The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Leveling Tips and Tricks

So, I haven't posted in a while because I was busy playing BF3, then Skyrim came out, and "Oh wow," this game is awesome, it can't be explained in words, or at least few enough that I care to write them all out so just go play it if you haven't. If you're here for the leveling tips and tricks, watch this NocturneGamers video. (If you didn't know, NocturneGamers is my Youtube channel.)

Something I said in the video I feel warrants more explanation.

I make a comment about leveling skills at the trainer that you don't plan to use, and I thought I should explain my thoughts on that matter more thoroughly.

Say you're a Warrior type character, sword and board and heavy armor. In your travels the most likely skills for you to level are: Blocking, Heavy Armor, One Handed Weapons.  Once those skills are maxed out, not just your time, but even your probability of leveling up as a whole goes out the window, so starting at level 51 in all of those skill ranks means that you have to stop playing the way you want sooner, and start playing JUST for the level ups. I hope you can understand what I'm getting at here.

The other point was that eventually as you level you start to feel weaker, and I feel that deserves explanation as well.

Certain enemies like Bandits for example, stay weak, eventually you start 1 shotting them. Other enemies however keep scaling, and don't stay weak. If you, say, 1 shot a Bandit Chief, because you're level 10 with 100 one hand weapons skill, you'll feel extremely powerful right? Well Bandit Chiefs continue to scale with your power well into the range of level 25-30, so when you suddenly can't one shot them anymore, because you're level 30 and still only have 100 one handed weapons skill, it just doesn't feel right.

Sure if you level up non-essential skills the enemies will get stronger, but you won't notice yourself becoming relatively weaker in such a way as described above, you WILL start to see yourself become more powerful. Sure you may never get to the point where you one shot bandit chief's this way, but it's probably better to not have had that ability then lose it later in the game.



Onto something you may have seen on the Youtube channel. The giveaway contest! Since I don't have a lot of readers right now, if any, I'm giving away a copy of Dungeon Defenders on STEAM, in a SHAMEFUL DISPLAY in order to entice people to comment and read this blog.

Rules of the contest: Leave a comment below, and tell me your favorite thing in Skyrim compared to Oblivion, or just your favorite thing in Skyrim in general. It can be how cool the talent system is, it can be the way the new leveling system works, it can be that there are FRIGGIN' DRAGONS! Whatever you want. Just tell me your favorite thing about Skyrim, and make sure I can contact you (make sure you don't post as anonymous or something.)

At the end of the month, I'll select a winner and contact them. Make sure to tell your friends if you already own Dungeon Defenders on computer, so they can win a copy and play with you!
The winner will be drawn from a hat with ripped up pieces of paper, the old fashioned way, don't miss your chance at a free game!

Payday: The Heist

I recently gifted a friend a copy of Worms: Ultimate Mayhem on Steam, and was kindly gifted a copy of Payday: The Heist in return.

Payday: The Heist is about just that, pulling off heists and raking in the cash. From stealing valuable diamonds to robbing banks, Payday has a few missions to get you off to a great start in your life of crime. I say a few missions because Payday only has six missions, until they add in the obligatory DLC missions of course.

Payday's first mission is a bank robbery. The mission starts out with you walking calmly into the bank and finding the bank manager. Then you put on your mask, tell him what you think of his ugly suit and take his key so you can get into the server room. In the server room an "insider" has left you a cache, including two containers of thermite, to be used to melt a hole in the roof of the bank vault, and a drill to drill out the lock and make your way into the inner workings of the bank to the room above the vault. You must then use the drill to actually drill out the lock, periodically restarting it as it tends to jam rather often, and you do all this while shooting out cameras along the way and putting many hard working innocent civilians, bank guards, and police officers into body bags.

The police show up about a minute after you arrive, followed by a S.W.A.T. assault team a minute or so after that. When I say police, I don't mean like four squad cars pull up and start talking you down. I mean literally the entire police force of whatever major city you're robbing the bank in shows up to turn you into something resembling Swiss cheese. They constantly press inwards into the bank, looking for civilians to save, in addition to looking to put a bullet in your ass that is.

Every once in a while, an "Assault" will start, and pretty much every police officer that has spawned drops what they're doing, clearing rooms, looking for civvies to save, etc. and they all head to essentially anywhere you were most recently seen en-masse in an attempt to get vengeance for their other fallen police brethren, and your job is to literally gun down enough of them that they back off and give you room to work on whatever your objective is.

This all sounds like some kind of horrible tragedy waiting to happen. Next thing you know somebody will try to rob a bank, and the media and the poor mother of whatever stupid SOB tried to rob said bank, will be publicly outing video games again, Payday the center of attention because "he figured all he had to do was get a mask and a gun like in the game," and blah blah blah. I'd just like to preemptively go ahead and tell said mother and the media that they're stupid and full of crap. First of all, robbing banks and killing cops isn't something that gaming is doing as a first. Your kids have been doing it since you bought them a toy gun (or didn't, and they resorted to the classic finger gun,) and they started playing cops and robbers as children. It's also been the main point in countless films. I'd just like to say this before it happens: gaming is not at fault. Media as a whole and bad parenting are. Moving right along though...

In Payday, you play as one of four characters, and complete missions for money. The game is pretty much the bank robbing version of Left 4 Dead.

First of all, it's much more fun playing with other people, as you might expect given that it's a co-op based game.

Second of all, it's got the same "downed, bleeding out" system that we've all entered a love/hate relationship with in co-op FPS games lately, that mode where you lie on the floor and shoot everything in sight with the last of your pistol ammo hoping someone helps you to your feet, which somehow makes you all better again.

Third, there are "special" police officers. There's a guy with a riot shield that makes him invlunerable to frontal assault, there's a "Bulldozer" a guy in super-heavy armor that can only be killed via multiple headshots, and there's a guy with heavy armor and a tazer who must have been what the smoker evolved from. He pretty much shoots you once with the tazer and you're stuck getting tazed until you either pass out or someone shoots him.

Fourth it's got that end game "safe room" kind of deal going on. You know, that room one guy stands in while the other two go back for the derpy friend of yours who always gets killed on the way in, and shuts the door and literally leaves the others for dead? Yeah that room! Only there's no door on it for you to close to keep the tank from making you his bitch.

Fifth, the game seems to have a "director" similar to Left 4 Dead, in that when you're doing really well it spices up the amount of enemies it throws at you, or it really seems to anyways.

Finally, the game has that same rage inducing AI from Left 4 Dead. That AI that refuses to pick you up, or go a certain path because it just doesn't know how, and sits around being useless half the time, and the other half of the time is busy cheating and reviving you through walls, or halfway across the level, or while defending itself.


In Payday as you hit milestones you'll gain level ups. At any time before you level up you can press the Tab key to view what reward you'll receive in one of three classes, Assault, Sharpshooter, and Support, then you can choose which class you'd like to level up by pressing the corresponding labeled number key (1,2,3 respectively.) For example, if you and your team find that you're dying far too often and can't complete the mission, you can level your characters up in the support class and gain access to a "Medic Bag" which you can drop whenever you want and let your team heal up.

The unfortunate downside to Payday's leveling system is that you only get money (experience) for completing objectives, or if you do get money from killing, it's rather negligible. This encourages you to play it safe and complete the easy missions, or pretty much never play with other people who you think might slow you down. That and the fact that you only start with a pistol and the basic assault rifle, neither of which are exactly the most exciting weapons in the game, really makes leveling up feel like a chore. It's not like "Yes! I got a new gun!" either, it's like, great, now I got  a new gun that unlocked on the way to getting the weapons I actually wanted...

Overall, the game is still rather fun, as you get to experience the thrill of the heist first hand, and the missions have a fair amount of replayability, thanks to the Left 4 Dead style director. One thing that would be especially nice for them to add in would be what Left 4 Dead has that unfortunately Payday doesn't, which is Vs. mode, where people get to play on the cops' side and try to stop you. Some serious balance adjustments would be required, but it would be a nice touch to take this game from fun to an instant classic.

One good thing that can't be disputed about Payday is it's price. The game costs $19.99 ($15.00 on consoles so I hear.) Not a bad price to pay for six missions. Left 4 Dead had what, four missions with four levels in each as a full priced game? Payday has 6 compared to 16 at a third of the cost. Sounds like smart buying to me, assuming you can get into the whole bank robbery thing.

Dungeon Defenders

So, Dungeon Defenders released on Steam today and I believe the money that I spent on it was spent well.

Dungeon Defenders is a game about, well, defending parts of your castle from invading monsters, be it the dungeon or the throne room. The game shapes up as one part tower defense, one part RPG, two parts explosions.

The tower defense isn't entirely what some may be used to if you come from the Warcraft/Starcraft Custom Game crowd. Towers aren't invulnerable, nor can you maze with them, instead, walling is encouraged, because the enemies can kill not only your towers but you as well.

Your selection of towers is limited to five per character, and each unlocks as you level that character up. The mage for example starts off with a "Magic Missile," tower, then quickly unlocks magical barriers to erect to prevent enemies from moving forward. Afterwards he unlocks a splash fireball tower, a chain lightning tower, and finally everyone's favorite tower. You know what I mean, that one that is in every tower defense ever that has enough range to give a sniper a run for their money and enough damage to put a head-on collision between two trains to shame but takes three years to reload? Yeah that one!

The cool thing is, is that between waves you can switch to being any of your characters that you've leveled up in order to place their towers. This gives my mage for example, access to a much more powerful blocking tower courtesy of the knight, the "Spiked Barrier," which has more health, covers slightly more area, and deals damage when enemies walk into it or try to attack it in melee. I can also switch to the monk character who specializes in placeable buff/debuff auras that take up no space and cannot be attacked by enemies, but therefore can't block enemies.


In addition to the tower defense elements of the game come the RPG elements. You play as a hero who can develop their fighting prowess and take on monsters themselves, collecting loot like it's Hurricane Katrina all over again and frantically placing towers to prevent the monsters from destroying your precious crystal.  The loot system is great.  Rather than being a simple prefix/suffix system with varying levels of rarity, the game opts to give you items that have the potential for greatness. For example, being a tower specialized mage, I found a helmet that gave me +1 to the "tower attack speed," stat. I then proceeded to spend my hard earned mana (excess mana is used as currency) to make that helmet give me +6 tower attack speed, worth 2-3 level ups of power at least.

The game suffers from one major problem in my opinion. Given that the game is a tower defense, and that your character can't be everywhere at once, it seems rather pointless to put points into making your character more powerful.  That being said, when you level up you can improve stats that buff your character, or improve stats that buff your towers. It's not like they gave you say, 1 personal skill point and 1 tower skill point, you're free to put those points wherever you want, and at no time have I felt like I would have been making a smart choice putting points into my hero's personal power with the exception of one stat that increases channeling speed, so that I can summon towers faster or repair them faster.

Why make my attack hit for more damage when I can make 20 towers hit for more damage, especially when they all do way more damage than me per hit to begin with?

That little nagging point aside, the game looks spectacular for a game that was originally for the iPhone. The cel-shaded graphics look fairly crisp during the high-action, and the particle effects don't fall short either.

Without further adieu, here's some of the mage gameplay! Also, Ding 20!

Youtube Channel! Uploads Incoming!

So, I've set up a Youtube channel so that I can share gameplay videos and tips in a way that isn't a big wall of text! No word on when I'll be getting any recording software to post console game stuff, but for now, enjoy the first four minutes of me getting my ass kicked in Might and Magic Heroes VI.

Some evil fiend took NocturneGaming as a channel name a few months ago, what are the odds? As far as I can tell, they neither upload anything, nor do they have a blog or site of any kind. Looks like an abandoned project that was doomed before it began, and it happened to have the same name as I chose.

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I guess I'll have to be content with "NocturneGamers" as my channel name. It's for the readers/viewers anyways! It makes sense!

Might and Magic Heroes VI: First Impression

Having gotten to play around 13 hours or so of Heroes VI so far I can say I'm rather pleased at this point. From the moment I booted up the game and the intro cinematic started I've been nothing if not happy with the game.

The cinematic looks fantastic. It's on a level rivaling top dog Blizzard Entertainment in terms of just how well it brings the universe to life, and it looks about as nice. If you don't believe me here, machinima has kindly uploaded it.






Maybe I haven't seen a Blizzard cinematic in so long I forget just how well they do things, but something about watching that knight dance his way through all of those skeletons just made me smile.

The gameplay is relatively simple. You get a hero (sometimes more) and an overworld map which if I might add, looks pretty fantastic. Each hero is the figurehead of an army and a hero is required to move troops around the map. You get a certain number of movement points per "day," and once you run out, you end your turn and the other factions get to move their heroes. Coming into contact with an enemy starts up combat.

Combat plays out in a very simple way too. The attackers units start out on the left side of the grid, the defender on the right side. Units each have their own stat values that determine how strong they are, what turn order they go in, how often they critical etc. You move your units in order and make them bludgeon the hell out of each other.

You get "stacks" of these units. So, if I had say, 500 archers, I'd have one unit on the grid, that had 500x the health and attack of a single archer. Whenever an enemy damages that stack, a certain number of archers die. So say I take enough damage to lose 50, now my damage is only 450x that of a single archer unit. Healing effects give life back to the top unit in the stack until it is healed, and then resurrect the fallen units in that stack. Units can counter-attack, normally only against melee attackers, and cause damage back to whomever attacked them.

These game play elements are the core that make this very simple game also very complicated. Planning moves ahead of time will allow you to take enemy forces out without losing a single unit in your army, while recklessly attacking generally results in a large amount of losses. Losses you normally can't afford. There happens to be a mechanic that occurs on the overworld map, wherein reinforcements only come once a week, at the start of the week. This is great, but you only get maybe 60 units per week. The enemies only get maybe 5-20 units added to their armies, but the sheer volume of neutral enemies on the map guarding treasures causes you to want to play carefully if you want to obtain them all.

I could go on about the game play but I'll save that for another time. For now I'd like to talk about the graphics and the design of the units. The graphics aren't exactly groundbreaking, but there's a lot of little details added into the environment and the unit models that really make the game come to life. The GUI is friggin' superb. It's not cluttered up with anything and it just looks crisp and clean.

I'm not going to go into details about the creatures, I'll just post a picture.

That ghost just looks awesome, and YES, the ghoul has wolverine claws.

Having never been into the Might and Magic scene, I wasn't sure what I was going to be getting into in the creatures department, but damn, that ghoul is just cool.

That's all I've got to say for now, kind of abrupt ending to this post, I know, but I opened up the game to get a nice screenshot of those claws and that ghost and the GUI, and now I just really really want to play the game!

Dark Souls: Capra Demon Strategy

Having had some problems with the Capra Demon myself the first time around, and having seen a lot of posts online about the Capra Demon being fairly hard, I decided to post a strategy on how to kill him.

First off, let me say this isn't going to be comprehensive where I tell you all of his attacks and movements. Capra Demon has an extremely easy to exploit piece of terrain in his enclosure, but the start of his fight happens to be designed to overwhelm you and prevent you from doing any analysis of what you can use to your advantage.

At the start of the fight, one of the hounds that rush you is on a big staircase to the left of the area, the other is hiding in some shadows by some barrels at the back right and will take a little longer to join in.

You're going to want to eliminate the dogs as fast as you can and get onto the staircase (sometimes you'll have to make your way onto the stairs and eliminate them from there.)  Once on the staircase, if the Capra Demon follows you up, jump off and make sure he follows you. Run back up and either start blasting him with ranged attacks from the edge of the stairs, or Gold Pine Resin your weapon and perform a plunging attack on him. Repeat until he's dead.

Generally he either gets stuck, or slowly makes his way back to the foot of the stairs and then up, giving you ample time to blast him/jump off and lure him away from your safe zone.

He's amazingly easy, but only once you've had a good chance to see how to outsmart him, pretty much like all of the bosses in this game, and they're all designed to keep you from seeing their weaknesses by pressing the attack.

Good luck and good demon hunting.

Might and Magic Heroes VI Came Out Today?!

So, here I am expecting that today I will spend $60.00 on video games. I open up my steam browser, and happily purchase a $40.00 four pack of Dungeon Defenders which releases shortly and start debating which of my friends will enjoy this game the most. I'm also planning on buying Fallout: New Vegas latest DLC Lonesome Road, wondering what to do with the last $10.00 that I've allocated to video games for now.

While pondering which of my friends to give Dungeon Defenders to, I decide to open up my gifts/guest passes list and figure out who I've been neglecting when suddenly I notice I gave someone a copy of "King's Bounty."

King's Bounty is this FANTASTIC game where you play the commander of an army and you run around this pretty little overland map with all sorts of goodies and monster encounters scattered about completing quests etc.

The combat is turn based and takes place on a hex grid. It's really REALLY simple at it's core, but you're also able to plan amazingly in depth to prevent damage/deaths to your units to this extreme level, and it's THE most addictive turn based strategy style game I have ever played.

When I discovered it, I was wondering exactly how I had missed such a gem, and wondered if there were other games like it. To my surprised, Might and Magic Heroes has the same style of game, and I found out in a few short months Might and Magic Heroes VI would be coming out. I was ecstatic.

Lo and Behold, the game came out TODAY. Guess who's out $100.00 today instead of $60.00?

Also, guess what day the STEAM servers decide to fail hard? TODAY.

2.1MB/s max download on a 7.6Gig game. Estimated download time? 1 Hour.

Current download time? 3 hours. Estimated completion? 3 more hours.

Crap.

Expect impressions later once it finally finishes.

Dark Souls: Gaping Dragon Tips

For those of you who are having trouble with the boss of the depths, "Gaping Dragon," allow me to shed some light on how to rid your world of this creature of nightmare. Gaping Dragon is nothing if not intimidating, however he's really one of those cases where the bark is worse than his bite, so to speak.

When entering the room into Gaping Dragon's lair, you'll be presented with a cutscene where he slithers out of a big hole in the end of the room and presents his awesome figure to you. Don't worry, I'm sure he's smiling at you with that big maw full of teeth that composes his chest... Anyways, just make note that his size and his looks are the worst part about him.

Gaping Dragon has only a few behaviors, he will:

Slam his torso onto the ground, dealing damage and standing on all of his legs in a "crawling" stance.

This leads into him charging you in a fairly straight line, generally missing (if you're smart enough to move) and smashing into pillars.

If you're standing too close to him towards the front of his body he will pick you up and crunch you in that big ol' mouth of his (don't stand near the front of him.)

If you're standing too close to him towards his tail, well he'll tail swipe you (his tail can be cut off for a weapon, and to disarm him of this tactic.)

He will rear up, and go back into his "Standing" stance, wherein he is able to turn and look at you so he can slam down onto you.

VERY RARELY, Gaping Dragon will see fit to use his wings to lift off into the air and float above you (only while in his standing stance,) and proceed to slam down on you. Try to run, and definitely roll out of the way when you feel it coming, don't try to block it.

Finally, Gaping Dragon will use an ability where he'll charge up a bit while standing and then vomit acid all over the "arena" that you're facing him in. This acid will break all of your equipment, so try not to get hit by it, it starts from his maw and slowly seeps across the zone, so it's something you can outrun rather easily.

One more thing to watch for during the Gaping Dragon fight is; are you getting hit by soul arrows?
If you are, you're probably doomed to failure, but it's possible to beat him while this is happening. If you don't/can't kill him because this is happening to you, explore the depths in more detail. There is a Hollow Caster on the top level of the balconies that you entered Gaping Dragon's lair from. He also does a little dance which causes enemies (including the boss) to deal greatly increased damage, and it boosts their physical defense, so while he's alive, Gaping Dragon will pretty much always one shot you.

Onto the actual Strategy:

Gaping Dragon's behavioral AI is relatively easy to "outsmart." Keep some distance from him and let him slam his torso into the ground. Once he does this (or as he's doing it) take a wide path around him towards his back side. DO NOT lock on while you're doing this, it's much easier to just sprint behind him than it is to strafe your way there.  Proceed to deal punishment to him from the back until he rears back up.  Rinse and repeat this process until he's dead. Just watch out for tail swipes.

If you're having trouble cutting off his tail, or are worried about getting tail swiped in general, you can use ranged combat. This makes the fight even easier as you don't even have to worry about his tail, bit it does make the fight last longer. Simply follow the same basic instructions, but once you've gotten to the side of him and he's in his "crawling" stance just lock on and start firing.

Eventually he will die and you'll be rewarded a hefty number of souls for your patience, as well as the key to the blight town depths entrance. Hopefully this has been helpful to anyone who's reading this and isn't keen on reading the terrible grammar and impersonal versions of the boss fights on the wiki. Good luck and happy demon slaying.

Dark Souls: Casters Are OP Again

So far, my experiences with Dark Souls have formed a roller-coaster of sorts, in terms of me liking and downright hating the game. I've been beaten, burned, slashed, and thrown off more cliffs than I can count, and it's a wonder there's not a PS3 controller shaped hole in my TV or wall by now.

One thing is for certain about my experience so far though, and that is that sorcerers at the very least are rigged. I went from banging my head against the wall that is Great Grey Wolf Sif, to simply back-peddling and casting soul arrows to victory. As a matter of fact, that's pretty much the strategy for everything in this game. Hold your shield up, let it miss or clang off said shield, then cast a soul arrow and laugh because the monster is now the one in a horribly frustrating situation where the only outcome is imminent death.

List of bosses/mini-bosses that have fallen to my soul arrows and their variations: Asylum Demon, Taurus Demon, Capra Demon, Bellfry Gargoyles, Pinwheel, Gaping Dragon, Moonlight Butterfly, Great Grey Wolf Sif, Black Knight(s), Armored Tusk, Titanite Demon(s), Havel the Rock, The Butcher, Giant Undead Rat, Hellkite Dragon, Zombie Dragon, Golden Crystal Golem.

That list comprises pretty much every boss I've beaten thus far other than the Hydra. I mean, it makes sense that a build's main tools should also be taking down the heavy hitters, but the ease at which it occurs, and the common strategy for all of them concerns me. Perhaps I've just become too adept at playing chicken with bosses...

On a side note, I got my "Enchanted" weapons last night, and now I'm a wrecking crew with a sword/bow and arrow too. Tremble mortals, and despair! 600 damage backstabs with 10 str 10 dex? Yes please!

Dark Souls: Hellkite Dragon Slaying Strategy

During my numerous hours of playing Dark Souls, I'll admit to having searched for tips and tricks on how to beat some of the seemingly unstoppable bosses in Dark Souls, but there is one boss who has no clear strategy posted on a wiki or any forums on how to kill him if you're not able to exploit a glitch to do so, or happen to be a Dexterity based character.

The Hellkite Dragon. That annoying spiny fellow who saw fit to give you PTSD flashbacks to Demons' Souls. You all know what I'm talking about.

That terrifying moment when you had finally beaten the Phalanx, where in your cockiness at having beaten your first boss and regaining your human form you pressed the advantage. Wading through the common enemies like a scythe cuts down wheat, you found yourself at a bridge, with loot ripe for the taking; and then it happened. A terrifying roar and the sound of burning flesh, and you're back in the main area once more a spirit, and once more broken by a relentless game created by a mastermind to break your spirit.

Yeah well the Hellkite Dragon does exactly the same thing. You walk onto the bridge and he chars your ass into a glowing spot on the ground. I'm not entirely sure about anyone else who played Demons' Souls, but the Red Dragon brings up some strong feelings of animosity, and having another big red dragon subject me to the same infuriating tactics... Well maybe I'm just sore about the butt roasting, or maybe it's called righteous vengeance, because I went and figured out how to kill him on my spell casting character, so to anyone else who feels that vengeance is a dish best served cold here's how to do it as a caster, and potentially a very high level melee character.

Hellkite Dragon is a very predictable boss, he only has a few behaviors. He either chars every living thing on the bridge to a crisp. He perches comfortably on the castle overwatching the bridge, he heals himself on his perch, or he responds to damage on his perch by flying down to the bridge. It is his last "response" behavior that can be taken advantage of to kill him.

Obtain any kind of bow that you want, even if you don't meet the requirements for it, and get some arrows. Shoot him from under the bridge to get rid of the Hollows on top. At this point, go to the bridge access stairwell, and shoot him from around the top of the stairs. This will cause him to come land on the bridge. While he is landing he is defenseless, so you can charge up a heavy soul arrow as he's coming down and lock on as it's about to fire. Roll down the stairs and wait at the bottom. He will fire breath and fly back up to his perch. Rinse and repeat and soon the sweet taste of victory will be yours. This is how I got the bastard.

As for melee characters, if you're high enough level you should be able to 2h whatever your best weapon is with some Gold Pine Resin on it and slap him to death while he's landing. This is only conjecture, but if he's defenseless long enough to be hit by a Heavy soul arrow and then gives you enough time to roll out of the way, his landing animation should probably be long enough to beat him into oblivion if you weaken him a little first by smashing his tail.

That's it for now, good luck and good dragon hunting.

Dark Souls, Another Snippet and Genuine Praise

So I've put up a few posts about Dark Souls, the game that is currently playing the role of my kinky dominatrix, punishing my transgressions as harshly as possible, only to have me come back begging for more. The reason should be obvious, and that's because I'm enjoying the bloody hell out of it, (note my choice of words, I'm definitely not enjoying "every minute.")

Dark Souls does something very few games do nowadays, and that is literally threaten you with punishment for bad play. In current gen-games, the general rule of thumb is, pay attention during the, "high action," moments where explosions are occuring, and the rest of the time feel free to keep one of your hands on your junk or in a bag of Doritos, because you're either: A going to be fine, or B going to die and restart 2 feet away. Dark Souls, much like it's predecessor Demons' Souls feels free to not only tell you not to pass go and not collect two hundred dollars, but also feels the need to take away your bank account and piss in your face.

Losing your hard earned souls, which comprise both your money and your experience is one thing, but getting slapped down by the game's equivalent of Halo's "grunts" on the way back to the bloody stain you left on the grass, that hurts. The game challenges you constantly, be it through it's unforgiving combat, pitfalls, traps, or even plain old intimidation.

I've run into countless enemies that I've looked at, and in my mind I've said "Gee, I've fought something bigger than him, I should be able to block his attacks pretty easy." You know how many times I've been wrong, or just plain old too bloody scared to test my theory? Probably every time. You either think you've sized up an enemy just right and you go in ready to rumble, only to get turned into that crimson coloured paste on the castle floor, or you run away like a little girl. This is something that the game successfully gets you to do, every single time you encounter a new enemy. Die, or be damned bloody afraid.

It might not be the kind of fear that makes you personally afraid, but when the hard earned souls, your time, sweat, and possibly blood are on the line, you just kind of understand it's like something you have to have experienced to know. On another note however, that same build-up of emotions and frustration only compounds the kind of crap that they throw at you in this game. Some of the creatures ARE frightening. It's like someone went all Inception into a nightmare and literally took snapshots of these bastards. More specifically the nightmares I haven't yet had. Seriously, I don't know if I'll be able to sleep.

Tension is already high enough going into what you can tell is a boss fight. But then the game does stuff like let you summon an NPC to help you, no questions asked.
"What?"
Then you walk into the room and see literally the most horrifying creature of nightmare you've ever seen. When you're scared that the knight with a sword is going to kill you, wait till you see some of what From Software is hiding in the shadows.


On another note, and I've mentioned this before, but "Wow," the feeling of reward and accomplishment you get when you finally figure out how to kill these creatures is like pure gamer crack, it's nearly tangible like you could reach out and touch it. It's why we all play. Every boss you beat is like the first time you made it through the Pillar of Autumn in Halo on Legendary. For every pain you suffer at the hands of the sinister game play, one absolutely amazing, jump off your seat, victory arm pump "YESSSSS" moment exists, that makes it all better, and reminds you why you just spent the last three hours grinding the ten minutes of trash on the way to the boss.

Dark Souls, it Only Gets Better From Here

Fresh from another session of Dark Souls and having just come from beating a boss, it feels great.

What doesn't feel great is that I think I made the boss harder than he needed to be to kill.

Earlier in my play, I found a ring called the "Rusty Iron Ring" and in it's description, it said that it makes moving through certain areas like swamps easier. When I found the ring, my first reaction was, "Yes, excellent, this will help me later!" Well, the boss I just fought was in a boggy swampy area, and you had to fight him knee deep in water. I didn't remember I had that ring at all, and fighting him was an absolute pain in the ass because I could barely move.

Long story short, Dark Souls still hasn't made me rage hard enough to dislike it, and I'm actually getting more into it.

Edit: Oct. 09 2011

I not only went back and checked, but also having started a new character, I was able to actually test the Rusty Iron Ring out against the aforementioned boss. The ring makes you run through knee high water as though it was nothing at all, making the boss fight SUBSTANTIALLY easier, and less time consuming.

Dark Souls, Harder than Demons' Souls?

Namco-Bandai told us all that Dark Souls would be harder than Demons' Souls. They weren't lying. The question is, how did they make it harder, and is it still fun?

Well, I have the answers to those questions for you.

The increase in difficulty is all in the creators limiting you for the most part. Level wise and item wise.

First of all, there are no High Value Targets experience and item wise like in the first game. No Blue Eyes Knight with his back facing you, no Soul Reaper standing and waiting for you to kill him. Moreover, the regular units experience values DON'T scale as they get stronger. A regular ghoul or Hollow or whatever you want to call it is only worth 20 exp, regardless of whether he's strong enough to kill you in 1 shot or not. The first boss in the game only gave 1000 exp, mini bosses have only been giving 500. Problem is that the level curve is still the exact same. You have to level your weapons with souls still too, AND if you didn't take a starting item called the "Master Key" you have to spend souls on keys to open doors throughout the levels.

The creators also saw fit to limit your healing. You get a maximum of 5 heals per rest at a bonfire, which are checkpoints of sorts in the levels, except for ones that are in "Safe zones" with friendly npc's (so far only the first one, as far as I can tell) that boosts your heals up to 10. No stockpiling moongrasses to victory, you get a max of 10 shots of the good stuff at the most and then you're cut off. This makes every inch you gain precious. This also makes learning the timing on parrying attacks a complete bitch, what with the enemies almost guaranteed to do half your health if they hit you, since your level is so low from the exp starving that your defense stat hasn't had a chance to increase much.

The boss attacks are also much harder to deal with. The tutorial boss is pretty much a recycled Grey Demon from the first game. Only problem is, he's faster, his attacks come quicker, AND the hit boxes on them are MASSIVE compared to the first game. You used to be able to roll under his arm when he swung, try that now and you're a bloodstain on the floor, waiting to be laughed at by anyone the networking deems fit to see your failure.

So yes, the game is harder. It feels unfairly hard especially the experience values. Being able to actually keep up with the level of the content would be nice. But with it being this much harder, and this much more, "unfair" feeling, and FRUSTRATING, is it still fun?

The answer is yes. The game is still fun. The satisfaction from advancing through the levels is just intensified that much. The game also looks even more fantastic than the first game. The environments look completely spectacular. The game is great and I'd recommend it to anyone who doesn't have a tendency to throw things when they're upset.

Edit: Oct. 09/2011
I've found out that bonfires can be "powered up" so to speak by offering a resource known as humanity to them. It would seem that the first bonfire in the main play area is already "Rank 2" and that there is a rank 3 or higher, that allows you to get even more than 10 heals per rest. This makes certain parts of the game substantially easier.

Sexism Done Right in Gaming; Mount and Blade: Warband

Last month, Kotaku published an article (which can be read here) about one of the skill names for Purna originally named "Feminist Whore." Whatever the guy on that development team was thinking can only be speculated at, because stuff like that just doesn't fly in (im)polite society, such as the one most North Americans are used to. It's a wonder nobody is suing him.

Mount and Blade, a game published by Paradox Interactive, happens to do "sexism" right, but I'll get to that near the end.

Mount and Blade is a medieval RPG/strategy mash up. It's what you'd get if the Total War series went, hey let's let the player be the captain of ONE of those little squads, but still gave you the sprawling, "world," map.

The player starts off a new game, presented with a series of "questions" that define your character's background (and starting traits,) such as whether or not you were born a noble, what you did in your early years, etc. and then brings you to the actual character creation screen, where you get to distribute your skill points, between a wide variety of things.



Once you're done with all that, the game asks you where in the world you want to start, and whisks you away to the land of Calradia, where fortune, glory and power await you! And by that I mean, the game slams you down into the game and expects you to know what to do. It seriously tells you nothing and you're free to do as you please from there, aside from the initial "quest" that happens no matter what.

You can choose to align yourself within the Kingdom you started out in, you can be a bandit and rob caravans, help claimants to the throne of Calridia overthrow their oppressors, or you can even be just like the pesky rebels in the Total War series and take over a castle and start up your own faction! The game almost literally lets you choose to do anything you want and doesn't question it. It also pulls absolutely no punches whatsoever.

The first quest has you set out and hire up a band of merry men in order to help a shopkeeper rescue his brother from some bandits. This is the part where the game seriously tells you that you're in for a rough ride.

From the get go, before you even have the chance to hire some men to help you, there's a chance that a bunch of completely unrelated bandits (upwards of 11-12 guys) will attack you on the mini map and demand your gold or your life. Having personally had trouble defeating the ONE bandit the game presented me with at the start of the first quest (albeit, at that point I didn't know how to draw my weapon, scroll wheel up is weapon switch, scroll wheel down puts away your shield, I only tried down) you're unlikely to defeat them, so God help you if you didn't run away from them.

That's one of the best parts of the game though, learning how to play it. Too many games nowadays spoon feed you exactly what to do, how to do it, and when to use some random item they've given you to use for just one level.

My first playthrough consisted of me being generally dominated by the AI's forces, barely able to escape with the goods I could plunder from caravans while also keeping my freedom. After restarting and taking some more skills focused on making my character a much better combatant, I eventually rose to be a decent challenger, able to take on multiple foes in single combat with ease, dragging my peasant armies to glorious victory, even if it meant burying every single one of them after a battle.

Finally I got to my current set of plays, where I'm a glorious commander, able to take on forces roughly 3 times the size of my own, in any condition, even if they're holed up inside of a castle.

It wasn't until I went to turn down my in-game sound so I could hear my friends on Ventrilo one day that I realized: I had only been playing the game on "15%" of it's intended difficulty. The ability to turn the damage to the player's army to 100% instead of 50%, and the ability to make the player take 100% instead of 25% damage exists. You can also have twice the default number of units on the field, which means when you're doing half of the killing for your army, the tables turn quite a bit now that you can only take on a small chunk of them and the rest of your army is left to fight for themselves!

The game is HARD. Easily one of it's best qualities, because challenge has all but left video games as of late, and this one only encourages you to get better. Personally, as a strategist, as a meta-gamer, and just leveling your character up. If you want to beat the game on the hardest difficulty, multiple evolutions in your ability to play, your play style, and your ability to command have to occur. There's no cheap tricks, you just have to be GOOD and you have to be patient.

Now that I've summed up my general impressions of the game, I'd like to move to specifics.

First off, I'll start with the qualities of Mount and Blade that are bad because I love to hear the good news last, it leaves you with a better aftertaste.

First, M&B looks like complete ass for a game that came out in 2008. The faces especially, I mean this is a game that came out the same year as Metal Gear Solid 4.

Honestly there's no comparison between the two. I could have left the image of Link from Smash 64 on the right and it would have looked like the same comparison, the graphics simply don't measure up. The weapons and actual armors and stuff look passable when they're in action, but stills and portraits are atrocious. I think portraits would have been much better off if they handed the art department the character designs and just said "Draw this please."

Second, is the combat AI, and the default battle set-up (they're kind of one and the same problem.) The combat AI is dumb as a post, that's probably partly because I have the game set to the easiest combat level, but I know for a fact part of it is just detection/pathing issues. Units will walk into trees or walls trying to get to enemies, but it doesn't happen a lot, and that's alright, because it's not a persistent problem.

The main problem is the default battle setup. The enemy AI doesn't really command it's units, and it also automatically tells all of your units to charge in like banzai warriors. So you'll get the enemy AI with it's battle plan, "I'm going to shield wall up on this here hill, and then I'm going to stand my archers on the crest and rain down arrows." If you flank him though, his plan stays the same. If you stand in a valley waiting for his cavalry to charge you, he'll be like, "Nah I already decided to wait for you to come to me," and stand there. You also have to physically move your character to a location and tell your units to hold position there if you want them to take a hill or something. It IS a computer game, being able to aim at a location with a cross hair or cursor of some kind and say, "move there," would have been much better.

Those are actually the main two complaints I have about the game, the points I frigging love however:

Partly text based gameplay. I'm personally a fan of this style, and Paradox has done it in one of their other games, King Arthur - The Role Playing Game. It's personal preference, but sometimes a little text based narrative of what's going on is much better than the game using it's production budget showing you what's happening, and taking away from other parts of the game. It's another form of not spoiling us as gamers. Saying a village seems nearly dead, with only a few settlers moving about the streets, is really all that's required for us to get it. We don't need to see the village.

Fantastic character "power" curve. Your character, and your army's zenith of power moves along at a rate that you don't really ever notice at the time, but looking back you can ALWAYS go "Yeah, I'm way more powerful than I used to be." Your character or army never really feels like it's immediately more powerful from level ups or gaining better units, but the progression over time combined with personally getting better at the game feels incredibly satisfying.

Loot. I shouldn't have to say more so I won't say much. There's a lot of loot. Looking for better gear is always fun. If it wasn't World of Warcraft wouldn't have expansions. Gaining more loot and more power is ALWAYS a good thing.

Great overall gameplay. The world map is always changing. The factions don't give a @#$% what you're doing unless it affects them, so they just go about their business for the most part, taking eachother's land and looting and pillaging villages as they please. The combat for the most part feels right. Lancing people from horseback feels really satisfying, especially since it normally does enough damage to kill 3-4 guys if you could somehow split the damage between them. Speaking of which, using a lance in first person on a horse is really, really fun. It fulfills all of the desires I've ever had to go to a hardware store and do shopping cart jousting with PVC piping and a bunch of other idiots.

Good diplomacy system. It's hard to describe, but it's got an element of quid pro quo, where the more favors you do for someone, the more likely they'll be to back you when they're nearby on the world map when a fight breaks out, or the more likely they'll be to tell the king that you really, really do deserve to own that town you just captured for him.

The sound and music. They're fantastic! They're really repetitive, but they fit.

Mods. The game has a huge modding community. There's even a mod that fully overhauls the game into, well, Star Wars.

"Sexism". Oh God, how I love it. Not that I'm a sexist, I'm just not afraid to say that men and women were/are treated differently in society and that they each have their own strengths and weaknesses, and it's nice to see a big company that isn't abashed by it either. In the game choosing to be a female has effects on gameplay. It doesn't restrict the end result of what you can accomplish but it hampers your ability at the start of the game to impress the Lords of Calradia.

For example, once you've raised your reputation to about 6+ with a king, and gained around 100 renown, said King will generally be not only willing to have a male character join his faction, but also grant him lands, whereas Kings are hesitant at that point to even allow a female character to join his armies as anything other than a mercenary. A female character CAN however marry a Lord and essentially user her wiles to make her doting husband into a willing puppet in her schemes!



Lady Aya, Queen of Avalon, overseeing her army of heavy cavalry as they charge the enemy shield wall.




In general, the game is fantastic in my opinion. It's very unique, it doesn't feel like it's done before (at least from the games I've played and am used to playing) it feels fresh, and it also is fun in general. Like any game, it has it's flaws, but if you like medieval weaponry, or you like watching armies mash together into a big ball of death, OR if you just like getting your ass kicked by a game, you'll probably enjoy Mount and Blade: Warband.

Starting Things Off With a Resounding "Click"

First!

What a way to start things that would be... As my first order of business, I'd like to kick things off by defining what exactly the plan is for this blog:

The short of the story is that I've found myself with an exorbitant amount of time, thanks to a number of factors including the dreaded state of "forever alone"-ness that many gamers come to terms with after a while, most of which is filled up by playing video games. That being said, I seem to have so much free time that I either play a game long enough that I burn out on it all at once, OR, (and this is the kicker,) I hammer through the game so fast that I'm done before I realize it, left forever alone AND with nothing to play.

That all being said, I'm going to use this blog as a means to help pace my playthroughs and stretch my dollar a little bit more. Not that I don't have the money to buy more games, I just like to feel like I got my money's worth out of all of my purchases.

My intention is to fill up this blog with reviews/impressions of games, reactions to games coming out, anecdotes regarding whatever I'm playing at the moment, and tips and tricks that I discover along the way.

That about sums up my initial posting, so time to grab a can of whatever your favorite gaming fuel is (Mountain Dew for me) and get to it. *Click!*

First on my list is a game and it's expansion called "Mount and Blade: Warband."

P.S. The word Nocturne is originally a word used to describe a musical piece evocative of the night, I've adapted it to describe (if you somehow didn't figure it out) late night gaming. Because I'm much more clever than people with blog names like, "All Night Gaming," and also much slower getting into the blogging field.