Status Update: July 2019
I haven't forgotten the blog, but some relevant things have happened in real life that make harder to write content for here:
- Our role-playing group is mostly dissolved. Part of if no longer lives in Spain, and of those who live, it became so hard to be able to meet that even playing some boardgames became almost impossible.
- I am spending some days most weeks out of home, so I have way less available time to paint miniatures.
- I am in general dedicating less time to play videogames, so I try to rotate between genres, but RPGs usually require lots of commitment.
- I am reading, quite a lot more in fact, but I had a long stack of pending articles to read before being able to spend more time with books, and again, I have to leverage between books that could be reviewed here and from other areas (mainly technical, but not limited only to those).
That said, I have played quite a lot of Diablo III on my Nintendo Switch (I've got 5 level 70 characters, around 400 paragon levels, and one of the characters is already doing the set armour special quests). I also finished Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (awesome game, I'll replay it sometime in the future), and I am onto some Final Fantasy: I am playing FF-X HD on PC (finished it on PS2 on its day, but as I loved it wanted to play it again), I have installed and started playing FF VII on my laptop (but oh boy, the random battles do get annoying at first), and I tried really hard to finish FF XII HD... but despite nice graphics and the awesome gambit AI system (basically you can spend more time fine-tuning the combat behaviour of the characters than actually battling) the story is so dull and the voice acting so rough that I gave up. I have the savegame for the future but it felt so boring I am not sure when I'll continue. Not having the gaming PC with me all the time also doesn't helps, although enables me to divide by platforms. I am for example finally going through my PS3 exclusives.
About miniature painting I would love to spend more time, but in the short term I only foresee moving more old miniatures to my mother's countryside house after taking some photos.
About reading, I have started another Horus Heresy book and the 2nd volume of The Dark Tower so is a matter of time only.
And in general, my life is quite busy right now so no boardgaming or role-playing, we'll see if later this year that changes.
Tags: Boardgames Offtopic Painting Videogames
Comic Book Review: Warhammer 40000: Dawn Of War
Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War is not only a series of videogames but also a comic book that I recently read, but also a 4-issues comic that ties in between the second and third installment of the mentioned games.
New to the scene Sergeant Olivarr and returning from the previous Dawn of war games, sergeant Tarkus, a fan favourite. Tasked with locating their chapter master, Gabriel Angelos, after he goes missing from a battle against the xenos threat of the ork greenskins. But with the Eldar also on the scene its not going to be easy as they make their journey to him, paved in bolter shell and blood.
Set after the events of Dawn of War 2, we learn that Gabriel Angelos has dissapeared while fighting with orks, and two sargeants are searching for him, Tarkus and Olivarr (a new character created for the comics). While trying to find him, problems will arise not only with the greenskins but also with the Eldar, setting everything up (more or less) for the third videogame. Other characters from the game series appear, and and there are glimpses of some of the units that the latest DoW features, but not as much as the cover images would imply.
The drawing and coloring is great, in all issues except for the third one, which is more plain and simpler than the others. There is action but the plot is quite simple and without any impressive twists.
Not a bad comic but neither impressive, even if you fancy the videogames it really doesn't adds much.
Book Review: The Art of Dead Space
I love the first two Dead Space videogames, and I've finished the main trilogy plus another one released on iOS. This art book contains concept art, drawings and lore about the 3 main titles and bits from two small comic book series.
Essentially, if you liked the games you will enjoy the pictures and the companion text. It tells many small details about most topics, from the whys and hows of the weapons to the suit designs, the different enemies, and of course the markers. It does contain huge spoilers so you should be careful with that, but after beating the games, it is a must read to expand the lore.
To complain about something, that there seems to be more content about the third game than the first two, and at least for me those are the best titles. I'd love to have seen even more about the Ishimura ship... but even with that it is worth it for fans.
Tags: Books Videogames
Book Review: The Art of Blizzard Entertainment
I've grown playing Blizzard videogames, so The Art of Blizzard Entertainment was an easy choice. Although the first Starcraft didn't impressed me so much, the second part was much better. Diablo, I've poured hundreds of hours on each game of the trilogy and Diablo II was one of the first videogames that we played on our LAN-parties. And then Warcraft... videogames I've played once and again (especially Warcraft & Warcraft III), in single and multiplayer, and even played World of Warcraft for a few months (until was requiring too much time).
All of the previous paragraph is to remark that I cannot be objective as those games have been among my favourites for decades. And this book delivers, oh yes it delivers.
From pencil sketches to fully colored drawings, from small details to huge scenarios, from characters to double-page scenes, it is a visual pleasure to see each page. There are commentaries also, but they are so secondary nothing will happen if you miss them. It is also a big and heavy book, which I like because that means the pictures are big and many details can be appreciated.
If you like WoW or Diablo in general, you will really enjoy the artwork.
Tags: Books Videogames
Space Hulk Deathwing, Dawn of War III and August painting progress
The end of July and beginning of August has been busy, but I managed to squeeze some time to play and even paint. I'm slowly shifting towards more painting and less playing but summer vacations mean no painting either. Anyway this is what I've mostly been doing (apart from farming Zelda components to max out almost all clothing):
I'm playing again Space Hulk Deathwing main campaign, and I have to test the cooperative mode now that has been improved. The game came out a bit unpolished and I paid the hype price, but still the atmosphere it's impressive and I'm enjoying the second run (with graphic options almost maxed out as framerate is better).
I bought Dawn of War III with a heavy discount, and how lucky I was, because the game has been somewhat a dissapointment... The multiplayer component is great, even skirmishes against the computer. You have three elites who level up, three battle doctrines (modifiers for unit types or special general weapons) and basically looks like the best representation of Warhammer 40,000: Big battles with dozens of units (a lot more than DoW 2 and also more than the original DoW), amazing graphics, imperial Knights and the Eldar & ork equivalents (well, almost, a Gorkanaut instead of a Stompa... meh, sounds like a GW-imposed choice), bases and many, many nice looking and intense battles. On that regard it is a great game, and with a decent graphics card it looks amazing, just like the miniatures. But on the other hand the campaign is... a waste of time and effort. It is a forced, badly written and dumb story that looks made only to let you know how every unit of the game works of the three factions. And even that is in my opinion wrongly executed, as you forcibly have to switch faction on every mission (each mission is tied to a faction, that is), and some of the missions are really boring. Combined with decent voice acting but poor dialogs (between predictable, silly and sometimes absurd) and some nasty gameplay bugs that force you to repeat the level if you encounter one... For the first time in the franchise I haven't finish the campaign, as I got tired when I hit another bug just in the final level. It is too uninteresting. It is a pity because it could have really had been great, and after the previous games I can only guess that there were budget constraints on the development because it looks only really polished on the multiplayer part, and there are almost no NPC factions/units (on the later levels it is quite noticeable they even reused 3D models instead of adding more variety). I don't regret the buy as I already poured in around 20h and will probably play some CPU skirmishes in the future, but it is a wasted opportunity of delivering a great game, bringing instead a "just nice" one. Still, some of the videos have really cool images:
And finally, apart from small progress on painting Nagash (I'm on the 3rd layer of bone colouring, and I expect at least one or two more), I grabbed two of the Betrayal at Calth models and did some dark washing on them to prepare to paint them. I'm not going to go for anything really hard so will just highlight with Mephiston Red and maybe some touches of orange. And I should definetly finish the basing of my Imperial Knight, it is only missing that and the decals to be finished...
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