carley boo

20 year old biology major, cat lover, chocoholic, and ombre enthusiast. my days usually consist of video games and music making and/or blasting. i love photography, although i am not as active as i'd like to be with it. oh, and i make youtube videos.

[absoluteombre]

All Things Games

The world of gaming has recently expanded. Offline adventure games when we were kids began developing into large online multiplayer games that no one can keep away from. However, everyone ends up being picky about what kind of games they like, therefore, I have chosen some of my favorite games and written about them in blog posts to help my fellow gamers find their calling. With this, I have attached a song for easy listening while reading about the games! Everyone likes music, right?

Those with great hand-eye coordination usually prefer to play first-person shooters, as they like to be on the edge of their seat and they tend to have a certain competitive side. This definitely shows in Call of Duty, but my favorite is definitely Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. FPSs are so insanely popular that we have now defined competitions as eSports. Thousands of fans gather in a single place to watch their favorite players compete for a cash prize. This has brought together a large community on social media sites such as Twitter.

Others, like me, prefer to take their survival and foraging skills to the test in survival games like ARK: Survival Evolved. We are a bit less competitive, but there is definitely room to gloat when we are the last ones standing. Yes, the game may be in first-person and yes, there may be some shooting, but the goal of the game is not to compete--it’s to survive. Games like ARK give you a hunger meter and tell you when you’re dehydrated and such and you have to fix it yourself, all the while steering clear of something that can kill you. Sometimes, this could be other players, but most of the time it’s the environment itself. How long can you last?

Many prefer purely multiplayer games, while others prefer the silence of a single player adventure. In fact, most of the time, these single player games are horror games! One of the most popular survival horror games is Until Dawn. This one is a bit different than usual, because you have choices that can change the story. Typical survival horrors, like Outlast, have plot lines that do not stray. It will be the same every time.

Blow this post, you can find several more games that you may want to explore on my blog. Some of them are not as heavy as the ones I have listed above, like Rocket League. Rocket League is just a simple game of soccer with cars, nothing special or fancy! Always fun, though.

There is something for everyone out there, you just have to find it.

[absoluteombre]

I cannot believe I haven’t posted this song yet, but hey, it works for this past project. You could kind of tie this song in with being ‘locative’ in a way because when I listen to it, it takes me back to where I listened to it the first time, but then it takes me to a different place entirely. I can see myself sitting on Miami beach in the morning, this song playing. I wrote about what I see here. I love it more than life. It’s my favorite song of all time.

Let’s rewind a few years back. What was that one game that we all knew was an absolutely awful game (morally) but everyone and their brother played it? Hmm.. Oh yeah, Grand Theft Auto, the action-adventure third-person shooter filled with hookers, f-bombs, crashing, explosions, murder, and all that good stuff. It can be played on just about any console.

As bad as all that stuff is, Rockstar has made some pretty amazing games. Grand Theft Auto is definitely their most played, but I thoroughly enjoyed L.A. Noire (one of my favorite games) and Red Dead Redemption (also one of my favorite games, here is a video of me messing around on RDR). If I had another week to write blog posts for class, I would DEFINITELY talk about L.A. Noire. I’ve never played anything like it before, and it actually made me want to become a detective for a while.

Anyway.

Rockstar made $1 billion in the first three days that GTA V was released.

The first GTA I played was Grand Theft Auto IV. Oh WOW did I have a lot of laughs on this game. All I did was drive around and race my friends and we could be on this for hours and never stop laughing. However, that is not the one I’m going to be discussing in this post.

Grand Theft Auto V, the most recent of the series, is much more realistic and has plenty more things to do in multiplayer. GTA IV took place in New York City (renamed Liberty City) and GTA V takes place in Los Angeles (renamed Los Santos). Hollywood was renamed to Vinewood, you can see it on that one mountain. To be honest, I only play online multiplayer because I cannot stand the campaign, it makes you do way too many horrible things. I just can’t do it. Please don’t play if you are under 17, I mean it, it’s not funny.

One of the most prominent features of this game is that you can create your own character and you can buy a house or apartment, making this game easier to connect to -- you feel like you ‘belong’ in the city. The cars you buy are customizable, which at this point, I’m not even sure you could do more than paint the car you stole off the side of the road in GTA IV. Also, there are heists you can do and random mini games and quests around the map. Heists and what not pay you a ton of money, which you then use to buy really expensive cars to stack up in your garage. There really is no objective at all in multiplayer, you just do whatever you want at all. I mostly rob banks and drive away at full speed. Terrible, I know. But when I’m not doing that, I’m usually ramming my friends with a helicopter, as they are the most fun thing to drive (or fly) in the game.

Here is a video of me fooling around in a Cargobob with Billy who is in a truck, and here is a video of Billy and I playing tennis.

This game can be incredibly fun if you don’t use it for evil.

Happy car crashing/flipping/exploding!

[absoluteombre]

Locative Narrative

My Tumblr for my locative narrative can be found here.

Unfortunately, I was only able to get ten of these done. I had my best friend Billy come up to take the pictures because he is an amazing photographer and has a beautiful lens. We only had time to do ten because this took a lot more driving around than I thought.

I found the secrets and confessions on PostSecret and also by typing postsecret into Tumblr. I folded paper up into fours and had Billy, Bobby, Zac, and Sylvia (including myself) all write a couple of these secrets onto the fourths of the papers because I wanted different style writing for a few of them. After those were finished, Billy and I got into his car and I directed him where I wanted to go.

We ran out of time AND places, to be honest. There were only so many isolated areas I had access to around here. Most of the pictures were taken at Blue Knob State Park about a half hour away.

In the pictures, I either covered up my eyes or my mouth (in one, I didn’t cover up anything at all) depending on the confession. Covering up my eyes meant it was more anonymous. Covering up my mouth meant it was more personal, as if I was saying them myself. Either way, with a confession comes a burial. I placed these secrets in the wild and left them behind to die (I didn’t actually leave them, don’t worry.) The only place they are safe is left behind in isolation, where you can find them again when you’re alone. I tried to tie the specific secret to the place as well -- the eating one was in a cafe, the dog one was in a park, etc. It’s a place with a memory, really.

I tried to change outfits for a different feel for each one, but this also proved difficult as it was very very cold outside. I only had two pairs of gloves and two hats, so even though some might seem repetitive, nothing could be done about it.

Although I froze out there in the cold, I really enjoyed this project. I directed how I wanted the pictures to be and Billy brought them to life. It is a little depressing, but I thought it would be a great subject for a locative project.

As for the google doc, I know my location was a bit harder to write about, so I didn’t get a lot of feedback there. I thought maybe I would get some personal stories, but that’s all right. I got to learn some psychology facts, though!

Had a great semester, and I loved the projects! I’m pretty sad that this class is almost over.

[absoluteombre]

For this song of the week, I have chosen another Ryder song. Her voice is absolutely fantastic.

Have you ever been in an extremely stressful situation where you had to do something very difficult in a short amount of time? Well then, you already know how this game makes you feel. Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is a PC exclusive asymmetrical cooperative game where one person defuses a bomb while another reads the manual and tells them how to defuse it. They can either be in the same room or you can play online. Only one person has to have the game, as well. The manual for defusing the bomb is online on this website and the bomb is on the game.

Every time you play a level, ANY level, the bomb is different. There are a certain amount of modules on the bomb that need to be cleared in order to live. For example, one of the easiest modules to do is wires. The person with the bomb tells the reader how many wires there are, and the reader has to ask about the colors and the bomb itself in order to find the right wire to cut. Here is an example of what the manual reader would see:

3 wires: If there are no red wires, cut the second wire. Otherwise, if the last wire is white, cut the last wire. Otherwise, if there is more than one blue wire, cut the last blue wire. Otherwise, cut the last wire.

The modules and conditions get harder and harder as the levels increase. In the lower levels, you have 3 to 5 modules with 5 minutes to do them. Later, you’ll have 5 modules with 3 minutes to do them. Things begin to happen like the lights cutting out or loud timer beeping in order to make you nervous. It’s a fantastic game.

Other than wires, there are things like mazes, morse code, detonate buttons, symbols, simon says, memory, and others. Reading the directions can be extremely confusing and stressful because you literally do ALL the work. Some of the module directions look like a foreign language as well. The bomb defuser has to be very careful and quick to describe what they see while the reader has to be very clear and keep talking through it. You act as a team in this game.

Here is a video of one of my favorite youtubers playing the game with friends.  My friend Billy and I just recorded us playing it today and are going to record more next weekend, but I don’t have any videos up just yet. There have been many many laughs associated with this game, and there was never a dull moment playing it.

My friends playing the game:

Sylvia: BOBBY WHAT DO I DO?

Bobby: I DON’T KNOW JUST GUESS!

I hope if I ever have to defuse a bomb that Bobby is not the one giving me directions.

Happy bomb defusing!

[absoluteombre]

I’ve been posting some slow songs lately, so here is an EDM song from a game I have mentioned before, Rocket League. I’ve been listening to this a lot lately and it’s been stuck in my head, so here you go!

We’ve all seen those zombie games. There are so very many, and to be honest, a lot of them are not that great. Day Z was incredible, but it went unfinished, so what’s the fun in that? The best free roam survival zombie game I have played so far is definitely H1Z1. H1Z1 is a survival sandbox massively multiplayer online game in development by Daybreak Game Company and is currently PC exclusive, but will eventually be released for PlayStation 4.

Yes, it is only in alpha access right now, and I haven’t checked recently to see if the beta has finally come out, but it’s still incredible. It has its glitches, as every early access game does. There are servers you can play Battle Royale where you hunt other players as the map grows smaller to be the last one standing. Then, there are servers where you play free roam and try to survive day to day. There are abandoned houses everywhere to gather supplies as zombies patrol the world. You can find different types of clothing and helmets that give you more armor to fight off the zombies. Guns and bows are also available, but ammo for the guns is very hard to find.

Unfortunately, zombies aren’t the only thing you need to worry about in this game. Starvation and dehydration are big killers, as well as the roaming bears. If bears and zombies weren’t enough, try to keep in mind that just about every other player on the server wants to murder you and take your things. You can gather a ton of wood and metal to eventually build a fort, but sometimes that’s no fun. People can’t get in and you have no reason to come out anymore, except to gather food. At least your safe.... sort of.

Once, when I was playing with my friend Billy, we came across another player who decided to tag along with us and then we found another group of three. Six of us total, we made our way into the basement of a police station. The group of three we met up with then decided to murder us for our stuff. It didn’t make a lot of sense cause they were the ones who gave us our stuff, but okay, you have to do what you have to do when the world is ending I guess.

Here is a video of Billy and I playing when we came across a bear. Fun times.

Happy zombie killing!

[absoluteombre]

Generative Project

Black Ops 3 Twitter Bot

I decided to go the hard route and create a Twitter bot. To be honest, it was hard trying to find a key word. I couldn’t think of anything I really wanted to have my bot retweet, but I did try a few things. First, I tried “kitten” and I ended up retweeting pornography. I got the same result when I did “love” and even “poetry.” Because of this, I decided to do something that would probably not give me any porn whatsoever, and I did “Black Ops 3.” I figured it would be a good topic since Black Ops 3 is coming out tonight at midnight. Everyone is so siked about it on twitter, so why not?

Even though I really enjoyed the videos we watched about creating songs from random cut ups and what not, I loved giving a bit of coding a shot. Those who reviewed my twitter bot were all very supportive, saying they didn’t think they could ever make a twitter bot because they don’t even know how twitter itself works, let alone coding. It was extremely simple, to be honest, but setting it up took a while and was kind of annoying. Not to mention, I managed to lose half the contacts in my phone during the process, but I’m not even sure if I can blame that on my e-mail being linked to the twitter bot process or not, I have NO IDEA WHAT HAPPENED.

Generative projects are extremely interesting to me. With the ones I reviewed, they were so different every time. There is almost no way anyone could do the same thing. My twitter bot retweets 5 tweets every 5 minutes (I think, that’s how it seems to be, I didn’t do THAT much coding), so every time someone looks at my twitter they see something new. Yes, there is somewhat of a connection between each tweet since they all have to do with Call of Duty, but none of the people contributing know they will be retweeted by my bot, so there isn’t a correlation between the tweets.

I ended up getting a few followers, too, so that’s pretty cool! Not sure why, because I would think constant retweets would be annoying, but some people really love Call of Duty I guess!

[absoluteombre]

I found this song while watching my new favorite show Reign. Every time I listen to it, I get a consuming desire to watch Reign again. It is a beautiful song, so I thought I’d share.

Since it is the week before Halloween, I’ve sifted through some of my favorite scary games and found one of the scariest I’ve ever come across. I’ll admit, I thought I would be talking about Slender (there is no trailer, so this is gameplay of my favorite youtuber Markiplier) or Slender: The Arrival (this trailer scared the crap out of me) since they are classics, but with the haunting of my dreams comes Outlast.

Outlast is a first person survival horror game. You play as a journalist who is investigating an old psychiatric hospital with homicidal patients. Perfect location for a horror game, right? Like in all the scariest games and movies, you have to record what you are doing with a camcorder. You must collect batteries to keep it running, and in the dark, you use night vision. If that isn’t scary enough, it takes the approach (like from the classic horror game Amnesia) that you really don’t have any weapons and you must get away from the enemies by running or hiding. One mechanic of this game that I love is the parkour--when you’re running away from someone, you can jump over or slide under obstacles. Lockers and beds are there for hiding in/under. There are several parts of the game where the men who want to kill you patrol the area, so hiding is your only chance.

As you now cannot escape from the hospital due to some unfortunate encounters with bad men, you make your way through the building with an eventually broken camcorder, finding clues along the way. You meet naked cannibals, a priest, a very large unintelligent man, and a savior who then cuts off two of your fingers. The horrors never end. The most confusing ‘thing’ you meet in the game is Walrider, but I won’t spoil it for you.

Unfortunately, I have never played this game. My deep fear of horror games keeps me from it. I would probably have a heart attack and bawl my eyes out in the first 5 minutes of playing due to the jumpscares. Since I am so cowardly, here is my favorite youtuber, Markiplier, playing through Outlast.

Some would say that this game is more creepy than scary, but the basic plot and the fact that you cannot fight back is scary enough to me. This game is brilliantly made, and the DLC makes it even more terrifying.

One of the scariest games that would probably take the cake for all current horror games would be Silent Hills PT, or the Playable Teaser of the recently discontinued Silent Hills game. I chose not to talk about this game due to the fact that you can’t even play it anymore since it has been cancelled. Here is a playthrough of the PT. Brace yourself.

In honor of Halloween weekend, I decided to share with you a game that has not yet been released. It absolutely terrifies me in every way possible, so much so that I haven’t even watched the prototype video with the sound on. Allison Road will be coming out soon, I hope. The graphics are extremely realistic that when the character stops moving, it looks like an actual photograph. It doesn’t seem so bad at first until you start hearing things that cause you to hide in the dark. Ugh, I’m shivering just thinking about it.

Happy Halloween!

[absoluteombre]

Cabin by the Lake

After many hours of writing and polishing, here is my interactive horror story made by Twine!

I wanted to write a horror story in honor of Halloween coming up soon, but I didn’t want to be about Halloween, that’s a bit too predictable. So instead, I wrote your typical gory murder movie with a huge twist! My inspiration came from the game Until Dawn, where you choose between two paths each time the game asks you to make a decision. Most of the time, choosing one or the other does not change much, but there are times where one of the two results in death. Ultimately, the game is rather linear, which I did with my story.

I’m rather descriptive when it comes to writing, so I would spend an hour or two on just one part of the story. If I had all year, I would make a lot more options, but I felt like having a life option and a death option would fit this story best. Although it may feel like just a page turner at times, I wanted the reader to feel connected to the story and actually do what they felt and face the consequences.

My inspiration for the twist came from an old movie, but I don’t remember what movie it was. I might have given it away throughout the story, but I really hope it comes as a surprise. While writing, I tried to convey my own feelings as the narrator. I was genuinely looking behind me as I wrote some of the story cause I was freaking myself out. If I don’t paint a picture in your mind as you read the story, then I have failed as a writer.

I really do wish I had more time to make more connections and possibilities, but it would literally take forever for me to do this. If I wasn’t so OCD about the way I write, I could shorten each part of the story and make way more options. However, I did my best on making the story as engaging as possible.

I wasn't able to find a website that allowed me to change the look of my story to make it scary. I attempted to upload it to other websites but they confused me so much, so I just went with the free and easy website. AdventureCow needed me to upload my story as a completely different file and I had no clue how to do it. The current website it is on is so easy to navigate, though, so I don't mind.

[absoluteombre]

This song takes me to another world. Although it is a bit repetitive, it is breathtakingly beautiful.

A few years ago, I found an article online about zombie fungus. I watched the video and read up on it. It’s called Cordyceps. Up until recently, just about every zombie movie and video game has used the concept of viral infection that lead to zombies. This cannot be true, however, as viruses need to keep their host alive in order to survive themselves. Cordyceps shreds its host’s brain of everything except for motor functions and drives the insect up to the highest point it can, anchors and kills it, then grows out the back of its head to release spores. The Last of Us uses Cordyceps as the cause of the zombie apocalypse.

This action-adventure survival horror game was released exclusively for PS3 back in 2013, but then followed up with a remastered version for PS4 in 2014. You play as Joel for most of the game; he is escorting a girl named Ellie across the US for some unknown reason. Ellie had been bit three weeks before, and did not turn into a zombie. She has some sort of significance, but Joel doesn’t even want to carry out this task. He eventually accepts what he has to do, and you have to maneuver him through the four different kinds of zombies that lurk about. One extremely helpful mechanic of the game is that you have some sort of super hearing where you focus on the sounds of the zombies and you can locate them across a certain distance away and even behind walls.

My roommate and I have decided that it is our favorite zombie game to date since the zombies actually make sense. There are parts in the game where there will be a dead zombie with it’s head busted open, and you have to put on a gas mask because there are spores all over the place. This is an extremely realistic representation of what Cordyceps does.

There are weapons you can use like pistols and bows, but there are bottles and bricks scattered around the map that you can throw to distract the wandering zombies. There is also a menu by which you can upgrade your weapons and make new ones if you’ve collected enough parts.

I won’t spoil what happens for you, and I don’t have any videos of me playing it. I’ve been watching my roommate play it. She does a lot of jumping and screaming, so I thought this would be a great horror game for the month of October. There aren’t too many good zombie games out there, but seeing as this one is the most realistic, I thought I’d mention it. It’s a fantastic game, and a lot of my friends say it is their favorite of all time.

Happy zombie killing! Halloween is almost here!

[absoluteombre]

For the song of the week, I chose a very calming, beautiful remix by Mr Fijiwiji. Fij is a phenomenal music artist. His remixes are absolutely breathtaking every time. I just found this song the other day, and I absolutely love it.

In honor of Halloween, I am going to talk about a different horror game every week until the end of October. First up is one of my favorite games of all time, Killing Floor, a Co-op Survival Horror FPS for PC. It can be played solo or online on servers. Although it is not as scary as most horror games out there, it can still be very frightening and VERY gory. DO NOT play this game if you don’t like bloody things and decapitated specimens. You’ve been warned.

Here is me playing a game of Killing Floor with my friend Nate.

Even though Killing Floor remains as one of my favorite games of all time, it is a bit outdated. Killing Floor 2 was just recently released. It is definitely a lot more thought out and “prettier” to most gamers. The “Zeds,” as they are now called, come back to this game with some touch ups and a couple new friends. The Crawlers are a bit more crawley, and the Clots are a bit more diverse. One awesome feature the developers added was the screaming of the Scrakes and Fleshpounds. When the round starts and you hear a certain scream, you know one of the two will be coming for you.

There can be four, seven, or ten waves of Zeds depending on what kind of server you choose. The waves keep getting harder and harder. In a ten wave game, the first round would only be Clots and Crawlers. Maybe some Gorefasts. After that come the Husks and the Sirens. Then around wave five or six come the Scrakes and the Fleshpounds. Those guys are rough. At the end of the last wave, the final boss wave comes with the Patriarch. He can pretty much kill you instantly. When you get close to killing him, he goes and heals himself for a little bit and sends out more Zeds. The Patriarch in Killing Floor wasn’t so hard and he was very cool looking, but the Patriarch in Killing Floor 2 is actually pretty tough and even MORE cool looking. You never knew how close to were to killing him in Killing Floor, but he is given color in Killing Floor 2 to show you how close he is to dying. Nice!

As I previously mentioned, Killing Floor is a very gory game, but Killing Floor 2 is even more so. I once killed a bunch of Zeds in one snowy area on one of the maps and there was so much blood that you couldn’t see the white snow anymore. It was a pretty big open area, too. 

One thing I love about this game is that you choose the perk that fits you best; are you good at getting headshots? Great! Sharpshooter is for you. Are you good with shotguns and want to get multiple kills at once but not a lot of ammo? Amazing! Be a support specialist like me! Want to run in head first with a katana? You psycho, berzerker is for you! There are others, too, take a look!

Here is a 3 part series of me playing Killing Floor 2 with Nate again.

Happy hunting! And Happy October! Spoopy!

[absoluteombre]

This song of the week comes from my friend Luke Oxendale. I just now realized as I added it in that it has something to do with remixes -- it’s a cover. He plays the guitar and sings in this song, which is from the movie If I Stay. He does a spectacular job, and I wanted to pass it on!

Ladies, I know you love competition. Gentlemen, I know you love sports and cars... and competition. This week, I bring you a cross-genre arena battler; or better put, a “physics-based vehicle soccer video game.” Have you guessed it? It’s all the rage right now, everyone is playing it. Yes, Rocket League, available for PC and PlayStation 4. This game can be played across platforms, which is amazing. That means that if you are playing on your PC, you can be matched up with someone playing on PlayStation. Woo!

Rocket League places you in a soccer arena as a vehicle of your design. You can play anywhere from 1v1 to 4v4 online or privately. The objective, just like soccer, is to get the ball in the other team’s goal. This isn’t just some easy-to-kick-around soccer ball, though. It seems to linger in the air pretty long, which gives you some time to hit it while it’s up there. How do you hit it as a tiny vehicle when it’s up in the air you ask? Jumping and boosting, of course! This is actually hard to get the hang of at first. I highly suggest playing the tutorial and a couple minutes of solo play. You have to get used to how fast you’re going and when to jump for the ball. I have been playing Rocket League for about two weeks now and I still don’t have the hang of it, but I’m getting better! Also, if you boost fast enough, you can destroy the enemy team’s vehicles/players and get them out of the way. I think blowing other players up is one of my favorite things to do in this game. To obtain the power for a boost, you have to collect the little power-up light thingies around the arena. You’ll see what I mean.

Yes, this is all very cool, but how is it physics-based? Since the ball seems to have lesser gravity, you have to line up your shots perfectly. When you jump, you can turn your vehicle any which way to hit the ball in the direction you want it to go. You can actually flip your car and hit the ball with your bum (as I like to say), or tilt it to the side if you’re coming at a weird angle. Once again, this is very hard to get used to. Take your time.

My boyfriend bought me Rocket League over the summer and I wanted to make a video of us playing it together, but we never found the time, so unfortunately I do not have a personal video to show you. Hopefully, in the future I will get one up. Sorry!

Have fun! Don’t sit in your goal the whole time, camper.

[absoluteombre]

Since we are talking about remixing and sampling, I decided to share a song called “Betwixt” this week. The only lyrics in the song, “I don’t think I can,” are from another song called “A Drowning” by How to Destroy Angels. They are not given credit for this, however.

There is a very popular genre of game right now that not many people know what it is actually called. Ever heard of a MOBA? MOBA stands for Multiplayer Online Battle Arena. Can you name any?

The most popular MOBA is League of Legends (LOL), but Smite is on the rise right now. Unfortunately, I have not had the pleasure to play either one of them, even though Smite is free. You know what else is free? My favorite MOBA, Dragons and Titans!

Yes, since Dragons and Titans is free, it has some bugs and it can be very frustrating. You have to admit though, for a free game, it’s pretty great. This is a free PC exclusive MOBA where you ride on the dragon of your choice with the weapon of your choice alongside 4 teammates to attack the enemy on the other side of the map. It may sound pretty boring at first, but it gets pretty intense, as you have to match up the perfect dragon and weapon combo to get any kills. Runes, which give you extra abilities (such as more health or decreased respawn time), can also be used to bump up your power.

Although there is a leveling system outside of the game for extra things (such as a health potion), each game starts every player out at level 1. The highest level is level 15, where every ability you have is maxed out. There are currently four maps: Chaos Unleashed, Nethergate, Ballistae Alley, and Towers and Titans. Here is a video of me explaining how to play Nethergate. Basically, the objective of each game is to destroy the other side’s obelisks and shrines to get to your titan. Once you reach your titan, you release it, and the game is over. Games can take anywhere from 3 minutes in a Ballistae Alley game to a 45 minute Nethergate stand-off. Towers and Titans is the newest game type, and to be honest, it is not a very good one.

In the video I shared of me playing Nethergate, I used the combination of my favorite dragon and weapon: Spinereaver with the Hammer of Sul. A good combination is picky--Spinereaver is close range while the Hammer of Sul can reach players that are far away. Good balance. Everyone is different, however; a lot of people who just start playing the game probably wouldn’t want to play a close range dragon. They always have the highest difficulties in the game since their attack is pretty high but their defense is awful. Get a feel for the dragons and stick to one or two that you’re comfortable with.

Go get ‘em, dragon rider.

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I found my song of the week this past weekend, actually. I’ve been listening to it so much this week, and it has been stuck in my head every day. I LOVE IT. So, I have already talked about a survival game and an interactive drama survival horror (choose your own fate) game. What do I have for you this week, you ask? Everyone’s favorite video game genre, FPS! As we all know, Call of Duty is a dying franchise. I stopped liking COD after Black Ops 1 to be completely honest. Black Ops 2 was okay, but they just keep getting worse now. Halo has always been right next to Call of Duty in popularity, and it is a much better game in my opinion. Even better than Halo is Battlefield, as it is a more strategic fps than the other two, which are just small multiplayer shootouts. Dumb. Battlefield actually makes you get down in the bushes and sneak to your objectives. Those snipers are super sneaky.

Even better than Call of Duty, Halo, AND Battlefield is the wonderful Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Although it is PC exclusive, it is my favorite fps. I am not going to lie though, I’ve never played competitive, but their competitive community is much bigger than any other fps. Not even to mention, you can buy and bet skins online during matches. If you bet on the right team, you could get a ton of money in skins (skins as in gun and knife skins you use in the game). Some are worth more than a thousand dollars. Wow. CS:GO also has a few other game types that aren’t in the competitive scene, because the people playing on those servers are way too good. I usually play Casual or Arms Race, the latter being my favorite. Arms Race is much like gun game in Call of Duty, except you have to kill two players instead of one to get to the next gun. If you kill the top player on the other team, however, you immediately move to the next gun rather than having to kill another person. Here is a video of me playing Casual (somewhat like Search and Destroy) with my friends Nathan and Noah, and here is another video of my friend Thomas playing Arms Race with me (not from my perspective). Some people can’t seem to get used to fps games on the PC, but I prefer it, personally. I’ve been playing PC my whole life so I have a good feel for what keys are what and how to aim properly with my mouse. For someone who isn’t used to a keyboard and mouse for games, it might take you a while to get used to. Console controllers are a lot more comfortable, yes, but they don’t feel as accurate to me (as in I feel like I only have to slightly push the stick to aim my cross hairs at a player, when I actually haven’t moved it enough). I suppose it takes getting used to sensitivity, and this could be the same for a mouse, but you have easier range of motion, I think. If that is even the right word for it. Let me know what your favorite fps is!

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Another song of the week! This is one of my favorite songs of all time. It was my song for the summer. Feels rather beachy to me and makes me want to sway.

So this past week, I watched a couple videos on a new game that people said was terrifying. Horror is my favorite genre of game and movie, so of course I had to check it out. Thankfully, a day later, my roommate bought a ps4 and this game with it, because she was interested in it as well. I ended up watching her play it the whole way through.

Until Dawn is an interactive drama survival horror adventure game exclusively for PS4. Yes, most of it is cut scenes, but I was so immersed in the story that I didn’t care. You play as one of many teenagers (I am assuming they are young) who are spending time together in an old ski lodge for vacation. They play a prank on one of the girls, who then runs into the woods alone (big surprise). Her twin sister comes after her, and then you witness them both die. The group of friends, who don’t know what actually happened to them, come back a year later by request of the twins’ brother. He wants everyone to be together again, you know, for his sisters. However, things take a crazy turn as they suspect someone, or someTHING, watching them. Weird things start happening, and the decisions you make either let you make your escape or get killed. Along the way, you have to find clues as to what ACTUALLY happened to the twins and who the crazy guy following you is, as well as what actually happened in the mines there. Usually when you play a game, you skip through all that crap, but I read everything cause I really wanted to know what happened. In the end, you can either kill everyone in the group, let everyone live, or anything in between. The decisions you make also effect your relationship with the other players, so if they have the option to save you, they may not if they don’t like you. How many people can you keep alive until dawn?

The graphics and mechanics of this game are absolutely phenomenal. Josh, the twins’ brother, is Rami Malek (from Mr. Robot). Sam, my favorite of the bunch, is played by Hayden Panettiere. Real people in a video game? Can you believe it? Those are just two of the ten or so who are in this game. The developers actually made some of the characters really funny so you’d like them, and others extremely annoying so that you WANT to kill them off. Smart, right? Here is a video of my favorite youtuber playing Until Dawn.

If anyone gets this game, let me know how it goes for you!

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I added a song to this post because I have decided to share a ‘song of the week’ in my blog posts. Take a listen while you read!

After thinking about what we went through in class with characteristics of writing and what our blogs can be about, I decided to review games I play and discuss new ones I discover. Video games are a huge part of my life and I have played just about every console, but I mainly play PC now. PC was a huge part of my life when I was little, alongside Nintendo 64. I do have to say that my favorite console, however, was GameCube.

Have you ever heard of ARK: Survival Evolved? It’s all right if you haven’t, because not many people have. It is still in Alpha, meaning it is released for people to test out, but it is not finished. Now, whenever I mention how ARK is a “survival” game, people automatically say, “Oh yeah! Like ‘The Last of Us,” the survival horror game, right?” No, not exactly... This isn’t a game where you have an objective and try not to die while getting there while following a story. A TRUE survival game is where you have to pay close attention to your health, thirst, and hunger meters while going against the elements.

ARK places you on an island infested with DINOSAURS! There are herbivores, which will not attack you on sight, and the big bad carnivores, which will eat you if you get too close. You can tame them, too! Each dinosaur is unique. Some herbivores are better at getting berries while others can harvest wood. Some carnivores are slow yet powerful, and some carnivores are extremely quick on their feet, but can’t take a hit well. I believe the scariest part of the game is the other people. If you are a very low level, most people will kill you on sight. There are some that will help you sometimes, though. Pretty much as soon as you join a server, you need to level up and build a shelter as fast as possible. Here is a video of me playing the game so you can get a better idea of what I’m talking about even though I’m playing solo.

This is my favorite game of all time, as of now. Let me know if you play it!