League of Legends

My boss at work actually suggested League of Legends last week.. I took no notice the first time he mentioned it because I thought he was talking about one of the many Facebook games he’s suggested in the past.  Then I saw a screenshot..

Back at i39, I played Heroes of Newerth.. under beta, which is why it didn’t appear in the blog despite the many, many hours played following lan.  At a first glance, I thought LoL looked very like HoN.

Like HoN, there are two opposing teams headed by up to five player-controlled champions, bases at opposite sides of the map, and paths linking the two bases.  Minions for each team are spawned at intervals, and spend their lives pushing their way towards the enemy base, fighting the enemy minions and destroying turrets along the way.
At the end of each lane there is an inhibitor; if your minions destroy the enemy inhibitor, you get super minions..

Unlike HoN, the inhibitors respawn after a little while, which means you can still make a comeback..
Of course, the game’s all over if you destroy the enemy Nexus 🙂

Another difference is that you can choose any Champion regardless of team.. with HoN, you were restricted to Legion or Hellbourne heroes, though there were a lot more to choose from.  Different Champions are available for free each week, though you can unlock more with Riot Points, which you buy with real money, or Influence Points, earned simply through playing.. we dubbed these ‘Internet Points’. 🙂

The Champion I’ve been using for these last few games is the assassin Akali.  I really like her abilities, and tend to use second ability Twilight Shroud, which slows any enemies within it, then Crescent Slash to damage anyone within range, then Shadow Dance to jump straight on an enemy Champion, escpecially if they’re trying to run away.

I’m finding the range of items in-game a bit easier than I did with HoN, though whether it’s down to it being simpler or just because I’ve learned a lot more about stats from playing WoW, I’m not sure.

League of Legends is free to play.. go and try it out! 😉

Love for the Little Games

The first ‘little’ game of the week was a freebie I spotted on Twitter: Super Crate Box, an indie game from Vlambeer.

This reminded me of the games I used to play on the Spectrum when I was tiny, with simple gameplay, arcade style graphics and music.  I had to kill the music after a little while though, as there was no option to lower the volume and I found it rather headache-inducing..

Dodge enemies, pick up crates, get guns, shoot enemies!

Each crate has a different weapon; dual pistols, shotgun, bazooka, and other weapons which can be unlocked over time like the revolver.. I liked the bazooka best of the weapons I tried, with the explosion able to take out more enemies.

The second game of the week is also a free one; Steel Storm Episode 1 by Kot-in-Action.   Well.. episode 1 is free, and also open-source (woop!) with Episode 2 being available to pre-order.  Not a bad way of doing things!

So.. a top-down shooter with power-ups, loads of enemies, and best of all multiple game modes including co-op!

The game is suprisingly challenging, due to massive waves of enemies, including some which spawn around you as you progress, and bosses which hit quite hard.

There is plenty to blow up.. there are structures you need to destroy to bring down forcefields for progression, but there are also other bits of tubing, crates, etc, which can be blown up.  Some of these reveal repair pick-ups, but there are not enough to go kamikaze.. you really need to make use of cover and avoid getting hit.. but I lack patience!

When you die you lose all the weapons you’ve found up till that point; good for your co-op partner who can grab them, but bad for you when you’re then back to your starting weapon.  We only spent one evening playing this, and I think it deserves more time.. I love it 🙂

The Shattering

After the destruction of the World as I knew it, a run around just to take in the sights was in order.  A friend turned up to show off his new trike..

Aren’t you just a li’l big for that trike? 🙂

Orgrimmar looks so different now.. and very much more ‘at war’.

It feels much more like a city with all the additional NPCs, and there are just so many more details laying around too.

After I’d looked around a little, I was taken to Azshara for a Joyride.. an awesome rocket trip around the area.  Gotta love Goblins! 🙂

Taking the rocket for the full tour gives an achievement called Joy Ride too.
Azhara is now much easier to get to.. previously I found it a complete pain and really only visited the second time to clear it for the Explorer title.

We also took a helicopter, the new flightpath, to Bilgewater Harbor for a look around.  This area is just full of cool Goblin things, including a cannon aimed straight at Stormwind!  I can see I’m going to have to explore this whole area properly with a new char..

Need more time..

I made a little more progress in Final Fantasy VII the other night.. I will complete it eventually. 😉

While sitting by the pile of console games I realised how very few I’ve spent time on..  of these, I have completed less than 10.

Sure, some of these are duplicates of PC games, and some are yearly versions of games we are given through work.. but others are here because we they were wanted, and I’ve just not put the time in.

We’re probably going to end up swapping consoles around so I can still talk to friends via the PC while playing.  Yay for dual monitors 😉

We’ve also yet to pick up Fable III and Fallout: New Vegas.  These two will get played, no question.. Fable II was finished pretty quickly, and as for Fallout.. well, it’s Fallout, and has a special place. 🙂

I think I need more time in the day..

Not so Serious

This week has mainly been about exploration and messing around, with the exception of a rather painful first visit to the heroic version of Halls of Reflection.  We made it through, but I had to take lots of help from a friend’s off-spec to heal it, and I’m still not particularly happy about it. 🙁

Anyway!

The patch brought new talents, which I’m starting to get used to on Kirria, at least.  I like the Smite-Evangelism-Archangel thing.. letting me hit enemies, when there’s time of course, and getting mana back while having pretty lil wings is rather cool.
I stuck the halo on for added effect.  Had to be done! 🙂

I found a fun quest in Hammerfall while Trick or Treating.. Triage.  This is a First Aid quest, which was originally the only way you’d level up your skill.. rather than just buying the skill.

Injured soldiers appear on the six beds, and you have to bandage them in order of priority; Critically Injured, Badly Injured, and Injured.
This was definitely more fun than buying the skill could ever be.. I would rather more skills had to be earned in some way.

Some friends found a slight bug in Dalaran a few nights back.. After being dismounted in the no-fly zone, you get a parachute so you don’t fall to your death.  My friends found they were able to keep hold of the parachute once on the ground, at least for a little bit.

Very little use, but looks funny floating along the ground.

Something else that looked funny was the Trick played on me by the Innkeeper..  I was turned into Diablo!

I think I look rather more like a pet than anything here..

This disguise doesn’t last long.. just one minute.  We managed to get me on the back of the rocket before I was returned to normal. 🙂

I’ve been working towards full exploration of the world for a while now..  I cleared Kalimdor at the weekend, and finished off Eastern Kindoms with a friend this week!

I know I’m going to get mocked by another friend for this.. but I now have the Explorer title.  “Durrrp!”.

Coincidence maybe, but I managed to find my laces untied themselves six times during the workday after getting this title.

Hmmmm.

Hallow’s End

Hallow’s End is another world event in WoW, involving pumpkins, trick or treating and the Headless Horseman.

Since the recent patch, there have been bugs, and it’s in the dungeon for the Headless Horseman that I notice it the most.  The first two attempts had me crash out of the game, only to return once the fight was over.. this turns out to be a problem with mouse-over on the pumpkin to start the event, which doesn’t seem to affect everyone.

I managed to pick up another pet; the Sinister Squashling!  I think he’s rather cute 🙂

Back during the Midsummer Fire Festival, there was the option of interfering with the Alliance bonfires; this time there’s a quest to mess around in Southshore.. by throwing stinkbombs in the town and planting rotten eggs in their beer kegs!  As expected, I was attacked by a few Alliance players, but they weren’t able to get through my shield as easily as in the past.. whether through changes in the patch, or just that I’ve learned to defend myself better.

I’m linking the trick or treating with exploration, as you have to visit each inn for this one.  I’ve had tricks played on me in the form of costumes, such as the bat..

Otherwise I’ve had treats, including candy, masks, and Hallowed Wands which you can use to turn party members into various other forms, such as the Leper Gnome..

We decided such a tiny gnome would look funnier on a massive mount..

The disguises don’t last too long, and disappear if you take damage, but they’re still fun.  I need to find people to use theirs on me, as there’s an achievement for being turned into each type.

I’ve also managed to pick up a broomstick or two.. these aren’t the fastest, but are rather fitting to the event.  We managed to get a stray random following us from Razor Hill, and I was tempted to try and get more people just to see how many we could get in a line 🙂

Borderlands again

I originally started playing through Borderlands at i40 with the guys, but we’ve not managed to play as a group again since.. not enough time when all four of us are around!

Rather than let the game gather dust, a friend and I have started a new game, with the intent of playing at a slower pace.  During our i40 session, I felt that I was trying to chase the rest of the group rather than play with them, especially after spending time scratching my head over which gun I should have.  This started to become a problem for me when I found myself running towards key locations only for another member of the team to pick up or hand-in, so I’d have to run the other way again.. after a while this just makes me feel useless.  I don’t like my teammates to have to carry me; I like to feel that I’ve done the missions too.

The slower pace of this game was much more suited.. and the Beserker felt a lot stronger than the Soldier, who I played last time.

I tried out more weapons as well, including a little pink gun which probably looked a little silly in Brick’s hand 😉

I made up for the slur to his masculinity later, when I got the Launcher.  Size is everything, right?
This launcher wasn’t quite as effective a weapon as I’d have liked it to be, but I guess if it was accurate as well as hugely destructive, and you could carry a lot more ammo for it, then it’d be a bit overpowered.

We got plenty of time in the vehicles, too.  I’m playing on keyboard and mouse so that I can use a push-to-talk key on Mumble, but if I was going to be doing more of the driving I might want to switch to the 360 controller..  I’m not really so keen on steering with the mouse as I then can’t look around.  I loved the turret though, with plenty of rockets to fire! 🙂

Despite our lovely powerful weapons, we did get knocked down a lot too. Between getting knocked down and dying, you can be revived by a teammate.. you can also get Second Wind if you kill an enemy while knocked down, which puts you straight back on your feet again.

I seemed to be rather unlucky with getting the killing blow once knocked down, and had to rely on being picked up a lot!

Sacrifice and Mutation

I had been looking forward to the ‘Sacrifice’ since ‘The Passing’ was released for L4d2, especially as it would feature my favourite survivors, the originals.  I was also fairly pleased it was being released for both L4d and L4d2, and getting it on PC meant it was free.  The launch came with a lot of problems, though..

While my download came quickly for the original game, it took two days for my Left 4 Dead 2 download to come down.. crawling along at amazing speeds of 4kb/s.  When it finally finished downloading, it then refused to work.

However, I was in a better position than others.  Heavy traffic like this always seems to lead to authentication problems and issues with other games on Steam, getting “game unavailable” messages.   While I could at least play l4d, Tim’s machine didn’t even start downloading any updates for two days, and he couldn’t play any of his other Steam games because of… “Game Unavailable”.  Not good.

My first play through of the DLC was therefore with just one friend instead of a full human team 😉

Having Bill sacrifice himself and save the team as per the story wasn’t as easy as expected, though we had two bots with us.  After our sacrifice kept being beaten by the rush of zombies, we found the best method involved jumping back down the ladder early.

In this version, the achievement only comes for the Sacrifice instead of the whole team, but it’s easy enough to play through again.

I was slightly disappointed at the way the sacrifice ends.. once you hit the generator it’s all over.
I would rather have liked a Last Stand style effect, just to see how long I could hold out, or even a cutscene with a tank appearing and throwing Bill to his proper resting place in the smaller room.

Due to playing rather a lot of WoW and Minecraft, I’ve sadly let the mutations slip by in recent weeks.  The TAAANNNKK! mutation came this week.. and if you picked the right map and avoided the bugs, it was a lot of fun.

Bugs?  Oh yes..

On the No Mercy map, we found ourselves trapped as tanks on the wrong side of a fence, with no way of getting to the survivors.  We ended up trying to kill each other in hopes of spawning elsewhere, which worked after a few deaths, but by this time the survivors were too far along.  Another game was weirdly imbalanced; on one level my team was held back from spawning for a good while longer than the other team.. and then as survivors we faced three witches where the other team got none.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a game that skewed before!

Despite the bugs I would love this to be added as a permanent mode; being the tank feels brilliantly powerful, and it’s a great feeling if you manage to get away as the survivor too.  Just.. maybe fix the bugs, huh Valve?

Naxx

After getting used to heroics over the last few weeks, there were few places left to go..

Naxxramas was suggested as the weekend destination, and so began half a week of reading up on tactics, being confused about tactics, and stressing about whether I’d be able to play well enough to avoid being yelled at.

After assembling our group, we started off in the Arachnid Quarter.. where we wiped in fairly short order thanks to some very weak DPS.  We tried again, and the bad DPS were still putting out no damage, with one running around in the way instead of following tactics!

These two were then kicked out.  Once we had some replacement players in, we had no problem.  Even with the wipes, this actually made me feel a lot less worried about my performance in the group and I started enjoying it.

The next part of the dungeon was the Construct Quarter, filled with toxic slime rather than spiderwebs.  The first boss here was the Great Unclean One.. oops, wrong game.. Patchwerk!

Patchwerk wasn’t too much trouble, despite a bugged row of slimes coming to join in.
While fighting him, I was told about “Frogger”, a series of slimes crossing the path, which kill instantly.  I was also told that only the idiots die here.. no pressure, right?

I didn’t die, but plenty others did :>

More brilliant dungeon design.. to get to one of the bosses we had to walk along a pipe full of slime, overlooking an earlier part of the Quarter.

Gluth was more trouble for the group, with lots of Zombie Chow running around.. as well as hurting us they were providing food for Gluth!

I’d been asked to read the tactics for Thaddius, so I was expecting him to be quite hard, but in fact I found him and his minions rather fun, apart from my jumping fail.  After dealing with Feugen and Stalagg, we had to jump off our platforms onto Thaddius’ platform.  I managed to land just short of it, on the supporting column, and had to run round.  I then missed again, landing in the same place 🙁

It was a case of third time lucky, though, and I joined everyone else running back and forth with their positive and negative charges.  I really like the varying mechanics between bosses, and I found this particular one really easy to deal with.

When I read up on Naxx during the week, some things seemed more confusing than others..

One of these was Heigan the Unclean and the “safety dance”.  I was surprised how fast the second phase dance was, with no time to really do anything but make sure of running to the right place, and stopping there.  When reading up, this one seemed horrendous, but in practise, he wasn’t bad at all and I felt fairly good.

Loatheb, on the other hand, made me feel awful as I couldn’t always get my heals out in the three second window and ended up relying on other healers.
Looking back at this, I could have given less attention to bubbling people, and paid more attention to watching the timer to know when I could get my heals off.

The Four Horsemen were a set of bosses which sounded nasty, with stacking marks dealing increasingly massive damage.. I was dreading this section, but once we started I realised it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I’d expected.  While the marks stack up, the ones you get from each boss are all independent of each other, and fall off over time.  There was a little bit of confusion when it was time for groups to swap places, but I stuck to the tank and healed or bubbled those who came within range and at least felt useful.

Another awesome looking place.. with a dragon to kill!

This felt a little more disorganised.. though after a few hours attention starts to fade.
I managed to avoid the head and tail for the most part, but Sapphiron killed me after I stood too far round an iceblock and in his line of sight.. around 130k of damage.  Ouch.

Finally we came to Kel’Thuzad..

I was surprised to find he wasn’t a lot harder to deal with than previous bosses.. although I was focusing on the tanks more than anything else.

Iceblocks were painful, especially when two came at once, but of all KT’s abilities, I really don’t like his Mana Detonation!  I was running out of mana by this point, so to have the enemy steal my mana and hurt me with it.. I wasn’t happy 😉

Again, I ended up needing rescuing by another healer, who was actually pretty damn awesome, as were the rest of the raid.. as well as playing well, there wasn’t any nasty stuff which normally makes me want to avoid randoms.  Maybe by the time you get this far in, the idiot randoms have given up through being kicked?

The throne was begging to be sat in for a screenshot.. I only wish I’d asked all the raid to come and sit with us too!

Completion.. or not.

I’m being mocked on a regular basis for having still not completed Final Fantasy VII, so while waiting for a friend to turn up, I thought I’d play a little bit.. make a bit of progress.. yeah, right.

I’ve returned to Nibelheim, which is supposed to be burnt to the ground, but somehow isn’t.. and dotted around the town are people in black robes talking about the Reunion.  I’m almost more interested in finding a potion shop, after using most of them up dealing with the boss in the Cosmo Canyons, but this is interesting enough.

On to the mansion, and a series of hidden notes which eventually lead me to a safe.. and of course this spawns a boss once I’ve opened it 😉

“Lost Number”.. half red, half purple.. I didn’t find him insanely hard to kill, as I spammed magic at him until the purple side died, then just whacked him the rest of the way down.  The boss at the end of Cosmo Canyons was more annoying with his endlessly regenerating fire buddies!

However, the fight left me with rather low hp and no potions.  As soon as I left the room I was hit with another random encounter, and died to a pair of trash mobs.

Save point?  All the way back at Cosmo Canyon..  Result?  Ragequit!