It was one of those few moments when I played the game on a proper PC. I had gotten used to the „glorius” graphics and... really, the lack of any sound. Also the Bombcast was ringing in my ears. (That is how I have been catching up on earlier episodes...)

I had passed the point where things were doubtful, if I could make past another threshold was no longer a question. Instead, walking through the dungeon was becoming a thrill ride, where leveling up, learning new spells and discovering new items thrived my thirst for more. And reaching level 11 pretty much simultaneously on my character and dungeon floor was the farthest I had ever gotten.

Encountering a door mimic for the first time seemed like seeing any new monster. Certainly, there was surprise involved, when a door suddenly turned into a living thing, but since blasting it with magic seemed to work I didn’t think of it much. A few rooms later I encountered another one. And in a weird state of arrogance and annoyance that I was, I took my +4; +3 dagger of something-something-magical and stabbed that nuisance a couple of times. We continued to exchange some love letters. (in the form of brute force...) When I realised I had taken too much damage to my own liking, I switched back to magic... And it was too late. That darn mimic had gotten me.

If my memory serves me correctly I tried out Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup after seeing the Quick Look of Dungeons of Dredmor. I also checked out Tales of Maj’Eyal, but since some years ago I played the original Crawl (never played Rogue), I sticked to what was familiar. Sure, Tales was interesting but it did not grab me the way that Soup did. I played Stone Soup, some time passed where I didn't touch the game for some time. Then Dark Souls came out, which made me want to play something absolutely brutal but also rewarding. It didn’t take much time, when I was back in the dungeons, trying out various race and class combinations and different playstyles, finally settleing as a Deep Elf Conjurer. I don’t remember if I either read something on a forum or consulted a manual, but I quite liked being a magic user. That has been my go-too combination for quite some time now. (If DECj is a recommended combo for beginners, I would not be surprised)

Something that people might find weird is that when I play, it’s not the graphical version of Stone Soup, but the ASCII version. The main reason is that I usually do my sessions behind an old laptop which runs the graphical version super slow. The ASCII version also makes my excursions to the dungeon fun, using my imagination instead of getting everything drawn out. Since the game has no music (unlike Tales, which does) the ambiance is also up to the player. I usually settled to some (game) soundtracks or string orchestra music. (Heino Eller or Alan Hovhaness for example)

It’s definently a niche game, much like the Souls games. There is something to it, at least for me. The combinations are varied enough to warrant repeated play, if one becomes bored of the regular combination or has simply finished the game. (The former being likely that the latter, perhaps?)

Of course, the community aspect of the game is also quite nice. There are tournaments and also online play and leaderboards. There is no co-op or competitive multiplayer, but there is a spectating option. That is nice for either watching some high tier Stone Soup play or getting advice from other people, since there is chat option.

I have no idea if and when I will get the fabulous Orb of Zot and make it out alive, (that’s the main goal, if you are curious) but one thing is for sure: I am going to keep playing it.

So... I'm not really good at introductions... I'm familiar with them, but never really managed to write down something, that really is... well... me. But I guess some explanation is in order. I am from the former Eastern Block country called Estonia. (our neighbors are Finland, Latvia, Sweden and the glorious motherland of Russia, where Cargo! The Quest for Gravity was born...) I was a student at a music school in 2011 but now I have moved on to... some exciting territory. To be more exact, I'm currently preparing myself in the field of animation. The entrance exams are at the end of March. After that I will probably try to a school where they teach Japanese language and culture. There might be another school on the horizon... but that's not really clear yet...

Anyway, this was my short little journey:

To mention things, that I am familiar with, are updating blogs (in a different language though...), games and following this site. I joined it back in 2009 but because of several reasons, I got cut off from creating content and interacting with the kinds of people that quite frankly I feel comfortable with. A bunch of video game fanatics with a great sense of humour and a spectacular sense of comradery. And eventually, when Whiskey Media became a big part of the site, I lost the ability to login to my account. Or rather, I would have lost it then, if I would have logged even in. But I didn't.

I have been following the site from the creation of my account. There was a half year break though, in which I used a crappy computer with no internet. (Windows 2000, 64 MB of RAM and an old video card...) There were some times, when I wished I could comment some video or do some thing on the site. But in the end I didn't, since... I really didn't think it was worth it I guess... But then something happened in the end of 2011 that I can't explain myself. I contacted Whiskey Media about my old account, got it working and now I am here again. Done some quests (that weren't a feature before) and wikid some wikis... And I feel comfortable. I have an idea of a feature thingy, that I'll keep under wraps until I have... well, basically done it and posted it. In the meantime I will wiki some wikis, post comments and hang out as much as my time schedule allows. I have some games that I really want to wiki, so don't fill in any old Japanese-only Famicom releases, ok? :)

See ya later duders!

When I opened my eyes today, one thought ran through my mind: "What the hell was that?" I got info about Star Control II from giantbomb. Quite weird actually. I watched the last "Building a Bomb" video and the video was linked to SCII. Curiosity took me, I looked the game up. I got interested and thanks to a review in YouTube, got the game for free. Thank god for that... I downloaded The Ur-Quan Masters and started playing it on my old laptop about twelve o'clock midnight.

The story hooked me. It sounded interesting. Also, the shere scope of the game astounded me. It's so freaking big... so big infact, that I'm starting to belive, that I don't have time for this game.

Basically, the game boils down to collecting minerals while avoiding hazards and collecting data, dog-fighting with other space-crafts and exploring the whole f-ing space... It's a simple game, in design at least. And addicting as hell... But there is hardly any story now, you know your mission pretty much straight away. If there are twists, which I hope, I'm in luck...

But yeah... collecting dots and upgrading my ship, that was how my night went. I came across few threats, but thanks to the save anywhere option, the strategy part is stolen away.

When I finally came to my senses, it was five o'clock in the morning. I saved and tried some hair-brain schemes and went to bed. With a weird feeling... I don't get my condition. Am I awestruck or something? Is the dot collecting game that good or have my standards flewn away? I don't get it.

    Like anyone, I was so depressed when Jeff left GameSpot. Didn't exactly get it then and don't even now why he was let go. Time went by and got finally over it. I'm actually kinda ashamed that I didn't find this site before. My interest grew when I watched old interviews of GameSpot, I googled "Jeff Gerstmann" and found out about the coolest thing ever. Jeff was back. In a different site, but back. I didn't think that he would quit the line of work he did best, but the fact that this site is up and running, is so cool. Now I got two gaming sites on my "Bookmarks"