Lets Play: Dark Souls 2 - The Moth Is In The Bag

The Dark Souls 2 Recordings operate a little differently that I'd of hoped, as much as I want to be a coach and help Devyn when he gets stuck I'm taking the reigns a little too much, as ya'll know I'm a big DS:2 fan and I love it a little hard in these videos, there's still a big ol' bunch of these to release from this session. I think it's somewhere around 2 hours, maybe a little less. Hopefully I'll be less of a backseat gamer next time HAHA HAHA LIKE THAT OTHER CHANNEL.

Lets Play: Dark Souls 2 Part 1 - You're Not Good Enough.

So here it is, in all it's glory. Our first episode with no technical problems, as far as I'm aware. It's rendered in 720 instead of 1080 because my PC can't handle the truth when recording. This was actually the last set of videos we recorded. I'm still not 100% about the middle set of videos we recorded, I need to watch it back and figure out if I'm happy with it or not. Regardless, DS:2!

AWWW YISSSSSS

MOTHERFUCKIN' DARK SOULS 2

Dark Souls 2 - I'm nearly there!

Spoiler warming! Our current series of Resident Evil videos have all been fully uploaded and released, hopefully this weekend we'll get more of those done. Currently, I have 2 episodes of our next protect uploaded, edited and YouTube'd. However, they are still set to private because I need to tag them and what not. I'll let you in on a secret, the next project we're working on is Dark Souls 2. Devyn will be playing it, and I'll be bitching from the side lines because I've played this game to death (har har) and I want Devyn to get so angry he rage quits - because I'm a good friend. I won't be releasing them until I've got enough of them uploaded, so in about 2-3 days or so. But I couldn't keep it a secret any longer. Below the jump I'm going to just be gushing about Dark Soul 2 and my experience with it and how I hope this will inform Devyns enjoyment of it, and how I'll love watching him die over and over again. If you're not interested in any of that, then you could consider this the TLDR of the post.

Lets Play: Resident Evil 4 Part 3 - MLG Pro

Semi-Regular updates coming at ya, like a beam, like a ray. The 3rd part of Resi wraps up the first recording session we've had. The audio issues with Resident Evil are no more. There's currently 2 episodes of our other LP uploaded and edited (bit listed as private) and another bank of raw footage for a separate game we've been playing. Enjoy!

Killer is Dead: Nightmare Edition

Since my last post was such a wall of text, because I'm typing this clearly- just a steam of consciousness halted only by the squiggley reds that tell me I've spelled something like a plum duff. I have no idea where this is going, it's tagged as a review because I've tagged the post before I even started writing it- so who knows where we're going tonight.

I've spent my last weekend almost exclusively playing video games and did almost no house work. Otherwise known as living the dream. A little bit of Devil May Cry, Fable: Anniversary, World of Warcraft (You're never not an addict) League of Legends and of course Dark Souls: 2 - I'm going for all the achievements only have 3 left. I need to get my Bell Keepers covenant to max level (that's Player VS player stuff for those that don't know the game) I also need to get my Sun Bro's to max level (that's helping other people, for those that don't know) and complete the game on New game+ & get to a certain place on New game++ (Once more with feeling, you can keep the same character and carry to over to a new game with all the same stats, weapons and amour but the enemies are harder, do more damage, have more HP and in some cases have different moves.) There isn't a single day where I don't play Dark Souls 2, even after working 12 hours overtime.

To put it in context, I love that game to pieces and I can't wait to buy the DLC - after I've got all the achievements. However, after I started playing Killer is Dead I didn't play DS2. For one whole day, I didn't play my favorite game. Not even for ten minutes. I feel a Dark Souls 2 post coming along at some point too- but that's for another day. Regardless, Killer is Dead.

TLDR: The combat is great, easy to learn and hard to master with enough difficultly settings for the truly sadistic. the story is Suda51 (I don't understand it beyond the basic premise), the mini game for item upgrades is sexist and I don't get it. I feel this is Suda's best game yet.

Character Action, Hack & Slash? Video games,.

Been playing quite of a lot of, what I've been taught are called character action games. I think they're more commonly called Hack & Slash. Although, there is some debate as to if these two types are different types of games or just refer to the quality of them. Bayonetta is a character action game, where as the new DMC (Devil May Cry) is a hack and slash. I digress, these types of games have been taking up quite a bit of my free time recently. I've had Metal Gear: Revengeance for quite some time now (best title going) and I've had DMC: Devil May Cry (Terrible fucking title, it's named the same thing twice. I mean wut.) on 360 for about the same amount of time, but I've recently bought it again on PC because it came with all the DLC (again, I'm a mug) and I'm trying to move away from consoles unless it's something I really, really want. Finally, a game I haven't played before! I bought Killer is Dead Nightmare Edition.

My God, I wanted to use the post to talk about character action in general but I feel like I'm just going to gush about how much I love Killer is dead so I'll try to talk about the genre for a tiny bit before I start talking about that game.

Character action, or hack and slash games basically have little to no story and focus almost entirely the rule of cool. The character design is usually pretty awesome, albeit improbable and the personality of this particular person(s) tend to be completely off the wall- some of them even know they're in a video game. The games focus on combat and high combo counters VS large groups of enemies. Usually with upgrades extra health, damage, more moves etc. Often the character will have a main weapon, Kratos' Blades of Chaos, Dante's sword, Rebellion or Bayonetta's guns Scarborough Fair. In general, you'll have Sub weapons too. Weapons you can switch to mid combo that have limited move sets and aren't as complex or upgrade-able as your main weapon but tend to do more damage or have interesting effects. Ranged weapons are often included too to keep combos flowing when you're too distant to hack and or slash at something.

These games focus on you being an impossible bad ass taking on absurdly large groups of baddies. I was first introduced to this style of game by playing God of War. It's an okay game, I wouldn't recommend it if you want to get into this genre. It plays well, but it chugs a little and it's only on PS2- as far as I'm aware. Personally, if you've never played this style before pick up Metal Gear: Revengeance. There's a lot of Metal Gear Solid references for story if you're interested, but it's a good solid game at it's core and the setting isn't as jarring also the story isn't as absurd as some of the other entries in this genre- it's not the best, in my view but it's the best place to start.

I was going to write about Killer is Dead here- but I think this post is long enough. Again, I'm writing this as work so I expect I'll type up some more about Killer is Dead when I've got a bit more free time.

Lets Play: Resident Evil 4 Part 2 - The Stinky Pendant

3 posts in one day? Sweet Jeebus it's almost like this blog is active again. Here's another video. Part 2 of Resident evil, this is still our first recording session (the first night we did this, we only recorded 3 episodes worth of Resi 4) So please forgive the aforementioned sound issues. I'm currently editing the other bunch of stuff we've got. Hope you enjoy it!

Fable Anniversary

Repeat for infinite money

I've been burned before Molyneux. Fable 2 hurt me in ways I didn't know I could be hurt, 3 had me screaming "STOP PLEASE. HE'S ALREADY DEAD" Fable 2 & 3 were games I wanted to like, I tried to like them. It's a strange feeling to want to like something but not be able to. It's like giving that one friend a chance to prove they aren't a complete ween, only to be proven wrong over and over again- yet some how you can't stop thinking that maybe this time'll be different. I find myself feeling this again.

I've recently purchased Fable Anniversary (With all the DLC because I'm a fucking mug) in the hopes that I can reignite my passion and love for a series that just got too hard to enjoy. I've tried to play Fable on the original Xbox a few times since my original tiff with it. Every single time I've been defeated due to terrible loading times, awkward menus and radically fluctuating difficulty. Yet, I keep coming back. It's a charming game. It really is, and it reflects my homeland of England almost perfectly. Right down to the monsters and giant killer FUCKING bees. I'm hopeful, that when I get home from work tonight (I've taken to doing less work and more not work tonight it seems) I'll give it a go, maybe after I have a little sleepy. I seriously hope that improved graphics, loading times and a better menu can reignite my love for a game that "got me into" RPG's

Maybe I'll make Devyn play it.

The great internet slowdown

Today, or rather a couple of days ago the great internet "slowdown" of 2014 happened. Children wept, websites slapped banners all over the shop and a lot of that shiny internet activism we occasionally hear about took place. I would've liked to included the banner on this blog too, it is possible, but I'm in no way savvy enough to figure it our whilst I'm writing this on my phone (don't tell my boss) The best I can do, at this point in time, is post this infographic.

It's very interesting, and perhaps more importantly very important. If ya'll could take a couple of minutes just to have a look through and familiarize yourself with the situation that'd be grand. The next episode the next two episodes of Resident Evil 4 have been uploaded, they're currently listed as private though until I tag them correctly and get some time off of work to look through everything. Myself & Devyn have recorded two other different LP's of games. I won't spoil them here, because this post is more of a platform to discuss the process of recording and how it's going and the like, perhaps this is a little bit of a declaration too.

Tomorrow, and by that I mean the 13/09/14 I'll likely be releasing part 2 of the series. Part 1-3 of this series has problems with the audio. I'll be pretty frank, myself and Devyn have discussed this at length and the primary feature of these videos is for us to have fun. We don't have the time to hang out as much as we'd with being adults and the like so having these videos are more of a reason to physically see each other, rather than pissing away the hours playing LoL on Skype. That being said, it doesn't speak to our intention with creating these videos. We want them to be good, we want them to be funny and the entire process is a really interesting learning experience. It's funny, you go into creating something with all the intentions of how it should be and how you want it to come out- but it never really goes like you'd planned and that's kind of the beauty of it. The whole mess is what makes it great, hell, the first recording session (before I had the yeti mic) devyn forgot to bring his. Both myself and Devyn- whilst inviting him to do these videos with me- always said we wanted to be a no nonsense play video games and have fun kind of deal. No plan, no schedule etc. Idea is, we'd open our steam accounts & mabes in the future our video game library and go lets play this & boom. Done. Honestly, it's playing havoc with my entire personalty. Lists and organizing stuff are literally my crack.

Regardless, this is the process we decided on and for the most part it's a lot less stressful and a lot less clean and cut than I'm used to- back when I was doing JPA on my own, or when we were doing BSGTV I'd/we'd re-record episodes spend literal hours planning what we were going to do in each episode. I liked it that way, but it was harder than it needed to be. If you've ever listened to any of BSGTV's podcasts that's more the direction JPA is going now. To give it a real life example, we didn't get it "right" until the 3rd game we recorded.Our first 3 episodes of Resident Evil 4 have fucked up audio- I left my surround on and my PC recorded the audio on Fraps & the mic picked up the audio that was so quiet we barely heard it. I had to go ahead and buy a decent piece of gear for once didn't I? The second recording session had issues with the frame rate, we haven't actually solved that yet. We're about an hour and a half into this mystery second game, and throughout we have occasional frame drops for seemingly no reason. It might be down to my PC not being as manly as I thought, or possibly I haven't fiddled with the right settings of the game itself. The third game so far had issues, it was too much for me to be able to record at 1080p. I can play it on full settings, but sadly I can't record it. The mistakes, for the first 2 games were left in. It feels more organic, and whilst it isn't highly professional it's more real and representative of what we want the videos to be about. Two people playing video games. It's not original, but I love doing it. It's a learning curve, I'm using a lot of more expensive software/gear than normal and sharing that journey in a way everyone can see and a way I can look back on is really, really appealing to me. Wall of text I know.

Let's Play: Resident Evil 4 Part 1 - PARKING TICKETS

Boo! Back again, with Devyn to boot. Another video, with a new set-up. Trying out a new microphone, I've been using my headset mic up until now. However, I've recently bought the Blue Yeti USB mic so I can record with a little more confidence that it won't sound like death. Still, we have some kinks to work out and neither of us have been behind a mic for a long time. The session was absolutely great fun, and we both had a brilliant time recording the couple of episodes we did tonight. Hopefully that translates across if you decide to have a little watch, everything we're both doing from the audio set up to editing the videos is self taught, it's going to be an interesting learning process to be sure- I'm happy to say that we made this.

Let's Play S01E09: The Walking Dead- Complex system of ropes and pulleys.

As promised, here it is! I'm now going to go to sleep for exactly one thousand years.

Good night.

Once you mod, you just can't stop.

A while ago, I posted about playing Skyrim on my 360 again- with all the new DLC and the like. I have now bought Skyrim for the third time in my life. I bought it again on Steam, the legendary edition was on sale for £15. They were giving it away.

I've always had a strange relationship with the Elder scrolls/new fallout series. An abusive relationship, almost. Once upon a time we tired to LP New Vegas on BSGTV, and playing the game so often and with other people made me hate it. Sadly, I haven't played it since. I guess the reason being is that it comes far too close to what I want, and falls just short. There are parts, ideas & mechanics I love- but for the most part that have flaws. These flaws sometimes give it character ,and other times they make the game frustrating and boring.

One of the main reasons for my slow dislike of this particular set of games was due to the fact I played them exclusively on console until now. The slow loading is the only real killer there, better graphics are nice but it doesn't really impact my enjoyment.

Concerning Skyrim, I've taken to modding. Over the past 2-3 days I've just been collecting, testing and trying out mods. The number is somewhere around 60, perhaps slightly less. I've finally come to a stop with adding these new mods, and found myself playing Skyrim in nearly all of my free time. For the most part, using the nexus mod manager is simple- I had a little bit of trouble with one or two mods in particular not loading in the right order and causing game crashes, thankfully it's all solved now. The sheer amount of effort, love and attention to detail some of these mods have is insane. I've never modded any PC game before, and I didn't expect so much from these mods. They've really made the game fresh and SO much more entertaining than it ever was.

Most of the mods I'm using are for immersions sake, there's a lot of crazy mods out there but I've tried to stick as close to the feel and lore of Skyrim as possible. There's also a lot of creepy mods too, but that's a dark place we don't want to go to. I don't really want to go into what particular mods I'm using, unless there happens to be any demands for it. I will, however, recommend four. Four mods I now consider a must have for me to be able to enjoy Skyrim again.

The first is Frostfall, in short this mod makes weather affect your character. You need to keep warm and stay out of frigid waters. Otherwise, you'll lose stats and eventually die. At first, I wasn't sold on this mod. I found it to be a little bit of a pain, but when it was mixed into the cocktail of mods I'm now running. I loved it. It comes with the option to disable fast travel, really forcing you to explore  and make use of the carriages dotted around the world. This mod really makes the world of Skyrim feel hostile and dangerous in places, you'll spend your time planning journeys, checking you've got all the right gear and really feeling like you're battling harsh weather. A must have.

The second, improves Frostfall further. It's called realistic needs and diseases. This mod will force you to need to eat, sleep and drink at regular intervals. It'll also make diseases a lot more deadly, making them something to fear and not something you'll get round to curing when you find a shrine next. This mod makes Skyrim feel even more like a real place, it makes the environment itself an enemy. You'll find yourself making regular stops at the inn, making sure you've got the supplies you need before setting out. Looking for perfect places to camp. Once you've gotten used to not fast traveling, this mod combined with Frostfall makes Skyrim feel like a fully fledged world. Not that vanilla Skyrim wasn't a beautiful place to wander, I always felt the convenience of fast travel. allowed players to skip a lot of great content without even knowing it.

Another must have is SPERG. This mod completely overhauls the perk system. It adds new perks, and entirely changes others. There are now new ways to skill up the harder to level skills in game, amour skills for example. Completing quests will give you a random skill point too. This mod will force you to really think about what perks to choose, as all of them are now interesting and useful. It encourages you to play the game and not to grind stats so you can have the perks at the end of the vanilla tree.

The final must have, in my eyes is Dragon combat overhaul. This mod makes all the dragon fights fucking insane. They get much harder, dragons aren't the annoyance they once were. This mod changes so much, it really makes you feel like each dragon is a boss fight. I simply can't list everything this mod does, but trust me- you need it.

New video coming soon by the way! It's uploaded to YouTube and ready to go, I just need to make to public and tag everything. I'm writing this from my phone at work on my lunch break so as soon as I'm off work I'll try and get it all sorted.

Let's play S01E08: The Walking Dead- Continuity Is For Nerds.

Jesus Christ, I've really gone and done it haven't I?

I'm just as surprised as any of the skeletons that still hang around here are, it's here- another episode. I'm a little bit rusty with my commentary in this one, nothing really happens either, so that doesn't help. I'm not certain I've got every little setting done correctly, but I think we can all agree that it's a lot better than the last batch! I don't want to start making vague promises again, so all I'll say for now is this.

"This is a video I have made, It is finished and has been uploaded to this blog- if I don't die an unforeseen death, it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect some more videos of this nature"