Cheapening the Re-experience

So when playing games, you want to keep it entertaining. And entertainment comes in difficulty, challenges, awkward positions. When given options to play slightly, or significantly, differently, you don't want to be able to run around like a God, practically invulnerable to any challenges that lay ahead. That's what the Easy Difficulty is for.

While playing Crysis 2, I found things a little... too easy.

With your Nanosuit, you can activate modules which change or improve upon your style of play. There's features for all three modes, Armour, Infiltration and Power, and your Nano Visor. And you buy them as you collect nano-catalyst from killing aliens called Ceph (Short for Cephalopod – AKA: Squids).

The Modules are varied and the best ones are really expensive, and require a couple of runs through to collect enough catalyst, but the question is: Can an expensive item be worth more than you pay for it?

One of the expensive modules is Enhanced Stealth, which lowers energy consumption rate.

I ran through the game using stealth as much as possible. I mastered the art of shifting between cover under the guise of stealth without being noticed. I was slowly becoming Stealth Kill incarnate. I could shoot any target with a sniper rifle without leaving a trace of my presence. Infiltration is for the weak.

And then I collected enough nano-catalyst to buy the Enhanced Stealth module. Now while it doesn't give abilities like silent footfalls or revealing your enemies path, it simply extends the period of time you're in Infiltration mode. So instead of jumping between cover, I can move across the map if I don't have to jump or fall, before I have to consider hiding.

Fair enough, I can choose not use the module and just stick with what I have been using, but should this option be in the game? So much time spent getting exhilarated at the chance of getting spotted getting tossed away just because you “worked hard for it”.

It feels a bit of a rip having too an calming experience going through the same game again.

"MAKE WAY FOR DA DEFFROLLA!"

So I had a long hard thought about what to do about a Promobike. I couldn't figure it out. Though I got the idea from it, I didn't like the idea of a Motorbike with a trolley on the back. Not even a pushbike looked cool.

I thought about using the standard 40k Ork bikes, but didn't see much room to 'advertise'. If I covered up the sides, or put something over the top, it would look pretty weird. More like a float than anything else. Or a boat. That could float...

I thought about Sand Surfer, you know the surf boards with sails but given a set of wheels so they can just go across sand? Yeah, but it just didn't make... sense.

What about a Buggy? Okay, probably a bit better, but where do I advertise? Maybe make him like a Sprint Car, and give him room to advertise there.

Then today, I thought about these fan factor models and said to myself “These guys could be honorary members of the team. Especially the Squiggoth. He'd be #17.”

Somehow my mind rolled over to the thought of a team member actually Dying, and subbing in the player with an honorary member. Such as the Squiggoth.

“What about the bike?” I said to myself. “How would we play him?”
“Well,” I responded “We'd just play him as if he had a Deathroller.”

Then it struck me. A deathroller bike? That'd be AWESOME! Make it a giant Blood Ball with extra spikes, put a sweet engine on the back and maybe the Sprint Car roof on top and Bob's your uncle.

It'd be pretty hard to put on a 25mm base, but I'll give it a go. I'd probably have to make it like a Monocycle in that case.

"WAAAGH IF YA HORNY" or How to build Fan Factor

First thing I thought of when I got home was “How will I mount a Scoreboard onto this Sucker?” Naturally it'll be on a Howdah just behind the drivers seat. And I'd make it a scorecard sort and have Orks behind it changing the cards to keep track.

Next is where will I put the Promokopta? I'd have to give it somewhere to park while it's not being used. How about on the Squiggoth? The main howdah is for people to travel in, so why not build a landing pad on top of it? Instead of having a H in a circle, do the Ork Blood Bowl team logo.

Otherwise, paint the side of the Howdah with the Blood Bowl Logo and “SKARBOYZ BIGGIST FAN” on the other. Up the back, an Ork Yelling out behind and holding a banner saying “WAAAGH IF YA HORNY!”

The Promokopta is going to be mostly custom made. I have a Garlic and Horseradish tablet bottle. Turn it on it's side, add Helicopter Rotors and skis, use the open top as a Jet engine, add a cockpit to the front (bottom of bottle) and if I want twinlink Rokkit Launchers, I have a pair of PS2-USB adaptors.

If I were talented enough, I'd open up the sides of the bottle to make extended platforms for Orks to sit/shoot from. The Rokkit launchers would have to be filled with actual rockets, so I'm thinking having one filled to the brim with rockets, and the other firing a piglet. Kel gave me that idea when we saw the Farrow Razorback, a rocket launcher held by pig men. I reckon it'd be awesome for the commentators.

“The crowd goes into a frenzy and pours into the pitch! What's this? The Kopta is getting into it too and... He's porked some poor sod in the head with a flying piglet!”

"Skarboyz Biggest Fan"

So I've wanted to make Ork Vehicles for ages. Nothing too significant, something small and entertaining. I already have an old Space Marine or Imperial Guard Tank sitting about waiting to get Looted.

But it came to me in a flash of lightning. How the hell do teams get across the country? By Tour Bus. What's better than a Tour Bus? A Tour Squiggoth. And what do I have? A Squiggoth!


To boot, when the thought hit me, the image in my head had a little helicopter in the background with one of those streaming banners with “Blood Bowl” trailing behind. So Why not make a mobile of a Deffkotpa with a trailing banner?

I also keep seeing those scooters with trailers on the back with advertisements on them. So an Orc bike with a Blood Bowl Trailer? Game on!

Yes I know that they're both the wrong time period, but you know what? It's cool! I could scrounge up a few bits and bobs from Aarons old Orks bits, like his Trukks and whatnot and maybe buy a box or two of Deffkoptas from the GW shop and convert one of the Deffkoptas into a bike! Or just buy an Ork Bike, but that wouldn't be as cool.

That'd give me an excuse to make a Squiggoth Side Car with a Bike Slingshot, and a landing pad on top of the howdah.

And it's all Justified as Fan Factor.

Shock Horror! Its not a Game Warning

Tonight i post from my new phone, the Samsung Galaxy 5. Its my first smart phone and my first annoyance which i suspected from before getting the phone was the keypad is really annoying to use. Its because i have there large thumbs and the best way to type is by pressing very gently with the edge of my skin. Its harder than it seems. Because i have a lot of skin compared to these buttons with little surface. Either way, the phone is great use for contacting Jenny because it has skype. And the cheaper i can contact her, the better. I may even make it a regular thing.

But yes. With the demise of my previous phone which involved dropping it on a tiled dinosaurs and the screen shattering inside itself, it was nigh unusable except to accept calls and be notified when Jenny has sent me an email which id check through my laptop.

I hope you enjoyed the typo that predictive text has provided. I am sure the tiled dinosaurs will enjoy your company, not my tiled floors

Model Delivery

So I received my Bloodbowl team in the mail. The poor bag got wet and the packaging was falling apart in Adams hands as he handed it to me, but luckily the pewter was fine in their own plastic sealed bags.

Twelve models, with the only two doubles being my linemen, sit in front of me wanting to be cleared of flash. And they're not little bits of flash either, they're actually kinda chunky.

But they're here and they're ready. I've figured out a few names for them too. Few'shor O'brikk'hows is going to be my Fat Ork Blocker, Galgutz Eat'ch'ya is going to be the mucleclad Black Orc Runner. I call him a Black Orc Runner because the name comes from the Video game which Automatically generates names. And Galgutz, through his Career, has scored about 7 touchdowns before I upgraded to the Legendary Edition (And pretty much lost that team).

I also had Dubb'lin and Glaz'gow Eddbutz, the Blitzer brothers, and I figured the easiest way to tell them apart was to paint their faces in their respective countries flags (Green, white, Gold vertical stripes; blue with white cross). The two figures I've picked both look similar, and the other two don't look like them at all. One is raising his arm as if to catch something, and the other has a pair of sharp implements on.

All in all, it's a good day for Bloodbowl and in celebration I think I'm going to try and play that Dwarf Team again.

Fkn Deathroller with a ST of 7.

New York, New York

Over the course of about 6 days of sporadic play I finished Crysis 2. It seemed to go on forever, which I was somewhat excited about but aggravated too, because it would come to a point where your character would finally get evacuated out of New York City, but you'd have to stay and finish a job since you're the only one who has got the Utilities to do the job, because of your nanosuit.

Your Nanosuit is a utilitarian masterpiece with only one drawback of a low power source, which is regenerative when nothing is draining it. Otherwise, you can plan out your tactics before you run through an enemy camp, including tagging your enemies so that you know if someone is going to sneak up on you, or track where they are if you want to sneak up on them, or even get the pounce on them when you're armoured up and holding a Heavy Machine Gun which you've torn off its mount.

Personally, the majority of the game was spent Stealthed between various forms of cover, and attempting stealth kills on the majority of enemies, exceptions being the Ceph Heavies and areas I simply couldn't pass without having to kill someone. To which I used a Silenced Sniper Rifle and cracked a few headshots for mostly good results.

But this made the game tedious. While I wanted to just waltz into the fray with a light machine gun, or an assault rifle, or even the Microwave Gun you can pick up, I was tempted to lean towards sneaking up behind people and snapping their necks. There were moments where I had to run about in armour mode, but that was pretty much refined to taking out the Ceph heavies and shooting them with a Light or Heavy machine gun until they exploded.

Or the microwave gun, where they popped inside their armour. Jeez it's funny watching them do that, because the easiest way to describe the Ceph are that they're semi-transparent balloons with tentacles filled with alien bits and bobs, and armour pieces stuck over the top. It's pretty gross, but popping those suckers was just like the feeling of popping pimples in my teenhood.

Now the story has a lot of revolutions around a character called Prophet, who was pretty much a sceptical character in the first Crysis, and for good reason which is explained more and more in Crysis 2. Though in Crysis 2 you don't get to see any of the previous characters except for Prophet. Nomad and Psycho make no significant appearance which is disappointing since they were two of the main characters of C1. I hope an expansion will tell tale of their adventures, but since this is a new game I'll just wait a few months for that to happen.

In the mean time, I'll go through on a harder difficulty and see how much difference it makes to the gameplay.