Dealing with backlog: Two old Telltale games

Back to the Future
Funny thing: I was never such a big fan of the movies. I have seen them, of course, I know their stories and characters, but I just never got that wow feeling from watching them. But I picked up this game and Tales of Monkey Island because I wanted to experience the early things from the Telltale portfolio. Back to the Future is divided into five episodes in the true Telltale spirit. I wasn't overly fond of the first episode so after having played through that it took me a while to actually get going with the other four. But once I did the story really evolved and got surprisingly good (I might actually like this game more than the movies). Episodes 3 and 4 are the best ones. I didn't really like the ending. But here you have a time travel story that involves 1920's gangsters, speakeasies during the probation period, Marty meeting his grandparents, both Marty and Doc being in danger of being written out of existence, a dystopian Hill Valley, and a Hill Valley that just blinked out of existence, and more often than not it's up to Marty (you) to save everything and get everything back to the way it was/is supposed to be.

Tales of Monkey Island
I've only played the very first Monkey Island game, but as I really enjoyed that I felt like this game was a must-play! As with Back to the Future this game is divided into five episodes and I wasn't really a fan of the first episode, and so it took me a while to get going with the other episodes. But just as with Back to the Future once I got around to playing the other episodes they proved really good. Once again episodes 3 and 4 are the best ones. This is a story of Guybrush Threepwood thinking he has once and for all ultimately defeated LeChuck, only to accidentally cure LeChuck from his zombie pox and instead releasing it upon the world. Now Guybrush must find a way to cure the Pox from the Caribbean, but first of all he must figure out how to get off Flotsam Island and put some water between himself and the crazy French doctor who wants to chop off his Pox-infected hand. On the way towards the end he (you) gets to meet mer-people. he gets to befriend the cured LeChuck, he gets to spend a couple of days inside a giant manatee, and he gets to defend himself on the trial of the people vs. Guybrush Threepwood. Just as the name Monkey Island promises, this is a wild ride from start to finish.

My last 5 books: One fantasy and four Swedish thrillers by the same guy

1. Magician, by Raymond E. Feist. This is the book that made me realise how much I've missed reading old school epic fantasy of the fantastical kind. The age-old story of an orphaned boy who is meant for so much more and who comes into amazing powers (both magical and political). A fantastical threat to be defeated and an ancient dangerous magic that contemporary people can only hope to understand. What's not to like?! I had missed the cosy feeling that a well-written introduction to a new fantastical world gives me, while at the same time it makes me as excited as a child on Christmas to get the story moving and see where it takes me, because it's sure to be a wonderful trip! I look forward to reading the next part!



2. Midvintermörker, by Lars Wilderäng. Wilderängs första thriller är i mina ovana "öron" (ögon?) till största delen babbel på militäriska. Alltså en massa termer som inte en djävel som spenderat hela sitt liv utanför armén kan tyda till 100%. Själva premissen är intressant, vilket är anledningen till varför jag plockade upp den här boken till att börja med - vad skulle hända om Sverige hamnade i krig idag? Ovanpå det ett krig som utkämpas på svensk mark mot bjässen Ryssland som står som obesegrat i modern tid (hell, har någon någonsin besegrat Ryssland? vartenda stormaktsrike som försökt har misslyckats afaik). Wilderäng är fruktansvärt förtjust i uttrycket "det vobblande ljudet från artillerigranater" som upprepas minst tre dussin gånger genom hela boken, och framåt slutet kunde jag inte låta bli att sucka högt och himla med ögonen varje gång det dök upp. Min generella känsla under hela tiden jag läste den här boken sammanfattas väldigt bra genom en av karaktären Eriks repliker mot slutet av boken: "Ge oss en chans, för helvete!"

3. Midsommargryning, by Lars Wilderäng. Uppföljaren till Midvintermörker som utspelar sig strax över tio år efter slutet av Midvintermörker. Den här boken var på många sätt bättre än Midvintermörker (trots artillerigranaternas fortsatta "vobblande"), till största delen tack vare Widowmaker och Vova som från varsitt håll gör historien intressant; Erik var den drivande kraften i historien men större delen av tiden satt jag och suckade "Vad i helvete håller du på med?" varje gång han fick ta plats i historien. I Midsommargryning är Sverige återigen i krig med Ryssland, men den här gången sitter fienden närmre än vad svenska folket tror. Kriget är nämligen framkallat av ÖB och som kronan på verket utför han en statskupp när han ändå håller på. Karaktärerna känns mer utfyllda i Midsommargryning och inte bara som actionfigurer som utför stridsmanövrar på beställning. Dessutom innehåller Midsommargryning betydligt mycket mindre militäriska, vilket uppskattas högt från stackars civilare som jag själv. (Tror dock att Wilderäng får äta upp att iPhone X skulle vara sprillans ny år 2023)

4. Stjärnfall, by Lars Wilderäng. Den här boken var inte vad jag förväntade mig, kan jag lugnt säga. Uppföljaren till Stjärnklart som var en fantastisk katastrofroman om vad skulle kunna hända om all elektronik dog. Stjärnfall är den återuppbyggande uppföljaren till katastrofromanen Stjärnklart som förvandlas till en vampyrplågad zombieapokalyps med ett UFO-problem. Yes, you read that right! A vampire plagued zombie apocalypse with an alien problem. Nope, det låter lika galet på engelska. Emedan den var ganska långrandig på mitten så blev Stjärnfall riktigt bra mot slutet.

5. Stjärndamm, by Lars Wilderäng. Sådärja! Då har vi gått laget runt från katastrofroman till zombieapokalyps till full-on framtids-scifi. Läsarens resa som började i en hemtam värld som strax skulle gå under då all elektronik slutade fungera samtidigt avslutas här i en främmande rymdålder där människorna på jorden tycks ha utvecklats till högteknologiska vampyrer. I'm not even kidding. Jag kan ju lugnt säga att när jag plockade upp Stjärnklart så förväntade jag mig inte den här vändningen, men den är inte helt obehaglig. Jag gillar Wilderängs twist på vampyrer och zombier, men jag är fortsatt nyfiken på nanomiterna - var de medvetna eller inte? Var de bara användbart stjärndamm eller var de ett sorts hive-mind med ett verkligt medvetande? För om de var det så var nanomiterna ett långt mer skrämmande hot än kentaurerna.

Elder Scrolls Online: Murkmire DLC

This DLC has an interesting background story. The same zone called Murkmire was actually under development back in 2014 and was originally planned to be another adventure zone like Craglorn - group based end game PvE content. But Craglorn wasn't very positively received and so the idea for Murkmire was scrapped until now.

You can pick up a prologue quest in your Alliance's first big city as with all story-driven DLCs since Morrowind. In this prologue quest you help a group of Imperial treasure hunters find an old Argonian relic before the person that betrayed the group can use it for evil. This prologue turns out to be two quests which then turns into six daily quests.

Then we get into the DLC proper!

The whole main questline is a long string of quests to find an ancient relic called the Remnant of Argon. It takes you all over the map where I kept getting side-tracked doing side quests. Until you get to the ancient Xanmeer (temple) of Xul-Thuxis it's mostly a quest through the swamps and different Xanmeers. On the way to Xul-Thuxis there's a quest where you go through a dreamstate and find out that the ancient Ayleids once attacked and invaded an ancient village and that they somehow saved themselves by using the Remnant of Argon, after you get through Xul-Thuxis you find out how, by going through a long string of portals full of echoes from the past. The portal realm actually reminded me a lot of the realm of Eluvians in Dragon Age Inquisition. As usual the main quest is kind of meh until the very end where it's just holy shit upon holy shit in classic Bethesda fashion. But that's the way I like it :) That way you know there's something amazing coming if you just keep at it.

 Murkmire portal realm to the left, DAI portal realm to the right.

The Argonians and Black Marsh are far from my favourite race and area in the Tamrielic universe, which meant that I wasn't overly excited for Murkmire, but it proved very interesting and so worth it. Looking back on the sidequests I really liked the quest in Bright-Throat village where you find out that someone has been experimenting on eggs and their hatchlings and you get to decide whether the last survivor of these experiments live or die. This last hatchling experiment looks like a fully grown woman, but she doesn't act like it and the other Argonians are concerned because the Hist doesn't speak to her, which means this Argonian woman is basically born outside of the hive mind that all Argonians share. She seems severely autistic, which imho is an amazing inclusion in the Elder Scrolls verse.

I also really enjoyed discovering the other version of Argonians in Dead-Water village. A version of Argonian that's more fish-like than lizard-like. All in all this DLC proved a lot more interesting than I originally thought it would be.

Dealing with backlog: Borderlands

Toni and I played this game together which is the main reason it has taken us this long to complete; the need to find a time when we both had the time and energy to play. It also meant that it could take months between each session, which kind of disrupted the whole connectivity thing of the quests and NPCs as we had to get to know the people again after a long time away. Because of this I feel like my whole experience is a little disjointed, but despite this I really liked the game and the stupid humour in it.

So we land in Pandora and start exploring. I'm a Hunter and Toni is a Soldier. We do all the quests and meet up with Tannis for the first time and get a first hint of the Vault and the Guardians. Old Haven was probably our least favourite region of the base game. The Crimson Lance was simply just too annoying to fight. I'd take a maniac with a shotgun any day! When we get to the point where we only have three regions left to explore we decide to do the DLCs since none of us were sure whether Borderlands had a hard ending or not. This turned out to be a mistake, which we only discovered later, but first things first.

The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned was probably our favourite DLC, mainly because its spooky theme was right up our alley! Zombies and pumpkinheads and wereskags and lots of stupid humour (way more so than the other DLCs). The only annoying thing is that we discovered Zombie T.K. way too late (after we were otherwise done with the DLC) and his quests to collect zombie brains for him to munch on became so tedious that we just didn't complete them.

 
Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot was a bore. Arenas in any game usually are. We gave it a try nonetheless, but this should probably be done with a four player team. Moxxi is a really cool character in any case, but her arena wasn't.

The Secret Armory of General Knoxx absolutely sucked if you're a completionist like us. We wanted to do every quest in the area whcih resulted in a lot of time spent on the highways going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, to a point where it just wasn't fun anymore. The main questline of the DLC was good though and when we finally found the armory and general Knoxx it was actually hilarious how much he wanted the whole thing to be over... A bit like us tbh!

Claptrap's New Robot Revolution was our second favourite entirely due to the stupid humour in it. Though we got a little sick of the fact that the claptraps were always so many! It was like mowing down a horde of them each time we started shooting!

After we finished all the DLCs we went back to the base game to finish the last of it. This is when we discovered that nothing in the base game had leveled with us and so we got barely any exp at all from doing the last few quests. However the closer we got to the endingthe more we got to tangle with the Crimson Lance and the guardians. In any other game I'd be annoyed that after all this we didn't get to enter the Vault, but with Borderlands it seemed meant to be.

Next game: Borderlands 2