I'm caught in a temporary dark age right now. Christmas' whirlwind of baking, buying, and consuming are gone, and the mess needs to be cleaned up. But my kitchen goes uncleaned and cookies uneaten, because I'm stuck doing late shifts so I can put some money together before I go back to school. Everyone's going back to school, now; recessions teach people just how bad their current jobs are.
Winston was the most unnecessary Ghostbuster. He inspired me to feel the unutterable pity one feels for the perpetually unloved. According to his Wikipedia article, "Winston Zeddemore was intended to be the smartest and most capable of the Ghostbusters, a former Marine with multiple degrees and a Ph.D., making him more suited for the job than the founding three Ghostbusters." Amazing! I say this from the perspective of a six-year-old mulatto kid with self-esteem issues, but I always thought they'd hired him to carry their stuff. The die of history has been cast, and it did not land in Winston's favor. You can't change that. But read his (wiki) biography, and maybe then you can give him the remembrance he deserves.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Thursday, December 24, 2009
But I Never Saw the Good Side of the City Until I Hitched a Ride on a Riverboat Queen
As a kid, a lot of presents were given to me that I had no use for. There was this retrospectively awesome book of weird paper airplanes, given to me by my friend Andrew (I think he's an astronaut now or something.) Sadly, most of the designs were too complicated for me by half, and I could never get them to fly. I had useless little hands, really not even good for playing videogames - that's why I mostly played RPGs.
God, I always feel guilty for never using a present given to me in good faith. Like I'm letting the person who gave it down. They lie awake at night, it's 3am, and they're squirming in their bed, tortured by the disappointment that I'm not listening to their CD of ambient Native American spiritual rhythms. Sorry, mom!
God, I always feel guilty for never using a present given to me in good faith. Like I'm letting the person who gave it down. They lie awake at night, it's 3am, and they're squirming in their bed, tortured by the disappointment that I'm not listening to their CD of ambient Native American spiritual rhythms. Sorry, mom!
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Legacy Weapon
Heroes of Might and Magic 2 was a big game for me; the demo was on a PC Gamer disc, and it allowed for a lot of playtime without requiring a purchase. If you typed in 8675309, you got black dragons, which eliminated any of the strategy elements from the battles. It warmed my cheaty little heart. Point, click, kill, win. The game was a bit of RPG (collect artifacts, learn spells) and strategy (create units at your base, then use them to fight your enemies in hex-based combat). It was like a PC RPG interpreted through the lens of a board game. Settlers of Wizardry, maybe, or Pool of Carcassone.
In the present tense, Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes is a retool of the Heroes of Might and Magic series for the DS. It's largest deviation from the formula is the combat. Hexagonal turn-based strategy has been replaced by something far more novel: the puzzle gaming. Match three rows of units, send them flying through your enemy's ranks, deplete their HP, win. It's a bit more complicated than that, but I can't exposit on the ins and outs of the gameplay here without boring you and myself. Instead, I'll say that it's really pretty great.
The single player campaign cycles you through the game's five different factions. Knights, demons, wizards, elves and the undead - the starting lineup of the RPG cliché All-Star team. Every faction has different units and magical attacks. Amazingly, each one plays differently and is fun in its own way. (Except the knights. I hate the knights.) Most battles are of a simple "smack them in the HP till it hurts" persuasion, but there are enough variations to keep Random Battle Exhaustion from setting in. In these unique, puzzley fights you must hit two switches simultaneously or smack a demon who throws exploding cocktails at you from behind a bar, etc.
The game requires you buy your larger units on the world map, each at one specific location which sells one specific type of unit. It feels like an unnecessary holdover from Heroes of Might and Magic, a useless bit thrown in to show a continuity of design between the two games. The champion units were never so overpowered that I ran roughshod over my opponents, and trudging from one end of the map to another to restock my army felt pointless. It didn't severely impact my enjoyment of the game, but why not allow the player to buy units anywhere? Or, better yet, take out unit-buying altogether?
The game also isn't as portable-friendly as a DS game should be. There's no option to save during battles, which made me have to repeat a few battles when my DS died in my pocket. Also, the game will often allow you to start fights you can't win without warning. If you encounter an enemy far over your level, you can retreat, but you'll lose a portion of the resources you use to purchase units. However, if you die during the battle, you'll restart from immediately beforehand with no ill effects. It led me to waste a lot of time trying to die as quickly as possible against an overwhelming force.
None of this matters, though, because this is a game that is both boss and the bee's knees. I would say that it's too short, but I probably only think that because I played it for about twenty hours in the span of three days. Play it. Hell, pay money to play it. Coming from a cheapass like me, there is little higher recommendation.
In the present tense, Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes is a retool of the Heroes of Might and Magic series for the DS. It's largest deviation from the formula is the combat. Hexagonal turn-based strategy has been replaced by something far more novel: the puzzle gaming. Match three rows of units, send them flying through your enemy's ranks, deplete their HP, win. It's a bit more complicated than that, but I can't exposit on the ins and outs of the gameplay here without boring you and myself. Instead, I'll say that it's really pretty great.
The single player campaign cycles you through the game's five different factions. Knights, demons, wizards, elves and the undead - the starting lineup of the RPG cliché All-Star team. Every faction has different units and magical attacks. Amazingly, each one plays differently and is fun in its own way. (Except the knights. I hate the knights.) Most battles are of a simple "smack them in the HP till it hurts" persuasion, but there are enough variations to keep Random Battle Exhaustion from setting in. In these unique, puzzley fights you must hit two switches simultaneously or smack a demon who throws exploding cocktails at you from behind a bar, etc.
The game requires you buy your larger units on the world map, each at one specific location which sells one specific type of unit. It feels like an unnecessary holdover from Heroes of Might and Magic, a useless bit thrown in to show a continuity of design between the two games. The champion units were never so overpowered that I ran roughshod over my opponents, and trudging from one end of the map to another to restock my army felt pointless. It didn't severely impact my enjoyment of the game, but why not allow the player to buy units anywhere? Or, better yet, take out unit-buying altogether?
The game also isn't as portable-friendly as a DS game should be. There's no option to save during battles, which made me have to repeat a few battles when my DS died in my pocket. Also, the game will often allow you to start fights you can't win without warning. If you encounter an enemy far over your level, you can retreat, but you'll lose a portion of the resources you use to purchase units. However, if you die during the battle, you'll restart from immediately beforehand with no ill effects. It led me to waste a lot of time trying to die as quickly as possible against an overwhelming force.
None of this matters, though, because this is a game that is both boss and the bee's knees. I would say that it's too short, but I probably only think that because I played it for about twenty hours in the span of three days. Play it. Hell, pay money to play it. Coming from a cheapass like me, there is little higher recommendation.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Non-Compete
I find it half funny/half sad whenever someone puts, say, a three out of four star review on the poster for their movie. Grade scaling notwithstanding, it's like a schoolchild proudly displaying the C+ she got on a test. Yes, very well, you got a passing grade, no one's going to fault you for it, but it falls a bit short of the threshold for public shows of pride.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Cymothoa Exigua
I've been thinking about the structure of videogames. Iriquois Pliskin or someone made a comment that's been smoldering in my mind for a week now: referring to the traditional End Boss as a final exam of sorts. A game will present you with a new mechanic, let you loose to experiment with it, and then, perhaps, give you a boss as pop quiz, separating those in the class who've mastered the material from those who need to stay after class. Then, at the end of the game, the final boss is a recapitulation of all the bosses beforehand, a last test to see if you've truly mastered the concepts that came before.
In school, I liked math. A lot. My memory has a bit of a nostalgia halo, but I derived a pure satisfaction from learning new rules, solving problems, and acing tests. I think that the specific challenges I seek in games are a substitute for that kind of pursuit. That same spot gets scratched when I play Sudoku or do crosswords or what have you, but they lose their flavor after a too long. Sudoku is unsatisfactory to me because it lacks the protean ruleset present in games and algebra. n will always equal n, but in the process of learning new rules are introduced that build on one another. You learn the quadratic equation, and you use it for awhile until you get a new, shinier weapon, but when you're fighting Calculus you find that you need to pull it out again to win.
Braid disappointed me for multiple reasons. Despite all of Jonathan Blow's talk of melding gameplay with story, he chose to segregate the two in a pretty artificial way. There's no sense of progression in the puzzles; what you learn in one world doesn't really apply to the next. But its mortal sin, in my eyes, is not including a final exam. I can understand using anticlimax as a device to shape the experience of a game, but Braid didn't do anything with it. Near the end of each world, there's a very large boss-guy, who is basically Bowser, from Super Mario Brothers 1. It walks around and shoots fireballs in a fixed pattern at every encounter. You must use your time powers, in a fairly rote manner, to drop chandeliers on it. It is to the traditional boss what a sheet of busy-work math problems is to a well thought out test.
Often, games get criticized for being all work and no play. But the play that games offer us is no more than novel work. We want work that will change, or, failing that, work that will challenge us in different ways as we progress. The type of games that earn the most love resemble a waltz, rather than a march: escalation and descent, rather than step by step by step. Even games like Tetris, which only ever presents the player with a single set of problems and a single toolset, adheres to this cycle of tension and catharsis.
When asked what my favorite games are, I run through a mental checklist of my favorite final bosses. The ending is not the point of a game, but it's what I remember best. I'll play horrid games to their completion in hopes they'll pull a Vader and be redeemed by their final act.
I've got no conclusion to this post. The irony is eating me up inside.
In school, I liked math. A lot. My memory has a bit of a nostalgia halo, but I derived a pure satisfaction from learning new rules, solving problems, and acing tests. I think that the specific challenges I seek in games are a substitute for that kind of pursuit. That same spot gets scratched when I play Sudoku or do crosswords or what have you, but they lose their flavor after a too long. Sudoku is unsatisfactory to me because it lacks the protean ruleset present in games and algebra. n will always equal n, but in the process of learning new rules are introduced that build on one another. You learn the quadratic equation, and you use it for awhile until you get a new, shinier weapon, but when you're fighting Calculus you find that you need to pull it out again to win.
Braid disappointed me for multiple reasons. Despite all of Jonathan Blow's talk of melding gameplay with story, he chose to segregate the two in a pretty artificial way. There's no sense of progression in the puzzles; what you learn in one world doesn't really apply to the next. But its mortal sin, in my eyes, is not including a final exam. I can understand using anticlimax as a device to shape the experience of a game, but Braid didn't do anything with it. Near the end of each world, there's a very large boss-guy, who is basically Bowser, from Super Mario Brothers 1. It walks around and shoots fireballs in a fixed pattern at every encounter. You must use your time powers, in a fairly rote manner, to drop chandeliers on it. It is to the traditional boss what a sheet of busy-work math problems is to a well thought out test.
Often, games get criticized for being all work and no play. But the play that games offer us is no more than novel work. We want work that will change, or, failing that, work that will challenge us in different ways as we progress. The type of games that earn the most love resemble a waltz, rather than a march: escalation and descent, rather than step by step by step. Even games like Tetris, which only ever presents the player with a single set of problems and a single toolset, adheres to this cycle of tension and catharsis.
When asked what my favorite games are, I run through a mental checklist of my favorite final bosses. The ending is not the point of a game, but it's what I remember best. I'll play horrid games to their completion in hopes they'll pull a Vader and be redeemed by their final act.
I've got no conclusion to this post. The irony is eating me up inside.
Monday, December 07, 2009
If...
So I've finally figured out why I keep playing games that I hate, long after the point where I know I don't want to play them anymore. I need to understand why I dislike them. If a friend asks me, "Should I play X?" I want to be able to tell them that it's a ten-day open-air crapfest without having to resort to a wishy-washy, "But that's just my opinion." My viewpoint doesn't solidify into law after that magic ten-hour point, but I feel that savaging a product requires a greater burden of proof than deeming it Pretty Good. Dan Hsu's policy at EGM was to play a game until he felt like he could give it a review score in good faith, then keep playing it until he'd doubled that playtime.
But then, this may all just be equivocation. Maybe I enjoy hating games. (Actually, I'm sure I do.) Maybe I play bad games so long so that my dislike can congeal into bleeding odium.
But then, this may all just be equivocation. Maybe I enjoy hating games. (Actually, I'm sure I do.) Maybe I play bad games so long so that my dislike can congeal into bleeding odium.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Bell, Book, and Candle
Today, I had an odd moment of regret. Now that I'm 23, I'm past the age were I can dress like a goth without feeling immature. As a sullen teenager, I was drawn to the complicated, ornamental, fantasy-esque vestments. Not the culture; Clove cigarettes taste like incense, The Cure puts me to sleep, and my disillusionment doesn't dramatize well. But all the black and the layering and the jewelry and the opportunity to wear fingerless arm warmers ... it hits every one of my buttons at once, like a ten year old jerk kid in an elevator. There's something about the ritual, the fetishism of the clothing that appeals to me. I wear a tacky little necklace that I jokingly refer to as my phylactery, but if I went goth I could have an actual phylactery! It's like LARPing every day and getting away with it.
Thing is, when I was an appropriate age to go goth, I was fat. And still, you know, in confused boy mode. Goth is not a look that translates well across the gender divide. You go from looking like this:
For me, a kid with low self-esteem and body issues, sticking with the T-shirt and jeans was an easier choice, though so much less rewarding. If I could go back now ... well, who cares? I don't want to be a teenager again. Steampunk is the socially acceptable goth-analogue for adult nerds, but I don't really dig it. Maybe, if I lose some weight, I'll go gothic lolita. While writing this, I've started browsing Hot Topic's website.
This blog is eight years old. Dear lord!
Thing is, when I was an appropriate age to go goth, I was fat. And still, you know, in confused boy mode. Goth is not a look that translates well across the gender divide. You go from looking like this:
to looking like this:
This blog is eight years old. Dear lord!
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Heaven's My Destination
Dream. Goal. Crystal. Wild rose. Puppet. Persevere. Friends.
After playing Dissidia: Final Fantasy, I never want to hear any of these words again. Story in games is a constant struggle. The quality is pretty consistently bad, even for the action-movie milieu most games judge themselves by. If you were hungry, would you rather have a teaspoon of gruel or a bucketful? A line of misspelled conglaturations or hours of voice actors droning out tech-fantasy Mad Libs? Post-Dissidia, I'm leaning toward the Mad Libs.
Luckily, there's a game underneath all that plot. A 3D fighting game made from disparate ingredients. A bit of Power Stone's chases through large arenas (and mad dashes for super move granting baubles.) A taste of Squaresoft's own Bushido Blade (the same attack can do no damage or be an instant kill, depending on the timing.) Maybe a dash of Smash Brothers (an intramural fight where strikes send foes flying.) I spent most of any given fight in the air, dashing around the arena. It's very Dragon Ball Z. The game's broken up into chapters, any order you want, blah blah blah. Fanservice is the game's chief bullet point, so it's prudent to let the player determine which chapters to skip.
It's all fun enough. But. After I started skipping every cutscene, I realized the game was pretty thin. The fighting isn't complex enough that I'm driven to master it, and I have no one to play with via wi-fi (there is, of course, no online multiplayer.) I ended up deleting the game from my PSP when I was 2/3s of the way through. That's unusual for completionist me, but coming away I feel satisfied.
Whenever I read a game review, the primary question I need answered is: Is it worth my money? Not sure if I have an answer for this one. I think it'll be a good game to pick up every other month, play hard for a few days, and put down. It's a cop-out, but your love of the source material is really going to determine how much slack you give Dissidia. Final Fantasy and I fell out around 1996, but I still enjoyed all the parts where nobody was talking.
My Judgement: Temporarily Smashing
After playing Dissidia: Final Fantasy, I never want to hear any of these words again. Story in games is a constant struggle. The quality is pretty consistently bad, even for the action-movie milieu most games judge themselves by. If you were hungry, would you rather have a teaspoon of gruel or a bucketful? A line of misspelled conglaturations or hours of voice actors droning out tech-fantasy Mad Libs? Post-Dissidia, I'm leaning toward the Mad Libs.
Luckily, there's a game underneath all that plot. A 3D fighting game made from disparate ingredients. A bit of Power Stone's chases through large arenas (and mad dashes for super move granting baubles.) A taste of Squaresoft's own Bushido Blade (the same attack can do no damage or be an instant kill, depending on the timing.) Maybe a dash of Smash Brothers (an intramural fight where strikes send foes flying.) I spent most of any given fight in the air, dashing around the arena. It's very Dragon Ball Z. The game's broken up into chapters, any order you want, blah blah blah. Fanservice is the game's chief bullet point, so it's prudent to let the player determine which chapters to skip.
It's all fun enough. But. After I started skipping every cutscene, I realized the game was pretty thin. The fighting isn't complex enough that I'm driven to master it, and I have no one to play with via wi-fi (there is, of course, no online multiplayer.) I ended up deleting the game from my PSP when I was 2/3s of the way through. That's unusual for completionist me, but coming away I feel satisfied.
Whenever I read a game review, the primary question I need answered is: Is it worth my money? Not sure if I have an answer for this one. I think it'll be a good game to pick up every other month, play hard for a few days, and put down. It's a cop-out, but your love of the source material is really going to determine how much slack you give Dissidia. Final Fantasy and I fell out around 1996, but I still enjoyed all the parts where nobody was talking.
My Judgement: Temporarily Smashing
Thursday, November 05, 2009
An Ape Will Die On Every Page!
I've been playing Torchlight. It's good! But it doesn't really need a review or whatever, because it's Diablo. Really good Diablo. I'm really surprised my computer can run it, actually; the old beast is Frankensteined together from a former techie friend's pile of scraps. Said friend would always give me guff for the flaccidity of my machine, dear Lamiroir, but it suits my needs as someone uninterested in the PC's historic genres. First-persons shooters leave me dry, and real-time strategy games give me a rash. Pre-Torchlight, the last game I played on my PC was Theme Hospital, an apparently forgotten artifact from 1997. That's not a grab for retro-elitist cred - I'm really out of the loop on PC games, so having an old machine reinforces my policy of ignoring most new PC games, and vice-versa.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Perplexing Nightmare of Flesh
A recent Google search just yielded unexpected gold. The string in question: "just because a guy likes to".
"It seems just because a guy likes to listen to songs by Utada Hikaru, Ayumi Hamasaki, and some other songs which are kind of girly SUDDENLY I'm gay? WTF?"
"Remember though just because a guy likes to go south, it doesn't necessarily mean he likes to 'go south'."
"Just because a guy likes to wear kitchen gloves and is obsessed with dolphins doesn't mean he's a friend of Judy, Damon Beres! GOD! Can't we just respect the porpoise's majesty while simultaneously waging war on dishpan hands?"
"Just because a guy likes to collect presidential memorabilia doesn't mean can't appreciate a lap dance"
"Just because some of us enjoy different things does not mean we're less responsible or mature than you."
"Just because a guy likes to wear wife beaters doesn't mean he's a jerk that beats his wife...does it???"
Actually, after looking at that haul, I kind of bummed myself out. Most results were gay jokes ... and I was searching for this specific phrase so I could construct a Twitter post like: "Just because a guy enters a committed, loving romantic relationship with another man doesn't make him a queer."
"It seems just because a guy likes to listen to songs by Utada Hikaru, Ayumi Hamasaki, and some other songs which are kind of girly SUDDENLY I'm gay? WTF?"
"Remember though just because a guy likes to go south, it doesn't necessarily mean he likes to 'go south'."
"Just because a guy likes to wear kitchen gloves and is obsessed with dolphins doesn't mean he's a friend of Judy, Damon Beres! GOD! Can't we just respect the porpoise's majesty while simultaneously waging war on dishpan hands?"
"Just because a guy likes to collect presidential memorabilia doesn't mean can't appreciate a lap dance"
"Just because some of us enjoy different things does not mean we're less responsible or mature than you."
"Just because a guy likes to wear wife beaters doesn't mean he's a jerk that beats his wife...does it???"
Actually, after looking at that haul, I kind of bummed myself out. Most results were gay jokes ... and I was searching for this specific phrase so I could construct a Twitter post like: "Just because a guy enters a committed, loving romantic relationship with another man doesn't make him a queer."
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Rumbling Crescendo
Guh. Winter's here in Chicago. I guess it's technically fall, winter's timid little toady. Whenever the weather gets below fifty degrees my mind goes a little grungy. Perhaps I'm a bit more cold-blooded than I give myself credit for. It gets dark so early. It's hypocritical for me, a night person, to complain about the lack of sunlight, but it gets me rotten. The monotony of twilight and the sterility of cold. They remind me of hours spent waiting for buses or trains, swaddled to near-suffocation and still freezing my ass off.
Sorry, I'll probably be like this for the next four months. Let's bear it together.
Sorry, I'll probably be like this for the next four months. Let's bear it together.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
The Time to Grow and Be It
What the hell. I was just browsing Giant Bomb, and I discovered a listing for Lunar: Harmony of Silver Star for the PSP, another remake of Lunar: The Silver Star.
L:TSS compelled me to buy a Sega CD, idiot child that I was. It had the cheesiest intro song, to which I would sing along:
After that, Game Arts made a Saturn version, which never hit U.S. shores. Which is lucky, because I probably would've bought a Saturn if it had. The next re-release was on the Playstation, and it came to America courtesy of Working Designs. Awesome remake, lots of fun, and it had for-the-time magnificent voice acting. Even though its intro lacked the disco cheesiness of the original, I still downloaded it (in the days of dialup!) and watched it a good fiftysomething times.
Alright, so Lunar got re-remade on the GBA as Lunar Legend. Maybe it was good, maybe bad, but Working Designs was out of the picture, so I didn't play it.
All told, the PSP port of Lunar will be the 4th remake of L:TSS. Enough. Game Arts hasn't produced an original Lunar game since 2005's Lunar: Dragon Song, which by all accounts was slightly horrid. Before that, the freshest Lunar game is 1995's Lunar: Walking School for the Game Gear. Has Game Arts simply conceded that they can't make a Lunar game anymore, and resigned the series to endless remakes devoid of reinvention?
It's pointless to take offense at the actions of corporations who have in no way wronged me. I'm no stockholder. While Lunar isn't the best game I've ever played, it's definitely my favorite. It was my first RPG love, and it feels weird to see it reappear over and over, Dark Force style.
L:TSS compelled me to buy a Sega CD, idiot child that I was. It had the cheesiest intro song, to which I would sing along:
After that, Game Arts made a Saturn version, which never hit U.S. shores. Which is lucky, because I probably would've bought a Saturn if it had. The next re-release was on the Playstation, and it came to America courtesy of Working Designs. Awesome remake, lots of fun, and it had for-the-time magnificent voice acting. Even though its intro lacked the disco cheesiness of the original, I still downloaded it (in the days of dialup!) and watched it a good fiftysomething times.
Alright, so Lunar got re-remade on the GBA as Lunar Legend. Maybe it was good, maybe bad, but Working Designs was out of the picture, so I didn't play it.
All told, the PSP port of Lunar will be the 4th remake of L:TSS. Enough. Game Arts hasn't produced an original Lunar game since 2005's Lunar: Dragon Song, which by all accounts was slightly horrid. Before that, the freshest Lunar game is 1995's Lunar: Walking School for the Game Gear. Has Game Arts simply conceded that they can't make a Lunar game anymore, and resigned the series to endless remakes devoid of reinvention?
It's pointless to take offense at the actions of corporations who have in no way wronged me. I'm no stockholder. While Lunar isn't the best game I've ever played, it's definitely my favorite. It was my first RPG love, and it feels weird to see it reappear over and over, Dark Force style.
Messages From PAX
While in Seattle, I sent a ton of text messages to my friend. These are reproduced here to give a mostly accurate account of my time at PAX. Plus, it's the only really interesting thing I've done recently, so I want to wring as much out of it as possible.
Day Zero:
9/3/09 4:22pm:
I just had the greatest idea for a soft drink: Dr. Ribs! Available in Hickory and Dry Rub.
9/3/09 7:45pm:
I just ate probably the best steak I've ever had, served to me by a woman who looked like an angry Tina Fey.
Day One:
9/4/09 11:19am:
It's like a million bespectacled salmon swimming upstream to breed.
9/4/09 11:32am:
Don't know if that was a Jedi or just a guy in a bathrobe.
9/4/09 11:41am:
Okay, THAT was a Jedi.
9/4/09 12:45pm:
I just got my copy of Sneak King signed by Toastyfrog! I called him Mr. Parish. I feel dirty now.
9/4/09 2:42pm:
There's No More Heroes 2 toilet paper in the bathroom.
9/4/09 4:43pm:
Some guy started walking next to me on the street. Not sure if he was hitting on me or trying to scam me. Either way, KA-REEPY.
9/4/09 5:10pm:
I regret not cosplaying. This seems like the perfect place to dress up as some obscure game character. Like, the shopkeeper from Might and Magic 2 or something.
Day Two: Judgment Day
9/5/09 1:48pm:
I thought I saw a drug deal going down, but they were just exchanging a copy of Odin Sphere.
9/5/09 3:19pm:
Jeez, this place is full of Korean MMOs.
9/5/09 7:37pm:
Just saw a lady dressed as the player character from Persona 4 ... with a golf club. Respect.
9/5/09 9:36pm:
I just got whupped at a Magic tournament, but I enjoyed it heartily. And I was sitting next to a cut-rate Seanbaby.
9/5/09 9:48pm:
I'm about to take a shot of this godawful NOS energy drink. Pray for me.
9/5/09 9:51pm:
Oh god, it's like someone peed in rancid cough syrup.
9/5/09 10:44pm:
Rick Astley singalong!
9/5/09 11:45pm:
OMG FREEZEPOP
9/5/09 11:51pm:
WTF KEYTAR YES
9/6/09 1:16am:
This burrito kinda tastes like soap.
9/6/09 2:05am:
God, why did Freddie Mercury have to die?
Day Three: Rise of the Machines
9/6/09 12:54pm:
I live!
9/6/09 1:53pm:
Jonathan Coulton was kinda meh. He just didn't seem that into it. I liked his opening act, Paul and Storm, better.
9/6/09 3:55pm:
Sitting on a beanbag in the handheld lounge - this is my moment of Zen.
9/6/09 4:24pm:
There are these awesome aprons at the Diner Dash booth... but to get one I'd have to stand in line for ten minutes and play Diner Dash. No deal.
9/6/09 6:38pm:
PAX is a solemn reminder for all nerds: no matter what you walk of life, race, creed, or fandom, we're all the same under our ironic video game t-shirts.
Day Zero:
9/3/09 4:22pm:
I just had the greatest idea for a soft drink: Dr. Ribs! Available in Hickory and Dry Rub.
9/3/09 7:45pm:
I just ate probably the best steak I've ever had, served to me by a woman who looked like an angry Tina Fey.
Day One:
9/4/09 11:19am:
It's like a million bespectacled salmon swimming upstream to breed.
9/4/09 11:32am:
Don't know if that was a Jedi or just a guy in a bathrobe.
9/4/09 11:41am:
Okay, THAT was a Jedi.
9/4/09 12:45pm:
I just got my copy of Sneak King signed by Toastyfrog! I called him Mr. Parish. I feel dirty now.
9/4/09 2:42pm:
There's No More Heroes 2 toilet paper in the bathroom.
9/4/09 4:43pm:
Some guy started walking next to me on the street. Not sure if he was hitting on me or trying to scam me. Either way, KA-REEPY.
9/4/09 5:10pm:
I regret not cosplaying. This seems like the perfect place to dress up as some obscure game character. Like, the shopkeeper from Might and Magic 2 or something.
Day Two: Judgment Day
9/5/09 1:48pm:
I thought I saw a drug deal going down, but they were just exchanging a copy of Odin Sphere.
9/5/09 3:19pm:
Jeez, this place is full of Korean MMOs.
9/5/09 7:37pm:
Just saw a lady dressed as the player character from Persona 4 ... with a golf club. Respect.
9/5/09 9:36pm:
I just got whupped at a Magic tournament, but I enjoyed it heartily. And I was sitting next to a cut-rate Seanbaby.
9/5/09 9:48pm:
I'm about to take a shot of this godawful NOS energy drink. Pray for me.
9/5/09 9:51pm:
Oh god, it's like someone peed in rancid cough syrup.
9/5/09 10:44pm:
Rick Astley singalong!
9/5/09 11:45pm:
OMG FREEZEPOP
9/5/09 11:51pm:
WTF KEYTAR YES
9/6/09 1:16am:
This burrito kinda tastes like soap.
9/6/09 2:05am:
God, why did Freddie Mercury have to die?
Day Three: Rise of the Machines
9/6/09 12:54pm:
I live!
9/6/09 1:53pm:
Jonathan Coulton was kinda meh. He just didn't seem that into it. I liked his opening act, Paul and Storm, better.
9/6/09 3:55pm:
Sitting on a beanbag in the handheld lounge - this is my moment of Zen.
9/6/09 4:24pm:
There are these awesome aprons at the Diner Dash booth... but to get one I'd have to stand in line for ten minutes and play Diner Dash. No deal.
9/6/09 6:38pm:
PAX is a solemn reminder for all nerds: no matter what you walk of life, race, creed, or fandom, we're all the same under our ironic video game t-shirts.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Jason Andrew Relva
So, my friend's leaving town, and I'm totally bummed out about it. Back in third grade, my friend Josh moved away. Usually, I'll keep a couple friends around, but Josh was my lone confidant when he left for Wisconsin. I remember sitting in the dining room, eating terrible apple pie ice cream, listening to "J.A.R." by Green Day, and trying not to cry. Unsuccessfully. So I kind of feel like that.
I promised to give her the keys to this, my secret blog, and now I feel a bit agitated. There's an emptiness to writing on this unseen wall, but once I have a confirmed audience of one, it feels exhibitionistic.
Well, it won't be the first time I give someone directions here, but it may be the last. I'm still trying to decide what to do with Neue. Y'know, the name feels kind of pretentious, but I can't bring myself to change it. Maybe I'll write up its origin story.
I promised to give her the keys to this, my secret blog, and now I feel a bit agitated. There's an emptiness to writing on this unseen wall, but once I have a confirmed audience of one, it feels exhibitionistic.
Well, it won't be the first time I give someone directions here, but it may be the last. I'm still trying to decide what to do with Neue. Y'know, the name feels kind of pretentious, but I can't bring myself to change it. Maybe I'll write up its origin story.
My Notes from PAX
Post-N'Gai, Post EGM Video Games Journalism
Q&A
- "If this shirt doesn't stink, I'm not gaming hard enough."
- That guy's shirt? Drenched in sweat. - Gus Mastrapa looks like a flattened Alan Moore.
- Inexplicable Lil' Jon Noises
- Chris Kohler: "Games journalism needs an old guard"
- Mastrapa: How can journalistic outlets find a non ad-supported product to sell?
- Pat Klepek looks like that one kid from Freaks and Geeks.
- Klepek: "Clicks is juice, fool"
- Karen Chu: "Think more"
-Web 2.0: now that all this user-created info has been generated, what to do with it? How can you analyze it or make it more useful?
Q&A
- This guy majored in 'Informatics?'
- KChu: "It's easy to write a one-star review and be an asshole"
- Kohler: "You don't have to be the one definitive review."
- Sweaty shirt guy has finally dried out.
- Creepy British Asian guy just announced that he's started a magazine. I kind of hate him, but I admire his shameless self-promotion.
- Really, why should you care about games journalism being taken seriously?
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Draw Go
Starting later this month, I plan on making this a better blog. Neue has been like my bicycle for most of its life: it gets taken out of the basement once a month, I try it out, then my ass hurts and I forget about it. So there's going to be a regular update schedule (which I haven't figured out yet) as well as some cosmetic and functional changes. I may spin the Diaryland half of this off from the IGN half. I want to use my writing here as a portfolio, but I worry that leaving in the exhausting descriptions of my neuroses will make it hard for me to point at this and say, "Hire me!"
Monday, August 31, 2009
Monday, August 17, 2009
Know The You More
Important lesson! If you're dressing a leg wound with electrical tape, you need to shave first. Otherwise, it won't stick.
Friday, August 14, 2009
The New Monster
My nocturnal agenda's in disarray. I've been getting sleep at long, sloppy intervals, then holding onto my dormancy like a drowning person their last few mouthfuls of oxygen. The work schedule has necessitated far too many 24-hour days, due to shifts stacked too closely for my finicky sleeping habits. As a consequence, I've become unstuck from time. Now, I'm floating from days to nights, and occasionally into that hateful little margin in between.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
All the Neutral Mornings
So I've kinda stopped playing the video games. This has become mostly a gaming blog over the past year, a trend that I regret. I still would like to end up a games writer some day, but ... part of me thinks that I'm just pouring more waste into the lake by writing yet another game review.
Jenn Frank and her blog, Infinite Lives - well, I have an uncomfortable affection towards both. She wrote a post, "Dementia, video games, and the end of the beginning." Reading it wasn't really an epiphany, but it evoked something for me.
I used to sit in my basement, for more hours than I can describe without ending up in Hyperbole Heights, playing emulated SNES games on my Pentium 133. In the summer, it was nice and cool in the basement, my refuge from heat, people, and whatever housework I'd get snared into wandering the visible spectrum of my home. Thinking about it now, I get uneasy. There's an instinct in all of us to defend our hobby, but it doesn't seem like it was an awfully healthy way to spend the time.
One day while in my basement, I caught the amalgamated scent of summer in the air, and I felt the foolishness of playing Earthbound for the third time while all these beautiful smells passed me by. So I decided to renounce video games. My memory's pretty vague, but I don't think I lasted a week. It wasn't a noble effort; my end goal was normalcy. I wanted to wash that geek right out of my hair, and I didn't realize how difficult it is to abjure one's identity.
So I've kinda stopped playing the video games. I feel hypocritical for rejoicing.
Jenn Frank and her blog, Infinite Lives - well, I have an uncomfortable affection towards both. She wrote a post, "Dementia, video games, and the end of the beginning." Reading it wasn't really an epiphany, but it evoked something for me.
I used to sit in my basement, for more hours than I can describe without ending up in Hyperbole Heights, playing emulated SNES games on my Pentium 133. In the summer, it was nice and cool in the basement, my refuge from heat, people, and whatever housework I'd get snared into wandering the visible spectrum of my home. Thinking about it now, I get uneasy. There's an instinct in all of us to defend our hobby, but it doesn't seem like it was an awfully healthy way to spend the time.
One day while in my basement, I caught the amalgamated scent of summer in the air, and I felt the foolishness of playing Earthbound for the third time while all these beautiful smells passed me by. So I decided to renounce video games. My memory's pretty vague, but I don't think I lasted a week. It wasn't a noble effort; my end goal was normalcy. I wanted to wash that geek right out of my hair, and I didn't realize how difficult it is to abjure one's identity.
So I've kinda stopped playing the video games. I feel hypocritical for rejoicing.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
The White Way
Prototype today. It's become a bit more hassle than its worth, so I'm rushing through it to get its achievement sweetmeats and return it to my local rental outlet.
Why do we (I) come to this point? Once the pretense of entertainment is gone, the pitiful cycle of the videogame hatefuck sets in. If Prototype was, say, a movie on television? I'd change the channel, no remorse.Instead I throw a mini-tantrum, yelling and squirming about, every time the game seems to thwart me. All my worst traits emerge, and I become a part of the inarticulate, angry biomass that clogs the internet.
Why do we (I) come to this point? Once the pretense of entertainment is gone, the pitiful cycle of the videogame hatefuck sets in. If Prototype was, say, a movie on television? I'd change the channel, no remorse.Instead I throw a mini-tantrum, yelling and squirming about, every time the game seems to thwart me. All my worst traits emerge, and I become a part of the inarticulate, angry biomass that clogs the internet.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Mad as a Box of Frogs
Right now, I'm all into Giana Sisters DS, a remake of The Great Giana Sisters. The similarities to Super Mario Bros., and by extension every other platformer from 1986-1995, definitely stand out - and it's all good. The controls are moment-to-moment spot-on, the graphics are beautiful yet crude, and the music is forgettablly catchy, with a little bit of SID twang dropped in. It's utterly disposable, but I love it and I want to marry it in that middle school way that's devoid of any lifetime commitment.
It could be nostalgia. When I play a familiar game and marvel at it, the N-word is always partially formed in my throat. It makes me think of the lazy summer days (like today) spent before I knew the ticking of the clock. Christ, it makes me think of Skunny, Jazz Jackrabbit, and Duke Nukem before he went all sunglasses. Not innocent, not better, but an era where a platformer didn't need to have RPG elements or come from Nintendo.
I'm rambling by now, because I'm talking up a game which I don't like all that much. I've gotta write more, get that voice down.
It could be nostalgia. When I play a familiar game and marvel at it, the N-word is always partially formed in my throat. It makes me think of the lazy summer days (like today) spent before I knew the ticking of the clock. Christ, it makes me think of Skunny, Jazz Jackrabbit, and Duke Nukem before he went all sunglasses. Not innocent, not better, but an era where a platformer didn't need to have RPG elements or come from Nintendo.
I'm rambling by now, because I'm talking up a game which I don't like all that much. I've gotta write more, get that voice down.
Friday, July 03, 2009
Sanguine Eden
I went to the county fair today. Saw lots of 4-H exhibits, experienced a pig race, and ate deep-fried Oreos. I tried to stay out of Judgmental City Prick as Observer mode, and mostly did okay. Still, to enter this world where livestock is commonplace - while abiding in an apartment where I can't even have a dog - is weird.
I live in Chicago, and sometimes you can walk two blocks in a direction and feel like you've entered a different city. Today, I went ~75 miles and felt like I was in a different country and decade.
I live in Chicago, and sometimes you can walk two blocks in a direction and feel like you've entered a different city. Today, I went ~75 miles and felt like I was in a different country and decade.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Word of Command
I spent the last week playing Red Faction: Guerrilla.
Single-player, it's an open-world GTA-style game. Since the original Red Faction, the series' gimmick was that you could blow up the environment - only, in earlier games, the destruction you could cause was awful limited. It was less "Blow up everything!" and more "Shoot the red boxes and they disappear!" So I was pretty happy that Guerrilla is more liberal with the wrecking. You can break apart anything except rocks and the ground; any building is ready to be destroyed, either by rockets, explosive charges, or your trusty sledgehammer.
The campaign revolves around a forgettable story about some sort of liberation from a vague evil bureaucracy. Honestly, I didn't need the fiction to be better, but I really wanted less of it. You play missions to advance the story, going through a small variety of side-missions to unlock further story missions. The formula is awfully familiar, and would be more successful if there were more to do in the world. There are buildings that you're encouraged to blow up, and you can get in skirmishes with the enemy, but I felt that the sandbox only existed so that you wouldn't merely select missions from a menu. The vehicle controls aren't objectionable, but driving around the world just isn't fun.
The multiplayer is Guerilla's ultimate redemption. I really don't play shooters online, but this one is a god damned blast. You're given a choice of power-ups with a variety of uses: cloaking, flying, earthquakes on command, wallhacking, and the positively delightful Rhino pack, which allows you to charge through walls, mowing down any other players in your path. The different gametypes work, your murder methods are plentiful, and the matchmaking is smooth like silk (on the 360, at least.) The single-player game is worth a rental, but I was late to work multiple times because I couldn't resist the lure of One More Game of deathmatch. The argot of online shooters is beyond me, so I'll put it simply: Play this game.
My Judgement: Idle Magic
Single-player, it's an open-world GTA-style game. Since the original Red Faction, the series' gimmick was that you could blow up the environment - only, in earlier games, the destruction you could cause was awful limited. It was less "Blow up everything!" and more "Shoot the red boxes and they disappear!" So I was pretty happy that Guerrilla is more liberal with the wrecking. You can break apart anything except rocks and the ground; any building is ready to be destroyed, either by rockets, explosive charges, or your trusty sledgehammer.
The campaign revolves around a forgettable story about some sort of liberation from a vague evil bureaucracy. Honestly, I didn't need the fiction to be better, but I really wanted less of it. You play missions to advance the story, going through a small variety of side-missions to unlock further story missions. The formula is awfully familiar, and would be more successful if there were more to do in the world. There are buildings that you're encouraged to blow up, and you can get in skirmishes with the enemy, but I felt that the sandbox only existed so that you wouldn't merely select missions from a menu. The vehicle controls aren't objectionable, but driving around the world just isn't fun.
The multiplayer is Guerilla's ultimate redemption. I really don't play shooters online, but this one is a god damned blast. You're given a choice of power-ups with a variety of uses: cloaking, flying, earthquakes on command, wallhacking, and the positively delightful Rhino pack, which allows you to charge through walls, mowing down any other players in your path. The different gametypes work, your murder methods are plentiful, and the matchmaking is smooth like silk (on the 360, at least.) The single-player game is worth a rental, but I was late to work multiple times because I couldn't resist the lure of One More Game of deathmatch. The argot of online shooters is beyond me, so I'll put it simply: Play this game.
My Judgement: Idle Magic
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Hideous Laughter
The character-shaped Macaroni and Cheese always tasted terrible. The shapes weren't right- all the junctions of the little noodles were just uncooked enough to be hard and gummy.
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Oh How Happy We'll Be
My new favorite snap is "See, this is why nobody likes you." It's really only effective against a person with a certain range of insecurities, but I recently used it on a former friend, and it was pretty good. Best used on a loner or the socially awkward; I know I'd wilt if someone aimed it at me.
Maybe I'm in love with it too much. I was wondering if there was a more direct form of schadenfreude, but I guess that's just sadism, hey?
Maybe I'm in love with it too much. I was wondering if there was a more direct form of schadenfreude, but I guess that's just sadism, hey?
Thursday, May 28, 2009
A Community of One
I'm reading this Star Wars comic right now, Knights of the Old Republic, and it's really good. Most people, if they want to write, they want to write something revelatory, but this makes me feel like I'd rather write entertaining schlock. If I could learn how to start a story, I'd be half on my way, but I haven't written even a small bit of fiction in a while.
This comic is really good though. I love the games it's based on, as they represent a sector of the Star Wars universe not fitted with the cement shoes of 30 years' baffling, sprawling, and often boring continuity. Hm ... I'm a huge superhero comic reader, so that statement feels hypocritical.
This comic is really good though. I love the games it's based on, as they represent a sector of the Star Wars universe not fitted with the cement shoes of 30 years' baffling, sprawling, and often boring continuity. Hm ... I'm a huge superhero comic reader, so that statement feels hypocritical.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Devouring Greed
Have you ever thrown up and just felt 150% better? I just did. I'd made a late dinner of mediocre tempura (my first time making it,) and two hours later I was thrashing in my bed like I was going to die. After regurgitating a good deal of the meal, I feel even-keeled.
Life is goooooood.
Life is goooooood.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Lost Love Evocation
Right now, I'm on my day off, and I'm still itching to be back at work. When I come home, I feel alone, even after spending the day with buddies. I have a couple good pals right now, but no real friends. No shoulder to lean on.
Something's lacking, but it's something new, some hole I don't quite understand and don't know how to fill. I'm pleased that I've finally started to get over my childish aversion to work, but it feels more like a symptom - an escape, an abjuration of the 5 to 9 portion of my life.
Something's lacking, but it's something new, some hole I don't quite understand and don't know how to fill. I'm pleased that I've finally started to get over my childish aversion to work, but it feels more like a symptom - an escape, an abjuration of the 5 to 9 portion of my life.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Epikairekakia
My web browsing experience would be improved threefold if I could find a way to stop myself from reading comments. I devour an article and, unsated, go to the comments so that I may have my dessert. My gluttony deserves punishment, but no crime is worth the dip into molten ignorance that the average (and even the above-average) comments page represents. I try not to be one of those "God, the ninety-five percent of people who aren't like me sure are stupid" people - who, invariably, show up halfway into most comment threads - but it's hard. The vitriol, the solipsism, the misspelled racial/sexual epithets, and then the people who correct said spelling, adding a bitchy aside about "their" vs. "they're", reclining triumphantly in their office chairs as if to exclaim "King Me!"
Afterwards, I can't help but feel diminished. Like I'm less of a person for making this trek into the collective subconscious' Thanatos.
I allow comments on here to see if anyone reads this. A counter at the bottom of the page would do the same job, but I hypocritically believe them to be a sign of vanity.
Afterwards, I can't help but feel diminished. Like I'm less of a person for making this trek into the collective subconscious' Thanatos.
I allow comments on here to see if anyone reads this. A counter at the bottom of the page would do the same job, but I hypocritically believe them to be a sign of vanity.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Eight Brothers' Coined Horns
I think, if I was to go crazy, it'd be a bold new direction for my brand. Like, seething, bubbling, tics and outbursts crazy. Bad-theater-student-playing-crazy crazy. Muppet-slowly-electrocuted-by-a-car-battery crazy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sunday, March 08, 2009
Exquisite Replica
I've been playing Harvest Moon this weekend. I can only play the SNES version; it's buggy, low-budget, and sparsely simplistic, but it's original. Every game after that feels like a copy, and then a copy of the previous copy, slowly in its atavism regressing past its own origin - the ur-shovelware.
Most games cloak their grind with monster-slaying, or car racing, or other unusual activities that one would assume to be innately fun. Thing is, Harvest Moon is labor, in the most elemental sense of the word. To get money out of a harvest, you must:
Honest to god, after three days straight with the game, I can't figure what the carrot on the end of its stick is. Marriage, maybe? The dialogue is all sub-English, so achieving wedded bliss is about as satisfying as beating an NES game to glean a hearty "CONGLATURATION!!" and a pixelated portrait of a misshapen princess.
I don't think I've ever played a game of Harvest Moon to its completion. Maybe it's because of the motivation problem, but it's one of those games I enjoy taking a run at without feeling a need for completion.
Most games cloak their grind with monster-slaying, or car racing, or other unusual activities that one would assume to be innately fun. Thing is, Harvest Moon is labor, in the most elemental sense of the word. To get money out of a harvest, you must:
- Clear the field of rocks and stumps
- Till the land
- Buy seeds
- Plant the seeds
- Water the crops for 7-10 days
- Throw each potato/ear of corn/turnip/etc. into the delivery box
Honest to god, after three days straight with the game, I can't figure what the carrot on the end of its stick is. Marriage, maybe? The dialogue is all sub-English, so achieving wedded bliss is about as satisfying as beating an NES game to glean a hearty "CONGLATURATION!!" and a pixelated portrait of a misshapen princess.
I don't think I've ever played a game of Harvest Moon to its completion. Maybe it's because of the motivation problem, but it's one of those games I enjoy taking a run at without feeling a need for completion.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
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