Medieval II: Total War

When Steam had their Black Friday sales a while back, every game seemed to have some ridiculous discounts that I'd never be able to find anywhere else. One of the best deals I saw was the Total War Megapack, normally  sold for $50, something which I'd always consider way too expensive to buy even if it did come with 4 games, for only $12.50. Even though my computer can't run the newer ones, my friend said I might as well take advantage of the deal since it 75% off. So I got the pack which came with: Rome: Total War, Medieval II: Total War, Empire: Total War and Napoleon: Total War, along with all their expansions. I decided to start with Medieval II, mostly because I misremembered it as being the oldest of the four, forgetting Rome came out a few years before.

So I started it up and unsurprisingly enough, the game ran at about 8 whole frames a second even with all the graphics set to the lowest possible and nothing else running on the computer. For comparison, go to this Link to see the difference between 15, 30 and 60 fps. Despite the slowness of the game, once I got out of the tutorial I really started to enjoy the combat and almost forgot it was atrocious to watch. the battles of the tactical map were extremely fun to command, as you line up your hundreds of troops and then watch them fight the enemy. I managed to win my first seige, although i suffered extremely high casualties. I had a grand total of 4 archers left. Not 4 units of archers, literally four men. When a unit comes with 75 men a piece, you can see how much I sucked. I decided the only way to get better was to keep playing the game. I started a short campaign playing as England. I got hooked and spent the next few days mostly playing the game.

The campaign map is turned based as opposed to real time, and includes up to sixteen different factions. To win the campaign as the English, you need to control 15 regions and eliminate the French and the Scottish. I got to work and learned how to play the game and how to command my men, what units worked best against which, the importance of morale, and most importantly, how badass Cavalry units are. If you use them properly, they're the strongest units in the game. they can beat almost anything if you used them properly. foot soldiers are losing a melee and are outnumbered? Cavalry charge. Archers are chipping away at your troops? Cavalry Charge. the enemy cavalry is charging you? Cavalry Charge. As long as you hit them from the side or behind, your horses will slaughter the enemy and force them to rout. Later on, once the French started to use heavy infantry (basically armoured knights), you can see how easily those can fight everything to a standstill .and how one unit of those can hold off 3 or 4 times their number in light infantry. they're also much harder to charge with your own cavalry.

As I played, I discovered one of my favourite features about the game; the Royal Family. Each faction has a Royal family where the males act as governors of Towns and Castles during the campaign, and Generals on the battlefield. You need to use them as governors in order to recruit new soldiers for your army and build new buildings in towns, otherwise the towns only provide income. You also need them on the battlefield since they can affect the course of battle, and also act as an extra unit of Heavy Cavalry. They each display 4 ratings which impact how important they are, which are ranked on a scale of 1-10. the first is Command, which increases morale on the battlefield. Chivalry/Dread increases your own units morale, or lowers the enemies, respectively. Chivalry is better for governors, while Dread is better for war. Loyalty is the chance they have of rebelling, being bribed, and also affects the amount of unrest in lands they govern. Kings have authority, and if they have a high enough score it'll keep low loyalty family members from rebelling. Piety is how religious they are, and whether the inquisition will get them.

Maybe its just me, but as I got family members, they seemed to develop a personality depending on how I used them and seemed to tell a story. they got traits which affected their stats and made sense.  For example, I had one character who had three children. he got traits such as alcoholic and angry. As his children grew up, they all get traits which said they abhorred drinking. I thought this was a clever touch on the games part. Since this was my first campaign, I grew quite attached to some members of the family, and hated some others. each character seemed to tell his own story if I thought about it, and just made the game more fun and exciting to play.

Legend Of Zelda

NOTE: If you don't know anything about the Legend of Zelda Games, you probably won't be able to understand this.

I was talking with someone the other day and they brought up that they had figured out the the chronological order of the games in the Legend of Zelda series. I've played a few of the games and beaten them before, but I never knew there was supposed to be an order to the games. I thought it was just random stories only connected by the fact that they all had a guy who wore green named Link who fought evil people. After some quick googling, it turns out there's a lot of people who have spent a lot of time trying to figure it out, and they all have their own individual theories. and they all contradict each other. After reading about a few of them, I tried to make one that made sense to me, based on which games have to go together and ending in the way I like best.

My order:

Skyward Sword -> The Minish Cap -> Four Swords -> Ocarina of Time -> 


(Split timeline with Adult and Child versions. Adult line has Wind waker, Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks. Child line has Majora's Mask and Twilight Princess. Four Swords Adventure takes place sometime in either timeline but before Wind Waker and Twilight Princess)

-> Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons games happen at about the same time in both Timelines after  Ocarina of Time. -> A Link To The Past -> Link's Awakening -> Legend of Zelda -> Adventure of Link

One of the first games would have to be The Skyward Sword. It seems to be the origin of the master sword and is supposed to take place before Ocarina of Time according to the developers.

The Minish Cap has a different Link then Skyward Sword. it shows the origin of his outfit, and since it has Vaati, it can take place before Ocarina of Time. the Original Four Swords can take place after, with a different Link.

The Ocarina of Time occurs, because it shows how Ganondorf became evil and whatever his relationship with Ganon is(Are they the same person? Is Ganon a demon that possesses him? I have no idea). Then the lines split based off the two endings of OOT. Blah Blah Blah...

 Exty years after the end of Ocarina of time, The Oracle games occur. In one timeline Oracle of Seasons happens before Oracle of Ages, while in the other timeline the occurs first. the great part is, Twinrova is around in both timelines, and Ganon/dorf is dead in both. So the plot makes sense in both Timelines. It also explains how the master sword was recovered/teleported/made a new one. the sword isn't really lost in Twilight Princess I think, but is in Wind Waker. While the two lines are still in seperate universes, the events afterwards are basically identical.

Next comes Link to the Past. The imprisoning war mentioned in the backstory is referring to Ocarina of Time and how Ganon was originally trapped. For this theory to make sense, Ganon and Ganondorf are separate beings, and while ganondorf died in twilight princess/wind waker, Ganon was still trapped in whatever realm it was. Awakening is said to be the direct sequel to ALTTP, so it goes next chronologically.

Finally, its the original game and its sequel. ALTTP is stated to be a prequel to Legend of Zelda, so it goes before. Adventure of Link is the direct sequel to the original game. the problem with it being here is that the original Zelda from the opening cutscene is in Old Hyrule, which was clearly destroyed in Wind Waker. However, if you look at the game map, you can see that this Zelda is in Eastern Hyrule, which is an island. So, either she was on top of a very tall mountain whose base is now the bottom part of the island, or the island is like an Iceberg and simply rose when Old Hyrule flooded, then drifted away to its current location by New Hyrule.I like the second option better, because it feels more Zelda-ey to me.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 3

The day Modern Warfare 3 came out, my brother went to the midnight release. For the next 3 days, he played it as often as possible. This is easily the most fun-filled (funnest isn't a word?) games in the Call of Duty franchise. It gets rid of most of the stupid frustrating things from the last Modern Warfare and Black Ops. The Kill Streaks are better balanced, and aren't entirely game-breaking this time (chopper gunner and the nuke). Well, there's still osprey gunner, but its not used as much. It actually shows you how many kills you are into you're current streak, so you don't have to keep track yourself. Its very convenient, and its about time they added it to the series.

 I also like the fact that there's support kill streaks now, so it continues to add kills to the streak even after you've died. Some of them are useful, but some like ballistic vest are entirely useless. You last one extra second against gunfire, and then you're dead. My favourite is Juggernaut, which basically makes you invincible and gives you a riot shield. Its so much fun to just around absorbing gunfire as the other team panics and tries to figure out how to kill you, as your own team guns them down.

However, most of the time I just you use the regular "strike" package. Since I suck horribly at this game, and can't stay alive for more than a minute, I use the smallest possible streaks. I also use Hardline, since it means I need one less kill per streak. I use UAV, Care Package and Predator Missile, which are 2, 3 and 4 kills respectively. If I have a good game, it means I'm constantly getting UAVs which really makes the game easier. I also like that it cycles through after 4 kills, so if I get another 2 kills I get another UAV. I don't have to die to get more rewards!

My favourite class is one that uses any SMG, although I really like the PP90M1since it has the fastest firing rate ever. Squeeze the trigger and whatever is in front of you dies in a hail of bullets. I use it with:

a Stinger ( Helicopters are annoying)
Sleight of Hand Pro (reloading just takes fooooorever without it)
Hardline Pro ( because I suck)
Steady Aim ( Spray N' Pray is the best. I also don't have the reflexes to do anything but pull the trigger)

This class was specifically designed for my play style of not actually being good at this game. Reloading after every kill is a habit I've picked up from other games, and without sleight of hand its ridiculously slow and tedious. Also due to Halo, instead of looking down my sights, I just fire in their general direction. The kills are still so satisfying.

The Campaign is nothing to write home about. After playing it once, I haven't had the urge to go back to it, which should speak for itself. Its so average. I also don't get shiny numbers popping up every time I do anything, which just isn't as satisfying. If I'm not constantly getting rewarded for something simple, I get so bored of it in this game. I do like the survival mode though. Reminds me of Horde on Gears of War and Firefight in Halo.

Immanuel Kant

Instead of playing video games or something productive, I did a school project on Immanuel Kant, a 18th century philosopher who lived in Prussia, or modern day Germany. Here's my rough draft.

Categorical Imperative

The idea that something is only moral if you would be fine with it being a universal.

Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law. - Immanuel Kant

i.e.  You don’t have any money and approach a friend for help. He agrees to give you a loan if you repay it in a week. You know you can’t repay it in a week, but consider lying in order to get the loan.

Kant says that you should imagine a world where everyone lies in order to receive loans. Everyone in this world would not trust each other enough to loan money. So, lying to receive money is morally bad.

Another part is that consequences do not matter in determining morality, only intentions.

Two drunk drivers go home one night. One hits and kills a person, while the other doesn’t. Both are still wrong to do so, even though one didn’t hit and kill anyone.

If you donate food to a charity in order to help orphans, it doesn’t matter if they all later die of poisoning because the food was bad. Your intentions were good, so you are morally correct.

This is the most important idea because it changed the way philosophers thought about morality. Before, everyone was much more utilitarian, saying murder is wrong because it doesn’t help the greater good. Kant argued it was flawed, since it didn’t address people who did things to maximise their own personal gain.  

Opinion

I’m in agreement with Kant about morality. If everyone followed Kantian ethics, then the world would be a better place.  Kant doesn’t believe that you act in order to create happiness. You act out of a universal duty.  It is wrong to exploit the few for the benefit of the many. I also liked that his morality is based off a logical system, which by definition doesn’t allow for any conditions. Its either Universal or its not.               

Museum of Nature

I went to the museum today. It was pretty fun. I found I really don't find birds interesting at all compared to literally anything else.  Moose are much bigger then I imagined, and apparently that was only medium sized moose. The same is true about Bison. they are much bigger in real life then they seem to be in pictures. There's also a visible difference between muscox and Bison. Blue Whales are also extremely huge. I'm pretty sure you could live comfortably inside one if you hollowed it out.

 Also, rocks are extremely cool to look at, I can see why people in ancient times were willing to trade all their food for some shiny rocks. It would be so worth it. My favourite was the amethyst. mostly because they're smooth and purple. they're the best to look at.

Deus Ex

I beat Deus Ex: Human Revolution, today. Its really an amazing game. I missed one of the endings though, so I didn't get that achievement. I'll just get it on my second play-through, which will either be the pacifist run, stealth run, or the Hardest difficulty run. So many different options on how to play this game. Good thing I now know how to actually beat everything properly.

Walking Dead

I just watched  the fourth episode of The Walking Dead. It's a pretty good show so far, But sometimes it can get confusing if you're not paying close attention.  The first 25 minutes of the first episode is the most boring half hour of television I've ever seen, but it gets pretty good once stuff actually starts happening. I'll watch episode 5 later.