IT'S RAINING! Yes this is the UK, land of eternal damp, but it's been like SOMEWHAT WARM for like A FEW days, and this rain is now a gift from the gods. The vegetables are watered! I don't have to go outside! Praise whoever the rain god is these days!
Welcome to another high quality monthly round-up from inside Offy D HQ. I guess some things actually happened this month, so let's type about them:
I started a new series in the legendary Crusader Kings 2. Legendary for how many times I have been asked to make a series in it, legendary for my lack of interest over what must be 3-4 years of owning it now, and legendary for being a game that is not at all suited to let's play videos but that ain't stopping anyone. So, now I suppose I should edit the thing on my FAQ page complaining about Crusader Kings 2 requests, because maybe now they will go away. Well... probably not actually... Better leave it...
It's a nice little series because it's not very stressful to make on account of only having about 20-30 minutes of voice recording per episode. Mostly I can just chill and focus on writing the script, and then the minimal editing to finish things off is nice and easy. Ahhhh the horrors of making CK2 series weren't as all-consuming as suspected! Playing the game is still annoying, but that goes for all the things I'm recording at the moment due to my backlog of things I want to play for fun being quite big at the moment.
I've also started work on a new Mount and Blade series, which I intend to make in a more 'novelish' form, with lots of narrator stuff and with dialogue presented in prose-form i.e. with "BLAH BLAH" said Jim, his eyes emitting powerful proton beams into Gertrude's high temperature magnetic toroid. Haven't got very far with it yet, and editing the opening spiel will be annoying as everything what happens at the start of the series is nearly impossible to portray in the game, or in any way at all really. That's good script writing isn't it? So... lots of imagination will be required I suppose.
I'm not really focusing much on this, probably just a couple of hours a week, since I'm mainly using the time freed by the swap from Barbarian Masters to Promised Crown on Kings and Generals recordings. Rumour has it their production will be ramping up even further - 'tis but a mere stone's throw from being the premier history doc channel on the tubes, so I hope the people of Earth enjoy my voice!
Any other channel news to rant about? Not really. Previously I had mentioned that the channel had been turning a profit somewhat (I say the channel, I really mean Patreon and Kings and Generals commissions). Everything I made so far this year is now gone because... I blew it all on an Oculus Rift! I suppose that leads me into my monthly report on...
WHAT I PLAYED THIS MONTH!
This month I played: Dark Souls 3, Robo Recall, and a tiny wee bit of Skyrim VR these last few days.
Dark Souls 3 came hot on the heels of my completing Dark Souls 1. 3 comes after 1 right? I very much enjoyed the higher frame rate, prettier things, and slightly more controllable character moves (esp. dodges). It is also, I would say, much more 'fun' in that it requires many fewer repeats of the same section in order to progress, compared to DS1. More bonfires, fewer sudden deaths, easier dodging and a TINY bit more information is given to the player about the game's mechanics (still not enough for it to be 'stand-alone' playable though, so minus some points for that).
After the first hour it had far fewer difficulty walls that DS1 - I complained previously that DS1 is actually very easy most of the time, then has sudden impossible moments, which is a very boring combo for a game that makes you repeat sections upon death. However IN the first hour of DS3 is the first boss, which was BY FAR the hardest part of the game for me. I haven't actually beaten the final boss yet, but I am at it, and I can say with confidence that the first boss was just insane. It's second phase has a nearly-impossible to tell attack pattern with three independently moving limbs that hit in different directions... oh no point explaining it. It's the worst, okay. The rest of the game is just normal, with boss attacks being learnable and dodgeable, so you can reliably get through in 2-3 tries.
I believe DS1 is considered to be better, but I would guess that's just because it's concept was newer at the time. DS3 is just shiny DS1 to a passing casual like myself. I'm told DS2 is terrible in some way, hence not bothering to buy it in the steam sale alongside 3.
Robo Recall is a VR game that was free with the Oculus Rift. It's badass. You shoot robots with guns with a whole load of stylish teleporting, grappling and explosive action. It's like the matrix, but you fight machines. So it's like the matrix. It seems like a much faster and more frantic take on Superhot, where you can't stop time completely to plan ahead (you can slow it down though). Basically, as you might guess, pointing guns with your actual arms and shooting stuff up is very satisfying, and the VR perspective makes it way more crazy. Evil robots get up in your face, you whip the shotgun out and blast it away just inches from your own eyes. SHINY. It's a very well made shooter overall (but short). Loads of other games could easily be made with the same engine I think, but its developer, Epic, happens to be a little busy with Fortnite at the moment so I guess VR development is on hold for them.
Anyway, Robo Recall is really cool, well put together, and innovates gaming as a whole; it's the Half Life of VR shooters I tell you! But it's not the Dark Souls. I guess the Dark Souls of VR is the real world work you have to do to be able to afford the stuff. Luckily I had the graphics card to run it already since I am a Professional Gaming Content Creator.
Finally I've just started playing Skyrim VR. I easily had 100+ hours on normal skyrim, but I never really completed much of it, so maybe now things will change. Exploring dungeons is much cooler in VR, but the fact you have to stand up makes my feet hurt because I am an unfit piece of human garbage (raising my chair up to max height and increasing the height slider in the game to max has made a sitting down solution possible now!)
Also it is, it must be said, a very lazy port to VR, with almost nothing about it using VR features other than the perspective. Shooting arrows is the best VR feature, but you can't pick stuff up, apply force with your hands to anything (so you can't just pick up cabbages and chuck them at people -5 points), and melee combat is weird and horrible since its basically a motion controlled version of vanilla combat - you can't use your weapons to 'fight', you just move your hand to make the sword do a swing attack (i.e. jerking your wrist while your sword is near an enemy and pressing the right trigger in vanilla do the same thing, and that's the end to the motion controls). Robo Recall has way better melee combat! I would have loved to play skyrim with actual swordfighting, and without this the actual gameplay has ended up basically the same as vanilla.
In response I just got a shotgun-type destruction magic set up that can one-shot everything at the start of the game, and so far I remain almost untouched. Point your finger at the enemy, press the trigger, big explosion thing happens, skeleton bits fly all over the room, nod in satisfaction at another game-balance breaking discovery that is way faster than stealth archery.
BUT THE SKY IS SHINY AND YOU CAN PULL ARROWS OF OUT OF YOUR SHIELD WITH YOUR HAND AND FIRE THEM BACK AT ENEMIES 12/8 PLEASE REDUCE THE PRICE FOR THIS RE-RELEASE OF A RERELEASE OR AT LEAST CHANGE SOMETHING ABOUT IT OR FIX THE GLITCHES OR ANYTHING PLEASE YOU INSATIABLE MONSTERS THANKS GOOD GAME.
Enough of this, I'm gonna go play it now. Almost got enough money for breezehome, then I can dump my shizz and run free and easy across the land! I'M GONNA BE A COOL WIZARD SEE YA.
AND THAT'S WHAT I PLAYED THIS MONTH (not counting things I had to play for recording purposes)
What's in store for next month? The end of Honourable Gentlemen most likely! Still a bit hazy on how it's going to end, but planning to shoe-horn in some kind of conflict with the British Government, who are going to appear to investigate this massive war John Alcock has stirred up during his expedition, and to investigate where all the spare budget is disappearing off too. Something something something the connection with Kao and Mysterious Mann is used for something, something something something, the end! Writes itself really. Oh damn I forgot to film Shogun 2 today... damn Skyrim VR! Now I can' be bothered... it takes some energy to force yourself to play a game, which is probably something people who aren't filming things won't really get to experience. It's kind of like forcing yourself to go running or go to the gym I suppose - it's not really 'work' but it still feels like a chore.
Oh that's right I was gonna stop complaining in these blogs. Well, guess I'll go stare at steam for a bit and see how much courage I can muster to sit through more late-in-the-battle crashes.
For now, have a great time people of analogue reality, I'll see you in the Construct sometime!
