Christmastime on the MRT Server and a surprise update

Posted on 12-27-2013 by Benie

Spent Christmas with the MRT Server community, just as I planned to do so. It was better than spending Halloween with them. The tree in Spawn City that CG made still stands, but didn’t have the pictures it did last year. I’m guessing due to WorldEdit.
Presents have been moved to another location, miles away from Spawn City. A much larger tree stands here with a plethora of presents, mostly for the staffers and Frumple.

Some of the present designs were really, really well thought of. One was a smaller scale model of Spawn Station. Others were a really large box protecting a large box. One was shaped like a wolf’s head. Another was shaped like an old milk truck but painted in holiday colors.
You got to hand it to the community. They definitely know how to build. 🙂

Yoshi had me play a new game of his which is really fun and very easy. It’s called ‘Cards Against Humanity’. It’s a 4-6 player game where you need to get seven cards with random answers written on them, some of them quite funny. It’s a point-based game where the one that reaches 10 points wins the game.
How it’s played, is there’s these play areas. One is a booth where you can say up to two questions, and wait for everyone to put an answer. Once they have the answers, they read them out loud which causes people to laugh. Then they choose the best answer. Whoever gets it gets a point.
Currently, questions are thought of by whoever’s in the box. Some memorial ones are “Daddy? Why is Mommy crying?”
The answers to these can be quite.. PG-13. Some memorial ones are “My Humps”, “What’s in my mouth?”, “Miley Cyrus twerking” and “Inappropriate Stroking”… some of these have even turned into memes.
After the second question is answered in hopefully the most humorous fashion, everyone has to rotate clockwise around, giving everyone a chance to be the question asker.

.
There was a time where Yoshi had to go. So I went back to playing Dishonored for awhile. The main MRT Mumble Server decided to go down on me, and I was forced to switch to the backup as some others did.
I was talking to a friend, who mentions how Frumple’s on the server and preparing to update it to 1.7.4. I freak out (not in a good way), saying how it’s too early and quickly get off and on the server to confront Frumple with this.
He claims his reason to update is “because Christmas” which was hard to believe. To me, this just ruined mine. I felt Frumple ‘the Grinch’ threw a wrench into my plans of spending Christmas on the server, but also not being overly bored while there.

Why did I feel this? Again, it was too early as I said. They had just got the Beta server up last week to test out 1.7.4. Frumple explains it’s because he didn’t see a lot of problems with it. My friend says it’s possibly his fault for sending Frumple an email, about the update.
Another reason, 1.7 is a humongous step forward in Minecraft’s history. No one has been able to update their mods to the new system. This unfortunately includes OptiFine; a ‘must have‘ mod. I get horrible chunk loading lag when on the server without it.
The author of OptiFine is working on a 1.7.2 release. From what I’ve seen, they have to get by a lot of hurdles before they even come close to releasing a beta. Last time I checked, the update is 35% complete.

On top of that, I’m a complete n00b at MagicLauncher. I want to be able to create a new instance similar to MultiMC, and be able to flip between installs. But since 1.6, installing mods had changed with Mojang fucking up (aka not leaving well enough alone) the Minecraft file structure.
Now, you must use the default launcher to get a fresh copy of the latest version, then somehow make MagicLauncher work with it.

With this, I’m forced to play Minecraft without mods and endure the stupidity. At least I was still able to complete. 12am Christmas Morning, I got to unwrap my gifts. But Yoshi told us to not completely remove the ‘wrapping paper’, as it’s for some kind of game he’s planning this week.

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Space Engineers update – More guns and multiplayer testing

Posted on 12-27-2013 by Benie

So another Christmas has come and gone, yet a present magically appears under the tree with your name on it (as the “To”), from Keen Software House.
Curious, you shred through the wrapping paper.. and find it’s an update for Space Engineers with two more weapons. A Gatling Gun and Rocket Launcher, for use with Small Ships. This makes Small Ships nearly like they are in Miner Wars 2081.
Now you can build actual fighters!
Also, their video proves adding new weapons is leading to Multiplayer. It’s in extensive testing currently.

And in the video, it appears you can use a small ship cockpit as a turret for large ships. Now that’s nice.
Nice present, Keen Software House.

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DisHonored – Where even this blog post is dishonorable!

Posted on 12-26-2013 by Benie

Jokes aside of the thread title, this is one of the best title-based games I’ve played; as in, it is what the title is named.
I’m actually nearing completion of this game. Been hanging out on the MRT Server for Christmas this year. Will be writing another post about this.

So, what is DisHonored? It’s an FPS. But it’s a hybrid FPS. What do I mean? You can kill everyone, or kill no-one. But be careful how you do it, as it will change gameplay. Killing a key target isn’t the same as neutralizing one.
Anyway, let’s say it shows that not everyone in the world is kind-hearted, especially when the stakes are high and you have everything to lose. There is assholes in the world, everyone knows this.

You play as a guy named “Corvo”, the Lord Protector. It’s far in the past, where people bow in your presence (so it’s definitely not in the US). My guess, it’s in fictional Spain in the 19th century (even though it never tells you), with people speaking English. The city is named “Dunwall”.
You have been tasked several months in the past to get aid for this city you are protecting. There’s a plaque sweeping the land, and you’re finally coming home but with bad news.

You must take this info to your Empress, who you protect (you’re her bodyguard).
Also, a little girl named Emily, who has a huge role in the entire story. You give the Empress the letter, she gets assassinated by unknown bad guys and the little girl is captured and taken to an unknown area… and everyone blames you for doing it (as you’re unfortunately seen as the last one with the Empress) and throwing you in prison. The fact you’re a mute, you can’t tell them “It wasn’t me, assholes! D:“.

It’s been several months, and your execution is within the next day. You must escape to clear your name and track down the assassins that killed the Empress. Thankfully, you have help from an unknown group and manage to escape. Now, you are forced to become an enemy of the people of Dunwall; an assassin.
You’re also gifted supernatural powers from a man only known as the ‘Outsider’ who burns a special mark on your left hand which will give you the powers. How you use these powers, is entirely up to you.
The main power you get is a teleporting like ability called ‘Blink’, which is needed to access ledges and also can be used to get behind unaware enemies for takedowns. It’s similar to how it’s done in Deadpool, but more control.
Another one you can get, is the ability to see enemies through walls. This is an extremely useful power, as you can use it to learn enemy movement patterns and how best to approach each area.
You can also possess animals, and people to take the bullets for you. As a stealth trick, you can use it to get a guy away from his buddies and over to a secluded area for you to take him out quietly.

You’re also given a special mask to hide your identity which works for 1/2 of the game. There’s an upgrade you can get that gives the mask a zoom mode, which is useful in the later levels of spotting trouble.

The game also tries to say a message to you, of what are you? When knowing these guards used to be the good guys. They still are, but just doing their jobs to defend the city from the plaque and you (under orders of course, they see you as the enemy).
Can you really murder people trying to help, and live with the guilt? The life of an assassin is often a dark one. You can either be a true murderer, or someone that doesn’t take pride in killing fellow humans. What will you play as, when given the choice?

So, here’s my likes and dislikes;

Likes:
– You can decide your playstyle. Do you go in with guns blazing, a master assassin, or a pacifist and do non-lethal attacks in the entire game? You can even get the ‘Clean Hands’ achievement from killing no one in the entire game and using non-lethal takedowns.
– How you play, greatly effects how NPCs will look at you. For example, they might be scared if you kill a lot of people. Or feel that you still have a heart that you let this one or that one live.
– I both like and dislike some of the side-choices you can make in the game. One of them is killing off rats to help a survivor from being tore up by them. Do you let the survivor to rot, or risk never getting the kill nothing achievement and help? It’s often hard to be the good guy.
– This game has excellent replayability, which is rare even for me. I usually play a game once, complete, and that’s it. You can be a pacifist on your first run to get the Clean Hands and Ghost achievements, then brutally murder everyone like a true master assassin on your second! 😀

Dislikes:
– Bad face meshes. Only one that looks good is Emily. It looked like they were trying to make Borderlands-like faces and screwed it up.
– No way to unlearn powers if you decide to respec yourself.
– The powers system feels lacking in new abilities. Wish they added more.
– Only one upgrade option with powers?

I really, really like this game so far. Get it. Now. You won’t be sorry.

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-=- The Top 10 Games I’ve played of 2013 -=-

Posted on 12-25-2013 by Benie

With 2014 fast approaching and Christmas behind us, It’s time to do a new tradition of my Games Blog, and give off the Top 5 Best Games I’ve played of 2013, in my opinion. Starting since now, every December I’ll do this, reviewing the best games I’ve played that year.

Remember, these are opinions. This list will have games that have and haven’t been released this year, but only played by me this year. These are games that I made blog posts about.
And here we go. The Top 10 Games. Note that games of numbers 10 to 6 don’t mean they suck.

…NUMBER 10…
Crysis 2!

…NUMBER 9…
The Binding of Issac!

…NUMBER 8…
Space Engineers!

…NUMBER 7…
Miner Wars 2081!

…NUMBER 6…
Tiny and Big: Grandpa’s Leftovers!

And the Top 5 games I played of 2013…
…NUMBER 5…
BioShock Infinite!

…NUMBER 4…
The Stanley Parable!

…NUMBER 3…
Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon!

…NUMBER 2…
Deadpool!

And number 1. The best game I’ve played in 2013. A game that I wonder why it should even be here, yet seems to keep its status… drumroll please…
Terraria!

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Sir, You Are Being Hunted.. my smashing review

Posted on 12-24-2013 by Benie

Hello again, ole bean! Welcome to the islands, where it’s always raining and blightin’ killer robots are patrolling towns.
Seriously, though, enough of the bad British accent. The only “hunting” involved in this game is trying to find the 27 fragments to go back home.
The robots are always either patrolling towns or sometimes patrolling where you have to get the fragments. If they were really hunting me, there would be scout parties combing the countryside looking for me, and robot dogs sniffing the ground trying to get my scent.

Other than that, the game is pretty good in its Survival aspect. It hits the nail on the head everytime.
Also, saving can only be done at a stone, which you see when you first start a new map. There is no quick save or quick load. It’s supposed to add to the atmosphere of the game to be extra careful.
You can explore the four other islands anytime you want; there is no quest. Each island has its own fragments you must collect. But what’s bad as these islands, the only way to save your game is use the boat that brought you there. And you also have to not be bleeding to death.
Yeah. Bleeding is a problem. You WILL bleed out. But that’s why there’s bandages to stop the bleeding. Your health regenerates overtime, but not while you’re bleeding.

Robots are alerted by all types of sound. Making sound can both be used as a distraction, and a way to ‘paint’ a “I’m here, kill me!” sign on you if you don’t time it right.

Robots have special icons over their heads. A “!” means they spotted you and you have about 3 seconds to take cover (depending on the view distance), and a red “!” means they definitely spotted you and are now shooting.
A “!?” means “Stop hiding! Come out!”. A “?” means “Where did he go?”. And lastly, a “#@” means the robot is being attacked by you and attempts to run away, giving you time to kill it.

Overall, the game just gets boring with the lack of actually being hunted. But it would also get annoying rather quickly. So there’s a good and bad side to this.
This just isn’t my kind of game. Though I’m also interested in what the developers at Big Robot do in the future for this game.

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Three “new” games – Sir, You Are Being Hunted | Dishonored | TS2014

Posted on 12-23-2013 by Benie

Got three games from the Steam Sales. I will play one each day starting now through Christmas Day and talk about it. The reason why I say “new” is two of these games have been out for awhile. Here’s a short summary of the games;

Game 1: “Sir, You Are Being Hunted”
A quite smashing game, chaps. This game takes place in Europe, sometime in the future. Think of it being similar to Crysis 2 but without the Nano Suit and high powered weapons.
An experiment has gone wrong and has teleported you to an island, with more experiments; self-aware British killer robots that don’t give a fuck about stereotypes. You must collect these mysterious fragments on the island to get back home, while having to survive. You see, ole bean… you are being hunted!
There’s four islands you can explore. But like I said, be careful of your surroundings. You are always being hunted. And also, save everytime you get to the stone. When you die, you can only revert to your last save. Also, you can’t save while bleeding out. An added consequence.
Currently, the game isn’t officially released yet. It’s in heavy Alpha, similar to Starbound but won’t wipe your progress. It gets updates around every month. More challenges will await you.

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Game 2: “Dishonored”
Not much is known about this game. I’m waiting ’till Christmas Eve (tomorrow) to play it. What I do know, you’re some kind of cyborg that can see through walls. Again it’s the future. You got these towering walking things patrolling the streets.
The cool thing, is the game lets you decide what you want to do with its enemies. You can go in with guns blazing, or stealth around and kill specific targets. Or be a pacifist and kill no one and still complete the game.

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Game 3: “Train Simulator 2014”
Who doesn’t like trains when they were growing up? The roar of tons of pounds rolling over the earth, wizzing by you (and knowing that very sound is the sound of a tornado), going through beautiful countrysides. Knowing you’re responsible of getting the miles and miles of cargo behind you to its destination.
So this is similar to Microsoft Train Simulator. You’re a locomotive engineer. But you can also walk out of your own train and explore and fly around while you head to your next station. This unfortunately doesn’t mean you can walk through the train. It’s basically the camera.
I got the Steam version, which has four routes and two locomotives.
And like MSTS, it has a level editor that you can make your own routes.

I’ve already played Sir, You Are Being Hunted and will be making a review soon for it.

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WoW Pets – Helping players or getting into the micro-transaction business? You decide

Posted on 12-22-2013 by Benie

Hopped on WoW today to do the Pre-Christmas (aka Winter Veil) festivities. Did it a lot faster than planned. I thought it would take two days to do it. Got the Cooking quests done and killed the Greench, who was a pushover compared to 1-2 years ago.
When I first arrived, he was already dead and I was able to easily complete the daily. But I stayed just to make it fair and helped to kill him, who went down in 15 seconds. Wow. He seems almost soloable.
About the cooking quests. They’re the same as they’ve been every year. Make 5 Cookies, and get one glass of milk. I actually had people begging me(even offering to pay me) for small eggs.
Seriously? Just fly East and kill vultures for the five small eggs. Of course, most of these people were under Level 60. But why not just use their main and stop being lazy? 😛 Some people.

Blizzard also released a handy feature that you can access the Blizzard Store inside the game, and purchase mounts, pets, and other WoW-related stuff and have them directly show up in your mailbox a lot faster than before.
As cool as this feature is, it makes you wonder if this is a sign that micro-transactions are being done. Some would say no, as the stuff offered are just optional. But others as what I’ve seen in Trade Chat believe they are.
Micro-transactions are supposed to annoy you enough to pay for them to stop them from showing up. I really don’t think that’s what Blizzard is trying to do here.
They’re only offering an easier, simpler alternative for players to access the Blizzard Store. If they were seriously doing micro-transactions, they would be offering them as quest rewards for even more powerful stuff for a fee.

So really… they are not doing micro-transactions. They do stupid stuff like RNG’s and the like, but never anything like this. On top of it, some of their best selling items are on sale for half off.
Does this mean they’re hurting? … Hardly. Anyone that thinks Blizzard is hurting financially, is an idiot. No offense to them. Again, it’s just an easier way to access the store, and I personally like the feature. They should had done it a long time ago.

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IndianTV visits Keen Software House, talks Space Engineers

Posted on 12-20-2013 by Benie

Five days ago (the 15th), Marek Rosa, CEO and main developer for Keen Software House, creators of Miner Wars 2081 and Space Engineers, had an interview with IndianTV, an India gaming channel. This interview is on YouTube.
For English-speaking humans such as myself, captions have been provided during the interview. Just turn on Closed Caption.

Due to the way the entire video was done, I’ve shown the parts of the interview below. You can see the full video by clicking here;

Introduction — “Minecraft in Space”: 0:30 – 0:59
Miner Wars helping Space Engineers development: 4:22 – 5:27
About Space Engineers, and why is it called “Minecraft in Space”?: 5:28 – 8:34
A small team has its perks: 8:35 – 10:01
Sales and The Community: 18:22 – 19:10
The future of Multiplayer: 19:11 – 19:52
Community Creations surprising developers: 19:53 – 22:10
Space Engineers the best sandbox game ever?: 22:11 – 22:50
Update Schedule/Current and Future updates: 22:51 – 24:33
Closing the Interview: 24:34 – 25:13

An eye opener is hearing “manual building in background”. Does this mean the background won’t be fake anymore? We’ll see. Can’t wait to see the future of this game.

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Steam’s After Christmas/New Years sales happening NOW!

Posted on 12-20-2013 by Benie

Merry Steam Christmas, everyone! Christmas has come early, folks. Even deeper discounts since the Black Friday sales. The Steam sale lasts from yesterday to January 3rd, 2014. With over 2,000 games that could show up with discounts, keep a close eye on these deals.

I bought Train Simulator 2014. Finally had that worthy discount I’ve been waiting for since the Black Friday sale. The Steam Version has all the DLCs with it, and is originally $55. Now, only $10. That’s 82% off!
I also got the Dishonored GoTY for $13.59. 66% off from $40. It includes the game and four DLCs. I liked Dan’s video, and I’ll be doing my opinion of this game once I try it out. But in Christmas tradition, I’m not going to download these ’till Christmas Day. 🙂

I want Starbound to go on sale. It’s “Terraria in Space”, but from what I’ve seen, you can do more than Terraria.

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Space Engineers Update – Weapons!

Posted on 12-19-2013 by Benie

After two “meh” updates, there’s finally an update that is worth mentioning.

First, you could ram shit into shit. Now.. you can blow shit UP! And who doesn’t like when things go *boom*?
There’s two new weapons that have been added. An Assault Rifle, and a Warhead. Small and Large Warhead blocks to be exact.
The RPing aspect is severely high with this, but it can also be used as a general “fuck around” tool.

With these warheads, you can use them as missiles, proximity mines, bombs, asteroid excavation, .. anything you wish.
I personally can’t wait ’till we get lasers and proper Miner Wars 2081-style missiles, then I’ll be playing Descent in Space Engineers. Just need to build a Pyro-GX and play appropriate music.

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