Journey Through Middle Earth IX: Recalling Adventures Past

on 30.4.201730.4.2017 by Jussi Laasonen

The Great East Road

Nud-melek

Anduin

The Black Pool

The Redhorn Lodes

Garth Agarwen

Thorin’s Gate

In the spirit of the anniversary remembrances, the ninth instalment of Journey Through Middle Earth contains views from some of the older areas.

Future posts will concentrate on Rohan since I have managed to delete my older screenshots and it is not possible to produce high fidelity ones with Surface 3.

Destiny Screenshots IV: Plaguelands

on 19.3.201722.10.2017 by Jussi Laasonen

[Destiny © Bungie, Inc.]

Elite Dangerous: Hauler

on 10.1.201718.12.2016 by Jussi Laasonen 1 Comment

The trusty Hauler brought in the money for a Cobra Mk. III. Then I sold it.

Game of the Year: Destiny

on 30.12.201622.10.2017 by Jussi Laasonen 3 Comments

Destiny has been around a while but it was still my most played game of the year. It received negative of critique but has improved significantly over the years. I do not have too much time to play games and Destiny is enjoyable as bite-sized chunks: a couple of crucible matches, a strike, a mission, or half an hour of patrolling is easy to fit in the schedule. I even went through the trouble of getting the maximum rank Iron Banner after the Rise of Iron release.

[Destiny © Bungie, Inc.]

Runner Up of the Year: Elite Dangerous

on 29.12.201618.12.2016 by Jussi Laasonen 3 Comments

I first tried Elite Dangerous when it was still in the game preview on Xbox One. I did a bit of exploring and tried combat missions and hauling but did not find it interesting enough to continue. Recently I got back to the game and even bought the Horizons expansion.

I have not played a space sim since Independence War II: Edge of Chaos. Elite requires a lot of time to get into and grinding for credits can be tedious. The combat mechanics and exploration are fun enough and flying around in super cruise on kind of a soothing experience.

The real depth of Elite appears to originate from the community. For example, there are subreddits for coordinating the powerplay, which is fairly dull as a game mechanic, and community events like the Christmas carriers convoy. And of course, the game has superb opportunities for taking pretty screenshots.

I definitely want to invest more time to Elite Dangerous. Most likely it will not be my most played game for the next year, but I am looking forward to getting some material for screenshot posts.

Disappointment of the Year: Tom Clancy’s The Division

on 27.12.201618.12.2016 by Jussi Laasonen

I was looking forward to Tom Clancy’s The Division, and the game felt good at first. Unfortunately, the gameplay soon became tedious with bullet sponge and a significant amount of grind required to play effectively, so I quit playing after finishing all the story missions. I returned to the game briefly to check the DLC, and the 1.4 update but despite the improvements was I not motivated enough keep playing. Despite its shortcomings, The Division is one of the best-looking games on Xbox One, and I am planning to do a couple of screenshot posts in the future.

Find of the Year: Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition

on 26.12.201626.12.2016 by Jussi Laasonen

Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition was already released for Xbox One last year. I had not played Divinity series before and dismissed the game as an another Diablo clone. The game was on sale before Christmas, and my brother recommended it, so I decided to give it at try.

The setting of the game is generic fantasy with quite a bit of humour, which reminds me a bit of Quest for Glory. So far the plot has not been too exciting, but I like the turn based combat and the classless character system. I have always disliked class based systems and combining different elemental effects is fun. There is also a co-op mode, but I have not tried it yet.

Journey Through Middle Earth VIII: War in Rohan

on 23.11.201614.12.2016 by Jussi Laasonen

The power supply unit of my desktop PC broke down earlier this year and, instead of going through the trouble of installing a new one, I decided to switch entirely to my Surface 3 tablet. It cannot run LotRO well, and I am currently unable to take any fancy screenshots. Fortunately, I managed to finish Rohan storyline before the incident, and I still have a bunch shots to publish. For this round, I selected a set themed around the various battles in Rohan.