Death Knight attack wing Frostbite, you are clear to launch.

I figure it’s about time to make one of those “I’m not dead” posts, but considering that A) my last major gap in coverage was in the magnitude of months, not week(s) like this one and B) I’m pretty sure no one actually reads this, so the point behind it is kinda rendered moot – but I shall persist. So yes, I am not dead.

Mass Effect 3. I have gotten the majority of it out of my system, played it to death and I am gradually losing interest in multiplayer. I loved the single player (coloured-coded endings excluded, of course) and my five, 30+ hour, playthroughs attribute to that. Multiplayer, I have enjoy the occasional soloing on my Salarian Engineer but I usually avoid random quick matches because I cannot deal with people and they hurt my head. The Claymore & Widow wielding Adepts especially so. Looking forward to the epilogue DLC that they are releasing in summer.

Halo: Reach. I have been steadily getting back into this (my house mate can attest to this via the decibel-based expletive level) and grinding my way through Field Marshal, which I have been sitting at for ages. I figured, hey, my rank finally matches my Elite armour, that’ll do me. Easy weeklies have kinda spurred me on to grind out those challenges.

WoW. Yeah. Once a WoWer, always a WoWer. It really is like crack, I just keep going back for more. Played around on the Beta for a bit, got sick on the quest spam in the Panda starting zone so I copied my DK across and had awesome amounts of fun flying around Icecrown seeing what I could and couldn’t control with my new ability; Control Undead. Note: it does not work on Lichbourne’d players. Fuck. So much potential wasted. But the fact I control 90% of the undead mobs in Icecrown is rather amusing, including elites (a la, Frostbrood Matriachs). Fun times. Also, new actual button for Mounts and Pets. Winning!

Diablo. Never played the originals – yeah yeah, get over it. I got the WoW Annual Pass, so free mount and Beta access (see above) and Diablo. I am actually really looking forward to it, looks very snazzy and *insert positive, adjective here*. Besides, I’ve already payed for it, might as well play it.

That is all for now.

Enjoy yourselves. Live hard and play harder.

Why do Splicers suddenly appear, when I am near?

I made a friend last night. Doing the quest for Hallow’s End where I have to extinguish the Horde Wickerman, I spotted (it was hard not to) one of the show-offs more well known players who happens to sit on top of the caravan outside the Dwarven District bank on their Ashes of Alar mount. They were mostly flying around annoying the Horde, but when I went to extinguish the Wickerman and promptly got attacked by a hunter, they actually came to my aid, much to my surprise (there was also a dirty filthy rogue lying in wait too). Long story short, we ended up talking and hit it off and did the Headless Horseman together and watched my Creepy Crate devour rats in the graveyard. On a side not, we also found out that the undead male DK laugh is probably the best ‘evil genius’ laugh in WoW (with the female gnome DK laugh the creepiest – you all know it). But yeah, after a couple of hours talking , we both finally went to bed and I must say, I never thought I would actually have a conversation with someone in one the top guilds on my server, let alone, hit it off and get to know them. Oh, and before I stop talking about WoW, the new Hallow’s End is MUCH better than last year’s one. Blizzard has done well in their makeover. Although I still find it odd that we are throwing stink bombs around Undercity, you know, the place filled with thousands of WALKING CORPSES?! Never mind the fact that ghosts, zombies and Forsaken cannot smell. We get teleported there on a magical broom – would it really had of been that much of an effort to teleport to Orgrimmar, and drop stink bombs on a city that can actually smell smells? Considering that Orgrimmar is Stormwind’s faction equivalent, it would have been a better touch than bombing the sewers of a corpse city. Ok, WoW spiel is now over.

Onto Bioshock 2! Recently, I purchased the Minerva’s Den DLC for 800 Microsoft Points, making it just under $16. Let me just say, if you have played Bioshock 2, fork out the cash and buy this DLC. It is some of the best DLC I have seen in a long time. With 2K’s great story telling, you basically learn what has been running Rapture this whole time and how it relates to you. You can’t hack straight off the bat, but it introduces it to you early on and there are no weapon upgrade stations, but rather you encounter various upgraded weapons along the way to the same effect. Having only finished it last night, The plot blew me away at the end (not sure if there is a good/bad ending yet – but I did ‘rescue’ all the Little Sisters) and there are nice little touches and references all throughout the levels pertaining to what’s happening to the rest of Rapture. All in all, for under $16, I dare say it was the best DLC I have encountered yet, worth every dollar and then some.

And lastly but not least (or perhaps it is, I’m not sure) I’m nearly Brigadier Grade 3 in Halo: Reach. Sporadic daily challenges and random “I’m going to do a Firefight” mood swings add up after all. But all, that aside, it’s actually a rather nice day, blue skies, cool breeze, and I’m stuck inside at work with a runny nose and a sneezing head. It’s not faaaiiir.

Ciao for now.

Et Tu, Alexander?

Well, considering that Every other time I have tried to update this blog it has started in massive enthusiasm and then a day later it has pretty much taken a nose dive and exploded on a mountain face in a horribad combination of flame and twisted metal. That aside, I think now, I still have no clue what I want this blog to be. A release, a gaming blog, a vent for my stress, a place to put my thoughts into word – hell, probably all of those things combined in a giant katamari ball o’ hybridness (yes that’s a word now).

So, without further ado, I present to you the new Dread Cake blog! *insert triumphant orchestra music here* Taa-Daa!

Let’s start this off with a confession of sorts. I…am a World of Warcraft  junkie. Now, when I say junkie, I don’t mean to compare myself with the decrepit, down-on-his-luck rail thin guy slumped in the corridor of a crack house type of junkie, but more of the chubby kid in school who sucks in knowledge like it’s water and he’s a sponge. Yes, a lore junkie. I started with Warcraft III and moved on (eventually I might add. About halfway through Burning Crusade to be precise) to World of Warcraft. To actually set foot in the Dead Scar and travel along the same path that the Scourge took to Quel’thalas is crazy loregasmic for me. I see the site where Grom killed Mannoroth and see the pitlord’s broken blade suspended in time or to actually be able to stand in the throne room of the fallen kingdom of Lordaeron and see the dried blood on the floor and hear the whispers of past events play out is just…amazing. Anyway, I think you get the point. I like WoW. I also like DKs.

I’m also in IT, so I deal with morons at work (which I’m sure I’ve mentioned in previous posts) and I deal with morons in WoW. No respite, for that would be the easy path and karma does not want me to go down it. I have a personal grudge against karma, it and I do not get along and it is constantly tried to screw me over, yet somehow, no matter how bad it is, I manage to scrape through and get along with life.

Anyhoo, in other news, ended up getting the ‘Bolter’ special edition of Warhammer 40k: Space Marine. I mildly regret that now. Let me extrapolate my meaning. With most games that I end up getting ‘Collector’s Edition’ or “Limited Edition’ versions of, I do it for the extra material included within. Take Halo 3 for instance. It came in a special black tin case with a special features dvd, a book with Conversations from around the Galaxy, and another one that had a Forerunner type catalogue of the Halo species (which I loved by the way). All very nice. Some Collector’s Editions give you extra items in-game, like the Mass Effect 2 one, which included a full set of armour and a superweapon of sorts. All very nice. Which brings me to the Space Marine Bolter [read: Collector’s] Edition. You get a golden chainsword and bolter. A simple glance or even a full read would both come to the same conclusion: you can gun and cut down orks with awesome looking weapons. If you thought that, like I did, then you would be wrong. Not only are these weapons not usable in the campaign, they have the exact same stats of their counterparts in multiplayer. The only difference is the skin of the model. Personally, I feel a little dirty about this. If I get a collector’s edition, I want something that makes it stand apart from the normal versions. What’s the point of having something if you cannot show it off? But, that’s just my own opinion.

Methinks I have gone somewhat overboard for a simple ‘hey, I’m still doing stuff with this blog’ post. But you get that.

Catch you on the flip side.

AJW III

Of Happiness and Sobriety.

Yes, I’m aware of the irony of saying ‘I’m turning over a new leaf’ and then not updating for a week. But there was good reason my loyal readers, for I was…painting. And cleaning. And gardening! Yes, I have purchased a new place of residence and there was quite some work to do. But there is a certain feeling when you can look backon the work you have done and see the final result and think ‘I did that’. It is a rather warm and fuzzy feeling, like a cross between cooing over 3 week old puppies and earning a Killjoy from an asshole player who is too good for his own good because he plays 24/7 and has no social life. But yes, peeling off the painting masking tape and looking at the rather well done finished product is very satisfying.

On a rather more serious note, today I was the witness of an attempted suicide. An old woman walked across two lanes and threw herself in front of a big semi truck. I drove up on the island and ran over along with another driver to see how she was and luckily, she was alive and the damage was mostly superficial. But throughout the ordeal she was saying how she had a deathwish because her son had died and her best frined had died from cancer and there was nothing else to live for. I must say, it is a very, very sobering experience. I give my regards to the 2^nd truck driver who was behind the semi who also stopped and helped out. Luckily he was trained as a senior 1^st Aid Officer and I daresay, without his help, she would have been in a worse condition than what she was when the ambulance arrived. So, kudos to the unnamed man who lent his aid; you have my respect.

To wrap things up, I will end on a serious note, to give my respect and kudos to all the unnamed people throughout the ages who have done their part and then some, often going above and beyond their station or duty or even concern for their own lives. This is re-enforced by yesterday, Australia Day, a day we would not have if it were not for those valiant diggers, both named and anonymous who gave their very best for this great country.

AJW.III