U.A.'s review of ... Olympus Has Fallen (2013)

Hello everyone,

Today I wanted to review the movie Olympus Has Fallen (2013) directed by Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) and starring Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart and Morgan Freeman.


Summary:
"Disgraced former Presidential guard Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) finds himself trapped inside the White House in the wake of a terrorist attack; using his inside knowledge, Banning works with national security to rescue the President from his kidnappers."

My attention was drawn to Olympus Has Fallen by it´s action packed trailer. Although I feared the trailer was nothing less than the movie summed up in 150 seconds, which seems more and more the case with trailers nowadays, I still wanted to see it. You see, a combination of Gerard Butler (who became an all-time  favorite of mine after seeing him in 300), Aaron Eckhart (Two-Face) and Morgan Freeman is just too good to pass up. So I sat down with snacks and drinks within my grap and gave myself over to the experience.


Butler and Eckhart are introduced to the screen almost immediately after the opening, alongside Ashley Judd as the First Lady. I have to admit I don't really care for her so I was quite glad to see it only took her a couple of minutes to exit the movie. Besides, it's not like she had a place beside Butler or Eckhart in this adrenaline filled shoot 'em up.


I was surprised to see the terrorist party being portrayed by North Koreans instead of the Middle Eastern standard we have grown accustomed to ever since 9/11. Although I appreciate the change of pace, the implications the movie makes almost scare me. Fuqua depicted the Koreans as a serious threat to (American) national security. No doubt based on the rising threat and tention between the U.S. and North Korea over the past year. And if the Koreans can occupy the center of political power in the world, then where does it end? So while watching all these Americans get slaughtered I sometimes felt like I was watching a propaganda piece and I was being indoctrinated.

After the very impressive taking of the White House, which takes up a good portion of the first hour into the movie, Mike Banning gets put into play and that is where America strikes back. Of course his background gets brought up by fellow actors so he's validated in his role as the protagonist with loads of experience and the know-how to deal with situations just like these.
President Asher on the other end, spends most of his time cuffed to a pole and has to rely on dialogue with his hostage takers to leave his mark on the film. This dialogue, however, leaves much to be desired since it consists mostly of Rick Yune, in his role as Kang, killing and torturing other hostages while making President Asher watch. All the while he grunts and tries to convince his colleagues to just give up the sought after information.

Speaker Trumbull (Morgan Freeman) forms the third party as he is put in charge as acting president. We follow him in his struggle to negiotate with Kang and his fellow countrymen. At the same time he has to deal with politicians who would like nothing else but to give into the demands and the military who would just charge in blindly.

The main complaint heard from viewers is that Freeman suffers from a lack of screentime and viable dialogue to work with. This leaves him unable to elevate this movie from it's current average rating. And I agree with this complaint since I have a lot of respect for Morgan Freeman as an actor, but he just couldn't impress me with his acting this time. This is very rare and I don't fault him any for it.

The body of Olympus Has Fallen is of course made up of all the action it brings forth and in this regard it certainly does not disappoint. Most of the time you'll spend watching gunfights, explosions and in general people dying. The action sequences look visually attractive and especially the one-to-one combat scenes between Banning and the Koreans are well choreographed. I appreciate the humor Gerard Butler brings to spice up all the killing. Although the setting of the movie colors his humor darker than normal (the interrogation of the two Koreans for example).

To conclude I would have to recommend you see this movie for it's strong points, the action. Don't go in expecting much of the story or the dialogue; you went to see an action packed movie and not The Shawshank Redemption. If you adjust your expectations you will not be disappointed.

As always your comments are most appreciated. Feel free to disagree with me, but please state why so myself and other people can respond. I want to thank you all for reading and I will see you ... next time. Take care.

U.A.

U.A. presents Hitman: Absolution and the uploading schedule.

Hello everyone,

Following the recent additions to my Let's Play repetoire I wanted to introduce you to another newcomer, Hitman: Absolution. The game was officially released on November 20th 2012 and developed by IO Interactive. I bought and played the game then, since I was eagerly anticipating it's release. I thoroughly enjoyed playing it, even if it was on Normal mode.

I still feel like I could get a lot of enjoyment out of this game and I wanted to share this with you. To add to the excitement I have decided that I will play the game on "Professional: Hard" difficulty. Further more, I will not go in guns blazing but rather go with the stealthy approach. If you have ever seen me play you will know that I'm not a very stealthy person at all. So I'm hoping to provide a few laughs at my expense and also give myself a challenge. All in all I hope this will be a Let's Play that is exciting and enjoyable to watch.

Another element I have added to my YouTube channel is the uploading schedule that I composed. You can find it under the About-section on my channel. The schedule is subject to change (I have always wanted to say that, haha) since I might add any LP's to it at any given time. It is also possible that a currently featured LP finishes which leaves it's spot empty on the roster. Currently the uploading schedule looks like:

Monday:

Tuesday:

Wednesday: The Walking Dead

Thursday: Hitman: Absolution

Friday: I Am Alive

Saturday: Far Cry 3

Sunday:

As you can see in the roster, Hitman: Absolution is scheduled for Thursday. This means Episode 1, the first episode of that LP, will be uploaded tomorrow. I will not spoil too much yet; all I can say is that the episode is titled "It's NOT prostate cancer" so you're in for a treat. And I do hope you will watch it when it goes live.

I want to thank you all for reading and I will see you ... next time. Take care.

U.A.

UPDATE:
As promised, here is the first episode from the Hitman: Absolution LP. Enjoy!

The start of a new series ...

Hello everyone,

I'm happy to announce that I will be starting two new LP's alongside the currently going Far Cry 3 series. The currently ongoing Steam Summersale allowed me to get a lot of good games for little money. This means you will see me branching out LP wise, since I will be maintaining more than one series. By doing this I'm hoping to add variety to my channel and as a result provide more entertainment.

Because I now have three ongoing LP's, I'm planning to create episodes of roughly 30 minutes for each series and releasing one or two episodes a week per series. I'm not pinning myself to any number, because I might increase the number of LP's even more depending on the amount of games the Steam Summersale yields (the counter is already at eight games so far).

So without further ado I present to you the two new series. I hope you enjoy them.

The Walking Dead by Telltale Games

I Am Alive by Ubisoft Shanghai

U.A.

U.A.'s opinion on ... the Art of creating Let's Plays

Hello everyone,

I have recently started producing gameplay videos with my commentary added to them. This activity is commonly known as creating a Let's Play (LP) video. People record their gameplay and themselves commenting on this playthrough of any given game.
Before I started making videos I thought it would be an easy thing to do and I wanted to give it a try myself. It took me two weeks to realize that making good Let's Play videos (with an emphasis on good) is really a profession on it's own.

I started by purchasing Fraps which took care of the video aspect of the production. It records your gameplay and has the option to record the ingame audio and your microphone input as well. The only downside to the latter is that it records the ingame audio and your commentary to one track. This means you are not able to change their levels individually. That is why I downloaded a free program called Audacity, which comes highly recommended by other people and now also by me. You record your commentary in Audacity and can alter it in any possible way afterwards using that same program. You finally export it as a .wav file which you can then import into your editing program.

I choose to work with Sony Vegas Pro for my videos. I have worked with Adobe Premiere before, but Sony Vegas Pro came so highly recommended (like Audacity) that I was swayed in that direction. I have not regretted it for a single moment. It is user friendly, does everything you need it to do and there are loads of (video)tutorials out there if you need it. I have used a couple of those tutorials myself and they are of great help. The only downside to either Adobe Premiere or Sony Vegas Pro are their hefty pricetags. Although I prefer to work with legitimate sources for my work I can certainly understand fellow LPers who prefer different ways of attaining these particular programs. "Although I can not officially condone it, Your Honor".

The above outlines the recording part of the entire process, but before you get to recording you have to consider your hardware. You need a microphone to record your voice, a computer that can handle the game and record at the same time while still keeping the footage nice and smooth and is also suited for editing (harddrive space and rendering power). - I choose to use one computer for all of this. This does not mean it's a requirement. You could have one desktop to record and another to edit. - The microphone component of this process kept me busy and guessing for the better part of two weeks. I started out with the microphone on a cheap headset just to get  acquinted with the recording and more important commenting and playing at the same time. You don't realize it until you actually do it; playing and still providing your audience with intelligible commentary takes effort and practise to get good at. Enfin, I had already made up my mind that, if I liked doing Let's Plays, I would purchase a serious microphone. And so I did by purchasing the Blue Microphones Snowball.

I practised and recorded a lot with the Snowball, but in the end there was too much background noise for my purposes and I could not get the sound quality anywhere near the bar I had set for myself. There was still too much echo and bass in the audio which made it sound like I was in my room talking into a microphone instead of being present in the game I was commenting on (which is the effect I was aiming for). That's why I started using the Samson C01U microphone; it picks up less background noise than the Snowball. However, my problems with the echo and bass did not seem to be solved since I still sounded too far away, which meant back to the drawing board.

By then I started looking at other LP videos to compare them and see what I was missing. You will quickly see the huge quality differences between them and that was when it hit me: you do not just record yourself talking and playing a video game. There is actually an entire production behind it.

Having to edit the gameplay and then pasting the commentary under it is only the obvious part of the labor involved. Making it sound good and enjoyable to watch for your viewers is an entirely different matter. I have spent hours and hours experimenting with different microphones and their settings, effects in Audacity and watching tutorials on audio engineering and in the end the sound quality still only came up to what you can hear in my latest video Far Cry 3 - Snake Bite. If you compare it to the first video I ever uploaded The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing - Part 1 you can hear the immense difference in clarity, but it's still nowhere near the sparkling audio you hear while watching for example Markiplier or ReformistTM. Although a big part of that are their incredible voices which unfortunately cannot be emulated.

- Compare the video of The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing - Part 1, my first ever uploaded video, to my latest video Far Cry 3 - Snake Bite down below and pay attention to the audio quality.

You will notice in the Van Helsing video that the volume is too high, there is too much bass and border line nasal. The Far Cry 3 video however has none of that, but still lacks presence. Which is something I'm still working on. -

After the sudden realization that I had quite some work ahead of me something positive happened: I reached out to a fellow LPer (YouTube user) via private message and within a couple of hours I received a response. Not only that, the response was a detailed message with tips and tricks. I was flabbergasted by this helpful feedback as you only have to glimpse any comment section on YouTube and you will understand why my expectations were low. But OdinVodans was the LPer who restored my faith in humanity, so do make sure to check him out. He deserves it.

As for the tips and instructions OdinVodans gave me; I have yet to try them out and that strikes at the heart of this article. You are never done learning and improving when it comes to creating LP videos. I strive to raise the bar for myself when it comes to my content and this will be a process that is going to take me years to get good at. But I'm hoping that the interaction with my fellow LPers will be as positive as the first one and make the learning process go that much faster.

In closing I would like to mention a Facebook page that I will be keeping my eye on under the name The Lets Play Community. LPers go there and promote themselves and each other and give out advice. I'm hoping it will grow out into a healthy community where every member can benefit. So do make sure to check it out. For now, I want to thank you all for reading and I will see you... next time. Take care.

U.A.

U.A. and the Time Machine

Hello everyone,

Recently I have been playing a lot of old RPG's like Dragon Age: Origins and Jade Empire. I enjoyed playing them so much that I wanted to record my playthrough and make an entire Let's Play series out of it. That is why I have decided to create a section called UncivilAquarius and the Time Machine. This will consist of me taking old RPG's like the ones mentioned above and playing through them. I want to emphasize that I will be taking my time with these games, so if you enjoy these kinds of slow paced games with good story and dialogue then you're in for a treat.

You might wonder why I'm picking these old games and playing them and that's where I have to lay an inconvenient truth on you. I have played them close to their launch date, but stopped playing them about an hour in because I lost interest. And yes, I realize that is as close to blasphemy as it gets. But you can hopefully sympathize with me, because the games are slowpaced and take some time to get into. These kind of games need to grow on you and you eventually learn to appreciate them. That is where I am now and that's why I want to create a Let's Play series that focuses on the quality that good RPG's can bring to the game genre. So do look forward to long episodes with interesting story and dialogue mixed with all kinds of combat (depending on the game; for example Dragon Age: Origins versus The Witcher 2).

My intention is to take you, the viewer, with me as we journey with our characters through the different kind of stories. I will be focusing on story and the other characters who play a part in it. Crafting if present will be fully explored as will the game world. And don't worry if slow-paced Let's Plays are not your thing. I need diversity in my games like any other person so you will have plenty of other content to look forward to on my channel.

I intend to record and upload the first content in this series this week so do keep an eye out for it. To conclude, I hope you will have as much fun watching as I undoubtedly will have recording. Thank you all for reading and I will see you all ... next time. Take care.

U.A.

UPDATE:

I have created a Pilot for a possible series on Dragon Age: Origins. Do check it out and let me know if it's worth creating a Let's Play for this title.

U.A.'s opinion on ... The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Hello everyone,

Today I wanted to share my views with you on a game that you have no doubt heard of and maybe even played. It's the latest title in the Elder Scrolls series, namely The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. I have put around 400 hours into the game, so the time seemed right to put some of my thoughts down on paper. I want to focus on Skyrim and it's fan created Mods and thereby differentiating this write up from the thousands of others out there, even though I realize that specific theme has undoubtedly been written about before.

I want to emphasize that the "U.A.'s opinion on ... " articles are not reviews, but merely me discussing different subjects that are on my mind. This gives me the freedom to skip certain requirements you would have for a review like in this case summarizing the game's basics like story and mechanics.

Skyrim is a prime example of a sandbox game (feel free to argue with me on this) as you can do almost anything you want, how you want to do it and be 400 hours in like me and still have not finished playing. Although I have to say I'm probably on my 50th character and I'd still be lowballing it. I keep restarting the game with the perfect idea of how I'm going to build my character, but a few hours later I'm back at the starting point with yet another enthusiastic idea. I think that is a sign of a great game; it seems like you could play the game forever. However sometimes it does feel like I'm never making any progress, but that is my own fault for not sticking with one character. It has been around 2,5 years since Skyrim was launched and in that stretch of time I have put in around 400 hours. I think this really speaks for the longetivity of the game which is definately a selling point of Skyrim; I keep going back to the game with fresh ideas and goals.

Since it's launch 3 DLC's have been released; Hearthfire, Dawnguard and Dragonborn. In all the time spent on Skyrim I have only finished the main storyline and not even touched the ones in Dawnguard and Dragonborn. I have not even built my own house yet! Which is something I definately want to do, but I never seem to get to it. Every time my mind wanders to the subject of Skyrim I tell myself: "I'm going to sit down this weekend and really get to it. Finish the storylines and get that house you wanted". But when I do get ingame it takes less than 10 minutes for me to have totally forgotten about my intention. Although this might be telling you more about me then about Skyrim.

You can imagine that, after all that time spent in Skyrim, certain things started to bug me. Like the fact that, while being in a conversation with an NPC, your character would not even face the person they were talking to and just stare into the distance. I'm a big fan (and nitpick) of immersion and roleplaying so this really annoyed me along with other things like great swords 'floating' on your back because of the lack of a scabbard (solved with the "Greatsword sheaths and scabbards" Mod).

I started with small adjustments through Mods to solve the things that negated my immersion, but it didn't take long for me to get hooked on adding Mods. I had to put in a lot of effort because not all Mods are compatible and using the wrong combinations could crash the game. Imagine having 100 Mods and the game crashing because a couple of them are incompatible... puzzle time indeed. So yes, I did have to reinstall Skyrim a couple of times before I got the right combination of Mods. I ended up with 114 of them and the result was a world you can see in my The Elder Scrolls V: The Skyrim Experiment series: as realistic as you can possible get, because I have to eat, drink and sleep. Keep myself warm and prevent myself from freezing to death. The food can even spoil and drinking river water can give you diseases (so get your water from a fountain or buy it in an inn). I did use a Mod to slow down time to 25% of the normal game speed to give myself the time to deal with all these new challenges.

Some people might find the realistic approach I took unappealing and I can certainly imagine that. But what I´m trying to show people unfamiliar with the Mods is that you can change the vanilla Skyrim world to anything you would like to see. There are so many changes available and the best part is that it is all user created via the Creation Kit. So if you can think of it then it´s out there.
To give you an example: while reading the A Song of Ice and Fire serie I desperately wanted to see my Skyrim world changed into the world of Westeros and voila! a Game of Thrones Adaptation was created by Kualan. Not only will you be fighting Others but you can even ride your mount and visit the Wall. Guards will no longer walk around in Empire outfits, but will be wearing armor with the colors of House Lannister. And you will no longer be accompanied by Ralof when you start the game, but by Ser Rodrik (with his own appearance of course).

 Meet Stannis Baratheon and Lady Melisandre.

Describing this specific overhaul is nothing but the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Just perform a Google search for Skyrim and Nexus Mods (and Steam Workshop) and prepare to be overwhelmed. The official statistics on Nexus Mods tell us that there are 31,317 files and 315.89 million downloads for Skyrim alone. This means that aside from the official content created by Bethesda Softworks the additional content is next to infinite thanks to fans all around the globe. And it's not just content that is created; there are also Mods being released by fans that change (I like to think 'perfect') the pillars of the game like the textures, the lighting, the combat mechanics and even the weather.

In closing I would like to suggest that, if you're new to Skyrim, you do play the game at first without any mods. Mainly because you will appreciate the Mods all the more once you are familiar with the vanilla game. You will see what's so great about the game, but also come to the realization that there are minor flaws which Mods are the solution to. Using Mods can't hurt since you can always reinstall. So my recommendation would be to go nuts on the Modding; you never know with what kind of greatness you end up with.

Thank you for reading and I'll see you... next time.

U.A.


The Skyrim Experiment Complete Mod List

The Elder Scrolls V: The Skyrim Experiment playlist

U.A.'s review of ... the Samsung Galaxy S2

Hello everyone,

I have been using the Samsung Galaxy S2 since April of 2012 and thought it would be good to share my experience. I realize the S5 is on it's way, but aside from the S2 I'm hoping to give an insight into the Galaxy as a serie as well. Also, because of the previously mentioned reason the S2 might drop in price even more than it already has over the last 2 years. Therefor making it an attractive phone for people who want to upgrade to a smart phone without having to make a big investment. For these main reasons I believe a review of the S2 still has benefit for other people.

Performance:

The phone has enough memory to process anything you're doing at an amazing speed. Having multiple tasks running should slower the system down, but to this date I have never noticed anything of the sort. I also like to watch movies on the phone and never had so much as a hick up while playing. An even stronger argument to support the stability of this phone is the fact that I had my phone running for 6 months straight without so much as a reboot. I did not notice any decrease in performance and the only reason I choose to restart was because the lockpad was bugging out and not displaying the 'key maze' properly anymore.

The S2 as a media device:
This is where the Galaxy really shines. I use the phone daily to watch things on YouTube, watch my TV shows, movies and listen to music. Needless to say the phone has a lot to live up to when it's being used that many hours a day. The sizable display of 480 x 800 pixels is perfect when it comes to watching your shows during work breaks as I do and is even acceptable if you want to watch a movie while traveling a long distance.

Vacations are something everyone goes on and forms the perfect challenge for a phone. I was able to put the S2 to the test on my vacation. If you're anything like me you'll dread the days without access to your shows, movies and of course a 24/7 internet connection. I happened to go on vacation to Portugal while living in The Netherlands. This ment being far away from home with no reliable source of internet nor access to my shows or movies. I had 16 GB of space on my SD card and 16 GB of internal space available and I managed to cram it chock full of Smallville, Lee Evans and Eddie Izzard (aside from my 5 GB of music which is my default setting for any phone I use, hehe). I ended up having to charge my phone every day, which is not unusual for any kind of smart phone, but I did get a lot of enjoyment out of it.

The negative:
Nothing can truly be 100% positive or amazing. Anything in life has a downside and the S2 doesn't deviate from that format. I do have to admit it's a small point of criticism, but I didn't want to leave it out.

When you search the internet for most experienced problems with an S2 you will eventually end up with a problem related to the USB port. I've had such a problem as well; my S2 wouldn't connect to my PC via USB anymore. Windows (any version) would say it didn't recognize the device and just plain ignore it. This resulted in me not being able to move music and videos around, not even with Samsung Kies. I ended up submitting a support ticket on the Samsung website (which I normally stay clear of, because you end up with automated responses anyway) out of sheer desperation. Samsung (or rather their tech support) did not fail to live up to my low expectations as I got the reply to try it with Samsung Kies (even though I had written them that I had already tried that) and gave me the advice to visit one of their shops to ask for help.

In the end I used a different USB cable to see what would happen and voila! The problem was somehow solved. To this day I have no clue why my old USB cable suddenly gave out (as it still seems to charge and the connection isn't unstable at all), but all I know I can now access my phone again. And that is all that matters.

To support the above I have to mention that my girlfriend had to return her S2 to the store for repairs 3 weeks after purchase. Those problems were USB related like with mine, but in her case the phone would not even charge. I believe the repairform said the USB port was deformed or shorted out even though she did nothing strange to it. Although the latter must be the most used sentence by any customer ever.

Conclusion:
I did make sure to check the reviews on the later Galaxy models, the S3 and S4. I also happen to have family who use those models and their experience has been nothing but positive so far. So if you're looking for a reliable phone that is affordable and gives you plenty of options, then the Samsung Galaxy S2 is an option you definately want to keep in mind. The Galaxy as a series actually sells itself because most of the user experiences are so positive (comparable to the iPhone). I have grown very fond of my Galaxy and needless to say I will be staying with the series when my phone subscription ends in April of 2014. I intend to upgrade to the latest Galaxy model available at that time.

Specifications:

Samsung I9100 Galaxy S II, released in April of 2011.

Size:
125.3 x 66.1 x 8.5 mm (4.93 x 2.60 x 0.33 in)
Display: 480 x 800 pixels, 4.3 inches

Weight:
116 g

Memory:
Card slot: microSD, up to 32 GB
Internal: 16/32 GB storage, 1 GB RAM

Camera:
8 MP, 3264x2448 pixels, autofocus, LED flash

Video:
Yes, 1080p@30fps

For the full feature list check out:
http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_i9100_galaxy_s_ii-3621.php

U.A.

U.A. presents "Walk and Talk"

Hello everyone,

I wanted to do something special for you all, so I decided to take a Let's Play series of mine and do something out of the ordinary. I have taken the The Skyrim Experiment series and have made a 37 minute special out of the journey between two cities (Riften and Whiterun). Mind you, I was not allowed to travel or use a map. This resulted in some hilarious fails on my end which I would like to share with you all. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making the special. So here goes; I present to you "Walk and Talk".

U.A.

The start of a new series ... Far Cry 3

Hello everyone,

I wanted to take some time and discuss the new Let's Play series I started on my YouTube channel. After playing Skyrim I often found myself itching for some more action, but this time orientated on guns. After typing in 'Skyrim with guns' in Google I stumbled onto Far Cry 3. Apparently 'Skyrim with guns' was their marketing slogan.

I had played the game before but did not really get hooked. This time around I couldn't wait to get some gunslinging going and I found myself enjoying the game so much that I decided to make a Let's Play out of it. I'm hoping this new series will bring everyone as much enjoyment as it does me. So without further ado I present to you:

U.A.'s review of ... Mount & Blade: Warband (SP)

Hello everyone,

When taking a look at the 'Hours Played' in Steam under the title Mount & Blade: Warband (MB:W) in the Library section I feel blood rushing to my cheeks. What's this I'm feeling? I think it's called shame; the counter shows an amassed amount of 434 hours played. But aloud I stumble "but, but ... I'm nowhere near done with my campaign!". And that is exactly what MB:W does to you, it makes you forget time exists.

SUMMARY:

MB:W is a mix of the overview playstyle on a map you'd see in the series Heroes of Might and Magic combined with the combat from ... nothing. That's right, there is nothing that comes close to the combat you experience in MB:W. When in melee combat you use your mouse to perform directional attacks: left, right, from above or a thrust forward. The same goes for blocking with the right-mouse button, although I prefer to keep this automated so it just blocks when I click instead of having to choose a direction.

The game throws you into a medieval environment where you either start with next to nothing or with some basic equipment depending on how you created your character (low born peasant versus born in nobility and everything in between). The basic gameplay shows the map of Calradia with you as an icon on it. You move around until you encounter a city, a village or another NPC. Then the game changes to third or first person depending on your liking and you either fight on an open field, siege a city, perform simple tasks or resupply weapons, armor, horses and food.
All of this sounds very basic but this is where it gets interesting. It is up to the player to take the afore mentioned ingredients and get something cooking. The game has a great sandbox feel to it and you have to set your own goals. I've had playsessions go on as long as 5 hours at a time and by the end of it I still felt like I had only done half of what I'd set out to do when I started.

GRAPHICS:
This aspect of the game is where most people find it lacking and give up on it prematurely. Steam shows the demo version of MB:W next to the Retail version; so when I told my little brother about this I finally got him to try it out. It was free after all and it only took me 3 days of nagging and sending him a dozen screenshots (which I carefully choreographed) to get him to that point. However, when he arrived in game it took him less than 5 minutes to say "No thank you and good bye". He's as you might say a critic in the graphics department and he just couldn't bare to look at the game any longer than he had. And I could somehow relate to how he felt, because I had the same feeling when I started playing the game. But from the moment I got hooked on the game I couldn't even see the lacking graphics anymore. I am now so in tune with the game that the only thing that matters is block left, slash right, shield up, wait for opponent to strike and counter.

If I was playing the devil's advocate I could argue that the battlesize (with a maximum of 150 NPC's on one map) was a limiting factor when you take the final product into account. Especially for the Multiplayer mode; you would want big battles but a playable game at the same time. You also have to take into account that not everyone can buy top of the line rigs nor keep their current rig up to date so you will want to keep your hardware requirements in the midrange to reach largest part of your audience.

MODS:
This where the game shines and where most of your hours played will most likely come from. Because I love the Mod and I still play it daily I want to specifically mention Prophesy of Pendor as a must play Mod for MB:W. It even has it's own Wikipedia so do make sure to check it out. It gives much needed polish to the game while adding several layers of depth to the gameplay as well (for example Knighthood Orders).
If you look on Nexus Mods you will find a multitude of Mods for MB:W as well as other games. It's these Mods that make the game an even greater success than it already is. There are small modifications to change the interface or certain mechanics but there are also complete overhauls like Brytenwalda, Prophesy of Pendor and 1257 Anno Domini. Applying these Mods generate the feeling that you're playing a totally new game, but all the while the thrilling combat stays the same. And it's a formula that works.

CONCLUSION:
If you can get past the subpar graphics and enjoy the combat that is offered, you had better cancel any appointments you have made for the coming months (that's right, plural). Because you will find yourself short on time during every playsession of this game.

Basic information:

Developer: TaleWorlds
Website: http://www.mountandbladewarband.com/

U.A.'s review of ...

Hello everyone,

Like I mentioned before I'm someone who has an opinion on just about anything and this includes games, gadgets and all sorts of things. Instead of placing them under the opinion section I've decided that I want to make a proper review section. So without further ado I present to you my first review...

U.A.

U.A.'s opinion on ... A Song of Ice and Fire

Hello everyone,

To kick off the series I'm going to be writing about the novels by George R.R. Martin called A Song of Ice and Fire which you've no doubt heard of or even seen on HBO under the name A Game of Thrones, the title of the first book in the series. I'm not going to spoil any story, but if you are looking for it you could deduce more information then you would likely want to have. So be warned if you plan on watching or reading this series in the future.

Important for you as a reader to know is that I have watched season 1 of A Game of Thrones fully before even knowing about A Song of Ice and Fire. I actually gave up on the show at the start of season 2 because the story started to bore me. After finishing The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit (the movies and the books) I decided I needed more books to devour which led me to this series. That's when I became a huge fan. As of yet I still have not seen more of the TV show than seasons 1 and 2 (of which I still need to watch the finale).

I have to admit that I'm not quite finished with the currently available books either (which are as of June 2013; A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons) as I still have roughly 300 pages to go in A Dance with Dragons.

- On a side note: I'm reading all the books in the, original, English language. -

Now you'll probably say: "Hey U.A., how can you write about a series that you have not finished yet?" And that is where the essence of this series comes to the surface; I want to write about subjects that are on my mind now while they're fresh, alive and not fully within my grasp yet. Sure, if I finish the series first I'll have a much clearer picture of the series but it will leave less room for me to speculate and suggest. I'm hoping this will result in stories infused with my passion and at the same time giving me an outlet I can use to channel my thoughts and give them a place.

Now to move on to the actual subject. If I had to sum up the series in one sentence and describe the writer at the same time I would have to give you the following line: George R. R. Martin is as cruel to his readers as much as he's a genius at writing. After reading about The Red Wedding (wink wink) I was actually contemplating to stop reading even though I had purchased all volumes in a boxset. All the while I was cursing Martin for his choices (and did so throughout the second half of Book 3 and the entirety of Book 4) and didn't stop doing so until I reached his final note at the end of Book 4. By then I felt fooled and toyed with but in a good way.

I have to admit that I cared less for the characters in Book 4, aside from Arya, than the characters I had come to love like Jon Snow and Tyrion Lannister. But it forced me to look for something I could relate to in Brienne, Cersei and Jaime. I appreciate the different views Book 4 gives the reader through the eyes of the previously mentioned characters. But I found the book less action packed than Book 3 which was a bit of a let down. Especially after being filled with 'reader adrenaline' by the battle on and under the Wall.

As I'm reading Book 5 I feel like I've been reunited with the characters I was missing so much throughout Book 4. But at the same time I'm dreading the countdown of pages leading me to the back of Book 5. I realize two more volumes will be published in the series but not even Martin knows when that will be. It could be years before we see volume 6 "The Winds of Winter" and volume 7 "A Dream of Spring". Since A Dance with Dragons was published in 2011 and it took Martin five years to write this volume (1) we probably will not be reading anything new for the next few years.

A special place in my heart has been reserved for Arya "Horseface" Stark. I have always liked her as a character in the book (in the TV show not so much). She reminds me of characters in other books that go out in the open world and experience adventures. The whole survival aspect is what draws me to her storylines as I love to read about the traveling, gathering food and battling the weather (my love for this is one of the reasons I started The Skyrim Experiment-series). I also appreciate where Martin is headed with her as a character. The same goes for Jon Snow and Tyrion Lannister; they are damaged in their own ways (or altered by their experience like Jon by Ygritte), but in return have a strength to them which makes them fascinating as characters and gives their storylines a realistic touch.

I'm very much looking forward to the next two volumes, but in the mean time I can feel the end of Book 5 looming over me. I'm not so much afraid of a cliffhanger as I am of having nothing to read during my breaks and before bed. Luckily I happened to stumble upon the Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Steven Erikson and going by it's reviews it should keep me busy for at least 6 to 12 months. I decided to start off easy though so I only purchased Volume I and II, for now.

Thank you for reading and I'll see you... next time.

U.A.

U.A.'s opinion on...

Hello everyone,

I intend to make a series with the title "U.A.'s opinion on...". I'm someone who has something to say about everything so why not utilize this (sometimes annoying) habit and use it for this blog, right? Right, hehe.

I hope to improve my written skills in the English language as it's not my first language but I have always been fascinated by it. Although I have to say my fascination was and is with the American variant and not so much it's origine as it's used in the United Kingdoms. This led to a lot of frustration in school as they liked to school me in the British variant while my television was educating me in the American one which resulted in bad grades even though I was fluent in speech and writing. You can take the 'education by television' quite literally in my case because I used to watch American programs on Dutch television which were not altered in any way except for them being subbed. This resulted in me learning the language by listening to and watching at the television.

Hopefully this little disclaimer will give me some room to improve while I write my content. Feel free to correct me where needed but if you could do it in a teaching style (so I could actually learn from your comment and prevent the mistake in the future) this would be even better.

U.A.

The Skyrim Experiment Complete Mod List

Hello everyone,

Like I mentioned before I wanted to write out the complete list of Mods used in my The Skyrim Experiment series. The creators should get the credit they deserve and I also want to promote the Mods so other players can enjoy them. So here goes:


360 Walk and Run Plus
83Willows 101BugsHD Butterfly Dragonfly Luna-Moth Torchbug

ACE - Athyra's Comprehensive Enhancements
ApachiiSkyHair
ASIS
Auto Unequip Ammo

Babettes Feast
Bandolier - Bags and Pouches
B-D-Y-E-B Shield Mod
Beards - High Resolution
Bellyches Animal and Creature Pack
Belt-Fastened Quivers (Skeleton Replacer) (Steam)
Better Dynamic Snow
Better Females by Bella
Better Swimming
Birds of Skyrim
Bowlegged jump animation Fix
Brawl Bugs Patch

Cliffracers
Cloaks of Skyrim
Complete Crafting Overhaul
Craftable Arrows (Steam)
Craftable Blades Armor (Steam)

Enhanced Blood Textures
Enhanced Lights and FX
Enhanced Night Skyrim

Faction: Pit Fighter (Steam)
Faction: Pit Fighter Travels Add-On (Steam)
Fishing in Skyrim 1.00 (Steam)
Followers can Relax
Follow Trap Safety (Steam)
Footprints
ForesNew Idles in Skyrim - FNIS
Frostfall

Greatsword sheaths and scabbards

HiRes Legible Road Signs
HQ and Recolor Husky

Immersive Animations
Immersive Armors
Immersive HUD
Immersive Patrols
Immersive Weapons
Improved Weapons - Immersive Weapons
Improved Combat Sounds

JaySuS Swords

Knapsack Enhanced

Lighter Dragon Scales And Bones (Steam)
Lightweight Potions and Poisons (Steam)
Linen Bandages (Steam)
Lockpick graduation by Lilyu

Map Tomes and Writing Table
Meeko and Vigilance Stealth Tweak

No More Blocky Faces
No salt for Meat Recipes
No Spinning Death Animation
NPCs Use Ammo

Open Faced Guard Helmets

Player Headtracking
Project Reality - Climates Of Tamriel
Proper Aiming
Pumping Iron

Realistic Lighting Overhaul
Realistic Needs and Diseases
Realistic Ragdolls and Force
Realistic Timescale 1:5 (Steam)
Realistic Wildlife Loot and Recipes
Reduced Distance NPC Greetings (Steam)
Run For Your Lives

Sabre Gear Backpack
SkyTEST - Realistic Animals and Predators
SkyUI
Smithing Perks Overhaul
Sneak Tools

Tailoring (Steam)
The Choice is Yours - Fewer Forced Quests
The Dance of Death - A Killmove Mod
The Eyes of Beauty
Thieves Guild Requirements - No Auto Quest Start (turned off for The Skyrim Experiment, but I still recommend it)

UFO - Ultimate Follower Overhaul (with Dawnguard and Heartfire AddOn)
Unlimited Bookshelves
Unofficial Dawnguard Patch
Unofficial Dragonborn Patch
Unofficial Hearthfire Patch
Unofficial High Resolution Patch
Unofficial Skyrim Patch

Vagabond Armor
Viking Chainmail Armor

W.A.T.E.R. - Water and Terrain Enhancement Redux
Warchief Armor
Wearable Lanterns
Weightless Books
Wet and Cold - Ashes
Wet and Cold
When Vampires Attack
Winter is Coming

XCE - Xenius Character Enhancement

U.A.

Introduction

Dear diary,

I had the best day today...

I'm just joking!

Hello everyone, I am Michiel also known as my gamertag UncivilAquarius and you're reading my blog. I intend to complement the videos on my YouTube channel with blog posts, game reviews and other written products which can all be found here in my imaginary laboratory. This is the place where I cook up the wildest things for you, my audience.

This is also the place where I can post useful things like for example the Mod list from my "The Skyrim Experiment" series. You can imagine that posting the names of more than a 100 Mods would put a bit of a strain on the YouTube description, hehe. I feel that I do want to give the creators of said Mods the respect and acknowledgement they deserve so that's why I wanted a medium alongside of the video channel.

I am hoping to supply you with a steady stream of video and written content for the years to come and thereby entertaining myself and (hopefully) you both.

June 2013,

U.A.