I’ve recently been playing a lot of Skyrim and have fallen in love with the game. So much that the roleplaying side of me has begun to creep out. Weirdly I’ve never felt the urge to write a journal for any of my character’s in any other games before.

This game has made me do it. I’m not all that good at writing fiction though but I try my best, hope you’ll like it.

!WARNING! This is an actual dungeon in the game, if you don’t want to get spoiled don’t read it!

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Elder Scrolls Skyrim - Dakhnar’s Journal

Fredas, 10:46 AM, 9th of Frostfall

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Farkas and I traveled to Markarth and spoke to the Jarl, Igmund. He had an important quest for us. We had to acquire an ancient shield that had been passed down to him by his ancestors.

Apparently it got stolen by witches and they hid it away in a cave known as “Hag’s End”. We accepted Igmun’s request and headed out towards this cave in the wintery wasteland of the north.

When we arrived we noticed that the cave was out of reach, it was located at the top of a mountain. We had no choice but to walk around it to find a pathway. We encountered a few wolves and bandits on the way that weren’t any trouble for us. Farkas knows how to handle that new axe I gave him. I can see a smile on his face everytime he swings with it. He’s enjoying it.

We stumbled upon some ruins on our way to “Hag’s End”. Battling through some bandits we thought we’d take a look inside to see if we could find any treasures. I mean Igmund’s shield isn’t going anywhere.

These ruins looked stunning and very ancient. Tree roots spreading across the ceiling, torches and various writings and figures carved into the walls.

Apparently we encountered bandits whom were pillaging these ruins and the Draugr weren’t happy about that, they weren’t happy to see me and Farkas either. After a bit of hacking and slashing we found ourselves in a room that looked similar to a dining room.

Wooden tables and chairs, broken pots scattered across the floor. Corpses of foul oder and fresh blood from the bandits, they must have had an encounter here.

Moving along we stumbled upon a different room with ancient statues and altars. In each corner there was a stone altar with a lever which could be pulled out and below it was a stone carved face with an image of an animal at its mouth region. 

In the middle of the room were four black coffins and stone figurines holding five unlit torches. Each torch pointing towards each corner of the room. We couldn’t go any further because the path was blocked by iron bars. In front of the iron bars was a pedestal with an old book on it. I carefully opened it and read:

“All four are bound to the same land as we. Some lay low, consumed in shadow, Others stand tall, stretching their necks to see. While none live in this sacred barrow, They all demand your attention if you are to proceed.”

Second page:

“The first fears all, The second fears none. The third eats what it can, preferably number one. The fourth fears the second, but only when alone. All must be activated in order, if you wish to go home.”

Farkas asked me about the book:

- “You understand anything about this? Seems all blurry to me.”

Farkas wasn’t the smartest of people.

- “Well, I’m no mage but I can clearly tell that this is some sort of puzzle or perhaps a trap. We’ll just have to figure it out.”

I patrolled back and forth observing the room, carefully examining the stone carved animal forms. There was an image of a fox, snake, wolf and bear. I started talking out loud:

- “We have a fox, snake, wolf and bear to work with. And the book’s first phrase stated, The first fears all.”

- “So that’s have to be the fox, right?”

I looked at Farkas and he just nodded silently.

- “Let’s give that a try.” 

I went towards the altar of the stone carved fox and pulled the lever. One of the coffin doors opened and fell, out came a Draugr, charging us with its greatsword.

Farkas quickly unsheathed his axe and cleaved through the Draugr’s armor, its bones scattered.

- “Hey! Be more careful will you?”

- “Sorry, dear. Hmm, so if it isn’t the fox that fears all then it must be the snake?”

It’s got to be the snake, I mean I doubt the bear or wolf fears all. I walked towards the snake altar and pulled the lever. The torch facing the snake altar lit up. I smiled and looked at Farkas:

- “Good work, love.”

- “Next up is, The second fears none. Well, that’s easy, the bear of course.”

I went and pulled the lever at the bear altar and another torch lit up.

- “The third eats what it can, preferably number one.”

I pulled the lever by the fox altar and the last one by the wolf altar. All torches are now lit and the iron bars lowered. Farkas approached me and gave me a hug.

- “You’re so smart, I could never have figured that out.”

We went through the corridor and a spiral staircase went down below facing an iron door. We went through several similar rooms from before, encountering a few Draugr but no bandits, I guess they didn’t make it this far. Sounds of metal clinging echoed throughout the ruins. 

We had reached the final room, in front of us was a coffin and a throne, nordic writing and carved figures on the walls behind, torches lighting the place up. An ornate ivory treasure chest beside the throne.

- “I smell more Draugr.”

- “Yeah, be on guard.”

As we slowly sneaked towards the throne, a crackling sound could be heard and the lid of the coffin flew open and a terrifying Draugr rised. His eyes were glowing in blue, fully armored in steel and holding an elven greatsword.

- “Careful Farkas, this one isn’t like the others.”

The Draugr Death Lord charged against me with speed I’ve never seen before. He knocked me down and was about to stab me in the chest. Farkas rushed at the Death Lord and cleaved through its chest but was not entirely effective. A few pieces of metal fell off but the armor was still whole. The Death Lord had an angry expression, unfocusing me and screamed towards Farkas:

- “Dolak Naak FUZ!”

A cold stream of frost came out of the Death Lord’s mouth and Farkas tried to withstand it but fell to his knees, shivering.

- “Ack.. ghnn..”

- “FARKAS!”

While the Death Lord kept spewing out frost I took a chance and chanted a Turn Undead spell. It took a while to channel since I’m not fully trained in Restoration.

- “Taasnah Draugr!”

Glowing rays of light shot out of my hand and flew into the Death Lord’s glowing eyes forcing it to its knees, rendering it stunned for a short period.

I hauled myself towards Farkas. The frost really got to him, his skin was turning pale blue and his breathing was heavy. I stripped a fur pelt off the wall and placed it gently onto his shoulders, clutching my arms around him.

- “Farkas, I’m here.”

- “…”

I unbuckled Farkas’ chest plate and lowered my hand onto his hairy chest. A yellow:ish sphere of gleaming light lit up the room and energy was flowing back into him. His skin turned back to its neutral color and his eyes slowly opened.

- “Dakhnar..”

I tilted my head forward and gave Farkas a kiss. Whispering:

- “Now get up and slice this Draugr bastard to oblivion.”

Farkas stood up, held his axe high and clenched his fists. The Death Lord awakened from its stunned state and saw Farkas rushing forward, screaming.

- “RRAAAAAAAAAH!”

The axe hit the tip of the Death Lord’s head and cleaved through its skull and armor, shattering it to the ground. Farkas dropped his axe and kneeled.

- “Nice work, darling.”

- “Couldn’t have done it without you.”

There are quite a few Diablo clones out there, but none of them were as addicting as Diablo was back in the days. Except for this game called Darkspore, a futuristic hack and slash game with a touch of DotA. I wasn’t expecting much but I hoped that it wouldn’t be a sleeper like Titan Quest and thankfully, it wasn’t and it hooked me in from the very beginning!

We all remember Spore, the way it got hyped, the way it got spoken highly of. But in the end didn’t really reach the top of the bar. It was decent but not enough to hold the attention for long. The customization though was its key. I mean if I knew the game would’ve been mediocre I would just have stayed with their creature creator, that’s where I had most fun, creating the most bizarre creatures.

Anyway, three years later we have Darkspore, the opposite of Spore. The darkside of Spore. I heard people called it EmoSpore for some reason. Maxis decided to turn the cute and cuddly creatures into massive terrifying beasts whom glow in the dark. Hacking and slashing away through different types of worlds, icy ridges, deserts, infected forests, crystal ravinges etc.

The story isn’t deep, but hack and slash games never really have great stories, even Diablo doesn’t have a great story, if you think about it. What you’re fighting against is called Darkspore, they are creatures that once were good but got experimented on by a Crogenitor or a scientist as we would call them. The Crogenitor called Xylan discovery a special acid which bonds with creatures DNA, calling it E-DNA, turning them into genetic nightmares. As the other Crogenitors discovered Xylan’s plan they exiled him. Xylan believed that he could control the Darkspore so he injected himself with E-DNA and became a corruptor, the master of all Darkspore.

I will not spoil the rest because you’ll discover more of the story while you play through the game’s six chapters. It is quite interesting and the art style is well done. After completing the storyline you’ll be able to continue the same path but with a harder difficulty. Overall you’ll have eighteen chapters to go through.

The gameplay has good variation, is addicting and fun! You unlock different hero types as you gain levels, there are so far one hundred heroes to unlock. Heroes are based on five elemental types, plasma, quantum, cyber, necro and bio. Each hero has five skills, three active ones, one auto-attack and one passive. Heroes are placed in squads, three in each and can be switch whenever you please.

Once you’ve gained a level you can unlock a new hero and be able to customize it in the editor, similar to Spore’s creature creator. As you battle the Darkspore you’ll obtain loot in which you can equip on your heroes, changing their appearance to your liking. You can also add detailed items to customize them even more.

Loot farming is a big part of this game. Each map you complete you’ll get a choice, to continue to the next map and risk yourself for even better loot or to collect the loot for the current map. You can chain together maps to get better loot, each map will grant you one epic loot reward, chain together five and you’ll get five epic loot rewards. Fail though, you’ll end up with nothing. The choice is yours!

Darkspore also features online cooperative, team up with three other crogenitors and achieve even better challenges, loot and experience!

Darkspore Gameplay

A first-person zombie horror action roleplaying game made by a company called Techland, published by Deep Silver.

For a short and simple description, Borderlands + Oblivion + Dead Rising = Dead Island. Which is a fairly awesome combo!

Sadly, this game had a rough start, it first got released in the US on September 6th, while EU got the title on September 9th 2011. Techland made a little mistake when releasing the game on Steam for the US customers, instead of getting a polished release version of the game, they got a debug development version. That means that the game had some major bugs and development tools left in it. This didn’t get fixed until the day after and most of the US customers were pretty disappointed. Dead Island received dreadful reviews because of this. But since Techland responded quite quickly to the mess up and apologized a handful, the game is now running smoothly and the reviews got cranked up a notch.

Ever since I saw that really dramatic emotional trailer they released I’ve been pretty excited about this game. So far the game has been really neat and has brought a few new features to the table. It’s an action roleplaying hack and slash with a few horror aspects but nothing that shouts extreme emotional horror, like the trailer. The main goal of the game is to survive, find loot, gain more experience and help others survive by completing their quests, there’s also a mysterious man somewhere on the island cooking up some sort of plan. The storyline is decent, nothing to get your hopes up for though.

You’ll be playing through four different acts. All acts have a unique environment with a lot of detail put into it. Techland really did a great job with the scenery, I don’t know how many screenshots I’ve taken just on the scenery itself. Whenever I stumble upon a place that looks absolutely gorgeous, I just have to stop for a few seconds and observe.

The combat is where this game starts to shine, whacking zombies in the head, arms, legs or any other body part of your choosing is deeply satisfying! You can crush their limbs with different types of blunt weapons, clubs, paddles, hammers, wrenches etc. Or you can just cut an arm off with the more sharper weapons, knives, katanas, machetes etc. Techland has gone deep and done so much detail to the combat animations. When you slash an arm you actually see the skin ripped off, bones poking out with blood pouring all over, if you bash at an arm a couple of times it might break and wiggle around, rendering it useless. Break both arms and the zombies actually use their heads to try and attack. HEAD-BUTT!

The first-person animations are also very well done, it’s realistic and you actually feel every swing you make, giving a lot of depth to the combat. The third-person animations on the other hand are horrible, which is a shame because I was hoping someone might make a third-person mod. That’s really sloppy work. So beware of your own shadow, it’ll make you facepalm.

The skill system works well, you have three talent trees to choose from, Borderlands style. Fury, Combat and Survival. The Fury tree gives you a devistating attack that will literally instakill everything you encounter, Logan throws knives while Purna shoots with her revolver. The Combat tree is based on the variety of weapons you’ll be using throughout the game. The Survival tree gives you passive support, like picking locks or increasing loot gain. The talent trees have different skills depending on the person you’re playing. Logan is more focused on throwing weapons while Sam B is more of a two-hander.

The crafting system adds a nice touch to the combat. There’s a wide variety of mods to find adding special effects to your weapons, electricity, poison, force etc. When you get that kick-ass unique weapon you’ve been adventuring for slap on a pair of batteries, use some duct tape to make them stick and wire them up for some shockingly amount of damage! Hmm, do I smell fried flesh? I think I do!

I think I’ve covered most of what I think makes Dead Island an awesome game! If you’re a fan of RPGs, zombies, survival and gore, then you’ll feel right at home with Dead Island!

Videos! (No spoilers)

Dead Island - Act 1 Gameplay

Dead Island - Act 2 Gameplay

Dead Island - Act 3 Gameplay

Now that Minecraft 1.8 is released there are new world seeds to explore! The earlier seeds won’t be the same since the biomes got changed in 1.8. I’ll be posting some screenshots of the most interesting worlds I find. I usually take 5-10 minutes flying around trying to be as close to spawn as I can.

Seed “youaresillytome”

Seed “half-life2”

Seed “Assassin’sCreed”

This isn’t exactly a game it’s a mod for the game DooM. This mod was created by a small group of folks, four people to be exact. It’s been under development for four years and is still being supported today. AEoD version 5 got released April 4th 2010. After that there’s been a few updates with bug fixes. From what I’ve read they’re working on a version 6. No release date has been announced.

To be able to play this mod you will need to own DooM and DooM2, or download some custom made WADs. AEoD is pretty much compatible with 90% of the WADs out there. You will also need an emulator called GZDoom.

For those who don’t know what a “WAD” is, it’s a package containing sprites, music and all sorts of data for games such as DooM or Heretic. WAD stands for “Where’s all the Data?” and no, I’m not kidding. WAD is the way we mod and customize the games. The DooM community has done a great deal of modding and customization over the years. Creating their own scripts, maps and weapons. The community is so strong that even today people are still modding for it. It’s awesome how strong a community can be!

Anywho, to get back on track. Aeons of Death contains a lot of goodies and content that will make you want to play more and more. First off since it’s compatible with almost all the custom made WADs, DooM and DooM2 you will have an endless amount of maps to play on. Second, the game randomizes out items, weapons, monsters and character classes. So each time you play you’ll have a whole different experience. Aeons of Death will make you feel like you’ve stepped back in time. Retroness to the max!

There are six groups of classes, three different characters in each. Each group has a unique interface as well as different starting weapons and stats.

Now, this is the fun part, when it comes to items, monsters and weapons. The mod team has taken content from all the good old shooter games, put them inside a blender, mixed them up and poured them into Aeons of Death. That’s right, you’ll encounter all those awesome retro monsters, weapons and even some heroes. Like Caleb from Blood, or the Duke from Duke Nukem 3D. There’s also a bunch of custom weapons, like the Sub-machine Gun from Blood 2 and the Dark Matter Gun from Quake 4.

Here’s the whole list of games they’ve used:

DooM, DooM2, DooM3, Heretic, Hexen, Hexen2, Strife, Quake, Quake2, Quake4, Diablo, Diablo2, Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, Blood2, Half-life, Half-life 2, American McGee’s Alice, Redneck Rampage, Rise of the Triad, Shadow Warrior, Witchhaven.

If you haven’t tried this mod I recommend that you do, you’ll have a retro blast! Hearing the screaming of the Cultists from Blood or freezing the monsters and smashing them with your Hexen axe!

Good old times!

GZDoom

Aeons of Death

Doom Wad Station

Aeons of Death Gameplay

So the question is, how to describe this game? One thing I can say, it has a huge amount of eye candy. This game is definitely not everyone’s cup of tea. I certainly like it, or rather love it. But that’s just because I’m such a Sci-fi geek. I love watching the stars in the sky, wondering what’s up there.

Anyway, it’s an indie shooter game based on music. You fly around in first-person view, watching all these stars bouncing to the rhythm of your music. There are also these Pac-man looking enemies called “Nomnoms”. They’ll try and destroy you every chance they get and you will die quite a lot on the harder difficulties. Dying doesn’t matter much though, unless you want a high score. If you don’t feel like fighting and just want to fly around, you can do that.

The customization is the best part of this game, everything is customizable and some of it is pretty complex. So if you’re a math genius, you’ll probably have a blast. You can customize how the stars animate, if the colors should be brighter, darker or saturated, you can even customize the shape of the world and so on.

To be honest, the best way to explain this game is by showing you a video. I hope you’ll enjoy it!

The Polynomial Gameplay

Ah, Hellgate. This game has been my favorite ever since it got released in 2007. But due to poor management by Flagship Studios the game closed in 2009. I still believe that if they went free-to-play with a Premium Shop the game would have survived. I mean if we look at the market today, almost all MMORPGs are successful when going free-to-play. Even World of Warcraft went partly free-to-play which is a surprise.

Anyway, Hellgate got revived and is now managed by a company called Hanbitsoft, publisher is called T3. They’re doing a pretty good job so far. When Hellgate entered into Open Beta there were a bunch of problems with latency and disconnections but after about a week or so all of that was fixed. Now it’s running smoother than ever.

So what is new in this version of Hellgate?

Well, first things first. The game is free until Act 2, after that you will need to purchase Tcoins from T3’s homepage and buy an Act 3 Ticket in the in-game Premium Shop. Having a copy of the original Hellgate is not gonna help you in this case. But the ticket isn’t expensive, it’s 4000 Tcoins which is 5$. Definitely worth it for all the content you get!

The game is pretty much the same except that Elite Mode is now gone and replaced with Nightmare mode. When entering Nightmare Mode monsters will be stronger, more rare and epic types will appear and give you better loot and experience. There is also an Auction House and a Player versus Player Arena. The Storyline has gotten a little re-vamp but it’s mostly the same. For those that remember old Hellgate, they had areas which were pay-to-play only. Stonehenge and the Abyss Chronicles. Those are now fully free to access if you have the Act 3 Ticket.

Hanbitsoft made an expansion for Hellgate called Hellgate Tokyo. Which only is released in korea right now.

Here are some screenshots from Hellgate Tokyo.

If you’ve never heard of Hellgate I can really recommend you trying it out! It’s an underrated title that should have gotten more praise than it did.

Hellgate Global

Gameplay Video

Hellgate Tokyo Video

There aren’t a lot of these futuristic action RPGs out there, which is a shame. So give it a shot while it’s still here and enjoy!

I’ve never been a huge fan of blogs but, I’ve decided that I want one anyway. Besides tumblr seems like a really cool place to hang. =)

Anywho, my whole reason for creating this page is because I’d love to post all about my MMORPG experiences and give short reviews. Not only that though but that will be my main focus.

I hope people will look forward to it. ^^