There’s just something about this time of year that makes you want to play Football Manager. I think it’s all the transfer gossip and the build up of the new season starting. As you can guess, it made me want to play, so I started myself a new season as the manager of Liverpool. I’m only around ten games in to the season, but I’ve had pretty good start and I’m sitting 2nd in the league at the moment. I know what will probably happen though. I will start to have a poor run of games and I will probably then lose interest in playing it only to start again this time next year. It always happens.
I’ve also been playing a little more of Dirty Bomb. It seems that some of the mercs you can play as get rotated (if you haven’t bought them), I guess so it gives you a chance to try them all out. This week I’ve been trying out Nader, who as you can probably guess has a grenade launcher as her special ability. She is a fun character to use with a lot of damage being dished out with the launcher. Personally I think she has too many grenades and they ‘recharge’ too` quickly, you can almost have a constant barrage going, but it does allow you to get some pretty sweet multi kills.
They’ve also had Proxy playable this week who has proximity mines as a special ability. They’re pretty handy if you’re on the defence, but as an offensive player they seem a little redundant.
I’ve almost got enough in game credits to buy my first character and I think I will probably go with either Nader or Rhino – who has the mini gun, just because when playing with them I’ve found that I’m best with them.
Alongside that I’ve been carrying on with my Elite: Dangerous story, and will be hoping to get part 2 out later this week. You can catch up with part 1 here.
It’s been a while since I’ve done any reading, and I’ve been building up quite the wish list for comics to read. So over the weekend I took a trip to the shops to pick up a few new books.
I came away with Postal vol 1, Birthright vol 1 and Bedlam vol 1. Both Birthright and Postal are pretty new series, but Bedlam actually came out a few years ago, but for some reason it has been popping up recently and caught my eye.
Bedlam follows Fillmore Press once Madder Red, a homicidal maniac and criminal overlord who ruled the city of Bedlam. But now he’s been cured of his mania, and claims he wants to help protect the city that he once terrorized.
I get a real Batman and Joker vibe from it, but a lot more visceral. I’ve heard that the series might be cancelled or on a very long hiatus which is kind of annoying, but hopefully it will get picked up again, or the current arc will finish without a huge cliff hanger.
I’ve also finished the first volume of Birthright. Basically Mikey – a young boy, goes missing when out with his father. This leaves the rest of the family devastated and rips them apart. But a year later Mikey returns, but he isn’t that same Mikey as he was when he left. When he went missing he found himself in a strange new world – Terrenos, where he is prophesised to be the hero to save them all.
I won’t go in to any more real detail, but he returns a badass Conan style warrior.
It’s a fun story, I think that’s the best way to describe it. It’s almost like an adult and a child came up with it, with the child thinking of all the fantasy stuff, and then the adult adding in the meat and gore around it. I blasted through volume 1, and I really want to read more of it, so that’s a good thing.
– Will
So I bought Arkham Knight as mentioned in last week’s Geekly Review. Well a week later and I’ve completed it. (96% completed anyways). I’ve done everything apart from searching for the Riddler trophies. And I think I’ll personally leave it at that. I’ve still got the Harley Quinn DLC and Scarecrow missions pack to do yet. I’ll go back to this and finish these off, but that’s the end of that.
I enjoyed the game, it was a great finale to the Arkham trilogy. I won’t give spoilers away as some of my friends are still playing this who may read this. But I will say that the Batmobile is very much a love / hate relationship. Initially I was really enjoying the inclusion of the Batmobile for getting around Gotham. I was enjoying it’s use in some of the side quests and Riddler missions. But then it became really tedious. Boss battles become more about blowing up tanks with your Batmobile than hand to hand combat. Also Cobra tanks are an absolute pain in the ass, Good thing they throw so many of them into the game.
As for the weekend itself. Friday I had 2 friends over for some drinks in the garden, making the most of the weather. The more the drink flowed, the more in depth our conversations got (which is always the case with alcohol right?) Eventually finishing the night off discussing ghosts, the afterlife, space, aliens, possession… the good stuff you don’t want to be thinking about when going to bed at night especially when thunder and lightning begins at around midnight (which is the genuine case of what happened).
It was my brother in laws stag do on the Saturday. It was a local one with some great activities. We did some quad biking which was really enjoyable and followed that up with axe throwing which was bizarre. Tomahawk axe throwing to be precise. There really isn’t that much to it to be honest, managing to make each of my throws hit and stick into the target. So that’s me prepped for any upcoming zombie invasion, just so long as the zombies stay still, and let me apply the technique and steps we were taught on how to throw them. After that we went for some bowling which was fun. Scored my best score with 138 (which is still crap I get it, but not bad for me). And then 4 player Mario Kart Arcade.
Now I was quietly confident that I’d win this given my love for Mario Kart 8 and the hours put onto it. I picked my usual MK8 racer Bowser. Unfortunately you cannot pick your own vehicle, it spins a roulette for you and picks a random combo of cars and extras. Well I was also the only one taking advantage of speed boosts from drifting and boost jumps. The other 3 lads didn’t cotton onto this till much later in the race. But regardless of that I could not shake those 3 guys off me. After being overtaken and finding myself in 3rd, I found catching them up was insanely easy… so there you go… catch up features in this. Back to first and trying to hold on, the final lap the other races cotton on with the additional boost from drifting and jumps and it’s effectively the final corners. Hit by some weapons, find myself in 4th and even with catch up on, there isn’t enough time. I finish last and take alot of jabs at how I lost when I should have won with my MK8 experience. A little frustrating.
Sunday was spent watching the Formula 1, then spending all afternoon and evening playing Football Manager. Not a bad weekend.
– Murr
NEWS ROUND-UP
Telltales Minecraft
We got to see the first details on Telltales Story mode for Minecraft, revealed at this years Minecon. You can check out details and the first trailer here.
Shenmue 3 PS4 Physical Copy Confirmed
Another goal was added to the Shenmue 3 Kickstarter over the weekend. Many people were asking for it and it’s now a reality, PS4 physical copies of the game. It seems to have helped the kickstarter as it reached a milestone 50,000 backers.
