Gaming

I was just gonna complain that it hadn't worked for me
BUT I just checked my email and I have that message too!

I may try it out late tonight if I get the chance. The second one is supposedly a lot better than the first. I was a little reluctant to continue with the original after that PvP hacking minigame started to intrude on the singleplayer story, but it was still entertaining in a slightly repetitive way.

Did some hacking in Watch Dogs 2!

Nice enough graphics, depth of field looks pretty, and the movement is a bit smoother than the first one (with none of that odd-looking flappy coat stuff either!)
And now that the prologue/tutorial is over, I can take selfies on my phone...



...and pet the dogs too!



Now... where can I buy those pants?

Charlotte wrote:

Looking good
Uhm you mean you want those pants in real life, or do you want the same pants the lady's wearing?

The little questy instruction at the top is telling me to buy pants but I don't yet know what options will be available.

I have to find my way to a shop first. I've installed the maps app on my phone but I haven't yet worked out where I am on that map so I'll just pick a direction and walk to see what I can find.


Which western game is that?
Sounds a bit like Morrowind and the slow-walk-stamina thing.

Just spent a long, long time trying to open a secret door in Skyrim.
There was no handle or lock on it. I couldn't find any kind of lever or switch but I knew it had to open cos there was a special shield behind it that I was supposed to grab.

After much searching around the room, even using my Magelight spell to try and find clues in the dark corners, I eventually discovered a little podium with a pressure plate. I obviously have to put something on it, in that Indiana Jones fashion, to open up the door.
A book, maybe?
*places book*
Nope. Need something heavier.
That big metal mask that I rarely wear?
Nope.

What's the heaviest thing I'm carrying?
*checks inventory*
My armour. So, time to strip off.
I carefully and nakedly place my armour on the plate... and nothing. Need more weight!
So I now try and balance my steel helmet on top of the armour on top of the plate.... No response.

Right then, now I put the metal mask balanced on top of the helmet balanced on top of the armour balanced on top of the pressure plate. I feel like I'm playing Buck-A-Roo, or Jenga, or some other frustrating balancey thing! I hope the game physics will just let me keep balancing... And no, it doesn't.

OK, what's heavier than Armour+Helmet+Mask etc?

Dead bodies!

So now I spend far too long trying to haul a dead Forsworn guy and a Hagraven corpse up onto the podium but after much body shoving I just can't get them onto it. It's too high.

I just need one easy-to-place, heavy thing that'll push down with enough force!
And then I realised... Force! Unrelenting Force. My special magic shout. Of course.

So I got dressed again, removed the bodies and faced the pressure plate to give it a "Fus Ro DAAAH!"

And the door opens!

Quest shield acquired.

Haven't been able to play Ark for ages due to time, tiredness and more, but I got back into some Dino action today.

During my previous play I did reach the Red Obelisk but ended up running away after an encounter with four angry things. Maybe Raptors, maybe Dilos, couldn't really tell as I fled like a coward and I wasn't looking back. It wasn't really a good place to try and fight as I was trapped on a ledge and would probably have fallen in the water where even more predators lurked.
But back to today. Instead of returning to the Obelisk I decided to try out some boating on my raft. I wanted to sail back to the initial spawn point to loot out my boxes there and chip away at those rocks to hopefully get some metal.
First of all my raft got attacked by a big sharky thing so I quickly veered back to shallower waters and sailed nearer the coast, then as I approached the spawn point area I saw two large things stalking around and attacking all the friendly/passive creatures.
Carnos!



Feeling brave (or foolish) I sailed close and fired some arrows from my raft which then made one of them chase me through the water. I managed to keep ahead of it on the raft, occasionally letting go to fire more arrows and eventually killed it!
After swimming to gather the precious hides I then felt braver still and went back for the other one!
Using a similar method I fired an arrow from the safety of the raft... and my bow broke.
Annoyingly that last arrow was accurate so the angry Carno started to chase me while I had nothing to shoot back.
So I just fled again. But I was still feeling brave, so I made another bow and went back AGAIN!
This time it was too far inland to shoot from the water so I put the raft on the shore and went to fire another arrow with the plan of running back to the raft, setting sail and shooting from a distance again but those Carnotaurs are a bit too quick and I ended up in an axe fight on the beach before I could even get to the raft.
But I won!



Barely.
My health was down to... just two.
No more fighting for a while, methinks. Must heal.