Steve's Journal Days 1-3

Day one
I awoke in a strange place. I’m not sure how I got here, or for that matter even where here is. I'm not even certain of my own name. Steve perhaps? I can't seem to remember. From a quick look at my surroundings, I appear to be in some kind of jungle. Trees, tall grass, and flowers are everywhere. I attempted to scale a rather tall tree, hoping to look around and find… something… someone. I don’t have a phone or a compass or anything. The only thing in my pockets when I awoke was this journal and a single pen. I didn’t manage to get up the tree, I slipped off the vines I had been using to scale the tall thing and fell. I twisted my ankle rather badly after landing on the unforgiving ground. I decided not to try that again.

I saw a desert nearby and decided to go over to it. After walking around in the sand for a bit, I noticed a strange sinkhole. It was a perfect rectangle with some odd looking stone visible just over the top of the sand inside. I wanted to look into it further but I didn’t want to be stuck in the pit and the sun was setting. I thought it would be best if I could find some manner of shelter for the night in case some kind of predator showed up. I did see a pig at one point, I’m not sure I want to be around if something comes to eat him. I was going to burrow a slight bit into a large hill and basically bury myself inside but luckily I found a small cave. I walled off the cave with some dirt a little ways in to avoid anything coming from deeper in and saying hello and mostly closed the entrance before beginning to write. I’m still not sure

My god. I… I don’t know what to say. I stopped writing so abruptly because I saw a man walking in the distance. I called out but he didn’t respond. I squirmed out of my small cave entrance and walked over to him. When I got closed he turned to me. It was horrid.


I ran back to my cave and closed the entrance fully. I spent the rest of the night praying that beast would not break through. I’m still not certain where I am, but I’m no longer sure I want to know.

Day two
A very strange thing happened in the morning. The terrifying monster that spent all night trying to get into my cave… it… it burst into flame.


I’m not sure why, but I’m thankful for it. I decided if I am to survive long enough to get myself out of this hell, I would need some tools. I spent the day gathering wood from the nearby trees then returned to my small cave and spent some time doing what I could to fashion a small bench to work at. I created a poor excuse for a pick and wailed at the stone of my cave for hours breaking of bits and pieces till the wood pick shattered in my hands. I took the stone I’d collected and fashioned more tools.  I saw something I hadn’t noticed last night in my terror. One of the walls of the cave had some black stone embedded in it. I tore at the walls and collected the stones only to realize they were in fact coal. That’s lucky, now maybe it won’t be so damn dark in here all the time.


I managed to fashion some torches by putting a small bit of the coal at the end of stick, not ideal for lighting, but better than sitting in the darkness all night. Aside from that beast that came after me last night something else is odd about where I am. I’ve been awake for nearly two full days now, but I don’t feel the need to sleep. As odd as this is, it’s probably for the best. I fear if I were to sleep something might come as I rested and kill me. Damn this place.

Day three
I decided to back to the strange sinkhole I found in the desert. After carefully scaling my way down I cleared away the sand to reveal a strange rectangular room completely empty except for a strange cage in the center. The cage contained a miniature version of the beast that had came after on my first night and fire. Was this where the beast came from? I had no idea. I decided to surround the strange cage in torches after remembering that I had seen the creature burning in the sun’s light. Perhaps then if the thing in the cage freed itself it would burn in light of my torches.



As I was walking back to my cave, I saw an odd creature. It was tall and walked on four legs. It ran right at me and I feared it wanted to hurt me.  I shouted at it trying to scare it away, but it didn’t care and only continued advancing, I quickly reading the weapon I had made, some with the sharper bits of stone I had collected embedded in some wood, rather like a nail bat really.



I smashed the creature and it stumbled back. I expected it to flee after the first strike but it recovered and it advanced again. I smacked it again, and it stumbled back. This happened a few more times before the creature collapsed. It was filthy but I cut into the beast. I can’t really even be sure why I did it. Maybe I was hoping to see some normal looking organs to at least confirm that not everything had changed. Everything has changed. I found what I believe to be gunpowder inside the beast. I’m not sure what for but I can assume I will find a use for this.

My stomach turned over and growled with hunger. In two and half days I had nothing to eat save for one of the few apples I found in a tree. I saw a pig standing nearby. I felt bad to harm the creature but I was so hungry. I bashed it upside the head with my weapon. I carved at its underside to collect some meat. I noticed a couple more pigs, oblivious of their fate. I killed them too. Tonight, I have some pork to eat.

Runespell : Overture

So green does a top five games of 2012 and mentions all those games will likely have upcoming reviews then reviews two other games instead. Yeah, that is exactly what I did.

So anyway, most of you are probably wondering what this Runespell game is. Runespell is an indie game I found on steam that really wouldn't be all that worth mentioning for any reason save one. But before I mention why it is worth bringing up I wanna talk about everything else quickly that I feel should be in a review.

Runespell is an rpg. You play the character in the above picture named changeling. The story, so far as I've been able to discern, is that some time back your daddy was a bad dude. Your daddy was some sort of evil king who more or less enslaved a large region or people and routine raped the women there in. Some time along a hero showed up and murdered him. The hero then built a castle way the hell away from where he murdered your daddy. Your fate as one of the changelings is to go and avenge your sick and twisted daddy. I do like the fact that when this is revealed to the character you are allowed to point out that this essentially make you the bad guy.

The art of the game is really nothing impressive. Almost everything in the game is static images, the only moving things I've found are the characters in battle and even then only when they perform an attack. The game seems rather lacking on the content side, enemies are routinely recycled to avoid having to draw new ones. Movement is done through a map screen and no area aside from the camps can be gone into. So most of the game is spent looking at the map and looking a the generic combat screen, only maybe 15% of which varies based upon the area, but then again everywhere I've been has been different areas of a snowy mountain so if that 15% of the screen has changed I cant recall noticing it. There's no voice acting to speak of other than possibly during what I hesitantly call a movie scene. I really can't even recall if there is some sort of narrator or not.

So I seem to be talking about a lot of smack about this game but not really hate filled. So this isn't an angry don't buy this piece of garbage. And it isn't a recommendation, at least not yet. Why am I writing this then? Just to talk about a mediocre game? Well if you don't have brain damage you should remember I mentioned that there was one thing that made this game worth talking about. None of the things I've said have sounded at all worth mentioning you say. I agree. The astute among you might realize I mentioned there was combat but didn't talk about how it works. There's only two reasons I would do that. Reason 1: the combat is extremely simplistic and obviously copy-cating another game and is devoid of any finesse and utterly unworthy of mentioning. Reason 2: The combat is worth mentioning and I was waiting on doing so. This is a case of reason 2.

So the combat in Runespell is done by playing poker. No I didn't mess that up. You play poker to fight. Well you sort of play poker. You play a card game that uses the same card combinations as poker. Each player sets out their cards in a fashion similar to solitaire such that there are eight face up cards stacked on face down cards. Each player is then allowed three action points per turn. Action points are used to attack, use spells, or move cards. Cards must be formed into sets of five before they can be used. The set of five cards becomes an attack with power depending upon how good of a hand it is. Thusly a pair with three garbage cards (Because a hand must always consist of five cards) is the weakest attack that can be used and a royal flush (Which I've never yet manged to pull off) is the most powerful attack. One thing that is really cool is you are in fact allowed to steal cards from your opponents so long as those cards are not yet part of a set.  However the corollary is also true ie. your opponents can steal your cards as well. I do feel like sometimes the game is somewhat unfair as more than once I have started a battle in which the opponent got to go first and in their first turn they created a four of a kind which is a reasonably powerful attack.

So all in all, it's a mediocre game with a really neat way of doing combat that I really would like to be able to recommend more than I feel I really can. I got it at 75% for $2.50. I feel like I've got my money's worth out of it, and I probably will play it at least enough to beat it. However, 75% for $2.50 means the game is normally $10. I think that is somewhat over priced for the content you get here. If it was just five dollars and the gimmick sounded cool to you then I'd feel comfortable saying sure drop five bucks and give it a look. However, it is kind of an old game so it is on sale from time to time and there is a demo so you can try it for free before putting out money to get it.

5.5 stolen cards out of 10

Steve's journal series.

Hey Green here.


I've been thinking about starting up a new series. The series would be a story that would come out probably every other week. The story, for those of you wondering, would be a first person narrative written by Minecraft's Steve. It would be done in the style of a journal as if he sat and wrote in the journal each night about the happenings of the day. I would include screenshots from MC occasional in the posts.

I have currently written up the first of this series and I want to say something write now, this series would be a story first and a game second. there are a couple of things in the pictures I took that are not totally consistent with the written text up to that point. I realize this. I'm not trying to lie to your face and notice how many people catch it. The picture are there to supplement the story, not to be scrutinized to ensure they show exactly what's being said in the story. Got it? Good.

Now let me try and preemptively answer a few question I'm sure people will have about the series.

World seed: Colored Media
Structures: On
Difficulty: Normal
Texture pack: Wayukian (Whatever version number it is for the latest edition of Minecraft)
Skin: Star fox

This is not on a server so no I can't play this file with any of you. If you have any other questions feel free to ask them.

Bastion

Today I'd like to talk about Bastion. Now I can pretty well assume that if you've heard anything about Bastion you've heard that it's good. It is good. It's very good. If you've heard two things about Bastion then you've heard that it's good, and that there is a narrator. If you've heard three things, alright I'm done with this bit.

Bastion is an rpg in which you play a character known only as the kid. That's him there facing off against the large blue fellow. Now without the narration Bastion is a completely passable rpg, even I would say a bit above passable. The controls are fine, looks good, love the music, story is decent, not spectacular, but not difficult to follow or stupid.

The narration does however add quite a bit to the game. It's a calm pleasing voice and what I like most about it is that it responds to what is actually happening. If you get slapped around by a boss he'll comment on it. He has comments about each of the weapons that you can bring with you as well as all of the different liqours than you can activate for various other effects. So comments are static comments based upon entering a certain area or killing a certain enemy, picking up a certain item, ect. It's also woven into the story. There isn't a narrator just cause wouldn't that be cool guys, let's put it in and we can sell more. There's actually a legitimate reason for the narration.

Personally I liked the machete and bow myself, and used the two of them for the vast majority of the game. There are however a reasonably large array of weapons. A hammer, a dart gun, a pike, a bow, a machete, a flamethrower, a mortar, a pair of pistols, a shotgun, a rifle, and a rocket launcher. Each of these weapons can be upgraded with an item that corresponds to it and the upgrades are not singular. Each tier of upgrading gives two options. One option might increase damage while the other gives a chance to stun enemies or something like that. There's also a shield the kid always has that can be used for counter attacks. Each weapon has a fun minigame area where you can see just how skilled you are with it, and most of the proving grounds are quite difficult to fully complete.

Another thing I think is worth pointing out is the idol system. Once you get far enough in the game to unlock it you can active various idols to make the game more difficult in a number of ways. It is cool though that the idols increase money and experience gained so there is a draw to use them other than just making the game harder. They're a good risk reward system that is completely optional.

Overall it's a very good game. My only real complaint about it was best said in a youtube comment when I was listening to one of the tracks on the game's soundtrack. The only problem with this game is I can never play it for the first time again.

Now this isn't because of something at the ending of the game that makes everything look stupid. Mainly this is because of the narration. Playing the game again would meaning hearing a lot of it again. But you said it changes! I said some of it changes, and if you got the shit kicked out of you by a boss the first time do you really think you'll have a flawless run the second time? Playing through the game again would yield some new lines of dialogue form the narration, but certainly not all of them new. If you did everything in the game differently the second time you could get, maybe 60% new lines. If you did EVERYTHING different. Playing through it again removes the element the narration adds, which by no means make it a bad game, as I said at the start without the narration it would still be a decent bordering on good game. The problem is that the second time through being compared to the first time is comparing with narration to without, and everything looks worse when compared to something better.

I also want to point out that the new game plus has no difficulty modifier so it's extremely easy since all of your stats and weapons carrier over. Yes, you can use the idols to modify the game and make it more difficult, but it would have been nice to see something like borderlands new game plus in which the enemies are modified to be tougher the second time.

So all in all it's pretty good game bordering on a great game that has an unfairly poor light shed on it after the first time through.

8.5 expertly delivered dialogue lines out of 10

Blue's Top Five

Blue's Top Five

So seeing as it is a brand new year and we all lived to see at least one more, I'd figure I would break us in with an a "Top Five" of 2012. I am going to be doing my top five games, movies, songs, albums, artists (yeah some of these are going to overlap) and books from 2012. Now just saying these might not all be from 2012, but just what I was really into during the year. So I think I will start with what was listed first..... games.

Blue's Top Five Games of 2012

#5: Skyrim

Yeah yeah I know, it's well over a year old, but it's still a really fun game. And the Dragonborn DLC is fairly awesome and it's been enough to get me back into it and enjoying it...

#4: NFL Madden 13

Look, I'm aware that people disregard these games... well because they are sports games. And I get that, they are not for everyone. But as always, Madden was one of my most enjoyable games of the year.

#3: DOTA 2

One of my roommates bugged me on a pretty consistent basis to play this for a while. I finally caved in and forgot about it as soon as I got my beta pass I decided to try it. Pretty damned amazing lane defense game. I don't really know if there are better ones out there, but DOTA was lots of fun this year. 

#2: Final Fantasy XII

So last year I went back and started to rediscover it in all it's glory. I found out it is just as good as as it was years ago. 

Game of the Year: Sid Meier's Civilization V: Gods and Kings

So even though the Gods and Kings expansion is attached on the end of that, the real game is where the meat is. The added stuff is also very good, but the basic game is not bad at all. In fact, it's something I put 94 hours into since roughly August of 2012. That is why that is easily my top game of 2012. Trust me, there will be more in it later.... a lot more. 

Honorable Mentions: Far Cry 3, Defender's Quest: Valley of the Forgotten, and Torchlight II

Blue's Top Five Movies of 2012

#5: Dark Shadows

Johnny Depp does good here and even though it's a remake, I like it quite a bit. The humor is decent and always seems to just hit the spot. 

#4: The Dark Knight Rises/Marvel's The Avengers

I just have to double up on this. There has been no other year in which there were two superhero movies that not only crushed at the box office, but they were damn good. Both of them. If you haven't seen them then you should. 

#3: Ted

I know, a movie about a teddy bear. But it was written by Seth MacFarlane, a comical genius and one of the best in the business today. Mila Kunis, Whalberg, and MacFarlane nail it in this one with a great comedy that isn't the most appropriate but it's damned funny. 

#2: Lawless

After finally seeing this one towards the end of last year I couldn't leave it off the list. That just wouldn't be right. Tom Hardy and Shia LaBeouf really make this a movie to see. Its really a great movie. 

Movie of the Year: Looper

I only saw it twice throughout the year, but it was really good. Considered by many to be Sci-Fi film of the generation and I would have to agree. It has an amazing plotline and is one of the more original movies out there today. Period. 

Honorable Mentions: The Lookout, Premium Rush, and 21 Jump Street

Blue's Top 5 Artists of 2012

#5: Maroon 5

I don't like all pop, but the stuff I do like I think is pretty good. With Payphone, One More Night, Tickets, and Lucky Strike all coming from this year, they deserve some mention here. I list them because I also enjoyed listening to their other stuff because of those songs. 

#4: Red Hot Chili Peppers

After reading my Stadium Arcadium review you should know these guys are one of my favorite bands. I decided to slot them here because I listen to them all the time, and their newest album I'm With You was fairly impressive working with new guitarist Josh Klinghoffer and brought me much joy this year.

#3: Wiz Khalifa

Congrats, Wiz. You're the only hip-hop/rap artists to make it onto the top five artists. I like hip-hop/rap, just not usually as much as everything else. O.N.I.F.C has more than a few gems and a lot of his older stuff was listened to by me a lot this year. This one was a bit difficult to pick but the next two, not at all.

#2: The Classic Crime

These guys have apparently been around for a little while but I didn't know about it until last year. This was kind of a good thing because I got to listen to their entire body of work for the first time. Quite an experience for me. 

Artist of the Year: Pentatonix

Soooooo, yeah. An a cappella group. Go ahead, laugh if you want but these five have some serious skill and wit to arrange their arrangements the way they do. They are my artist of the year because I've always been a sucker for good musicians and they are doing it with a very hard instrument to master; their voice. To do what they've done in a year and a half is incredible. Great sound and great chemistry from my artist of the year.

Honorable Mentions: Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, Emery, and Mike Posner

Blue's Top Five Albums of 2012

#5: PTX, Vol. 1  by Pentatonix

It just wouldn't be right to not have my artist of the year on here, so here it is. PTX, Vol. 1 is a damned good album. Yes, it's mostly covers, but they sound just as good or better than the originals. I enjoyed it very much and it even came out in 2012. 

#4: The Drug In Me Is You by Falling in Reverse

These guys could have been in my top five artists if they had more material. Alas, their debut album is the only one they have out. Yes, I was a bit late to get on the Falling in Reverse train but that does not diminish how much I loved this album so even though the album was a 2011 production, it gets the #4 spot. 

#3: Blue Slide Park by Mac Miller

Again I find myself in need of more material than they have. Easily could have went on the artist and possibly even artist of the year if I didn't have to listen to the same songs again and again. I also know that this is the second album released in 2011 to go on here, but it's okay. This list is again what I listened/enjoyed this year in music. This is a must with that criteria. 

#2: Albatross by The Classic Crime

Awhile ago I thought this was the best album I had heard... yeah my hype for it has died down quite a bit but I still think it is one hell of an album with many good tracks to listen too. It seems as though I keep getting older as this list moves on and on seeing as this was a 2006 product. 

Album of the Year: The Heist by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis

Happy days! I return back to 2012 and pull this gem onto the top of this list. Why? Because it's fucking amazing and if you say one thing about Thrift Shop I will hurt you. Yeah, it's a decent song but it shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath as other tracks on this. I really wish something else had blown up off this album, but alas, it didn't. Either way, you ca expect a review of this to go up at some point because I just feel as though the lyrics and beats behind them are just too damn good to go untalked about. 

Honorable Mentions:

Before the Amplifiers: Acoustic by Sister Hazel,

Overexposed by Maroon 5, and

What Do We Want by Emery

Blue's Top Five Songs of 2012

(Damn these were hard)

#5: Too Close by Alex Clare

I fell in love with this song when I heard it on the Internet Explorer commercial. After that I wanted to look at the rest of his album. The rest of it sucks, don't bother. 

#4: 5805 by The Classic Crime

I couldn't leave these guys out and I think this song is amazing. There's a really interesting feel to the verses of this song and it was the first one I heard by them. Led me straight into a really good band that was new to me. 

#3: As Long As You Love Me/Wide Awake (Cover) by Pentatonix

Coming in at #3 is a Pentatonix song that is not on their album. This was a strictly youtube.com cover that I rather enjoy. What I think so good about this song is it showcases all of their abilities as vocalists (or subwoofers or beatboxers). Also, they made me enjoy Justin Bieber and Katy Perry much more than I usually do. 

#2: Otherside by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis

This is an older one, but damn, it hit home. I know the whole cough syrup thing is well, not as big of a problem but the message really stays the same here no matter what. Rappers have a gigantic influence and some of them just don't seem to realize this. 

Song of the Year: The Baddest Girl by Pentatonix

Yup, them again. I hope you're starting to get the pattern here. They're really damn good. The best part about this one is it is an original song by them. That takes and impressive about of musical knowledge and they absolutely rock the track. 

Honorable Mentions:

Enter Galactic by Kid Cudi,

 A Sin to Hold Onto by Emery,

Springsteen by Eric Church,

Dig by Incubus,

PA Nights by Mac Miller,

Same Love by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis,

Payphone by Maroon 5,

Underrated by The Rocket Summer,

Teach You To Fly by Wiz Khalifa, and

Goodbye In Her Eyes by Zac Brown Band

Blue's Top Five Books of 2012

#5: Beyond the Shadows by Brent Weeks

This is the last in an amazing trilogy about assassins. The main protagonist in this one makes Ezio and Altiar look like little bitches. Amazing books so if you're looking for something to read, Night Angel Trilogy. Thank me later

#4: Under the Dome by Stephen King

This one was a really long book but it was an extremely good book. Lots of different moving parts and a lot of different plots but this one is well worth the effort of reading. 

#3: Ghost Story by Jim Butcher

This is a great book series. I literally have not read anything quite this good in my life and I mean that. I have read a lot of different things too. There will most likely be more of this later. 

#2: 11/22/63 by Stephen King

The last few years have been really good for Stephen King. He has written a few really good books that I have really enjoyed more than once. This history/thriller fiction novel is really damn good. 

Book of the Year: Cold Days by Jim Butcher

Yeah, I think that it should be really obvious that I like these books. A lot. Rather than go on and on and on I would rather just say read the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. 

Hope you enjoyed my top five!!!

Stadium Arcadium

I decided I'll leaf through my iTunes library and review something from that. This is not a very easy task either. 299 albums, 2025 songs and they're there because I like them. All of them. See the problem here? Looking through my reviews also helped me narrow it down. I've done some Rush,  Zac Brown Band, KISS, and some other random stuff that has come out recently. And answer is apparent to me. This time around it's going to be a Red Hot Chili Peppers album review. Wait.... which one? Well the only one that's 2 discs long.

Stadium Arcadium by Red Hot Chili Peppers

Released: May 9, 2006

Label: Warner Brothers

Let me get this out of the way and say that any album I picked would have had a raving almost perfect review from me for these guys. They're my all time favorite band and I think all of their music is good so it's gonna be a good review. As both a guitarist and bassist I look up to Frusciante and Flea as major inspirations because they are so damned good at what they do. Anyways, on with the review of the album. There are two parts here and I will do them separately. I picked this one because it was long.

Jupiter

1. Dani California*

2. Snow ((Hey Oh))*

3. Charlie*

4. Stadium Arcadium

5. Hump de Bump*

6. She's Only 18*

7. Slow Cheetah

8. Torture Me*

9. Strip My Mind

10. Especially In Michigan*

11. Warlocks

12. C'mon Girl

13. Wet Sand*

14. Hey

Track One - Dani California

This song is pretty universally known. It's solid and the band really rocks the hell out of this one. Amazing? No, but it is damn good and a great way to start off a really long album.

Track Two - Snow ((Hey Oh))

Honestly, this is an overrated track. It's decent enough, but not enough to gain the reception it did from pretty much everyone everywhere. 

Track Three - Charlie

This is a great song no one seems to talk about. It's got a real grooving feel to it and the bass is so killer. 3 great mini guitar solos spaced throughout it as well. This one is good. And damn, those are some killer back up vocals. 

Track Five - Hump de Bump

If you want to talk about a funky sound from any Peppers songs, this would be it. This song is amazing and it is largely overlooked. The music video is hilarious as well, I would recommend checking it out.

Track Six - She's Only 18

Once again I have to mention Flea here. Not many bassists can make a line this intricate mesh with a guitar line, and a lot of the credit goes to Frusciante as well. His back up vocals here are great again. This song also has my favorite guitar solo on the album.

Track Eight - Torture Me

This whole song is great. The intro, the chorus is something you've come to expect from the Chili Peppers, and the breakdowns are great. They offer a change of pace and of overall tone in the same song all due to great work all around. 

Track Ten - Especially In Michigan

This one has a great melody that is really driven more by the bass than the guitar. This is rare. 

Mars

1. Desecration Smile
2. Tell Me Baby*
3. Hard to Concentrate
4. 21st Century*
5. She Looks to Me
6. Readymade*
7. If
8. Make You Feel Better
9. Animal Bar
10. So Much I*
11. Storm in A Teacup
12. We Believe 
13. Turn It Again
14. Death of a Martian

Track Two - Tell Me Baby
Dat bass. But really, it's amazing. This half of the album is actually about as bass heavy as albums can get without being named Primus.

Track Four - 21st Century
This is one hell of a track. There are a lot of things going on here including one hell of a bass line. 

Track Six - Readymade
Again, the bass. The bass bass bass bass BAAASSSS (imagine those getting lower as you read them). Many people today talk about bass in hip-hop/rap music and while that's all good and well, nothing beats an authentic BASS line. 

Track Ten - So Much I
Nothing in this song makes sense lyrical wise.... I mean really, how the hell do you come up with those things if you're supposedly "clean"? Anyways, this is the last one I'm doing for this album because I don't want it to be too terribly long. Hoped you enjoyed it. 

Stadium Arcadium gets 10 growling bass tracks outta 10

It's good to be back.

Top five games of 2012 (Green)

So, in contrast to Blue's top five everything, I'm just going to talk about my top five games of 2012 (and all of these actually were released in 2012) you can probably expect full reviews of all of these games coming up in the near future.

#5 - Borderlands 2
Borderlands 2 is basically everything borderlands one was only better. I did really like borderlands one. I played it a looooooot. I bought all the dlc (Save for the claptrap one they released last). It got to the point where I could easily repeat most of the lines in that game just due to the sheer number of times I'd heard them all. borderlands two is just a really good game and if you haven't picked it up yet you should really consider doing so. Good job Gearbox.

#4 - Torchlight II
Torchlight II is modeled after one of my favorite games off all time, diablo two. When I heard diablo three was gonna be coming out I was actually not the excited for it, but as it got closer and closer to the release date, I got really excited about it. Then I play D3, and it's shit. Everything about it just sucks. It was so dissapointing that Blizzard would follow up the MASSIVELY successful and popular diablo two with such a fetid pile of garbage. But don't fret if you do need you fill of wailing on beasties and taking all their gear to see if it's any better than yours Torchlight II is here. torchlight II is largely just diablo II again, and generally if I say one game is basically just the exact same as another game, it's meant as an insult. That is not the case here. As I said at the beginning of this diablo two was one of my favorite games ever. Me saying Torchlight II is basically just diablo two is like me saying well this rock here is basically the same as the hope diamond. I would like to see some more classes available for play though.

#3 - Mark of the ninja
I picked this one up very recently (Maybe five days ago or so) so I haven't gotten quite enough time with it yet to be absolutely sure if it should actually be at number three in thing list as opposed to number two or maybe number four but I have played it enough to know it should be here. Mark of the ninja is a 2D stealth game in which you play a ninja whose clan gets attack by some group of douchebags, so you vow to go and murder all the douchbags in you way until you can introduce the douchebag king to your sword. I absolutely will be doing a full review of this game later, but right now I will say that one of the main strengths for Mark of the ninja is that everything is very very clear. Not once playing this game have I shouted out "Oh fuck that he shouldn't have seen me!" When I get caught I know exactly when and why I fucked up. Another very strong point in the games favor is the level layout and equipment which allow for a multitude of ways to tackle an situation. You could run directly at the enemy screaming and swinging you sword around, it's an extremely bad idea to do so, but you can do it. Alternatively you could silently creep past everyone and never be seen. both entirely possible as well as many many other options.

#2 - Farcry 3
From the moment I heard about this game I wanted it. I played farcry 2 and I really only had one problem with you, your character had malaria so you constantly had to stop and get pills to help with your malaria. That is poor game design. Don't give the played a sandbox then smack the controller away and demand they go do some meaningless fetch quest every so often. Ultimately the malaria bullshit stopped me from playing the game a whole lot more than I otherwise would have. Farcry 3 doesn't make you have malaria. It give you an island (Well several actually) and then let's you play with it (them). As with mark of the ninja of of the games main strengths is the variety of way you can approach any given situation. do I slam the epinephrin syringe and run screaming in the front door with a heavy machine gun and a flamethrower shooting at anything that movies and quote cheesy action flicks? Do I sit on the hill in a bush a hundred meters away and one by one ventilate their heads with my silenced sniper rifle? Or do I sneak in the back and introduce some necks to my knife? Any of these are completely viable combat options and Farcry three actually makes the stealth feel like it has a place it belongs in as opposed to just being hastily tacked on as is the case with many game that try and pretend they have a variety of ways to do things.

Game of the year - FTL: Faster than light
Once I decided to do a best of 2012 list I knew FTL had to be on this list. I've already sunk over a hundred hours into this rouge-like spaceship on spaceship combat game, and I'm not done with it yet. FTL is ten bucks on steam and it's ten bucks I couldn't be happier that I spent. I don't kow that there's any way I could possibly do this game justice in the relatively short amount of space I'm going to limit myself to here, but I can at least sress that this is one game that is seriously deserving of a look. It can be brutal and there are situations you can end up when it is literally impossible to beat the final boss (Or even just regular enemies), but that is part of the game. Fight back at the impossible odds and somehow making it work. I was jumping around the room the first time I finally took that big badass down because of how much effort I had to put into it. The game really made me want to beat it, which is something a lot of other games just do not manage to do. If were talking about games released in 2012, or Blue's method of games I played a lot of 2012 either way, FTL: Faster than light is definitely my game of the year for 2012



An honorable mention here goes to XCOM: enemy unknown. A tactical alien combat game. I love tactics games and seeing a well done, modern, triple A tactics game was really cool. It's fun, these games were just a little it better in my opinion.

YouTube Melody - Edition one - January 4th 2013

So anyone who follows this blog, or found it and looked through old posts would know that I did a series called youtube top five a while back. In that series I went to youtube each month listened to the top five songs and gave my thoughts about them. The problem with this series is that youtube audience really really likes having contented repeated so each month always had at least two if not three or even four of the same tracks from the last month. So there was a lot of repeated content on the blog, which I guess if anyone who watch youtube reads this blog would be a good thing. I’m totally gonna just repost this exact same post a month from now. Then a month after that, it’ll be the most popular blog ever! I digress. Point is, I didn’t like half of each post just being a copy of the previous one, but I did like talking about popular music. So this is the new thing, not the top five songs, just five popular ones. Go to youtube, click the music link, anything on that page is fair game for this post.

Track one (Top tracks)
Taylor swift – I knew you were trouble

Hey it’s another Taylor Swift song, I like that girl. Annnnnnd the first two fucking minutes of this video aren’t a song. What the fuck Taylor? So after two minutes of her gabbing about some guy who broke her heart – hold the fucking phone here. Taylor we need to sit down and have a talk about this shit. After this many bad relationships do you ever think maybe you shouldn’t get invested so quickly? Or maybe there’s something wrong with you? Not that there aren’t bad guys out there, but Taylor you either have terrible taste in men, or the problem is not solely their fault. Okay, rant over. So what do I think of the song? I like it. Good not great. Little more repetitive than really necessary makes me feel like she just couldn’t actually come up with a whole songs worth and said fuck it I’ll just say trouble waaaaaay too many times. And one more thing, Taylor, if you knew he was trouble when you saw him, why did you date him?

Track two (Trending)
Girls’ Generation – I got a boy

So if I had to take a guess at it this video is only popular cause, hey aren’t the Japanese people weird? Well there’s this video of reasonably attractive Japanese girls dancing and singing and being weird Japanese people! We should watch it! And presumably that happened about 7.7 million times. This whole Japanese people being weird thing makes me wonder something; do you think Japanese people ever sit around talking about how weird American people are? If we say all that “weird” stuff is just their culture, then wouldn’t our culture appear “weird” to them? Anyway, the song, eh it’s mediocre. Not really all that bad but I see no musical reason to be drawn to this video. And it’s not that I don’t like the song because I can’t understand it. I like plenty of songs I can’t understand.  Hell there are parts of songs I like that are in English that I can’t fully understand.

Track three (Rap & Hip-Hop)
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – Thrift Shop feat. Wanz

So as I was writing up this post I ask Blue to pick a song off the YouTube music page, he picked this one. This is legitamently a song about a thrift store. The singer talks about the great deals he gets on second hand merchandise and mocks people who pay for expensive clothes when he manages to look good buying and discount prices. It’s not a bad song. It’s not really all that good. But I would imagine a song about a thrift store would be really stupid and this one isn’t. So it’s good in the respect that someone wrote a song about shopping at a thrift store and it isn’t just stupid crap. But that’s all this song is, dude talks about how cheap thrift stores are and how everywhere else is a rip off.

Track four (Rock)
Guns N’ Roses – November Rain

Have we seriously not had a good rock hit in that long? The fucking November Rain is one of the top tracks for rock? Is that genre seriously that dead? Seriously, what was the last good rock song? The only thing I can come up with here is Breaking Benjamin. I think I will not bow was their most recent big hit. I’m just kinda depressed now. There really have not been that many good solid rock songs in quite a while. Sure, BB is still around, but the song from them I always think of that is the best rock song is Diary of Jane, and that was released in fucking 2007. For those keeping score, that’s six years ago. Six fucking years and I can’t think up a single solid rock song. God that’s depressing.

Track five (Pop)
Owl City & Carly Rae Jepsen – Good Time

So I can only assume that that combination of names cause some messes in some people pants. For those of you who don’t know those names, that’s the guy who did fireflies (Also I think vanilla twilight is one of his popular ones and the song, when can I see you again, from wreck it Ralph, was actually really good) and the girl who did fucking call me maybe (I actually don’t have any other songs to mention here cause nobody knows any of her other songs). But yes, those two made a song together. The song is about, well it’s just like the title says, it’s about having a good time. This is more what I would call party music than pop, but actual genres are so blurred it’s hard to say what’s what. But I can say, I like this song. This song is in fact a good time. I like Owl City’s voice and his general style and he certainly has the lead on this song and have Jepsen as a complement to his own style works well. I do thing the verse she sings is the weakest of the song but I think having her in the chorus is actually more beneficial to the song. Overall Jepsen being in the song is positive and yeah, I like it. I like it a lot. As a side note, not only is Owl City the better singer, he also has the better car. Double Whammy there Jepsen.