Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos

Well, at least we moved away from an orc and human staring at each other... then again he's staring at me... maybe I'm the human?

I first experienced Warcraft III at my cousins house the summer it came out. We were there on vacation and as I usually did I stayed inside and played games. He had Warcraft 3 so I got the cheat codes and started playing... and what a play it was. The game is divided in different scenarios from the perspective of a hero or heroes of a different fraction. First scenario is the prologue were we are introduced to Thrall, son of Durotar and the warchief after Doomhammer. Raised by humans as a slave he escaped and rallied the horde and freed them from their internments camp and are know haunted by mysterious dreams foretelling the fall of all that he knows. A man called the prophet summons him and bids him travelling across the sea to Kalimdor in the west. Thrall heeds his words and assemble the horde, but have to save Grom Hellscream who has been taken hostage by the humans. After the rescue the horde steals the human ships and set sail.

Our hero for the next couple of chapters

We are then taken to Lordearan, the capital of the Alliance which is crumbling as the elves have left and several human nations as well. A plague is spreading in the north, but the king don't want to quarantine the people and the prophet once again appear urging the people to move west, the only way to save them. They says no and he disappears. Then we follow prince Arthas as he is sent out to stop an orcish raid with Uther the Lightbringer. The orc's are demon worshippers and warns the coming of the demons. Uther dispels this and and we cut to Dalaran, the home of the Kirin Tors, magicians, and Jaina Proudmore who overhear her master Antonidas dismissing the Prophet once again and she receives orders to investigate the plague since the king won't bother other then sending his own son to check it out. Travelling the lands Arthas and Jaina discovers a death cult of necromancer spreading a disease that turn people into the undead which after long battles with the undead forces leads to Arthas purging a town and following the dread lord Mel'ganis responsible to Northrend, the arctic of Azeroth. There he stumbles upon a dwarves expedition led by Muradin Bronzebeard, brother of the Bronzebeard dwarfs king. He is on an expedition looking for a fabled runeblade Frostmourn. The dread lords attack forces Arthas with Muradin's help finding the blade, and discovering that the blade is cursed, but Arthas have gone so far that he claims it anyway, leaving Muradin for dead in the snow as Arthas himself destroy the undead and finish Mel'ganis of as his own soul is claimed. Arthas is transformed into a death knight and returns to Lorderan and kills his father in cold blood, destroying what's left of the alliance.

Still our hero for the next couple of chapters

We then follow Arthas as he goes on a campaign to assemble the cult of the damned, raise their leader who will be his most trusted ally and destroying the elven forces, corrupting their Sunwell and go on to kill some of the remaining orc clans and the city of Dalaran to summon Archimond, the leader of the Burning Legion, the force behind the orcish invasions and the Scourge (which is the name for the undead forces). This causes a gap between Arthas who follows Ner'zhul aka the Lich King, aka the Warchief of Draenor who was captured by the Burning Legion as he tried to escape from them. Furious he plans his revenge. Meanwhile this scenario forced the player to kill people like Uther the Lightbringer, Antonidas and Sylvana Windrunner, younger sister of Alleria Windrunner. Of course you didn't really kill her, just turn her into an undead. To me one of the more boring once since I've never felt that good with the undead. Depressing music, everything is dark and death isn't that funny. Although I really like the necromancers raise dead tactics to overwhelm enemies.

The Iron Man of humans Nightmares is back

The next scenario is the orcs again. Thrall have just landed on Kalimdor and must gather his troops while trying to survive this new landscape. He befriends the tauren chieftain Cairne in their fight against the centaurs and their shamanistic beliefs. He points him toward Stonetallon Peak and the Oracle living their if he wants answers so he goes there, encountering Grom and the Warsong Clan in the middle of a conflict against humans. Grom seems to be caught by a bloodlust, disobeying Thrall's direct orders to leave the humans alone so he is sent away to Ashenvale forest to build a settlement, but that only escalates problems as he is attacked by night elves who don't see kindly to someone defiling their forrest. After building their camp the demigod Cenarius appears which forces Grom and the orcs to drink from a pool of demonic energies, a pool spiked with the blood of the demon Manneroth who once enslaved them and started the wars between orcs and humans. They defeat Cenarius, but are reigned into the Burning Legion. Meanwhile Thrall reached the peak and was reunited with Cairne as they battle the human encampments around the Oracles cave. They reach the top and sees Jaina Proudmore entering, the only human lord that headed the warnings of the prophet. They battle through the underground traps and monster and are standing face to face with Jaina when the Prophet once again show up, telling them that they must put aside their hatred since a new threat is upon them. The first plan is to save Grom and the Warsong Clan. Thrall and Cairne battles the crazed orcs and demons that spawns the battlefield and bring Grom captured in a gem to Jaina and a ritual is prepared that gives him back his free will. Grom tells Thrall that it was in fact he that drank the demon blood first and in doing so corrupted most of the orc clans and they did so willingly. Thrall and Grom then proceeds to confront Manneroth. And here its supposed to be a cutscene, and to my surprise it actually played. Glad for that since it is one of the more epic moments when Thrall and Grom confront Manneroth, he brushes Thrall to the side and taunts Grom that lets out a Hell Scream and proceeds to dig his axe deep into the flesh of Manneroth that explodes in a fiery inferno. Thrall holds his friend as the blood curse is lifted and Grom Hellscream draws his final breath. Epic!!!

The enemy of the Night Elves is really resource planning

This of course opens up the final campaign that is the Night Elves. As the humans and orc allied themselves they go deeper into Ashenvale forrest where they are harassed by the Night Elves who doesn't kindly look to intruders, especially those who have slain their demigod. Sadly for them the Burning Legion appears and for this new threat priestess Tyranda Whisperwind decide to wake the druids from their sleep, especially the Archdruid Malfurion Stormrage and her beloved. As they search for the druid of the claw they encounter a prison, a prison to keep the Betrayer under guard, Illidan Stormrage, Malfurions brother. Tyranda releases him and while he guards the forest Arthas approaches him and tells him of the Legions action. Apparently they possess the skull of Gul'dan, the artefact used by Ner'zhul to open the portals on Draenor, causing its destruction. At the moment it is the driving force behind the corruption of the forrest under guard of Thycondrius, the dread lord that gave Arthas his instructions under the undead campaign. Illidan take control of the skull, but instead of destroying as he originally planned he consumes its powers and turn into a half-demon that destroys Thycondrius as was Arthas plan. Tyranda and Malfurion confront him and banish him for the use of demonic powers that once doomed the Elven race. Malfurion is then summoned by a dream voice together with Thrall and Jaina. The Prophet appears and tell them who he really is, Medivh, the Last Guardian. Slain as he was possessed by Sargeras and brought the orcs to Azeroth. He tell them of Archimonds real plan, to take the World Tree's energy. So they muster their defences and endure a siege for 45 minutes as the Legion climbs the summit. And since I played the game legit it was one fingernail biting session. After 15 minutes the human line was overrun. The orc line hold for 30 minutes after that since it was closer to my own base so reinforcement was faster. But Thralls orcs was forced to retreat leaving the Night Elves alone. During the final stages I fortified the two entry points with guardian ancients that threw boulder after boulder. The fountains healing my troops as they fought wave after wave of undead and demons. Resources thin and reinforcement far away, Archimonde himself appears, breaking down the line. 8 seconds left. The final stand, thank god the AI is stupid so instead of reaching his goal he is occupied attacking whats left off my base while the final second turns. I survived the siege and once again surprised to see the ending movie depicting how the wisps that Malfurion summoned surrounds Archimonde and destroys him. The weakest unit in game destroys the Archdemon himself. Great storytelling.

This is probably the definite version of the Warcraft games (with exception of the expansion, but it's not much it adds compare to the difference between Warcraft II and III). Even though they limited the army size I can easily go between different units and even cast support spells on their portrait instead of trying to locate a damaged unit. Some spells even have auto-cast features. Also the story is better laid out since there is a focus with the heroes you have. The problem is that it's really good to know the shortcuts, but it might be too much with 4 different factions to remember each and everyone. We even have inventory to either boost the heroes power, summon reinforcements or support healing and such. Also, playing this game legit for the first time through I discovered things that I missed as a kid. For example in the Night Elf mission to get the druids of the claw I stumbled upon a hidden passageway behind some trees and suddenly a cutscene played where the Largest Panda in the World showed up and I was forced to slay it. I recall seeing the cutscene but without the monster, which probably indicates that the god-mode cheat enabled my troops to kill it before the cutscene started. I always preferred the Night elves due to being elves, but as playing it I realises they are one of the harder since they really need to use magic to distract and immobilise their enemies and I've never been good at that. Of course they are the best when dealing with flyers since their base troop is an archer. And one should really start with the Priestess of the Moon hero since she's the only one boosting attack damage for archers of the heroes. A pity the demon hunter is the coolest.

Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal

How cheap, they used almost the same picture

The follow up and here we starts to see the really good ideas for the campaign. Actual hero units that are a bit better than normal troops and if you can manage the troops alright, you have a great time. Basic story is that the orcs back on Draenor (their home world) under the guidance of Ner'Zhul tries to open the portal again, succeed and starts raids in Azeroth. Here we are introduced to the greatest warrior that the orcs have, the leader of the Warsong Clan: Grommash "Grom" Hellscream.

Grom and Friends

Mostly the orcs fight some different clans to gather artefacts to open a portal and then more artefacts to open other portals... I honestly can't see the main goal of the plan really. I know the consequences, but beyond that I would say demonic influences like everything else in this series. The human campaigns starts with the arch-wizard Khadgar (the one closing the portal at the end of the main game) sensing a disturbance so he sends Aleria Windrunner, an elven ranger and her scouts to gather an expedition force to fight of these orcs. You gather Danath Trollbane and the paladin Turalyon, second in command of lord Lothar and probably the supposed main character of Tides of Darkness. It really ads up as a second in command, watching the death of Lothar and assuming his position afterwards. They push back a couple of raids and then follows the orcs back to Draenor and tries to retake the artefacts that was stolen from them to stop Ner'Zhul to activate some demonic plan.

Danath and Friends

Still can't get the controls working and here it would be pretty much necessary since this game is hard. First campaign of orcs I finished with just Hellscream still standing. Basically I did the first two missions of each campaign and then cheated to the end ("it is a good day to die"). The cheat isn't perfect though since you still take damage from magic attacks or friendly fire and with cannons and all destroying fire attacks you know the damn death knights or wizards will wreck you. So you still have to keep your guard up. Still, the human expedition push in and grabs the artefacts, especially the book of Medivh, but it's to late. Ner'Zhul have already mastered the spells and prepares to open several other portals. Basically he tries to escape Draenor and the demons that are hunting him and this causes the planet to be broken up. The expedition force sees this and must destroy the portal to Azeroth so the cataclysm won't reach their home as well and then they escape into the nearest portal to avoid being destroyed. Meanwhile some of the orchis hordes escaped to Azeroth before the fall of the portal since they also realised their world was doomed, and of course one of them was Grom Hellscream.

This game is much more fun to play the campaign since you got some actual characters to interact with instead of hearing about all these people in the mission briefings. You still exist as some unknown commander for either side, but this will be for the last time. And even though it isn't much about these proto-hero units since they just upgraded normal troops that either are fully upgraded with better stats or as in Alerias case longer range on her bow. The problem with these troops are that they must often survive the mission and with limited healing possibilities (at least humans got the holy light of the paladins), meaning every death knight is a gamble if you survive or not (since both sides fight the orcs in the beginning). And of course the orc have the best champion since who doesn't like references to Black Sabbath's Iron Man or Alice Cooper's Welcome to My Nightmare? I didn't get it when first playing, I might known who the bands were, but I didn't know their songs until almost 10 years later. Still, replaying it was pretty much a short stop for the next game Warcraft III which is why I cheated my way through since I'm not that good and the game is to archaic in play for my taste when I can't quickly change between troops or quickly get the spell I need in a certain situation. Everything changed with the next game.

He IS Iron Man

Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness

This doesn't look like Kingdom Hearts

Ok, so I didn't finish Birth by Sleep, and my excuse is that someone in the family wanted to watch the Tour de France... and this is why Wii U:s tablet is the best gaming device ever. Instead I looked through my game collection and caught Warcraft II and since the movie just came around I got a sudden urge to play it... or rather I started to try getting it to work since Mac can't handle this game anymore due to the changing OS. So what to do? I knew it worked for DOSBox so getting the DOS files and the game starts running. Everything seems to work except movies and the voice over during the briefing. Which is half the fun of this game listening to the human campaigns briefings and the pronunciation of all these places. So I backtracked a bit, I assumed it wouldn't work due to not recognising the CD (a pack of other files caused that problem) so hey, why not through it through Wine. Apparently that doesn't work since it can't execute the files, and later I figured it wouldn't matter since apparently Wine really have a problem with videos overall (which I should have guessed  due to my Legacy of Time playthrough) so I shouldn't have bothered. And to compensate I listened through and watched the cinematic on youtube instead. Saves me the trouble and frankly I can skip playing as the opposing side (in this case orcs) since the maps are pretty much the same mission to mission.

Enough of talk, time to slaughter some orcs!

Basically the game tells the story of you, a human or orc commander taking orders from the top brass and conduct battle operations against the opposing side. Beginner levels are build this structure, save these troops and destroy the enemy base. And that is pretty much the beginning, then they give you escort mission of one of the leading officers in the army and have to quell a rebellion within your ranks. For the humans it's against the nation of Alterac and for the orcs the Shaman Gul'dan. And frankly, only the Gul'dan mission have any impact on later stories since its plot crucial in the Warcraft III expansion. The humans on the other hand have the loss of Lothar, the commander of the Alliance forces and a survivor of the first game and sets you up as the new commander. A pity he isn't mentioned much more in the following game. Although, if I would make a guess its due to Blizzard really pushing the orcs as "main players" to counter every other fantasy game where humans are the defacto good guys. The human campaign ends with a destruction of a dark portal which is where the orcs arrived from the beginning. Basically they are aliens. And you could make an argument for that you begin as the orcs and push the invasion and the human counters and push them back. Or you play it one by one, first orc, then human and so on. The reason is that the humans are the canonical winners of the second war, which is pretty much established in the expansion which starts right were the human campaign ended, but that I will talk about some other time.

Lothar, the greatest human commander in Azeroth, sadly backstabbed under a parley

Now, I played this game as kid with my best friend. He had a demo of the first three missions I believe, and then the neighbour older kid got the game so I borrowed it and played through it with cheats since I sucked at quick reactions. I actually played most of it without cheating, only the final three levels I cheated on since, frankly, the keyboard of the MacBook Air isn't the best and I would really like a mouse for this. I'm astonished I got that far actually. Also, I don't know if its the keyboard or the game itself, but I couldn't get the shortcuts to work for quick switch between different groups which made organising pincer attacks on the enemy or quickly change between, artillery, melee or ballistas rather problematic. Or maybe that wasn't a feature until the third game?

So why did I like this as a kid? The fantasy elements. This was pretty much one of the first games I played that could emulate things like grand scale wars like lord of the rings. You had elves, dwarves and orcs and even dragons. I didn't get much of the story though, not until I was at my cousins house and he actually had the manual that described the whole Warcraft saga from I to II and the tale was simply amazing. A wizard corrupted by a demon, a half-orc assassin, Lothar and the fall of the human kingdom, followed by the Alliance forming between humans, elves and dwarfs to combat this new threat and push them back. Meanwhile the internal struggles of the horde as Ogrim Doomhammer takes over as war-chief from the one starting the war in Warcraft I, followed by Gul'dan trying to raise the Tomb of Sargeras and defying Doomhammer. Ultimately they loose the war, but then we had the expansion... and let us just see how far I can get before the game kicks me to the curb.

Kingdom Hearts: ReCoded

Another cutscenes movie of a handheld game

Kingdom Hearts: Recoded... if Kingdom Hearts 2 made a Tron reference this is pretty much Kingdom Tron: The Movie. Premise is that it's at the end of the games timeline. Jiminy Cricket looks through his journals and the first one (clearly of the first game) has nothing in it since it was erased in Chains of Memories beyond a note thanking Namine... except that it appears another note appears. King Mickey, Donald and Goofy uses a special device to encode it as data (again with encoding things to data), but the information is corrupt so they send in an avatar of Sora to debug the whole thing. Basically yet another retelling of the first game, but they also put in Chains of Memories parts as well. Now everything would have worked smoothly if not for some reason they were all sucked into the "computer" together with Pete who contacts Maleficent so they cause havoc on their end while data-Sora tries to fix it with the real Mickey, Donald and Goofy. I don't get much else of the story other than that after much struggle rid the book of bugs and confront the one behind it... Namine? 

For such a simple premise as Disney- and Final Fantasy-characters in one game it's a really complicated plot. Maybe I just didn't care again since its like a 2.5 hour movie without the roaming around to figure things out and missing a lot of boss banter that sometimes gives a lot to character motives. At least I haven't needed to learn another control scheme or using cards to play.

Other things to mention is that mostly the same voice actors, but they changed the Genie from Dan Castellaneta to someone who actually sounds more like Robin Williams. And to be honest, even though I know it's not the same voice for Mickey I can't tell the difference. It also sets up the plot for the next game with fighting a resurrected Xehanort... which was the apprentice of Ansem... and yet only was a Nobody. Apparently by skipping Birth by Sleep I missed out on some important plot points so I should probably finish of that game next.

Kingdom Hearts 2: Final Mix

Original cover of the game back in 2006

So I finally finished it, took me around 50 hours and reaching level 80 before being fed up with the side-questing and just finish it. At least I finished it before AntDude, but maybe not fair since I started like, a month before he started publish his reviews on the games in the series (and by now you can guess that I write these a long time before releasing them, but hopefully he has released his review before this). So lets see, shall we begin with the story as per usual?

Wait, who's this guy again?

So the game starts with introducing us to Roxas, a normal kid enjoying the final week of summer with his friends. Now, watching the movie in the last game I already know his backstory. He is Sora's Nobody, a being that have no heart and is part of Organisation XIII, he's actually their 13th member. He was defeated by Riku and somehow ended up in Twilight Town with memories changed. Of course, if you played the game in 2006 you wouldn't know that since then he was just Roxas, our tutorial character to give an excuse to reintroduce the basic controls from the last game and some added things, like now you can skate on a skateboard. So basically Roxas and friends are trying to make the days go, but Roxas starts to notice people in black cloaks that no others see, times stop at times and beings like heartless and nobodies appear and with them the Keyblade. Exploring the town he finds the girl Namine in a mansion at the outskirts. In the end he finds a mysterious laboratory under it that leads him to what pretty much is a cryochamber. And after all stress and pressure he starts it up... and he disappear as Sora awakens from his sleep, having regained all memories he lost at Castle Oblivion, but the memories from that castle is gone. Really, this section is rather bitter since I assume everyone wanted to play Sora, but from a gaming perspective this made more sense, but you actually gets attached to Roxas even though you know he must disappear somehow and it gets really though when he himself starts to wonder if its real or not and more or less begs to exist.... and then he's gone. Not only that, but walking around town as Sora afterwards feels empty, since no one remember Roxas. No trace of what he accomplished, the street tournament, his friends don't recall him and so on. It's like he was completely erased, like he was a Nobody.... Well, at least I can play with Donald and Goofy again.

Did he change clothes?

And here the real part of the game starts. You leave Twilight Town and meet Yin Sid, the wizard from Fantasia that gives you your knew clothes and access to the Gummi Ship. And you're of. First stop Disney Castle, you are visiting the home of Donald and Goofy. Not much there beside introducing Queen Minnie and whatever Daisy is. You travel to Hollow Bastion that been resettled by the Final Fantasy characters from last game and Merlin... so basically the new Traverse Town. We even have Uncle Scrooge here trying to make some ice cream. Actually preferred Traverse Town to be honest, much more atmosphere. Then the rest of the worlds. There's worlds from Mulan, Beauty and the Beast, Hercules (old), The Little Mermaid (old), Aladdin (old), The Lion King, Pirates of the Caribbean and Nightmare Before Christmas (old). Most of them follow their respective movies and for the new worlds no problem, but The Little Mermaid I've already seen once so I don't need it again, but they had to so they could use some more songs from the movie in a musical. And again, the only ones that uses the movie music is Nightmare, Mermaid and Winnie the Pooh (of course the book is here again) of the old worlds and are joined by the Pirate movies. And to be honest they used a short excerpt from Beauty and the Beast at the end of that chapter. It's only the best Disney movie so of course it had to do it. The only one I don't know is the world based on Tron. Yes, another live-action movie from the 80's that I've never seen and fittingly is accessed through a computer in Hollow Bastion (where also Winnie the Pooh is as well). 

From the same creator who made Animalympics you say?

So you run around, level up, get abridged versions of the movies and I gotta hand it to them, Aladdin they based on the sequel Return of Jafar instead of repeating the same story again as they did with Mermaid. How can they even explain that since I killed Ursula in the last game and they point out that both Oogi Boggy and Maleficent are resurrected while Jafar was seen caught in the lamp in the last game, but Ursula just shows up and Ariel still believes her as if that part of the game didn't happen. Hercules is probably the only one I can't say that much about since it's basically just an arena level, but this time placed in the underworld and you can play with Auron from Final Fantasy X, neat.

The bad guys I presume

So if we go back to the story, why was Organization XIII a threat again. Well, in the span of the game they tried to get Roxas back, and if he wouldn't cooperate they were ordered to kill him, harsh, but hey I haven't read the terms of contract at the organisation. Then they tried kidnap Kairi, which is pretty much I as a player starts to see them as a threat... if I have played the first game and know who Kairi is. And the game tries to fool me in that a man named Diz is a bad guy since he has an evil laugh and plans some dark things with Ansem, the big bad of the first game. Helps that he is voiced by Christopher Lee. Turns out Diz is the real Ansem, a good guy who was usurped by the bad Ansem, not the one he planed with since that was Riku transformed by the darkness into Ansem. But Ansem bad guy is dead, so in this game we have his Nobody instead, Xemnas. And boy is that a cheating bastard. So endgame is that you figure out that Twilight Town also has another version of itself explaining why no-one knew who Roxas was. That Twilight Town has a portal to the World Between Worlds. Sora and gang fights their way through while meeting up with Riku and Kairi who escaped her prison thanks to Namine and later on King Mickey who helped Diz as he was collecting data... of Kingdom Hearts with act as a moon in the world of Darkness? The game has literally dropped me somewhere and I can't explain what happens. I don't even get the plan of the Nobodies. Are they struggling to feel? Or are they just eradicating everything so everyone will be as them? And defeating Hearless with the Keyblade creates the Kingdom Hearts? Or does it create Nobodies? I'm so confused. And I haven't even mentioned with the subplot of Maleficent and Pete going around looking for a Castle to control the heartless. I think they did a heroic sacrifice since after that they don't show, but with this game what would I know?

Pete, former captain of the guard and boss of Mickey Mouse on his Steamboat... how could it go so bad?

Anyway, the machine Diz uses blows up killing him... what he tried to accomplish I don't get. You fight your way to the top, fight Xemnas a couple of times. Everything is fine as you win, everyone but Riku and Sora are able to get in the Door of Light before Xemnas return and you jump on some sort of space ship and destroy him. And then the final battle atop the monster start which is also pretty awesome as you throw buildings at him and then the most cheapest fight start. Cheating bastard I say. I died like 6-7 times because the bastard is able to hide outside the perimeter of the fighting area and then he traps me so I have to play as Riku, before telling what the hell I'm supposed to do while the clock is ticking down. And then the damn quick-time event I just have to prey to god I get right otherwise he drain so much HP that is game over... again. But I beat him. And then we are in the world of Darkness just walking around. We end at the beach I recall from the Recoded movie? They pretty much give up, but a flask post appears from Kairi and a door of light appears. They enter and returns to Destiny Island. They meet Kairi, Donal, Goofy and Mickey, all in CGI. They don't look that good. Credits and then the post-credit sequence when they are alone on the island again (Riku, Kairi and Sora that is) and they get a new flask post from Mickey hinting on a future game. If its the other game on the CD I have to find out another time.

It looks a bit uncanny I must say

So overall a good game, I had fun playing it. Same voice actors, the music was alright and the little assets they borrowed from the movies they made good use of. The worlds felt a bit short though. A bit linear compared to the more maze like worlds from the first game. Gameplay wise... pretty much the same, but they added Drive forms in which you with one or both other characters in your party combine strength so that Sora goes into a ultimate form. And as per usual I ignored it until I noticed right up to the end that I didn't have high jump, double jump or glide which they even included in Chains of Memory... where you didn't even need them. Turns out that to get those abilities you have to grind out your drive forms. So I spent 10 hours getting most of them up the cap of level 7 so I could glide and jump to collect most of the puzzle pieces scattered across the worlds. I have a small nagging suspicion that they mentioned it when they introduced the drive forms, but I forgot about that and didn't bother using Drive since I might need it if a tough boss come by. So instead I went back and forth between a save point and some enemies to beat up so I could save the drive gauge by entering the gummi ship. Glad I did cause I stumbled upon this added area in Hollow Bastion (or Radiant Garden as it's renamed at the end point of the game) where you need to max those abilities, but I came through and then fought my way through some of the hardest heartless encounters in the game. Lucky 80 was enough. I still don't get the motivation of the villains and Sora's own motivation is finding King Mickey and Riku, just as in the first game so that's fine. All it really did was actually tempting me to get a Playstation 4 in order to play Kingdom Hearts 3 when it gets out. And at the current standing there's Nino Kuni 2, Kingdom Hearts 3, The Last Guardian. What do they say? At least 5 games before buying a console? Especially since I know neither of these would end up on a Nintendo console no matter how strong the NX is gonna be. Maybe wait for the Neo which would be an upgraded slim version I guess? I also guess I have to learn to listen to a different Mickey Mouse since the voice actor passed away around the time after the release. And Diz won't have Christopher Lee either since he's also gone. And now I made myself sad. Then again I learn that the voice of Goofy was in the original Robocop from 1987. Best movie ever!

Full Throttle

Get your motor running

Heading out the Highway!

We're back with another Lucasarts adventure games, this time the bikers dream, Full Throttle. Released in 1995 I had a demo of this game portraying the beginning segment of you waking up outside a bar and you had to get your wheels on the road to help your gang, the Polecats. Playing the full game its revealed the main character, Ben, has been asked to escort Malcolm Corley, the head of Corley Motors to a shareholder meeting.  Ben was hesitant, but they needed the cash so the others persuaded him and they are of. Corley and Ben hit it of since they like to talk about their big interest, bikes. Corley Motor is the last company that still produces them, but Adrian Ripburger, the Vice-President are very keen on a new projects... minivans. So you can already guess Malcolm is pretty much dead. Ripburger is the one that knocked you out and left you in a dumpster. You get your key for the bike back and on the highway to catch up with the Polecats before its to late.

During the travels you fight of some other bikers to acquire better weapon until you reach the gorge. So you search for the Cavefish, a mole like gang where you steal a ramp to perform a stunt across the gorge. You catch up, but its to late, Ripburger has smashed Corley's head in with a tire-iron and blames the Polecats. Ben escapes, but somehow get blown up so he is taken Mo, a mechanic. He later learns that the one rescuing him was a photographer, a photographer that captured the act of the murder on film. So it begins a race to catch the photos before Ripburger and stop him from killing of Corley's only heir so he can take over the company. If you don't get it, Mo is the hidden daughter of Corley.

You infiltrate Corley headquarters during the shareholder meeting and use the old ploy of taking away the villains presentation and instead showcasing the murder and playing the recorded will of Malcolm Corley giving everything to Maureen "Mo" Corley. Ripburger escape and while locating the Polecats Mo and Ben are ambushed by Ripburger in the truck he stole from the meeting. An intense, hanging from the truck grill scene later, they have been swallowed up by a wingless plane that belonged to Mo's own biker gang, the Vultures. Ben climbs to the controls and... well I started guessing since I don't get what I'm supposed to do. After seeing my death scene a couple of times I give up and look up the answer. Raise the gears. OBVIOUSLY!!! How am I supposed to get that? Anyway, the plane stops right on the edge of the gore and the truck is hewn forward and dangles down with Ripburger hanging from his coat on the machine gun he used to attack Ben and Mo. So Ben makes the logical solution to fiddle with the controls and disengage them, making Ripburger plummet to his death. Ben enters the plane while the other bikers escape and for him to survive as well you have to move to the left, unveiling another screen with your bike on so you can ride it out with an explosion behind you.

The game pretty much ends at Malcolm Corley's funeral. When its over Mo and Ben parts way since the road is calling him and Mo has to take care of the company. Credits roll to the heavy metal soundtrack and your booted out of the game. I made the gaming sin of ending halfway through, but still. The game feels like Brütal Legend, but honestly with a tighter story. Same guy did the games so no wonder maybe. But there is some puzzles that annoys the hell out of me. First, how am I supposed to get that I have to gather up enough bunnies from the first box and then get another one to clear the mine field? It's contra intuitive, better let him get two boxes at once then. Then we have to find the secret place to kick to open the secret door into Corley's office. You know what isn't fun? Waiting for the timer to reset time and time again while I walk around kicking a wall. At least the key puzzle was simple for the safe. And the final stretch of the game, while cool when you succeed is bogged down by guessing since how are you as first timer gonna get what the input is to stop a runaway plane? Cast is good and so is the music. Heck, the villain is played by Mark Hamill, Luke Skywalker himself. And he is gruesome. Overall a good game with great story and most of the puzzles are fine. Not that many Lucasarts games left to experience. Let's see what the next game will be.

A DnD Tale: Musical Puzzles

The music puzzle from hell!

They continues toward the next room across the corridor and finds a room with the statue of a minotaur. Investigating the statue Kiera find a nice looking quiver and takes it and fills it with arrows. Sarion senses the arcane energies from it and takes it and turns it upside down.The arrows falls our, then another, and then another. They realises it is an endless quiver that Kiera eagerly lays her hand on. The minotaur is Taurus Parashurama, a warrior saint protecting the innocent and avenging wrongful deeds. They leave the room and head south. They enter and finds a statue of Linos Krishna, the saint of music and culture. The room is littered with old instruments that are breaking apart. Except a lyre that only misses it strings that Kiera takes. Going near the statue triggers yet another trap and they are once again trapped in a room. On the wall behind the statue they find an inscription.

Eldars Gaser Avdunstar

Erinrar Galen Afton Annorstädes

Evakuerade Gemytliga Artister

Guidad Elevering

Too most of you it's just gibberish although you might notice a pattern. If you take each first letter of each word you get E, G, A, E, G, A, A, E, G, A, G, E. Separating them in their respective lines you get 4 accords. And if your musical education don't tell you, the 4 accords are the first accords of the song Smoke on the Water. The text also reflects if, but translating it would take away the code so it would look something like this:

Fire's gases evaporating

Remember crazy night far-away

Evacuating happy artists

Guided Elevation

Sounds a bit more ominous actually in english, anyway, that occupied them for a while until I pushed them in the right direction. Kiera played the notes on her flute and the door opens again. They head over to the next room, a a statue of a warrior named Cadmus Rama holding a graceful flail +2 that Sphinx picks up. At this point the player of Sarion complains that she isn't getting any weapon so I point out that I actually put something in the library, but she wouldn't take it. She made Sarion go back alone and while in the library I pretty much made up an excuse so that he couldn't resist the pull of the black book. Picking it up he felt his magic becoming stronger and received a +2 to all Attack rolls (I had to do something since she pretty much only rolls 1 so she can have that boost, if she gets better I can always negate it with some weird dreams from the book or due to its demonic life force cause the undead to rise). The other's went south and entered a garden with a small pond and a statue of a centaur, overgrown with roots and ivy. Each corner hosts a tree and the walls are covered with fluorescent moss and ivy. The centaur is Keiron Buddha the enlightened, a sage of great powers, a pacifist and ensnarer of demons and the link between gods and mortals. As they walk closer they can hear splashes from the pool. Readying their weapons they find a childlike being with green skin, a spring nymph. She introduces herself as Ivy and wonders what they are doing there. They explain that they are searching for a lost child named Marcie. Ivy tells them that she's been here, but the man in the tree scared her away. The man in the tree is a warrior of unknown origin ensnared in roots and branches, almost half-eaten by the tree. She also tells them to avoid the pool in the first room and the final room as it scares her. They take her advice and tries to avoid any flowers on their way out. They still enters the final room and find a lone statue which they can't seem to recall. This one has its name written and is Monoceros Kalki, a unicorn. All they can recall are glimpses of legends and prophesies of Erathis, the god of civilisation.

Finding nothing on this floor they head down to the next. The spiral staircase ends in front of a statue of Kurma, holding a slate with the inscription:

Here lies Fallcrest 28 lords

They are all unique

They are all alone

Tell me who they are

And then tell me who civilisation first are

The room had three more statues, Krishna, Buddha and Rama, placed as a triangle with the staircase in the middle and Kurma just south of it. They hear footsteps and find Marcie behind one of the statues. They also finds 28 panels with 28 letters with small texts on all of them And I won't wright them all out. The reason is that this puzzle is based on the Swedish alphabet that contains letters as Å, Ä and Ö. That's right, 28 letters. A foundation for a civilisation is often the ability to record things and to do that you need an alphabet. The second part is that every panel has a small text referring to a children's education show from the 70's with a lot of songs and sketches so I used that as hints. Lucky for me they had watched it a couple of weeks ago, sadly I made it a little to easy by having it in order so once they figured out the first ones they pretty much used the alphabet as a guide instead of guessing it. They opened up all the panels to reveal the corresponding letter. Now, who is the civilisations first? Lucky for them the last room they entered was Kalki's which I points out that Erathis is the god of civilisation so they start to push in the letters in order. A short rumbling and the statue of Kurma splits in to revealing yet another staircase down. They go back to Ivy with Marcie and goes down the stairs and follows the corridor west. They enter a room with a bunch of dead people, who seems familiar. There's a open stone door that leads west and a staircase upward, but it's blocked by a stone slab. They push it just open to see that they are below the lighthouse again. The slab falls into place and they prepare to head back as the temperature falls. A fog is created on the floor and 5 skeletons arises and battle ensues (what they didn't get was that this was caused by the black book). Most damage is caused as Sphinx swings is flail at Tyrell and Sarion hits Despair in the back with a magic missile and Sarion in turn gets cut by Tyrell's sword. After all that they head back to Ivy and Marcie and brings Marcie back outside. They learn that the caravan is ready for tomorrow and then heads to the Silver Unicorn for a last meal and sleep for a long while.

And here ends the midsummer campaign. If everything goes as planned the next session will be in August, but we will see if everyone can join. Also everyone gone up to level 3 so I have to equip my characters with adequate skills and abilities... and magic loot since the others are stacking up on it.