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

Playing PC Games on the 3DS.

In Dr. Potts' recent Pak Watch post, he mentioned two games that are some damn fine looking 16-bit era games reminiscent of two of my favorite series: Castlevania and The Legend of Zelda.  This got me to thinking about my recent experience with VVVVVV on the 3DS and how I know that the 3DS hardware could handle these games and how much fun they would be to play on the go.

So naturally I go to see what the possibilities are with playing existing PC games through an emulator on my 3DS.  

Apparently, there are no options.  Or at least none that I was able to find.

There is the Ri 4Gold card to play NES games on the 3DS, but that's not exactly what I was looking for.  And I am not looking to play Skyrim or Amnesia, but games that would translate well to a small screen.  Games like Super Meat Boy, The Binding of Isaac, Guacamelee and Full Bore. Games like Slain and Courier of the Crypts.  Additionally, I don't think that these games have to have an official Nintendo eShop release with full 3D capabilities either (although all mentioned games modified for 3D would be admittedly pretty awesome if done correctly).

The closest thing I was able to find for was how to transfer videos from the PC to the 3DS and while that's not really what I was looking for, it might be something to look into if I get the time and brainpower to figure it all out.

So this is where I am at, at the moment.  It's not that there aren't enough good games out or coming out on the 3DS that I am starting to look to other sources, but there are games that I feel that I would enjoy a lot more if I did not have to play them on or through a PC; even if that PC is HDMI'd through the TV and I am using a controller (still looking at you Super Meat Boy).

This is apparently all that my brain can muster at the moment and rather than pad this thing out to what would visually look like enough meat for this post-sandwich, I'm going to call it and send it to the printer before anything weird starts to happen, if it hasn't happened already.

We'll see you on the flip side of a sunny-side-up egg.  Oh, and a side of house browns with a cup of coffee, black.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
[SPOILER]

Monthly Update: May 2014

First off, apologies on two fronts.  Front 1: I should have had my monthly update up over a week ago, back on the 2nd, which was my first post for this month.  Front 2: This post should have gone up (again) on Monday (5th), but I've been busy doing stuff that I'll get into once everything is finished.  Yes, I am being intentionally cryptic and no, there are no dead bodies.  Yet.

So what's going on in the gaming world?  I'm asking you because I don't rightly know.  Probably not something that I should be outrightly admitting as the Doctor and I strive to maintain a video game and related culture presence here in the interspaces.  But, if you are a frequent reader, you may have already come to that conclusion by now.  I know what it is that I've been playing recently (The Elder Scrolls Online, Final Fantasy VII, Mirror's Edge, Bioshock 2, Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box and Assassin's Creed), but with the exception of ESO, which I've previously talked about somewhat extensively so there is presently no need to cover that game again; at least not right now.

This month of May will probably look a lot like the previous month with the aforementioned games being played.  Oh yes, I was introduced a few weeks back to a couple of mobile phone games that will possibly have their own posts later in the month.

I've also been reading less than I usually do due to a change in work happenings.  I did purchase a Kindle Paperwhite early last month so I'llt put up a product review about that as well as the "perks" that come along with having an Amazon Prime account at the same time and I promise that I will do my best not to write a commercial.

I will also try to get up a couple of Game Score posts although I have yet to choose which games I want to highlight.  If you are one for music, the good people over at Extra Credits have begun doing a weekly segment highlighting a video game remixing musician.

That's really all I want to say right now and I should stop before the inevitable ramble starts to happen and pushes you, the reader, away from us.  So have a pleasant weekend and we will see you all in the coming days.


~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Are Motives So Important Anyhow?

First Impressions: Cogs & And Yet It Moves (PC)

I've had Cogs for sometime, although I do not remember which Humble Bundle it was bundled with, but I have always liked the look of the logo (mission accomplished).  Sadly though, last Friday (as in 12/7) was the first time I played Cogs, and that was only because Coolman asked about it.  So it was that I discovered that Cogs is a game that I will not be playing a great deal.

First off, the game could be described as a "casual puzzle game," but for me, it's a frustratingly beautiful puzzle game.  The puzzles are all variations on the sliding block puzzle.  That might be a decent description, but here's a screen cap:

In this puzzle, you have to move the three gear pieces so that the gear on the left is touching a gear piece, which in turn is touching another gear piece and finally, has another gear piece above that one so that it's touching the gear attached to the propeller.  This particular puzzle is multi-sided, which at first is intimidating, but once you quickly realize that you only have to solve one side at a time, it's pretty simple.  Sort of anyway.

The thing for me though, is that I've never had an aptitude for these kinds of puzzles.  I just get really frustrated when I have one or two pieces of the puzzle figured out, but then realize that I need to move everything around in order to get a much needed piece three to it's ending place, but that ruins where piece one and two are supposed to go.  

As I mentioned, all the puzzles are variations on the sliding block puzzle and not all of them involve gears.  There are puzzles that use steam or colored steam to fill up the appropriate ballons; two sided puzzle where a piece has two sides and each side of the puzzle has to be turned to look at the back to make sure the corresponding piece isn't messing up the solution on the other side.  And I forgot to mention (or you could just look at the left hand side of the above picture), there's a timer and a move counter, so you're encouraged to complete the puzzle in as few moves and as fast as possible.  It's a pretty brilliant take on an early kids game.  Lazy 8 Studios has made a really beautiful game that was, admittingly, somewhat fun to play with other people.  So, when I got frustrated and couldn't figure out a solution, I could pass off the mouse/keyboard and let either Coolman or Conklederp have a go, I just may not be playing this game solo.

And Yet It Moves is yet another puzzle game from Broken Rules, although it's in the form of a platformer, but there's twist; pun only slightly intended.  Like any platformer, you have your character and move them from point A to point B.  There are some baddies that are reminiscent of the kind you'd find in Little Big Planet, i.e.: passive and there to be in your way.  The twist with And Yet It Moves, is that you're able to rotate the world 90 degrees in either direction.

The world in this game is beautifully created to look like pieces of colored paper products have been torn and crumbled to create environments.  The effect is not as distracting as it sounds and it is very easy to learn where you can stand and where you fall.  Black non-paper = bad and you will fall.  Which is where rotating the screen comes in.  For example:

That black area will swallow you like it owns your soul.

But, upon rotating the camera 90 degrees, you can safely land on a new surface/ground.

That's the basic gist of the game.  However, you do have to be careful with how far you fall, either by jumping or by constantly rotating the world as you will constantly gain momentum and you're little paper person is not indestructible.  There is a skill (one they teach you in game) about hitting the ground at an angle so you can land from any height/speed safely, I just haven't been able to master it.  And thankfully, when you die (which you will, and possibly very frequently), you don't have to start over, but from one of the many check point paper people who populate each map.  Additionally, they will point you in the right direction you need to go, literally.  They will point you in the direction (with their little paper fingers) you need to go in order to find the next check point, and each one you come across is like it's own little victory.

So there you go, two readily available games.  Both are fun in their own rights but I think I'll be playing And Yet It Moves more often than I will with Cogs.  But again, that's just because sliding block puzzles aren't really my cup of tea.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

27 Down, 46 To Go

The Red Pill? The Blue Pill?

Bottle Sprite ripped by A.J. Nitro.  Everything else from some other source.

Believe it or not, The Matrix became an angsty teenager this year, but I digress even before I able to start.  But let's continue.  I actually had to look up which pill was the one that put you back in the Matrix and which was the one that brought you out of it.  There might be some symbolic meaning behind the specific color choices, red=freedom & blue=ignorance, but if there is, I don't know about it.  But lets stay with that blue pill for a while.  Ignorance and not knowing are the reasons for this post today and hold onto that thought.

For the past week or two, I've been playing a lot of Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2.  The week of Halloween, Steam was having a sale on a lot of their "scary" and Halloween-esque games so I decided to take advantage and pick up some AAA titles that I never played due to not having the appropriate system (Xbox 360 or a gaming computer).  However, when a game like Left 4 Dead 2 is looking at you with that blank hungry stare and it has a $4.99 sticker on it's forehead, I couldn't pass it up.  I also picked up the Penumbra collection, which consists of the three games in the Penumbra series (Overture, Black Plague, and Requiem).  Wait, you've never heard of Penumbra?  There's the French gothic metal band Penumbra, but we're referring to the game by Frictional Games, the people who brought us Amnesia: The Dark Descent and ~Justine~.  

Never having played any of the games in the Left 4 Dead series, you could look up a trailer and get a gist for what the game is about:

However, if you watch the trailer for Penumbra - Overture: 

You still don't know what the game is about.

With the Left 4 Dead games, you know exactly what you're getting.  I have only a vague idea with Penumbra, and that's something that I really like.  I've played about an hour and-a-half and I still couldn't tell you what the story is aside from what I've experienced.  But don't get me wrong, having a straight forward story that you know about before even starting the game isn't a bad thing and sometimes it's just refreshing to land in a world and go from Point A to Point B and kill as many zombies as you can without dying.  It's also very refreshing to play a game that you know absolutely nothing about.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian