We've all done it before, those Pokemon you caught, that checkpoint you made. Poof. It's gone.
And in the very worst case, you've got a date with a stalker mole that talks your ear off and doesn't want to leave because he has no friends.
9# Freezing or unexpected shutdown
Granted, this is almost the same feeling as not saving, as you're met with an almost identical problem, but it takes away the human error which makes it all the more cataclysmic. Some games have been known to erase themselves with unexpected shutdown, and what if it shuts down WHILE it's saving. They always tell you not to turn it off whilst saving. Let's hope we never find out, else my heart is probably going to shift south about 10 inches.
#8 Getting your stats wrong
This is one of the main offences for RPGs, typically for the old fashioned ones (I'd like to see you try and get your stats wrong on Skyrim or Diablo III though. Lolwhatstats) and usually ended up in you failing horrifically, especially if you were new to RPGs. Back in the day, every character class or play style pretty much only had one correct build, and any other would see you sporting around a very mediocre character with little damage output or survivability. And when you figure that out, well... it kinda makes you wonder where you are in your life, doesn't it?
#7 Boredom
The things in this list are feelings that personally stop me from finishing games, and this is right up there. I'm going to use an example of one of the types of boredom that I suffer from frequently. Typically, my play style revolves around needing challenge to keep me going, but oddly enough, I grind and seek out legitimate ways to get a huge advantage, that I probably shouldn't be getting at that point and such makes the game become remarkably easy.
Skyrim comes to mind. It sits in my pile of shame, because I journeyed around the map doing nothing and grinding skills instead of doing quests until I was ridiculously powerful. This type of boredom is typically an offence of the RPG's, and it's the most common boredom that occurs in a good or great game, but generally because I'm playing it wrong.
But boredom can strike in any genre. Is what I'm trying to say. But no game's boring on purpose. Except maybe Metal Gear. That awesome crap does some crazy shit on purpose.
I'd give my life. Not for honour, BUT FORRRRRR YOUUUUUUU~
#6 Buyer's remorse
"Oh hey, all of the reviews said this was a fantastic game, better go out, pay $80 dollars, come home and play the crap out of this bad boy!"
6 hours later. It's done. Good or not, you'll never play it again. Welcome to my life. Next.
#5 Missing out on something
For me, not necessarily for everyone else, this is the biggest offender, because I always feel like I must collect everything in order to justify playing the game. When something minor goes away, yeah, alright, I mean, I'm a little upset, but it's not the end of the world. But when you stuff something up like only happens once in a play through and you miss it, and you find out about it afterwards, that just makes me want to start the whole thing again.
#4 That one little thing
So many great games have this. You know when you're playing a game, and you get the feeling that you could play it forever? But then you play it for a few more hours and there's just something that ruins the whole experience.
A big one for me is the Harvest Moon series. It's got hundreds upon hundreds of hours of gameplay in it. It's charming, it's addictive, and it's a challenging little piece. But it's just so repetitive and slow. The Gamecube title "Harvest Moon: Magical Melody" comes to mind, and it's actually a very good game, but every little animation takes AGES to occur. I would probably be playing it right now if your character didn't take out the watering can, scratch his ass and drooling for a second, stand completely still and grab the can with both hands, then tip over, make a sound that is reminiscent of a pregnant cow in pain and then suddenly spray some water out of his dickcan. This is a huge gripe for me considering the game actually runs on an in game day system, where one day is about 5 minutes if you just stand there. It leaves hardly any time to do anything. Maybe it's a design feature, to make it feel like your work is taking a long time like a real farmer would, but it just feels out of place for me.
Guess what, I dun wanna be a real farmer, I wanna be plantin' sum fuckin' turnips'n havin' the time of my lyf, yo.
#3 W-what.... it's over?
What do you MEAN it's over. This is a different feeling to my reasoning for buyer's remorse; this is an unexpected end to a game you were just getting into. Something where, I dunno, they just reveal a major story plot point then you fight a boss and the credits just roll. Or, a game that doesn't have a REAL structure like the Katamari series or Warioware where you just unlock levels from completing levels. BUT THERE'S ONLY A LIMITED AMOUNT. IT DOESN'T GO FOREVER! NOOOOO!
 |
| Here is a picture of Katamari. Because games. |
Remember that game that was coming out, and you got so totally excited for it? And then it came out it just wasn't what you expected. Sometimes it wasn't how it was described or promised at all (MOLYNEUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUX!) We're all guilty of this at least once, but it's unfair to just say "Don't get excited! About anything!". Some things just sound so much better on paper or in your head. When you finally get your hands on that game you thought was going to be the absolute Bee's Knees of the entire gaming world, it just crashes and burns compared to what you thought it would be. Or maybe we should just start a campaign to get Peter Molyneux to shut his fat mouth, with petitions and everything.
 |
| You can see it in his cold, dead eyes (I'm really good at paint) |
It's an obvious one but it's a good one. Spoilers can ruin an entire experience.I've known someone whose friend told the major twist of a move, then we saw played it. I thought that major plot twist was amazing, and a rather nice touch, while the other person in question didn't think it was that good because he knew it was coming, vastly altering our opinions of the movie. The same goes for games, considering they're vastly longer than movies, and if you know the plot twist leading up to it, you're not going to want to play it all the way, let alone just up to that bit. Too many a time I've been browsing the Internet for a game I was playing, and the first thing I see is MASSIVE SPOILERS. That ain't cool, and it ain't nice.
Well that's my list of Top 10 Worst Feelings in games. Top ten lists are rather fun to write, so I might write a few more in between gushing about things I really enjoy.
Please forgive the Dwarf Fortress review.
It's just really, really good.
Monday, 16 July 2012
Dwarf Fortress: You knew it was coming
Anyone who knows me knows that I'm an absolutely devout Dwarf Fortress lover. I could forgo playing any other game for the rest of my life and I'd still be content with the Dwarves.
For those of you who don't actually know what Dwarf Fortress is by now, Dwarf Fortress is a unique little gem that boasts depth and creativity. It's kind of like a city building game with a focus on the actual people doing the building. Now I know that might not sound very appealing to everyone, but creating your own little fortress is, down to every little wall piece, window, door and decorations. You get to manage your crazy little sods as they go about digging their way into the mountain for ores, rocks and shelter, and that's not always easy. Think Mincraft. Think the Sims. Think MAGMA.
Dwarf Fortress has been in development since 2002, with its alpha release in mid 2006, and since then has undergone a tremendous amount of updates, changes, overhauls and not to mention the incredible amount of player created mods and utilities for it. It's insane, given the game is practically developed by one guy, Zach Adams, also known as ToadyOne, and his brother Tarn Adams. My complete and utter respect for those guys.
Oh I'm sorry, are all my words positive? Am I using all complimentary language? Do I sound bias to you? That's because it's amazing. Go fucking play it. Right now. I'll wait. It's absolutely free, which is amazing considering that's all the creator does for a living, living off mere donations. Does that sound like it'd be hard? Wait 'til you see the game, then.
Upon starting up the game, you will almost immediately realise that almost everything is randomised. I really do mean, almost everything. You generate the world, that's all randomised. You start with 7 dwarves. Their appearances and features are all randomised. You get a few migrant dwarves each season depending on how good or bad the fortress is doing. RANDOMISED. Forgotten beasts, titans made of god-knows-what attack your fortress from both above and underground. Guess what they are? You guessed it. Randomised. I, no joke, got a vomit forgotten beast once. Personally, I absolutely love the randomisation. It makes for so many different outcomes, such a unique experience. It's great talking with other players, seeing what kind of craziness they've got up to. And my favourite was a hill titan comprised completely of salt that a dwarf killed by biting it to death. That titan delicious, guy? Bet it'd go good with some dog steaks. Hey, don't you judge me! I do what I need to survive.
And you really will need to do just that. The game's motto is "Losing is Fun!" and in a way, it's both thrilling and utterly depressing when your hard work goes swirling down the drain. So many things can happen to put a fortress in danger;
You may be suddenly attacked by goblins who want nothing more than to loot your fortress and see your dwarves all dead and dismembered.
You might suddenly encounter the pits of Dwarven depression as one dwarf's cat dies and he proceeds to destroy his friend's bed, and then his friend gets angry and punches a stranger, and that stranger gets so upset that he refuses to consume any food or drink for months and then dies in the dining room. Now EVERYONE has watched a dwarf die by slowly killing himself. Behold the infamous tantrum spiral. More horrifying than 100 goblin elites.
YOU might make a mistake. Remember that flood gate that lets the water/magma in from the river/volcano that you were using to make a little pond/EPIC MAGMA PIT, but you were distracted by a puppy running around or a goblin attack and forgot to close it. Well.... At least I hope that yout dwarves learn to swim soon.
Getting back on track. Do you like crafting? Of course you do. Dwarf Fortress has crafting. I like crafting, you like crafting, so everybody craft! Dwarf Fortress has over 20 workshops you can build, each with their own list of craftable items. You've got your carpenter's workshop where you make wooden stuff like beds and wooden storage bins (which oh-sweet-Jesus you'll need a lot of), and your masonry where you build doors and stone bricks and floodgates and the like. Then you get stuff like butchers and metalcrafters and so on, until you have a pretty large amount of items sitting around your fortress.
There's more features than I can mention in one little review, and there's even some spoilers for new and inexperienced players. The longer you play it, the more you realise you're not just looking at ASCII graphics anymore. You're watching actual little dwarves run around and build an actual little fortress, each little guy with his own little back story and specific likes and dislikes which is all spelled out rather nicely in the Thoughts and Preferences window.
The game has other features like the Adventurer and Legends mode. Legends mode is basically a viewer of every major living creature such as dwarves or megabeasts. It also lists major outpost or city, Adventurer mode sees you control your own little character of one of the three playable races, Elves, Dwarves, or Humans, and travel around your generated world. The generated world itself is almost infinitely larger than your tiny little fortress embark from Fortress mode, so it's nice to walk around and see how alive the world is. And with every update, it's getting even livelier. You can use your own adventurer to visit your lost fortresses, full of traps and fat loots, and maybe even full of whatever made you lose it in the first place. I wonder if the dragon still hangs out there? You better go check it.
In February, Toady updated Dwarf Fortress with the long awaited undead update, an update that included large amounts of content including new sieges, a new undead system, largely improved evil areas on the world map and huge cities with castles, quests, shops and a whole lot of sewer systems. The evil system brought in was probably my favourite, with the introductions of vampire dwarves occasionally arriving at your fortress, and the new system where, if something dies or is killed in an evil region, it gets back up, regardless of damage. That means specific body parts lopped off will come back to life, along with the main corpse.
As this is a review, albeit a very biased and fanboy-driven one, I do have to point out the game's flaws. (I know! It'll be hard on me too!) The game has so many operations occurring, with every dwarf having thoughts and actions, that it actually gets gradually slower as your population rises, or as the goblins gift you their equipment and body parts and you don't dispose of them (The only way is to burn the excess junk in magma, and not everyone has easy access to that right away). Inevitably, if your fortress lives past its first initial and most difficult years, it will sadly result in a disappointing FPS death. The game is also quite buggy, but nothing game breaking. There was once, and possibly still is, a bug where a dwarf wouldn't quite understand what to do with soap, resulting in him or her trying to shove it in their mouth when washing. Way to go dwarfy.
I am insanely in love with this game. So many stories can come out of even one session of Dwarf Fortress, more than any other game I've seen or played. In order to convey my point, I will now share with you one of my favourite stories about my Dwarves and their hardships. Remember, everyone has a completely different and unique experience, as almost everything in the game in randomised.
Keep in mind, this is a very long story. If you've had your Dwarf Fortress fill with my review, you should probably turn back now, as I'm about to gush my very heart and soul out. If you haven't had enough, it gives insight into a specific story one dwarf can have, as well as the level of detail the game offers you.
Alright, so. I once had a Dwarf named Bomrek. Bomrek was a woman axedwarf, drafted into the military prematurely in the first year of the fortress as soon as she arrived on the scene. Barely had time to unpack her things. Bomrek was reasonably strong, so I put her under the command of an older, more masculine Dwarf in the fort's main militia team of around 4 dwarves including her. Equipped with leather armour and copper weaponry, Bomrek and the others held back frequent werewolf attacks, wild animals and stray kobold thieves for around a year.
And then it happened: A sudden goblin invasion was in progress. Arriving with some trolls and a squad of swordsgoblins, they approached my tiny little fort, which had no countermeasures to stop such a thing. it all came down to the militia, a horrible idea when it comes to Dwarf Fortress. Sending up the squad, the militia commander headed the attack with Bomrek on his heels.
Clashing into the enemy, the militia commander was almost immediately stunned by one of the trolls, which allowed a goblin to come in and finish him. Seeing the commander in trouble, Bomrek rushed in and cut down the goblins, quite a few of them, racking up more than 5 kills in the process (after 5 kills a dwarf earns a special title, which again, is completely randomised). The commander was rushed to the hospital, which at the time was their very own barracks. Having sustained serious wounds during the battle, the commander was incapacitated and unfit for command. He had lost his foot in the skirmish. I always say, if they survive the first real encounter with minimal wounds, they can survive almost anything. The commander had no such luck.
For her achievements in battle, Bomrek was given command of the squadron, and the first iron weapons were produced and gifted to her, and soon after, her squadmates. Bomrek continued to happily serve the military for several years, holding back minor ambushes, building her skills, and continuing to save her comrades admirably in battle. After many, many battles, Bomrek had a kill list of 40-60 goblins, quite impressive for a single Dwarf. For this, I pimped out her room with statues, a table and a chair. You'll never guess what the statues depicted. Mhm, they were all statues of Bomrek.
I could send Bomrek's squad out and they would clean up the goblins swiftly. And then the miners did it. They broke through the magma sea deep underground and found adamant veins, and quickly began producing the very first and only full set of adamant armour. Think of this as a dwarven Power Suit, almost unbreakable and impenetrable. In commemoration of this, thinking she was ready for the task, I waited for a goblin invasion and sent her out. Only her.
She clashed into them straight on. I have never, EVER seen this happen in the history of all of my Dwarf Fortress games without using the danger room strategy (you cheaters). She sustained no damage, blocked every arrow or just straight up took them for shits and giggles, started slashing goblins limb from limb, chasing them, grabbing them, they just couldn't get away. Every craftsman started to produce statues of her, floor and wall carvings all depicted her successes and immense number of kills. She had over 200 kills by this stage, which is amazing considering the fortress was only 7 years in.
Bomrek was given an office, her own person dining room, each all decorated and filled with treasures, and her own, very large, incredibly flashy golden tomb, which contained all of the legendary artifacts my dwarves had created. Honestly, when one dwarf can take on 80 goblins at once, I really had no expectation she was going to fill it any time soon.
Unfortunately, given the diminishing FPS to unbearable levels, I had to give up on that fortress. It was a great disappointment, as Bomrek is my single favourite dwarf to date. Well, other than that guy with no legs that managed to carry around a keg of beer ALL THE TIME, as well as two crutches.
If you would like to play Dwarf Fortress (and you actually stuck around this long), you can find it at Today's website here:
http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/
Personally, I play with a version called LazyNewbPack, which comes with a Graphical User Interface where you can change many in game features without fapping about in text files. There's also some built in graphical sets which you can play with and find which ones you like. There's absolutely essential utilities in there as well. You can find that here:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=59026.0
Remember, it's a free game and only 50MB. You have absolutely no reason not to try it.
For those of you who don't actually know what Dwarf Fortress is by now, Dwarf Fortress is a unique little gem that boasts depth and creativity. It's kind of like a city building game with a focus on the actual people doing the building. Now I know that might not sound very appealing to everyone, but creating your own little fortress is, down to every little wall piece, window, door and decorations. You get to manage your crazy little sods as they go about digging their way into the mountain for ores, rocks and shelter, and that's not always easy. Think Mincraft. Think the Sims. Think MAGMA.
 |
| The mighty stone entrance.The visual style takes some getting used to. |
Dwarf Fortress has been in development since 2002, with its alpha release in mid 2006, and since then has undergone a tremendous amount of updates, changes, overhauls and not to mention the incredible amount of player created mods and utilities for it. It's insane, given the game is practically developed by one guy, Zach Adams, also known as ToadyOne, and his brother Tarn Adams. My complete and utter respect for those guys.
Oh I'm sorry, are all my words positive? Am I using all complimentary language? Do I sound bias to you? That's because it's amazing. Go fucking play it. Right now. I'll wait. It's absolutely free, which is amazing considering that's all the creator does for a living, living off mere donations. Does that sound like it'd be hard? Wait 'til you see the game, then.
Upon starting up the game, you will almost immediately realise that almost everything is randomised. I really do mean, almost everything. You generate the world, that's all randomised. You start with 7 dwarves. Their appearances and features are all randomised. You get a few migrant dwarves each season depending on how good or bad the fortress is doing. RANDOMISED. Forgotten beasts, titans made of god-knows-what attack your fortress from both above and underground. Guess what they are? You guessed it. Randomised. I, no joke, got a vomit forgotten beast once. Personally, I absolutely love the randomisation. It makes for so many different outcomes, such a unique experience. It's great talking with other players, seeing what kind of craziness they've got up to. And my favourite was a hill titan comprised completely of salt that a dwarf killed by biting it to death. That titan delicious, guy? Bet it'd go good with some dog steaks. Hey, don't you judge me! I do what I need to survive.
And you really will need to do just that. The game's motto is "Losing is Fun!" and in a way, it's both thrilling and utterly depressing when your hard work goes swirling down the drain. So many things can happen to put a fortress in danger;
You may be suddenly attacked by goblins who want nothing more than to loot your fortress and see your dwarves all dead and dismembered.
You might suddenly encounter the pits of Dwarven depression as one dwarf's cat dies and he proceeds to destroy his friend's bed, and then his friend gets angry and punches a stranger, and that stranger gets so upset that he refuses to consume any food or drink for months and then dies in the dining room. Now EVERYONE has watched a dwarf die by slowly killing himself. Behold the infamous tantrum spiral. More horrifying than 100 goblin elites.
YOU might make a mistake. Remember that flood gate that lets the water/magma in from the river/volcano that you were using to make a little pond/EPIC MAGMA PIT, but you were distracted by a puppy running around or a goblin attack and forgot to close it. Well.... At least I hope that yout dwarves learn to swim soon.
Getting back on track. Do you like crafting? Of course you do. Dwarf Fortress has crafting. I like crafting, you like crafting, so everybody craft! Dwarf Fortress has over 20 workshops you can build, each with their own list of craftable items. You've got your carpenter's workshop where you make wooden stuff like beds and wooden storage bins (which oh-sweet-Jesus you'll need a lot of), and your masonry where you build doors and stone bricks and floodgates and the like. Then you get stuff like butchers and metalcrafters and so on, until you have a pretty large amount of items sitting around your fortress.
 |
| Stockpiles, with so much stuff. Special guest Prison, up the top right. |
There's more features than I can mention in one little review, and there's even some spoilers for new and inexperienced players. The longer you play it, the more you realise you're not just looking at ASCII graphics anymore. You're watching actual little dwarves run around and build an actual little fortress, each little guy with his own little back story and specific likes and dislikes which is all spelled out rather nicely in the Thoughts and Preferences window.
 |
| Dem feelings. |
The game has other features like the Adventurer and Legends mode. Legends mode is basically a viewer of every major living creature such as dwarves or megabeasts. It also lists major outpost or city, Adventurer mode sees you control your own little character of one of the three playable races, Elves, Dwarves, or Humans, and travel around your generated world. The generated world itself is almost infinitely larger than your tiny little fortress embark from Fortress mode, so it's nice to walk around and see how alive the world is. And with every update, it's getting even livelier. You can use your own adventurer to visit your lost fortresses, full of traps and fat loots, and maybe even full of whatever made you lose it in the first place. I wonder if the dragon still hangs out there? You better go check it.
In February, Toady updated Dwarf Fortress with the long awaited undead update, an update that included large amounts of content including new sieges, a new undead system, largely improved evil areas on the world map and huge cities with castles, quests, shops and a whole lot of sewer systems. The evil system brought in was probably my favourite, with the introductions of vampire dwarves occasionally arriving at your fortress, and the new system where, if something dies or is killed in an evil region, it gets back up, regardless of damage. That means specific body parts lopped off will come back to life, along with the main corpse.
As this is a review, albeit a very biased and fanboy-driven one, I do have to point out the game's flaws. (I know! It'll be hard on me too!) The game has so many operations occurring, with every dwarf having thoughts and actions, that it actually gets gradually slower as your population rises, or as the goblins gift you their equipment and body parts and you don't dispose of them (The only way is to burn the excess junk in magma, and not everyone has easy access to that right away). Inevitably, if your fortress lives past its first initial and most difficult years, it will sadly result in a disappointing FPS death. The game is also quite buggy, but nothing game breaking. There was once, and possibly still is, a bug where a dwarf wouldn't quite understand what to do with soap, resulting in him or her trying to shove it in their mouth when washing. Way to go dwarfy.
I am insanely in love with this game. So many stories can come out of even one session of Dwarf Fortress, more than any other game I've seen or played. In order to convey my point, I will now share with you one of my favourite stories about my Dwarves and their hardships. Remember, everyone has a completely different and unique experience, as almost everything in the game in randomised.
Keep in mind, this is a very long story. If you've had your Dwarf Fortress fill with my review, you should probably turn back now, as I'm about to gush my very heart and soul out. If you haven't had enough, it gives insight into a specific story one dwarf can have, as well as the level of detail the game offers you.
Alright, so. I once had a Dwarf named Bomrek. Bomrek was a woman axedwarf, drafted into the military prematurely in the first year of the fortress as soon as she arrived on the scene. Barely had time to unpack her things. Bomrek was reasonably strong, so I put her under the command of an older, more masculine Dwarf in the fort's main militia team of around 4 dwarves including her. Equipped with leather armour and copper weaponry, Bomrek and the others held back frequent werewolf attacks, wild animals and stray kobold thieves for around a year.
And then it happened: A sudden goblin invasion was in progress. Arriving with some trolls and a squad of swordsgoblins, they approached my tiny little fort, which had no countermeasures to stop such a thing. it all came down to the militia, a horrible idea when it comes to Dwarf Fortress. Sending up the squad, the militia commander headed the attack with Bomrek on his heels.
Clashing into the enemy, the militia commander was almost immediately stunned by one of the trolls, which allowed a goblin to come in and finish him. Seeing the commander in trouble, Bomrek rushed in and cut down the goblins, quite a few of them, racking up more than 5 kills in the process (after 5 kills a dwarf earns a special title, which again, is completely randomised). The commander was rushed to the hospital, which at the time was their very own barracks. Having sustained serious wounds during the battle, the commander was incapacitated and unfit for command. He had lost his foot in the skirmish. I always say, if they survive the first real encounter with minimal wounds, they can survive almost anything. The commander had no such luck.
For her achievements in battle, Bomrek was given command of the squadron, and the first iron weapons were produced and gifted to her, and soon after, her squadmates. Bomrek continued to happily serve the military for several years, holding back minor ambushes, building her skills, and continuing to save her comrades admirably in battle. After many, many battles, Bomrek had a kill list of 40-60 goblins, quite impressive for a single Dwarf. For this, I pimped out her room with statues, a table and a chair. You'll never guess what the statues depicted. Mhm, they were all statues of Bomrek.
I could send Bomrek's squad out and they would clean up the goblins swiftly. And then the miners did it. They broke through the magma sea deep underground and found adamant veins, and quickly began producing the very first and only full set of adamant armour. Think of this as a dwarven Power Suit, almost unbreakable and impenetrable. In commemoration of this, thinking she was ready for the task, I waited for a goblin invasion and sent her out. Only her.
She clashed into them straight on. I have never, EVER seen this happen in the history of all of my Dwarf Fortress games without using the danger room strategy (you cheaters). She sustained no damage, blocked every arrow or just straight up took them for shits and giggles, started slashing goblins limb from limb, chasing them, grabbing them, they just couldn't get away. Every craftsman started to produce statues of her, floor and wall carvings all depicted her successes and immense number of kills. She had over 200 kills by this stage, which is amazing considering the fortress was only 7 years in.
Bomrek was given an office, her own person dining room, each all decorated and filled with treasures, and her own, very large, incredibly flashy golden tomb, which contained all of the legendary artifacts my dwarves had created. Honestly, when one dwarf can take on 80 goblins at once, I really had no expectation she was going to fill it any time soon.
Unfortunately, given the diminishing FPS to unbearable levels, I had to give up on that fortress. It was a great disappointment, as Bomrek is my single favourite dwarf to date. Well, other than that guy with no legs that managed to carry around a keg of beer ALL THE TIME, as well as two crutches.
If you would like to play Dwarf Fortress (and you actually stuck around this long), you can find it at Today's website here:
http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/
Personally, I play with a version called LazyNewbPack, which comes with a Graphical User Interface where you can change many in game features without fapping about in text files. There's also some built in graphical sets which you can play with and find which ones you like. There's absolutely essential utilities in there as well. You can find that here:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=59026.0
Remember, it's a free game and only 50MB. You have absolutely no reason not to try it.
A brief intro
Welcome to my blog, Fox in a Top Hat. As this is the first post, let me briefly describe the purpose of this blog and give you a rundown of its future content.I rant. I rant a lot. I rant a lot about games. Given my love for video games and software of the like, I've given myself to the idea of trying my hand at some professional writing. The content will include reviews, discussions, opinions, thoughts, ideas and other content as I come up with it.
As for me, I like all and any genre of games and gaming, and I've been in the business of playing games for almost 18 years now, and I'm only 21. I'm not a mathematician, but that's like 99% of my life right there. I am of the belief that games, all games, are forms of media, fun, education and storytelling. My opinions are many and varied, so don't expect to agree with me on everything. Hell, I barely agree with me on everything.
I said I'd keep it short and keep it short I shall. I'll start things off by uploading articles about my favourite and most recently played games. I hope you find some enjoyment from reading my articles as I hope you will. That is, if you like reading copious amounts of text.
I freaking love typing copious amounts of text.
As for me, I like all and any genre of games and gaming, and I've been in the business of playing games for almost 18 years now, and I'm only 21. I'm not a mathematician, but that's like 99% of my life right there. I am of the belief that games, all games, are forms of media, fun, education and storytelling. My opinions are many and varied, so don't expect to agree with me on everything. Hell, I barely agree with me on everything.
I said I'd keep it short and keep it short I shall. I'll start things off by uploading articles about my favourite and most recently played games. I hope you find some enjoyment from reading my articles as I hope you will. That is, if you like reading copious amounts of text.
I freaking love typing copious amounts of text.
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