Blaugust 2016 Day 14 - Guest Post Forbes West

Once again I'm delighted to host a guest post from proper-writer, Forbes West, author of Medium Talent: An Apocolypse World Weird Book and the forthcoming Nighthawks At the Mission. He' s also a gamer. All yours, Forbes...

Full disclosure: I am not a hardcore video game like some author I know (let’s call him Rick Gnole).  The latest video game purchase I have made was Skyrim. I still play Skyrim. I’m half way (?) done, I believe, and most of my time is spent running Guild missions for the people living in the Sewers in Riften and attacking NPCs outside the city.  Yes, it’s 2016. I understand. I should get something new.  I should do better. And it’s not like I don’t love video games- I absolutely do. I am just very, very, very particular where my disposable dollars are spent, and I like booze. A lot. And that stuff that’s getting slowly legalized in every state north of the old confederacy. 

So my entertainment dollar is usually not spent on video games because I have some issues and am quietly self-medicating.  But every once in a while, I’ll buy a game- maybe every six years or so. Once in a blue upon blue moon, when the stars are right. And the reason I do is because certain games have a certain story, setting and characters that just make me want to live in that world and explore.  Breathe its pixelated air, interact with its fake dangers and its artificial intrigues, and most of all, the game looks like it will inspire me to be a better writer.  

Certain video games out there, especially role playing ones, are some of the best stories ever written brought to virtual life- the writing is on a level way beyond what most of us would ever seen in the theaters or what is doled out on Barnes and Nobles bookshelves marked “Science Fiction” or “Fantasy”. 

Who doesn’t remember the twist and turns of Fallout 2 and the arrival of the Enclave and discovering the United States Government still existed? The shift from fighting Shinra to saving the world from Sephiroth in Final Fantasy VII and the death of Aerith? The writing of such games covers hundreds of hours of dialogue, virtual books to be read, scrolls to be viewed, etc. The world building, too, in these very certain cases, is much more fleshed out than anything else out there- and seeing what a team of imagineers can do makes me want to be a better writer. To know my science fiction story setting so in and out that anyone reading it would feel as if a portal had opened and they had fallen into some other reality. 

Video games, being an art form unto itself, challenge my imagination and makes me want to do something as good as their programmer/writers had done, just as movies or novels have since forever. Skyrim inspired my novel, “Nighthawks at the Mission”, which is available in the link below. So did Fallout 3, Final Fantasy VII, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.  

Any writer out there who wants inspiration, who needs a virtual muse, who wants to see some awesome imaginary settings to get a charge off of, should play a game or two. It’s helped me. It’s definitely helped that Rick Gnole guy’s imagination. 

You can read more of my crap at forbeswestbooks.com

Blaugust 2016 Day 13 - Gaming goals for the rest of 2016 and beyond

So with four and a bit months left to go of the year, I have decided I want to make concerted effort to work through some of the games I have started or bought intending to throw myself into. As I don't currently have an MMO sucking me in, this might be a good time, if I can drag myself away from No Man's Sky and Diablo 3! I can't say I'll get through these by the end of the year, but I'd love to make a start.






Fallout 4 - My aim is to finish the story. I've been far too bogged down with base building and need to focus on it. Not too concerned about DLC

Dragon Age : Inquisition - On PS3 so doesn't appear on my Steam list (and probably why I keep forgetting about it)

Shadows of Mordor - Another PS3 title. Really want to get through the storyline

Batman: Arkham City - PS3 again. Fully intend NOT to buy the more recent Arkham game until I get through this.

BioShock Infinite - I'm a fair way through this but find I only play in short bursts. Really need to get it finished.

Mass Effect 2 and 3 - I played through 1 on the XBox but has started again on the PC to go through the whole story. Currently on 2 but barely into it.

 The Witcher 3 - It's there, installed and mocking me. Not even started yet but I really want to sit down and play this. That might take up most of 2017.

The Walking Dead Season 2 - I enjoyed season one but never got back to play through the second part

Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Started and really like it

XCom Enemy Unknown - still haven't finished part one and really want to try part 2


Any suggestions on where to start?

This post is part of Blaugust 2016, an initiative to Blog throughout August. For more information visit the Tales of the Aggronaut Blog

Blaugust 2016 Day 12 More No Mans Sky!

Falling behind on my planned daily schedule but I'm honestly not concerned. Bel announced this would be a chilled out version of Blaugust so I'm not going to stress. I may post a couple in one day and catch up but that ain't gonna be today!

Today I have been trying  to fix my pond. It seems to have acquired a leak at a certain level. So far I estimate I've spent 15 hours over several days trying to find it, but to no avail. It's coming to the stage I want to strip the whole thing out and get a new liner, but at £100+ that might not be the solution.

What little time I had for gaming was spent on No Man's Sky. I'm very nearly 20 hours in and haven't hit that boredom threshold yet that some are grumbling about. I picked up my first replacement ship today. Only 18 inventory slots and fairly cheap but I love it as it resembles Boba Fett's ship, Slave One .

 I'm just sad we can't rename our vessels (yet!) . That would be a great addition. I also found out how you can expand inventory so I've almost maxed that out. My plan is to explore my home system as fully as possible, then make use of my newly acquired Warp Drive and explore further afield. I let the kid lose on the naming of things, so now we have a planet full of beasts named after her class mates.

I've also managed to line up some more guest posts from genre authors who are involved with gaming, so keep an eye out those in the coming month!

This post is part of Blaugust 2016, an initiative to Blog throughout August. For more information visit the Tales of the Aggronaut Blog

Blaugust 2016 Day 11 No Man's Sky

It was late at night, several hours after the PC of launch of a game I have anticipated for years, No Man's Sky. I had wanted to buy it at launch but started reading reviews to get a feel for any issues that may have occurred, something anyone buying on the first day is aware of. It didn't look good. Steam reviews were mixed , with 51% being negative, lots of complaints of the game not launching or for those that did get in, terrible lag and stuttering even on high end systems. It didn't look good for me and my two year old machine with a GTX 555 graphics card.

I checked Twitter and the feed showed the same picture. Huge amounts of people complaining, warning people against wasting their money. I'd had a similar experience with Total War :Warhammer that took ages to get fixed. To add to that, I noticed a friend was playing on Steam so I hit him up and asked him how it was going. Not good came the response, Had been following all the suggested fixes and despite having a fairly high end machine, couldn't get it to run.

I wished him luck and went to play Diablo 3 as I've been doing the last couple of nights but it wouldn't load. I tried out the Battlefront Star Wars Trial that Origin are offering (first four hours for free, highly recommend it) but after finishing the tutorial, I glanced at my Steam friends list. Now four people playing No Man's Sky. So I buckled. I bought it, downloaded and started it up.

It loaded first time! And not only that, it ran incredibly smoothly. No lag, no hitching and damn, this game is beautiful! and the sound - just amazing. I was hooked and three hours later, at 2am I got my spaceship to fly to big black. I can't wait to get back in tonight. Here's a few screenshots from my first session.

My homeplanet, later renamed Knifesedge Alpha. Stranded with a broken spaceship

View across what is now known as the Knifesedge Badlands

We have liftoff!

A great feeling of achievement when you finally take off

Why does this Space Station AI remind me of Hal 9000?

This post is part of Blaugust 2016, an initiative to Blog throughout August. For more information visit the Tales of the Aggronaut Blog

Blaugust 2016 Day 10 - Giveaway! Read Only Memories

A bit of a cheat but today's post is a giveaway, a Steam Copy of Cyberpunk puzzle and exploration game, Read Only Memories.

Read Only Memories

In Neo-San Francisco, a vibrant city of low life and high tech, you will witness the world's first sapient robot, learning how to grow and live as you become embroiled in the darkest scandal of 2064

Steam Link


To be in with a chance of grabbing a copy, leave a comment on the blog with your steam name. The Winner will sellected on Friday 18th August at 6pm UK time.

Spread the word!

Blaugust Day 2 - What I'm playing now.

My PC gaming has been reduced lately thanks to other pursuits like teaching but I have found a little time each night to play something. I spent some time playing The Technomancer which I reviewed here and I've been trying out the Beta of  The Last Leviathon but feel it needs more polish before I review that. I've also been roaming about with Pokemon Go but that's an entire post in itself.

Aside from that, much of my gaming time of late has been in Neverwinter. It's one of those MMO's I keep going back to and unlike LOTRO which I get frustrated with very quickly, Neverwinter always sucks me back in for longer periods. There is so much content including user generated adventures that I never get bored and the seasonal events are always worth playing.



The recent Anniversary and Summer events have both given me worthwhile goodies in the form of new mounts and pets and I've rolled a whole new character, Storri the Dwarven Paladin, who's reached level 20 over several sessions.

I have a lovely War Boar for Storri, something I always wanted in LOTRO but could never have.

I've also found a lovely guild that feels very much a family, something I never found in Guild Wars 2, Archeage, Blade and Soul our Black Desert Online, my four most recent MMOs. I find that makes all the difference in wanting to log in.


I've taken to trying out group content, something I've rarely done in other MMOs as the grouping system is so simple and there is considerably less griefing from other players regarding your gear or general ability.

My daughter has discovered that she loves Skyrim and watching her has given me a taste to jump back into ESO, so I might just do that!

Blaugust Begins...Day 1

So for the third year running. I have decided to participate in Blaugust, a blogging event run by Belghast of Tales of the Aggronaut fame. It promotes an opportunity for bloggers to write a piece for every day of the month of August. Two years ago I cam in late so didn't get to contribute much but last year I managed to submit something every day, despite travelling for most of the month.

This year I have a different set of challenges, with my new English teaching vocation taking off, time is limited but I'm going to try my best. Bel has suggested this year will be a little more "chilled out" with less of an onus on posting daily but I'm up for the challenge anyway.

I have been gaming very little lately, or at least in the electronic sense. My play by post games have taken off so I'll be talking a little about that. I've also roped a couple of writers to have guest posts writing about their work in relation to gaming.

I've also realised I've not written a great deal about gardening or indeed Indie horror this season, so their may be an odd post covering what I'm up to or maybe some giveaways if I can arrange them!

So for the month of Blaugust 2016, expect a bit of everything and feel free to comment, the conversation is what it's all about!

Happy Blaugust!