After playing and blogging about Minecraft last week, I decided to give Space Engineers a try which has been on my ‘to try’ radar for quite some time. Space Engineers is a sandbox game developed and published by Czech independent company Keen Software House. The reason Space Engineers has been on my radar for a while is because at face value it combines some of my favourite things, mining, and open world space exploration. At almost 23 hours into the game however I have found that I am a really bad engineer, highlighted by a screenshot of my crashed and upside down mining ship.

The game has quite a steep learning curve but, to be fair, there are a lot of tutorials and community content to help new players find their feet with Space Engineers. There are also a lot of different ways of playing the game including pre set scenarios, workshops and custom games. I am a bit disappointed at my inability to pick up some of the basics of the game, but I am sure that’s just me being inpatient. In my defence however, I think I built a pretty good little base of operations, including 4 wind turbines providing renewable energy to power 2 ore refineries, a basic ‘assembler’, 02/H2 generator and survival kit.

Much like with Minecraft, the possibilities for Space Engineers are enormous. Players have created amazing things in this open world space simulation. From bases on an earth-like or alien planet, space stations, space ships and more. I deeply regret not having enough time to pour into this game to get what I would want out of it, which is an easy to get into astrogeology mining simulation type game, a bit like what EVE Online offers, but better, single player and modern. If you like mining, exploration, a massive open world and an engineering sandbox game, Space Engineers could be perfect for you. I might someday return to Space Engineers, but for now I will keep looking for my perfect game.

This is probably my first non gaming or blog related post, but I just can’t ignore the war in Ukraine any longer. What has tipped me over the edge is a message I received through my website via the contact form. It’s written in Russian and it is clear that it is someone who is trying to share their experience with people by using some sort of web crawl and spamming as many websites as they can. It reads.

‘вчера вечером добирался на автобусе домой в Екатеринбург. В это время подошли военные и требовали его личные документы. После предъявления документов, ему объявили что он задержан в связи с специальной военной операцией, как гражданин Российской Федерации, который игнорирует повестки. Также поставили в известность что он будет доставлен в районный отдел полиции для для пополнения в армии Российской Федерации. Сообщили об этом 20 минут назад, в военкомате ему дали позвонить родным. Он непригоден для службы в армии, есть документы! Кто посоветует что возможно предпринять в такой неразберихе?Начинают отправлять на специальную военную операцию?!’

I can’t translate Russian but Google translate does a reasonable job and I gather this person is explaining that on the bus home the Russian military ordered a citizen of the Russian Federation to show them his ‘papers’ which I assume is identity documentation. They then told him he was being detained as part of a Russian military operation and that he would be taken to a police station and then to an enlistment office to join the Russian military where he will be allowed to telephone his family (effectively this person is being conscripted). It goes on to say that this person is unsuitable for military service and there is documentation to prove it.

This is spam, but I genuinely believe it isn’t intended to scam me or sell me services but to share their experience. Quite frankly I am disgusted with what the Russian Federation is doing to the Ukraine and to their own citizens. I find it impossible to understand why people are so intent on their own destruction. What could possibly be worth invading the Ukraine? Whatever it is, political ideology, religion, natural resources, power? The Ukraine has never been threat to the people of the Russian Federation. What is it that’s worth the deaths of families fleeing from their homes? What could be worth conscripting men to fight in a war? What could possibly be worth even the risk of a world war? These aren’t rhetorical questions, I really want to know if there is an answer.

The best outcome at this point is for all people of Russia to stop doing whatever they’re doing and say no. Once again they must stand as one and get rid of the few despotic and frankly psychotic people who are at the helm of this nonsense. This is what the sanctions are about, to try and get everyone behind the point that what’s happening is wrong and must stop at the earliest possible moment. The soldiers, the police, tax payers, all ordinary people need to wake up and do something about it, before another family is murdered, before another one of their sons, brothers, husbands are killed. As of right now, the flag of the Russian Federation is drenched with blood, sweat and tears, but it can get a lot worse.

I think the world has shown enormous restraint to not do what the leaders of the Ukraine are asking for and more. The last thing I want is for my country is to go to war, but there must be a line drawn where the United Kingdom, the world, must intervene, at enormous cost, for the sake of worldwide stability and hopefully reduce the threat of the use of weapons of mass destruction.

There always seems to be a war somewhere in the world, often made worse by 3rd party countries who are engaged in a proxy war, a way to do war but without actually being directly involved, only indirectly. They all disgust me, they all result in the murder of families, survivors grow to carry hatred with them and desire revenge. My own country is not without blame. When will it all end? What must it take? If genocide doesn’t stop wars what will? Nuclear war, chemical weapons? Are peoples lives so cheap?

Everyone who plays video games will know about Minecraft, even people who don’t play video games will have heard of it. For those few that don’t know, Minecraft is a sandbox game developed and published by Mojang Studios in 2011. Being almost entirely a sandbox game, Minecraft offers limitless player creativity, players gather materials, craft items to assist in the gathering of more materials and build whatever they want. Many players will build small things such as a house or a farm where as a few impressive people will use their imaginations to create entire cities, landscapes, anything. I wish I could claim credit for the below Minas Tirith creation from The Lord of the Rings which was originally posted by a member of the Reddit community in 2013.

My story with Minecraft started in early 2011, before it was officially released and in BETA. To be honest, at the time I was working in a boring dead end job and I was looking for something to do to occupy me during periods of down-time where there was nothing to do. I only had a mediocre PC with no dedicated graphics card to work with. At that time however and to a degree even now, Minecraft requires very little system resources and ran fine on whatever my employer supplied me with, along with another game FTL: Faster Than Light. Since leaving that job I think in 2013/14, I haven’t really played any Minecraft but have heard about some of the various updates and additions including new biomes, mineable resources, enemies, items, play modes and ease of access for communities of players.

This time around I started playing the game using the ‘hardcore’ mode where if you die you have to start again from scratch. After dying and needing to re-create my game several times, I decided to play the game on ‘normal survival’ mode where if you die you will at least respawn and be able to continue. Since I started to play Minecraft this way I haven’t died, but at least I know if I do I will not have to start over. Compared to the accomplishments of many builders in Minecraft, what I have built is very simple and humble, I am almost too embarrassed to share it but here is a screenshot of a two story building, a wheat farm and mine shaft that I have created. The building serves as a haven to store items and resources, the wheat farm provides me with a consistent source of food and the mining shaft is what I use to go deep underground to farm materials.

In my defence, playing in survival mode does mean that all resources and building materials need finding. As such spent a lot of my time in my mine finding underground caverns such as the one below. These are rich with coal, iron, gold, copper, diamonds and other important resources.

What impresses me most about Minecraft is the community behind it. People of all ages find something fun about this game. Some people have even built careers creating content associated with Minecraft, not just streamers or YouTubers, but also people who have built intricate worlds, texture packs, interactive stories, educational pieces and much more. If I was interested in a career in the gaming industry, I would seriously consider using Minecraft to build my own game within the Minecraft engine to show potential employers my creativity. Perhaps even design my own texture pack to change the look and feel of the game. As it stands, I don’t have the creativity to start a career in the gaming industry, but I will be keeping what I have accomplished so far and maybe even expand upon it someday.

For what I think is the first time I have played Diablo III non-ladder. Usually I always play Diablo III on the ladder for the unique rewards and achievements, not to mention an addition to the record of all previous seasons and the opportunity to do better. I have been feeling quite sick lately while at the same time stressed with work and ongoing home repairs. I needed a game that was relatively fun, easy and didn’t need an investment of my time, I concluded that Diablo III non-ladder was that game.

The first thing I wanted to do was replace my Demon Hunter which I sacrificed at the end of my season 23. This didn’t take much time with the resources available to me and I was even able to craft most of the gear using Kanai’s Cube. Instead of playing and perfecting my new Demon Hunter, I found myself playing my Barbarian which survived season 23. I casually started to replace the resources which I used to create my Demon Hunter by playing through rifts and greater rifts, even completing a few bounties. Eventually I even reached paragon level 1000 which I recorded below after completing a tier 85 greater rift.

Playing Diablo III, even on the hardcore setting, poses no challenge. While I have been taking strong pain relief medicine or simply zoning out, I have been able to play through Diablo III on autopilot. In a way that’s why I still like Diablo III, it’s a great game to play when you don’t want to think too much and would rather listen to music, an audiobook or in my case unwind and have something to do while feeling sick. The screenshot below is of my Barbarian and you can see on the left all my hardcore characters being level 1000. The character at the bottom is my only ‘softcore character’ at level 666.

It’s fortunate for me that I have reached a point in Final Fantasy IX, which I wrote about at the beginning of the month, whereby it’s an ideal time to take a break and come back to it later. I really hope I start to feel less stressed and better soon so that I can complete my Final Fantasy IX journey, play more Snooker Nation matches against my friend Jason and generally get back to gaming properly again. But for now, Diablo III non-ladder will have to do.

Because of sickness on my part Jason and I only played 2 of a potential of 4 matches this month. Perhaps it is just as well since Jason required treatment which might have impaired his vision. We end February equal having won 3 matches each but what makes a change is that I have more century breaks than Jason so far this season. Perhaps I am playing better than usual.

11/02/2022 – Match 160

While I feel like I played fairly well, Jason must have played better by winning this match 6 frames to 4. In frame 2 I decided to try and practise hitting the pack of reds off of 2 cushions. The idea is that in Snooker Nation you’re shown the trajectory of the cue ball after it hits either the first ball or cushion, after that it’s down to the player to try and predict. After missing the pack of reds, which is a foul, Jason is able to make me re-take the shot. The second time I got close, but still missed and Jason made me re-take the shot again. I know that there is a rule whereby if you miss 3 times in a row when not snookered (nothing is in the line of sight of the cue ball and object ball) you for forfeit the frame. I was so confident that I played the same shot again and, while it was close, I still missed and lost the frame. I think in the history of Snooker Nation between Jason and myself it is the first time one of us has forfeit a frame. Other than that there were 5 century breaks in total, I scored 144 in frame 3, 114 in frame 4 but missed the final yellow and 111 in frame 7 but once again missed the final yellow. Jason had 104 in frame 6 and finished with 117 in frame 10.

18/02/2022 – Match 161

I have to say the first frame of this match was awful, both Jason and I missed easy shots, had bad positional play and I managed to screw up safety shots. Thankfully this wasn’t a sign of what was to come and I won 6 frames to 3. I scored the only centuries of the match, 123 in frame 2 and 110 in frame 8. I would have scored a century in frame 9 but got a bit unlucky by potting the white ball.

Season 6 ( January – June 2022) statistics

For almost 2 weeks now I have been casually playing perhaps one of my favourite video game titles, Final Fantasy IX. Because Final Fantasy IX is a fairly long game, I have decided to blog about it in 2 parts. Right now I have put in approximately 25 hours play time and have just about completed what would have been disc 2 of 4.

Final Fantasy IX is a Japanese Role-playing game (JRPG) for the PlayStation and was released in the summer of 2000. Developed and published by Square before it merged with Enix, I believe Final Fantasy IX is possibly the last masterpiece created by Square. I have no doubt that many people will disagree with that opinion, especially when it comes to Final Fantasy X which was released in 2002 in the EU. Final Fantasy IX was released at the end of the PlayStation lifespan as the current generation of games console, showing us what the PlayStation was capable of before the dawn of a new era in games consoles.

I first heard about Final Fantasy IX when I saw a TV advertisement for it. Believe it or not a TV add for a video game, at least in the UK back in 2000, was pretty unusual. Being a gamer was still taboo, but things were starting to change. My mother, who has always shown me kindness, generosity, support and love bought the game for me shortly after release and even bought the official strategy guide to go with it as an additional surprize. Sadly my strategy guide was stolen which for years left me feeling kind of empty and bitter. Recently however I got replacement after I sourced a brand new one still in its wrapping. Because I am a sentimental geezer, I asked my mother if she would buy it for my birthday last year. Because of this I think both the PlayStation game and strategy guide are among my most prized possessions.

To be honest, when I first started playing Final Fantasy IX, I wasn’t very keen on the setting and didn’t really think much of the characters. I was disappointed but kept going to find that the sort of steampunk setting grew on me and as the story started to unfold, I was hooked. For me Final Fantasy IX is much better than the previous game in the series, Final Fantasy VIII, and while this is not a particularly difficult game, it is one of the more difficult Final Fantasy games and features some excellent ‘mini’ games which include chocobo treasure hunting and a card game. As you can see from my screenshot below, right now I only have 22 out of 100 unique cards and have only won 4 games.

For a few years now I have wanted to re-play through Final Fantasy IX, but I don’t want to rush it. In part 2 I want to write about how I have completed the game so that I can add it to my list of completed games, but I also feel like I want to to improve my card collection, treasure hunting mini game and defeat some of the optional bosses and side quests with highly trained and well equipped characters.

After the first month of Snooker Nation season 6, both Jason and I have won 2 matches each, making this a month of two halves. At the end of the month I managed to score a maximum break of 147 which I am quite proud of and is the first maximum break since season 4 in April 2021. With 5 more months of season 6 ahead of us, there isn’t much point looking at the statistics, but technically January ends with me in the lead by frames won difference.

07/01/2021 – Match 156

It’s been a good start to the month, year and season of Snooker Nation for me, winning 6 frames to 3. That said I am sure Jason would agree that neither of us played particularly well this week with both of us missing relatively easy shots and consistently failing to secure century breaks. Neither of us were especially unlucky, I just think we were both out of practise having not played for a few weeks. Also, we hadn’t spoken for a while and had some catching up to do which always takes priority. There was just 1 century break, 126, which I scored in frame 9.

14/01/2022 – Match 157

Not a good match for Jason who lost 6 frames to 1. I am sure he will not mind me saying that his eye sight, which has never been particularly good, has recently deteriorated and is pending treatment. Because of this I think this is probably one of his worst performances playing Snooker Nation. I didn’t play very well either and missed quite a few shots and made some poor decisions which ordinarily would have cost me frames, perhaps even the match. There was 1 century break of 123 which I scored in frame 3, but I missed the final blue. Had I potted the blue, pink and black I would have scored 141, which is huge. As well as struggling to see, Jason also had a run of bad luck having potted the white ball on at least two occasions. I really hope his luck changes, and more importantly he gets better soon.

21/01/2022 – Match 158

While Jason’s eyesight hasn’t got much better, his luck has certainly changed. We both played reasonably well but I ultimately lost the match 6 frames to 3. There were 3 century breaks in total, I started with 100 in frame 1, Jason followed up with 119 in frame 2 and also scored 105 in frame 8 which could have been 130 if he hadn’t of missed the final green. We should have scored around 6 century breaks between us, Jason had a break of 99 in frame 3 but ran out of position on the final yellow, I also failed to pot the final yellow in frame 6 and in frame 7 Jason couldn’t quite manage a century.

28/01/2022 – Match 159

It turns out to be a month of two halves with Jason winning 6 frames to 4. I am especially disappointed to have lost this match as at one stage I was winning 3 frames to 1, but after scoring a maximum break of 147 in frame 3 I think my concentration started to go down hill. As well as a maximum break in frame 3, I also scored 101 in frame 2 but missed the final red. Jason scored a century of his own of 137 in frame 8, setting a new high break for him. At times we were both playing quite well, but there were some really bad misses and scrappy frames this week, especially frame 6 where both Jason and I kept potting the white ball!

Season 6 ( January – June 2022) statistics

Not long ago I played and completed Terminator: Resistance Annihilation Line DLC (Downloadable Content) for Terminator: Resistance which I wrote about back in December. Because I enjoyed Terminator: Resistance so much I wanted to wait a while so that I could enjoy looking forward to playing Annihilation Line. But I couldn’t wait any longer.

Once again, as a fan of the Terminator franchise I am hugely impressed with this DLC. The storyline fits extremely well with what we see and know from the first two Terminator films. Everything from the setting, the terminators, resistance fighters, weapons, vehicles and even the soundtrack is exactly how it should be if this were to be an extension of James Cameron’s The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgement Day masterpiece. That’s not to say Teyon, the developers of Terminator: Resistance and Annihilation Line are lacking in imagination, the story lines are truly excellent and well executed. Teyon also worked with Dark Horse Comics who published a digital comic book ‘Terminator: Resistance Zero Day Exploit’ which expands upon two important characters in the game, Commander Baron and Dr Mack.

Teyon have stated that Annihilation Line will be the only DLC that will be developed for Terminator: Resistance. On one hand this makes me quite sad, I would like nothing more than more content. But on the other hand I applaud Teyon for being open from the start and for not spoiling the game by milking it to death. In my opinion there comes a point with any film, TV, video game franchise where less is more and I think Teyon have identified that at the right time for their game.

As well as completing Annihilation Line on the ‘normal’ difficulty setting, which I will add to my list of completed games, I have completed the original Terminator: Resistance game a second time on the ‘hard’ difficulty setting. While it was fun to play through the game on a harder difficulty setting, nothing can beat the first play through as the story unfolded.

Just before Christmas I saw that Star Wars Battlefront and many other EA (Electronic Arts) games were on sale. I have been somewhat of a fan of the Star Wars franchise for as long as I can remember, as a child I had a millennium falcon toy with figures, collected some of the Star Wars customizable card game and frequently watched the early films. When I saw that I could buy Star Wars Battlefront and Star Wars Battlefront II which are ‘AAA‘ games for less than £8.00 I just had to.

I always knew that the Star Wars Battlefront games were primarily online PvP (Player vs Player) multiplayer first-person shooters, which typically do not interest me very much. I had hoped however that there would be a linear solo campaign to play through. When it comes to Star Wars Battlefront however I was left disappointed. There are things you can do solo or with a friend, short battles, skirmishes and a survival mode where you need to defeat 15 waves of enemies, but without any kind of story or feeling of progression I very quickly found this game boring.

Don’t get me wrong, I can see that this is an excellent game, especially for Star Wars fans. But if like me you’re not interested in online first-person shooter PvP, there really isn’t much you can do. One thing which really annoys me however is the necessity to install Origin, a ‘digital distribution platform’ for EA and set up a user profile. Gone are the days you insert a CD/DVD/Cartridge into your computer/console and just play. I already have Steam as a ‘digital distribution platform’ but apparently that’s not enough to play EA games.

I did intend to complete all of the single player content so that I could add it to my list of completed games, I think I have done about 75% of it but just can’t bring myself to do the rest. I still have Star Wars Battlefront II to try but I think it will probably be much the same so I will leave it for now.

About a week ago I saw that Terminator: Resistance, a relatively new game released towards the end of 2019 was on sale for less than £20. I was looking for a new game and as a big fan of the film ‘The Terminator‘ I couldn’t help but buy it and give it a try. What followed is about 20 hours of some of the best gaming I have had in years. The game is a linear first person shooter set in post apocalyptic California which is being overrun with terminators. You play as a member of the resistance called Jacob Rivers and go on a variety of different missions with optional side objectives. As you perform certain actions and complete objectives you gain experience and levels which give you skill points to spend unlocking different abilities.

At face value Terminator: Resistance is probably a mediocre game. There are many first person shooter games which offer the same game play, you can go in all guns blazing, sneak around avoiding encounters, pick locks, craft using collected crafting materials, are given options when interacting with NPCs (non-player characters), all very standard stuff. Where Terminator: Resistance separates itself from other games is just how well the developers, Teyon, managed to capture James Cameron’s vision of the future in the Terminator franchise. Everything from the atmosphere, the look of the terminators, the weapons, the resistance uniforms, vehicles, everything is exactly how it is portrayed in the first two terminator films. The developers must be big fans of these films and must have studied them in detail before capturing its essence in their game. It’s quite frankly amazing and I got a lot of nerd chills from it.

Spoiler alert: Below is a video of me playing through the final mission ‘No Fate’.

As well as capturing the essence of the terminator films, the game features countless film references and an excellent soundtrack. Unlike some of the later films in the franchise, Terminator: Resistance actually fits in really well as part of the story. I always wanted a terminator film set in the future, to show how John Connor defeated Skynet, which I kind of got with Terminator: Salvation in 2009, but I was left disappointed. Terminator: Resistance should have been that film.

Having completed the game on ‘normal’ difficulty, I am happy to add Terminator: Resistance to my list of completed games. I actually feel a little sad that I have completed the game, I just didn’t want the game to end. If there is any real criticism I have for Terminator: Resistance is that it’s a little short and a bit of an easy game. I completed the game in about 20 hours play time and that’s with taking my time exploring and completing all of the optional side missions. There is a new ‘infiltrator mode’ where I assume you play as a Skynet infiltrator, but I am not sure that will interest me. As it happens just before I bought the game a new campaign became available, Terminator: Resistance Annihilation Line which currently costs around £13. Considering how much I enjoyed the main campaign I will most certainly be buying this DLC, but I want to savour the opportunity for a while rather than rush into it.