Matthew Supert

If you have been following the gaming news as of late, everyone has been talking about Space Marine 2. I picked it up about two weeks ago, since I am a big fan of the world building. I beat the game last week so, let's talk a little bit about my thoughts. 

Overall, I had a decent time with this game, but I am not quite sure it lived up to the hype that I am seeing online about it "harkening back to an older time in gaming". The campaign was probably 15 hours or so for me to beat. It was fine and a decent linear romp, but if I am being honest, it felt very much like a less rushed Warhammer Vermintide, with just a little bit more ammo. 

The waves of enemies that are thrown on screen at you are cool the first couple of times they happen, and the opening chapter sets a nice tone for the game. By the 30th time it happens though, I just sort of got bored with it. I guess that sorta goes for the combat in general for me as well. Executing a well timed counter results in a cool cinematic, but when you see it for the 60th time, it doesn't continue to impress. I also found the combat a bit frustrating at times because the armor/health management and recovery is not satisfying as it should be. Too often I found myself overwhelmed with crowd control, while simultaneously getting rocked by a ranged attack somewhere offscreen that I couldn't see. 

Bigger enemies just took way too much to whittle down before you could get the "execute" option and the returned armor/health almost never made up for the damage you took to get in close enough to melee them. 

I also found the game surpassingly devoid of combat puzzles through the campaign. There were a couple of instances of holding some zones to open a gate, and one fun instance in the PvE multiplayer where you had to enter some glyphs to attack a drake, but that was kinda it. And also, if this was such a throw back feeling game, where was the obligatory vehicular run and gun sequence?

Overall I felt everything just kinda felt boring and samey at the end and even when the Chaos Marines finally showed up, their tactics and enemy types were almost exactly the same as the Tyranid. I'll leave my final single player thoughts with the fact that I also kinda hated the main character you played as. He is a terrible commander, and that would be fine if not for the fact that they try to redeem him with this camaraderie ideal right at the end of the game. I hated Titus and there were multiple times in the game where he chewed his squad out for making poor choices, but then he deliberately would not divulge mission critical information to them. 

Multiplayer also leaves me really wanting. The PvE chapters are fun, and the concept of having you play as the "B Team" in parallel to the main story mission is a brilliant idea. However, they still have that Vermintide feel to them for me, and out of the maybe dozen sessions I've played I have yet to matchmake with a full party. PvP also is just middling. While it does bring back a Gears of War sort of feel, I don't think I'm fully grasping the combat translation from single player to the multi-player. For example, I cannot for the life of me figure out how to be effective with melee combat in PvP and similarly, does the counter/parry system work at all? I haven't seen it trigger at any point. I believe there are only three or four maps too. On top of all of that the load out customization appears to be different between multiplayer environments? Why? 

Overall, fun game, but I don't think I got a fully $70 worth out of it.  

Late into the Halloween game, but I wanted to share this adventure I wrote a few years ago and have consolidated into a proper document for other DM's to run. This takes H.P. Lovecraft's Dagon short story and turns it into an investigation adventure. 

I hope you enjoy. 

Updated: 10/09/2023 - Updated to fix grammar, typos, and some formatting issues. Improved newspaper layout for easier printing. 

Megan and I attended Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC) last weekend. It was quite simply one of the most amazing experiences of my life. A rave, a festival, an art installation. It was an experience that is truly hard to describe. It took place at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway and had nine main stages that covered most genres of dance electronic music. In addition to those main stages, there were probably dozens of other artcars, sounders and other installations around the entire complex. Ohh, and it also had a carnival in the center of it. 

The vibe of the entire event was something unlike I have experienced before. Almost pure positivity from the attendees and you could feel the mantra of the event Peace, Love, Unity, Respect (PLUR) throughout most of it. Of course there were minor instances where intoxicated individuals were rude, but that was mostly few and far between. It is 100% something I need to do again and the post euphoria come down this week after the event has been pretty hard to digest. 

We have intentions to attend Electric Forest next summer and then go back to EDC in Spring 2023. You can find most of my photos and videos over on Instagram, but I have spliced together highlights in the video below. 

Utilizing Dungeondraft, here is my interpretation of the Temple Map from the On a Lonely Road adventure from the Adventures in the Borderland Provinces. 

I haven't picked up a "DJ" mix album in years. In fact the last one I picked up was Oakenfold's live from Oslo. I can't recall how I came across this album, but this has been on my play rotation for the past couple of months now. This is another great DJ mix that mixes Oakenfold's classic "Chill" sort of vibe along with the deep electronic beats. 

The construction of this album is what it really makes it such a unique experience. The album not only has the traditional live DJ mix, but it also has all of the individual songs in their "original" format, which includes several non-electronic songs. This allows you to listen to all of the songs individually. The album ends with two one hour live mixes which were performed by Oakenfold on Mount Everest 

Overall a great album of you are looking for some of that classic Oakenfold chill/dance vibe. 

https://momentoapp.com

This past week I have come across a new favorite app, that is now sitting on my iPhone. Momento was featured this past week with several apps in one of Apple's daily lists. Momento caught my as a private journaling app that has a really clean interface and the ability to automatically import content from your social media. 

I like the idea of a private journaling app at lot to just capture quick things throughout my day. The added benefit of the social integration makes that even easier because my Facebook, Instagram, etc. posts can automatically find their way into the app, which makes it ideal for weekend and vacation adventures. 

What is particularly cool about the social media import though is that it will actually bring in content that you are tagged in from someone else. If a family member tags you in a photo and posts it on Facebook, it will capture that automatically. Even cooler still, is that it is smart enough to see all of those tags across different social networks and identify those people or places. So you can then go in and find your spouse for example , and find everything, going back years with photos and posts with her. 

Another great feature for just looking back on your journal is the "One this day" feature on their calendar. You click on it and you can see every entry for that day/date going back years. It is sort of cool, but also freaky that Facebook has content back to 2008.

This app has filled two holes for me. I was a big fan of Flavors.me, which was a personal landing page website that aggregated all of your social media into one place. It was a great tool that really should have a replacement online. This doesn't replace that for a public profile, but offers a lot of the same features for private use. 

The other app it replaces is Foodspotting. I loved Foodspotting and it was my goto app for taking my food photos. Unfortunately it hasn't really been updated in years and while Instagram and Foursquare can serve that purpose for public usage, having something for private food tracking that can tag people and places is nice to have. Evernote Food unfortunately never got a replacement app. 

So I would highly recommend people check this out if they are looking for a great app to have a quick and small personal journal.  It is also a very affordable app to ranging from free to about $4 depending upon what you want to do with it. 

This past Friday I had the opportunity to be a Dungeon Master for my first session of playing Dungeons and Dragons.

Go ahead...Chew on that....Yup, it is the same D&D that you saw stereotyped when you were a kid. 

I always had a fascination with D&D. I was a nerd at heart growing up and I almost certainly would have played D&D as a kid if my friends played it. A few years ago I got my first taste of roleplaying when I decided to try out Pathfinder when visiting the Wandering Dragon game shop in Plainfield. 

Pathfinder is an RPG system much like D&D. I played a few times at the shop, but it sort of fell by the wayside when there weren't a lot of people organizing games. 

D&D came around about three or four weeks ago when a group in Elmhurst was looking for some people to play. I jumped in and went to the first session. Unfortunately, the DM who was supposed to lead the session never showed up and the three of us who were there were left wondering what we wanted to do. Luckily the Elmhurst library happened to have the D&D 5e starter set on their shelves so I popped it open and we dove into trying to do that first game on a whim. I found that I enjoyed the session while reading through it. 

And that is how I found myself a couple of weeks ago volunteering to lead a regular session on Friday nights in Elmhurst. 

I was nervous all of last week. I only had about two days to try and figure out what the heck I was supposed to be doing. I had papers and print outs and books and all sorts of paraphernalia crammed into a book bag.

The night started last Friday and we were away. I couldn't tell if I had enough stuff with me. Did I print up the right sheets? Did I bring the notes I needed? Did I have too much stuff? 

Thankfully the group we played with was pretty good.  Everyone had the same idea of just telling a story and having a good time. The night turned out to be a success and Megan even jumped into the fun and had a good time. 

Friday night ended with a huge sigh of relief and I think everyone had a good time. My first DM experience was a success. I think I may end up doing more of this.