The Blog of Xbolt

Hi all! I’m Chekovrules, the new Mrs. Xbolt. And since I’m sure you’re all excited about the wedding, here’s a nice video for you.

There, look at that! My first post and not a single word about squids! Oh, wait…

How to Kill a Mockingbird

And to help bring us back into the swing of things, here’s the most epic video of all time.

Now, I’m sure you hear the word “epic” a lot, used for many different things. But THIS… THIS is the true definition of epic.

The Avett Brothers – January Wedding

So, I basically disappeared from the Internet this month. Where have I been? Well, I got married. And I have had ZERO time for basically anything. But now we’re settled in to our new house, and hopefully I can start posting again. And my wife has an account on the blog here now, so she can post stuff to keep you busy. If you like squids, that is.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – Announcement Trailer

Bah. They’re just doing a sub-par remake of our movie.

Megurine Luka – Paradise ~ Deep Mountain

Here you go. A very nice Vocaloid rendition of a Touhou song.

“In the future the world was dark and scarry.”

In the year 2052, human civilization is on the brink of collapse. A deadly pandemic known as the “Gray Death” is taking a huge toll on the world’s population. It has no cure, but a synthetic vaccine, Ambrosia, lessens the effects of the virus. However, it is in critically short supply, and all of it goes to government officials and others who are deemed vital to the social order.

Since the common folk have no hope of getting Ambrosia, riots occur worldwide. Many terrorist groups are also formed, with the stated intent of assisting the commoners.

You play as JC Denton, a nanotechnologically-augmented agent working for the United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition (UNATCO). UNATCO was established with the intent of maintaining peace, and combating the continually-expanding numbers of terrorist groups.

Deus Ex is a highly immersive FPS/RPG, the likes of which I have not seen before or since. The game will accommodate many different playing styles. If you want, you can go in and go in and go in and go in like the US Marshall with guns blazing, shooting everything in sight. Or, you can sneak through the game, lockpicking all the doors and silently knifing enemies. Or you can pick up a sniper rifle and pick off everyone from a distance before they even know what’s going on. It is completely up to you.

But the moment when I realized that this was the greatest game of all time, was near the beginning. I was exploring around, and strolled into the ladies’ restroom, where a lady promptly told me to go away. A little while later, I was receiving orders from my superior, and he told me to stay out of the ladies’ restroom. I spent the next five minutes laughing my head off. It’s the little details like that that truly make this an awesome game.

Deus Ex – “I wanted orange! It gave me lemon-lime…”

One of the best conversations in the game.

Buy it on Steam.

“Hello, Earth. Who’s your daddy? Why, yes, I am.”

Day 11. The penultimate day. Tomorrow you will learn what the greatest game of all time is. But today, we come closer to it than ever before.

For those who haven’t played the first MDK, (which you should,) MDK2 starts out with a brief retelling of what happened. In the form of a comic book. With an EPIC narration.

The three main characters are Kurt Hectic, Max, and Dr. Fluke Hawkins. Kurt is a janitor, who never wanted to be a hero. Max is a robotic, six-legged dog that smokes cigars. Doc is an eccentric man of science. And they’re all busy celebrating their victory over the evil alien invaders. But of course, it’s not all over yet. There’s still another alien Minecrawler making a mess of Edmonton. (What’s a Minecrawler, you say? It’s like a tank. Only the size of an ENTIRE CITY.) So Kurt goes down to save the world. Again.

You can play as all three characters. Kurt is your sniper type. He goes around, sniping enemies from a distance. Max has six limbs. So obviously he has to hold a gun in EACH OF HIS FOUR HANDS. So he runs around shooting at everything in sight. All while smoking a cigar. You can’t get more awesome than that, folks. Finally, the Doctor solves puzzles. Being an old guy, he’s not terribly proficient in combat. Most of his time is spent with puzzles. His primary weapon is a toaster. A TOASTER INFUSED WITH SCIENCE.

The gameplay is fun. Brutally challenging, perhaps. But fun. (Well, not challenging for ME, of course…) The dialogue is extremely well written. I love it so much, I can replay, in my head, the entire game word-for-word. Seriously, I can. Try me.

The soundtrack is absolutely amazing. Electronica, woo! This was one of the earliest games that I went out and dug around in the game files to rip out the soundtrack. JUST LISTEN TO THAT.

MDK2 also officially has the coolest bad guy from all games ever.

MDK2 Wazzup

Remember this? This was like, one of my first videos on the blog here.

Buy it on Good Old Games! (Or Steam. But GOG comes with bonus stuff and is cheaper.)

Alternatively, you can get a new HD version with 2011 graphics from Beamdog. (I haven’t gotten the HD version yet, though. So I am not, as of yet, able to give it the Xbolt Seal of Quality.)

“I think we can out our differences behind us. For science. You monster.”

Portal 2 is a continuation of Portal. If you haven’t heard of Portal, you must have been living under a rock for the last four years. Portal was an experimental puzzle game that Valve wasn’t sure was going to be a huge hit. So they sandwiched it between HL2:Ep2 and TF2 in the Orange Box. But then to everyone’s surprise, Portal became the game everyone talked about, and won lots of Game of the Year awards. Because of Portal, cake will never again be truthful.

So Portal 1 was mind-blowing epicness that came from nowhere and blew everyone’s mind. But could Portal 2 live up to the legacy that Portal 1 set? The answer is YES!

Portal 2 takes Portal 1, and expands in every way. It has a deeper, richer story, more varied gameplay elements, and Cave Johnson. Cave pretty much single-handedly makes Portal 2 better than Portal 1.

Portal 2 also has, unequivocally, the coolest ending of all games, ever.

Gee, I’ve already put all the trailers on the blog at one point or another… What to do…

Portal 2 Teaser Trailer

Heck with it, I’m posting this again. It’s that awesome.

You should play both Portals. So buy them both on Steam!

“I realize this moment may not be the most… convenient for a heart-to-heart.”

Before I even started making the list of my favorite games, I decided that with game series that span multiple games, only the best game out of that series would be eligible, even though I like all of them. Because if I didn’t, Half-Life would take up half the list here.

Episode Two, in my opinion, is the most fun game in the series. It continues with the great storytelling of the earlier games, and it introduces my favorite character: Dr. Magnusson. He’s funny. The Hunter is also the most interesting enemy to fight. They can soak up a lot of bullet damage, but that doesn’t stop me from smashing them over the head with a barrel thrown by SCIENCE!

The pacing in the game is superb. It has periods of slowness interspersed into the action, during which the characters interact and the story advances. Or simply to cool down between fights. But just before you start getting bored and in need of action, SUDDENLY STUFF HAPPENS.

The game also has a 1970s American muscle car. What a 1970s American muscle car is doing in eastern Europe in a future post-apocalyptic world, I have no idea. But that doesn’t stop it from being TOTALLY AWESOME. VROOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM (The dune buggy in Half-Life 2 is boring in comparison. And don’t even get me started on the airboat.)

Half life 2: Episode Two Trailer 1

Man, compared to the cinematics from Left 4 Dead onward, these older Valve trailers look amateur. I guess they learned a lot from the Meet the Team videos.

You really can’t play this without playing the earlier ones. So you should play the entire Half-Life series, starting with the original.

Buy them all on Steam!

“Francis.” “Zoey.” “Francis?” “Zoey.” “Francis!” “Zoey!”

Left 4 Dead is a zombie shooter game. You run around, and you shoot lots of zombies. Many zombies. Lots of times. Over and over.

SO WHY IS IT SO FUN?

Each game is different. The AI Director runs in the background, monitoring what’s happening in the game, and spawns zombies in different locations all the time. The AI Director is always laughing at you. It throws lots of tough zombies at you at the most inopportune moments. Sometimes it is gracious, and gives you a healthkit. Followed by a Tank.

Left 4 Dead is unique on my list, as it is the only multiplayer-oriented game on here. A couple other ones have a multiplayer component, but singleplayer is the primary mode of play. (You CAN play Left 4 Dead by yourself, but it is recommended you find a few friends. The AI bots are useless.)

The game contains four full campaigns with five levels each. Plus two shorter ones. But if you get bored of playing those levels, there’s a whole flurry of addon campaigns just waiting for you to download them.

You know, it’s too bad they never made a sequel. That would have been great.

Francis Hates Left 4 Dead

My fiance and I play this game pretty much all the time. If we’re not out doing stuff together, we’re usually at home playing this. We have hundreds of hours of zombie slaying under our belts. We can run through all the levels in our sleep. (Really. We stayed up all night playing on New Years Day 2011, and we were NOT awake when we were playing our last campaign that day.)

She plays Zoey, and I play Francis. And we shoot zombies together.