Who needs commerce or a job?:

I dont want to live in this game anymore:

More to come!

http://kck.st/14XAHB3

As you can see, Earl Ruaidri has some pretty awesome traits and stats, so its not surprising by the time of his journey to the Holy Father, he has already scheme his way to become the Duke of Ulster with demesne in every county.

With our holdings in the north strong, we set our eyes to the south of Ireland, our new Earl begins by marrying daughters to the Earl of Desmond and the Lennister, with our flanks secure we seize the counties of Breifne and Connacht, declaring ourselves the Duke of Connacht.

Even though history has been written by men, the history of this Ireland will be written by a woman, the great Dutches of Ulster, and liege to the dukes of Connacht, Meath, Leinster, and Munster, Dutches Ua Canannain will conquer all of Ireland, but sadly passes away at the age of 75 before she can proclaim herself the Queen of Ireland. Instead her son will declare the unification of Ireland and the formation of The Kingdom of Ireland.

As we are slowly taking control of Ireland, our powerful neighbor to the east England has been busy themselves, with their holdings in Normandy, they seize Flanders away from France, and with the aid of the Duke of Lancaster slowly begins to chomp away at Wales. Realizing that Wales was weak, we sent our chancellor to the last few remaining counties of Wales to fabricate our claims.

At the same time, we look north to the Kingdom of Scotland, embolden by the idea that most of the English army is in France fighting for control of Brittany, and defending against any attacks from the Holy Roman Empire for Flanders. Scotland decides to invade England in the hopes of seizing counties north of York. Unbeknownst to the Scottish King, our chancellor has fabricated claims in the Duchy of Moray, and our spymaster has been sowing discontent behind the scenes with its dukes and earls. As the Scottish war with England continues, we declare war on Scotland and invade the Duchy of Moray.

With a foothold in the north, and our Levies in the south, we slowly begin taking over Scotland. Galloway and the Isles full within the next few decades and most of Scotland is conquered by the middle of the 14th Century. As the conquest of Scotland is going on, England was facing internal revolts from Lancaster and Kent. As the former Kings of England unwisely granted the duchy Kent and Lancaster to the same house, any future Kings faced the threat of revolt to usurp the Crown by the strong and powerful house that controls the  two largest duchies of England.

Of course English troubles are Irish opportunities, as revolts from Lancaster and Kent plunge England into Civil War, we begin to fabricate claims on English controlled Wales and begin the form marriage alliances in Normandy, England, and English occupied France, in the hopes that as more rebellion to the English Crown continues, we can seize these counties without shedding too much blood.

The state of the world at this time has been mostly consolidated by the Holy Roman Empire, controlling the German States, Northern Italy, and Spain. Surprisingly the Byzantine Empire has not only been successful in holding back the Muslim Caliphates but also took hold of Southern Italy and all of the Balkans. France has been divided up by the Knight Hospitaller, The HRE, England, Brittany, and our holdings in Normandy and Flanders.

By the way if you were wondering what that huge yellow blob is, well…

That’s right, The Golden Horde has not only conquered all of Russia and Eastern Europe, it has taking over most of Scandinavia, At one point we felt threaten when the island of Orkney was taken over by The Golden Horde when Norway fell. Thankfully the massive Holy Roman Empire was able to keep the invader at bay, but, the threat of the Golden Horde taking over Western Europe was a real threat for the next century.

Realizing that if the Mongols invade, we will need way more holdings and Levies in order to hold them off. With that in mind we begin an aggresive push for more lands in Northern France, Targeting a weaken Brittany and an English Kingdom befell with revolts for independence and wars for the English Crown. For the next century we scheme and plotted our way to a strong position with in the British Isles, upgrading castles, towns, and researching/stealing technology. While Ireland was not without revolts itself, any usurper was handled quickly and those involved were swiftly bought to the sword, or sent to the dungeons never to the see the light of day. The authority of the Irish Crown was absolute.

Ultimately with such a large area to control, the Golden Horde eventually fell into chaos. Scandinavian dukes begin open revolt along with Eastern European Kingdoms that fought for freedom. At the same time the Pope called a Holy war for Hungary, and the Byzantine Empire beginning their invasion of the Caucasus to secure their holdings around the black sea.

At this time the two powers of England and The Holy Roman Empire saw opportunity to grab even more lands. The HRE decided to invade the Golden Horde to secure Poland, and England started an invasion of Mongol controlled Denmark, southern Norway and Sweden. However, with the majority of the English army now stuck in Scandinavia. The lords of Normandy, Flanders, Kent, Somerset, Northumberland, and Lancaster all at one time or another begin to openly rebel against the Crown. While England was making huge strides in Scandinavia, its core holdings in Flanders and Normandy became good targets for Ireland.

Once these kingdoms declared independence, Ireland used its claims that were created either through marriage or fabrication, were able to take over large swaps of English territory, such as Normandy and Lancaster controlled Wales. At the same time the invasion of Brittany finally was given a go ahead, and with in two years, all of Northern France was now Irish, along with Wales, and some counties in England. With no choice but to offer friendship and an alliance to deal with the revolts in his own country, the King of England offered to look the other way if Ireland were to help end the never ending succession crisis, and so the alliance between England and Ireland was created with a marriage between the the Irish King and the English Princess.

Now with no where else to expand with in the British Isles, the Irish council looked for opportunities else where. At first the idea of conquering all of France was put forth, but having to conquered such a large swap of land would be time consuming. The opportunity came when the provinces of Galacia begin to open revolt against The Holy Roman Empire. Knowing that the Empire was busy in the East conquering lands belonging to the Golden Horde, and had really no army left in Spain. With amazing speed and dedication, the Irish council was able to put forth claims on Galacia, and with in month an army was assembled, and ship levies from all corners of the kingdom was brought together, the conquest of Galacia had begun.

With time running short and the game coming to an end. We started to work behind the scene and begin to seek ways to break apart The Holy Roman Empire. Our spymaster begin to sow discontent where ever opportunities presented itself, intrigue to assassinate the Kaiser’s heirs was used so that future claimants to the thrown would be seen with distrust and envy. All this hard work eventually threw the Empire into disarray, with Bohemia, Bavaria, and Toulouse splitting the Empire between themselves. This event bought the final acquisition of the game to Ireland, with the capture of a small portion of southern Portugal.

At the end, the large Empires of The Holy Roman Empire and The Golden Horde were split apart from with in.  With the weaken Muslim Caliphates, France and The Byzantine Empire still holding strong, begin to expand into Northern Africa. The English who still faced revolt back home, look to expand even further in Scandinavia. The Irish Kingdom with their holdings strong had establish a professional army with a forty thousand strong retinue, now seek to peacefully integrate France with a marriage between the current King of Ireland and Princess of France. While that would not give France to Ireland with a male heir already distant for the throne, however, curiously a few days after the marriage, the male heir died from a bout of diarrhea, and now the Queen of Ireland will be heir to the throne of France with her husband by her side.

So that was the game, it was fun and when EU4 comes out, I will be playing the crap out of it and maybe do this again.

Streets Of Rage from Huff Allium on Vimeo.

Hey, why not?

Durham, USA – November 1st, 2012 – Funcom is excited to announce that ‘Dreamfall Chapters’, the long-awaited sequel to the award-winning adventure title ‘Dreamfall: The Longest Journey’, has gone into pre-production at Red Thread Games, a new studio founded by Ragnar Tørnquist, creator of ‘The Longest Journey’ saga.

Red Thread Games has licensed the rights to ‘The Longest Journey’ universe from Funcom, and Mr. Tørnquist will spearhead development of ‘Dreamfall Chapters’, while continuing in an advisory role as Creative Director on Funcom’s recently launched modern-day massively multiplayer online game ‘The Secret World’.

Last month Joel Bylos stepped into the position as Game Director on the myths, legends and conspiracy themed online game, allowing Mr. Tørnquist to devote more of his time to ‘Dreamfall Chapters’, which recently entered pre-production.

Red Thread Games will independently fund and produce the sequel to ‘Dreamfall’, and has entered into a revenue sharing agreement with Funcom as part of the licensing deal. Funcom owns the intellectual property rights for ‘The Longest Journey’, but due to the company’s focus on and commitment to the development of online games, the decision was made to license the rights to Mr. Tørnquist and his new development studio. The close working relationship between Funcom and Mr. Tørnquist will allow him to continue on as Creative Director of Funcom’s ‘The Secret World’, in parallel with putting together a team to develop ‘Dreamfall Chapters’.

“I’m very excited to finally have the opportunity to continue the ‘The Longest Journey’ saga,” says Ragnar Tørnquist. “Ever since we ended ‘Dreamfall’ on a nail-biting cliffhanger, players have been rightfully demanding a sequel, and my deal with Funcom will finally make that possible. I’m extremely grateful to Funcom for this unique and exciting opportunity, and I can’t wait to dive back into the universe I helped create more than a decade ago, and continue the story players have been waiting for these past six years.”

Red Thread Games will release more details about ‘Dreamfall Chapters’ in the coming months.

‘The Secret World’ is developed by Funcom and co-published by EA Partners, a division of Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA). For more information about the game please visit www.thesecretworld.com. Media assets can be found at ftp.funcom.com/press.

http://www.funcom.com/news/pre_production_begins_on_new_game_in_the_longest_journey_saga

https://twitter.com/RagnarTornquist

‘Dreamfall Chapters’ will be developed by Red Thread Games, under license from Funcom.

Goddamn it Capcom, this could of been such an awesome game, but you had to go and put in all these QTE events, dumb Gears of War combat style, boring vehicle combat, and making Resident Evil more and more into an action adventure. Its such a shame, the good parts of the game are so great that to let the bad part drag down the whole thing can make a sad panda even sadder.

I would of been satisfied if the whole game was like chapter 1 and 2 of Leon’s campaign. The mood and atmosphere was perfect, an infected small town, with an underground secret lab, mask has a catacomb to a church. That sounded familiar, ahhhh… nostalgia. Anyway, its not that the other chapter were bad, they just felt too fast, that you barely have time to absorb anything before the next huge explosion or event happens. There’s just nothing special about these chapters that makes it feel Resident Evilish, the enemies don’t feel threatening, the environment aren’t very scary, they just looked and felt like any other action game.

I do give Capcom some credit for introducing newer characters that are actually very likable. The three new characters, plus a much older and fuller Sherry are fun to play and bring more story-lines for future RE games. The A.I. is pretty handy at times, they attack the right target and can also do special moves when the times call for it. Each chapter and character story-line does take advantage of the partner system effectively.

The combat is the same old system you remember from RE4 and 5. For whatever reason you still can’t run and shoot at the same time, even though they added recoil to all weapons. Ammo is sparse throughout the level, but not so that you are forced to run through all the enemies. You do get into a lot of fire-fights with weapon wielding enemies, which I for one am not a fan of, like I said, if the whole game was lie chapter 1 and 2 of Leon’s campaign, they game would of been a lot better.

Now lets talk of the QTE, I hope Capcom really think about why they decided this game needed so many QTE moments. It makes these moments feel disconnected from the rest of the game. Where other parts of the game makes you feel you are actually doing something, the QTE parts makes you feel like your doing all these events with trial and error and no skill involved. Other questionable gameplay mechanics are the vehicle chases, did they actually play test these parts? You would think these would be the most action packed, but with a lacked of enemies, all you are doing is holding down the forward and acceleration button while you chasing the target with QTE thrown in to make it even more frustrating.

I still would recommend anyone to get this game, if just for more stories involving the RE cast. It still has great boss fights and an fun story line. I hope in future installments Capcom realize that not everything has to be so action packed to make a great game, some of the best parts of they game were the more moody, sneaky, and darker parts that were in the first few chapters of the game.

What a buggy mess. Game crashes after an hour, unresponsive controls. Just plain needs a whole lot more work, especially charging $35 dollars for it. Good voice acting during cut scene, can’t say the same for the in-game though, sounds like an auto-messaging call center.

Hey I would say more about this game, if it actually let me play for more than an hour before crashing. Avoid Avoid Avoid!!!

I hope this is where Japanese Role Playing games are finally headed towards. No more random battles, no more childish dialogues, no more linear progression, and no more prefabricated characters that all look the same, with hairstyles and clothing that makes you wonder which gender they belong with. Let me decide on how my character will look, let me select which quest i want to do, and how i want to progress through the game. Have the game world be open and dynamic, populated with hidden areas that I can discover myself, difficult bosses that will either test my abilities or make me think twice about confronting.

Finally it seems that Japanese developers have embrace what western developers have been doing for decades now. Dragon’s Dogma takes a little bit from other open world RPGs, and adds a heavy dose of getting your ass kicked over and over again. Don’t be detoured, yes, the first 8 hours of the game will make you pull hair out, and maybe even a sore throat, but after you master the fluid combat system and open nature of gameplay, you will be kicking ass and moving along in steady progression through the story.

The story of Dragon’s Dogma is told through cut-scenes and in-game dialogue, your ultimate goal if you haven’t figure out by reading the title and looking at the box-art, is to kill a red dragon. That is where your main character comes in, once you have customized your character looks, your new pal will have his heart torn out by the dragon. Fear not! He is the Arisen, the one chosen to kill the evil dragon and hundreds of evil minions along the way, including: Goblins, Harpies, Skeletons, Necromancers, Zombies! (wouldn’t be a Capcom game without zombies), has will has tons of mythical beasts from every other fantasy game/novel ever created.

You can choose from three base class to advance your character: Fighter, Mage, or Ranger, once you have reach a certain point in the game, more options are available, such as a more powerful Warrior, or a hybrid like a Mystic-Knight that employs magic with regular hack and slash attacks.

Combat with normal enemies are pretty straight forward, just slash at them till their dead, or blast them with elemental magic from behind. The fun of doing that over and over gain would make this a pretty repetitive game, so to break up the monotonous combat, there are enemies and bosses that are twice your size, and require you to hit them with a specific spell or area of their body. For example, a troll whose only weak spot is its head, but you ask, how do i get to a trolls head if its twice as tall as me? Will, you climb, yes, this game allows you to climb an enemy and attack it on any part of its body that you can’t reach, invest in some stamina potions, and you can pretty much stay on an enemy till it starts crumbling on to the ground. You are not expected to fight all this by yourself, you will have help from your allies who are called Pawns.

Now a Pawn, along with being a valuable ally and asset, it is also a way to share your game with others. Each player creates their main Pawn between the same class options available to your main character. This Pawn stays with you through out the game, it can be customized, adorned with new gear, and each time a quest or event is completed, the pawn learns and will remember the objective done and enemies fought. This Pawn is then added to the Pawn Community where all players connected to the network can access. Each player is allowed two additional Pawns along with their main Pawn, and since each Pawn has a different experience with in the game, their combat and experience differ. So if you haven’t done a quest yet, but the Pawn you added has, it will lead you to the quest destination and have better knowledge of the enemies and quest objectives.

Your main Pawn has the ability to level along with you, however, the Pawns you hire do not, so you are forced to search for newer Pawns as you progress, making each one a newer experience with their different powers and demeanor that their creators have chosen for them. To further create a sense of interaction among players, once you dismiss a hired Pawn, you can give the Pawn a gift to return to the original creator. Once i received a full set of clothing upgrades for my Pawn. You can give remarks to the Pawns appearance, battle capabilities and helpfulness, so if you think a Pawn is ugly, go ahead and tell the creator and maybe he will feel guilty enough to change its appearance.

The world of Dragon’s Dogma is enormous, days into the game and you may find yourself only having explore 1/4th of the map. There are hidden caves and quests throughout the game world. The story progress if you want it to, or you can just run and around and explore till every part of the map is uncovered. It does required you to take a commitment and toughen up a little through the first few hours of the game, where dying over and over again can make you feel frustrated and quit. However, after you smash your way through, you will find a game that you will have endless hours of fun.