Wednesday, 6 July 2011

The Daily Grind - Day Thirty Five

Morning folks,
Woke up to find one hell of a collectors edition announced, please please bring it to the UK!! check out Lord of the Rings War in the North collectors edition for the USA below.

It looks amazing! I want one!

You get the quiver looking case, art work book, dvd containing inside look of the music for the game, ranger avatar (xbox 360) suit or for the PS3 a digital theme and of course a copy of the game. Also they listed up a ton of pre-order bonuses for different stores as well, check out xbox360achievments.org for the full story.

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Evening all,
Shortly after writing the above I went and played some Professor Layton before shooting off to work. Came back and played some more Professor Layton, so I can now say I've clocked it!

It was amazing! another brilliant game in the series and the story kept me hooked all the way through, the ending was very sad though...

I can safely say this game is in my top list and will be kept with the others, no way in hell will I ever trade this in. Very excited now to get my hands on the last spectre to see how Layton and Luke met, and yes it will be a day one purchase and must play. Not many games can keep me griped and suck me into the story but the Layton series does.

Now that I've completed it I think it's time to update my stats again, so be right back while I go update the pages.

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That was game no.33 for this year, on a roll and need to keep it up. In fact I was thinking earlier before work on what I would play next, I do have the rental game still sitting on the shelf for the last few weeks which is Thor for the xbox. I wanted to fully 100% clock this game but I have heard it takes two play throughs and one must be the super hard mode which can be quite difficult on some of the boss fights, of course that means it will be time consuming and I do have my summer challenge ending in less than two months.

Think my plan will be to play Thor and clock the story, send it back then re rent it at a later day when I have more time for a second play through. I do want to sit down with Uncharted 2 and Assassin's Creed Brotherhood so think those will be the next two after Thor.

Speaking of the summer challenge I did read that Skyrim does not take place shortly after Oblivion and is in fact 200 years later, so don't really need to clock Oblivion yet. Don't get me wrong I really do want to finish that game but I was worried there would not be enough time with all the prequels I need to work on.

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Right caught up with my dailies in World of Warcraft, currently sitting on 79 marks now so about half way to the 150 mark.

Going to check my 3DS street pass hits now, fingers crossed for the last piece of the puzzles from the store DS. Two hits and one of them is the store, woot!!!

So that's it then and I've finished all the puzzle panels...kinda sad now, no more collecting... I do hope they update with some more. No luck on the street quest thanks to that shield ghost again so going to go check the Pokedex and then call it a night. Pidove is my new Pokemon today

Anyway that's it for tonight, too tired and got work first thing so catch you all later
~Iznic


Tuesday, 5 July 2011

The Daily Grind - Day Thirty Four

Good evening...wait its 10pm! so should I be saying good night?

Yes I'm very very late in doing this post but everything went against me today! first work covering most of my day then coming back and having to do a lot of paperwork and research for work meh! only just finished so sorry folks.

Finger's crossed for tomorrow to have more hours spare for gaming but anyway back to the present, the night is not over yet and I am determined to get some gaming in today. For example I need to get on with my Warcraft dailies and I really want to put some time into Professor Layton since I'm hooked on the story right now. So on that note time for some Warcraft quest grinding!

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Done and dusted for the day, currently standing on 63 marks of the tree so what another 37 so roughly another 3-5 days before the next phase. Still enjoying the questing but hate the cramped space and having to compete with tons of people to get that one creature kill or heal a wounded soldier.

Oh yeah before I forget again I did an update to my list of games I want this year, thought it be wise to check to see if anything had changed like price or dates pushed back. Quite a few where pushed back a month but a lot more have appeared with dates now along with entirely new games I did not know where coming out or forgot about.

First up Lego Harry Potter years 5-7 as turned up and is listed for 18th November which currently is the last game I want for this year, completely forgot about it coming out to be honest. Also Lord of the Rings War in the North as been put in November as well, currently sitting on the 4th so its right in between Uncharted 3 and Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3. Three triple A games in less than a week, ouch! costly. Team ICO collection is dated for the 30th September which made me cringe since that's just shortly after Gears of War which is a costly day.

Also I found two games I want in July! Agarest Generations of War Zero which is coming out end of July, Shopto.net are taking pre-orders for a collectors edition with art cards etc and only costs £29.99! in fact going to go pre-order it now, but need to play Agarest Generations of War really to make sure I'm going to enjoy this one.

The second game is Earth Defense Insect Armageddon, the first one was...I don't know how to describe it, it was a weird shooter, want to say arcade in a way. Bloody hard at the end of it from what I can remember but I did enjoy shooting giant ants etc and taking on robots/ufos...it was just all round weird game. Wish I had not traded it in to be honest

So plenty of more games to spend my money on and no doubt there will be more announcements soon.

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Just put a pre-order down on Argarest collectors edition and also ordered Xenoblade Chronicles for the Wii at the same time. While I was ordering I did take a look at the stuff I have on order, Deus EX is the one that is nagging me the most right now. I got a order down for the £99.99 collectors edition and an order for the Augmented Edition in case I don't want it, after just looking at the both I realised that the collectors edition only as a different extra mission and the figurine....so I'm paying pretty much £30 for the figurine.

Think I need to sleep on it because right now I don't see the point in the collectors edition, if it was a game I really really enjoyed then no problem (Gears of War, Halo, God of War, Mass Effect etc). Never played a Deus EX before and don't get me wrong I probably will enjoy it but I don't think it be on the level for me to warrant to spend £30 on a figurine for it, so might stick with the £60 augmented special edition that still gives all the extra in game content plus sound track, artbook and motion comic.

Anyway enough of pre-orders for one night, going to go play some Professor Layton then hit the sack.

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Well I thought I was close to finishing Professor Layton but it's clear I've still got quite a few levels to go, out of the 10 mysteries I've cleared eight of them and did at least two to three more chapters tonight. Got to say the story is really good and learning a lot about the Professor's past. Don't want to spoil it for you guys but if you have not played this one yet you need too! the puzzles are really good and this time around I've found myself completing a lot more.

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Nearly forgot my 3DS again, hmm you know the icon for the Pokedex as not turned on in ages to say it's time for an update. Just booted the game up and it's come up with the update now, strange! anyway my new Pokemon is Blitzle the weird looking zebra Pokemon. Time for the street pass now...

Five hits today so not bad at all, WOAH! three pieces today leaving me just one more to get and I'm all done on puzzle swap. I know for a fact that the store DS as the missing piece as well so should get it tomorrow, woot! very excited now.

Time for street quest now, this time my adventures cleared one room along with one blue ghost and two armoured ghosts. Was not able to move on after that thanks to a ghost with a light blue shield, hate these guys! so anyway that's it for the 3DS today.

Well that's it for today folks, need to hit the sack since I'm tired and got work again tomorrow. Very excited to know I will be finishing the 3DS puzzles tomorrow, anyway have a good one
~Iznic

Monday, 4 July 2011

The Daily Grind - Day Thirty Three

Afternoon,
No daily grind yesterday I know, well actually there is part of one sitting in my draft section but I did not feel like it was a good post, so what happened yesterday will be mentioned here with today's.

It was a good day for gaming for a lot of reasons, first up I tried out the beta for Uncharted 3 and it was pretty sweet. Spent most of the time playing Co-op Arena mode with Adwil which I realised later was the first time we actually played a game together. Known each other for a year at least, spend most of are time if not all of it talking about games and now only just played a game lol need to change that and make into a regular thing.

Anyway while I was playing the beta I did come to conclusion that I will not be working towards the unlocks for retail, I loved playing the mode but I will be getting the game for single player mostly. If I do unlock anything then great but if not, I'm not going to be fussed about it.

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Other then the beta I did play a few games, did my daily stuff in Warcraft and still nothing off Lord Ahune but to be honest I lost all hope on getting anything in those bags. Also saw a table chart for the fireland dailies which lists that it takes roughly 10 days to unlock the next phase, so done two and will be number three when I'm done today so a week from now.

The weekend is also doing a ton of exp events in a load of games so I did jump onto a few but to be honest I felt like I was wasting my time and could put the effort on the games I really need to play instead. For example I tempted Halo Reach daily challenges achievement, it requires you to finish all the challenges for the day. Must had spent at least four to five hours and still had two challenges out of the five left, so decided I will keep an eye on the daily challenges and wait for a easier day (if there is one).

So on that note I jumped onto Bulletstorm, to be honest it was quite late in the evening when I booted it up and was not expecting to get anywhere with it. I was lucky though and realised there was only few levels left, so spent the last few hours of the day just having a giant marathon. Thanks to that Bullestorm PC is now finished! don't want to spoil the ending so if you want to know what happens go and play it.

Anyway with that I'm going to go update my stats for the challenges and my year progress.

Bulletstorm is number 32 for games completed this year and the 11th new release I've clocked, bad thing is though I picked up Dynasty Warriors Gundam 3 so my percent did not rise a lot thanks to that (currently sitting on 28%). Also the game was on my summer challenge list so that was number three of fourteen so 21% completed so far, not going well to be honest since end of August is the deadline and got quite a few large games to play.

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Going to pop onto Warcraft for a bit to do the daily stuff before I forget.

Currently standing on 51 tree marks after that run, so 10 days is about right really. Had to laugh though, one of the quests has you go out and heal wounded soldiers on the battlefield. Of course there is only a few of that spawn and a ton of people trying to do the quest. Spotted one wounded npc spawn so started to run over and this orc hunter decided to his fast speed buff so he ran past me, would had been annoyed if I wasn't a druid who could heal from a far better luck next time idiot!

No pet from Lord Ahune so that's another year without any luck, oh well maybe next year...

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Going to call it for today, got to dash off and meet the girlfriend. So have a good one folks and will catch you all tomorrow evening after I finish work, no doubt I will be doing a gaming marathon. Until then have a good one!

~Iznic

Sunday, 3 July 2011

The Daily Grind - Day Thirty Two

Morning one and all,
Having a really bad start today thanks to my left ear being blocked, so right now I cannot hear anything and it's really getting to me. Anyway back to the blog, as I said in yesterday's update post I was not able to post Friday's update so instead it will be merged with Saturdays. So check out below for both days...

Friday
Small shift at work this morning but not got much time for gaming today since going to the cinema later with Lynn. Just going to check my 3DS to see what I picked up on the street pass from work today, not bad just four hits today. For the puzzle game I was able to get two more puzzle pieces and finished off the Mario and Bowser panel, woot! so that leaves me with one panel left (Super Mario Galaxy 2).

Next up is street quest 4th play through, still stuck on the ghost with the yellow shield. Was able to do a bit of damage on him thanks to fire and poison magic, did change the store Mii to a yellow shirt so hopefully tomorrow I can finish this ghost. Just checking out the trailers for some of the upcoming games on the 3DS, nice to be able to download trailers now but I have just noticed my 3D video movie trailer as vanished? how odd.

With that done time for some Warcraft, hopefully today I should unlock the second phase of the Fireland quests.

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Oh sweet Lord Ahune is still on, the midsummer festival does not end until Monday so get a few more chances.



Unlocked the second phase of the Firelands invasion as you can tell from the screenshot above, basically the Druids have moved into the elemental plane of fire and taking the fight to them. This phase is pretty much all about establishing a base from where we can work from, the quests involve defeating elementals and fire druids along with healing allies and setting traps.

So far I've really enjoyed it and I did Ahune again but still no loot though, shame. Anyway ended the game once all my dailies was done since I'm running out of time before I need to go out.

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Saturday

Not in work until this afternoon so going to have a marathon of Professor Layton and the Lost Future, been looking forward to playing this since I finished Pandora's Box.

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!!!!!!!!!!!Spoiler!!!!!!!!!!
Two hours later and I got to say I'm really amazed on how good this game is so far, nothing much as changed in the way of gameplay but why change something that is great already. Story so far is this, at the start it takes place at event where time travel machine is being demonstrated but it all goes wrong when the machine explodes. Both the eventer and the Prime Minister (who was being the test subject) both vanish without a trace, jump forward a couple of weeks and you get a letter from 10 years in the future from Luke saying a terrible event is happening there and he needs Layton's help. So off we went to London to a clock shop to see if this letter was true or not, at the shop a giant clock is turned on which seems to have a transported us to the future.
!End Spoiler!

That's it so far and I'm loving every minute of it, the story is really good so far. The puzzles are balanced this time, found a lot more easier ones compared to the past but they not all easy there have been a few hard ones that have left me sitting there for ages trying to work them out.

Anyway I'm off to work so catch you all later!

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I'm back and going to quickly check my 3DS before I sit down for an How I Met Your Mother marathon, today was able to get four more hits again but like I said yesterday I did change the store Mii character to a yellow shirt so was finally able to defeat that ghost and move on. Cleared three rooms in total with the following defeated:
1. one Ghost (Yellow Shield)
2. one Armored Ghost
3. one Blood Ghost
Also on the puzzle got one more piece to the Super Mario Galaxy 2 panel, very close to finishing now.

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Well that was it for Friday and Saturday, sorry it was short but was short on time and rushed. Anyway today should be back to normal so stay tuned for today's post and until then have a good one.

~Iznic

Saturday, 2 July 2011

An update

Hey folks,
Yesterday I had real trouble logging into the blog again so that is why there is no daily grind up yet, thanks to that I had to write it out on word so the post is waiting on my main pc. I'm also away for the weekend and won't be back until tomorrow (Sunday) morning, will post it up with any gaming I do today since I got plans to play professor Layton on my DS.

Until then have a good one and enjoy your weekend,
~Iznic

Thursday, 30 June 2011

The Daily Grind - Day Thirty One

Morning,

The last day of June, well that was one quick month...in fact at this rate it won't be long before it's Christmas again. So how is everyone? Hope you all having a great time gaming as usual.

Today I will be doing Warcraft again, my last chance to grab that pet and staff with Lord Ahune although I doubt it. Also I will be doing the daily quests for Firelands, so hopefully tomorrow I will be able to move onto stage 2. After that probably put some time into Bulletstorm and then not sure, would like to get some time on the Uncharted 3 beta.

Not again, just remembered my 3DS was not checked after work on Tuesday. Will have to put it on my “to do list” for every day from now on or else I'm going to keep forgetting. Anyway let's check it out, first up let's see what new Pokemon I'm getting today for the Pokedex. Sandile is the lucky one today; he looks ok but would not be one of my favourites.

Currently writing this in Microsoft Word since the blog just crashed and I can longer access the editing section, anyway back to the 3DS and now checking the street hits. Three hits on Tuesday and pretty much the regular people so doubting on puzzle pieces this time but one can hope. Got one more of the Super Galaxy 2 panel, better then I hoped and it now leaves me with eight pieces left to get. Time for the fourth play through of Street Quest, let the journey begin!

Quite a good start but that was only because the characters where mostly level 7, ran into a ghost with a shield so that stopped session quite fast. Took out three ghosts, two blue ghosts and three rooms cleared are the final results today.

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Very annoyed right now, my copy of Dynasty Warriors Gundam 3 just arrived but no art card pre-order bonus, the whole reason I ordered it for a day one purchase was because of the bonus. Waiting for a twitter reply now but doubt anything will come of it, very fecking annoyed though.

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Right I’m going to go login into Warcraft and start doing all those dailies, wish me luck hope that I get the pet and staff. Just the pet would be the best since I probably can get a new staff from somewhere else.

Nothing so another year now before I can get another chance now, wish they would sort out the drop rate in the bags. Did the firelands dailies also and should hit stage 2 with no trouble, also did a few quests while I was online as well. That’s it for now even though I do want to play more of Warcraft, I really could do with getting on with the other games. Tomorrow no doubt I be putting some time into Warcraft anyway when I hit the second stage and doing the new quests for that.

Hmmm gamedigital twitter account just posted up a link saying they now taking pre-orders on the new Wii RPG, Xenoblades Chronicles. Let’s see if I can find a trailer for it and see if it’s any good, be nice to use my Wii again. Think Another Code is the only game I’ve clocked on it so far and don’t think I’ve used it since.


Wow actually looks really good and it’s fully open world too, the only thing that puts me slightly off is that right now you can only get it with the controller for £50ish. Don’t get me wrong the red classic controller is cool but I’ve already got a black classic controller from the Monster Hunter Tri chest set (which is still sealed lmao), will have a think about it.


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Time for some bulletstorm me thinks and starting clocking some games again, been slacking since I’ve finished Green Lantern and Uncharted.

Completed quite a bit, did all of act 2 and 3 leaving me on act 4 now, would say I'm over half way through the game now. Did not go into detail today due to the fact one I think maybe that's a bit much and two the amount of time I spend writing about what I'm doing could be spent playing them instead. Of course that does not mean I won't be writing about what I just played, sometimes I will go into detail and do a summary. Anyway today session really was fun and forgot how good Bulletstorm is, of course my mind as been wandering all day. Keep thinking of how many games I've got unplayed and how many are coming out, really could do with some more time.

Anyway off to work so I might catch you later, have to see anyway see you later.

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Well it's quite late and in fact it's tomorrow (12.09am) so no gaming really tonight, was late back and had to cook some tea so what little time I had was spent eating. Just going to check my 3DS to see what I picked up on the street pass then hitting the sack.

Three hits today so not too bad and so first up the puzzle swap, hoping I might get two but knowing my luck probably zero. Ohh just the one today and it was a Super Mario Galaxy 2 panel piece, so with that it's time for the fourth play through of Street Quest to continue. Problem I'm stuck on the ghost with a yellow shield and don't think these mii's magic will do any good to help, yup all useless magic so nothing completed or defeated.

Well that sucked but oh well, anyway see you all tomorrow hopefully.

Thanks for reading and have a good one folks!
~Iznic


Wednesday, 29 June 2011

The Daily Grind - Day Thirty

Wow the 30th post for the Daily Grind,
Like to thank everyone that reads my blog and hope that will continue on for a long time, anyway back to the grind!

Nothing posted yesterday mostly because of my lovely long shift and when I came home found out that the Uncharted 3 beta was going up until around 10pm, did go onto Warcraft to find no patch seems EU was delayed until today which is currently downloading right now. So was a bit disappointed overall, but there was one good thing I did do Lord Ahune again in WOW and looted my cloak finally! hooray! my first level 85 epic gear.

Today will be a huge marathon on World of Warcraft once the servers are back up and I will be posting up my journey through patch 4.2, later tonight I'm hoping to get some time on the beta for Uncharted as well. Starting earning some of those unlocks and see if the multi player will be any good, fingers crossed. In the mean time while I wait for the servers to go will be doing some tiding, blogging and might put some time into Bulletstorm as well so overall a busy day off.

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Just added a new banner to the blog with a lovely Firelands theme, hope you all enjoy it. Speaking of blogs I have been thinking about doing a second blog for my other hobbies, gaming is my main hobby and well my life pretty much lol. But I do enjoy reading books, especially novels from Black Library publisher (Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 universe novels), Star Wars etc and also enjoy films/tv along with being a fan of anime. So as I said it's been on my mind for a couple months now to do a another blog dedicated to my other passions in life, even thought of calling it Iznic's Library. Not sure though, food for thought.

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Going to go play some Bulletstorm for a bit

Finished all of Act two and loving every minute of it, forgot how good this game is to be honest. Would recommend it to anyone just for the sake of replay value, you always want to go back and try different skill shots. For example there is a lovely weapon that fires a chain with two grenades attached that when it hits the target it wraps them up, then just press the fire trigger to set the grenades off. Fired into a crowd and bang took out the entire group, this skill shot is known as "gang bang" lol. Yesterday fired the same weapon onto a guy then kicked him onto a balcony that set off a chain reaction thanks to explosive barrels, killed ten guys and got over 2,000 points (Achievement for that)

Amazing game

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Anyway going to see if the servers are back up for World of Warcraft, so see you in a second.

It's back up! time for the firelands to begin

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Right loaded up in stormwind the human capital, one thing I love is just a new simple thing and that's when you open the map your character now holds a map in their hand and look at it, simple but cool.

New dungeon journal is very nice and handy to have, have been thinking about getting more into Warcraft and do dungeons again so this will be helpful. Going to put myself into the Que for lord ahune again, hopefully my loot bag will have the staff or pet today since running out of time for this event. Dang in fact it ends tomorrow do got two chances left then have to wait another year.

See the key chain as been taken down and now got a ton of quest keys in my bag taking up space, guess need to tidy my inventory before I do any of firelands. Bag is now cleared so got some space now, put a few items on the auction house so hopefully make some gold of them. Just also realised that my quest log is full, dang need to make some space in that too now lol.
Hmmm got mail too better go check that first see what's going on, ah gold for keys that no longer work in game that where taken off me.

Lord ahune time! Fingers crossed

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That was a disaster! Soon as the fight started we lost one of the dps guys died straight away so had to use my rebirth son that went on the 30 minute timer. The healer did not seem to cope and the group did not attack ahune when his defines down so instead of the normal 20-30% health left when his defines goes back up he was still on 65%!. Then the same guy died again, struggled with the second wave of mobs and still didn't kill ahune so it was disaster and the healer quit leaving us all to die.

So waiting again

Just sorted out some glyphs since I did not know I've never sorted since cataclysm started. Attempt two of lord ahune, damn lost one of are dps again at the start so thought it would be a repeat but we did it. No loot again and the tank got the pet, :-(

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So time to clear some quests and start firelands, got quite a few tol bard daily quests so heading there now.

Finished five daily quests over there, was fun to be honest but dang I am weak. I've been playing wow for years, done some school raiding and use to be up to date quite often. But for a long time I just mucked about and went casual and never kept up to date with the changes, so I am finding myself struggling. My gear is all green with a blue here and there, my first epic was that ahune cloak so that's how and it is. I want start dungeons but no idea on the tactics and don't really want to wipe my group, think what I will do is start reading up on a specific dungeon and then Que up for it, do it a few times to get use to it then move onto the next. Once done that then can start doing random daily dungeons to get the points and better gear.

Anyway now I've cleared some of my log going to start with firelands and the new quest lines.

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Just come to me I've never been to mount hyjal yet, only visited it briefly in the beta. Just started the thrall quest line and loving the story so far, this is what got me into Warcraft the lore and story. I'm off now on a journey to find thrall

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Awesome quest line, saved thrall from fandal the idiot Druid, went across all the elemental planes to rescue his mind and spirit. Ending was great got to see thrall getting married and got a better cloak now lmao all that for ahune and gets replaced

Damn did not see that coming but should had, can't start firelands dailies until I've done a specific amount of quests in hyjal. Makes sense I guess since all story related, wished I had started this zone sooner.

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That was annoying just did a quest to escort a prisoner before he recapped, fandal lol so the earlier quest spoiled it really. Just have to make sure to put the time in next time so won't ruin the story.

Basically the quest I need to work towards is to assist the four ancients, just helped one out at his shrine. Took a while but was really fun, even ventured into a small section of the firelands to take out weapon smith area.

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I'm done, done over 70 quests and unlocked the area so I could start the new fireland hub. Cannot go to firelands yet though, have to do daily quests and earn 20 marks to unlock phase 2 which will let me go in. Right now I'm on 12 marks and can earn four a day from now on so Friday the earliest. Been a really fun day and loved every minute of it, the quests where good and the story kept me entertained and interested. Looking forward to seeing what fireland will offer but anyway I'm stopping for now, time for a nice long break.

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Well my break was a lot longer then I expected so calling it a night, but before I do I just saw the list for the summer of arcade on the xbox 360. Fruit Ninja Kinect is coming out on the 10th august (800 points), Toy Solders Cold War is out on the 17th august (1,200 points) and also a game called Bastion is starting off the summer and coming out on the 20th july (1,200 points). Actually saw a trailer for Bastion today and it looks like a cool rpg, reminds me of the old school rpgs.



Check out the full list of games for the summer of arcade on shopto.net news page here.

Anyway take care all, have a good one
~Iznic

Monday, 27 June 2011

The Daily Grind - Day Twenty Nine

Morning,
Blimey it's a lovely warm day, prefer cold myself but oh well! still going to be a gaming day no matter what type of weather it is. Anyway this morning I've just posted up the details for the Uncharted 3 Beta, seems it's getting main game unlocks a bit like Gears of War 3 did. Something else to work on but whats annoying it starts tomorrow which is the same day for WOW's Firelands patch which I need to do the new dailies on as well Argh!! too much happening at once again.
Wonder how hard it will be though to level in the Uncharted multi player since there is an unlock for hitting level 25.

Anyway enough with that it's time to get some gaming on the go, been thinking long and hard last night and this morning. I will be playing Bulletstorm on the pc first, it's easy game to just jump into and also it counts to a lot of my challenges as well so that's a nice bonus. First up it's on my summer challenge list, it gives achievements so increases the gamer score and its a 2011 release so knocks my percent up as well. Since I've already played the game on the xbox 360 I've got no problem playing through with a collectible guide on hand since there will be nothing to spoil.

Also thinking of doing another game on the side but just don't know what yet, but anyway time to install Bulletstorm and while that is happening I can do some tiding since my room is a tip again.

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Got to love my iPad, got the guide opened up ready like an electronic walk through. Basically using xbox360achievements.org, they been kind enough to list the achievements in order that you can get them as well. So first up is getting 10 head shots before the first drop pod, now thought that would be easy but failed straight away. So reloaded after taking a break and got it, found it easier to move up closer to the enemy so it stops your allies killing the, before you can since you blocking the shot.

I forgot how much I loved this game, crude jokes and squad arguments got love it. Have noticed getting flickering images now and again, hmm graphics card should support this. Might need to update the drivers, in fact it's annoying me a lot so going to save and quit to sort it.

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Drivers are updated so jumped onto World of Warcraft to do Lord Ahune, while I was waiting did some archeology and got to 150 getting a nice achievement for my trouble. Still no loot but did save the group from a wipe but got no thanks for that, your welcome guys! Some how the healer was killed so quickly rebirthed him, popped Innverate on him so his mana comes back quickly. Then hit tranqulitiy to heal the entire group before anyone else died while the healer got back on his feet. One day I'm going to get a shock and get thanked, because that is not the first time I've saved the group *Sigh*

Anyway going to load up Bulletstorm again and see if that flickering as stopped, catch you all in a bit.

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So basically a misfit crew of four renegades out for revenge, betrayed by their commander and used as assassins to kill innocent people they now seek to redeem themselves by attacking military targets. Course it involves getting drunk and swearing a lot, game starts with you on your ship and accidentally running into the general flagship. Being drunk brings good ideas and your character idea, of course the leader of this misfits decides to attack. After being shot down in the last few minutes you take a collision course and take out the flagship crashing yourself and them on some unknown planet.

Welcome to paradise!

So the crew is dead except one, who is more machine now then human. Also he needs charging up with power cells every now and again since he keeps running out of juice, also add in fact he hates you doesn't help either.

Love this game, the crude humour and jokes are great and you can be brutal with the kill skills. While we was escaping the wreckage, we was ambushed, so shot one guy in the throat so he was running around spraying blood everywhere. Kicked his pal into an electrical panel that shocked him to dust then exploded the third member of their group with an head shot. Just a normal day in Bulletstorm and the kill moves only get better!

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Currently working my way through a mining compound that is not local made, course it swarming with local thugs. So currently working on the skill database while I'm making my way through, the skill database basically lists all the possible type of kills you can get. Doing well so far and latest one was to leash a helicopter pilot out of his seat mid flight. Finished him off as he was falling with a head shot since time slows when you use the leash to pull some one.

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On level three of act one and loving every minute of it, just had a huge train fight with a giant crusher wheel chasing us with tons of helicopters, trucks and other trains filled with bad guys. Can't say you will get bored there's plenty of action going on.

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Well just finishing off Act two level one and stopping here, just had a huge fight in a disco bar.

Since the last time we spoke the train plummeted over a cliff and was able to survive (of course), made my way through a giant cave which turned out to be a nest for some kind of godzilla creature. Then to get out had to destroy all the eggs so it was peeved, then shot the train wreckage that was still hanging up above so it dropped on the creature, so no doubt that made matters worse. Now on the outskirts of an abandon city and that's it!

Anyway stopping for now since really need to get on with some tasks, will be doing some more gaming later and hopefully some blog posts too. Although I could do with watching some rental movies since no doubt the next few nights will be dedicated to Uncharted 3 Beta and the World of Warcraft Firelands Patch 4.2.

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I'm back and went with watching a movie since tomorrow going to be gaming chaos, going to call it now since it's quite late. Have a good one and see you all soon,
~Iznic



Uncharted 3 Beta Unlocks

Well the naughty dog forum admins just posted up news that the upcoming Uncharted 3 beta will be having unlocks for the main game, bit like how Gears of War 3 did. Since the Gears post that I did was very popular thought I would do the same for Uncharted, so here is the information if you not seen it before and with a link to the main post.


Dates
inFamous 2 owners and PlayStation Plus members get early access starting 28th June, if you don't have any of that the beta will open up to the public on the 4th July.

Unlocks
Uncharted 3 PSN Beta Tester Avatar
Just download the beta

Exclusive Beta Decal Pack 1
Complete 10 matches in every mode of competitive multiplayer

Exclusive Beta Decal Pack 2
Complete 5 matches in every mode of co-operative multiplayer

Treasure Hunter's Starter Pack
Complete 4 treasure sets

In-game Cash Day One
Hit the max level of 25 in the beta, this will give you a large amount of cash

Timetable
As you will notice some of the stuff to unlock requires you to play matches in certain modes, well there is a timetable and each week new modes are put up and some taken away so makesure to keep track so you don't miss out.

June 28th - 4th July
Game Types: Team Deathmatch, Plunder, Three Team Deathmatch and Co-op Arena
Maps: Airstrip and Chateau

4th July - 8th July
Game Types: Team Deathmatch, Free for All, Team Objectibe and Co-op Hunter
Maps: Airstrip and Chateau

9th July - 13th July
Game Types: Team Deathmatch, Three Team Deathmatch, Co-op Adventure
Map: Airstrip and Yemen



Well that's it folks, you can find the official post here with more FAQ etc and no doubt I probably will be seeing you online soon, have a good one!

~Iznic

Sunday, 26 June 2011

E3 2011 Aftermath - Did I get What I Wanted?

Hello one and all,
Bet you shocked to see this post finally up, well after weeks of promising I'm finally sitting down and getting on with everything I need to do. Also helps that I just finished a giant gaming marathon and no idea what to play next, so while I'm still deciding thought I should do some updates finally.

So think back just before E3 this year and I put a post saying what I would like to be announced, in fact you can find the post right here. Well thought I would do a write up on what did come true and what did not, so lets get tucked in.

1. Halo HD Remake - Happy days it was announced and will be adding co-op which was a shocker, will be looking forward to doing some co-op sessions later on this year.

2. Halo Wars 2 - Nothing was announced not even a glimmer, I found the first one to be a good real time strategy game. Oh well maybe another day, one can hope

3. Halo 4 - Hell yeah! he's back baby and something big is going down! Ok it was a small teaser and another year before we will even see it but still glad to see it's being built.

4. New Nintendo Console - So the Wii U was announced and I have no idea on what to say to be honest. The idea behind the tablet is cool but since all we saw was tech demo's no idea if it will be par on with everything else. The list of games sound ok but for the time have to wait to next year to see the truth on how good this will be.

5. Dawn of War 2 Expansion - Nothing was announced but did see on Stream earlier on the week that Dawn of War 3 is in the works, so I will take that over expansion news. Cannot wait to see what will be next!

6. Star Wars Old Republic - No dates or even beta dates but least got to see some game play footage which looked amazing! but would be nice to get a time frame

7. Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 - Ok so no collector editions or information on the online elite service, but did get to see a full level in play which was impressive.

8. Gears of War Exile - That was shot down quickly, it was announced there was no plans for anything Kinect concerning Gears of War, oh well

9. Batman Arkham City - No collectors editions announced, some cool game play trailers where put up at least. Just hope when they do announce a CE it be better then the last one.

10. 3DS - No professor layton since we major behind, but will be getting the first one in the new trilogy later on for the normal DS. Mario Kart sounded cool and still got Doctor Lautrec although no idea when, overall was hoping for a lot more to be announced.

11. Pokemon 3DS - Nothing yet

12. Bioshock Infinite - Looks outstanding from the game play trailers and cannot wait! Although I don't remember seeing a date announced

13. PS Vita - Well got pretty much everything I wanted except the date which right now is either Christmas or early next year, price as been sent at £280 and £230 which is not to bad for what we getting. The demonstration of Uncharted was outstanding and really sold the console to me, would like to see more details on games now really

14. Mass Effect 3 - Man oh man it looked awesome! the game play trailer showing the mech fight was impressive then the addition of kinect voice support was a nice touch. Oh and love all the goodies in the collectors edition

15. Ico Collection - Not much announced other then dated as September, there was a nice looking trailer showing some of the graphics changes.

16. Last Guardian - Vanished off the radar! nothing show or talked about, hopefully some info will come out soon for it

17. Star Wars Force Unleashed 3 - Nothing but to be honest I was not expecting this announcement for a while

18. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 - Same as Star Wars I was not expecting anything so was not shocked when nothing was said.

19. Monster Hunter - Nothing announced really, oh well


So overall I got quite few things I was hoping for and to be honest there was a lot announced that I was not expecting as well. Going to be a good year for gaming again

The Daily Grind - Day Twenty Eight

Morning,
How goes every one's weekend? hopefully you been getting plenty of gaming in like myself. Well got to say I'm please so far with the fact I clocked Uncharted and half way through Green Lantern, hoping to finish it off today and I will then trade it in. After that I've got my rental game Thor to do as well as all the summer challenge games I've got listed, thinking one of the PC games to be honest. Either Starcraft 2, Bulletstorm, Dawn of War 2 Retribution or Fable 3. Also do have some pick up games to finish off like Where the Wild Things are on PlayStation 3, X-men official game with one achievement left and Pirates of the Caribbean Worlds End with one achievement left as well. So plenty to do afterwards, just no Idea where I will start...anyway I'm going to jump straight into Green Lantern, no time like the present.

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So if you remember from my last post last night I was opening a series of doors and died which put me back at the start, this time I took my time and now opened the main door and entering the main chamber for which I'm guessing is the boss fight with the queen again. Got to say the two mace power is the best for controlling groups of enemies, been a life saver the last few fights.

Level 6 finished, boss fight was pretty cool basically the queen merged with a giant well statue. Anyway now on my way to Biot to rescue one of are friends who is missing there.

Just making my way across several levels, a moment ago just finished off another Ultra Manhunter. While I'm playing keep making sure to do the upgrades since they make a lot of difference, in fact just found one awesome upgrade that I'm getting next. When in ring surge mode you get unlimited energy for your attacks, well you can get upgrades that increase damage, reduce damage taken etc while in that mode. Anyway there is a second upgrade for the reduce damage that makes you invulnerable while in ring mode, score!

Got the upgrade and it is awesome, just go into ring surge mode and Gatling gun everything without worry of damage. Anyway I'm going in circles since I'm back at the start again but on a higher level this time, then back down to where I took on the Ultra. Honestly the levels look exactly the same, from the looks I will be going back to the Ultra area again.

Back at that area again and just shooting down floating mines, picked up another upgrade that allows me to refill the ring surge meter faster. LMAO just took on two Ultras and just went into ring surge mode, they stood no chance and now level 9 thanks to that.

Just died trying to open the third gate and back to the start with the two ultras again, this can be very annoying. Right defeated them both the hard way and got the last ring surge upgrade to give me more time in that mode. Woah just got level 10 on the top floor! so maxed level now as well.

Boss fight against the Grandmaster, was able to open all the doors with the perfect timing of the ring surge mode. Really does make all the difference, if you do decide to get this game put all your upgrade points into it. Took a while and he was tough but was able to get him down, found out the traitor which shocked me to be honest was expecting him. Anyway just finished upgrading all the basic attacks so now putting points into the constructs.

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Another level down but this time it was a flight one and the boss fight was horrible, basically you was just taking on another Ultra Manhunter but you pushed close. Imagine playing a flight sim but the plane is pretty much stuck against a wall, you cannot aim with the guy because of the angel so just have to pray that the missile lock will work.

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Just had a huge break and spent some time with my dad watching tv, so back now and time to finish. According to my achievements I'm on level 9 of 10 so pretty much in the end game now and currently have 505 gamerscore so far. Will have to go back and mop up while finish off purchasing the missing upgrades but should not be too hard.

Making my way through the level trying to find Kilrogg or what ever his name is, just unlocked the missile pack construct so now working on the x kills with it for the achievement.

Took out the second generator to open some kind of vault door and had one small bar of health left, one hit and would be down. Made it through several groups and got some health back only to die to an attack from a group with a fighter aircraft backing them up. Of course made it through the next time since I knew what to expect and now currently heading down a huge evaluator with tons of manhunters attacking me in groups so spamming the mace attack. Just purchased the mech suit construct, good as time as any to get the x kills for it.

Just got completely wiped out by three ultras! and it puts me right back up at the top again...

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Made it down this time but was ready so kept my ring surge ready...what the hell two huge ultra, well lets call them grandmasters in a way just attacked.

Right here we go going into the central area now and I can see one huge manhunter in the background. Kilowog is the name of the green lantern and hes powering the so called "Highmaster". Oh that's great, boss fight and if you move the giant fans around the area take up the whole screen so your blind! good development, ever heard of alpha and beta testing.

Seems to only happen when in co-op since the camera has a limit thanks to the second player, makes it a lot hard to dodge for both of us. Auto aim is shit, keep trying to find throw bombs at the boss but at the last second hal will decide to turn and throw at my coop buddy...

Done it finally, bloody hell they really should had tested this game in coop because the camera can go badly at the wrong times, hell that boss battle was unplayable at most points. Anyway time for the last level and to end this game.

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Died at the end of the second stage of the fight, doing feck all damage to him and he takes out 40% of your health per hit and block does not work.

Lmao ok so made it through the three stages and just barely on the last bit then the sound dies...yup no sounds just the talking voices so no stomping or fighting sounds. Now having a giant mech battle and its just weird without sound, sound came back half way through the battle at least and the mech battle was actually quite cool in the end. So that's the game completed, well the story anyway so time to go back and clear up the missing collectibles and x amount kills with certain constructs.

Only a few meteorites are missing so that's cool, ah dinner is ready be right back!

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Good lunch, now on mission three cleaning up and just picked up my first green meteorite which was the last one I needed which was cool. Just two blue left to go, one here and one on the level 9.

Just picked up the first blue meteorite and now loading up level 9 to get the last one, after that I just need 100k points to get the last upgrade and that's the game fully 100% clocked.

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Had another break and went to watch a film, currently now on my 6th play through of level five in which I'm just grinding out upgrade points. So far its the fastest way I've found and only need four more to finish off.

And done! 1,000g for Green Lantern, which now brings me up to two games finished this weekend so a job well done. Of course I then look at my collection and groan realising I got ton still to go, but least I'm getting there. Think it's time to update all my stats for my progress this year and the challenges, so be right back.

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Just updated the progress and now standing on 31 games completed but my percent for new releases only increased by one so still sitting on 26% so really could do with knocking out a few new games next really. On the ways of my Golden Key challenge I'm close to getting Level 12, sitting on a nice 36% for the fourteen old games as well. But still got a long way to go for the rest of the goals, my gamer score goal is dragging thanks to the massive PlayStation marathon I've been having lately.

Still in two minds on what to play next so I think I will take advantage of this free time to do some updates on the site that have been waiting, first up changing that countdown timer since E3 ended ages ago. Going to set it to the first release of the massive load of games that are coming out later this year, right now that starts with Deus EX on the 26th August.

Ok that's up now and running, currently got 60 days left! not much time to get my summer challenge finished really. So what next can I do for the site....hmmm where is that list I put together, think it's on the iPad hang on!

Ah ha! right first up going to finally put up a post about E3, if you remember I did post a while back saying what I hope to see at the conferences. Well time to go back and see what came true and what did not, from the looks a lot of the stuff I was hoping for came true but there was a few things that did not happen but oh well.

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Well forgot to do the daily Lord Ahune quest in Warcraft, feck! probably the day I would got something knowing my luck. Did have a huge session on WOW though with my mate Matt again, this weekly thing is great and hopefully be doing it more often then a Sunday Night. We got up to level 12 and now finished with the starting zone and in the real world.

Goblin starting zone is without a doubt the best zone I've played in a long time, from giant mechanical chickens to zombies, to mechanical shark submarines and rocket boots. Every minute you was doing something wacky that only a Goblin would come up with and we blew up a volcano and destroyed an island! That's a fun night

Anyway off to bed so catch you in the morning, have a good one!
~Iznic



Saturday, 25 June 2011

The Daily Grind - Day Twenty Seven Part Two

Welcome back,
Blimey I'm still in shock on how good Uncharted was, I will be updating my later like I said since it's still the evening and plenty of gaming time left. Think I'm going go play Green Lantern and see if I can clock the game for the full 1,000 gamerscore.

Ohh just remembered I downloaded the Sonic Generations demo since it's a timed demo, going to try that first but not getting my hopes up. Hmm it was cool to play the classic sonic on the old school level but deep down I feel like they are hiding something since that's all you can play, I've heard you play through the level again as the new generation sonic. Probably will fail on that part or something, will wait and see what time brings us. Time to jump onto Green Lantern, really enjoyed the film the other day, its not amazing but no rubbish either just good ok.

Ok so far it's not a bad game, basically man hunters are invading the Green Lantern planet so basically right now I've been tasked to stop towers and now going after a Ultimate Manhunter. Playing the game on the hardest setting so taking damage a lot especially from range types, just upgraded my basic fast and strong attacks so hopefully that will start to make a difference. Also just purchases two maces which I can swing around to do area attacks since I get swamped a lot.

Seriously starting to get annoying, few range guys spread out and can take out 70% of your health before you can even chance to dodge. Ok so I'm using block more which helps but it's getting the time right between attacks.

Just did the level and the boss was easy, block stopped all his attacks but one and that only did one lil bit of damage. The animation of ending him was cool though!

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Second level is set in space and it's awesome, currently flying after a huge ship and dodging in between meteorites while dog fighting with man hunters. Well that was short flight and the level is over, seems the attack was a diversion while the rest of the army attacks the centre battery. Here we go again

feck died for the first time, on this difficulty it really is hard when there is a huge group attacking you

Just finished taking out the teleporters on the top level and just got level four thanks to it, ohhh Gatling gun upgrade! yes please, dang not enough to buy it.. better start saving. Ok so down in the catacombs with the battery and they seem to be shooting it with flying laser turrets and absorbing the energy? make your mind up, either take it or destroy it.

Died again, on a timer with the battery dying and completely swamped. Restarted back at the check point and with 10% less battery life! come on! Made it with 1% left on the battery life...it was taking damage from melee units that were not attacking it. Was a close call though especially when I had to fight two tank class manhunters, those things are hard to crack open!

Picked up the Gatling gun upgrade, pretty sweet weapon for range but not as good as I would had thought though. Anyway going to take a mini break while I get another cup of tea.

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I'm back and I've noticed I have been going into real detail when I'm playing games so I will be cutting back slightly, instead every now and again do a summary of what I've been up to and my thoughts so far on the game. Think going into a full on walk through is a bit much in some ways and I don't want to bore you guys.

Ok so basically the man hunters where after a secret vault under the central battery, which turns out to be the holding place for another battery for the yellow energy fear. No clue why it's there but it seems we got a traitor in the corp feeding information to the man hunters and they being led by someone called Biot. Plenty of questions and no answers, but getting back to it since I've not got to take on two ultimate man hunters that are charged on yellow energy.

Biot is the planet of the manhunters, my bad! anyway during the fight got up to 88 hits which was gutting! basically used the Gatling gun and the over charge ability to give me unlimited energy for the gun. Have to try that again on a boss with a ton of health, anyway on my way to rescue aga'po the queen.

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Seems her race use the power of the violet energy also known as love, the man hunters are after the key to their power. Yeah that's another central battery and even I know that, been working on some of the achievements for x amount of kills using certain powers.

Just had a huge boss fight and it was awesome, did the trick with the Gatling gun and unlimited energy so got the 100 hit combo achievement which also killed the boss in the process. Found a blue meteorite in a cave which boosted my health then finished the fight by using a baseball bat knocking three guys flying with one hit, awesome is the only way to describe it.

Just upgraded my basic attack which as upgraded the look of my sword that appears, that was a nice touch. Finish off a giant worm like android that turns people into zombies pretty much but the path to the hall of knowledge is blocked (of course it is) so making my way over it seems, so its an ok game but nothing special.

That was cool, working on the x kills with a bomb. Basically you can make floating sea mines and throw them or just leave them for a bad guy to walk into them. So kept running around making them so when they chased me they ran right into several.

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Just had to do a huge fight where get attacked by several waves then had to use the baseball bat to knock energy balls back at a turret, then solve a puzzle to open a door. Repeat all that with more waves, bad guys and more turrets. Then again! three times in total and it should had stopped after the first time, they just extended to lengthen the game.

Ok made it out of the building after taking out another worm, see that's out should be a nice boss battle with a few waves not repeating the same thing over and over and...for feck sake! just walked out and there are three worms flying in the air and one up ahead.

Just died on the boss with the queen, again this is just stupid she takes barely any damage then vanishes after 10% spawn a ton of people. Kill them all while dodging her freeze move then once you kill them all repeat all over again, died after my fourth stage...too much repeating stuff it's like no thought went into how to make this game fun.

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Ok beat her finally after got a tip of the forums, basically put a second pad will spawn a second green lantern. If one of you die you will re spawn in 9 seconds as long as the second person is still alive, so put the second pad on and 10-15 minutes later finally got rid of her and it was a close call several times. Now doing a sky battle with her so going to leave the second pad on to get the co-op mission achievement, well I hope it will but going to pause to get a drink first.

That was one long as flying level, glad I did it in co-op because that second character really does make all the difference. Anyway unlocked the co-op achievement and now on level 6 of 9 so not long left really, still trying to get to the energy source before the corrupt queen gets there first with the manhunters. Of course my character is still wondering who is the traitor, I think I know already thanks to the movie.

Ok I'm not really even bother to right any more, after you fight one wave it's pretty much the exact same thing through out the game just different background.

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Well I'm inside the so called shrine or what ever it's meant to be, got real far and died then right back at the beginning so quit for the night, I've had enough. Did want to do more tonight for this second part post but ran out of time lol so always tomorrow, thanks for reading my posts today and have a good one

~Iznic