Life Changes and Plans

Wooooow it's a while since I posted a blog, and last time I did was... depressing.

So yeah, life's been hectic lately. Had a relationship, that ended, but less said 'bout that the better, k? Had a job, didn't go south, but was only a temp contract so yeah, hi again unemployment. However I have got an interview lined up already, which is cool as technically my contract only ends today, even though my last shift was Friday night. Nice to finally have some money in the bank, intend on saving most of it, but have definitely been treating myself a little. My justification being that A) I fucking worked for 18 months to get that job and B) HOLY FUCK 10 hours on night shift in Sainsburys, three nights in a row, takes a toll on your back! But it was really fun work actually, once I settled into it. Shame it was only seasonal, but it all adds to the CV.

So yeah, considering I'm technically single (There's complications there but that's a whole other story), and unemployed, I actually have a pretty positive outlook on life right now. Have decided to save up for a classic 40s/50s american pickup when I learn to drive, and modify it to a Rat Rod. Am lucky I live in East Anglia in that respect, the air bases mean we have a bigger supply of classic American cars than most other areas in the country. But hey, that's a way off in the future yet.

In the realm of the more-likely-to-happen, I'm looking to restart that Youtube gaming channel with my friends; Emma and Kieran. If nothing else it should be a laugh, but now we can fund ourselves we can get proper mics, editing software and capture cards, meaning we're more likely to stick to it and be able to produce better quality videos! I kinda hope we can actually go somewhere with this though. I'm in a mind set now, having had A LOT of responsibility in my previous relationship, of wanting to take full advantage of the fact that I have no responsibility in life beyond employment and my dog. So yeah, if we can turn this into something big it would be awesome, and I'm definitely willing to put the work in this time, were previously I wavered. A pipe dream of mine recently has been to present a show (Internet or tv, but internet most likely) centered around gaming, whether it's Let's Plays, News or whatever. I'd love to do that, or present a show on Tattoos. I finally got my first tatt and have quickly become obsessed with them. As you can see my confidence exploded. 6 months ago public speaking terrified me now I'm all "Yeah lemme host all these shows it looks like fun." So yeah, oh and also I might be doing some modeling too... (lolwut?) 'Cause apparently my face looks good now.

My life's always been strange, and apparently it's only getting stranger now. But I'm enjoying it. Lot's of change, lot's of opportunities. And you know what? I'm making my own opportunities, because fuck what other people think of me. I may well have fuck all qualifications but I'm going to do what the fuck I want with my life. If it fails, then fine, I'll try something else. But I can't succeed if I don't fucking try.

It's all fun.

~Rusty.

Life Update

So depression wise I'm doing brilliantly, only one bout of depression in over a month, which is incredible for me. However two major things have happened, firstly the JCP is screwing over my girlfriend, making life really difficult for her, saying she's going to have to travel to Cambridge everyday and that they WILL NOT pay for child care or travel, I would look after her son for her but with him being 5 years old he doesn't know about us yet as we want to be careful with him, but even a 5 year old would ask questions if mum's new friend suddenly looked after him everyday. They are putting her in an unworkable position. The really stupid part is she only needs to work 16 or 17 hours a week to be earning enough to keep her and her son as she's incredibly good with money, but as we all know even that amount of work is near impossible to find at the moment. The second thing that's happened is BT, who my dad works for, are trying to push all the over 50s out of the company (except for those high up of course), in doing this they've caused my heart attack survivor father to have an angina attack while threatening to stop his BT pension, despite his being at the company for WELL over 20 years.

Long story short, JCP are bullies, but don't go to BT to get away from JCP as they're even worse, they will happily kill their own employees to avoid employing them till retirement. The sooner I can get full time work the better, hopefully I can be earning enough that even if my girlfriend doesn't have her 16 hours she can still come off benefits. It's going to be difficult but it can't get much worse than it is now.

~Rusty Mongrel.

Some Words on Train2Game

Train2Game is a company based in the UK providing home learning courses for those interested in breaking into the games industry. I was stupid enough to sign up to one of their courses, it cost me £2600 as a one off payment, would have been a lot more to pay monthly. About a third of the way through the course I got to a point where I was struggling to continue, but was determined having completed my first online exam with a score of around 76%. So I phoned the tutors, who's job it is, I was told, to help me. Both tutors pretty much told me it was my own problem and nothing to do with them. They wouldn't let me talk to a supervisor to complain and I couldn't find a number to contact management/supervisors directly. So I've basically been left on the course, at a point I don't understand and can't get through with no help, having given them just over two and a half grand of money left to me by my late grandmother. When she left it to me for my education I think she intended the company it went to to actually educate me.


In my opinion, and that of many others I've met in life and online, this company is a scam. Once they have your money they drop all support. I would urge anyone looking at their courses to go with a different company and any game devs looking to recommend them to think twice.

Depression and Unemployment

I am a 19 year old British male. For as long as I can remember I always hated life, I focused on the negatives and ignored the positives, not through choice, it was all my brain could do. 2 years ago I found out this is due to depression, I was born with it, most likely from my mother's side of the family. What caused it to be diagnosed? Bullying in Sixth Form. I was bullied badly and to an extent, yes I did bring it on myself, but did I deserve all of it? No. There were rumours made up and spread about me, at the time I was also learning how to cope with my short temper, I lashed out, I didn't know who was doing it but I knew it was people from a certain social group I thought I was a part of. This resulted in me recieving death threats on a weekly basis for a few months, losing a lot of friends and finding even more rumours spread about me. By this point I had maybe 3 friends left, 1 suicide attempt and about 30% school attendance rate.

After this I was put into counselling, it was great to talk to someone outside of everything else, and while I knew both my counsellors were being paid to listen and help I still felt like they actually cared. My few remaining friends and (some) of my family stood by me and helped me recover, and while I know I will have depression and the social anxiety that comes with it for the rest of my life I feel I can cope. I can even say I got here without taking an medication!

Or that should be, I felt I could cope. It's now 1 year on from the end of Sixth Form. I finished 2 of the 5 courses I started having dropped one and been kicked off 2 as the school management did not believe depression is a real mental issue and said I was making excuses to not turn up. But I still finished, I was so proud of this, going to the place I hated to study subjects I no longer cared about just so I could say "Fuck you, you can't stop me!" to the pupils and staff that made my life such a torment for two years. I was so happy on results day, a D and an E, I may have been predicted 4 Cs but I was still proud. But not now, a year on it feels like such a waste. A year of sitting in my bedroom at my parents house looking for work, not even being given a single interview. Hardly ever even hearing from the companies I applied to, is it so hard to tell me I haven't made the fucking shortlist? I daren't go to JCP, our local one, the one my friend's went to, sounds like such a hellhole I think I'd have a panic attack within 5 minutes of the meeting, and I've heard about what's happened to people having panic attacks in JCPs. My parents still give me pocket money, I'm lucky in that respect, my father earns enough to keep me at home, gives me a bit of spending money, pays for the costs of my dog whom I got a year ago and right now is the only thing keeping me alive. I feel so useless. I've been told so many different reasons why I can't work for different people; "You're too tall you'll intimidate customers" (I'm 6'8") "We don't do uniforms your size, bad luck" "We don't want someone with depression bringing the mood down" "You've not got any experience" (When they've not specified experience required on the ad) and other reasons I'm sure you've heard before. I feel like I can't take it any more, I feel useless. I'm not going to kill myself because I know I can beat this, but I've been having those involuntary thoughts that those of us with depression know far too well. "If I just stepped off the path now, it would all be over, no more worries." But I can't, my dog needs me, she doesn't trust any one else properly, my dying friend needs me, I like to think all my friends need me. Although I've not gone to see anyone since Wednesday, told everyone I was ill, and I guess I am. I don't know what to do. Parents can only keep me so long and I won't go to JCP and get treated like dirt.


I don't know why I'm typing this, I just needed to get it out of my head I guess.

~Rusty.

Something Different - Mental Difficulties.

So this is a quick blog post, that for once is not an amateur game review.

As my friends know, I suffer from 3 distinct mental 'issues'; Depression, Anger and Anxiety.

Depression I got inherently from my mother, it is something I will never get better from, simply learn to control. It's triggered by traumatic events but has been showing slightly my whole life. As a child I was branded 'moody' due to the fact it only took one comment, or telling no, for me to become very quiet and withdrawn. I don't remember much of my childhood, not due to abuse or anything, but simply due to a bad memory, however I am aware I hurt myself on occasion. This of course was put down to attention seeking. Unfortunately, as a result of this lack of diagnosis and treatment, my depression got worse and eventually my Anxiety and Anger developed. By anger I don't mean I have a bit of a short temper, I mean something as small as someone in the street saying "Look at the ginger" or something similarly pathetic and unnecessary can send me into a furious rage. Again, I will never be made 'normal' from this, it's part of me for good, but I have learnt to control it. My anxiety was last to develop, as a result of my anger. I came to a point in life where I would leave the house as little as possible simply because I knew that I would likely over hear someone make a comment about my hair, my height, my clothes, or something similar, which would make me so angry, to the point where I just wanted to tear their throat out, I would push this emotion down, and once on my own, slip into depression, becoming and emotional wreck because I felt so stupid for letting such a trivial thing make me angry, at one time this would even lead to self harm as a form of punishment for letting myself get angry. This circle of events lead to me rarely leaving the house so as to avoid it, which lead to my anxiety. 2 years of never meeting new people, going to new places, and hardly speaking to the people I do know, lead me to be very scared of these thing happening. It wasn't easy but I've finally broken the anxiety. I still have the odd panic attack, can't deal with crowds or too much noise, but it's rare and much easier to avoid large groups of people than to avoid all people entirely. My Depression anger will unfortunately always be bad, although I have enough control that they no longer show around others. I haven't got in a fight for 3 years and haven't self harmed for 2. However, I know it's always going to be difficult, and what makes it harder is knowing people don't understand. Some people say with my problems, I should be allowed to hit someone if he's making offensive comments about me, and while I'd love that to be true, I can't live a life like that, I'd have no friends, no chance of a job, or anything really. But if people could just understand that not only is Depression a serious problem, but anger problems can be too, and both together is hell. I guess I just want people to understand, I don't want sympathy, sympathy will make me lazy about my control. Just read, understand and pass this along, please? :)

~Rusty

December DLC!

In this post I'm going to be looking at two major DLC packs released during December for their respective games on the Xbox 360. Starting with Forza Horizon's Rally pack and then Skyrim's Dragonborn pack.

Forza -

 I have to say right from the word go I felt misled with Forza, they have labelled it an expansion, and with Horizon being an open world game, I assumed I would be given a new area to free roam in, along with races, cars and such. This is not the case. You are given what they claim to be 20 races, however they are counting each rally stage as a race, and there are around 3 to 4 rally stages per event. Meaning you don't actually get 20 'races' in the same sense as the original game.
You are given 5 new cars to play with, which I admit I'm very pleased with, however I have found during my play through that the car they give you to begin with (Same style as in the demo, here's some money if you don't have enough, buy this car and start racing) is the best of the 5. The other 4 are fun to collect, customise and use if you're up for more of a challenge, but the first one, the Mitsubishi is the all round best, being easiest to drive at all levels. Of course, if you know a thing or two about tuning, which I don't, you will probably be capable of bringing the others up to the same standard.

Other than it's misleading me, it is a very fun DLC pack. The tracks are as beautiful as the Vanilla environment, which I wasn't sure they'd manage, as the Horizon is the only racing game in which the environments have caused me to give a vocalised reaction, despite no one being around to hear it. The stunning scenery hasn't ceased to impress and the detailing of the cars is as impressive as ever. The core gameplay too is incredible. The handling is responsive and realistic, the races are as adrenaline pumping as ever, without the irritating "Spring break surfer dude" type voice overs of the later DiRT series instalments.

The new aesthetic rally parts for cars are fun too, although I remember reading somewhere they would be applicable to certain pre-release cars, I've yet to find any in my garage that have the option, although I only have maybe 40% of the Vanilla cars, and no DLC bonus packs. So things may be different for others.

It is a disappointingly short DLC pack, and thus this is all I can really say about it, a lot of fun, although how long the fun lasts is questionable, I would recommend it to rally fans or Horizon fans who want a bit of extra variety or length to their favourite game. Otherwise I would not suggest buying it until it's on sale. 1600MS points really seems a bit much for something so limited.

Skyrim -

My first taste of the Dragonborn DLC was when walking through Morthal I was attacked by two cultists, on killing them I found a note that pointed me to the new island of Solstheim, off the coast of Morrowind. As someone who only joined in on the epic adventure that is The Elder Scrolls series with Skyrim, I was very excited to get a taste of life in Tamriel outside of Skyrim, and what a taste I got. The main quest line, to those who will take time to explore dungeons fully listen to the conversations involved, can easily last a good 6 hours. Longer if you make the mistake I did, of not keeping some spare Dragon Souls on hand. As you will have seen in trailers, the story centres around the very first Dragonborn. It's mentioned often in Skyrim that you are not the only Dragonborn to have existed, however until now you are the only one alive. Miraak supposedly died 2000 years ago, but then, nothing involving daedric princes would be so simple. Those with knowledge of the princes will guess which one it is through the prevalence of books throughout the story, however I shall not ruin the surprise for those who don't yet know.
The gameplay and graphics are of the same great quality that Skyrim quickly became known for, and similar to previous DLC, it affects all aspects of gameplay. Tons of new side quests have been added, new armours both light and heavy can be crafted, new potions can be concocted via new ingredients to be sought out on your travels, especially fun for the thieves and assassins among us who use poisons to achieve similar effects to those of illusion mages. This is a DLC that, to do everything new on an all rounder type character, will easily fill 15 hours of play, 20 if you take your time. If however, you're like me, and play multiple characters of varying styles, you could stretch it to 40 or 50 hours. You really do feel the additions even when running vanilla quests. It doesn't limit itself.

If you have both of these games, and 1600MS points, I suggest going for Dragonborn. In fact, even if you don't have 1600MS points, go get them and then get it. It's brilliant fun and really reinvigorated a great game that I had in fact grown bored of. It's big, it's time consuming, it's fun and it's worth every single penny.

I should note, for those who are fans of MMORPGs (Which is how I got into Skyrim, I would never have bought such a game before I started playing WoW) the final fight has mechanics worthy of a Warcraft raid boss. So much fun and much more than 'damage damage damage, heal heal heal'.

Also you get to ride dragons. Just in case you weren't convinced.

Dishonored: Review

I have to start this reviewing by being annoyingly British by saying; It's spelt with a U! D-I-S-H-O-N-O-U-R-E-D. I understand that it's an American game with the American spelling, but is it so hard to change the box art for British release?

Now that's out of the way I can actually talk about the game. The game that has been getting 9/10 reviews everywhere, the game that won tons of awards at E3 and the game that I... Was hugely disappointed by.

Dishonoured, as I will refer to it, is set in a sort of Steam Punk style Victorian Britain-ish empire of no particular name other than "The Empire" Confined to one particular city due to a plague outbreak in that city. You play Corvo, the Lord Protector of the Empress and her daughter. At the beginning of the game you arrive back in the city after two months away, requesting help from other cities on dealing with this plague to no avail. You meet the Empress' daughter Emily as you enter the city, she treats some what like a young girl might treat an older brother, and you are even given the chance to play hide and seek with her, partly to practice stealth and cover use and partly, I assume, to show the emotional bond between Emily and Corvo. After this you report to the Empress, during this exchange a group of assassins over power you, kill the Empress and kidnap her daughter, you are immediately blamed and arrested, the game then leads to finding out who the assassins are, finding Emily, clearing your name and freeing the city.

IGN called it "A breath of fresh air." which it is, in many ways, and I love what Bethesda and Arkane are trying in this game, so many new and old things mixed and matched in a game unlike most on the shelves today. I loved using the Blink ability to silently jump from place to place, allowing me to use perches normally unreachable, such as the top of a lamp post. In particular I recall clearing half of a mission without killing or being spotted, purely with the use of Blink, which even though this is obviously it's intended use, in a game full of so many choices, it still leaves you feeling proud of what you've done. I enjoyed the choice of killing or non lethal take downs too, this leaves the player feeling like they really do control the fate of the city, not just on a general scale, but a person to person scale.

Graphically, this game is beautiful, I think the only other games who's scenery I've looked at with such awe are the latest expansion for WoW and Skyrim. The style is unique, slightly cartoony but not over the top. Everything is crisp and realistic. The Steam Punk shows through largely in the clothing, over sized top hats, an array of waistcoats and Victorian style dresses among a very industrial environment works well. What I didn't find to be as beautiful as I do in other games was the story, I am a gamer who is very interested in story. I even made up my own back stories for my various MMO characters, story is a driving force behind my gaming. The story in this, well, it's intriguing but it's also weak, it doesn't keep secrets well, I was able to predict most of the story within the first 30 minutes of playing and it was so predictable I felt no drive to even watch my predictions unfold. Despite the hide and seek sequence I felt no connection with Emily and no drive to rescue her. It's even said in the story that she's to young to take her mother's place and stop the tyrannical new rulers.

My other major complaint, and what let the game down for me, was the combat. Stealth games and I have a love hate relationship, in that I love them, but can't play them for sod all. I rarely finish them and have never got the hang of them. Dishonoured sold itself largely on the basis of  "Hey! If you fail at stealth you can still fight your way through!" Which I liked the idea of, a lot. I did try to play through killing as little as possible and staying in stealth as much as possible, however as I say this is not my niche, and I was spotted quite often and had to defend myself. Combat is equal to stealth for all of the first two missions, beyond that I found the enemies grew stronger much quicker than I did leaving me defenceless. My second big reason for buying this game was CHOICES! I love games that let you choose the route to go, or how to do something. What I didn't realise is that if you choose anything but perfect stealth, you will be punished, not much of a choice huh? The more people you kill, be it intentional or in unexpected self defence, the more weepers and rats will appear. What does this mean? Weepers are people infected with the plague on the verge of dying, they wander around weeping rather loudly, louder still if they see you, and attract a lot of attention. Rats, in large packs, will attack you, and can actually be a pain to kill due to their size, again, enemies will see and hear them, leaving you more likely to be spotted.

For these reason I could only give Dishonoured a 4 out of 10. I bought it honestly thinking it would end up one of my all time favourites, only to find out it punishes you for not being good at it straight away. Why would I want to play a game that won't give me the chance to get better at it?



P.S. The autosave sucks too.

~Rusty Mongrel.