Dang good root beer

Posted on December 1, 2018 by J.L. Hilton


It ain’t Sunset Sarsaparilla but I say “dang” a lot when I’m streaming so I figured I’d try this soda

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Try-It Tuesday: DOOM

Posted on November 2, 2018 by J.L. Hilton

This week, I tried DOOM, a reboot of the game I played about twenty-five years ago. Doom (1993) wasn’t the very first “first person shooter” (FPS) game, but it had a huge influence on subsequent shooter games and video gaming in general.

The 1993 and 2016 versions were both developed by id Software and the 2016 version was published by Bethesda Softworks, which also publishes the Elder Scrolls, Fallout and Dishonored franchises, three of my all-time favorites. So, when I found the free Playstation demo of DOOM, I had to try it.

This game is all run and gun and a ton of fun. I loved the music, composed by Mick Gordon, who won a bunch of awards for the game’s soundtrack and also worked on Wolfenstein and Prey.

DOOM is rated “M” for mature audiences, for blood and gore, intense violence and strong language. It’s available for PC, Playstation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.

~ J.L. Hilton

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Try-It Tuesday: ENIGMATIS The Ghosts of Maple Creek

Posted on November 1, 2018 by J.L. Hilton

In ENIGMATIS: THE GHOSTS OF MAPLE CREEK, I searched for a missing girl in a mysterious Vermont town. This 2011 point-and-click game is another by Artifex Mundi, like several I’ve tried in the past year.

It’s available for Playstation 4, Xbox One, PC and mobile phones. I tried the free demo on PS4 and enjoyed it so much, I bought the game and finished it a couple days later.

ENIGMATIS: THE GHOSTS OF MAPLE CREEK is rated “T” for teen, for blood and mild violence. My teens played through it with their friends and had a lot of fun hunting for hidden objects, finding clues, and solving puzzles together.

After playing the main adventure, I unlocked the “Last Chapter” bonus level that tells the story of Jim Gibbons, the knife thrower trapped in the mirror world. I played through on Halloween and it was an excellent epilogue.

~ J.L. Hilton

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Try-It Tuesday: FOUL PLAY

Posted on October 17, 2018 by J.L. Hilton

Victorian daemon-hunter Baron Dashforth and his sidekick, the ninja chimney sweep Scampwick, recount their thrilling adventures in FOUL PLAY, a 2013 steampunk-style side-scrolling brawler developed by UK-based indie studio Mediatonic.

Single-player or two-player shared-screen couch co-op. The game plays out across an endless stage, and the object is not only to defeat enemies but to thrill spectators. Characters do not die but it’s curtains for them if they cease to entertain the virtual audience.

The story is told via dialog boxes that must be read by the player(s). There are exclamations — “Gah!” “Oh!” and such — but no voiced protagonists.

FOUL PLAY is rated “E+10” for everyone 10 and up. I thought it was great fun and will continue playing at my leisure with family, but not for my YouTube channel. I’ve already got my plate full with Horizon Zero Dawn, Skyrim, Fallout 4, Fallout Shelter and other games this month!

~ J.L. Hilton

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Try-It Tuesday: HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 3 Monsters Overboard

Posted on October 10, 2018 by J.L. Hilton

I wanted to play something with a Halloween theme for October, so I rented HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 3: MONSTERS OVERBOARD from a local Redbox.

This single-player game continues the story of the Hotel Transylvania 3 movie. The player can choose to be Dracula or Mavis. With the help of little creatures called Impa, they fight enemies, solve puzzles and save their monster friends on the mysterious Lost Islands.

HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 3 is rated E+10 for everyone 10 and up. While some rated-E games can be fun for the whole family — such as Unravel Two, Eventide 3 or The Unfinished Swan — this one is just for children. There’s not much in the way of gameplay, story, humor, graphics or excitement to be found for adults, but if you have little kids, it might be worth renting for a day or two before Halloween.

~ J.L. Hilton

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Try-It Tuesday: FALLOUT SHELTER

Posted on October 3, 2018 by J.L. Hilton

FALLOUT SHELTER was released as a mobile game, in advance of Fallout 4, just after both games were announced at Bethesda’s E3 2015 showcase. It was available as a PC game in 2016, Xbox One in 2017, and then Nintendo Switch and Playstation 4 earlier this year.

I played it three years ago on my phone, before moving on to Fallout 4 and other console games. I thought it would be fun to see what it’s like now, with all of the updates they’ve made over the years, and on a much bigger screen.

In FALLOUT SHELTER, players build a large, underground bomb shelter aka “vault,” and manage the lives and resources of the vault dwellers. It shares some elements in common with Fallout 4‘s settlement building system and with community simulation games like Virtual Villagers or My Tribe.

Legos inspired the standardized colonization modules in my Stellarnet books. In my novels, pre-fabricated living spaces called “blocks” were linked side-by-side and stacked on top of one another to form enclosed, self-sufficient space colonies. The vault sections in FALLOUT SHELTER work in a similar way.

As free-to-play games go, FALLOUT SHELTER is casual and enjoyable. In-game purchases are optional and, so far, I haven’t felt like they’re required. When I played this game years ago on my mobile, I maxed out my vault – full size, full population, 100% happiness – without spending any money.

I didn’t play long enough to experience the content I hadn’t seen before, as I needed more vault dwellers to unlock the Overseer’s Office, Weapon Workshop, Outfit Workshop and Theme Workshop. But I might start playing this game on Fallout Fridays, once in awhile, along with Fallout 4.

FALLOUT SHELTER is rated “T” for teens, due to mild violence, suggestive themes, and alcohol references.

~ J.L. Hilton

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Try-It Tuesday: ABYSS ODYSSEY

Posted on September 26, 2018 by J.L. Hilton

ABYSS ODYSSEY (2014) is a video game by ACE Team, an indie developer founded in 1997 by brothers Andrés, Carlos and Edmundo Bordeu, headquartered in Santiago, Chile. They also made The Deadly Tower of Monsters (2016) and Rock of Ages II (2017) that I tried out during previous Tuesdays.

Click here for the free PS4 demo

While Deadly Tower was an isometric platformer with a retro-scifi aesthetic and Rock of Ages II a tower-defense with Monty Python-esque style, ABYSS ODYSSEY is an Art Nouveau inspired side-scroller.

The fighting reminded me a bit of Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat, with lots of button combos, hack and slash. It’s roguelike, with procedurally generated levels. Character death means starting over from the surface and plumbing the depths of the abyss all over again, to find new layouts and different enemies each time.

Rated “T” for teens, for partial nudity and violence.

~ J.L. Hilton

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Mixtape #3 – 1989

Posted on September 21, 2018 by J.L. Hilton

I found a box of tapes I made in the 80s and 90s. This one, labeled “My Special Tape,” is a melancholy miscellany that reflects the personal struggles of my young adulthood. Love, loss, longing, and my troubled, intermittent relationship with Lance, who would eventually be my ex-husband.

I can remember holding this tape so many times in my youth, wondering who I was and what I would be, and here I am, holding it in my hands again, almost thirty years later. It feels strange, as if I’m in two places at once, the present and the past, the east and the west, the old and the young.

Click here for more mixtapes 

In true mix tape style, this is not only a collection of songs but also pieces of songs, reconstructed into a kind of poetry. I think it’s kind of a cool idea and amazing I could do it with just cassette tapes, not the advanced digital editing we have nowadays.

In sleep he sang to me, in dreams he came (1)
And I know it’s only in my mind, that I’m talking to myself and not to him (2)
Sometimes it seemed if I just dreamed somehow you would be here
Wishing I could hear your voice again, knowing that I never would (1)
These dreams go on when I close my eyes (3)

There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold
And she’s buying the stairway to heaven (4)
Take these broken wings and learn to fly again (5)
She’s like the wind (6)

Build a stairway to heaven with a prince or a vagabond
And may you never love in vain (7)
A little fall of rain can hardly hurt you now (2)
After all the rain (8)
After the rain washes away the tears and all the pain
Only after the rain can you live again (9)

It’s only forever, not long at all (10)
Who wants to live forever? (11)
I remember a time I knew what happiness was (2)
Some dance to remember, some dance to forget (4)
Masquerade, paper faces on parade,
Hide your face so the world will never find you (1)

Sources: (1) Phantom of the Opera (2) Les Miserables (3) Heart (4) Led Zeppelin (5) Mr. Mister (6) Dirty Dancing (7) Rod Stewart (8) Cheap Trick (9) Nelson (10) Labyrinth (11) Queen

~ J.L. Hilton

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Try-It Tuesday: HORIZON ZERO DAWN

Posted on September 19, 2018 by J.L. Hilton

Friends of my YouTube channel have been asking me to play HORIZON ZERO DAWN since it came out last year. I wasn’t in a rush, to be honest, because I’d watched an interview with developers from Guerrilla Games who basically said, “we had some concept art with these cool robot dinosaurs and we needed a story about why they exist.” Seemed gimmicky.

And then there’s Aloy. I’ve had about enough of the “sassy redhead” stereotype — Merida, Annie, Pippi, Ariel, Kim Possible, Cait, Saffron, etc. I wasn’t feeling great about the mechanics, either, as I find it difficult to play third-person games.

But my oldest bought the game while I was in the hospital a few months ago, so I figured I’d do it for a Try-It Tuesday. With narrative director John Gonzalez, who was behind the most meaningful and moving experience I’ve ever had in a video game, the Honest Hearts DLC of Fallout: New Vegas, I at least expected an excellent story.

I am happy to say I enjoyed the hell out of this game. Gameplay was so smooth I hardly noticed I wasn’t playing in first-person. Even the frequent cutscenes — normally something I dislike — didn’t bother me, though they were sometimes awkward or jarring when transitioning from player-controlled action to cinematic storytelling. A flaw I am willing to forgive, because at least there weren’t any quick time events.

The world of HORIZON ZERO DAWN is beautiful to see, and I found myself marveling and enjoying the scenery in the same way I do when playing Skyrim. There are elements of this game that remind me a bit of Fallout, Far Cry 5, and other games, too.

The game is fun and the mysteries it presents are intriguing. I am torn between wanting to rush through the story to find out why these mechanical creatures exist or why Aloy and Rost are outcasts, and wanting to spend hours shooting turkeys and hunting robots for wires and metal shards. I plan to continue playing in the days and weeks to come.

See my HORIZON ZERO DAWN playlist on YouTube

Rated “T” for teens, for blood, drug reference, language, mild sexual themes, and violence.

~ J.L. Hilton

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Mixtape #2 – 1988 (?)

Posted on September 13, 2018 by J.L. Hilton

I found a box of tapes I made in the 80s and 90s. This one is a tape I remember listening to while cruising around Palm Springs in 1988. Dustin and I thought we were so cool, playing Bach at top volume the way other kids played rock or hip hop music. Some of these songs are from the 60s and 70s, but I listened to a lot of older songs in my teens. Still do.

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1) Toccata and Fugue in D Minor BWV 565 – Johann Sebastian Bach
2) Thirteen O’Clock – Labyrinth soundtrack (1986)
3) Hallucination – Labyrinth soundtrack (1986)
4) Hotel California – Eagles
5) Something – Beatles
6) Because – Beatles
7) Strawberry Fields Forever – Beatles
8) Norwegian Wood – Beatles
9) Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds – Beatles
10) I Will – Beatles
11) All You Need is Love – Beatles
12) Age of Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In – Hair

~ J.L. Hilton

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