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#91
News / Re: Watch out for stolen Ian G...
Last post by judgeurko - 24 April, 2024, 11:17:29 AMOMG what a horrible person.
#92
Games / Re: Gamebooks
Last post by Barrington Boots - 24 April, 2024, 11:16:45 AMHe is great! I was convinced he was something mysterious to do with the thief, Vesper as their names were so similar, but unless I missed it he is literally just a cool talking Mongoose.
Playthrough part 2:
My lengthy trip through the desert begins. At regular points here I'm instructed to eat provisions, of which thankfully I have a reasonable amount.
Jesper is a good companion here, killing the poisonous snakes that infest the desert and tipping me off when a mutant orc tries to attack my camp in the night. I batter the rubbish orc and it surrenders, telling me it is starving after escaping the horrors at Kabesh. That's where I'm headed, so I feed it and in return get some pretty useless information about a wizard there who is raising an army of mutants and horrors. I also lose stamina for getting no rest as I'm up chatting to the orc all night.
The next day a bunch of my provisions have spoiled in the heat (goodness knows what I bought - cake perhaps) but I'm bale to shoot a small antelope thing and preserve some of the meat with the herbs I picked up in Ashkyros to boots my supplies. To counter this, the book asks if I have the ring of Endurance - I don't and as a result my stamina starts to drain away at an alarming rate due to the punishing heat. I'm heading for Rahasta, the only potential stop between here and Kabesh (and the town the dark elf was heading for via the boat) and it's a long trip. I'm in a bad way when I arrive, not helped by a skirmish with a manticore en route that kills the hell out of my camel, although that fight does yield a strange amulet adorned with stars from someone the manticore was eating.
Rahasta turns out to be a horrible place, full of surly mutants and orcs and stuff. I decide to pop into the local hostelry for information / supplies but instead I just get in a fight with hostile locals, driven out of town and then, having made the desperate decision to sleep under the stars, awake to find a mutant burying its swords in my entrails and ranting about food. Where were you, Jesper? Anyway, that's it for me! Death!
Fifth attempt and having sacked off the murder pub, I look for a place to sleep and now Jesper pipes up, telling me of a safe place to stay because one of his former companions did them a good deed once. We get a lovely nights sleep, some porridge, and the next day I can restock on overpriced provisions and its back into the desert where my lack of endurance ring sees my stamina start dropping again. I'm nearly dead when Kabesh comes into sight, and before it the clustered white tents of a group of nomads. They're not friendly, but are compelled to offer me shelter as traveller, which I gratefully accept. I'm then brought before the chief who gives me a big exposition dump about how his people are at Kabesh looking for the sacred sphere of Hazdur and if I find it they'll give me a big reward. He's also super impressed with Jesper who he calls 'Snakebane' and who apparently knew his father and that Jesper is more valuable a companion than flocks of goats or many wives, and he is keen to hang out with him - the chief and Jesper and soon deep in conversation and Jesper wants to stay too, so I happily agree and in return the nomads give me far more food than I can actually carry so I quickly eat all the surplus to restore my flagging health and then have a lovely sleep in my own tent.
The next day its Kabesh-exploring time. The city is split into districts, exactly the same as Ashkyros, for an open-ended explore. I start with the ruins of the senate house where I kill a giant mutant scorpion and then helpfully find Hazdur's sphere straight away and run it back to the nomads, who give me tons more food and healing and either a magic sword (got one) or a potion of healing (yes please) before they pack up and depart. After drawing a bust at the ruined coliseum, I try a residential district where I meet some creepy guy who is searching for a lost magic book and tells me if I can get that he'll tell me where the entrance to the Chaos Pits (which I have only just heard about, but I guess is what I am looking for as that is where the Master of Chaos would be, I guess). He then tells me exactly where to find the book. OK.
The book is in the old mausoleum which is full of crappy skeletons, that I make short work of, before up pops a necromancer who proves to be a much tougher prospect and kicks my ass, although I win through eventually and am very grateful to have the healing potion from earlier. He's got the book on his body, so I run it back to creepy guy who tells me the Chaos Pit entrance is in literally the only place I haven't visited yet before he magics himself off with a cackle, bringing this weirdly anticlimactic part to an end.
The entrance to the pits are guarded by a huge but fairly easy to defeat monster before my tracking skill is finally called upon to find the entrance, which is a literal pit, at the bottom of which is another pit full of suckers and slime and eyeballs and all that chaos goodness!
There's a couple of side rooms here, in one of which I eat some nutritious slime and in the other I fight a guy with a weird helmet that when removed causes him to instantly die after muttering something about a Moon Sword. This sounds like another artifact to find, but luckily said moon sword is in the very same room and is both as good as the sword I took off the captain as well as containing limited healing properties (very useful later, this).
Playthrough part 2:
My lengthy trip through the desert begins. At regular points here I'm instructed to eat provisions, of which thankfully I have a reasonable amount.
Jesper is a good companion here, killing the poisonous snakes that infest the desert and tipping me off when a mutant orc tries to attack my camp in the night. I batter the rubbish orc and it surrenders, telling me it is starving after escaping the horrors at Kabesh. That's where I'm headed, so I feed it and in return get some pretty useless information about a wizard there who is raising an army of mutants and horrors. I also lose stamina for getting no rest as I'm up chatting to the orc all night.
The next day a bunch of my provisions have spoiled in the heat (goodness knows what I bought - cake perhaps) but I'm bale to shoot a small antelope thing and preserve some of the meat with the herbs I picked up in Ashkyros to boots my supplies. To counter this, the book asks if I have the ring of Endurance - I don't and as a result my stamina starts to drain away at an alarming rate due to the punishing heat. I'm heading for Rahasta, the only potential stop between here and Kabesh (and the town the dark elf was heading for via the boat) and it's a long trip. I'm in a bad way when I arrive, not helped by a skirmish with a manticore en route that kills the hell out of my camel, although that fight does yield a strange amulet adorned with stars from someone the manticore was eating.
Rahasta turns out to be a horrible place, full of surly mutants and orcs and stuff. I decide to pop into the local hostelry for information / supplies but instead I just get in a fight with hostile locals, driven out of town and then, having made the desperate decision to sleep under the stars, awake to find a mutant burying its swords in my entrails and ranting about food. Where were you, Jesper? Anyway, that's it for me! Death!
Fifth attempt and having sacked off the murder pub, I look for a place to sleep and now Jesper pipes up, telling me of a safe place to stay because one of his former companions did them a good deed once. We get a lovely nights sleep, some porridge, and the next day I can restock on overpriced provisions and its back into the desert where my lack of endurance ring sees my stamina start dropping again. I'm nearly dead when Kabesh comes into sight, and before it the clustered white tents of a group of nomads. They're not friendly, but are compelled to offer me shelter as traveller, which I gratefully accept. I'm then brought before the chief who gives me a big exposition dump about how his people are at Kabesh looking for the sacred sphere of Hazdur and if I find it they'll give me a big reward. He's also super impressed with Jesper who he calls 'Snakebane' and who apparently knew his father and that Jesper is more valuable a companion than flocks of goats or many wives, and he is keen to hang out with him - the chief and Jesper and soon deep in conversation and Jesper wants to stay too, so I happily agree and in return the nomads give me far more food than I can actually carry so I quickly eat all the surplus to restore my flagging health and then have a lovely sleep in my own tent.
The next day its Kabesh-exploring time. The city is split into districts, exactly the same as Ashkyros, for an open-ended explore. I start with the ruins of the senate house where I kill a giant mutant scorpion and then helpfully find Hazdur's sphere straight away and run it back to the nomads, who give me tons more food and healing and either a magic sword (got one) or a potion of healing (yes please) before they pack up and depart. After drawing a bust at the ruined coliseum, I try a residential district where I meet some creepy guy who is searching for a lost magic book and tells me if I can get that he'll tell me where the entrance to the Chaos Pits (which I have only just heard about, but I guess is what I am looking for as that is where the Master of Chaos would be, I guess). He then tells me exactly where to find the book. OK.
The book is in the old mausoleum which is full of crappy skeletons, that I make short work of, before up pops a necromancer who proves to be a much tougher prospect and kicks my ass, although I win through eventually and am very grateful to have the healing potion from earlier. He's got the book on his body, so I run it back to creepy guy who tells me the Chaos Pit entrance is in literally the only place I haven't visited yet before he magics himself off with a cackle, bringing this weirdly anticlimactic part to an end.
The entrance to the pits are guarded by a huge but fairly easy to defeat monster before my tracking skill is finally called upon to find the entrance, which is a literal pit, at the bottom of which is another pit full of suckers and slime and eyeballs and all that chaos goodness!
There's a couple of side rooms here, in one of which I eat some nutritious slime and in the other I fight a guy with a weird helmet that when removed causes him to instantly die after muttering something about a Moon Sword. This sounds like another artifact to find, but luckily said moon sword is in the very same room and is both as good as the sword I took off the captain as well as containing limited healing properties (very useful later, this).
#93
General / Re: Mark Millar interviews Pat...
Last post by judgeurko - 24 April, 2024, 11:15:25 AMQuote from: AlexF on 23 April, 2024, 11:31:13 AMThis is a genuinely great interview, Mark Millar is one of those enthusiastic chaps who wants to be liked so much he puts people at ease which works well for Pat Mills. Much as I don't love Millar's comics his energy and passion for making popular comics is joyful. Same for Mills, who clearly still wants to find ways to reach a mass audience with whatever kinds of comics he can. He may be a world class moaner but he's also not JUST moaning, he's still following his dreams, too.I agree, not a fan of Millar's work but he has an enthusiasm which is good for an interviewer.
#94
General / Re: Forthcoming Thrills - 2024
Last post by judgeurko - 24 April, 2024, 11:12:09 AMIts a nice idea to have a themed special, but nothing here really interests me apart from the Judge Alpha one.
#95
General / Re: Forthcoming Thrills - 2024
Last post by Barrington Boots - 24 April, 2024, 09:51:46 AMThis is definitely something a bit different but doesn't look especially interesting to me either apart from Harlem Zombos, which could be worth the cover price alone if its as daft as it sounds.
#96
Books & Comics / Re: Completely Self-absorbed T...
Last post by Barrington Boots - 24 April, 2024, 09:28:23 AMQuote from: Tjm86 on 24 April, 2024, 07:12:06 AMEarly 80's Marvel does seem to be its hey-day. By the late 80's they seem to have crawled up their own backsides before completely losing the plot in the speculator boom of the 90's. (trillion's of covers, holograms, card covers, die cut covers, cover covers ...)
This is my feeling on Marvel too, although I did wonder if it was nostalgia telling me this. It's nice to see others of this opinion!
#97
Books & Comics / Re: Completely Self-absorbed T...
Last post by Colin YNWA - 24 April, 2024, 07:37:09 AMQuote from: Tjm86 on 24 April, 2024, 07:12:06 AMEarly 80's Marvel does seem to be its hey-day. By the late 80's they seem to have crawled up their own backsides before completely losing the plot in the speculator boom of the 90's. (trillion's of covers, holograms, card covers, die cut covers, cover covers ...)
I've talked about this elsewhere on the internet recently as it goes and I'm left speculating how much Jim Shooter was such an important creative force for Marvel during his time as Editor in Chief. He gets a lot of bad press for how he handled relationships with the creative talent but there's little denying how he acted as a person during his time in charge Marvel was so much more innovative and brave creatively.
#98
Books & Comics / Re: Whats everyone reading?
Last post by Tjm86 - 24 April, 2024, 07:17:13 AMJust finished Susan Cooper's Silver on the Tree and the full Dark is Rising Sequence. A fascinating collection that follows that tradition of merging English folklore with Arthurian Legend. One of those books that I'd always looked at down through the years but for some reason never got around to reading.
For my money it leaves Rowling's Harry Potter in the dust. The quality of writing is an order of magnitude better than those books. Even though it's a fairly standard tale of good versus evil, it is far more original and lacks the over-dramatisation of that more popular series.
It's fair to say that Cooper's work deserves its status as a classic of British literature even if it is criminally under-appreciated.
For my money it leaves Rowling's Harry Potter in the dust. The quality of writing is an order of magnitude better than those books. Even though it's a fairly standard tale of good versus evil, it is far more original and lacks the over-dramatisation of that more popular series.
It's fair to say that Cooper's work deserves its status as a classic of British literature even if it is criminally under-appreciated.
#99
Books & Comics / Re: Completely Self-absorbed T...
Last post by Tjm86 - 24 April, 2024, 07:12:06 AMPower Pack was one of my first experiences of Marvel, especially the early Snark's run. A couple of tidy crossovers with X-men and the Morlocks before the Mutant Massacre but it kind of lost its way after issue 25 when it went bi-monthly. Think it was always one of those titles that was bumping cheerfully along.
Prices tend to be a bit all over the shop and, as with so many things, tracking down the last dozen or so issues can be a bit of a challenge. That said, unless you're an obsessive completionist, they're nowt to write home about.
Early 80's Marvel does seem to be its hey-day. By the late 80's they seem to have crawled up their own backsides before completely losing the plot in the speculator boom of the 90's. (trillion's of covers, holograms, card covers, die cut covers, cover covers ...)
Prices tend to be a bit all over the shop and, as with so many things, tracking down the last dozen or so issues can be a bit of a challenge. That said, unless you're an obsessive completionist, they're nowt to write home about.
Early 80's Marvel does seem to be its hey-day. By the late 80's they seem to have crawled up their own backsides before completely losing the plot in the speculator boom of the 90's. (trillion's of covers, holograms, card covers, die cut covers, cover covers ...)
#100
Off Topic / Re: Boys Adventure comic blog
Last post by Richard S. - 24 April, 2024, 06:25:35 AMThere's still some work to do to complete my covers gallery for the Marvel UK The real Ghostbusters collected comics but I've filled a few gaps recently and now know it ran for at least 13 issues. Any further help much appreciated.
https://boysadventurecomics.blogspot.com/2024/04/updated-real-ghostbusters-collected.html
https://boysadventurecomics.blogspot.com/2024/04/updated-real-ghostbusters-collected.html