Get Crying Suns, while it's still free

This is not so much a review, as it is my impressions of the game while still playing it. That said, the game is currently free on Epic Store, and I can't recommend grabbing it hard enough.

What I like about the game so much is that the gameplay itself is part of the story. It's a semi-randomly generated universe in which you slowly keep uncovering its secrets.

This is the official description:

"When FTL meets Foundation... and Dune

Crying Suns is a tactical rogue-lite that puts you in the role of a space fleet commander as you explore a mysteriously fallen empire.

In this story rich experience inspired by Dune and Foundation, each successful run will uncover the truth about the Empire... and yourself as well."

To me, the story looks like a cross between John C. Wright's Superluminary trilogy and Johan Kalsi's Foundation.

In certain ways it reminds me of Endless Space with that difference that more emphasis is on the story than strategic micro/macro managing of your resources, economy, influence etc.

And the game is beautiful, and so is the music in it.

So, if you play computer, or for that matter mobile games, like Space Opera or Military Sci-Fi, I urge you to go get the game while it's free. It'll remain free one more day until January 14th, 2021 at 5 PM (CET I presume). If you're late, it is still worth the purchase in my opinion.

Greedfall review

Recently I finished playing Greedfall, and all in all I must say the game was a very enjoyable experience.

For anyone who ever played any other Spiders game, there will be a sense of a certain familiarity. The developers didn't try to reinvent the wheel with Greedfall, it's more like the game is culmination of a hard work on various RPG games in the past decade. The design of the skill tree in particular harkens back to Technomancer released in 2016.

What sets it apart from all the other fantasy RPGs is in my view its setting. Certainly, nowadays any and every game is special, unique, and different than all other that came before. And in most cases when it comes to RPGs, they are all the same bland of medieval-ish fantasy.

Paladin III/12

Continuing with my personal crusade in honour of twelve peers of Charlemagne, today we have on display 3rd of the 12 paladins I decided to create in Heroforge.

Since I started doing this, I came up with a set of rules every paladin I create must adhere to. These rules are:

1. Paladin must have a cross
2. Paladin must have a book
3. Paladin must have a sword, spear, mace or any other knightly weapon
4. No more than two items of the same armour set can be used on the same paladin
5. No armour piece can be used more than once across all 12 paladins
6. Weapons and shields can be duplicated across the 12 characters
7. Armour, weapons and shields used should strive toward realism
8. The models should be human in look and size
9. Paladin should wear a ring

Paladin II/12: My Heroforge rules

Since I decided to try and create 12 distinct paladin characters using Heroforge in order to honour the 12 Peers of Charlemagne, I came up with a set of rules.

The purpose of these rules is to create models that are varied and different enough from the stock armour sets available, while also making things a little more interesting for myself.

The rules are:

1. Paladin must have a cross
2. Paladin must have a book
3. Paladin must have a sword, spear, mace or any other knightly weapon
4. No more than two items of the same armour set can be used on the same paladin
5. No armour piece can be used twice or more across all 12 paladins
6. Weapons and shields can be duplicated across the 12 characters
7. Weapons and shields used should strive toward realism
8. The models should be human in look and size

Above is the image of the 2nd Paladin. You can find the 1st Paladin here.

Historically the symbols of knighthood were sword and spurs. While there is plenty of swords, we're rather limited in Heroforge with the amount of spurs available. There is only a pair attatched to the cowboy shoes. So with some ingenuity that would give us only one kinght with spurs.

Instead I chose to work with what is available. That means books. In modern fantasy setting it has become somewhat of a trope to equip a paladin with a codex at his belt. This might symbolise the book of laws, a Bible or a prayer book. It reinforces that paladin is not just an elite warrior of God, but also a missionary.

I chose cross in order to connect the three main elements of what for me a paladin represents. Ora et labora. The weapon paladin wields represents the work he does in the name of God. The book he holds represents his devotion to prayer, and the cross represents that without God, there is no meaning to either his prayer or to his work.

Deus lo vult!

Paladin I/12: Make Paladins Great Again

Even as a child I always loved stories about brave knights saving the princesses from the evil. Were it not for those children stories I probably would never cared much about reading books.

To this day, I love a good story about knights doing their thing: fighting evil, keeping faith, protecting the innocent, and helping those in need.

As I started playing videogames, Paladins were natural successors of the knight archetype.

And I believe there are not enough stories about Paladins these days. There are some, but they are few and far between. To remedy this, I decided to start creating new crusaders, knights and paladins in HeroForge.

To kick things off, I decided to create 12 Paladins in honor of the Twelve Peers. 

Who knows, maybe it inspires others to Make Paladins Great Again.

Here's the link to the Paladin in the above picture.

Just call it Dragon Age: Nobody

'Tis the season I guess. After the teaser trailer for the "Next Mass Effect", Bioware gave us a new teaser for Dragon Age 4. We've known about this game at least since 2018, when the first teaser trailer was announced showing absolutely nothing. This trailer is pretty much the same.

I can't escape the feeling that the execs at EA burned their fingers experimenting with Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem, and are trying to steer back to what worked.

While I find that commendable it was brought to my attention that the people that made Mass Effect and Dragon Age IPs great in the first place are no longer with Bioware. Following the convergence of Blizzard, I know I can expect as much leftist agenda pushed in the game as humanly possible. To be honest, DA games had that problem since DA: Origins.

With that in mind, I don't have my hopes up.

Still, I did like DA:O, and DA:O - Awakening. I even enjoyed Dragon Age II for all its many flaws. But DA: Inquisition, while at times enjoyable was the first DA game I never finished. The writers managed to sour the story for me.

In the first game you were a Grey Warden trying to save a kingdom of Ferelden before the Blight, and in 2nd you were a human noble playing the politics in a city state. In the third game you led the Inquisition against who knows what. The 4th game promises you'll be a nobody.

"It's time for a new hero. No magic hand. No ancient prophecy. The kind of person they'll never see coming ... This is your story."

I have my doubts about the levels of freedom implied here.

And, what's with those "next", "next", "next"? Is it still so far from release that the game doesn't even have a name?

Just call it: Dragon Age: Nobody

Also, Varric is back.

The "Next" Mass Effect: I guess Shepard is back after all

Recently a news broke out that a remastered version of the original Mass Effect trilogy is in the works. ME1, ME2 and ME3 would all come in a neat new single package called Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, and include all the promo material, and DLCs for the three games.

That was all well and nice, and it did give me at least a sliver of hope that Bioware might decide and actually rework the ending of ME3, so that it gives at least a modicum of satisfaction beyond the colour of final explosion.

Still it didn't seem like that was all. And now we know why. Today they published a new "Official Teaser Trailer" for the "Next Mass Effect". 

In the trailer we can see Liara climbing a mountain and discovering a piece of armour with markings of N7 on it, an elite unit Commander Shepard was a part of.

This could mean all sorts of things. For starters maybe they come to their senses, and decide to bring Shepard back from the dead, like they did at the start of ME2. But in any case, it seems Bioware is abandoning it's Andromeda dream and focusing on what made their space opera/military sci-fi franchise great in the first place. At least I hope they do.

In light of that, a remaster of a more than a decade old game series makes sense. By giving it a fresh new coat of paint it provides an opportunity for the new generation of gamers to dive in, and experience it for themselves before the new game is released. A way to build up interest after the disaster that was ME: Andromeda, and even more so unrelated Anthem.

So Cyberpunk 2077 is finally out

 After who knows how many delays, and close to a decade in development (hell), Cyberpunk 2077 is finally out.

And as it was expected, the game is far from polished, and failing to live up to the expectations.

Considering the (over)hype surrounding the game ever since it became known Keanu Reeves is attached to the project, this doesn't surprise me.

What surprises me, are the people in this day and age still expecting for game to actually be complete and playable on release.

I understand this used to be, maybe even a decade ago, the industry standard. But nowadays, expecting to get a finished game on release is a fools dream. And the gamers themselves are the ones to blame, at least in part, because they are the ones willing to continually preorder overpriced half-baked games.

We all know the game is not finished nor polished at the release date. There are patches, fixes, and who know how many other things that need to get sorted out before a newly released game gets to the stage of being playable.

I'm not defending Cyberpunk 2077 here. I am one of those people who would really like to play the game, but I'm willing to wait mandatory two years minimum for all its most and major problems to get fixed and sorted out.

The only thing you miss out by waiting that much longer is frustrations at launch, higher price, plethora of bugs, and abundance of glitches. Is it really worth it to buy a game at launch if you're just a regular gamer, and not some sort of entertainer who's earning his living by playing the game when it comes out?

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows ...

 

I always liked playing around in various character creation screens in videogames. Making my character just right, just the way I want it.

Since I've discovered HeroForge, I've been toying around creating various characters from my tabletop games, books, and other media. The tool was primarily designed for people who want to have a 3D print of their own characters in their tabletop roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons. Since then they added a number of features allowing the creation of all sorts of characters.

Here's my take on The Shadow. The man, the myth, the pulp legend himself. Or as Razörfist would describe him: 

"Retribution personified, vengeance made flesh, the prince of the pulps, sire of the superheroes, receptacle of more pale imitation than a Michael Jackson's impersonators convention. By whatever name, employing whatever descriptor the inimitable Shadow has weathered nearly a full century of fiscal fiscal turpetudes, publisher buyouts, plagiarism and licensing SNAFUs. He survived the death of radio, he weatherd the comic book crash. He persists in the age of piracy, and above it all, he continues to have relevant stories to tell and adventures to imbibe in all the way into 2016."

 

"The weed of crime bears bitter fruit. Crime does not pay...The Shadow knows!"

What the next Warcraft film really needs

Back in September 2020 a rumor appeared that a new Warcraft film was in the making. It wasn't clear if it was to be a sequel to the 1st disaster, or some sort of a reboot.

Since I used to play World of Warcraft, was rather immersed in its lore, while evermore converged Blizzard already demonstrated it doesn't really care about its own established storylines, I felt obliged to give the SJWs ruining the franchise a helping hand. Especially in the light of the new diversity, tolerance, and rainbows oriented demands for Academy Awards nominees which will come into effect for the 2025 Oscars.

I propose they make a film about Thrall and Arthas. 

In the established lore Thrall was an orcish orphan raised by humans to fight as gladiator in the arena. Eventually he escaped, led the uprising, against his former master, freed the imprisoned orcs, and led them to colonize a new world. Just like his ancestors that he was so different from.

Arthas on the other hand was a human prince, a paladin who in his drive to save his kingdom from the plague was driven mad by a cursed sword to the point where he killed his father, destroyed his kingdom, and raised the kingdom's citizens as undead who did his bidding while he went on to ascend the Frozen Throne, become the lich king, and freeze his ass off until further notice.

I propose they merge Arthas's and Thrall's storyline. They could get Idris Elba to play Thrarthas, an orcish orphan adopted by the Terenas II, king of Lordaeron. This role of a token white character can go to Mark Ruffalo. When Thrarthas grows up, he discovers he's adopted. He resents the demon Mal'ganis played by Ian McKellen for revealing the truth to him, and vows to hunt him to the ends of the earth.

At the same time, Thrarthas hates his adopted parents for not telling him he's an orc, and giving him the life of luxury the rest of his kind can only dream of while dying off in the internment camps. In a fit of murderous rage Thrarthas kills his adoptive father, king Terenas, frees the orcs, destroys his father's kingdom and raises it's citizens as undead, before he sails to sunset with his own kind to the new continent, where they can be free.

Now, I understand, that just one black actor playing an orc raised in a royal family is not Oscar material by itself. There needs to be love interest.

To make certain, the film hits diversity quota, Thrarthas' one true love will be brown Jaiggra Proudmoore, uncorrupted half orc, half human. In the original version Thrall flirted with Jaina Proudmoore, but ended up with a brown orc female called Aggra. It's important that Aggra is brown, because brown in Blizzard's world means orcs who were not corrupted by demon blood. Brown orcs are just naturally savage, not extra savage because of demonic blood. It's important distinction. Arthas on the other hand actually had a thing with the same Lady Proudmoore, before she realised he's a bit too crazy.

In this version Jaiggra Proudmoore's father Daelin Proudmoore went to Outland, the place that was left after orcs destroyed the planet and invaded Azeroth, also the home of pure brown orcs. He did terrible things in the name of colonizing the savage lands, and bringing civilisation to the backward orcish society. Side product of all that was Jaiggra.

When Jaiggra was shipped to Dalaran for higher education. Instead of learning about the arcane, she explored the shamanistic rituals. She learnt what monster her father really was, and now is trying to atone for his sins by bringing him down, and burning down everything he worked his whole life to accomplish. She's also really a female caught in male's body. Something the spirits told her, was a punishment for the sins of her racist father. Billy Porter could play Jaiggra.

When Thrarthas and Jaiggra meet, they can feel, they're different from the rest of the humans. Once they learn of their own unique circumstances they join their powers in order to punish the humans for enabling them to live privileged lives.

I think the proposed scenario is worthy of not just a nomination but an actual Oscar once the 2025 rolls out. Since Blizzard has repeatedly shown it doesn't care about it's own narrative, and only wants ot show how woke the company really is, changing the origin stories of some of the most beloved characters in the franchise is a certain way to deal with the pesky past. It would also enable them to pursue new audiences, and disregard their own fanbase.