Epic Island

Still playing Spider-Man Unlimited, current event may not be reached unfortunately. 1600 bad guy kills isn't as quick as one would think, 90% of a run is spent dodging and jumping. Ahh well, hope I get it. But anyways, lets talk about one 'epic' game heh.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id761219885?mt=8
Free, universal, gamecenter enabled, rpg/simulator.

My Thoughts
Glad I picked this one up, its actually a whole lot of fun and pretty different from the games I've been playing lately. This game is a kingdom simulator in which you send your heroes of to fight the villainy of the kingdom, receive rewards/exp for doing, gear up and fight bigger baddies and so on and so on. Visually the game is cartoony, but detailed. Sound wise is on par. Controls work just fine.

At the top level you will be staring at a top down view of your kingdom and surrounding countryside. Inside the kingdom itself are four interactive buildings. The boasting hall is literally your achievement screen, all achievements award iap currency. Think of this area as a guide in case you don't know what you should be doing. Next to the boasting hall is the Battle Arena. This is a pvp event based mechanic that lets you pit your chosen hero against another players chosen hero. The hero's are farm able apparently and there is a luck mechanic to the combat. Sometimes they'll win, sometimes you'll win. Its a dnd mechanic so it makes sense. Winning grants you experience and honor. The higher your honor the higher you place in the active event. The higher you place in the event, the better the reward when the event ends. Participating in the arena consumes tokens which recharge 1 token per hour to prevent too much farming.

On the other side of the kingdom's main courtyard is the main castle  which is comprised of a wall friends can write on, your friends list and a button to invite friends that uses facebook as its primary means of doing so. Which confuses me, gamecenter for achievements, but not for the friends list? Odd. You can also view the treasury which is basically storage for everything your heroes have looted or you have bought from the blacksmith.

Speaking of which,the blacksmith sits next to the main castle. Inside here you see randomly generated weapons and armor for sale. Some want in game currency, some want iap. That's the side purpose of this place though, the main purpose is the forge. Inside the forge you will upgrade existing gear for your heroes, thus making them better at smashing villainy throughout the kingdom. The interface is very simple. Drag a piece of gear from the right side inventory section to the left. Once you do this, the forge drops down and you can add up to five pieces of armor / weapon. Doing so costs gold and the equipment added to the forge is consumed, turned in to experience. When you feed the weapon enough, it will level up improving all its stats.

That is the current sum of the kingdom, everything else is outside in the wilderness so that's where this blog will follow. First things first, red boxes spawn randomly all over the place. Always click on them, they contain gear, gold, or iap. Now beyond that little ditty here we have the main area of the game. In these various environments you will see dungeons. Inside the dungeons are monsters. You kill these monsters. Doing so periodically levels up the dungeon making more, tougher monsters available to you. Killing the monsters also grants experience for you, random loot drops too. When you level up the dungeon, the inside of the dungeon gets bigger and you receive a green chest. This chest costs gold to open but always drops better than normal loot for your heroes. Note regarding the green chests, you can store them in the castle if you don't have the resources required to open them. Occasionally a better than normal green chest will be given to you that requires iap to open.

There is one other thing you will encounter out here, titans. Titans are much much larger than normal monsters that require participation from the entire player base to defeat. Participating to the effort is simple, works just like fighting a normal monster for the most part. Tap the titan, tap the hero. Here is the difference though, your presented with three choices. Each has a different completion clock and the longer the clock the better the rewards. On this screen you also see the titans overall hit points. There is an incentive to contribute to these titan kills, the more damage you do, the higher you rank. The higher you rank, the better the gear reward when the titan goes down.

There are large gates blocking off sections of the kingdom, you pay in game currency to unlock these. Inside these are new environments and new dungeons, probably new titans as well.

Near as I can tell our heroes don't have a hit point mechanic to them outside the arena. Out in the wilderness its simply a matter of choosing the target, choosing the hero to take out the target and waiting for the clock to wind down.

Regarding your heroes, you'll have two of them by the end of the tutorial. As a new player you'll be offered a 4 dollar one time iap purchase that gives iap gems and a third slot. The fourth slot wants 1000 iap, can't see the 5th slot yet so don't know its price. IF you had no gems and wanted the 4th slot, you'd end up spending 10 bucks. Not sure about the 5th. Also on the subject of iap, you can convert gems to gold, but not the other way around.

There is a pet mechanic to this game but I haven't unlocked it yet because the feature is hidden behind one of those gates.

I've no complaints about this game though I would like to see more involvement around town in a later update. something to upgrade, or customizability to the look of the town. Its nice watching your heroes when in combat as well as out of combat. Out of combat they will wander around the kingdom and surrounding areas.  Early on the micromanagement will keep you busy but once you level up any given dungeon afew times the tougher critters will take longer to beat and you can go do other stuff while your heroes work for you.

Summary
Fight stuff, kill stuff, loot stuff, level up, fight bigger stuff, level up the dungeons, unlock new areas of the kingdom, do the above to those new areas, punch titans around, fight other players in arena. win.

I like it, I recommend it.

Angrybirds Transformeres

That... thats amazing... the 15th can't get here quick enough!

Interstellar

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id894624394?mt=8
Free, Universal, 63mb download, no gamecenter.

My Thoughts
Mkay, first new game of the week. Something about building solar systems and then flying around in them. Loading the game now...

Tap to create your solar system, already this has a peter molyneux feel to it for some reason heh. Ahh cool ok so my finger caused the big bang. Indeed. For a solar system creator we have the full schwing here. Add planets/asteroids, add orbits around the sun, customize every damn detail about your planets, change size's and locations of planets and orbits. Very nice visuals...

Facebook integrated but optional, can make an account with them instead if you like.

You are an explorer, a pioneer, the galaxy map is your access to solar systems and starting point for new journies. Ok so endless mode, travel as far as I can without running out of fuel, return data (probably my score) to earth for evaluation, avoid strong gravity fields as they slow down the mission timer. Hah, cool. Time has no meaning in black holes, steer clear, gotcha.

Ok so after learning how to make things in my solar system the game takes me to a galaxy view and I'm pretty sure I didn't go where the tutorial wanted me to heh. I went in to some other players solar system. Now this is interesting. When you enter a solar system you have goals. The goals are to reach various planets and achieve orbits for x amount of time while collecting these little blue orbs as research. Once you've hit all the goals in the system, you head for the exit wormhole. Control in this area isn't too bad once you get the hang of it. On the right side of the screen there is a big red and a big green circle. Just in the corner of these is the zoom out/in button for solar system wide viewing. When you enter the system you have a directional line and essentially do a slingshot (think angrybirds) trajectory in to the system. Once traveling you can use green/red circles to control your trajectory when in the gravitational pull of a planet, or you can tap / drag on the ship to fire your thrusters in the direction your finger goes. Hitting a planet causes you to reset at the start of the solar system. There dosen't seem to be a limit on how many times you can do this, I've blown up quite afew... The goal here is to accomplish everything and get out without running out of fuel. Once you've accomplished all your assigned goals you can head for the wormhole exit or you can hit afew other planets looking for research points. Other things of note on this screen are fuel levels, solar power charges, how long you've been from earth and what time it is on earth. You can go in to options and bail on this solar system heading back to galaxy view and you can upgrade your ship in various ways.

Upgrading your ship consists of useful improvements and cosmetic flair. On the useful side you can increase fuel capacity, increase solar energy, improve armor plating, engine can be upgraded for speed and maneuverability and navigation can be improved for better path prediction (i suspect this lengthen's the white line extending from your ship so you can better plan your orbits and whatnot). It looks like those research icons you collect are delivered in real time back to earth so you can upgrade your ship without returning home. Back at the ship customize screen you can view 'patches' you've earned. Pretty much achievements, wonder why these guys didn't bother with gamecenter? Anywho, you can also stylize the ship. This is simply a collection of visual patterns, tap on one and the color/tone of the ship changes. Dosen't look like you can change the ship physically though. Just did some ship upgrading after knocking out afew solar systems, the ship changes appearance as you upgrade it improvement wise.

All in all, its definitely a charming game so far, though for some reason there is no sound... and the game just crashed on me. I loaded the game back up and found myself in the tutorial again. Either the game dosent save between game plays (unlikely) or I screwed up the tutorial when skipping around and saves don't enable until the tutorial is finished. Annoying in either case. Hrm.

So, started fresh obviously and completed the tutorial. Learned all the ropes and so this time once finished I headed back to galaxy map and hit start journey. This... looks like it creates a quest for you. A random grouping of solar systems to visit and a black hole to dodge. Oh right, black holes. When you encounter one it is simply a mini game. Follow the green line, avoid any asteroids that get in the way by tapping left or right side of the screen to steer. Enjoy the view, black holes look cool!

Other observations. Apparently we gain experience, there is a experience bar and level indicator in the options screen. Just finished a Journey, was 4 player systems and a black hole. Gave me enough research points to get 3 upgrades away from being fully upgraded. Interesting... either there's a nother tier to this game beyond the point I'm at or this game is... short. Hrm.

-cracks knuckles-

Lets see what happens when I fully upgrade the ship, it almost looks like the level bar is progressing as I upgrade. Game crashed again, but I didn't have to start from scratch. And when I opened the game again, this time I'm level 3. Huh. I was level 1 just prior to the crash.

Other observations. I can tap on any person on the galaxy and visit their solar system, no need for a 5 part journey. Every planet has research points, not just the planets the journey tells you to visit. Also, after collecting the required research around a planet, another batch appears, stay in orbit and double your profit.

Fun little game, will be interesting to see if they update with more content and things to do in the future. Final note before I wrap this up, this game is a movie tie-in. Here's the trailer :

o7

Wednesday Night Release

So... bendgate huh? Heh. Look folks, the thinner a phone gets plus the larger it gets, the more it looses the sturdiness. Any smart phone, apple, android, windows, dosent matter which will have bending issues if the phone is large enough and enough pressure is put on it. In the case of the i6+? I suspect one of the following :

. Tight Pants/Jeans plus i6+ in pocket when sitting down.
. Any pants with small pocket room.

Phones need room to slide around when you go from standing to sitting, put your phone in your pocket sometime and take a seat. The phone will slide to a position where it fits. Now, imagine a oversized 5.5 inch phone in a pocket thats too small for it to comfortably slide around. You end up with bent a bent 5.5 inch smart phone.

Solution? Bigger pant pockets. Or pull phone out of pocket when sitting. Or get one of those belt clip thingies. This'll blow over.

Know what won't blow over though? The 8.01 update wednesday that was so dick broken folks were actually unable to access their phone networks and the touch id home button stopped working. Thats sad apple, -hangs head, takes taunts at work without resisting- More QA before you release please.

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That being said, lets get in to the games. I surfed the release lists, ended up tabbing 8 games to separate pages for further investigation. Further investigation dropped it down to 4 games. 1 game refuses to load in itunes, so down to 3 games.

Interstellar
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id792959268?mt=8
Free, 62mb download, universal, no gamecenter

Epic Island
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id761219885?mt=8
Free, 95mb download, univseral, gamecenter enabled.

Anomaly Defenders
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id894624394?mt=8
4.99usd, 560mb download, universal, gamecenter enabled.

More details and impressions will follow, right now I'm going to go give these three a test drive.

o7

Weekend Randomness

Its been a busy week. -puts on Godzilla movie- Woo, Edge of Tomorrow trailer. I really want to see that movie! Into The Storm, what happens when you give mother nature an attitude, it's on dvd, gotta get it! Looks cool despite the 6.3 it got. Huh. Next, a new joker animated movie. Ahh there's batman, was wondering when he would show up. Also on dvd already. Hrm. Next, ahh the original batman tv series, meh. Did you know Heath Ledger ad-libed the clapping scene in the jail in the second batman movie?

Miss him.

Anyways, in my left hand I have my iphone 6+ and in my right hand, my mouse? Heh, I'm rambling.

So yea, my i6+ is, well for starters its huge. Its slightly bigger than samsung's s5 and its got twice the battery life of the 5s. The sensor touch for unlocking/using app store is alot more reliable than I was expecting though I used the wrong thumb for it, you shouldn't use the thumb on the hand that pulls the phone from the pocket. 9 times out of 10 the first thing you do once you pull from pocket is use your open hand to interface with the phone so use that thumb. I used the same thumb I pull from heh. Ahh well, Can fix it easily when I get around to it. I think my biggest challenge will be getting used to the relocated power button. I definitely absolutely like it better in its new position, I'm just not used to it being there.

-Godzilla finally starts-

I love the real estate of the screen, sooo nice and comfortable surfing the web. Fits in my pocket just damn fine despite what some reviews have mentioned, they must wear tight jeans. It does stick out of shirt pockets so I don't recommend putting it there unless you want to pretend your james bond with the camera on and record folks talking to you.

The auto scaling of older iphone games works perfectly, haven't really noticed any stretching in my 3d games and 2d games have been reported and I can confirm have no issues with scaling, you just see more of the 2d environment. I have afew games that don't seem to like the phone though, can't seem to get real racing 3 to run on it.

-cheers for Walter white in Godzilla movie!-

I've moved my freemium games to the phone, more convenient having them in my pocket on the fly. Clash of Clans, Boom Beach, Plunder Pirates, Spider-Man Unlimited. I also put Dragon Quest on it and as I beat the series each next one will go there too. Square Enix choose to use a really unique interface and it works amazingly well on phones because its designed to be completely controlled with one thumb. Of course, this interface doesn't work quite so well on ipads heh. So the phone gets the DQ series. It'll also get Real Racing 3 when the game starts working.

The wifey is the proud owner of a 4.7 inch iphone 6. She loves it, its really amazing how much larger the difference is between the 6's and the 5s and 6. My phone simply dwarfs hers! I've noted the standard 6 does not have landscape rotation like the 6+. Aside from that and a better camera, there's really no difference between these two phones and both rock!

-sniffles when Walters wife dies-

iOS 8 is equally amazing. Not one single complaint from my regular uses of the OS. Better messenger, better phone app, better multi tasking screens. I've heard complaints about the new sorting mechanics for photos, doesn't really bother me either way. I really like the changes to the app store, the bundling system is amazingly useful. Everyone who is an rpg fan should go get the squareenix final fantasy bundle for 30 ish bucks. 7 games worth 70ish normally. And my wife is obsessing over Big Fish's hidden object/adventure game bundles. I also like that if you own a part of the bundle, you can complete the bundle's collection at a partial price. And without a doubt my favorite new feature? Developers can add game play trailers in the app description. If they do, its always the first in the photo slide. Win!

I do wish they would give more details to the gamecenter confirmation though. Does the game use gamecenter achievements and leader boards, or just one of the two, or just the friends list, or what? Would save me alot of money on questionable purchases, thats for sure.

Oh, brb. Energy bar is fully charged on spider man unlimited :)

-sulks when Walter dies in Godzilla-

Back. Regarding Unlimited, damn I'm enjoying this little free-to-play title! There is just so damned much to keep one occupied in this game. I log in, check for the daily goals. Always do this, two always award ingame currency and the third awards iap. From there I check my leader board on the endless mode, this leader board resets daily and it has a whole slew of rewards based on your rank. Everyone gets something, so its always a win. I've finished the main story of the comic issues available, which is REALLY useful for chasing leader boards because each issue completed unlocks an extra spider man slot when playing endless and events. You always want the first card to have the card specific bonus you happen to want because you only get the bonus of the card active. Note, if you wipe out on a run and use iap to continue the run, each time you do you rotate to another one of your cards. The real benefit to multiple cards on your run though is that the multiplier each card grants stacks. So, if you go in to a run with 3 cards each having a 5.0x multiplier, you will receive a 15.0 multiplier boost to your final score that's applied to the leader boards. I REALLY like this because it means that the leader boards aren't strictly limited who who's the best at endless runners, its also based on who has been playing the longest (or spent enough real money which i don't mind because i will play long enough to equal them without spending 1/10th what it would cost to get to the end right now).

Lastly there are the events. Events reward in game, iap, normal card pulls, event quality card pulls, top end card pulls and card pulls directly. There are two things to an event, one is solo and all you, the other is leader board. The solo side will want you to accomplish something. Collect x mount of vials. Travel x amount of distance. Things like that. And there are always 4 or 5 progress points on the way to the overall goal. Each progress point awards various things listed above and each progress point awards steadily better than the one before it. The other half is the leader board and it works like the daily board, different rewards based on how you score.

So yea, this game rocks, it uses gameloft's cloud so you can cross play between devices. Just realized most of whats above I already mentioned a few days ago but there's more clarification so thats that, good game, grab it.

On to other games, I'm still playing plunder pirates. Its literally clash of clans with a exploration reward system and it makes full use of iOS 8's metal graphics boost system thingie. The ai is unusually stupid, I'm really hoping as I unlock additional unit types some of them will actually have priority targeting. In all these games though, I'll always find it incredibly stupid that my units will continue to shoot at a wall or resource building when there's a turret two inches further past the resource building chewing them up. Epic stupid. Ahh well, at least I have control of my units in boom beach thanks to flares that they will follow.

Real Racing 3 got an update this week, two new Lamborghini's, a new race series, a complete overhaul to the career mode interface and a revamped tutorial system. Regarding the cars, one is available now. The cuntach for 200ish iap gold. The other is the muria(sp?), not currently available and will be limited edition meaning after awhile she will vanish and if you didn't get her your sol. Regarding the overhaul to career mode interface, I like it better than its previous design, doesn't lag as much when surfing the series. I'm told the previous events we have had will permanently be added to the 'chapters' of career mode that they apply to. Example, when you get to the point where endurance mode unlocks, so will the event that preceded it. Complete the event first, get the 919 free. Nice! The first race series now has a full blown tutorial built in that plays out just like an event. Introduces you to all the race types. Then half way through that chapter of career mode is a second event that goes advanced on the race types, starts turning off features like acceleration and traction to give you a feel. Lastly, the new race series is in the final chapter, classics, has both new Lamborghini's, a old model Porsche and the Shelby Cobra classic. God I love that cobra, any chance to drive it in a series is always a treat. Its one of very few cars I drive in first person mode.

-watches Godzilla- God, who in the military was stupid enough to put analog on a nuke but then put the nuke on a electrically powered ship. Pretty stupid, now they have a armed nuke in the middle of the bay with an emp dead ship heh.

Clash of Clans got an update, new unit, several new units can reach new levels, other tweaks. The new unit is an air unit tank. Think golem but with wings heh. He is attracted to air defenses and makes a fantastic incoming dps absorber while your more fragile air units follow in behind. When he's killed, like the golem on the ground he breaks down in to several smaller units who continue to fight. The archer and the barbarian can apparently reach a new level. You can now pay for wall upgrades with purple elixir or gold. All round a good update, I've gone active again. Progressed from 1100 trophy count to 1700+ in the last three days, our clan is in a weekend war right now but I'm just not that good at the combat so I consider myself clean up detail. Clan rules say for the first 12hrs of a war anyone active call their marks on our forum and if you call a mark it needs to be within 5 levels + or - of your rank in the clan. After the 12hrs, attack anyone you want and mop up the unmarked or incompletely killed targets. I prefer clean up detail so that's what I'm waiting for. We're on a winning streak of late thanks to these rules so its all good!

Still playing space engineers! This week's content update introduced a new small ship cockpit, the ability to script c+ style for the game altering all sorts of mechanics, graphics fixes, all kinds of fun. The main base of mine continues to grow, all glass roof and whatnot for the main building. Working on a mk10 large scale mining ship. The new skybox moved the sun again, I'm going to move the solar panels one more time, and this time their going on a rotating piston so I can control the direction they face heh.

Godzilla just ended, fantastic movie. Freaking love everything about it. Going to wrap up this weekend randomness, will probably toss up some space engineer screenshots later on, maybe tomorrow. dunno. I'm in the mode for more giant on giant movies so I'm going to go find my copy of Pacific Rim and enjoy space engineers for abit.

o7

iOS 8 First Impressions

Took about an hour to install, up and running. Lets make observations...

1. There is abit of lag for the first few seconds after booting up my air when at the password prompt. Takes about 3 seconds for the first key press to register, good to go after that.
2. Something is... different with the entire home screen. Can't put my finger on it.
3. App store, the catagories button's been redesigned again.
4. Something called 'metal' came with the new os. Apparently its a new level of graphical detail for developers to take advantage of. AKA, metal games will look prettier. Gameloft and Rovio are the first two titles I've seen to make use of it with gameloft's asphalt racing series and Rovie's new plunder pirates that just hit this afternoon.
5. Message app overhaul. The most obvious thing is that I can hold down the mic icon and record my voice and just send that to other people. Also, I got lots of smiley emoticon options now, that may not be new to everyone though, seem to recall it existing in ios7. I think they just turned it on for everyone as default. Also the auto-word fill thing is nicer, its a bar across the top of the keyboard with suggested words appearing that is much easier to choose from.
6. Safari. Also receives the message app keyboard treatment. Favorites is NICELY overhauled. The favorites button is back on the left side of the screen and when you bring it up it is persistant, dosent go away once you tap a link. VERY cool! Safari just feels much faster now, gets to the app store when tapping links quicker too.
7. The drop down menu feels more... clean, less cluttered. Or just my imagination.
8. The pull up menu bounces. New icons and stuff.
9. Gamecenter... dosent completely load. Second attempt didn't even make it partially. Hrm.
10. Multitask screen has recent folks you've messenged and whatnot across the top. Middle is stillrunning apps and bottom is icon versions of those running apps.

Aside from the gamecenter oddness, everythings running smooth. Feels more fluid than ios7 even. Always a win. Hey win, gamecenter just finished loading as I was typing this, double win! Now that it loaded I can say, its unchanged aside from the font's looking crisper.

Anything else I notice, I'll speak on later. Till then,

o7

PC : Final Fantasy IV

-gasp!-

http://store.steampowered.com/app/312750
Final Fantasy IV, 15 dollars, usd.

Randomness

Downloading iOS 8 to the iPad Air now...

8 new comics I picked up today too...

Goat Simulator is on the app store...

Several other potential downloads hitting app store tonight...

Wifey's i6 will be here friday...

My i6+ has been bumped forward again. Started out 3rd week ship, then 2nd week and as of this morning it ships 1st week. Win!

Moar to follow... rawr.

Now Plaing : UnEpic

http://www.unepicgame.com/en/index.html
13.99usd, available on pc/wiiu.

http://youtu.be/Qr5dCc7_xqM

My Thoughts
Just started playing this game tonight, its a really amusing platform rpg that pokes fun at just about every sci-fi/fantasy movie or game since the beginning of time. Seriously, when a hostile ghost gets trapped in our character they call eachother names and then when asked your character says he is "Aragorn, son of Arathorn." The start of the story is simple. Guy joins d&d group, goes to the bathroom, light goes out, uses his lighter, finds himself in a dungeon. And then after he becomes convinced his dnd buddies drugged him, he decides to have a full fun go at this rpg he's living out in his head.

As stated above, this is a platformer. So alot of jumping and climbing. Its also an rpg so there are plenty of monsters to slay, loot to collect, barrels to break, equipment to equip, experience to gain, level ups to be had, talent points to spend, merchants to pester, potions to make, spells to learn.. see where this is going? Good. The game is also massive. After you reach the official save point, you quickly find whats essentially a fast travel portal room with about 20 doors. These doors are unlocked from the other side though so you'll explore out and then find the door back for quick travel later on as needed.

There is a quest system as well as a challenge system present.

Interface is simple but I left my xbox controller at home so I've been soley using the keyboard setup. arrow keys to move, jump and duck. Space to attack. Enter to interact. Hot keys 1 thru 0 are fully 100% customizable via inventory screen. Normal keys for menu surfing, i for inventory, c for character, m for map, etc. I'll give the xbox controller a whirl after I wake up, I suspect it's going to be my preferred means of playing. Jump/Run is abit unwieldly on the keyboard.

I'm about an hour in to this one, will no doubt follow up as I progress. Oh, full co-op and steamworkshop compatible for player made adventures.

o7

Borderlands mutiplayer works again!

The demise of gamespy left borderlands 1 players without any means of online multiplayer until today. According to PC Gamer as of today you borderlands 1 players will be using steam for your multiplayer needs from here on out.

A new week, a new skybox.

The skybox in space engineers is literally the background space 'wallpaper' and its fully customizable via steam workshop and I love it! Every few days I find myself surfing the skybox portion of the workshop checking out the latest additions.

The above is the default factory background, just one big never ending asteroid field.

Caldari Space background from eve online, this was the first I used when I learned how to change the skybox.

Been using this one for about half a week now, its also eve online one of the games randomly generated wormholes.

Just uploaded this one around 20 minutes ago, amazing...

Randomness, Progress Reports

I've been playing Spider-Man Unlimited steadily, probably a dozen or so times a day since if living by the energy bar it recharges every 50 minutes. Getting better steadily and felt really epic when I got a 100k score. Then some guy on toucharcade bragged about his 1.5billion score. Suddenly I don't feel quite so epic. Anywho, both old events ended, new one started. Not quite as good a rewards as the first 47hr event but still decent. Making progress on issue two, about half way done with it. I decided I'm not going to get the exp booster for 75 iap currency, these cards level just fine as it is on their own especially since I unlocked the second character slot. I'm now spending iap on harder to snag cards. Was going to focus on the 25 iap currency card draw's but their damn hard to upgrade because upgrading requires another exact matching card type/rarity to upgrade. Probably going to just focus on 5 iap currency rare card building out my entire deck instead. And all my ingame currency is being funneled in to purchasing additional hero slots atm.

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Dragon Quest 1. Level 9 and moving quickly. I bought the best of the best from the town just east of the starting castle and immediately went up to the north west corner of the map where another town resides. Started farming gold across the bridge just south of that town until I had the best weapon and armor from that town. From there I went to the cave south of that bridge, got lost in it for about 2 hours because this is a port of the 3ds which was a remake of the original and the dungeons are all redesigned. But I spent so much time down there that I went from lvl6 to lvl9 and walked out of there with 1600 gold. Was intending to spend 800 of it on the best shield available from the nw town but I actually found that exact shield in a chest in this cave so win! I'm either heading south to poke that thing guarding edrick's armor in the sw ruined town, or im heading north east of the starting castle. There is a... well it was a cave with some hermit living it in the original nes game, no telling what it is now. There's also two bridges to cross and a very very wealthy town way up in the ne corner that sells keys! Keys are used to open doors (obviously) and their either very rarely found off mobs/in chests, or from this town for sale.

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Space Engineers update. I've begun working on 2.0, the bigger meanier more useful successor to 1.0 (still haven't named 1.0 so can't very well name 2.0 duh). I built a platform just a bit below and further away from 1.0 on which to work on 2.0. Little sister comes along last night and decides that the long arm that connects these platforms to the main base needed a piston designed elevator. Prett much you place pistons next to one another each afew squares above the previous. You ride on the piston's head, then step on to the next piston and continue the trip, and so on and so on. 9 Pistons I believe make the total elevator. Well her doing this inspired me, I built a full wall/window around the elevator so it looked quality. Problem is, that quality elevator design made the platform 1.0 was parked against look like crap. Now that needed to change.

Little sister realized she had just made a monster and snuck away at first opportunity while I rebuilt the entire platform, added features that make docking 1.0 much easier after flying her around, then I went overboard and well... heh.

The photos are in no particular order but you can see the elevator she built, the condition of the platform too. I moved the conveyor under neath it, then redesigned the entire platform. I windowed it up and even put a overhang window over the neck of 1.0 when docked. Looks really cool to be honest and little sister has taken to parking her frigates on top the window ceiling of the platform and just hanging out inside the waiting area.

We used some piston trickery to build a boarding ramp for the ship. Button press on the platform or inside the ship retracts/extends the platform and you just walk on/off. Very cool. Also button on/off setup the connector that you can see in some photos. These things magnetically hold on to one another and even after disconnecting if you pull away the magnetic pull is still there. Makes it really difficult for all ship sizes to get away. Work around? Turn off the connector itself. Also ran a arm to the nose of 1.0 and installed a camera on 1.0's nose itself. Precision parking baby, Like A Glove! (ace ventura voice).

In those photos you can also see the work I'm doing on 2.0. She is flat out bigger in all aspects of the word. Installed two artillery turrets tonight on pistons that retract the weapons in to the head when not in use. going to work on some sort of door system to cover them when not in use here soon. Funny thing though, when I powered up the first gun, the conveyor system wasnt active yet but the gun really didn't like my ore detector sattelite that I had placed over little brothers asteroid off in the distance in the last photo. Its targeting beam was fixed on the satellite hard core. Well I shrugged, continued working, installed the conveyor system, etc. Running low on suit energy I hopped in to a chair on the platform (i have a chair on all platforms of my base, alot more convienent than running to the medical bay every time suit energy runs low, sitting in any chair on a powered base/ship recharges your suit) when I noticed way off in the distance that the satellite was in a dead spin. 2.0's weapons had pulled ammo from the base supply via the conveyor system the second I had connected it and one shot the satellite!

Amazing range on these guns.

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I now own every car in real racing 3 and have gold trophied every race in the game. Right now I'm just popping in and updating my time trial event scores, I run the le mans 24 race with my toyota hybrid super car for 700k or so ingame currency every day or so if I feel in the mood. Spending that on upgrading what ever cars are in the weekly time trial event so I can get the best scores possible for me. Which means I'm always rank b. Rank a? Probably need to practice and take off the training wheels. I have always had auto accelerate on, braking assist to medium. Very nice comfortable way to play, especially on portable but the braking assist in particular baby's the track somewhat, over brakes most turns. With it turned off I could in theory wait longer before braking in to turns which would improve my times. If I turned off auto accelerate I could even coast through lesser corners, resulting in even better time due to no brake use and longer lasting car wear. Of course, if I turn those settings off then I need to learn how every single car engages every single curve of every track... ugh. I wish this game had those damn guide lines that change from green to red and whatnot.

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And there it is, the games currently harassing my free time :)

o7

Spider-Man Unlimited

-puts thor 2 on the big computer screen, hits the blog on the laptop-

https://itunes.apple.com/app/id674657235
Free, 96mb download, universal, gamecenter enabled.

My Thoughts
A suprisingly good endless runner from gameloft. Controls are standard, swipe left and right to change lanes, swipe up to jump, swipe down to slide, swiping up and down are also combat mechanics when dealing with hostiles in your path. You'll spend your time collecting a yellow jar which is all over the place and used as ingame currency for upgrading hero cards an whatnot. Only two new mechanics to endless running, you can tap hold to web out an fly over large areas and occasionally the track goes up buildings in which you go tilt control.

Graphics are fantastic, cell shaded, very comic book feelingy here. Sounds are par for the course. Controls, occasionally a swipe dosent register, which as we know is insta death in runner type games.

As for things to do.
1. Endless mode, see how far you can make it.
2. Events. These want you to go as far as you can and reward you as you hit certain tiers. Events have two catagories each offering rewards. First is just goals for reaching 5k, 25k, etc distance and 25k on up actually award iap currency. The other is a reward based on where you ranked in a top 100 board against 100 other randomly choosen players for the event.
3. Story mode, these are stages and not endless. Always reward a good mix of currencies and occasional cards. As you finish issues you also unlock other things to do and maps to run on in endless.
4. The cards. Your spiderman is a card that levels up as you play him. Every 10 levels the card hits a ceiling. At an time before the ceiling you can combine cards to speed up the leveling. At the ceiling, you combine certain cads to unlock higher leveling ceilings. Leveling up increases your reward multiplier in all modes of game play. Unlocking higher ceilings also increase the star rating of that card.
5. You spend in game currency on random cards and combining cards.
6. You can send your non main spiderman cards on little missions that take x amount of time to complete, award x amount of random stuff and has a x.x% chance of failure, which can be eliminated by sending higher level cards or more than one car.
7. Collect cards is always fun, your basically pulling from alternate dimension spider men and each card has different 'buffs' to the runing if you use it.
8. Ingame currency also is spent on upgrading the random buffs you encounter mid run, this is a standard of endless runners. Increase magnet duration, etc.
9. There are two iap only permanent buff purchasables, a exp boost and a vial (ingame currency) boost. If you were to buy both from the iap store via purchased iap currency you'd have to spend 50 bucks, or spend 20 and farm the 20 you'd be short. Ouch.
10. The main story is tied in to several comic issues. As you complete issues you unlock additional character slots in all modes of gameplay except story. You put additional characters in these slots and it has two affects. 1, every character equipped gains experience for the run. 2, The score multipliers of the individual characters stack. This is amazingly useful for daily/event leaderboard and progress chasing.

There is a energy system here, 5 stack 10 minutes per charge recharge time. You can go to the leaderboards and invite anyone there to your in game friends list. Every time you run out of energy you can request energy from your friends and you'll see energy requests from them as well. Its a win win and a good way of circumventing the energy system entirely if you have several friends who are as active and you.

My feelings? I'm going to play within the energy timers, will spend farmed iap currency on those permanent boosters, spend in game currency on cards as needed and on improving my power ups elsewise.

Space Engineers pt3

Really need to get caught up on this :P

Let us start by saying the Little Brother did not do anything he did intentionally... to my stuff. He logged on for the first time, was looking around and whatnot. I pulled the three frigates I had out, put them on the extended hangar in the asteroid so he could use them for inspiration and he set right away to building one of those star wars rebel bombers. Real long dual engine things. He built it, but felt that bombers should have LOTS of speed... (which they usually don't heh). He put 8 or so engines on the backside for forward thrust... and 1 engine for braking. I logged out during this, went to bed. Woke up later to find him and little sister in another hollow asteroid working on darth vader's personal fighter from the first movie (pt 4). I joined them with the scv welder frigate and while doing that little brother went to take a look at my big project ship. This thing, being as big as it was going to be I had not built what was complete inside my asteroid, I ran some light armor blocks down bout 40 paces below the asteroid out of one of its natural holes near the blast doors to my base, built a platform, ran a conveyor link down there so I wouldnt have to travel forever when chasing components. Now down there I had built this long neck and a head and main body to a very large ship.

I didn't hear anything from little brother for awhile so I kept speed welding his vader flier. Then little sister vanished. Apparently they were having a private conversation that went something like this :

Brother : Can... two pieces of ship be re-attached?
Sister : Udunno, what'd you do?
Brother : Umm
Sister : Uh oh.

I finished speed welding and headed back to my base, and as I got in sight of my asteroid I noticed something odd. I could see the front of my ship in the sunlight which was odd because I hadn't turned meteor storms off at this point and thus would never have had my ship in the view of the sun. But then I noticed the tail end. pretty far away and in a dead spin drifting away from the head. Little sister was following the head and a portion of the neck, Little brother was following the tail.

-facepalm-

I later found out that little brother learned why 8 engines for forward requires at least 5 engines for reverse, he apparently came flying around my asteroid then realized he couldnt stop and since space in this game is at least semi realistic he couldnt just turn his ship and fly away quick like. He hit my ship, obliterated his ship and sent mine drifting away in two pieces.

I was irritated, attempted to recover the tail end since it was much more complicated, attempted to take my welder scv frigate with landing gear, land on it, lock the gear and bring it home. Landing gear exploded, took out enough of the frigate that pieces went floating in opposite directions and the main body was in even worse shape than before. I came out a second time with my mining frigate, attached a coupler to the tail end, attempted to 'dock' with it to bring it back, couplers exploded, killed that frigate. During this, little sister brought one of her ships to the head, attempted to bring it back home, lost that ship.

I called a cease to the rescue attempts and just went back to replacing my frigates. It wasn't intentional... it wasn't intentional...

:)

So anyways, after 2 or 3 days I finally felt like approaching the project again. That project would eventually be nicknamed 1.0 since I still havent named the damn thing. Built the body, everything, engined it up, good to go and here 1.0 is.

Some in progress, some completed costruction. Final photo in that group shows what the sky looked like after I figured out how to mod it using steams workshop. Now in that photo at this point in time on the other side of my asteroid is a donut shaped rock that little brother has settled in on building something big. When I loaded this new background to the server something unexpected happened. The maker of this workshop mod had moved the sun so it would look properly in that big cloud in the photo. This meant that the dark side of every asteroid was now the light and vice versa. And since meteors come from the sun in this game, we were suddenly in a shooting gallery. Little brother's project took a hit, I took the server down, did research and figured out how to turn off meteor storms. It isn't in the obvious dedicated config file, that option in there dosen't seem to do squat. I had to go in to the save files, find the sandbox file and turn it off there. No biggie, thats where I had to go anyways anytime I installed any mod on this server.

Meteor storm's gone, everything returned to normal. Second to last photo of that group you can see The Pill Bug's personal hangar and also the blast doors that cover one of two main access points to my asteroid.

So, 1.0 good to go for the most part, a bug causing station/ship connectors to randomly explode hitting the online servers, I left 1.0 docked and went back to frigate work.

Decided it was time for a new more effective mining frigate. Bertha was long since gone and mk8 was a simple dual drill frigate that bounced around alot when chewing dirt. As can be seen, mk9 evolved alot very quickly. Started as a four drill frigate with heavy armor around the body. Worked so damn well that I decided to see what would happen if I expanded another row of drills on all sides. Now at 16 drills, she is amazing. Seriously I love this damn thing, cuts nice big squares in to anything I point her at. Only draw back I noticed two days ago, if I am targeting specific ore's I tend to turn alot mid dig inside the asteroids to follow the veins. Unfortunately while the front side is heavily armored and takes almost no damage, the entire backside is soft and squishy. Had a minor explosion inform me of this but it was far enough back that it didn't kill me. It did take out one of two reactors, three engines and one of the gyro stabilizers. Limped her back home, repaired her and am planning on some serious upgrades. Especially since I saw just what a mining ship can be last night. Downloaded a mod from the workshop to try out in single player. Look at this...

That thing is massive. Its large ship class, easily over 100 squares long. It has at least 6 refineries in it as well as assemblies, large cargo containers, the works. Over 30 thrusters and the coolest thing? 50 odd drills in a star configuration that spins as it digs. You turn on the drills, you turn on the 360 rotating piston, you turn on the artifical mass units that cause this beast to slowly fall to the asteroid its pointed at. Then you sit back and watch, As you can see I even spent most of my time outside the ship watching it slowly drill a big perfectly circular hole through a pretty big asteroid. Took about 25 minutes for it to chew all the way through. Amazing!

mk10 for me will have likely more drills than mk9 and will have a rotating head like this monster above.

As for the base itself, remember this photo from two blog entries back?

One little building is good enough for a starting project, but I really want to upgrade that to a 'command center' of sorts with all assembly and whatnot in separate areas. That asteroid base now looks like this.

Home sweet home. Most piping is now out of the way, each module available for stations has its own wing including walk ways. Last image, 30 solar panels now completely feed this base all its energy needs to the point where the uranium reactors turned themselves off. A recent bug from a thursday update has killed the gamers performance when the ceiling flood lights in these photos are on so their almost always left off now. The smaller platform guiding lights don't seem to be affected so we're not operating in the complete dark.

I've rebuilt the lost miner as above noted, mk9 currently does the job but I do keep mk8 around when what I need really just dosent need a sledge hammer. The scv mk2 is up and running and as always improved. I also built a 'nightlight', its a simply frigate, one thruster in each direction, a piston facing up down left right with a flood light mounted at the tip of each. Extend the pistons, turn on the lights, good for working on dark sides of asteroids.

And that, is caught up as of yesterday. Spent the last 8 hours in game doing some cool stuff, but that will all be for a later post, tonight maybe. Off to bed with me, g'night.

o7