Play This Game, You Must.

I'm back...for a few minutes. Then I have to run out to the lakehouse and make sure it's all locked up while Dad's away, and yadda yadda. I think I'm almost done with Karnoz's update, but here's something to tide y'all over whenever the forums are sleepy like they've been lately.

http://supermariocrossover.com/

Show of hands: How many of you have never played Super Mario Brothers?

Yeah, that's what I thought.

Everyone's played that game. But I bet none of you have ever played it like this:


Sure, you can play as Mario...but you probably got all of that out of your system back in the 80's. So you should probably try the rest of the cast of Nintendo alumni instead: Link (from The Legend of Zelda), Bill Rizer (from Contra), Simon Belmont (from Castlevania), Mega Man (from Mega Man) and Samus Aran (from Metroid).

And yes, the game's background tunes change to those which the hero of your choice came of age with. Walking Simon into King Koopa's castle with Nothing to Lose (the "first battle with Dracula" theme from Castlevania) piping in the background is a real treat.


Whoever programmed this Flash game did a pretty wicked job fitting the five newcomers into the original Super Mario Brothers world. They can all kill the critters just like Mario and Luigi always did (jumping on their heads or jumping up and hitting a block underneath them), and they all come with their own strengths and weaknesses.

1) Mario, as usual, doesn't have any real weapons until he gets the fire flower (while the other five have their trademark weapons right off the bat). And Mario's fireballs don't trigger blocks with goodies in them, whereas Bill's bullets, Samus' shots and timebombs, Simon's whip and axes, and so on will knock any mushrooms, coins, fire flowers and climbing vines out into the open. But Mario can run and swim--while the others are left walking and plodding along the sea floor in the water stages--so he's easily the most mobile of the bunch.

2) Bill doesn't get any special attacks or special moves. But when he can get his hands on assault rifles and spread guns that can shoot in all eight directions, who cares?

3) Simon can't control his body's trajectory mid-leap like the other five can, but he can double-jump (giving him the highest jumps if you time it right) and can even jump while falling, which has saved me from many a plunge into a bottomless pit. His throwing axes are great against loftier enemies, including those ferkin' annoying squids in the water stages (and he doesn't need hearts to throw them now, so chuck away).

4) Link's short, so he can run under obstacles and low-flying enemies with ease. His special attack is a boomerang which can stun enemies and fetch goodies like coins and mushrooms from range. His sword is very short and purely for melee (until you get a fire flower), but--like Simon's whip--it briefly stuns any enemies hit by it.

5) Mega Man has a ground slide which helps him move quickly and slide under baddies and objects. His cannon can be charged up for more powerful attacks; just hold the fire button down longer. But unlike Bill's and Samus' weapons, Mega Man's shots can only travel left or right.

6) Samus can curl into a ball and roll to help her get under baddies and objects (really, it seems like Bill and Simon are the only two who can't move underneath stuff...), and while in ball form she can drop mines to kill anyone on her six. Her cannon can be aimed up as well as left or right (but not down or diagonally), and the cannon's range and power increase with power-ups. But since she can't duck without curling into a ball (and can't shoot while in ball form), she has trouble shooting short enemies.


Growth mushroom upgrades:

Mario - Grows big and smashes bricks (instead of just bumping them) when he jumps up into them.

Link - Trades his wooden sword for a steel sword, which does more damage. Trades his green costume for a white one, too.

Bill - Trades his rifle for an assault rifle, which does more damage and can fire full-auto (by holding down the fire button).

Simon - Upgrades his whip to a chain whip with more range and damage. Simon's upgraded chain whip can hit short enemies even while he's standing (instead of crouching). Also gets the Castlevania Double Shot and can have two thrown axes in the air at the same time.

Mega Man - Upgrades to the X Cannon which can be charged up for more powerful shots. Also starts smashing blocks with his head instead of bumping them. And he gets a fancy helmet to boot.

Samus - Upgrades her cannon into something with more power and range. And her orange space armor turns white.


Fire flower upgrades:

Mario - Spits bouncing fireballs with the fire button. Trades his humdrum brown-and-red ensemble for a snazzy red-and-white number.

Link - Shoots energy swords from his sword, making for a nice ranged attack. The energy swords only go left and right, but they burst on impact. Also dresses up in a snazzy red elf costume.

Bill - Trades his assault rifle for a spread gun, which is pretty damn handy at covering the whole screen with slugs. Also trades his blue commando gear for some orange commando garb.

Simon - Upgrades his chain whip to a flame whip for some horrific damage-dealing. Also gets the Triple Shot for his axe; spam the throwing axe to take down entire squadrons of flying enemies. As a bonus, ditches his ugly yellow-and-brown Castlevania outfit for that menacing red-and-black appearance he sported in Castlevania II: Simon's Quest.

Mega Man - Turns his blue-and-aqua space suit into an orange-and-red one, and upgrades his X Cannon to a Fire Cannon with bigger, faster, more punishing shots that get sickeningly huge and powerful when charged up. Holy crap, do not stand in front of Mega Man when he's like this.

Samus - Curiously, she ditches the helmet and trades that bulky space armor for something magenta, purple and more form-fitting. Also upgrades her cannon to a wicked zig-zag-energy-ball-launching beast that will nuke everything in front of her (though the erratic trajectories will miss enemies here and there, alas). Don't ask me about the green hair; I was always informed that Samus is a blonde, too.

So that's how I was screwing around at work last night, seeing as I left my bag of D&D books and stuff at home. Sorry about that.

Being an old Castlevania master has given me a natural affinity for playing Simon at this game, and I've gotten pretty good with timing his double-jumps. Tossing those axes makes short work of ceiling bricks (useful for that extra life hidden in the ceiling in World 1-2), and even though Simon's not very fast, her doesn't really have to be; he just plods along leisurely, fatally flogging or axing any hapless choad who gets in his way.

Now play the nice video game and have fun, okay?

Request for the next person who plays this game as Bill:

Try shooting while pushing up and left.

Does it work for you? Because I can get Bill to shoot "northeast" and every other direction except for "northwest".

I was just wondering if it was a glitch with the game itself or a glitch with my glitchy and overly complicated keyboard.

Thanks in advance. I should just get a new keyboard, I swear to Zeus....

Okay, let's see how much response this game generates. Because sacrilege always makes good conversation material, right?

Step 1) Go to the Adult Swim site.

Step 2) Register. You can't play their games if you don't register, and they have a lot of games. After all, how do you expect them to display your username and high scores on national television if you don't have a username, eh? (On that note, I'll get around to playing Robot Unicorn Attack, Candy Mountain Slaughter and Death Row Diner one of these days....)

Step 3) Go play Bible Fight!


So the whole premise of this fighting game is that you get to pick one of six Biblical figures (Eve, Noah, Moses, Mary, Satan and Jesus) and send him or her to whomp everyone else. The controls are a bit too simple for my tastes (jump, kick, jump, guard, left and right, and three special moves per character), but simplicity does spare you a lot of frustration when you're learning a new fighting game.

There's a Practice Mode and a Tournament Mode. The Practice mode lets you fiddle with a fighter while dueling a CPU opponent of your choosing.



"Ye are not yet worthy". Yeah, that's a secret character you can unlock later on. It's hard to say, but given that there are six standard fighters, and seven stages in Practice Mode, each of the first six stages correspond to a standard fighter (The Garden of Eden = Eve / Noah's Ark = Noah / The Parted Seas = Moses / The Manger = Mary / Hell = Satan / Golgotha = Jesus), the last stage does not (Heaven = ???) and that stage blatantly features three big thrones, I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that the mystery fighter is God Almighty.



(LOL...they made Noah look like a crusty old sailor. Nice tats, Noah! )

Unfortunately, there are no mirror matches in Bible Fight, so you can't pit Moses against Moses and learn how to play Moses by copying the CPU's moves. The good news is that Practice Mode also gives you a nice, pretty list of your chosen character's moves, so you can practice them till your heart's content. And you can click on the little C clickie in the lower right corner of the screen to bring up a mini maneuver menu at any time during a match.



(Yes, I know. The rosary was purely a Catholic invention, and the Virgin Mary probably wouldn't have had one. Now shut up. )



"Jesus! Are you attacking your own mother? While she's holding your infant self? For shame, Jesus! For shame!"



Also, Mary got ripped off. Each of the other fighters get a big, nasty attack for their "Super Special", but all Mary gets is a measly teleport. That you can see coming a mile away. So if you're alert and quick about it, you can prepare a nice Super Special of your own to slam her with the moment her feet touch the ground.

But let's face it: Practice Mode is all well and good, but the real game is the Tournament Mode. Let's get cracking on that, shall we?



One of my (admittedly kinda petty) complaints here is that there are oodles of figures in the Bible to work with, so six or seven fighters seems like a pretty small selection. I would have liked to see some more Biblical bad guys in the cast of fighters, like Cain, Pharaoh Ramses, Jezebel, Goliath, Saul, Herod or Pontius Pilate. Samson could have been another big heavy-hitter, Joseph could have had a ton of tricks in that fancy cloak of his, and Job could have been the high stamina guy who gets the snot kicked out of him and keeps getting back up to take another swing at you. And then there's the archangel Michael, and Shadrach (complete with fire attacks), and any one of the Four Horsemen (with the other three incorporated into special attacks), and so on.

So anyway, because naked women are awesome--and because I'm perfectly secure in my masculinity--I decided to play through the game as Eve.



Yeah, she's pretty cute for being a relatively simple drawing. She also has some nice moves. Her standing kick is a flipover kick which is handy for knocking jump-kickers out of the air, she has a snake whip attack which is fast with a nice range, you can chain her jump kick and standing kick together for a handy two-hit combo, and if the other guy likes to stand still, punish them with Eve's Super, where she summons Adam to bust up out of the ground with an uppercut to the other guy's gonads. And his fig leaf somehow manages to stay perfectly intact while he's doing it.



Ah, Adam punching Moses in the jaw...something you'll never see in the Bible, that's for sure.



Biblical catfight!



Awww, I made Baby Jesus cry.

I like this game, but another complaint of mine is that it's always the same progression: Eve -> Noah -> Moses -> Mary -> Satan -> Jesus, minus whichever one you're playing. The game never tries to mix it up and adjust the difficulty for each CPU fighter's rank. Eve or Noah will always be the first person you fight, and she or he will always suck. And Satan or Jesus will always be the last guy you fight (...or will he?), so naturally Satan and Jesus will always fight like they could take on half a dozen Bruce Lees at the same time and win.

And oh, crap in a hat, is that ever the truth....



As you could safely expect, Satan is a cheaty cheesemaster sunvabitch. His favorite battle tactic is spamming his Super and turning into Cerberus and bullrushing you over and over and over and over and over and over, with the occasional fireball, tail whip or trident stab to break the monotony.



Expect to see this a friggin' lot.



Expect to see this a lot, too. *big, long, weary sigh*

(Yes, I know. The pentacle is European Pagan in origin, not Judeo-Christian. The Church hijacked it to demonize the local indigent Pagan sects during Catholicism's spread throughout Europe during the Dark Ages. Now shut up. )

Tune in later, when I will attempt to answer the question: Will the First Woman (...Second if you count Lilith, and whatever-the-heck if you don't subscribe to the Abrahamic religions at all...) ever lay a frickin' righteous smackdown on the blasted blinkin' rotten damn cheap-ass bastard Prince of Darkness, or so help me Zeus I'm gonna rip up this keyboard and hurl it across the farkin' room?

Forking hell, I bloody damn well hope so.

Stay tuned.

Yes! YES!!! In your face, Satan! In your face! WAH HAHAHAHAHA!!!

How did I do it? Tit-for-tat, that's how I did it. Satan wouldn't stop laying it on thick with his Cerberus, so I beat him to the punch, spammed a whole buttload of Muddy Uppercuts together and just had Adam beat the tar out of Satan from long range. The good news about Satan is that he's big and slow, therefore he's easy meat for a certain naked guy bursting out of the ground and uppercutting him repeatedly. The rest of the fighters have some capacity for getting out of the way before Adam lunges up and smacks them, but not chunky ole Satan.

So there's that. Who's next now?



Awwwwwwwwwww sheeeeeeeeeiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit....

I strongly suspected that Eve was about to get her shapely buttocks handed right back to her.

I suspected right.

If you think Satan was bad, mateys, you ain't seen nuthin' yet!



Stay tuned.

Unlike the fight with Satan, the fight with Jesus was actually fun. Sure, Jesus was tough...about as tough as Satan was. But the crucial difference? Satan was tough to beat because he's a cheap bastard with that Cerberus Charge and an overall can't-get-close-enough-to-hit-him-without-getting-flattened combination of strength and reach. Jesus, on the other hand, is tough because he's got moves. He's a very kinetic fighter, he seems to have the most evolved and fine-tuned AI of the bunch, he seems to know when to hang back and when to close in...it's the closest thing this game has to playing against another person. (And before you ask, no, Bible Fight has no two-player mode. Lucky you, because my homegirl Eve and I would complete spank your candy apples.... )

Sure, Jesus uses Loaves and Fishes a lot, but it's far, far less than Satan uses his Cerberus Charge. Spamming Adam didn't help; Jesus is too fast. And he hits hard. Cheese will not fare well against him (with two possible exceptions: he seemed very vulnerable to Eve's jump kick/standing kick/snake whip combo, and slow but repeated standing punches do pretty well at keeping Jesus in a corner trap). So even though Jesus knocked Eve out about as much as Satan did, I didn't mind getting whomped by Jesus because he wasn't cheesing; it was just because of me zigging where I should have zagged here and there.

But Jesus would have been a helluva lot worse if I hadn't waded through all those fighters before him; heck, I got the Eye of the Tiger just from fighting Satan alone. So I fought on, I learned all that Jesus could do, I anticipated it and I countered or avoided it. So in the end I beat Jesus with reaction time and tactics (which make me proud), not with counter-cheese (which makes me feel kind of cheap and filthy-dirty inside).

So Jesus is fallen! Excellent! So now it's Game Over and Thank You for Playing, I get treated to a snazzy endgame cinema and maybe that secret character back there gets unlocked, right?

...




To be continued, or concluded, or something....

Betcha thought I forgot all about this, huh?


Like Shang Tsung from Mortal Kombat, a big part of God's game is morphing into other fighters from the cast. But what God failed to learn from Shang Tsung is that morphing into various other fighters doesn't do you a bit of good if your opponent has already beaten every last one of those other fighters on his or her way up the ladder to get to you. And so it was here. God morphs into Satan? Spam Adam. God morphs into Noah? Get in close under his Flood attack and cartwheel kick him to death before he can unleash his Two of Everything Stampede. God morphs into Mary? Stay on the ground, wait for her Immaculate Deception and have Adam waiting for her when she lands. God morphs into Jesus? Jump around and Kung Fu him to bits, just like you did last match.


(It's funny, but if you knock God out while he (or He, if you prefer to capitalize the pronoun like most Christians and Jews do) is metamorphed, God will stay in that alternate form. Funny. Everyone from werewolves to doppelgangers to, well, Shang Tsung knows to change back to their normal form upon death or defeat. Friggin' God, always breaking the rules.... )

As a result, God is a lot more dangerous when he stays in his regular form and calls lightning bolts down to smite you. His uppercut is very slow and easily blocked and countered. His regular attacks are pretty strong with a bit of range, and he loves to block a lot. But mostly it's all about the lightning bolts. Those friggin' lightning bolts will tear you apart.


"And lo, it came to pass that God created Eve just a little too well. Eve cast God from his eternal throne and brought upon the world a new, global Garden of Eden to replace what she and her mate had lost. And forever after was a lasting peace between mankind and snakekind restored, and both the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life cultivated to flowering so that a new Tree of Knowledge and a new Tree of Life would henceforth grow in every city of man. Amen."

...or at least that's how the ending would have read if I had been the one who wrote it. I mean, seriously. It's Bible Fight, a big fight based on the Bible. Having Heaven get taken over by a hardline conservative like Moses, a humanist liberal like Jesus and a diabolical scourge like Satan should result in three different outcomes, not the same cut-and-paste epilogue. (And the prospect of Satan getting his revenge and climbing into God's throne should be a pretty damn frightful prospect...frightful unless you come from the "God is a bullying tyrant and Lucifer is a maligned freedom fighter out to stop him" camp, that is....)

And so, true to form for what seems like the majority of fighting games out there:

1) The End Boss sucks compared to the Sub Boss.
2) The game ending is universal and kind of lame.

So you might as well follow through, go to Practice Mode, type "JEHOVAH" at the character selection screen and have a ball.


Now go play Bible Fight already!

Alien Swarm

http://store.steampowered.com/app/630/

free to download, free to play, no spyware or anything.

Yeah, I think you had sent me a PM about Alien Swarm, but you were gone by the time I got back.

"...And a shipload of weapons." lol

And I want that Minigun Master achievement. I love chainguns and miniguns. Which is why I really need to get back to Team Fortress 2 and give the Heavy Weapons Guy some more love.

Well, I just got done trying my hand with an Officer in the practice mission, and it went very well indeed.

My Officer pick was Jaeger, who has a high enough Explosives skill that he deploys three laser tripmines at a time, not just one. This made things interesting the first time I went to mine a doorway and ended up with a "laser web of death".

I also equipped Jaeger with a Vindicator shotgun as his primary weapon because let's face it: both of your Officer picks have the Vindicator skill, which increases the damage that your Officer does with the Vindicator. So you're pretty much obliged to equip your Officers with Vindicators (especially in Jaeger's case, as his Vindicator skill is maxed).

To top it off, I gave Jaeger the Advanced Sentry Gun as his secondary weapon. Now, for the practice mission, putting a Tech on your team is mandatory; otherwise, you'll never get past the encrypted computer locks on some of the doors and you'll never be able to complete the mission. Fortuitously, I picked Vegas instead of Crash without really thinking any more deeply than "I've heard Crash's voice enough, so let's switch to Vegas for a change". Well, it also turns out that both Techs have Engineering skill, which allows the Tech and/or any adjacent teammates to set up sentry guns more quickly. Crash has a piddly 1 in Engineering, while Vegas has that skill maxed. As a result, I was rather pleased to see Jaeger setting up and tearing down his sentry gun in record time...at least whenever he had Vegas hovering nearby while he went to work.

So if you plan on lugging a sentry gun around, be sure to include Vegas in your squad. OTOH, Vegas doesn't have an Explosives skill, and Crash does. So if laser tripmines are a big part of your strategy, you might want to bring Crash (with a big pack of tripmines) instead.

On that note, this right here is the absolute best combination of location and direction for deploying your sentry gun during that long, long ride down the freight elevator:



...because the biggest problem with that part is all the fifty-billion aliens crawling up the far wall of the shaft and dropping down on top of you. With the sentry gun waiting to pick them off the moment they come into view, that's no longer a problem. Just cover the flanks and rear of the elevator and you'll have a pretty easy ride.

And now that I've discovered that you can pick any four marines for your squad regardless of their classes, I'm tempted to eschew the Medic and give my team two Weapon Specialists--Wildcat and Wolfe--instead, just as a "best defense is a good offense" sort of strategy. And I'll still fill the other two spots with Jaeger and Vegas, because those two work so well together.

So, SEAMUS...when do we get to link up in multiplay so you can help me gain some levels and unlock the flamethrower? I'm all ears.

But for now, I'm going to bed. Peace out.

sorry, i havn't been in STEAM because i've been testing NDA instead. I have to say that this is a time when I wish i had cash, because NDA is fun as hell to play, and I can definitely say that I could highly reccomend NDA for anyone here.

You're playing Non-Disclosure Agreement? o.O

i'm playing something related to agreeing to a non disclosure agreement

Oh. We should go back to talking about Alien Swarm, then. Or maybe even Bible Fight and Super Mario Bros. Crossover, if you're feeling up to it.

Get "Borderlands" on the cheap during the "Midweek Madness" sale via STEAM

(66% off game and aLL dlc)

game and all dlc total at $20.36 (normally the three expansions alone are $10 more than that)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/8980/

also on STEAM, Blood Bowl (Dark Elves edition) is on sale for $10.00 US.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/11170/

for those of you who are unfamiliar with the greatness that is Blood Bowl, you'll have to go back about 10 years or so.

A brutal team sport unfolding in a parallel fantasy world based on Warhammer and American football, Blood Bowl Dark Elves Edition invites gamers to form a team of players from such races as Orcs, Wood Elves, Humans, Dwarfs and other fantasy creatures who launch themselves into battle in the bloodiest of arenas.

This strategy sports game combines a fine balance of tactics and bonecrunching action! The new edition of this game includes a whole new race available ingame: the deadly and remorseless Dark Elves! Along with their own Star Player, the Dark Elves combine the dexterity of the Elves and the brutality of the strongest races - perfect for the players who want to crush the opponent with style.

The game offers two different game modes. The first, which is fully real time, offers intense battles between blocking linemen and daring displays of agility with players leaping and dodging opponents, while powerful spells and dirty trick plays are unleashed across the pitch. The second game mode, is an exact replica of Games Workshop's turn-based tabletop masterpiece. The original rules have been faithfully reproduced with all of the strategies, play and rhythm of the original game.

In single-player you manage a team throughout an entire season of Blood Bowl Dark Elves Edition, through the Old World of Warhammer. As the team evolves you manage every detail of your players; their popularity, sponsorship, purchase and sale, as well as their aging, retirement and even death. In multiplayer, the player will be able to throw down a challenge to other Blood Bowl Dark Elves Edition players in online tournaments and climb the official ranks ladder.

On sale for the first week of release. Bloody Good Time is a multiplayer only "survive the slasher movie" FPS. It's on sale for $4.49 US on steam, and i spent about 4 hours playing it last night. It's definitely worth the price. check it out!

anyone who is interested in buying Global agenda send me a message, i just got a stack of 50% off coupons from hi rez studios


www.globalagendagame.com

http://www.globalagendagame.com/Media_Videos_No_Elves.html

http://www.globalagendagame.com/Media_Videos_No_Elves2.html

You even got the signature, I see.

I admit, I've been screwing around a little. With yet another game that you should have a look at.


This is Adult Swim's sequel to their high-rating online game, Viva Caligula! This time around, Emperor Caligula has died and gone to Hell after tearing a bloody swath through Rome in the first game, but a little thing like death isn't going to stop him! Take control of Caligula and singlehandedly conquer Hell...which won't be easy, because you have five more of history's biggest Big Bads standing in your way and you have to kill them all:

• Emperor Nero
• Attila the Hun
• Vlad the Impaler (Vlad Tepes/Vlad Dracula III/Yeah, that guy)
• Adolf Hitler
• Josef Stalin

But the good news is that you start the game with all 26 weapons from the first game, without needing to run around and collect them all.



Your eyes aren't deceiving you. There are 26 letters on your keyboard, and each one of them makes Caligula attack with a different weapon. And each weapon does something different.

A = Axe (a melee attack, slower but stronger than the Sword.)
B = Brick (thrown in an arc like the Rock, the Quadrel and the Javelin. Fast but weak.)
C = Crossbow (slower than the Knife, equal in speed, but can set enemies ablaze when Bloodied.)
D = Dagger (a melee attack...shorter and less damaging than the Sword, but very swift for rapid-fire attacks.)
E = Eagle (sends a hunting eagle out to attack one or two enemies. Will not attack allies.)
F = Flambeau (a fast melee attack. Its hits do very little damage but set enemies ablaze for continuous damage.)
G = Gurnet (a slow but very powerful melee attack. Attacks forward, then backward.)
H = Hatchet (throws a hatchet at an upward angle. The hatchet boomerangs, hitting anyone in its return path.)
I = Iaculum (throws three throwing blades at three divergent angles. Fair speed, light damage.)
J = Javelin (throws a slow but powerful javelin in an arc to avoid hitting allies. Long-range.)
K = Knife (throws a knife in a straight trajectory for fast, light ranged damage.)
L = Lion (summons one or more lions, who land in random places near Caligula, attack and leap away.)
M = Manhood (Caligula bares his naughty bits, temporarily stunning human enemies.)
N = Necromancy (use near corpses to animate them into skeleton allies.)
O = Ocarina (turns rats into temporary allies.)
P = Pitchfork (a reach weapon, shorter and weaker than the Xyston.)
Q = Quadrel (throws a mid-ranged boulder. Slower but stronger than the Rock.)
R = Rock (throws fistfuls of rocks for quick but weak mid-range attacks.)
S = Sword (your most basic melee attack. Fair speed and damage.)
T = Tenaculum (slower than the Sword, but attacks both sides of Caligula at the same time.)
U = Ursaform (takes a few seconds to transform into a half-bear with powerful melee attacks.)
V = Vespiary (throws a beehive and releases a swarm of bees. Don't walk into the swarm!)
W = Whip (has a longer reach than most melee weapons.)
X = Xyston (another reach weapon, slower but stronger than the Whip. May miss very close enemies.)
Y = Yatagan (even slower and stronger than the Axe.)
Z = Zampogna (turns human or undead enemies into temporary allies.)

I hope you're a good typist.

Let me finish this in a bit; I have to check my Inbox.

blood bowl legendary edition is on sale via STEAM for 9.99 http://store.steampowered.com/app/58520/

Hey, man! I'm still slugging though that Magicka game that you got me hooked on! And I finally shelled out for Magicka's full version, too. Don't even try to get me hooked on this Blood Bowl jazz....



Yeah, I pretty much play this game for the action and the fifty-gazillion spell combinations, because I'm certainly not playing Magicka for its lame attempts at humor. (This game seems to think that sausages are Comedy Gold, for one....) But a Chuck Norris joke every now and then certainly couldn't hurt....



Hey, here's a spell that will one-shot Behold the Watcher, a typical forest troll and pretty much most anything in the game: 1 Earth + 4 Ices. Charge it up to the max and rip out a big, spiky ice boulder of doom. I killed Jormungandr by busting him in the mouth with one of those and a 5 Earths boulder.


See? Deadly.

As you can tell by the gibs, Behold the Watcher is dead. His lifebar there was photographed on its way down to Hell and Negative 9-Million Hit Points. Splat!



Once you get the Thunder Bolt magick, you will rock. If you can type Q-F-A-S-A in rapid succession, you can spam Thunder Bolt. Just surround yourself with a wall of stone (1 Shield + 4 Earths, fully charged, area cast) and fry all the baddies with relative impunity, even the baddies on higher or lower points of elevation. It's a good way to work on your Bad Taste achievement, too.

Thunder Bolt rocks.

Other magicks? Well, even though Conflagration and Blizzard are supposedly more powerful spells, they're too much set-up for too little payoff. Conflagration just hits a few baddies for 600 damage and sets them on fire. Big whoop. I can do more damage by spraying the Grease magick at their faces and area-spamming Fire spells. And the Blizzard spell is a good way to kick your own ass, especially if you don't throw up a Cold shield first. Stay away from Blizzard.

And Haste is a good way to get around. Just don't use Haste so often during the World's End stage; you'll inevitably sprint right off the edge of some floating rock and plummet to your doom. And Nullify is a nice way to take the edge off of those cackling druids and warlocks who annoy me so very much....



A trebuchet!

Sorry. I just had to throw that in.

Trebuchets are cool.

awww, come on, it's classic blood bowl rules!!! i need someone to play it with me once easter comes!

We'll talk about that after you team up with me and help me find those Charm, Fear and Tornado magicks that I apparently overlooked. You can help me kill Grimnir while you're at it.

the sale is over today at 10:am pst. i'm not playing on the compy until after 4/23/11 (good friday)

also... speaking of magika.... the first magica DLC is on sale for 4.99 (magicka viet nam) as is bioshock 1 and 2

Sorries if I've been pretty quiet lately.  Real life is still getting me down, between doing tons of home improvement (because my 80-year-old house is really showing its age) and working long hours (to score enough money to pay off my credit card debt; the monthly interest alone is killing me).  At least I've gotten my credit card debt down to around $2,200 now.  Thanks, tax return!

I must confess that I've been using my free time to slack off a bit.  I'm still quite active on Neverwinter Nights multiplayer (particularly on the Legacy of the North server, where my leading character is a Level 14 rock gnome Rogue named Pibbly Tinbicker).  I also just installed FNaF World last night.

FNaF World, as you might guess, is a Final-Fantasy-styled adventuring party game based on the Five Nights at Freddy's series and all of its characters.  True to form, the adventure and the world itself (a world inside a video game which is growing increasingly glitchy, distorted and corrupted) start off pretty cheerful, but you start picking up on sinister undertones as you progress through the game. A significant part of progressing through the game involves finding certain glitchy objects in the world and using them to access the Subtunnels through the game's code. But beware; it's possible to delve too deeply into the game's code and find yourself trapped forever, unable to escape!

Here I am after four hours or so. I've unlocked all six Jumps (which let the player instantly travel to any previously explored region) and I'm getting pretty close to the endgame in Pinwheel Circus. Your party is represented by Freddy Fazbear bumbling around the landscape, even if you don't have a single version of Freddy in your party. Just accept it.

Interactions with Fredbear (your erstwhile guide through the world) and any of the NPC shopkeepers will show the NPC interacting with whichever character you've chosen to be your first party's leader. (No, that's not an NPC pictured near Freddy on that map. That's Browboy, one of the Boss Enemies. Don't walk into him unless you're prepared for a pretty hefty fight!)

The loading screen between scenes (including coming out of the Party, Chips and Bytes menu screens. The loading screens picture a random character (Withered Foxy from FNaF 2, in this case) and a humorous -- and possibly insightful -- quote about that character.

Anyway, speaking of party creation:

You start the game by creating two four-character parties from a certain number of available characters and, unless you're playing Fixed Party mode, you can change out the parties whenever you're not in battle. Blue numbers represent your first party, pink numbers represent your second party and you can swap parties at any time mid-battle (unless one or the other has been completely wiped out). One party's getting whooped to hell by a Boss? Switch parties. Oops, you're all out of Gift Boxes and the only character who can drop more Gift Boxes is in the other party? Switch parties.

Y'all remember the Marionette from FNAF 2, right?  Sure you do! Here he is. I love this guy! I love his looks, and I love his Prize Ball 2 ability. Prize Ball drops a swirly, colorful circus ball at the enemy's feet, then the ball explodes into a random effect which either damages the enemies, debuffs the enemies, buffs your party or two of the above. So you never know what you'll get out of a Prize Ball, but it can result in anything (from the first power tier), even abilities that your party doesn't normally have. Prize Ball 2's surprises are more powerful than just-plain Prize Ball's surprises. A Prize Ball might pop out a Waterhose attack (which instantly kills all enemies with less than 30% Health), while a Prize Ball 2 instead pops out a Waterhose 2 attack (which kills any enemies with less than 50% Health). Aside from that, Mystery Box replaces everyone in the party with random characters (including ones that aren't even in your character roster!), while Esc Key has a chance of killing every enemy instantly (though the chance is pretty slim, so I never bother with it; I just keep spamming Prize Ball 2 instead).

Springtrap (the main antagonist from FNaF 3) is another one of my favorites. His Bite 2 is pretty vicious and does a good chunk of damage (though is eclipsed by Nightmare Freddy's Mega Bite), and he's the only character with the Springlocks attack, which does a big chunk of damage to all enemies onscreen. Rainy Day is also a useful debuff which drops the enemies' Defense so they'll take more damage from your party's attacks.

Plus, look at Springtrap's face. Just look at it! Is that the face of a born warrior or what?

Some characters can't do any attacks at all but are nonetheless good to have in your party. Crying Child's an ugly character (and a fairly accurate representation of the children from the 4-bit minigames throughout the series), but he can buff the Attack and Defense of your entire party, and -- most importantly -- he can drop Gift Boxes. Every character in your active party then gets a Gift Box, which will instantly resurrect that character if he/she/it gets killed. This is an invaluable ability when you're fighting a very powerful Boss, like Security at the end of the game, who can chew through your party -- and your Gift Boxes -- rather quickly. More on Security later.

Chica -- one of your starting characters -- is a dedicated healer. Cupcake heals everyone in your party of a certain amount of damage, Party Favors steals some health from the enemy and gives it to your party, and Regen Song does steady healing-over-time for a while. You'll probably get plenty of use out of Chica throughout your game.

Phantom Freddy is Chica's polar opposite: The dedicated debuffer. Gloom Song drops the enemy's Attack (so they do less damage and miss more often), Sludge drops their Speed (so they attack less frequently and take more time between attacks) and Rainy Day, as I mentioned before, drops their Defense. Keep Phantom Freddy cycling through all three of his debuffs and the enemy will have a much harder time beating you.

You can also equip any Chips and Bytes that you find or purchase during your adventure, up to four of each. They bestow certain buffs or debuffs, grant special abilities or back you up with extra attacks. Like these Bytes. The Medbots continuously heal everyone in your party, the Bugs and UFOs attack the enemy (and the UFOs do some great damage, so you can forget about the Bugs once you start buying UFOs), the Bombs explode once per battle for some astounding damage, and the Reapers have a chance of instantly killing one enemy every time they strike. Others exist, but I haven't found them yet.

A battle!

Nightmare Freddy there is a power-hitter. Toxic Bite 2 does a big chunk of damage and poisons one or more enemies for continuous damage, Bad Pizza deals damage to all enemies (and possibly poisons them as well) and Mega Bite whoops the living blue hell out of one enemy. He doesn't have any buffs or debuffs; he's strictly a student of the "best defense" philosophy.

More of last night's fighty-fighty!

Neon Wall is another priceless defense ability; it reduces the power of all incoming attacks and may even block them entirely. Only two or three characters (like Endoplush there) can cast Neon Wall, so be sure to pick one of them up before you reach the end and fight Security. Trust me; you won't survive the fight with Security without Neon Wall on your side.

...and there he is.

There's Marionette, dropping his Prize Ball at Security's feet. What else is there to see here? Security charging up those five green energy balls to the left. That's his Alarm attack. A Neon Wall will block about five of those orbs before it collapses, and each of those balls does 9,999 Damage. So for Zeus' sake, keep that Neon Wall up! That's Endoplush's full-time job during this battle. Neither of his other abilities exists. Neon Wall is everything now.

Ultimately, my party wasn't dealing enough damage to bring down Security and they kept getting wiped out as a result. So I was forced to swap my beloved Marionette for a heavy, dedicated damage-dealer. That would be Nightmare Freddy again.

Also, I haven't mentioned the Paperpals back there. They count as a single character, one of the few who can cast Mimic Ball (the smiling orange thing at the bottom center there). If a Mimic Ball is out, any ability cast by any character will be immediately repeated by the Mimic Ball, effectively doubling your attacks, heals, buffs and debuffs. Mimic Ball isn't required to kill Security, but it makes the job a whole world easier!

Then fall, Security!

Unfortunately, as I was on Normal difficulty and not Hard, all I got for my trouble was a mighty jeer from Scott Cawthon himself.

But according to the wiki, Scott Cawthon himself is the Final Boss if you're playing on Hard difficulty, right after you kill Security. And he's hardcore enough to make the mighty Security look like a total milquetoast, or so I'm told.

But I am not deterred. I shall have revenge on Scott Cawthon for this insult! Stay tuned.

(...though I really, really should hop back on the House of Ainsley forum at some point. But I'm still stuck in the mud, so to speak. Again, sorries.)