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The Raven Review

Over this past weekend I finished an arcade game called the Raven. The game is an episodic game, and I only knew of it because it was one of the free Games with Gold a few months ago for the Xbox 360. I didn’t realize I only had downloaded the first episode of the game and that that was the only free episode, but I jumped in after having finished Halo 5 and the Walking Dead Game Season 3 on Xbox One.

The Raven is a game where you play as a Constable for the Swiss police. You are investigating the robbery of a valuable diamond and use picked up items and interactions with other NPCs to advance through the story. Plot twists and surprises follow you as you travel from Europe to Africa. There is limited exploration and optional digging into the other characters’ stories, and each episode has you playing in a different location. 

I’ll start with the positives. The story was somewhat engaging, and the surprises were quite well done and thought out. Combining picked up items and using them to help you in your investigation was a rewarding mechanic, something I haven’t seen much of recently in video games.

There were some issues I had with this game as well. The rendering of the characters sometimes bugged out, resulting in characters talking to me with giant mouths. The game glitched out in certain areas as well, forcing me to restart the game to be able to progress past a certain “puzzle” or area. Finally, though the first episode was free, episode 2 and 3 were each $9.99! 20 dollars for two episodes of a game made in 2013 seemed steep to me, but I paid it knowing some of that value would be added by being able to get the first episode for free. There would have been no chance I would have paid 30 dollars to play this game. Overall I’d give it a 7 out of 10, keeping in mind it is an arcade game and shouldn’t be held to the same ranking level as full fledged mainstream titles.

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Halo 5: Guardians Review

I finished Halo 5 over the weekend. After the binge of Halo: Master Chief Collection I figured after a short break with Fable 2 and The Walking Dead Season 3 that I could give this a go. The game takes you through the story of Osiris and Blue team, two squads of four with differing goals at the start that converged to a common enemy at the end. The game was solid, but definitely a step down from the previous iterations of Halo.

The game starts you off playing as Locke with a squad of 3 others. I recognized Buck as Nathan Fillion from television fame as well as from Halo 3:ODST, but the two female squad mates were unknown to me. Part of my issue with the game was my unfamiliarity with the squad mates for Blue team. I didn’t really care too much about them. Funny one liners if you skipped getting in dropped vehicles were enjoyable, though.

Master Chief was the protagonist in chapter 2 along with 3 squad members I recognized from reading some of the books in the universe. My memory of them had been that they were locked in a prison world thing along with Dr. Halsey, but they somehow got out and were with John for this. I liked his missions, but the lack of Cortana was definitely noticeable. They tried to fill the void with comments from your squad, but it was a noticeable difference. 

The squad mechanics were cool, and being able to be revived by teammates was a nice change of pace compared to the death respawn I was accustomed to in this series. The story was choppy and felt shorter than it actually was because of the split protagonists. There will likely be a Halo 6 in the next year or two, so I’ll look forward to the continuation of this story then.

Multiplayer was a lot different than the previous titles. The differences between Halo 4 and the previous 2 were still there along with more pronounced differences like “dash” and ground pound. The weapons are cool, and the game modes like Warzone and Breakout were fun to try. I am a little out of touch with my Halo multiplayer skills, but still was able to win some games and get as many multiplayer achievements as possible.

Overall the game was OK, but in the Halo universe a major disappointment. I’d give it an 8 out of 10, but that might be biased from my halo fandom.

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Camp Life section 2

Sunday was a relaxed day in Maine. I slept very late, past 10, and groggily made my way to the shower. Cassie and I had plans to go to North Conway for some fun anniversary activities. We hung out for a little while and headed out at about 12. 

Our first stop was Applebees, a place we go to each year while up at camp. We weren’t particularly hungry, so we got some drinks and split an appetizer combination of Mozzarella Sticks, Buffalo Wings, Chips and Salsa, Spinach Dip, and Quesadillas. We originally were going to just get Quesadillas, Sticks, and Wings, but our server told us we could get the extra things at no additional cost because of a combination they had that we had missed. We ate it and enjoyed it! The Spinach dip was actually pretty good considering I don’t like Spinach!

We left and headed to Pirates Cove for a round of 18! I had two coins that I managed to get playing with Jim and his friends before the wedding. We golfed and I convinced Cassie to take a bet with me. She wasn’t having it until I offered 2 minutes per stroke if she won but 1 minute per stroke if I won for a massage. She took the bet, and we were battling! I crushed the course, getting 4 (!) holes in one to her 0 and beat her by 7. No more bets, she kept saying as the game reached its conclusion. I’m sure I’ll have to offer more lopsided bets going forward to get her to keep playing!

On our way back we stopped at a store that was going out of business that Cassie wanted to check out. We looked at ski helmets, none of which fit me, and she ended up buying some yoga pants that she liked. We got ice cream at Friendlys and returned to Lake Kezar shortly there after.

On our way back, we almost ran over a turtle. Cassie was driving, but stopped in time and directed the turtle off the road. The rest of the day I helped Bill fix the water system they had to make it taste better and smell better with a filtration unit. It took a lot longer to finish than we thought it would, and by the time we were done dinner was ready. We had spaghetti with sausage and meat sauce along with garlic bread and salad. It was delicious! The rest of the night was spent teaching Faith and Artem how to play Sushi Go, playing Spoons, sitting by the fire, and hanging out with Leah’s 1 year old baby Anastasia.

Monday morning we packed up and left. Traffic was long, and we didn’t get back to our apartment until 5 after having picked up the cat. The trip overall was a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed spending time with Cassie. Next time I won’t forget to get a library book well ahead of time so I won’t die of boredom during the down time!

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Memorial Day Camp Life  Part 4?

Last weekend I once again returned to the camp on Lake Kezar my girlfriend’s family collectively own. Way up north in Fryberg, I set off immediately after work on Friday after having picked Cassie up at the nearby train station in Waltham.

I have been to that camp a few times, both on Memorial Day weekend and closing weekend, usually around Columbus Day in October. I enjoy the visits up there, but hadn’t ever been there for the full 3 days before. I was told I would be bored at times with no form of entertainment, and man was that accurate. Before we left, I tried to get a book from the Natick library that I could read while there, but all FIVE of the books I was interested in reading were not available. I brought a magazine and an empty notebook and hoped for the best.

We arrived Friday night at about 10:00 or so. Each previous time I’d been there because I was officially dating Cassie we got one of the four available bedrooms. Not this time though. Her uncle Rob and cousin (?) Scott took rooms for themselves and we were left upstairs in Pinewald with Faith, Leah, and Artem, cousins of Cassie that I had met previously. The upstairs in Pinewald is essentially a large open area with as many beds as possible (5) kept there.

We hung out with those who had already arrived for a while, and eventually went to bed at around 11:30 or so. Saturday I overslept and didn’t get up until well after Cassie did. I believe it was 9:15. I ate a fairly quick breakfast of Reeses Puffs (childhood favorite) and jumped outside to see how I could help open the camp.

I ended up working primarily with two of Cassie’s Aunts, Ria and Elaine. Elaine likes me a lot I think, more so than any of Cassie’s other Aunts. After we finished raking and moving leaves around, we all assisted in getting the dock in the lake and broke for lunch. Lunch was OK, we had sandwiches without lettuce and potato salad. 

We were done with lawn work at that point, so Cassie and I relaxed for a while. I read my magazine, a Game Informer going over the top 100 RPGs of all time, and then worked out how my budget was going to look over the next year and a half. Cassie and I talked about getting a desktop later this year as well as the Xbox Scorpio and a new TV. We no longer will need to buy a camera for our trip to Greece, since she convinced Andy, her uncle, to allow her to borrow one of their many cameras for the trip.

The rest of my afternoon was spent shooting pellets at different targets and zapping mosquitoes with a zapper while talking with different family members. For dinner we had BBQ chicken, coleslaw, and bread. Dessert was where it was at, though, as we had angel food cake along with strawberries and whipped cream. Delicious. The rest of the night was spent hanging out around the fire and going to sleep a little earlier than the night before.

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Tournament Report Part 2

After losing back to back rounds, I was a little disheartened about my tournament outlook. My games against the Zombies player were close, so I wasn’t too unhappy or disappointed in myself. Round 5 saw me paired against an older gentleman from Alberta who was also on Temur Marvel. We played three close games, but I ended up losing the final game after getting Marvel in play, activating for an Ulamog, attacking with Ulamog exiling 3 of his Ulamogs, him playing Marvel, activating, hitting his final Ulamog and getting my Marvel and Ulamog. I didn’t draw anything relevant after that and died. I felt like I should have won that game or the match, but things didn’t break my way and after starting 2-0 with a bye my back was to the wall at 2-3.

Steve and Ross were both doing fairly well at that point in the tournament. Ross was 3 and 2 and Steve was 4 and 1. Round 6 saw me paired against someone on Green Black Energy. Game 1 was a close game with a lot of play to it, but Ulamog got me the victory through being hard cast twice from my hand. Some of my opponents’ friends showed up shortly before the game ended, and he decided to concede the match after that for some unknown reason. 3-3 with 3 rounds to go meant winning out would net me a day two performance.

Round 7 was against B/W zombies and was uneventful. Chandra and Ulamog won me it fairly quickly in the first two games. After that round, Steve was 4-3 as was Ross. Steve dropped and Ross stayed in, needing points for byes next season like myself.

Round 8 I was paired against Mardu Vehicles. Game 1 was poor, and I made a mistake in game 2 that might have cost me the match. I cast Sweltering Suns when I had 4 lands and 2 Servant of the Couduits in play when I could have cast Chandra instead. He had a Heart of Kiran in play with some number of cards in hand, so I’m not sure if it was right or wrong to 3 for 3 him at that point but I ended up losing after failing to hit on an Aetherworks Marvel activation and getting attacked with Archangel Avacyn.

I was dead for day 2 going into round 9 but played it out for points. I was paired against a younger person playing Marvel. I beat him by casting multiple Ulamogs.

After the tournament ended, we meandered over to a BBQ restaurant called Le Boucan. I ate with Tim and James and had probably the best burger I’ve ever had in my life, the 5 napkins burger. I paid for it with my debit card and hoped the conversion wouldn’t be too bad.

Before bed the three of us cracked the 9 packs we had been given earlier in the day. My packs were OK, as I opened a Gideon, an Irrigated Farmland, and nothing else really of note. I fell asleep quickly and woke up too early for Day 2 because of a PTQ that Ross and Steve were going to play in. I didn’t have any Canadian currency and they weren’t accepting cards for the payment, so I was in a bit of a bind. I decided not to play in it and hung out with James instead who decided to play in the 11:00 Modern Challenge event. He took me to Starbucks and got me a Mocha Frap. We hung out and after he started playing I meandered my way between the PTQ players and him to see how things were going. I got Chinese food for lunch at one of the places in the venue, and it was delicious.

Once Steve was eliminated from the PTQ, we entered a draft along with Jason Bouchard and Drew Herr. I borrowed some CAD from James and we were off. I was going to play Drew in the first round unfortunately, and my draft didn’t go particularly well. My first pack didn’t have any real playable card in it, so I took a 2/2 for 2G that exerts to draw a card. I took some Compulsory Rests and some Green and White creatures the rest of the way. My deck was definitely below average, and I was sitting to the left of a G/U drafter and to the right of a W/R drafter. Maybe I should have been in black, but I really couldn’t be sure. I played three close games against Drew and died to Cut//Ribbons twice. After our draft was finished and Ross was eliminated from the PTQ, we left for a Crepes place James recommended.

I had never had Crepes and was uncertain what to order. I decided at the last minute to copy Steve and got a Crepe with spinach, apples, sharp cheddar cheese, bacon, and caramelized onions. It was very good, but the apples were a little overpowering. We left after that and meandered back to Massachusetts. Getting across the border was a little more difficult than it had been the first time, but we eventually made it back to Natick at 12:30 or so. The trip was fun and I definitely enjoyed it. My next Grand Prix will be in September local to me in Providence, so not much to look forward to except for PPTQs, prereleases, and LCQs until then! 

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Tournament Report

I didn’t mention previously that I’d ever do this, but I figured this would be a good resource to log my major Magic event reports. Last weekend I made my first trip to Canada in over a decade to play in Grand Prix Montreal. Ross and Steve were my traveling companions, and we left Natick Friday evening to go battle. 

Amonkhet had recently come out, and I was missing a lot of cards from the set for deck selection purposes. Mardu Vehicles, U/R or U/B control, Zombies, or Marvel were all decks that I was considering playing. I had the cards for Mardu but was missing a lot of zombie pieces and a Torrential Gearhulk for control, so it was a two horse race between Heart of Kiran and Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger. On Thursday night I saw a solid looking Marvel list on Magic Online 5-0 league report so I built that and went with it.

Traveling up to Montreal was reasonable. I got out of work early, but traffic was atrocious and took me twice as long as normal to get to where Steve and Ross were (my apartment). We got out of Natick at 5:45 or so and were on the way north. We stopped a couple of hours in at a Pizza place in New Hampshire that was pretty good. I put the BBQ Chicken pizza and the assorted drinks on my card to start off the equal split of payments. I normally wouldn’t have jumped on the chance to start paying my way for the tip that early, I paid that first dinner because I was concerned about my Canadian currency situation. I had stupidly forgotten to get Canadian dollars before hand, and by the time I realized I should get them it was much too late. I approved my debit and credit card for Canadian travel and figured I’d roll with those and hope the conversion fees would be negligible. I wouldn’t be able to check until the end of the trip, though, so I was nervous about it. 

Anyway, the rest of the trip was uneventful. Crossing the border was easy at midnight or so, and we arrived at our hotel at 2 after failing to find the fourth person we were supposed to split it with at the convention sight. He did not have an active phone and had gone to stay with someone else before we had arrived. I had one bye for the event, so the next morning we dragged our feet and got to the hotel convention center hybrid where it was being held. We couldn’t find parking initially and I was hungry, so they dropped me off on a corner near the event and I looked for food. I walked into a McDonalds and was overwhelmed! Kiosks everywhere, and french writing. The lines looked confusing and long, and it was 9:20 already so I turned around and figured I’d skip that and have Steve or Ross bring me food after round 2 ended.

The inside of the hall was a maze. I meandered my way toward where I thought the Grand Prix would be. I eventually saw some signs, and headed that way when I heard my name called out from behind me. My friends James Ogier and Tim Tonelli were behind me and were also headed into the tournament site. They caught up to me and we walked in together.

As we strolled in, I mentioned my surprise seeing them there that early seeing as they had two byes and everything. They mentioned wanting to submit their deck lists before the tournament started at 10. I had to be the one to tell them the tournament started at 9 and they’d have to talk to a judge. They both received game losses and scrambled to fill out their lists as quickly as possible.

While they were doing their thing, I found some reasonably priced fruit and a water at a small stand in the hall and ate that before my round started. I still had some time after I was done, so I walked over to the information booth to get my packs included in the registration. 

I waited with some people I knew including Steve and Ross until round 2 began. I was paired against someone near my age local to the area. He played a lot of similar cards I was playing in Marvel, but ended up telling me after I beat him that he was playing Temur Tower instead of Temur Aetherworks. I crushed him with Chandra in game one and casting four Ulamogs in game 2.

Round 3 started a little later. I was paired against someone who told me up front they had 2 byes in the event. I kept a reasonable hand and was greeted with turn one Shambling Vent, turn two Plains, turn three Swamp and Kambal, Consul Lieutenant or whatever the Black White Legend from Kaladesh is called that drains for two whenever I cast a non-creature spell. I had no idea what was going on over there, but played as if it was against B/W control. Chandra won me game one. Game two was not good. After boarding out some of my targeted removal in favor of more controlling cards, he beat me with the combination of Eternal Scourge and Scrapheap Scrounger. Game three was very close, but I died to Archangel Avacyn after tapping out for an Ulamog at a low life total.

Round 4 was against Zombies. Mono Black Zombies. We played some close games back and fourth, including a game 2 that I won stabilizing at 1 life when he had 2 Dread Wanderers, 2 zombie tokens, Liliana’s Mastery, and a Westvale Abbey in play while I had an Aetherworks Marvel, 5 energy, and lands in play/in hand. I drew Rouge Refiner, cast it, drew Whirler Virtuoso, immediately activated Marvel and the 6th card down was Ulamog, I thought very hard about what to exile when I cast Ulamog. Everything I mentioned on his board were things I considered exiling except for the tokens. I quickly ruled out the enchantment because I was at 1. I decided to go with the Dread Wanderers because he wouldn’t have enough creatures to get me after that with the Westvale Abbey. He drew a card and conceded after, seeing my Virtuoso, Refiner, and Ulamog staring him in the face.

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Review #1 of 2017

I’m back! I’m going to try to be more dedicated here going forward. I’ve said that before, but this time I mean it! As I mentioned in my previous post, I just finished Fable 2. Obviously Fable 2 came out a long time ago, but it was on my list of unfinished games because of Achievements and I wanted to jump in. 

It started off pretty poorly. I purchased it used from Gamestop a couple of days before Xbox did its big backwards compatibility sale and paid 15 dollars when it was available a few days later for 4 dollars online. I’ll sell the game back, so I’ll recoup some of the extra cost, but it was still frustrating.

I really had forgotten how great Fable 2 was. I played through Fable Anniversary a couple of years ago (2014 I think) and enjoyed that also. The game felt smooth, the story was engaging, and the extra things you could do with property management were an added bonus. Combat was fluid and easy, although sometimes your magic slots would change while using them, changing your level four spell to flame from time slow or something like that. The story was great. The DLC was a little lackluster, especially considering its price. It was the same dollar about for the two DLC packs as it was for the game itself. The moral ambiguity of your decisions and the great story telling sold me on this game like it had previously. I’d give it a 9 out of 10.

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WELCOME BACK

Over four years later and I am back checking in. My “rules” for completed games were a little over-ambitious I think. Since I created those “rules”, I’ve “finished” a lot of games. The rule I’ve stuck with over the last few years has been earning at least half of the maximum gamer-score of a game to be “finished” with it. Obviously that is the minimum. For games I really like or have easy to get achievements I will go past that level. 

For example, I just finished Fable 2 a couple of days ago. The maximum gamer-score of Fable 2 was 1350, meaning 675 earned gamer-score would be enough. I was at around 650 before I started, but I decided to play through the entire story rather than just get an achievement or two to get it over the finished threshold. Looking over what achievements I was missing, I determined I would be able to get well above that mark while enjoying the campaign and DLC I had never played. I was able to get to 1035, and might try to get one more 10 pointer that is fairly easy to get from one of the DLC packs. I’ll continue on the half minimum requirement, especially because of the high quantity of games I currently own that I haven’t started let alone “finished.”

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Because it is relevant, 1750 max gamerscore 850-1100 and 2000 max gamerscore 1000-1250. Halo!

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Rules

So I know I've once again been away, but I'm back trying to finish games once more. Once and for all I'm going to establish rules for "completed games".

1000 max gamerscore: 500/600

1250 max gamerscore: 600/750

1500 max gamerscore: 750/1000

On that note, just finished Dead Space 3. Good game. Wish I could have played it coop, but still  a solid story on its own.

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Dishonored

A fantastic game. Played through as a "good" guy, not killing anyone and being undetected throughout. I thoroughly enjoyed the story, the super powers you had like Blink were fantastic, and the decision making that came in the game made the story feel more my own than many other games I've played. I loved this game, and I give it a 9.5 out of 10, for there were a few glitchy errors that led to my discovery in places where it shouldn't have happened as well as ambiguity in certain key plot areas on non lethal solutions to tasks given.

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Call of Duty 2. Considered to be the best game of 2005 for the Xbox 360, I figured that I should give it a go 7+ years later. This was definitely a Call of Duty game, and it felt similar to all the other sequels I had played. I played through it on the hardest difficulty for achievements, and it was extremely challenging and frustrating at times. The campaign was a good one, though, and I enjoyed playing through World War 2 as the Russians, British and Americans. Frustrated that I couldn't sprint and that I couldn't throw back grenades though. Considering the year it was created, this was a fantastic game, and I'd recommend it to anyone who likes Call of Duty, or shooters in general. 8/10

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First game I finish in 2013? Witcher 2, Assassin of Kings. Here's my review.

Witcher 2 was a game I heard about when looking for similar games to Mass Effect. Having played it through, I think it was a great game with a lot of positive qualities. Decisions made in this RPG were morally ambiguous, but were crucial as the story played out. Combat was surprisingly difficult, and relations with NPCs felt real and deep. Definitely think this game is worth playing if you are into sword/magic combat and a decision driven story. 9 out of 10 for sure, with the only setback for me being the tough to manage storage system and map reading.

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Eagles!

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Eagles

This is the first time in my life of being a Philadelphia Eagles fan that my team has had this high of a draft pick. For those of you that don't know, the team that has the worst record in the previous season gets the first draft pick, the second worst the second pick, and so on. The Eagles did terribly last year. Andy Reid is gone, the team is in turmoil, and we are in need of some years of rebuilding. What rebuilding entails will be interesting to see, though, for a team that is rebuilding might be better off trading star players like Michael Vick, LeSean McCoy, and Nnamdi for future draft picks. Though my team is at a low, I will not abandon them, and look forward to future success for my team of the city of brotherly love!

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Top 10 of 2012

Looking at the list of games I played in 2012, they were quite different and varied. 2012 was a great year for games, and here are my top 5 that I finished, with brief explanations on each. Considering I finished 13 games, a top 10 seemed to high of a number. Here it is:

5. Assassin's Creed 3 - A great game in the series. Definitely an improvement over the last 2 iterations (Revelations and Brotherhood). Connor was a strong protagonist, but Desmond's story came up short once more. Definitely looking forward to the next title.

4. The Elder Scrolls 5 Skyrim - Considering I only played Oblivion and Skyrim, my opinion on the series is a little lower than most, but I definitely enjoyed the story Bethesda created. DLC forthcoming in my future in this great title.

3. The Walking Dead Game - An arcade game winning game of the year... an astounding feat for this game. Was a great story, and I felt the desire to keep Clementine safe that all other players felt. Definitely recommend this game to those who enjoy the zombie genre, or just a good story.

2. Halo 4 - This may be biased, since I've been a die-hard Halo fan for years now, but 343 Studios did a great job for the series. My faith in the series remains strong, and I look forward to the continuation of Master Chief's story in the next two games.

1. Mass Effect 3 - The conclusion to the greatest story ever told in video games. Commander Shepherd's story ended in such a fantastic way that I'll look to this series as the greatest series of games ever made. The ending might not have been as strong as I expected, but the game was still worthy of my Game of the Year.

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2012

Though a little late, I thought I'd go through and list all the games I played through in the last year, and then highlight some of my favorites among them. I'll list them in the order I beat them.

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood

The Elder Scrolls 4, Oblivion

Lost Planet 2

Duke Nukem Forever

The Elder Scrolls 5, Skyrim

Mass Effect 3

Assassin's Creed Revelations

Dead Space 2

Halo 4

The Walking Dead Game

Assassin's Creed 3

Batman: Arkham Asylum

Timeshift

Not bad for a year if I may say so myself.