Raithe

The balance of putting this under Funny Things, Music, or Here... oh decisions, decisions. http://youtu.be/UDXUDehUgIQ

I have to admit, getting 3 guys with Assault Rifles with Long Barrels, and one or two guys with Heavy Weapons, cuts most things down swiftly...

The full cover version... http://youtu.be/h-OTYT02W7E

.. oh grarg. Last week or so I kept getting the "couldn't synch to cloud properly" so I was assuming my saves were as normal going to my hd. Then I boot up Wastelands after the patch and get a "oh, there's a difference between your cloud saves and your hd saves, which should be updated?" , thinking of all those error messages about synching, I selected for the hd saves to be the ones that were correct. Now I seem to have lost all my saves since the infected village in Arizona

They have pretty much said that the girl is gone about 4 or 5 episodes in. So while she's in that first episode more for the "I have no idea what's going on, please explain things to me" role for the audience, and then seemed to be the main reason for "monster of the week", it looks like there's going to be a switch off to something else.

Hm, they've done a second season of The Transporter. They've got Chris Vance playing Frank Martin and it's one of those Candian / French co-productions. They definitely have the European feel to most of it, with some entertaining car sequences, some slightly rough fight sequences, a few smugly amusing lines, and pretty much one casual boob shot an episode I've noticed.

Heh, I still remember getting slammed for the "inherent sexism and gang nature" of AD&D books and gaming. That and the DM who could still regale the younger players with how things had hammered the "satanic worship" aspect when he just got into RPG's. I guess that's part of why I find some amusement in those sorts of things.

So women and children, bureaucrats not included? But yes, take care Woldan.

I admit, I'm so tempted to drop in a gif from the Rocky Horror Picture Show for laughs right now... But I'll be good, and let the weekend go with this assortment instead:

I can sort of see a potential reason for including Cullen in DA2... He presents a face of the Templars who has seen a Mage Circle go nuts. He has the history of the worst happening with Mages, and thus is a touch more understandable or relatable then Meredith or the others who just come across as utter jerks. The fact that he does that, plus is a cheap way to link in to DA:O is a twofer. Sure, they could have written a totally new character who had seen a Circle go nuts like that, and abominations run wild... But it's a fairly easy thing to link back and make it seem that DA2 actually relates to DA:O.

Hadn't quite realised all the modifiers that go into the Rune drops on Shadows of Mordor. So apparently when you kill an Orc/Uruk captain, you get an automatic rune of the same level as the Captain. However, if that Captain had killed you before, you get +1 level to the rune for "vengeance". If you utilise something the Captain hates, you get a +1 level. If you use something the Captain fears, you get a +1 level. If you have gained intel about the Captain before the combat, you get a +1 level. Finally, if you made a death threat against the Captain, if you don't get an Epic Rune drop, you get a +1 level to the Rune. And they're cumulative, so if you get a Captain up to 20th level first, have let him kill you, gained intel on him, make a death threat, show up with something he hates, and then use something he fears.. then.. (as long as he doesn't drop an Epic Rune), you'll get a 25th level Rune drop...

So do I. If blinking your eyes counts...

Wrapped up Shadows of Mordor last night. For my general thoughts on it: The gameplay in general - as has been noted - is a mashup of Assassin's Creed and Batman Arkham, with a lot more stabbity-slashy. If you enjoy the majority of a game being slaughtering Orcs and Uruks, whether sneaking up and brutally stabbing an Uruk 5 times to terrify his companions, or jumping into a mob to engage in rolling swordplay and multiple decapitations, this is probably one you'll enjoy. The stealth is pretty basic, and the running, jumping, and climbing doesn't have any serious flaws and it all has some very fluid animations. The Nemesis system is quite innovative, and yes you will develop connections with the various Uruk's and such that you encounter who manage to kill you or you kill. Sometimes you'll think you'll have killed one only for them to turn up again later with fresh scars or burns (in some way relating to your earlier fight). Plus the way they remember things, whether you fought them, whether you ran away, if they ran away, if you threw them into a fire, if you dropped a wasp's nest on their head... That's all a nice touch. The open world is split into two maps. You literally have half the missions, collectibles, and "side" missions on each one. Certain skills only open up when you carry out specific story missions - one of which is gaining the "brand" ability that basically dominates Uruk's to your will, and you only gain that at the start of the second map. So you will spend half the game without it. As a character you earn XP to unlock a chunk of your abilities, but those are on a set of 4 or 5 tiers which have to be unlocked by gaining Power. So you gain power by basically disrupting Sauron's army with killing the Captains and War-chiefs and disrupting the various events they do to gain more power. These are all random things the Nemesis system gets them doing. Whether holding a feast to impress their troops, going on a recruitment drive to bully other Uruk's into joining them, duelling each other for respect and position (quite often killing each other...). So you can jump in, and help or hinder them. Of course, for the first half you have no reason to help them. There is also a third set of upgrades for your attributes that cover how many runes your weapons can hold, your health, your focus ability and just how much elf shot you can carry. On a certain level the basic storyline is lacklustre. It has some good voice acting, the general mood is nice, and it does have a few moments of impact. But it also feels very shallow to a large chunk of the game. Then again, you can blaze through the majority of the 20 Story missions if you want, but the serious time will be taken up with the points where the story pauses as it were to let you deal with Uruk killing / manipulation on a grand scale.

Also , since I'm here...

"There is a reason the harem doors lock from the outside...."

Took an hour to install Shadows of Mordor.. then got into the general fun of orc and uruk slaughter... I did like the description "imagine if Assassin's Creed, Batman Arkham, and Skyrim had a threeway, this could be the resulting offspring..."

It's possible these two newsreaders have been working together a tad too long... http://youtu.be/S7ehlw_phys

One of these days I really should get around to doing an Operation...