Dealing with backlog: Original Tomb Raider and Fallout

I've never played the original Tomb Raider and when it showed up on sale on Steam I grabbed it, thinking I'd finally play through the origins of that whole franchise. The controls were a mess. Or ratehr a mess from a modern PoV (steering with the arrows and jumping with Alt wasn't at all uncommon in the 90s), and I couldn't find a way to change them. On top of that the PC version is run through DOS box (it's that old) and so there was no controller support. The wonky controls are what made me stop playing it. It was easy enough to start with, then came the first puzzle (open a gate with a lever, jump down, jump up, go through gate before it closes again), and the wonky and frankly nonresponsive controls made me too late every single time. I spent an hour there and then I gave up and uninstalled the game. So basically I never even got inside the first tomb :P

The original Fallout went somewhat better. Old school turnbased games work a lot better than old school action rpg-style games. There was a lot of trial and error. First time I almost lost all my health to cave rats just outside the vault before I figured out how to equip my gun and how to use stimpaks. Then I got attacked by radscorpions in the desert and died, more than once to them before I figured out how to use resource managment on my AP so I would maximise my shooting them before the round ended (seriously, who decided that opening your backpack would need 4AP when you only got 8AP, and one shot with the pistol costs 5AP?!). I got to the town of Shady Sands and immediately volunteered to help them destroy a nest of radscorpions. And I died again :P Then I found a companion in Shady Sands and together we went and destroyed the nest. We were welcomed back with open arms after destroying the nest. Then I thought I'd help them get rid of the raiders too before actually going out to find that water purification chip. But they killed me and I resolved to move on from the game. It's not bad and I sort of enjoyed playing it, so I'll just keep my save and return to the game later on. But for now I'll continue on my backlog.

Dealing with backlog: Two short horror games

Necronomicon: The Dawning of Darkness is a horror/mystery game that I bought back in 2013 or 2014. It's a port from an old Playstation game and it shows. The controls are kind of clunky, the animations and voice acting leaves a lot to be desired and the story makes no sense. I bought it because I was looking for Lovecraft inspired games at the time. There's no tutorial and no direction in what to do, but when I figured it out the game was pretty easy.

I knew from beforehand that the game was far from bug-free, because the mixed reviews on the store page said so and the forums contained lots of tips and tricks on how to get past bugs. I got almost all the way to the end (the guide I looked up made it seem that way anyway) when I got to a bug I couldn't find a solution for. Seemed like nobody else had gotten that particular bug. I was at the library looking up books to find out what the antagonist was up to. One particular book refused to be picked up, and without having that book I couldn't get any further.

Vlad the Impaler is a visual novel-esque point-and-click adventure. You're thrown right into the game with no tutorial whatsoever and no indication as to what importance the stats have and what will influence them and what they influence. That's easy enough to learn, but I never managed to complete the game. Because no matter what course of action I took beforehand, saving the Sultan's life was impossible and I was always killed by his guards. I figured it was because my stats were too low, but at the time it seemed as if I had taken every possible combination of actions beforehand and I still didn't have high enough stats to pass that check. My mind keeps turning up alternatives now though, so i may actually pick it up again at a later time and try to complete it later on.

The story seemed odd and to not go together and all in pieces when I did my first run, but after a while when you discover the different routes the pieces all start to fit together. It's just odd that you'd have to play it multiple times to figure out how the whole thing fits together.

I did love the style of the game though.

Watching old, old movies part 9

Next batch! Going through this list, and here are my previous entries.

25. House of Usher (1960)
More Vincent Price :3 This is a movie based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe. I've read the story so I was curious about the movie. Unfortunately I wasn't very impressed with it, but I can see where Crimson Peak garnered some inspiration! Anyway, Mark Damon played a loud, obnoxious manly man who just wouldn't take no for an answer (the kind called douche or asshole in modern society). Granted that Vincent Price played a secretive and slightly insane man, who just couldn't abide Damon's behaviour. And then there was the poor girl caught in the middle. Tbh the only sane person in this whole get-up was the butler. I knew the story from before so I was mostly interested in how they would portray it, but what caught my attention the most was Damon's shiny, shiny, so shiny black hair. If you touch that hair does your hand come away black and slimy? The men both got what was coming for them, when the girl takes her revenge.

26. The Invisible Man (1933)
Based on the story by H.G. Wells (which I haven't read yet). It was Claude Raines breakthrough although his face is only shown briefly at the end. I had a lot of fun with this movie, because the invisible man was delightfully crazy. Yes, he murdered people who he percieved had wronged him, but more than that he was mischievously crazy, and it was a joy to watch an old movie where all the characters aren't all prim and proper. I was really interested to see how they managed to pull off the special effects of making him invisible, but they must've had some really skilled people to clip the film because I couldn't notice any seams at all. Though it was obvious that Raines' voice had been recorded elsewhere and then added to the movie. All in all I liked this movie, it just felt a little bit sped up at times. As if they were hard pressed for time (it's just 71 minutes long!)

27. The Bad Seed (1956)
This movie was odd. It felt like a drama (sometimes even a comedy) not a horror movie. It felt like theatre rather than cinema, even more so because they only used two sets. So basically the story is about this couple who has a perfect little daughter, but accidental death follows her around. Babysitter slipped and fell down the stairs to her death, a classmate drowned, caretaker was burned to death when exelcior packing caught fire in the room he was in... After her mother finds out the truth about her origins she starts to suspect that her daughter is the bad seed, and that all the accidental death was actually caused by her. The daughter eventually confesses to her mother, but the mother is overcome with a need to protect her daughter and becomes her accomplice insofar as she doesn't reveal the truth to anybody. Until the day she cracks, that is. The actress who plays the little daughter is amazing and actually the only actor/character that I like on the whole set (the others feel too exaggerated). But apart from that I'm not a fan of this movie.

Dealing with backlog: Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut

I played Shadowrun Returns back in 2013 and I absolutely loved it. A few years later Dragonfall was on sale on Steam and I picked it up. Now it's been a few years since I bought it, and it was finally time to play it.

I chose to make an elf streetsamurai. Just like I did last time. I even used the same character portrait. The story of Dragonfall was a lot deeper and well-developed than the one in Returns, and the characters were a lot more memorable. The only thing that brings the overall feeling of the game down is the dice-rolling combat. It kept screwing me over to the point where I actually had this scenario more than once: 97% chance to hit. Standing right in front of the enemy. With a shotgun. *miss* *facepalm* But apart from that the game was amazing.

Shit hits the fan almost immediately and then it's just a crazy ride from there. You're a shadowrunner who's called back on a personal favour from your friend Monika Schäfer. You're in Berlin which is an anarchic flux-state. The job was supposed to be easy. Just in and out, no big deal. But it all goes to shit and you find yourself in a real mess that seems to lead back to the Dragonfall decades earlier, when the dragonslayer Adrian Vauclair defeated the dragon called Firewing. To find out what is going on you decide to ask the best information broker in the world for help and she demands 50,000 nuyen in payment for her services. So you and your friends go out on a bunch of odd jobs to earn it all. All the while the Kreuzbasar is your home and safehouse.

When the money is all earned up you go to meet this information broker again, but turns out the information she turned up has her real scared so instead of showing up in person she puts it all on a datachip which is delivered to your character. This is when the revelations start to pour out. You find out who's behind everything, what he's done, what he means to do and how. And you can either choose to destroy his work or join him. If you're high enough in charisma and intelligence you can even talk him out of his own conviction and make him change his mind about what needs to be done. And as usual there are several instances where you choose whether to kill or save someone. And the ending can come about in several different ways.

Over the course of the game, you talk to your companions and find out their backstories, which leads to trust missions. Glory is my favourite out of all of the companions and her backstory was really interesting. I think I got the bad deal out of her trust mission, but I still love her, and I wanted to do more for her. I even got so far as to wishing they had romance options in the game.

When the game ended I was sad. I actually considered replaying the whole thing right then and there. I had so many questions. Most of them concerning Glory. And it makes me sad that I'll probably never see her again in any other Shadowrun game

My top 20 most played PC games

Back in 2015 I did a post like this. Let's see how it changed! (The bonuses at the end of last post remains so I won't add them here).

1. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (currently 808 hours on Steam) (post)
Still my favourite game.

2. Dragon Age: Inquisition (currently 508 hours on Origin) (post) (post) (post)
Too many playthroughs. Too many new characters. Too many romances.

3. Fallout 4 (currently 207 hours on Steam) (post) (post) (post)
All the story paths. All the DLCs.

4. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (currently 179 hours on Steam) (post)
One playthrough where I did everything + one playthrough that I didn't complete.

5. The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt (currently 154 hours on Steam) (post) (post)
I did every single thing in the base game + the DLCs.

6. Dragon Age: Origins (currently 147 hours on Origin) (post) (post)
Favourite DA game has less hours than the newest one. Mostly due to this being significantly shorter.

7. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition (currently 127 hours on Steam) (post)
This is one single playthrough that I just did for the heck of it. Got the SE for free so why not :P

8. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (currently 122 hours on Steam) (post) (post)
Also one single playthrough where I explored every inch of the bad pixel map and did all the quests I could find.

9. Dragon Age II (currently 96 hours on Origin) (post)
This is three playthroughs. Still the least good DA game.

10. Mass Effect 3 (currently 83 hours on Origin) (post) (post)
Favourite ME game.

11. Mass Effect 2 (currently 78 hours on Origin) (post)
Least favourite ME game tbh, but at least 2 playthroughs because of wanting different storylines in ME3.

12. Mass Effect: Andromeda (currently 70 hours on Origin) (post)
I loved this game. I did everything in this game.

13. Fallout: New Vegas (currently 69 hours on Steam) (post)
The craziest FO game in existance, but apart from that specific DLC, this game was amazing.

14. Mass Effect (currently 66 hours on Origin) (post)
I liked this game a lot. It's not ageing well, but damn it's good!

15. The Sims 4 (currently 64 hours on Origin)
Play it for a month. Leave it for 6 months. Play it for a month. Leave it for 6 months.

16. Fallout 3 (currently 61 hours on Steam) (post)
This game did not agree with my system. I rushed through it, played it as much as I could and left it when I got an unbreakable bug at the end.

17. Far Cry 3 (currently 48 hours on Steam) (post)
One of few FPS I've played. Liked it a lot and bought the rest of the series :P

18. Empire: Total War (currently 38 hours on Steam) (post) (post)
My favourite Total War game to date.

19. Long Live the Queen (currently 34 hours on Steam) (post)
Really cute-looking. Surprisingly difficult and surprisingly dark.

20. The Sims Medieval (currently 33 hours on Steam) (post)
I really enjoyed the RPG like nature of this game. But EA seems to have forgotten the game exists on Steam and make no attempt to fix the bugs. Got it on Origin, but that requires you to set your computer clock to 2011 for the game to run at all, and the game-breaking bug from Steam still exists on Origin. So maybe EA just forgot all about this game :/

So yes. Still the RPG type huh?

My last 5 books: Lots of YA, a bit of fantasy and a bit of comics

1. Library of Souls, by Ransom Riggs. The last book in Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children. It had been years since I read the previous book, but Riggs is great at reminding you what happened before without making it become tedious. This book was just as amazing as the previous two and I finished it very quickly. The whole ride was an adrenaline-filled adventure and I enjoyed every second of it. The ending is the only part I'm a little iffy about. The whole thing just feels too convenient







2. Insurgent, by Veronica Roth. I wasn't exactly extatic about Divergent. It was ok, but I still felt like I needed to know what happened next. So here were are, three years later and I'm finding out what happened next. So basically, I liked this one a lot more than both Divergent and Allegiant put together. I only have two issues with it. 1). Tris is such an idiot all the frickin time. 2). The translator makes Tobias sound like he's 12 y/o when talking about their relationship. But other than that? Top notch action-filled YA goodness.

3. Allegiant, by Veronica Roth. The last part of the Divergent series. Everything is messed up. I feel like Roth took on more than she could swallow by doing two perspectives at once. I also feel like the serums are way too powerful, more powerful than they've been throughout the whole series. It seems like everything we established in the first two books has been thrown out the window and new parameters have taken their place. There is a good way of doing this. There is a good way of showing the reader how the whole world changes and make it make sense. Roth's way is a confusing mess. This book is mostly about how Roth thinks she's a really good and experienced writer and then she shows the reader every way she is not.



4. Fables and Reflections, by Neil Gaiman. The sixth installment of the Sandman series. I love these comic books, but since they are comic books they are just short stories with recurring characters, with Dream making an appearance in every single story. My favourites in this installment were the one during the French revolution, the story of how Orpheus lost his love, and the story of Baghdad's lost glory. They were all so amazing (I'm pretty sure the Orpheus story is almost completely taken from an Ancient Greek legend, but it's been so many years since I read those)

5. The Last Wish, by Andrzej Sapkowski. The first book in the story of the witcher Geralt. I've played all the games and I loved them, so I thought it was time I read the books that the games are based on. I recognise a lot of the stories from the game. The stories told in this book all had repercussions in the games. For example, the first story with the striga is mentioned in the very beginning of the first game. And the story in Cintra has a big impact on the entire third game. And the story of how Yennefer and Geralt met is also important for things that happen in the third game. The book is told in an odd way and it took me half the book before I realised how the stories bound together, but other than the weird storytelling I really liked this book. Maybe more for nostalgic purposes than for the actual writing.

Watching old, old movies part 8

It's been a while since I watched any old movies, but here we go again :)

(Going through this list) (Here are my previous posts)

22. House of Wax (1953)
Vincent Price ♥ I saw the remake of this movie years and years ago, and I don't remember much from it. Yet this movie felt quite flat to me. Everything was obvious. From who burned down the wax museum, to who the burned freak was, it was all so obvious. The only scene that really stuck with me was in the beginning when the wax museum burned down and they showed the wax dripping off the faces of the models and their glass eyes popping out of their skulls. That was kind of creepy. The rest, not so much. I was kind of intrigued, though, when I found out from the credits (displayed before the movie for some reason at this point in time) that Carolyn Jones would be in it. The original Morticia Addams! But it was just for such a short amount of time in the beginning of the movie that it didn't really matter. Also, I think if they portrayed deaf people today the way they did in this movie there'd a public outcry.

23. Freaks (1932)
I love freakshows. I don't want them to return, but I love the whole legend surrounding them, much as I love the legend surrounding Jack the Ripper (but that doesn't mean I support murder, ok?) So I was really looking forward to seeing this movie. I read up a bit about the movie beforehand and realised it had been banned in a lot of countries upon its release, and that it was the direct downfall of director Tod Browning. But when it was re-released in the 60's it quickly became a cult classic. The story of the movie was quite flat, and it seems like the purpose of the movie was more to show the world of the freaks living with freakshows rather than actually telling a story. And the ending was just bizarre. I came away from this movie feeling disappointed, because except for showing off the "freaks" it didn't actually do much.

24. The Birds (1963)
A classic that I've heard of but never actually seen. I have a light ornitophobia specifically aimed at gulls and pigeons, so when the gulls started attacking my skin started to crawl. To me this is one of the scariest movies on the list. I really liked the main character, she had some spunk. This movie had the most hilarious moment of "I love old time movie makeup" in a long time; a guy had his eyes pecked out by the birds - makeup solution: black eyeshadow in circles over closed eyes. The movie was eventful enough and scary enough that I'd call it great, if it wasn't for that ending. It explained nothing, resolved nothing. They just rode off into the distance in the car while the birds continued to flock to the town. No explanation where they came from and what made them attack or why the attacks came in waves. No solution or resolution to the problem, except a small mention that the military was going to move in and had put up roadblocks. But what's the military gonna do? Shoot every bird in existence? That's not possible, which is also explained in the movie. Apart from that ending, the movie was really, really good.