Dispatches from the Frigid Northlands

Something Good is Bound to Happen!

2011-06-14T14:40:00.000-07:00

Nostalgia is a funny thing. My favorite game of all time is probably Link's Awakening, the Zelda game for the original Gameboy. I remember playing it for hours and hours, wandering the dungeons and overworld. I have an incredibly amount of nostalgia for Gameboy games. Not so much Gameboy Advance, just original Gameboy.

And, going back and playing them again, there were some really good games for the Gameboy, Link's Awakening chief among them. It was the first Zelda game I played, having been enchanted with it from a demo at Toys 'R' Us of all places. It's just such a boiled-down, refined version of the 2D Zelda experience, I doubt it will ever be surpassed, in my mind. The later Gameboy Zeldas were not as good, having been made by a third party B-team. LA was made by the same people who made Link to the Past and the very first Zelda. Since then, they've stuck exclusively to the consoles and 3D games.

There's something about the aesthetic of GB games that I just love. Its advanced enough to do as many sprites as you want, but it's still got an amazingly small resolution. I've been playing LA in 1080p, fullscreen on my monitor, and it's great. Seeing every dirty pixel is something I'm a big fan of. It is far more forgivable than early 3D games, which are just like modern 3D games, but way uglier. 2D games are timeless, to a certain extent. Games from the '80s are perhaps less timeless, but things from my childhood are going to last. Haha, that's the definition of "nostalgia" right there.

LA Noire Rant Slash Review

2011-06-14T00:38:00.000-07:00

Wow, the last blog post was about Vindictus? I stopped playing that months ago. Man, and back then I thought The Old Republic would be coming out in the spring of this year. Ah, those were the days. Turns out it gets ridiculously grindy around level 30 so I left and never looked back. Played lotro again for a while, but now I'm getting away from that too. I might pick it up again in the fall when the Isengard expansion comes out.

ANYWAY, I'm not here to talk about MMOs I am no longer playing! I'm here to talk about Rockstar's latest, the highly-anticipated, by me anyway, LA Noire.

LA Noire is a great game marred by it's gameplay and story. As absurd as that sentence seems on it's face, let me explain. The gameplay, while a greatly improved version of the GTAIV formula, is really just the GTAIV formula with some bells and whistles thrown in. One, the investigation scenes, are really just a glorified pixel hunt with too many loose ends. There must have been a better way to do that than just having you wander around looking for anything to pick up or examine in the hopes that it's a clue until the investigation music stops. They should have made it more like the interrogation segments, where if you don't find something, well, tough shit, it's not meant to be found.

The interrogation system is great. The way the doubt and lie system works takes a little figuring out, but once you do it's just amazing. BUT, the way they let you know when you get a question "wrong" is just unnecessary, and only makes people want to play perfectly. I've even heard of people restarting missions because they screw up a conversation. It seems counter to the concept of the game, in the same way the random investigation until you magically know there are no more clues does. I like this game when it lets me screw up and keep going! As far as I'm concerned, that's it's primary innovation. Whenever they skirt it, I can't help but feel disappointed.

The game looks amazing. The facial animation system is breathtaking, and I only really noticed the seams in one particularly weird idle animation. The details are perfect, I wish I could just wander around the city and look at the scenery and buildings.

Really, my biggest complaint with this game is the plot. Basically the plot feels like a late addition to make it a real "noir"story. I love this game when it's a simple police procedural video game, it excels at just about every element of that. I'm going to call the game that I wish this was "Dragnet: The Video Game," because that's really what I wish it was. When the plot intersects this wonderful game, the results are not pretty. It is with an abrupt, ridiculous plot twist, that leads into the final act of the game where the plot essentially happens all at once.

IF YOU HAVE NOT FINISHED LA NOIRE STOP READING HERE

The fact that Cole has an affair with Elsa is just goddamn ridiculous, I'm sorry. It's not foreshadowed, it just sort of happens, because it has to happen for the rest of the plot to happen. The whole plot of the Marines pulling off a robbery and then getting sucked into the criminal underworld is such a goddamn literal interpretation of the noir feel, it felt incredibly inauthentic to me. It's like someone understood the basic themes of a noir movie/novel and just sort of used all of them, like going down a checklist. "WWII, check, drugs, check, femme fatale, check, hero falls from grace, check, gangsters, check," and so on. Maybe it's just my knowledge of the general themes of noir that makes me feel this way, but I know that I've seen plenty of genuine noir movies, and none of them felt... off, like this one.

I've heard it said (well, seen it written) that noir is impossible to recreate now that we are out of the shadow of WWII, and this game seems to be more evidence that that's true. But please, please, Rockstar and Team Bondi, I beg of you, make Dragnet: The Video Game. You need to expand your scope, just make it a service, not an individual game with a set story. Sell seasons of cases to solve, it would be absolutely wonderful! Without the pretensions of plot, this would be a classic for the ages, but as it stands I'll probably never play it again.

Even a Broken Genre is Right Twice a Year

2010-12-31T14:28:00.000-08:00

So... Vindictus is a pretty cool game.

It's a Korean MMO that runs on Valve's Source engine. Meaning you can pick up random barrels and pots and bits of masonry and beat enemies with them. It's completely real-time and very fast-paced. There are no dicerolls, you have to physically dodge around when fighting bosses, and aim your attacks carefully. You can also grab smaller enemies and hurl them into each other or suplex them into nearby debris, or just break them over your knee like Bane.

It's goddamn everything I want out of a co-op game! It's becoming a bit grindy where I am now (level 25) but so far it's been much, much better than any MMO I've ever played. There is no vendor trash, absolutely everything can be used to craft or for a quest. And, almost ALL quest loot can be bought and sold at the auction house! I gained 3 levels just running back and forth from the auction house to various quest-givers. And then, when you happen to get valuable quest loot that you no longer need, you can sell it at the auction house for a tidy profit!

It's baffling that this game came out of Korea. There is a cash shop (of course, it's by Nexon) but it doesn't hold overpowered equipment, just vanity gear and coins.

That's the only catch, really. You need coins to go on missions (the game is entirely instanced) except for the very first chapter. You get an allowance of 50 silver coins every monday, thursday and saturday, but they run out pretty quick. The amount you have to pay increases as you go on more missions in a given day. Or, you can pay real money for platinum coins, which you only need one of, but are a bit expensive.

The economy is based entirely on crafting. Various vendors will craft equipment for you from loot. There's not a lot of loot, only about 1 in 10 enemies actually drops something, although bosses are guaranteed 3 or 4 drops for everyone. Oh, and there's no fighting over loot since everyone just gets a set number of random items from the boss.

There are also raid where you fight GIANT bosses that you have to restrain with giant hooks. It's a lot of fun, I fought a gigantic polar bear.

So, give it a shot. It's the best, least MMO-y Korean MMO that has ever been made.

Game Dispatch: Christmas Eve Eve Eve Edition

2010-12-22T15:54:00.001-08:00

Here's another one of these things.

Deus Ex
$4.99, Steam

I picked up a bunch of games in the recent (and ongoing) steam sales. This is one I've been meaning to get for a while, so I picked it up for $3 on the first day of the holiday sale.

I have vague memories of playing some parts of this game, and watching my brother play other parts of this game, right around when it came out. I remember it being neat, but not really my speed. I was way into Half-Life deathmatch around then and Deus Ex was far too ponderous for my taste.

Now... well, I like it a lot more. I still have to get used to some of the older PC game conventions (there's no auto-save!?) but I'm enjoying it a lot. It seems to be one of those games that is way more ambitious than the technology behind it can really back up, but in a way that's a good thing. If this were a modern game, it would be all loaded down with minigames and graphical flair that it would lose the thread, which is just learning about the world this game presents. In a way, it's the best thing about Mass Effect without quite as good gameplay to back it up, but I'll cut it some slack since it is 10 years old at this point.

In any case, I've only played 3 hours, so I have a ways to go yet, but I'm looking forward to spending some time with this old favorite.

Oh, and I was surprised by how well it adapted to my modern PC, even if the text is a bit small. It had no problem with my ridiculous widescreen resolution or my operating system, which is a rare thing with old games. I had to play KotOR all stretched out because it didn't support any widescreen resolutions whatsoever.

Puzzle Quest 2
$9.99, Steam

Well, after my GotY post, I decided I should try to finish this game. It turned out to be a lot longer than I thought!

It's a perfect game to play while you're doing something else. This is not a game that requires, or even rewards, intense concentration. If you expect things to happen fast, and to feel like you're actively making progress, this is not the game for you. Go play Torchlight. This is something fun to fiddly with while watching a movie, and eventually you win or lose, but it doesn't really make a difference. The occasional tactical action must be taken, but overall it's just sort of match-3, match-3, match-3.

I love it to pieces.

Revenge of the Titans

This isn't officially out yet, I don't think, and still sort of feels like a beta. It's part of the new Humble Indie Bundle, but isn't on Steam yet. It's a sort of RTS/tower defense hybrid that looks a lot like Advance Wars. Needless to say, it's the reason I got the new HIB.

You place towers to kill monsters that move towards your base. You get money not by killing monsters, but by harvesting minerals with factories. I haven't quite gotten a handle on the flow of the gameplay yet, and have only gotten a few levels into the campaign, but I love everything about this game's presentation and concept, so I'll give it a bit more effort.

Super Meat Boy
Steam, $14.99

Finally! I got this on sale and I... well, I haven't played it much yet. Because the keyboard controls are garbage and I can't get my PS3 controller working with my PC, which is extremely frustrating.

I'll just have to wait until I can get a cheap USB controller after christmas or something.

I'm sure it's great!

GotY 2010: Yet Another Top Ten

2010-12-15T22:42:00.000-08:00

So hey, it's Game of the Years season here on the internet, and I feel like getting in on the action. I mean, I played at least 10 games this year, and I have a blog, so I'm as entitled as anyone to rank them according to my whims.

If you asked me tomorrow, I'd probably have a completely different list.

ANYWAY LET'S DO THIS

#10. Final Fantasy XIII

It's... alright. I liked this game more than most people, I think. It's a perfectly serviceable Final Fantasy game, but it feels like it's missing a lot of potential. Maybe JRPGs just don't work anymore, I don't know, but it doesn't seem as lively as earlier games.

Really, I like everything about this game, except the part where it's a game. That part, while very breezy and fast, is still a bit of a slog and weighed down by outdated mechanics. The story is fascinating, the world is the sort of insanely fantastical borderline-nonsense that I expect, nay, demand from a Final Fantasy title. There's two worlds, one above and one below, and these gods that do everything, but they can curse people and it's all very, very Japanese, with a capital J. One of the characters is a whiny teenage kid named Hope for fuck's sake, and I not only tolerated him, but I kinda liked him!

But, it is not without problems. There is one character, Vanille, who makes me want to tear my eardrums out every time she speaks. She is the most annoying JRPG character since developers abused the power of synthesized speech back on the PS1. But, it's an ensemble cast, so she's not around all the time. The battles are puzzley, but sometimes it seems like it comes down more to luck than anything else. It's very much like you're playing an action game where everything is running on automatic. It can be very frustrating.

For example, I was fighting an enemy that has a powerful, but slow attack. It does so much damage that I had to keep one of my two party members constantly in "medic" mode. But, if I timed it right, I could switch him out for one attack before one of my characters died. Then, one time, my other character happened to be in mid-air right when the enemy attacked... and it missed. Completely.

That's when I realized that not only was I playing the game wrong, the game itself was designed to be played wrong. This game is GORGEOUS, and it has solid mechanics, and it would be a great brawler if you had direct control of your character, but you don't. I haven't finished it, but I probably will, and I like it a lot despite it's critical flaw, so I'll put it here at #10.

#9. Pacman Championship Edition DX

This game is awesome and you should play it, but c'mon it's still a score-attack game in two-thousand-and-goddamn-ten.

That's about all there is to say on the subject.

#8. AaaaAAaaaAAA!!! A Reckless Disregard for Gravity

I just recently purchased this in a Steam sale, and it is a hoot. aIt's basically about a parallel universe where there's a sport in which people jump from tall buildings and try to stay as close to them as possible to earn more "hugs" and "kisses". The conceit is surprisingly well-done, and doesn't feel incongruous or extraneous. The graphics aren't particularly amazing, but they work very well for what they need to do.

The sensation of falling in this game is simply phenomenal. You spawn on top of a building (it's controlled FPS-style) and then walk to the edge and leap off. Then you have to stay close to buildings without touching them to score points. You also have to get close to as many different objects as possible, flip off protesters or give fans a thumb up, and even vandalize government buildings in mid-air. The game-iest thing are score plates that you can break for a big bonus, but they also seem to fit in in an odd way.

What this game reminded me of most were old Counterstrike and Half-Life Deathmatch maps that really seemed to test the boundaries of what you could do with a simple 3D space. The creativity in the spaces and in the textures (some levels are in somewhat realistic mountains, others are in some sort of techno-hell with walls made of text boxes). I haven't played this one a lot either, but it has a TON of content so I'm looking forward to playing it more.

#7. Puzzle Quest 2

This game is just simple fun. It's a match-3 game combined with a loot-driven RPG played from an isometric perspective. This is the ultimate PC-gamer comfort food. It's somewhat mechanically sophisticated, without being laborious. There are stats and equipment, but it's not particularly complex. You have abilities that affect the board in various ways, or hurt your opponent. There are many different status effects and special items you can get. It's all fairly standard stuff.

The art is... weird. Not the anime-ish style of the first game, but a more generic western fantasy style. I like it, for the most part, but most of the character portraits are oddly ugly. The monsters and environments all look great, but some of the characters are just... off.

Anyway, this is probably the single-player game that I've played the most this year. In fact, I'm playing it as I write this post! Stupid goddamn yetis, I swear the AI cheats....

#6. Alien Swarm

This is quite possibly the best deal Steam has had all year. It's a free game with Left 4 Dead 2's matchmaking and co-op system, a free campaign and mod support, a levelling system and 8 different playable characters. It's goddamn ridiculous that this game is free, and it probably really fucked over the very-similar-looking Alien Breed Evolution that came out a week or two earlier.

It's a Valve game, so the balance between classes and weapons is great. The co-op is incredibly fun, on all difficulties, and with virtually any combination of classes (though you usually need a tech and a medic). If there were 4 or 5 campaigns like L4D, I would probably still be playing it! But, it lacks content, and the community didn't really step up, since everyone kinda stopped playing a few weeks after it came out. But it proves, I think, that co-op can be done in almost any kind of game if you do it right.

Which is to say, you tell Valve to make your game.

#5. Shatter

Another recent Steam acquisition, this was a bit of a surprise. I suck at breakout games. I am the literal and figurative worst. I cannot finish the first world of Bit.Trip Beat. And yet, I enjoy this game. I think the whole "suck and blow" mechanic helps a lot, because it makes you feel like you have a lot more control over where your ball is heading.

There are still the occasional lost ball, but since it shows you a little dot that is exactly where your ball will hit, it's not much of an issue. Much like Pacman CEDX, survival is trivial, and the real challenge is playing well. The bosses so far have been very creative, and while the bonus mode is MADDENING due to the Steam contest objective being unreasonable high (still haven't beaten 10.5 mil) it's also a lot of fun.

And the music is fucking incredible. Like, no joke, these are some good tracks.

#4. Left 4 Dead 2

This is a bit of a cheat, but this game really came into it's own this year so I feel somewhat justified in putting it in here. I never played the original Left 4 Dead, since I didn't have a good enough computer to play it when it came out (my old lappy was awful), so I was never really interested in the sequel, naturally. Especially when I heard about the relative lack of content, and how the difficulty balance seemed to be a bit... off.

But, my experience with it has been great from start to finish. It probably helps that I have a reliable community of people to play with (just about every night). Realism Vs is really the mode to play, offering the challenge that makes every game close, and the real sense of accomplishment for a high score. It also makes playing as a special infected less of an exercise in futility if you're not perfectly coordinating with your team.

Let me explain about coming into it's own: Left 4 Dead 2 launched with a handful of campaigns, but has since added 3 more, including what is by all accounts the best map from the first game, No Mercy. Melee weapons make killing zombies extraordinarily satisfying, as does the new, improved gore system. Zombie limbs will fly off at the drop of an axe, and realistic gunshot wounds show up on torsos and heads. It looks great, plays great, sounds great, and is a ton of fun.

The only reason it's not #1 on this list is that I would feel guilty putting a 2009 game on the top of a 2010 list.

#3. Singularity

I have to have one bizarre, highly unorthodox choice. I'm entitled to it as an unknown blog writer screaming into the vast darkness of the internet, damnit!

It's Half-Life 2 again, basically. And I love Half-Life 2. It just feels so much like that game, and that gave me a great nostalgia trip. And the plot was lovably insane, especially the endings. I can't really rave about this game, because you either like it in the first hour, or you don't, and that's about all there is to it.

#2. Mass Effect 2

This game fixed basically all my problems with ME1. It's the best kind of sequel in that way. Now, a lot of people complain about the stripped-down nature of the RPG mechanics, and the way the main plot doesn't advance much in this game, and the fact that the final boss is kiiiiiiiiiiiind of completely ridiculous.

But none of that really matters to me, to be frank. The RPG mechanics where there just enough that it still felt like a more deliberately paced game without getting in the way of anything, the story and writing were top-notch, and the world-building was, as always with Bioware, incredible. That's what I care about with Mass Effect: Not necessarily the particular plot of this game, but the universe in general. I want there to be a dozen ME spinoffs after the trilogy is finished. I want strategy RPGs and puzzle games and FPS' and whatever else they can think of. It's just such a rich, refreshing take on sci-fi that I can't help but love it.

It's not perfect, but it's damn close, and it should honestly be tied for #1.

#1. Red Dead Redemption

Who'd have thought, huh? This game was completely off everyone's radar up to a month before it came out. Then they started putting out little gameplay demos and it looked freaking awesome. The graphics, even in a tiny window on Giant Bomb, blew me away. The way cloth moved, and the look of the desert enraptured me before I even bought the game, though I didn't know it.

It's a cowboy game! That's really what it comes down to, and there simply haven't been enough of those that are good, considering how perfect a match the genre is for video games. It's pretty easy, but I liked that, frankly. It shouldn't be particularly difficult for John Marston to gun all these people down, especially since you're usually not doing it alone.

There have been some complaints about the nature of the plot, in that it's a typical Rockstar plot where our entrepid hero must do a bunch of dirty business for criminals to get what he wants, and he never balks or outright refuses. But, frankly, I think the plot and the characterization cover that perfectly, in this case. That was a real problem in GTAIV, where the whole redemption arc kinda hits a wall when Niko starts literally seeking out The Mafia for paid work, but here it works and makes perfect sense.

I mean, just think about it. This is a huge, open desert state where there are some people that he needs to find. If someone says they have information, or help of any kind, it would be insane for him to not take it. If he just says no, and walks off, then what? There are no other leads, so you have to help these people no matter how much you may not like it.

And Marston is right there with you. He doesn't like these people any more than you. I'm reminded of one of my favorite moments in GTAIV, where you get a ridiculously annoying to chase after a subway train in a car. And the whole time Niko is so fucking pissed about what a bullshit thing this is to have to do for some guy he doesn't even like. He's yelling and raging, and I just felt like it was a pitch-perfect match for what I was feeling, as a player. Now, obviously, homocidal rage is not something you want to regularly evoke from players, so there's nothing quite that bad in RDR, but you definitely feel that Marston is commiserating with you. He's constantly being a snarky asshole to people, even people he really has no right to mouth off to.

And it's great! It's just great. I loved just about every characters. I will admit that the game drags a bit in Mexico, but there are some mechanically interesting missions along the way, and the last third of the game is so, so good that it more than makes up for it.

I feel like this game has somehow been under-represented by critics, which is... well, not entirely true. It got great scores, and, hell, just won the VGA's GotY award. I guess it's just that the podcasts I listen to largely didn't care for it, which can be frustrating. It's a bit of a mainstream pick, but I honestly believe that a lot of love and creativity went into this game, so I feel good making it my personal, meaningless, arbitrary game of the year.

Games Dispatch: Still Alive

2010-11-30T20:19:00.000-08:00

Hey there! I'm still alive, just not updating the blog.

That's never happened before.

Anyway, I felt like writing about some games so here we go!

Torchlight
Steam, $19.99

Torchlight is a clone of diablo. And I mean that literally, it was made by the same people (Runic Games is composed mostly of former Blizzard North employees) and has the same basic premise. Except it's been streamlined for modern game-playing sensibilities, in a post-Diablo II world.

Well, and in a post-Titan Quest world, but that's less important. They improved everything, not just the visuals, although it is nice that you can now play in a higher resolution than 800x600. It has a nice art style, which still looks good when you play it on the crappiest netbook, but can look damn nice when you turn up all the sliders. It has mods, and an extremely convenient mod database/loader called TorchLeech which lets you find and install mods from several different sites at once.

I've finished the game twice already, and will probably finish it again. It makes me very excited to play Torchlight II, which will have co-op and presumably much more replayability. After you see all the different dungeon tilesets and get some sweet gear, there's really no reason to keep playing currently.

Puzzle Agent
Steam, $14.99

I got this on the recent Steam sale, and it was surprisingly good. It doesn't have adventure-game-style puzzles, unlike Telltale's other games, but rather Professor Layton-style puzzles. And they actually tie into the plot!

The puzzles are good, with a couple exceptions, but the really surprising thing about this game was the plot. It's a bizarre combination of Fargo and Twin Peaks that really, really works the whole "why is everyone obsessed with puzzles?" angle. Since I love Twin Peaks, I was pleasantly surprised. The music is very atmospheric and incredibly well-done, as is the voice-acting. The only place where the game falls down is the art and animation. The art is good from a distance, but the game sometimes zooms in, but doesn't improve the character's faces, so you get big blurry lines. The animation is nigh-nonexistant. Would it really have been so hard to add a few more frames to make it smoother?

Anyway, I think it's a great game, and I hope Telltale does a whole season of it someday. I would love to play more

Left 4 Dead 2
Steam, $19.99

This one I've actually been playing since... early October, I think it was, when they had a deal on the 4-pack and a friend bought it for me. It is awesome.

I play realism vs. mode just about every night. So long as you have a reliable group of 6-8 people to play with, there's no good reason not to buy it. I never played the original since my old lappy couldn't handle it, but my new one runs it on high settings (gotta love Source) and it looks great.

It makes me hope that Valve works co-op into Half-Life 3 somehow, since they apparently really "get" how it works. Between this and Portal 2 they seem to have taken a shine to it, so here's hoping!

Pacman Championship Edition DX
PSN, $9.99

I usually don't care for score-attack games, but this one is something special. I knew I had to have it after watching the Giant Bomb quick look and saw how fun it looks.

It's really fun.

That's about all there is to say about it. You get a chain of ghosts and then you eat it. It's really all about reflexes and memorizing level layouts.

And the menu music is the best menu music since the wii shop music.

Game Dispatch: Low-impact Puzzlers

2010-08-24T10:15:00.000-07:00

Hey there! Decided to take some time off the blog to finish up school, but now I'm going to be more consistent.

Probably

Anyway, let's get started.

Puzzle Quest 2 (Steam, $19.99)

This week the theme is Games to Play While Watching Mad Men. That is, games that don't require full attention, not games that take place in ad agencies in the 1960s. Puzzle Quest 2 has been my primary game for this purpose, and frankly it's perfect. It's light, turn-based match-3 gameplay doesn't exactly require close attention to succeed at, but it's RPG gameplay is deep enough to be satisfying. It seems a bit unbalanced, enemies have attacks that they don't exploit but would be game-breaking if they did, and some classes are easier to use than others.

I started out as a Templar, and got pretty far, but I was frustrated by the lack of killing options. The Templar can increase their defense to an absurd degree and then weaponize it, but that takes several steps and a fair bit of luck with regards to the gems on the board. It tends to make matches take forever, as you can't die, but you can't kill your opponent either. So then I tried the Sorceress, and it was like night and day. Numerous direct-damage spells and board-manipulation abilities make matches quick and easy, and give you the tools to fight the games most difficult enemies. The Templar didn't have very many abilities that altered the board, so enemies that could kill you instantly with enough mana were your bane. With the sorceress, you can just destroy all of that color whenever you want, effectively. I haven't tried the other classes (Barbarian and Assassin) but I hope to when I finish the game.

Plants vs. Zombies (Steam, $9.99; iPhone, $4.99)

Ah, the classics. This is my third (or maybe fourth) time through this game, but it never stops being fun. More tower-defense games should take cues from this, it's simplistic system of lanes allows for an easy learning and difficulty curve. And the plants and zombies have so much personality! I still laugh when I first unlock the tall-nut. The iPhone version is also fun, but the framerate suffers on my old 2G iPod and it lacks the minigames and challenges. Apparently the definitive version right now is the iPad version, which features expanded graphics of each stage.

There's a new version coming out for XBLA this fall that will include co-op and competitive multiplayer modes, which will hopefully make it back to the PC version. I'm excited!

Besiegement (iPhone, $0.99)

This is just a fun little tower defense game. It's surprisingly hard to find good TD on the ipod, most people can't get the interface right (there's a port of Vector TD that mangles it horribly) but this is just perfect. Many different towers with varied abilities that can all be upgraded multiple times. So far it's been pretty easy, but the difficulty has been increasing slowly. It gives you enough money that you can waste some on a useless tower and still succeed, it doesn't require pixel-perfect placement, and it even has 2 modes for building mazes or using pre-built ones. This seems to be mostly based on the original Warcraft 3 TD maps that I loved so much, so give it a shot if you loved them too.

Orbital (iPhone, $2.99)

This is the best iphone game there is. It was among the first I bought and I play it every day. If you don't like it, well, FUCK YOU.

Understanding Political Cartoons #1: The Turtle Represents A TURTLE

2010-08-23T15:00:00.000-07:00

If you've ever glanced through your local paper, you've probably noticed something strange: a pictogram trying to get across some political message. These odd drawings often use cryptic symbolism relating to obscure political issues and simply don't offer enough explanation for the average reader to figure out.

Well, I've decided to fix that, with a new series focused on modifying political cartoons to make them easier to understand. For the first few, I will focus on older cartoons and then trasition to more modern ones. Today's is a classic, though only the most well-read political scientists have any clue what it means. But now, you too can have access to the secrets of the political universe, contained in these crude, mystifying caricatures.

Original

Fixed

There now, simple isn't it? Any fool can understand it! Tune in next Monday for another installment! (if I remember)

Rambling Nonsense: Internet Discourse and History

2010-08-06T14:38:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I get angry at the internet. I admit, I fall for trolls more than I should, but as a person who tends to like things I feel the need to defend them from stupid attacks. I embark to write some multi-paragraph essay of a post refuting something someone said on an anonymous message board about a game I happen to like. More often than not, I don't get into a real discussion, but I'm just sort of cut off. Either they don't reply and the same idiotic point comes up again from someone different in a few pages anyway, or they do reply in a joking way and I find myself falling victim to an obvious troll. Trying to argue on the internet is like declaring war on the sea: it's pointless, and you feel embarrassed afterwords.

But that's not what I want to write about. Other times, the internet just makes me sad and frustrated. People just have no concept of civility, or any real sense of history. It seems to me that the effect of the internet on our perception of history has been an extreme myopia, and an embrace of absolutism. Absolutism is the only way to roll in a debate online, if you show any wavering opinion you'll be savaged for your hypocrisy. People don't want a nuanced, complete view of what lead up to the here-and-now, they just want things that will support their arguments and worldview. Anything else is biased and wrong and misinterpreted and there is no truth, only relative opinions.

It makes it hard to be a passionate person. Any second the thing I like may turn out to be supporting fundamentalism, or based on a lie, or tied to some crazy cult, or supporting the wrong politician. It's oppressive. Of course, there are dedicated fan communities, but even if everyone agrees on liking one thing they still have endless petty arguments over particular aspects of that one thing. Reasonability is impossible online, it seems. Because if you're reasonable then you might accidentally concede some tiny point that then unravels your entire worldview in a single tug, and that's unthinkable. People cannot change their minds online, people cannot honestly ask for opinion, because that's just not how things work.

Bah!

Anyway, I've been thinking a lot about history lately thanks to, well, my history class. Always new things to learn about the past, I just love it. For example, I recently learned that a full suit of plate armor weighs less than the average modern soldier's pack. Perhaps it's a modern backlash, but I'd always been led to believe that plate armor was a silly, impractical bit of romantic nonsense, and noble, nomadic people with arrows and courage always won out anyway. Or people with modern guns. Or people with cannons. Media is biased against knights, probably because it was biased towards them for a long time. Funny how that works out.

It was interesting reading about the vast trade network that was built up in the Indian Ocean between China and India and the Islamic Empire and Madagascar and Africa. And how it spread culture and religion far and wide in that region and how there were ships with hundreds of tons of good crossing with the monsoon winds and utilizing complex banking systems. And then, reading about medieval Europe, and how it was basically a shitty backwater in comparison. There were no grand cities, no trade networks. Europe was beset on all sides by murderous nomads and conquerors: the Vikings, the Islamic empire, and the Magyars. Traveling by sea was suicide, and the most powerful empire of that period didn't even have a navy. The feudal system was a response to a world gone apocalyptically wrong: Viking raids would go miles upriver and come out of nowhere. Any town or monastery that built up wealth was vulnerable to attack. People had to band together around strong military powers because if they didn't they were incredibly vulnerable. But empires didn't work because it took too long to assemble forces, and these weren't monolithic imperial opponents. A viking raid may take place over a couple days, and if all your able-bodied men are a hundred miles away defending different town you're fucked.

And yet, Europe was able to overcome this in the fullness of time and become the world's superpower. Perhaps it was the insanely competitive, darwinistic hell of Europe that caused weapons technology to develop so quickly and allow them to conquer the world. Who knows? But it did happen, in the end.

Consider plate armor again. This was armor consisting of plates of steel or wrought iron intricately intertwined to prevent arrows and cutting weapons from causing mortal wounds. This is the sort of thing you only get if there is a severe shortage of people available to fight, and the life of a single soldier is worth an awful lot. Good plate armor was expensive and probably took years to make. But, it was actually very, very effective at preventing death by arrows and most edged weapons. Entire new forms of weapons were created to pierce it, and new kinds of plate were created to counter those. Is bloody, horrific internal conflict the secret to Europe's later success? Personally, I think it's likely.

The media bias against knights, I think, has also culminated into a media bias against professional soldiers in general, at least in a historic context. People who are light on their feet, who fight unfairly, and who are the underdogs are always on top. Consider this trailer for the upcoming film Centurion. The plate-armored, highly-organized, professional Roman infantry is no match for the savage Britons. They are completely destroyed except for a couple commanding officers, who must make their way back to civilization. And they won't survive with their fancy Roman armor, they must learn to wear furs and use wooden weapons like the Britons if they want to make it.

It just... rubs me the wrong way. I guess it's just that it downplays technological superiority so much, which from a historical standpoint was so important for conflicts like this. Hell, the difference between using bronze arrowheads and iron arrowheads decided many early conflicts in Southwest Asia. But no, what matters is who the underdog is, and it's never the Romans. It's never the people who actually win in the end. It feels wrong because it feels backwards, almost conservative in a new way. The older, somehow more liberal, somehow more skilled, somehow more pure culture is the good one, not the new technological one.

Roguish Missive: 100 Rogues

2010-08-04T02:25:00.000-07:00

I need to keep to a schedule, and part of that means having something to do every day. Well, every weekday anyway. Possibly not counting monday or friday. I'm trying, okay!

Anyway, the middle of the week seems as good a time as any to talk about one of my favorite genres that I am terrible at (and there are many of those): Roguelikes. They are big and complicated and unforgivingly difficult and that makes them intimidating to your average gamer. They come from an age when using a computer was an exercise in mind-bending frustration and arhcaic rules, so people would retreat to "games" like the original Rogue for escape. Yes, it's true, games have gotten dumber over the years, even as their systems technically grow more complex, and that's largely due to the lowering of the level of entry. Old games didn't hold your hand, but the reason they didn't was because they assumed the average player had a certain level of intelligence to be able to play the game, or even to want to play the game in the first place. Not only that, but old games required an acceptance of a much higher level of abstraction. Games with better graphics are more accessible because it's easier to tell what the hell is going on.

Nothing exemplifies the difference between these ancient dinosaurs and modern slickness like the humble roguelike. A roguelike is a game genre that is characterized by permanent character death (no save points, when you die you stay dead FOREVER), randomized nature, and punishing difficulty. Everything is really up to how traditional the roguelike in question is. Some mimic the original Rogue in using nothing but ASCII characters to represent the action, while others have sprites and even have limited continuity between plays. Roguish Missive will be a series that attempts to explain my strange love for this series by walking through the beginning of some examples of the genre, one each week. Some of them, I have never played before, but it'll take a while to get to those.

So come with me on a magical tour of the wonderful world of Roguelikes!

100 Rogues is a sprite-based roguelike on the iphone/ipod. It serves as a great introduction to the genre, and maintains a level of difficulty while simplifying the mechanics enough to give it a learning curve, rather than the standard roguelike learning wall. There are only two classes, the Crusader and the Fairy Wizard, one all about hacking and slashing, and the other all about teleporting and backstabbing. Both have a simple skill tree, with the Crusader having more passive skills (like the ability to use heavy weapons) and the wizard more active (like teleportation and crystalline projectiles) giving you a range of options for each run.

For beginners, I would recommend the Crusader, but then I have a preference for hack and slash-y characters. Now, like most roguelikes, this game is turn-based, meaning that enemies only move when you move, giving you ample time to plan your way out of a bad situation, hence the difficulty. Some other basics of dungeon delving that will serve you in any roguelike apply here too, for example:

Don't fight out in the open if you can help it. Backing into a hallway/tunnel will keep you from being surrounded, and will save your life when that love enemy turns out to have 2 dozen friends.
Save potions until you absolutely need them, but do make use of them. In other RPGs, there are shops where you can but potions by the cartload, and you find them on the corpse of every other enemy. Not so in roguelikes, where potions are your life's blood, never use them unless you're going to die if you don't. But, at the same time, don't be afraid to use them if you think you might die. In a roguelike, you probably will.
Items can be used in ways you wouldn't think at first. Potions can be drunk or thrown at enemies. In 100 Rogues, this is pretty rudimentary (energy potions will explode when thrown) but in most roguelikes almost every item has a hidden use.
Switch between weapons as the situation dictates. I don't care if you're a badass crusader wearing plate male, that enemy is 4 squares away and you have a bow. USE IT!
Pay attention to enemy patterns. Different kinds of enemies will act differently, most will run up and try to kill you, but others will retreat in predictable ways. This is more useful in games designed around predictable enemies (the Mystery Dungeon series comes to mind) but it can still be useful here.
Failure is inevitable, success is relative. You don't win roguelikes but once in a blue moon. There's usually a nominal goal, an amulet of some kind at the bottom of the dungeon, but it's almost impossible to complete, and you're not expected to complete it. The dungeon in 100 Rogues is only 10 floors deep, but ends with a punishing boss fight again Satan. If you can beat him, you win, but if he kills you, you still had a damn good run. A good way to measure success in a roguelike is how deep you can get in each run. As you get better, you'll get deeper and deeper.

As I mentioned earlier, 100 Rogues is a great introduction to the genre, and that last point is the main reason. Most introductory games would want to soften the blow, give you some stats or treasure that carries over, but not 100 Rogues. You get 1 fragile life and that's it, you're done. But, because it's so short, it doesn't feel like any huge loss when you do inevitably die. Other games may have you die for a silly mistake after playing a character for hours and hours, think of this as stress training to keep you from destroying your computer when you play those games.

Game Dispatch: A Plethora of FPS-RPGs

2010-08-03T13:01:00.001-07:00

Hello there!

Welcome to the new dispatchesfromthefrigidnorthlands.com! I'm going to embark, yet again, on an effort to update more consistently. This hasn't worked before, but I feel like I need to do some consistent writing, so here we are.

I'll be doing this weekly Game Dispatch about what I've been playing recently, as I have actually been playing a lot of different games recently. Place your bets on how long this lasts. Also: I have a poll now, really just to see how many people are actually reading this (I suspect the number is less than 10, possibly fewer than 5).

Anyway, let's get to it!

Bioshock and Bioshock 2

Yeah, yeah, I know Bioshock came out forever ago, but I didn't even have a computer capable of running it until last summer so give me a break. I got it on Steam a while back, but I got bogged down and distracted by something right when I got to Fort Frolic, which as it turns out is the best part of the game. Overall, I thought Bioshock was OK. Not a masterpiece, but more of a proof-of-concept for the setting and type of game, the FPS with light RPG elements and an emphasis on the environment. Fort Frolic was great, but the rest of the game left something to be desired. It didn't do enough with the setting, really, and the combat was... less than fun. What bothered me the most was the ridiculous mouse sensitivity (I like to be able to aim) and the effect when you get hit, which is something of a graphical representation of a headache. It makes frantic combat exciting, but also very disorienting and incomprehensible.

Plasmids are fun, but also feel sort of underutilized. Some of them are a little too useful, particularly electroshock, which enabled me to go through the whole game using nothing but the wrench except when fighting Big Daddies. The twist was... interesting, a neat little comment on the nature of video games, but also seemed kind of like a twist for a twist's sake. The plot was great, the only real complaints I have are the part where it's a game.

I actually ended up enjoying Bioshock 2 more than the first. A controversial opinion, I know, but it somehow seemed more coherent. Bioshock was a game about Rapture, whereas Bioshock 2 was a game about Subject Delta and his daughter that happens to be set in Rapture. I guess because I played Bioshock after hearing so much about it and it's themes, they didn't have very much impact, but Bioshock 2's were relatively fresh. The environments were more interesting too, with big glowy barnacles and seaweed on everything. The tenements and Ryan Amusements were much more interesting places to explore than anything in Bioshock. The plot was maybe not as deep, but made enough sense for a game and did a good job fitting in with the first game.

But the biggest differentiating factor between the two Bioshocks is the combat. In short, they fixed it in Bioshock 2. Every weapon feels useful, and they're all satisfyingly visceral. Being able to use plasmids and guns at the same time is a godsend, as is being able to use a melee attack with any weapon. In particular, the harpoon gun was a lot of fun to use, especially the rocket harpoons which stick into enemies for a few seconds before exploding. But all the weapons were amazingly fun, from the rivet gun to the drill to the .50 caliber machine gun. It was a bit disconcerting how fragile you were (it made sense in context) but still able to utterly destroy any splicers that got close and use a rocket launcher 1-handed. It falls apart a bit at the end, but at least it doesn't have a "final boss" like Bioshock's.

Singularity

Singularity is a great, underrated game. It's basically a combination of Half-Life 2, Bioshock and TIME TRAVEL. And it actually uses it's time-travel premise well, not relegating it to silly little gameplay things like aging enemies to dust or pulling exploding barrels out of THE PAST. Time travel is the driving force of the plot, which is refreshing for an FPS. It's Bioshock-y in it's health system and in it's progression, to a certain degree. You find samples of ELEMENT 99 (or E99, or Element E99 as one in-game video amusingly calls it) which you can use to purchase upgrades to health and medpack carrying capacity and damage resistance and whatnot. It's all very secondary, really, to the shooting action. The game throws a few half-hearted puzzles at you here and there, but really this is a game about shooting dudes, and they're not afraid to let you shoot a bunch of dudes. Using the TMD is a lot of fun, from the deadlock (a bubble of frozen time that you can use to kill people or use as a shield to dodge bullets) to turning enemies into crazy monsters that then attack their comrades.

The plot is also surprisingly... I hesitate to use the word "good" but it's certainly interesting. Particularly the endings, of which there are three, which are satisfyingly complete and apocalyptic. The game is set in a world where the Cold War has continued to the year 2010, and how it turns out is up to you, without spoiling too much.

What's weird about this game is how similar it is to Half-Life 2. You've got the citadel-esque Singularity always looming in the distance, the action-ready daughter of the brilliant scientist, the howling monsters running at you, the gravity-gun-esque functionality of the TMD. Hell, there are even visual similarities, the phase ticks look an awful lot like headcrabs/snarks and the TMD prototype is a dead ringer for the gravity gun. It's also similarly linear, and has a couple scenes reminiscent of HL2's "cutscenes" where people talk at you while you run around looking at a lab.

So, in the end, it's a combination of 2 great games. The only bad thing I can say about it is that it's a bit short (I finished it in 2 days) but otherwise it's just a great, fun shooter. I highly recommend it.

Don't Get Lost in Heaven

2010-05-10T01:16:00.000-07:00

I had an epiphany just now, at 1:15 in the morning on the day I have an enormous amount of homework due. It relates to said homework, but I'll get to that in a minute.

MMOs are not for me. Or rather, they appeal to me too much and will be the death of me if I let them. I just canceled by LotRO subscription, because I was working on my huge backlog of geology homework, and I thought: why didn't I do this? What was I doing instead? And I tried at my history homework, also sorely behind, with the same question on my mind. The answer is that I was playing LotRO, and the reason I was playing LotRO is because I had become obsessed with it.

Now, last quarter, I also played LotRO, but I was not yet obsessed, so things were fine. I worked on my work and did things I enjoyed and read books and played other games and everything was good. But something changed this quarter. I got to a certain point in my interest in the game where I became completely engaged in it. I reached the point where I was giving advice to other players, basically.

When I get to that point with a regular game, I will slowly stop playing it and my interest will wane until something new comes along. With LotRO, there was just so much content that I could never attain that level of knowledge. And the difficulties of content that you are forced to play with other people are maddening in a myriad of ways that I won't get into here, but sufficed to say that I wasn't playing the game that I wanted to any more. The game became work, my time spent thinking about the game became work, and as my time devoted to both increased, my life disappeared. I haven't been able to get a good night's sleep in weeks. I haven't been able to read my book any more, to play any other game for an extended period of time. I feel obligated to play LotRO because I've devoted so much time to it, and it was once so enjoyable.

But, it has become work, and work that I have convinced myself is play. I must make a clean break with MMOs forever or I will never amount to anything.

On the Issue of The Management of Rights Relating to Non-Physical Property

2010-03-10T08:57:00.001-08:00

My cunning plan to avoid spending money on games by playing an MMO instead is working flawlessly. I'm reaching the endgame in LotRO and I've got a kinship and everything's wonderful. I really like the legendary weapon system, it adds a whole 'nother dimension to character progression, and makes your equipment less... disposable, which is nice.

Anyway, that's not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about Digital Rights Management, or DRM, as it's called. The video game industry has gone insane with regards to DRM, some companies more than others. There's nothing inherently wrong with trying to protect your games from being stolen, after all the ostensible goal of any publisher is to make money, and letting people steal your game isn't a good way to do that. But the response has been to do, basically, the opposite of what they should.

Piracy is a tricky issue, no matter the medium. Music and movie piracy used to be a huge issue, in the late '90s when Napster was still a Thing. People would download songs by the hundreds, for free, from other people. The music industry faced a crisis, and it had absolutely no idea what to do besides alternately threatening legal action and literally begging people not to steal. Then, iTunes came along and made it more convenient to pay for music and download it than to steal it, and piracy fell off in a huge way. It's still a problem, of course, and with torrents it's easier than ever to steal huge amounts of music all at once, but it's no longer so easy that any common idiot can do it. Napster was a mainstream phenomenon in it's day, torrents are not.

Now, what about video games? What's been the response to people stealing those? Well, it's been to try and lock down games in increasingly draconian ways. Not just requiring CD keys, but only allowing a certain number of installs per key, and installing secret software to make sure that it's not a pirated copy. But, of course, this was all cracked by the pirate community, and people who steal the game don't have to deal with any of it. It takes a measure of savvy, to be sure, and that's why the game industry isn't collapsing as we speak. And it's only possible with PC games, which are less popular than console games, and cracked consoles, which are rare (except in the case of the Wii, but the average Wii owner has even less technical knowledge than the average gamer).

Lately, things have gotten completely out of hand with Ubisoft's decision to require people playing the single-player game Assassin's Creed 2 to be constantly connected to their authentication servers. I guess a single check isn't good enough, they need that constant connection to make sure that you don't suddenly decide to start using a cracked CD code. Only, that's not how piracy works, the pirates will (in fact, have) remove the authentication process completely and forgo all that bullshit. People who pirate the game will be able to play if, say, the authentication servers go offline for some reason, whereas people who payed for the game would not.

This is insane.

On the other hand, you have Steam, a very successful service with only very light DRM, and a lot of added value for purchasing a game over stealing it. When you buy a game on Steam, it's tied to your account, and you can download and install it as many times as you want on as many different computers as you want easily. You just log into your account and there it is, ready to download. Patches are downloaded automatically, it has a matchmaking service for multiplayer games, it keeps track of how long you play games, has achievements, and a thousand other little perks that you don't get when you pirate a game.

Valve has the right idea, basically. You don't want to punish the consumer, because you're not punishing the right person. Someone who steals a game is never going to have to deal with DRM, so making all these restrictions is only going to hurt you. You could make the argument that it discourages lazy pirates, but when it gets to this level it actually encourages people who wouldn't normally pirate gets to pirate them, since it's less of a hassle. Especially in the case of Ubisoft's new DRM, in which case the absence of DRM would mean the difference between being able to play the game at all or not!

No, the key is to make a legitimate purchase more convenient in ways that cannot be matched by the pirates

This means consumer-friendly services like Steam, not just bonus content for purchasing the game, because GUESS WHAT the pirates will crack that too. All those pre-order bonuses for Mass Effect 2? I have 'em, but I didn't pre-order. HOW CAN THAT BE!? Well, you see, content is easy to steal. Really, really easy, it turns out. You need to offer something less tangible, the idea that you don't despise your consumers, and that you want to make it easy to play your game.

Anyway, that's that. Tune in in 6 months when I'll post about Fallout Vegas or something.

Fellowship of That Hill, Over There

2010-01-12T12:24:00.000-08:00

So, in the end, I decided to try the free trial for Lord of the Rings Online. It was barely on my radar, even less so when it first came out. I remember hearing about the Moria expansion a year ago on GFW Radio, and I thought "Oh, that's right, there's a Lord of the Rings MMO". Apparently it was received very well, it got great reviews and more than one MMO of the Year award.

I was going in blind and without any preconceptions, and it charmed the pants off me. Everything is so streamlined. The laser-focus on sol0 play is probably what makes it so attractive to me. You can do damn near everything in the game alone, with a few special side dungeons for group play. The crafting system is simple and easy to understand, you find resources out in the world and then build them into various useful things back in town. Combat is very active, with a wide variety of skills available from the get-go, and a slow trickle of more advanced skills as you gain levels. The Deed system makes it feel like everything you do really matters, even if you're just grinding out some extra experience or doing a standard "get me 5 orc-bladders" quest. The customizable title is a stroke of genius, making your achievement public in a more subtle way than getting a particular fancy hat. Having cosmetic outfit slots that don't affect your real equipment is also very nice, especially since most of the equipment is a bland variation on the same designs. You can get a nice outfit and keep it for most of the game, until you get some fancy late-game mithril armor or whatever.

The lore and Epic quests are really what make the game shine, though. Middle Earth is a pre-made world that you get to explore from a first-person perspective. Even as a person who has never read the books (though I have seen the movies and read The Hobbit countless times) it's a real thrill. It's a real step up from the standard MMO, or, hell, video game worlds, where everything feels like an afterthought to fit gameplay. This world feels alive, and every rock and tree has a history painstakingly documented over the last 50 years. It's really not fair, the setting was ready-made, but what Turbine does with it is pitch-perfect. Helping Gandalf and Aragorn in ways that make sense with the greater story. You don't directly participate in the famous events from the movie, but act out minor side-events, the way it should be. There's no need to wonder why Your Character wasn't there in the movie/book at Weathertop when the Naz-Gul attack, because you were miles away doing a seperate errand for Tom Bombadil. The writing is great, not quite up to Tolkien but then you can hardly expect that for the sheer volume there is.

I'll continue to play it at least until I can finish the Epic quest storyline, which will probably take several months. $15 a month is a lot cheaper than the $60-120 that I want to spend.

English 152 setting essay: Morgan Junction

2010-01-11T14:48:00.000-08:00

This is the rough draft of an essay I'm working on for English 152: Creative Writing. I figured I may as well post it here to break things up between extensive posts bitching about smash hit movies and them thar bideo james.

Enjoy!

In the end, it's a simple intersection, a junction of two roads of some minor significance. One coming down a steep hill from the south and flattening out, and the other coming up a shallow hill from the west. A ferry at the bottom of the hill keeps the traffic steady but never particularly heavy, especially at this time of the day. The vast majority of the cars that pass through do just that, they pass through on the way elsewhere and do not stop.

It's raining, but only lightly. The sky is a uniform light gray, effectively hiding the sun's position somewhere in the south. Without the aid of a clock there would be no way to determine the time beyond “day”. A bus comes lumbering up the hill to the west, a purple and yellow behemoth connecting the distant White Center with the more-distant Downtown. It turns up the north-leading street, California Ave., and comes to a stop in front of a bus shelter and a retirement home. The retirement home, or rather “low-income senior housing”, is a strangely round, tall building painted dull, dark yellow and red. It looms over that corner of the intersection and the bus shelter giving no hint to it's true purpose beyond the driveway designed to accommodate ambulances and small shuttles. In it's shadow lies bus shelter, a simple metal and glass edifice with some wire benches, which no one is too using due to the cold. There is a muddy strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street, with a few trees planted it. The tree's roots have warped and cracked the sidewalk, allowing several large puddles to form. Directly on the corner, almost overshadowed by the senior housing, is a small home loan office, Washington Federal Loan. It has a garish bright green sign and it's windows are filled with advertisements for various surely desirable percentages. The small parking lot behind it has only a couple of cars, belonging to the it's employees. At the crosswalk on the corner, a drain has been clogged, allowing a small pond to form right on the ramp leading to the street. Every time a car passes it sprays water all over any pedestrians seeking to cross.

Across the street, there's a newly refurbished pizza parlor. It used to be a run-down old bar, and is still adjacent to a run-down old bar, but is now sporting a shiny new black pain job on it's ancient bricks. Rotating slowly above the neon “ZEEKS PIZZA” sign is a “Z” surrounded by an atom symbol. The sign is brand new and hasn't yet had a single letter burn out. Next to Zeeks is a run-down old bar, which nonetheless has benefited from a few cosmetic improvements, including a new paint job. But a fresh coat of pain cannot hide it's sticky, smoky interior. Just looking inside makes a person feel the need to bathe. Next to the bar is a very small park, which has more pavement than dirt and a few benches. On the corner, by the crosswalk, are a couple of telephone polls. One is wooden and so covered in rusty staples and nails that there's hardly an inch of wood visible at shoulder-height. Still, a few enterprising individuals have managed to jam in some posters for local bands. The other is a metal pole supporting the traffic signals, nearly impossible to affix posters to. A couple still stubbornly cling, but are losing a battle with the rain. Down the hill, past the back parking lot for the pizza parlor, a larger, forested park is visible where the road turns sharply to the south.

The major roads which coincide here are not in great shape. They are cracked and warped, mostly from being driven on but also from the rain and from the intrusions of the trees planted near them. The only parts that are still smooth asphalt are the patches filled in after some road work done over the summer. There is still a large, shallow scar in the middle of the intersection where a bulldozer accidentally dropped a large steel plate it was carrying across. The crosswalks are crude and half-faded. Cars passing through throw up small wakes of muddy water from the numerous cracks and small puddles that pervade the area. It is a busy area, but not as busy or as important as many, many others.

On the south-west corner is another square, brick building, yet another Starbucks Coffee. Painted dark red and black, it has several large windows, and an automated sliding glass door for it's main entrance. Inside, a group of cops are sitting around one of the square wooden tables, drinking coffee. A couple of people are typing on laptops at the padded seats along the wall, and some women are sitting on the large, comfortable chairs in the window. On the east side, there are some metal tables and chairs left out in the rain, with an umbrella raised in a feeble attempt to hold off the elements. Large lumps in the sidewalk, again caused by tree roots, create a large puddle in front of them, and the bases of the trees themselves have become nothing but large, very muddy puddles. In the same building, next to the Starbucks, there is a humble locally-owned Italian restaurant, and a decidedly non-local Subway sandwich shop. A mess of rusting, dirty newspaper boxes and bike racks line the sidewalk, leading to another metal and glass bus shelter. No one is using this one.

Across California, to the north, there is a rival coffee shop, Tully's. It is somewhat smaller, squatting in the corner of the parking lot for the local grocery store, Thriftway. It has similarly left a few metal tables and chairs out in the rain, not even bothering with umbrellas. Inside there are a bunch of wooden tables and chairs, including a large dining-room table. In the middle of the seating area, there's a large stone fireplace extending to the ceiling encircled by fat leather armchairs. All of these are occupied, two by a couple reading books, and two by a young woman and her baby. Most of the tables are occupied by people casually using laptops and sipping lattes or eating lunch.

Games and whatnot

2010-01-11T09:39:00.000-08:00

Looking over the recent game of the year polls and lists, I realize I haven't played quite a number of last year's major releases, including Uncharted 2, Assassin's Creed 2, and Modern Warfare 2. Of course, I have no intention of ever playing MW2, it's not my type of game, but those other ones look like they would be up my alley. Ah well, I'll pick 'em up this summer when they're cheap.

What I have been playing is Demon's Souls, which I am still in love with. Playing it more only makes me wish there was more of it to play, that there were more people playing, and that it was getting more appreciation in the gaming press. My dream game, currently, is something that combines Demon's Souls' gameplay with the Diablo model of loot and multiplayer. Just imagining act 1 of Diablo played from that perspective is thrilling. Advanced loot-based roguelikes like Diablo are too tied to the isometric perspective, the best way to appreciate some fancy equipment is to have it right in your face. Borderlands hints at a shift in perspective, but it is focused solely on guns, severly lacking in distinctive character customization.

Really, no game has done it better than Diablo II. Torchlight comes close, and is in many ways a better, more fun game, but it doesn't quite capture the magic of a great piece or set of gear. Demon's Souls gets part of it right, you appreciate your gear because it's hard as hell to get or make, but it lacks variety.

Le sigh. Hopefully Diablo III can recapture that magic, I find D2 almost impossible to play now, all stretched out and blurry even on my small laptop screen.

I've also been playing Lord of the Rings Online, which really hits the MMO sweet spot for me like no other game ever has. I was charmed for a time by Ragnarok Online's art style, but eventually the horribly grindy gameplay turned me off. FFXI was interesting, but the absolute necessity of grouping was irritating and left you forever waiting for a last party member just to go out and grind some levels. My experience there soured me on MMOs for years.

Recently, I decided to sample a variety of more modern MMOs to see if the genre ever created something that could interest me. An RPG to play that didn't make my computer whirr like a jet engine would certainly be nice, something long-term thatI could play for months and months and still have new content. MMOs supposedly fit this niche to a T.

I started with some free-to-play Korean imports, but they're all basically RO in different skins. Some have better graphics, some worse, some are brawlers or shooters or racing games or golf games, but it always comes down to the same thing. Poorly translated, arcane systems on top of shoddy mechanics and huge, inescapable grinds. A few scant introductory quests and you're thrust into the world with a sword and told to go kill rats and then slightly larger rats and so on.

Next, I decided to try some free trials of high-budget western, English MMOs. Champions Online has an absolutely amazing character creator, and I will never uninstall the demo, but as a game it leaves a lot to be desired. I would love it forever if it was just a single-player superhero game, but as an MMO it falls into the trap of grinding without the reward of visual advancement. You look as bad-ass crazy at level 1 as you do at level 100 (or whatever), so it all seems kind of pointless.

City of Heroes had a less impressive character creator, and was insufferably ugly and had a terrible GUI.

DDO was, as I mentioned before, pretty fun! The solo-focused gameplay appealed to me, but in the end it was just a little too unforgiving. It came out just a little too early, before all the MMO conventions were set in stone. I may go back to it some day, but Turbine's more recent effort is superior in nearly every way.

WoW was very disappointing. It's hard to overstate this, but the game is ugly. It's artstyle hides it to some extent, but it came out 5 years ago and the graphics have not been improved one bit since then, and it shows. To an outsider, this is simply unacceptable. It also does an ooooold-style MMO thing of having huge, empty tracts of land with a handful of enemies, requiring you to run and run and run over bland, barely-textured ground in order to find some enemies to fight. The combat is OK, but it was all the running and the ugliness and some small, irritating UI problems that ultimately turned me off. I understand how it was able to sort of snowball into it's incredible popularity, but without the social pull I found it incredibly unappealing. Maybe I'll give it another look at Cataclysm, Blizzard has learned a lot about MMO design since WoW started, it'll be interesting to see how they change the starting areas.

My favorite is LotRO, but I've rambled on too long now, so I'll write about it some other time. Possibly tomorrow, but I wouldn't count on it!

James Cameron's Avatar: RAAAAAGEPOST

2009-12-29T19:37:00.000-08:00

Blah blah blah, haven't posted in forever, turns out Lord of the Rings Online is the MMO for me. It's great, go play it.

ANYWAY, I went to see James Cameron's A V A T A R tonight, and it left me in a bad mood. So get ready for an extended rant. Spoilers ahoy!

First off, some words about the CG: It's great. It's really great, and the movie looks fantastic, and the 3D is subtle and well-implemented. This did little to appease my irritation over the plot and characters, though apparently it worked wonderfully for most people (except the A.V Club, god bless 'em). A beautiful world is something I'd like to explore, but even at more than 2 hours this feels like a whirlwind tour that tells you very little about what's really going on. Maybe video games have ruined spectacles like this for me, I love being able to look around and try to figure things out for myself, and movies simply aren't built for that sort of exploration. But other movies have presented worlds that feel more fleshed out, Avatar just feels so full of contrivances and arbitrarily alien bullshit that I just never believed it was a real place.

The 3D actually impressed me the most, it was the best I've ever seen (although admittedly the last 3D movie I saw was Superman Returns...). It was integrated into the movie seamlessly, like it was built in from the start, and it didn't really feel like a gimmick. If this is the way movies are made now, that would be great. But, because it's done so well, you sort of forget about it after a while. It's not a super amazing whizbang special effect, it's just the way the movie looks. That was the only pleasant surprise I had for the whole experience... well, not quite the only one, but the only effects-related one.

The plot is... ugh. It's incredibly generic and downright insulting at times. So there's a human who goes into an alien body to run around and help the scientists. He's a soldier, not a scientist, and he ends up connecting with the native people because he doesn't have all these high-falutin' preconcieved notions about how to interact with them. He just approaches them honestly and oh yeah a little help from the magical spirit of the planet. Yeah, the spirit tells the alien princess not to kill him, so he gets into the alien society where no human has gone before. And then he discovers how wonderful the aliens are and how much better than humans they are in every possible way. You see, they have a bizarre symbiotic relationship with the environment around them. They live in a giant tree, have a physical connection with their mounts that lets the control them with their minds, and only kill what they need to survive. I guess, they don't really go into why they hunt animals, there seems to be plentiful fruit, and they don't seem to like killing animals if they can avoid it.

Anyway, the aliens are basically native americans. They're not clever native american analogues or anything, they are native americans that are taller and blue and have magic ponytails. They ride horses (with, gasp, 6 legs!) use bows and arrows and simple knives, run around practically naked, talk about being connected to a great spirit and how all life is connected, yell wildly before battle, have long straght black hair that they wear in ponytails, have elaborate war-paint. Injuns, straight out of an old western, except they're the heroes this time! And they're able to defeat the evil white man. Well, they're able to die a lot to slow him down, at any rate.

So, the main character... Jake, that's his name. He becomes an alien, goes through initiation rituals, falls in love with a hideous alien girl (her eyes were incredibly creepy), and generally enjoys being an alien that can walk. Oh, right, he's paralyzed from the waist down, but he can walk and run and leap around as an alien, probably explains why he likes it so much. His is the gather intel on the aliens, and to help coax them into moving away so the evil corporation can get at the precious space-rock beneath their sacred tree village. He never really does anything in this regard until it's too late, which got me to thinking that he, not the evil military man, is the true villain of the story. He just enjoys being an alien so much that he never bothers to explain anything about the humans. It's a completely onesided exchange, the aliens learn nothing about why the humans are there or what they intend to do. He doesn't even warn the aliens that the humans want them to move and are planning to attack until they're literally on their way to blow up the village! Oh, and blow it up they do, with missiles from big helicopters, after chasing out all the natives with gas. The alien girl's father dies, the forest is in flames, women and children die, it's all very horrible, but also very predictable if Jake had half a brain in his head.

The main problem seems to be that the aliens don't want anything from the humans. They live in ~perfect harmony with the earth~ and want for nothing. The evil, rapacious humans want that space-rock and will do anything to get it, including slaughtering the aliens, but they'd rather not do that (turns out slaughtering natives looks bad). If Jake had been a decent negotiator, and interested in the well-being of the aliens or the humans instead of just enjoying his life as an alien, he could have helped them work something out. Maybe the aliens help them find another place to get the space-rock, or they just move to a different home tree, or something. Or if he wanted to protect the aliens he could have been informing them about the humans' plans and machinations and the weak points of their mechs and helicopters. But he does neither! He just allows this tragedy to happen, and then gets angry about it, and orchestrates another massacre.

He goes to the ultra-special-magic tree in the middle of the floating mountain range, which is apparently the cause of the floating mountains. Also, sensors and instruments don't work there, so they can hide from the humans. Then he gathers some of the nearby alien tribes to prevent the humans from killing the ultra-special-magic tree. There's a climactic battle... and the aliens are slaughtered. Again, if you had half a brain in your head, this is quite predictable. Apparently, Jake has never heard of this amazing invention called a Machine-Gun, or the horriffic atrocities it caused shortly after it's invention, in World War I. A machinegun means that numbers are insignificant unless they're absolutely overwhelming. Machineguns beat cavalry charges, ending the tradition of cavalry instantly. It's a weapon that makes it so that a few can kill hundreds or thousands without even moving, it threw the whole dynamic of war off and caused a radical shift in the way wars are fought. The aliens charge a bunch of humans with machineguns, some in giant mech suits, and are brought down like wheat before a thresher in a horrifically realistic fashion.

Now, Jake is supposed to be a marine. He should know that charging people with assault rifles using horses and bows is a bad idea. A REALLY BAD IDEA. But, he doesn't bother telling the aliens about the humans' horrible death-machines and they get massacred in a fucking cavalry charge.

Let me spell this out: On the screen, the noble and heroic aliens charge a contingent of marines, some in mech suits wielding enormous machineguns, riding horses out in the open.

They don't ambush them, using the terrain to their advantage. They don't flank them. They charge head-on into deadly machinegun fire. Oh, they kill a few marines with their arrows, as they fall to a hail of gunfire, but the advantage is clearly with the humans. Even the flying aliens are being slaughtered by AA guns and missiles. The human-controlled aliens are even using guns rather than bows, and have moderate success, briefly. This was actually a pleasant surprise, as horrible as that may sound. From the previews, I thought that the clever aliens used their deep spiritual connection with the earth to find some way to fight the humans on an even playing field, despite the humans' absurd advantage when it comes to, well, killing power. But, no, it works about as well as you'd expect if humans tried to attack a modern army riding horses and using bows and arrows.

So, the aliens are being slaughtered. Then, just when the girl alien is about to be shot up by marines, a huge horde of rhino-like aliens comes charging out of the forest! The marines are overmatched, their bullets cannot penetrate the thick hids of the dinosaur-like alien monsters! The mechs are smashed! The helicopters are swarmed by flocks of the flying monsters the aliens ride! The girl alien is even able to ride a predator that formerly tried to kill her!

You see, the planetary hive-mind has come to the rescue! It's rescuing it's core, the ultra-special-magic tree, from destruction and incidentally saving any aliens that may still be alive. You see, in an earlier scene, Jake communicates with the planetary hive-mind and tries to warn it about the evil, rapacious humans and how they ruined their world and now plan to ruin Pandora! The message gets through, though a little too late to save the majority of the gathered aliens. Oh well, they weren't that important to the planet, apparently.

Then there's a cool scene where the evil military guy fights Jake in his avatar. The evil military guy dies and Jake and the aliens win. The humans are forced to leave the planet, except for the good-hearted scientists. Jake gets his soul permanently transferred to his alien body. Everyone's happy, except the evil white people who get kicked off the planet for their rampant greed.

The plot so stuffed full of cliches and cringe-inducing dialog it's almost beyond belief. I really had hopes, going in, that it wouldn't be quite so on-the-nose. There's such a complete lack of irony and cynicism, it's completely serious throughout, and tries to pass itself off as a REAL HARD SCIENCE FICTION. Sigourney Weaver's character all but says "this isn't magic, it's science!", with no further explanation, at several points in the movie. That is what really bugs me, and makes me want to nit-pick. The story is boring and horribly cliche-ridden, and the science is too! There's nothing interesting to distract from any of the flaws, so all I can see are the horrible, horrible flaws.

Nothing but the visuals, which, as I already said, weren't good enough to distract me, but were apparently enough to distract the vast majority of critics.

Bah.

Bah!

More ranting tomorrow, maybe. I'm done for now.

Champions of World of Warhammer Online... Craft... Dragons! Part 1

2009-12-04T20:49:00.000-08:00

After finishing Dragon Age for the second time (a story for another day) I decided to check out some MMOs, just for the halibut. After hearing people on Gamer's With Jobs compare it to raiding in WoW, I figured I should finally give them a shot, since I really love the combat in Dragon Age, and I haven't put more than 10 mintues into any MMO since FFXI some 5 years ago.

First up was Dungeons and Dragons Online, which I like quite a bit. The levelling is slow, but you always feel like you're doing something, and soloing is as fun and rewarding as going with a group, since everything is instanced. The setting is rich and detailed, and it doesn't have that problem that many MMOs have where you feel like you're wandering across endless barren tracks of land looking for that one last rat to kill. The open areas could stand to be a little more compact, but the dungeons are top-notch. They have a nice system for grouping to do harder versions of the same deungeons you can solo, so you never feel that you're missing out on content because you're going it alone.

The one thing I didn't particularly care for was the look of the game, which was a bit too... I don't know, bland for my taste. Everything looked sort of washed out, and especially the equipment you could get was pretty boring-looking. Of course, this could be part of the whole "free to play" thing they've got going, where you can get shiny special equipment if you pay real money for it, but whatever. Overall, I liked it, and I may play more in the future. It's a fun action RPG that happens to be online.

TOMORROW: Champions Online

Playing Tour Guide

2009-10-30T23:03:00.000-07:00

I had my first taste of Demon's Souls' co-op today, and it's not as bad as I initially thought.

In fact, it's quite fun.

It could still use improvements of course. A real party system would be nice, as well as the ability to stay with a group for more than 1 area. But that would ruin some of the magic, I suppose.

To initiate co-op, you simply leave a blue-eye stone on the ground somewhere, anywhere, in the level you want to help out in. If someone who is within 10 levels of you and is in body form happens upon it, they can summon you for help. So far, I haven't had any trouble finding people to play with, even late at night. Probably because the game just came out and sold quite well.

After you enter the other person's game, you help them beat the level. There's no voice or text chat, but you can guide them with your actions, lead them to treasure (only the host can pick up items) and help them fight enemies. It's feels a lot like being a tour guide, except in this case you're the tour guide for a dungeon full of horrible demons.

One of my favorite things about it, is that you don't have to do any work to find someone to play with. You just drop a stone and go about your business. No waiting around for a party like an MMO or searching through servers like Diablo. Just drop and go, and eventually someone will call you.

Demonzu Souruzu

2009-10-29T20:31:00.000-07:00

Until very recently, Demon's Souls was not on my radar at all. I remember hearing about it at TGS last year, and at E3, but there was never any information about the gameplay. The trailer that was released was very generic, with a big huge demon-thing attacking a knight. The only vaguely interesting thing about it was that it's name is very difficult to pronouce correctly (go ahead, try it: Demon's Souls).

But earlier this month I read the thread about it on PA, and it really sounded like something I would like. Like a sort of HD roguelike, with harsh death penalties and dangerous dungeons to explore. But it's not that either, it's something else entirely.

It's difficult, to be sure. Almost too difficult at times, but the punishment, especially for stupid, meaningless deaths like falling off a cliff, is light. You go back to the beginning of the level with all your items intact, and if you can get to your bloodstain, you get back all your souls. And the bloodstain appears where you were 10 seconds before you died, so even if you die to the same enemy again you probably won't lose a single soul. It's not nearly as unforgiving as it's made out to be.

The environments are lush and desolate, all at once. They feel like places that were actually used, lived it, functional. But everything's gone to hell, and now they're full of either insane humans or soul-eating demons. There's very little music, so far I've only noticed it in the Nexus, the game's town/hub, and during the boss battles. It's orchestral and very moody, like the rest of the game, but also epic when appropriate. Reminds me a lot of the Shadow of the Colossus soundtrack, really. The game in general feels similar to SotC in some undefinable way. Maybe it's the way that you're a single human against gigantic demons, and the way you flail about with your weapon feels very realistic.

The big difference, of course, is the online component. It's amazingly encouraging to see the ghosts of other players running around, the messages they leave behind, even the bloodstains signifying their death. It lets your know that you're not alone. There are other people, somewhere, right this very minute, facing the same challenges you are, and you're all in this together. Naturally, it's not all collaborative, and I must confess to leaving more than a few misleading "hints" for other players, including a message to "Take a step forward..." right next to a fatal fall. But, I was tricked by a similar message my first time through the same area, and I wasn't particularly angry. It's all very good natured because, again, the death penalty isn't too vindictive.

The most striking feature of the game, and I think the reason it's so popular and seems to suck people in, is that it's almost never unfair. If you die, it's your fault for doing something stupid, like not being careful enough, or trying to attack that enemy you know you can't beat, or trying to play too offensively. The combat's slow, deliberate pace allows you to really feel in control, there's no flailing about hoping to get a lucky combo here, you have to carefully circle enemies and wait for your chance to strike. If you try to run up and just hack away at the very first enemy in the game (proper, after the tutorial) you will get murdered. They're practically designed to teach you how to play defensively, being slow with one big attack that leads into a combo that'll kill you if you're not careful. If you successfully dodge, you can pull off an immensely satisfying backstab attack, where you literally ram your sword through their chest and then tear it back out with a gush of blood.

The balance is nigh-perfect as well, with ranged attacks coming in as a bit easier in most situations. You can be a tank, a heavily-armored knight that can take a hundred blows to your sheild before counterattacking with an enormous axe or spear. You can be a stealthy thief, rolling around your enemies to backstab them or filling them with arrows from afar. Or you can be a mage, dodging and throwing magic from a safe distance, but getting slaughtered if anyone comes near. Or you can be some combination of the two, there's no direct penalty to mages for wearing heavy armor, and indeed there are no true class distinctions whatsoever. The only difference is the starting stats and equipment.

However, I do have some problems with the game. Well, not exactly problems, but things that I wish it could be. I want this game to be just more than it is. I want it to be Diablo, and it's partway there with it's prefix-based weapon-crafting system and town hub, but it's still not quite there. It annoys me how limited all the shops are, and how most weapons have to be scavenged from some remote location in some dungeon. But then, I always like having extensive shops where I can grind up money and buy some fancy weapon, it's just how I roll in RPGs. Still, it would be nice to have a more extensive town, with a proper blacksmith and item shop and everything.

Also, grouping with other players could be better. I understand what they're going for, with the whole blue phantom thing, but it would be great if you could meet up in the Nexus with some friends from your friends list and tackle some dungeon together, as a group. As it is it's more like one guy is tackling the dungeon with some special assistants who don't really get anything out of it.

It is what it is, and it's sort of silly to want it to be something else, but that's a problem I often have with games. I want them to do more, to really commit to an idea and follow through on it in the best way possible. Some games do that, the ones that stand out in my mind are Metal Gear Solid 3 and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, being games that go so far with their ideas that there's really no room for improvement other than, simply, more content. I like to think of them as games that aren't afraid of being video games. They don't try to gloss over every trope and gameplay convention with some labored plot convention, they don't fight against the player's expectations, they just do their thing and you're along for the ride.

Well, I've rambled enough. Sufficed to say, I like Demon's Souls, and I really, really hope they make a sequel even though I haven't finished it yet!

The Biggest Games of Yesteryear

2009-10-29T09:55:00.000-07:00

So, I finally got to play what were the biggest releases of two years ago on my fancy new laptop.

The biggest were, of course, Bioshock and Portal, and the Orange Box in general. And, frankly, I was a little disappointed in Bioshock, and while I liked Portal, I don't think it was as good as the hype made it out to be.

I'm not sure what, exactly, my problem with Bioshock is, and I've been trying to pin it down lately, so stay with me. I only got about halfway through before I completely lost interest, and eventually uninstalled it when I was running out of hard drive space. There's something about it that feels so... half-finished. It's like half of two games mashed together, one is a Half-Life style thriller, and the other is a methodical RPG. I really wanted it to be an RPG, and it really wants to be an RPG, but it doesn't quite get there. It's not really any big thing that bugs me, but a lot of little things.

First and foremost is the lack of any sort of inventory. This seems like a minor complaint, but I think it really hurts the game a lot. It means that you can't really plan, you can't be prepared for what's around the next bend. I was surprised to find that you can pick up a stupendous amount of items, but the vast majority of them are used immediately to some minor effect, like a slight heal. You can pick up bottle after bottle of liquor, smoke cigarette after cigarette, and you never save a single one? It seems absurd, and it was especially annoying because I seemed perennially almost out of health or "mana" (plasmid energy or whatever it was called).

And there were even shops! And you could buy items that you could use later, like autohacks or medkits. But it just wasn't quite there, it wasn't quite an RPG. It was mostly a shooter, and a somewhat mediocre one at that. The combat was so immensely unsatisfying, the way that damage was represented by cartoonish sparkes and blurry vision clashed heavily, to me, with the game dark and deadly serious story. A lot about the game was cartoonish, really, and it sort of bugged me.

What surprised me most about the game was how good some parts were. I loved the way splicers would babble to themselves, and there was an astounding variety to the babbling. I loved the audio logs, even if some of them were horribly overacted. But this just made the rest of the game that much more frustrating with how mediocre it all seemed.

The lack of enemy variety, I think, is what really killed it for me. The various splicers were interesting, but they all sort of belonged to the same category, and it became tiresome to fight the exact same thing after a while. The Big Daddies and Little Sisters were very interesting, and very well designed, but it was just that. I remember early reports of Bioshock talking about an entire ecosystem existing within Rapture, how you would have to play various forces against each other in order to survive as an outsider, but that's all gone in the finished product. It's just the Big Daddies and the splicers, and they hate each other. How the splicers survive at all is a mystery, what with all the food seemingly lying exactly where it was left when everyone went crazy.

In the end, Bioshock is the kind of game that frustrates me most, and that's a game with tremendous potential that simply isn't realized. I would probably love it if it could decide what kind of game it wanted to be, either an RPG or a straight shooter, but with it standing in the middle, hemming and hawing and throwing bones to both camps, I just can't stand it.

Anyway, Portal. Now, I liked Portal, and it's a fantastic game, but I think Episode 2 is better. Not a lot better, but just more varied and interesting. I guess people were surprised by it, but I'm not sure why. It's fucking incredible, but it's a Valve game, and when Valve makes a game I expect a certain level of polish and this meets it admirably. It was funny, but not so funny that I was constantly laughing out loud any time GLADoS opened her mouth. It's just a clever puzzle game that was made by Valve, and therefore extremely clever and well-designed. Nothing more, nothing less.

Next post: Demon's Souls!

Wise fwom de gwave

2009-10-23T09:47:00.000-07:00

Where was I?

Oh, right Fallout 3. Yeah, since I finally got a decent PC last summer, I've had the opportunity to play it the way God intended. The DLC was mostly disappointing, lacking in the things that made Fallout 3 so great, exploration and funny quests.

Well, except Point Lookout, that was excellent. The "main" quest was a delight, and exploring the swamps and tidelands was remarkably refreshing after trudging through the same old DC wasteland for most of the game. The sidequests are abundant and top-notch, especially the one where you follow the trail of a Chinese spy.

The mods turned out to be less exciting than I had initially hoped. It's partially my fault for not having a TOP OF THE LINE GAMING RIG, but ah well, what're ya gonna do. The best ones are the ones that simply make the game look better, including Fellout and Project Beauty. Fellout adds some graphical effects that actually lower the requirements, and make it run better, while Project Beauty de-uglifies all the NPCs, which is awesome. Now if only some intrepid modder would go through and re-record all the dialogue....

Also played Mass Effect, which was fun, but also a little disappointing. I was hoping for KotOR 2.0, but it was far more limited than that. I love the setting to death, but there just isn't enough to do. Or, rather, the things the game gives you to do are not very interesting, particularly the non-citadel sidequests. It definitely needed more cities, and some areas where you could go to just fight.

Without the Mako. The Mako is terrible, and I want to kill whoever designed that abomination.

I bought but haven't finished Bioshock. I got a good ways in but lost interest. The story is good, no doubt, but the gameplay is just sloppy. The combat just doesn't feel right, everything seems to be made of papier mache or something. Nothing should make a weak "fwack" sound when you smash it with a wrench.

And, of course, I bought the Orange Box, after all this time. Episode 2 was definitely my favorite, even though everyone latched onto Portal when it came out. I had thankfully avoided hearing any version of Still Alive before finishing the game, which wasn't easy, and I'm really glad I did. It's best in it's original context, and the quotes people pull from it are not at all what I liked most.

Episode 2 was an FPS made by Valve, which is to say that it was incredibly fun and well-designed. It seems like most FPS' these days are trying either to be puzzle games like Portal, or straight military games like Call of Duty, but Ep2 fits perfectly in that place in between. Quite simply, they don't make games like this anymore.

Of all the PC games I've bought, TF2 is the only one I still play regularly, but that is a subject for another time. Probably tomorrow.

I just want to set a flame in your heart

2009-05-21T23:30:00.000-07:00

So apparently the Fallout 3 DLC is coming to PS3. Not only that, but Bethesda is releasing a Game of the Year package for both 360 and PS3 next fall.

And there are two more DLC packs coming, one of which involves aliens.

This is incredible news! Not only is there more DLC coming (always good) but now I'll actually be able to play it!

In celebration, I've been playing my copy of Fallout 3 one last time. I'm planning on selling it soon, so I can just get the GotY edition with all the DLC packs, it'll be much cheaper in the long run. In the end, I really liked Fallout 3, but it was missing a certain... something, that I think the DLC can really help with.

When I was playing Fallout 3 for the first time (and the second time, really) I was amazed by it's depth. But now that I've played it a truly ridiculous amount, I feel kind of disappointed by it. It's hard to go back, because I know where everything is, I know what's behind the crest of every hill, and what can be found in every secret cache. The game has some great set-pieces, but it doesn't utilize them enough. It really is a bit too much of an empty wasteland, even if it's great fun to explore. The new DLC promises not only new areas, but new quests closely tied to those areas, since they're all seperated from the rest of the world.

If there was one big problem with Fallout 3's quests, it was that they often felt inconsequential. You never really felt like you were effecting the course of people's lives, except when you ended them brutally. The only quest with any realy impact is one of the earliest ones, the Megaton bomb quest. The ability to decide the fate of an entire town is a rare thing in an RPG, and I commend Bethesda for committing to it: if you destroy Megaton, it is gone. Just a big pile of rubble, all the people are dead (except for one).

But none of the other quests are like that. Usually you're helping one person with a problem, and after you finish they're either dead or happier, but neither really has any affect on the larger world. From what I've heard about the DLC, they are very different in this regard. You basically roll into town and try to solve some big problem for people, which is how quests worked in the orginal Fallout games.

I can't wait for the DLC, but, alas, I must. I'll finish this last character, then sell my favorite game and patiently await the superior revision this fall.

*sigh*

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Review: Part 1: I love the java jive and it loves me

2009-05-17T04:49:00.001-07:00

Ah, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. A classic of the shonen genre, though it hardly resembles modern shonen at all. I first became interested in the series as most have, through the classic WRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY flash animation, and I remember seeing the video game for the PS1 at a game store long ago, and wondering why it had such a strange name.

Many, many years later, after discovering the scanlation community, I was able to read it in it's entirety. Naturally, it took several months, as Jojo is the second-longest running shonen series there is, behind only some bizarre cop comedy. Matter of fact, it's still going! As a monthly manga, sure, but the chapters are longer than they used to be, and the art is just as good as it ever was.

And, as it turns out, it completely deserves it's repuatation, both for greatness and for... bizarreness. It is truly strange, and wonderful. Well, let's get started, I'm going to do this in many parts because I think it deserves nothing less. I... won't really be reviewing it in a traditional sense, as I'm ready to say that it's wonderful and everyone should read it right here and right now, but I want to write about it, so here we go!

Name: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
Author/Arist: Hirohiko Araki
Serialized in: Shonen Jump

So, let's start at the beginning.

Jojo is broken up into 7 distinct parts, so far. These are not merely arcs, each is a complete story in it's own right. This is one way in which the series gets around it's extreme running length, it never seems like it's killing time or spinning it's wheels because each arc has a predefined beginning middle and end.

The first part begins in the 1800s. Each arc takes place in a different era, but it isn't particularly relevant. Our story begins with Jonathan Joestar, the first of many JoJos, having what amounts to a perfect life in the English countryside. Naturally, this can't last, and soon tragedy visits him in the form of one Dio Brando, an evil boy his same age who torments him and his girlfriend relentlessly. He kills his dog!

Anyway, to make a long story short, Dio is a dick and evil, Jojo is pure-hearted and good, standard shonen fare so far except for the really weird art. So. Dio finds a mask that turns him into a vampire by stabbing the back of his head. He's almost killed by the person he scientifically tests it on first, which is an odd affectation that makes him a very effective villain later on. He does a bunch of evil vampire stuff, and Jojo has to learn the ancient sun-based art of Hado to defeat him, from a mysterious wanderer with a fabulous hat.

Things play much as you would expect, Dio and his allies (including another martial artist named Speedwagon) fight a bunch of increasingly deadly vampires and then Dio. In order to finallykill Dio, Jonathan must sacrifice himself, and is trapped in a coffin at the bottom of the sea with Dio's severed head.

The second part is where things start to get more interesting. It turns out that the vampire mask is from an ancient South American civilizations that was ruled by what can only be described as Super Vampires. That is, as vampires feed on humans, these are like vampires that feed on vampires. They're vampire vampires. They were extremely powerful, and their only weakness was the sun. They were trying to get their hands on the Red Stone of Aja/Asia (translations vary, I'm going with Asia as it makes more sense) which would, when combined with the vampire-making mask from part 1, make them immune to the sun and AS UNTO GODS. But, a secret order of martial artists using Hado were able to defeat them and seal them in living tombs all over the world. These super vampires are the major antagonists of part 2.

The people who first unearth a Super Vampire are, of course, THE NAZIS.

They uncover the super vampire Santanna in a South American pyramid. This is a good point to talk about the names in JoJo, they are all, without exception, references to band names or singers. Or fashion designers. It adds to the whole surreality of the situations, especially when we get to the othe super vampires, which have even weirder names than Santanna, which makes a sort of crazy sense since he's South American?

Not really.

Anyway.

The Nazis have discovered Santanna and are carefully studying him. Joeseph Joestar, Jonathan's son now living in America with his elderly mother, gets a hot tip from one of his father's allies about what they're up to, and heads down there, running into a bizarre Nazi henchman along the way. He gets captured, and ends up watching when the Nazis are studying Santanna. They thing they have the upper hand, what with all their technology, and having him completely walled in, but he flattens his body and slips through the air vent in the blink of an eye and kills them all. Well, all except one colonel and Jojo, of course.

A desperate fight ensues, and Jojo and the surviving Nazi learn about the super vampire's weakness to sunlight, and defeat him. They also learn that sunlight does not truly kill vampires, only puts them into a sort of stasis, and only hado, putting the power of the sun directly into their bodies, can truly kill them.

So, Jojo has to go to Italy to train in the art of hado to defeat the super vampires!

Join me next time when I discuss more ridiculously-named vampires, oily naked men, and more bizarre things!

We're not unreasonable, no one's gonna eat your eyes

2009-05-13T06:05:00.000-07:00

There's been a lot of buzz lately on the various blogs about a little game called Plants vs. Zombies. After finding out that it was a tower defense game, I couldn't help but check it out. I've loved TD games ever since the genre first got started with custom maps for Starcraft, and then continued my love with the hundreds of more complex variations for Warcraft III. As the games became more casual and flash-based, I kind of stopped playing. The new games often had bad graphics and confusing interfaces. I liked the consistency and wide variety of WC3 TD maps, you always knew the basic idea.

There have been some recent TD games I've gotten into, particularly Savage Moon for the PS3. It's very fun and fast-paced, but also extremely difficult. It's more like a puzzle game in that towers must be placed in a particular order to have a chance at winning the later levels. I was never able to finish it, but I enjoyed it greatly.

Anyway, Plants vs. Zombies is, as you almost certainly already know, is a new game from PopCap, the creators of Peggle.

You are trying to keep zombies from invading your house and eating your brains by planting plants in your yard to kill them. The basic set-up is incredibly simple, you have 5 lanes, zombies walk down, you plant plants to shoot them. You gather sunlight that either falls down or is generated by sunflowers or sun... mushrooms. As you finish missions, which only take about 10 minutes at most, you gain more kinds of seeds and more features of the game are unlocked.

The real brilliance of the game, what sets it apart, is twofold. First, is the art style. It's simply wonderful, the plants look cheerful and sway to the music, each on having an expressive face, or at least eyes, even if it's only purpose is to sit there and be eaten. The zombies have their own personality, but what really shines is, oddly enough, the writing. You have an almanac that tells you about the various plants and zombies, which is full of frankly hilarious writing.

The other reason it's more than a typical TD game is the constant progression in complexity. The game starts out very simple, only a single lane and a single row of zombies attacking, then keeps ramping up slowly through the entire course of the 8-hour game. It's very strange to keep running into new and novel mechanics 5 or 6 hours into a game, but that's just how it works! And the minigames, you have occasional stages that work like a card game, where cards representing plants come down a conveyor belt and you have to place them on the field, instead of buying them like you usually do. It's a very different type of gameplay than the regular stages, much more frantic and timing-based, and a wonderful change of pace. There are also more ordinary minigames like zombie bowling and whack-a-zombie and BeGhouled, each superbly designed.

I've heard that it took 3 years to make this game, and it really shows. There is simply an incredible amount of polish on every level, it is a real joy to play. I have yet to finish this game, but I have heard that there is also an extensive post-game, which doesn't surprise me. I look forward to spending many more hours slaughtering the undead with my hilarious garden.

I'll add some screenshots later!

Billy Bat Review: If I Didn't Care

2009-05-11T04:27:00.000-07:00

So, onto review #2.

Name: Billy Bat
Author: Naoki Urasawa
Artist: Naoki Urasawaa
Serialized in: Weekly Morning

Again, I first became interested in this manga because of it's name. What could a manga called Billy Bat, of all things, possibly be about? At worst it would be one of those bizarre humorless 4-komas that people translate for some unfathomable reason. As it turns out, it's the exact opposite, and is the new manga from Naoki Urasawa!

If you don't know who that is, what are you doing reading this review go read and/or buy Monster and Pluto right this minute! He is a master of his craft, and his craft is bizarre and intriguing mystery stories.

Having the good fortune to stumble upon one of his manga was a real surprise, especially since the final Pluto chapter was translated just recently. Billy Bat is shaping up to be his most bizarre story yet, and it's also meta as fuck. Whereas Monster and Pluto dealt with an obvious central mystery, or villain, Billy Bat is mysterious by it's very nature so far. The story begins with Billy Bat himself, in a western-style comic drawn by the protagonist. The first few chapters are actually just the in-universe comic detailing his adventures, which then zooms out to reveal that the artist is interrupted by some government agents spying on someone in the next building. One of them mentions that he's seen the titular bat before somewhere, and it turns out to be Japan.

So, our hero Kevin Yamagata goes to Japan to figure out if he's been unknowingly plagiarising someone. This being 1949, Japan is still occupied by the US army, and he meets up with an old friend working for the OSS to show him around.

I don't want to spoil any more, but things start to get very strange soon thereafter. He sees something that looks exactly like Billy Bat drawn on a pillar, and worshipped as a spirit by the locals. He then sees it in an ancient Japanese manuscript. Billy starts to communicate with Kevin inside his mind, seemingly predicting the future.

The manga is still in the very early stages, only 9 chapters long so far, but it presents all the signs of another Urasawa masterpiece. It has the same inimitable expressions as always, cartoonish but not in a much more realistic, believable way, this time with a 50's-style affects. It may be a little hard to get into, with a much stranger premise than Pluto or Monster, but it is very much worth it. I will rate it a MUST READ. WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

Defense Devil Review: All of my demons have withered away

2009-05-05T19:04:00.001-07:00

I am often attracted to manga by their names. If it's something odd, I'll likely give it a read, at least for the first few chapters. Unfortunately, a lot of the time translators simply don't translate the name, it's hard to get a feel for what something is about when all I get is that it's Japanese and, well, I knew that already.

And then, when the name is actually in English in the original publication it usually tells me even less, something called Orange or Eyes x3 could be about absolutely anything. So, when presented with something as blunt as Defense Devil I can't resist looking into it.

Name: Defense Devil
Written by: Youn In-Wan
Drawn by: Yang Kyoung-Il
Serialized in: Shonen Sunday

As it turns out, the name actually does make a great deal of sense. It's about a demonic defense attorney, a sort of reverse Devil's Advocate if you will, who tries to prove that damned souls have a right to go to heaven. Actually, I guess that in a way the protagonist is playing devil's advocate with the devils, or in this case the ever-present shinigami "death gods".

The Japanese notion of a "death god" has always struck me as odd. Instead of the western idea that the personification of death can attend to everyone because it's supernatural and that's just the way things are, Japan imagines that there must be a great bureaucracy associated with something as universal as death, with hundreds of individual gods dealing with dead people. I guess it comes from the traditional shinto religion and the notion that gods and spirits are not all-powerful figures and that they have rules they have to follow too, they're just different rules.

Anyway, other than the shinigamis it's actually a fairly typical depiction of Christianity in Japanese media. The titular defense devil, Kukabara (or Cucabara or Kucabara or Cukabala or whatever) lives just outside of hell in limbo, or as they call it "event horizon", where he intercepts dead souls in order to form a contract to save them from hell if they give him the residual dark energy around them. He's trying to get enough dark energy to become a full-fledged demon again, you see, and this is the best way he's found to do that.

It's that classic trope of having a character who is in reality extremely powerful, but can only bring it out when the conditions are just right, so they still have to struggle on occasion. This is a convenient way to resolve any given story after the mystery of why the person is innocent is solved. I almost would have preferred some sort of demonic court to make a ruling, for him to be acting as an actual lawyer, but this allows for the shinigami to actively fight him while he tries to gather evidence, which is interesting I suppose.

Ah yes, but I'm getting ahead of myself. He forms a contract with someone to prove that they are innocent and not worthy of hell's punishment, and to do so he is transported to the human world with the lost soul. The shinigami chases after him, and tries to recapture the human to take them to hell.

The art so far is very good, very detailed but not so much that it's hard to tell what's going on. Expressive faces, clear action, well-placed speech bubbles, all that. The main character has a somewhat bland gothic design except for the wonderful addition of a monocle. There are not enough manga characters with monocles in my opinion. Kukabara also has a demonic assistant Bichura who is always yelling at him about how stupid this scheme is. It was a little grating at firt, but I've come to like him more, which is impressive since there are only 4 chapters out right now.

The writing is pretty good, in my opinion. It can be hard to tell with manga, the art really has to carry it, but there is a lot of natural emotional heft with saving people from hell so that probably helps.

Anyway, I've blathered on long enough. I'll give this manga a rating of Definitely Read. If you enjoy supernatural mystery manga like Death Note or Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro you'll definitely enjoy this tale of lost souls and devil's devil's advocates.

But Now, God Knows, Anything Goes

2009-05-04T08:52:00.000-07:00

So, my Deegan thing turned out to be a failure as it made too much sense and I just felt bad about mocking it. And then I just sort of stopped posting out of shame and disinterest.

But now! I have a hankering to write things on the internet again. So here we go.

I have been depressed lately. I just don't feel like I have any reason to get up in the morning anymore. Between that and my horrible cold last week, I have gotten very behind in my classes, which only exacerbates the problem. I need something to keep my spirits up, so I thought I would take to the airwaves (and by airwaves I of course mean digital signals traveling through an ethernet cable) and write about things that I really like. It seems that passion is severely lacking in general discourse these days, both in real like and on the internet. If you love something, if you think a piece of media is really great, you must be an irrational fanboy and your opinion is invalid.

But then, that may just be me, and the media I've been consuming lately. A lot of bitter forumers and online comedians, writing about terrible comics and movies. Makes the world seem like a terrible place sometimes, despite the enjoyment I gain from reading them.

Anyway, so my idea is that I'm going to review manga and anime I read and watch. I have a habit of picking and reading random manga from the OneManga RSS feed because it update all the time and I'm usually online and bored. And besides, who can resist such scintillating titles as "Alive!" or "Princess Ressurrection" or "Riki-oh!" or "History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi".

So yeah. I'll probably write up the first one tomorrow. Or tonight, if I finish my homework.

Deeganalysis 3: Crystal Dragon...Satan?

2009-03-07T19:53:00.000-08:00

...

Let's Read part 2: Necromanceargh? What's a necromanceargh?

2009-03-05T09:19:00.000-08:00

Let's Read: Dominic Deegan

2009-03-04T02:15:00.000-08:00

The Man Who Jumps

2009-03-02T06:02:00.000-08:00

Oh, right, a Thing happened while I was not blogging, that I should blog about. I guess, if by some miracle there's anyone reading this who is not from Platformers (or anyone at all, for that matter).

Jumpman is a game made by, well, I don't really want to use the word "friend" loosely online, but a friendly acquaintance of mine from Platformers, mcc. He's been working on it for almost exactly a year, and has been having us prototype it for him. The final version turned out really well.

I really like this game, very old school, very frustrating, but also very fair. There are also some great level packs, it includes a great level editor.

Anyway, go check it out.

KILLZONE!

2009-03-02T00:29:00.001-08:00

Man, I hate it when this happens.

For the past week, I've been sort of languishing in a depressive state, probably as a result of thinking too much about my current position in school (which isn't as bad as I thought it was, I've since found out). I basically slept though almost all my classes, waking up at noon every day, and then doing... nothing after I got up. It's happened before, and I hate it when I do it, but it's so hard to snap out of. I start thinking that nothing I do will do any good and I just get more and more depressed. Somehow, a combination of finally getting Killzone 2, and a long walk at night in the rain got me out of the dumps.

Unfortunately, not in time to finish my latest programming project, but due dates are basically suggestions in that class, so I don't really have to worry about it too much. It's a fun assignment, about placing a certain number of queens on a chessboard so they don't threaten each other. I'm enjoying it a lot more than the other assignments in this class because he gave us nothing to go on, we have to make the whole program from scratch. I find it a lot easier to make the whole thing myself than to start from someone else's work and try to get into their head.

Anyway, KILLZONE 2! Woo!

The singleplayer campaign was... reasonably fun, but it's really all about the multiplayer. The campaign has the problem of being an extremely generic FPS with a couple frustrating bosses. The mutliplayer is basically the Wolf: ET sequen that I've been waiting for for years. Experience is persistant, so all those achievements actually mean something, and the fact that you have to unlock classes mean that you never have incompetent people in critical roles (a bad medic is the doom of any team).

It just feels like ET all over. The way you have to group up with people to have a chance at success, the frantic nature of chokepoints, the grenades flying everywhere, the smoke grenades. And there are a couple new additions that make everything better, like the way you can join a squad and then use your squad leader as a spawn point. Unfortunately, it seems that I'll only be able to play it late at night or on weekends, since the traffic on my shared internet is insane otherwise.

I've mostly been playing with the Penny Arcade forums clan, Wanghast [WGST]. I need to get a headset, but it's somehow a lot more fun playing with them. Maybe it's just knowing that they're not random internet assholes and are not high or drunk (xwonderboyx notwithstanding). I've reached the rank of Master Sergeant, almost to Sergeant Major, but I want to get up to Lieutenant Colonel so I can have access to the assault badge and light machineguns. I think my "run in guns blazing" strategy would work a lot better with access to those.

I'll try to update every day again now that I'm out of my funk.

Tomorrow... tomorrow... tomorrow... tomorrow today

2009-02-14T22:07:00.000-08:00

I went on a walk in the Sehome Arboretum today, just after breakfast.

It was very nice. It's been so long since I've been to a place like that, a real forest. Makes me nostalgic for Pathfinder and all the field trips we used to go on, just around the neighborhood. I spent a significant portion of my childhood in forests of various kinds, studying nature or just playing. I need to get back to that sort of mindset, constantly being in front of my computer screen is starting to take it's tole.

The abundant forests and natural beauty in general are one of the reasons I love living in the Pacific Northwest. I can walk 10 minutes from my dorm and be in the middle of the forest, with nothing human-made within sight just a trail and a bunch of trees and plants, and I need to take advantage of that more often. It's a great way to relax and get some exercise in, which I still badly need more of.

Of course, I ended up spending most of that time fantasizing about a ridiculous idea for a manga series, of all things. I've fallen in love with the Warhammer 40k universe again, and I can't help but mix it freely with the shonen series' that I love so much. There's so much potential in 40k, it seems a shame that GW is so stingy with the license. At least Dawn of War and Warhammer Online have been big successes, that's letting more people know about it.

I have a pet theory that I've been developing that Soul Eater takes place in the 40k universe. Think about it: there's a sinister force that affects people with special powers that manifests itself as insanity. Sounds pretty familiar to me.

Our work is never over

2009-02-13T00:28:00.001-08:00

Well, I've given it a good shot.

I still find the programming in this class, and this assignment in particular, infuriatingly complex. I understand the conceptual side of things completely, that's not the problem. The problem is that there's all this bookkeeping shit that has to be taken care of before you can get to the real meat of the problem. Now, in a normal programming environment, figuring this stuff out would be part of the puzzle, and thus fun. But in this case we're supposed to figure out what the teacher intends for us to do exactly or else it won't work, because he's already written half the goddamn program.

It's just... frustrating, that we're not being asked to figure these things out on our own. I thought that having most of the program done would make it easier, but instead it means that I have to spend more than half my time working on the program trying to figure out how to interpret what the teacher has written, and how I'm supposed to use it.

Ah well, I know what I need to do now. I've cracked the code, so to speak, and it mostly involves directly copying another program he did during class, and changing it slightly. How thrilling.

I'm Shinin'... shinin'

2009-02-12T09:39:00.000-08:00

Huh, so apparently there's a Lumines Supernova Classic Pack coming out today. Veeeery tempting, I love the original Lumines to death, and while Supernova had some nice new skins, you really can't beat the ones from the original. There were quite a few too, and if this include ALL of them, it's gonna be hard to turn down at just $3.

Too many of Supernova's skins felt thrown together without any respect to aesthetic sensibilities. Some of them are really grating, and I try to get past them as fast as possible, but a few are even better than the ones in the original. It's a very uneven experience, but that makes the adition of the skin remixer all the more crucial. Now if only it would tell me the name of the skins as they came up, I could figure out which ones are the good ones... ah well, I'll just have to put a little time in a figure it out.

Speaking of colorful games, I saw this one linked on Gamers With Jobs the other day: I Fell in Love with the Majesty of Colors. It's a flash game where you play as some sort of undersea eldritch abomination. You use your tentacle to interact with things in the environment, and it's a neat little game, but it feels a bit like a wasted concept. It could be so much more than what it is, but these little indie developers are so rarely interested in seeing how far they can take concepts. They just want to put something out there for people to think about, not necessarily something for people to play or enjoy. It's frustrating sometimes.

My Heart is Made of Metal

2009-02-11T19:56:00.000-08:00

Argh!

I'm just going to have to go to the lab tomorrow and get help with programming. The book and all the reference books I've found online are spectacularly unhelpful and obtuse. I just need a well-organized set of information about the tools that are available to me! Not a block of code and an accompanying cryptic explanation of what's going on in this particular program. I need general information goddamnit!

Bah.

Anyway.

Retro Game Challenge came out today, and I really wish I could buy it. But, alas, I cannot afford to. I guess I could use the money I'm saving for Killzone 2, but in all honesty I think I'm going to get more raw game time out of Killzone than I would out of RGC. I'll definitely pick it up someday though, when I have a job and have money to buy more than 1 game per month. Hell, maybe next month, I don't think there's anything coming out.

I went on a in the arboretum today, when I was feeling depressed about my lack of programming knowledge and my poor performance on monday's programming midterm. It's amazing how much it helped, it helped me slow down and consider the situation I am in. It's still possible for me to recover from my monumental stupidity earlier this quarter, if I redouble my efforts and actually catch up. The obstacles ahead are difficult, but they are not insurmountable. I just have to stop fucking around and actually get down to business, which I've been having a lot of trouble doing lately.

Get Your Payments from the Nation

2009-02-10T13:39:00.000-08:00

I wonder why I'm having so much trouble getting back into programming.

I used to really enjoy it, back when I first started. It was a joy to simply manipulate text and read from files and whatnot, but now I'm having trouble building up the will to get back into it. From what my teacher said, this is understandable. He said this is the hump that everyone has to get over before it really becomes enjoyable. I just have trouble remembering all the shit I'm supposed to know, and there's no easy primer for ada. Like, if I forget exactly how to declare a string, there's nothing I can look at that will tell me just that.

I don't know, it seems like the sort of thing I should really like. I love logic puzzles, I love math, and I love computers, I should have no problem getting into programming, but something about the way the information is presented in the book is just so tiresome. I want an index of ada commands that just speaks plain English, and gives the information I need. Looking around, all the information I can find is written for people who already have a deep understanding of programming languages. It's info for people who aren't using ada, but are interested in it on a conceptual level, which is definitely not me.

*sigh* I guess I just need to make my own little reference book or file or whatever. Something to just remind me of the form, how to do all these things, where they aren't hidden in huge blocks of code. But I gotta keep with it! I mustn't falter now, when I'm so close!

A cabled superhero flees a beautiful red-headed woman in a laboratory.

2009-02-07T10:50:00.000-08:00

The hum of electrical motors is the first thing I hear.

My head is spinning, my vision is blurred, I have a vague feeling of huge machines all around me.

Where am I?

I was tracking down a series of kidnappings in the slums, a bunch of kids had been disappearing just after school, very strange. There had been a lead, a suspicious white van had been spotted near PS 145. I tracked it to a warehouse and... then what?

Then....

I must have been attacked. Where did they take me? And why? If they were targeting children, I certainly wouldn't be of any use. I don't seem to be bound, my arms and legs are free... if they know who I am, why wouldn't they try to control me? I need to take advantage of this. I can see now that I'm in a small enclosure in a much larger chamber. A short glass wall separates it from the rest of the complex, huge machines outside connect through a mass of cables to odd machines around me. Looks like some sort of operating room, but I don't see any open wounds, looks like they haven't started on me yet.

Someone's coming. I'll knock them out and then escape. Should I be lethal? No, it's probably just a scientist, with all this equipment....

Down he goes, a quick punch to the gut, didn't make much noise. He's wearing a lab coat, but there's something... off about him. He doesn't look quite human, hard to tell, I'm still having trouble seeing.

I can see down a hallway flanked with those strange, gigantic machines. I can see now that they reach the ceiling of the warehouse, covered with odd dials and meters. What is going on here? I think I see an exit, I have to move quickly, before security arrives.

So far so good, I don't see anyone el- wait, who's that? A woman this time, in a lab coat. That beautiful face, perfect figure, flowing red curls framing her face... something in the back of my mind tells me I've seen her before.

Oh god

OH GOD

I NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE NOW

SHE'S COMING FOR ME

WHERE WAS THAT DOOR

Something snaps me back and makes me fall to the ground. There's some sort of cable attached to my back... oh god, I need to cut this now... it's too strong, like steel, I could never tear steal... She's noticed me...

The cable is attached to one of these... machines... must run... hide... somewhere...any...where....

Daft Punk is playing in my house

2009-02-06T12:08:00.000-08:00

So, Sony dropped the Killzone 2 demo this week, and in their infinite wisdom decided not to allow people in the US to play it without a pre-order from Gamestop. However, they did allow people in Europe to play it without one, and as I still have a European doppleganger account from when I was in the LBP beta (got a code from a friend in Europe) it was a simple matter of logging into a different account to start the download.

It's incredibly easy to make a European account, you simply set the region to Europe for a new user and put in some bullshit address. It doesn't have to be a real address or anything, mine was 123 Fake Street in London, without even an area code or whatever they use over there. You can't actually buy anything at the store, but it's perfect for demos and betas and whatnot.

SO, the demo. I quite enjoyed it, and I HATE FPS on a console as a general rule. It just... feels right. The animations are wonderful, the shooting is satisfying, the enemy AI is interested in staying alive and not just running into the front of your gun.

Now, I've heard from people who have played the whole game that it's very generic, at least in the beginning, but for me, that isn't really an issue. Let me explain, I have not played any FPS on any platform since I played Battlefield Heroes and TF2 at PAX last year. I generally don't play them, even though I love them, because my laptop has a crappy integrated graphics card, and I hate dual-analog controls with a fiery passion. So, to me, "generic" means nothing. I haven't played COD4, I haven't played Halo 3, I haven't played Gears of War, so to me it feels very fresh and new and interesting.

This, I think, is a fundamental problem with reviews, and with games journalism in general. Reviewers come at games from the viewpoint of having played everything in the genre of the game in question. There's no review for a person who buys maybe 3 or 4 games a year, and maybe 1 in the genre. They try to asses games in a more general sense, but it never really works, there's always an undercurrent that values innovation above all else because the reviewers have seen everything before. Sometimes a game can be merely a very good example of a genre, and not do anything wild and innovative, and still be fun.

Just look at Dead Space: very formulaic, little innovation, extremely well-made. There's nothing shoddy about it, nothing that "almost works", nothing that needs more work, it's an almost perfectly executed entry in the genre of survival horror. I look at Killzone 2 the same way: it's very, very polished, but nothign really new, and I think it's going to be a lot of fun.

I do like the very deliberate way you have to do everything. It's not a twitch shooter like I'm used to on the PC, there's no jumping around to avoid bullets, you get behind cover. I think that may be why I hated the original Halo and other early console FPS', they were built like PC FPS', just slowed down so you could play with the analog sticks. This feels like it was built for the console from the ground up. Now, again, this may be no revelation to people who have been playing these games for years, but I haven't, so it seems great to me.

Etymolojaka, God of Words

2009-02-05T08:54:00.000-08:00

It's always nice to find a new podcast.

Ryan Scott has a new podcast, since he lost Lan Party with the fall of 1UP, and it's wonderful. It's called Geekbox Radio, it's just Ryan and a bunch of his friends talking about games, comics, and TV shows. Ryan actually talks! A lot! And he's not being constantly browbeaten by his fellow podcasters about his taste in games and comic books. I always liked him, and it's nice to finally have a podcast where he can actually be heard.

Anyway, what I actually want to talk about is a little game called ZenoClash. It's a indy game for the PC that's... it's... well, just have a look.

Crazy, right? There's a gameplay video on the site, and it actually looks really good. Like, the gameplay. Too often, artsy games like this suffer from terrible gameplay, or a simple lack of gameplay, breaking it down to selecting items from a menu.

And the artstyle is wonderful. It's not some sketchy ultra-stylistic thing, where you kind of have a feeling that the developers are just taking a shortcut because they don't want to make regular textures and models. But this. this is surreal in the school of Salvador Dali. I love it.

I'm not sure if my crappy laptop can handle it, but this seems like the sort of thing that could easily end up on a console someday, especially with the more melee-based combat. And the PSN certainly has a lot of unusual, artistic games....

ARGH

2009-02-05T06:10:00.000-08:00

My AC adapter for my laptop has stopped working. Again.

I had a problem with this around this time last year, I went through a couple replacement adapters before finding out designed to actually be used and not kept in a single location. Of course, this came just last night, when I was getting ready to finally get started on the programming assignment I've been putting off for about a week, leaving me unable to actually do so. I've ordered a replacement, but I'm having trouble telling whether my order actually went through. I'm recieving no e-mail confirmation, and my card hasn't been charged yet. It is most vexing, I would hate to go several days waiting for it to come without having actually ordered it, but at the same time I don't want to accidentally order more than I need.

Ah well, I''ll do that assignment today at the CS lab, it shouldn't take too long. Well, it probably will, but it's my own fault for not starting it until now. I just have trouble motivating myself without that pressure of a looming deadline. At least this time I have my PS3's browser to use, and that bluetooth keyboard. Even if it is a crappy, slow browser that won't let me so much as copy and paste text, it's on that nice big monitor, and it's better than being tied to the lab for all my computer needs.

Stompin' at the savoy

2009-02-03T22:38:00.000-08:00

I have an unbridled love for the Warhmmer 40,000 and Warhammer Fantasy settings.

At a young age, my brother (6 years older than me) started playing 40K at a local game store. I followed him along, and would read the codices and army books they had out front. I would later buy some, and some models of my own, and play some casual games with my cousin, but I am terrible at painting miniatures, and the game is pretty boring for a 10 year old.

But the books. God, they were jam-packed with short stories and bits of background, describing an absolutely fascinating setting where the good guys were bad guys, and there was no "right side".

Lately there have been some games based on both of those settings, Relics Dawn of War RTS' and Monoliths Warhammer: Age of Reckoning. I played the first DoW when I had a better computer, and I loved it. It got nearly everything right about the setting, and on the gameplay side was a whole new kind of RTS that turned out to be much more fun to play.

I would love nothing more than to be able to play WAR, but my crappy laptop simply cannot handle it, what with it's integrated graphics card. Especially since Chaos god that you can actually follow is my personal favorite, Tzeentch, as opposed to the usual choice for games: Khorne.

Anyway, so computer games are out. I was looking into the "main" games again recently, and so was a person I know online who is quite enamored with the setting after playing DoW2. But he's only interested in painting, and said that if I bought some, he would paint them and then send them to me. Now, this would be perfect, since I hate painting, but alas, I have no job, and miniatures from Games Workshop have only gotten more expensive. $50 for a box of terminators! Outrageous!

Ah well, some day....

I wouldn't trade one stupid decision

2009-02-02T11:46:00.001-08:00

Hm.

Hm, hm ,hm.

I can't decide whether or not I should save up some money to purchase Killzone 2. One the one hand, it is an FPS on a console, and I despise those. But, I have been getting more accustomed to control scheme from playing Fallout 3, and I think I could stomach a game using it if it were just right.

Also, it looks absolutely gorgeous:

Just look at that. Plus the mutliplayer sounds very similar to my favorite multiplayer FPS of all time, Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. Of course, that largely depends on interesting maps and good balance, but the potential is there.

I think I'll start saving and try the demo when it becomes free. I already know that if I save up money, I'll probably end up buying it anyway because I want to buy something with the money I've saved up, and by the time the demo is available to me, it will be out the next day due to Sony's stupid deal with Gamestop. The decision is made! So be it!

The real problem is that I need to get a headset, specifically that nice bluetooth headset that Sony packaged with the new SOCOM game, I hear it is really nice. I think they sell it seperately for $40, but I'm not sure whether or not I can save up enough money t buy it and the game by the time it comes out, unless, by some miracle, I get a job between now and then.

Although, that job fair is coming up, it could happen... well, if I doesn't, I can sell Dead Space or something. I'm not gonna play that again.

Classy

2009-02-02T10:44:00.000-08:00

It's amazing how much I learn when I actually attend class. A coup, I know.

I can't figure out why I have so much trouble motivating myself to actually attend certain classes, particularly the first and last classes of the day. This is how I got so behind, being here is so important. There' no replacement for a good lecture, no matter how good the book is.

The only possible exception would be my programming class last quarter. My god, the teacher was terrible, so boring and monotone, never actually demonstrating anything, no one in the class asking questions because the class was so early in the morning. Looking back, I would have been better of just reading the book, and even then it hardly would have helped with the ridiculous assignments he gave.

Anyway, I am rekindling my love of programming. It's a logic puzzle, and I kick ass at logic puzzles. I really should enjoy it as much as I enjoy math or, well, the logic puzzles from my logic class last year. I just need to get a better handle on the system, do some practice programs to get used to it again, ad I'll be golden.

In the Evenin', mama, when the sun goes down

2009-02-02T04:23:00.000-08:00

I need to get back into games.

Currently, in the evening, I usually just mindlessly putter around the internet, looking for entertainment, while watching Hulu. I started replaying Seiken Densetsu 3 a while back, but I just sort of... stopped. The lack of TV is the root of the problem, I think. I usually game, especially on the computer, with something on in the background. Hulu is a nice replacement, but it isn't as convenient to just set it up to play for hours and hours. I just to make a concerted effort to do that, I suppose.

Seiken Densetsu 3 is an interesting game. It's very different from it's predecessor, Secret of Mana, in many ways. The combat is easier, and less glitchy, which is why I really like it. Combat in SoM seems to be all about managing cooldown time, and the time it takes you to recover from a hit. It's far to easy to get raped by a couple enemies simply because they got too close and are hitting you continuouosly before you can recover. Similarly, it feels cheap that you can beat enemies using the same tactic.

SD3's combat is much faster, you recover almost immediately, and you charge up special moves not by sitting there doing nothing, but by attacking enemies. The class system replacing the ludicrously complicated magic and weapon systems is also a welcome change, leaving you less reliant on your ability to find items and more on how well you perform in combat.

I wonder why there hasn't been a Mana game for the new HD consoles, it seems like a perfect fit. An action RPG with interesting weapons and magic, and a perfect built-in UI. I can picture it perfectly in my mind, all cel-shaded and played from a 3rd-person perspective. Kind of like DMC, but slower, and with teammates.

But, alas, it is a relatively unpopular series, at least compared to the juggernauts of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. Along with the SaGa series, it is relegated to handhelds, and even then only ports of older games, nothing new.

A Nasty Orbiting Body

2009-01-30T23:20:00.000-08:00

Savage Moon is latest favorite game.

It's a tower defense game set on, in a shock twist, not our moon, but several moons of some sort of alien planet. You're defending mining sites from insect-like monsters that are the natural defense mechanisms of the "living asteroids" that you're mining. It's a weak premise, sure, but in the world of tower defense, a premise that is not laughably absurd is a rare exception.

It has a nice somewhat-realistic style, I particularly like the fact that anti-air cannons appear to fire flak, and mortar cannons shoot waaaay up into the air and aim at where they predict the enemy will be. And they're not always right, which is a nice touch.

It is also, as it turns out, very hard. I'm stuck on the second level of the second moon, each stage seems to have a "trick" to it, either some specific path that you need to block, or some upgrade that you absolutely need to get as soon as possible. It doesn't help that certain enemies can attack your towers no matter where they are, repair towers become essential, but they are prohibitively expensive in the early game. I think the key may be in the "command" abilities, where you can choose to focus on money, attack, or defense. I usually go with a mixture of attack and money, but I think I need to go pure money to get enough to buy repair towers to have my towers survive the inital levels.

Anyway, it's an awesome game. Best tower defense game I've played since TD Hell on WarCraft 3.

Dusty Games

2009-01-29T08:32:00.000-08:00

I have discovered a wonderful new graphical roguelike for the PC and, surprisingly, the GBA. Now, naturally, it's homebrew, so I'm playing it on PC, but it's still very nice to have a real interface.

It's called Powder, and it's a lot of fun. A little on the easy side, but that's hardly a bad thing. I've always preferred roguelikes on the simple side, Crawl or Frozen Depths over NetHack, and Powder is delightfully simple.

It also reminded me, through it's name, of another wonderful little diversion: the Powder Game. It's a lot like that sand game that was kicking around the web a while back, but with lighter powder instead. It leads to some interesting setups with wind swirling it around. The various explosive powders lead to some fun reactions.

I colored a picture!

2009-01-29T00:38:00.000-08:00

It's a little "activity" we're doing on Platformers, after Udon posted some Street Fighter 4 lineart and asked people to color it.

Mine turned out much better than I thought it would. Indeed, it was godawful until I remembered I could use the magic of filters to cover up the crappiness. It works amazingly well, it's also good for getting rid of noise on photos.

And it's a thousand miles from hoooome

2009-01-28T21:44:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about MMOs lately, and I had an idea for one.

There's one (1) town. Everyone starts there, and you get randomly generated quests to go out into the wilderness surrounding the town. There's no map other than what you've discovered yourself. The entire world is procedurally generated when you leave the town, with enemies reaching higher and higher levels as you get further from it. This would allow the game to mitigate the grind of most MMOs by allowing players to level about as quickly as in a normal RPG.

Basically, a Dwarf Fortress MMO.

Hahaha, that'd be neat.

I'm stranded on an island alooone

2009-01-27T08:56:00.000-08:00

Ahhhhh

I fee so much better after a good night's sleep. Hopefully that's the end of my insomnia for a while, though the cold remains implacable. Ah well.

It's a shame to hear that the first pack of Fallout 3 DLC is somewhat disappointing. It sounds extremely linear and controlled, which makes sense for a simulation, but is still disappointing. At least the Chinese stealth suit and the gauss rifle sound cool. It sounds like the way to go will be to get them all in a pack, which Bethesda will inevitably release as a GotY edition. I'm more looking forward to the Pitt and the one that changed the ending, doing additional missions with the BoS or the Outcasts sounds really fun.

I really need to do some serious studying today, I've fallen a little behind in anthropology and math. It shouldn't be too hard, the anthropology teacher is terrible and lecturing and we've been going through the book at a snail's pace. Indeed, the book is usually far more informative and interesting than the lecture, the opposite of most classes. I'm not sure whether it's an unusually good book, or a bad teacher, but I can't say I really mind. It's nice that I don't have to worry too much about missing class.

Old Haunts

2009-01-26T13:18:00.000-08:00

In an idle moment, I decided to go check out the forums I used to visit back when I was first getting started on the internet. Magic: The Gatherring forums, to be precise. I used to be quite into MTG, and I used to frequent a few forums back in '02-'04, and it's interesting to go see the state of them now, 4 years later.asd

My first stop was my favorite forum, where I ended up after bouncing around for a while, MiseTings. It used to be a hub of more mature MTG discussion, and was the first real online community I was a part of. Ah, some great memories associated with that site, hilarious card edits, fun mafia games, interesting political discussions.

And now, it appears to be all but dead. Only a handful of posters remain, only a couple of which I recognize. Now, it was always a relatively small forum, that was part of it's appeal, but it is totally dead compared to how it was when I used to visit, when there were thousands of posts each day and many active threads. Now there are only 3 threads which have posts today, and only one of them is even related to Magic. Quite sad.

Next, I decided to check out the old rumor mill: MTGNews. This was the absolute center of the MTG online universe way back when. If you were at all interested in Magic, and had a computer with an internet connection, you were a member. The rumor mill in particular was always a hub of activity, vicious arguments over editorial decisions and rumors abounded. Always fun.

And now, absolutely dead, but at least I understand why for this one. Back when I was just getting out of the hobby, the most popular moderator there, a fellow by the name of rancored_elf, lead a sort of revolution against the owner of the site, who had recently bought it from the original owner. Something about mods not being compensated or mistreated or something, and he basically lead the charge to abandon the site and set up his own. And it worked like a charm, it appears that his site, MTG Salvation, is what MTGNews used to be down to the forum names and colors.

Hilariously, it appears that he was sued for his famous expertise at uncovering Wizards' plans ahead of time. It was dropped if he agreed to never post rumors again, and now he's a humble moderator. Huh.

Looking through the MTGS forums, it appears that this is where all the people I knew at MiseTings ended up, which is hardly surprising. MiseTings always had drama, there was probably some breaking point with the dictatorial mod staff, and everyone left. Or maybe it was hackers, it appears that the site was hacked recently and from the way the news is phrased, not for the first time.

Well that was an interesting trip down memory lane. I daren't look at the state of the actual game of Magic, I tried that a year ago and it was just too depressing.

So...tired....

2009-01-26T09:54:00.001-08:00

This insomnia is really getting out of hand.

I either need to get some sleeping pills from a doctor, or make a concerted effort to fix my sleep schedule. It should be easier now that my cold is finally subsiding, hopefully I can make it through today and get a good night's sleep tonight.

What's certainly not helping is reading terrifying wiki articles or getting trapped in the vice-like grip of tvtropes.

But for now, I must suffer through class half-awake. I'll have to pick up one of those enormous cans of Monster they sell at Miller Market That'll help.

Oh my goodness

2009-01-26T07:56:00.000-08:00

This is the worst thing ever.

Seriously, who the fuck thought this was a good idea? It's utter madness! I'm not sure what's worse, the original ad, or the horrible youtube videos it's inspired.

Some Time after the Apocalypse

2009-01-26T05:44:00.001-08:00

Fallout 3 is a very interesting game.

It has a lot of issues. Most of them are technical things related to the engine, and Bethesda's unique weakness in certain areas (ugh, those animations), but that's not very interesting, and it doesn't really detract from the overall experience.

The things that it gets right, it's gets perfect, such as the visceral feel in combat, even outside of VATS. The world is painstakingly crafted to give a sense that people actually live there. And the setting is unique and interesting.

But, there are also some issues with the plot and the setting, and that's what I'd like the talk about.

Now, in order to make this a sequel proper, Bethesda decided to set it after the original Fallout games. This makes sense, as it explains how the Brotherhood of Steel and the Enclave could show up in the capital wasteland, but it raises some big issues. They set it 200 years after the nuclear apocalypse, and frankly the world simply doesn't show that amount of age. It looks like it's been 50-60 year after, maybe 100, but certainly not 200.

There are still intact posters and graffiti from before the way, civilization is still very primitive and divided, it just doesn't look like the world that's been amazingly well-crafted was actually crafted with that number in mind.

Because of this, I prefer to think that it takes place "some time" after the apocalypse. It's a sort of fridge logic problem, so it probably won't hurt anyone's enjoyment of the game, but it is a problem.

Then again, the Fallout series has never been known for it's slavish realism, what with the laser rifles and power armor. In fact, if there was any way in which Fallout 3 did not follow the spirit of the original games, it was in the lack of ridiculous technology and situations. Sure, there's Liberty Prime, but Fallout 2 had a wizard in a cave that would summon deathclaws to fight you.

With magic.

It looks like Bethesda will use the expansions to explore more interesting situations, as they did with Shivering Isles in Oblivion.

Alack and alas, I will not be able to play it for a long time, since I am limited to the PS3 version.

*sigh*

Crawl!

2009-01-25T03:25:00.000-08:00

Linley's Dungeon Crawl is the game that I am currently most addicted to, along with Fallout 3, which I shall write about at length another time.

Crawl is an amazingly fun game, if it is played correctly. Like all roguelikes, it punishes failure harshly, but not quite as hasrshly as, say, nethack.

The basic gameplay consists of fighting monsters, collecting items, standard fare. I think the reason I like this one more than most traditional roguelikes is not simply the tiles, many roguelikes now have tiles, but rather the simplicity. Yes, you have to worry about food, but the system for managing it is much simpler. The screen gives most of the information you need, there's no need for constant menu diving for mundane actions such a picking things up or eating.

I think it's also that the ways in which the game is complex are ways that are actually relevant to the core gameplay. Following a religion perfectly gives additional powers, not eating makes you die, side dungeons contain a boss which can be killed for a fabulous prize. It's all very straightforward.

Give it a look!

God Bless You, Hulu

2009-01-25T03:18:00.000-08:00

Hulu is quite wonderful.

Because of it, I have been able to get rid of my television, and can watch many shows I would never see othewise, like Alfred Hitchcock Presents, which I am watching now. It reminds me a lot of The Twilight Zone, only without the supernatural aspect. It may just be that it is from roughly the same time period, and they're both, well, good.

Anyway, Hulu. I now usually catch up on a week's shows when the dorm's shared internet is least taxed, on friday afternoon/evening. Since the shows I watch include The Daily Show and Colbert Report, this has the effect of giving me a week's news in a relatively short time frame. It's very relazing, perfect for the end of the week.

But it also makes me feel a little disconnected. The limited ads are actually somewhat troublesome in this regard, I don't really have a feel for what people are trying to sell right now, which may not seem important, but ads are a constant cultural touchstone, and it's shocking when I am suddenly exposed to them again when I return to Seattle.

Ah, but it's a small price to pay to be almost completely free of television's grip.

BLAG

2009-01-25T02:26:00.000-08:00

This shall be a blog that I will use to write idle thoughts and ridiculous nonsense.

And, hopefully, things about my game-related projects, but that won't be for a long, loooong time.

I will update it at least once every day!

That is all.