Halloween Goodness!

Halloween.. time to celebrate zombies and undead things.. and time to check out the awesome extras added to certain games! 🙂

A friend pointed me towards TF2, and the Halloween map, the Eyeaduct!
This is a modified version of Viaduct, with pumpkins, candy, and ghosts roaming the map.. get too close, and you end up “Scared Stiff”!

There were freebies too: I was given a Seal Mask and Dr Gogglestache.. there were some new achievements to grab.. and there was also a boss to fight!

Monoculus spawns randomly in the map once there are enough human players, and sets about firing eyeball rockets at the players, who have a minute and a half to kill him before he leaves for another realm.  He seems to have a lot of health, and he hits hard.. I only saw him killed a few times during the hours we played, versus the hundreds of times he killed me.

While alive, Monoculus moves around the map leaving behind a purple vortex which grants access to the Underworld.. a special map where you take constant damage until you escape via the second portal.  Players escaping the Underworld get invulnerability and a brief crit boost.. and Monoculus gets stunned in the process, thereby helping to bring him down.

Unfortunately, I haven’t yet grabbed the Bombinomicon..
When Monoculus is defeated he drops an open Bombinomicon, granting access to Loot Island for those fast enough, and a copy of the Bombinomicon.

Last night, I had a decent run with the Demoman.. finding Stickybombs a lot of fun 😉
Tonight’s game included a bit of Heavy and Medic power, which was working out rather well between Monoculus’ appearances.. but again, I think I should play more TF2 🙂

Dungeon Defenders was the second game with Halloween additions, in the form of free DLC.. a Halloween-themed map for high level players, and some unlockable outfits.  The Tavern was also decorated for the occasion 🙂

The Halloween map is available to all, but as I found, it’s far too difficult for low level players.. there are three Eternia Crystals to guard, and the enemies are very strong.  I lasted a whole 48 seconds! 🙂

Duke Nukem Forever

After trying out the Duke Nukem Forever demo a while ago, I wasn’t going to pick up the full game.. however, we have a Love Film subscription which includes games, and we decided to rent it for the 360.

I’m rather glad we did, because it’s really not such a bad game.  Simple, maybe.. still limited to two guns, but in the game itself it doesn’t feel so much of a limitation as it did in the demo, as you frequently come across more weapons that you can switch between.. and for the most part there’s a decent number of enemies and plenty of ammo.

The game started off like the demo, at the urinal, passing through the toilets and shower, with EGO boosts for interacting with certain things.. including throwing poo.  There was also an achievement for this, which means anyone looking over my Xbox Gamercard will now know my shame!  Following the Cycloid boss fight, you go for an interview on TV.. of course I explored the building on the way down, microwaving popcorn, signing an autograph for a little boy (badly, with the game pad!) and sticking my fingers in wall sockets.. Zap!  My TV show was cancelled.. so on I went.. no aliens yet, but a rather annoying guy mouthing off in the next room.  I was going to walk past him, but noticed a prompt as I got close which let me punch him.. that gave me an achievement and shut the guy up 😉

This was the sort of silly humour I’d expected from Duke..

The next level, the Duke Cave, had more random things to interact with, aliens to fight, and a nice puzzle involving a remote-controlled car.  After this, the aliens attacked properly, and I got to fire on the mothership itself!  Plenty of variation, which continued as I was then shrunk, and had to hitch a ride in a child’s toy car..

As the place was under attack there were plenty of aliens to avoid, and obstacles which I jumped over thanks to turbo speed and ramps created from conveniently fallen posters.. sadly the car didn’t make it further than this level as the final jump over a chasm ended with it wrecked.

Here was another boss fight, and the annoying twins’ abduction by aliens.  There was also a golden Shotgun here, which Tim tells me (now I’ve swapped it out) gives an achievement if you keep hold of it till the end of the game.  D’oh!

Duke doesn’t like his women being taken.. so he goes after the aliens, heading to the Duke Dome.  Highlights here included an ugly, floating boss who fired rockets from his undercarriage.. a good few waves of enemies and plenty of big guns and turrets, and a huge boss which had me laughing out loud at the end as the finishing move included drumming on his nuts, then him keeling over, cupping them!

The alien Hive was the next level.. creepy, with crying women moaning about being pregnant.. well.. fair enough, as the babies inside them were rather more like chest-bursters..  the twins exploded as I got to them, after a bit of dialogue which was more annoying than funny.  Creepy, with organic-looking textures, fast-moving bugs which reminded me of headcrabs, spindly arms which poked out of walls and hurt, and pods ready to explode.. there were also some bizarre wall-boobs, which Duke enjoyed slapping, and very dodgy sphincter-doors which Duke had to tickle to open..

Eventually, I found the Alien Queen..

She shields herself with her claws, so to hurt her you have to throw pipes onto the bouncy pads at the sides, and detonate them when they reach her.. this makes her drop her guard and allows time to fire a rocket or two at her, before she fires more Pregnators at you.  As well as damaging you, these squirt ‘juice’ into your face!

I haven’t managed to beat the Queen yet, as when I get her to low health she destroys the useful jump pads and brings along an “octobrain” which so far has put me down straight away.

Short break from the game, then.. but I will have to finish this soon so that we can return it! 🙂

Steam Summer Camp Sale

After an amazing week away in Madeira, I returned to find Steam has yet another crazy sale going on, with lots of games at very low prices.  Should I fear for my bank balance now?

Friends have bought me a few games: Star Wars – Battlefront II, SpaceChem and my own copy of Oblivion 🙂

I’ve added to this with two tower defense style game: Sanctum and Atom Zombie Smasher, as well as a rather large bundle of Paradox Interactive games.  The Paradox Fantasy Pack got my interest because of Majesty 2, which I tried a long while back.. along with DLC for this plus the original game, it also contains a strategy game called Elven Legacy, plus follow-ups.  As Majesty 2 itself cost £5.35, and the bundle £5.89, this was pretty much a no-brainer!

Along with the Summer Camp Sale, there are a large number of “Camp Activities”, which basically amount to earning specific achievements in a variety of games to earn tickets which allow you entry into the Grand Prize Giveaway, where 100 people will win the top 10 games on their wishlist.  The tickets can also be spent on random in-game content, including map packs, extra characters, missions or vanity gear such as the Sunny Shades for TF2.  I’m only now up to 7 tickets, with a good number of achievements to get.. the HOARD one in particular is eluding me!

As for TF2.. this game has now become free, which has meant a lot more people playing!  We now even have somewhere good to play, as Jason set up his Closed on Sundays TF2 server, complete with silly Roll the Dice mod 😉
So far, the server has filled up quickly whenever we’ve played, which has meant a few good games.  Roll on the weekend!

More PvP and our new 2v2 team!

Over on the Tol Barad peninula, I found the last two critters for ‘To All the Squirrels Who Cared for Me’!  The plan for the night had been to make our new 2v2 Arena team, but first we went for Tol Barad.. the Horde won the round so I picked up Tol Barad Victory as well as a nice haul of points, and some more PvP gear. 🙂

On to the Arena then, with 2v2 team ‘The Twisted Lockbox’..

We went for matching Mechano-Hogs and pets, but had a string of defeats as expected 😉

Towards the end we started to get easier opponents, and I was learning to stick to healing instead of trying to hit enemies with my rather ineffectual attacks.  I find PvP in the Arena to be a totally different game again from the PvP in Battlegrounds.. or maybe I’ve been doing it wrong in there as well..

Trying out the PvP again!

A while back, we made the 3v3 Arena team “Norfolk n Chance”, and attempted to try out some PvP.  We weren’t very successful, with me getting wiped out not long after the fight starting each time.. too squishy!

We tried again tonight..

Putting on an organised front didn’t help us much, but it looked good 😉

We managed to get our first win when we arrived into one Arena for our opposition to randomly disappear.
This won us the Step Into The Arena achievement and the Call of Battle achievement for the guild.. I wouldn’t have been happy about this really, as we hadn’t earnt it, but then we were matched against the same opponents for our next Arena match, and won! 😀

After we’d completed our allowed 10 matches, we headed on to some Battlegrounds.. Strand of the Ancients, where I managed to get a good few kills in, and Arathi Basin, which seemed so much easier this time round.

This ended up being rather a late night.. just as well it’s the weekend!

The Crocolisk and the Fawn

A friend tipped me off that a pet was available, so I made a quick trip to Outland tonight to complete a Fishing daily.. which was a simple task of fishing in my home city for a baby crocolisk.. 😉

On my return, I was given a Bag of Fishing Treasures.. inside which was Toothy’s Bucket! 😉

This was my 75th pet, and so I got the achievement (Lil’ Game Hunter) and a present in the mail! 🙂

Obsidian Sanctum

Tonight’s raid of choice was Obsidian Sanctum.. this was a return visit as we’ve previously been unable to beat Sartharion..

We’re chasing achievements as well as mounts and other loot, so again we started by killing the trash but leaving the drakes alive.

As in previous attempts, we were wiped out when Tenebron joined in as he hit our Paladin way too hard.  In the end our Warrior went back into his tanking spec.. he was more able to take a beating to the face and we finally killed Sartharion and his friends off!

One of the prizes here was the Reins of the Black Drake, which was won by Vorlak to add another mount to his growing collection.

I won the Dragon Hide Bag, which means I have more room in my bags for random stuff 😉

After this success we headed back to Serpentshrine Cavern, to try and complete what we were unable to finish yesterday.
With an extra person in the team, the second phase of the fight with Lady Vashj was much easier.. we had less interference when passing the Tainted Cores between us and switched off Lady Vashj’s shield generators fairly quickly.  Killing her after that was no problem 🙂

I also grabbed the Helm of the Vanquished Defender, bringing my collection of Tier 5 Priest Gear to Helm, Gloves and Leggings..

Reins of the Red Proto-Drake

Over the last week we’ve been achievement-whoring our way through more old content..

Today, I managed to complete “Glory of the Hero”, which meant a very nice reward: The Reins of the Red Proto-Drake!

This also brings me to 25 mounts, and the achievement “Filling Up the Barn” 🙂

Kissing the Cockroach Man

Don’t worry.. achievement hunting!

During the ‘Love is in the Air’ event in WoW, an achievement is available called ‘Flirt with Disaster.  You get this for getting completely smashed, putting your best perfume on, throwing a handful of rose petals over Jeremiah Payson, and then kissing him..

Only thing is.. Jeremiah Payson is the Cockroach Vendor in Undercity.. definitely one to regret in the morning! 😉

I also managed to gather enough tokens to get the Truesilver Shafted Arrow.. which means the Perma-Peddle achievement and the flying pest: Peddlefeet!

I’m now up to 69 pets! 🙂

Sol Survivor

I’ve been badge-chasing in Survival Mode over the last few weeks, aiming for all the gold badges for lasting 20 minutes, as well as going for a few others requiring the use of a specific Commander or to kill off a certain number of enemies.

Should you upgrade your towers or not?  The cost per firepower seems to suggest that a fully-upgraded tower does more damage than multiple level 1 towers, but having more towers means you can be hitting more enemies at once.

For a while I was unable to quite make it to 20 minutes, being finished off around 18 or 19 minutes in.  I eventually made it on the Cwm map by going mad with level 1 towers, with plenty of railguns for their massive range.