The sentimental power of LOTRO housing

I've had a couple of sessions in LOTRO this week as I wanted to get the last section of the epic quest done before the new expansion Rise of Isengard hits next month.

I don't play LOTRO much these days, in fact since Lorien a couple of years ago I have jumped in and out just to do the epic quests, not getting too bogged down with side quests except when exploring new areas (such as the the most recent, and lovely Enedwaith) and when I HAVE to level my character to access gated epic quests.

When I had finished Volume 3 Book 3 I noticed I had a couple of pieces of housing furniture in my inventory so I thought I would check them out and see what they looked like in my house before logging off for the evening.

When done occasionally, it's always a pleasure to visit my cosy little cottage a minute's horse ride from Bree. It's a big dose of self indulgment. Lighting up the fire and choosing my favourite music from my selection stored in house chest - all in my private little dwelling.

But where I had not really visited my home at any length for what felt like a year at least, this particular occasion felt rather special.

Adorned on the walls of my small two room cottage are various trophies and rewards collected over the years since housing was introduced in 2008 over four years ago.

As I wandered through my house looking at each piece my memory recalled how I obtained it, some of the pieces bringing back some very happy memories I have had playing LOTRO over the years and here they were still preserved in my private little home, and preserved they will stay until the servers eventually get shut down.

Ah, here's that portrait of Narmaleth I got when I finally completed Volume 1 Chapter 15, one of my most treasured LOTRO memories (http://www.vetgaming.com/2009/03/ecstacy-playing-lotro-shock.html).

Wow, I forgot I had a Turtle head! You need a whole Raid to take him down (http://www.vetgaming.com/2009/05/lotro-turtle-raid-spoilers.html) !  Not quite as rare as the first age weapon drop reward, but still quite rare when you consider there were 12 players rolling for it each time.

I still even have the songbird in its cage that I got from the first expansion pack Moria, and a goblin drum from Goblin Town. I even have a Cave Troll head - I can't even remember where I got that one, but it looks cool sat on the wall. And there's that catfish, the biggest fish I've ever caught while out fishing.

It was only twenty minutes, but I received a very powerful melancholic dosage whilst pondering the long-term sentimental sensation some larger games can invoke. One of those rather unique gaming moments then that I will remember for a while.

Shadows of the Damned better than Resident Evil? (review)

Not having the time or money these days to try out as many games as I would like, I have a little rule.

If a game gets mediocre reviews it is highly unlikely I will try it. Hell, there's a lot of games out there that get great reviews that I still don't get around to trying for the previously explained reasons.

So when a friend suggested I give it a go because I'm a fan of Resident Evil 4 (his words not mine), the obvious 'are you crazy' discussion started. You see, said friend doesn't really 'get' survival horror, at least not in its traditional sense. He thinks they should be about fast action and not about using ammo very prudently, making every shot count, revelling in the current situation and plot twists, you know actually being scared and even jumping in terror at some points (anyone who played the first few minutes of the original Resi will remember when that dog smashed through the window in the foreground, all my friends literally jumped when they played it).

As the discussion got more heated, I realised I'd have to try the damn thing. One of my pet hates is when people say they don't like this or that when actually they haven't tried it.

So I rented Shadows of the Damned for 5 days and almost got to the half-way point.

The game starts off terribly. In fact, before I go any further I would say in terms of the tone and story of the game (both vital elements of a survival horror) Shadows of the Damned has more in common with Bayonetta than it does Resident Evil.

Firstly this ain't believable science fiction (the whole RE story revolves around a corporations bio-hazard experiments that result in zombies and other undead mutants set on planet Earth), instead Shadows is pure fantasy playing the character of a 'demon-hunter' sent in to Hell itself to rescue your girlfriend.

This situation could still have been saved despite the hackneyed plot. It could have been very scary, what scarier places are there than Hell?  Many it seems, the designers deciding to go for a comedy approach (what?) full of smutty teenage innuendo.

You know the successful horror movie Scream? Well I hated that. I just don't understand the point of mixing the horror genre with comedy so you don't actually take it seriously or find it very funny.

So that's the 'Shadows is not a survival horror' bit out of the way (if it ain't scary it's not a horror, simple logic).

Your rather charmless hero also has a 'skull-on-a-stick' to keep you company with a very irritating and inappropriate English accent which acts as your weapon and also your tour guide cracking crude knob jokes when it feels like.

Taking the above into account, the designers clearly wanted to try something different (and faster) with Shadows and although it shares a similar viewpoint and controls as RE4, the differences include jogging as default instead of walking and also the ability to be able to strafe, neither adding anything to the game. In fact they contribute to the game feeling even more removed from a survival horror that would otherwise create intended anxiety from more restrictive controls. Naturally, with faster and freer movement the enemies are also faster dodging about all over the place compared to the skulking and foreboding zombies of RE. Many ideas are inherited from RE4, such as the 'u-turn' button and the famous 'What will it be Stranger?' merchant has changed in to some bizarre large but friendly freak.

One last crazy thing to mention, I played all the way through the second chapter without realising I had another more powerful weapon to switch to. You would have thought it would have been made more obvious, or perhaps change automatically to the new weapon. I thought the game was getting hard considering I had chosen the easy difficulty setting!

By the third stage, the last one I played, I actually started to like the game a bit more. I suppose I was getting used to the game's chosen tone. The separate sections to the stage (the 'acts') seemed to be becoming more varied, as well as having two additional weapons to play with. I even came across a unique set-piece (gosh!) the only one I saw which involves raising yourself up a tower on a chandelier swinging about and smashing things as you go.

I would have played it a little more if I had had enough time, but having fully enjoyed one of the best games of the last decade, the jump down into Hell with tongue-in-cheek was always going to be a come-down into mediocrity. Shadows of the Damned is a cross breed of survival horror and third-person shooting wrapped in an inappropriately smutty and light-hearted tone adding nothing significant to either genre.

Portal 2 - Too short, or Too Long?

I know, I'm in the minority.

Games don't get 95 on metacritic for nothing, although I noticed the user score was lower at 8.3.

Ah, perhaps my view isn't so controversial after all then.

A lot of my opinion has to do with that fact I don't particularly like puzzles. I mean, I don't mind 'em and sure - when 'it clicks' that's a great feeling when solving particular puzzles, but I can only take so much head-scratching before the entertainment starts to feel more like a chore.

So anyway Portal 2 is a full length version of the previous game which was a much shorter game, an experiment really, bundled into The Orange Box. I knew I didn't want to pay full price (£40) for Portal 2 so I waited until the price dropped by half in a Steam sale. Ultimately, my instinct was proved right.

Ironically, my worry was that for the price, Portal 2 was too short. But it ain't ;)

Perhaps I'm just crap at puzzles, but I really enjoyed the very easy ones at the beginning revelling in the fast pace at which I was returning to the elevator between puzzle chambers. I enjoyed even more the scripted short bursts of escape, but these were too few and far between.

The middle of the game introduces the new gameplay elements, the blue, orange and white gels. I found that when you hit the orange gel puzzles the difficulty spikes up a bit - the first time I was stuck for say 20 minutes or so. This was still fine. They were tough, but not too hard to work out for myself. You then start getting combination gel puzzles and this was where I found the game to be at its hardest.

After about the third time I got stuck for what seemed like half an hour, I started to resort to youtube for solutions, aware of my precious personal time ticking away. I only cheated when I felt I really needed to, doing so about five times roughly in total (in comparison to the once in the original game).

On the positive side, the game feels a lot crisper to look at than the original, and the fantastic Stephen Merchant provides some funny comic relief to what can be a very sterile environment. There are certainly some moments of genius in this game provided by some of the better puzzles - the ones that are so simple but sometimes takes a little time to get your head around.

By the time I was finished with the single player story though, I had played some 14 hours in total. I came away thinking it should have been shorter at a lower price. I'm hoping Portal 3 will involve some combat, or anything to break up the test chamber after test chamber - which is far too dry for me...

...until I tried Co-op tonight that is :)  The puzzles are so much more enjoyable if you can grab a friend. All the co-op puzzles rely on teamwork, the game also cleverly plays on you being in particularly trusting situations where the wrong button press will have your friend killing you accidently ;)

It is also just hilarious when you or your friend die whilst pressing buttons, or just simply miss a portal in mid-flight.

As the challenges get tougher and the chambers get bigger, you can choose to see your friends viewpoint through a small window in the corner of the screen. We managed to get through a couple of stages that took around 2 hours or so (the time flew by), the very last room we tried also showed the potential for arguments where you could possibly not quite agree on how to go about a puzzle. I'm not sure if there any co-op puzzles that have more than one way to solve it, but that could certainly exaggerate the situation!

It is tempting sometimes for some of us after completing a game to get in the habit of not bothering with the multiplayer, but in Portal 2's case to do so is to miss half the experience.