If you haven't picked up The Humble Bundle V yet, you should. So many awesome games included and this time around the bundle includes FLAC files for all the soundtracks.

http://www.humblebundle.com/

That said, the port of Sword & Sworcery to the PC and Mac is superb(included in the bundle). I wasn't sure a game made for touch devices would translate well to the mouse and keyboard but it does. I am going to finish my game on my iPhone because I have played pretty far on that device, but if you have the humble bundle 5 I implore you to give Sword & Sworcery a try.

Recently I was at the Trigon battle(I snapped the pic above) and kept dying. Since when you die you immediately re-spawn with one star for life its not too punishing. That said, taking one star of life into the Trigon battle isn't great so I did a few Google searches on how to beat it with one star of life. Come to find out if you hold down the shield in ANY battle for 10 or so seconds you replenish a star of life. That means if you start the Trigon battle with one star by the time it swings at you the first time you can replenish up to four stars of life which allows you to beat the boss.

A few times I needed to lookup how to get past certain levels as like many adventure games the path forward isn't obvious. That shouldn't detract from you playing the game though, its great.

PS Tried all the Linux ports of the Bundle games and they worked very well on my Ubuntu 12.04 system.

Add this nesmaps.com to your awesome list. They have entire screen shots of popular NES games for your enjoyment. The above image is Contras first level.

A few awesome maps:

http://nesmaps.com/maps/MarioBros/MarioBros.html
http://nesmaps.com/maps/MegaMan2/MegaMan2.html
http://nesmaps.com/maps/Zelda2/Zelda2.html

Awesome to see what people can do with retro games.

I just beat Torchlight a few days ago and I wanted to pen my thoughts while they are fresh in my mind. This is a odd review to write as its now taken me over two years to finally complete Torchlight and we are still in the throws of the Diablo 3 release. That said, Diablo 3 won't change too many of my thoughts as ive had years to solidify them.

I picked up Torchlight about a two+ year's ago after trying the demo out and enjoying it. Since I wasn't really into purchasing games digitally at the time, I bought the box copy for $20. I installed the game and I was pleasantly surprised the full game just used my existing demo character. No restarting, just continuing on. That was a pretty nice feature as most games don't allow you to pickup after the demo when you buy the full game.

I started playing Torchlight as the tank class on a whim because, typically I play magic user and I just wanted to do something different. Immediately I loved the tank and felt like I was a pretty hefty bad-ass killing everything that stood in my way. I was happy that Torchlight ran smooth on my old Desktop. I was running the best AGP video card you could get and it looked fantastic on the old hardware. Torchlight is a game optimised for Netbooks so you can run it on lower power hardware. That said, the game looks beautiful and the art doesn't suffer all all in my opinion.

After a few days of playing it I noticed the game wasn't too much fun after an hour or so of play and over a week or so I stopped playing it and only picked it up every two weeks to a month. Torchlight is fun its just not immersive enough for me to play it more than once a month.

One huge problem I had with Torchlight is if I hovered over a bad guy with my mouse and clicked on them I had no idea my guy was attacking that specific enemy. In Diablo when you hover over a enemy it highlights it. This really helps me understand what I am going to attack. In Torchlight often I would be clicking to attack and I wasn't actually swinging at anything. I evolved a play style where I would use my other abilities more because they were area of effect attacks and I knew I would be hitting things. It wasn't frustrating, I just didn't feel effective and the game seemed broken in that way.

The game also very easy and I didn't feel challenged. I don't believe I died once.

The story wasn't much to think about. I honestly don't remember what went on. Some evil Wizard did something bad? Something about Embers? I don't really remember it wasn't very important to the game.

The hack and slash of the game is fun but there must be a point to all of it or I stop playing. The game was fun enough for a few days of a few hours of play but long term it flattened out for me.

The soundtrack is good and it is VERY reminiscent of the Diablo soundtrack as Matt Uelmen composed it. You can hear the nods to the Diablo 2 themes in the village music and other areas. Fun to hear it and it brought me right into the dungeon crawling mood.

I will most likely check out Torchlight 2 at some point and hope they improve some of the core mechanics and spend a bit longer on the story and characters. The game isn't too far off the mark it just didn't resonate with me in the way it did for other people.

Did you play Torchlight? What did you think of it?

Awesome video interview with Todd Howard on Skyrim's new expansion Dawnguard.

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/06/06/bethesdas-todd-howard-on-dawnguard-the-future-of-skyrim-and-s/

The release is June 26th but you can sign up for the XBox 360 beta now. I wasn't too interested in being a Vampire but Howard dropped that it will be taylored to people that want to play as a Vampire or a Vampire Hunter. Awesome! He also mentioned that some future DLC will be free as well because the game did so well.

Are you going to get Dawnguard? If you haven't played Skyrim yet will you? I have yet to pick it up and can't decide if I should get it on PS3 or PC.

Recent post on Battle.net about the Diablo 3 1.0.3 patch:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/6262208/Patch_103_Design_Preview-6_6_2012#blog

Looking forward to being able to upgrade lower level gems to higher for 2. Unsure the increase in repairs for Inferno is the right call but ill know more when I enter those levels. Overall a good set of fixes.

Recent Reddit AMA with the designers of Diablo 3:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo/comments/uoooj/i_am_we_are_wyatt_cheng_andrew_chambers_and_jay/

An interesting video about the voice actors in Batman Arkham City. Mark Hamill talks about his role as the Joker as well as Kevin Conroy as Batman.

Decided to spend this Retro Tuesday talking about Super Metroid. I was never really a fan of the original NES Metroid as it was fairly challenging and I could never figure out the steps to complete it as they were largely un-intuative. My brother had the Gameboy version and that made much more sense to me and I completed that. I liked the Gameboy version much better and felt it was a bit more accessible. That said, I wasn't a huge Metroid fan until I borrowed Super Metroid from one of my high school friends.

Super Metroid takes the Metroid formula built up in the first two games and ups the ante on all levels to craft a game that really set the bar for other games to follow. The soundtrack was moody and ambient something fairly cutting edge. The game also told a story but instead of using words, it used in game cut scenes and music only.

The word that comes to mind when I think of Super Metroid is moody. The game isn't whimsical or happy like Mario its gritty and dark. Few games had this tone throughout and Metroid really kept that feel the whole way.

Super Metroid was also one the first games in a series that I realised visually nodded to its earlier games. When you arrive on Zebes the first few areas you experience are direct nods to the first level in the original NES game as well as the ending battle with Mother Brain.

Since the game had fairly un-obvious ways to proceed, like many I beat Super Metroid with the Nintendo Power guide at my side. I had fun even though finding each item and beating the game wouldn't have been possible without it.

If you want to keep yourself spoiler free, I suggest not reading the final bits of this post.

The ending was fairly epic from the final level to the few act final story and boss battle. The start of the last level sees the original Metroid from the start of the game all grown and as you enter its lair it attacks you. It stops and the game implies it recognises you from earlier as it thinks you are its mother. As you fight Mother Brain in the final battle the Metroid attacks mother brain to save you from death. As it attacks Mother Brain the Metroid dies but as it dies it imbues you with its power giving you a pretty hefty attack. You use this attack to destroy Mother Brain and escape Zebes. The game does this all with in game cut scenes and music and its expert story telling that made a fantastic ending to a great game.

Super Metroid isn't a game I come back to play regularly but after watching the above walkthrough YouTube video will put it on my list. A few years ago I tried Metroid Prime but it never stuck as a game I needed to finish.

What did you think of Super Metroid? Were you into any of the other Metroid games? Did you always type in the Justin Bailey code or did you always want Nintendo to release a space pirate game?

**UPDATE** Many moons ago OCRemix created Relics of the Chozo a Super Metroid remix album if you like retro game remix soundtracks: http://smproject.ocremix.org

I know Starcraft 2 has been released for quite some time but today seemed like a good time to write about it.

I love Starcraft. When Broodwar came out I really dug the additional units they added and tore through all the campaigns. When Starcraft 2 was announced I was ecstatic. All I really wanted was Starcraft with an upgraded interface and smooth graphics, the original formula I felt was perfect. I pre-ordered the collectors edition(as I sort of do now days) and when the game launched I raced through the single-player game.

The game is fantastic. It takes place after Broodwar and stars Jim Raynor as the leader of the human opposition to General Mengsk and the other bad stuff out there in the Universe. The game improves on the ol' Starcraft formula and takes it up a few notches by enhancing multi-player and your options in single player as well. The single player story is lengthy and fun. Blizzard really changed up the kinds of things you did in single player so it didn't feel boring or formulaic. Some missions you build your base, some are essentially "hero maps." Each mission allows you a main quest line but you can optionally finish the side missions if you so desire.

Unlike Diablo 3, Starcraft 2 comes with a offline single player mode after you install it. I played it on battle.net and as such experienced trophies, something I felt really added to SC2's unique spin. Each map has special trophies you can earn for doing awesome stuff, like beating it on hard mode or doing other map specific radness, like killing a bad guy only using lava in a map where you have to avoid lava yourself.

A really fun element of Starcraft 2 for me was the story. I liked Jim Raynors character and how he related to the Blizzards world. I liked how the game wove in the Protoss for a few really awesome missions in the middle of the game(I won't spoil the story, but its a fun set of missions). As per Blizzard normal, the cinematics are great.

I delved a smidge into online multi-player but I didn't really stick with it. For a few weeks I played as the Zerg and got a pretty reasonable build going that stacked up to hard bots and a few humans. Playing with friends is always fun but for whatever reason SC2 multi-player didn't stick with me. Don't get me wrong, its really really fun just not something I come back to often for whatever reason. I imagine it has to do with that I know few of my friends that have it and fewer that play it. If you want to play sometime, drop me a line id love to dust off my Zerg build.

I am very excited for Heart of the Swarm to drop and now that Blizzard has released the awesome Diablo 3 I am hoping they drop the release date for Heart of the Swarm. I love playing as the Zerg so I am doubly excited for this expansion. I wonder what fun bits await they that snag the collectors edition? The new units they add will be great as they generally are. I guess we will find out the details at some point, hopefully soon!

In a bid to increase my knowledge of the fine board game arts I went to Rainy Day Games and rolled the dice with some awesome people. Every other Sunday at 1pm Rainy Day Games hosts a board game event where anyone can go and you pick a game to play. I showed up a bit late because Siri pointed me to the wrong location. When I arrived there were two groups of people and I joined the group playing Days of Wonders game "Colosseum" because they had a free spot. Yay!

In Colosseum you play a total of 5 rounds and the player that puts on the best show in those five rounds wins the game. Each round nets you cash you can spend on Colosseum upgrades, better shows and other various other stratagem to help you earn points to get the best show.

Each round has 5 phases which are:

Phase 1: Invest in your Colosseum in various ways. Expand it, add various features to it to give you extra rolls or points when you add your show score.
Phase 2: Bid on tokens with other players. You need tokens to put on shows.
Phase 3: Trade tokens with others. Similar to other trade phases in games like Settlers of Catan.
Phase 4: Put on your event. The more tokens you have the more points you get for your event.
Phase 5: Closing the round by giving up a token in your show and the player trailing the pack can steal a token from the person in the lead.

The game seemed a bit overwhelming at first but after a few rounds it clicked. I made a fatal flaw in the 3rd round by not expanding my Colosseum to support an advanced show. That mis-step caused me to end up in last place as everyone else made the stab for the 3 layer Colosseum and got an advanced show. Didn't matter too much that I came in dead last as it was a ton of fun though.

The game is made by Days of Wonder, the people that make Ticket to Ride. It has the score counting on the outside board edge similar to Ticket to Ride but isn't too similar beyond that. I really liked playing Colosseum and recommend it if you like strategy games involving trading. Our game lasted about 2.5 hours but some of that was spent explaining the rules.

It was awesome to learn Colosseum and meet people that come to play. I plan on hitting up more of these in the future and if you were on the fence about attending, I would recommend you go to one. The people are awesome and its cool to play new stuff.

Ive been trawling the internets for better builds for my Witch Doctor in Nightmare mode and beyond. I had a pretty good pet / acid rain build that was fine but wasn't really working out too well in Nightmare mode so I changed it. This is how I play my Witch Doctor now at level 39 based on recommendations from people can can solo Inferno.

First thing is you need the best weapon you can get. This often means the best two hander you can find. This might not make sense as you might think the Witch Doctor needs a shield or the special shaman carriable shrunken head totems. All your spells, pets and skill damage per second is based off your attack so to hit the hardest with everything you need the best weapon you can aquire. I also recommend going to the auction house if you have a hard time finding a good weapon through grinding. I can't stress enough how much you need a good weapon that deals a ton of DPS. Don't worry about taking more damage, if you have good enough armor and are kiting well damage shouldn't be too much of a problem in most scenarios.

That said, this build takes some time to perfect so don't expect you will master it on your first try. It took me a bit to get used to how to use it. After I learned it I was destroying mobs with ease.

My current build is as follows:

1. PRIMARY: Poison Dart w Splinters Rune. Hits pretty hard and with it you can focus on baddies when you need. Pretty much useful in most cases.

2. SECONDARY: Grasp of the Dead w Unbreakable Grasp Rune. Seriously, this is one of the best abilities WD has. Slowing your enemies down to 80% is epic. If you are not using this in any build of your WD you are really harming yourself. Often times there is a choke point in maps, dumping this on it and backing off to pick off enemies is magic. Seriously, learn to master this ability it is very good.

HOTKEY 1: Fire Bats w Dire Bats Rune. I never understood how powerful this ability is until I understood that it goes all the way across the screen. Being able to be at a distance and send this at 5 guys charging for you can kill them in a one shot if everything is in your favor. Coupled with Soul Harvest this is insta-death to mobs. Ill explain more about that next.

HOTKEY 2: Soul Harvest w Whatever Rune you want. Soul Harvest coupled with other skills is insta-death to certain mobs. Basically it allows you to "Feed off the life force of nearby foes" which basically gives you 88 int * bad guys nearby. So if you harvest from 6 foes, thats 88*6=568 int for 30 seconds. I am using a Rune that ups that to 60 seconds. So sending out dire bats can in certain situations one shot mobs and drop yellows in Nightmare in a few hits.

HOTKEY 3: Big Bad Voodoo w Rain Dance Rune. Basically you drop a AOE totem that lasts for 20 seconds that returns you 98 mana per second. Practically speaking that means if you have the right passive abilities turned on for 20 seconds you will not run out of Mana. Coupled with Soul Harvest and Dire Bats ive been able to drop things in seconds.

HOTKEY 4: Fetish Army w Fetish Ambush. Fetish Ambush rune causes all 5 fetish folk to deal 250% damage on spawn. So if you get ambushed or rushed, I cast this and it deals everyone a fair amount of damage and then I nuke.

Passives:

Spirit Vessel: This reduces the cool-down of Soul Harvest.
Jungle Fortitude: This reduces the damage you take by 20% Useful because I don't roll with a shield or carriable, just epic two handers.
Spiritual Attunement: Max Mana increased by 20% and it regens 1% faster.

This build is epic fail for mobs in Nightmare so far. I am not saying its perfect, but its a pretty fun build. I wish some kind of pet build was as good as this, but so far they are not that viable for me in Nightmare. If you know of any, id love to see them.

Can't take credit for this build, its based on this post and tweaked some to fit my style:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo/comments/uad8p/witch_doctor_inferno_guidesetup_from_a_wd_that/