Tag Archives: Art

Stalemate is Victory

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Games

I finished Middle-Earth: Shadow of War and I have a few things to say.

  1. I hated the ending(s?)
  2. Two of the achievements made me very angry.
  3. I hesitate to return to the game for the DLC story expansion.

Lets start with the ending(s?). It ended with a stalemate of sorts, for me. At the end of the Eltariel campaign, there is a disagreement between you and Calebrimbor. Your ghostly host stabs you in the back, which for me was a true surprise moment, and joins forces with Eltariel. She takes the ring and together they go on to confront Sauron. Shelob saves you, luckily, from dying, and you become Undead. You raise an Undead army of your own, to confront the Witch-King in Minas Morgul.

Then, you switch, unexpectedly, and now you’re playing as Calebrimbor. You fight, defeat, and then betray Eltariel and merge with Sauron.

So there is like a stalemate, with Calebrimbor merged with Sauron in one tower, and the undead ranger at the other tower. All for the sake of balance. I understand that there’s more to the game with DLC, and the Siege Missions, but the two final boss fights just felt really sudden and un-original.

That also brings me to the two final achievements I got in the game. Both of which would have you think you would unlock through progression.

Forged By War – Unlock all Player Skills.

I had unlocked all the skills, and each skill also has 2-3 alts that you can unlock and assign or switch. I figured I’d have unlocked the achievement as soon as I unlocked the main sets of skills but it never did. Then I figured probably all the alts had to be unlocked as well, but that was a HUGE grind. But at the end of the game, this actually unlocked once I became Undead. With no real explanation.

The Stuff of Legend – Equip a full Legendary Gear set as Talion.

I unlocked this as soon as I got to play as Calebrimbor, in the final boss battle. The gear sets are locked behind collectibles and challenged, and boss frights. There’s 9 different gear sets, and 6 items per set. I had unlocked an assortment across all the sets, but as soon as I played as Calebrimbor, in the final boss fight, it unlocked automatically. So not only did I not have to work to unlock/find a full gear set throughout the game, but I didn’t even equip it as Talion. The game just did it for me as Calebrimbor.

I’ve decided to just leave the game as is. At least for now.

Will I come back to it some day to clean up some achievements and play the story expansions. Maybe.

Did I do that for the first one? No.

This week Forza Horizons 5 releases, so get ready to see lots of car photos. Ha. No Seriously. Also It Takes Two is available on the gamepass, and I’d like to play through that with the Wife.

Art

I’ve made a bit more progress with my final Drawtober piece. Flats/base colours. Super slow going, as I’ve been struggling with the background.

I have one idea which has her in the foreground on the top of some cliffs, and the background, cliffs and ocean. Open, airy, scenic. This would require quite a bit of work and rendering, and I’m not really sure I have it in me.

Another idea is simpler, black background with a light source in the center, and just a textured, reflective floor. Like inside a temple or something

What I’m Reading

So I’ve been thinking more about what I wanted to do for a comic section, and one thing I will start showcasing is my weekly pull list. I read a combination of Image, DC, and Marvel. In that order. Primarily single issues, and a few trades, if that was how my collection started with that book. I used to collect exclusively trades for years, but my shelves became very full, so going back to single issues, and boxes. Plus its adds more variety to me week, and they’re easier to consume weekly.

This week’s pull list:

Batman Reptilian #5
Crossover #9
The Me You Love in the Dark #4
Radiant Black #9
Spawn #323
The Walking Dead Deluxe #26
Mirka Andolfo’s Sweet Paprika #4
Wonder Girl #4
(not pictured) Dark Knights of Steel #1
(not pictured) The Human Target #1

Going forward, this section will be dedicated to Wednesdays, as that’s comic book day, and will help break up the week.

And speaking of trades, I currently have 130!!! unread trade paperback/graphic novels on my shelf. Plus about 20 large format collections, like omnibuses/collected versions. So I’m going to challenge myself to start picking away at this huge backlog. Like a weekly challenge to read 7 in a week. Sunday – Saturday. And at the end of the week, maybe include it in my Wednesday post, my read list, and if I succeeded or not :p.

See you then.

Be Good.
iRogan
G 305226

Updates and Changes – forever more

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It’s been a couple minutes hasn’t it? Where did I leave you? I guess a few things have transpired since we last talked. Let us catch up.

I’ve been fine. I’ve been heavily invested in a few different activities over the past few months. I completed Shadow of the Colossus. Still a great game; as good as I remember it being back when I played it on the PS2. Controls just as clunky, but still a fun ride.

I picked up the Last Guardian on the PS4 and I’ve been spending a little bit of time in that – not as much as I’d like as I’ve been suffering from what feels like motion sickness while playing it. I don’t know if this has to do with frame rate or the colours and brightness, but at certain points in the game it just feels off. This has restricted me to only playing roughly 30 minutes per sitting and then forcing me to take a break. I’ve heard that the game does play smoother on the PS4 Pro, so it may well just be a weird frame-rate issue that my brain has a hard time processing. I’ll also be picking up Horizon: Zero Dawn soon, as I would love to dive into that game.

I picked up Watch Dogs 2, and thoroughly completed that game. And I mean thoroughly. Every side mission, 99% of the achievements – I didn’t dabble too much in the online functions so there is still one more locked away. I have the season pass too, so I’m waiting on some upcoming story content which is around the corner.

I picked up some smaller games as well recently, in Feist and Candleman. Feist was just OK; it is similar to Limbo but with a more vibrant colour palette. You play a little furry monster and have to scramble and jump across the levels, avoiding traps and other monsters trying to kill you. You can pick up sticks and rocks to defend yourself. I found the controls to be a little slow on the response, and the game overall was fairly short. The bulk of the achievements involve completing each level without dying, and completing the level under a specific par time. Candleman is a puzzle-platformer where you play as a candle in dark lit levels, and you need to find your way to the end of each room, lighting other candles along way, while ensuring your wax does not run out. It is a gorgeous game with beautiful lighting effects. Easy, fun game, with easy, generous achievements.

In the co-op land, with Illestrader, we’ve wrapped up Gears of War 4 and are currently plugging away in Astroneer (Early Preview) and Borderlands The Pre-Sequel. We’ll be picking up Ghost Recon Wildlands in the next few weeks. I do occasionally stream on Twitch, so you can catch me there/here: www.twitch.com/irogans.

I’m currently playing Deus Ex Mankind Divided, and after that I have Mafia III, Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, Quantum Break and Far Cry Primal queued up.

On a completely non-gaming front, after Christmas, as an investment in my art, I purchased a Huion 22″ graphics pen monitor. I’ve always been interested in the Wacom Cintiq monitors, but could never justify the price point. So I went searching for alternatives, and came across the Huion. I love it so far, and it works well with all the applications I use, and for a fraction of the price. I even started up my long-desired webcomic – Stranger Than Friendship.

Its a comic about myself, and my best friend Illestrader, the games we play, and life in general. It’s been fun to do so far. Still in its infancy, however, I am trying to go for a once-per-week update schedule. I haven’t invested a whole lot of time into the website yet. I’m waiting till I have a little bit more of an archive before I start pushing it, and creating a domain. All things for this year.

I’ve added some photos of my recent work to the Arts gallery, and thats listed under the Stranger Than Friendship menu item now. I also started re-working on my Large Borderlands piece. Re-inking and re-colouring. Should be fun on my new tablet monitor.

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I drew this for #Camuary, in January

I think that pretty much sums up everything over the past few months. With the webcomic now, some of my time each week is dedicated that that, but I do wish to keep this side separate, and talk about games. Just gotta find the time to do everything.

-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