Any Color You Like So Long As It's Black. And On Fire.

I was hoping for something quick to post about today, seeing as how I was forced to spend most of the morning and some of the afternoon fighting with my PC, after it woke up this morning and decided the last three years must have been a dream. It's done this before and I have no idea why. It suddenly reverts to a previous profile and loads everything as if it was 2021. 

Once I'd gotten that sorted out (Whether the fix will stick is another matter.) it was time to take Beryl for a walk and by the time I got to think about what to post about it was almost tea-time. Luckily, right around then I received an email from Amazon Prime telling me there was a gift waiting for me in New World.

Sorry. New World Aeternum. Keep forgetting that part. And it's important, too, because that's why we're getting presents. Amazon still trying to drum up interest.

There is also an event on, the annual repeat of the Winter Convergence festival, about which I've posted before. That was fun the first couple of times but I don't think I'd have bothered to log in for it again this year. Free stuff, though...

Except it isn't really anything I want. It's appearance armor, which is fine, but it's big, clunky, clanky armor, the kind I never like to see any of my characters wearing, in any game. 

It's black, too. Possibly there's fire coming out of it. There is in the video. It looks like it was designed by a fourteen year-old boy and for all I know, perhaps it was, but more likely that's who the designers think mostly plays New World Aeternum these days.

And they may be right. I wouldn't know. 

I do know that the armor in question is modeled on the stuff Arnold Schwarzenegger wears in the New World Aeternum (I'd abbreviate it but then it'd be NWA, which is something entirely different...) segment of that new Prime Video show, Secret Level. When he's wearing anything at all, that is. Mostly he poses with his shirt off.

I nearly said "episode" there, too, but I'm not convinced a fourteen minute standalone counts as an "episode" of anything. It's a short, at best.

It's quite good, though, for what it is. I just watched it. Didn't take long. Fourteen minutes, in fact. As I said.

The animation is slick and stylish, especially the faces, which look pretty much like live footage of actual people. Not sure that's the best direction for animation but it's impressive all the same. Some of the movement is a little video-gamey, especially in long shot, but by and large it's all very convincing. 

The story concerns a character I've met in the game itself. Everyone who's played the new version of New World will have met him. He's the main quest-giver in the starting area. Sound choice for recognition value.

He's also a fairly memorable character in the game for his personality and humor, much of which makes the transition to the TV screen. Arnie does an excellent job of voicing King Aelstrom (For it is he.), playing him with an understated, affectionate irony that comes across very well. 

There are, I think, only three other speaking parts, one of whom only gets a handful of lines and another who speaks only in... I want to say Latin? Not sure. It needs subtitles, anyway.

Arnie's sidekick is played by Steven Pacey, of all people. He was Tarrant in the third and fourth seasons of Blake's Seven but I don't remember him having a west country accent back then. Of course, that was more than forty years ago. Maybe he moved to Devon. A lot of people retire there and he must be of an age.

The plot, such as it is, is engaging enough and quite amusing but, more importantly, it does a very good job of contextualizing the absloute basics of New World and indeed all MMORPG gameplay, namely that you die over and over and over and over again and only by dying repeatedly do you ever progress. Apart from that, the scenery looks like Aeternum and...

No, that's it. Other than that it doesn't really have much to do with the game at all. Well, there's a bit at the very beginning where a load of soldiers dressed up like conquistadors are on a sailing ship and it sinks. That happens in the game. But then everyone forgets all about it because it's embarassing and so they do in the video, too.

I would have included some screen grabs from the show but Prime is extremely determined no-one shoud do that. All you get is a black screen if you try. There are ways to get around it but I can't be bothered. If they don't want the free publicity, sod 'em.

Instead, I was going to use a few shots of my character in game, wearing the new armor. I went to log in and ended up downloading the entire game all over again, What is it with games on Steam these days, that they have to re-install the whole thing every time there's a patch. It's starting to tick me off.

After it downloaded it had to "install" and that failed at 50% so now it's doing the whole 73GB again and I have lost whatever patience with it I ever had so there will be no in-game pictures. So there!

As for Secret Level, I find myself mildly encouraged. I wasn't going to bother watching any of it but now I might, if I find myself with a quarter of an hour free and nothing better to do. 

They can put that on the posters, if they like.