Erkki

This is awesome! I also probably wouldn't mind writing an objective review or two (not regularly) if you decide to let other people write for the site, but yeah I understand the issues with writing for free are kind of complicated.

I'm drunk for the 4th night in a row (starting from new year's eve). I never usually do this but it helps me quit smoking so I might get drunk tomorrow as well.

Yeah, I know. I actually once quit for 2 years, and then a friend offered me Swedish snus and I decided to prove to myself that I wouldn't get addicted to that, or that's about how it went. I will try to avoid that this time

Good so far. I already feel like I'm rid of it.

Cast about a foot fungus with a golden heart, Idle Fungus.

I think I've never recommended an Estonian movie, but this Estonian-Georgian one "Mandariinid" is pretty good. If it was more violent and set in Africa instead of Georgia, it could be the Far Cry 2 of cinema.

Lets keep it alive then!

Gratz to you as well! I know I can't handle quitting while using another form of nicotine, so I had to go all or nothing.

I think I hate this game now. I can't get myself to continue playing.

I made a secret (ok, I told one friend) promise to myself to quit smoking and I've been without a cigarette or other form of nicotine for 2 days now. Wohoo! This is a seriously life-altering decision.

Wrong choice. You should eat lots of fat and no carbs/sugar.

Actually my new resolution was to quit smoking, so far I've succeeded. If tomorrow goes well the hardest will be behind me and I'll be happy. I also have a secret second resolution and I'm not telling.

So how did fulfilling the resolutions go? I upgraded mine to 1920x1080 so it isn't exactly WUXTRY as I planned. I did get a new mouse and keyboard as well. So I kept my resolution, but also I didn't.

Down with pants in 2014! You don't need them for the victory dance.

Happy new year! Cool episode-blast-thing

Love that storm drain photo! I should start again with photography at some point so I could post in this thread with photos. I haven't really done any (besides usual crap travel/chronicle photos) in maybe 10 years.

Ok, I think I'm ready to start using fast travel, because I've now sailed most of the seas and noticed that every place pretty much looks the same. There are a few areas with some distinction, but especially the tiny uncharted islands are so boringly same, even down to what they contain: (variant 1) one animus fragment (variant 2) a treasure chest and optional cargo crate. And some birds. I haven't really looked for many making-of features on the Assassin's Creed games, but I assume most of the world in them is hand-designed? It seems like in big worlds like these, especially if it's nature and not just towns, procedural generation could give a big benefit because the hand-designed elements start to repeat too often in way too similar configurations. Right now it's starting to seem like a numbers game: I still have X out of Y exactly similar tiny islands to explore to earn some more money and/or achievement.

Hm... maybe I'll get New Vegas after all... But I doubt I'll find time to play through it any time soon.

This looks... promising http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kungfury/kung-fury

Also, those sea shanties were a brilliant idea! If they weren't there, I would probably use fast travel. I wish I could turn their volume up, but they only have an on/off setting. [edit] after writing that I found on Google that music volume also controls the shanties so I turned other volumes to half way and left music at maximum. And ended up playing 2 more hours although I should have been asleep a while ago now...

Oh man, I got so addicted to this -- that always seems to happen to me with Assassin's Creed games -- they are just so big. But this one is even worse because the side content is so great. I took an assassination contract, but it lead to an island that was guarded by two frigates. At that point I hadn't had much experience with sea battles so I narrowly escaped. Then I decided I need to upgrade my ship, and began practicing on small ships and looting materials for upgrades. I think I spent 10 hours mostly fighting sea battles, intermixed with finding treasures, exploring minor islands and even the occasional main mission that happened to be near me. I've never used fast travel so far. Anyway, with some practice in sea battles behind me and my ship upgraded with fearsome weapons, I was finally able to complete my contract on that island, and after that even managed to capture a Man o' War. That made me bold enough to attack another one, but that didn't go well as it had some friends, and this led to a chase in restricted waters around one of the huge islands, where I again barely escaped. Now I'm still more drawn to the pirating and assassin's quests (the first one I did sucked a bit, though) than the main story. But there's still some stuff to unlock by the main quest so I guess I'll have to do it at some point. But at this point isn't some higher-up at Ubisoft already doubting whether they really need to continue that Assassins story with these games? I'm sure they probably save a lot of pre-production and development time that way, by having certain aspects already designed and implemented from the start... but this could be such a great real pirate game. A real pirate game doesn't need to focus on free-running and wrist-blades and all the other assassin-like stuff these games do. But it would probably have a lot more realistic way of conducting piracy -- e.g. you can't really sell your stuff in your captain's cabin in the middle of the sea and you should also probably have to go to a shipyard to have your ship upgraded etc. Sadly in this game all of that is tacked onto an action game structure so it works the way it works and on the other hand I really love the seamless transition between sea and land and the open world aspect of it. A game that started more as a pirate sim probably wouldn't allow for that.

I'm again tempted to get New Vegas, but decided not to -- even though I enjoyed Fallout 3 hugely, maybe too hugely -- I don't feel like I want more of it (only got one DLC even), And also Mass Effect 2 -- don't feel like getting into that series this late and I didn't enjoy the first game much. How about Broken Sword 5?

Finally bought it -- was waiting for the sale -- and have really enjoyed it so far. I played like 13 hours already over the last two days. It works surprisingly well as a pirate game, and you can even unlock a real pirate costume without a stupid assassin hood after playing a little. Which made it weird when the story missions referred to my supposed assassin costume (which I was not wearing). Also this makes me think that there are some periods that would be totally ridiculous as Assassin's Creed games, unless they drop all the Abstergo shit. For example, can you imagine a Western Assassin's Creed game where Billy The Kid is a leader of the Assassins and Templars run the Pinkerton Agency? It would all be utterly ridiculous. I admit that already this pirate theme is a bit ruined by all of the Assassins/Templars shit.

Nice review!

Hmm... this SNOW game having a flash sale currently seems interesting http://store.steampowered.com/app/244930/ but it's free-to-play (WTF does that mean when you pay for it?) and open world but is it likely that it'll just have you either paying for content or missing out on it later? Not sure after reading the description.