Assassin's Den Review: Evoland

Welcome back, my beautiful freaks, to the Assassin's Den!

Today, I'm going to review a game I picked up on steam called Evoland.  I got turned on to this game by the 8 bit Duke's review of this game.  Like he says in that review, it is a short tale of the changes adventure games past.  In fact, that's all the game is; you are going through the changes made throughout in adventure RPGs over the last three decades. From getting 2d movement, to smoother scrolling, to a weapon, to color, to introduction of a story, to better graphics to mode 7 graphics that the super nintendo introduced to basic 3d models and so on, it's all about the cliches that have been part of the standard of the adventure RPG over the last three decades.

But the most important thing is the humor of this game.  One of the things that they constantly do is point out the tropes they are playing on; for example, when you open the chest that gets you the 16 Color Display, under it, they remark "OMG Color!", and you get these things constantly as you move through the game.  From the graphical changes to the upgrades to weapons to the ability to actually name your character, you're getting humorous remarks about the changes that are being made to the gameplay and upgrades to the graphics.

This game is short; you can complete it in two hours, but it's two hours of humor and a story that doesn't take itself seriously.  It's simply "you are the good guy, go save the world from the bad guy".  That's it.  But this game isn't about story; it's about the history of adventure RPGs.  It's not deep, and it's not meant to be.  It's just a fun ride through the past in a modern form.

This game is also pretty easy, although there are places that kill you repeatedly, and there are some puzzles that left me scratching my head.  But that's part of the history, and that's what they are celebrating.  And it's done in a way that's not going to eat up a lot of your time.

I completed this game in about four hours, and that's because I got lost in a couple of dungeons (because there is no mini-map until you get the ability late in the game, another commentary on how adventure RPGs have changed.) and died a few times on a boss that was tough until I learned how to cheese it.  But I enjoyed it the whole time through; it reminded me of the games I've been playing most of my life.

I picked this up for $2.50 on steam, because it was on sale for that day only.  It's now back to being ten dollars.  I honestly think it's worth the ten dollars, but only if you go into the game with the right mindset.  It's a well controlled, well built game with a LOT of humor inside it.  Unfortunately, it doesn't have a lot of replay value; I don't think I'll be playing it for quite a while, except to try it out with my gamepad, since it may control differently with one.

I agree with the 8-bit Duke that the game could be better.  There are a LOT of things that this game does right, and there are a lot of things this game could do better.  And to be honest, this would be a good way to get children into retro adventure/RPGs; it's short, relatively easy but has parts that doesn't hold your hand.  And it's tame too, so you don't have to worry about your kids seeing something you don't want them seeing.  For that reason alone, it's worth it, and the ten bucks on steam won't break your bank.

For now, stay beautiful freaks!

Assassin's Den Reviews: Spore

Welcome back, my beautiful freaks, to the Assassin's Den!  Today, I'm reviewing Spore, a 2008 multi-genre game, though its best described as a "god game".  A god game is an artificial life game that casts the player in the position of controlling the game on a large scale, as an entity with divine/supernatural powers, as a great leader, or with no specified character (as in in the case of this game), and places them in charge of a game setting containing autonomous characters to guard and influence.

Now, I remember, back in 2006, this game was touted in the game magazines as all about the creation, and that fact is all over the game.  You're always building or modifying things to your liking.  That is what the game is all about; from the moment you load into the game to the final part of the game, you are constantly creating something.

This game has 5 main parts; cell stage, creature stage, tribal stage, civilization stage and space stage.  The cell stage has you swimming around in the primordial ooze in a 2d plane, eating plants, meat, or both depending on your mouth parts, and picking up other cell parts to aid in your survival until you can move on to the next stage.  It is this stage where you select the kinds of food you're going to be eating in the next two stages, and determines what kind of mouth parts you open up once you get your first upgrade, and what special skill you're going to have in the next stage.

It is the creature stage where the game really opens up.  It is the first 3d stage, and has you running around the valley picking up parts for your creature and either making friends with or hunting down the other creatures to earn dna points to spend on your creature.  The creature stage continues the precedent of the previous stage and determines the skill you have for the next stage.

However, the creature stage is the stage where you are truly creating; the creature creator was released as a demo, and you can create just about anything.  You can make dragons, dinosaurs, Pokémon, characters from Homestar Runner, and yes, even penis creatures. (I only mention penis creatures because they were so prolific in the early ears, and you still find people making them on youtube from time to time.)  The spore creature creator is that dynamic.

The tribal stage isn't about creation, and is more of a real time strategy game, where you take the creature you made in the creature stage and built them into a thriving tribe.  You gather resources to build tribe members, and purchase weapons and instruments to either ally with or conquer the other tribes in your valley.  Or you can do a mix of both, and gain a different skill for the next stage.

The civilization stage, however, brings creation back full force.  Here you build a city hall, the head of your government, a house, a factory, an entertainment building, a land vehicle, a sea vehicle, and an air vehicle.  And with these vehicles that you use to take on the focus of this stage; conquer the world through religious, economic or military means, although only the economic style is really any different.

You see, the religious and military are basically the same; build your forces and then go attack a city.  The only real thing that is different is the animation for these two; the military destroys buildings, while the religious creates a big holographic member of your species who preaches to the city until it converts.  However, the economic has you building trade routes and buying cities.  This one depends on making the other nations happy so you can actually create the trade route.  You gain your initial capital by capturing spice geysers and making happy, profitable cities.  (This aspect goes across all play styles, btw.  It is just more prevalent in the economic stage.)

Once you finish the civilization, you enter, what I feel, is the most boring stage; the space stage.  You do your final act of creation and build your space ship and then head off into the stars to explore, build trade routes, colonize other worlds and make your way into the galactic core.  This is more exploration based, and, while it's cool to interact with alien empires and terraform planets to build colonies for your empire, I find the mandate to explore DULL.

Which is why I picked up the galactic adventures expansion.  Released in 2009, this once again gives you control of your creature and has you playing adventures created by players and Maxis where you beam down to a planet and going through a story that, depending on depending on the effort put into it, is fun.  However, you've still got to hunt down other empires to be able to pick up these adventures, and unless you download adventures from other players, you won't have a lot of them.  But galactic adventures gives me something to look forward to when I'm flying around the galaxy hunting for other empires and ways to make money.

The final goal of this game is to get to the galactic core and find the staff of life, which allows you to instantly terraform a planet to your liking.  You are also told that you can find Earth in one of the spiral arms at this point as well, so look forward to it.

Now, would I advise you to get this? Absolutely, if you're into the creation process.  Once you've unlocked all aspects of the game, you can spend DAYS creating cells, creatures, buildings, vehicles starships for the stages.  And if you've downloaded the galactic adventures expansion, you can build adventures too!

I picked this up on steam for 40 dollars American; 20 for the main game, and 20 for the galactic adventures.  The 20 dollars that the main game is was worth the price, but I think that the galactic adventures should not have cost as much as the main game.  It was worth it to me because of how boring I find the space stage boring, but it was still overpriced.  However, if you enjoy exploration games, then you may not want galactic adventures.  I would say pick up the core game for 20 dollars, and then decide once you've gotten to the space stage whether you want galactic adventures.  However, if you aren't into games where the main focus is creation, you should pass on this game.

Until next time, stay beautiful freaks!

SWTOR Character tales timelines

Welcome back, my beautiful freaks, to the Assassin's Den! Today, I'm going to clarify the timelines for the SWTOR Character tales over at fanfiction.net, since I know how confusing they are; I write whichever character I think of something interesting for at any point in their timelines.  This is going to help clarify what happens when.

First, the individual characters;

Ragdat: Jedi Knight Ragdat, Ragdat's reunion with Kaliyo, On the Council Now, Ragdat's meditation, Ragdat meets Revan, and Jedi Mission on Makeb: Briefing.
Vedere: Jedi Consular Vedere Marr, Still Coping with Katarr,On the Council Now, and Jedi Mission on Makeb: Briefing
Amelisan: Trooper Amelisan, and Major Amelisan and her life's motivation. I'm also planning a chapter where Havoc Squad takes on one of the Dread Masters, but I have to play the flashpoint first, and I'm not anywhere near that point with my new version of Amelisan.
Adaso: Sith Warrior Adaso, Recognition of the Wrath, The Mandate of the Wrath, and The Wrath faces the betrayer.
Koyi'shak (though she self identifies herself as Darth Nox after the first chapter): Sith Inquisitor Koyi'shak, The Mandate of the Wrath, Journal of Darth Nox-New Purpose, and Darth Nox's ultimate plans. I'm also writing one where she takes on the Foundry by herself, which will happen after these four.
Maircus: Bounty Hunter Maircus and Maircus: Job Offer on Makeb. I'm going to take off on this and have him take on Imperial Makeb as well.

You'll notice that I am not mentioning Curoda and Allisani. That is intentional, because while they happen along the same timeline, their stories don't interest me, because I hated playing their classes.

And the timelines for the chapters is; all character introduction chapters (the Class:Character name ones), then Ragdat's reunion with Kaliyo/Still Coping with Katarr, Major Amelisan and her life's motivation, Recognition of the Wrath, The Mandate of the Wrath, Journal of Darth Nox-New Purpose, Darth Nox's ultimate plans, On the Council Now, Ragdat's meditation, Ragdat meets Revan/unwritten chapter for Amelisan, unwritten chapter for Darth Nox, The Wrath faces the betrayer and Jedi Mission on Makeb:Briefing/Maircus: Job Offer on Makeb.

And I'll update this as I add new chapters, and I'll also make it easier to understand.

As for the second timeline;

Mamine: Jedi Knight Mamine and Mamine's Dark Meditation, so far.  I've actually got one planned where she takes on the False Emperor.
Yokonari: Sith Inquisitor Casek, Sith Warrior Yokonari, Reunion on Dromund Kaas,  Letters between friends, Near Security Breach, Introducing Light Apprentice, Vows of the White Knight, Letters between friends 2, Quinn's betrayal and feelings admitted, and Darth Imperius joins the White Knights.
Casek: Near Security Breach, Introducing Light Apprentice, Letters between friends 2, Quinn's betrayal and feelings admitted, and Darth Imperius joins the White Knights.

All three of these characters will get new chapters.  As for the timeline, add Mamine's introduction in at the same time as Yokonari, and add Dark Meditation at the same time as Darth Imperius.

All other events that I come up with will be posted in another post.  For now, check out the story I posted a link to at the top.

More SWTOR Pictures

Welcome back, beautiful freaks, to the Assassin's Den!

Today, I bring pictures of my Dark Side Jedi Knight, Light Side Sith Warrior and Light Side Sith Inquisitor.

Here's the Knight;

Here's the Warrior;

And the Inquisitor;

I've also rebuilt my Trooper and Bounty Hunter, because I have ideas for them in my SWTOR Character Tales story over at ff.net.  Look forward to them, and check out the chapters on Mamine, Yokonari and Casek in the mean time, as well as new chapters for Ragdat, Vedere, Adaso and Koyi'shak AKA Darth Nox (as she now identifies herself.)

Assassin's Den Review: Fable Anniversary

Welcome back, my beautiful freaks, to the Assassin's Den! Today, I am going to tell you about a new game that came out in the states earlier this month, Fable Anniversary! And since I've played this game for about a week and a half, I've had a chance to play it in and out, and have seen everything the game has to offer.

Now, the best way to describe this game is "Fable the Lost Chapters as you knew it, but with quite a few updates." Those updates include graphics, UI, controls, achievements, and addition of new items.  And I will tackle each of these in turn.

Graphics.  The graphics have been completely overhauled; it is a late generation Xbox 360 game, complete with HD compatibility.  Unfortunately, I don't have an HDMI cable for my 360, so for me, a LOT of text is TINY.  So be ready for that if you are like me.

But the world looks beautiful. Albion is lush and far more colorful than it looked in 2004.  If you really look, you can see texture on the individual leaves on the trees, where in 2004, you could just see the individual leaves.  Big change that is allowed by the more powerful hardware.

And the people aren't as pale!  They actually look like they've been outside, instead of hiding inside their homes for the whole year.

But what I really like is the remodeled PC model.  Some of the hairstyles look a LOT better, as are the beards. And the age mechanic looks MUCH less annoying; you still age, but it doesn't look as drastic.  Yes, you are going to get white hair, but you aren't going to look older than your 20something sister and 50-60 year old mother.  And the Will lines are more pronounced on the less pale skin as well, and look far better.  (Unfortunately this means you won't be able to see your tattoos if you are a powerful Will user like the characters I create, but you take the good with the bad.)

Weapons and armor are more details too, though some of the good aligned armors look duller now.  Same with the Archon's Armor you get in the Necropolis, but I guess the duller colors are more realistic.

The character models are hit or miss, however. Most of the male characters look awesome.  Jack, Maze, Thunder, Twinblade, Guildmaster...they all look awesome.  And the male NPCs look great too; they look like updated versions of the character models we saw when the original Fable was released.

Female character models? Miss, more than often not.  The NPCs look fine.  But the important characters?? Not so much.  Theresa and Lady Grey have acquired what I like to call "baby cheeks disease"; their cheeks are SO FAT in comparison to their heads that it is hilarious to look at.  And while I am glad that most people in this game are less pale, it looks...off for Lady Grey.

You know, it would just be easier to do image comparisons instead of describing them.

Here's Twinblade;

Here's the hero as a child;

Great so far, but here's Theresa in Fable TLC:

And her HD version;

And finally, Lady Grey;

And since I couldn't find a picture of her, here's a youtube video of her HD version;

Skip to 1:32 to see Lady Grey's face.

The other important characters, Briar Rose, Whisper, and your mother, look fine.  But these two ladies, who I have a certain image in my head of them, look terrible.

UI.  If you played either Fable TLC of Fable 2, you'll feel right at home with this UI.  The cool thing about this is that it is set to look like a storybook.  And while some things are not where you may remember them from TLC, everything is placed somewhere that makes sense within the UI.

And we are finally given the ability to save at any time.  The game now creates checkpoints during your quests, so if you are doing a really long quest and either you have to go somewhere, the power goes out, or the game crashes (yes, it does happen, though not as frequently as the Xbox emulation for Fable 1 and TLC does on the 360), you can start back up from your last checkpoint; for example, the game will save during the Bargate Prison quest, and you can come back in halfway if you need to.

Controls. This game gives you two options for controls; Traditional, which is the original control scheme from Fable 1 and TLC, or Fable 2/3 inspired.  And I'm of mixed opinion on these.  On the one hand, I prefer the control schemes used in Fable 2 and 3, and Fable Anniversary is more fun using that control scheme...until I get more than three spells under my belt.  And that is when I have to switch back to the Fable 1 control scheme, despite me not liking the melee and ranged combat from the original game. The major reason is that Fable 1's spellcasting is drastically different than Fable 2 and 3's.  Fable 2 and 3 use a charging system, and focus on mostly attack spells, with really one support spell.  Fable 1, and by proxy Fable Anniversary, has a LOT of spells.  And the most useful spells in this game are support spells.  I only have 1 attack spell I use regularly, and that spell is mostly for crowd control.  The other 5 spells I normally use are support spells, and trying to switch between them in fast combat with the Fable 2/3 inspired control scheme is getting me hurt.  Cycling through too many spells with the Traditional scheme gets me hurt as well, and that's with three spells at a time. 1 spell at a time? No.

New Items. These I don't have access to, since I'm still without a router, so I can't connect my 360 to the internet without disconnecting my computer and doing a bit of work.  But what I've read, these are some new Legendary weapons and armors that you can purchase from vendors, so long as you've got the DLC for them.  I only use 1 Legendary weapon per game; Avo's Tear/Sword of Aeons, so those really don't interest me.

Achievements. As with any modern game, you have a list of achievements you can get.  They fall into the three major categories that the games I normally play fall into; stuff you'll get from playing the story, stuff you'll likely get from just playing the game, and stuff you need to look up how to get.  Nothing more needs to be said about these.

But all this comes down to 1 thing; is this game worth 40 bucks?  I'm actually of 2 minds for this.  If you haven't Fable TLC before, but have played Fable 2 and/or 3, most definitely.  If you're a collector of Fable related media, you should also pick this one up. But if you own Fable TLC for the Xbox, you could easily give it a pass, especially if your Xbox still works.  You should only pick this up if your Xbox experienced the hardware failure that mine did, because it is FAR more stable than the Xbox emulated version on the 360. 

Hail to the freaks! Thoughts on self identity

Welcome back, my beautiful freaks, to the Assassin's Den!

So I was at work yesterday, singing One-Eyed Doll's "Beautiful Freak", and I got a couple of strange looks from a co-worker who walked by.  I said "It's a song by a metal band." They went "Oh", and went back to work.  And that got me thinking about the concept of identity.

You see, there are two major forms of identity; your public identity and your self identity.  Your public identity is how others see you, and your self identity is how you see yourself.  You can control your public identity to some extent, by how you act around others, but for the most part, it is out of your control on how others perceive you.  Which is why I am focusing on self identity, the one that is completely under your control.

Self identity is how we perceive ourselves.  It is who we are when we are all alone.  It is the things we like, don't like, our education, our body image...etc.  It is what we wake up with, and what we go to bed with.  And yes, it is constantly re-evaluated as we assimilate new things, but for the most part, it remains constant as we get older, barring life changing events that rock us to our core.  And even then, we retain who we are.

I know this seems like a teen angst topic, but even people my age have existential issues if things aren't going the way we had planned.  The late Justin Carmical is proof of that; a man in his 40s made a rash decision based on kinks in his self identity.

So how does this tie into the song I was singing yesterday, and have been listening to on repeat since I started writing this?  Well, let's check out the lyrics.

You've got a face
Only a mother could love
Well I'll love you
You my Beautiful Freak

You're out of style
You're out of touch
Well I'll touch you
You my Beautiful Freak

Beautiful Freak

I'll be your mama
I'll be your brother
I'll be your sister
I'll be your lover

Your Pain
Your Pleasure
My Beautiful Freak
BEAUTIFUL FREAK

All my life
So lonely
Didn't know I was
a Beautiful Freak

To my pleasure
You've shown me
Now I love you
My Beautiful Freak
Beautiful Freak
My Beautiful freak
Beautiful freak

I'll be your mama
I'll be your brother
I'll be your sister
I'll be your lover

Your Pain
Your Pleasure
My Beautiful Freak

Kind of uplifting, in a dark way, isn't it?  It's about finding love just by being yourself.  Which also says, to me, that you can find happiness by just being yourself. By not letting anyone or anything tell you how you should be.  By not letting your circumstances tell you that who you are isn't right.  If it makes you happy and doesn't hurt anyone, who cares what anyone else thinks? (And that's the kicker though; so long as it doesn't hurt anyone.  That's other people and yourself.  Justin's rash decision has me on a crusade to promote suicide prevention.) Play your strange video games, watch your strange movies, write your strange songs and stories!  Be the beautiful freak that you are, and don't worry about what anyone thinks of you.  Yes, your public identity still affects you, but when it comes down to it, when everyone walks away and you're left alone, you have to live yourself. So celebrate what makes you a freak.

So I leave you with this thought; even if you have a face only a mother could love, it is still your face. Love it, celebrate it, and never let anyone or anything belittle it.  Because you are a Beautiful Freak!

Happy Single Awareness Day, everyone!

Yes, I am not a fan of Valentine's Day.  Never have been. Or, at least, I'm not a fan of the secular version of the day.  Because seeing all these people getting flowers, cakes, candies or doing stuff for their significant other just reminds me of my failures with romance. Between stupid grade school crushes, to bullshit games that the girls in high school played with me, to bad dates I had in the military and college, to  that bitch Michelle Matas (and yes, I am using her real name for a reason.  I'm sorry Michelle, but you don't get a free ride for fucking someone else because you were mad at me), I have had little to no luck with finding love.

All day at work, I had people, co-workers and customers alike, talking about what they were doing for their significant other.  I even had an old woman say to me "I hope you're doing something nice for your lady when you get off work."  I had to say to her "I am single, ma'am.  Unhappily so.  And I know you're trying to being nice, but all you're doing is reminding me that I'm going home to an empty home."

Yes, I was being melodramatic. But sometimes, that's how it feels.  Especially on a day that reminds me that, at 31, I'm running out of time to find love.

Now, in my head, I know that's not true.  My dad was in his mid 50s before he found his true love; his current girlfriend.  So I've got plenty of time to find love. But in my heart? It is screaming "I want to be loved!" every time I see a happy couple.

So I leave this blog entry with a quote by Thomas Merton, a catholic priest and mystic, because this is why I don't just just seek any open arms (again, kiss my ass Michelle); “Love seeks one thing only: the good of the one loved. It leaves all the other secondary effects to take care of themselves. Love, therefore, is its own reward.”