Last Week

Morning folks,

It’s been a while since I’ve really last posted on here but the last few months have been chaos for me. It was coming to the point getting spare time to write out a blog post was becoming impossible. It’s even made it a struggle to get game time in the last few weeks as well. 

Anyway good news I will try harder to at least get one post done each week to keep you folks up to date, plus I really do enjoy talking about games here.

So I’m not sure what to cover in this post or where to start since there has been a ton of new announcements since the last time we spoke. In the end I’ve decided to focus on what my thoughts have been this week concerning my gaming life and go from there.

Of course this week is all about GAMESCON which has pretty much all I’ve been talking about this week with the new announcements. Started off with the Tomb Raider 2 announcement about it being exclusive to the Xbox next holiday season. That really shocked me and I was floored by the news, of course with the wording “holiday exclusive” it was crystal clear that it was a timed exclusive but still shocking. Keep hearing Crystal Dynamics was scared of Uncharted being released so it does make sense to target the Xbox market while Uncharted comes out then do a second release later on for the PlayStation fans.

Also on that day another item was added to my buy list and that was the amazing limited edition Xbox One console in Call of Duty Advanced Warfare theme. I love the three colour scheme with the gold trim and to be honest it doesn’t really look like a Call of Duty theme which is probably why I like it so much. Plus the added bonus of a 1TB hard drive is a must since I found out the day that my Xbox One hard drive is at 41% full. I’ve barely got anything on it and with so many games coming out in the next few months I think I will need the upgrade.

I’ve put the order down anyway and I can decide closer to the date if I need to cancel but right now I want to upgrade. After Tomb Raider and the Xbox One the last thing on my mind this week was the World of Warcraft announcement. Think every fan has been awaiting for the announcement for the release date and finally on Thursday we had it. 13^th November we will see the release of Warlords of Draenor along with the awesome looking cinematic trailer for the expansion.

All through the video I was shouting “you cannot do that”, so many questions to be answers and could we be seeing a full alternate timeline to play around with. Blizzard could go full force with this and bring the Burning Legion into it in the next expansion, messing around with time opens up so much stuff to play with for the future expansions I just cannot wait to see what happens.

Shortly after announcing all this the physical collector’s edition was put up finally after months of waiting, everyone knew it was coming but of course we had to wait. Although we did have to wait nearly a day to confirm that collector’s box matches the rest in the series. Check it out below but I will be picking this up on day of launch.

That’s it for me today folks so have a good one folks,

Iznic

Gamers Year Day 3/4/5

Evening,
So four days to cover in this post for my year progress and like I mentioned in the last post not a lot was done this weekend. But I did have a good gaming session yesterday which made up for the whole weekend, anyway onto the day posts.


DAY THREE - 3rd January 2014
Not much to report for this day other then I did start the multiplayer for Assassin's Creed Liberation. This game is on my list to get the platinum for but I won't be doing the singleplayer stuff just yet because I have planned for this year to do a full marathon for Assassin's Creed. The entire series starting with one since it's been a few years since I played the older ones, plus the fact I picked up the anthology set last year on PS3 so got plenty of trophies to earn while doing it. Anyway I decided to start the multiplayer since I heard it was similar to a facebook style game and takes a bit of time to get all the trophies.

It's shockingly bad and I'm really surprised with Ubisoft allowing it to be like this. You send agents out on missions or do combat missions which involve stats, actually that's a lie your stats don't matter you always win. Only thing that does matter is energy since you need that for your agent to bring in points. Every seven days is a cycle where the world fights for control of cities and the side with the most wins, of course everyone picks Assassin's so it's one sided. Honestly if I wasn't going for the platinum I wouldn't be touching the multiplayer at all.

So yeah I've started the grind with that on the night and also I picked up a new game for my collection while I was out. Spotted Lego Chima for the Vita in HMV for half price which was the cheapest I've ever seen it anywhere. Tried out the first level and it's pretty much similar to Lego Lord of the Rings so I've put aside next to the games to be clocked over the next few months ready. I know I'm putting a pile together and shouldn't but it unless I'm going to play but it was cheapest I've seen it all year, was not going to turn it down for that price. That was day three pretty much wrapped up so onwards to Saturday!


DAY FOUR - 4th January 2014
Very little to report other then continue with the grind of the multiplayer for AC Liberation, about half way for the first trophy though.


DAY FIVE - 5th January 2014
Sunday was the best day for gaming for me and especially since it was my day off, had a proper chilled out day to myself. Started off with the PS4 and did a few collectibles on Lego Marvel, even got past the annoying flying challenge I was stuck on (how I hate the flying controls). Actually was really getting back into the game and will be focusing more time on it to try and get it fully clocked.

Jumped over to the PS3 and went back on Minecraft and clocked about another six trophies, I'm pretty much all covered now on the crafting stuff. I spent hours building the mine cart track for the 500m trophy then spent over an hour bow duelling with skeletons to get the 50m sniper trophy. Got to say that was one of the most annoying trophies I've ever earned. So all that is left now is four trophies for the platinum, all combat ones as well so I'm currently working on finding some diamonds to make a full set of armour and weapons so I have the full advantage.

Finally I rounded the day off with a multiplayer session of Tomb Raider with a friend, trying to get all the multiplayer trophies for the PS3 version out of the way ready for the next generation at the end of the month. Did pretty sweet last night and got up to level 16/17 I think with about four to five trophies for my troubles.


Very good end to the weekend really and I'm charging full steam ahead for my year challenge, really getting back into the spirit of earning trophies and achievements. Just wished I had bit more time over the weekend since I really wanted to get something clocked. Not much time left today either as well thanks to work so don't expect Day Six to be any good but I am about to head off and get a small session in before bed so on that note have a good one folks.
~Iznic

Success!

Afternoon folks,
Well yesterday was the first time in ages I was able to accomplish all my tasks that I had set out to do for the day, ignoring the non gaming stuff I did get the two platinum trophies yesterday evening like I had hoped. I was shocked because I really did not think the Ratchet and Clank QForce would appear for a while, but after two hours of grinding it popped on my second run. Had to take a break since it was getting to me watching Ratchet run around in circles and keep jumping off cliffs to hover safely down.

So I will be updating my blog stats again in a bit to add these two new completed games and now it leaves me with the difficult task of choosing some new games to play. I will be trying to motivate myself to play The Last of Us over the next few days but I need a game or two to play on the side when I'm not in the mood to play it. I've got plenty to choose from and I'm thinking I really need to work on games that I won't keep once I've finished them, the more trade-ins I've got the better. Plenty of new games and consoles coming out at the end of the year that I want so what not save some money using old games that I don't want anymore.

With that in mind I do have a few games that stand out to me, first is Phantasy Star Universe from Sega. Once I've played the singleplayer story I really cannot see myself sticking with it after, there are few achievements online but I tried that in the past and hated it. It's also an MMO so you have to pay for the subscription to play online, after getting two of the boss achievements trying to get the others was just too much of a pain for me (scratch that just saw the servers was shut down last September lol). Anyway so that's one game right there, next is the Tomb Raider HD Trilogy on the PS3. I picked it up cheap to play it again for trophies a long time ago and never got around to it, now I own the Underworld on digital thanks to the PlayStation Plus. Don't really need to keep it once I've finished it since I do have Anniversary and Legends on the Xbox 360 (special editions as well).

 
Final game that jumps out to me is Skylanders Spyro's Adventure, think I only did the first level or two and never been back since. Friend from work as told me it's a good 1,000 gamer score and not a bad game, the only problem is if I do complete it and like it I would want to keep my figures so I could work on Skylander Giants with them. Having a powered up character really should give you a advancing start.

There you go then, those are some of the possible games I have to work on right now. Of course I got a ton from PlayStation Plus that I want to play which would help with me cleaning up my hard drive on my PS3 since it's currently full right now. Also lets not forget I have a ton of games that I want to play and keep afterwards, way too much to choose from. I will do another update in a day or two once I've picked what games I will be playing. 

One last thing I want to talk about before I do go though folks and that is the Next-Generation HUB for my blog, plus the Upcoming Games Hub as well. I'm looking into doing something different with them so if you wondering why they not being updated as I put my blog posts that is why, I will be doing a blog post about the changes in the next few days once I've finalised what I want from them. Now on that note I'm going to go and play some games, earn a few trophies/achievements and enjoy the sunny weather.
~Iznic

Going to be a busy one

Morning folks,
Currently waiting on my PlayStation 3 to finish installing Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, seriously forgot how terrible the load/install times can be. Reason I'm doing this is so I can redeem all the codes in my Anthology edition, spent the morning so far doing it for all different games since I keep putting it off and knowing my luck the codes will expire. Anyway while that is sorting out I thought it be a good idea to get a blog post up, especially with the fact my weekend was crazy and nothing was posted up. Plus this week will be a busy one since we have the Batman trailer going up today and of course the huge Xbox Reveal tomorrow.

Not sure how I'm watching the reveal tomorrow but I will be Twittering either way about my thoughts, then my plan is to copy all the Tweets onto a blog post to put up here. This is going to be test practise since this is what I was planning for E3, should be interesting to see how this will turn out.

So other then being excited to see what is revealed tomorrow I think it's time to update about my gaming adventures so far. Well in the multiplayer area I've got up to level 39 on Tomb Raider so getting close, of course it's taking more XP each level so it is dragging a little. Really cannot wait to hit level 60 so I can just focus on the kill achievements. On Gears of War Judgment I clocked the 10 wins on Team Deathmatchs in the week and now working on the 10 wins for OverRun, after that it just levelling up and working on the 100 kills for each Locust which will probably be a huge pain in the ass.

I did do some Call of Duty Black Ops 2 multiplayer this week, mostly because I redeemed my COD Ghosts weapon skins and wanted to see what they look like. Not bad to be honest just black with the white skull but the nice touch is the code gives the skin for every weapon in the game, thought it was just for the one gun so really happy about that. Had a few matches and laughs, in fact came top in my team on the one match which was shocking. I did plan to do some Battlefield 3 as well but Skyrim took over and well it was nearly midnight when I finished.

I bought a house in the game (cheer) and then took on another random Dragon who nearly had me, ok that's a lie the entire fight was not my best. So need to restock on health potions and find a better way to fight a Dragon because I struggle. Oh yeah I was in Windhelm and ran into a Orphan girl, as I walking past her I overheard her say that no one bought her flowers again.

Now folks when I heard you could have a family in Skyrim with the new patch I wasn't fussed about it, in fact I planned not too because my thoughts was "what is the point". I had a family in Fable and it just annoyed me, plus I love having the great warrior with no ties background. Anyway back to the Orphan story, so I over heard her saying she had not sold anything. Yeah who ever said that gamers are heartless and that video games cause violence have no clue because I had to turn around and talk to her. I thought buy a few flowers from her and help her to be nice (dang my good nature!), well I got the fully background history from instead. Both her folks are dead and she now selling flowers to buy food so she can survive.

Good lord my heart broke! damn myself for being nice and getting into stories too much. So I tried to adopt her but at the time I had not bought my house yet since I was still 600 gold short. Hearing her voice sound happy at the chance to be adopted then go sad when I don't have a house yet so I couldn't adopt her. Well as you can imagine I charged out to get more gold, of course I was so determined that ran right into a Dragon (the one I mentioned earlier) and was nearly a BBQ. Next time I load the game I will be adopting her, well I think I need to sort the house out first so she can stay there but that is the plan.

So that my friends is why I love games! because the story can really suck you in.

~Iznic

P.S. My plans for the week? other then watching a ton of new stuff being announced I will be working on my multiplayer games again, cleaning up lego Lord of the Rings and of course Skyrim.

The weekend is here

Morning folks,
So Friday came around quickly and so I thought it be a good time to get a post before the weekend started off. In the ways of gaming I've not really done much with Skyrim this week since last Monday, I did kill my first random Dragon which was awesome but I really could do with picking up some more potions though. Hoping to get some time back in over the weekend and next week to try and sort an hour or two a day dedicated to the game.

Mostly this week I've been working on Lego Lord of the Rings in the ways of collecting all the red bricks I need to 100% the story levels. Doing alright so far but still got quite a lot of collectibles to find so it's still a long way off from the Platinum trophy. Also this week I've still been playing the multiplayer for Tomb Raider and Gears of War Judgement, clocked another four achievements in Gears and working on levelling up slowly. Might jump on the special event this weekend and play on the VIP list to get double experience points. Tomb Raider I've hit level 35 out of the 60 I need and slowly going up but taking it's time, might try and have a small session over the weekend and see how close I can get to 60.

Plans for next week will still be the same and that's continue with these four games for now, not adding a new game until one of them is finished. Oh that does remind me and yes I am still playing Minecraft but I need to get a journal post up about it. I will try and get that up in a second, sorry about the delay but it completely slipped my mind.

Speaking of Minecraft did you see the release of Terraria on consoles a month ago? I had ago at the trial and really unsure what to make of it. It's like a 2D minecraft but with a lot more action in the ways of more monsters, boss fights and lots of stuff to collect (e.g. armour sets).



Has I said I was really unsure what to make of it and I did play the trial, I will admit I was getting confused very quickly. Might have to try it again because it looks to be an awesome game and right up my street. If anyone has played it drop a comment on the post since I would love to hear some user reviews about it.

Now since I've seemed to have jumped the topic over to arcade games and trials I might as well stick with this topic for a little longer. I did download the Farcry 3 Blood Dragon trial to see what all the fuss is about. Yeah it's a very retro 80's scifi game and I got to say I love the old style cut scenes and dialogue for the game. Once I've clocked a few games I will be picking it up, I was going too but I know I wouldn't play it straight away since I'm working on a ton of things.

Ok I think that is it for ramblings in this post and I will leave you readers be for a bit, but before I do there is one last note I need to make. If you read my blog you know I've forgotten all about my two for one challenge I was working on a few months back. I did realise in a post a few weeks back and said I will sort it out, well I am going to it's just I need some more time to sit down and to update the list. Plus I need to work out what I've bought in the last few months so that will take a bit of time as well. Keeps your eyes open and I will put up a general post once I've updated it so until then have a good one folks.
~Iznic

Start of the Week

Morning folks,
I've had a blast over the weekend and got plenty of gaming in, in fact I finally caught up with where I was on my first playthrough on Skyrim (not hard really) and now surpassed it. In fact I encountered my first random Dragon as well which was bit difficulty since I was designing my character to be full on melee plus I had not used a bow yet so that was interesting.

Anyway I'm loving it and I cannot believe how big the game is, I've been walking around for hours searching and exploring. In fact I just stopped following the main story to go off and find different ores so I can upgrade my weapons and armour. I can see myself losing hundreds of hours to this game over the next few months but god it's worth it.

So other then that I have been playing Minecraft but I will cover that part in my Minecraft Journal posts, I've also finished the story levels on Lego Lord of the Rings. Now got to start doing the collectibles part which is probably the longest section of any Lego game. I picked up the X2 multiplier and now got to save up for the x4, so this is the boring part and that's working on saving up money until I've got the first few multipliers to help me. I will be working on that this week and fingers crossed that I will be able to get all the stuff I need so I can adventure out and 100% this game.

Hmmm what else, oh yeah I tried out the FUSE demo and believe it or not I was not impressed at all. Shocking to say how much I enjoyed watching the trailers and it looked right up my street but no I found the demo to be basic and annoying. You can play all four characters and switch between them mid game but there is no information what type of classes they are (if they have any) so it's trial and error. The effect weapons are well boring, you can see the black holes or spikes happen but honestly it's like watching a grenade go off. Once you since it once in game you really don't care, in fact the game felt very arcade style with the points from each kill flashing up.

A.I sucks since your team mates will barely pick you up and they didn't bother on the mini boss level, thank god you can switch characters so you can revive them yourselves. Also the bad guys have the run to you rule so expect them to charge at you a lot of the time, bosses too! as I said it was basic and boring. Try it out for yourselves you might like since every ones taste is different but I'm taking it off my want list which is good thing with how much I need to save up this year.

Other then the demo I have been putting a few more minutes into my multiplayer games again, in fact I clocked level 31 in Tomb Raider. It's going slowly but I'm getting to that 60 marker plus I'm spending all my salvage to buy the extra upgrades and characters. Same goes for Gears of War Judgement and I'm now level 20 and clocked quite a few of the starting multiplayer achievements, working on the 10 wins for each mode right now which is a lot of fun.

So my goals this week I will be still working on Tomb Raider and Gears of War multiplayer, I could do with getting some Battlefield 3 time in this week since I've only played a few matches. Continue Lego Lord of the Rings and of course Skyrim. There you go folks my plans for the week and I hope you having fun yourselves, on this note though I'm going to shoot since I need to get ready for work.
~Iznic

March Boss Fight

Afternoon folks,
Well my boss fight is going...well I'm going to say ok because it was terrible but yesterday was good, anyway I bet you wondering what the title of the post means and what boss fight. I've been treating this month games as a video game boss fight, each release being a new stage in the fight. So phase one was Tomb Raider so I was up against Lara Croft herself, very tough fight thanks to the awesome graphics in the game that make you stop to take in the beautiful scenery. Then lets not forget the collectibles add more time to the game because you just want to go looking for them. A very difficulty phase in this epic boss fight and it went badly for me since I was only 36% completed when Phase Two started.

Phase Two saw Kerrigan joining Lara (Starcraft 2 Heart of the Swarm), strategy game means long times especially for me since I like to take my time to build my base up before charging in. Of course the story is pretty sweet and plenty of side stuff to do so this phase would be tough since the amount of time it would take to win.

Unfortunately for me lady luck was both on my side and not, Phase Three started several days early since I was not expecting Amazon to deliver God of War last Saturday since they had quoted this Wednesday to me. So now I've got Kratos joining the fight making it 3v1 and the odds are not in my favour, especially with the God of War franchise being known for long ass games with tough boss fights at the end.

But not all is despair folks since I was granted the awesome power up "Day Off" yesterday which allowed me to duke it for five hours with Kerrigan and it ended with me winning. Another game for the completion list finally, been a while since I had clocked a game and I really need to start catching up.

Starcraft 2 Heart of the Swarm is pretty sweet but I did find it a lot easier compared to Wings of Liberty, not sure if it was me improving my skills since when I played Wings of Liberty that was the first time I've ever tried a Starcraft game. Story was not bad either but it did feel slightly like a filler in some ways since this is the second game in the trilogy, felt like a bit more of the story could be focused on the main story arc instead of the Kerrigan revenge arc. But still I would give the game a solid 8/9 out of the 10 if it was to grade it.

So where does that leave me now? well I'm around 60% done with Tomb Raider and God of War Ascension is sitting sealed by my TV. Going to take some photos when I unpack it for a unboxing blog post since I picked up the collectors edition. Fingers crossed I can take down Lara Croft before the weekend since Phase Four will begin and Gears of War Judgement hits.

Don't worry folks my posts will turn normal again soon and expect two unboxing blog posts in the week, God of War and Starcraft 2 HOTS.
~Iznic

Games, Games and More Games

Good Morning Folks,
I know it's been a while since my last post but last week was nothing short of being chaos for me and what little time I had spare went to playing Tomb Raider and World of Warcraft. Currently sitting on 58% complete according to my save file for Tomb Raider and I got to say it's one of the best games I've played in a long time.

If you not picked up it yet then go buy it right now, this is one of those rare moments where I will recommend this game to everyone. The graphics, gameplay and story just work perfectly, it's like Batman Arkham Asylum meets Uncharted with a tiny bit of Assassin's Creed 3 all blended together to make this game great. I really want to finish it soon so one I've not got too many games on the go and two I really want to write out a review for it, I know shocking right? me writing a review. So I will go into more details about the game when I do the review, soon as I finish first and played some of the multiplayer. Not expecting anything great from that part and not really sure why they put in a multiplayer part.

Anyway other then Tomb Raider I have been doing the new daily quests in World of Warcraft for the Island of Thunder war effort. Phase two unlocked yesterday afternoon to my great annoyance, wanted to play Starcraft more but I had to get the quests out of the way first. As you can guess I did pick up Starcraft 2 Heart of the Swarm yesterday, so far it's brilliant but trying to get use to playing the Zerg since my play style is usually build a base then make a small powerful army to crush my foe. Zerg is more like making a huge army and swarming the enemy with numbers while their base engulfs the land. Think I'm getting the hang of it so far anyway, will post up a unboxing for it soon since I picked up the collectors edition which is very sweet looking.

So yeah my plans for this week will be those three games, Starcraft, Warcraft and Tomb Raider. God of War Ascension is out on Friday but Amazon won't be delivering mine until Monday-Wednesday due to the fact I picked the free delivery. Seems I have to pay extra to get it on day one, shocking since everyone will post it early to make sure it arrives in time. Shame Amazon was the cheapest for the collectors edition, got it a bargain price of £61 instead of the £80+ marker that it went too later on.

On that note I better go get ready for work since I only wanted to do a quick update for you folks, I promise I will try and get some more posts up soon but you know how it is with all these new games coming out. Hard to stop playing them but I will try my best for you and until then have a good one.
~Iznic

Patch Day

Morning folks,
It's been one of those week's so far but I'm thinking today will change that, well after I get out of work first since I got a huge list of jobs to do when I go in. Anyway you not here to read about that, your here for games! well welcome to the start of the March madness. How is everyone? did you pick up Tomb Raider? what a game and I've only spent two hours on it last night. Seriously folks this is a game you need to pick up, think of it like Uncharted meets Batman with a hint of Assassin's Creed 3. The game really does get to you and you cannot help but feel for Lara and this very bad day, poor girl should not had got out of bed that morning.

I am annoyed though because this morning I checked out the achievement list which is quite poor to be honest for such a great game, 50% multi-player, 30% collectibles, 25% kill x with Y, 4% other secret and only one achievement for the game it self which is finishing the story. Anyway I'm annoyed because I found out there are seven achievements miss able meaning having to redo the game again and I've missed the start of one already. With the others if you miss them you can just restart and not play the full game but this one seems I would have to redo pretty much the entire game. So I am thinking of restarting now while I'm still at the start, not sure yet but we will see later.

Apart from that not much to report in the ways of games, oh wait actually that is a lie since I did not come back on Sunday. Remember I planned that huge gaming day with lots of games, well the plan was scrapped. I decided to start with Star Wars Old Republic to give it another try since the time is running out this week, thought give it an hour then go onto World of Warcraft. Yeah well that hour turned into three, no idea what happened but I just could not stop playing. Was really getting into my Bounty Hunter with the main story, was amazed when I realised the time spent on it. So yeah I will be renewing the time card well if I can find one, if not I will just buy a month from the site. I checked out the difference between Free-To-Play and premium, it's not good. XP is halved, character slots down to two, loss of one of the crafting professions, no high end loot, restrictions on messaging and so on. It's like you only get 10% of the game and the rest you have need to buy, thought the Free-to-Play was meant to tempt people into the game but all that would scare me away if I've never played the game before.

After that I did do a small session on Warcraft then continued with two levels on Hitman Contracts HD, working my way through on Professional difficulty and getting Silent Assassin Ranks. Probably going to be shelving that for a few weeks since I suspect Tomb Raider will keep me busy this week then next Tuesday is Starcraft 2 Heart of the Swarm launch. I knew I hard forgot something this morning, it's patch day for World of Warcraft so 5.2 is going live. There is a huge quest based island being added where players take part every day with daily quests to help unlock further stages in the war effort, so for example first week you start the invasion and land on the island. Quests will be based on making a beach head, then after a week or until a certain criteria is meet the second stage starts which is the beach head made and progress into the island and so on.

I love these kinda of quests so I will be making sure to spend a session each night to do the daily quests and help out. Oh wow there is a single-player scenario added that lets you loot a tomb for loads of treasure, of course plenty of traps and a timer but sounds awesome. Second island nearby called the Island of Giants, lots of quests there to get awesome new mounts. Oh man this patch sounds awesome, think Tomb Raider will not be hogging all my time this week.

Reading through the patch guide on wowhead.com and I got to say there is too much to take in, so many changes and new things. It's like a whole new game as been added and I just realised how much there is to do at level 90, I had no idea there was legendary quest line and I had forgot about the pet battles (think Pokemon). Lot's of new achievements have been added as well and looks like some of the holidays will be upgraded for the new expansion which is good. Professions have a lot of new stuff as well, could do with working on those soon.

Right I better stop with this post now since I need to have breakfast and go to work, safe to say I will be busy gaming when I get back. Hope you all having a great week and enjoying all the new games, catch you soon!
~Iznic