Thursday 6 November 2014

Deadly Premonition


Not bad for playing it for the first time in 3 years and diving straight into hard for the first time.  Finally got that achievement to make it another game at 100%.  I'm wondering it that time played includes all the cutscenes.

Two of the deaths were QTEs with the Raincoat Killer, the other was in the Sheriff's Department otherworld where you're surrounded by the creatures just before getting the earrings.  I screwed up a few shots then got a hand in the mouth and shotgunned.

I think I didn't waste any days doing side quests, I just did them to waste time between meeting times for missions instead of either sleeping or smoking.

Wednesday 25 June 2014

Mid year music purchases

It's almost halfway through the year so I thought I'd take a photo of all the music albums I've bought so far this year.  A bit of a strange collection so far.


My OCD is going slightly nuts because I forgot about NIN Recoiled so that's on the top.  But then that's one band I have bought almost everything (Halo 12 is the only one I don't have) so it's kinda fitting that it's on top of the other CDs.  Bugger, also Tron Legacy is under T instead of D.

So, in alphabetical order (surnames first):

ACDC
     Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
     Powerage
     For Those About To Rock (We Salute You)

Aerosmith
     Live! Bootleg
     Rock In A Hard Place
     Gems
     Nine Lives
     Just Push Play

Christina Aguilera
     Stripped
     Back To Basics (double)
     Bionic (double with lenticular sleeve)
     Lotus (Deluxe Edition)

Lily Allen
     Alright, Still....
     It's Not Me, It's You (Special Edition)

Black Sabbath
     Nativity In Black: A Tribute To Black Sabbath

Butcher Babies
     Goliath

Cradle of Filth
     Dusk and Her Embrace
     Godspeed on The Devil's Thunder: the Life and Crimes of Gilles De Rais (Special Edition) (double)

Daft Punk
     Tron Legacy

The Dust Brothers
     Fight Club Original Score

Genitorturers
     Flesh is the Law
     Blackheart Revolution

Guns N Roses
     Use Your Illusion I: World Tour 1992 in Tokyo (DVD)

In This Moment
     Blood (Re-Issue & Bonus) (double)

Machine Head
     Unto the Locust (Deluxe Collector's Edition) (double)

Manic Street Preachers
     National Treasures - The Complete Singles

Meat Loaf
     Bat Out of Hell
     Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell

Muse
     Showbiz
     Origin of Symmetry
     Hullabaloo
     The 2nd Law

Nine Inch Nails/Coil
     Recoiled

Nirvana
     Bleach (20th Anniversary Edition)
     In Utero (20th Anniversary Edition) (double)

Primus
     Frizzle Fry

Rage Against The Machine
     Live at the Grand Olympic Auditorium
     Live at the Grand Olympic Auditorium (DVD)

Red Hot Chili Peppers
     I'm With You

R.E.M.
     Monster

Satyricon
     The Age of Nero (double)

The Sisters of Mercy
     Original Album Series

Strange Days - Music From the Motion Picture

And that's it.

Some of these I've had in the past and either they've been damaged or lost so I've had to get them again, others I've been meaning to get for a while.

I've already got a number of Aerosmith and ACDC albums but I still need to finish off the collections, although for Aerosmith I'm only really after the 70s-90s stuff.  I was lucky enough to get the very limited edition Pandora's Toys wooden box version when it was first released, since then I've tried to get all the classic Columbia collection (remasters?) as seen in the pic above.

I've fallen behind with Cradle of Filth and I think I still need one or two others plus the new one (Manticore?).  I had to get Dusk again as I'm not wanting to touch my digipack SE version as the lettering on the front is drastically wearing off.  Thankfully there's only one song difference between the two discs (Nocturnal Supremacy '96) and it's not one that I'll really miss as I prefer the original on V Empire.

I already have the original release CDs of Nirvana's albums but thought I'd get the Deluxe Editions purely for the bonus tracks.  I've still to get the Nevermind one, I'm not sure if they did one for Incesticide which is a shame if they didn't.  That had some really good tunes on it.

I've got a long way to go to get the Les Claypool collection, but I'm not that bothered about the Duo De Twang stuff.  I do like the Flying Frog Brigade stuff but Primus is the main one for me.  Nothing beats a bit of Fisticuffs or Shake Hands With Beef.  and their cover of The Thing That Should Not Be is absolutely amazing.  In fact here it is:


Bugger, you'll have to watch it on youtube itself.  HAVE TO!

The RATM Live album is the only one I didn't have (except for the debut anniversary).  They're brilliant live.  I liked it so much that I immediately ordered the DVD.

The Sisters of Mercy is a band that I've loved since I saw the video for Dominion.  I've had the albums second had for a while but they've definitely seen better days so I thought I'd shell out a tenner for the complete set (First And Last And Always, Floodland, Vision Thing, Some Girls Wander By Mistake, A Slight Case Of Overbombing).  It's a shame that Eldritch isn't releasing stuff.  I know there's various reasons stopping him, but it's a damn shame.


Another one to watch on the 'tube.

I haven't spoken about the odd ones.  Christina - amazing voice.  Lily - funny.  Meat Loaf - never had the albums before and loved the first one, liked the second, thought I'd get both.  Not heard the third.  R.E.M. - not a huge fan, but I do like some of their stuff and Monster has some good tunes on it (Crush With Eyeliner and Strange Currencies)

A fair number (maybe just over half?) were bought second hand, I'm not made of money.

After all these, I doubt I'll be buying many albums for the rest of the year!

Tuesday 3 June 2014

Minecraft builds

I thought I'd post a few photos of what I've built in one of my Minecraft Xbox 360 worlds.  Most of these I found online elsewhere so I'm not saying that I actually Minecraft-ised the stuff.


First up is the Companion Cube which is the first thing I built.  All 6 sides are complete even though you're unlikely to see the top or bottom.  I then added Chell.  I couldn't be bothered to make her to scale compared to the cube.  That would've been too much bother.

I then thought I'd add G-Man and Gordon Freeman to represent Black Mesa.



Then there's Pyramid Head.  I am a big Silent Hill fan but I'm possibly in the minority that I'm not too keen on SH2.  I did like the extensions to the mythology but I just couldn't care about James and his lethargic, suicidal tendencies.  I got bored with his stupid decisions.  I did love Pyramid Head though (not a fan of the Red Pyramid name).

I was hoping that the cameo in SH:Homecoming would lead to more appearances and maybe even see a little glimpse of someone else in SH or Shepherd's Glen (I can't remember where the cameo took place) and that would lead to another game in which we see the reverse happening.  that would've been nice.  Shame it didn't happen.  Anyways, enough about Silent Hill for now.



And  if we have Silent Hill, we've got to have Resident Evil.  So I built a big house with this as the ground floor.  I'm standing on the top stair which is directly across from the entrance.  Also, underneath the stairs there's a not-so-secret switch that opens a hole in the floor that leads to...


...the test labs.  T- and G-Virus statues in the center with 3 labs on each side.  Each lab has their own desk, workbench, decontamination room and holding cell for creatures.  the lab also has a rail going to the End Portal which was handily nearby.  I built a Nether Portal in the same dungeon as a sort of expedition center for Umbrella.



And while we're doing horror things I might as well put up a Cute Cthulhu on top of a hill overlooking the world like he should be.  He's also near the east of the map which has plenty of water that I'm sure is connected to the Pacific.



I thought I'd have a bit of fun and recreate the hedge maze from Kubrick's The Shining.  It's actually taken from the map of the maze when the family are getting the tour.  I did think about doing the maze Wendy and Danny walk through in the film but realised that it'd be far too big to put in the space avaliable (I've got other buildings in the world that I'm not taking photos of as they're pretty boring).



And then there's the base of operations with what I think is a nice lava/water display.  The building next to the farm has a fully stocked underground bunker for end of the world happenings aswell as a library and hidden work areas.  the small wooden building behind that is the railway station that connects to each building shown previously.

One thing I forgot to show is the lookout tower in the distance which has a battle arena below it with fully stocked dispensers for levelling up.  there's also a small room nearby that has creature eggs in them to refill the dispensers.

So that's it for my museum world.  I may add more things at some point (like Chris, Jill and a few zombies) but I'm not sure when.

Friday 25 April 2014

Another Minecraft chunk loading problem

A while ago I posted a blog about Flook joining my Minecraft world and having a huge chunk not loading.  Well, this time it's my turn to have that problem in his world.

Although my problem seemed to be more prevalent than Flook's.

The first hole I found:


Here's two videos of Flook mining in the non loaded part:


From there, walking forward about 20-30 blocks brings us to a bigger hole.

 This one is about 5x the size of the first one.
I marked 2 spots on the map on the east side of the biggest hole (I'm looking from them into the hole in the first photo).  The higher torch has diamond below it (possibly 15 above bedrock?) and the smaller one has a cave with strange looking things.  Thinking about it just now, it might be grey mushrooms on smooth stone in a cave.


And then there was a smaller hole in the water slightly south east of the biggest one.  (I think that's where this one was, or it could actually be part of the bigger hole, if it is, I'm still looking east but the last hole is about this size.


The annoying thing is that the first hole is in the jungle so it's hard to spot if you're not looking for it, and even if you are it's easy to miss as there's a few hills and a big stone/dirt wall that looks like a non loaded chunk nearby.  that's why I took photos of the map locations.

But the good thing is the biggest hole in the water is viewable just north of the village that Flook's farming/building in so it's easy to get to... if you've got a boat.  It'll be annoying to try and dig down as it's right under the water so we may have to mine from the land which is probably 30-40 blocks south or build a tunnel starting from where I built the torch pillars.

Sunday 30 March 2014

Minecraft (warning, large photos)

I was playing the Xbox 360 version of Minecraft with DeadpanFlook yesterday and he was having what we thought was a slight lag issue where the world wouldn't load and he fell into a pit and died.  When I was walking to where I thought I last saw him I noticed some XP orbs in the water and some of his items were there but some weren't to be seen anywhere so they might have fallen through the ground somehow.  Strangely that chuck wouldn't load at all.  Even today when he popped into the world it was still a big gaping hole.

 Handy to see there's a dungeon there.


 The view from the dungeon.





(Couldn't tell where this was taken from.  Looks weird as there's 2 chunks that haven't loaded.  I think the hill on the right is the mushroom biome but I couldn't tell where in the cavern the photo was taken.)




It's weird that the chunks just won't load at all.  I've seen this lag glitch before on the Rooster Teeth  Let's Play Minecraft videos but it always resolves itself.  Maybe a cache clean would solve the problem.

Hopefully it'll resolve itself the next time.

In the meantime here's a few things I built from googling minecraft:








Since those photos were taken I've added G-Man and Gordon Freeman next to the Companion Cube.  I'll hopefully be adding a Nurse to the Pyramid Head area and possibly Chris and Jill to the RE mansion.

Sunday 23 March 2014

My reading habits

I've been neglecting my book reading habits since Christmas but I thought I'd upload pics of some of my books.  Mainly, it's my Stephen King collection which probably takes up just under half of my overall amount.

I like to keep things in chronological order so I can see the differences in his writing styles at a glance.  It also helps keep the order fresh in mind when speaking to a friend about King.  Usually the ka-tet pops up in conversations somewhere.  Black 13 was a big talking point a few weeks ago and I've been meaning to read parts of DTV that are highlighted in the Concordance to check some info but never got round to it and now I can't remember what I was meant to be checking it for!

The ones that are upside down have still to be read and I've just noticed that the first big copies of The Dark Tower I and II on the top shelf should be upside down.  I've had them for probably 20 years now and never read them! :D

I'm currently (or was) reading Firestarter.  I've just got to the end of the incident at the farm house.

Favourite book so far?  Either The Dark Half, The Green Mile or the DT series.

Least liked book?  Tommyknockers or Under The Dome.  It took me the best part of a year to read through those two books.









Saturday 1 February 2014

Latest music purchases

I decided on impulse to buy two albums a few weeks ago.  Both on vinyl.

The first is Slayer's Reign in Blood:
Even after all these years it's still one of the best thrash albums out there.  It's fantastic.

The second one I got was South of Heaven:
Another great thrash album.  Not as good as Reign, but it's still damn fine.


Then on January 25th I'd read this little post on Bloody Disgusting.  It's a steep price, but I had to get it.  Had to.  It arrived 3 days later.





Gorgeous little package.  I was tempted to skip straight to Cosmo Canyon, JENOVA, Forested Temple, Birth of a God and One-Winged Angel tracks but then decided to just go through each side in order.  I'm glad I did. 16+ years later and I still remember where a good chunk of the music happened.

I can still imagine the motorbike chase to get out of Midgar, reaching the Chocobo Farm and seeing them dance before going into the swamp and getting totally annihalated by Midgar Zolom.  Getting to Costa del Sol and discovering you could buy a house there.  And seeing Red XIII playing football with a couple of kids (he must've been glad to get out of that sailor's outfit!).

So many good memories from that game.  My only regret about FFVII is not getting Aeris' final limit break.

It's a shame the series kinda went downhill from there.  Although I did play all the main PS1/2 releases to the end the only ones I really liked after that were IX (great story and art style), X (brilliant fighting system) and XII (again, the battles in that were brilliant, but I couldn't tell you what the story was about).

Never really cared for VIII (although I did spend midnight to 6am going down the Deep Sea Research Center to fight Ultima Weapon and get the summon Eden.  That was one hell of a journey that I was short on experience for.  But getting back up was a breeze!

But throughout all these games the one thing that I always liked was the music.  Up until XIII where I didn't really like the music.  Well, maybe that's a bit strong.  Nothing really stood out to me.  I still stuck with it through XIII-2 and will probably get Lightning Returns when I see it half price or less.  Not too keen on the battles in the demo, but then I wasn't too keen on the battles in XIII either and I stuck with that through to the end and beyond (I only need to kill Long Gui and get 5million gil so I can get all the weapons) and the same with XIII-2 (100% achievements)  So I may end up doing the same for LR.

It's a shame that the X/X-2 HD remakes are PS3 only as I'd like to play them again sometime (and maybe get further than the first race up a building in X-2) but I don't have a PS3 and likely won't have one for quite a while.

Thursday 9 January 2014

Christmas shopping

Well, not really Christmas shopping but rather spending my newfound dosh on some music.



Firstly there's Nine Inch Nails - Hesitation Marks.  I was really disappointed with it since I heard the free stream they did.  I started to like it a good while longer than usual for a NIN record.  And I still hate the Everything song (to me it's this album's version of All The Love In The World from With Teeth, I still skip that track).  Overall it's pretty good but it's not a patch on previous stuff.  I thought Year Zero and The Slip were absolutely brilliant so this slight change in sound is a bit disappointing, especially when Welcome Oblivion was so good.  Still, being a big NIN fan I had to get it.  Doubt I'll bother with the normal CD or vinyl versions though.

Secondly there's Sound City - Reel To Reel.  Dave Grohl bought the mixing desk that was used to record a lot of classic albums and asked other musicians who had played on the desk to join him in celebrating the studio and desk.  Pretty good album but suffers from disjointedness which was to be expected.  To me this is a mellow all-stars album like Probot was a metal/thrash all stars album.  The documentary DVD is much better than the music, shame the documentary was only 90ish mins long.



Alice In Chains.  Brilliant band.  Depressing most of the time but absolutely fantastic.  After seeing Duvall's live performances on youtube I realised that I never got their live album from the Layne days.  Decided to pick up the Essentials double album at the same time because it was only a fiver.  Disappointed there's no Down In A Hole on it, but really glad that God Smack is.  Surprised to see What The Hell Have I on there.  I thought that was only on the Last Action Hero OST (which I sadly no longer have).  Nothing really needs to be said about AiC.



Cradle of Filth - Godspeed On The Devil's Thunder.  I kinda lost interest in CoF after Midian (I think, the one with the Cthulhu Dawn song).  But I still kept an interest (Nymphetamine was a great tune).  Decided to buy this to see if I can get back into them.  Not listened to it yet.  Favourite previous albums were Dusk And Her Embrace (A Gothic Romance (Red Roses For The Devil's Whore)) and Cruelty And The Beast (Beneath The Howling Stars).  I doubt this album is as good as those two, but here's hoping it's better than Damnation And A Day and Thornography.

Daft Punk - Random Access Memories.  I really liked the two singles (if they were, they were played on the radio a lot) Lose Yourself To Dance and Get Lucky.  The album as a whole was a bit disappointing but it was still pretty good.  Have to give it a few more spins to it.







Pantera - Cowboys From Hell, Vulgar Display Of  Power, Far Beyond Driven, The Great Southern Trendkill and Reinventing The Steel.

Shockingly I've only ever owned the double Planet Caravan CD single and the F**king Hostile remix promo 12".  Loved these guys so I couldn't pass up owning all these albums for less than a tenner.  Classic thrash metal for those who aren't too keen on Metallica, Megadeth or Sepultura.  Really looking forward to listening to these again.