Kenji's Chill Corner

Black Light

2012-05-14T05:36:00.001-07:00

Hey guys! I made a video about Black Light to make it easier to talk about! And I play absolutely horribly. The sad thing is, is that I made a video before, without sound so I could narrate over it, and all the footage got lost (and I was doing really good too) then I tried to talk while playing the game and... well it is pretty abysmal, I will never think badly of a person playing badly in front of an audience. Wow.

So heads up, a couple things I forgot to mention during the clip, is that weapons and armor and all of that expire after one day, so you need to keep buying them, the amount that they cost is about 1 game per item, so if you play around 4 games a day, which is probably around an hour, then you should have enough to cover your weapons etc. If you play well, you get more money and so it's even easier. The FTP model in Blacklight is pretty legit, and everything seems to be a sidegrade as opposed to a straight upgrade. In competitive play, it is not uncommon to see people using default equipment.

Also, one more thing that I forgot to mention, is that when you kill people in-game you receive CP which is a currency, and it allows you to buy items for the supply vendors, such as the hardsuits and flamethrowers etc.

The game is great fun! I recommend everyone to check it out.

Proof that I can actually play

Swtor, Star Wars: The Old Republic

2012-05-07T05:35:00.000-07:00

Star Wars: The Old Republic is a game that I played on launch, actually 5 days prior, I even got a little special orange crystal from it. I was pretty hyped, and I wasn't incredibly disappointed. I got progressively more disappointed, but what I learned was that Swtor was basically a story driven game (which to be fair was known) but that that was really all it had going for it.
I started playing on launch, and it was really fun, however when I got to around 38 on my Sith character, but then I left to go explore East Europe for a month. So after that, I felt a little disconnected with the Sith story, and wanted to try something a little more down to earth than the "Sorcerer." Also, the Imperial side was just too full with no one on the Republic side. So I rerolled.
I started a trooper on the Republic side of the same realm or whatever, that my Sith was on. Immediately I was engrossed by the story and had a great time. I gained a ton of levels quickly, had a ton of fun, but around the time I got to 45, I was on Spring Break, which is as long as Summer break in America. I didn't touch the game for two months, and just recently went back to look for my old guild, and try to level to 50, but nobody was there. The server "Daragon Trail" which was a server with queues in the beginning, was a ghost town.
What I liked about the game, was the story was absolutely great. There is nothing new about what I just said, the game has been lauded as having the best MMORPG storyline in the history of the sub-genre. The problem is that the combat is point and click, and incredibly generic. I had a lot of fun in the beginning with ranged tanking with Vanguard, and lightning attacks with Sorceror, but it was absolutely nothing new. The pvp is fun, but isn't anything revolutionary.
The crafting system where you could get your companions to make you things when you were offline, or have them search for reagents was pretty interesting, but not enough to hold the game together. The Legacy system which is just starting to be fleshed out, would probably have been awesome in the beginning when all the hardcore guys were still interested in the game.
Hands down, and this is the probably the 4th time I am saying this, is the reason to play is the story. So I think the optimal way of experiencing this game is through youtube videos, where you can cut out all the combat, and watch the evolution of a character through the amazing cut scenes, for a recommendation, Omfgcata's playthrough is quite good, but it is 99% just recorded cut scenes, so it isn't exactly hard.
As far as a final verdict goes, I don't think there is a good reason to play for multiplayer at this time. If you want to experience a really great story, that will probably take you 200 real hours in order to finish *maybe even more* in a very lonely and empty world, then it might be the game for you. Don't expect to be wowed by the combat system because it isn't anything special, which is really quite sad, because I had an amazing bit of time with this game when I first played... ah well.
Maybe if the game gets patched with something that brings upon a resurgence of all the players that joined before I will update this post and start recommending the game, but at this point it is basically dead. Don't fork out the cash to buy this game :( << Well that was convoluted.

Mount and Blade: Warband/Fire and Sword

2012-05-06T18:16:00.002-07:00

So gaming is pretty cool, I have a lot of games that I am interested in but right now I am very enraptured in a game called Mount and Blade. There are three games to the series, but the ones that I want to focus on are Mount and Blade: Warband and Mount and Blade: Fire and Sword.

Mount and Blade: Warband is a pretty great game that sets you up as a medieval loner, level one and with no friends in the middle of Carlandia. The gameplay style is sandbox, and you recruit different types of warriors from different regions, be they knights or horse archers, and wage battle. In the beginning you have no money and no friends, and so the best course of action is to align yourself with a king, and slowly build up an army. The game is incredibly punishing in that if you lose a battle, where all your men are killed, you will be imprisoned for an amount of time, things of yours will be stolen, your money will be taken and you are back to stage one.

As you progress through the game you will be given fiefdoms by your King and you can create watchtowers and schools and different things for villages, and then castles and finally huge cities. Here too the punishing nature of the game comes into play, as if your enemies take over your castle or city, have fun trying to put all that back together again.

The world of Warband is vast and you can betray your king or attempt to put a bastard on the throne of another kingdom. The game has no end and is a thoroughly enjoyable, if incredibly tricky experience. The controls are a little difficult to learn for combat but the multiplayer is still thriving though the vanilla multiplayer experience and through various mods.

Mount and Blade: Fire and Sword, I have just started playing, and it improves upon a lot of minor gripes from the previous game, however it includes grenades and smoke-powder guns. Heavy armor is gone and the game is completely different. For a more Knights in Shining Armor experience Warband is recommended. Fire and Sword is set in Eastern Europe with major cities being Warsaw, Moscow and the like. They games can be found on sale 75% off on steam, but only for a few more hours. Enjoy

Why gaming?

2012-05-06T18:16:00.001-07:00

So, this is going to be a bit of a different thing from my main blog. Ever since I was a wee tyke, I liked gaming, so why not talk about it? This section will be completely in English I think... that may change. Mostly I just think that I need more range to talk about than just the stuff on my main Japanese blog. I don't play console games so, if you want to know about that stuff, well I can only say it's not going to happen. Also I am going to link over the one mini blog post thing I had on my other blog over here talking about Mount and Blade.