At times I would get on a nice run, though. Here I am pictured in Shantytown. (That's not really me, that is Lara Croft; because A: I am old and B: I am male.) Shantytown is a less than glamorous section of this lost island where many undesirables like to hang out. If a ship or plane is destroyed and their passengers wind up on the island, bad people kill or capture them. I have decimated their ranks and destroyed a good part of their playground. I got word that my friend Sam (A lady) had been taken captive and that the locals were going to make her a Queen. The Sun Queen. You say good, royal privilege and all that. Not so much. They plan to put the old queen's soul in Sam's body, which is very bad.
As I weed out the killers of the island, I face guys with bulletproof shields. I have found that they don't deal well with the simple stratagem of shooting flaming arrows at their feet. They like to throw Molotov Cocktails at you but don't like fire on their own cheesy little bodies. I have learned that climbing to the roofs of buildings and positioning myself with my back to a wall is helpful.
Once I was in a pitched battle at a site where the defenders were ancient Samurai, some of whom were probably raised from the dead. I eventually positioned myself on one end of a bridge so that I could face the rascals one at a time. I used the flaming arrows and rocked their world.
One of the members of my party was a weaselly guy who sold us out for the perceived opportunity of marketing the island. I saw this guy as a sort of man similar to Jurassic' Park's lawyer who suggested having a 'coupon day'. Ha, ha. At one point I found him trapped in a ship with live wires blocking my path to him. If I had my way, I would have left him to die, but Lara is a good person and tried to save him. To do so, we had to work a puzzle of sorts. We had to get a hoist to the area and use it to lift the sparking cables away from him. It was a pain in the butt and I had to get Carley to help because she is a puzzler. The bloke redeemed himself in the end by holding off some bad guys while I escaped. So, then I had to feel guilty for despising him before. Sigh.
More on the friendship front. A female of the party, angry because she lost her lover, kept complaining, mouthing off etc. It grew to be tiresome, but she also showed up big-time in the end. Much like real life, if you can overlook people's quirks you can wind up with some good friends.
One of the best things about this game is rock climbing. It is very cool to do this stuff without risking your life. They'll have some castle on a towering cliff and to get there you must use your pick axe. You have to leap up or sideways and quickly hit your 'E' button to sink your axe into the cliff. Sometimes you will suck wind as you swing by one hand from some precipice. The winds will be howling too. At one point I had my axe sunk in as a wind blew a huge armored guy into the great beyond.
Speaking of huge armored guys, there are several of these arrogant dudes to be fought. For instance, one yielded a cool device after I killed him. It is an ascender, like a winch, that propels me up a rope, so that I don't have to 'hand over hand' all the time. I had to blast the guy with a shotgun about a hundred times to kill him, though.
Another armored guy was even tougher. This was at the latter part of the game. As I fought him, lesser guys, archers, were coming out and trying to make me look like Swiss cheese. I probably died 50 times during this section. Not in real life, but game deaths, you know? I went to you-tube and watched several videos about the fight.
One point that was a puzzle was when I needed to get an elevator to the bottom floor of a bunker. To do so, I had to release the brake on all four corners. It was a pain in the drain and I had to consult the resident puzzler to manipulate floor levels and other things in order to proceed. During the last brake release, I had to quickly change levels and jump through a hole I had blasted before the elevator moved too far. It was intense. I had to leap through the screen, sink my axe into a white rock and move on.
I think I spent around 50 hours to finish this excellent game. At that, I could go back and replay it to find tombs and treasures I missed. I hope that you get the chance to play this version.
I am trying to play through Skyrim, though it is not really my kind of game. It is a little boring to me, because I like shooter games. I need to get a strategy for building my skills or something. I have got my butt kicked by skeletons and giants. I had one rogue demand 200 pieces of gold to let me pass on 'her' trail. When I gave her the money, she said something openly contemptuous of me and let me pass. It irritated me to the point where I pulled my sword from its sheath and gave her a sound thrashing. Ha, Ha. Then I felt somewhat guilty about it. Unbelievable. Hey, get this. When I searched her body, she only had 79 pieces of gold! How in the heck did this woman spend 121 pieces of gold in 10 seconds?
On the book front, I have been reading a book by Al Michaels. He is the noted TV sports announcer. This is his autobiography, entitled You Can't Make This Up and it is very good. You may remember a post I did several years ago about Al. He had written an article for a magazine and it was so good that I commented that he should write a book. I searched the credits of his book but didn't see my name. That's a joke. One thing I liked about the book is that many, most, of his stories are about people and events which I am very familiar with. This is to be expected since we are similar in age. For example, he talked about meeting members of the old AFL football league when they signed a contract at his dining room table. (His Dad was a P.R. guy.) Nice way to start a career in sports, meeting the Ralph Wilsons and Lamar Hunts of this world.
Well, I have rambled on like an old man who doesn't have a lot of company, so I will bid you goodbye from the author's green retreat. I am CE Wills.
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