Tuesday 10 January 2012

Okay, I'm getting nervous about Orcs Must Die! now.

Well, that's episode 15 posted of my Orcs Must Die! play-through, and honestly that was a close shave. At this  point I literally do not know what is being thrown at me and I'm trying really hard to complete each level the first time I try it. I can't even imagine what is coming up next. Missiles? Warlocks? Dentists? Christ, who knows. I don't think my nerves can take much more.

It was fine when I was doing the first 10 levels or so and I had some idea of what I was doing, even though I probably still made a shitton of mistakes and had a couple of close scrapes, but that's nothing compared to the sheer panic I am feeling now about recording episode 16. What if I don't even get a new trap? I'm comfortable with the old traps by now, but what if there's man-eating fish in the next level and no water traps? What the fuck am I supposed to do with fish!?

I don't want you guys to start panicking. That's the last thing I want. I shouldn't have even mentioned anything. But if I have one more sleepless night it'll be the end of me. Seriously I have about 3 stomach ulcers at this point, the stress is crippling me. Maybe if I do die in episode 16, I can blame it on my shot nerves. That's no excuse though, I'm meant to be a pro gamer. You don't realise how much of a jam I'm in here.

Stress aside, I think The Tower was my favourite map so far. I sort of stumbled upon the whole ice amulet/chain crossbow headshot combo and will definitely bear that one in mind for future ogre encounters. I loved being able to use that mounted crossbow as well, and the spiked logs were just awesome (when I managed to use one somewhat effectively). I actually did complete it on my first attempt, which was a relief because I was pressed for time while recording it in the first place. Posting a video every day is hard work I tell you (first world problems eat your heart out).

That's enough for now. I've got a really good game (in my opinion) lined up for an evening with Sips which I'll hopefully post tomorrow, along with the follow-up for Kerbal Space Program and the dreaded episode 16 of Orcs Must Die! before the weekend hopefully!

Monday 9 January 2012

League of Legends with Sips - Some Thoughts

We've so far made two League of Legends videos, me a Sjin. We've had a lot of fun doing them and as I've said before, we're big fans of the game. Recently I've struggled to find time to actually play with everything that's going on in my personal life, and Sjin has been trying out some of the new champions and trying to think of ideas to make the videos a bit more engaging and interesting.

One thing we noticed with our Viktor The Machine Herald overview was that a lot of you enjoyed the lore piece, something that's often overlooked in League of Legends. I always knew the lore existed, but it's not really compelling enough for me to bother reading it. With Viktor's lore, I got to put my own spin on it and quite enjoyed finding out more about him.

With that in mind, we're probably going to start doing some fun little lore spotlights, possibly with some gameplay thrown in. I know a lot of you are asking for "tons of gameplay". but at the moment it's not really possible and was never something we wanted to feature too heavily. Average games of League of Legends last at least 30 minutes or so, with some of the longer games stretching out to an hour. It's fun to play, but depending how the game goes not always fun to watch. Plus I suck major ass at it and can't imagine that anyone would want to see me playing it safe and not going on massive kill streaks like a true boss. With the lore spotlight, it gives me a chance to talk about the champion a bit more, talk about why he/she is in the League in the first place, and maybe showcase some of their unique attributes to tickle your fancy.

Another thing that people have been mentioning that we might take a look at is doing some fun tutorial videos.These would be for people who are new to the game or to the genre, as most people seem to think there's a steep learning curve involved. I wouldn't say that was the case so much for League of Legends, but I would definitely agree in the case of HoN and DOTA2 (at a push). The tutorial vids would just go over the basics of how to play together as a team, how not to feed the other team, and the importance of having general game awareness.

So that's what we've got planned for the League of Legends series. We're committed to making more videos, but also want to produce stuff that you all want to watch. As usual, I'm open to comments and suggestions, and this blog is a perfect way to gather all of that. I could never tweet or post something this lengthy on facebook for instance. So let me know what you think!

Here's a like to my League of Legends playlist if you haven't seen any of the vids yet.

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