DC Universe Online. Mini Review

In amongst my studies, I have been downloading DC Universe Online. I heard on The Instance that it had gone free to play. Naturally... I decided to check it out. I dont promise a well written or article with any real aim other than to waffle on about what I have done and my thoughts on the game ;)

After installing, I hit the character creation process... I felt brave and selected PVP server, then Villain. Why? I dont know, I always play the good guys and I thought it would be an interesting twist. Plus, I got to choose The Joker as my mentor, and the entertainment value of such a thing just could not be ignored! Superman? Bores me. Batman? Bores me. Huntress? Who the hell are you?

Catwoman? Yes plx. The Joker? Yes plx. Lex Luthor ... o.O ... ok, sure whatever.

Next up I chose my starter abilities, I took the ability to fly which seemed a no-brainer, and "magic damage" because if I remember correctly it had properties of being a healer and I thought it would be nice to be able to heal or be a group healer if such content is in this game, which it seems it is.

I then chose my costume... yeah... Its all very customisable, but I chose something simple... a two tone stripey green and red spandex suit. Go team camp! On a  big plus - all the armour bits you collect in the game customise to match your colour scheme - so no fugly armour parts or clown suits (unless you wish to make it so) like in WOW.

I have never really been big into the DC comics, so it comes as a nice touch that despite my lack of knowledge, the game fills you in on the characters back stories. This is evident in your first "warehouse" where at the end of it you learn a little bit about who The Huntress is.

Storywise, it is amusing me and keeps me coming back for more.

Gameplay is rather unusual compared to other online games I know. For a start, the game is also available to console players which results in some interesting mechanics. I have noticed that you dont need to be a great aim to hit your targets, and that you can "lock" onto a specific target so that you are attacking it regardless of what you are doing on screen. This is quite handy if you think you will be confused by the environment. A downside to this is the way the "combo-moves" work. When you gain skillpoints you spend them in various talent trees for your abilities (or to learn new abilities) and as you gain new abilities they are activated with different combo-buttons. In the case of the PC where I am playing it, a left mouse button tap is a melee strike, a right mouse button tap is a ranged hand-blast. Holding the right mouse button unleashes a charged bolt. Holding it down twice supposedly fires a meteor, but I dont know if that works. Holding the right mouse button and tapping the left twice is supposed to boot a fireball at the enemy... so far I have not seen any of these combo moves do anything different, but I will persevere.

I am level 7, and have maybe accumulated 3-4 hours in game, flying about, doing missions, giggling at the dialogue and taking part (albheit mainly as cannon fodder) in some of the pitched PVP battles that break out.

It appears there is only 30 levels in the game, but I dont think this is a bad thing, it means a band of lowbies like myself can wither down a level 30 and kill them despite their toughness or ability to one-shot half of us.

At this point in time I would rate the game as follows:

Story: 7/10 (The plot is odd, or maybe completely irrelevant - Im not sure, but thats not a good thing is it! - but mission plot and the story info you gain from them is well implemented.)

Graphics: 7/10 (I play at max everything. Graphics look good, not awesome, and there are some niggles, but its pleasant to look at.)

Gameplay: 7/10 (good but not perfect. Again, some niggles in how things work, but it seems a solid concept.)

Entertainment Value: 8/10 - Im in the early game, and despite getting ganked, Im enjoying exploring something new again.

Overall 7/10 - I might enjoy the game if/once I have time to get into it more, and perhaps partake in group activities. I know a bunch of friends that play this game so it seems to be fairly popular. Overall - if you have not tried it, it is free to play so give it a blast! You might be pleasantly surprised. If not - at least you just enjoyed a few hours of your very own action hero movie :p

-V

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Pre-amble to a write up...

"That's a bit of an odd topic title!" I hear you cry, and alas. I concur. As a self confessed geek, I feel I need to be deducted some geek-cred for not having a copy of Skyrim yet.

The reasons are many, among them there is university studies - Im busy as all hell until about the middle of December, and the abundance of Death that has happened around me and Kat in the last month has thrown us off course a little (AKA, a metric Fuckton.) As a result, I am heavily commited to getting coursework done and out of the way before I risk gaming addiction on the level that this promises to enforce...

In an attempt to compensate for this, when I finally get to indulge in the game I am going to do a couple of things: 

Firstly I am trying to get my mits on a second monitor to help simplify my working experience. The new one shall be bigger and better for gaming which will enhance the experience I hope.

Secondly: I am going to try to keep a written log/journal of my characters adventures and randomness. I shall refrain from giving away main-quest info or spoilers (Or I might focus on the main quest and just give a write-up as if it was a journal from my character... that could be cool.) - I know I have been trying hard to find a few blogs/sites that provide this fix for myself without giving too much of the game away with little success.

As for now... well... Importance fact at the moment :: life > game 

Crysis 2: Useful links

During my run throughs of Crysis 2 (3 completions), I found an array of useful links for various bits of information.

Here is a links list to the more useful ones I found :-)

Guide	Site	Note
Weapons Guide	gamershell.com	An interesting read about the power and uses of various weapons. This particular guide also discusses tactics and enemies you will encounter
Collectables Guide	msxbox-world.com	I only found 2 dogtags and a statue by myself... checking the guide on entering a new area helped me know where things were hidden to find them. Collected on 3rd walkthrough - Im not that much of a kleptomaniac to search every area for these things ;-)
Walkthrough	gamefront.com	I recommend flying blind, but if you just cant see the exit to an area, it can help

I hope they prove as useful to everyone out there as they did to me :)

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

With this game looming over our heads and the hype surrounding it, I thought I would look into it a bit more. I have loved TES games since Morrowind first came out - back then I didn't even have a computer or graphics card powerful enough to run the game beyond the most basic effects.

On the site - http://www.elderscrolls.com/ - there has been a new video put up since I was last on there - a making of clip, that will be included in a making of DVD in the collectors edition.

Ultimate dragon fighting game
Ultimate warrior game
Ultimate mage game
Ultimate thief game
Ultimate assassin game.

Yep - they have a lot of ground to cover! I thought they done quite well in Oblivion. I am hoping that the engine etc has been knocked up a notch since then, since looking at Oblivion now it looks sadly dated. The good news is that from the clips - it does look like it has changed! Maybe not as much as I was hoping for, but maybe having a new computer Ill be able to run everything to its full potential anyway ^.^

Im looking forward to being able to just explore a huge open game world again. How thorough should I be? Who knows! I would like to finish this one - since I didn't actually finish Morrowind. I think I got half-way up the mountain at the end then formated my PC or something... fun times!

I shall certainly detail in here what I get up to in it anyway, once I get round to buying it...

Journals! (Of the diary variety, amongst others.)

This topic might be a bit controvertial for geek-value, but Im in the mood to write about it and its my blog so... deal with it. Read it or skip it :p

So... since I was little, I have kept some sort of diary/journal... I feel kinda silly each time I actually think about it, but at the same time it is kinda fun. People keep journals of all sorts of things. Work journals, project journals, etc etc, to keep track of what they are doing and the goals they are seeking to achieve in such things which is all very valid. But what about every day life?

I keep work journals when working, project ones when working on projects (such as my honours project), and I have kept a couple of holiday journals (More specifically me and Kat's honeymoon journal (nothing dodgy!) which is kept on display in the living room and that we occasionally flick through to reminisce)

From about 1991 I have kept a written journal of sorts. Admittedly, every time I take a look at one of these diaries from my childhood - it is embarassing... The crap I would waffle about beggars belief, but it helped my writing skills immensely and gives me something to look back on and reminisce. I was inspired by the likes of Sue Townsends Adrian Mole diaries (at least, the earlier ones. The later ones were too depressing to read.) and some other comical diaries like Mr Beans diary and "The Log" from Red Dwarf.

From about 2002 onward I decided to keep an electronic diary. I don't put entries in it often, I would guesstimate I put an entry in, on average, once per week. Sometimes it can be a month before I put in an entry, other times I can have a straight week where I update it daily.

So, lets be analytical. What are the advantages of keeping a diary?

Well, firstly - its a scrapbook of your life. I find that when I have partaken in an event, be it family, holiday, or just a random day - that by writing about it, I remember it better - and when I look over old diaries I can remember the day clearly. This goes back as far as the diary I was writing in when I was 9 - so almost 20 years ago.

Secondly - if you need to vent somewhere, or get your thoughts down, then it is a good outlet. I find when I look back at half my entries, if they are not a "log" of activities on a day or from an event, they irritate me... but I have them down and it helps me analyse things that have happened, or why I feel a certain why, or am affected by something in a certain way. It irritates the shit out of me when people "Emo-book" - basically putting a status up on a social site like Facebook to get attention then hiding from the responses whilst most likely keeping an eye on them to judge your self-worth/pity. That's what I use one of these for! I don't need the attention, I need the outlet or Ill go putting my fist through walls, head through windows.

There are some other advantages that I wont go into detail with, such as helping remember things if your short term memory is shot by updating it as things happen, etc etc.

Disadvantages?

People will read it. No shit sherlock - its human nature - if you have one of these and someone gets their mits on it, they WILL read it. Get used to it. If you want something that is truly private, keep an electronic copy, and password it up tight. But moreso, get used to the rule of self-censorship. There are some things that shouldn't go down, because Im sure there are certain circumstances where you would have to provide it as evidence or something in court by law, or you may leave the document open.

I remember when I was younger, my sister would keep sneaking my diary away to read it, and tease me occasionally on its contents, and more recently I found out my mother read it aswell. A bit embarassing, but also a giggle since I would never keep anything so serious in there that I would get in trouble for it...

Another disadvantage could be the time constraints and the "whats the point" factor. How often are you going to read it? Are you EVER going to go back and read it? Why put in the time?

Well, time commitment is minimal, you can sum up a day in a 30 second paragraph if needs be, or you can go into as much detail as you like (memory is cheap! Same cant be said for the paper diaries I used to keep!). You may find you appreciate the effort later on, moreso for being a log of important or special events that happen in your life, but it is also nice to just read back over a normal day and contrast yourself to then and see how much you have changed. (Its usually a good thing in my experience!)

So what about other aspects of keeping a log/journal/diary?

Co-authoring: Not a good idea for a "diary" - but it can work quite well as a log of activities in, for example, a holiday journal. Co-authoring could work in the instance of short term memory loss. I think it would be a fantastic day for family members visiting a relative with dementia/alzheimer's to make a little journal entry of their visit for the relative they are visiting to go over once they have left, perhaps updating it with images etc remotely.

Remembering loved ones? Pictures, remembering activities you done? Everybody's gotta go someday... it may make you sad to read about activities past, and see pictures, but I would rather that than have no way to remember them.

But yeah, I think I have waffled on. What can I say? I keep a diary! I have done for 20 years! No you cant read it. So:

fuck you! ;-)

Anyway - the majority of what I would say in a diary nowadays goes on facebook for friends and family to see, nothing really special is kept in it - its simply a log, where I can keep some scrapbook-esque pictures, notes and occasionally bitch to myself about whats pissing me off with life. The venting helps!

I recommend you try it ^.^
-V