Xmas Period

What to do during my Xmas Period, hey? There's a fair few options.

Paint my Legs Eleven army. I had it painted up mixed between the standard Red scheme and a Greyscale Scheme, which was Nice and all, but now I want to change it all to the White Colour Scheme with some Red Symbols. I've already coloured my Classic Destroyer and Juggernaut in that scheme and it looks pretty cool. The colours stand out and any markings I put on there come out really well. The only thing I'm really missing is a Bombardiers Card, the second Behemoth Bombard Cannon (Keep forgetting to order it), the 2010 Sculpt Butcher of Khardov so that I can see about doing the Man-O-War-Butcher conversion, and a Box of Battle Mechaniks + Officer.

Also paint my FSA. I have a bunch of stuff and I haven't painted them yet. Mind you, I haven't got an idea of what colour I want to paint them. Though I did pick up some odd blue/green colour somewhere along the line, thinking "Yeah, I'll paint it that colour". I'm sure I have that stocked away with my other paints.

Finish my Video Games. I've picked up a few video games that I just haven't finished, mostly my PSOne Classic games. Metal Gear Solid; Final Fantasy 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9; I've borrowed FF13 from Scott so I'll finish that one off too; I could play Deathspank, but I don't particularly like the game; Penny Arcades "On the Rainslick Precipice of Darkness" Ep 1 and 2 are still sitting there and haven't been played in a while. Oh and Crysis 1. And FF Tactics and Tactics Ogre. Patapon as well.

I was considering playing World of Warcraft, because I'm feeling a bit wistful about it. One of my friends has gotten back into it because she finished Uni and now she has plenty of time, and is just poor enough to have her account active. She's also having trouble getting through it by herself.

Oh and mum picked me up Skylanders as well, after I explicitly told her not to get me anything for Xmas. But no, i made it clear that i was interested in the game, so she picked it up. Ugh, generous mothers.

I've also been looking into Mordheim, because a few friends have mentioned it and I've been like "yeah, that sounds pretty cool." So I've gone ahead and looked into the rules for that, particularly Orc Warbands. And their story is they're the official fan club of my Blood Bowl team, and they fight for Ticket Money, riding around in their fainting Squiggoth.

That's another thing, I should finish painting my Blood Bowl team. They haven't done much lately, so they're definitely up for some fresh paint to cover those bits I just haven't done.

Skylanders

Okay, so when I'm asked "How old does your mother think you are?" I'm pretty sure I don't care. Because a few weeks ago, my nephew had his 10th Birthday and he got Skylanders. So for most of the night, I was trying to steal it from him because I've been interested in the game for a little while.

It's a fun little concept, and will probably rake in a buttload of money for Activision (if it hasn't already). You have your figurines which are at about 4 inches tall including the base, and you place them onto a Portal, a small wireless platform which you keep next to you so you may change your characters in the middle of play.

That's right, it's video game that "brings your statues to life". It's a pretty cool gimmick, I reckon. And they've thought of a lot of features about it.

For example, if you have been playing for a while and gotten your character to level 5 on your PS3, gotten some cool hats, and you want to go to a mates place who has the same game but on Wii, No worries. All your toon data is saved ON THE FIGURINE. And no matter what console you have, THEY ARE ENTIRELY COMPATIBLE. You could even use the same Portal Device thingy to plug it into an Xbox or Wii with the little Wireless USB that they provide. The only thing you need is the Game Disc and Bob's your Uncle. So anyone planning to pick up some Skylanders Gear, be sure to note what Figures are yours!

Sidenote: It is really hard to say Portal when your first thought is Aperture Science.

Now the data information I imagine works much the same as a GOCard, the figure contains a chip that reacts on radio waves provided from the Portal device. So as you're playing, your details are constantly being updated. Money, Levels, Abilities. Everything.

Each character is very individual, but is also assigned to one of Eight Elements. Earth, Fire, Water, Air, Life, Magic, Tech and Undead. The last two surprised me for a kids thing, but Tech could make for some cool stuff, and every kid loves an adorable skeleton and the insatiable desire to kill spiders gives even more incentive to play the levels.

But as is the norm for games these days, there are collectables to find, and some areas are restricted to who can go where by their Element. So while you may not be inclined to pick up all 32+ characters, you're still slightly pushed to go and grab at least another 5 of your corresponding missing Elements.

The PS3 version I received started with Spyro (Magic), Trigger Happy (Tech) and Gill Grunt (Water), and I've gotten through most of the game quite happily, just missing out on certain hats and items due to Element Gates.

So the downside? Well the cost of the new figures is a big one. They're AU$20 a pop if you get them individually, cheaper if you look around, and somewhat cheaper again if you get a triple pack. And there's 32 individual characters, with a few with Special Edition versions. The game itself comes with 3 figures, the Portal and the game for just short of AU$90.

So it starts off cheap, but can add up as you collect more and more. I'm already up to 5 at the moment because Mum keeps buying me more figures, and my aforementioned nephew is getting a double of Stump Smash so he's going to give that one to me to make it six.

Future expansions and/or DLC? I'm hoping they'll be free and Activision will recoup with what they spend on figure sales. They'll be required to bring out new figures as well, most data of which will be provided from the DLC or the figures. Though I have my doubts about all that.

But yes, I've had quite a bit of fun with it. And as much fun as I am having, which I appreciate, I'm still pissed at my Mum for getting me presents after I explicitly said "Don't get me anything".

De Offishul Damaskus Skarboyz Fan Klub

I have a Blood Bowl team, called the Damaskus Skarboyz. They're not a great team by any length, but there's always gotta be some sort of fan club. A group of fanatics that have their own Fantasy Blood Bowl team and have at least three players from their favourite team, and are always trying to get tickets to go to every game they can.

These are "De Offishul Skarboyz Fan Klub". They're Hooligans by trade, and they fight for stuff so that they can buy tickets to the Skarboyz Game.

Da Boss is a gentleman by the name of Skarbum. He swore dedication to the Skarboyz team when he saw, and slightly misread, the source of their teamname , and got his name changed by De Pol, which is a pole he carrys with him to smack anyone who calls him his old name.

His two Big 'uns are Docker and Packer, both used to work at their hometown Harbour until the Boss decided to play around with their orders making them move one lot of crates between five different spots on the Dock. Once the two caught on, they went off to have a piece of him, and saved the rest for lunch tomorrow.

Shparky is a Professional Wizard who went to the Guild of Professional Wizards. Shparky picked up his nickname after blowing himself into a wall from a fireball spell that fell short, and losing a few teeth that help pronounce the S sound in the process. Now any time he casts a spell that goes the way he wants it to, it's followed by a whistling Success.

Though Shparky is regularly hired for Blood Bowl games, the fee of 150,000 crowns is not given to him as he is not a Self Employed Contractor. He does not make any profit from being hired except for receiving free tickets for himself and the club, and free food which he spreads amongst the attendees. This caused competition within the club to go pick up the food, as everyone knew that whoever went to pick it up would only come back with half.

The four met up after the crowd came onto the field and went back to back with a few of the Team Members and, with a bit of rough business dealings, formed De Offishul Damaskus Skarboyz Fan Klub, a growing fan base that follows their favourite Blood Bowl team on a Squiggoth, who suffers from Myotonia Congenita and has warning signs of "Dun Skare da Skwiggoff or Yooz'll Regretz it" and "Keep Klear Fainting Skwiggoff" hanging from it.

Though they are quite a fan of Ork Band, they try not to listen to them while on the road. It scares the Squiggoth too much.

Limericks are fun!

Some people think that love has a Summit
If there was for us, there is a massive plummet
Because two years have gone
We're totally still going strong
And I'm still getting told that it's amazing we've done it.

This is nothing like a Mensiversary
This is actually an Anniversary
So in this limerick today
I would like to say
That I Love and Adore my Beautiful Jenny.

Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary Edition (Expanded)

I'll just start off to say... It's not the Halo I quite remember. It could just be the Graphics Throwing me off, it could be that it's been so long since I last played it, or it could be that I'm trying to find the flaws that whatever . But the game doesn't feel comfortable, I'm still thrown off for some reason and it's starting to bug me.

I feel there could be improvements, but then again, the original Halo could have had improvements too. Less repetitive and winding corridors mainly. Any further improvements were left to later Halo Games because they had more of a direction of what they want out of their games.

What they've done is very nice indeed. The game is very pretty, and the new skins for the enemies and friends are very cool. It definitely makes it want to feel like a new game. The AI remains to be as docile as it was in the day, leaving you to do most of the dirty work, seeming really sluggish as you circle around hunters to score that one pistol shot in his arse. And the Warthog feels so heavy and sluggish it's almost not funny.

It feels like the old game, but prettier.

Then you roll it over to the Classic Mode using the "< Back" button. The screen blacks out for a moment and everything rolls back to what is supposedly what Halo looked like back in 2001. That's something that I'm quite sure is not quite right. It doesn't seem to change it to what it did look like, but rather to a version of the game still being half made. Tiles textures, and hardly any actual detail. the original halo had plenty of detail.

I'm going to give it a go again tonight, maybe leave it on Classic Mode for a little bit to see if the graphics are actually loading or not.

---

Okay, so I had a look at it again last night and ran through until I got past the Library level. I even spent a better part of a level in classic mode to see if I was actually correct in my assumptions, and I think it was a case of what level I was looking at. The first time I loaded up the classic level, it was right at the beginning when Master Chief was taken out of Cryo stasis. That was a rather piss poor example to look at it, really.

And occasionally I'd flick it over to see the difference between the two, and the graphical difference is significant. Croist, the overall layouts may be the same, but you don't feel so lost. I went through the Library level and it was exactly the same level, with those son of a bitch flood coming out of the wood works, and Guilty Spark leaving you in a closed room which gets Flooded (See what I did there?) and you're always panicking because your shotgun is trying to get reloaded and you're getting shot at and whipped at the same time, and etc etc etc.

It was a time like this that I wish that the Flood were as easy to kill as they were in Halo 2 and 3, where a Melee Attack will, at worst, knock them down.

As for my weird feeling, I think it's just the three suggestions I made. The Time since I last played, The Searching for Flaws, and The Refreshing new graphics. Everything else is pretty much the same as it has ever been. When i said you don't feel lost before, it's mostly because the new graphics compensated for that. Each different segment you go through, there are large symbols on the walls at the ends of corridors so you know you're in a different section. Doesn't mean anything else has changed, but hey.

I do like the extended scenes though. The Master Chief talking between Cortana and Guilty Spark was really fulfilling. That's one flaw I was sure on, Cortana's animation. Seemed a little dodgy at first, but thought it was just me. Then it happened a second time. And then the third time, I was sure. It was clunky and didn't really sync very well. Or at all.

Anyway. Playing through the game, on Normal difficulty because I'm more curious on the changes than the challenge at the moment, the levels look wonderful, the skins on the enemies are distinct and interesting, and the visuals for each level are vastly improved and more impressive.

There's always a wonder though of how different the game would be if it used the same system as Halo Reach? The better AI and controls would be a nice change, such as the less sluggish Warthog mounted by dopey AI friendlies, and the Scorpion Tank mounted with 2-4 marines with Sniper rifles... that could be ridiculous actually.

And poppers reviving knocked down flood? And transforming the dead bodies!? The Library would get as dangerous as it would easier! You blow apart bodies with melee attacks and shotguns, but they get back up from the BILLIONS (That may be exagerrated) of poppers that crop up.

Mr Zurkon wishes you a Happy Kill Day, Scott and Gavin

Scotts Birthday Weekend just passed and it was exhausting. The entire premise of the weekend was for Scotts 25th, we'd go to his place and just play various games to suit the moods. Naturally, we hit some snags.

It all started Friday Night. I got home after work, had a shave because my beard was getting wild, a shower, and then made sure I had everything packed while I wait for Aaron to come pick me up so we could go to Scotts and we'd just stay the weekend.

So we hit our first snag. It got to about 8pm and Aaron hadn't turned up. Aaron expected to be at Scotts and prepared by 8pm, so we were getting worried. Turns out, Aaron was first on the scene to a Car accident at the end of his street. So he was held up and said he may not worry about coming around tonight.

Scotty organised with his parents to come pick me up, which was really nice of them to go a out of their way for me and Scotty. We packed up my stuff and off we went to his place to set up my stuff which included:

• Xbox 360
• Monitor
• Wargaming Miniatures, including Warmachine and Dystopian Wars
• Clothes
• A greenbag of Games and Gadgets
• Castle Ravenloft D&D Board Game

Soon as we got to Scotts place, we began assembling my Xbox Array to play. It started off really well, playing Gears of War 3 Horde Mode with Richard who joined us from Xbox Live in Townsville, and levelling up our skills. Richard and I hadn't played Horde 2.0 before, so the only thing we could do was build Caltrops. Scott got us to do that while he saved his money and got a Turret. We got to about Wave 15 before a wipe, I think.

That was when we traded players. Richard went off to bed, and Aaron arrived with Mcdonalds in hand. We talked for a little while about the car crash as he set up his Xbox and TV/Monitor so we could play Halo Multiplayer.

Snag 2. Just that afternoon, I had picked up a copy of Halo Anniversary so that I could play Halo Reach Multiplayer with everyone. I knew we would play it at least once during the weekend, because Halo is Scotts favourite game EVER, and Halo Anniversary Multiplayer is supposed to be compatible with Halo Reach Multiplayer, as they both use the same system. It's designed to be that way.

But that's not entirely the case. If you are playing Halo Anniversary and your friend has Halo Reach, you can only play multiplayer with each other if A: Your friend has the Anniversary Map Pack for Halo Reach, so that you can play on the limited list of Anniversary Maps, or B: The player with Anniversary BUYS Halo Reach. An option available is for download at a price of just under $100.

That's a big snag. We tried a couple of different things, such as Installing Halo Reach to the console, swapping games between consoles, etc etc etc, and we got nowhere.

The other problem we had was Xbox Live Logins. At any one time, between three consoles, two Xbox Live accounts were logged in, which caused no end of frustration. Eventually we gave up and left it for Gavin to figure out, since he's the one who basically set up the Network within Scotts house. Turns out it was actually a router problem and Gavin solved it. The only thing he was worried about was lag, which I think I was the only person to actually experience it.

So I moved over to Aaron's console and we would just do splitscreen. Three Xbox Live Accounts were logged in, but it was just 2 consoles so it got through without hassle... if it weren't for the Matchmaking. We sat there for about a half hour getting three other people, then one, then none, then five, then none. No idea what was happening, but we gave up to play Ratchet and Clank All 4 One. Scott was apprehensive only because he thought the game was Splitscreen. That is not the case, I told him. It's a single camera that players all interact on.

So Scotty unwrapped the unplayed game, as he had been waiting to play it with someone (i.e. Me) and slid the game in. We waited until it finished installing, preparing trophies, loading the game, and then had a wonderful hour or two of Ratchet (Scott), President Captain Copernicus Qwark (Me), and Doctor Nefarious (Aaron) running around throwing out wonderful lines such as

"Ammo. Stuff to kill stuff with." - Qwark

And

"The Doctor is in... AND HE HATES YOU" - Doctor Nefarious

Twas a hilarious time fighting for Bolts and trying to shoot each other across chasms, and eventually we retired to the mattresses left on the floor.

Come Saturday Morning, Aaron and I started off the day by driving down to his place and looking for his copy of Gears of War 3. It took us about 45-60 minutes each way between his place and Scotts, then we spent a half hour looking around the upstairs of his house searching for the game only to come downstairs and find it there.

When we got back, Scott Aaron and I began playing a Dystopian Wars game. Three way game, 1500 points each, Federated States of America (me) versus Prussian Empire (Aaron) versus Covenant of Antarctica (Scott). With the positioning, and our poor starting locations on a 6x4 ft table, Scott felt compelled to fight Aaron first. Aaron approached him very quickly as the closest target, sending off only a handful of things my way which took a bit longer to kill than they should.

I spread my forces out a little, having one Enterprise Dreadnought and the Independance Battleship head straight up the guts towards the middle of the Islands, firing off at whatever was in range. The other Enterprise Dreadnought came up around the other side to flank Scott. The proble with that plan is that they're very slow. 6" across a 6ft board takes time, even if I'm only aiming to get halfway across it, and there's only a handful of ways to increase it's speed.

So we started on Saturday Morning and ended Sunday afternoon. Scott came out best thanks to his really good rolls. The cheeky son of a bitch complained about my own rolls after seeing I had a really impressive attack roll against his Dreadnought, a critical hit. Which he turned around and rolled shields against it, and ended up negating the entire attack.

At the start of our final turn, I declared a forfeit. Scott had a rather badly beaten up Prometheus Dreadnought after what seemed like a lifetime of turns, much longer than I really wish it was since he was Squaring off against my Enterprise Dreadnought, and a Submerged (Not sunk) Battleship which had gotten in the way of the reversing Enterprise Dreadnought, who sunk after the collision and dealt 1 point of damage to the battleship leaving him on 1.

What I had remaining was a highly damaged dreadnought on the far side of the map (4/10 health left) and an untouched battleship. But with Scotts rolls, and the amount of dice that Scott was pulling out of his arse, I wasn't going to bother. I kinda wanted it to end. Aaron had already left with a bitter taste in his mouth after his Blucher Dreadnought killed 1 Frigate in the entire game. That's fair.

Back to Saturday, Gavin got the Router Fixed and we began our games of Halo Reach, six of us including Myself, Scott, Aaron, Gavin, Richard and Chase, until we eventually tired and moved back to Gears of War again. Because there were six of us and Horde 2.0 only allows 5 players, I stepped out because I was feeling a bit drained and my back was kiling me from leaning against my Warmachine/Hordes bag on top of the mattresses. It's not good back support.

Skipping back through to the next day, we finished off the Dystopian Wars game, and had afternoon tea which we elected as Red Rooster. Something different from Pizza or Mcdonalds. We won't be going to the Red Rooster at Strathpine again. They have the worst prepared Burgers and Rooster Rolls I have ever seen. I was lucky to get a Wrap.

Lastly, before we ended the night and Aaron dropped me off to pick up Caryl from the Airport, we played another hour of Ratchet and Clank.

That was my weekend at Scotts. Happy Birthday Scott and Gavin (They're 4 years apart, but born the same day).

Welcome to last week

Huh. Epic Vlad II, huh? That's a very Epic sort of picture.

See, I like Vlad. He has had a very cool life written out for him within the Warmachine Expansion books. He had a fkn ridiculous fight ahead of him last I saw in Legends, where he, Drago and a large contingent of the Ironfangs were trying to hold off the Llaelese resistance who were being assisted by the Protectorate.

But I've never liked the idea of playing Vlad, and that's because I keep hearing "Oh he's Sooo Good, you'd smear vegemite all over him and have him for breakfast."

Maybe not in those words, but you get the point.

So I steered away from him and kept with casters that I saw more appeal in, like Irusk and more recently Brian Blessed.

Though with the image above of E2 Vlad, I'm tempted to give the E1 Vlad model a go since I've never actually played him, so getting an idea of where he really stands as a Warcaster is something different for me to do.

I'm still yet to play Strakhov or Zerkova yet, since I've only just assembled them over the weekend, and I know I will play with them eventually, but this just adds to the list of Casters I want to play.

And if I wanted to do a theme list, it's really simple to get all the bonuses.

• Blood of Kings

Vladimir Tzepesci, the Dark Champion

- Berserker

- Drago

- War Dog

Great Bears of Gallowswood

Ironfang Pikemen (Max)

- Officer and Standard

Ironfang Uhlans (Min)

Kovnik Markov

Seriously, that's 35 Points at Tier 4. Kinda easy, really.

So now, lets talk about Vlad3. Lets extrapolate the man your man could Warcast like.

The most promenant thing that I've already made a joke about is that he's on a Horse. A Big Horse. I'm not sure if it's the same breed as the Man-O-War Drakhun's Horse, but it's still a biggun. It makes him the second Cavalry Warcaster in the game, the first being Jeremiah Kraye from Cygnar.

The second thing I notice is his weapons. His first incarnation had two Swords, a Longsword and a Shortsword, both family heirlooms which he has used for many battles. His second incarnation had these two weapons smithed together under the direction of Zevanna Agha, a guide of the motherland and to the Royal Family of Khador, turned the pair into a Greatsword.

Now he has a Flail and Spear. So I'm curious what story will lead to Vlad's new weapons.

After that... well that's all I really take from the image so far. I'm curious where it will lead!

COR, BLIMEY

HE'S FKN AWESOME