Life Update

Hello everyone! Its been a while, hows the family? Kids, grandparents and everyone else good? They are excellent!

Well apologies for not being around lately as some could probably tell I have been a bit down recently, but that wasnt the main reason why I havent been doing much lately, its mostly because I've got a job!

Yaaaaaaaaaaaay!

But sadly it was a temporary contract which is going to be ending next friday, so I'm going to be out of a job again!

Booooooooo!

But not to fret since getting this job I've managed to rekindle the fire inside me, my drive to get things done. So I'll be working on getting game reviews back out to you guys starting today! Thats right I have 3 reviews in the pipe line at the moment, Child of Light, Destiny Beta and Brave Frontier. I intend to get the Destiny review out to you guys today or tomorrow evening, with the other 2 coming out later next week.

That is of course if the sun doesn't melt me in the next few weeks, for its certainly doing its best to set me on fire.

Edit: Actually add a day or two to the time frame, its been a while since I actually had any 'proper' time off, so I've been relaxing more than I've been writing.

Update issues

Hey everyone, I'm sorry that there hasnt been any updates recently and I'm trying to fix that, but I'd like everyone to know what's happening, without all the vagueness.

Simply put I'm losing people, its all happening at once and at a speed that scares me. For the past year or two my Grandfather has slowly deteriorated due to Parkinsons, to the point where he can barely speak and eat, let alone walk. And this is a guy whos been around the world with the army, survived battles that he will not speak of, taught children the wonder of music, raised a family while travelling around the world. So when this giant of a man sits crippled in a chair, crying because his wife is gone and he can no longer live the life he once had.

And my Grandmother doesnt help any of this, Alzhemiers has taken the person she was and replaced it with someone whos response to help is anger, rather than thanks. A person who for no fault of her own hurts people she loves, and with each passing day loses another part of herself.

And that is within my family, recently 2 friends of my family have died in the last week. A friend of my sisters was killed when he was hit by a car in Swadlincote, and a friend of my fathers died when he lost control of his Ferrari and hit a tree.

I didnt know these people well, but I can see the pain on my family's faces and for someone like me who's mood reflects that of others, I can feel the loss. And it makes me think of the pain people are suffering and I worry, for while I may not have know my sisters friend "Frodo" I did know the son of my Fathers friend. I feel sorrow and worry for him, for the pain he feels and in part the pain I know I will feel, for I will feel loss sooner rather than later.

I feel almost paralysed by it all, unable to lift a pencil or pen to put thoughts to paper. Instead I want to curl up into a ball and wish everything better, though I know it wont be, I know that this is going to continue and I will keep losing people and I dont want it to happen.

It makes me wonder if life is worth it, and right now I'm not entirely sure but I'm going to keep on living it. And maybe I'll bring some life into this world, a part of me given shape and soul with the help of another.

For I guess thats what we all want.

A family.

Update - Technical Problems

Hey everyone just wanted to let you know that I'm currently having problems with my pc, I'm currently trying to fix it and I'm hoping that it will have been sorted by the end of the day. This means that while I was going to bring you a review of Warframe, I currently cant since all of my internet broswers go crazy when I try to use them.

I'm currently checking out if I could use my phone to update the blog, but untill then consider DBS to be on hold (which it has been for the past few weeks, so no change there.) I'll let you all know of any changes as they happen.

Update info - Errrr hi guys!

Hey guys sorry for not updating you on whats been happening recently, which boils down to me becoming ill and feeling absolutely terrible. But I have been feeling a lot better in the past couple of days which is good! Missing an update however is very, very bad!

I did promise you guys that I'd do a review of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow for last week, so to make up for that I'm going to speed write my way through the last bits of the review, and then upload on weds. This doesnt mean I've forgotten the Xcom review, nay I have not but I havent gotten much written down for it, so I wouldnt be able to get it finished in time anyway. Instead I'll work on it in my spare time and upload it when its finished, which since the Warframe review is kinda already done and just needs restructuring, may mean that the Xcom review will be up this week!

Now I am really sorry for missing an update and not informing you whats been going on, there are some teething issues that I need to work on scheduling wise. But there are also some family things going on that need my attention, so I'm not going to promise to not miss an update in the near future, because I just cant keep that promise. But I will try and make sure that you guys get an update if anything happens to disrupt the schedule.

Thanks for reading guys!

Update: I blame Dark Souls 2...I blame Dark Souls 2 for everything.

Update Update: I'm working on it right now guys, hopefully with the pace I'm forcing I should have something done by the end of today maybe.

Update Update Update: Clearly I am a big fat liar...oh dears.

Dark Souls - YOU DIED

(Sorry for being a pain guys with this late review, I managed to catch the flu on Weds and have been confined to bed since then. So to make sure you guys have something to look at, heres a rough version of my Dark Souls review, it needs a going over to fix mistakes and to get some pics up but I feel that it still gets across my thoughts on the game. I will later on next week give it a proper fleshing out and touch up when I get the time.)

As you slowly awaken from the slumber that was beaten into you, a muttered curse falls from your lips, curse the Way of the White, curse Allfather Lloyd! You would have gone willingly but the undead hunters had to beat you into submission, with your sword now broken and the rest of your gear taken, you slump to the floor in despair. Yet you raise your head to the broken ceiling, a noise like that of armour on stone can be heard above you, which is where a knight resides, a fellow Knight of Astora! 

Said Knight then pushes a dead body into your cell, where it hits the floor with a soft squelch of broken bone and rent flesh, but more importantly you hear the jangle of keys, perhaps to this cell? The Knight silently leaves, no words of encouragement, nor of explanation, but the thought of freedom is all the hope you need. Rising to your feet you rush to the body in anticipation, snatching the keys you then fumble them into the lock, a faint click echoes along the hall, a sound sweeter than any wine you have tasted.

Having been freed from your rat infested cell by the friendly knight, you scamper your way past the hollowed undead in the nearby cells. Reaching out they claw at your boots as you walk past, wailing into empty space when you pull away from them, the poor souls having been driven insane by the curse you share.

Climbing up from the dungeon you are blinded as you enter the ruined asylum, when your eyes have adjusted you find yourself in a room reclaimed by nature, the dappled sunlight that plays across the grass; making this place feel almost…peaceful. The rays of light frame the remains of a fire a fellow adventurer had made, feeling the weight of the undead curse you carry, you move to kindle it so that you may find respite before you continuing the journey.

Gathering your strength you look to the giant door in front of you, the portal dwarfs you in size as though showing how small and weak you are. Knowing that there are creatures both malevolent and benign, that would require a door of such a height, you hope it is the latter and not the former. Gripping the remains of your sword you steel yourself for the possible danger ahead, as you push the gateway open you mutter a prayer to Gwyn, hoping that the Lord of Sunlight will grant you favour against the dangers ahead.

Yet the hallway you enter is strangely empty, breathing a sigh of relief you continue on warily, hoping that whatever required such a grand portal is long dead. As you reach the other side of the hall, a mighty crash erupts behind you, cursing Allfather Lloyd once more you spin around to face your foe, only to see your worst nightmare before you. 

A giant chaos demon wielding a hammer bigger than you are, strides towards you, dagger like teeth gnashing together in anticipation of its next meal, bat like wings flapping pitifully on its obese body. But while there may be no hope for you against this monster, cowering will be the least you will do. Strengthening the grip on your sword you bellow your family’s war cry, charging at the Demon as it swings its hammer. Hitting you straight on it crushes the life out of you, as you gasp your last your body vanishes in a cloud of particles, only to reform at the bonfire.

For the undead cannot truly die, forever cursed to wander the lands as they slowly become hollow, transforming into yet another danger for the adventurers that seek a cure for their curse.

Welcome to Lordran, a place of darkness, fire, despair and yet hope, welcome to Dark Souls.

Hey wait come back! I know it sounds horrible but it actually isn’t, sure it can be unforgiv- oh no no no you’re not going anywhere! 

*Smacks you over the head with a brick and ties you to a chair*

Right where was I, ah yes Dark Souls. Many games have you start at the height of the world’s civilisation, upon which the kingdom comes under threat by some creature or force, which of course only you the chosen hero can save us. But not here, oh no the time of grandeur has come and gone, the world having already slipped into ruin, while you are but no one, just a small human in a land of Dragons, Demons and mad Gods.

And it shows in the world, the Towns and Castles that you enter are ruined and filled with both beasts and undead. But they are not the only place you will explore, nor are they the only foes you will find, enchanted forests and poisonous swamps, beings of god like stature and dragons of various shapes and sizes.

And Lordran never gets better, even the grandest and luxurious castle feels hollow, when the only things to walk the halls are soulless hunks of armour, following the last orders of their masters to repel all intruders. This feeling of despair haunts you throughout the game, you may be strolling through this enchanting forest, but there are real dangers out there, threats that wish your life to reach an untimely end.

But you are not the only explorer to come to this land, there are other adventurers like yourself who have travelled here once they became undead, hoping to lift the curse or perhaps to obtain riches and power. Many will help you, but are you sure you can trust them? Humanity is scarce in this world and while thanks to your power, you are safe from direct attack, but are the innocent lives around you safe? Maybe they are, maybe they are not.

Though you are not without guidance, on arrival a helpful soul will give you a goal, to ring the two bells of awakening. This for the most part is all the guidance and story you will receive, the rest you will have to find yourself. The fallen body of an adventurer you summoned earlier will tell you his fate; the glowing saplings suggest that the forest once overflowed with magic, the hulking demon guarding this hall might indicate a demonic interest. 

And yet while all this darkness may surround you, still you shall struggle on, slaying all that stands in your way. With each battle won a sense of elation at having beaten impossible odds, shall nest in your heart, your skills and equipment improving with every step you take. Yet death is always near, waiting for you to make a mistake, so that it may claim you time and time again.

For the land of Lordran is inhabited only by the undead and the undead never truly die, they just take another step towards becoming one of the hollowed.

For this is your fate!

Now don’t get scared by all this talk about a grim world that is out to kill you (and does a very good job at it), this game deals fairly for most of the dangers out there (die in a fire Anor Londo). Yes they will knock you on your butt a fair number of times, but there are usually warning signs that clue you in on whats ahead. The muttering of a chant might mean a spellcaster is ahead, an area rich in lava may suggest that the foes in this area are resistant to fire damage.

And there are areas in the game that are havens from the monsters, bonfires can be found in every area, which act as a stop off point for you to level up, become human and restock spells and your Estus flask. But doing so means that all the foes that you killed in the area will respawn, which creates a dilemma, where you can rest but the foes you just defeated will spring back, but neither do you have enough swigs left of your Estus flask to see you to the boss, and this is very important. You’re staying power depends on how many swigs are left in your Estus flask, as it’s the main way you heal yourself from the wounds you suffer from.

But the bonfire isn’t just a place of rest oh no, you can level up here by spending souls acquired from enemies and items. Plus you can spend a point of humanity to become human, allowing you to summon other players for help, with the added benefit that you will no longer look like the burnt burgers your dad makes with the BBQ.

And you will want to spend these resources because at any time you can lose them, that’s right every time you die you will lose all your souls and all your humanity. But don’t worry you do have a chance to get it back, a glowing bloodstain containing all you lost will be where you died, retrieve it and all that you lost will be yours again, die once more however and it will be forever lost.

Now just because you are on your own, doesn’t mean you can’t get help, throughout the world you will find countless glowing sigils on the ground. These sigils contain messages about the world around you, some may warn you of traps, others about an enemy’s weakness or maybe to tell you to jump off a cliff, real comedians they are.

But you’re not going to get far without putting steel to these creatures, which thankfully is fairly simple and is similar to many other action games; you can block and parry attacks with your shields, and then strike your enemy with normal and strong attacks, you also have a roll to dodge attacks and a kick to break blocks. Simple enough, except there are so many different weapon types, that have their own move sets, which change when you dual hand a weapon, some of which have their own unique move sets, so you’ll want to browse the selection and pick something you’re comfortable with, before going “this is my sword, there are many like it, but this one is mine”. 

But swords, axes and spears are not the only things you have to push back the darkness, you also have various flavours of magic, blueberry Sorcery that uses the power of your soul, strawberry Pyromancy which obviously sets things on fire, along with vanilla Miracles that heal you and your friends, while you throw bolts of lightning at your foes. 

Praise the Sun! 

Magic like your Estus flasks have limited uses, once used up you’re not getting them back till your next bonfire visit, but fear not you can attune multiple spells of the same type, upping the number of times you can cast while sacrificing the slot which could hold a different spell.

Unfortunately magic of all types is the side dish of Dark Souls combat menu, it requires a lot of stats to be effective and give you enough spell slots, nor do the enemies politely stand still while you cast, so you won’t want to hang up your sword for good. But it can be very powerful with the right equipment and stats, and if you have buddies that can keep your target occupied, it gives you the chance to fire off devastating spells while your friends stab him in the kidneys, magic is still good even if you’re not with friends, it’s just a bit more difficult to pull off than a dagger in the jugular.

There’s also archery, but it’s pretty rubbish, you get both bows and crossbows but in order to use them you have to stand still, not so good when you have a horde of undead out to use your liver as a hat. At best it can be used to get a hit in at long range, maybe even making a few more hits as your target closes in, but there are so few opportunities, bar from a few that pop up in the game which doesn’t really make archery all that useful.

So you have all these weapons and spells at your disposal to fight the undead and the demons, but sometimes you will stalked by something far more dangerous, you will indeed be hunted by the greatest monster to plague Lordran, that monster is your fellow man.

Yep you read this right, sometimes when running around the game you will be invaded by another player. This Darkwraith wants to see your blood pool upon the floor, all so he can steal your precious humanity. But you’re not alone in the fight for you can also summon your fellow players, whom arrive as white phantoms.

These friendly Phantoms will act as silent guardians, admittedly they have a habit of flipping the shield at you, but they are your guardians none the less. These guys will help you get through a difficult area and defeat the boss, which will net them some souls and shiny humanity for their troubles. After which you can do the same for your fellow players, or you can be a Darkwraith and stab them in the back, I guess it depends on how much you like your fellow players.

Now I love this game, I’ve completed it over 6 times, got to NG+ 4, all achievements unlocked and I’ve seen and put to the sword everything this game can throw at me, but there are some big problems, mainly to do with accessibility.

But before I move on I’d like to just like to talk about what accessibility really is, it doesn’t for instance, mean that the game is pathetically easy like many people think, instead it means that a new player can pick up the controller, and in the first hour understand all the basic mechanics. This gives players the pat on the back they need to be enthused to play the game, otherwise people just throw down the controller and play something else. Of course once all that is out the way, the game can crank the difficulty up to 11 if it wishes to, 

So why am I talking about accessibility so much? It’s pretty much because this game isn’t in any way accessible, yes the first area acts like a tutorial, but it doesn’t do a great job of explaining how the multiplayer works, or how your stats effect your character and weapons, nor some of the different moves you can do like a jumping attack or a kick to break a block. I could honestly go on for quite a while with all the stuff that isn’t explained in the game, but I’ll just talk about a few important ones.

Starting with the multiplayer issues bar from telling you that “hey use the white soapstone to be summoned by other players”, it doesn’t bother telling you anything else. It’s not like the fact that you can’t heal yourself with Estus as a summon, and can only be healed when the host chugs an Estus flask isn’t important right? Nope it’s pretty much the biggest thing that a player needs to know, especially when you’re invading someone, because the same rules apply to invaders.

Nor does it tell you about the level range, which means that depending on your level you can summon and be invaded by players of certain level range. So if you’re trying to be summoned to help people fight a boss (or join a friend for co-op), or invade people in a certain area. Then you have to make sure that you’ve kept your level in the right range, otherwise you will be wasting your time waiting to be summoned or invade.

The next problem is that the game doesn’t present the info about how your stats works, the most you get is when you go to your stats screen, hit select and see a basic description of what the stat does. It certainly doesn’t say that there is a cut-off point for putting points into a stat, nor the fact that weapons improve depending on which stat bonuses are applied to it and such.

This sucks for newbies because it gives this game a steep learning curve, which just frustrates people when they start playing. It’s why you get so many people gasping when you say “I beat Dark Souls”, because for them the first hour is so frustratingly hard for them to get to grip with the game that they just give up. Which is such a shame because this game is so good once you get past that initial hurdle, it will just suck you in and not let go until you look at the clock and realise that its 4am and you’ve been playing for 12 hours.

 Am I recommending this game? Oh hell yes, there is nothing out there that is quite like Dark Souls (bar Demons Souls obviously), nothing that gives you that bleak atmosphere, the weird shallow yet deep story and insanely deep gameplay. I have put in hundreds upon hundreds of hours into Dark Souls, yet I feel that everyone one of those hours has been well spent.

One thing you should keep in mind is that this game is best played blind, so no wikies, no gamefaqs, no guides no nothing. This game plays best when you don’t know what’s around the next corner, the best way to level your character, enemy locations and moves. So when you go NOPE and run in the opposite direction after seeing the glowing eyes of a skeleton dog, only to walk right into another you will know you just got DARK SOUL’ED.

Now I believe a game should be reviewed on its merits, not on what the paid extras you can bolt onto can do for the game, but for Dark Souls I honestly recommend you buy the Artorias of the Abyss DLC. This add on gives you 3 new areas to explore, with bosses that will throw you out of your established comfort zone, along with various bits of equipment and spells for you to use, with spells being the most important additions. The spells in the expansion a god send for those that prefer to use magic over blades or fire, as it gives you a much needed extra punch and makes the PvP aspect less of a struggle.

Is it good value for money, weeeeell not exactly, for the £10 you spend you don’t get as much as I would like, bar from the fact that the bosses will slap you about like the silly fish you are, you will get through the environments fairly quickly. And because it’s a magic focused area, there isn’t a lot of equipment that will entice players that prefer the sword, than throwing fireballs. 

But if you are someone who is deeply entrenched in the lore, then the DLC will give you bucket loads for you to sort through. You will find out what happened to some of the big names in the world. You also get some history on some of the more mysterious locales in the world. But for me I like it because it’s more Dark Souls! 

One last thing I need to do is to give a heads up for people that are getting a copy on the PC, is that you should instead buy it on one of the consoles. The online community for the PC version is rife with hackers, to the point where the online mode is unplayable. There are also some reports where some players will use hacks that will attack their opponents PC, from what I know only Dark Soul save files have been target. 

But honestly it’s better to stay away just in case, its sadly due to the peer to peer networking that the game uses, which from the sounds of things is harder to keep an eye on. From Software do know about this and have decided that in Dark Souls 2 players will connect to a server, which will be a lot more secure and less lag for online play.

I should know I got into the playtest, spoilers it was awesome! So go and buy Dark Souls 2 as well, because no doubt it will have been released by the time this review is uploaded.

How you shouldnt/should play Dark Souls

Hey guys sorry for the late review, my PC decided to eat the word doc that had the Dark Souls review, and because of family stuff I didn't have time to redo the work I lost. So to make up for that heres a guide to doing Co-Op in Dark Souls, probably one of my favorite games of all time (untill Dark Souls 2 no doubt).

This post is supposed to come after the Dark Souls review, so just ignore anything where I reference the review, all the stuff you need to know in order to do Co-Op is in this post.

If you guys have read my earlier review, then you will know 2 things.

1. I LOVE DARK SOULS

2. I co-opped through the game with 2 of my Soul newbie friends.

But! But! You can’t do this game as a co-op with your friends, all you get is dickwraiths, morons and the occasional human being for company, how did you get 2 friends through the entire game!?

Well this post is going to detail all the info on how to do that, because it was a great experience that you should do with your friends. Newbies are preferable because not only does it spread the Souls love around, it will also give you a bit of a macabre kick to hear your friends screaming in terror due to traps, Bone Wheels, Darkwraiths, Dragons and so forth.

But for those of you who just want to know how to do this instead of reading my ramblings, I will put a bare bones version at the bottom of this post.

Now this game was not designed to be a pure co-op game that you and your buddies can play through, for starters just talking to each other is difficult as voice chat is disabled through their respective client/console (Xbox private chat is not disabled, so you can chat to a single buddy), this requires that you use some form of voice chat via a pc, or even your smart phone if you can find the right app.

Next there are a few requirements that need to be met; otherwise the summoner just plain won’t be able to summon you. For starters the areas boss needs to be alive, if it’s dead then while you can’t be invaded, you also can’t summon. The summoner needs to be human, so head over to a bonfire and pop a humanity, you certainly won’t bring the boys to the yard if you look like a piece of raw meat.

And the most important thing you have to keep in mind is your level; you can summon a friend whose level lies within a 10% range of your own, so a level 100 can summon anyone whose level is between 90-110. So if you want to play the entire game co-op with a bunch of friends, all of you will need to manage your levels. The best time would be after killing a boss, otherwise you will be walking around with a lot of souls that could be lost, and this is Dark Souls; this game thrives on pushing you off a cliff when you least expect it.

But now you need to actually summon each other, which can be a major pain, for starters the person being summoned needs to place their summon sign in an out in the way place, this is to stop other people from summoning you. If you’re lucky your friend will find your white sign straight away and summon you, if not then you will need to wait. After 2 mins you plonk your summon sign down again to get through the summon servers and then you get to do some more waiting.

There will be a lot of waiting thanks to the weird system in place, summon signs get placed in one of the many lobbies, players in that lobby may summon from signs that appear in their game. The problems come about because you don’t know which lobby your summoner is in, nor which your sign is in. So you’re forced to plonk your sign down every 2 mins to cycle through the servers, while giving enough time for your summoner to see the sign.

It does mean that you may have to wait a while to be summoned by your friend, so keep that in mind when you’re organising a game. The max I’ve spent is about 30mins per person to be summoned, but there have been plenty of times where it’s taken just 5-10 mins to summon everyone.

Now heres a few tips to keep in mind whilst playing Dark Souls co-operativly.

Phantoms, you need to keep your Summoner alive, if he dies then you all get kicked back to your own world. As such you need to get between the Summoner and any major threat (Invaders) to his life, even if doing so would get you killed. You can always be re-summoned for no cost, but the Summoner loses his souls, humanity and becomes Hollowed, so you need to keep him alive.

And while you don’t have to, it’s well worth getting the ability to use the miracle Heal. This will help cut down the amount of Estus flasks your Summoner will need to chug, while on the way to the boss.

And for you Mr Summoner, you are the life line of the game, you need to keep yourself alive, so no rolling in lava, it may be warm and pretty but please don’t do it. And you need to keep an eye on your Phantoms life, barring from slow miracles and very rare consumables he can’t heal himself. The only other time he can be healed is when you chug an Estus flask, the better your flask the more he is healed.

And lastly this is for the both of you, take advantage of the fact that you’re a team, if one guy tends to wade into the melee with a huge sword; perhaps you should take magic and cover him. If your friend prefers to wear heavy armour and use a big shield, then maybe you should take miracles to buff/heal him. This makes your team extremely flexible and able to take on different opponents, this is especially true against Invaders, who will have a hard time evading spells, swords and area effect miracles/pyromancy.

You should also plan out some tactics for when you are fighting Invaders, these guys will be the most dangerous opponents you will face. The invaders can still mess up your day, but you can create tactics, to form strategies. You know that the invaders need to kill the host so you dangle him as bait, when the invader goes for a nibble your summons swoop in from the sides to backstab the bastard.

Me and my friends have done the above tactic quite a few times and it is a joy to pull off, there will be plenty of times where invaders will kick your butt a hundred ways to Sunday, especially so if your not a big lover of PvP combat.

Now for the bare bones version of this guide.

Host – The person doing the summoning

Phantom – The person being summoned

Requirements to summon

1. Host must be human

2. The areas boss must still be alive

3. The Host must not have a summon sign placed

4. Both the Host and the Phantom levels must be between a 10% range of each other

The Phantom must then place his summon sign down in an agreed, out of the way area to prevent others summoning him. In order to speed up the process, the Phantom can place down a new summon sign every 2 mins, this is in order to cycle through the lobbies that the Host and summon signs are placed in.

And there you have it, some jolly co-operation, just remember to stick the Demons with the pointy end, and to always praise the sun.

Dragon's Crown - Hello back problems!

Hey everyone its been awhile since I last posted, well I've finally managed to get things in order and can finally start putting up reviews! I'll be updating every Wednesday night and I'll cover games from every platform and genre. 

To start the ball rolling I've decided to put up a review today, but I will do another one later in the week. For Weds we shall tramp through the desolate lands that Dark Soul inhabits, but today I shall talk about Dragon's Crown, an ARPG that has you fighting Orcs, Goblins and surprise surprise there are also Dragons.

(Please note I do not intend to discuss the over sexualised characters in this review, I probably will do an article on it at a later point, because it is a problem in the games industry. But not in this review, this is just looking at the game, how it plays and if you guys might find enjoyment out of it.)

Dragon’s Crown is an ARPG set in a fantasy world where you are an adventurer traversing through dungeons and fighting monsters for glory and gold. You and your group are based in the Kingdom of Hydeland where you will take on quests from both the Adventurers Guild and the Royal Family who are in search of the fabled Dragon’s Crown.

In order to get through this adventure you will need to pick one of the 6 classes, each of which have unique play styles compared to the each other. The Fighter, Dwarf and Amazon being your close combat powerhouses; the Wizard and Sorceress taking on the magic and support while the Elf fills in for the long range role.

Most of the controls are similar for each character, square for basic attack, circle for special attacks and by pointing the left analog stick you determine which attack you will be using. This makes playing each character simple though each play different due to their special abilities, the Fighter with his shield to block attacks; the Dwarf being able to throw enemies and allies; the Wizard and Sorceress using different spells depending on their weapon etc, which means that after playing one character you can easily pick up another and do fairly well with them. 

Each of these classes become stronger as they level up and find more powerful items and weapons, plus the skill points you get at each level allow you to enhance not only your character’s unique skills but also those that are common to all characters. The common skills tend to enhance your characters attributes, whilst the unique skills unlock special abilities that can allow you to fire off a flurry of arrows, become a tornado of flash and steel and turn all the enemies in the area to stone.

Throughout your game, your actions and the events that happen to you will be described through the Narrator and for anyone who has played pen & paper games, they will instantly recognize that the narrator is designed to make you feel like you were playing Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder or any other fantasy RPG, coupled with the fact that you can decide what actions and paths you take, this further reinforce the concept that you are in control of what you do and say.

When you do get into the gameplay, after making your character you will notice that it harkens back to games like Golden Axe; Streets of Rage and Guardian Heroes as with each new area you enter you will be beset by a range of enemies and will only be able to progress by defeating them. Along the way you can unlock doors to side areas and chests for gold and loot, which you obtain by defeating the boss at the end of the level, the rewards that you get will be graded from S to E with E being the worst and S being the best.

I’m sure you will have noticed among the list of playable characters that there isn’t rogue amongst them, so how do you unlock those doors and get at the shiny baubles? Thankfully at the beginning of the game you partner up with Rannie the thief, who will open up anything locked for you, but whilst doing that he needs your protection otherwise he will be booted away by your enemies from the chest/door and be unable to pick the lock. 

He isn’t the only A.I. partner that you get, throughout the game you will encounter the bones of fallen adventurers which you can pick up and revive through the church in town. Once revived they can join you on your adventures and help defeat the various foes you encounter. However, sadly the A.I. is average at best and over time their equipment loses its durability, this cannot be replaced forcing you to continually search for more bones to resurrect higher level A.I. characters with better equipment. If you’re not interested in an A.I. partner you can also bury them and give them peace, this gives you a chance to obtain an item that they have for your own use. If it’s a weapon or accessory, you won’t be able to repair it, but it’s possible that it’s better than what you have already and if not you can always sell it extra gold.

Now after a while you have probably gotten used to the game and feel fairly confident with all the mechanics, but at about halfway you are introduced to Rune Magic- a way to create various magical effects by all characters. This is done by using your pointer and clicking on runes carved into the scenery and then on the rune stones in your inventory. The carved runes are different for each area so while you may be able to summon a fountain of gold in one area, you will only be able to make your character invincible in another. These spells can be very powerful depending on what you can cast, with one spell destroying all the undead in the area, while another can send a shower of elemental magic to burn, freeze and zap your foes.

Now eventually after completing the first nine areas and defeating the bosses there, you will unlock the online multiplayer the next time you go out to the gate. The added advantage of playing with humans far outweighs A.I. companions with the added bonus that you will save a copy of each player you come across, thereby allowing you to summon them as an A.I. partner that has multiple bags filled with equipment. The bones that you find around the levels also have a chance to be that of a human player who ran out of lives and died there. Revive these and you have an A.I. partner that has multiple bags of equipment, making them last a lot longer than your other A.I. partners, while burying them seems to give you a better chance of obtaining high level equipment from them.

Along with unlocking the multiplayer, a new gameplay mechanic is introduced which is randomized dungeons. By going through the gate you will enter a random dungeon and by completing it you are offered the chance to continue on to another. Each time you complete a dungeon you will get a bonus added to your money, loot grade and xp earned; so in order to get greater rewards you will need to do multiple dungeons back to back. This would take a lot out of your weapons so you will need to acquire extra bags to equip items in; essentially they are a different set of items and weapons for you to use when your current set’s durability runs low.

And those nine dungeons you have now gotten used to have all changed, the difficulty margin has been bumped up to Normal difficulty, meaning enemies spawn in areas they didn’t before, new types arrive and once you’ve defeated one lot yet another come to take a bite out of you, if that wasn’t enough a B path is added for each dungeon which leads to a completely new area, along with a completely new boss, each of which needs to be put to the sword.

And all of these dungeons, monsters, characters etc look gorgeous, Vanillaware have clearly spent a lot of time and work making the artwork, which with the animation system they have that blends and morphs it to make it move, means that it’s fantastic to see in motion. While there are a few female character designs that do pander exclusively to the male audience, they thankfully number in the few rather than the majority. Coupled with a great fantasy soundtrack this game certainly invites you to dive in and enjoy the experience and the story.

There are a number of problems with the game, some to do with the multiplayer, others with the game design.

For starters just because you have unlocked multiplayer for one of the characters, it doesn’t mean that you have unlocked it for the rest of your characters. Each one will need to defeat the first nine bosses before you can go online. Thankfully, the high level A.I. adventurers you have amassed will make getting to the multiplayer part of the game a lot quicker, allowing you to get into the thick of the action in only a couple of hours.

Local couch co-op is good to go from the start, however all the characters will be associated with Player 1’s Playstation account, so you won’t be able to load up your own characters if you go round to a friend, nor will you be able to take them back home.

And while the multiplayer can be nice and smooth, if at any point you connect or someone joins who has a bad connection, the game slows down dramatically, with it freezing every 5 secs in order to synchronize all the players. Unfortunately for those who don’t have a great internet connection, the A.I. isn’t suited to playing dungeon after dungeon, due to the fact that the A.I. can’t change which bag they are using during an adventure, nor can you send them away when they become useless as such, you either have to quit at the next point or hope they die and someone else takes their place.

And while the randomisation of the levels along with the A and B routes, does mean you get a fair amount of replay ability it does get a bit monotonous after a while. Higher difficulties do help by having different enemies pop up in the areas you have already been to, but it’s not enough to stop the game feeling like a grind after a while.

Even with these problems, this is a great game that relives the golden age of side scroller beat-em ups. Fans of Golden Axe and Guardian Heroes will certainly love this game and those that enjoy fighting games will get a pleasurable experience; with the large number of dungeons and bosses to defeat and a difficulty level that continually ramps up, all means you will find it very difficult to put down once you pick up the controller.

Also never trust a fairy around alcohol.

Content Update

Apologies for the lack of content for what seems to have been aeons, I've been pretty busy since my last post with my comic projects, game reviewing, job applying etc, but fear not I am back and intend to get a whole load of content out here in the near-ish future.

Specifics wise this means that the blog will finally get its artistic overhaul it desperately needs, a greater emphasis on game reviewing content with the occasional art based posts, along with a contact page so that anyone who wants to hire me to do review, writing or an art commission can do so.

I hope to get all this sorted in the next few months, so keep an eye out guys, chow!

Originality - Why me no famous!?

Well it’s time to have a look at another thing that artists ‘supposedly’ need to have, which is originality, the ability to create something that is so unique, that it can instantly be picked out of the crowd and says “This is my work and no way can you confuse it for someone else’s!”

In the art world its considered to be the holy grail, without originality, you can’t get anywhere in art and I’m sure you’ve guessed that from the quote marks that I’m not a big fan of originality. And your right I’m not, originality is pursued by people who want to be rich and famous, sadly it’s really difficult to be unique in this era.

The big problem behind being able to do something truly unique, is that art has been around since caveman times, art has been around for so long that it’s very difficult to do something that other people haven’t explored at some point. Another thing is that fact that art is no longer a closed off subject, practically anyone can do art these days and many people do (not all of it is good, go to Deviant art and you’ll understand), so add up this timeframe and all these people that practice it and you’ll see that its practically impossible to do something truly unique.

But why all this hullabaloo about being original? Personally I think all of this stupid thinking came from the fine art side of art, the reason being is that so few on that side of art hit the big bucks, they get stuck being the starving artist, due to the fact that not much fine art is bought and displayed. That only happens to a very small number of artists and it’s more down to luck than ability, a publisher may see your work and think “Man this is awesome and unique!” after which he’ll take you and your art on a rollercoaster ride to stardom, but when you consider how many people that has happened to, to how many people do the fine art side of things. Then you get the idea of how likely this all is. 

Another problem is how people learn art, the best way to do it is to look at the world around you, plus at other artists work, this will show up in your style of work, so people will say “oh his work looks like whatshisname.” So of course your style looks someone else’s, so it can’t be unique blah blah blah. And you know what that’s fine, not everything needs to be unique, for example I want to be a concept artist, so of course the work I will be doing will half the time look like something else, because that’s what the client wants, not something that they can’t visualise in their head.

So why worry about it all, chill out, relax and do the art you want to, because adding yet more stress on top of what we get normally is not going to help anyone.

Dead Space 2 - Where is my survival horror?

*WARNING: If you have not finished Dead Space and don’t want some plot points spoiled, then don’t read this review*

Just as a heads up since Dead Space and Dead Space 2 are so similar, I won’t go over the same points as I did for Dead Space, as I would only be re-treading ground I’ve previously talked about, instead I’ll talk about other things.

 

Dead Space 2 starts a number of years after Dead Space, Isaac wakes in a mental asylum on the Sprawl, a space station near Titan, Isaac has no knowledge of how we got there, nor how long he has been there, but thankfully a dude is kind enough to try and rescue us, but sadly he is quickly cut down while he tries to get Isaac out of the straight Jacket and is transformed into a necromorph, forcing Isaac to run for his life yet again and figure out what this whole mess is about, all the while being chased by a hallucination of his dead girlfriend thanks to marker he found on the Ishimura.

Now I did say earlier that Dead Space 2 is very similar to its predecessor, but that doesn’t mean that there weren’t any changes at all, one important one is that Isaac finally speaks and you see his face! After being mute for the last game, he finally has the chance to shine; which is great since it gives us the chance to truly bond with the guy and have him pluck our heart strings a bit. This really comes into play when he interacts with others and his hallucinations.

And you know that hallucination stuff is another biggie as you can’t be sure what you see is real, is it a necromorph or a living person? And if you’ve seen the promo materials then yes Isaac does get a new suit, you don’t get till later so don’t get your hopes up, but you do get a jetpack for the zero-g areas so that should get hold you by till you get it, it’s quite fun to zoom about with it and makes the zero-g parts a lot more fun.

Now we all know that I don’t think that the Dead Space series is anything like a survival horror, but what is a good survival horror? Well Dead Space is a good one with a few changes, for starters the enemies need to be more daunting, the necro could look totally disgusting and be several buildings tall, but it won’t frighten you if you can easily chop it to pieces. 

Another thing that could be changed is the store system, at no point should you be able to buy ammunition, the whole idea of a survival horror is that sure, you have bullets, but not a whole lot of bullets and it takes a few to take out the monsters, so it’s best to sneak round and save what ammo you can. This idea is blown out of the water when you can buy ammunition when you run low, survival horror is all about the stress, so when you remove the stress of saving bullets, the horror just isn’t as effective as it could be.

“But what about the new fangled multiplayer!?” I hear you cry? Well I’ve yet to truly try it out properly and what I have was confusing and most certainly not newbie friendly, so we’ll be ignoring that, but if I ever do try out the multiplayer a bit more I’ll be sure to write about it at some point. 

Or we could do some Dark Souls…Yeah Dark Souls sounds a lot better.

Paul Richards - Cartoony Fantasy

Paul Richards in my books is a great concept artist, he’s a guy that realises that while reality is all good, it’s more about the feel that the characters, environments and objects give off than being stuck to be absolutely confined to reality.

And the best place to see his work is from the games that he has worked on, having been at studios like Vigil Games, Raven Software, Blizzard and now 343 Industries, he has had the chance to work on Darksiders, Jedi Academy, Quake 4, Singularity and even the latest Wolfenstein, of which he has brought his varied styles into play.

But what are his styles? For one if you look through his work on both the blog and his portfolio site, you’ll see that he has 2 main styles, a cartoon style, where he exaggerates the proportions of characters and objects, but he also has a clean, digital style that’s similar to the work of draftsman of yore. He mixes and matches his styles depending on what is needed, for example he will over exaggerate some the human elements of a character, but when working on the armour he may make it nice and clean. Described as Pixar but filthy by a friend of mine, looking through the more cartoonish work that there is a similarity to the work by Pixar, although I doubt Pixar would do naked chicks in their films.

Tools wise Paul is more of a sketch and Photoshop kinda guy, he’ll use various pencils and markers to do sketches, which he’ll scan into Photoshop to do a final. But not all work is done from a sketch; he also does a lot of work straight into Photoshop, where he will add highlights and shadows to a mass of a mid-range colour to create shapes and objects.

And while his work includes lots of monsters, robots, guns and swords, he does do a large amount of pinups, of which most you’ll find in another blog called Babe Lab, exceedingly NSFW, it contains various images and tutorials based solely on how to draw the women.

Now for those of you who do a lot of art, or are interested in getting into the games industry then there are a couple of features you will want to look at on the portfolio site, Thumb War and Hints and Hacks.

Please note that both the portfolio and the blog contains NSFW material, the portfolio has less of that, while the blog is practically crammed with the stuff.

http://www.autodestruct.com/

Update Schedule

Hey everyone here's an update on what will be up on the blog for next week.

For the artist I will be looking at Paul Richards a concept artist in the Games Industry, who for me is kind of the opposite to John Howe, yes he isn't as good as rendering something as near to life as possible, but he is damn good at making the work be as expressive and mood inspiring as possible.

The next game to be reviewed will be Dead Space 2, since the 2 games are very similair to each other, rather than go over the same ground as I did for Dead Space, I'll be having a closer look at some of the different areas in the game.

And for the Oddball I'll be talking about originality and why I hate the term as it stands in art today.

Creativity - Green is not a creative colour

Creativity is one of the 2 main things that artists say you must have, to be successful in anything creative which is very true, (the other is originality, which is for next week) you need to be creative if your job is essentially taking ideas out of your head and making them real. Problem is that you can be very creative and not creative as well.

Not creative is usually due to you jumping at the first idea that pops into your head, for example you think of this awesome idea for a pirate, so you jump straight into making a large fully finished piece, but when you look at after all that work, you realise that you should have done it in a different pose, then you think that the beard should be longer, then you think ect ect. 

So instead of jumping straight in and doing something at a final piece quality, take your time to do some concepts, explore the ideas you have, until you feel that you’ve exhausted all avenues, then pick one concept and do a few more concepts, except this time it’s more about the small details than the big ones.

Of course I’m sure you’re wondering “Do we have to do this all the time, for every piece?” Which is no you don’t, if you’re not going to be doing something to a high quality level, then don’t bother, let your pencil wander and see where it takes you.

Now are there any taboos in creativity? Well kinda, there are some topics in art that are considered uncreative, fantasy and science fiction are considered to be 2 of the most uncreative genres in art when designing characters, as the genres seem to be composed of guys in hulking armour, babes wearing practically nothing and monsters composed of claws, teeth and not much else. Not all fantasy and sci-fi art is like this, if you look around hard enough you will find stuff that tends to break the themes, ironically Dungeons & Dragons is a good place to start for good fantasy artwork, while sci-fi is best found on Deviant Art, sadly you will have to wade through the rubbish/porn/sanity destroying horrors that are on there, but there is some great pieces on there if you can find them.

Want some tips to help you be creative, well here’s a list of pointers that I find helpful.

For starters figure out what you want to do and what you don’t want to do, if you can cut down the avenues to explore, you can cut down the time it takes to do concepts, plus you’re more likely to think of ideas that meet the criteria for what you want to make.

Look at other artists work, look at real world examples, different cultures, history, watch films, play games, read books, read comics,  just absorb as much knowledge you can and if possible, keep references that you can easily get at, so you can go back and look at any details you may want to use in your own concept. One thing to keep in mind is not to let your reference completely lead you, so if you have to copy things only take small details not big ones.

Can’t think of anything? Come back at a later date, take a break, play a game for 30mins, watch tv, go for a walk or run, do something that does not involve trying to think of ideas for your project.

Got questions? Comment on this post and I’ll be sure to get back to you at some point.

Dead Space - Terror? What terror?

Dead Space is a 3^rd person Resident evil 5 style shooter, sci-fi survival horror where you play as Isaac Clark, an engineer that is part of a team sent on a rescue mission to the USG Ishimura after receiving a mayday signal, the mission goes awry the moment it starts trapping the team on the ship after their own is destroyed. Worse still are the monsters that roam the metal halls, wearing the flesh of the dead crew, but amongst all of this Isaac searches for his girlfriend Nicole, a medical officer who took a tour upon the Ishimura when all of this happened.

Now before I start reviewing this sucker, let’s have a quick excerpt of how it is to play Dead Space.

“Doot de doot, oh scary music time must be a necro around, ah there he is the strange dead body on the floor, give me a sec whilst I fire up the death ray *SHAZAM*……right lets oooh look the most difficult enemy in the game! *SHAZAM* right let’s get going”

And that is pretty much how your Dead Space experience will be, Dead Space a sci fi Surival Horror game, suffers from 2 things, theres no survival nor horror! Now while it sounds like I hate the game, I actually quite like it, it’s just a shame that it suffers from a few problems, so we’ll get through the bad and then on with the good.

Now for a survival horror game, there is very little survival and very little horror, since you pretty much trip over ammo and health packs that there is very little need to conserve what you pick up, hell most of the money you use to buy upgrades, is gotten from selling the stuff you don’t need and boy is there a lot. The horror isn’t effective either, well during the first 5mins you will crap yourself, but only because you have no weapon and your new to all the tricks that Dead Space uses, after 30mins in however you will be immune to all the shock tactics used, because they are repeated again and again throughout the entire game. Another very big problem is that the weapons are not balanced for a survival horror experience, the first weapon you pick up can easily kill anything, so the stronger weapons makes a complete mockery of the game, with the strongest enemy becoming a complete pushover.

Now for the good, for starters the monsters in Dead Space look fantastic, necromoprhs (not to be confused with Xenomorphs) are essentially amalgamations of dead human bodies transformed due to an alien life form, this has been used to completely change the shape of the human body, with arms being turned into scything blades, ribs and skin into wings and even multiple bodies fused together to form creatures many times the size of Isaac. And because of this they aren’t easily killed with normal weapons and so have to be cut into pieces before they die, this brings up strategy, cut off the head and it can’t see you, cut off the legs and its forced to crawl, of course all of this depends on the monster you face. 

Another thing that’s great is the UI in the game, all of it has been designed so that it will appear on or near the character, but in a way that makes sense for the character using it, health appears as a bar on the spine of Isaac to show others his general health, when aiming a little hologram shows his remaining ammo, a map appears in front of him allowing him to see where he is and when contacted, his wrist display will create a hologram showing the face of the speaker. None of this gets in the way of the game and it makes sense in universe as well.

The audio is exceedingly creepy and by using this special feature called Fear Emitter they can actually have the music can creepier and creepier the closer you get towards the monsters, sadly this is over used and essentially becomes a kind of radar of how close the bad guys are.

This game while it has its flaws, has an excellent story, imaginative bad guys and fantastic UI design, I would certainly recommend playing it, but if you’re looking for scares, this aint the game for you.