Category: review/consume

My opinion on whatever products of the mass market which have had the joyous task of helping me waste my time. Anime, TV, Films, Games, Books, Music, Microwave Meals, Pot Noodles – You get the idea.

Misadventure’s in Minecraft

Michael Leave a comment

Day 4

I hauled myself to my feet once more. Three times, three times since I’d been here had I fallen into that suffocating darkness only to find myself cast back to the same shore time and time again. Had I died? Was this some hellish afterlife I must endure as punishment for my misdeeds? (Is injecting your semen into your housemate’s canned goods even really a sin? Still I had no choice but to continue with my quest to build some kind of shelter. I must return to that cliff-face where I had found coal and longbow wielding skeletons in equal measure. Girding my rectangular loins I set out once more. Only to be set upon almost immediately by a hideous quadruped cactus man. My attempts at communication were met with a high pitched hissing as he lunged towards me. Continue reading…

Mick’s Adventure’s in Minecraft

Michael Leave a comment

Day 1

I am writing this jounral in a vain attempt to keep myself sane. I awoke from a restless sleep to find myself lying beneath the blazing sun on a sandy beach, staring at some islands in the distance.

My head throbbed with a strange pain and my body felt swollen and mishappened. Raising my hands to my head I cried out in terror as they came into view. Where once there had been hands (that had pleasured me endlessley) there were now only crude flesh cubes. I surveyed the rest of my body and my horror grew. I looked like the bastard spawn of a bobble head and lego soldier.

I also realised that my surroundings shared my strange angular malady. Where was I, what had happened to me and how the fuck was I going to get home? Continue reading…

Let’s Play: Elemental War of Magic – Part 4 – The End (for now)

Michael Leave a comment

Hmm, well after reading this comment from Brad Wardell here my interest in continuing to play Elemental at the moment has dropped to more or less zero. If as Brad says theres going to be a major content patch out in less than a month which also addresses some of the more irritating issues with the current build of the game then it seems foolish not to put this lets play on hiatus until then. Hell, just fixing mana management issues alone would make the game so much better. I was looking at trying to mod it in myself but it seems the necessary values need to activated globally which cant be done by modders at the moment. At the moment the way magic works is all over the fucking place and mana regen is so slow thats its not a balancing mechanic. Its a fucking punishment. Oh well enough complaining. The game is clearly good enough to abosrb half of my week so Im really looking forward to playing a more balanced and expanded version of it in a month. So until then Im afraid the aventures of Mickgard’s motely monarchs is taking a break. Not that we ever actually got to any in game reports. Ah well such is life. Continue reading…

Let’s Play: Elemental War of Magic – Part 03(.75) – Smoked?

Michael Leave a comment

Well I installed patch 1.06 and updated my graphics drivers, windows updates and scented voodoo candles. I thought old Papa Legba had done the job until that pernicious memory leak once more brought my burgeoning empire to a close. Unfortunately that was about half five this morning. Needles to say, I was not at my best in work today. If half my blood was not currently replaced with caffeine I’d be unconscious. However one error in five or six hours of play was acceptable enough for my purposes so this evening when I got home from work and finished eating my (delicous) toasted prawn and sweek chilli sandwiches I loaded up Elemental. Whereupon I got a bit too carried away with my save game housekeeping and deleted all of them. (Luckily?) I was too tired to really work up much more than a shrug and so I began my fifth game. Continue reading…

Let’s Play: Elemental War of Magic – Part 03(.5) – The End?

Michael Leave a comment

Well I started over for a third time yesterday. Had to really after going to the bother of creating custom faction leaders and editing them into the factions via some (very simple) XML sauciness. Third time may be the charm in other things. Not so much in Elemental. While I wasnt doing particularly poorly the third run at it was extremely slow in comparison to the other two attempts, not much going on other than building up my forces in isolation. I suppose thats the chance you take with random maps. Still I pushed on and was around Turn 363 when the game decided to go tits up (yet again). It now consistently crashes every three to four turns, and frankly Im bored with re-starting and re-loading. I see that a new patch (and attendant hotfix) is out. So I think I’ll wait until I’ve installed that and then give it another go. Continue reading…

Let’s Play: Elemental War of Magic – Part 03

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Well I was about an hour into the game when I thought that I’d take a break and write up post three. However while browsing the internet I discovered that a hotfix has been released for the 1.05 patch. So I’m going to install that and start again. Or maybe I’ll leave it till tomorrow just in case another patch comes out. Whether I start again or not the game’s turns are a lot more limited than I initially thought, so my initial estimate of ten turns for post is just too small. I think I’ll increase that to fifty for the moment and see how that goes. (Six or seven hours of play later) One other thing Ive noticed is that for sandbox games the game randomly assigns monarchs to each kingdom. Which is weird as theres now three versions of my sovereign ruling three different factions. Which didnt bother me last night but is now pissing me off for some reason. Hmm I could create custom rulers for each custom faction, abandon my current game (Turn 298) and start over for a third time. Hhhhmmmm, it is tempting in some ways, as now I have a much better idea of how the game works and I can try out some things I totally forgot about on my current playthrough (dynasties, sea trade, etc.). Oh well I’m going to be creating the custom sovereigns anyway, so I’ll make them and then see. Continue reading…

Let’s Play: Elemental War of Magic – Part 02

Michael Leave a comment

Well Windows Explorer seems to be behaving itself so I can finally get around to properly starting this Let’s Play. I received a tragically small amount of input and as such was forced to call upon my much wearied brain for inspiration. Unfortunately my brain seems to be screening my calls at the moment so my factions are based largely on the people I saw or interacted with today (online or off). At the moment there’s no option to create Empires in the Faction Builder due to a small bug. But I dont really understand the difference between Kingdoms and Empires so it doesnt really bother me. Continue reading…

Let’s Play: Elemental War of Magic – Part 01

Michael Leave a comment

Ok, after sleeping in and then spending the afternoon reading more Kyou kara Ore wa!! I’ve finally got my hands on and got around to installing the 1.05 patch. So with that done I’m all ready to start a New Game (I’m going to go with the “Sandbox” option as the campaign is, well, pretty fucking boring based on last nights play). Oh wait, after rebooting my machine Windows Explorer is crashing every three to four minutes. Bollocks. Well it’s ten to five at the moment, hopefully I can get this windows explorer bullshit sorted in the next hour or so and I’ll start playing at seven. Continue reading…