Minecraft - Brewing and Enchanting Part 3

Part 3 here and an introduction to brewing. Potions can be very powerful I personally like the potion of fire resistance as I used one of these in a game session on oldgamerz once and climbed up a lava stream and made away with a ton of goodies!

First things first you will need a brewing stand. To craft one you will need some cobblestone and a blaze rod. Blaze rods can be found in the nether and are dropped when you kill a blaze. If you have already been following and have made yourself an enchantment table you will already have a diamond pick axe and have found a lava source. You will need to make a nether portal from obsidian. Make sure that you have a couple of iron swords and plenty of food to keep your hunger bar up.

Once you have ventured into the nether you will be looking for a nether fortress they aren't hard to miss and can be quite vast. If you explore this for a while you are sure to bump into a blaze spawner as pictured below they are quite strong so try and make sure you have a corner that you can run back around. Once you have a couple of blaze rods you can return back to the overworld try and make sure you leave a sensible path back as you will need to return to the fortress to gather brewing ingredients.

Minecraft - Brewing and Enchantment Part 2

Time for part 2. I'm going to cover enchanting in this post. You will need to craft yourself an enchanting table, some bookcases and some items to enchant.

An enchantment table uses the number of bookcases to control the enchantment level that is available to you which is between 1 and 30. Enchanting uses your experience points that you have earned by slaying mobs, mining, smelting, etc.

To craft the enchantment table you will need some diamonds some obsidian and a book. Before you start mining I recommend that you build a small sugar cane farm because you require plenty of books to build your bookcases and whilst you are in the mine the sugarcane will be growing.

Once you have your materials to craft your bookcases and enchantment table you can start to place the items you need to place the bookcases two blocks away from the enchanting table with nothing in between them. You can place the bookcases on the same level as the enchantment table or one block higher. I organised mine in the pattern displayed in the picture.

All that is left now is to enchant some items you need to use the enchantment table in the same way you would a furnace or chest. Then you place your item to be enchanted on the table you will then be provided with a list of enchantments to choose from. These are all random the only thing that you can see is the experience level. If you want to see lower level enchantments you could try putting a torch in between some of the bookcases and the table to limit the level of enchantments available.

This covers enchanting next time we need to venture into the nether to obtain materials and ingredients for brewing.

Battleloggers - Birthday Cake by Battlefield Friends

These guys are hilarious(check their youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1DD2991C3D415547)

Minecraft - Brewing and Enchanting Introduction

There hasn't been a post on here about Minecraft yet! Its probably time to change that!

With the new update for the Xbox360 looming I thought it best to do some write ups on the brewing and enchanting functionality as it can sometimes be overlooked but can be a very helpful and useful thing to know about.

I documented this briefly on the oldgamerz forum but I hope to go much further in depth here.

Brewing involves making potions which can perform all variety of purposes such as health regeneration of poison potions which you can throw at mobs or other players.

 

Enchanting allows you to enchant weapons and Armour with different enchantments to improve them. Some enchantments cause you to generate more loot and others can help protect you or increase the efficiency of a weapon.

 

I started by making a new world using a random seed. the seed which was used is -24564927761827150150 it has some quite impressive cliffs and the spawn is nearby hilly, desert and swamp biomes which makes mining for different resources easy. I made myself a quick shelter pictured above and kitted it out with some basic furnishings to keep me going.

 

Thats my quick introduction done watch this space for more information!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tomb Raider & the new Lara

This past week I've been playing Tomb Raider, about 11 hours in, almost at the end. Really pleased with what they produced. Game runs smoothly, nice graphics and audio effects and it plays well. What links everything together is a solid story, which is a must for me.

I like the new version of Lara and the voice cast (Camilla Luddington) was an excellent choice.

I've not played the multi-player yet so not sure how it plays but judging by the reviews and some feedback form friends, it won't be great (which is really no surprise). I think this section of the game is there for more hard core TR fans.

If I was to try and find something that would make this game better that would be less predictability.

Well recommended to play it as and when you can.

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Review

The Witcher 2 Enhanced Edition comes in 3 discs: 2 game discs and 1 soundtrack CD. Content in the game discs, you will be pleased to know, are split in acts. This means you will only need to replace the Disc 1 with Disc 2 once during one playthrough. The soundtrack CD is brilliant, easily worth quarter of the game price. You also get a map which unfortunately is not as good as maps you get with Red Dead redemption or Skyrim but it is ok.

I have not played the original Witcher game, which apparently is a prequel to The Witcher 2 game, but that did not cause any problems. You start by playing the prologue which gives you some insight in things that happened during the first game. It is very well directed so you will be impressed immediately how cinematic the game looks like. The game is not without flows though. Even though quite enjoyable, combat can sometimes be fiddly and a cause for some frustration. More about that further down.

Graphics

I was running low in disc space so initially I did not install the game. As a result I wasn't to impressed with the graphics. I then made some space and installed both discs and the difference was huge which is credit to artists of this game.This game is simply beautiful. The environment, lightning, the colours, everything looks just breathtaking. Obviously, there is room for improvement, but from what I have seen so far in Xbox 360, this game is at the top as far as graphics are concerned.

I like it that they have invested in character animations during the dialogues. Considering this game is a RPG, this makes a big difference as you will have to go through a lot of dialogues. Camera moves if needed so you are not staring at one person's face like they are in a photo frame hanging on the wall. Face expressions and body expressions are much better then what I've used to see for instance in recent Mass Effect 3, and miles miles better than the likes of Fallout.

Sometimes you do get rough textures changing into higher resolution textures, or items popping in in the distance. You also will notice the use of fog effect bit on the heavy side, but only if you want to be picky. It did not effect my game enjoyment at all. 10/10 as far as graphics' concerned from me.
Audio
I absolutely love the soundtrack from this game. I have got it on my phone, sound system at home and work computer. Ambient music changes as you enter different areas of the map and follows the gameplay immaculately.

Acting is just brilliant and use of language makes the game so much more authentic. Who ever worked on the dialogues for English language, done great job. You have outdone Skyrim you 'ploughing whoresons'! :)

The only thing I could complain about is that they saved on the number of actors they have used. Often I noticed same actor voicing two or more different NPCs in the same area of the map. This is specially distracting when you hear same person voicing the king and the guard in the same camp where king is staying. A bit confusing too.

Overall the audio is sharp and and in synch with great graphics so 9/10 from me on this.

Gameplay

I mentioned before that directing in this game is just great. Even though the story is somewhat linear it branches significantly in several places and you can take on quests in any order you like. Definitely warrants at least a second playthrough and few "go backs to saved game". I am on my second playthrough, getting close to the end of first half of the game, and it already feels like a new game with completely new quests and new story perspective. It is incredible how well they designed the story. Even though now I am taking different paths, things fall into place very nicely and it all makes sense.

The story and the dialogues are just wonderful. Everything links so nicely and it gives the player full control how they want to play the game. And if you really liked the game like me, you can play it again and choose different path and get new gaming experience.

Combat system could have been much better though. You need to spend way to much of your time in preparation for it and controls during combat are somewhat cumbersome. I guess this is why they have included arena game-mode where you can go and fight wave after wave of different types of enemies you encounter during the game so you can practice various ways you can tackle them. Nevertheless, combat is still sufficiently enjoyable and it does get easier as you progress through the game.

The maps and system used in general could have been better as well. I had some major difficulties finding my way around Verden as maps were more or less useless. There are many levels but map only displays one level. So finding entrances to get to your destination proved quite frustrating for me at times there is no path indicated either. On the good side though, none of other areas in the game are as complex as Vergen so you can find your way around elsewhere fairly easy. Also the maps in general are not large at all so you do not need to spend ages to get to your destination. Everything seem to be close together and yet feels natural enough.

So some niggles with combat and maps, but in general, very satisfying gameplay - 8/10 for the gameplay.

In summary

If you like RPGs then this game is a must for you. If you're not so keen on RPGs, then you should still give this game a chance. Go in it with an open mind and sale through a wonderful fairytale of Geralt of Rivia. 


Overall score - 9.5/10


Official site: http://en.thewitcher.com/the-witcher/2/xbox/ 

Gears of War 3 versus tips

Weapons
Make sure you try all weapons.
General rule use Hamerburst if you want to stay back and support, Lancer for long/medium range and Retro for medium/close range.
Use Gnasher if you like near close/close range or SawedOff for close range 1 shot kills.
Experiment with all of them and find the one you're most comfortable with but try and master them all.

Power weapons
Each map will have power weapons and you'll find in versus games most gamers will aim to get to them first. Some of these you might find difficult to use (like Torque Bow, LongShot, etc.) but others will be much easier to use (like BoomShot, Grenades, Ink, Mortar, etc.) If you can get to them use them.

Team play
Stay close to your team mates. Numbers make the difference and reduce your time spent in waiting to respawn. Hold LB to see where your team mates are and move towards their direction. If you're total rookie, stay behind your team mates and use long range weapons and grenades.

Movement
Try to go  from cover to cover. Pay attention where can you get cover in split second if you're moving about. Learn the maps and always assume there might be someone behind a corner.

Active reload
One on one it is a decider. Sure damage to head, body and legs varies but active reload is very important. Try to hit every time and if you notice enemies approaching spend some bullets (half a clip should do) and active reload.

Enjoy
Gears can be very frustrating at times. You can die soon as you respawn in gruesome death by someone camping behind the corner but do not get discouraged.  Expect to die a lot in the beginning and you should have great fun with this game.
Don't think about your K/D ratio, instead focus on learning maps and controls, use power weapons and stick with your team mates, have a laugh and you will love Gears

Witcher 2

My RPG mojo has come back full swing. Even though the number of excellent games were still waiting for me to have time to play them, I could not resist Witcher 2 after reading several reviews and watching some game clips (the power of advertising, eh(?)).

Anyone planning to play this game and don't like spoiler best stop reading this post now as it will likely have some spoilers.

I finished Prologue and I'm almost at the end of Act 1. There is a 'tutorial' in the beginning but it's not great. I played the prologue wondering about a lot of things and just going with a hunch. When I got to Act 1 things got a bit more serious and I got stuck in several places. Put it simply the combat system is not the easiest I seen and there way to many things you need to learn in order to succeed. To make things worse the game is noticeably disbalanced soon as you start Act 1. Enemies seam to take less damage and dish lot more than you do. With it being a new game and working out how to play it, you inevitably end up between enemies which usually results in almost instant death.

And that is about it as far as negative is concerned. Everything else about this game is just brilliant. RPG that is interesting and looks like a next gen game. Main quests and side quests are equally interesting. The decisions you take during the game can not be always classed as good or bad so there is no karma like in Fallout or paragon/renegate in Mass Effect. Game branches and depending how you decide to play it you get different quests/stories so second play through is a must.

...more to come....

Mercenaries 2 & Gears 3 songs

I just stumbled upon a song from Mercenaries 2 game (the best thing to come from that game)

 

In the same list I had the song from Gears 3 trailer. Sounds so much  better when you watch the video.

 

It's raining games...

Following stories that Game retailer is in deep trouble and about to go under, I went in and spent all my sizeable credit. I wasn't planning to get any games any time soon as I only just bought Batman Arkham City and Mass Effect 3 came via post few days ago. So from my two visits to games I now have

1. Driver San Francisco,
2. Guitar Hero Warriors of Rock,
3. The Elder Scrolls Oblivion 5th Anniversary Edition,
4. Top Spin 2,
5. Dues Ex: Human Revolution,
6. Rage,
7. Project Gotham Racing 4,
8. Batman Arkham City,
9. Mass Effect 3

I initially got Saints Row The Third but after reading some reviews decided it wasn't for me as I would get bored of it to quickly, so I went back and got Driver SF, Oblivion and GH Warriors of Rock for it. If I include many other games that I have played but not finished playing yet (Gears of War 3, Battlefield 3, Forza 4, and many more), that is me sorted for this decade :).

Removing card details from xbox.com

There are websites now up speficilly opened for hacked Xbox Live members, many claiming that their Live account has been hacked. To be honest I did not panic as I know people sometime use very simple passwords and sometime they fall for phishing sites so I thought as long as I'm careful, I should be ok. Then, I hear about some experienced gamers that their account has been hacked!!! Warning lights started to flash so I thought I better remove my credit card details from my account so at least they can't spend any more if they ever get into my account. Checked my account settings in xbox.com and there it was, my card details and the remove link. Great I thought, simple, easy and quick. But nooooooo, got the message soon as I clicked remove to say that this card is associated with one of the services so you can't remove it as long as you use that service. I was surprised to get this as all my Live is paid upfront and Autorenew is set to OFF! So got in a chat with the support guy who just said to me no, you can't remove your card details even though you do not have any bills to pay! This got me totally pissed and I wished I was a lawyer so I can sue their ass for keeping my card details against my will. In the end had to phone support and they agreed to remove my card details but stupidity does not end there. They still could not remove my card details as my latest subscription was paid using a credit card. What they did is, cancelled my account, reverted it to a silver account, and then emailed me the code to make for the months I already prepaid (minus 6 days). What a pain!

Busy

Wow it's busy (gaming-wise) at the moment!

First of all Gears 3 is just great. Whatever game I play it doesn't go long before I need to get back to Gears 3.

I pre-ordered Battlefield 3 (limited edition so I can get Back to Karkand DLC free). I finished the single player in about 5 days (hard difficulty) and hunted some achievements afterwards. As far as single player is concerned that is it. I don't think they nailed the single player yet. However multi-player will definitely keep me busy for many many months. Bit different to BC2 (can't make myself say better, even thought there are many additions on BF3). BF2 MP was just great, especially Vietnam DLC and BF3 is great on its own right too.

I also got Modern Warfare 3 on the day of the release. This game turned out to be a disappointment for me. It is the first COD game (and I played them all from COD 2 onwards) that I just could not find any enjoyment at playing the campaign. I think they have not changed it sufficiently enough to make it feel fresh for us that played previous Modern Warfare games. MP is not much different either but still feels fresher than SP. Obviously they have invested more time on the MP than SP. Can't say that for the COD Elite though. What a disgrace. Millions of gamers buy every COD game and Activision comes up with excuses that they did not expect so many users. Hopefully they will have fixed it by the time anyone reads this post.

Today I got Skyrim and Halo CE is on its way. Add Forza 4 to this plus several AAA oldies I'm yet to finish on my shelf and you can see why this post was titled busy ;).

Battlefield 3 metascore doesn't look too good

I HATE it when they talk the game up and create unfunded expectations.

I was watching this trailer today "is it real or in game" where they combined real footage with game footage. Journalist wrote "Bold move" but I think it is more like stupid move. Gamers will expect more than the game can deliver and will be left disappointed!


Score currently on 84/100. Only 4 reviews in but I bet it won't even get close to 90. Number of reviews mention that there are too many bugs in the game.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/battlefield-3/critic-reviews

Forza Motorsport 4

I had some doubts about this game considering how great Forza 3 was. Basically what was there to improve on? Oh looks like my expectations needed adjusting. Forza 4 looks and feels brilliant. Graphics and sound have improved noticeably which helps the immersion factor considerably. When you see the immaculate graphics and hear beautiful roaring sounds, it just pulls you in. I read that Turn 10 had contractors that work in Hollywood to help them with the lighting etc. You can see the effects.

I must have had ten hours gameplay so far but I only scratched the surface. My career stats say I only finished 1.8% of my career so far. There is Rivals section as well and the club aspect. Famous Top Gear show endorsement was a brilliant move, it puts a smile in your face racing through Top Gear track or listening to Jeremy Clarkson colourful comments.

So far I'm extremely happy with this game and look forward to play it for many many more hours with mates from Gaming Fro Fun.

Gears of War 3 - Epic Finale

I had the great pleasure of playing this game for many hours in the past month and let me tell you - this game rocks. It has got quantity and quality.

Campaign can be played as per usual story mode or with an arcade twist. Basically play through the same levels but with different feel to it. The arcade mode adds scoring, where for each action you get a score and score is calculated after every chapter. I think arcade mode puts more emphasis on action side of the game whiles the standard campaign put more emphasis on the story. Both these you can play on your own or with as many as 3 other player - Ka-chow!

Co-op mode does not end with these two story modes. You can choose to play with up to 4 friends in the Horde mode, where you fight wave after wave of locust horde, or Beast mode where you get to play as locust annihilating gears, again 5 player co-op game. Both these modes are great fun.

The you have the versus mode where you can choose to play private or public matches (standard and ranked). As most versus games are now server hosted, the quality of these games has improved significantly compared to Gears 2.

Well done Epic - top mark from me: 10/10

Can't believe I took so long to come back

Well I've done it again, stopped blogging for months. Shame really because one can just write one or two lines if too busy, but I guess Twitter was there for that.

Hope to synch back in form now. Got a lot new games coming. Currently playing Gears of War 3 a lot and I can't get enough of it. I've started a tournament in GFF, can't wait fo rthe first session this Saturday!

Addictive Speed Run in DiRT 3

So far I think these challenge game modes, like speed runs, are the only improvement form Dirt 2. I spent some two hours last night to nail this speed run for a platinum medal. You can make uploads direct to youtube but they are fairly low quality, take ages to prepare and upload and the maximum clip length is 30 seconds. I had  to upload two clips to youtube for this one, download them from youtube and put the together in Windows Movie Maker before uploading it as one clip. I definitely need to get a capture device.

Portal 2

I've recently had a 5 days Portal 2 marathon. I rented the game from Blockbuster as spur of a moment and had to concentrate on it to try and finish it.

If you have played the original Portal game from Orange Box or Portal arcade game then Portal 2 will not be a novelty for you. If my memory serves me right it looks very similar and the gameplay is more or less the same. Even though I have not played Portal for couple of years, when I started Portal 2 I was a bit disappointed they have not changed it a bit more. But as I started solving the puzzles I realised that there are plenty new types of puzzles so the game started to bewitch me as the original game did.

In total there are two sets of maps, one for single player and the other for co-op game mode.

The single player maps can be played during the story mode or with developer commentary, which is a great touch. Story mode is great. You get brilliant puzzles to solve using all sorts of chamber features (won't give any details as it might spoil it for someone), the story is interesting and Glados is as funny as it was. You can also choose to play the game with developer commentary which is the same as the story mode except you can't save and you get comment bubbles here and there to open the developer's commentary.

Co-op section does not run as a story but you do have to play it sequentially the first time you play. You get one learning chapter and then another 5 chapters with different types of puzzles to solve. The puzzles are absolutely brilliant, simply work of a genius. You can play co-op on split screen or via xbox live. If you play over xbox live you can play with friends or any random dude. You do get a reminder from developers that the game is best played with friends and there is a reason for that. Communicating during puzzle solving is great part of the gameplay. Not just in working out how to get form a to b, but the banter around it is priceless. You can create traps for each other and laugh your head off with comments from Glados and the different ways you can die.

I had to take it back but will definitely buy the game to finish the remaining 2 co-op chapters.

9/10 from me

Gears of War 3 trailer

Probably seen it but in case you haven't here it is:



I was a bit disappointed, I thought they'd show us a bit more story details. We knew Adam Fenix


was going to have a part (from the teaser they showed before). So unless I'm missing something there isn't anything knew on this trailer.

BRINK - 1st impressions

Got Brink yesterday, at last. Played for couple of hours so thought I share my first impressions with you.

Game presentation looks good. Menus and few cut scenes look very nice. You set you character and then choose which side you want to join - rebels or the authority. Won't spoil it and tell you what the difference is but will tell you that the game looks like it is split in two halves. You play it start to finish as a rebel and then again start to finish as authority troop.

Had 3 options to choose from: campaign, challenges and free play I think. I tried campaign and challenges. You get unlocks for completing challenges. There are many things to unlock and they seem to be unlocking very quickly ie finish one mission and you get 6 unlocks.

Campaign can be played on easy, normal or hard. I decided to go for normal as didn't want to get stuck and didn't want to have totally dumb opponents. It turned up AI is mostly very dumb. Most of the time I was struggling to find my way around and working out what I need to do. I failed the second mission because I did not know what to do. I could activate objective (use up in the D pad) and got to it but was in the wrong class because pressing X was not doing it.

In the end I can only echo what many others said. If you have friends to play it with, it can be a good fun. If you end up playing with AI, it is only a weekend fling and back in the shop it should go.