After being a faithful Halo player since the birth of the series, I knew I would be picking up this title just the same. After playing it for the last several days, I have to say, I’ve enjoyed it pretty thoroughly. I’m not going to touch on the story for the campaign, as I haven’t finished it yet. However, my primary purpose for picking up any game is the multiplayer. For starters, I’m glad they’ve kept the no frills match making system from the previous games. In my opinion the Halo series has consistently had a sound multiplayer lobby, and I think it works fairly well. Being able to select the game type only and letting the system do the rest keeps the experience stream lined and effective. Speaking of game types… what are they?

Game Start!

They have kept some of the genre standards such as capture the flag and team death match, along with some of the Halo classics like odd ball and big team battle. Personally I enjoy the objective game types like capture the flag and odd ball, They give me and my friends a chance to work in a more strategic mind set. Big team battle is another personal favorite because it tends to mix those objectives with vehicular combat, switching the strategy up again; for this installment 343 has included the usual assortment of vehicle and made an addition as well, more on that later. Dominion, however, takes the cake by combining all the best parts of death match and objective into one.

In dominion, the teams fight for control three base locations. Once controlled, the bases can be fortified, which adds cannons and barriers to the structure; also allowing for the spawning of vehicles. Imagine conquest mode from Battlefield 3 for a good point of reference. In fact, this game type doesn’t seem to be the only thing that the people over at the studio have borrowed from other games. In game modes like dominion and infinity slayer, if the player accumulates enough points through kills or other objectives, they can receive a support package (Call of Duty anybody?). In fairness, the support drops here in Halo are much less ridiculous than their CoD brethren; offering up a choice of a power-up, powerful weapon, or another less powerful weapon. They keep the fight moving, but don’t make the battle one sided. Honestly I’m glad that Halo has hi-jacked some of these subtle mechanics form other games and tuned them for themselves.

Re-Loaded

Another feature from previous Halo games was the ability to customize your armor, which has come back as expected with some interesting, yet not traditional looking, new armor pieces. One more thing you now have the ability to customize is your load out. very similar to Call of Duty or Battlefield, you are able to edit up to five load outs by changing primary and secondary weapons, grenades and armor abilities along with a few other things. These customized load outs can be used through most of the multiplayer games and offer a welcome alternative to the built-in presets. Personally I setup one for each game mode; generally having one for distance support and one for quick in and out attacks on the flag.

The only way for you to find out what really works for you is to just jump in and try them out; but the one good thing I can say is, at least there is no armor lock!

If you need an extra player hit me up, and here is my gamer tag:

Years ago I remember playing a pretty popular mod for half-life called Natural Selection. I am a huge Starcraft fan and this mod definitely did it for me. With its awesome mix of FPS and RTS elements it forged a tight gameplay experience. Playing as either the Marines or the Aliens you and your team pit your strategies against your opponents. With the base commander creating support structures to strengthen and better equip their soldiers, a cohesive team is essential to successfully getting your base off the ground.

 Flash forward to today, in 9 more days Natural Selection 2 will be released. Following in the foot steps of Counter Strike as another Half-life mod to make it to stand alone. Still promising the same great mix of RTS and FPS; with some subtle improvements. Before the aliens didn’t build a base, in NS2 they do and I’m sure other game equalizing features have been added. But now lets get to the skinny on gameplay.

Marines

While playing as the marines, your team will rely on the ability of your teams commander to effectively develop your base to support your team. Dropping armories to provide better weapons to the soldiers or an observatory to provide more sight on the battlefield. All the while the other marines are defending the base as it gets built, and running small raids against the opposing base. Staying in groups is crucial, making it easier to defend the base structures and the team as a whole. Venturing out on your own is surely suicide as any of the aliens will make quick work of a lone marine. For those who do stay together however, varying weapons within the group will greatly improve survival. Having assault rifles mixed with flame throwers would be a solid combo for dealing with the Skulks, which are the main combat unit for the alien team. Once the opposing team starts to evolve into the more heavily equipped units, it would be wise to try and mix in an Exo Suit to your combat squad. Exo Suits are essentially huge mechanical walking assault suits. Capable of dealing massive amounts of damage with it gatling gun, they are an incredibly heavy addition to your team; and that is something you will need when engaging the alien forces en masse.

Kharaa (The Aliens)

A Skulk, the Kharaa basic combat unit.

The Kharaa, the alien team that opposes the marines, are made up of a multitude of varied alien units. Each unit has its own distinct tactics and play style. While the Marines rely on their Commander, the Kharaa rely on their sheer ability to survive. Accruing points from resource nodes and using them to evolve into more monstrous creatures is how the aliens gain the upper hand. At the start of the round all the aliens start as the Skulk and have to fight and survive long enough to evolve into more specialize creatures like the Gorge or Fade. The Gorge is a builder/healer that has the ability to build some defensive structures and can help expand the usable area for the Kharaa. Making it incredibly versatile the Gorge can also heal friendly units; successful integration of this unit is key to a solid front line assault. Fades on the other hand are a more elite unit. Not unlocked until later in a match, with the upgrade to a Tier 2 Hive. Fades specialize in hit and run, with the ability to blink in and out of combat quickly while inflicting a substantial amount of damage. Using a fade with the support of a few Skulks is a sure fire way to eat up the outer defenses of a base.

The End Game

 Games are won or lost on the teams ability to communicate and work together through the ebb and flow of a battle. With support from a seasoned commander the fight can be won by either team. Fortunately, the slightly varied play styles of the two sides keeps this game interesting and challenging for rookies and veterans of the FPS genre at large. So for now I’ll sit here and bide my time for the next several days until the game launches on Halloween. Then we’ll see if you have what it takes to survive.

Lots of people think “7″ means average. So, if you took a test in school and got a “C”, that would be somewhere in the “7-7.9 or 70-79%” range. Since schools have wired people to think “7/10″ is average, that’s what they believe. But here’s the thing: Schools actually use a 0-4 scale, where 0 = “Fail”, 1 = “D”, 2 = “C”, 3 = “B” and 4 = “A”. Teachers even use that in their 1-10 scales because anything under 50% basically doesn’t matter (essentially making it a zero). So their range is actually 5-10. If we convert this over to a 10-point system, a C is actually about 4-5, NOT 7.

Then we have the “full range reviewers” as I like to call them – where they typically have 0-10 or 1-10 and it is ~5 or ~6 that is average. Those are halfway between the lowest and highest scores. So now you have one group that says “5″ is average if we’re truly using the entire value range and then we have others who say “average quality” is actually ~2 points higher than that. This is what screws up scoring systems.

There’s a “public perception” thing that keeps the “7 out of 10 is average” mindset alive and kicking, even if it makes no sense. Yes, if you award every “average quality” game a 7 because that’s what you believe is average, numerically the average of your scores will average out to ~7. But all you did was purposefully skew the data to make its ay what you want. One could just as easily use the Game Informer system, where a “7″ to them is actually an 8.5 or 9.0 (they hand those out like crazy).

You can make “average” be whatever you want, but in all honesty, on a 10 point system, it’s dead in the middle.

Critical Thinking:

As I get older, I look at games with a more critical eye. My money may be more abundant, but my time isn’t. So a great investment for me is my time and energy, rather than cash. As a result, I don’t want to play crappy games. I could fall in love with a game world (like in Skyrim) and then be horribly let down by its storytelling/ending or lack thereof. In other games like Alan Wake, I could get hooked to its characters, world, music, voice acting and story and love every second of it. Or, I could play a game like Mario Party and wish I was aborted as a fetus so that I never had to experience such cruel torture later in life.

But a lot (if not most “professional”) reviewers do not act like this. Their reviews are simply press releases, listing off gameplay modes and what you can do in a game. It’s sad to see some reviews so lacking in content you could get the same info from the back of the game box. Thinking critically about games also opens up games for criticism and, unfortunately, a lot of reviewers and sites and magazines do reviews in an ass backwards fashion – they assign a score for the game FIRST, and THEN write a review to make the score there.

Look at all the crazy love for GTA IV – people acting like it was the best game evar. Same thing happened with Metal Gear Solid 4 that same year. Giving those games anything but unanimous praise was heresy and alienated tons of readers. But if you went back to those same reviewers/sites/mags a year or so later, they were bitching about the games’ flaws just like everyone else.

I see most game reviewers as “little chicken shits” that are too afraid to speak their minds.

While I love people like Yahtzee for absolutely gutting games (what is being a critic about if you never criticize anything!?!), even they aren’t immune to hypocrisy. In his quest to review lots of big names quickly so he can cash in on timely page views, he pulls out assy reviews like that of Monster Hunter Tri, where any person who played the game knows he spent at max maybe 2 hours playing it. Really Yahtzee? 2 hours of playtime and that makes you credible in terms of reviewing that particular game?

I typically get the best opinions on games from very obscure blogs, stuff like Amazon reviews, no-name Youtube reviews and random articles from the web. Very rarely do major sites appeal to me for reviews, because they are too afraid to criticize anything. Everyone’s gotta be so politically correct with critiquing games.

Posted by ScottCarmichael, a redditor. He has his own gaming blog @ http://scottcarmichaelgaming.wordpress.com/

On a whim I decided to pick up XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Normally I would say that I am not particularly fond of the XCOM series, but for some reason I bought it… and haven’t stopped playing it since. I played through the first couple of single player missions, and I started to really get drawn into my squad of four. However, there is another portion of the game that I want to talk about that I also started to get immersed in. The multiplayer, yup, turn based multiplayer goodness; thats what I want to talk about.

Sectoid about to get beat down.

The Squad

Just like in the single player part of the game, you are in control of a squad of up to six people. Your squad is very customizable, not as deep as single player, but satisfying just the same. The human soldiers are the only one you can really get down into the details with, but the fact that you can choose from all the alien races makes this squad creation interesting. Now, to keep the squad system some what fair, every attribute is given a point value, and each player only has a limited number for a given match; my squad for instance, is setup using a 10,000 point limit. From the eight or so matches I’ve played online so far, the best way to do it seems to be having several mid-level soldiers, as opposed to one or two maxed out commandos; however, I like to go against the grain.

My four man squad

My personal squad is composed of four members. two of the weak little gray aliens and two higher level soldiers. The two alien members of my squad, who happen to be named Fred and Barney, pretty much serve as scouts and suppressive fire support. I tend to send them around the back alleys of buildings or have them breach doors first. My soldiers, Juan and John(I didn’t name them that way), are a solid combo. John is a moderately powered sniper, with some nifty gadgets to help give sight on the battlefield; while Juan is a heavy gunner, with some nasty armor and a rocket launcher.

Tactics… nope

This game is perfect for players who love using a solid strategy to tackle their opponent; unfortunately… I don’t have one of those. Right from the outset, I have mentally written off Fred and Barney. They act as my sacrificial pawns to draw out the enemy forces. Naturally I have Juan and John in flanking positions to counter anything that comes out of the shadows; however, it seems that I will time and time again fall victim to my own observations. I am constantly beaten by well rounded squads of human soldiers, who favor better tactics than what I possess. There is something to be said for Juan’s rocket launcher though. On one particular occasion I had him breach a door to the inside of a courthouse. Once inside I had sight of the enemy troops standing outside a window on the other side of the building (here is where I would normally say something like “put 2 and 2 together…”, but I don’t like doing math in public), so naturally I made Juan blow up the wall! Luckily it took out one of the weaker soldiers, but didn’t have too much effect on the other. Even in this case, I was defeated eventually. The opposing player sent one of his troops up and over the roof of the building and they pinned me down, allowing one of their soldiers to effectively destroy Juan’s face; which leads me to my next point.

The environment

The maps that these multiplayer matches take place on are pretty awesome. The exception, in my opinion, being the train yard. The locations involving building however, are my favorite. The bar level specifically is awesome! Why do I like the bar so much? because it allows for players to post snipers on the roof top to watch over the parking lots, while the more tactical fighting takes place between the front and back rooms of the bar.

the “Bar” map

Other levels also focus on indoor combat, but I prefer the bar stage because of its simplicity throughout. The courthouse would be a close second place, with the interior involving many more rooms and a second floor. Did I mention the destructible environments? If you don’t have a direct line of sight to an enemy… make one! throw a grenade, or shoot a rocket launcher. Enemy hiding behind a car? BLOW IT UP!

But I digress. This is a game that surprised me, especially the multiplayer. If this article has even remotely peaked your interest, then please, check out the demo. Sadly, the demo only covers the single player campaign, but I found it to be pretty rewarding and a great experience. but that is a story for another day.

In a city devoid of human life, the animals run free. In fact a plethora of animals, from pomeranians to pachyderms, are playable characters. There are two main game modes to play through, Story and Survival, both of which offer a different experience. For this article however I will be focusing on Survival mode.

ANIMAL NEEDS

This particular game mode consists of picking your animal, and thriving for as long as possible. There is more to it than that though, I need to take into consideration when to eat (if i can find food), when to mate, and how to tackle the challenges that present themselves as my animal ages. The first to variables are the same no matter which animal you choose, food and reproduction are a must for your survival in this game, the challenges that unlock over time are what really vary from animal to animal. When playing as the early animals such as the pomeranian, the objectives are fairly easy; i.e. eat 2000Kg or mark territory 4 times. These types of objectives with the first few animals are easily achievable. For me, once I tried playing with the beagle, things became much more difficult to complete. Some of the objectives by this point require you to defeat 15 animals, this can be incredibly difficult if you’re in a part of the city where food is scarce. Another factor involving food is your animals hunger meter – this meter can play a large part in a play through depending on if you chose a predator or grazer; mostly because plants are much less abundant than other animals. Also, because defeated animals can be carried until you need to eat as opposed to plants, which need to be consumed on the spot. One thing I found helps me survive if food is unavailable is to breed my next generation. The reason I say this helps is because once you start your next generation, the hunger meter resets and the plants/animals available change as well.

SPEED DATING

Mating is a fairly straight forward task, and I call it a task because it is absolutely necessary. To be able to breed your next generation you naturally have to find yourself a mate. “How do you do that?” you may be asking yourselves at this point, please, let me inform you. The city of Tokyo is divided into nine distinct locations, and each location has four marking points. To be eligible to mate you have to control that location, therefore your animal has to leave his mark on all four marking points before a mate will present themselves. Even at this point there are certain considerations to be made. Two possible mates will appear in the location and each will be 1 of 3 different qualities; they will either be prime, average, or desperate mates. Why are these important? because the type of mate determines how many offspring you spawn and how many of your original attributes carry over to the next generation (or if you get flees). If you don’t breed after too long, your attributes start to diminish with old age. I only had this be a problem one time, because I was a gazelle trying to take over a suburb from a group of wild pigs… dead serious. This was actually a challenge to unlock the next animal in the grazer food chain.

Personally, my favorite animal so far has been the gazelle. Naturally, its a grazer and that limits the food supply a bit as previously discussed. However, this particular animal isn’t affected so bad due to its high hunger meter; even in the sections with the most sparsely populated vegetation I can survive long enough to hit the next zone, or a pool of water(also fills hunger meter). The down side to being a gazelle, is there are large predators, mostly at night, that love to try and eat you. Luckily, just like in the real world, the in game gazelle is fast enough to get away from most predators. Plus once you rank up to veteran or boss level, you can pretty much hold your own… remember the pig story from earlier? all gazelle baby!

MORE ANIMALS!

By playing through the Survival and Story modes it is possible to unlock around 80 animals, not including downloadable content. Each animal tweeks the experience a little bit more. Personally, this is what makes me keep coming back. I love knowing there is more to unlock and that its going to be a challenging ride.

Check out 30 minutes of Giant Bomb’s Video Playthrough.

The scene is set, my ship floats lazily through space while I prepare to make my first Faster Than Light (FTL) jump. With a small, unskilled crew of three, I set them to their duties throughout the ship. Mak is set to be my pilot for this little adventure, with Jack and “Lil Jack” setup to cover the weapons and engines. The name of my ship is the Iron Typhoon, a Kestrel class cruiser and apparently fairly old. This is the setting within the first sector as the game prepares to devour the next hour of your life.

At the outset it doesn’t seem like a terribly difficult game to master, but after the first battle with a pirate I quickly came to realize there was much more to this scenario than previously imagined. The concept is fairly straight forward, you are looking from the top down at your chosen star ship, controlling the distribution of your crew, power, and ammunition. However, as the first battles unfold you soon realize there are several different solutions to any of the problems that may arise. For instance, during the course of one of my many battles, one of the incoming missiles from the enemy ship managed to breach my hull and start a fire in the engine compartment. With my weapons still engaging the pirate ship, I had to make some quick decisions as to the best course of action. Instinctively I snatched up two of my close crew members and set them to the task of extinguishing the fire. Unfortunately, as they are fighting the fire they are taking damage, in this particular case they nearly both died. Naturally with such a limited number of crew members I had to pull them back to the medical bay and heal up… but the fire was still raging in the engine bay. That is when I started looking at alternatives. I’m in space… there is no oxygen in space… fire needs oxygen… OPEN THE AIR LOCK! (and so I did).

Engaging in a battle against a drone ship

This is just one small facet about this game that I find amazing. Once the air locks were open the ship started to lose oxygen and once again threatened to kill the crew, however this time the fire was extinguished and no lasting harm done; all the while I am still targeting the enemy ship and trying to take out their shields and weapon systems. Juggling between damage control, crew and resource distribution, all while battling a shielded pirate ship is what makes FTL a very engrossing game to play. Constantly having to watch your fuel and ammunition add to the dynamic of simply trying to traverse the sectors of space one after the other. Exploring dangerous asteroid belts or aiding alien ships in distress, all en route to your ultimate goal at the other end of space.

As you can imagine while making such a journey it would be crucial to outfit your ship with top-notch weapons and equipment. Luckily for you, there are stores sparely populating various beacons throughout the sectors of space. These vendors are necessary for your survival in the ever dangerous realm of space. Items available for purchase range from missiles and fuel to combat drones and crew teleporters. I have as of yet to try out the crew teleportation, but the pirates actually used that trick on me quite a bit.

All in all, my Iron Typhoon only survived for about 30 minutes… But I am ready to load up and start my voyage anew, with a jump that’s Faster Than Light.

With patch 1.3.1 you can now trade with the villagers in Minecraft. Finding a village is even more important than ever and we have a list of seeds for you.

Below is a list of items which you may find on the different Villagers as to what they offer. Please note that with all future patch releases this list will likely change.

Key: Gray – Common Trades. Green – Uncommon Trades. Blue – Rare Trades.

Key: Gray – Common Trades. Green – Uncommon Trades. Blue – Rare Trades.

Key: Gray – Common Trades. Green – Uncommon Trades. Blue – Rare Trades.

Valar Morghulis

Sadly the season’s come to a head and I for one am not sure what to do with myself Sunday night’s anymore. I guess I’ll have to find a hobby until next season. With that being said, I won’t let our collective woes stop me from trying to give a quality review of the finale, Valar Morghulis.

I was afraid after last episode, Blackwater, that the show would have a hard time following up on such an action packed episode. But, they proved once again, just like last season, that they could deliver one heck of a finale, with one heck of a cliffhanger that leaves us wanting more. So kudos to HBO on the badassness of season two.

This season’s been all about the Lannisters lording over King’s Landing and their influence all across Westeros, and none has been more prevalent this season than Tyrion. While this season was good to him, the finale certainly was not. And in a big way, too. After nearly being killed by a plot his sister most likely concocted, Tyrion has not only been grievously injured in the cities defense, but also replaced as acting Hand of the King by his father, Lord Tywin Lannister. While he may gain credit for protecting the walls of the city around him, the world of influence he built with Bronn, his tribesmen, and the Goldcloaks has crumbled. While his father is indeed the savior of the city, he is the root cause of many of Tyrion’s troubles. Not all, but most. Cersei is a definite cause of strife and even more of a nemesis, but Tywin shows up steals any glory that may have been bestowed upon Tyrion and also casts him aside from the one thing he felt good at, being the Hand of the King. So once more, Tyrion will fall back into the shadow of the rest of his family, with no one and no power left to him. But, he being clever as he is, will certainly show us just what kind of tricks he has in store this next season.

In previous episodes I spoke of the cunning nature of the Tyrell’s, and that is proved once more by the supplanting of Sansa Stark as Joffrey’s wife-to-be by none other than Maergery Tyrell. They seek power as desperately as the Lannisters and will stop at nothing to gain it. This may mean that Sansa is off the hook, for now. At the very least she doesn’t have to marry King Joffrey, a fate she is bursting with joy at. But, now we see that Petyr Baelish, aka Littlefinger and the newly appointed Lord of Harrenhal, has some intentions for her. I’ll be interested to see where they follow this into the next season.

Told ya so.

Lord Varys had a hilarious scene with Ros. I know it was necessarily intended that way. But her grabbing at Varys’ crotch followed by his ‘told ya so’ face was awesome. Obviously Varys and Baelish aren’t friends and this scene illustrates the machinations of their minds at work. Varys uses people, but gains their trust first while Baelish uses the influence of his wealth. Varys sees pawns, Baelish sees property. It makes for an intriguing dynamic between the two.

Brienne of Tarth and Jaime continue their merry traipse through the wilds of Westeros. After being discovered for Jaime Lannister by Stark men, Brienne goes into beast mode and kicks the crap out of three guys. While last episode was action packed, they’re using this little action scenes to ween us off the heavy dosage we received last week.

Robb chooses to break his pact with the Walder Frey. To cross the Frey’s bridge Robb had to agree to marry one of the Frey daughters which would have joined their two houses. But, by breaking this pact there will be untold consequences. But who can blame him, he’s a young guy out in the field of battle surrounded by a bunch of stinky guys and managed to snag a pretty good looking gal. So we’ll just have to wait and see how pissed off the Freys get.

Stannis, frustrated by his crushing defeat at King’s Landing, questions the merit of Melisandre, his red priestess. So much that he does his best Wayne Brady impression by choking her a bit. Lucky for him he doesn’t finish the deed, as she’s able to show him something in the fire. Some vision, some clarevoyant message from the god of light, we don’t really get any idea of what they’re seeing. I was kind of hoping for some cool fx to give the viewer some inkling into where the show was going to take us. But, that’s the nature of George R.R. Martin’s beast, we’re not to know his mind and being unpredictable is something he is very good at. So your guess is a good as mine.

Theon has an awesome scene with Maester Luwin. It really illustrates how truly screwed he’s been pretty much his entire life. He’s made one pretty bad decision in sacking Winterfell and there isn’t much he can do about changing his fate. He’s made it clear that he can either fight to the death defending Winterfell or take the black and join Jon Snow on the Wall. None of which seem very appealing to me or him or probably anybody for that matter. Theon’s whole life hasn’t been easy, but like he says, he’s gone too far to do anything else. Too bad for him though, Dagmer Cleftjaw and the rest of his Ironborne, have obviously made a deal with the Northerners outside the wall’s of Winterfell and give him up to them. Not a very cool thing to do, but it also answers questions of whether or not the Ironborne ever truly excepted him as one of their own. Which would have to be a resounding no.

Daenarys gets her dragons back. Woohoo. That was a good bit of fx when her dragons started lighting up Priyat Pree in the House of the Undying. She’s becoming ballsier everyday as the mother of dragons and the Khaleesi of her people. She’s going to have to get a lot ballsier too if she’s going to take the Iron Throne in Westeros.

Arya is given a proposition by Jaqen H’ghar, and the titular scene, Valar Morghulis. Jaqen offers her the opportunity to leave Westeros and to learn the trade of the Faceless men of Braavos. She declines the initial offer but is told that if ever she gives a man from Braavos the coin given her by Jaqen and says the words ‘Valar Morghulis’ that they would take her. Let’s see what she does with that.

Winterfell is burnt to the ground and Bran and Rickon, bereft of family other than themselves are sent to the Wall to find Jon. Maester Luwin, Winterfell’s Maester and voice of reason, meets his end beneath the Heart tree in Winterfell’s weirwood. The two youngest Stark boys will be without their caretaker and tutor and more importantly they’ll be forced to embrace a much harder life as they have no parent figure. Oosha acts as more of a protector or guardian than a mother and well Hodor… all I have to say about that is ‘Hodor’.

Qhorin Halfhand’s plan comes to fruition as he forces Jon Snow to kill him in combat. This may seem a strange way to go, but he does it for no other reason than to help Jon gain the trust of the wildlings. This act doesn’t even ensure Jon’s survival amongst the wildlings, but such is Qhorin’s devotion to the Night’s Watch. Plus, there was no chance Qhorin would have been able to gain any trust from Rattleshirt and his wildling raiders. Jon Snow, while kind of an idiot, was the only option they had. Not the best chances for the Night’s Watch, but they’ll have to take them.

We end with a Samwell Tarly scene. I was expecting another history lesson about the fist of the first men or something of the like, instead we got to see exactly how the show was going to top last season’s ender. Three horn blasts by the Night’s Watch means White Walkers, and that’s what we get. We hadn’t seen them since the cold open of the first episode in season one, but now they’re back. And there’s a lot of them along with their undead hordes. Just plain excellent and now we’re all going to want more!

I think overall this season’s been pretty fantastic, there’s definitely been some slow moments in the show and some scenes I’ve questioned, but all in all it’s been a darn, good season. I don’t know if there can really be a clear cut winner of this episode, with so many of our main characters getting crapped on. Namely Tyrion, Theon, and the whole Stark family, but this episode had too many great scenes that tied up a lot of loose ends to really give it a clear cut victor. So I’m just going to say the White Walkers, rolling in on their zombie horses win the big finale. I mean come on, they’ve got zombie horses.

YOU WANT FRIES WITH THAT?!

Well it looks like we’ll be choosing sides this summer upon the release of Dawnguard.  Along with other fun add-ons to the newest Elder Scrolls game, we’ll be picking to fight for or against the vampires of Skyrim.  Evidently they want to blot out the sun, now imagine that.  Or you can bust some vampire skulls and choose the path of the Dawnguard.  Either way, it looks like something we’ll all be getting into here. Check it out.

Blackwater

Here we go! I don’t know if you remember earlier this season when I talked about how HBO always builds up the season for an intense last, or in this case, second to last episode? Well, Blackwater has certainly been that. They deliver once again with this series, an episode heavy on action and only do they focus on the siege on King’s Landing by Stannis Baratheon. Which is the one major uncharacteristic aspect of this episode. Throughout the season and the first, we’ve watched several storylines interwoven within each episode, but this one wholly focuses on all the characters within and around King’s Landing. So don’t expect any Arya, Jon Snow, Daenarys, or Samwell Tarly.

what? oh, I'm just getting my drink on. don't judge me.

The episode builds slowly, but once it gets going, it does not stop. While we focus upon the action and violence to come, we mustn’t forget Cersei, drunk and uninhibited, giving advice to Sansa in a tone that accepts the fact that she’s raised a monstrous boy in Joffrey and that they may well die in the siege. Not only that, but they may die at the hands of Ned Stark’s executioner, Ser Ilyn Payne, the mute butcher. Not so much known for his swordplay, but more so his ability to follow orders and kill without discretion. Cersei informs Sansa that Ilyn is present to put all the high-born ladies to death, and to make sure none of them fall in to the hands of Stannis Baratheon. Not a fun night for anyone in the know. She becomes quite the belligerent drunk, as we see her badgering Shae and Sansa during the siege, belittling and continually beguiling her for the facade of loyalty she has built around her husband-to-be, in Joffrey. Cersei really embodies the drunken housewife, dropping knowledge bombs and saying what everybody knows but is too scared to say.

All the while we’re treated to a healthy and kind of awesome dose of Tyrion, dealing out some great witticisms to his dolt nephew, Joffrey. Joffrey is just so good at making you hate his guts. While Joffrey parades about acting the arrogant warrior, Tyrion is the one that actually sees to the defense of the city. In the previous episodes when Tyrion and Bronn met witht the pyromancers and discussed at length Wildfire’s capabilities leads us to finally see that discussion come to fruition. Tyrion signals his right hand man, Bronn, to do the dirty work in lighting the Blackwater ablaze with a single fiery arrow. A mighty, green explosion ensues and consumes Stannis’ fleet along with Davos Seaworth and his son. Men and ship alike are burnt in the Blackwater. Which is terrific and horrible at once. You see the sentiment played out across Tyrion’s face as he plays witness to the horrible capability of Wildfire’s volatile power. And while truly terrible, that scene, when the wildfire erupts upon the river, is awesome.

Suck it Stannnnnis!

Following the fires, Stannis, with his fleet in shambles, still manages to land the majority of his host upon the shores of King’s Landing. A massive fight for the mud gate follows with battering rams and ladders brought to shore in an attempt to breach the city walls. Once the fighting starts it doesn’t take much longer for pure chaos to take hold of the episode. Sandor Clegane and Bronn charged with leading the vanguard and the defense of the wall, do some great murderizing of Baratheon forces. Not until Sandor is faced with his greatest fear of fire, does the vanguard break, and so does the Hound. It would appear his loyalty does have boundaries and the prospect of burning is that boundary.

With the Hound turned tail, Tyrion is forced to lead. He offers the Lannister men and men of the Goldcloaks a simple and compelling speech that we’ve all come to expect from this character. Full of vim and vigor as always the Half-man’s wit boosts the morale of the troops and leads them to a small, short-lived victory. While they push back Stannis’ vanguard they are then met by the main part of his force that washes over them like a tidal wave. And just when things look as though they couldn’t get any worse for Tyrion, Ser Meryn of Joffrey’s Kingsguard tries to cut Tyrion down. If not for Tyrion’s squire putting a spear through Meryn’s head, Tyrion would’ve died in the battle at the hands of one of his own.

Egad! What hast thou done?!

Just when you think things couldn’t get any worse for the Lannister’s and Tyrion, does Tywin show up with the Tyrells and a entire host of fresh Lannister troops. So, while Tyrion did his best to hold the city, it will be Tywin who will be celebrated for winning the day. But, I’ve gotta admit, it was a pretty badass way to come on to the scene.

Who’s it gonna be this episode? Who takes the cake? Is it Clegane or Bronn? The two bruisers responsible for some great action sequences or maybe Cersei with her drunken ramblings. Naw, it’s gotta be my man Tyrion, played by the always cool Peter Dinklage. His performance is great, and he proves once again to be a pretty efficient and vicious little fighter. The deck is always stacked against him and he just keeps on trying. It’s hard not to root for the underdog. And Tyrion, despite his noble bearing, will forever be the underdog in this series.

This was... AWESOME!