Wednesday 26 August 2015

Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate A Rambly Review

Greetings one and all!

So, this has been kicking around in my brain for a little bit and finally I decided to actually get it all typed out and onto the screens before you.

Firstly, my history with the series:
I own Monster Hunter 3 and got about as far as the Lagiacras(sp?) and maybe a touch further before I stopped playing.
I own Monster Hunter on PS2, and I think I killed the first 'big' monster...and left it at that.

Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate however I have..... well... I checked the time played in game and it totals up to 90 hours.
90 hours.
That surprised me. I remember getting to the 60 hour mark and being really impressed with my sticking with it, I'll admit that in the 30 hours I've played since then I've played it a heck of a lot LESS than I did before hand, however I know that I can and will pick it back up again and continue to plow my way through the huge variety of beasts and monsters that would very much like to nibble me giblets as it were.

Although my history of PLAYING the games is incredibly lax, I've known about them since about... 2005/2006ish when one of my best friends got VERY much into one of the portable games and used to play and describe the game a lot. I was curious but when I did finally track down a copy for the PS2 I found myself annoyed as I just didn't get the controls, found the weapons difficult to use and the monsters too finickity to slay and found myself putting down the game and just not coming back to it.
So when Monster Hunter 3 was coming to the Wii I was willing to give it another go, and my friend was also gonna be playing so I got the special chest edition with he controller and statuette and voice chat thingie.....ad still found myself having trouble with the game. (I'll be honest, my setup wasn't the best so that probably didn't help)
Then Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate was coming soon, and I was reliably informed by said friend that there would be a DEMO on the 3DS that could be playable. I was interested but still pretty lukewarm considering my previous experiences.
They then mentioned that you could play the demo WITH friends, online multiplayer.
I was hooked on the idea. When it was released over here in summery(HA!) Britain I downloaded it and as we chatted away on Skype I gave the single player on the demo a little go first.
And liked it. I was able to understand what the tutorial was telling me, could pull off some pretty sweet moves, and was able to find and actually hunt the monster in question. I forget how long it took me to slay it but I felt invigorated afterwards and did the mission again a few times until I was nailing the creature pretty fast. Then I gave the Tetsucabre a go, and suddenly it was a challenge again. A tough challenge that I had trouble with. However I prevailed, and it felt gooooood.
Then we connected online with each other (not the easiest system but we worked it out) to take on the 'harder' level missions. The same two as before, plus trying to kill the games signature monster. Gore Magala.

We worked our way up to that (me holding us back some as I was still finding my newbie feet) and then we took on the mission. And ran out of 'lives' pretty quickly. We tried again...and again....and again. I played it on my own, and tried and failed and tried and failed.
By the time the release date came around I'd actually looked into and ended up buying a N3DS, because I enjoyed the extra camera abilities I could have with the control nub and it looked a little prettier.
I bought the game on release and was very happy with my purchase but I still hadn't managed to slay the Gore Magala in the demo. I did however get to the Gore Magala in the story line in the main game, and killing that on my own was amazing. So I kept playing.
Killing the next Magala up, was even more stunning as I beat it on my first attempt. Something I was certainly NOT expecting with my newbieness still showing.

As anyone who reads more than 1 blog of mine, I end up rambling.
I will continue to do so, but will try and keep it structured enough so you can follow me.

I played the game a lot, I'd carry my N3DS around more often than I had my original 3DS, I slay untold numbers of monsters and had my eyes forward.
Without a doubt I would say that this is the MOST accessible of the Monster Hunter games for newbies. I'll admit if there was a version for the Wii U I probably would of gotten that either/as well, simply for the extra screen space to be dedicated to the beautiful scenery and getting an even better scope of the monsters. Even if it meant holding the blasted heavy controller for long hours because it would of been worth it.
It gives a tutorial, encourages you to try out different weapons and to find what you are happy with, and go get the monsters.

I will just say, I've yet to play online with anyone other than friends I know, I'm not that brave with my little set of dual swords (I REALLY want the next upgrade but I'm just not quite far enough through to get to the monsters I need) and mixed armour. No accessories yet, I haven't made that system make sense in my head yet, and I certainly haven't purfected the Palico side of things either yet, though I get closer to grasping the full potential the more I tinker.

That's what's honestly fun abut the game. A delightful combination of ever increasing monsters that get gradually bigger and meaner and more frustratingly difficult, all wrapped up in that desire to get better, to kick the next monsters ass. To work out that pattern of attack, to learn the map layouts, which little monsters are lurking around the map on this specific mission that could well try and sneak up behind you and chomp your ass at a critical moment.

It treats you well, it gives you and idea of what you're supposed to do (beyond there's a monster go slay) and the reward feeling of having taken down that massive dragon like monster that CREAMED you in the demo is still a feeling of awesome that I enjoy.

Actually, I've gone and talked about it so much I think once I've posted this I'm gonna boot up the game and kick it's ass again just for the fun of it.

Because yes, not only do I recommend this game for the various awesome things it does.
It's also FUN.


That's all for now.
Have a lovely evening!

Friday 14 August 2015

Believable Characters

Greetings one and all!

So just as I'm trying to settle down for the night a little thought occurs to me, and then it just sits there and doesn't move. Doesn't do anything but sits and stews and I can't shift it.
That is tonight's blog I'm afraid, but it's a super interesting topic!

When I went to NineWorlds I went to a panel on 2 topics which were very interesting. Manipulative Bastards and Believable Clerics. An interesting combination but one that caught my curiosity enough to pull me out from my nervous con-newb state to go find it and have a listen. Both parts were REALLY awesome though I'll be honest the Believable Clerics bit has left me a lot to think about. Today's blog is a blending of thoughts about the two.

Loki in the Marvel Films is INCREDIBLY believable. Through an awesome combination of writing and acting, the character of Loki in Thor, Avengers and Thor 2 is really believable.

So to lead you where my brain was going this night I was just randomly watching things on Youtube and stumbled onto this music vid: Here Feel free to watch it now or later, either way I found it really interesting because the clips from the films gave my brain the insight it needed to come to another conclusion as to why I REALLY like the character of Loki.

He is believable.

Now I will admit I'm a little biased, I like the bad boy thing Loki has going, the intellectual superiority mixed with arrogance. However woven into that is a character with a history, a past, and even more importantly a PROGRESSION.
Because one of the things that really sunk in from the believable clerics talk was that when you're writing a character of faith you have to really have the character HAVING that faith, through whatever that character has grown through. Even if the character themselves resent it, it's development they've gone through.

Loki changes as a character, back in Thor 1 right at the start he's the younger sibling, over looked sure but he has a small group of friends who although don't love him the same way as Thor, love him as a brother in arms who is useful in a fight and they trust to fight alongside them.
Loki sees a slightly bigger picture when it comes to Thor's coronation and decides to pull a prank, a small and pretty harmless prank that would show the Allfather that Thor's brutish and unthinking ways aren't really the right thing for Asgard right now. But he doesn't expect things to go quite so out of hand. One thing leads to another and then they're on Jotuheim and suddenly war is very much on the horizon because what started out as a small thing, has blown up so much that Thor is banished.
Loki then finds himself with a situation that certainly wasn't what he planned. Sure he's glad the Allfather has noticed that Thor isn't suitable to rule yet and his banishment might be a bit harsh but it suddenly brings Loki into a higher position than he had in the days before, a much stronger chance at the throne promised to one of the brothers. A throne he most likely wants but knows it will be a while before he takes it. Yet the spanner in the works he couldn't prepare for was finding out he was not in fact a true son of Asgard, let alone of the parents who raised him.
This is the character development here, his whole world has been turned upside down and the scene in the Asgard Treasury is a beautiful testament to that. Loki's crying and screaming of rage all very believable feelings when you've just found out that what you have believed your whole life, has been a lie.
The rest of the Thor film then deals with the immediate result of the aftermath of that prank, that one sibling rivalry and joviality causing so much chaos and change in the lives of the royalty of Asgard. Loki changes as he tries to settle his feelings for his mother and father, who aren't biologically his parents. He tries to settle with the feelings of being descended from monsters, and how to stop them from hurting the Asgard people after Thor's upheaval of a long held 'peace'. His own desire to rule coupled with, in all honesty, his lack of knowledge in how to rule. It's clear that although Loki has the smarts, he doesn't have the experience and certainly not the people skills needed to rule in any way like the Allfather and so knowing that his subjects distrust him having to work harder to manipulate and change things around him so that his plans on how to deal with things go as planned. Trying to leave no errors for chance. And flubbing that too.

At the end of the film Loki tries to beseech the only father he has ever known to say he had tried to made him proud, and I believe the character in that. Because the character of Loki has tried to end a threat in the only way he knows how, from how he was raised coupled with the intelligence he has. Remove the king of the Jotun and then eliminate the populace when they weren't expecting it. I'm not, by the way, suggesting I condone it, but to the character it makes sense. With the Bifrost having dealt such tremendous challenge, it would be eons before the Frost Giants would ever threaten any of the Nine Realms again, and as such he will of saved the people an fulfilled part of his duty as a King. To keep them safe from such dangers. Of course the Allfather sees that Loki has caused such chaos and destruction, annihilating a peoples and although it was Thor himself who broke the Rainbow Bridge, you can see the Allfather blames Loki for that too.
So Loki let's go and plunges into the cosmos in despair and probably more than a little depression and self-loathing.

Can you BLAME him? Hell no! He is at what is most likely the LOWEST point in his life.

Which then leads to the Avangers(Assemble). Where Loki is even more manipulative than before, taking control of other peoples minds and using this information to plot and plan and judge more of how his enemies are going to act and planning everything around that. For example, the whole trip to the Helicarrier.
Sadly, for him, his arrogance has grown so much that in the end he is defeated in this plan (some say he did it deliberately, we may or may not find out about that in a later year/films) and is taken back to Asgard.

Thor 2, Loki is still clearly angry with his family and isn't thrilled at being locked up in prison. Probably doubly so as there's gonna be things down there that he assisted in putting there. Not the bast mind set.
He then loses his mother, who from what we gather he still has deep affection for (again who can blame him, he's the only loving mother he's ever known) and is even denied going to her funeral because he is such a criminal that he isn't allowed to attend it. I'd also add as an EXTRA insult to the character, it's not any of his family or friends who tell him the news either, it's a random guard. Talk about insulting!
Then Thor comes looking for his help. Now we know from how the rest of the film goes that at SOME point they discuss and concoct the plan regarding Thor's hand. But the scene where they walk down the corridor together and Loki nearly gets them caught out, is wonderful. Because there's still this brotherly bond between them, it's stretched to it's limits sure, but there's no denying that the bond is there and there's a little playing off it. Cumulating with Thor slipping the cuffs on Loki. Hehe.
Another beautiful touch is how the Warriors Three and Sif, threaten Loki if he betrays Thor and Loki gets very tired of it quickly. These people used to be his friends, and briefly subjects, and yet they are perfectly willing to threaten to kill him outright for any hint of betrayal.

As the ship flies (On a side note I LOVE the shape of the Asgard boat-ship things!) and they escape it's again good to see the family banter, how it's changed from the first film into something much more broken and yet it could be restored though scared to a place it had been before.
'She wouldn't want us to fight!'
'Well she wouldn't exactly be shocked'
and that little smile between brothers. Something in those moments, on that boat, fix a few of the things that had shattered across the previous films. Not enough to bring them even CLOSE to being back to where they were. But closer to being just brothers again.

The ending of Thor 2 I won't spoil for anyone who hasn't seen it (I know that seems weird for a film nearly 2 years released but I hadn't seen it until a month or two ago) but I will say that once again we see more character development which will be VERY interesting to see how it goes in Thor 3: Ragnarok (I'm going to have to read up on the viking mythology for that one)

So yes we have a manipulative bastard in Loki. However he's completely believable in what he does because we can see the reasons why, the changes, the developments.
I'd even say the growing up.
Seriously! Go back and look at how Loki is in Thor 1, how he looks and acts. Although Asgardians are very very long lived (I don't think they provide an exact, but things could probably be guessed in a vague timeline regarding the war of the Frost Giants and how that wove with Midgard and it's history) but I'd say Loki's a young man in terms of maturity. Emotionally the sudden changing of his life strikes him hard and deep and scars as it happens, I'd put the emotional development at around 18-21 of our real human age range? A man by society, and yet hasn't quite gotten there yet (obviously I'm generalising and trying not to bias with the 'boys' I had the misfortune to go to school with) and the events in the films change who he could of been. Change how he deals with people and leaves us believing in the character for all of it.

So yes, that's my 1am ramble of an idea that wouldn't leave my brain alone.

Thank you for joining me and I hope you have a lovely evening!

Monday 10 August 2015

NineWorlds Convention 2015

Greetings one and all!

So, today I have come home from NineWorlds in the UK. My very first 'proper' convention. By 'proper' I mean the kind in the same hotel you're staying at sort.
It was for all sorts of geeky types, from your desktop RPG'ers, book readers, sci-fi show watchers, fantasy peoples, film peoples and everything inbetween or around.

It was bloody marvellous!

I'll start by saying I was at the hotel from Thursday - Monday. The theory was that arriving the day before the convention started would give us (me and my boyfriend) a chance to settle in before the activities started and miss some of the ensuing chaos that would be a bigger portion of the people arriving on Friday would be.
This was, as it turned out, to be a really neat idea. We got a vague idea of the layout of the ground floor, some of the rooms, and where food could be obtained (and learned one of the key lessons, that food was very expensive and limited in options unless you ventured out back into the mundane world to find a place that sold food, which was also very limited unless you wanted to hop on a bus for a 20 minute ride kinda deal) and got to have a good little evening opening session. Me and one of my friends went to what was supposed to be the blanket fort building to find no one where (we got there a touch early) and by the time things got swinging we were playing a board game (lots of fun) and listening to kids building the forts (noisy!) but it was still a nice way to start things and met lovely people whilst playing the game.

That was honestly one of the things I REALLY loved about the convention. So many lovely lovely people. People just like me who loved geeky things and didn't judge each other and were polite and nice and whatnot. The difference I noticed just between leaving this morning and by the time I'd gotten home was kinda sad really. The convention had been all kinds of bright and wonderful levels of energy that although did get tiring after a while (naps had to be taken occasionally for this little introvert) was also pretty relaxing. Everyone was pretty upbeat and colourful and smiling and ....yeah I'm just gushing again.

I saw there were loads of panels on offer and was kinda nervous about going to them, I wasn't sure as the times rolled around if they would be my thing or not. As such I only went to one 'proper' panel as it were but it was on Manipulative Bastards and Believable Clerics which was SUPER interesting, in both talks. I ended up enjoying the second WAY more than I thought I would. However the gentleman giving the talk was truly interested in what he was talking, wove in fantastic anecdotes from person life experiences, and was a genuine priest himself (even wearing his dog collar and a geeky shirt!) I found it so interesting and it gave me a lot to think about for if/when I ever need to write or play a cleric and even on writing about gods/deities in situations too. Really nifty stuff.

I actually went to a sing-a-long, I'd looked at it thinking it'd be a bloody good blast, and I was right! A Joss Whedon sing-a-long. Now I hadn't seen Dr Horribles Sing-a-long blog before so I sat through that listening with a small chuckle as some people jumped up the front of the room (some in cosplay too!) and acted out some small bits as the singing went along. (I watched it that evening and found it really interesting as well) and then it was Once More With Feeling! A set of songs I knew well! Singing along and suddenly a cosplayer as Spike walks through the aisle being all spot on character, and later a Giles too that make me grin and laugh. We even had the keyboardist lose his keyboard at one point and with a chuckle we asked 'Where do we go from here?' quite legitimately due to perfect cosmic timing!

I had a couple of bad instances, but they were pretty much all in my head so I did make use of the quiet rooms that were on offer, though I'd argue one of them didn't really seem all that good but then it was probably more my mindset at the time rather than anything else. Again the people there were super nice and I got back into a good mindset to carry on doing things.

OH! There were TONS of board games you could borrow and play with. I finally got to play a game of Pandemic, and one of the guys at 9dice was super kind to explain the rules to us as we kind of nodded wrapping our heads around it. I know we 'ran out of time' but I was impressive we'd gotten 2 cures produced and only had 3 outbreaks for our VERY FIRST GAME! It impressed me, I don't think it impressed the rest but then I'd heard how super hard the game was and that everyone loses most of their games so I knew we'd probably fail but what we did get to accomplish was awesome.

Thinking back over what I experienced I'm TOTALLY going next year and probably with a lot more confidence, especially as now I've been to one I know what I'm expecting and will be better prepared physically and mentally (like bringing some basics for food stuff, I missed chocolate so much.) I'll also probably go to more panels, and might even bring along cross stitch to keep me occupied during slower times or heck just to enjoy doing whilst sitting in the open areas, I will admit some vanity in that I like it when people 'ooh' at the stuff I've done (and really wish I'd thought to carry my cross stitch Loki with me in the back of my lanyard pouch from day one. Ah well) Knowing what I'd be going into next time will make things easier and even more relaxed and awesome I'm sure.

Either way. I had a blast and very much look forward to future conventions.
Because you know what? It was so unbelievably awesome to be completely accepted for who I was by so many others who were just like me. Even remembering that brings a smile to me.

OH! and the twitter love I got was awesome!

So to anyone reading this who went. YAY! It was awesome.
See you again next year.

Thank you very much for reading and have a great evening!

EDIT: Weblink for anyone interested! NineWorlds