Favus reviews THE SECRET WORLD

Some people (yesterday)

I played The Secret world for a couple of hours, it's wordy... overcomplicated and a bit tedious and it really reminds me of Champions Online. The character customisation is horrendously limited too. Score: 4/10 Probably wouldn't play again.

Favus Books of shite - Continued... Now it gets SERIOUS!

I started reading "5 people you meet in heaven" by Mitch Albom - but the file was corrupted, the book was all jumbled and unreadable, so it means that I have to skip, and go on to the next book - The thing that fills me with fear about this book is its 3 times the size of the last book i read, and it's a "Classic" - I have never read it, and I have no idea what it's about - but then I guess that's what this whole experiment is about... so what is the next book on the list I hear you say! Well I was going to go "Oh i read this" and skip it, but i have not... so without further ado... I give you!

E:\Old Laptop\Kindle ebook collection\Kindle\Alcott, Louisa May - Little Women.mobi

Hummmm something tells me that this book is not going to be fun! I assume its about midgets... I really hope its about midgets... 

Some women using an iPad 1 - I assume (Yesterday)

Anyway, loaded on to the kindle... here we gooooo!! wooo!! 

My utterly truthful and accurate Elder Scrolls Online review!

Okay I have been playing this game since the beta, I did a Twitch of it, and some people even watched me play it (I am not sure if i broke the NDA or not, but I did it anyway, because that's how I roll) Now it must be said that it didn't quite spark as much interest as Flappy bird - which i did a lets play of, that got a LOT of hits - even got into double figures!

A flappy bird  (Yesterday)

So i was wondering why, well i guess it was because the stress test and everyone who wanted to play did, and people were not really interested in The Elder Scrolls Online or TESO as I will call it from now on.

Somethings eating each other (Yesterday)

I played the Beta as I said, and i wasn't impressed, I liked Skyrim and Oblivion - not to a fanboy amount I finished the Skyrim main story without even realising I did, i wasn't hugely impressed by it, and I found the combat unwieldy and clunky which spoilt my immersion of the game - but there is no doubt it looked beautiful and this the problem with TESO - it doesn't stand with Skyrim, it doesn't look nearly as good, but when you see a sweeping vista on Skyrim and compare it to TESO it looks like an older game - I understand you have to render all the other players, and you have to allow for the fact it is an MMO but it really doesn't look that good

An Elf (Yesterday)

When i played it i found the quests utterly tedious, go here... talk to this person.. go to the next person, talk to that person, go to the next person, till you meet the big boss of that quest - Kill them and go talk to someone else, get a small reward, talk to another person get a bigger reward, and repeat. Over and over this happens, you don't even have to read the quests, or the dialogue trees, just click on the top one till they're all greyed out, and follow your compass to the next way point... ZZZzzzzz! I was rushing through quests just so i could get to ones i had not done to see if they were going to be more exciting, Spoiler alert: They're not - it uses one megaserver with invisible instances but in most quests you be "queuing" up to kill the boss of each quest... swarmed by loads of other players all trying to get a hit on the boss, and if you get at least a couple of hits in then you'll get a quest complete - the only change in this is certain boss fights are instanced in those cases you'll have to find a group using the grouping tool, but even though players will happy join forces with NPCs getting other players to even talk to you is pretty much impossible! The only Zone chat you will see is all from Gold sellers or people complaining about gold sellers - or people complaining about bugs.

LOOK! THE BOSS! ALL CHARGE (yesterday)

And boy are there a LOT of bugs, weirdly even bugs that have existed since beta - quests seem to stick, bosses you need to kill not spawning (so you can't carry on the story) Spirits of Earth and Water etc one point all speak German, they "Help" you by giving you hints while you fight a big boss, except they're in German, and i don't speak German, so i don't know what to do! I managed to struggle through, but it was annoying. Also another bug is your helmet will just vanish randomly, one i crafted was fine, but the really good one i got for a quest, that is irreplaceable, i can't redo the quest because well its an MMO so you can't!
My connection isn't the greatest at the moment, i tend to lag a bit, and to that end i was playing a warrior, heavy armour all my skill points buried in passive skills to make me triple hard, i should be able to soak up all the damage in the world and not die easily - however bosses (and to a lesser extent) crowds of mobs every so often with do a special move that will devastate you, you can of course shield, run out of the way or do a counter attack that will stun them, but if you're too lagged to see this massive flagged event - You die.. and thats annoying too, death isn't really a problem, you respawn about (usually) 10 feet away and just have to run back again, and hope it doesn't happen again.
At the time of writing i haven't tried PvP (apparently where this game shines)  because I am really not that interested in PvP - and when i tried to move to Cyrodiil i just sat there doing nothing for so long I quit the game and went and did something less boring instead.

EEEE! a GHOST!!! (yesterday)

So if you want a game where you're running about in a queue doing quests for ghosts (seriously why? You're dead! have a lie down and stop making me put candles on things or break old things or something) then TESO is probably for you - I really think that this game ISN'T for me, so I cancelled my sub and will probably delete it before my "free" time runs out - I might return to it when it is free to play and I can play it with my friends, but i won't hold my breath.

Most expensive PC game ever!! haha... 2/10 - Would not recommend

Book #3 on the "books of shite" list

I am skipping the Douglas Adams books (because I have read them all - They will be reread at some point) and I am going to miss out Aesops fables (because I have read that too) and also Watership down - because I have reread that too (last year infact) so the next book on the list is...

E:\Old Laptop\Kindle ebook collection\Kindle\Albom, Mitch - The Five People You Meet In Heaven.mobi

I have no idea what it is about, or what sort of book it is, its one of the joys of this list, review to follow when i have finished it - in the mean time, here is the cover of said book

Another book (yesterday)

It's definitely been made into a book or a film judging by the image search, here we go! 

Review of “Things fall apart” by Chinua Achebe book #2 on the “Books of shite” list

“The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.”

― Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart

This book could not be MORE DIFFERENT than any of the books I have read recently, Its a book by an African author set in Nigeria in the 1890s when Great Britain were taking over and so were the missionaries from the church, The book follows the life story of Okonkwo a fierce warrior and wrestler a manly man indeed – Okonkwo hates his father, he sees him as lazy and feckless, and doesn't want to be anything like him, he wants to be the fiercest manliest man in the world – and out of all his clans – but the world is changing, and although he is steadfast in his ambitions – things in the world are set to thwart him, I had no real love for our main protagonist – he is extremely traditional in his views and those are fairly diametrically opposed to the views of our modern society – but in the context of 1890's Nigeria you can see why he thinks as he does.

I have no idea how historically accurate this is, but it written by a Nigerian who clearly knows his stuff – It was a really interesting insight into Nigerian customs and it was a really great story to read – and I say nothing like any book I have read recently – well out of my comfort zone and it's all the better for it – It wasn't a massive book, and I think I read it from cover to cover in 3 sittings – I will definitely read the follow up book – and I can't recommend it highly enough.

I give “Things fall apart” a massive 9/10 – Well worth reading!

The Blade itself by John Applecrumble - Book #1 on the "Books of shite" list - Review

Right now – Here (albeit belatedly) is the review of “The Blade itself” by John Applecrumble..

Preamble...

I decided the other day to (as I have said) read a list of books that I downloaded – In Alphabetical order and only skip the ones that I have heard of and I know I won't like, I probably made a giant mistake ALREADY by skipping “Catch me if you can” (The one that was made into a Leo Dicaprio film) but ho hum, I am going to carry on! - I will skip Harry Potter and The Hunger Games and 50 shades of Grey (if it was on the list, it isn't) and books that I really KNOW I will hate – I really don't like starting a book and not finishing it! - The main reason for me doing this is to find new Authors for me to read, and to find and enjoy books I really wouldn't normally pick up, People say all the time I should read things, and I always politely (Like everyone does) succeed and say “Oh yes, I will add that to my “to read” list! - I have heard it's excellent” but never do – and another reason is so I can review them here, not for your entertainment – but simply because I haven't really written anything for a long time and I feel totally out of practice, and to that end – here follows the review of book #1 on my “books of shite” list “The Blade itself” by John Applecrumble.

Review

Something you cannot escape from straight away when you read this fantasy novel are comparisons the Game of Thrones series by George RR Martin – When I was searching for a book cover for this very blog I noticed these almost immediately, so when you read this you know pretty much what you're going to get – A large city in the “Middle” of the world that runs the world, Skirmishes on the border... Kings... and a threat from the north and one from the dark skinned people of the East... Its all there but its a fantasy book, so its going to a fantasy version of our world – because that's what people do.

I must admit I did struggle with the book (and the writing) at first, It took me till I was least a quarter of the way through the book to get into it, and I am glad I did – Each character has their own chapters (Like George RR Martin) but each of them think subtly differently – and because the Northman Logen thinks a certain way, reading his chapters writing style sort of grated on me – Logen is a sort of hero of the north a named man, who is a bit of a legend – he supposedly is a great warrior who somehow beat a great many men in battle, but when he does fight you wonder how – its until later on that particular secret is revealed (and I won't spoil it for you) – but the book follows the politics and the everyday life of these characters giving you a history of why they all end up where they do, and they all come together as the book goes on – and meet up and war is of course brewing (as opposed to winter coming). It has interesting characters, although there seems to be a bit a lack of strong women characters – I have seen people say that George RR Martin is really not very good at writing female characters and you know that's pretty much standard for the fantasy genre author – they're just not very good with women, that's why they're writing fantasy novels and not having sex with a lot of women. Another problem I had with the book was the word “shit” is waaaaay over used and I mean REALLY overused – I would word count if I knew how, but I pretty sure the book is AT LEAST 14% shit, I mean the word shit, not shit – its really not a bad book.

I really didn't know what to expect from this book (Or indeed any of the books I am reading on this list) because most of them I know nothing about, I will have only seen the cover when I read it – and not judging books by their covers is something we're told not to do from day one, but lets be honest – we really do don't we?

All in all it was a good first book in the trilogy, I will maybe read the rest of them, so I must have genuinely liked it – I am really not a masochist, So bearing all that in mind, and the sketchy and jarring writing style of the first quarter to half of the book I will give “The Blade itself” an above average 6 out of 10

Quick post (not a proper post) I have finished reading "The Blade itself" and it was alright, i will post a full review of that later on today (when i have written it) - I have gone on to book two which is something callled "Things fall apart" by Chinua Achebe - Not watching to judge a book by its cover, he looks African... it could be African! I have no idea what its about! How exciting...

A book - Yesterday