Category Archives: News

Weekly Round Up – Oct 14th

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As I sit here at work, watching the lights flicker due to the storm outside, I’m really just hoping that the power remains on at home all weekend. Might be cool to draw by candle light though…

So I’m 1 day shy of two weeks into the Drawtober/Inktober event. I’ve completed a drawing in 10 out of the past 13 days, so that’s the good news. Over the weekend I’ll add to the page and update the gallery. Things are going well, working in a few different mediums, and I’m generally happy with all the work. I am getting a little tired though, as I tend to draw for a few hours straight, and complete full pieces instead of quick drawings. So my days are getting full, and I’m neglecting certain aspects of my life.

Like games…

I’ve gotten a chance to put in a few hours into Forza Horizons 3 and it is awesome. Just as good as Forza Horizons 2, with the addition of water physics. The Festival set up is a little different this time, a little less redundant, and no forced road trips, and you can race in co-op which is awesome, but otherwise the games are very much the same.

Played one of the Xbox 360 backwards compatible titled, in MX vs ATV, a dirt bike, ATV and truck racing game. Its a pretty fun escape from the regular racing titles I play.

And still plugging away through Recore. Just Cause 3 and Deus Ex Mankind Divided have taken a backseat for the month while I waste my time drawing.

After Drawtober is Extra-Life, on November 5th, and I’ve started the donation social media train on Facebook and Twitter. I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention it hear. Please check out the Extra Life page. The closer we get to the event, the more I’ll be talking about it. I’ll be streaming the event as well on November 5th. Colour me excited.

Be good.

-iRogan

 

Drawtober 2016 / Extra-Life 2016

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Drawtober is right around the corner. The concept of Drawtober is for the whole month of October, is to try and draw something new everyday. Some people like to use different mediums, or the same medium for each day. Like ink, and they’ll call it Inktober.

Drawtober is a celebration of art for the full month, and is recognized in a lot of the artistic communities. I’ve taken part in the past couple of years, and quite a lot of the art in my gallery was actually done during the month.

I’ll obviously be participating again, and trying to go for a full 31 days (which I’ve yet to do) my theme this year will be Girls. Comics, Video Game, Movie. All types. Last year was video game characters. Last year I recorded a lot of my work and made time-lapse videos, so I’ll likely be doing that again.

My gameplay tends to suffer a bit during October as a result, so I probably won’t be spending a lot of time in anything new. I’ve been putting time into Recore, Deus Ex Mankind Divided, and The Division. I’ll be picking up Forza Horizons 3 this weekend as well. Gears of War 4 comes out in October as well, so we’ll see how things go. I may find time to catch up on some of my reviews while I break from gaming, if I find a break in the gaming.

 

After the month of October, we fall into November which has the annual Extra-Life campaign.The campaign is to help raise money for the Children’s Hospitals. It technically goes all year. But the big day is November 5th, 2016 where I’ll be playing and streaming for 24hrs straight. For the kids!

I’ve already registered for this year’s event, and you can find the link on the side bar. I’ll be creating a new page under Features as well. Last year I ended up raising over $600, and my goal this year is $1000. I’ll be getting a tattoo as well to celebrate.

-iRogan

Achievement Hunt – Ben-Hur

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Ben-Hur – Free Easy 1000G

Ben-Hur doesn’t succeed as a game or as an advertisement for the film. In fact, all it’s really good for is some easy achievement points.

Released before the theatrical release of the new Ben-Hur movie, the game boasts a season full of chariot racing. But this “season” comprises of only 3 races, each race one lap longer than its predecessor.

I figured it might be fun to jump into for a bit to laugh, and see how bad it is. Also see if I could unlock a few achievements along the way. And I wasn’t disappointed.

In what can be described as an achievement sprint, I captured all 10, 1000G, in an hour. I have a time-lapse video below to show the progress:

So if easy achievements are what you’re after, and you have an hour to spare, look no further than Ben-Hur. I have the achievements listed below, and how long through my 1 hr 8 minute playthrough it took me to earn them.

  • Falcon’s Swiftness – 50g (0m:57s)
    Finish a lap in under 120 seconds
  • Falcon’s Ascension – 75g (0m:57s)
    Finish a lap in under 60 seconds.
  • Spoils of the Victor – 50g (5m:37s)
    Destroy an enemy chariot.
  • Mercury’s Touch – 100g (8m:08s) 
    Finish first in a race.
  • Mercury’s Gale – 150g (16m:14s)
    Finish first in a race, without using a health potion.
  • Gauntlet of Might – 50g (20m:00s)
    Destroy an enemy chariot, with a whip attack.
  • Executioner’s Touch – 100g (34m:35s)
    Destroy all enemy chariots, in a single race.
  • Ben-Hur’s Redemption – 150g (37m:01s)
    Complete a season of racing.
  • Emperor’s Gauntlet – 75g (50m:34s)
    Destroy 5 x enemy chariots, with whip attacks.
  • Emperor’s Glory – 200g (1h:08m:42s)
    Destroy all the enemy chariots, in every race of a season.

-iRogan

WHAT i’M PLAYING – Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Halo 5, and WHAT i’M DRAWING

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Over the weekend I started playing through Deus Ex Human Revolution again, to get caught up with the story before I pick up Deus Ex Mankind Divided this week.

I last played the game in 2011, and when I was going through the achievement list, I realized there were quite a few story related ones that I had missed the first time around, so I’m focusing on those this time.

Graphically the game still holds up – the faces are a bit polygonal and the facial animation is a bit off, but that could be choked up to the Xbox 360 emulation on the Xbox One.

I’m also playing through the original, and not the director’s cut. I had heard the DC adds the DLC and changes the boss fights dramatically, but I opted to not purchase the game again, since I’m just running through the story again. I’m also playing through it a bit quicker now; more of a run and gun play through, and less on the stealth side. Pistol and Tazer only though. See how this strategy holds up against the bosses.

Interesting things I’ve notices during this play through:

  • A lot of the time you’re climbing through vents to access closed off areas. These vents are kept very clean. Like, immaculate.
  • Many vehicles are parked on the side of the road, and in some of the dilapidated areas they are on fire. At no point is anyone driving these cars.
  • Nobody questions you when you move the man-hole cover and climb into the sewers, or when you are witnessed climbing scaffolding and jumping on air-conditioning vents to access the rooftops.
  • Turrets can still see you when you cross their line-of-sight, even when you’re squatting, carrying a crate to hide behind.
  • In The Hive night club in Shanghai, the bouncer won’t let you in, but you can access the building from the vent in the back. You exit the vent into the Women’s washroom. No one cares the slightest when you enter the club this way.
  • Also on this note, you can exit the club through the front door, and the bouncer doesn’t seem to notice, nor question how you got in the club in the first place.

More impressions as I progress further. I’m hoping to wrap up the game this week and pick up DE: Mankind Divided as soon as possible.

Last week I wrapped up Halo 5, which was a fun play through with ILLESTRADER. I’ll write more about that when I find the time.

I’m also trying to keep up with my drawing as much as possible, which limits my time for writing sadly. Hard to find time for 3 separate hobbies.

I recently completed a drawing of Widowmaker from the game Overwatch. She’s a sniper and I really liked her Noire skin, with the crazy techno dreadlocks. I haven’t played Overwatch. It’s an online only game with limited game modes, but lots of character types. I really like the character designs, so I’m going to make an attempt to draw a few more of the characters before moving on to new subjects.

I wasn’t entirely happy with the final product.  I initially only wanted to do black and white, but because her Noire suit is primarily black, so there wouldn’t be a lot of definition. So I decided to add some colour, but didn’t really want to spend a lot of time colouring and shading. So I stuck with the cross hatch black and white, with flat colours. Quickly dumped in a crappy background as well so the gun wasn’t floating, and voila.

I might go back and actually do a proper colouring job on this one. I know I can do better. And going forward, my goal is to try harder on backgrounds. I usually never do them, and with my comic book aspirations, they’d look pretty weird without backgrounds.

I had fun drawing her name though, with all the spider webs. 😉

You can check out more of my drawings in the arts page.

-iRogan

Homefront – The Revolution: Further Impressions

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As I continue to put time into Homefront, I’m starting to recognize its difficulty curve. As the player, you have your health bar on the side of the HUD, and you’re equipped with injection-type health packs. These are limited to 5 on your person, and the animation takes about 4 seconds to pull off. Health packs can be found around the battlefield and in the rebellion stand-offs, or can be purchased from the equipment lockers for $50 at the rebellion strongholds.

I’ve noticed that your health diminishes very quickly when exposed to gunfire, and you can die almost instantly if you come across an enemy with a shotgun. Stealth is almost near impossible in the outset of the game as the combat areas are littered with enemies, and taking down any drone or camera will immediately signal the enemy of your position. The enemy is also very quick, take more than a few good bursts of gunfire to kill, and are usually accompanied by a patrolling vehicle. Couple that with a prolonged health pack animation, where you are not invincible, I find that I’m dead before I can get the health boost..

Now, that said, I understand that we play the part of the resistance. We are supposed to be out-gunned, and out-manned. The enemy is numerous and nubile, but when I’m attacking a point of entry, or come across a patrolling scout group, I find that I’m dying a frustrating amount, only to reload my progress back at the last stronghold. I might not even be on the same side of the map. The point of the game is guerrilla warfare. Attack, and retreat. But by this thinking, its hard to advance forward.

One saving grace is the ability to get assistance from the other rebellion participants. Anybody standing idly around a stronghold can be attached to your entourage. At the very least, they provide a valuable distraction for the enemy, which allows you to pick a few off.

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I’m still catching myself groaning at the checkpoint and save freezes. They’re not long, only a few seconds, but when you’re running into the enemy encampment around the corner, about to train your sights on the next enemy, and then the entire game hangs, it feels like a gut-punch. You just can’t breath while that like “checkpoint reached” save icon rotates.

The game supports a camera functionality. But it serves a purpose, or “job”. You can take pictures of your rebellion, or hacked signs, or enemy routes. These jobs unlock money and perks. It is not suited for in-game photography, which is a shame. No way of removing the HUD when taking photos.

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I’ll continue to plug through it though. Maybe it will get easier as I unlock new gear and equipment. There’s clothing that can be purchased that allows the played to become more camouflaged, which’ll be a nice perk. I tried the online Resistance mode only briefly, as the first couple attempts didn’t find anyone online, and my first successful attempt had the host leave after a few minutes, and I was booted during the host migration process. So I’m glad I didn’t spend any addition money on the Resistance DLC.

On a more positive note, the move is complete, so I should be able to start posting on a semi-daily basis again. Around this time last year I was putting out some short stories like the Far Cry one, Sniper, and Titanfall. So I’ll have to work on something new. I also posted a big Top 10 Xbox games. So I’ll have to think of a new project this summer.

I’m about wrapped up my Assassin’s Creed Unity Review, and I have quite the queue of games that I’ve completed this year, that need a review. This week was the Xbox Ultimate Summer Sale, and I picked up Inside (which actually just happened to come out this week, and wasn’t on sale, but I’m excited nonetheless), Just Cause 3 (which has been quite the blast to play this afternoon) and Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark.

My art table is also setup now in the new place so expect some new art stuff.

-iRogan