Articles tagged with: Videogames

More than half a year later since last "diary update", but from now on I'll try to post more updates at least monthly (if I don't finish any painting/modelling project, that is).

The main update is the following photo of how's my progress with the Imperial Knight:

As you can see, excepting the base and decals, main body is finished. I also have already painted the shoulder pads and currently working on the arms. With some luck I'll have it ready for decals soon (and probably tackle one of my modelling projects, which without painting I don't even feel like showing here). It's been a huge amount of work, especially because the crappy Citadel gold paint mix has "separated" and before painting it needs heavy re-mixing and around 4-5 layers until it looks like real gold (and this painting over a silver layer, else needs even more layers!). I'll probably try Vallejo's equivalent of gold for the future, now I'm so near the end I don't want to change color and have more problems. I've also given highlights to blues, some silver parts and to the gold (using silver) and it definetly shines and looks way better. Combining with the washes, despite my poor painting things look way better :)

Apart from that, and due to the recent addition to the family of a young golden retriever dog, my sleep cycle and free time is quite chaotic now, so I'm focusing on either playing Diablo III or Hearthstone from the laptop near the dog, or reading books.

Whenever I can escape a bit to the "workshop room" I'm either painting or trying to finish assembling Deadzone miniatures, as I finally received wave 3 shipment and still have (quite a few) minis to assemble from the two earlier shipments. Definetly one of the best kickstarter projects I've backed regarding price/content ratio... lots of minis (5 factions + zombies), lots of scenery, lots of extras...

I also have pending buying some powerful white lights to improve the room's lighting for photos, currently is ok for painting but far from adequate for photos.

So, let's hope I come again soon with some cool photos!

Posted on 2015-02-02

Mordheim is one of those Games Workshop products (like Gorkamorka or Man o' War) that I never had the chance to try in my youth. I've read articles about it at the White Dwarf, seen pictures but never actually played a single game.

When I saw that a computer version of it was being made, I definetry wanted to give it a try. And few days ago I was able to play the four tutorials of the early alpha build of Mordheim: City of the Dammed.

As I said, I don't know how loyal is to the original, although looks quite right, but I love turn-based tactical strategy games, and the game can't look better for these kind of public. The controls are smooth (I actually prefer playing with the gamepad as it is being designed with it as an option from the beggining), the menus and actions work fine, and the game already looks quite good.

The Alpha/Early access build right now only has two warbands (human mercenaries and skaven) but the tutorials allow you to test the other two future warbands, Sisters of Sigmar and Possesed (chaos), showing also some variety on the scenery, from a big cathedral to cities.

The full game will feature campaign modes, experience and inventory, special characters, both fixed and procedural maps and of course multiplayer (already available but I haven't tried it yet). After playing the tutorials I can say I really liked it and only found a bug (one human ogre got stuck in a small door), for the rest is quite playable although limited because there's still only predefined missions (tutorials) and skirmishes (no customization).

Here are a sample of how it looks and a gameplay video (quite good to get a feel of how the mechanics work):

Mordheim is in Early Access at Steam right now if you're interested. While not the cheapest game is at 20% discount now.

I'm trusting this one to become everything that has been promised (also Steam is becoming stricter regarding commitments), so I already "backed" it and will play as much as possible.

Posted on 2014-11-29

Few weeks ago I was finishing my read of a book about Blizzard and Diablo's history when in the notes section I found the following text:

Soon after the release of WarCraft: Orcs & Humans in late 1994, many gamers picked up on the similarities between Blizzard's RTS and Warhammer, a tabletop game created by Games Workshop where players arranged painted figurines and engaged in turn-based battles.

Warhammer's influence was massive.There were lots of people at Blizzard who played Warhammer and they were obviously heavily influenced by it.

During the course of development - and this didn't happen beforehand; it was somewhere along the way - Allen [Adham] proposed that we license the Warhammer IP so the game woudln't be WarCraft, but Warhammer. That was met with a negative reaction because a lot of us felt we would lose control of the game.

Several years after WarCraft was done, my dad came back from a trip to Asia. He brought back this really cool skeleton chariot. it was a chariot drawn by some skeletal horses. And he said, "I found this really cool thing in Asia, and they totally ripped of Warcraft!"

It said Warhammer on the bottom, and I said, "Oh, yeah, um, not exactly..."
-Pat Wyatt

So, almost in the lines of previous texts I have found (I & II), confirming the influence but also sustaining that the failed negotiations were not before WarCraft's inception.

Posted on 2014-06-01

As my spare time becomes more scarce and I prefer to write fewer blog posts but with more interesting content (at least more focused and containing less offtopic clutter), it's been quite a few months since I posted something about my painting progress or CRPG related entries.

As a summary, that I will probably do again in the future, this is more or less all what I've been doing:

Boardgames

D&D Castle Ravenloft: Not much to say, we played the first missions, it is interesting but hard to win the bad guys!

Our ongoing Risk Legacy campaign: Finished battle 9, really cool how the game develops, and still way to go until the map "becomes fixed".

Descent 2nd edition: I liked it so much I bought the base game. Expansions seem a bit meh, until I get tired of the base game I doubt will buy anything else.

Flash Point: A collaborative game where up to 6 firemen try to save 7 people from a house while fire and smoke spreads and causes explosions.

CRPGs

Braverly Default: I'm loving it. Same as Final Fantasy series are dead (last games being a disgrace), this is a nice spiritual successor, combining Final Fantasy III job system with summonable friend special moves and combat tweaks, plus configurable difficulty setting and encounter %. And lovely graphics. Did I already say I'm enjoying it a lot?

Zelda: A link between worlds: I was reluctant to play this because the 2D Link wasn't appealing, but I tried and I actually like a lot the puzzles, but I agree on the general consensus that it is quite easy. I haven't finished it yet, but due to lack of time.

Project X Zone: More tactical than RPG, it's very similar to Final Fantasy Tactics but with simpler "fighting-like" battles.

Diablo 3 expansion: Now it finally is a roguelike and action house went to hell, so has become what it should have been two years ago.

Warhammer Quest on iOS: Along ALL expansions, and now I'm playing the additional characters, so you can imagine how much I like this game. One of the best purchases for my iPad, it's so great to have a "portable WHQ" even for holidays.

Space Hulk: One of my big dissapointments, and not due to the game itself, because the mechanics are so nicely replicated, but due to the mess of technical issues and bugs that come and go on most game updates. From neverending turns to glitches, sound muting or crappy 3D performance (I recently updated my graphics card, which makes the situation even more absurd), if the game worked tecnhically correct it would be great.
Also the DLC plague made it a "just buy the basic game, and if on sale, better" approach.

Shadowrun Returns: After finishing the main game, how with the Berlin campaign/addon free for being a backer I'm having more netrunning and turn-based combat. I still have my hopes in the fan-made content for the long term, but even without it is a nice old-school like RPG.

Fire Emblem: Awakening: This was a cool strategy-RPG mix, that hooked me to my 3DS for weeks. I pumped 30+ hours to finish the main story and didn't managed to do every side-quest and character sub-plot, so it can become a really long game if you want.

RPGs

Not much, although I'm reading a lot of Warhammer 40,000 codexes for the lore and background (literally skipping the rules). I must have read around a dozen codexes, along with companion books (new Games Workshop way of squeezing more money, put half of the lore in another book), and of course the books which I still do reviews here.

But no pure RPGs since a while...

Painting & Assembling

I'm still assembling all Deadzone minis, plus a cool Imperial Knight and some unexpected things; GW's new website and the exclusive minis touched my collector weak point so I grabbed my wish list and now have a few more things to take care of.

I'm currently painting the Imperial Knight, and had some started minis pending (some old Rogue trader-era MKVI Space Marines and some Necron basic troops) also on the queue for whenever I want to change a bit.

As usual, with my rate of painting It'll take weeks, but I prefer to go slow but leave it in a decent painting level (decent for my skills, not for normal standards which are way higher).

Apart from normal miniatures, I've finally started painting a Star Trek Enterprise model I had from my trip to Australia a few years ago. I expect to finish it soon as I don't want to ad too many details.

Posted on 2014-04-18

Well, seems that there is already a signup for the winter beta of this nicely looking MMORPG.

Anybody can apply from here.

While the highly deformable terrain looks really cool and kinda like Minercraft, I'm going to let this one pass as my free time is quite scarce.

 

Source: Rock, Paper & Shotgun

Posted on 2013-10-24