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Bed of Chaos Down - ONE BOSS TO GO!



Dark Souls, on a whole, really only had two nit-picks from me. The first is the Anor Londo archers, which were just downright mean, and a troll on the player by developers. The other was the boss above. TERRIBLE idea for a boss fight, and it was just annoying. Other than that, this is one of my favorite game of all time, and I can't wait to play it again on NG+, with increased difficulty.

Just as soon as I beat the last boss, that is.

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I never finished Dark Souls. I guess I'm just losing my patience for games like this one, but I couldn't get through certain parts, no matter well I was doing. I want to buy it again one of these days, when I'm a little more eager for a challenge. But other than that, it's still one of the single best games I've played in a long time. I can't really say much about it since I didn't get too far, but it's definitely the best-designed game I've played in a long time.

I had to put it down for a while, but I am glad I came back to finish it. It never lets up, and doesn't get any easier, that's for sure!

Oh Steam, how I've missed thee...

Well, I've not actually missed any of my games seeing as their Offline mode finally works as it should but I've definitely missed not paying money for stuff I'll never play just because it's 90% off in a sale.

Set my AV system up again last night, first time in over a year. It's great being able to crank things up to the max without worrying about annoying the neighbours.

Most of my neighbours are sheep but I'm not into sheep worrying. Those long winter nights though...

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

Oooooh, Steam Autumn sale.

Skyrim for Ł3.74. Sleeping Dogs for Ł3.99. Stonking deals.

I bought Antichamber.

Incidentally, I've finally gotten Sleeping Dogs to stop crashing on my PC. It doesn't like overclocked graphics cards, apparently, and wasn't a big deal to revert the 7950 to default settings as it eats up everything I've thrown at it anyway.

I only (slightly) o/c'd the card to begin with, and that was purely out of habit and an OCD-ish desire to fiddle.

I'm currently trying to reach 100% on GTA: Chinatown Wars. I only have to complete one more odd job but it's the tattooing minigame which I hate.

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You will find that if you look for the light, you can often find it. But if you look for the dark, that is all you will ever see.
Iroh

I'm currently speeding through my backlog of PS3 games as a last hurrah b4 I get my PS4. I'm currently playing Metal Gear Revengeance and loving it.

Although I've never been a big fan of MMORPGs (I have only very minimal experience with games like Diablo 2, City of Heroes, and Guild Wars 2), I'm currently enjoying The Lord of the Rings Online.


I actually started playing it a couple years ago when it first made the jump to "Free to Play" status, the recent trend that draws new players in and charges for extra content once they're hooked. I dabbled with it then, and even had a friend playing with me, but after a few weeks I lost interest.

I've sorta surprised myself that I've jumped back into it. It's not like it's a dramatically changed game, and in fact there are many once-free features that now must be unlocked. And the game even seems to be dying a slow death, despite the recent expansion releases of "Riders of Rohan" and "Helm's Deep." LOTRO currently has only about 150, 000 active players.

I think what really helps is that there's context. It's not like Guild Wars 2, or any other MMO, which are set in totally original and very strange worlds. It's Middle-Earth, and I'm familiar with that. I'm already vested in the story and the people who inhabit it.

This is critically important because I need a good story in order to latch onto a game. Any game. The problem with MMOs is that they're typically less about the story and more about the level progressions and loot, which is what most people who enjoy the genre are after. I'm not saying LOTRO is particularly different—there's a main storyline, but the bulk of the game is questing for levels/loot—and it's possible that I'll still lose interest soon enough.

But right now, for whatever reason, I'm all about it. Not to mention, there's a fair bit of sightseeing to do given that there are plenty of familiar locations and characters in the game, and it's been pretty fun to see the developers' interpretations of all that stuff.

And if you decide to check it out, keep your eyes peeled for a stout little dwarf riding a woefully inept pony through the streets of Bree.

Not played it in a while but LOTRO was one of the few MMORPGs that held my interest past the free trial. It also seems to have one of the fairer free-to-play models.

Best action RPG I've played in years (since Titan Quest probably) is Torchlight II. Give it a try - it's more often on sale than not.

EDIT - Torchlight is made by the guys behind Diablo 2 (who left Blizzard) and it's a much better game than Diablo 3.

Yeah, I played the first Torchlight on 360 and liked it a lot. Was waiting impatiently on Torchlight II given that it would finally (gasp) be multiplayer, but now that it's out and I/my friends are bouncing around so many different games, T2 has taken a back seat. :/

If you liked the first game then you're in for a treat - T2 improves on T1 in the same way that AC2 did on Assassins Creed.

If you fancy a quick burst then I could hook up the Steam sharing thingie. Only done it with one other person but it seemed to work fine and he had access to most of my library. Chuck me a PM if you're interested - Rarely play T2 these days so there's unlikely to be a clash when we both want to play.

You can do that on Steam? Nice.

Might just take you up on that, if I can carve out some time this weekend. I also need to remember my Steam login...

I'm pretty sure all I need to do is authorise a particular Steam friend ID to have access to my library. Not every game was available but the ones that were could be played for as long as you like as long as the owner isn't also wanting the game.

In Autumn Sale news: Euro Truck Simulator 2 is 75% discounted today. People think I'm cracking wise when I say this but it's a fantastic game.

Apologies for squeaky Yogscast, but their trawl through obscure/atrocious trucking games has had some fun moments...



(The moment with the tree was a classic of the 'genre'. They ground their way through the log-clearing mission in an uber-Germanic road-maintenace game, only to discover a tree left upside down in the road by harassesed programmers, making log clearance impossible. It's a modern morality tale I tell you )

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Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here

Yogscast is a bit of a phenomenon. I wonder how much Simon and The Other Bloke (plus the coterie of minor Yogscasters) earn from YouTube? I read somewhere that TotalBiscuit pulls in around 250k a year and Yogscast have more subscribers...

Nice work if you can get it.

Talking of YouTube, behold (or not, if you don't like swears - this vid has many so you've been warned, you cloistered souls) possibly the greatest Let's Play ever made:



It's quite short and I'm hoping in vain that Sterling turns it into a series. He'll need to make some more visits to the dentist first, though.

Wasn't expecting that! A medicated series would be intriguing

Think I posted an article a while back that suggests the main yogscast channel would have made 6.7m last year if every hit had pulled max ad revenue. They're not getting that, but they're def coining it in. Funny old world this semi-pro YouTube land. If they get just the right balance of hapless 'I could do that' amateur appeal with some swish skills and savvy it seems to equal profit

6.7? Sheesh.

We'll never know for sure though because Google's T&Cs mean that you're not allowed to disclose what you earn from monetising videos. What we do know is that it's a (very) legitimate source of income if you've got enough subscribers.

The countdown was always for that long. The first one ends tomorrow though, hopefully we get something exciting.

Here and here if you want to keep up with the speculation. People are insane levels of dedicated to this thing.

Torchlight 2's 75% off on Gamersgate (who I've used loads, totally reputable) right now. You'll get a Steam code, as it's a Steamworks game.

Link

I've just had a thought - Give Path of Exile a try as well. Properly free to play (the in game store is only for cosmetic stuff) and a excellent ARPG to boot, which just happens to be an MMO.

The aesthetic is beautiful, kinda like a Souls game.

I played a ton of it when it was in Beta and the finished product looks even more polished.