Hello my awesome readers!
I've been playing some Dishonored! You know, that moderately new game, where you play as an assassin with magical powers. I just have to say, it is pretty epic! I have not played through the whole game yet, but I can definitely comment on how it plays.
I really like how open the approaches are to completing the missions. You can hack and slash your way through them, though that usually makes it harder to complete the mission. You can also choose the stealthy path, which is my favorite, and sneak on ledges, under tables, posses guards and animals to sneak around, and even scale buildings to enter through windows, rather than through the front door. And there are even underground pipes that lead into some buildings, giving you yet another way in. It is possible to posses a fish, and swim up pipes and infiltrate the building that way, or a rat and enter through vents. There are honestly way more options available to a more stealthy play through of the game. The weapons are also very cool. You use a short sword, but that isn't the particularly cool weapon. The mini crossbow is very useful, especially for stealthy players. I often use it to shoot a guard with a sleep dart, who would have been much harder to subdue via choke. That is the other cool feature. When in stealth, you can move behind an unsuspecting guard and either stab him in the neck, or choke him into unconsciousness. The crossbow can also fire lethal bolts, and fire bolts. You also have a pistol, which is definitely not for stealth. It's loud, fairly powerful, and moderately fast to reload. The game is in an older time period, so it is a flintlock pistol of sorts.
You also get spring razors, which are very handy proximity mines. You are able to stick it to most surfaces, as well as living things, such as rats. When an enemy gets close to it, it fires a spray of shrapnel killing most in it's blast radius. They are great to use against a patrolling guard. Finally, you have grenades, which are probably the weapon least used by me. Very loud, and powerful, the grenade is not something you would use if you are trying to be stealthy. There are also rewire tools, which can hack enemy alarms and defenses such as the wall of light. The wall of light allows guards through, but will vaporize anyone without clearance. Use the rewire tool, and it switches to killing guards and letting you through. Now, onto the magical powers I mentioned. You get several abilities and spells by collecting runes to buy them with. Once bought, each ability can also be upgraded. The main powers (these require mana) are Dark Vision, Blink, Slow Time, Wind Blast, Devouring Swarm, and Possession. Dark Vision lets you see in the dark, as well as see living things through walls. Blink is a sort of quick travel, allowing you to move a short distance instantly and stealthily. Though don't get it confused as with teleportation. If you try and Blink through a wall of light, you'll get fried :P Slow Time does exactly what it name implies, and the upgraded version can actually freeze time completely! You could actually slow time as someone is shooting at you, posses them, and walk them in front of their own bullet, then speed time up again! Which brings me to Possession. This power lets you merge with a living creature's body, and control them. You have to upgrade it first to be able to control humans though. Wind Blast is pretty much like a Fus Ro Dah :P Devouring Swarm summons a swarm of rats that will attack anything that moves. There are also several passive abilities that upgrade movement speed, jump height, health regeneration, and a couple that add combat bonuses. It is very fun to use the powers, and very rewarding when you manage to complete a mission, killing only the assigned target, and leaving the building full of unconscious guards. Another example of slow time's usefulness is when I used it to kill my target, and knock out an innocent bystander. I entered the room, slowed time, selected my sleeping darts and shot the bystander, then I walked over to the target and finished him off. Total Matrix moment!
I've also been able to use Possession to take control of a dog patrolling with a guard, run to some secluded ally way and kill the dong, then go and knock the guard out. There are many creative ways to use the abilities, and I'm looking forward to finding more. So, hope you enjoyed my review of the weapons and abilities of Dishonored!
Keep being awesome!
I'm That Dude.
Saturday, 10 November 2012
Bigger or Better!
Hello my awesome readers!
Sorry it took me a while to get a post up, but I had a crazy amount of Math work over the past few weeks, and two unit tests yesterday. I finally have some free time now! :D
Ok, so for today's post, I thought I'd tell about a game that I played at summer camp.
It's called Bigger or Better, and how you play is you start with a paper clip (or something small like that) and go door-to-door trying to trade it for something bigger or better. If you're going to try it, I suggest going with at least one or more friends, since it may seem a little weird for just one person to do it. Anyway, it's really easy, and you can get some crazy trades! When I played it at camp, we went from a paper clip to a pen, from the pen to some cheap orange sunglasses, and from those we got a jar of rocks, from BC :P This little girl was super exited to play, and she brought us this jar of rocks, and she was so cute that we couldn't possibly say no :P so then, we eventually traded the rocks for an air purifier, and that eventually got us a DVD player! It looked like it had never been used, and even had the remote with it in the package. We kept going and eventually got a pair of skis! These skis were probably worth about 200 bucks! We almost called it a day, but we kept going. At one house, we almost got a drum set, which would have been pretty awesome! And finally, we came to one house and traded the skis for a 42 inch flat screen TV! It may have been worth a bit less, but it was something the camp was able to use more than skis. And now, that TV is being used as a computer screen in the camp office. Hope you enjoyed my little story! I'll probably write up another post to make up for the lack of posts the past few weekends. Also, thanks so much to Cyby for writing up that post on cars! I know about twice as much about cars as I did before I read the post lol And I definitely am cool with you starting on that new song! I'll try and learn the lyrics today, or tomorrow for Eye of the Tiger, and maybe we can film on Wednesday! :D
Hope you enjoyed this post!
Keep being awesome!
I'm That Dude.
Sorry it took me a while to get a post up, but I had a crazy amount of Math work over the past few weeks, and two unit tests yesterday. I finally have some free time now! :D
Ok, so for today's post, I thought I'd tell about a game that I played at summer camp.
It's called Bigger or Better, and how you play is you start with a paper clip (or something small like that) and go door-to-door trying to trade it for something bigger or better. If you're going to try it, I suggest going with at least one or more friends, since it may seem a little weird for just one person to do it. Anyway, it's really easy, and you can get some crazy trades! When I played it at camp, we went from a paper clip to a pen, from the pen to some cheap orange sunglasses, and from those we got a jar of rocks, from BC :P This little girl was super exited to play, and she brought us this jar of rocks, and she was so cute that we couldn't possibly say no :P so then, we eventually traded the rocks for an air purifier, and that eventually got us a DVD player! It looked like it had never been used, and even had the remote with it in the package. We kept going and eventually got a pair of skis! These skis were probably worth about 200 bucks! We almost called it a day, but we kept going. At one house, we almost got a drum set, which would have been pretty awesome! And finally, we came to one house and traded the skis for a 42 inch flat screen TV! It may have been worth a bit less, but it was something the camp was able to use more than skis. And now, that TV is being used as a computer screen in the camp office. Hope you enjoyed my little story! I'll probably write up another post to make up for the lack of posts the past few weekends. Also, thanks so much to Cyby for writing up that post on cars! I know about twice as much about cars as I did before I read the post lol And I definitely am cool with you starting on that new song! I'll try and learn the lyrics today, or tomorrow for Eye of the Tiger, and maybe we can film on Wednesday! :D
Hope you enjoyed this post!
Keep being awesome!
I'm That Dude.
Thursday, 1 November 2012
I'm Back Again...
All right! Your favourite random fact-storing meatbag is back!
I'm afraid I can't offer anything as deep or thought provoking as something like Thoughtful Thursdays, but since Eye of the Tiger isn't going to happen any time soon, here's that promised over and over again post of mine.
After many months of... gathering information, Cyby's Car Post is here.
So, to start off this post about those wondrous whirring hunks of metal that ferry you to and from selected destinations, I should give you a wee bit of background info first.
I like cars.
I know, shocking, right?
But it's true. I just like anything mechanical, and cars fall under that category.
The basics of any car is this:
So, to ‘wrench,’ meaning to work on cars, you have to have some knowledge as to what goes on under the hood and a descent supply of tools and funds. Anyone should know a bit about cars, even if you don’t like them, such as how to change a tire, when to shut the engine off if there’s suddenly a bad noise, or where the cup holders are. Most cars are stunning, some are part of history, and all are horribly inefficient, with the older cars and the new supercars being the most. Almost all car engines use a simple four stroke process: injection of fuel as the piston is down, compression of the fuel by the piston as it comes up, ignition of the fuel from the spark plug with the resulting explosion pushing the piston back down, and then removal of the exhaust from that explosion by the piston coming back up. The engine uses a crankshaft to transfer the up and down movement of the pistons into rotational movement, which is transferred to the fly wheel, which is connected to the transmission, which is connected to the driveshaft, which is connected to the differential, which finally connects to the rear wheels. There are some variations in different engines, such as in the rotary engine which has an odd number of pistons arranged in a circle with every other piston firing, or the Wankel engine, which has a single piston shaped like a triangle, but either way, only about thirty percent of their potential is used, with the seventy percent lost due to heat or friction.
To make a car stop, you jam your foot on the left of those two peddles under your right foot, which causes a box in the engine compartment to squirt brake fluid through a series of tubes to the calliper (the brightly coloured semicircle shaped thing seen on the inside of wheels on sports cars) which squeezes on the rotors (the circular thing that glows bright red after intense braking of the car) effectively stopping a car and saving your life once again. That is basically how a car works, and if you want it in much more detail with diagrams and videos, look it up online. And info on the third most important part, steering, too.
I actually wrote that techy stuff for an essay about cars a while back. It's astounding how useful copy and paste is.
Now for something even less deep: I give you the top five coolest cars ever.
Number 5: 1936 Stout Scarab.
Reminiscent of a VW bus, but it's so much cooler. Plus according to Wiki, it was the first van ever, but because they cost so much, very few were produced and purchased. Thankfully, there is a working SS still out there in a museum.
Number 4: Holden Efijy Concept.
I am a big fan of any car that looks good with a purplish paint job. Apparently based off of their Holden FJ.
Number 3: 2010 Morgan Aero SuperSports.
I am also a big fan of cars that have protruding fenders. It looks like a classic, but being a convertible with 300someodd horsepower, there will be many bugs in your teeth.
Number 2: 1975 Pontiac Trans Am.
I know, I am a little biased when it comes to this one, but they just look so sleek.
Chevy and Pontiac battled it out with similar cars over the years (T/A vs. Z28, Chieftan vs Bel Aire, etc.), but Pontiac shut down a while back. That's one of the reasons Pontiacs are so alluring to me. Not many people will say "Pontiac" if asked the question "What's the first car manufacturer that comes to mind?" Chances are, "Chevy" or "Ford" will come blurting out. I, however prefer those good old Iron Indians. They just have a bit more style and finesse to them.
And now, the all time coolest car according to me is...
The 1941 Ford Pickup.
It's just a beautiful vehicle. The way the lines swoop, the fenders that stick out from the body, and the fact it looks awesome and carries stuff at the same time.
And the chrome. Can't forget the chrome.
It's my goal to own one of these sometime in the future, restoring one from the ground up. I've seen a promising candidate on Auto Trader Classics, but I'm not sure she'll still be there when I eventually get a job and save up enough.
And now the honourable mentions: 1937 Timbs Special, 1939 Delahaye 165 Cabriolet, and the 1939 Duesenberg Coupe Simone.
And that is it.
That's the end of my car post.
I hope you all enjoyed it and learned a little something.
Peace and chicken grease and I bid you good car Googling.
~Cyby
P.S. I'm with James in thinking after EOTT, Back in Black should be next...
Sources:
Efijy pic: fluxauto.com
Morgan pic: ultimatecarpage.com
Stout Scarab pic: vwvortex.com
Trans Am pic: aaca.org
Ford pic: streetrodderweb.com
I'm afraid I can't offer anything as deep or thought provoking as something like Thoughtful Thursdays, but since Eye of the Tiger isn't going to happen any time soon, here's that promised over and over again post of mine.
After many months of... gathering information, Cyby's Car Post is here.
So, to start off this post about those wondrous whirring hunks of metal that ferry you to and from selected destinations, I should give you a wee bit of background info first.
I like cars.
I know, shocking, right?
But it's true. I just like anything mechanical, and cars fall under that category.
The basics of any car is this:
So, to ‘wrench,’ meaning to work on cars, you have to have some knowledge as to what goes on under the hood and a descent supply of tools and funds. Anyone should know a bit about cars, even if you don’t like them, such as how to change a tire, when to shut the engine off if there’s suddenly a bad noise, or where the cup holders are. Most cars are stunning, some are part of history, and all are horribly inefficient, with the older cars and the new supercars being the most. Almost all car engines use a simple four stroke process: injection of fuel as the piston is down, compression of the fuel by the piston as it comes up, ignition of the fuel from the spark plug with the resulting explosion pushing the piston back down, and then removal of the exhaust from that explosion by the piston coming back up. The engine uses a crankshaft to transfer the up and down movement of the pistons into rotational movement, which is transferred to the fly wheel, which is connected to the transmission, which is connected to the driveshaft, which is connected to the differential, which finally connects to the rear wheels. There are some variations in different engines, such as in the rotary engine which has an odd number of pistons arranged in a circle with every other piston firing, or the Wankel engine, which has a single piston shaped like a triangle, but either way, only about thirty percent of their potential is used, with the seventy percent lost due to heat or friction.
To make a car stop, you jam your foot on the left of those two peddles under your right foot, which causes a box in the engine compartment to squirt brake fluid through a series of tubes to the calliper (the brightly coloured semicircle shaped thing seen on the inside of wheels on sports cars) which squeezes on the rotors (the circular thing that glows bright red after intense braking of the car) effectively stopping a car and saving your life once again. That is basically how a car works, and if you want it in much more detail with diagrams and videos, look it up online. And info on the third most important part, steering, too.
I actually wrote that techy stuff for an essay about cars a while back. It's astounding how useful copy and paste is.
Now for something even less deep: I give you the top five coolest cars ever.
Number 5: 1936 Stout Scarab.
Reminiscent of a VW bus, but it's so much cooler. Plus according to Wiki, it was the first van ever, but because they cost so much, very few were produced and purchased. Thankfully, there is a working SS still out there in a museum.
Number 4: Holden Efijy Concept.
I am a big fan of any car that looks good with a purplish paint job. Apparently based off of their Holden FJ.
Number 3: 2010 Morgan Aero SuperSports.
I am also a big fan of cars that have protruding fenders. It looks like a classic, but being a convertible with 300someodd horsepower, there will be many bugs in your teeth.
Number 2: 1975 Pontiac Trans Am.
I know, I am a little biased when it comes to this one, but they just look so sleek.
Chevy and Pontiac battled it out with similar cars over the years (T/A vs. Z28, Chieftan vs Bel Aire, etc.), but Pontiac shut down a while back. That's one of the reasons Pontiacs are so alluring to me. Not many people will say "Pontiac" if asked the question "What's the first car manufacturer that comes to mind?" Chances are, "Chevy" or "Ford" will come blurting out. I, however prefer those good old Iron Indians. They just have a bit more style and finesse to them.
And now, the all time coolest car according to me is...
The 1941 Ford Pickup.
It's just a beautiful vehicle. The way the lines swoop, the fenders that stick out from the body, and the fact it looks awesome and carries stuff at the same time.
And the chrome. Can't forget the chrome.
It's my goal to own one of these sometime in the future, restoring one from the ground up. I've seen a promising candidate on Auto Trader Classics, but I'm not sure she'll still be there when I eventually get a job and save up enough.
And now the honourable mentions: 1937 Timbs Special, 1939 Delahaye 165 Cabriolet, and the 1939 Duesenberg Coupe Simone.
And that is it.
That's the end of my car post.
I hope you all enjoyed it and learned a little something.
Peace and chicken grease and I bid you good car Googling.
~Cyby
P.S. I'm with James in thinking after EOTT, Back in Black should be next...
Sources:
Efijy pic: fluxauto.com
Morgan pic: ultimatecarpage.com
Stout Scarab pic: vwvortex.com
Trans Am pic: aaca.org
Ford pic: streetrodderweb.com
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