Gladius, day 2

It’s hard to get your main characters killed, but not impossible. I did it :-) Gladius trades plot for deep strategical game play, and I’m there for it. Given Gladius is from LucasArts, known for deeply cinematic games, I expected there to be a little more plot in the twin stories of two Vikings, or an Imperial gladiator, who build their gladiator schools from scratch until they are large enough to challenge the emperor’s best fighters. ...

November 8, 2021 · 4 min · 780 words · Tipa

Gladius, Day 1: Gladiators at Large

Welcome to the start of my playthrough of LucasArts’ “Gladius”, a tactical arena fighting game for the PlayStation 2. Wow. What to say about this game? I first heard about this game only a couple of weeks ago – I guess I’d entirely missed it when it came out in 2003. I ordered a copy from eBay. It arrived yesterday; popped it into the PCSX2 emulator and it came right up. ...

November 4, 2021 · 4 min · 662 words · Tipa

EQOA: Desperately Seeking Skandalf

I didn’t know what to expect when I logged into EverQuest Online Adventures for the first time. When a dark elf cleric named Skandalf started following me around, healing me when I fought anything, I thought she was a bot. But now, I’m not so sure. **Update: **Apparently Skandalf was the name of a mage pet in the live version of EQOA, sort of like any EQ player would know who you were talking about if you mentioned “Jabober”. How I got a healing mage pet for awhile is something I don’t know. Thanks to the folks on the EQOA Revival Discord for setting me straight :-) ...

September 16, 2021 · 4 min · 775 words · Tipa

Game Log: EQOA, DCUO, EverQuest, PCSX2

We’ve been getting into EverQuest a little here, and some perfect storm of the new version of the best PS2 emulator out there, PCSX2, EverQuest nostalgia (BF and I spent some time making new EQ characters on various servers and checking up on our older characters) got me wondering how the EverQuest Online Adventures fans were doing with their reboot, Project: Return Home. I’d never played EQOA when it was live for the PlayStation 2 – I was already playing actual EverQuest, and there was no way I would have the money or the time to play two of them. But when I saw the PS2 disk for sale in the local used game store, what the heck, I bought it. ...

May 10, 2020 · 3 min · 523 words · Tipa

Champions of Norrath playthrough: Act 1, Kelethin

My post yesterday made me want to play EverQuest again. But one of the last things I want to do in gaming, is to play EverQuest again. Maybe that doesn’t make sense. In order to play either EQ1 or EQ2, I’d have to get really deep into it, and for a long time, because neither EverQuest is a game you play lightly or casually. I’ve done my time and waited out my parole. I did say I would be first in line for a new EverQuest and I wasn’t lying. I’ll dive deep into the next one to come out (and maybe that will be Pantheon, though with Aradune’s death, who knows if non-streamers will ever be allowed to play it?) ...

May 1, 2020 · 5 min · 1059 words · Tipa