Five Days Till Diablo III and Other Stuff

There’s just five days left till Diablo III is released!

The Mark of Valor Sigils are now unlocked on the website, so you can create your own banner for each character to use in-game, using your own uploaded photographs or designs.  Blizzard have also made a Launch Day Preparation Guide.. purchasing, downloading, creating a Battletag and so on.

They don’t suggest what to do while waiting these last five days, tho 😉 (more…)

This was a triumph..

Peer Review, the new DLC for Valve’s Portal 2, came out almost two months back, and somehow, we didn’t get around to playing it till very recently.

The new co-op campaign, Art Therapy, takes place after the events of Portal 2, with a slightly crazier than normal GLaDOS telling us that everything is fine.. the humans are all fine.. 😉

The first level had us separated to start with, with turrets, lasers and refraction cubes.. after the initial worry that I’d forgotten how to do it all, we destroyed the turrets, helped each other fly across acid pits, collecting the new ball along the way and escape!  It’s great to be back in the test chamber 🙂

The second level took a while as we missed the small room high up the wall with the hard light bridge.. otherwise we didn’t really struggle with the levels for long.  I enjoyed our solution to the puzzle in room number 5.. once the white goop was close enough, I made portals underneath the turrets guarding the exit, so I could grab them and throw them down into the depths 😀

I was glad to see more use of the goop, and I found the balls a great new addition, even if they had a tendency to bounce away and into danger.  In the final chamber, it took us a while to figure out how to get hold of the cube.. and once we did get it, it bounced away into the emancipation grid as soon as we’d put it down!

The appearance of the bird, and GLaDOS’ fearful reaction to it was really funny.. and I rather liked the idea of the avian killing machines.. though I can’t imagine a sequel using them 😮

On the official site for Portal 2, there’s a sneak peek of the Puzzle Creator.. which will allow all players to create and upload their own levels.  It could be worth a look! 🙂

i-42

Where i-40 was cold and windy, especially in the temporary structure we were seated in, i-42 was sunny and hot almost the whole way through.. 😀

I drove half the way down, with a death-grip on the steering wheel (I’ve not done very much motorway driving), past a ridiculous number of lorries and one place where an accident on the other side of the road caused our side to slow to around 10mph.  Tim took the last part of the driving.. we were hoping to catch up with another friend at this point, as text messages had shown we were only 5 minutes behind, but with a stop-off at Sainsbury’s we were never going to make it. 😀

Check-in was again nice and quick thanks to arriving early, and instead of waiting around to take our PCs in at 6, we headed to the pub for food and drinks first.

All in all this was far better than the cold and wet start to i40 last year.. we hadn’t been able to go into the site as the internet hadn’t been set up for our temporary structure!  Our group were seated in B1 this time, away from the loud and annoying people who think roaring for every reload is ‘atmosphere’.  Although it was still hot, there was a balcony to escape to, and it was a lot quieter and nothing was being thrown around.. definitely going to be pushing for this spot next event.

One of the first games I played here was the awesome Portal 2, which I had started earlier but lacked the time to finish.  Plenty of other people were playing, with some on co-op, so I had to get a move on to avoid being spoiled..

I loved GlaDOS’ malicious comments in the earlier part of the game, though I wondered how I was going to end up making a break for it as she seemed happy to test me endlessly.  Wheatley was quite funny up until his change, which I think I should have spotted.. but I was rather gleeful when he turned GLaDOS into a potato even if he did still have me trapped.

The different coloured gels were a lot of fun.  On my first encounter with the white goop though, I wasn’t entirely sure what to do and ended up covering as many surfaces as I could in frustration, before spotting the little ledge I was meant to go to.  I loved evil Wheatley, especially when he tried to kill me in stupidly obvious ways.. 🙂

The second day of LAN involved a barbeque with the rest of our group.. we had the weather for it this time at least.  I’m not sure if we’re technically allowed to have BBQs on-site, but no security turned up, so no matter 😉

We also took a look through the exhibition hall, where we tried out a few games on the Nintendo 3DS, including Dead or Alive: Dimensions, Kid Icarus: Uprising, and a Zelda game which made me feel quite ill trying to focus on the screen while moving it around to aim the catapult.  While I love the idea, I’m going to be staying away from the 3DS.. if I feel bad after a few minutes use, it’s just not for me.

Aside from this, the only other real point of interest for me was the Demon stand, where they had an amazing car simulator running DIRT 2.  The fastest lap was to be rewarded with a year’s free internet, and of course I came nowhere near the quickest time though I loved the experience.  The seat, pedals and wheel come to some crazy price.. I think £24,000 was mentioned..

Elsewhere in the hall it was surprisingly quiet.. no freebies, and very little attempts by staff to draw people in to the various stands either.  There were people playing on what might have been some kind of tournament, but with no real interaction, we wandered through and back out again.

There are usually a number of flyers on the desks, and this time there was a 50% discount for the EA Store.  After trying out Bulletstorm on a friend’s PC, I bought both that and Crysis 2.. so much for not buying any more games.. 🙂

I made a start on Crysis 2.. but there were too many distractions to concentrate on it during the day and I was playing Amnesia: The Dark Descent when it got late.  There were a few changes to the sections I’d seen in the demo, with a bit more puzzle in the form of the chemicals I needed to find and mix.  The part where I had to avoid an invisible enemy in the water made me just as jumpy as when I’d originally seen it, which was probably amusing for those near me in our row.

Other games which saw some action were Beat Hazard on a friend’s computer while he played GRID on mine, some Killing Floor, an attempt at League of Legends (seriously out of practise) and a round or two of Unreal Tournament 3.  I had also brought along my Xbox 360, so there was a quick look at Stacking, and a bit of the co-op Zombie Mode in Call of Duty: Black Ops, as well as an all-too-brief look at Homefront for a friend who hadn’t seen it yet.  Maybe next time!

Tim made some use of his 30 day trial of WoW, though it was hard to tell if he was enjoying it or putting up with it for the sake of saying he’d had a go.  I also managed to get a little bit of time in WoW, and started off collecting bits for the Noblegarden Easter Event.. there were plenty of bunnies hopping around, including a pet.. 😉

I also pestered a friend to show me where to get the rather interesting Venomhide mount.. a pet which turns into a mount!

Unlike my Warrior friend, I had no trouble in being poisoned the required number of times.. he had to take off all his gear and use the most useless weapon he could find, whereas I just hit the Ravasaur with the basket I was collecting eggs in 😉

Eventually I had been poisoned enough and I was given my own Hatchling to take care of..

Our last night of LAN included some non-gaming hijinks as one friend started falling asleep in his chair.. this meant he got plastic cups balanced on his head :>
There was no chance of an all-nighter this time either.. all too tired, maybe from the heat, and we headed back to the tents at around 4.30am.

The last day didn’t include the usual CFMN vs inv TF2 match; instead we had a big game of L4d2 versus.. for which I had to switch to Tim’s PC as my copy of L4d2 had managed to corrupt itself.  Awesome game.. will have to make sure that we get more of this played from home too 🙂

Portal 2 ARG and Defense Grid: The Awakening

Portal 2 was supposed to be released on the 19th April.. however, an earlier release date was suggested over the last week, as a pile of clues have been discovered by fans dedicated enough to go looking for them.

I am not one of those people; while I love the fact they’ve done it, I don’t have the time or knowledge required to root around with codes, convert random numbers to images and access encrypted files.  Seriously.. even if I had the time I wouldn’t even know where to start, nor whether I was even going in the right direction.  Instead, I’m content to keep an eye on the Valve ARG wiki..

The Potato Sack Pack appeared on Steam last week, and I just took it as an opportunity to grab a few more cheap games, but it was another part of this rather clever play by Valve!  The info gathered so far points to Portal 2 being unlocked when an unspecified amount of play-time has been reached on the various games in the pack.

There is also a potato-collecting mechanic involved, with collectible potatoes hidden in the games and elsewhere: one can be collected simply by joining the ‘nelipot’ Steam group.  The ARG Wiki people have discovered that more potatoes increase the rate that the GLaDOS@Home bars fill up.. so really, the aim of this game is now: collect potatoes and play indie games 🙂

I won’t be idling in any games overnight, though.. while it’s mentioned on the Wiki as a way of adding the the cause, I consider it to be too close to cheating when the ‘aim’ is to play.  I have similar reservations about using the login details posted for collection of potatoes as well..  I’m just going to play the games.

I was gifted Defense Grid: The Awakening on Friday: a tower defense game with a twist.. when the invading aliens reach your base that’s not it.. they steal a power core and attempt to leave the base with it.

Killing the alien results in the core being dropped.. it will try to make its way back to base but can be grabbed by another alien en-route.

The Meteor tower is my current favourite.. long-range, great damage when it hits.. though I like the laser too, especially when upgraded. 🙂

New things at E3

I’ve been looking at some of the info on the games and tech, and there has been plenty to get my interest.

The Fallout series holds a special place in my heart, so after seeing that Fallout: New Vegas has been dated for October 22nd, I’ve mentally written off the end of October in terms of playing other games.  This is despite the announcement of an October 26th release date for Fable III, another game I’ve been looking forward to – it will have to wait until after Fallout 😉

Pre-E3, there were rumours about what Valve might be revealing, after they said they’d be revealing something big.  It looks like the big secret was the fact that Steam is to come to the PS3 – while that’s good news for console players, I was rather hoping for Episode 3.

Portal 2 is on the way, but this was hardly new for E3, though the trailer was quite nice.  I’m quite excited about the co-op mode, and find the idea of playing as a robot or turret rather amusing 🙂

In addition to the two Warhammer 40,000 games, Dark Millennium Online and Space Marine, which I mentioned in the last post, THQ have also announced Red Faction: Armageddon, follow-up to Red Faction: Guerilla.  There was also a very brief mention of Darksiders 2.  I have yet to complete Red Faction: Guerrilla or Darksiders – again, with the consoles..

Must try harder 😉

Call of Duty: Black Ops is another game in my wanted list, though not as high up as the previous games.  I enjoyed Modern Warfare 2, but beyond single player, I didn’t find myself playing it so much.
I tend to prefer playing with a few friends rather than strangers with their camping, mic-spamming, teabagging ways.  Though sometimes I still get the latter from friends.. ah well.

Kinect, formerly Natal, is being shown at E3 too.  Along with the child-oriented Kinectimals, there are a large number of fitness and sports type games planned to use the system.  While I love the tech, these titles are very close to titles I already have for the Wii and so what’s on offer here isn’t going to make me rush out to buy the system.
PlayStation Move had more games on offer, but again doesn’t really add much on from the Wii.