Dead! Comman-D'oh!

He's not pleased

Hampton Roads. It's some sort of naval base. I think. It's also the scene of my ultimate demise. The NOD juggernaut stopped in this place on this day. So I guess in a way that's good, right? NOD are the bad guys so we should be pleased. Hooray! Anyway, read on for the sorry tale of my final mission.

NODding off

Do your top up for goodness sake, you're on duty!

So far, so repetitive.

The opening section of the NOD campaign in Command & Conquer 3 is basically the other side of the GDI opening missions and has been similarly stress free.

Dead! G! (I) DIed

Worst headline ever. I need to save my good ones though I've got another 3 C&C games to get through.

Alas, it was bound to happen at some point. I couldn't keep making major mistakes in a hard campaign and getting away with it. It's really turning game-playing into a sport where I have to FOCUS all the time and make sure I get RESULTS. Read on to witness the shambolic end...

C&C3: The North African Campaign

NOD had created a Liquid Tiberium weapon. It has a yield 10 times that of a Nuke (of course), but it ALSO creates an endothermic reaction which will detonate any Tiberium fields caught in the blast radius. In the strongly infected 'Yellow Zones' this could be catastrophic. We know they're using an old Chemical Factory in North Africa, so that's where I'm off to.

America is Saved!

I totally saved America! Well, the bits of it that were important anyway. The East Coast bits basically. With the rich people in.

Hooray!

Commando & Conquer

Some awesome ships I'm not allowed to use

In spite of my initial desire to rush for Orcas, when presented with the two missions on offer I decided to take Hampton Roads back and gain access to Grenadiers. The main reason for this is that the Hampton Roads mission is a Commando mission which is always good for a laugh and, I felt, would give me the best chance of success. Only having to concentrate on one unit and being able to take my time would stop me getting tangled up trying to do too much and accidentally walking my troops into a volcano or something.

I could finally set the difficulty to hard too and stop feeling like a terrible charlatan.

People Against Goodness And Normal (difficulty)

The space station Philadelphia has been destroyed with most of the world's major leaders and the heads of GDI onboard! NOD is back and there's a media blackout! The Pentagon is under attack and I STILL can't find the difficulty setting! It's all kicking off in C&C3...

C&C vehicle factory

The big man

The first mission of C&C 3's GDI campaign is a classic, by-the-book tutorial opener. NOD activity has reduced to almost nothing and you're sent on a routine patrol to investigate some possible naughty behaviour.

Update and Apologies

Hello friends!

Many apologies for the lack of updates in the last few months - Ben's been buying a house and Neil had a wedding to plan and execute. I, on the other hand, have nothing but laziness to blame for my lack of posts.

Next up in my list was the original Command & Conquer, a game I was mainly looking forward to because of it's mind-blowing installation screen which I remember my jaw dropping at when I first ran it, however, it doesn't work on 64-bit machines, and I found the web-only version too 'springy' on the old mouse interaction to play for any amount of time.

Next up is Command and Conquer 3 though, which Neil and I played extensively against each other, so I'll be starting on that tomorrow!

Happy New Year everyone!

Dead Alert! Red Alert 3

Bring it on

I had high hopes for this run through. It had it all - a genre I considered myself good at, a game I hadn't played so it would be a new experience, it was modern so I could take plenty of nice looking screenshots.
Yep it was all adding up to be a doozy.
Guess what happened?

Dead! Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3: Reds Under the Ground

Well, obviously

We're deep into the C's now and with 'C' comes C&C,  one of my favourite franchises. I think I have all of them except the terrible FPS and the latest one which seemed a bit weird (walking bases that respawn sounded interesting, but I think I had other games to focus on). With three campaigns which can be played co-op or single player, this game is going to get a LOT of time between the three of us, so here's my first run at the solo Soviet campaign.

Skipped! Civilisation: Call To Power

Hey gang!

Just a note to say that I'm unable to install Civilisation: Call to Power. It just sticks at 61% and never goes any further.
I'm skipping it for now and moving on to Red Alert 3, but if you have any idea how to get it to work then let me know!

Dead? Call To Power 2

Yay?

Call To Power 2 could be the first game in this project which I've finished.

It could be.

I got to the end and I didn't die. I think that fulfils the criteria. There is some uncertainty though.

How did I reach this possibly astonishing conclusion? Read on...

Red Dragon Age: Call to Power 2

This isn't from my game unfortunately*

Things have reached a precarious point for Owain Glyndwr. A couple of hundred years ago he took the Welsh people by the scruff of the neck and said - "Look here gang, this nomadding business is great and all, but have a look around you. This place is quite nice isn't it? So maybe we should take a chance, knock up some slightly more permanent dwellings and see how it works out for us? I mean there's plains, grassland, some ocean with some pearls in, what more could you want? Some bits are a bit marshy mind you, but we'll probably work out how to drain them one day (depending on what branch of the tech tree we prioritise). Come on everyone, let's give it crack eh?"

Today however, Owain and his now thousand strong population find themselves hemmed in by a large, well-armed civilisation who have shown no qualms about stretching their considerable muscles at the slightest hint of provocation. Aggressively expansionist, the tipping point has come, and some tough decisions will have to be made to ensure the future of the Welsh nation.

Dead! - COD4 "Soap" MacRubbish

I think you can all pretty much guess how this went. I completed the tutorial and it told me I should play on Recruit. I chose 'Veteran' (You Will Not Survive).
"Are you sure?" it asked, "That difficulty is not recommended".

Well we'll just see about that...



And that's that. the one bit where I actually have to shoot some people and I'm killed instantly.
:(

Call to Power 2 next! Bring it ON!

Dead! Braid - Time Reverses For No Man

Braid is widely held to be a masterpiece. A hugely popular indie game with innovative mechanics, some excellent puzzling, sarcastic nods to platformers past and an interesting and grown-up storyline.
My playthrough of it lasts about a minute and a half.

Dead! Bookworm Adventures Vol. 2

Well, this is embarrassing.

Bookworm Adventures is a game for children. It's a fun way to practice your spelling from Popcap, who are widely known for their approachable, fun, and ultimately fairly easy games. You play 'Lex', a bookworm who is sucked inside the world of books and has to battle his way out by spelling the longest words you can from a four by four grid of random letters. There is no time limit and potions are given out liberally. Each opponent you defeat replenishes your health to full.
I have just been beaten by a boss less than half way through the game.

Dead! Atom Zombie un-Smasher

We can learn much from history, as my old history teacher would harp on about. "mrbenn," he used to say, "mankind's greatest triumphs and catastrophes are written in the annals of history; moments of true inspiration, mistakes that we must not make again. History is probably the greatest indicator as to who we are, as a species."

Well, he would say that. It was his chosen subject to teach.

However, he would be right when it came to zombie disaster management, in that my time in charge would surely be written down in history as one of the greatest failings of our time.

Dead! Well, defeated. Blood Bowl

Ah, the sport of kings! That's horse racing. Blood Bowl on the other hand is a turn-based sport board game set in the Warhammer universe. It's kind of like American football but with the flow and excitement removed and fantasy clichés and  random dice rolls added. Let's see how my team-The Baker Street Irregulars-got on in their first season in the top flight.

Dead! (Inside) - Black and White

Well, I don't know what to say really. I haven't died in the game, but I have died inside, and my enthusiasm for playing and writing about it is also close to death which is why, for the sake of the project, I've decided to just stop playing it.