Monthly Update: June, 2015

Happy June everyone!  Unless June is an unhappy month for you, so in that case, "HAPPY JUNE EVERYONE ELSE!  And you too."

So updates from our gaming worlds it is now that we're on to talking about.

Within the realm of Dungeons & Dragons, I've come to the realization that I need to work on describing environments that the PCs are in when there are no descriptions prewritten from the module.  Sure I've got maps and whatnot, but for when the PCs are traversing along a well traveled road from morning to night through the grasslands of Faerûn, I need to do more than say "After you wake up, you continue traveling south along the road.  (Sound of a die rolling). . .The weather throughout the day is fairly windy and (die rolling). . . is uneventful.  You make it to about. . .here on the map by nightfall."  I also need to do a better job at describing enemies rather than by their name.  "A twig blight scuttles out of the bushes and goes after Dagnar."  I also feel that I should have a random name generator up because the few people that I've given names too have been "Joe" and "Bobby."

But Conklederp reminds me that people keep coming back so I must not be doing that bad of a job DMing descriptions.

I managed to finish Silent Hill on the PSP late last month.  It was about as stressful as I was expecting and after just over nine hours, I was able to see the fruits of my fingering labors.  There will be an article later in the week or the beginning of next week, somewhat akin to the Dead Space articles about my experience with the game rather than directly about the game.  It did come out 16 years ago after all.

I've also managed to progress a bit in Radiant Historia on the 3DS although I still find that I'm overthinking things as far as time travel and parallel universes.

In the PC gaming arena, Conklederp and I have been playing the proverbial fecal matter out of The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited.  Last week alone we clocked in around 17+ hours traversing the vast swaths of High Rock and portions of Hammerfell.  I don't know if we will keep pace this week as I have a lot of real world work I have to finish.

Lastly, there are going to be some changes coming up this month that DRoBOTTS and I have been working on for just about the last month.  We're both happy to see this happen (no we're not monetizing and no we were not bought out for 4.7 million after a tense bidding war between PC Gamer and Gamespot), so stay tuned for more vague updates.  I'm sure you'll enjoy our cryptic ramblings as much as we've had creating them.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
I Oughta Get Going

The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited: A Co-op Experience

Yes, I have previously reviewed The Elder Scrolls Online before, but that was back in the days of yesteryear.  In the days before the Zenimax/Bethesda changed the pay structure from a monthly fee to a pay once to play with no subscription fee.  This was also my first real foray back into the game since I ended my subscription back in June 2014 due to the omnipresent "lack of funds" despite the game becoming subscription free back in March.

But now Conklederp's computer (from 2007) has been replaced and it is capable of running TESO:TU so we finally have been able to, more or less, play Skyrim together.  The first night we put in an hour and-a-half, followed by five and-a-half hours the following day and a few minutes ago (before going back to work), we adventured for about an hour.

Having already played 100 hours with my main character (Nord Dragonknight, Ebonheart Pact) and 13 hours with my secondary character (Bosmer Nightblade, Aldmeri Dominion), For my co-op playing, I created an Aldmeri Sorcerer as part of the Daggerfall Covenant to go with Conklederp's Breton Sorcerer.  Sure, a lot of people will tell you that it's probably not wise to group together with only two sorcerers, but we're not looking to become the Emperor as part of the siege in Cyrodiil, we're just running around exploring, doing quests and trying not to die/be killed/die.

These two are totally trustworthy. . .

Having come from a severely limited background in online gaming (Diablo II, Path of Exile), the experience of questing with someone else (along with umteen thousands of others in the background) has definitely been an experience (we're currently both level 7, as long as we're talking about experience).  The little arrow/crown above the other person's head is a nice touch, which is still visible when looking at the map screen, so finding the other person isn't too difficult.  Dealing with lag on the other had can be frustrating.

This is something that I did experience when I was playing solo, but presently, both Conklederp and I experience some-type of lag somewhat regularly, especially in towns and waiting for dialogue options to crop up.  Exiting out of conversations is always doable, which is sometimes the only way to progress with a quest when we find ourselves unable to continue with a conversation after incessant clicking.  The only other frustrating experience I have had is that I have been kicked off of the server (so out of the game) due to "Error 318."

What is funny/odd/weird about this error popping up, is that the only person I talk to is Conklederp, and since she is sitting right across the table from me, there is really no reason to talk to her in chat when I can just use my mouth hole and throat tube to verbalize what it is that I want to tell her.  Sure, I will often have my character play the lute, do pushups or just sit on the ground while I wait for her to find me or if I wait for her outside of the bank/smithing shop.  And this has now happened four separate times (three yesterday and this afternoon.  Thankfully Bethesda is aware that Error 318 is happening to people like me who have been kicked out.  So all I can really do is every time I have been dropped is to log back in, submit a bug report (/bug) using the chat window and let them know about what I was doing at the time.  I should also note that this has not happened to Conklederp.

Well, when I am not getting dropped from the server, I am approaching my sorcerer from the point of view that my character is fawning over Conklederp's character.  He wants to protect her even though she is a fully capable mage.  He hopes that one day she may fall in love with him, but in the meantime, it's questing time.  I have him wearing a combination of heavy and medium armors (what with trying to be a protector and all) and I have been switching back and forth using either the Destruction Staff and the Bow.  Not having played a magick-type before in any of The Elder Scrolls games, this a quite a departure for me, but for the time being I am quite enjoying the game so far.  I should also say that neither Conklederp or I are paying attention to any of the many guides for how to build the best possible class if you want to enjoy the game.  I guess then we will not be enjoying the game together, to the best of our ability.  N00bs are we!

So, taking TESO:TU, for what it is, I think that I would recommend the game, if Dr. Potts and I were ones to actively recommend games in the fashion that one tends to recommend games.  If the recommendation comes in the form of, "Yes, I will still be playing this game today and tomorrow with Conklederp," then that's exactly what it is.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Move Your Legs To Dance A Soldier Dance

My Time With the Evolve Big Alpha Weekend [Part I]

What follows is Part I of my foray into Turtle Rock Studios and 2K's Big Alpha release testing of their still in development game Evolve.

So the #BiGaLpHa weekend started out alright.  I downloaded the 14.8Gig file  over night from Thursday to Friday (of last week).  The game opened at 9am PST although I figured the servers would be flooded with people a la Elder Scrolls Online's beta weekend.  Around 11am I gave the game a go, and was greeted with a Steam pop up window showing me how far along my installation process was?

After a few seconds of looking at this window, I became disappointed as I was then greeted with another Steam pop up window telling me that I had to download some service something-or-other first.

"Okay, since this is from Steam, I'll take it as legit," is what my brain told me.  So I thought I would install whatever service I was apparently now missing, but then this happened:

That damn Bootstrapper again!  So I had to close down Steam, but thankfully the previous result with the Bootstrapper did not happen again.  Whew!

An hour or so later, I tried again, just for shits and giggles.  This time the installation window that popped up started at 1%, then progressed to 24%, 30%, 62% and all the way up to 100%.  And the game started.  Whew!!

I was excited if you couldn't tell from the extra exclamation mark.  The game, or at least the menu was running smoothly with the monster in the background, breathing with its mandibles occasionally reaching out away from it's mouth in a way that implies smooth movement (having already used "smooth" earlier in the sentence).  I went into the options, did the obligatory switching of the axis for the mouse/y-axis, changed the video settings from "High" down to "Low" as I was 99% sure that my little laptop wouldn't be able to handle graphics of this potential caliber.  Then I clicked "Play" and was brought to the character selection screen.

I wasn't really sure what the jobs meant, aside from Assault (Tank) and Medic (Medic) and those were roles that I wasn't comfortable playing on my first playthrough.  My thought process was that playing a role that I wasn't familiar with would be excusable if I were to fuck up the rest of the people I was playing with.  So I clicked "Accept" and patiently waited to be put into a group.

After 20 minutes I was kicked out for "inactivity."  I thought, maybe it was because I actually didn't touch my computer in those 20 minutes of waiting (and reading a textbook).  So, I re-entered the waiting queue room place:

Another 25 minutes later I was kicked out of the waiting room due to inactivity, although this time I was sure to move my mouse around every 5 minutes (I had a timer running).  I know that I could have just clicked the "Back" button every so often to try and reset the waiting room, but I figured that since Turtle Rock and 2K were testing server capacity, that I would just let the game try and find a group for me.  Testing doesn't always mean being able to play a functioning product and my time with The Elder Scrolls Online beta test taught me this.

In total, I waited 1 hour 18 minutes and was kicked out three times (once was because the phone rang and temporarily killed our internet connection).  After that first taste of what was to be Evolve, I tried multiple times to log back into the game, but each time I was greeted with the first "Completing Installation. . . 1%" before being told that I needed to download the Steam service component whereby I can either hit "cancel" and I could forget about playing or click "Download" and have the bootstrapping error come up, and forget about playing.

The #BigAlpha weekend lasted from Friday October 31st until Sunday November 2nd and the article for Monday will include the 30 minutes I was able to spend actually playing the game.

Have a wonderful weekend.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

We Bring Forth Monstrous Birth

Game Scores: The Elder Scrolls Online (PC)

Just to get this out of the way beforehand, yes I enjoy this soundtrack and yes, I believe that it fits in very well with the music from the rest of the Elder Scroll series.

Now that that's out of the way, we can get down to brass tacks.

Jeremy Soule, the composer of the scores from the other games in the Elder Scroll series composed only the main theme, "For Blood, For Glory, For Honor."  This theme does not contain any semblance of the "Nerevar Rising" theme that has become the theme that most people know from The Elder Scroll series.  I feel like Jeremy Soule's contribution is to get the player into the mood to play an Elder Scrolls game in the 2nd Era, that this will be an epic adventure in a familiar world during an unfamiliar period of history.  It's basically an overture in the perfect sense of the word.  

The rest of the 47 soundtrack is broken up between three other artists. 

Brad Derrick, who wrote 43 of the 47 tracks is the most obscure composer on this soundtrack.  By "obscure" I do not mean that his music does not fit in with the overall tone of the game or with the setting that Jeremy Soule set with the main theme, but that there is very little information that I could find about him.  His last.fm profile is pretty stark while what looks to be the right Brad Derrick's website simply has "meep."  I was unable find a listing on IMDb.  All the obscurity aside, what Brad Derrick has composed fits very well within the Elder Scrolls universe.  Simply listening to his music, and not knowing that it is him, you might easily assume that you were listening to a Jeremy Soule score.  Similar to how if you listen to the score from Speed or Transformers you might assume that you were listening to Hans Zimmer and not Mark Mancina and Steve Jablonksy, respectively. 

Back to Brad Derrick, sorry for the diversion.  While I do feel that what Mr. Derrick has composed fits very well within the world, what he has written is not overly memorable.  That is not to say that the music is not any good, but I could not hum you one theme from any of the songs.  Now when a particular song comes on, say "Y'ffre in Every Leaf" or "The Tower Casts Long Shadows," I'll recognize certain elements and be able to hum/sing/whisper parts of the song.  But, but, BUT, there are a few songs that move beyond the usual "atmospheres" such as "Weapons Drawn" and "A Peril Upon the Sands," which sound more action oriented.

Rik Schaffer, the second composer wrote only two songs that appear on the album.  Rik Schaffer on the other hand has a bit more of a discoverable background when compared to Brad Derrick.  That fact aside, his contributions to The Elder Scrolls Online soundtrack is no less because of only two songs being included.  Both "The Heart of Nirn" and "Northern Nocturne" compliment both the Elder Scrolls as a whole and the music that Brad Derrick wrote.  I would almost go so far to say that their two styles are so very similar hear that they are practically indistinguishable, but maybe I just haven't listened to the soundtrack as much as previous soundtracks.

The final artist included on the soundtrack is also the final track on the album.  The song "Beauty of Dawn" was composed and performed by Malukah, a Mexican musician known online for her guitar and vocal covers of video game music from series such as The Elder Scrolls, Halo,  Mass Effect and more.  She posted a video back in November 2011 of a cover she did of "The Dragonborn Comes" from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim which, to date, has 12,009,584 views.  Apparently she attracted the attention of Zenimax Online Studios and was hired (?) to write an original song for The Elder Scrolls Online.  "Beauty of Dawn," while itself is a pretty song, I do nott feel that it has the *oomph* that her covers of "The Dragonborn Comes" or even "The Age of Aggression," both from Skyrim.  I have heard both this song and another (not included on the soundtrack) sung by a bard in-game while wandering around one of the various towns/villages in TESO, but a stripped down version that doesn't include the vocal layering that Malukah often includes in her compositions.

As a whole, I really enjoy the soundtrack and am very happy having purchased it from the store that sold it to me.  I first saw the album advertised through one of Bethesda/Zenimax's newsletters as being on sale through the iTunes store which had it (and still does) priced at $15.99.  I then thought I would check Amazon and they have the exact same album, all 47 tracks for only $8.99.  While I refrain from pandering to one storefront over another, I will not say were I bought the soundtrack, but as previously stated, I am very glad that I did and am satisfied with the price that I paid.

I will say that the soundtrack falls very heavily into the atmospheric category.  Maybe with the exception of the main theme, most of the tracks work well as background music for adventuring and exploring the landscapes of Tamriel, so I do not think that many people will be blasting the music during a backyard barbeque with the bros.  Maybe I'm wrong though.

If you are looking for a rollicking soundtrack that's akin to Hans Zimmer's King Arthur score, then you should and go and buy that album because that is an awesome soundtrack.  However, if you are looking for beautiful background music to put you near 950 years in the past before your 250+ hour video game, then this will probably be perfect for your collection.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Instrumental

First Impressions: The Elder Scrolls Online (PC)

I really wish that there was a game stats screen  in The Elder Scrolls Online, similar to what you would find in Skyrim and Oblivion, that way I would know how much time I have put into ESO in the three weeks and change that I have spent playing the game since its early access release on March 30th.  I would not say that I have been dumping truck loads of time into ESO at this point, but I have been neglecting some of the other games that I had been working on before (Assassin's Creed, Bioshock 2, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, Papo y Yo, Final Fantasy VII, et cetera) and I think that part of that is that since I have paid for the game and am on a monthly subscription, I want to feel that I am getting the most out of the game for the money I have and currently am putting into it.

However, that argument will not be valid until, I believe, May 6th, which is when the 30 day free period for my account ends and the paid subscription starts.

But enough of that, what about the game?  How does it compare to the beta test?  How buggy is it, even after just under a year of beta testing? How have the early access perks given you an advantage over the regular players?  What are the quests like?  Does it feel like an Elder Scrolls game?  You know, the usual.

To answer, what I feel is the most important question: yes, The Elder Scrolls Online does feel like it belongs with the rest of the games in The Elder Scroll series.  Like every game in the series, you start out as a prisoner (this time finding out how and why you are in prison), you escape by going through a tutorial level and are then plunged into the larger world with a brief hint that something larger that does not involve (or maybe it does and I just don't know about it yet) the war in Cyrodiil between the three factions.

One aspect that has been retained, to a certain extent, from the Elder Scroll series has been the inclusion of books and reading about the lore of Tamriel throughout the various eras.  While in previous Elder Scrolls games you could read individual books on a bookshelf/table/floor/cauldron, in ESO, you can only read from a bookshelf.  This initially made me sad that I could only read one randomly (?) selected book from a bookshelf full of books.  Once I realized that this was how the game was going to operate, then I grew to accept it as is.  As in the other Elder Scrolls games, you still learn skills and can gain quests by reading books.

I do greatly appreciate though that Bethesda still maintains the level of quality of the books in ESO that the community has come to expect.

While you can simply run up to a bookshelf, click to open a book, see that you've gained a level in your Heavy Armor skill then run away without reading a word, I love that I can crack open a tome and read two and-a-half pages of text.  I know this isn't for everyone, but for me, it's a key component for immersion and I love its inclusion in an MMO game.

Another Elder Scrolls staple is the quality of the voice acting, which so far has been very well executed.  Bethesda has reused a lot of the voice actors from their previous games and the have even brought on a fair amount of "Hollywood talent" to voice both main and minor characters.  Most notably has been Michael Gambon (Sleepy Hollow, Harry Potter) as the character of "The Prophet," whose reading of "Let the will of Molag Bal be denied!" is chilling.  Kudos as well to the script writers.

I have noticed a few changes between the released game and the beta tests, the most notable is that I have only experienced one real bug that impeded my progress:

One other bug was similar to the "MISSING" box bug that I encountered during the January beta test, just something else that went missing in a different location.  Other minor bugs have been missing dialogue to text, but those come across as purely cosmetic.  I have, however, seen other people bring ask about potentially broken quests, but I personally have yet to encounter a broken quest so I do not know if I should count myself fortunate or maybe I am simply progressing slowly enough that the bugs are being fixed by the time I reach the formally broken quest.

I have noticed that the combat feels more "real," which was one of the biggest complaints that I kept seeing creep up during the beta test.  It is a hard thing to explain, that when you attack someone that it should feel like your hits are connecting.  Without a rumble feature, this has to come across visually and whatever was done between the middle of March and release has been a great improvement.  I no longer feel like my weapons are simply passing through the enemies, but are coming into contact with them, it is very satisfying.

Personally, when I think of MMOs, I tend to have a mental image of some crowded plaza in World of Warcraft and to date, the greatest number of people I have seen congregate anywhere was at the bank, where you can store items to use between characters, group members and guild members.

There is also a lot of grouping around crafting stations, where you can craft your own armor (heavy, medium and light), enchanting, woodworking (shields, bows, staffs) et cetera, but the nice thing is that you do not have to wait for the station to be free for it to be used.

So far, I have been playing solo and without grouping or questing with others.  There have been certain events such as when Dark Anchors (portals that lead into Oblivion) start depositing beasts of all sorts into the world.  These events, which happen pretty frequently usually draw about 10 other players and a decent sized battle en mass commences against the forces of darkness.

While it is possible to approach the above Dark Anchor or certain quests solo, these are events/instances that are specifically designed to be taken on by a group of people.  I have tried, accidentally to take on a Flesh Atronach (flesh golem) who was supported by two skeletons alone and quickly found myself dead.

This battle was not on purpose either.  I was approaching the two skeletons and right as I "killed" the one, the Flesh Atronach came through a portal as the skeleton archer backed up.  Let it be known that I died with honor.

There are plenty of aspects to The Elder Scrolls Online that I know I have not covered, most importantly the PvP area in Cyrodiil that deals with siege engines and storming castles.  I also did not mention anything about the lack of lag, even in areas that appear to be heavily populated by both PCs and NPCs.  There is just too much information to convey.  I also have not even mentioned the music, but that I will cover in Friday's post (so come back for that if music is your thing).

I will say in closing for today that I am having a lot of fun with the game and, presently at least, I feel that the cost of the game plus the $15/month subscription fee has been and will be worth the experience contained within.


~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
The Skies of Hell Unfell to Earth

Monday: The Post About Monday, Because It's Monday.

Have you guessed that it's Monday yet?  If it's not Monday and you are reading this, then you should probably stop and wait until the next Monday, but continue if you must, I won't judge you.

I wasn't entirely sure what to talk about today as there are a number of topics that I would like to talk about with some of those topics not fully formed yet while others may not be encompassing enough to fill their own post.  This is prime location after all.

First off, The Elder Scrolls Online.  That monster had it's "Early Access" begin last Sunday (March 30th, 2014) and I've managed to put some time into it since then.  I do not have any specific numbers since even though I have the game running through Steam, it's not an official "Steam" game so game time is not calculated.  Maybe it's mentioned somewhere in the "Options" menu in-game, I will have to take a look later.  Anyway, what time I've spent in Tamriel (2E 583) has been a lot of fun and not nearly as crowded as I expected it to be considering what I have seen from other MMOs.  I will give more time to this, probably next week after I've managed to put in more time and explored the world a bit more.  I'm also waiting for Conklederp's copy (which I pre-ordered from Gamestop, shipped to us on April 2nd and is supposed to arrive on April 9th; early access began on March 30th and release date was April 4th. . . sigh) so we can quest together, which she's been looking forward to since becoming casually addicted to Skyrim.  So ESO is going very well.

Renegade Kid, down in Austin, TX began a Kickstarter to crowdfund their game Cult County.  It's a game akin to both Moon and the Dementium series and likewise, was originally slated for release on the 3DS but has since outgrown the limits of that system.  Similar to the amount Shadow of the Eternals' unsuccessful Kickstarter, Cult County is looking to raise $580,000 by May 2nd.  They still have a long way to go (only 5% after 6 days) and I am leary about having my heart strings attached to and heaved overboard as it was with SotE.  With Renegade Kids being at PAX East next week, hopefully there will be a surge in interest for the game and we will see the number of funds raised.  We can only hope.

A few weeks back, Steam updated the copy of Ace Combat: Assault Horizon Enhanced Edition so that you no longer have to log in through the Windows LIVE client, but at the same time, there was the chance that it reset all of your previously save data and achievements.  I say "chance" because there were multiple notices about how to recover your game information, even after you start the game up, you are given the option to recover your previous saves.  I chose not to because I had not finished the game yet and thought, "Why not?"  Playing all over again got me thinking again about the things that I did not like about this game and that even on easy/rookie difficulty, I know that I won't be trying anything harder, if I even get around to finishing the absurdly long levels that make up the game.

Rather than end today with a slightly negative paragraph, I will say that the Nintendo eShop game Witch and Hero, which I'll be covering on Friday has been a lot of fun to play.  It's a mix of Dragon Warrior era graphics and music with a game mechanic that I have not seen before.  If you are at all interested, do not be dissuaded by almost every review I've seen (which are mostly negative) and please patiently wait for Friday.  All will be revealed.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

I Would Dazzle You With Brilliance If I Only Had The Knack

Monthly Update: March 2014

Happy March everyone!  Happy Soon To Be Spring Equinox!  It'll be my birthday in just under three weeks!

An interesting little tid-bit that I found out last week was about the process to determine the day to celebrate Easter.  I know a lot about Easter as far as the Catholic holiday is concerned seeing as how I'm a "little heathen" as my mother likes to call me; it's a term of adoration as opposed to one of repulsion.  So apparently Easter is determined to be the first Sunday, after the first full moon, after the Spring Equinox.  I don't know about you, but that process sounds very pagan to me.  I honestly don't know what the wording in the Bible says to make this determination as a floating day as opposed to a permanent day such as Christmas.  Anyone?

That aside, how was your February?  How is your March looking to be?

Beginning in the end of February and finishing up near the end of yesterday, I participated in another of Bethesda/Zenimax Online's beta tests for The Elder Scrolls Online.

I don't know about you, but I enjoy falling through a flight of stairs only to have my feet embedded in the underlying rock, then typing /stuck in order to kill myself, but only after I have submitted a bug report to the proper authorities.  Actually, I am quite enjoying this whole process.  Sadly, as has been the case with other ESO betas, but I had work all weekend so I wasn't able to participate as much as I would have liked.  I was able to invite Conklederp to join in on this beta test as well, but she was having a harder time with the download to play part.  I'm trying to figure out what is going on on her side before the early access launches later this month.

A few weeks back, I purchased an A/V Cable to HDMI converter with the hope that I would be able to play both my SNES and N64 on our super HD LED 1080p TV.  Without the converter, the TV cannot completely translate the signal that is coming from a 24 and 19 year old video gaming console.  This inability to correctly translate the console signal comes out as flashing colors on the screen as well as colored bars that move from top to bottom while the game is being played.  The converter was an attempt to fix this issue.  Sadly though, the converter I purchased, possibly through no fault of its own, did not fix this issue.  I am still on the lookout for a fix to this that does not include buying an older non HD TV, although that may end up being the final solution.

And now for some reason, the second half of this article decided that it didn't want to exist anymore.  After saving then closing down and coming back here to publish, everything that followed after the HDMI article is no longer here.  I guess it must not have been very good and knew it for it to want to off itself and I can respect that, even though I don't particularly like it.  So with that done then, I will go play a bit of FEZ as that was how I concluded the article after I talked a bit about free to play games that I had recently downloaded as well as noticing that Castlevania II: Simon's Quest is now available through Nintendo's eShop.


~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
The Underlying Theme

Monthly Update: February 2014

Looking back at January for a moment, it was a pretty productive month and by productive, I mean that I finished (came to the end) of a couple of games and started a few others.  Actually no, I only finished one game as the other was finished yesterday, which was and still is, February.

Yes, yesterday I achieved what will be my gaming achievement for February: I finished BIT.TRIP RUNNER.  

Picture included because I said so.

After spending I don't know how much time on the last level (3-12: The Source), I was finally able to take out Timbletot, well, sort of since he comes back in Runner 2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien, but the point is, is that I bonked him and he flew off while flew away!  This happened yesterday, or more importantly, two days after I had a dream about looking up the level on youtube to see what came after a particularly difficult series of jumps that I just couldn't make.  Yesterday I did actually look up The Source and was a little surprised that my dream was actually pretty accurate.

But enough about BIT.TRIP RUNNER for now and onto more important matters, like that game event of the year yesterday, Super Bowl XLVIII, or whatever number they're on.  Well, since I'm expressively forbidden to recount anything about the game without the consent of the NFL, I'll just give you a glimpse of what a number of us did yesterday while at a sports bar while the Super Bowl was going on:

The drawing started out with just the head that SRSnoopy11 drew followed by the "Luigi" name.  That prompted me to "draw" the Luigi hat to which SRSnoopy11 did the body to which I added the bleeding boney arms.  It was all down hill from there.  Also, the fact that the Question Mark Block is backwards is because I was drawing it upside down and became confused.  I'd also had at least a pitcher of beer and I was sitting at an angle.

Something exciting that's happening in less than a week (Friday actually), is the 3DS game Bravely Default, which I've surprisingly not talked about, will be released.  I've been playing the demo which is a stand alone quest that can earn you items when you start the full retail version.  The graphics look a lot like Final Fantasy: 4 Heroes of Light, both in appearance as well as the word map, but the towns are all side scrolling of sorts.  Anyway, the game looks great and the music is fantastic and kudos to whomever the composer is.

In other news (not really news anymore), Bethesda and Zenimax released the final trailer to the Elder Scrolls Online and holy damn is that thing gorgeous.  Yes, I know it's a trailer that does not represent the way the game actually looks/plays.  I'm just talking from the standpoint of holy damn is that thing gorgeous.  And whomever directed that piece of beautifulness needs an award or something.

The rest of this month I anticipate playing a lot more on Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, Assassin's Creed, some Portal 2 c0-0p with Dr. Potts and hopefully delve a bit into Monaco with Vorlynx and Company.  Oh, and La-Mulana, which is a 2D side scroller that looks like Indiana Jones meets Castlevania and maybe a bit into the PC remake of Dementium II.

So let's all try to have a nice February, and while we're at it, not kill anyone at the Olympics in Sochi on Friday (I also had a dream that I was in Sochi watching women's short court doubles tennis for the "Winter" Olympics; I don't know what that means).

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Instrumental



P.S.  Also, there were sloths: