Teraforming

Well we landed on a space station above a planet that the sith chard in the first game, and like the previous game had to run back and forth between 4 areas 20 times on missions to help the good side win against the bad side.

On thing that I found is that the blind character is most likely a sith, since she has the view that conflict makes you stronger and helping people most often just brings trouble. She is the the most reasonable sith I have ever seen, since she's not all "I WILL CONQUER THE GALAXY!", she's kind of like the opposite of the practical Jedi that joins m team in the first one. But considering her views I doubt I would be having too man positive conversations with her, but who knows, there is suppose to be a game element that as i get dark or light powers my part changes as well, so maybe she turns around too.

So after the long quest back and forth I finally get onto the first planet in the game (6 hours in) and right after crashing meet up with a very cool laid back Zabrak who i right away ditch the blind sith for. also i find out that the story takes place only a few years after the first one, and while my character in the first one has buggered off to parts unknown, at least one member of the part has made an appearance.

so now i'm on the planet and have to find my lost ship (not the one that crashed) to run away before more sith come. I hope we find the plot while we are at it...

So not it's off to find m original sho

Sith happens...

Well after more robots try to kill me it's revealed that the HK unit is actually HK-50, not HK47 from the first game, just as psychotic but with less use of the phrase "meat bags". After tricking it to get the code to access the next part of the station another ship shows up filled with a busted up looking gray sith lord and a bunch of cloaked sith soldiers.

I finally make my way back to the ship and blow up the HK-50 unit, then I have to kill off all the cloaked sith that are in my way, at least I have the blind jedi (who ma also be a sith) and the smuggler fighting in my party. Along the way though the blind jedi remains behind to face the sith lord to buy me some time to get to the ship, and winds up getting her hand cut off.

So after a final shoot out we all manage to take off in the ship (the blind jedi reappearing out of nowhere) and are heading off to I think a planet in the first game.

Tomorrow it's time to get to know my new crew more.

"This HK unit is a bad motivator"

Started KotOR II today, and so far it's interesting and not much off from the first one.

The story so far, what little has been reveled, is that it takes place several years after the events of the first game and despite winning against the sith the Jedi were too weakened and demoralized to recover. so after either being killed, joining the dark side, or just quitting, all the Jedi are gone except for the main character (who was one of the ones who quit).

So the game opens on the ship from the last game and it has been seriously damaged in a recent attack (with I don't know who) and the only one left to save the ship is a banged up droid. The tutorial was basically me controlling the droid to get refreshed on the play mechanics of the game and ends with docking in an asteroid mining space station while a droid that looks like HK47 blasts through the cargo doors. The jedi wakes up to find that pretty much everyone is dead except for a smuggler type, a blind jedi type, and the droid from the tutorial.

It seems that the HK47 looking droid convinced the mining crew that he was just a protocol droid and they sent him to work with the other droids, and he soon went about reprogramming the droids to kill everyone with "accidents" for some unknown reason. So at this point the tutorial droid has been taken off line by some one and my jedi has to find out what's going on and get off the mining ship.

Well that's fifteen down...

I'm done with PGR 4, at least for quite a while.

One of the last things I did was go for there 88mph achievement, where you have to diver 88 mph just as lightning strikes in a DeLorean!

I did it while airborne just for that extra touch...

Next to blow off some steam (and get a few more achievements) I tossed around my driver avatar for a bit.

Who knew Ms. Incredible was a stunt driver?

Then I eventually was just done with the whole thing and tossed the bike away with the force powers I'll be using tomorrow in KotOR II: The Sith Lords!

Winning through failure.

I'm really not getting into this game all that much. It seems no matter the car I pick for a race it's the wrong one. If I pick a fast car I need one that drifts well, if I pick one the corners well I need one that accelerates fast. Only kind of race I don't fail at ever time is where I have to pass a number of cars or knock down a number of cones, all other race styles i come in last place.

But it doesn't really matter since the rank you get for coming in last is not that different from coming in first. If I win ever event in first place it will take me about 20 events to reach #1, if I lose ever event then it will take me 40 to reach number #1, either way I haven't found how to really lose. Only thing that you gain really by winning is style points to unlock things, and since only thing I wanted to unlock was the 3D photo filter there isn't much incentive now that I have it.

So since this game is not really an fun for me at all I think I'll give it one more day before calling the 3D filter my goal and the game is done (since it doesn't really end). Since I now have a 3D pic of a Delorean, what more could I want from the game?

Fail and fail again...

Spent a lot of time trying to win a race that I eventually figured was unwinnable with m current car. I after almost getting use to the amateur races the pro races are so much harder that none of the cars I have can win anything, the onl time I even came close to winning I was disqualified becaseu I was going backwards at the end of the race (I think, no reason was given).

I also found that at this level only way I can win is to take out as many cars as I can near the start of the race so I have a slight advantage. I tried to get the 3d glasses unlockable, but with all the losing it would have take hours more, So I took a picture of the interactive Geometry Wars game in the garage.

Tomorrow it's more losing and a little winning...

Screw Attack Acquired!

Played some PGR4 today, and at first i was coming in last about 26 out of 27 races, but after a while I started to get the feeling of it and would restart a race when I start to do badly. In one race there was an electric sports car that handled really well and if I won the race I could use it in future races, and after a steep learning curve and many restarts I ha a near perfect race, only to tie wit a 0.0.00 dime difference than the competition.

After probably much longer than it should have taken I managed to get up from amateur to professional, and I believe I got that screw attack looking award shown above for it (it just showed up in the garage, not sure how). One interesting feature is that I can take screen shots at any point in a race (or garage)and upload it on line, so this is one of the rarre times I can actual have screenshots on a 360 game.

So tomorrow it's more going around in circles...

Well that's fourteen down...

Finished Dragon Age: Origins today, after a few more attempts to kill the last dragon on normal mode I bit the bullet and just set it on casual, and m goodness was it stupidly easy! In the normal mode the dragon almost never stops attacking, the arbalists break after about 12 shots, and the hoards can kill any one if the get them down, but on casual the arbalests never break and the dragon pretty much just sits there as you repeatedly shoot it over and over until dead while the swqrms just stand around and get killed b NPCs.

The end segment is nice, and shows how after sacrificing myself the new king honrs bot the elf and mage aspects of the character by building a new mage tower free of governmental restrictions, and gave the forest elves a permanent area of land to live in. Also there's epilogues of all the other characters, including somehow the golem found a way to turn back into a dwarf.

The end credits seem to last 10 times longer than the epilogue, listing what must be thousands of people. At the end of it all I was expecting an achievement or somethign for watching it all, or at least some kind of stinger or new game plus, but it just cuts to the main menu.

Since I beat the game so quickly earlier today, and I didn't want to start yet on the next game, I went and played through the 5 other character class prologues. some of them like the forest elf were simple and quick, while other like the royal dwarf were more interesting, it seems though that I some how lucked out when I chose the mage class the first play through i did since it's the longest and most interesting prologue.

So tomorrow it's on to Project Gotham Racing 4, not normally my cup of tea but it was free and ranked highly so it might be fun.

Dragoned!!

Ok, so spent most of the day off and on trying to kill this blasted evil dragon, and with not much luck.

The fight with the dragon basically has 3 parts, first it attacks from one of 4 possible places with various fireballs and wind attacks, not too bad but it can kill my party pretty quick if the are not careful. Then about at half health the dragon flies to a ledge that can only be attacked by projectiles and a nearby arbelist, while an endless swarm of powerful monsters attack. if my mage, archer, or golem dies at this part the fight is near impossible. Then if any one is alive b the 3rd part the dragon goes to a large open are while the hoards keep coming and there is no safe place to stand.

The closest I have come is having the dragon have a sliver of health left and I had just my archer left, then just as i though "hey, i might win" the dragon some how killed m archer who was at full health with one blast.

Maybe tomorrow i'll lower the difficulty or something, loosing this many times is no longer fun.

Sorry, but our dark spawn is in another castle...

Since there wasn't really an other quests to do, I went back to the earl's place to organize the big final battle, and found a small hard of monsters had taken of over the town. After clearing them out I get into the castle only to find out that the real army of monsters is back in the town I just came from (I must have some how mised them on the road there).

To make things worse, it turns out that either me or the knight (soon to be king) has to die in order to get rid of the big evil dragon. then the morally questionable mage suggests that both of us could live if i convince the knight to betray the queen and sleep with the mage in order to produce a child that would be both a demi-god child and possible heir to the throne that the mage would raise alone. Hmm, I think not.

So the mage quits the party (no loss, haven't used her since i got the golem) and I go off to fight the dragon. On the way there though is a whole city over run with monsters, but at least I have my "armies" (waves of 4 or 5 guys) to help. So after killing a few hundred monsters, I climb to the top of the castle and face the main evil dragon.

which i'll hold off to tomorrow.

Gay Ocean Jew

(title from the phonetic sound of lyrics over heard in a store in china town)

Before getting down to the big meeting about taking on the evil dragon, I went around town to see what good deeds I could do. I managed to free some elf slaves, clear out a demon filled orphanage, and convince many important people that the putz trying to rule the kingdom is evil.

Then at the meeting I easily proved the putz was no good and he should be kicked out, which ended with me dueling him, that's when it got tricky.

He looses the duel and being the good nature sort I am I spare his life, it is then put forth the idea to make him a knight against the evil (a process that may kill him). Thinking this seems like a good compromise I agree, but the knight in my party flips out saying that no way should the putz be given that honor and says that he is leaving the party.

That was no good, so I restored the save game and instead say that the knight can kill the putz since he hates him so much. But then the queen (who is the daughter of the putz) wants nothing to do with the plan of marring the knight since he just killed her father.

So I restart again, kill the putz myself, and finally the queen agrees to marry the knight and everyone is finally united to fight the evil dragon!

So I guess this weekend I'll be finishing the game, unless there is a huge twist again.

Dungeons and dragons...

Finished another odd side quest, killing a demon that was scarring a drunk dwarf or something, and then I figured I did so well against the witch dragon that I might try that full size dragon I saw earlier.

using the same area attack spells as before it was going rather well, but as the dragon got low on health it started killing my part quickly. Eventual it was just m golem running away as fast as she could as I kept giving her low health potions (the only kind I had left), she must have some how got far enough to reset the fight since my other part members came back to life. So after a quick party heal we went back at it and manage to kill the dragon! Oddly enough my bard, the weakest member of the party, got the killing blow.

After that I went to the earl to organize the meeting about handling the main evil dragon and all it's monsters, but before the meeting I got word that the queen was kidnapped. So my party went out to rescue her, and while trying to exit the castle after rescuing her we were caught and quickly killed off.

I was expecting to have to reload and try again but instead there was a cut scene showing that the queen and the rest of my party managed to escape some how and only my character was captured and put in the dungeon. Not wanting to wait for some one to rescue me I managed to fool a guard, steal a guard uniform, blend in with some new recruits, and juts walked out the front door (I wonder what happened to those other recruits).

Tomorrow I'll need to find out how to swing the political situation in favor of my side and not the putz trying for the throne.

Now THAT'S how you train a dragon!

Didn't play much today, but I did finish side quests for two of my party members.

First I went to the remains of the dwarven town my golem came from, it was a small area and only lightly populated with monsters. The only "boss" in it was an above average ogre, but I killed those as mid bosses before. At least I got some new armor/weapons for shale and a huge boost in her perception of me.

While doing the mage tower quest I came a cross a dark mage book gift item, and since I hoard all gift items I kept it around. Before I left for the golem quest I gave it to my dark mage, this triggered a cut scene where she was very interested in it since it belonged to her mother. As soon as I returned from the golem quest she tells me that the book explains how her "mother" would raise a girl up to be a powerful mage, and when her own body got too old she would take over the girl's body.

So now I have a quest to go kill the mother of a party member (I had just killed the dwarf's wife) who also happend to be one of the most powerful witch in history! When I got to the witche's home I had the standard 3 choices, kill her, side with her, or just leave, and of course I chose to kill her, she then turned into a full grown dragon...

Now I had fought a dragon that size before and it killed me every time, but I had gained several levels since then and I had the advantage of terrain. since there was only one spot large enough for the dragon it could not fly around and flank me like the other one, so I just help back and cast my ice, fire, and electric area damage spells from a safe distance. My party members kept her distracted while my spells chipped away at her and in not much time she was dead and only one party member died (the dwarf was used as a chew toy). After that I got a new outfit for the dark made (that looks identical to her first one) and a bunch more positive points from her.

Tomorrow I'm not sure what's next

4 sodding boss fights!!

Finally finished with the dwarf quest, and boy was it an ordeal.

After killing many waves of the evil minions I found one of the only surviving member of the hero's party, and she was quite insane, but she lead me to another member, who was a giant bloated monster.

After that unsettling boss fight I found out that the hero actual allowed the party member to become that thing so she could produce more monster to trigger traps. I then found the hero, who was of her rocker, who forced me down a long path fill ed with monsters, golems, and another boss fight. This was a giant 4 faced head the spewed out vile blood and spawned ghosts, but after a very tiring battle I killed it.

Finally I get to the room of the golem machine that the hero was after, and surprisingly the sentential there remembers my golem! turns out that before being a golem she was a brave female dwarf warrior who volunteered to be a golem. Then I had the choice to either destroy the machine since it ran on living souls, or to use it to make a new slave army. Of course I chose to destroy it, but I selected an answer that i thought was neutral but it suddenly shifted m decision to keep the machine, then the game auto saved!

So in order to undo that mistake I had to restore from m last save game, which was juts before meeting the survivor... After going through the previous 2 boss fights AGAIN (but much quicker now) I made sure I picked the right answer and had yet another boss fight against the mad hero.

After I killed her (well my golem did ironically enough), the sentential made a crown for the new king and then did a back flip into the lava after I destroyed the golem machine. So I bring the crown back to the cit and crown the honest candidate, all over right? No, the other guy objects and tries to kill everybody in a 4th boss fight!

After that Idiot was dead I just had to talk to the few remaining side quest people and I finally could leave that sill underground city!

Back at camp my golem mentions how she kinda remembers now some of her old life and wishes to look into it, so I guess that's where I'm going tomorrow.

Every WRPG also has one of theses too...

Found the arena in the game, didn't think it would have one, but i guess the didn't want to break with traditions. Ever WRPG I played except Mass Effect had an arena, and even that would have one if I bought the DLC!

Spent most of the time today going through the dwarf quests, and boy is there a lot of them. Yesterday I predicted that the dwarfs would have some kind of crisis that I would need to solve before getting their help, and I was right. It turns out that the king has recently died and his best friend and his son are fighting for the throne, and nothing can get done until that is sorted out.

First step was picking a side, and it soon became clear that the son was a corrupt politician that cheats his way to the top, and the friend is a open minded man who wants to improve life for the lesser dwarfs. Since I always play the good side I chose the friend, but then I had to gain his trust.

So next step was getting into the area and not only finding out why the friend's 2 champions had backed out but winning the area fights too. The 2 champions were being blackmailed and lied to, but thanks to my bard and high speech ability that was sorted out easily. As for the fight, they were super easy, I only got hit once in the 4 rounds. Dwarfs really should go against mages...

After that I got to meet the friend and he says that only by cleaning up the slums can he be elected, and I have to do it. So then I go on a long quest to clear out the huge dwarven crime syndicate by killing everything that moves. The trickiest part was a locked box that could only be opened by taking the least valuable item out of 3 boxes, and then it turned out that i would get the items an was after killing the boss.

Then the friend tells me that the sun has called an emergency election and only by finding the lost hero can the friend hope to gain enough favor. The lost hero is said to be in the super deep catacombs filled with demons and nasties, of course. On the plus side (or maybe minus) the husband of the hero joins the part, an loud annoying drunk dwarf. After trekking down miles of corridors and killing everything from giant spiders, to golems, to ghosts we find the hero's old camp and learn that she has long since moved on. So now we have to go even deeper under ground to find where she went, and it just so happened it's where the giant evil dragon that's causing all the problems hangs out. Nice...

So when I stopped for the night I was I think half way into the heart of enemy territory and killing evil dark spawn by the waves. Tomorrow I hop to find the hero (or what's left of her) and be done this dwarf quest.

Passage to ashes, butts to dust...

Completed 2 of the main quest lines today, got a new team member, and figured a few more tings about the game.

First, the creepy feeling I was getting from that small town turned out to be right, and the whole place was filled with dragon worshiping cultists. So as I made my way through the catacombs and caves of a frozen mountain I had to face off against heavily armed cultists, baby dragons the size of large dogs, and wyverns the size of horses. After facing off against the head of the cult (and killing him) I came to a clearing where the dragon they worshiped could be seem on a high ledge, and off to the side there was a small gong. I figure I would hit the gong and see what happens, The dragon then came down and quickly killed my party.

Turns out full grown dragons are pretty tough. After several attempts with ever part member I could try, I decided that I was not ready from full dragon slaying yet and just let the thing be.

After that I had to pass through 4 tests in order to get the magical ashes to cure the father of that possessed kid. The first was a set of simple riddles, then I had to face the 1 person I had wrong so far in the game (and he even forgave me), next fight ghost copies of my party, a finally walk through fire in my skivvies (weird). At last I got the ashes and was able to heal the earl (think that was his rank), and he promised me to lend his forces to stopping the main evil dragon and would also work towards getting rid of the putz.

After that I went to the mage's tower and discovered they were having quite the demon problem. So of course I volunteered to help them out, and early on I gained another mage in my party. Near the top of the tower my character was trapped in a weird dream world that was mainly focused on colecting and using difrent forms to acces difrent areas (quite metroidvania). The most intresting part was having access to all the magic spells for each form, which I rather missed once it was over. Then I want on to the big boss fight and saved the mages, in return the promised to help aginst the evil dragon too.

While playing I finally figured out how to give gifts to my party members, up until now I had been hording them thinking it was some conversation triggered thing (like giving things to NPCs). Also I found out that the party members that are not in my team still gain experience and go up levels (slower than my main part though), which means even if i neglect them the won't be useless. Then during the boss fight in the mage tower I was suppose to use a magic book I got earlier, but it wasn't until m second attempt that I found where in the radial menu the book even was. The game is great, but it's really lacking in explanation as to haw to do things.

Tomorrow I'll be going off to see the dwarfs and find out what huge quest I have to go on before I get their help against the evil dragon...

Every WRPG seems to have one...

A quiet little town out in the middle of nowhere, filled with quaint but standoffish locals, and turns out to be the home of crazy killers. That's the kind of feeling I get from the latest town in this game.

I turned in the side quests that I completed and on my way back to camp I was ambushed by some assassins trying to kill my bard. After trouncing them it turns out that the bard's old associate wants her dead in case she tells an one about he secrets. So we stop by the nearest big town to have a word with this ex-associate (and since it's the next stop in part of the main quest) and actually come to a peaceful agreement that she will bugger off.

While in the town I did some small side quests, took down the local blood mage operation, and found out a lead to the next plot line may be. The destination turns out to be said creep village I mentioned at the start. So far all that I have seen of the village is 1 creepy kid who has a luck finger bone that he found out back of the village..

So tomorrow it's more time in the creep village.

Why do my quests tend to end in sacrifice?

Finished off the elves' werewolf problem, and it turns out that the head elf was responsible for the whole thing. It's the old story of thugs kills elf's family, elf summons a powerful wolf spirit, wolf spirit curses thug's people into werewolves, wolf spirit cares for werewolves, werewolves curse elf's people, elf kills himself to end vicious cycle. Old story, seen a thousand times.

On the plus side the elves are now willing to help in the war against the evil dragon, and even better, I was treated to my bard singing (something that RPG bards rarely do ironically enough)!

Tomorrow I'll report in my long since completed side quests.

Talk and monster killing

Spent a lot of time working towards solving the elves' werewolf trouble. So far I traded a scarf to a crazy mage for an acorn, then gave the acorn to a talking tree for a magic staff, used the staff to enter the werewolf lair, killed my first dragon of the game (it was a small one, but tough) in the lair, and killed a lot of undead and giant spiders. Now I'm at a room filled with traps and a powerful undead mage who killed my party the first attempt, the second attempt will go better though.

During all this I got a chance to talk with m part members a lot and their option of me is increasing quickly, unlike the first mage and knight who hated ever other decision I made. I also learned more about them too, the rogue use to be a bard (spy) until she gave it up to be a monk, the golem can't remember how her master was killed but dosen't like humans much, and Naveen (who I just today noticed was an elf) has a lot of interesting stories of past assassinations.

Tomorrow I kill an undead mage and hopefully sort out this werewolf business.

Traps and tricks

got a bit done today in Dragon age, got 2 new part members, started several quests, figured out some interesting tricks, and died a lot.

I traveled from my camp to an odd golden icon on the map to see what it was about. tuns out that it was another of those DLC merchants, but this one was for the DLC that game free with the game so I agreed and went off to pick up my stone golem. On the way though my part was stopped by a woman saying her caravan was attacked by raiders, and for some reason I knew right away that it was a trap. Unfortunately I didn't know just how much of a trap and my party was killed instantly

After dying a couple times I decided to cheat a little and cast my area lighting and earthquake spells in the ambush area before the cut scene could be triggered, shocked and falling down assassins were much easier to kill. The main perpetrator of the assassination attempt was a rogue who talked very much like Prince Naveen from The Princess and the Frog, so I had to let him join my party (kicking my knight out).

So now my party had 2 rogues and 2 mages, it's cool but a little in balanced, as I found out when I entered the location of the golem and was killed again. After loading back at the DLC merchant I killed the assasins again, picked up Naveen, and then saved at the town of the golem. This time I did the trick of shock/quake before entering the town and things went much better (m character stilled died but the rest handled well). Then when the golem would not activate I went into Wilhelm (Ahhhhaaa) cellar, and there I found another interesting trick.

Turns out that not only can the area spells be cast through walls and in other rooms, but it also shows the names and health of the targets it's the the area of. So in a dungeon I can use it to scout far ahead and see where monsters are waiting, and then attack them long before they can even get to me. Using this trick I clear out the cellars in no time and then find that the only one who can tell me how to activate the golem won't help me until I find his daughter deeper in the cellar.

So after clearing out more ghosts (who I can't use the look ahead are trick on), I find that the daughter is save and with a talking cat (who is really a demon) and to free her I need to... solve a sliding puzzle! It was actually pretty interesting how the incorporated the game mechanics into allowing a complex puzzle, and rather fun. After the puzzle I killed the cat demon and finally got the password for the golem.

On the way back to the golem I was thinking how I already have another larger strong character in my party that I never use since he has no personality, and I figured how interesting could a rock monster be? Boy was I wrong. The golem turned out to be a cross between Bender from Futurama and HK-47 from KotOR, including the character trait of calling me "it" just for her (as much as rock can be female)own amusement.

After that I accepted man small quests from the town i saved from the demon possessed kid, which mostly involved going around and killing everything that moved, and finally wound up in the forest home of a race of elves who's help I need defeating the big bad guys. I just have to solve their werewolf problem first...

Take what ye can! Give nothin' back!

So I took the option to sacrifice the boy's mother since I remembered how much of a useless bureaucratic bunch the mage circle is and I figured no good could come from killing a child. Of course my knight party member hated the idea and i lost 17 points with him, but I'll just save some kittens or somethign and get it back.

For all the trouble it caused the demon responsible was not too hard, after laying down a storm area it was on it's tail for half the fight. So after saving the child, and the town, and the still sick lord, I get a brief thanks and then sent buggering of on a quest to cure the lord.

I wondered if I should have taken the demon's offer of power instead of killing it, but then decided to just like my rogue steal everything the the palace not nailed down (not like the guards cared). Also the knight companion didn't seem to object at all to my b&e and larceny, either he felt slighted too or just inconsistent AI. not much good it did me, there was only a couple useful items and the rest just got about 9 gold. Tomorrow I'll go off some where else on the map, not sure where, I heard the town I was previously in got attacked so that may be interesting.

One creative bit of advertising I came across in the game was some guy at the camp sight talking about how he has this quest to a great lost stronghold that is over run with monsters and ma have tons of valuable items. This then leads to a prompt where I could download this quest for just 10$. So basically the game has NPCs built in to pitch DLCs as the come out, a lot better than a ticker on the start screen (which the have), or advertising on the xbox dashboard (which the do).

Something I forgot to mention yesterday was that I am playing the game like KotOR, pausing the action constantly to plan out each move (for my character at least, the others in the party handle themselves quite well so far), a tactic that the game never mentions. If it wasn't for watching some online reviews it would have taken me quite a while to know it was possible, and even knowing it took a while to figure out how. Basically, hitting LT brings up a radial menu and while it's up my character can select targets while the action is frozen, but using it this way is never mentioned and toggling the menu has to be turned on (or else LT has to be held down the whole time).

No right awnsers

So far Dragon Age has been quite fun, but the thing that stands out the most is the trick moral decisions it forces the main character to make. For example, currently there is a demon possessing the son of a village lord (who's help we need) and the options are to kill the boy, or sacrifice his mother, or risk the whole town while off getting help. It was too late at night to choose so I left it for tomorrow.

Another thing is that no mater what decision I make some one in my party will like me less. The honorable priest turned knight dislikes any illegal or nasty decisions I make, the jaded witch of the forest dislikes any noble or selfless decisions I make, and the thief turned monk... well she hasn't disliked anything yet, but she hasn't been around for long. At least the dog doesn't judge me.

So far the story is that some evil dragon thing is amassing a army of nasty ogre things and my elf mage has to stop it. There is also some putz who betrayed me and seems to be doing his darnedest to destroy the kingdom before the dragon gets a chance. To stop the putz and the dragon I need the help of said father of the possessed kid.

Well tomorrow will hold more answers, maybe.

Well that's thirteen down...

Finished Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door today, and right on schedule (I said on the 2nd day it would take me about 10 more days) after a mostly pointless detour down the 100 level dungeon.

First I figured that I should clear the 100 level trail dungeon before finishing the game (just in case it was one of those games that doesn't let you continue after the end) but around floor 80 I got 3 poison mushrooms and couldn't recover. After 2 more attempts I finally made it down to the 100th floor, only to find a giant bone dragon boss with 200 HP waiting for me, and I was nearly out of items...

So after dying painfully I chose to forget the pit and just finish the game.

The last level was a huge area filled with platforming puzzles, if it wasn't for Goombella's help I would never figure out some, and even 2 mid-boss fights with a purple dragon and the Shadow Sirens+Doopliss. At the end level Mario First has to face off against the leader of the X-nauts, then Bowser finally catches up with Mario and they fight, and then the shadow demon posses Peach and Mario has to fight her. During the fight through Mario can barely hit the shadow demon and after a while there is a cut-scene where the 7 star crystals go to the places the came from. All the people that Mario had met during the game cheer him on through the crystals and the positive energy allows him to finally beat the shadow demon.

All in all it was a much better ending than Mario Sunshine, or even Fable II, and it turns out that Mario can return to Rogueport to finish any side quests he ma have missed. So maybe I'll finish that 100 floor dungeon some day, but not an time soon.

Tomorow it's on to Dragon Age: Origins.

Beond the 1000 year dor is...tacky...

Eggplant and gold? really?

Anyways, I finished the Moon level today, and besides for a tricky section of platforming it was the shortest and easiest area yet I think. That was untill the boss fight.

For the most part the boss fight was pretty standard, not trick requirements like some, and then the boss used some vacuum thing to suck up about 20 NPC from the audience and shot them at Mario, each doing 5 damage! Needless to say that Mario's 35HP was gone in no time. The second time I went after the boss (after having to do the platforming area again) I shifted all of Mario's badges to health and defense, and put his partner in from for extra shielding. Even after all that I just barely managed to kill the boss after losing the partner and withstanding 3 audience pummeling.

And wouldn't you know it, the princess is in another castle! After finishing the boss Mario finds that the computer that helped Peach still had a little life left and helped Mario escape to go after Peach just before the moon base blew up.

There was no Peach segment after the chapter, but there was a short Bowser segment where he finally finds out about the 1000 year door and runs off to find it.

Back in town it turns out that the main bad guy had managed to sneak past the door with Peach without the star crystals and Mario now has to go in and save her. The progression beyond the door was going well, until for the first time in the game I got 3 poison mushrooms on the bonus game in a fight. The result I turns out is that half HP, FP, and stars go away, which didn't leave me in a very good position for the hard fights there!

So I'm going to take another stab at the door tomorrow and hopefully save Peach!

Jumpman! Wait... who?

Well I talked with the mayor of the Ice town and he explained to fire the cannon to the moon I needed the approval of the cannon owner (the gold bobomb I kept meeting) and the cannon's engineer (a white bobomb I think I saw once).

Finding the gold one was easy enough, he was still outside of his house where I last saw him, and I just had to agree to give him all my money (which he grudgingly gave back). The white one on the other hand was harder to track down, I just randomly got a lead on him in the first area I went to, and then I had to crisscross all over all the various lands trying to track him down. While tracking him to the arena I decided to enter the matches again to reclaim Mario's title and level up (since it was the only fighting I would get on this part of the quest).

Finally I caught up with him back in the ice land where I started, and it turns out that he was going to all these lands trying to catch up with Mario! So then I was finally able to activate the cannon (with a cool NGE style launch) and get to the moon.

Tomorow I'll continue from the moon, get the last star crystal, and maybe have the game finished by the weekend!

Stupid cold!

I was still at a lost of how to find the ultra hammer, but I suspected it was in the big chest that was on a high platform in the town square. The problem was that i couldn't figure out any way to get up to it, there was a door a bit away from it, but no path to the door.

After talking to ever one I could find, I want to the fortune teller, and for 40 coins she bluntly told me to just slam my head into it from below to dislodge it. Feeling kind of sill I did that and was then quickly on my way to the the ice level.

Unfortunately I had not restored my health yet from the boss battle of the previous chapter, and a row of hard hitting ice pirana-plants killed me quickly. So I quickly reloaded, got the ultra hammer (saving the 40 coins), stayed at an inn, and then went to the ice area.

The enemies were not so hard the second time and I soon came to the bobomb village, where the were all vaguely Russian. I saved there and will continue from tomorrow.

More power to ya!

(I was tired, so i didn't play much tonight)
To kill time till the professor figured out how to get Mario to the moon I went on a side quest for the magician that levels up Mario's partners. turns out the quest was to get an item to level up the partners even more, so I got most of them leveled up again (didn't have enough shines for all).

B the time I was back the professor told Mario that he needs an Ultra Hammer to get to the ice level where he can get to the moon. Now I just need to find that hammer.

Well that was a whole lot of nothing...

Pretty much all my progress today in Paper Mario was getting down 78 levels in the endurance dungeon and then dying.

So that kinda sucks...