Poseidon's Lair

Hey guys, my new puzzle map is out, so I thought I'd put some handy links up here to help you all get started on this watery adventure.

To check out the full map post, which includes pictures, the backstory, and important information on the map, you can just click either of the two links below:

Paradox Forums Post

Forgehub Post

It was also recently featured on Forgehub, which is pretty damn awesome, so you can check out that post here:

Forgehub Feature

The map's doing way better than I could've predicted, and I'd like to thank all of those who are downloading and spreading the map- it's really cool of you. Unfortunately there was a break found within the first day of the map's release. I had quickly fixed it, and put up the new version on my fileshare, while taking down the old. The problem was that the old version already had 500 downloads, and the tags weren't removed from it, making it still relatively easy to find eventhough I had updated all my links to the map. On Halo 3, removing a file from your fileshare would automatically strip it of all its tags, but perhaps someone on Reach had already copied this map to their own fileshare. Either way, I found out a couple days later that the old version was on the front page of "Most Downloaded Maps" in Bungie's file browser. It was getting over 200 downloads an hour, which was pretty rediculous, and cool, but it just sucked that it was the old version. It ended up rounding out at about 12,000 downloads, before the list was updated for a new week. Then my map got featured on Forgehub, with the links to the new version, causing it to appear on the front page of Bungie's most downloaded as well. Since the old version had just been up there, the new one didn't receive quite as much attention, but still garnered over 6,000 downloads in just a week. All in all, I'm pretty blown away with its success.

Of course, with all these downloads, came many pleas for a walkthrough. So I have several options for those wishing to take the easy way out to choose from:

Youtube Walkthrough with Music

Youtube Walkthrough with Commentary

Bungie.net File (to download to your Halo: Reach game)

And of course, here's the link to download the map itself:

Poseidon's Lair File Set

So that's about it for now, thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more reviews and updates, coming soon!

Undead Nightmare Review

After many requests from their community, Rockstar has finally brought zombies into one of their games. It comes in the form of DLC for Red Dead Redemption, and includes both a single-player campaign and an online mode. The campaign takes about six hours to beat, is loaded with side quests, and is separate from the Red Dead campaign, easily accessible as its own option on the main menu. The fact that it separates itself from the Red Dead campaign really allows for some fun. It still uses many of the main characters from the original storyline, but they can be killed off unexpectedly at any moment. This keeps you on your toes, keeping the adventure fresh and exciting rather than boring and predictable. There is also quit a bit of humour thrown into the mix, where the story often mocks B horror movies, and the characters themselves react the to ridiculous happenings in hilarious ways.

I'm quite a big zombie fan myself, so I thoroughly enjoyed romping through the undead wild west, clearing towns of the hordes, rescuing survivors, and encountering mystical beasts. I also enjoyed the fact that zombies would deal damage to you by clawing, and attempting to grapple you, which makes a lot more sense instead of having them bite you, and somehow not infect you like a lot of other zombie games do. But I did feel that it was a bit too easy to survive since the zombies were pretty under-powered, and that they would've been a lot more intimidating if they could kill you in a couple of hits instead of a dozen. Another zombie-fanatic feature that I appreciated was how whenever an NPC was attacked, they'd actually come back alive as one of the undead, again something that many other zombie games should take note of. Some of the missions lack a bit of luster (one has you collecting those damned little flowers yet again), but some really take advantage of the scenario, and it overall leads to quite an enjoyable experience. All of the cut scenes are well-done, and the voice acting is yet again top-notch.

The Undead Nightmare pack came with two new online modes, one not having anything to do with the zombie theme. It's called Land Grab, and changes the regular free roam mode of Red Dead so that players can take control of certain areas, and defend them from enemies. It makes for nice territorial gameplay, where gangs can wage "turf wars" against each other, and overall weighs in as a great bonus to the DLC. The more anticipated mode of the two is titled "Undead Overrun" and faces players off against never-ending waves of the undead horde, much like a certain mode in another popular game franchise. Rockstar fortunately put enough of a twist on this mode to make it feel unique. Seeing as how you're able to just climb up building structures to avoid being mauled by the zombies (except for the spitters), there is a time limit in which you have to kill all of the zombies for the round. If the timer runs out you enter a "Sudden Death" mode where the rounds come to and end, and zombies continuously spawn until all players are dead. Since ammo is very scarce, and you only get refills when a new round begins, it's never long before everyone dies in Sudden Death. The game mode is quite well-designed and very fun once you get used to it, although some of the maps are a bit bland. My problem with it was that I found it to be a bit too competitive for my tastes. I was hoping they'd have a more casual game mode for multiplayer zombies, where players could freely roam the entire map, clearing towns and just surviving together, but unfortunately there wasn't anything of the sort.

Overall, Undead Nightmare is a very satisfying and awesomely gruesome experience. Throw in the fact that it's all bundled as a ten dollar DLC, and you got some serious bang for your buck. Whether you're a fan of the undead or not I'd recommend checking this out, and I can only hope that it'll generate enough success to prompt Rockstar into looking at revisiting this idea in their future games. I give Undead Nightmare a 9.5/10.