Hearthstone: Warlock – Sensing the Void

Ah.. it’s been awhile. Geek Generation here.

I left Hearthstone some time before the release of the expansion Gnomes v Goblins and came back to the game right at the end of Black Rock Mountain. I did have some gold saved up, so i was able to purchase and play all the wings of Black Rock Mountain. I bought 10 packs of GvG (with gold again), but unfortunately, the card pool meant that i wasn’t playing a mech deck any time soon.

I went through a couple of my old decks and used them to complete the daily quest. The one i liked most was still Voidrattler. It was a mid range that that had quick starts in Undertaker.

Now that the Undertaker was nerfed, i felt that is simply didn’t have a place in the deck anymore. The deck was after all, not a small aggro deck. I took out Undertaker. Since i didn’t need the Death Rattle activators anymore, i took out Haunted Creeper, Nerubian Egg and, of course, Mad Scientist.

In came Kobold Geomancers, which are still my favourite minions. The deck now looks like this:

2 x Mortal Coil
2 x Power Overwhelming
2 x Soulfire
2 x Sense Demons
2 x Hellfire

1 x Acidic Swamp Ooze
1 x Ironbeak Owl
2 x Kobold Geomancer
1 x Stonesplinter Trogg
2 x Harvest Golem
2 x Chillwind Yeti
2 x Defender of Argus
1 x Spellbreaker
2 x Voidcaller
2 x Doomguard
2 x Sludge Belcher
2 x Dread Infernal

I’m not sure what a previous iteration had before i changed it to Acidic Swamp Ooze and Stonesplinter Trogg. What’s with the single copy of Stonesplinter Trogg? Well.. it’s because i have only 1. I wanted a 2/3 body that didn’t go higher than 2 mana.

Before the addition of these 2 mana minions, the deck always had one problem: it usually didn’t make a bid for the board until turn 4. I’d never make a turn 2 Kobold Geomancer, unless i’m firing a Mortal Coil off the Coin. And sometimes, i’d rather cast Sense Demons even when i have a Harvest Golem in hand.

The 2 drops were my way of shoring up the weakness in the mana curve.

The deck’s concept remains the same. Sense Demons to bring in a Void Caller and a big ass demon. Void Caller’s Death Rattle plops the big ass demon on the board since they’re the only other demons around.

The thing is, without Undertaker and Nerubian Eggs, there’s nothing for the opponent to burn their Silence on before the Void Callers come in. I’d probably have to rethink abit on this problem with the deck.

Anyway, since Undertaker and the Deathrattle activators were taken out, i decided to rename the deck. It’s now called Sensing the Void. Not very iconic, i know : D

I’m pretty sure everyone names their own decks : D Geek Generation out.

Life is Strange: Chrysalis

Hello everybody, Geek Generation here.

Sorry again for the procrastination. Long periods away tend to disrupt my usual undertakings. I have a tendency of not returning to games and stuff.

Warning, possible spoilers.

Anyway, i saw this game on Steam, girl protagonist, photograph taking, and i thought it was an old game, Fatal Frame. So i bought it only to realize later that it was a new and different game. In fact, of the five episodes i bought, only the first eppy is released. Next eppy is scheduled for March and the rest are T.B.A. -_-

My first play through, i decided to keep to myself and not talk to anyone unnecessarily, especially if i suspected that they were in the Vortex Club. I finished the entire eppy in an hour or two. Which in my opinion is way too short.

Overall, i still quite liked the game. Story telling rpg is my kind of thing. The ability to rewind time is what sets it apart from other adventure like rpg. In some rpg, where the player is given choices, the only way to make a different choice is to reload from a saved game. The process of saving and reloading, is kind of immersion breaking.

By building time rewind into the game, Life is Strange makes the very process of changing choices a part of the game. The game makes it a point to remind the player that certain choices are a cog in the butterfly chain and that there was still time to rewind time to change to a different choice.

However, this reminder had on one occasion, served to break immersion. In Chloe’s house, when going through the garage, Chloe’s father had not returned home. But going through the files and causes the reminder to pop up, warning/spoiling ahead that something is going to happen in the scenes in that house.

First eppy was on 30th Jan, second eppy is coming in March, i hope it doesn’t take half a year to release all five eppys.

The eppy is named Chrysalis. I thought eppy one would have begun the search for Rachel and that i would’ve stumble across some alien/unexplainable Chrysalis. The main grouse is that the eppy is too short. I hope the other eppys are going to be longer. But all in all, still a pretty neat game.

Ok so much for now, Geek Generation out.

Tomb Raider Review

Hello everybody, Geek Generation here.

Tomb Raider (2013) reboot had a discount on Steam some days back. I spent the last weeknights and this weekend to play through the entire game. Just in case there are those who mind, even though the game was released in 2013, the following content is somewhat spoiler-ish.

First of, the game’s immersion is very high. There are no health bars, or anything like that. In fact, beyond the targeting cursor when you aim the weapon, there’s not any much of any other UI on the screen when you play the game. The downside of this is that i can’t tell which mode my shotgun is in. Unlike the rifle with/without silencer, or the bow’s arrows with/without fire, the shotgun does not seem to have any visual cues for its firing mode.

But the high level of immersion is what makes the game good. At certain parts, together with the music, it creeps the hell out of you. Then there’s the fear of heights, my palms literally sweat when i play Tomb Raider. The quality of immersion goes beyond the visuals. When in a cave like environment, the sounds Lara make, like footsteps, produces tiny echoes.

I like how Lara get all grimy with dirt and blood in the game. But when Lara meets up with the rest of Endurance crew for the first time, one can’t help but notice how the other crew members are spotlessly clean. Considering that Sam was also in the burning building, she should atleast have a share of the grimy soot.

At one point, one of the enemies got Lara on the ground and was dishing it out, punching the face and all, no.. not the face.. I kind of was hoping that the bruises on the face would stay. But i guess battered face is one immersion too deep for the developers. Lara must stay pretty even if she falls off a mountain several times in the game.

I’m glad that there was some amount of character development for the other characters. And not all of them are dead. Conrad Roth died. Well.. some of the good guys have to die, to add to the emotional bid. It was kind of sad when he died.

Angus died. The crazy old ones always die. Actually, in some shows, the crazy old one inexplicably lives, despite all odds. So long as he is not directly related to the protagonist, like sensei and stuff. Though atm i can’t remember the names of any show where there’s a crazy old man that always lives.

Sam didn’t die. Though i was hoping she would have some evil glint in the eye at the end. It could become a story arc in a sequel. Alex died. He has to die. He had a diary entry that supposed a love line between him and Lara. That’s the thing that kind of gets you killed. Though i don’t know why romance is such a boo boo. This Lara reboot seemed pretty adult after all.

Dr. Whitman dies. It’s kind of expected. Stories like his always end that way. You know he’s going to die the moment he walked away from Mathias and Sam. But.. i was kind of rooting for him to be alive and be one of the escapees from the island. After, he’s just misguided and greedy, not exactly evil like Mathias and Himiko.

When Roth died, and i saw two pistols on the ground, i thought Lara was going to upgrade to her iconic twin pistols. Was kind of disappointing when she didn’t. Though i’m pretty satisfied when Lara used two pistols to gun down Mathias. And she holstered both pistols. Disregarding the curious fact that she would belt two holsters when she began with only one pistol, this is pretty good indication that Lara would come back with her iconic twin pistols, if there’s a sequel that is.

Overall, i really liked Tomb Raider 2013 alot. If you liked the Tomb Raider series, or you like to know what Tomb Raider is about, this is the one to get.

Geek Generation out.