Portal 2 Review

So it seemed fitting to review one of the biggest games to drop for the year first. 

Portal 2 is the epic sequel to Valve's smash hit of a mini game Portal. The first game offered a fun set of mind bending puzzles that took you through the Aperture Labs test facility. Valve doesn't disappoint with their sequel, instead offering a more vibrant and less sterile world to make your way through. While the old standby of chamber by chamber play still exists, epic plot twists make the game's three character story feel more in depth. Progressing through some of the later sections of the game give you a look at some of Aperture's history, full of fantastic dialogue that veterans of the first game will surely recognize.

To take a slightly different approach to the game, one thing that made Portal so appealing was the level of freedom that it offered. The game was abound with glitches--some minor and some very significant, that made speed running and finding alternate puzzle solutions incredibly fun. In Portal 2 Valve has actually cleaned the game up so well that most of this old fun was lost. There is often still more than one way to solve a puzzle, but it tends to be limited to skipping parts of the intended solution.

While the lack of speed-run-ability is annoying, it's obviously applicable to a very limited set of people. With that in mind, let's talk about the co-op. Co-op is something that more and more games are incorporating into their play, and Valve does a great job of showing that they're the best in the industry. Co-op portal feels smooth, and  the puzzles bring back some of the old feelings from the original game. The puzzles are still very linear, but the amount of fun that giving people control offers is fantastic. Floating slowly through a tube of liquid while your friend is the one controlling that liquid offers quite a few hilarious encounters.

All in all Portal 2 absolutely lives up to its predecessor, and I would say it deserves the welcome it's gotten in the gaming community. The game is incredibly well built, and polishes some of the features and aspects that made Portal such a fantastic game. 

5/5 Cakes.

Changing Speeds

As much as I do love dwarf fortress, it's defiantly hard to find things to post that might be interesting to the lovely people who visit my blog. I've decided to change this blog up to be a game / gaming review blog. Although there are hundreds out there, I hope my reviews will prove insightful and interesting!

Cavern!

Finally struck my first cavern and...I don't have a military! This should provide some fun with all the what not that might be lurking in it's depths, but until I have a few legendary sword dwarfs I think I'll just leave that alone...

Dwarf Influx!

Had a huge migration of 20 dwarves, which is great since I had all kinds of plans for what I was going to do with them once they got here--but I was so overwhelmed at the number I forgot most of it xD. Expanding my hunter count, and getting a gem cutter / setter online has gone well. Next up is a mechanic and a small military (I think three is enough for now right?) to get trained in case anything silly happens...Don't want to be unprepared for another mega beast >.>;

Steady Progress

If you've been following me at all you might recognize this image xP Pretty much the same layout as I used in the first fort I posted about on here for dorming.

New fort is going steady, not much to report on it--just waiting for more dwarves!

New Embark! (3)

So, I find that every time I start over I get a little bit happier with the results I get. Instead of trying to mass planters, I realized in my last for that a massive crafting industry is probably the best way to use new migrants...that and a military in case of mega beasts...

With that in mind, lets kick it off again!

After one migration wave I have 2 carpenters, a wood cutter, 3 miners, 2 planters, a cook, a brewer, 2 masons, a hunter, and a butcher! Sounds like a very promising start to me.

MEGA BEAST! (Update)

DEFEATED! After the death of one of my hunters, I gathered up the best squad I could do on short notice. I snatched the best military personnel in the fort and made them grab their favorite type of weapon. Lo and behold, the corpse of the giantess!



VICTORY FOR MY FORT! WOOT!

MEGA BEAST!

Oh no! I knew I should have started a military sooner >.>;;



This giantess just appeared on my map, and I have no way to defend against it! Hopefully she'll leave me alone...o.0

Not much to report t.t

Wanted to throw an update here for anyone who checks me out, I was super busy today so I didn't have a whole lot of time to work on my fort. Just a quick update, so many idlers! Going to have to find something for them all to do, haha! Make shift military might be in order o.0.

New Fort Dorms

Wanted to share with you guys the method of bedrooms I went with in this fort. It's not as space efficient as the last one I showed you, but because I've gotten into the habit of making entire floors for my dorm areas, I figured I could play around a little. =)

Let me know what you think!

This is how I plant...

When I realized all the fish in the nearby lake were gone, I decided my best option was to enable the planting labor on all the fisherman =P More planters in mah for than my plots can handdleee

New Fortress Industry

New fort is up and running, got a nice hold on the stone industry! More pics to come!

Gettin to Work!

So I decided after setting up my fishing zones I would do my new favorite starting move--channeling!



Having the front edge of my fort be straight is a really nifty thing, gives you the ability to design a larger entrance hall!

New Embark! >.>;

I decided that, spite the work I'd put into it, I wasn't happy with the last fortress I was working on (the one I've been sharing with everyone). It was going decently, but to many problems kept arising that were aggravating me. Few tips for anyone starting out:

Avoid Aquifers
Avoid Salt Water
Don't increase your Embark! size unless you have to!! 7x7 is not acceptable unless your rig is a beast.

They both prove to be a bigger pain in the ass than I expected q.q;

Farm Layout

After two tries I finally got the area for my farm laid out. The little X on the right side is the flood gate I'm going to use to stop the water when I break open the river. Hopefully it works out!

Strange Mood!

Cool! Ablel Stintahdducim the Woodcrafter makes my fortresses first strange mood! Even better, he didn't ask for some obnoxiously rare metal to use in his construction! I guess I'll have to turn his woodcrafting back on now >.>

What is this and how do I get it o.0?

Ok so I've had a few people ask me this question in comments, so I figured I'd throw a post like this up for anyone who might be interested.

The game is called Dwarf Fortress, and it's a simulation game. It's very much like The Sims in that your organizing and controlling a group of units as if your a god. On the same note it's also very similar to MineCraft, although much more complex.

The game is free, and developed by Bay12 games. The game's main website can be found here:

http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/

Personally I use this game package, it includes graphical tiles and some utilities:

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=59026.0

This is the tutorial I learned to play with--the game is immense to say the least. It's a bit out of date now, but it should prove useful I think:

http://afteractionreporter.com/2009/02/09/the-complete-and-utter-newby-tutorial-for-dwarf-fortress-part-1-wtf/

I hope some of you get into it! It's great for killing some time =P

River Diversion

Didn't turn out as pretty as I would have liked, but hell it worked. Going to make an undergound farm that uses flood gates next. Never tried them before--so I feel going head long is the most fun ^^;

Oh no!

One of my miners got knocked unconcious during a mining excavation. Hopefully he'll be able to drink it off!

The River...

Just decided my new project is to divert the river. I'll be able to make an underground farm etc once I'm done, and not have to go across the damn map to do it!

First Traders!

Had my first caravan arrive, sadly I'm pretty short on things to trade, but I'll have to see what I can get...

More to Come

Wanted to get another post in before I headed back to NY. I'll be doing more on this later today hopefully!

Dorms and Rock

Yes! Finally struck rock while laying out my dorming area. I really like this minimalist style of doing dorming. It's super space efficient and lets you have a fallback if the economy kicks in. Can also expand one room to make it into a nobles room.

Stonesense Entrance Hall

Got the entrance hall all dug out! This image is the fort using the 3D mapping program called StoneSense. Next up will be adding statues and decorations to the mix ^^;

Fishing Update

Had a bit of trouble when summer came and the nearby lakes dried up. Couldn't figure out why my dwarves wouldn't fish in the river that I made sure was nearby! Turns out they couldn't get to it, haha! A few quick channels and it's good to go.

Also going to try and start including images with the posts so you can get a feel for what's going on. You can see the river, channels I dug, a dried up lake, and my temp base camp while I start on the main fort.

New Embark!

Decided to try starting up a blog again, and since I just started a new embark on Dwarf Fortress, it seemed like a good topic.

Opened the Embark! pretty standard, crew looked like this:

Miner / Miner / Mason+Stone Detail / Farmer + Gatherer + Cook + Brewer / Fisher / Fish Cleaner + Architect.

Embarked in a woodland mirthful area which right now is my favorite. Still trying to get a solid grasp on how to work everything and where to take my forts when they get a bit bigger.

I wanted to make this fort a bit more epic than the last few I've done, with that in mind I'll post here on what I've done ^^;