Post #102010-2

I'm not sure what to call this post. It's mostly mental vomit about games.

LOTRO

• It went free to play and I've met up with at least one person I know. It's a lot of fun helping people again.
• I reconnected with someone who I was very angry with for a long time. We resolved our differences nearly a year and a half after 'the incident' that drove us apart. It feels good to put that to rest.
• I started a new character - a burglar. The name is one I've used before, and it's not a dwarf.
• Harvestmath - the harvest festival - is active. I tried to get the horse last night ant the game glitched me out of a token. I was pissed, but I'll try again tonight.
• I'm working on my Return to Thorin's Hall skill. I am Kindred with the dwarves of Ered Luin and have 50/100 Dourhand crests. After this I'm working on Moria reputation.
• I'd like to max out all reputation, though some areas are difficult.
• I'm trying to get every horse, though some require meta-deeds. These are a specific combination of completed deeds and it's a pain in the ass.

L4D/L4D2/Alien Swarm/Borderlands

• All three need more attention. Need to play more MP games with friends. Too bad one is in a radically different time zone...

PS3

• I want to finish off the trophies for Dead Space, inFamous and Red Dead Redemption. I'm close to the end of all three.
• Beatles Rock Band needs more attention. Some group attention would be nice too.
• Fallout 3 needs to be completed. So does God of War and Heavenly Sword. And Tomb Raider Underworld. And Little Big Planet.
• Fallout New Vegas is getting a lot of hate lately but I still want to play it.
• I need to catalog and evaluate the games I have. Put them in some sort of order of status... whether I'll play them again or if I'm completely done with them.

Back In the Saddle

This week I decided to revisit Red Dead Redemption, mostly because I like to wander around in the environment and not have to worry about story elements sucking away all my precious time. When I first fired it up I was reminded about the one thing I didn't like -- I finished the story mode.

***SPOILER ALERT***

This means I was stuck playing as Jack. I don't like Jack. His voice and repeated phrases annoy me.

*** END SPOILER ALERT ***

Thanks to an update that brought in two new outfits to acquire, I also remembered I had a few outstanding trophies to try to claim. The first one I went for seemed easy. Manifest Destiny: Kill all the buffalo in the game on Single Player. I'd already shot one for the other trophy where you need to shoot one of every species, and though I felt bad about it I finally gave in to the fact that it's only a game. I got out my trusty Buffalo Rifle and went looking for the herd. No sooner did I resolve to accomplish this task that I ran into them. Every remaining buffalo stood before me. I raise the rifle and took aim. As I let one shot ring out, instantly killing the animal, I went into Dead Eye and took out another. The group started to scatter so I threw it into Dead Eye as fast as I could and took out another five. Since the Buffalo Rifle is a single shot weapon, the game drops you out of Dead Eye after every kill. I managed to get ten total from this initial run-in, and I made sure to skin each one.

The next half hour I spent looking for the rest of the herd. In this time I decided to terrorize Blackwater citizens a bit in hopes of raising my bounty amount. For one of the trophies you have to use a pardon letter to remove a $5,000 bounty. Having completed the game, this is difficult since all crimes are reduced by half. Shooting a lawman, for example, will only add about $50 to my bounty. I rode up to a heavily populated area and tossed a Molotov cocktail into the crowd. This not only set a dozen people on fire but caused the cops to take notice rather fast. I rode hard and fast away from town and waited for them to catch up, Buffalo Rifile in hand. If a gun can kill a 3,000 pound animal in one shot, just imagine what it'll do to a 180 pound man riding a horse. Distance helped a bit to knock a few off their mounts before they got anywhere near me, but then the posse was rounded up and started to close in from all sides. I took out my trusty High Powered Pistol and went to town.

Another of the trophies involves getting something like 1,000 kills with one weapon. Any weapon will do, but you need all the kills to come from using the same one. Seems I already have about 300 kills with the HPP, so I use it as much as I can now in an effort to speed that up. Its name is appropriate - one to two shots per target. By the end of the night I racked up $1,200 on my wanted poster. Things were going great as far as the trophies were concerned - I found the rest of the buffalo and sadly earned that one. I had amassed a bounty that I could easy triple the next night if I devoted myself to it. It was late and I was tired, so that's the only excuse I have for what happened next.

I was headed back home, riding along at a slow pace, taking in the scenery and planning my steps for the next session, when out of nowhere I was being chased by the law. Someone on the road recognized me? I have no idea - I think that's what happened... All I know is I was being chased. I shot up some deputies, took out some horses just to keep them at bay when I was hit with an ambush. A few appeared in front of my path and blasted away. I had no chance to react because I had the camera swung around behind me. 

DEAD.

My bounty was reset as the game loaded. I was pissed but vowed that the next night I'd start it again, only this time I'd wreak havoc on Mexico.

Free Time, Claptrap Rebellion & RDR DLC

I haven't purchased any of this, but I am interested in them...

Borderlands: Claptrap Rebellion

I'm too lazy to look up the correct title, but that's the jist of it. Frankly I found the Claptrap character funny at first but quickly became obnoxious and I never wanted to kill an NPC as badly as I did the Claptrap in New Haven. It just got really annoying, really fast.

The new expansion turns Claptrap(s) into the enemy. Apparently some previous bosses make an appearance in the form of special claptrap models. No level cap elevation, so aside from just having more stuff to shoot at there isn't a great reason to get this one - not yet anyway.

RDR Expansions

Briefly, there are 3 expansions - 2 out there already and one coming. I think most of them are Multiplayer geared, giving avatars and new activities for MP. The only one that holds the majority of my interest is the zombie one. Shocker, right? As someone online has already said, the appeal (for me) is that all this time, zombie games have been you and your modern weapons and gear versus the undead. RDR is set in 1910, in the old west. It's you and your six-shooter. Dead Eye will be helpful.

Other Junk - Rock Band

I played some Rock Band 1 yesterday. I never made it through the official campaign because I got bored. I'm now in London, don't know any of the songs left to play at the venue and am back to being bored. I played the Coheed and Cambria song in Tokyo -- why do people like that band?

Anyway that leads me to Rock Band 3. The tracklist has been shuffled around the 'net a lot recently and, again, I groan in disgust. At least they aren't being totally fake like Guitar Hero III was; You can't call your game "Legends of Rock" with a track list like that, idiots.

Going back to RB3, something about the track list that pisses me off is that it seems like they go out of their way to throw on unknown bands or totally obscure (which doesn't always mean GOOD) songs. 20th Century Boy by T-Rex? Echo & the Bunnymen? They lose me in the 2000's. I only know "No One Knows" by Queens of the Stone Age.

My point? Dunno. I just rant about RB tracks. I'm a jerk when it comes to music.

Speaking of Rock Band - they need to add more Beatles RB albums. Let It Be (Naked), Magical Mystery Tour, Past Masters 2 and The Beatles (aka the white album) need to be there.

Other Junk - Valkyria Chronicles

A fellow Kotakuite suggested I give the game a shot after I commented how much I liked a figurine featured on the site. It took me a couple weeks to locate a copy, and about a week more before I popped it in the machine. Long story short - it's great fun! Expect a review... when I get to it.