Words with Friends - Keir

I played Keir down on the TW & Becky played Keir across on the TW

Keir - [keer] - noun - kier

Kier
a large vat in which fibres, yarns, or fabrics are boiled, bleached, or dyed.

Carcassonne - New highest score

Previous highest was 160 points
I welcomed Orrah to the game of Carcassonne by setting my new highest score of 181

Enslaved Odyssey to the West - It's GREEN !!

Wow !! how beautiful are the visuals in this game.

Blue Skies, lots of green, the earth has reclaimed the land after an apocalypse.

The first level "The Escape" is a nice tutorial to the game & let's you take control of Monkey. Who is imprisoned on a slavers spaceship, after an accident you manage to get loose & make your way to an escape pod.

When you awake you see Trip has installed a slave headband on your head & has you under her control. She wants you to take her back home. You reluctantly agree and thus begins your quest. You can use your staff to inflict damage on robots with light & heavy damage. You can also deflect a small amount of gun fire with your shield.

You need to keep an eye on Trip though because if she dies so do you. You don't get to control her but you can use her through various commands. For example to ask her to heal you or act as a decoy.

Reclaim the Earth

The voice-acting is very good & the story line is a re-telling of the classic Chinese story Journey to the West.

There are collectables along the way in orbs & masks, some of these are obviously well hidden or in hard to reach places.


I have completed chapter 2 & 3 and have only managed to find 90% & 94% of the orbs.

These orbs give you credits, so you can upgrade your abilities, I have purchased a health re-gen ability which will obviously heal my health over time.

At the end of chapters you have a boss fight (not sure if this is on all chapters but certainly on 2 & 3). Similar to Batman Arkham Asylum with these boss fights you need to figure out what attack works & how to inflict damage on the enemy.

So far so good ...

Borderlands - Mad Moxxi - Completed

I am finding it difficult to write anything good about this DLC, change that, I am finding it impossible to write anything good about this DLC.

The last 3 arena's have 20 Waves of 5 Stages each which you have to do in one sitting .. Aargh !!

Oh yes I found something good !!

I've completed it !!
Thank f*@k for that !!

Battlefield Bad Company 2 - Completed

I have had this game in my collection for a very long time, occasionally playing on-line multi-player games with UGVM. I always preferred to play the Medic class because I am rubbish at trying to shoot the enemies. With the Medic class I could be a useful player to the squad in reviving fallen comrades & dropping health packs, whilst also trying to get the odd kill without dying.

GuntherGloop (UGVM) eats, sleeps & drinks this game & his level of enthusiasm for the multi-player in particular is amazing or he's been brainwashed.

Anyhow this post is about the single player campaign, I have not played an FPS game since Halo Reach (I'm excluding Borderlands) so it was long overdue.

You start off watching some FMV of your team landing on a Japanese island to meet up with a scientist who claims to have some info on a super weapon. The game starts you off slowly letting you know how to perform each action required from running to shooting.  You then make your way to meet up with the scientist after which your escape path is blocked, You decide to attack a nearby submarine station to take control of a vessel to leave the island. Whilst you are leaving the super weapon is fired & the submarine destroyed.

This brief history lesson set's you up for the main storyline which is about the super weapon. You are now back in the present & cold Russia is your setting. Each level in the game offers you a new experience from driving vehicles to being a sniper & even surviving a harsh winter. It is a short campaign but one that I enjoyed very much with Heavy Metal being my favourite because you get to drive a TANK !!

Vandal Hearts - Flames of Judgement - Completed

The character to your left is Tobias, this is the main character in the game. Call him your character but you can't rename him. His name is Tobias and it is set.

Now press start & load the game, press new game & load the game ... now wait for the intro to load ... ok now wait while I LOAD you some more of the story....So now you know the start of the story. Happy?

Good, now let me LOAD you the first training map .. AAARGH !!! Yes you can scream because for an XBLA game this game has more loading than a Acorn Electron tape game "Load Game"


When I first read the news that a new Vandal Hearts game was going to be released, I was very excited because having played the first two games on the Playstation I knew this would be a good turn-based strategy rpg. I almost never buy any XBLA games for 1200 points, I always wait for them to drop to 800 or lower in a weekly sale. But with Flames of Judegement I made an exception and purchased it a few weeks after release.

The game itself is your usual strategy RPG with melee, range & magic attack options. The usual treasure chests are on the maps for you to unlock. Along the way you can find secret maps which unlock battle maps for you to find rare items and level up your characters. If you love your strategy games it is all very familiar and enjoyable until you get to the last boss.


Here Konami decide to give you a challenge. I got truly annihilated and turned off the game in disgust.

It was not till a year later when my youngest son started to play the game I thought let's go back and tackle that last boss fight again. Eventually I managed it after careful planning & deduction of the elements involved.

I have written another post on a strategy for the final boss beware it is full of spoilers

There are two endings to the game but for the moment I am happy to leave this game completed with the one ending. It is an enjoyable turn-based strategy rpg but offers nothing new in terms of game-play it is the tried & tested formula which works nicely but I long for some innovation.

Borderlands - Oil cans, Pizza Slices & Claptrap Bobbleheads

Oil cans, Pizza slices & Claptrap Bobbleheads
Claptrap's New Robot Revolution DLC

The Lubricator, Bobble-Trap & What a party! achievements are 3 of the most annoying in the Borderlands game mainly because they hardly ever drop for you to collect.

Obviously you can only get these by killing claptraps.

There are 3 locations where you have a chance of getting these drops.

1. Dividing Faults, you need to go to the Hyperion Claptrap factory, this is a good location because there is a huge number of claptraps for you to kill.

2. Hyperion Dump, make your way to the small fort & claptraps will spawn from the nearby pipes.

3. Farming MiNAC - This is the best location because it requires you to do very little. After the MiNAC intro run to the top right corner of the map & you will find a small shack. Just hide yourself in this shack & let the MiNAC spawn exploding claptraps. When they explode they will drop loot.

I used a wired controller for this because the wireless controller goes into sleep mode if not used. Camped myself in this shack for a few hours whilst I watched some missed episodes of Torchwood. Came back 4 hours later to kill off the MiNAC & collect the ridiculous number of loot that had been dropped.

Not the best method I admit for enjoyment & power consumption but I blame gearbox for having these lazy achievements in the game & my OCD for completing the game.

Space Miner - Completed

It is a simple concept, you are a spaceship shooting asteroids which leave behind precious metal for you to collect. You then sell this metal giving you money to upgrade your ship and advance further into space.

Along the way you meat many characters who give you specific missions to complete which reward you with rare weapons or alien technology.

It is an simple experience giving you between 5 to 7 hours of gameplay. Control is via the on-screen joystick with buttons on the right to fire your weapons & control your speed.

The last boss is slightly difficult & had me stuck for a while but once I had figured out a strategy was easy enough to take down.

There is a new game+ option which I understand make the game more difficult but I did not tackle that because I was already onto playing my next iOS game Guardian Saga

'Meeple' Carcassonne Tournament - Round 1 inc Results

Welcome to Round 1 of the 'Meeple' tournament, 21 players will be split into 7 leagues of 3 players each & you play 3 matches. 2 x 1 vs 1 matches & 1 x 3 player match.

The first player in the league will start off the 3 player match & then you can start the 1 vs 1 match against the other players in your league. If you can announce at the start of the game that it is a tournament game please

When the matches are completed contact me via email or twitter to let me know the result.
You will be awarded 2 points for a win & in the 3 player match you will get 1 point for finishing 2nd.

The top player in the league will go through to the next round.

League tables below, good luck !!

You can add the players below to your gamecenter friends to start your matches

League 1
FPEX
Synozeer (5 points)
kevlarx (4 Points)

Results
Synozeer (110) vs kevlarx (60) - Synozeer win
Synozeer (85) vs FPEX (65) - Synozeer win
kevlarx (117) vs FPE (75) - kevlarx win
3 Player Result - KevlarX 73, Synozeer 60 & FPEX 51- kevlarx win

Congrats to Synozeer on being the first player to qualify for Round 2
Very impressed at how quickly you guys have managed to play your games & unlucky kevlarx you were close.

League 2
phorce (6 points)
gospvg (2 points)
chimpz (1 Point)

Results
gospvg (109) vs chimpz (103)
phorce (113) vs gospvg (107)
phorce (67), chimpz (63) & gospvg (57)
phorce (111) vs Chimpz (92)

phorce goes through to the next round


League 3
jochta (2 Points)
Altashheth (4 Points)
MightyMiniMan

Results
Jochta (140) vs mightyminiman (60)
Jochta (63) vs Altashheth (115)
Jochta (104), Altashheth (81) & mightyminiman (64)

Altashheth through to the next round


League 4
boxoctosis (3 Points)
monstermohsin
Bensm (6 Points)

Results
Bensm - 110 vs monstermoshin - 86
Boxoctosis - 96  vs Bensm -101
Boxoctosis 124 vs monstermohsin 61
3 Player match - Bensm (96), Boxoctosis (68) & monstermohsin (63)

Bensm is through to the next round

League 5
Bushtopher (6 Points)
bluewomble88 (3 Points)
actionabbas

Results
Bushtoper: 125 points vs bluewomble88: 60 points
Bushtopher (141) vs actionabbas (120)
Bushtopher (96), Bluewomble88 (59) & actionabbas (53)
bluewomble88 (110) vs actionabbas (95)

Bushtopher goes through to the next round

League 6
satsuma (3 Points)
Chunty (2 Points)
Lufferov (4 Points)

Results
Chunty (112) vs Lufferov (107)
satsuma (70) vs Lufferov (113)
Satsuma 119 - Chunty 101
Lufferov (94), Satsuma (60) & Chunty (59)

Lufferov goes through to the 2nd round

League 7
HaggisHunter
Fluffmyster (4 Points)
kerumba (5 Points)

Results
Haggishunter (99) vs Fluffmyster (132)
Fluffmyster (84), Kerumba (83) & HaggisHunter (61)
Kerumba (137) vs Haggishunter (89)

Fluffmyster 69 vs kerumba 91

kerumba through to the next round

League 8
inspector42 (3 Points)
VeganTnT (4 Points)
Diligence (1 Point)

Results
Inspector42 - (121) vs Diligence - (100)
Inspector42 - (107)  vs VeganTnT (113)
Inspector42 - (68), VeganTnT (78) & Diligence (50)
VeganTnT (50) vs Diligence (115)

VeganTnT goes through to the next round

New Logo - Battlefield Bad Company 2

Old Logo - Sam Fisher getting ready for action

Time for another logo change, having completed Battlefield Bad Company 2 (completed post coming soon) & enjoyed it. I felt it deserved to have a logo on my blog, albiet for a few weeks until Batman Arkham City arrives.

New Logo - Prepare for battle

Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot - Easier less annoying strategy

Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot

Such an annoying DLC, it took us 3.5 hours to complete the stage 4 arena. I have been trying a new tactic to complete the stage 5 & 6 arena & can now confirm it works.

I created a new character and started a split screen game with my son playing co-op with his LVL 64 character. The new character doe not unlock fast travel but my son does with his character so we warped to Mad Moxxi.

I can then select the first quest on the small arena's & all the enemies were lvl4 touch for my new character but a walk in the park for my sons lvl64 character. After completing the first 3 arena's & turning in for the quest my character jumped to a lvl6 with the experience points gained. We then went onto Stage 4, the enemies were now a lvl 12, again too tough for me but very easy for my son.

I will be using this tactic for the UGVM weekly PMG to finish off stage 5 & 6. With 3 high levelled characters it stage 5 should hopefully take us a lot quicker than 3.5 hours we wasted on stage 4.

Update
Stage 5 took us just over 2 hours to complete.

Borderlands 2 - Leaked 14 Min Gameplay

Torchlight - Completed

After completing the single player campaign of Splinter Cell Conviction (I still have to return to playing the co-op missions) I decided to take a look at the many XBLA games I have not played & Torchlight stood out. If you have ever played any of the Diablo games you know what I mean my the term ‘dungeon crawler’ but for those of you that don’t, a ‘dungeon crawler’ is a type of game which is set in various random dungeons or levels & is filled with enemies & loot. Once you have crawled the dungeon or level you can either return to sell your loot or advance further.

Torchlight gives you various quests & scrolls/maps to disguise the simple gameplay it offers. It was not a game I truly enjoyed playing but I still continued to plod along through the levels completing various quests for killing a particular enemy or collecting a rare gem. Along your grind you are accompanied by a pet who can perform many functions including returning to town to sell your loot. You can during the game specialise your character in a particular skill be it melee, magic or long range attack. I decided to equip my character with a single handed sword for close combat & gun for long range attacks.

The main quest is your usual evil being trying to be resurrected to take over the world. Surprisingly he was dealt with swiftly with my sword & gun combo attack.  The game offers you nothing new & if I am brutally honest I should stop buying XBLA games when they are on sale because Torchlight is the type of game that I have already forgotten about, it leaves no lasting impression.

Conscience of the upcoming release of Batman Arkham City I decided to delete my 1 hour save of Deus Ex Human Revolution (I will either rush play the game or I will not finish it before Batman is released) I instead decided to return to playing a ‘classic shooter’ in Battlefield Bad Company 2.