helsmuth

My favourite anime of each year, 2010-2019, plus some honourable mentions:

If you haven't watched the 1997 series of Berserk, do yourself a favour and check it out. The most 90's anime ever, from the grunge soundtrack to the ultraviolence. The 2016 reboot is just awful by comparison. Thankfully, the current decade of anime also has plenty of fantastic shows, as surveyed in my first post  (2010 - 2015) and second post  (2014 - 2016) of reviews. This post will highlight my favourites from the 2017 and 2018 anime seasons.

A video critique and retrospective of all 14 official campaigns released for Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2, between 2002 and 2009:

Following up on my previous post , here are some more anime (and other Japanese TV series) from the last 3 years that are worth checking out. Anime has never been easier to access, with online streaming sites like Crunchyroll , Funimation , Daisuki  &  AnimeLab (as well as Netflix, Hulu & YouTube). Many of these sites are subscription based, but some provide limited access to shows supported by advertising. The concept of simulcast and "simuldub," where shows are available within weeks of when they are originally broadcast in Japan, is really exciting.

After watching Blade Runner 2049, I was in the mood for some more neo-noir, so I decided to give Martian Memorandum another go. This is the second in the Tex Murphy series of point-and-click adventure games, originally released in 1991. It is one of many old school games that have been revived by GOG.com and can be played on modern computers. I was even able to play it on my Mac, using Boxer/DOS Box! My review (with some minor spoilers) is below.

I've been watching a bunch of anime recently, so I thought I'd collect together some brief impressions on what I've seen. This baker's dozen is very much a mixed bag, so your mileage may vary. At the very least, Steins;Gate and Parasyte are highly recommended. A lot of these series are available to stream online from Crunchyroll or Netflix and are worth checking out.

This game is beautiful. If I blame the limitations of the Xbox 360 for many of the drawbacks of DA2 , then at least with DA:I we get an expansive game with amazing graphics that finally gives my GTX 970M something to do. Maybe the environments aren't quite up to the standard of the Witcher 3 , but it is miles ahead of the previous two games. In many other aspects, DA:I synthesizes the best elements of DA:O and DA2, particularly in terms of combat and storyline. Combat is even more dynamic and immersive than DA2, but they've also introduced the option of a tactical view, which helps make combat more strategic. I switched between both, depending on how difficult the fight was and how many enemies I was facing. Some of the encounters are more difficult than DA2, and several times I faced a Total Party Kill. As for the story, more will be said below. It took me 84 hours for my first playthrough of the main storyline (not including the 3 expansions), so almost exactly the same as ...

The least popular game in the Dragon Age trilogy, and I can see why. Gone are the excellent camera controls from the PC version of DA:O . Indeed, combat in general feels much more like a console RPG. In some ways, this is an improvement - the mage in particular is much more dynamic, and many fights are over quickly. Likewise, the Mass Effect style dialogue wheel means that Hawke, the player character in DA2, is no longer a silent protagonist (for better or worse). Some of his (or her) sarcastic comments are quite amusing, but Hawke lacks the dry wit of Geralt of Rivia. Fenris, Varric, Aveline & Hawke

Unfortunately, my save files for the Isle of the Maker in NWN: Hordes of the Underdark were corrupted, so you'll have to wait a while for the next installment of that review . A colleague mentioned that Dragon Age: Origins was his favourite game of all time, so I decided to play that instead. It took me 85 hours for my first playthrough of the core game (without any expansions). My opinion (and many spoilers) are below.

The first expansion pack for the Witcher 3 took me 22.5 hours to finish the main story quests. I'm glad I waited a couple of months before playing it, since the next expansion "Blood & Wine" still has no release date. I'll definitely be preordering as soon as its available. The following review contains plot details and spoilers for the game.

This game starts in an inn. Not on the Plane of Shadow, where you fled as Undrentide crashed to the ground (if only Heroudis had flown her citadel above 1000 feet, like the wise Dagget Filth had advised...). Soon enough, the inn is under attack, thereby combining two of the laziest beginnings possible for a BioWare game. This hackery might be forgivable if they had leveled up my character to cover the gap in time, but oh well. Can NWN:HotU possibly live up to the example set by chapter 5 of Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn? We shall see...

When Neverwinter Nights was released in 2002, it had everything I wanted in a CRPG. In particular, Kal & I had tried the awful multiplayer in Baldur's Gate, but there's only so much of "you must gather your party before venturing forth" that we could put up with. I had enormous fun on the multiplayer servers, especially the persistent worlds . I spent quite a few hours in the level editor as well, dreaming of creating an electronic version of my pen & paper city, Helsmuth. However, I have never finished the single player game. I only ever made it as far as Chapter 2. Partly it was the sheer grind of tracking down the "Waterdhavian creatures," but mainly because it just couldn't compete with the experience of playing D&D in person. NWN did finally convince me to convert my game from 2nd edition to the 3rd edition rules, though, so there's that. The main reason I decided to buy NWN Diamond from GoG was because NWN2 was too demanding fo...

After 117 hours, I've completed my first playthrough of the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. I actually bought a new laptop specifically so that I could play this game, since my Acer Aspire with GeForce GT 640M could barely keep up with the Witcher 2. I've had enormous fun with this game and I'm very much looking forward to playing the two expansion packs, Hearts of Stone and Blood & Wine. However, after such a satisfying ending, I feel the need to take a bit of a break for a while. More details (and spoilers for all three Witcher games) after the jump:

I've finished Shadows of Amn in BG2:EE just shy of the 2.95 million xp cap, which puts me a bit ahead of the starting value of 2.5 million for brand new characters in Throne of Bhaal. My party looks like this: Gorion's Ward , CE half-elf Fighter 11 / Mage 12 / Thief 14 Korgan : CE dwarf Fighter 19 (Berserker kit) Minsc  CG human Ranger 17 Jaheira : TN half-elf Fighter 13 / Druid 13 Viconia : NE drow Cleric 19 Imoen : NG human Thief 7 / Mage 16 My alignment changed to Chaotic Evil because I succumbed to the sin of greed. I blame Elric of Melniboné (or, more specifically, Stormbringer). Also, I may have kicked Darth Sarevok in the nuts ("Release your anger, only your hatred can destroy me!"). My bad :-) It would have been cool if the Fate Spirit at the beginning of Throne of Bhaal had given you the option of bringing back some of the BG characters who were left out of Shadows of Amn, like Xan or Shar-Teel . I suppose there's probably a mod for that. I...

I've been playing Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition on my Nexus 7 tablet, which is the 3rd time that I've restarted this game from scratch. I didn't have my save game from 2013 when I played BG:EE, since I had to wipe my laptop and the backup is in Australia. I also made a few screwups with my game in the early stage, which I've managed to fix using EE Keeper to edit the save files. You'll see lots of mentions of CLUA Console on the forums, but it's tricky/impossible to get this working in the Android version of the game, even if you use a bluetooth keyboard. Here are the instructions for setting up EE Keeper for Android if you don't have a PC version of BG2:EE installed. Basically, you need to copy the 'main' and 'patch' files from the    sdcard/Android/obb/com.beamdog.baldursgateenhancededition  directory on your device, then extract them using 7zip on your PC. You can configure EE Keeper to use this as the installation directory,...

One of the things that clearly distinguishes life in the Wild West from the "default setting" of D&D is the availability of rail transportation ... and the unavailability of magical transportation. For those who can afford it, a 9th level sellspell would charge 450gp to teleport  3 passengers up to 900 miles in the blink of an eye. In a small city (population > 5000) there is an 86% chance of at least one 9th or 10th level wizard, or 10th level sorcerer (3.5ed DMG, p139). Of course, there's also the chance of a teleportation mishap, but every mode of transport has its downsides. For everyone else, wagon trains and riverboats are still the norm. A long-haul stagecoach can cover from 70 up to 120 miles per day over well-maintained roads. Charles O. Paullin (1932) Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States , the University of Michigan. Michael Graham Richard (2012)  How fast could you travel across the U.S. in the 1800s?

"The power of the sword is more sensibly felt in an extensive monarchy, than in a small community. It has been calculated by the ablest politicians that no State, without being soon exhausted, can maintain above the hundredth part of its members in arms and idleness. But although this relative proportion may be uniform, its influence over the rest of society will vary according to the degree of its positive strength. The advantages of military science and discipline cannot be exerted, unless a proper number of soldiers are united into one body..." Edward Gibbon The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ,  volume the first, chapter V, page 106. Printed for W. Strahan and T. Cadell, London 1776. If each of the Imperial Legions under the Immortal Emperor Drakus Coaltongue numbered 10,000 troops, that would imply that the population of Eastrealm would be at least 7 million. Given that the population of Europe at the time of Charlemagne (9th century AD) was arou...

The majority of what happens in a fantasy metropolis should be "beneath the surface": whether literally (sewers, catacombs and ruins below the city streets); or metaphorically (secret plots and political machinations). I've mentioned the city of Marchion (in Splintered Peace by David Chart ) before. The megadungeon beneath Mage Hill is mostly implied - it is up to the individual DM to populate that location with specific dungeon levels and denizens. The site of Marchion was settled in the distant past, but no one knows by whom. Sometimes strange artifacts are unearthed by people digging foundations for houses, and many think that Mage Hill isn't a natural feature. However, these inhabitants, whoever they were, were long gone before the first recorded attempts to settle the site. Local folk tales tell of the buried complexes they left behind, but no one knows whether these stories have any substance. Aboveground, most of the mages' towers still stand, ...

The "default setting" of D&D is the context that is implied by the Rules As Written. This doesn't refer to any specific fantasy world, like Greyhawk or Mystara. Rather, it takes the "core rules" as a whole and explores the implications and assumptions inherent in such a system. This article in the D&D wiki is a great example: "D&D represents a period in history that is most closely identifiable with the Iron Age: the landscape is dotted with tribes and aspiring empires, the wilderness is largely unexplored, and powerful individuals and small groups can take over an area without having a big geopolitical hubbub about it." In my opinion, it also closely resembles the Wild West (or rather, its fictional depiction) but with swords and sorcery instead of six-shooters. When adventurers reach "name level" they will tend to migrate to the frontier of civilization to establish their stronghold in unclaimed territory. The discovery o...

Cap'n Carver and his crew were smugglers and river pirates who regularly made the journey from Knossos, all the way up the river Brallen from Laveril to Helsmuth. They never went as far as Qualinost, even before the elves closed the border, because elven customs inspectors were known to use divination magic to scan cargo. They wouldn't be as easily fooled by the illusions that the wizard-navigator, Mixail Elets Zaitsev Beloi, cast on the ship and her crew to escape detection. These are the voyages of the pirate sloop Ocean Spray : Captain's log, the 5th of Metageitnion waxing Last summer, while we were docked in Helsmuth, a fresh-faced band of young adventurers hailed the ship, seeking passage downriver. They didn't look like they had much worth stealing, but they might fetch a good price in the slave markets of Knossos. We told them to meet us at the Saucy Wench, a tavern by the docks, at midnight. The bosun, Max the Ax, took a group of swabbies with him to set u...