Goodbye Vault 47

I'm not much of a mobile gamer.  Once in awhile I will pick up something that is timeless and it will live on my iPad--games like Plants vs. Zombies 2 or Bejeweled.  One of the newer games that I've been playing around with is Fallout Shelter.  In the wake of the epic Fallout 4 announcement a goofy mobile game was released.  Fallout Shelter gives fans of the Fallout series a chance to be the overseer of their own vault--in a completely mobile game type of way.  You manage your vault by gathering supplies like power, food, and water that are produced by different rooms you build in your vault.  Your goal is to keep your vault dwellers happy and alive...and to eventually train and arm them.  One of the major catches in Fallout Shelter is that your vault can only hold 200 dwellers.  Once you hit 200 there are no more random people showing up at your vault door asking for entry or vault babies.  So...what's the point?  That is exactly what I've been trying to figure out.  I have also learned some things about the way I managed my vault.  Maybe they should use how someone runs their Fallout Shelter as a sort of psychological test.

Here are some things I've learned about running a vault.  If the apocalypse actually happens I think my vault would be mostly successful.

Pregnant women must train too.  Having a baby is no excuse.  See tip #1.

1.) Be a slave driver!
Your vault dwellers are at their happiest when they are working.  Assigning your dwellers to rooms...even if that room is just in the barracks is much better than letting them wander around aimlessly.  So get to building those production rooms!  Build them even if you don't need them!  Keep the peeps working.

2.) Training is key.
Once you hit the point where you can build training rooms you should build them and use them with abandon.  Similar to not wandering aimlessly, vault dwellers would prefer being in a training room to being on coffee break.  Keep an eye on their SPECIAL levels and move them as needed.  Once they are maxed out I would move them back into a barracks until I had enough trained to build a new production room.

3.) Selective breeding is best.
Yes, it's fun to hook up your little vault people.  To feel a sense of accomplishment as you drag and drop a new couple into the barracks with the hope of them producing a new baby vault dweller.  I am not completely positive if the parental stats have much to do with the special stats of their erstwhile offspring but they do appear to play some part.  If you have a shortage of dwellers with the agility stat it is best to create a power couple with strong agility stats.  You also need to be mindful of inbreeding!  Although it is tempting to make a high charisma dweller your baby-maker this is a recipe for disaster.  Unless you want everyone in your vault to be related I would avoid this plan.

Towards the middle-end of my vault I had started treating my dwellers like Quakers.  Men and women lived completely separately and were only allowed to intermingle if they had desirable stats.  Yep, I had single-handedly re-birthed the eugenics movement in my vault.  Once I made the tragic mistake of accidentally depositing a high charisma male dweller into the ladies barracks.  Before I fully understood what had happened the three ladies in the bunk were all sporting a baby-bump courtesy of Mr. Smoothtalker.  So much for selective breeding....

4.) Experiment with explorers.
Although your wasteland explorers will generally gain levels much faster than your traditional vault dwellers it is best to make several different explorers.  I have a strong inkling that explorers with different SPECIAL stats discover a wider variety of items while wandering the wastes.  I do not really have any evidence to back this up but I've tried to keep a rotation to see if my theory holds up.

Now that my vault is at capacity I am finding that I have much less interest.  What do you do once you hit 200 dwellers?  Keep training the masses until they are maxed out in all the stats?  Send as many as you can to wander the wastes and hope that someone finds something unique (I haven't had any luck finding a Mr. Handy)?  I have read of several unique ways that others have treated their capacity vaults.  One guy sent the vast majority of his dwellers out into the wasteland to die.  This seems like a genius idea because it would allow you to start over without actually starting over.  I think I'm going to opt to just let my Vault 47 fade away into the sunset.

So goodbye guy with Power Armor.  You looked really badass working the power plant.
Goodbye my loyal door guards--lady with the Fat Man and lady with a sniper rifle.  You were great at killing raiders and deathclaws.
Goodbye Mr. Smoothtalker!  I hope you enjoyed your jaunt into the ladies dorms.
Goodbye lady stranded outside the entrance.  Sorry the vault was full when you showed up.

Goodbye Vault 47.

Demons, Mirrors, and Exile--The Joys of Befriending Merrill

Dragon Age II offers a eclectic mix of possible party members who you can join your Hawke on adventures in and around Kirkwall (and then in and around Kirkwall at night and then in Kirkwall again.  I think I've mentioned the environmental shortcomings of Dragon Age II).  There seems to always be one character who absolutely mystifies me.  One person who you cannot befriend and seems to be diametrically opposed to the personality of your playable character.  In Dragon Age II, this character is Merrill.

Merrill--Difficult to befriend.

You first meet Merrill as you head off to a Dalish encampment to return the amulet given to you by Flemeth.  From the first moment that you talk to the keeper you get a weird feeling.  Merrill is choosing to leave her tribe of elves for some mysterious reason.  As you head up the mountain you meet Merrill and realize that she's definitely a little odd...even for an elf.  This feeling of offness continues as you run into an elf hunter who states that he can't wait to have Merrill gone.  What the heck did she do that her own people are rejecting her?  It's when you make it to the barrier blocking entry into the elven burial ground and witness her using blood magic that you realize she could possibly be dangerous.  You question her about the spell she just used and hint to her that blood magic is sketchy...she shrugs you off and says she knows what she's doing.  After performing the ritual and having a brief exchange with Flemeth (or a fragment of Flemeth?), you head down the mountain and prepare to leave the encampment.  The keeper tells Merrill that she doesn't have to leave, but Merrill isn't going to change her mind.

Once you return to Kirkwall you see Merrill settled into the elven alienage in the city.  There are several opportunities to interact with her and learn her story.  Like Morrigan in Dragon Age:  Origins my kind actions generally resulted in negative feelings (rivalry in Dragon Age II).  It didn't matter that I tried to reassure her that eventually she would get the hang of city life or that my character was trying to be friends with Merrill.

The story unfolds and you learn more and more about Merrill.  Eventually you learn that she has managed to piece together an ancient elven mirror known as an Eluvian.  Merrill is obsessed with figuring out how to make the mirror function again.  She claims it is a relic of her people and that by fixing it that she will help to recover a piece of elven culture.  And, by the way, someone already died trying to fix it.  Befriending Merrill becomes even more difficult as you have to make the choice of letting her try to fix the mirror (which could possibly unleash demons and/or darkspawn onto the world) or telling her to give it up.

Eventually Merrill's quest leads you back to the Dalish where you are forced to make her see the error of her ways.  The quest involves demons and killing those closest to Merrill...it's hard to like her after that.

Merrill is not one of my favorite characters and one who it's extremely hard to like if you choose to play a more "paragon" like character.  I think I have only managed to really befriend Merrill on one playthrough and I intentionally made that character kind of a ruthless jerk.  

Straight Outta Kirkwall

With my trek through the darkspawn invasion in Dragon Age:  Origins and my semi-successful management of Vigil's Keep in the expansion Awakening completed, I scrambled around to download the mass of DLC for Dragon Age II and start a new game.  I have played Dragon Age II many fewer times than I have played Origins so I'm always forgetting small things that I love or hate.  I have always felt positively towards this game where many people do not like it.

In starting a new game I realized how people might feel unhappy with some of the choices made in the second game.  I sort of forgot the whole character creation system was essentially narrowed down to almost nothing.  There were no more cool origin stories...just a line-up of human characters to be your new Hawke.  Rather than go with the default Hawke appearance I decided to tool around with the few choices I actually had and managed to make my own unique Hawke.  After I solidified my choices I realized that I had inadvertently designed an almost doppleganger of the Bethany character.  They're supposed to be related, right?  I guess it works.

The beginning of the game really gives players a chance to experience the new combat animations.  My Hawke is a warrior of the two-handed variety who cuts a wide swathe through groups of bad guys.  The opening combat sequence where Varric colorfully describes Hawke's escape from Lothering gave me a fantastic feeling of invincibility as I commanded my character to painlessly slay through the onslaughts of darkspawn.  So satisfactory!  This led me to the stupid decision to crank the difficulty up to nightmare (it's really hard--there's a huge leap between hard and nightmare) and proceed to die a lot.  The trek through the backroads near Lothering was painful but I managed to survive long enough to turn the difficulty back down to hard.

Making it into Kirkwall, the primary setting of Dragon Age II, reminded me of the narrowness of the world in this game.  You spend most of your time in Kirkwall and it can get pretty boring.  The story of the city of Kirkwall is interesting though and the dismal setting perfectly echoes the horror that surrounds it's origins.  Darktown is filled with forlorn elves struggling to eke out a living in the dirty tunnels beneath the city.  Even Lowtown, your initial home area, has a very depressing industrial air that reminds you of how low your families fortunes have really sunk.  Maybe this droll setting was why so many people hated the game.  I have to admit that the choice to use the city as the core setting but to make the only real changes be toggling between day and night seems like a lazy design decision.

My Hawke preparing to smackdown some stupid archer.

It's as I wander the darkened streets of nighttime Kirkwall that I remember how much I enjoyed the combat in this second game.  The combat seems much more fluid and the animations for each class are a lot of fun to watch.  So much fun, that I often get sidetracked and forget to pause combat to set up combos.  Watching my warrior leap through the air to waylay a baddie is so satisfying.  I had to pause it and take a screenshot to savor the moment.

No matter how many negative things I read about Dragon Age II it will always have a special place in my BioWare library.  Sure, the environments are repetitive, but you can't tell me that you don't want to laugh out loud when you land a perfect combo and smash an enemy.  

A Victorious Return from the Dead

The archdemon commanded a devastating blight that threatened Ferelden and possibly all of Thedas.  Only a Grey Warden could strike the final blow to slay the beast and destroy it's immortal soul.  But who should do it?  Alistair, the former templar and future king of Ferelden?  Or your character, in my case a Dalish elf archer?  Or maybe the traitor Loghain?  Alistair was going to be king...even if he does seem like a disaster.  My brave elf scooped up a handily placed sword (even though he was an archer) and dispatched the beast thus eliminating the threat of a darkspawn invasion in Thedas.  The scene cut away to the now king Alistair giving a moving eulogy over the now dead carcass of my hero.

Alas, my hero lives on thanks to the import function!  It makes no logical sense, but hey, it's a game.  I've been re-playing my way through Dragon Age:  Origins and the oddly fun expansion Awakening.  It's a fact that I've now played every available origin story.  Which one is the best?  I think my favorites were the dwarf noble story and the circle mage.  If you're diving into Origins for the first time or re-playing it for laughs go with one of those.  Now, I'm making my way through Awakening with my re-animated elf hero.

The Mother--your new foe in "Awakening."

In re-playing Awakenings, which I've only played through a few times, I am remembering why I enjoy this weird expansion of the core game.  The characters are fun and mostly interesting, there is a wider variety of darkspawn to murder, and there is Ser Pounce-A-Lot.  My party of misfits includes an apostate mage who loves cats, a drunken dwarf, and a dead body reanimated by a "friendly spirit."  Sounds like a group of winners, huh?  You also manage to pick up the son of a former traitor who you kill in Origins, a homicidal elf mage who killed a large group of humans to avenge the murder of her fellow elves, and a dwarf rogue who is actually kind of boring.  It's these characters that make Awakening memorable and worth playing.  The story isn't too shoddy either.  Despite killing the archdemon (and, in my case, being dead!) the darkspawn are continuing to ravage Ferelden.  And they've apparently grown functional brains in a short timespan so that you can have a meaningful conversation about recipes or whatever the darkspawn talk about.  As you progress you learn that these talking darkspawn are caught in the middle of a factional conflict between those darkspawn who follow the mage-like Architect or those that follow the boobalicious (BioWare has a boob fetish just like Blizzard has a poop fetish) "Mother."

There are parts of Awakening that seem pretty authentic to the story.  As commander of Vigil's Keep, the Grey Warden stronghold in Amaranthine, you must also take on the duties of a liege lord and watch over your vassals.  They want to kill you, but you can still listen to them.  It's goofy, but I like it.

I'm planning to soldier through Awakening right into the notoriously bad-mouthed Dragon Age II.  I've always liked the second game but it has been oft bashed for the repetitive environments and small playable world.

As a sidenote I also made the tragic choice to finish my collection of Origins DLC.  Stupid DLC!  I always know it's overpriced but I'm a sucker for side stories.  If you're thinking of going for the total package here's my advice--skip "The Golems of Angarrak."  The story isn't that great and I mostly yelled at the screen because the combat was so frustrating with my archer (it might be easier with a different class).  Skip "The Darkspawn Chronicles."  Playing as a darkspawn is pretty bleh and there really isn't a story...it's just you playing on the other team.  Purchase "Leliana's Song."  You gain some insight into the story of this central character and the events that led her to set aside her life of crime for the life of a nun.  Purchase "Witch Hunt."  The story of how you seek out Morrigan after she leaves your party is actually entertaining.  Skip "Feast Day Pranks."  You get some gifts and goofy pranky things and some new dialogue, but it's not really worth it.

Earlier this year EA was giving away Dragon Age:  Origins as one of it's "on the house" specials.  It's a great RPG that has weathered the test of time.  If you can pick up Awakening to extend your Dragon Age fun time.

I Spoke too Soon.

I always manage to jinx myself by mentioning things that I hope won't happen...then they do.  Self-fulfilling prophecies are the worst.  Previously I mentioned that Shadowrun:  Hong Kong was enjoyable but has a number of bugs that can be frustrating.  I hadn't encountered anything game-stopping until I got about 95% of the way through the game.  (Spoilery spoilers about the almost end of the game ahead!)

Yo crew, there be bugs ahead.

As I made my way through Kowloon Walled City I met a group of civilians who were in the unfortunate position of being trapped behind a barrier with a bunch of angry Tsang Services soldiers.  Fortunately for these civilians you can find a detonator on some guards you kill and choose to blow up the barrier and rescue them from the angry soldiers.  I chose this option...and it didn't turn out very well.  The civilians turned on me and I had to fight them as well as the Tsang Services soldiers.  It's not a difficult fight, there are just many enemies to defeat.  I headed to the next area and was confronted with what seemed to be some guards who were going insane.  One guard was attacking another and threatening to pull out her teeth and tongue (you read about this several times through the game--it's a thing).  The guards start attacking each other and you squad is caught right in the middle.  I tried to hide my crew behind cover and let the guards finish each other off.  The guards were definitely not having that and proceeded to attack my group.  Having no other choice I finished off the crazy guards.  The guard who was the target of the attacks showed up as a neutral mob and sort of scampered off the previously occupied portion of the map.  I made my way forward and found another group of guards being attacked by some demonic minions.  I positioned my crew and started attacking the guards while they were taking out the demons.  With both groups down I realized that I was stuck in combat and that there was no option to head to the next area.  Ugh...this is definitely a bug.

In an effort to come up with a workaround to this annoying bug I re-loaded my game at the beginning of the zone.  During the fight with the crazy guards I had my team use grenades to take out both the hostile and neutral guards.  Once they were all down I headed to the next area and proceeded to take out the guards and demons.  I figured that having the one neutral guard alive was what was screwing up the progression.  Turns out I was wrong.  I was still stuck in combat and couldn't progress to the next zone.

Deciding to go even further back I managed to find that there was a save in the previous room where you can choose to save the civilians.  Knowing that the little bastards would turn on me I decided to leave them to their fate and proceed to the next area.  I fought all the guards and.....boom!  I dropped out of combat and was able to move on.  It was not exactly what I wanted to happen, but I was glad that I didn't get stopped in my tracks right before the end of the game.

I noticed today that there is another update for Shadowrun:  Hong Kong and I hope that this bug and others (like being able to pick an etiquette at the beginning of the game) are fixed.  If you are 95% through the game and stuck on this portion, just let the civilians die (they're going to die anyway--and by your own hand).

Shadowrun: Hong Kong--Subtle Changes

My first Kickstarter venture has turned out to be a good one.  The $15 I contributed toward the making of the third game in the Shadowrun series has been well worth it.  Shadowrun:  Hong Kong takes many premises I have enjoyed in the series and improves on some features that needed some tweaks. I haven't quite finished the game but have knocked out a significant chunk.  There have been some frustrations along the way but I am enjoying the subtle changes that make certain aspects of this game different from the previous entries in the series.

Here's what's wiz (my attempt at Shadowrun slang):

A new cast of shadowrunning crewmates--each with an engaging backstory.  Your crew consists of Duncan Wu, an ork security specialist (this isn't a new class but does feed into his story), who was a childhood friend of the character you play.  One of the fun aspects of this relationship is that through dialogue options the player can craft many of the memories shared between themself and Duncan.  You character and Duncan grew up rough on the streets of Seattle and were eventually rescued and raised by a mysterious Chinese businessman named Raymond Black.  Duncan opted for the straight and narrow and became a cop.  His talents are combat oriented but I mostly enjoy his stunning abilities.  At a specific level you can choose a talent that allows Duncan to disable and take out of commission a stunned enemy target.  This crowd control ability is a handy way to eliminate at least one bad guy during a fight.

The next member of your crew is Is0bel, a dwarf decker who grew up in the region of Kowloon Walled City.  This region of Hong Kong is a notorious slum with some disturbing paranormal phenomenon that makes the squalor that much worse.  As a decker, Is0bel possesses the same talents and abilities as deckers in previous games--the most obvious is the ability to hack into the matrix and virtually unlock doors, hack cameras and security, and help your team gain valuable intelligence.  The matrix in this game is slightly different than the virtual interface depicted in other games.  Now players much try to avoid the security programs rather than defeat them all in order to achieve their goals.  Hostile programs patrol and it is more beneficial to avoid them than to try to face them head-on--getting spotted too many times will result in an alarm going off and more baddies popping up along your path.  Another fun new aspect of the new matrix is hacking firewalls.  When you approach a firewall there are two steps involved.  The first is to play a game similar to the classic color/sound matching game "Simon" where you have to match a pattern of numbers.  Each time you match a set of numbers the amount of time you have to complete the second part of the hack increases.  The number matching gets harder the more times you match them and matching them all is no easy feat.  The second part of the hack involves matching a set of symbols before a timer runs out.  Depending on how well you did on the "Simon" step this part can be fairly challenging.  Matrix 2.0 is much more fun than the simple combat mirror in the previous games.

 Probably the most interesting new shadowrunner is the ork shaman Gobbet.  Gobbet is a rat shaman who seems to take her totem quite literally as she is constantly accompanied by her two rat pets Madness and Folly.  Like Is0bel, Gobbet grew up on the streets and has lived a tumultuous life in the shadows.  As a shaman Gobbet's talents are mostly used help supplement the rest of the team.  She utilizes spells that allow her to manipulate the combat field through AoE fogs or give squadmates additional action points.  Her backstory involves a youth spent running the shadows and narrowly avoiding death.  She takes on a sort of mentor role to your character who is new to the criminal life.  Gobbet also seems to have an insatiable appetite and is willing to scarf down anything resembling food.

The squad is rounded out by Racter, a human rigger and depending on the choices you make possibly Gaichu.  It appears that the rigger's abilities have been changed in this game and that you can choose to either supplement the abilities of your drone through a strange gun-like tool or that you can try to participate in combat (which is mostly pointless).  The only downside to these new abilities is that riggers must stay very close to their drones.  You meet Gaichu on a job where you are investigating a series of murders.  Gaichu is a ghoul (remember the fight in the sewers in Dragonfall?) who can use his affliction to his advantage through applying DoT's or he can use his skills as a sword wielding samurai.  The option to choose between those talent sets allows him a great deal of flexibility in combat.  I haven't been able to utilize Gaichu much as I opted to make my character a melee class.

Restaurant showdown.

The new setting in Hong Kong is a nice change.  The floating city that becomes your home turf is colored by vendors with their own unique backstories.  Your base of operations is an old abandoned freighter called the "Bolthole."  There are opportunities to interact with various characters in your home area and you will meet some interesting individuals.  Missions will take you to a wide variety of corporate buildings, slums, floating junkyards, and even a fancy seafood restaurant.

Another added feature that I am cheering for is the ability to start combat on your own terms.  With the click of a button you can enter into a combat phase and begin positioning your team to attack.  I was always irritated in the old games that you just had to maneuver your team into the middle of a group of enemies and then wait a turn, generally while you got shot up, before you could position your group.  Now you can set up ambushes and do a more thorough job of preparing for combat.

Here's what's drek:
Bugs.  There are still some bugs that need to be worked out.  I haven't run into anything game breaking but have had a few minor annoyances.  One of those annoyances was the fact that I could not use Is0bel's target marking ability for several missions (it will show up after you complete her personal sidequest).  Another annoying bug involves picking an etiquette when you create your character.  I did not get the option to pick an etiquette, which is something fairly minor but can offer some unique dialogue options.  I have read of other more serious bugs where certain missions won't complete or update but have been fortunate not to run into those.  Like any new release it will probably take a few patches before most of these bugs are worked out.

While not necessarily a bad thing I am also noticing that there seems to be fewer enemies on missions.  I felt like in Dragonfall there were so many times when the battlefield was crawling with bad guys.  In Hong Kong there seems to be fewer which makes combat significantly less challenging (maybe it changes with difficulty?).  I don't think the story is quite as engaging as in Dragonfall but I an eager to unlock the story of Raymond Black.

Shadowrun:  Hong Kong takes the Shadowrun formula of turn-based combat and cyberpunk and tweaks it slightly from the previous games.  Is it better?  Hmmmm...that's a tough call.  The new matrix is fun but I don't feel the same affinity for my shadowrunning buddies that I did in Dragonfall.  

Tales From the Borderlands Episode Four--Sad, Happy, Weird

In my fervor of watching the clock count down to the release of Shadowrun:  Hong Kong I lost sight of a few of my episodic games.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that episode four of Tales From the Borderlands was released yesterday.  This left me with no other choice than to immediately get to downloading so I could learn more about the adventures of Rhys and Fiona.  Let me just say that episode four was an interesting one that differed quite a bit from the third installment but was still very enjoyable.  (There will be spoilers about episodes 3 and 4 ahead!)

The unlikely heroes on their way to Helios.

At the end of a very action-packed third episode the squad is beset by the villainous Vallory and her squad of morons.  Things look pretty bleak as Athena is captured and hauled off by fellow vault hunters Brick and Mordecai, Fiona is pinned helplessly beneath Vallory's massive rocket launcher, and Rhys has managed to get himself and the robots (Loader Bot and Gortys) captured.  At the very end of the episode Gortys reveals that the last of her (it's?) needed components is on the Hyperion stronghold of Helios.

Episode four starts off much like the others with Fiona and Rhys re-telling their versions of events as they continue their strange trek as captives of an unknown assailant (I think it's Shade....because of the hat...or possibly Vaughn).  As they recall the events it is revealed that they are left with no choice than to promise to work with Vallory and her goons to infiltrate Helios and find the final Gortys piece.  Gortys reveals that once the pieces are all in place that she (it?) can reveal the location of a vault that essentially allows anyone to travel to any other vaults scattered throughout the universe.  The location of the Vault of the Traveler would be a prize that any vault hunter would more than willingly die for.

The main problem that the group is faced with is figuring out a way to infiltrate Helios.  Fortunately the group can rely on Rhys and his insider knowledge of Hyperion to get them inside.  There is a fun sequence where Rhys envisions himself creating a master plan that will easily get them access to the base (of course we all know that this plan is destined to have difficulties).  The group decides to enlist the help of Scooter to build a rocket that will get them to Helios.  Scooter, however, doesn't have the skills to build a rocket but points Fiona and Sasha to Janey Springs.  In asking Springs for help, Fiona is forced to very uncomfortably reveal that Athena has been captured and is now missing.  Janey is visibly upset and asks if Athena said anything before they took her.  Here you are forced to make a decision--do you lie to Janey and tell her that Athena said that she loved her or do you tell the truth that Athena was out cold so didn't really get the opportunity?  I opted for the little white lie...which could turn out to be bad.  Athena wants to be a vault hunter but Janey wants her to stay out of danger.  I just really wanted Janey to build me a rocket, so what's the harm in having her think that Athena declared her undying love?

Every episode has contained what I call the "cool musical sequence."  The cool musical sequence doesn't happen immediately but takes place fairly early in the episode.  As the questionably constructed rocket takes off we get to watch the group as they make their way into space and towards the stronghold of Helios.  The plan thus far is for Rhys to use Vazquez's body to digistruct a disguise that will make him the doppleganger of the dead douchebag (this turns out to be somewhat disgusting but hilarious).  He will pretend to be Vazquez and proceed to disable the security so that Fiona and Sasha can break into the former office of Handsome Jack and find the final Gortys piece.  Fiona and Sasha are putting their con artist skills to work as fake tour guides leading VIP Handsome Jack tours.

The rocket lifts off without incident but soon they find that there are some critical malfunctions that are threatening to blow up the rocket.  Scooter had previously agreed to travel with the group in order to help if anything went wrong with the rockets (he also reveals a crippling crush on Fiona that is sort of cute).  Scooter and Fiona are forced to don Oz Kits and trek to the exterior of the rocket to make repairs to the broken thrusters before they explode.  It's here that the game decides to jerk your heart out.  In order to fix the rockets players must execute a timed punch of a button to avoid getting the arm of their character stuck in a panel (it's easy).  As Fiona you easily punch the button and released the damaged booster.  Fiona climbs to the other rocket and finds that Scooter has gotten his arm trapped in the panel and that there is no way to release him.  He instructs her to released the rocket--with him still attached--in order to save the rest of the group.  Players are then given the choice of sending Scooter off with a hug, a handshake, or a kiss.  (Only the coldest people would chose handshake!)  I opted to send Scooter off with a kiss.  Dammit it TellTale....you made me care about a character who I didn't even really like that much!

Fiona returns to the interior of the rocket and the group makes the rest of the trip to Helios without incident.  The next sequence sees you playing as Rhys disguised as Vazquez.  Many of the dialogue options you can choose allow you to play a goofy Rhys-like Vazquez or the traditionally douchey Vazquez.  I tried to play Vazquez the way I thought he would act...like a elitist jerk.  Immediately the plan seems like it's going to be a lot harder than what Rhys imagined--he's questioned by guards and confronted by an angry Yvette.  It's here that Yvette drops the bomb that Vazquez was sent to find and kill Rhys in order to bring his head back--undoubtedly to gain access to the Handsome Jack data trapped in his skull.  Wow...another of his friends betrayed him.  Seems like all these Hyperion people are horrible.  Eventually Rhys manages to connive his way to Vazquez's office and start working on disabling security for Fiona and Sasha.

Fiona and Sasha proceed to the interior of Helios and attempt to locate a tour guide whose ID they can steal.  They work their con magic with the help of Gortys and grab the badge.  Sasha leads the tour guide off as Fiona uses her badge to access an elevator that will take her to the tour area...and the office of Handsome Jack.  As the elevator arrives on the upper levels of Helios, Fiona meets her tour group--a mob of Jack-masked wannabe's.  Players are then forced to lead the fake tour through the Jack museum.  This is where some Borderlands knowledge might come in handy.  Some panels show the fake exploits of Jack as he raids and defeats a vault monster.  A statue appears to be Jack's diamond pony Butt Stallion--you explain that Butt Stallion craps weapons.  It's a magical moment.  As the group moves towards Jack's office they are forced to go through a metal detector.  It's obvious that Fiona is going to be in trouble because of her spring-loaded derringer.  The alarm, of course, goes off but it's not because of the gun...it's because of the box with Sasha's gift in it.  I totally forgot about that!  Seeing the box made me wonder about what is actually in the box.  The guard gives it back but tells Fiona that she needs to get rid of it next time she comes through.

The door to Jack's office looms ahead and it looks like Fiona is finally going to make it.  It is here that Fiona realizes there is an invisible force field blocking the office.  Unfortunately one of the Jack-wannabes decides to run ahead of the group and is vaporized.  As he hits the force field a hulking security door slams shut and blocks the way forward.  The rest of the Jack tourists disperse in fear and Fiona calls Rhys/Vazquez to see if he can open the door.

Rhys attempts to bypass security but realizes that the firewalls are beyond his skill level.  The 3-D apparition of Handsome Jack appears and offers to aid Rhys in his efforts to shut bypass the firewall.  Rhys has little choice (or very willingly--depending on your choices) but to accept Jack's help in defeating the security measures.  Even though the security is shut down the security door blocking Jack's office remains closed.  Jack then reveals that there is a secret trap door that Rhys can use to access his office.  Reaching the trapdoor requires Rhys and Fiona to gain access to the prison level.  Rhys dons his Vazquez disguise and heads for the elevator that will take him there and instructs Fiona to get arrested.

It is at this point that one of the quirkier moments in the series takes place.  In the early episodes of the game it is revealed that there is this weird finger-gun type of game that the employees of Hyperion play.  They mockingly shoot and kill each other in a bizarre ritual of goofiness.  As Rhys/Vazquez heads for the elevator a large group of accountants confront him in this strange ritual.  Players issue commands as Rhys/Vazquez mows his way through what must be the entire accounting department on Helios.  It's a really silly sequence and it made me laugh--it's just so weird and so....Borderlands.

Fiona manages to get arrested quite easily--players can choose to shoot the statue of Butt Stallion or lead into a panel depicting Jack raiding a vault.  I (and seemingly most players) opted to shoot the statue.  Another weird moment occurs as the statue appears to start bleeding.  Was it actually a statue?  What?!

Rhys/Vazquez arrives in the guardroom where Fiona is being held and bumbles through getting the guard to leave.  The guard finally leaves and Rhys, Fiona, and Gortys head toward the trapdoor that leads to Jack's office.  Once you arrive at the trapdoor you discover that it is essentially a blob of devices designed to kill anyone passing through it.  Rhys discovers how to shut it down and with the help of Fiona and Gortys manages to navigate the killing devices and make it into the office.

Once inside the office players are reminded of Rhys' obsession with Jack.  He is awed to be in the office of his hero!  Jack makes an appearance and urges Rhys to take his time and take a look around.  Players can lead Rhys around the room looking at various objects while listening to Jack talk about their significance.  Oddly enough there is a picture of Angel on Jack's desk and he hints that he would like to see her (this was confusing to me...isn't Angel supposed to be dead?).  Jack leads Rhys to a wall filled with his various collected memorabilia and Gortys attempts to puzzle out which piece is the final piece that she (it?) needs.  After the piece has been collected Jack urges Rhys to sit in his chair and get the true feeling of what it would be like to be the leader of Hyperion.  He also makes Rhys an offer that seems too good to be true--if Rhys allows Jack to stick around in his head and wants it he can become the new leader of Hyperion.  Do you trust Jack?  Do you take the deal?  I chose not to--how can you trust that lunatic!

Rhys heads for the trapdoor to return to the prison.  Fiona is waiting below and keeping the killing devices from becoming active.  She hears a noise behind her and props a broom under the lever keeping the machines from activating (this seems bad).  She rounds the corner to find Gortys revealing her location to some guards...led by Yvette they seem to have captured Sasha.  It looks like the gig is up.  This is where the episode ends.  Cliffhangers!

I enjoyed this episode but felt like it was a little short (maybe it was just that episode three felt long with all the action).  There were a lot of great moments that had my emotions jumping all over the chart--from being sad about the demise of the lovable Scooter to laughing at Rhys as he peeled Vazquez's face off of a sleeping psycho to feeling confused at the whole finger-pistol-gun-knife silliness on Helios.  This series has kept me entertained and looking forward to every single episode that has come out.

Windows 10 Upgrade--Good or Bad?

After much time spent deciding if I wanted to upgrade my OS to Windows 10 I finally did it.  I waited until I had heard mostly positive things from others who had downloaded the upgrade out of fear that tweaking my OS could mess up my computer.  The good news is that the upgrade was relatively painless and was actually quite a bit easier than I anticipated.  Everything works fine and the change from Windows 8.1 to 10 don't seem that drastic.

The good part of the upgrade is that they have brought back the start menu rather than the weird full screen back and forth from Windows 8.1.  It's also really nice not to have to search through a whole page of apps to find what you are looking for.  I opted not to mess with Cortana--Microsoft's supposedly superior knock-off of Apple's Siri.  The assistant feature looks interesting but in my experience issuing voice commands can be frustrating.

The Start Menu is back!

But what does this upgrade have to do with gaming?  Well, if you haven't read about it yet you should be aware that Windows 10 can scan your system for counterfeit products--so any pirated games could possibly be unusable.  I've never been a big fan of piracy so this little tidbit isn't upsetting to me but could cause some serious problems for others.  I'm not exactly sure how it will work and I have read that it will mostly effect Games released under the Microsoft label.  Unfortunately with this upgrade you could also have a difficult time playing some older games from CD-ROM's.  Supposedly Windows 10 won't recognize older forms of DRM and could mistake it for the aforementioned pirated software. Article

There are also some other possibly upsetting intrusions to your privacy in the fine print of the User Agreement that you must agree to before you upgrade.  My best advice is to upgrade with caution.  I don't see a drastic difference between the previous versions of Windows and this latest and greatest version.  Could it have an impact on your machine or gaming experience?  Possibly, but I haven't experienced any great hiccups.

Shadowrun: Hong Kong out August 20th!

Not having internet access really sucks.  It makes me a little sad how odd things feel when you don't have that connection that we've all become so accustomed to constantly having.  But now I'm connected and I feel like a real person again!  Upon re-entering the world of internet connectedness I learned of the announcement that the next episode in the cyberpunk turn-based strategy series Shadowrun will be coming out soon.  Shadowrun:  Hong Kong is slated for release on August 20th and will hopefully be a great next entry in what I have found to be a very enjoyable indie series.

In honor of the release of the next Shadowrun game I have decided to re-play the previous two games in the series.  The first game, Shadowrun Returns, was a relatively quick jaunt back into the seedy streets of future Seattle.  I decided to change things up and play one of the less traditional classes and rolled with a dwarf rigger.  Riggers are kind of an interesting class due to their ability to remotely control drones that can perform any number of roles--combat drones are good for shooting up enemies while support drones can perform valuable functions like dropping smoke grenades to conceal movement or being mobile medics able to heal injured party members.  The "Dead Man's Switch" campaign is a fun romp through the future dystopian world filled with magic and tech.

A street scene from the upcoming game.

Now I'm ready to move onto the next game in the series, Shadowrun:  Dragonfall. which is a much longer and in-depth look into the world of the shadowrunners.  While I await the August 20th release date for Shadowrun:  Hong Kong, I'll be kicking it with my shadowrunning crew in the streets of Berlin.  That's wiz, man.