You know 2019 has started off right when you realize you have been playing more D&D. Last weekend, our gaming group headed over to our friend’s apartment for our Dark Ages session #2 with our characters. You can read our session #1 recap in this blog post I made last month. I will say Althaea accomplished more in this session than in the prior session which made me super happy.

After sleeping off the fight with the barbarians, our characters awake in an ice prison underground with no memory of how we got there. There’s a tunnel about 50 feet down that goes deeper into this ice prison. Thankfully, one of our characters has a rope where we climb down and start looting the corpses which are scattered everywhere. Muglupus (the boyfriend’s character) is a dwarf who spends most of his time building a tunnel to find an escape. Suddenly, the floor beneath us breaks and one of our characters drops into a sewer facility where she has to fight three rats.

It takes Althaea a little while to get down there, but she comes to aid to fight these massive rats. As a side note, three giant rats sound horrifying to come across. After the defeat of the rats, we realize they weren’t actually intending to attack us, they were running from a massive spider. This is where Althaea is the true MVP in this session. I decided to grab my two ruby-encrusted daggers attached to my hip. I held the handles in both hands and ran up to the spider intending on cutting off the two spider’s giant limbs. I ended up rolling a critical success. Althaea went for the two limbs but ended up sliding underneath the spider and cutting off all its limbs. I’m just imagining that scenario in my head and it makes my character look like such a badass.

The spider quickly dies and I’m able to steal some of the spider’s fangs and now my daggers have venom on the blade. After traveling underneath the sewer we pop up in the Doctor’s office of the village we were staying in. The Doctor’s office contained several vials believed to be a mix of poison and medicine. Also included in the Doctor’s materials was his journal admitting to experimenting on the citizens living in the town. Our characters decided to poison both the Innkeeper and the Doctor for what they did to the citizens in the town. After revealing the truth at a town meeting, we decide to save the Doctor from the poison and let the town deal with him. We ended our session by running towards a monastery and camping with Rose, a friend we met in the village.

Our next session will be this weekend because we may have to skip the month of March due to everyone’s obligations. I was really satisfied in this session and I feel rejuvenated in where the campaign is going.

If anyone has any D&D campaign stories to share, please feel free to leave them in the comments section.

Did you know Brett Dalton, Hayden Panettiere, and Rami Malek were in a video game? I found this out as I started playing Until Dawn a week ago. I hope if I ever became famous, I could appear in a video game too. Until Dawn is one of my favorite horror games I ever played.

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

Eight teenagers gather at a log cabin mansion owned by Josh’s family (motion captured by Rami Malek). Beth and Hannah, Josh’s twin sisters, run into the storm after a practical joke gone wrong performed by their friends. Beth and Hannah are never seen again. One year later, the same eight teenagers return to the cabin: Josh, Chris, Ashley, Sam (motion captured by Hayden Panettiere) Mike (motion captured by Brett Dalton), Jessica, Emily, and Matt. As you play through the episodes, vicious creatures start to stalk the characters. Additionally, it appears one of the characters is a psychopath who’s also hunting the teenagers. Each of the ten chapters allows you as the player to make decisions regarding the fate of the other characters.

Trophies can be unlocked based on decisions made in the game. For example, I chose to cut off one of the character’s fingers with a hatchet after getting stuck in a trap. This allowed my character to still have a working hatchet and I received a trophy for this decision. Some decisions in the game were easy for me to make, but others I had to deliberate on for much longer.

Until Dawn relies on QTEs (quick time events) meaning pressing buttons in rapid succession to succeed in an event. I accidentally failed this when one character was racing in the woods and I pressed the wrong button on the PlayStation controller. Missing one button led to a character’s death. There are many ways to replay the game as I need to collect all the collectibles, but also want to see how different choices play out differently. I wanted to unlock the trophy where all the characters survive as my first playthrough. Unfortunately, I accidentally killed them all

I have no criticism for Until Dawn and I cannot stop raving about how great this game is. There’s a soft spot in my heart for Ashley and Chris since they both remind me of young, high school love. The graphics in this game were breathtaking as the cabin is based on the top of this mountain with a brutal snowstorm being the backdrop for the teens. Until Dawn is a game you must play if you own a PS4.

Toward the end of December, a good friend of mine created a group Facebook group regarding a D&D campaign he wanted to start. It was going to be set in the Dark Ages with 5e mechanics. The boyfriend had never role-played before, so this would be an exciting opportunity to introduce D&D to him. We had our first session yesterday complete with Moscow mules, pizza, and snacks. I briefly wanted to recap the campaign and share what’s to come in future sessions.

My character is named Althaea and she is a level #1 Elf Sorcerer who happens to be an Occult Investigator. When she was young, she started developing magical abilities much to the chagrin of her father. Her father refused to teach her how to defend herself due to being in fear of the dark source of Althaea’s magic. When Althaea was 10, her father was killed by an evil spirit. Althaea has sworn revenge on this evil spirit and finds more information behind her father’s murder.

Our campaign began in January of 453 AD. Side note, as our DM revealed the date, each of our group members wrote the year wrong. I still don’t know how that was possible considering he was sitting right next to us. Our characters were trapped in a burning village being attacked by barbarians. Six of them came after us. I rolled very poorly most of the time during this attack which led to me having only one hit point at the end of the battle. Once the barbarians were slain, we investigated another town which also was being invaded by barbarians. Althaea did a lot better as she used her “ice knife” spell and it ended up landing on one of the barbarians.

After defeating the barbarians, our group of five is approached by an innkeeper. He offers us rooms since we saved his village from the barbarians. One of our characters rolled an intelligence check to determine if the innkeeper was hiding something from us. The innkeeper is hiding something, but throughout this session, none of our characters figured out what it was. Althaea did attempt to flirt with the innkeeper, but I rolled so low that he pushed me away and wouldn’t talk to me. It was at this moment I realized I should have been a Bard. Anyway, not much happened after that, but our DM said the innkeeper is hiding something huge, and the name of our next session is titled “Murder House.”

Overall it was a great first session. I will say I don’t have a lot of experience with character building with 5e rules. There was a lot I didn’t create with my character prior to the session beginning. Thankfully, the group I’m playing with is rather forgiving. The DM even admitted he wished he had done a bit more research and had a map for the players to look at.

Thanks for reading my recap! Our next session is planned for Saturday, February 2nd, so expect a post somewhere near then.

I apologize for my prior Spider-Man reviews because I kept forgetting the hyphen in Spider-Man. I believe The Modern Gafa pointed it out to me a bit ago, so when it came time to review Turf Wars, the newest DLC from Marvel’s Spider-Man on the PS4, I made sure not to forget it. It’s such a silly mistake, but I’m a human being and I’m capable of error. These new Spider-Man DLCs are intriguing and add more elements to the story and Turf Wars is no exception.

The focus of this DLC is on Spider-Man’s relationship with Yuriko (Yuri) Watanabe. I practically know nothing about characters in the Spider-Man universe, however after looking at the Marvel Wiki, I realized the game is accurate in its portrayal of her. Both Yuri’s father and grandfather served on the police force with her father being arrested for accepting bribes from the mafia. Yuri wanting to distance herself from the toxicity her father created, became a police officer dedicated to doing things the right way. I adore her relationship with Spider-Man as he’s the goofy one and she’s the serious character in their partnership.

Turf Wars, picks up with Spider-Man investigating stolen Sable International tech led by infamous criminal mastermind, Hammerhead. Yuri leads this investigation and unsurprisingly a shootout erupts. Many of Yuri’s men are killed ruthlessly which changes Yuri. Spider-Man is left to pick up the pieces of locating Hammerhead and preventing Yuri from performing an act that cannot be undone.

As always, there are side quests to do in this DLC like The Heist before it. I prefer completing these before going through the story. The bases are surprisingly difficult with the new appearance of different enemies for Spider-Man to fight. There are more of Screwball’s social media challenges which are annoying, but easy to complete.

I’ll be sad when the last DLC titled Silver Lining releases in December. I have gotten used to new content being added for this game. Eventually, I plan on playing New Game Plus which will keep me invested after I complete Silver Lining. I can’t recommend Marvel’s Spider-Man enough as it certainly is my game of 2018.

After unlocking all the trophies in Marvel’s Spider-Man, I was hoping for more content! I haven’t finished New Game Plus yet because I may want to return to the game in a couple months. To fill my Spider-Man void, I downloaded The Heist DLC featuring the Black Cat as the main protagonist in the game. I have to admit I found parts of this story to be more challenging than I expected, but I still finished the DLC in under six hours. This was a terrific addition to the main story.

Felicia Hardy aka. The Black Cat is the true definition of an anti-hero as she is a leather-clad Robin Hood stealing from the rich. In The Heist, Spider-Man is called to an art museum to stop crime boss Hammerhead & his crew from stealing expensive valuables. However, Felicia drops by and ends up stealing a flash drive from the back of a painting amidst Spider-Man’s pleas to her to do the right thing. Black Cat succeeds and Spider-Man is forced to chase her down throughout NYC to uncover her motives and stop Hammerhead.

The dialogue between Black Cat and Spider-Man was perfect. From my understanding, Spider-Man and Black Cat have a flirty, dynamic relationship which has its ups and downs. In the game, it appears Spider-Man had a fling with Black Cat before he got back together with MJ. The final mission in the game allows the player to direct the Black Cat to enemies she can eliminate. I found I was using Black Cat more for takedowns than Spider-Man during this sequence.

I highly recommend completing all the side quests as one features more background on Felicia Hardy’s family. There are also new crimes to complete such as activating the Spider Bot to defuse bombs underneath cars. Screwball, a lesser-known Spider-Man villain creates challenges for Spider-Man to complete which although easier than the Task Master challenges, I found these tasks bothersome to complete.

Ultimately, The Heist DLC is enjoyable and I hope Black Cat makes another appearance sometime soon. Better yet, why not release DLC where I can play as her for the entire game. There will be two other episodes to purchase for Marvel’s Spider-Man titled “Turf Wars” & “Silver Lining”. “Turf Wars” is released supposedly this month, but I’m not sure of the date. Marvel’s Spider-Man’s The Heist can be purchased on the Playstation Network for $9.99 or a season pass can be purchased for $25.00.

One of my bucket list items for October was to play in a horror D&D campaign. On Friday, October 5th I cooperated in a D&D Call of Cthulhu campaign held by a couple players in a Facebook Group I belong to. Besides playing D&D, I was able to visit a new game store I had never been to; the Gaming Goat in St. Paul.  I drove 45 minutes from my apartment to The Gaming Goat during rush hour traffic because I was looking forward to the story. Our session flew by and we ended up playing the campaign for five hours straight. Call of Cthulhu D&D is probably my favorite format because of the horror element of the game.

I wasn’t the DM, but I do know a couple of the mechanics in Call of Cthulhu. When you roll the dice, you want to roll under your skill. For example, my character, Dr. Tamela Wissler has a high biology skill of 70. In order to succeed, I would need to roll a 70 or under to pass. However, Dr. Wissler has a 5 in fast talk which makes it impossible for my character to talk her way out of a situation. A critical failure would be to roll a 99 or even a 90 may count as a critical failure. Therefore a critical success would be under 10.

To start the campaign, all of the characters were on a ship similarly built to the Titanic traveling to Massachusetts. Initially, all players could sneak items on the ship and I rolled to sneak a vial of acid in my pocket because Dr. Wissler is a scientist, and who wouldn’t want acid to pour onto a creature. As the days pass in our campaign, different characters go missing, are murdered, or pushed overboard. In between all of the missing passengers, I did roll a critical success to pour a drink and yell obscenities at Nazis which I was proud of.

As our players ventured out on the boat, we uncovered the ship captain performing a sacrificial ritual to a black tentacled octopus creature underneath our boat. All of the characters who were murdered were sacrificed to this creature. Thankfully, the group of players stopped the ship captain before we had to fight the ugly monster so we successfully survived our campaign.

A year ago, I participated in a Call of Cthulhu D&D session with the same group of people I played with this year. The DM still had my old character sheet from the previous year so I played as the same character from last year. That was an extra bonus to this session.

I enjoy the Call of Cthulhu D&D mechanics and would highly recommend it. It’s perfect for the month of October but can be played all year round. I’m attending another session next Thursday and I haven’t decided if I’m going to play as Tamla or as another in-depth character trying to stay sane in the Arkham universe.

It’s been a while since I had been anxiously waiting for the release of a new video game. Now I can afford video games unlike when I was a college student. It wasn’t appealing to look forward to a video game I couldn’t afford. Gaming is an expensive hobby to maintain, but worth it for me. When I watched E3 footage of Insomniac’s Spider-Man, I was blown away. I am happy to say Spider-Man is amazing and it’s my favorite release of 2018.

Spider-Man takes place eight years after Peter Parker received his powers. He quit the Daily Bugle to do neurological research with Doctor Otto Octavius. He assists Aunt May with volunteering at F.E.A.S.T. which is a soup kitchen in Peter’s neighborhood. Finally, Peter is trying to maintain a friendship with his ex-girlfriend Mary Jane. Peter has experience fighting crime, but he has so much to learn with regard to maintaining great relationships.

The game begins with Spider-Man taking on Wilson Fisk aka. Kingpin. This is also the tutorial that demonstrates how to fight as Spider-Man. Learning the controls for Spider-Man’s combat was more difficult than I had thought it would be. He’s weak because he hasn’t been leveled up yet. Ultimately, Wilson Fisk is put behind bars, but a new crop of criminals arises known as The Demons. It’s clear The Demons have some sort of supernatural power because they emit black & white energy from their weapons and bodies. Over the course of the campaign, Peter has battled The Demons while also fighting many of his previous foes.

Being able to explore NYC as Spider-Man is fantastic. I had just visited NYC for the first time in August and I felt I was reliving the trip throughout this game. Another positive to Spider-Man is the story itself. I love the intro to Miles Morales and Mary Jane Watson. I wrote my thoughts about MJ in a separate post which I have linked in case you missed it. Miles Morales had a big role in this game and I was happy about it. If there ever is a sequel, I would love to see Spider-Gwen included, or even Silk.

I could go on forever about how much I adored this game, but I have to end this post. Spider-Man deserved a great video game and this game does him justice. I’m excited to hear there are 2-3 more DLCs planned for this game including one released at the end of this month starring Black Cat. Spider-Man by Insomniac Games was everything I wanted it to be.