Keyrock

I'm not at all surprised Shadow Realms was scrapped. The little bit of the game they showcased last year looked, quite frankly, bad, and it's been mum's the word ever since.

Dying Light on the PC, I'm still not far in the story as I've been mostly doing side quests, and Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow on the Wii U virtual console, just getting started.

Not sure if this fits here as it's a board game, but anyway, here goes. Conan board game by Monolith Board Games. 70 hours left as of this writing. This one is already INSANELY successful having asked for $80,000 and it's gotten over 2 million. A ridiculous amount of stretch goals has been unlocked and each means more miniatures and character sheets free for everyone. I don't know how they're going to fit all of this into one box. I've been following this for a while and pledged to it yesterday for the King Box. I'm a huge fan of the Conan setting and how fraught with debauchery, lust, and selfishness it is. I also love asymmetrical games (this one is 1 vs 1 to 4). Keep in mind that you'll likely be looking at an additional $35 or $45 (if you live in the States or Europe) or more for shipping in addition to the cost. Still, the amount of stuff that you get for the price is freakin' astounding. I have thoughts of painting all the miniatures, but that's going to take months of work.

I gave Lords of Xulima some 6 hours, I'm done with it. Highly disappointing. The only thing this game has going for it is the "old school feel" but it's old school in mostly the wrong ways. The game repeats the same mistake so many old school games made of being at its very hardest (at least for the amount of time I played) at the beginning, forcing you to save and reload a lot just to get to level 3, when the game becomes manageable. The combat is okay, but very repetitive. The game is shockingly linear. The world is dull. Worst of all, the game pretty much forces you into a certain party composition and build for each character. Trying to stray from the "optimal" party all but guarantees failure. The game might as well pick my characters and level them up for me. It might get better later, but I'll never find out. If a game can't hook me in 5 or so hours, I'm not going to keep hate playing it just to see if it gets better.

To be honest, I'm pretty underwhelmed by this. I'll keep an eye on it, maybe a future update will convince me, but, as it stands, I'll pass and see what it looks like when it comes out.

So long as you're not expecting to play a Tomb Raider game. If you're down to play a cover shooter with a tiny bit of exploration and some insultingly easy platforming, then yes.

How the devil does anybody watch this simpering piffle? The ginger gentleman who ruined the recent Poe runthrough is moderately annoying, but that little squeaking Schreier chap is positively afflicted by all indications. Then again morons working for Kotaku, hardly a surprise. Still TB and the young lady were tolerable, but I could only manage a half an hour or so. You don't like Jesse Cox? I find him pretty funny and entertaining. To each their own, I guess. As for listening to it, it;s something I'll put on as background noice at work. I can have it playing and do my work (the work that I can do at my desk, anyway). If something catches my interest, I'll pause it and listen closer on break, otherwise it;s mostly ambiance.

Rogue Legacy is so good.

They talk a bit on the Co-Optional podcast about publisher events where they bring in youtubers to stream events and the ethics of how some they just let you film freely and in others there are some agreements about the content in place starting at about 58 minutes and going on for a while. That's as Gamergate-y as they get in the podcast.

This ****ing weather. We got hit for anywhere from a little over a foot of snow to almost 3 feet of snow about a week and a half ago. We got hit with another foot a few days ago. It's snowing again right now and we may get another foot Sunday night through Monday. The snow banks are piled up so high that cars can't see traffic at intersections very well and there's nowhere left to put all the snow, and we're only starting February, there's still over a month before we're out of the woods, we may get hit 3 or 4 more times. I hate winter. I hate Connecticut. I need to get the **** out of this God forsaken hellhole.

I've always had a love/hate relationship with the parkour in AC games. When it all works it's very elegant and flows beautifully, but there are so many moments when I'm trying to do something and the character keeps doing something else and I want to throw my controller through my monitor. In that regard, I think the parkour in Dying Light is superior. It's not as elegant and doesn't flow as well as in AC, but, for the most part, Crane always does what you want him to do. I'll take consistent and less elegant mechanics over inconsistent and more elegant mechanics any day.

This time Lara murders 500 brown bears rather than 500 Russians.

A lot of people saw this coming from a mile away. Tablets are mostly unnecessary. They have their strong points, but are far from essential. I'll admit it took the tablet bubble longer to burst than I thought, though.

Well, I finally got a new ship in Raven's Cry, a man o' war. It took almost all my money and it's pretty beat up and I can't afford to fully fix it, since I need to keep some cash for trading, so I'll need to be careful and avoid battles until I make enough to fix it up fully, but once I do, I will be the scourge of the seas, since I now own a proper war vessel.

Well, in their defense, there was only 0:26 left in the game, and Seattle only had 1 timeout left (after wasting 2 earlier in the drive). One of either the 2nd- or 3rd-down plays probably has to be a pass. You could ABSOLUTELY run 3 times with 26 seconds left. A run play is not a long developing play, it will likely take 5 seconds off the clock, 6 at most, then you call timeout if he doesn't get in. 20 seconds left. Even on plays in the middle of the field you can get back to the line and run another play usually in 14 or 15 seconds, at the goalline, where everyone is bunched up and no one is running far downfield, it's gonna be much less than that. You call 2 runs during the timeout. If Beast Mode fails on 3rd down, you rush back to the line and run again with probably 3 or 4 seconds left. You run Beast Mode 3 times from the 1 what are your chances he gets in? I'm guessing around 95%?

My first mate tends to spend much of his coin on the ladies of the night As a result, I have a prostitute standing on my deck. Bless that little man!

It's crazy, you have 3 chances, 2 at the very least taking into account the time left, from the 1. Run Lynch again and again. Dude will get you 1 yard. Such a stupid playcall. It's like saying "I have this practically sure thing, but let me play Russian Roulette instead".

C-Hox gave that game away. 2nd and goal from the 1, a timeout in your pocket, and you don't run Marshawn Lynch? What the ****? That was one of the most bizarre playcalls I've seen. Pete Carroll outsmarted himself.

Venetica

Playing more Raven's Cry. In true white man fashion, I just slaughtered an island's entire native population, their males anyway. I didn't see any women, which makes me wonder how the natives reproduce. I'll make a bit of a logical leap and assume they hid their women away somewhere deep. Probably a good call on their part. Now the natives did attack me on sight (can't say I blame them), so I could say I was defending myself, but considering the ***hole murderer I'm playing as, I'm going to assume I was going in with a mind for killing all of them regardless. That's how I roll. I like how the game has a "Fear Meter" that fills up as you damage enemies (pretty quickly too), and once it's full you can unleash an special insta-kill attack (at higher levels it can supposedly insta-kill multiple enemies). What's cool is that it's not always the same animation. Sometimes you go behind them, grab them, and slice their belly open, then stomp their head when they fall down, sometimes you grab them and run your blade through their stomach, and sometimes you simply stab them in the face. You can also attack with your hook, but I haven't unlocked that yet. A nice touch is that your pistol more often than not doesn't fire when it's raining. Also, you can sick your pet raven on enemies. It doesn't do much damage (yet, maybe it will with upgrades), but just the thought of it is awesome. I'm mostly avoiding sea battles right now because all I got is a dinky schooner, so I'm pretty much always outgunned. Luckily, with my upgraded sails, I can generally outrun enemies. With all the valuables I looted off the natives (hopefully all those gold idols are worth a pretty penny) I should be able to afford a larger vessel. I'd like to get a frigate. Galleons are super powerful but slow and cumbersome, a frigate seems like a good compromise of power and maneuverability.

Tribal Scarlett was always my favorite Scarlett.

Ignorance. This is what games used to look like. You think adding resolution and colour depth would change anything? Whoa, if I'm not mistaken, that's the first Need For Speed.

****ing stylin'!

Oh man, I just swindled a widow out of one of her possessions in Raven's Cry by playing the kindly stranger who needs her help to help her get more money (I might as well be a Nigerian Prince). I'm not sure if the game will give me a chance to actually repay her later on (doubtful), but if it does, **** that, I'm playing a pirate and I'm here to swindle everyone the last bit of coin out of fools I can, be they male, female, young, elderly, handicapped, senile, retarded, or whatever. The more mentally challenged or gullible the better, easier score. I will take all your money! AHAHAHAHA AHAHAHAHAHAHA! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!