Played this one for a few months after launch but it got boring pretty quickly. From what I recall it wasn't too many levels in where you were left to your own devices more or less which meant a lot of exploring and killing random monsters. The problem was the world seemed haphazardly stuck together and empty where it really wasn't that fun to explore as most of the time you were just doing nothing but running endlessly. Not sure if it got better after I quit but don't have fond memories of the game like I did EQ where I'd want to go back and revisit.

Was surprised to hear the original game is still alive.

Yeah. Its autolooting with still having to click on the corpse to get the items in your inventory. In Rohan after you kill something the items just magically appear in your inventory. I like that better. Can just kill and move on.

Kinda interested in that Street Fighter vs Tekken as I was huge in to Tekken way back when. But the last time I tried a fighting game I found out I lost any magic I once had playing those so will probably be disappointed. 

Have to say I'm really enjoying the Rohan expansion. I love the look of the areas and am really enjoying the mounted combat. I was a bit worried about the mounted combat as the two people I play with are not action gamers at all. Hell one of them still has problems facing monsters on foot when fighting and right-clicking on glowing objects on the ground is always a challenge.

So I was a pretty concerned with the mounted combat aspect going in wondering if the two others I play with would be able to pick it up or not. When I tried it out for myself I was sure they would not like it as even I was having problems maneuvering with it at first. Thankfully after several days of playing together we all improved significantly on our control of the warsteeds and able to take down Warbands (grounds of monsters) with little problems. My wife, who was very skeptical of the warsteeds when she first tried them, now is at the point where she's finding the mounted battles fun to do.

I also love the added complexity to riding the horse. It's like the difference between riding a scooter vs motorcycle. I've got it down not pretty good now where I feel comfortable riding the warhorse around town although still will run in to problems if I overshoot my target (doors in particular). The extra speed of running around on that steed though is such a boon - I think my warhorse is quicker than the fast travel horse.

The other big feature of Rohan I love is the autoloot. No longer do you have to right-click corpses or mess around with rolling for loot. After you kill something the loot just automatically appears in your inventory. I love that and hope they add it to the rest of the game.

Only thing I hate is that in 3 more levels I'll be 85. It seems like just as mounted combat is peaking the new content is all but ending. I'd rank this expansion under Moria with Moria being the best. I didn't care much for Isenguard and Mirkwood just went by so quickly to really be considered much of an expansion.

Looking forward to the next content areas for Rohan.

This was the table that was funded by the Kickstarter so its out as a premium table at $5. I did put $10 towards the kickstarter and been having a hell of a time getting the table to stay unlocked for me on iOS. Others have reported similar issues. Hopefully they can work it out.

Looks like they were able to fix the Kickstarter issue as I was able to get the table to unlock with all my other tables. Oddly I have access to the ball skins and Pro menu which I shouldn't with the $10 backing I gave. To get the skin you would have had to put at least $25 in and to get the Pro menu at least $100. I can see those backers being pissed although I suspect this access is temporary until the next table update.

I hit the instructions for this table to learn a few things - it almost seems mandatory to go through as there's just so much to do on the table. I would have never figured out how the skill shot works without reading the instructions and learning how to get those extra balls seems to be key (thankfully they're pretty easy to initate). I'm learning the table a bit more but still having a bunch of 30-60 second games because the table is so unforgiving. Hit the wrong spot and the ball will drain. Come out of the bumpers wrong and the ball wil drain. Use the right ramp and the ball will likely run down the center and drain. Brutal.

So I probably would never have played this table much in the arcades given all the money I would have to invest to learn it. But here not a big deal other than this initial frustration factor. I did manage to enter my score in twice which is an accomplishment but not a huge one since this table is so high scoring. Dunno if this one will be a favorite but I can see going back to it for the challenge.

Pinball Arcade released the Twilight Zone table. Never played it before but according to the Internet Pinball Machine Database it was the #1 ranked table for awhile - now #2. The making of story behind this one is that Pat Lawlor was given free rein to create the table and just went wild adding a bunch of fun stuff - including a gumball machine that dispenses a crematic ball that plays differently than the normal steel balls. I have to say this table seems very difficult. I played several games where I was done in less than a minute. I know part of this is due to just needing to learn the layout (there's a lot on the table) but it seems like its going to be a tough one to master.

This was the table that was funded by the Kickstarter so its out as a premium table at $5. I did put $10 towards the kickstarter and been having a hell of a time getting the table to stay unlocked for me on iOS. Others have reported similar issues. Hopefully they can work it out.

Later this month they're apparently releasing the other Kickstarted funded table Star Trek: The Next Generation. And The rumor is that the next Kickstarter is for the Terminator 2 table.

Finally finished up the last two episodes. Really great game all around. Only dissapointment near the end was the reveal of the guy at the other end of the walkie talkie. But other than that it was pretty perfect. Had so many monents where I was just totally shocked at what happened or felt pretty bad with some of the choices you had to make.

Am curious to see how the game plays out with making other choices, like choosing to save other characters when you can or letting them die. But don't think I'll ever play this one through again to find out. I feel like I had my own unique expierence with the game and will leave it like that.

I liked the idea of the book and it started off well enough but quickly went downhill when the town started falling apart. He foucsed the story on the nutty people in the town, which isn't compelling, rather than where the dome came from or what it was. I tried to stick with it but it just continued to go in the wrong direction and I've already read the town falling apart thing from King a bunch of times before - and better. So bowed out rather than slug through it anymore.

But I'll probably try and catch this and see if I can sit through it. But then again the King stories to TV movies haven't been all that great. Couldn't even make it through an hour of Bag of Bones.

given the crappy cheap production values for anything on syfy not set in a warehouse, I expect the water scenes will be shot at the Y. 

You know what. If they shot this entire thing inside a YMCA pool, and made it obvious they were doing so, I'd probably tune in.

Watched "The Hole" the other night. It's a fun horror flick where a family moves in to a home and in the basement they discover a trap door that reveals a bottomless hole. Of course its a pandoras box type thing and bad stuff happens once its open. This could have been a fantastic movie as it has the right cast, story ideas, and writing. But the execution of it is sloppy which makes it a good horror film instead of great one.

11-24
Borderlands 2 $29.99

Wish the DLC would see a sale...

Yeah been waiting on that one. But since the Season Pass didn't go on sale on Steam got it from Greenman for $22.

Good Old Games is running a speed test where if you participate you could win a free game. Just log in to GoG and go to http://www.gog.com/downloads_quality and run the test.

I didn't win anything but sounds like you can participate in it multiple times throughout the day. This is the message I got when complete:

"Unfortunately you did not win anything this time (yup, every participant has a chance to win a free game). Don’t worry though, you can start the test once again in a few hours - we will get more data to analyze and you will get another chance to win the free game! "

Other than what CeeKay mentioned.

Trine - if you don't have it
Torchlight - if you don't have it
GenForge - unique old school RPG which was kinda fun but did stop play after putting a few hours in to it (may go back at some point)
Uplink - neat idea and kinda fun but gets hard quick
Darwina - not a bad strategy game but stopped playing after a few maps
Anomaly Warzone Earth - reverse tower defense. A lot of people like it but I was just ok on it.
Alan Wake - loved the original but couldn't get in to this one as much but still for a pack-in worth a go

Grabbed KotOR 2 ($2.50), and am debating whether or not I want to break my "nothing over $10" rule and give Darksiders 2 a shot.

Crap. I'm already gonna break my rule of not getting anything other than two specific games. Forgot about KoTOR 2 being available and would like to check that out.

Looks like Lego Lord of the Rings is good after all (the lack of Metacritic reviews was just weird), so I'll be picking that up today.

Played some of it last night. There's a lot of confusion of what to do right at the start. You're thrown on a battle field, which is confusing enough with a bunch of stuff moving on the screen, and its unclear of what or where to go. We were running around killing things and trying to progress when we finally figured out you need to kill guys with banners. Then the next part you have to switch to one of the 3 playable characters on the screen to move forward. Problem is at this point you have no clue of who that other guy is and it took awhile to figure out which one we needed. Then you fight a boss which took awhile to figure out how to damage him. But performing the same action only got rid of 2 of his health hearts but not his last one. So we spent a lot of time trying to figure out what we were missing and trying a bunch of other things without success. Finally we went back and tried the other thing several more times and were surprised when it finally "took" and we could move on. Basically the beginning area, which is small, took us like 30 minutes to get through when it should have taken us no more than 10.

The next area didn't get much better for my impressions. Its in Hobbiton but instead of showing that in full screen view it splits the screen down the center regardless of how close to one another you are. Wish they didn't do that.

Then on the next area as you're making your way to the Prancing Pony when all of a sudden a cut sequence plays for no reason. Gandalf  is arriving at Isengaurd to meet Saruman. When we're given control again the screen is split once again. But I'm playing Gandalf at Isenguard on the left half of the screen and my wife is playing the hobbits back on the road to the Prancing Pony on the right side of the screen back. It was WTF moment. Made more so when my wife started nagging me to look at how fucking big the fishing pole she pulled out of the ground was when I was getting the shit kicked out of me by Saruman - to be fair that was a pretty good moment.

So, so far not great impressions but will stick with it since typically the Lego games are a lot of fun co-op.

I'm steeling myself to just buying the Borderlands 2 Season Pass and Dark Souls if those go on sale. Not buying anything else no matter what. I CAN DO THIS!

Collector via not wanting to bother trading/selling games. It is neat to go back and see all the old game boxes/manuals but honestly 99% of those games I've never played again as I'd rather just play new stuff. All the Xbox/Gamecube/PS1/PS2 game boxes are looking a bit cluttered on the book shelf and have considered just taking them over to a Half Price Books to be done with. Although saving some games did pay off not too long ago when I re-installed Tron 2.0. Still a fun game. And off and on I'm trying to find my missing Wizardy 8 disc to play that again. But I doubt I'd ever break out my old consoles and play those games again.

Watched the first four episodes via the PS3 YouTube app. Surprised me how good the video quality was. Problem was the YouTube app on the PS3 sucks and locked up 3 separate times causing the system to have to reboot twice. Will have to try it on the 360 next time.

I was pretty damn impressed with what I've seen so far. It moved fast, got you interested quick and felt like Battlestar when it was at its best. The space scenes are pretty fantastic looking. And I loved seeing the Galatica, both inside and out, during its glory days.

Only quip I have so far is the actor playing Adama. He doesn't seem to have much acting chops. I don't see the older Adama in him at all. He's a pretty one dimensional at this point with none of the charisma that Adama should have.

Really hope they change their minds about making this in to a series or some other network picks it up.

Dangit. Was just getting in to Borderlands 2 and now gotta go back and finish ep 4 for Walking Dead.

Will probably pick up the Zen Pinball table but honestly I'm getting sick of all the Marvel themed tables. Hopefully they start going back to creating some tables from other licenses or some more original IPs.

Any impressions on trying the original Wii games on this? Any graphical improvements or oddities?

almost forgot, Awesomenauts is also free to play until Sunday.

THAT'S SO ACCEPTABLE!!!!

Watched The Artist this weekend too. Was very good and a lot more fun then I would have expected. It's another movie like Hugo where its a film about the love of movies. It's a got a nice riches to rags story to it and the main characters are really likable, plus it just looks great. I didn't mind it being a silent picture either and that kinda worked well for home use as there were plenty of times where characters would say things without text accompaniment and you could discuss what you think they said freely.

I can see why it won an Oscar.

Watched Lockout the other night. This is the Escape From NY movie - IN SPACE - where a lone guy is sent in to a prison - IN SPACE - to recuse the presidents daughter. Surprisngly enjoyed the movie quite a bit. The Guy Pierce character is a lot of fun and there's pretty good chemistry between him and the presidents daughter. The movie has a whole slew of problems though. The CGI looks acceptable to down right awful (think CGI from video games 5 years ago). The editor of this film needs to be fired too as in a lot of cases there seems to be quick cuts where the characters get from one location to another in a split second and you're scratching your head wondering how they just got there.

But its a fun action flick that despite a lot of things wrong with it somehow worked.

The CGI looks silly...The zombies remind me of the CGI from I Am Legend.

I had the exact same thought when watching it. The CGI for the zombies looks exactly like the vampire CGI in I Am Legend. They move strange and they kinda look greyish and not in the world.

I showed my wife the trailer and she couldn't figure out why all these people were getting shot at. She didn't realize it was a zombie movie till I told her after the trailer. She was like "that's a zombie movie?" So not sure they did a good job with that trailer.

I'll still be watching it.

What an odd price for Dark Souls. Why not just make it $25.

Will wait to see what Amazon does. Do want to play it but with all the other games I have going on at the moment I think $15 is more my price to bite.

Yup same feeling. Great trip down memory lane on that trailer but the game just does not look that good.

[Spoiler]

I dunno. I like Chris Hardick. I've listen to a few of the Nerdist Podcasts and even those are pretty fun - particularly when he and his guests are comedians and talk to their bad stand up experiences. He's not polished by any means but I like his shtick enough for both Talking Dead and the Nerdist.

As far as the actual episode goes I havne't seen anyone comment on the most shocking part from this epsiode.

Spoiler for Hiden:

Just when he was coming in to his own and getting more lines than he had all last season - T-Dog is no more.  Everything else in this episode was pretty ho-hum.

I'm weak. I got Condemed, which I was curious about and Lone Survivor since it was $5 and looked interesting.

[Elvira: Scared Stiff (1996):]

Another two Pinball Arcade tables were released:

Elvira: Scared Stiff (1996): This is the Elvira table I remember but forgot how fun it was. It has a pretty simple layout but there's a lot to do on that table - six stories to complete. Lots of voice and video and moving parts to this table. A nice easy one to get in to.

Big Shot (1973): This is the first elcro-mechanical table they released and its a surprising amount of fun. Forget your LED displays, extra balls, locks, multiballs, digital sounds and music this is back to the basics. You get 5 balls and your goal is to clear the balls from the pool table by hitting the various numbered ball targets on either side of the table. There is one nice surprise to the table where you can open a ball save gate. This one takes a bunch of skill (lots of table bumping) but is more fun than I thought it would be. The classic dings and bells you hear as the ball moves around the table is just fun to listen to.

I found out you can earn an extra ball for the table. But can only get one at a time.

Can get either of them for $3.99 or buy the pack for $4.99.

They also are offering a "Pro" mode for Tales of Arbian Knights for another $3.99. It's basically opens up the operators menu for the table. Not sure what that gets you exactly but its not for me.

Hmm. Game Informer had an article on it that said it was a sequel that took place right after the last one left off. Also mentioned being able to import your characters from the first game. The screenshtos they had in the article looked nice nad if its more of the same I'm fine with that.

The 3rd one just popped up on Netflix. It was my least favorite of the 3 but still enjoyed it. But have no desire to see 4 in theaters.

I do like Green Man Gaming. Darksiders 2 Season Pass for $4. Think I got the limited edition for $40 with one of their sales/coupons so pretty happy with that dealie overall. Now just waiting on the Borderlands 2 Season Pass drop.

Loved and hated Bioforge. It looked absolutely fantastic at the time, and I loved the theme, but the controls were just awful. And for a hand-to-hand combat/adventure game it made it so difficult and frustrating. Ended up finishing the game though and seem to recall there was an add-on for it which I hadn't played. Doesn't look like that's included here though.

Probably get it if it goes on sale as I'll probably play it for 30 minutes and give up.

Didn't think the laser had to be re-loaded any more than the gun counterparts. I can't tell yet if they're doing more damage or not since I'm still early using them but I know from my first game that traditional weapons were just not cutting it anymore. No overheating issues so far.

Risen 2 gets a mild reccomendation. I played the entire thing and had fun with it throughout. But they should really have just priced that at a flat $20 for everything - at $15 it would be a great buy.

Had the day off so put in 5hrs in to this. Great game but some bad choices in what to create or do has put me in a bad spot where I'm going to start over. For instance the nation I chose for my second satellite was China because I saw the panic level was higher there than other areas. Problem is my raptors can't reach China. So I basically had a single usable satellite. I'm also finding out you need to upgrade your weapons pretty quickly. The guns just are not cutting it anymore and really need lasers.

I did have some great moments though. My first alien base assualt ended in a quick wipe. For some reason the game assigned all rookie soldiers to take it on. I figured it was going to be a cake walk. It was not. I lost more than half the team in the first 3 moves to the zerg like aliens. Then the ones that died started coming back as zombies and I lost everyone but a single sniper. He lasted a bit longer but quickly got overwhlemed.

The second time I tried the alien base assault was many turns later as I licked my wounds. All I had were rookie soldiers as by then I was pretty behind technology wise for weapons and squad mates would die or get wounded on missions pretty often. But I outfitted them best I could and took things slow. Didn't matter. I lost one guy pretty quickly and almost a second before recovering. I kept taking is slow but another encounter in a long hallway ended up in disaster. A single sniper and rocket guy survived. I pressed on. Some thin guys appeared and had some amazing accuracy in their shooting and took out my rocket guy. My sniper lived but with the poison it left him with a single health bar. It went well for the next encounter with some new aliens where he was able to take them out at a distance. Then as I pressed forward the sniper ran in to 3 of the zerg and was too close to run or fight. So he basically died.

Having a blast with the game but I figure at this point I'm in a hole that I can't get out of and am going to start over with what I learned. So far I've been playing without reloading any save games, which is usually typical for me, but in the game seems like the better way to play to ratchet up the tension and care about what squad mates live or die.

[The Inkeepers:]

Saw a few horror films of late for getting in the mood for October:

The Inkeepers: This is from Ti West who also made 80's throwback satanic worshipers flick The House of the Devil. In this one it follows two clerks who are working the final days before an old New England Inn closes. The rumor is that there's a ghost in the Inn and they want to get proof before the Inn is made a parking lot. There's only one guest in the place so they have a lot of time to themselves. The majority of the film is the banter between the two desk clerks which is sometimes good but mostly mundane stuff. 

Was really looking forward to this movie after reading a few good reviews but like House of the Devil its a slow burn where everything seems to happen at the very end so wasn't satifying for me. However I did enjoy the performance of one of the desk keepers, Sara Paxton, whom I don't think I've seen before in anything. She was pretty quirky and seemed real. Kelly McGillis (Top Gun) also has a role in this one - was kinda a shock to see her look so much older than I remember but she's also good in this too.

So if you're looking for a lot of scares this doesn't have it. But I did watch the entire thing as I was interested enough to see where it was going.

Aprtment 143: Now if you want a lot of scares occuring often this is the film. Problem is while it starts out well enough it really loses its way as it goes along. This is typical haunted house, apartment in this case, stuff with a lot of stuff moving, loud noises, and things popping out at you. It's a shakey cam movie that basically wants to be another Parnormal Activity. And while PA was somewhat smart this one gets pretty dumb. You have a crew of "ghost hunters" who are investigating an apartment haunting where a father and his two kids live. Things go crazy pretty quickly, and there's some good moments and scares, but it gets tiresome after too long. The big complaint I had with it was how the ghost hunters behaved when they had proof of paranormal stuff on recording. They're initally shocked but then don't seem to care so much they they have all this recorded proof. First I would get the hell out of there and then I would go to the papers or somethign with the proof that life exists after death. They behave like its everyday stuff that's already been on camera before.

So this one is a mild reccomendation if you're just looking for a few quick scares and something easily digestable.

Slither: I saw this way back when and forgotten about it till I saw it pop-up on the new releases. It's a horror film from 2006 that's kinda a throw back to the mid-80's horror films like Critters. Basically a horror flick that doesn't take itself seriously. Setup to this one is a metorite the contains a life form crashes in a small town and starts infecting the various town people. The local sherrif (Nathan Fillion) tries to stop the infection.

It's well put together, looks great in HD, but the story falls apart in some areas and was ultimately dissapointed by the end. But still its worth a look.

If they don't muck up the conversion on the Wii U it should be one of the most decent games at launch. Its still missing the other two major DLC packs so will likely have to pay full price for those rather than getting them when they go on sale at Steam.

I had put in some money towards it awhile back but I thought their latest update indicated they're conceding defeat but plan to create the thing anyways, just that it will take more time and not have as many bells and whistles. I assumed that meant the new Pat Lawlor table is out of the question which was the big draw for me.

400k seemed like a lofty goal. Even the last Kickstarter for the Star Trek: TNG table license for Pinball Arcade took almost 30 days to make the 50K needed.

Siliconera has some screenshots.

Umm. That looks kinda terrible.