The PD Chronicles

The Definition of Insanity

2012-02-17T11:00:00.000-05:00

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. That pretty much summarizes my sleep regimen. I was so tired this morning that I couldn't even open up my eyes all the way. That's some hardcore tiredness right there. It's funny, because my desire to sleep is utterly BACKWARDS. When it's a reasonable time for me to go to bed, I'm wide awake. When it's time to get up, I'm tired as fuck. Body, y u suck at sleeping correctly?

Here, this graph will explain it:

Just ignore the horrible grammar in the image. I didn't make it.

I trashed a whole evening's worth of KoA main storyline recordings because, well, it was boring. I'll just summarize what happened, instead: I tracked down Hugues and agreed to help him out. I also tracked down the General and agreed to help her out. That's basically it. I was tired and cranky when I was playing anyway, so trust me when I say you don't want to hear that.

Damn it's difficult to type when my fingers won't move the way my brain tells them to.

So, it shouldn't be any surprise that as I was driving to work this morning, I had a seething hatred for every atom of the universe. But right before I got into work, the most wonderful thing came onto the radio.

"Happy Friday, people! It's the Friday before the long President's Day weekend."

Long. Weekend.

EVERYTHING IS SO AMAZING.

The Plot Thickens!

2012-02-15T02:01:00.000-05:00

This is, in my opinion, the best KoA video I've been able to record in regards to the content of it. In a matter of speaking, it's a place where the story gets blow wide open and you learn quite a bit. It's excellent.

I think my favorite thing about this is the cutscene with the King. Specifically, his VOICE. I freaking love that voice. I looked the guy up. He's from New Jersey! New Fucking Jersey! Color me impressed to hell and back. He is BRILLIANT.

That's really all the words I have to say about it. You just need to watch it to fully appreciate my enthusiasm. I -will- explain the story a bit, though, just to summarize:

I completed the tasks the tree gave to me, and he gave me his blessing and permission to enter Ysa -- the kingdom of the Fae. I went to see the King then, and presented him with the codex that I retrieved within the Theater of Fate. When the two of us touched the artifact, a vision occurred. (My favorite part of the video.)

It now seems that my power (my control over fate itself) is linked to the Puppet King, who is leading the war against the Fae. It's time to build an army!

Let's Talk Story

2012-02-14T01:16:00.000-05:00

The main focus of this post, and thus the meaning of the title, is the storyline of Kingdoms of Amalur. You know -- that game I've been obsessed with for a week now. But I also feel like just rambling about absolutely nothing. So before I get to the two videos I have to share, there's going to be some of that. My condolences.

First, let's talk books. I tried to get into a book by the name of Gardens of the Moon. It's a fantasy novel by Steven Erikson, and it's the first book in a ten book series. I was in the mood to read such a sprawling fantasy novel. That desire was quickly raped and murdered by the start of that book. I read the words, and it was the English language, but I comprehended nothing. Eventually I decided that I actually wasn't in the mood to read such a novel after all, and I returned to Black House. Well that was a novel idea. (See what I did there?) The first thing I read about when returning to that book about about a guy lying in bed shitting himself. SUPER. However, I will admit that after painfully getting through that oh-so-pleasant section, the book actually started to grab my interest. The next section detailed a murder scene that no one has found yet, and it seems there's a serial killer on the loose. Alright. I can dig that. I'm all for a good murder mystery. I also like the style of the writing in this book. The authors write like they're taking you with them on the story. ("We look down up on the scene...") I like that a lot. If I ever find the creativity, patience, and time to write another anything again, I may try that out for myself.

This morning was rather irritating. It was about 13 degrees outside, and you would think that such a temperature would prompt our department of transportation to treat the roads for ice. They may have, I really don't know. But if they did, they missed a spot. A BIG HUGE SPOT. On my way to work, traffic came to a screeching halt, so I figured there must be some kind of accident. Some asshat on his cell phone probably got creamed. As we crawled along at a speed that made me want to staple my hand to my face, I began to notice that the road actually seemed to have ice on it. That's obviously not good if you intend to drive to work without the immediate risk of death. Instead of finding one accident at the end of the traffic jam (which is a lot less pleasant than the finding of the gold at the end of the rainbow, by the way), I found THREE accidents, all of which happened in the same 500 feet of interstate that the department of transportation apparently failed utterly to attend to in the early hours of the morning. Can you hear my sarcastic applause?

So on to the topic at hand, yes? I said I was going to focus on the story of KoA, and these videos will do just that -- it's me playing through only the main questlines. If you don't have the patience to sit through them (or you abhor the quality of my videos because, let's face it, they're not exactly stellar now are they?), then I will give you a bit of a summary -- at least as much of it as I understand.

I went to the Theater of Fate with my friend the Fateweaver to try and figure out why I don't have a fate. I didn't learn much, aside from the fact that the Tuatha are tracking me. In order to get them off my back, I have to destroy a scrying crystal that they are using to watch my movements. I do that, and earn the ire of the Tuatha's king. (He looks amazing, btw.) Additionally, I have to go talk to a tree (because why not?). The tree is linked to the Fae, who are basically the "elves" of the story -- immortal beings who are very old and wise and all that jazz. And naturally, the tree has tasks for me to perform before the story will move any further along. He sends me to kill the Queen of the Trolls - Gnarsh. Who, I learn, is now under the control of the Tuatha. Those guys are really starting to be a menace!

Admittedly, none of this is really all that fascinating. It's good stuff, and you get to see some great combat, animations, and environments, so that's a bonus. You get to hear me get pissed at the combat, too, so that's all good. But I will say that the footage I recorded this evening totally blows this stuff out of the water. So make sure you watch for that posting coming up in the next day or so.

For now, though, I leave you with these videos.

Different Ends of a Spectrum

2012-02-13T01:58:00.000-05:00

Bonus points to you if you didn't see RECTUM instead of SPECTRUM. Or perhaps I shouldn't assume that everyone's mind is constantly in the gutter like mine.

Now before I get completely off-topic, the title of this post is referencing how a game can be both brilliant and utterly crap all at once. More specifically, how some things can be done perfectly in a game, and others can be totally botched.

There are a lot of things that Kingdoms of Amalur does right. The story is done right -- it's very, very typical high-fantasy fare. Which shouldn't surprise anyone, since the writer for the game is an author of fantasy novels. It's sort of a given. The inventory system is done right -- it's very easy to navigate, and I love the "Junk" system, where you can send all your unwanted items and them sell them all at a vendor in one fell swoop. There a lot of other little things too, more that I care to mention in this post.

There're also some things that really frustrate me about this game as well, though. A lot of it is the combat. It's the part of the game that really pulls me in two different directions, because at times it is brilliant and exhilarating. But other times it makes me want to stab babies. For example, there are attacks from enemies that you can block or dodge. Blocking an attack you're supposed to dodge doesn't work, and dodging an attack you're supposed to block doesn't work. With the former, you just get hit, and with the latter, the enemy just keeps chasing you down until they hit you. That would be all well and good if you knew which abilities were which -- but you don't. You have to pretty much guess, unless you've fought an enemy like it before and you remember how it goes. The other thing that makes me want to stab babies is that a lot of enemies have certain animations when they land a hit on you. Some of these are three separate attacks, with pauses in between them. My question is, why would you POSSIBLY design it that way if you weren't going to give the player the change to block/dodge any of those attacks when they miss the first one? It just doesn't make any sense -- the only thing it does is frustrate the player. (And make them want to stab babies.)

On the whole, though, I think the game is well done. I wouldn't call it Editor's Choice material, but I would certainly deem a score of 85% or so to be quite appropriate if I gave monetary scores. (But I don't.)

It's been able to keep my full attention since its release, so much so that I haven't played anything else, to include TOR. That's saying something.

All that being said, here's a cool little video that is totally unrelated to just about everything.

Sunday Funday

2012-02-12T17:58:00.000-05:00

It's funny -- my intent on recording just the main story of Kingdoms of Amalur was so that I wouldn't have a ton of footage to present. But the main bits of storyline that I recorded the other night ended up being like an hour long. So yeah, I'll be working on getting that uploaded here soon. In the meantime, I should probably catch up on the other videos that I have waiting to be posted. Most of it is Serious Sam 3 stuff. I do have another Jedi Knight vlog to post, which I'll get to soonish.

Also, I have three screenshots here to provide examples of how Kingdoms of Amalur can indeed be a very pretty game.

So you see, the game can look pretty damned good once you get past the whole "fuzziness" look it tends to have.

And now, it looks like I left off with Chapter 7 of Serious Sam 3, so here's the rest of the videos I have. I think all I have left to do is the last level, or thereabouts, but it will probably be a while before I get back to it, given the recent releases that have come out.

Too Tired to Make a Proper Post

2012-02-10T01:37:00.000-05:00

So have a video. Make it two.

A Dragon Age Retrospect

2012-02-09T16:19:00.001-05:00

I looked over at that little "Most Popular Posts" gadget today, and saw my article on Dragon Age II sitting there. (For the record, that gadget is never accurate because hardly anyone will actually CLICK on an article to read it on my blog, because you don't have to. The entire article is just right there.) Anyway, I felt the urge to validate the opinions that I made in that article due to how much hatred the average gamer has for Dragon Age II.

First of all, if you are one of the people who vehemently insists that Dragon Age II is worse than Dragon Age: Origins, I want you to stop for a minute and really think about what you're saying. Are you saying it's worse because you actually think it's worse, or are you confusing worse with DIFFERENT?

Next, I'm going to address some of the common complains I have read about it.

"It feels rushed."
If you are referring to the fact that it reuses the same environments often, sure, I'll agree with you there. Personally, that didn't bother me, though.

"The combat was designed for Call of Duty kids."
I'm assuming you mean that the combat was simplified from Origins. All I have to say to that is "THANK GOD". Origins combat was too tedious, and I'm glad they simplified it. If that insults you, then perhaps you should take up a different hobby that will more thoroughly challenge your oh-so-superior intellect. Space travel research, perhaps? Quantum theory, maybe? And if you insult my own intelligence by my thinking that simplifying it wasn't bad, well then you go ahead and knock yourself out. I've been insulted in worse ways, and I can't hear you anyway. (LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA)

"The story was worse."
I fully disagree. Period. Also, allow me to add that your character in Dragon Age II has a VOICE, unlike in Origins. That alone makes it light years better than Origins for me.

"The performance issues are totally unacceptable."
Ran smooth as a baby's bare ass for me, so once again I fully disagree.

So the bottom line here is that I stand by every viewpoint I made in my original post on the game. I regret nothing. And really, I only felt the need to make this post because I'm rarely in such a minority when it comes to the games I like. Quite honestly, it seems like I'm the only person in existence who actually liked Dragon Age II. And y'know, I'm fine with that, except that it means that I'll never see another game like it, and that makes me kind of sad. (Cause Bioware sure as hell isn't going to make another game just for me.)

If I had to make a guess as to the main reason why people didn't like DA2, I would have to say it was because they were expecting Dragon Age: Origins 2. Dragon Age 2 is not Dragon Age: Origins 2. It really has very little to do with Origins in every conceivable way (story, combat, etc, etc).

It brings up a very interesting contradiction in human thinking. Because we all know that in the gaming world, for something to be GOOD, it has to do something DIFFERENT. Remember that? Well, what DA2 shows us is that if it's something a gamer LIKES, making it DIFFERENT is BAAAAAD!

So different is good, and different is bad.
And that proves that no matter what, people will never be happy.

And before you DA2 haters gnash your teeth and proclaim "NO! DIFFERENT IS BAD BECAUSE THE CHANGES WERE BAD!", well, I disagree with you. Simple as that. Read the article and you'll see why.

Agent Smith was right. Human beings define their existence through suffering. And they usually bring it upon themselves.

KoA Overload

2012-02-09T00:37:00.000-05:00

Here are five videos covering about another hour and a half of Kingdoms of Amalur. From this point forward, I've decided that what I'm going to do is only record the main questline. Anyone watching should have a pretty good idea how the game goes by now anyway.

I've played another two hours of the game this evening, bringing my total up to four. I'm digging it. Actually, one of the reasons why I decided to only record the main storyline is because most of the footage I recorded this evening is just the gameplay with me being utterly silent, because I was too immersed to remember that I was actually recording.

In any case, enjoy these. Tomorrow I'll probably post another Jedi Knight vlog, cause I won't have much game time.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning - First Impressions!

2012-02-08T00:30:00.003-05:00

I've played the game for two hours, so I'm prepared to at least provide you with a bit of an overview of what I think. A lot of what I'm going to be saying here you'll be able to hear me say in the videos I'll be posting -- I've been recording everything -- but just because I've been posting videos doesn't mean I'm going to stop actually writing. And, well, y'know...I like writing.

First off, I cannot call this game a Poor Man's Skyrim, because it's the same price as Skyrim. Natch! And actually, Skyrim is currently on sale on Steam for $39.99. So Skyrim is actually CHEAPER for the time being. And let's not beat around the bush here -- this game is not as good as Skyrim.

But enough about that. The comparisons between the two could go on for infinity (and beyond!), but it's not really going to tell you very much, is it? Nope.

So let me lay it out for you here real simple like: You're going to play this game, and for the first hour or hour and a half you're going to be thinking to yourself, "Why the hell am I playing this?" The graphics are sometimes a bit bland. The voice acting is a bit questionable. The facial animations are atrocious. And the world looks very....fuzzy. That is the best word I can find in my vocabulary to describe it. Everything looks FUZZY and just slightly out of focus. Like it's a dreamworld or something. I understand the style -- it's supposed to be fantasy, sure -- but I suppose Skyrim's graphics have me spoiled. Skyrim is CRISP. It's SHARP. And I love that. So that difference really set me off quite a bit -- moreso than anything else, really.

But what's interesting is that after that hour or hour and a half, you begin to notice things. You begin to notice, "Hey, this dungeon looks pretty cool, I like the design of it!". You may begin to find yourself starting to enjoy the combat, which probably confused the ever-living hell out of you at the start, but is now starting to make some sense. You may start to notice there are a LOT of things to do in this game, and they are actually pretty enjoyable and engaging. Point I'm making is, you just may start to LIKE this game, and want to keep playing. And I'm saying that because it's exactly what's happened to me.

Do I think this game is going to get the kind of ravings Skyrim got? No, no I do not. I mean -- take a look at Steam right now. See where it's at. Right now, on release day at 12:18 AM, it's #12 with 4,464 players. It's peak is 4,940. That's GOOD. But it's not Skyrim. Skyrim is #1 right now, and it has been #1 since its release.

But I do think this game will receive favorable reviews from critics, and I think that anyone who decides to give it an HONEST try will find a lot to enjoy. As I sit here and write this, I want to play some more. I really want to go back and play some more right now, and that is always a good sign. Not many games are able to do that to me.

So, how about I talk about some of the things that I find really cool? Sure.

First of all, when you level up you get to do a few things. It's actually quite interesting. The first thing you do is assign a point into a ladder of secondary skills, such as Alchemy or Blacksmithing. I've leveled twice so far, and I've put both of my points into this Detection skill. And it is freaking awesome -- it shows me secrets on the minimap! Plus, I get gold bonuses while looting. I love it. Now, after you do that, you get 3 skill points to spend in the normal trees that you're used to seeing in all RPGs. Fine and dandy. But after THAT, you get to then choose a sort of Tarot card-like thingie that buffs you even more, and is reliant on how you spend your skill points on the previous screen in the talent trees. I really like it.

Next, the combat. This is what took me an hour to start to like, after I got it all up to where it should be, weapon and skill-wise. I'm going the mage route, and I have two weapon slots. I currently have a staff in one, and a sceptre in the other. The sceptre uses a small amount of mana each shot (it's like a wand) and it's long range. The staff uses no mana and it's shorter ranged. I also have one spell, a lightning type bolt, that uses a large amount of mana. I also have a fate bar that fills up as I kill things, and when it's full I can go super saiyan 9001, and RIP THE FATE OUT OF PEOPLE. I know that ripping the fate out of people doesn't make any sense BUT I DON'T CARE BECAUSE IT'S AMAZING WHEN YOU DO IT.

There's really not a lot more for me to say. The first video I have for you covers the beginnings, character creation, a bit of combat, some dialogue, and me just being a noob and learning how the controls work. I have enough footage for another five or six videos already, though, so I'll be able to post one a day if I so choose. For now, though, enjoy the first!

Serious Sam 3 - Chapter 7 - Unearthing the Sun Part 1

2012-02-07T00:41:00.001-05:00

Jedi Knight Vlog: Part 7

2012-02-06T00:01:00.000-05:00

Y'know how my videos were kind of not fitting within the blog borders, and the right side was sort of sticking out a little bit? Yeah, I fixed that. Was pretty simple really -- I just never remembered to look into it until now. Looks a lot nicer!

One other thing before we get back into the Jedi Knight story: My music playlist currently contains 5,744 tracks. That's a lot of music -- enough for Winamp to continuously play for over a year without repeating, actually. I keep all those tracks in one playlist, and when I'm listening to music I just throw it on shuffle. There are times when a song will come up that I really like, but had forgotten about over time. I love when this happens. Yesterday it happened to me with a song called "Radiate" by the band "Puddle of Mudd". Have a listen to that song if you're not familiar with it. You won't be sorry.

And now, on with the show!

So, when last we left off, I had a choice of where to go next. Taris, or Nar Shaddaa? I chose Taris, and received a briefing from General Var Suthra aboard my ship.

Having gotten the information I need, it was time to head out. I made my way to Doctor Godera's first hideout, and it was utterly crawling with Imperials.

Watcher One is after Doctor Godera, and I really don't know what I can do to stop him. This guy is crafty, and very well informed. And he's one step ahead of me. But, I have RE-M0 on my side, and he has all kinds of information about Doctor Godera and his whereabouts that Watcher One can only guess at.

After disabling the relays as instructed by RE-M0, I had a little chat with him.

Next time: The inevitable showdown between Kobel and Watcher One.

Serious Sam 3 - Chapter 6 - The Riddler Part 2

2012-02-05T00:28:00.002-05:00

Gaming in 2001: Max Payne

2012-02-04T14:41:00.001-05:00

The year 2000 or 2001 is when I really, really started to get into gaming. Before that, it was more of this fascination. It wasn't until after I got a job and could afford a good computer that I started to play more than just Doom.

Max Payne was a really special game when it came out. It surprised everyone with its style, and I really haven't seen many games quite like it since.

I played through the first level last night for old time's sake, for reasons that you'll hear me explain in the video below. If you've never seen this game before, well now your chance.

Jedi Knight Vlog: Part 6

2012-02-03T00:06:00.002-05:00

Okay, so where were we? Oh yes. I landed on Ord Mantell and got a briefing from the General aboard my ship. Now it's time to actually get on the surface and meet my contact there for a short conversation.

This guy wasn't able to tell me very much about this base, which wasn't surprising -- it -is- a secret island base, after all. Heh. No matter, though! One of my specialties just happens to be the exploration of secret enemy bases!

I have NO idea what's up with that epic heroic music there at the beginning when I zone into the story area. All so I can...wait on an elevator! But no matter -- I really like this video anyway because there's a lot of fighting! And an interesting conversation at the end of it. I really didn't get anywhere, sadly -- we learned a little bit about Angral's plans, and not much more. Not a -ton- to go on, but it's better than nothing. So, having cleaned the place out, I had a few more short words with my Ord Mantell contact.

Nothing much going on there. So, time to report back to the General from my ship's holoterminal! Except...there was a bit of a surprise waiting for me in front of my ship.

Sith bastards! Oh wait, I'm not supposed to show emotion. Ah screw that. Sith bastards!

So, all that handled, I reported to the General. I keep finding more and more secrets about the Republic army. It's frustrating, but I'm honor bound to serve!

So I have a choice, now. Do I go to Nar Shaddaa, or Taris? Both are important, and both need me.

Next time, find out where I decide to go first. And, shock/horror, there will be fighting!

The Darkness II Sampling

2012-02-02T09:09:00.002-05:00

This morning was a bit annoying, because there was an accident on I-376 that had traffic backed up for several miles. It's really frustrating to be a bit late for work only because some asshat was probably driving too fast and caused an accident with their stupid self and their stupid BMW. I don't wish any harm upon them, because that would be horrible of me. But I do hope that his or her precious little car is marred beyond recognition.

But, in any case, I'm here now and I have a video to share with you. The Darkness II comes out next week, February 7th I believe, but there's a demo out for it now. I downloaded and played through it last night, mostly because I wanted help making the decision of playing that, or playing Kingdoms of Amalur. They both come out the same day.

I think I'm actually still undecided. This game has given me mixed feelings. On the good side, it seems a lot of fun. It kind of reminds me of Prototype in a way. On the other hand, it's not what I was expecting at all. It's listed as a horror game. This is not a horror game. There's a lot of horrifying things in it, but it is not a horror game. When -you- are the monster, you are NOT in a horror game. It's not possible to be scared when you are the thing causing terror. It's just as simple as that. Also, this game is like the SAW movies when it comes to "horror". Grossing people out is not horror. At least, not to me. And that matters, because I am a horror connoisseur.

Enjoy the video though! It invoked some rather humorous reactions out of me.

One other thing I wanted to mention today, as well. For the most part, teamwork in games is dead. Pretty big statement, eh? Arguments:

Guild kill videos of raid bosses for WoW are now less common than videos of Death Knights soloing content.
LFD/LFR runs typically have 0 words spoken between the group. When words are spoken, they are usually insults.
No one in LoL wants to play with you if you're new to the game.
TOR could be a single-player RPG.
Co-Op games are no longer about working together to achieve a goal, but are instead about seeing how creatively you can kill your co-op partner by "accident". (Portal 2 walks a fine line here, and for the most part is the exception to the rule. But not always -- there are still plenty of opportunities to be a dick to your co-op partner.)
Co-Op games that do not encourage being a dick to your co-op partner are usually crap, with the co-op mode feeling "tacked on".

I'm sure there are plenty of reasons to disagree with my statement. Perhaps I'm just having one of those days where I don't like people. But the arguments here are valid.

Jedi Knight Vlog: Part 5

2012-01-31T22:46:00.000-05:00

We'll start out with the inevitable. I've found Lord Tarnis, and a duel was pretty much inevitable.

Now, two problems. One, Tarnis uploaded the weapon plans to his father and all those other Sith. So now, the Empire has them, and will undoubtedly try to use them. Second, a very power Sith Lord wants me very, very dead. I did sort of kill his son, after all.

So, the next order of business is to report back to the General and to Master Satele.

They were able to trace where the plans were sent -- to one of Angral's secret spy bases. That's my next stop, where I'll hopefully be able to pick up his trail, or at least learn something useful.

First thing's first, though. It's time to get my own starship!

Coming up next: On the surface of Ord Mantell, and the exploration of the secret spy base.

And now, I would like to share with you a very small excerpt from a book I'm reading. The book is "The Talisman", by Stephen King and Peter Straub. It's a bit of a dark adventure tale, about a boy named Jack who is on a quest to find a mysterious object known as The Talisman. This is near the end, I won't give out any spoilers. But just read this paragraph.

"He was the powdered henshit in Buddy Parkin's nose; he was the trembling hairs that would soon cause Buddy Parkins to sneeze; he was the sneeze; he was the germs in the sneeze; he was the atoms in the germs; he was the tachyons in the atoms travelling backwards through time toward the big bang at the start of creation. His heart skipped and a thousand suns flashed up in novas."

...

We just went from chicken shit to the creation of the universe in one go. WTFuken?!

Serious Sam 3 - Chapter 6 - The Silent Ridder Part 1

2012-01-30T17:47:00.001-05:00

Serious Sam 3 - Chapter 5 - Under the Iron Cloud

2012-01-29T13:41:00.002-05:00

Jedi Knight Vlog: Part 4

2012-01-28T00:26:00.000-05:00

There's an interesting twist in these sets of videos, and the storyline is starting to take shape. It starts out simple enough -- when last we left our hero, a doctor of the Republic had been kidnapped. I'm given the task of rescuing him.

I have to convince some troops to join me on this mission. Y'see, the Justicar are pretty damn well equipped, and these forces have been suffering some considerable losses trying to fight them. Luckily, I'm pretty good at rousing speeches.

So there we go, busting into the kidnapper's base to save the doctor. Only to discover...

He's a Sith! Yeah, that's not exactly good news. Well, back to the General, then!

So now, I have a Sith Lord to track down.

Bloviate, Harangue, Objurgate, Perorate, Vociferate

2012-01-27T10:17:00.000-05:00

I'm fucking tired.

It's my own fault, of course. I stayed up too late reading. Time got away from me and it was 3:30 when I realized I should probably turn off the damn Kindle and to go sleep. The problem was that I was trying to get through a certain part of the book I was reading, because it was pissing me off beyond anything you can imagine and I just wanted to be through and done with it. So now, instead of just being pissed about what's happening in the book, I'm still pissed about that and additionally pissed that it's going on for THIS MANY PAGES. Oh the rage.

It actually reminds me of why I enjoy writing -- so that I can control the story. I can avoid yelling at my Kindle after every paragraph, telling the main character to stop being a damned wuss and start kicking ass. Though, I guess that if the story is evoking those sort of emotions out of me, then it's a relatively good story. It's better than being bored with it, I suppose.

So, because I'm tired and naturally woke up irritated at the universe and everything it contains, I suppose I should get all my bitching out of the way now:

Stop talking about the Witcher 2. I don't care if my copy is being upgraded to the Enhanced Edition for free. If you enhance a turd, it's still a turd.
Governments needs to get the fuck off my Internet. Seriously. Stop it and go away. I realize that copyright holders that have billions more money that I do are paying you to censor it, and if you don't they won't give you those billions of dollars. But is it worth me STOMPING ON YOUR TAINT WITH A PAIR OF GOLF SHOES?
Sirius XM Radio: Stop playing the "Live Studio Version" of the song "Cough Syrup". I don't want to fucking hear that version. I want to hear the fucking album version. I don't care how many people request that stupid studio version. If they think it's better, they are naturally entitled to their opinion. WRONG AS IT MAY FUCKING BE. Play the freakin' real version or I will send you mix tapes of Justin Bieber. You twats.
Movie Maker: Y U TELL ME FILE IS MISSING WHEN I SEE IT RIGHT THERE ON MY HARD DRIVE. Better yet...Y U WAIT UNTIL YOU'VE BEEN PROCESSING FOR AN HOUR BEFORE DECIDING YOU THINK A FILE IS MISSING. EVEN THOUGH I SEE IT. RIGHT THERE. Best yet...Y U SIT AT 52% FOR 9 HOURS AFTER I TRY YOU AGAIN?!
Stupid person in car: Y U DRIVE DOWN WRONG SIDE OF ROAD? Just because you're in a parking lot doesn't mean you can drive anywhere you want. Also, just because you look older than Rupert Murdoch's flabby wrinkles doesn't mean I'd hesitate running your ass over.
To people who quote someone on the forums and only say "This." -- THERE IS A SPECIAL PLACE IN HELL FOR PEOPLE LIKE YOU.

Bad plot twists and lack of sleep make PD cranky. Of course, one e-mail from John and now there are birds singing outside, I feel like dancing, and I don't feel so tired any more. Either I'm becoming delusional from lack of sleep, or he's just that good at cheering me up.

(Hint: It's the latter.)

As an aside, the words in the blog title are all synonyms of RANT. :3

Serious Sam 3 - Chapter 4

2012-01-26T08:26:00.004-05:00

No Jedi Knight vlogs for a bit -- I'm slashing my way through all the non-story based questlines. I did about a half a dozen of those last night -- fun stuff, but like I said, I'm only recording the story based stuff.

Have a Serious Sam video instead.

Y'know what I'm looking forward to? Max Payne 3.

Jedi Consular Vlog 1 - Intro & Master Cin Tykan

2012-01-25T07:46:00.001-05:00

With Steve doing his own Star Wars: The Old Republic video blog, I'm going to make my own to show another side of the story; the Jedi Consular. I've only just figured out how to run FRAPS without my computer exploding, so the Vlogs will start a short way into the story. But, here's what you need to know:

- After passing my Jedi Trials on Tython (the Jedi homeworld), my master suddenly fainted during my ceremony to become a Jedi.

- She was taken to Coruscant to be healed, but none of the Jedi Masters or doctors could figure out what was wrong. She kept babbling about the darkness, and became progressively weaker.

- I went around Coruscant in the search of noeticons, special holographic projections that allowed me to commune with long dead Jedi Masters. After gathering all three of them, I discovered that the illness was some sort of plague/mind control, developed by a mysterious Sith Lord.

- Taking the three noeticons to the Jedi Temple, I learned an ancient shielding technique to temporarily protect those afflicted by the plague. The apprentice to the Sith Lord behind all of this followed me, and destroyed the noeticons before I defeated him. I am now the only Jedi in the galaxy with the knowledge to shield against this plague.

- I shield my master, at great cost to myself, and she thanks me; but her illness will return if I dont hunt down the 'plaguemaster' behind the illness. The Jedi Council reveal that there are other masters that have gone quiet around the galaxy, and it is feared that they too have been afflicted by this plague.

So! I go to Taris, where Master Cin Tykan was leading a reconstruction effort. It is revealed that he too has the plague, and I track him down to a massive super-reactor underneath the planet's surface that - if detonated - could blow the planet in half.

Got all of that? Good! ACTION!

This is getting interesting! Who is Lord Vivicar? My master mentioned a different name, "Parkanas". Are more than one Sith Lord in on this? Must.. play... MOAR!

Jedi Knight Vlog: Part 3

2012-01-25T01:05:00.000-05:00

This entry will cover the very first part of my Jedi's stay on Coruscant. And just for the record, that city is utterly gorgeous. Now, if you recall from last time, Master Kiwikks sensed a dangerous and powerful presence, and pinpointed it to Coruscant. So, I was sent there to help investigate. However, it looks like some other matters are going to require my attention before we get to that.

From this point forward, I realize that the game audio is pretty high and that you probably won't be able to hear what I'm saying very much. I was having a really difficult night in regards to recording and lagging and stuff like that. I don't say very much that's important anyway -- it's all in the story itself.

A Video. Also Commentary!

2012-01-24T10:58:00.002-05:00

It often makes me disappointed in people when I see how other countries view my own. There are so many negative American stereotypes out here. Some of it I can understand -- it's a proven fact that America has one of the highest obesity rates in the world. So I can understand how some ignorant people will just assume that if you are an American that must certainly mean you're a fat slob. Right? And I can understand that just because our government passed a legislature that states a slice of pizza contains the nutrients found in one serving of vegetables, and can thus count as one serving of vegetables, that means that all Americans are retarded and think that pizza is a vegetable. Right? And since someone who used to be in Congress then became the head of the RIAA, a greedy corporation, which made it quite easy for that corporation to lobby two very bad legislatures (SOPA and PIPA), then that means America as a whole is turning into a Nazi regime and is trying to censor the entire internet. Right?

These ones don't really bother me all that much, though. For lack of a better term, America is a loud country -- we tend to have an opinion about everything, and in my opinion (see what I did there?) we tend to stick our noses into just about everything. I think that's one of the main reasons why we get this kind of abuse. It's all good. We can take it.

There are some other perceptions of America that I see, which sort of sadden me, however. These are the ones that aren't "jokes", persay, or trolling. They are people who legitimately have misconceptions about what America is like.

For example, today I saw a European stating they would never visit America because they were scared to death of getting shot by the military. They then quoted an American law that states the military can arrest anyone they suspect of being a terrorist and hold them indefinitely without trial. So already his statement is flawed, since no where in that law does it state the military is allowed to SHOOT you for being a suspected terrorist. Last time I looked, I didn't live in North Korea. Secondly, do people really think that we arrest foreigners all the time for no reason and throw them in Gitmo? That's really sad. Unless you have a bomb strapped to your chest or you're carrying something illegal (chemicals, weapons, etc.), you're not going to have any problems.

I saw another person, I think they were Australian, stating that they would never visit America because there's nothing there worth seeing. This gives me the perfect opportunity at one of the most advanced methods of ownage known to man. Not only am I going to show you places worth seeing in America -- but I'm going to show you beautiful places in America that you've probably NEVER HEARD OF. Everyone knows about Yellowstone National Park, or Mount Rushmore, or the Grand Canyon, or the Lincoln Memorial, or Niagara Falls. I'm not even going to MENTION any of those amazing places, and I'm still going to own this guy's ass and show him why there's a song called America The Beautiful.

And not once, but ten times.

1. Asheville, North Carolina

It's a city at the base of the Appalachian Mountains. The scenery there, especially at sunrise and sunset, is utterly amazing.

2. Aspen, Colorado

Here, you will see mountain scenery that is not unlike scenes out of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films.

3. Cape Cod, Massachussets

The picture speaks for itself. This actually reminds me of the old Westfall in World of Warcraft.

4. Destin, Florida

If their tourist tagline isn't "Make Us Your Destin-ation", they need to change it RIGHT THIS SECOND.

5. Jackson Hole, Wyoming

We're pretty big on our mountains here in America. This is the Grand Teton range.

6. Lanikai Beach, Hawaii

Naturally, I couldn't make a list like this without mentioning Hawaii!

7. Newport, Rhode Island

Beaches or mountains don't suit your tastes? How about a quaint harbor town with scenic walking routes along the cliff rocks?

8. Point Reyes, California

71,000 acres of wildlife and coastland to explore.

9. Sedona, Arizona

I -love- the Red Rocks of America. It's desert...but not. And incredibly beautiful.

10. Sleeping Bear Dunes, Michigan

Just in case you don't like TROPICAL beaches, here's one along the Great Lakes for you. You're welcome.

So there you go. Ten little-known places in America that would make amazing vacation spots with no military standing around waiting to shoot you.

In other news, I mentioned before that I started playing through Serious Sam 3 once more, and that I was trying to record it. The first two chapters didn't work out so well, and I decided since not a TON happens in those first two chapters, I would just start with chapter 3. So here it is.

Additionally, I did record chapter 4 last night. But I once again fucked it up. The video and audio are actually fine. What happened was that I wasn't recording when I thought I was recording -- so instead of recording the boss fight and turning off the recording at the loading screen for the next chapter, I didn't record the boss fight and recorded the loading screen for the next chapter. Which is not useful in the least!

A lot happens in that chapter, too. So I'm probably going to have to replay it. Sad, sad panda.

Jedi Knight Vlog: Part 2

2012-01-23T20:00:00.000-05:00

A smaller post today, but the video is longer than the others. So that sort of makes up for it! This video summarizes the conclusion of the whole Bengel Morr storyline, and also showcases the creation of my lightsaber. Some assembly was required -- but fortunately it assembles itself!

Jedi Knight Vlog: Part 1

2012-01-22T22:05:00.000-05:00

I've started a Jedi Knight called Kobel in The Old Republic, and I decided to do something a little bit differently this time around. I've already discussed the game's elements, how it plays, the environments, and stuff like that. This time around I'm going to focus more on the story itself, and to do so I'm going to offer short videos of all the important sections of the main storyline. I'll try to keep my mouth shut as much as possible as I'm recording these, but you'll probably hear me making retorts from time to time. It's just unavoidable. :D

Also, the audio for the first few videos will be a tad loud. Sorry about that. I'm far from an expert in these things.

Finally, I don't think I need to mention the fact that this will spoil the entirety of the Jedi Knight storyline. But just in case you're an idiot, there, I warned you.

So, the very first problem that I encounter after making a Jedi Knight character is an attack by Flesh Raiders. I'm sent out to deal with the situation, which leads up to killing a Jedi who was trying to control them. Impressed with the way I handled the situation, Jedi Master Orgus Din decides to take me as his Padawan. I then go with him to a village of Twi'lek pilgrims, who are also having trouble with Flesh Raiders. The first order of business is stealing some of the Flesh Raiders' weapons. It's here that I meet my first companion.

This droid has a holorecording that may shed some light onto what, exactly, is happening to the Flesh Raiders. Showing this recording to Orgus is next on my to-do list.

Orgus decides that the Jedi Council needs to see that holorecording. While he's gone, it's going to be up to me to keep the Flesh Raiders pushed back until he's able to send me reinforcements. (Of course it is.)

While I'm working on that, I notice something a bit surprising -- the Flesh Raiders have begun using the Force. Ruh-roh, Raggy.

To make matters worse, it appears that the mysterious figure pulling all the strings with the Flesh Raiders is an old Padawan of Orgus. It's both good and bad, so to speak -- he's not a Sith, but he's also not on our side. Either way, he needs to be stopped.

So Orgus is going after him, and he needs me to disable the shields for T7. Bengel decides to say hello while I'm there. It's the typical evil villain banter. "Hello. How are you? I'm going to kill you soon."

Nevermind him, though, there are more immediately pressing matters. The Flesh Raiders broke through the lines of defense, and began poisoning the fields of the Twi'lek pilgrims. Well, we can't have that, now can we?

After dealing with that, it was time to head into the ruins and deal with the rest of the Flesh Raiders. Only one problem -- one of them now has a lightsaber.

And like any good story, this one would not be complete without some good, old fashioned BETRAYAL!

Up next: The fall of Bengel Morr, and crafting my lightsaber! Stay tuned.

That Thing That's a Virtue, But Not Right Now

2012-01-21T13:49:00.003-05:00

I would be referring to patience, naturally. Of which I have none!

See, I was going to record a play-through of Serious Sam 3 -- the whole game, of course, with me talking through it and stuff. And actually, I started doing just that. But, I have this problem: I'm an idiot. I didn't exactly do a sound check before I played through and recorded two full levels of the game. The game sound is actually quite fine -- maybe a bit loud, though. Still, it's okay. But, you really can't hear me very much at all. I thought maybe it would work out okay if I didn't use my headset. That was an error in judgement.

I was going to process those first two chapters anyway, and just improve upon them from that point forward. Seems reasonable, right? I got sofar as to processing the raw video in Movie Maker. I had a 26 minute video of chapter 1, but for some reason part of the video goes black halfway through. I have no idea why. None of it is like that pre-processing, and 90% of the video is perfectly fine.

I don't have the patience to figure it out. I deleted it and all the footage. Balls to it.

Something's not right here

2012-01-21T03:05:00.002-05:00

Wait a Sith-stopping second.

Whenever Blizzard patches World of Warcraft, problems follow. Bugs are found, exploits are spread about and things break. This is only natural with the nature of online gaming, and PC gaming in general. It's generally accepted that your framerate and latency will go down a little with each patch.

Then WHY has my framerate DOUBLED in Star Wars: The Old Republic? This isn't right! Are Bioware really pulling this whole MMO thing off properly? I may actually have to play this game more now!

The force is strong with this one. I love you, Bioware.

But not you, EA. Go to hell.

Also, pretty screenshot is pretty.

What the FUCK, id?

2012-01-19T01:00:00.000-05:00

I'm about to prove to you that I do not hold back when it comes to game developers that I worship. Oh how misguided you are if you thought that might be the case with me. How misguided indeed. I should start at the beginning though. And don't worry, this post is not going to be 100% rant. It'll take me a while to get to that. BUT GET TO IT I WILL.

Ok, I'm back. You didn't notice a thing, but I left for like 15 minutes. I needed new music. I get that urge randomly, and when it happens there's really nothing I can do about it. Now, on with the show!

I decided to finish Rage this evening, as I wasn't quite in the mood to play TOR and playing an FPS actually quite appealed to me. This brings me to the first annoyance of the evening. I was actually going to record all of my playthrough this evening, and just post it. But I couldn't get a decent framerate at all. I tried many things -- internal hard drive, external hard drive, lowering the FPS on the Fraps recording, changing to half size, and so on. Nothing I tried worked. Rage was PLAYABLE...but I could notice that I wasn't getting the framerate I should be getting. And it was varying to a very extreme degree. Sometimes I'd actually be at 60 FPS. But it would randomly drop down to 10. Also, even at 60 FPS, I could notice stuttering when I moved the camera around.

It was rather frustrating...but not incredibly surprising. With Rage's megatextures, I had a hunch that it would be a problem to record smoothly. Let's not forget that I had every video setting cranked up to the highest, because, y'know, I can do that. Game runs fantastic when I'm not recording. But you know me -- I refuse to turn anything down. *shrugs* Oh well! If it's any consolation, you actually didn't miss all that much.

As for the game itself, I have such good things to say about it. And one big, huge, massive, gigantic, humongous, WTFuken, blimp-sized bitch about it.

There's a lot of sci-fi mumbo jumbo at the end of the game. It basically becomes Quake, for all intents and purposes. I'm not necessarily saying this is a bad thing, of course, I'm just pointing it out.

If you'll recall my previous posts about the game, the story of Rage is that the world was nearly destroyed by an asteroid, humans were put into arks to survive, and you wake up in the wasteland of a future. You've got the rebels, and they're fighting the Authority. Simple. No one playing and id game is playing it for the story, trust me.

In any case, the last part of the game had me breaking into the Authority main base to upload a certain file. This file would activate a satellite up in space, which would allow the rebels to locate all the other buried arks and free all the humans inside of them, thus creating and army to fight the Authority.

I've already talked about how good this game is previously. The weapons, the graphics (most of all), the controls, and so on. Already talked about that, and I still stand by what I said. And since you've read this far, it's time to reveal what has me so fucking annoyed.

Ok, so I break into the Authority base, thinking to myself that this is probably going to be the end and I'm going to find something horrifying or shocking inside. Obviously there will be a final boss fight. This is id after all. I get to the top. I fight three or four waves of mutants. The rebels found out that the Authority was building a mutant army and who knows what else, so I wasn't surprised to find mutants in their base.

So I fight these three to four waves of mutants, and I upload the file. A cutscene plays showing arks all over the world activating and popping out of the ground.

Then the game ends.

Excuse me what?

No, really. What the hellassballs?

And you know what: It was such an abrupt ending that I'm so very sure it wasn't just bad writing. It's like they didn't finish the fucking game! Either they had a deadline they couldn't meet, or they simply rushed the game out after seeing that Borderlands and Fallout have already done the same thing. (And in a lot of ways, done it better.)

You've disappointed me id. Only a 2012 release of Doom 4 will ever be able to make up for it.

Yeah, I'm dreaming there. Pft.

~~Here, have a pointless screenshot from the final cutscene.~~

Instead, here, have a screenshot of a BFG cameo!

Sigh. I just...I can't even...so fucking stupid. God dammit. Fucking cop-out of an ending. Ballsacks!

And really, that's my only complaint about the game. But hell, it's a LULU.

I was able to contain my rage (har har, see what I did there?) enough during the ending credits to pay attention to the song that was playing. I listened to it again after I calmed down from that TURD of an ending, and then again. And then again. And I'm listening to it again right now. It's excellent, and it fits the tone of the game beautifully. Bravo on that one. I will take this song as a consolation prize to this STEAMING PILE OF YAK VOMIT OF AN ENDING.

For your listening pleasure, here is the song.

Taking the Grand TOR: Part 7

2012-01-18T01:02:00.001-05:00

The finale of the Sith Warrior! Let's get to it.

Sarah Conner? Come with me if you want to live.

Seriously, I wonder how many people actually get all of my jokes? *Ponders*

Come on ride the train, hey, ride it, woo woo!

If I just got Quad City DJs stuck in your head, I vehemently apologize. At least I'm telling you I do. Secretly, I'm laughing.

One of my companions answered a holocall in nothing but his underwear. What the fuck are my companions doing on my ship when I'm not around?!

These guys are pretty cool looking. Too bad I killed them all.

I went with an orange lightsaber crystal in my main hand for a while. I've since changed it back to red, though. I was so close to leveling up that I didn't want to take the time to switch out the crystal right away. Yes, I'm that insane.

Don't you just hate it when the Dark Side starts ripping your body to shreds? It really ruins my day.

Here I am practicing my dramatic pointing. It's also funny watching me freak out in the chat.

This reminds me of the original cover of Wolves of the Calla. Just the whole glowing eyes, odd face structure, and the arms outstretched. How odd.

This is the climax of the story just getting started right here. I'm on my way to the chamber of the Dark Council to confront Darth Baras once and for all.

Epic pose with epic quote. Too bad I got my ass kicked immediately thereafter. Twice. Them's the breaks, kid.

Actually, I take that back. The first time I took on Baras, it wasn't too bad. I beat him.

Then he took off his mask. Whenever anyone takes off their mask in this kind of situation, you can pretty much kiss your ass goodbye.

I'm not going to lie, this screenshot makes me fall down on my knees and praise whatever lords may be out there for giving me such a thing as Star Wars.

The only reason this is here is because I didn't think we had enough epic poses yet. You're welcome.

And this about sums it up. Baras is dead by my hand, and the Dark Council bowed to me. I am now Darth Saburo.

Right, so final thoughts on the story? Well, the first thing that I want to point out is this: This is important, so pay attention. Are you paying attention? Good. Playing through this entire story was well worth the $59.99 it costs to purchase this game. Think about that for a moment. I finished one of the classes within a month. It was a lot of playtime, but I did it. I could cancel my subscription right now, having lost nothing but that $59.99, which is the same price you would pay for, oh I dunno, Battlefield 3. Or Call of Duty. Do you see my point? For the SAME PRICE as those turds, I got my money's worth out of LESS THAN ONE EIGHTH OF THE ENTIRE GAME.

So do I think the subscription is worth it? Let me summarize that answer for you:

Enough said.

Do I recommend this game? Yes but only if just ONE of the following is true for you: You like Star Wars, you like MMOs, you like epic storytelling, you are a human being with any kind of interest in having your pants entertained off your unworthy body.

It's not perfect -- no game is -- but it's fucking fun and kittens will cry if you miss out on all this good stuff. Don't make the kittens cry.

Taking the Grand TOR: Part 6

2012-01-17T01:50:00.000-05:00

Alright, it's time to finish up all of my screeshots, so that I'm actually up to date with where I am in the game. Also, I'm going to change the way I post images here a little bit. Well, actually, I'm going to change the format of the text that goes with them, so it's easier to tell which picture the text belongs with. I'm going to use captions. Wish me luck!

You're having a nice pleasant walk in the woods and OMG WTF IS THAT THING?!

That thing was elite, too. Not something you'd want to find in some dark forest by any means. Also going through that area reminded me of this book I'm reading -- The Talisman. The main character, Jack, was almost murdered by the forest. Think of Tokien's Fangorn Forest, only evil. Or, if you will, imagine the forest from MacBeth...only for real. (Incidentally, Tolkien's forest really was alive because he was disappointed that Shakespeare's forest in MacBeth was not. True story.)

These guys remind me of the Protoss. Just a little bit.

Beam me up, Sc-OMG WTF ARE YOU DOING?!

I could try and explain what's happening there, but it would take me forever. Basically, let's just say that those guys being held in those pods are very power Darth Lords that I needed to free. The not-Protoss were keeping them captive and draining their force energy.

Why I thought I could totally avoid these creatures is beyond me.

Oh yeah, because THAT'S not ominous.

Stop laughing and get me a can opener. Quick!

I face off against Darth Baras' other apprentice. Rumor is he can't die.

My hobbies include long walks on the beach, and disproving myths about other Sith being invincible.

I love this shot. I sort of missed the other guy, but I don't care, it still looks amazing.

This particular landscape reminds me of Azshara. Voss is like what Azshara would look like if Blizzard had designed it today, rather than six years ago.

"Gold! I found gold!"

You know things are getting serious when eyes start glowing.

A long time ago at a prom far, far away...

Okay, so the whole thing with the Voice of the Emperor. Here's what went down, and I shouldn't need to mention that these are major spoilers: My master, Darth Baras, betrayed me because he was afraid I was becoming too powerful. He sent his other apprentice to kill me, and afterwards he declared himself the Voice of the Emperor. What that means is that he was proclaiming that the Emperor himself was speaking through him and that his word was the Emperor's will.

The Dark Council was forced to believe this, through a wide variety of scare tactics, blackmail, and other such deviancy orchestrated by Baras.To combat this, the Emperor put his "Hand" into action. The Hand of the Emperor is an illusive and secret group of Sith that carry out the Emperor's instructions. After Baras betrayed me, the Emperor sent the Hand to me to elevate me to the Wrath of the Emperor. As the Emperor's Wrath, I was sent on a collision course with Baras to bring him down for good.

And now, I actually think I've written enough for one evening. I have more screenshots than I thought I did. I do have two more to share before signing off, though.

Saburo without Sith Corruption.

Saburo with Sith Corruption.

Taking the Grand TOR: Part 5

2012-01-16T18:14:00.002-05:00

I have all these screenshots that I haven't posted yet, which I need to do before I post the final ones from my Sith's storyline. So let's dive right into that, shall we? I believe we left off on Alderaan.

Also, from this point forward, you should assume that any TOR post I make will have considerable spoilers in it. Just FYI.

Belsavis was an odd planet. Its quests were also a bit on the grindy side, as far as I'm concerned. Still, it had its moments. The idea of a planet's sole purpose being a prison isn't relatively unique, but it was cool to see it visually realized in a persistent game world.

The place had its fair share of lightsaber duels, too. It's odd seeing this image after everything else that's happened since. That other guy beside me is the other apprentice of my master Darth Baras. Here we're working together. Later on...well, you'll see.

There's no point having pretty landscapes if you're not going to pose in them!

This is the guy that Darth Baras sent me to kill. His death allowed him to ascend to a seat on the Dark Council. It ended up being the start of a larger, more sinister ploy, however. One that directly and negatively affected me!

And that's all the screenshots that I have left on this computer. From this point forward, they'll be coming to you from Skynet4!

Ding!

2012-01-16T10:33:00.003-05:00

To me, leveling is like the Dark Side. Its power and influence always seems greater than anything else, and eventually it will consume and destroy you.

Well, I may be exaggerating a little bit.

In any case, I've reached the level cap in The Old Republic, and I've done so with a feeling of relief. You may question that, and perhaps ask, "Well, if you were enjoying the game so much, why would that be?" That answer is simple: MMOs are structured to always make you feel that if you are not at the level cap, you are behind. It's one of the downsides of the genre. In fact, Blizzard just recently made a post about exactly that topic:

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3881721982

I've always been one to agree with the notion that it's always the journey that's important, and not the destination. I envy anyone who can successfully apply that philosophy while playing an MMO. It's not easy to do. I find it much easier to think that way in real life.

That aside, the story of my Sith Warrior throughout his 50 levels was nothing short of amazing. One thing that stands out to me was how the game made you feel powerful no matter what level you were. That's not easy to do. (For example, before the revamp of WoW's 1-60 questing, you felt pretty damned weak for quite a few levels.)

I'll have much more to say about the whole thing at a later time, when I have access to my screenshots.

On to a different topic.

My new computer is running perfectly, and I've pretty much got all the settings just the way I want them. I'm very happy with the quality of the system, its performance, and everything else. So if you're wondering -- Cyberpower PC gets my seal of approval.

I do have one issue, though: the monitor. Actually, two issues with that one item.

The first is really odd and not so bothersome. It seems that the buttons on the monitor itself don't really work all that well. You see, it has five buttons. A power button, a menu button, two "menu navigation" buttons, and a "select" button. Well, the power button does nothing. And the other four buttons turn the power on/off. Wha? It's bizarre! But it doesn't really affect me all that much, because I never use those buttons. (I have my computer set to turn off the monitor automatically anyway.)

The other issue is probably going to cost me my sanity.

The monitor has a stuck pixel. At least, I think it's "stuck". I'm hoping it's stuck, because apparently stuck pixels can be fixed. "Dead" and "Hot" pixels cannot be fixed. I did some reading, and apparently "dead" pixels are always black, and "hot" pixels are always white. And they cannot be fixed. Stuck pixels tend to be red, green, blue, or yellow. Mine is blue, so I'm hopeful in that regard.

You may be thinking why this is such a big deal, given that a pixel is really, really small, and surely it can't be all that noticeable, right? You'd be surprised.

While playing The Old Republic, I swear to fucking Crom that little blue dot puts itself dead center in my character's forehead during EVERY FUCKING CONVERSATION. It is utterly infuriating. I keep telling myself that it's no big deal, and really it's not. But I can't stop looking at the damned thing. It's like an old carton of milk. You know it's sour, but you're a dumbass and sniff it anyway. That's probably a bad analogy, but you get my point.

On one hand, I keep telling myself that it's really not that big of a deal and that it's easily ignored. I'm sure I won't even notice it anymore after another week or two. (Honestly, that's a bit optimistic of me.)

On the other hand, I paid good money for this new system, so shouldn't I demand complete satisfaction? (I should mention that I don't blame Cyberpower for this. They simply sent me the new monitor, which they got from their supplier: Sceptre. That's the brand of monitor. It's not their fault. They just sold the product. I expect them to test my new system (which they did), and did not expect them to test my monitor.)

So I'm kind of debating with myself what exactly I should do. First of all, since stuck pixels can apparently be fixed, I'm going to try that first. I found a guide online about some things I can try to do. I really, really hope it works, because otherwise I'm left with the following:

First, I'd have to read through my warranty to find out if it covers stuck pixels in a monitor. I probably won't be able to find a definitive answer, so I'll have to directly contact the company to find out. If it does, that means I'll have to package up the monitor and send it back to the company. OPTIMISTICALLY, I'd have the monitor back in a month. (Two days to figure out if the warranty covers it, one week for it to get back to the company, a week and a half for them to process it and ship me out a new one or fix the old one, and a week for it to get back to me.) The thought of going through all that makes me want to stab a puppy.

And I realize that every single person who reads that paragraph is thinking, "Wow, he's a whiny little bitch, isn't he?" Yes, I probably am. But what I'm trying to do is weigh the options. Do I really want to go through all of that hassle just because of a little blue dot? Now that I have this monitor, I'm used to having it, so going back to my old (smaller and less awesome) monitor for a month will make me very irritated, mind you. (Yes, yes, whiny bitch, got it, we've covered that already.)

To go back in a complete circle, I hope I can somehow "unstick" this pixel myself. Otherwise I'm probably going to go clinically insane.

Friday the 13th

2012-01-13T16:12:00.002-05:00

For a day that's traditionally and superstitiously attributed to bad luck, this one is certainly living up to its standards. It started at lunch for me. It's utterly despicable outside, weather-wise, so four of us decided to order some delivery and thus avoid having to leave the office. When our food got here, I opened up my box and it was completely empty.

After one Mother Hubbard and one "What's in the boooooox? Oh, nothing." joke later, I called up the place and informed them that my lunch was missing.

About an hour later, the guy finally arrives with my food, but he's all shaken up. When he was retrieving my box from the driver's seat of his car, someone backed into him. So the guy delivering my food was hit by a car. Also, please note that I'm not saying that his car was hit. No -- HE was hit. Luckily, he was unhurt, since the other car was backing up and thus going quite slowly. He said the only thing that hurt was his fist -- because he punched the other guy's car. (Not out of anger -- more in panic and to make noise so the guy would stop backing up and not fully run the poor guy over.)

So yeah, this hasn't been a particularly good day. Now I have to leave the office and drive home in temperatures far below freezing, high winds, and blowing snow. Given the way this day is going, I'm not exactly looking forward to it.

Actually, I am Sure...

2012-01-13T08:27:00.002-05:00

Watch Out Guys, We're Dealing With a Badass Over Here

2012-01-13T01:37:00.002-05:00

Actually, a group of badasses to be exact. I'm sort of skipping ahead with my screenshots here a little bit, but this was too good not to share right away. Besides, technically this isn't a "Grand TOR" post anyway! Technicalities.

So anyway, Belsavis is a bit painful in that it's not really that interesting. However, this one part most definitely was:

Those are the Dread Lords. And they kick ass.

I'm Never Getting to Sleep...

2012-01-12T01:02:00.000-05:00

Nevah! I'm too wired.

Oh, and future self: Remember to pick up a new chair mat and a USB bus during lunch tomorrow. I know you'll be slacking off and reading your own blog in the morning. Get to work, you asshat!

And John -- I'm watching a Ciderhelm livestream at the moment where he's just doing some testing. He's running a livestream and FRAPS at the SAME time. What kind of monster PC do you think he has? Heh. He says he's going to do a Brolafstravaganza. That should be fun.

In other news, as I'm sitting here watching download bars crawl by, I'm listening to the new Snow Patrol album that came out yesterday. It's their first new album in 4 years! I love Snow Patrol.

It Has Arrived...Mostly

2012-01-12T00:37:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting here typing this blog entry from my new computer. Things are a bit of a mess at the moment -- they always are when I get a new computer. It takes me hours to get everything just the way I want it. I'm currently downloading TOR, WoW, D3, and two games on Steam simultaneously. My internet connection is probably ready to file for a divorce.

I say that the computer is mostly here, and what I mean is that my new monitor is not. Everything else is. I don't mind that so much, because I have a perfectly good monitor as it is now. It's just that it will be going over to the old PC once the new monitor arrives.

As for the computer itself, I'm thoroughly satisfied with it. It's working like a dream, and it looks fantastic. I have a few cables I need to re-run tomorrow night, and some organizing to do, but aside from that I just need to re-install, re-install, re-install!

Just an average day

2012-01-11T14:36:00.005-05:00

This is me, talking to my mum on an average day. I felt like taking a picture of it.

The New Rig

2012-01-10T09:14:00.002-05:00

It shall be called Skynet4.

This time around, I decided to go with Cyberpower PC instead of Alienware. The reasons for this were two-fold. One, Alienware is expensive. This was most definitely an impulse buy for me this time around, but I didn't want to spend the usual several thousand dollars that I typically spend on a computer. Two, Cyberpower has very good reviews. Right, so the details:

Case: In-Win Dragon Rider Full Tower Case w/ 1x120mm Front Fan, 1x220mm LED Side Fan, Front USB 3.0 x 2 & Water-Cooling Hole Ready [+82] (Black Color)

In English: It's a cool looking case with a window to see the internal components, and easy-access opening to refill the water coolant, and extra fans to help with cooling.

CD-ROM Drive: 24X Double Layer Dual Format DVD+-R/+-RW + CD-R/RW Drive (RED COLOR [+9])

In English: Standard stuff -- CD and DVD burner of the normal variety. Nothing fancy.

Coolant: Standard Coolant

In English: Think of this as anti-freeze, but with the opposite affect. It's the liquid that flows through the tubes that make up the liquid cooling aspect of the system. Basically, it's superior because the liquid absorbs heat better, and then flows away from your computer's CPU, making it run cooler. Liquid cooling is also quieter than having a bunch of fans.

CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-3960X Extreme Edition 3.30 GHz 15MB Intel Smart Cache LGA2011 (All Venom OC Certified)

In English: This is one of the best CPUs you can buy right now, and it was one of the most expensive parts of the rig.

Extra Fans: Maximum 120MM Color Case Cooling Fans for your selected case.

In English: I have this thing about keeping my computer cooled enough. That tends to happen when you've had one almost go up in flames on you once.

Engraving: Dragon Design.

In English: Yeah, so I splurged a little and got a big dragon engraved on the side of the case. BECAUSE I COULD.

Cooling: Asetek 510LC Liquid Cooling System 120MM Radiator & Fan (Enhanced Cooling Performance + Extreme Silent at 20dBA) (Dual Enermax Enlobal Silent High Performance 120MM Fans (Push-Pull)

In English: This is simply the description of the main cooling system.

Hard Drive: 2TB (2TBx1) SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 64MB Cache 7200RPM HDD

In English: Doubled the amount of space I currently have from 1 TB to 2 TB. Also, it's quite fast, but no where near the fastest you can buy (which is INSANELY expensive).

USB Hub: Internal USB 3.0 4-Port Hub

In English: I can never have enough USB ports.

Keyboard: Logitech G19 Gaming Keyboard w/ LCD Display

In English: The only reason I got a new keyboard is because the one I have is very, very touchy and the spacebar PISSES ME OFF. I double space all the time when I don't mean to. John has probably noticed it when I type in Skype. My sentences sometimes end up like this.

Memory: 16GB (2GBx8) DDR3/2000MHz Quad Channel Memory

In English: Yes, 16 GB of RAM. Like a boss.

Monitor: 27" Widescreen 1920x1080 Sceptre X270W-1080P LCD Display w/ Built-in Speaker, DVI, & HDMI-Input

In English: Utterly unnecessary. I'm a bad person. Bad, bad, bad. BUT I WANTED IIIIIIT! D:

Mouse Pad: Razer Sphex Gaming Grade Desktop Skins Mouse Pad

In English: It's GAMING GRADE! That makes it good, right? RIGHT?

Motherboard: (3-Way SLI Support) Asus P9X79 Deluxe Intel X79 Chipset Quad Channel DDR3 ATX w/ UEFI BIOS, BT GO, SSD Caching, 7.1 HD Audio, 1x Intel & 1x Realtek GbLAN, USB3.0, SATA-III RAID, 4 Gen3 PCIe X16 & 2 PCIe X1

In English: Okay, this is probably the most difficult to explain to a layman. Er, basically this motherboard supports the high-end CPU, Memory, Hard Drive, and Video Card that I purchased with the system. That's what all that jibberish tells you. 3-way SLI support means that it can support 3 video cards simultaneously, should I be utterly insane. (I'm not -- I'm only getting ONE video card. But I can upgrade later if I so desire!)

Mouse: Razer Naga Epic USB Wired/Wireless Dual Laser 5600 DPI Gaming Mouse

In English: I don't even know...

Network Card: Killer™ 2100 - Gigabit Maximum Network Performance Online Gaming Network Interface Card

In English: Er...it's just a fancy network card. I plugs my internetz into it!

Operating System: Microsoft® Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit Edition)

In English: Of course.

Power Supply: 800 Watts - XtremeGear Gaming Power Supply - Quad SLI Ready

In English: The more stuff you have in your computer, the more power you need to run it, obviously. I needed 800 watts due to the video card.

Warranty: 3-YEAR LIMITED WARRANTY PLUS LIFE-TIME TECHNICAL SUPPORT

In English: Playin' it safe.

Office Suite: Microsoft® Office® 2010 Home and Business (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook + OneNote)

In English: I needz mai spreadsheets and e-mailz!

Anti-Virus: McAfee Internet Security 2012

In English: Go away viruses!

Sound Card: Creative Labs SB X-FI Titanium PCI Express Sound Card

In English: Only ze best when it comes to sound.

USB Expansion: NZXT Internal USB 6-PORT Expansion Module

In English: Like I said, I can never have enough USB ports!

Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 3GB 16X PCIe Video Card

In English: The other most expensive part of this computer. It's the best video card (from NVIDIA) that you can buy right now.

I had originally expected the delivery to be some time during the week after next -- the 23rd or something like that. To my surprise, I got an e-mail last night (5 days after placing the order), telling me that it's been shipped and should be here this Thursday. If that's true, I will be VERY impressed at their service. *Is excited*

Taking the Grand TOR: Part 4

2012-01-10T01:10:00.000-05:00

Do you know what a really cliched statement is? "Shit just got real."

Oh, and shit just got real.

My Sith Warrior storyline just took an utter 180 degree turn, and I was blindsided by it. It was glorious. I was actually feeling a little bit tired as I was playing this evening -- eyes were heavy, I was yawning, and I wasn't sure I was going to make it to level 42 even though I only had a half a level to do rather than a full level. Then the story kicked into overdrive and I was on the edge of my seat. Got to 42 easily and had to force myself to stop for the evening. It was good stuff. Loving it.

And with that said, here are some old screenshots.

This is a taxi on Alderaan, and it is epic. Those are living beings that are carrying you there, make no mistake about that. It's a shame the Empire blows up that planet in the first movie. Ha!

Also, Alderaan is gorgeous. There's a lot...and I mean a LOT...of grass and trees. This makes it lag my computer horribly. (We'll see how my new rig handles it. Oh yes, this is the first time I've mentioned that I'm getting a new system. More on that later.)

This should remind you of the beginning of The Phantom Menace, when Qui Gon cuts through a sealed door. I love these little moments in the game that make you feel as through you're basically living a moment from the movies. It's quite well done.

You underestimate my power, Jedi!

The total amount of epicness in this screenshot is actually greater than the number of adjectives I could possibly use to describe it.

I look confused or something in this screenshot. Lulz.

See that companion beside me? I turned her to the dark side after the battle of awesomeness depicted two screenshots ago. Whee! Evilness!

That's a big droid. A very big droid. Good thing I have a bigger lightsaber.

This is a very cinematic screenshot.

Cool guys don't look at explosions.

Also, I need to design a better way to post images. I don't like the way the text formats around them.

What I do best

2012-01-09T06:57:00.002-05:00

As you may or may not know, I am English. This means I am good at ranting. I’m also not Pastatdude, illustrious master of this blog – I’m his partner, John. I often drive him mad with how much I rant, though he’s always brilliantly patient with me, and he encourages me to talk non-stop. That’s good, really, since talking is what I do best.

This post is likely not going to make much sense or have much form, mostly because I’m very unsure what to think at the moment. I’m at a crossroads between college, work and – interestingly – World of Warcraft (which, from now on, I’ll be calling ‘WoW’). Now, before you wave the ‘addicted!’ hammer at me, I’ll have you know that I don’t play WoW an awful lot anymore.

If anything, I’m playing Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR from now on) much more than WoW at the moment. The gameplay and story is more interesting for me, though that is likely to change eventually – gamers are fickle creatures, and their attention shifts a lot. But I still play WoW, and I still pay Blizzard their £9 a month, because of my guild.

They’re called ‘The Mok’lohn Command’, and I’m in charge of them. We’re a roleplaying guild and we’re probably one of the largest RP (roleplaying) guilds on the server. I feel bound to them, but not just because I am in charge. I love them, in all their silly glory. I am inspired by the enthusiasm that they all show, and though I often have to deal with problems and drama from them (a topic I like to call ‘Mok’lohn Crap’), I still love them. So no, I’m not addicted to WoW, I’m addicted to the Mok’lohn.

This leads me back to the whole crossroads analogy. The work I want to do get into is within the media industry; this is what I want to do, and I love media, especially editing. It doesn’t matter what it is, if I get the chance, I will edit it. Anyway, to get into the media industry, you have to start at the bottom. I’ve already got my eyes on a job as a GM (Game Master) for World of Warcraft; they basically act as in-game customer service for WoW players, and sort out problems with people, the game, or any other issues a player may have (I’m massively generalising here, obviously).

Despite some people (you know who you are) calling GMs a “glorified phone service”, it’s so much more than that. You need to have a deep love and knowledge of the game and, after several years growing up with WoW, I’d say I fit the bill. Besides knowing the game inside out, I love talking to people and, more importantly, I love LISTENING to people. If someone in the Mok’lohn has a problem, in-game or in real life, then they can always talk to me. Hell, even people outside of the guild can do that. Alongside this, the community around being a GM is brilliant – it has to be, I suppose, considering how stressful their job can be. I spent some time in Ireland with some friends who were GMs, and I met some other GMs, along with taking a look at where they live and how they live.

Long story short, this is where I want to get started. It may not be a glamorous job, but it is one that I know I would love through and through, and a job that I would be good at. Besides, Blizzard require for you to have spent a few years within the company before you’re ever considered for a job in any of their other departments. It’s a great place for me to start.

Finally, there’s college. I’ll be blunt about this; I’ve given up. I won’t pretend otherwise or dance around the topic. I know my mum reads this blog, and I know she’s probably very unhappy right about now. But it’s how I feel. Whenever I even think about college, I get a sinking feeling in my stomach and I go “Urgh”. This is mostly because of my situation; to do my current media course, I restarted college after one year of it. Now, a year after I would otherwise have left to continue to university, I’ve lost all will to continue. The benefits of finishing the course do not outweigh my desire to just leave, and get out there.

I’ve talked to the people I trust about this, and I’ve heard things like “You’ve come so far already”, “think of all the time that would go to waste”, “What if the GM job doesn’t work out or you get declined?” and “you only have a few months of college left now”.

I just want to put one argument down, first. The whole “only a few months left” thing. As I said, I’ve lost it completely for college. What makes anyone think that the LAST SIX MONTHS OF THE COURSE, the toughest part of the entire two years, will somehow change that? I’ve already come to terms with the fact that I’ll probably have no college certificates, and just saying “but you’re so close to finishing” won’t help at all. The bottom line is that, one way or another, I very much doubt I’ll be passing this course.

Everything about college is getting me down; the people, the work, the teachers, the environment, their incessant yelling about how university is the messiah of all that is good in this otherwise indoctrinated, pathetic world; all of it, it drives me mad. The only thing that keeps me at college is the £20 a week I receive for attending – but, because I’ve lost the will to continue, the quality of my work will likely ensure that I won’t get it anymore. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see on that one.

So, back to my crossroads analogy. Between college and WoW, I find that being able to have a positive impact in people’s lives, no matter how small, makes me happy, and makes WoW far more important for me. I want to keep helping, so I want to follow that path and become a GM. Unfortunately, I feel that college I just holding me back, and I want nothing more than to be rid of it. The whole experience of being a GM interests me; where I’d live, how I’d live, the work itself, how it would react to my relationship with Steve, all of that stuff.

On another topic, I find it quite ironic that I actually wrote this post down on a notepad (using a pen and paper, the horror) at college during one of my lessons. I doubt I could do any work if I tried. It’s difficult for me. I told one of my media teachers, Matt, about my situation, and he suggested that I just give it a go before it drives me mad. I’m very much unsure what to do, really. As I said, crossroads. If I’m entirely honest, I’m scared. I’m scared that I’ll give up college, not get the job as a GM, and disappoint Steve. I know he teases me about my patience and determination, but it would destroy me to know that he’s disappointed in me.

I’m going to go for it, regardless of the consequences. Hopefully Blizzard sees me as a determined soul who wants to do good and work in an professional environment where I can help the company, not as an idiot who likes playing games and who thinks they can just become a GM for fun. My mum’s going to be very, very angry. I don’t care. This is what I want to do.

Thank you for reading all of this. You’ve been a massive help. Now, I’m going to try and stop crying mid-lesson and get to work.

Throwback

2012-01-09T02:08:00.001-05:00

I just wanted to put this here as a sort of an homage, and as a sort of a celebratory post now that TOR is finally here and all:

http://www.pastatdude.com/pdcomic/issue009.html

Heh, it actually amazing me how much free time I apparently had then. I actually had time to make webcomics? WTF?

And now...bed. Let's see how much of The Talisman I can read before I pass out. I really like how this book is basically a Dark Tower novel. I know that "The Territories" that Jack dreams about are in Mid-World, and I know that two men who tried to kidnap him when he was six were most likely Taheen (or Low-Men).

It's a good thing...I probably wouldn't be able to keep myself interested in this story if that wasn't the case. I'm sure it'll improve very soon, though.

Right. Bed. Nao. G'night.

Organization

2012-01-08T22:43:00.001-05:00

I've had enough of TOR for the moment. I just dinged 41, I purchased my Rank 2 Speeder Riding skill, and now I'm utterly broke. There's even another ability upgrade sitting on my trainer for me to purchase. I can't afford it. Nor can I afford to purchase a speeder that will actually make use of this faster riding skill.

Note to developers: Quit being fucking idiots and make the credits a player earns through questing actually enough to purchase their skills when they are at the correct level. Blizzard has already fixed this. That is all.

I parked myself in a cantina on Alderaan and decided to work on my downloads for a little while. I recently read an article regarding the greatest science fiction television shows of all time, and noticed that I hadn't seen the number one entry on the list: Battlestar Galactica (the new version that aired in 2003 for four years). I decided to rectify that and downloaded it all -- the pilot and all four seasons.

Of course, I have no idea when I'll ever get around to watching it. But, hey, I'm making the effort.

While I'm at it, I'm also catching up on the two series that I download but that aren't ended yet. (I rarely do this -- usually I wait until a TV show is over before I get it, because, y'know, I demand fucking CLOSURE.)

This gives me a chance to use my new binders. Good stuff.

Now to kick off some of these downloads and start burning stuff. In between discs, I shall start grinding out the 70,000 credits I need to purchase a speeder and one ability upgrade. Woo?

So, Just To Confirm

2012-01-06T12:14:00.002-05:00

I mean, we all knew this stuff already, but it's good to have it archived somewhere.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=steve

Taking the Grand TOR: Part 3

2012-01-06T01:06:00.000-05:00

It's been a little while since I've made a TOR post, and I've made quite a bit of progress since then. At the very least, I should use up some of the screenshots I've taken!

This is a pretty simple example of combat for the Sith Marauder. Obviously I dual-wield two lightsabers, and it's more of an acrobatic play-style. This was taken on Dromund Kaas, which is incidentally the Sith homeworld.

The landscapes are large and impressive, such as this one!

Darth Baras, my Sith Master. He's a bit annoyed with a prisoner at the moment.

My ship, The Fury. Isn't she lovely?

The planet-travel screen. It's very Mass Effect-y.

Balmorra is very pretty -- I headed there after I finished up on Dromund Kaas. It's a very outdoors-y, war-torn landscape. The story very much builds on the tensions between the Republic and the Empire. It's very much like WoW in that regard, but the difference here is that, of course, it's all voice acted and staged very well. You actually understand why you're doing what you're sent out in the world to do.

Jedi! They don't scare me...

Nar Shaddaa looks amazing. It's one of my favorite planets thus far -- I was quite happy to go back there for some bonus quests a little later on after I had moved on to Alderaan.

Fatality!

Just like in the movies, Tatooine is a big, empty desert. But they did a really good job in making it interesting. And beautiful.

As for my actual experience, it's been a very good one. The leveling process does not feel like a grind, and I am having fun. And this is concentrating only on solo-play -- just one part of a very large game.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-04T16:29:00.001-05:00

Edit: Who the fuck wrote this? What horrible grammar. Fixed.

It's a little belated, I realize, but I was on vacation. Besides, the year is still new, anyway. I spent a wonderful week in England, where the weather was a hell of a lot better than it is here. The day I got back, there were 3 inches of snow on the ground and the temperature was 8. (-13 if you prefer Celsius.) That's fucking cold!

The trip home was a bit interesting. I was worried from the start, because it stormed pretty bad the night before. I could hear the rain, wind, and thunder as I laid awake in bed -- I didn't sleep one bit, either. Fortunately, this worked out to my advantage later on. (The fact that I didn't sleep one bit, not the weather.)

After I got to my gate at Norwich Airport, I learned that there was a problem with my plane. Apparently, there was something hanging from it. It wasn't something vital -- just a seal of some kind -- but naturally, they aren't allowed to fly the plane with something like that flapping around. Therefore, they had to call in engineers to rivet the piece back in place. This took until 11:00, which was 1.05 hours after I was supposed to take off. We were in the air 2 hours later than we should have been. As a result, I missed my connecting flight in Amsterdam.

I was quite worried that I would end up being stuck in Amsterdam for a whole 24 hours. After I landed, my flight wasn't even on the board any longer, so I definitely missed it. (I had hoped that maybe it had been delayed by the weather, but it was not.) I walked to my gate, thinking that if I was going to use a "transfer desk", I should probably use one close to my gate. That was probably where my airline's desks would be. I was right on that assumption. Good thing, since I was in a country where the primary language is not English.

I walked up to a self-serve kiosk, and scanned my boarding pass. The computers had automatically re-booked my remaining two flights, so I was pretty impressed with that. I printed my new boarding passes and looked at the departure time for my next flight -- I was now going to Detroit instead of JFK. (I found that amusing -- that was my path on the way to England.) The departure time was actually very soon, and the boarding time was just about the same time that my previous flight departed -- which was now 20 minutes ago. Ah.

So there I went, running like hell through the walkways of Schiphol. Like a boss.

I made it to the gate with plenty of time to spare, and the flight was fine. I actually slept for 4 solid hours, which cut the flight in half for me. That was fantastic. It's the first time I've ever been able to sleep on a plane.

The 4 hours that I was awake weren't bad either, and I actually didn't do much reading. (Maybe an hour or two.) I was sat next to an older English gentleman, and the two of us actually did some talking. His name was Tom, and he's from Yorkshire. His sister lives in Norwich, and he was familiar with North Walsham and Cromer.

The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful (thankfully). I'm home in one piece, and looking forward to 2012. It should be a really interesting year.

I don't make New Year's resolutions. I think they're stupid, and I also think that you shouldn't simply wait to do something for when the year is new. Time is relative, anyway.

On that note, I'm off to perform other tasks relative to my programming.

My Focus Bar is Empty

2011-12-22T13:22:00.000-05:00

I read a graph the other day that was a pie chart listing "Things On My Mind The Week Before Vacation". 50% of HERP, and the other 50% was DERP.

Exactly!

Grrr

2011-12-21T10:11:00.003-05:00

Shush, I read it all.

Also, you haven't even finished Rage!

It's an End-Of-Year Thing

2011-12-21T09:59:00.000-05:00

Everyone comes out with Top 10 lists this time of year. LICD even whined about it in their comic the other day. I will admit it's rather cliched, but that's not going to stop me from doing it. This isn't necessarily going to be a Top 10 list, though. It's more going to be a summary of the gaming world as it was in the year 2011. Or in most cases, mindless ranting!

First of all, I played a -lot- of games this past year. And here they all are. Every single one of them, in the order in which they were released:

DC Universe Online
Dead Space 2
Magicka
Bulletstorm
Rift
Dragon Age 2
Homefront
Crysis 2
Portal 2
Darkspore
Brink
Terraria
Fable 3
The Witcher 2
Frozen Synapse
Hunted: The Demon's Forge
Red Faction: Armageddon
Alice: Madness Returns
Dungeon Siege 3
F.E.A.R. 3
Limbo
Bastion
From Dust
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Dead Island
Hard Reset
Rage
Dungeon Defenders
LA Noire
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Minecraft
Batman: Arkham City
Serious Sam 3
Trine 2
Star Wars: The Old Republic
One more game is coming out this year that I'll get getting, but probably won't get around to playing until 2012:
Postal 3

So that's quite a long list of games. There are several notable games that came out this year, which I did not play. To name four: Battlefield 3, Modern Warfare 3, Duke Nukem Forever and Assassin's Creed Revelations. None of these games will be in the lists provided below...since I haven't played them. But the fact that they didn't interest me enough to play should tell you enough about them, anyway. I actually did buy ACR, and plan on playing it eventually. The other three I didn't even bother to purchase.

Also, it's interesting that The Binding of Isaac isn't on this list, and I'm now wondering how many other indie titles I've missed listing here. I mean -- this list you see above is from a website. It's basically a "2011 in Gaming" page that lists all the games released throughout the year. Edit: Also, The Baconing isn't listed. I've been writing this blog post over the past three days, and that one just came to me.

Now for me to make up some award categories based purely on the list in front of me. I shall start with the worst.

Worst Game of the Year
Rift

This game has just been proclaimed "Game of the Year" by MMORPG. I dub it worst game of the year. Everyone proclaims the graphics are better than WoW. I find them bland. Everyone proclaims the leveling experience is better than WoW. I find it boring. Everyone claims the choices you get are more in-depth than WoW. I find them to be the same. It actually hurt to play it. It's all well and good if you enjoy the game. I didn't, though, and I will never say a good word about it.

I can hear the fanboys gnashing their teeth at me, and I don't care. I think it's a WoW-clone with less love put into it, and I think it's a bad game.

Runner-up: The Witcher 2
Boring with a clunky combat system.

Worst Implementation of Co-Op Gaming
Hunted: The Demon's Forge

Y U NO make a game that works? Y U provide difficulty settings if they change nothing? Y U make co-op game if the NPC version of your co-op partner will always be superior to a real player?

Worst Way to Port A Game
Microsoft (in their release of Fable 3)

Stop publishing games, Microsoft. Right now. Let someone else do it, and let them do it correctly. Because you can't. Ever. Fuck off.

Most Over-Hyped Game
Brink

I heard about this game consistently for about six months up until its release. And then I never heard from it again! I can write a review for the game in one word: "Blah"

Worst Release Date
Guild Wars 2. BECAUSE IT'S NOT FUCKING RELEASED YET.

Things Gamers (or just humans in general) Need to Stop Saying (along with my response to such things)

You should be ashamed of yourself. (Bitch, I'm me and there's no shame here.) Context: Self-Righteous gamers say this when a game developer or other such entity does something they find abhorrent. For example: Blizzard announcing the real money auction house for Diablo 3, which according to them is something even worse than a hate crime or even the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
That's the final nail in the coffin for me. (Can it be YOUR coffin? Please?) Context: Over-dramatic gamers say this when a game developer makes a change. Any change. For example: Blizzard announces a revamped talent system for Mists of Pandaria, and therefore according to them it's the straw that broke the camel's back and the game is now dead. The seas will rise and flood mankind, the rings of Saturn will implode, and a black hole will swallow the galaxy (and have a nasty case of indigestion afterward).
I've lost all faith in... (You've now also lost the game. Bitch.) Context: Over-exaggerating gamers will say this when they don't like something (anything (everything)). For example: The response to Dragon Age 2 means that, according to them, no one should believe in anything Bioware does ever again for all eternity.
Whine. Whine. Whine. (Stab. Stab. Stab.) Context: Everything ever in the history of the universe.
This sickens me. (No you.) Context: Very similar to the whole "You should be ashamed..." thing.
They are completely out of touch with their playerbase. (Maybe they are just out of touch with YOU...and thank Crom for that.) Context: Very similar to the whole "Final nail..." thing.
I don't see how you could possibly like this... (I can only imagine you are pointing to yourself. If so, then ME NEITHER.) Context: Usually a response to someone stating their God given right to an opinion. Used in a disparaging manner to make the other person feel bad for actually being an individual and enjoying something that the dumbass gamer didn't like. In other words, they WANTED to say "You are in idiot for liking that." TB is actually really bad at this, and I wish he'd stop. He very often says, "This is bad and you're wrong if you disagree." Such poor critiquing skills.

Alright, I'm done ranting. I think. Before I get to the "best" categories, there are a few things that are worth mentioning. Basically, covering games which have been out longer than just since 2011, but are still relevant.

League of Legends saw a dramatic increase in players. They still release a new champion every two weeks, update the game every week, and have no intention of letting their game grow stale. If I awarded a "Best MMO" award (which I don't), this game wouldn't get it. (Ha, fooled you!) But it would be right up there with the best of them.
Civilization V got a bunch of DLC packs and some tweaks. It's one of the few games older than a year that I still pick up and play. (Well, at least it was. Until a certain game of the star-sy and war-sy variety came out.)
WoW is still the same. That's a very important sentence, and it's a double-edged sword. It's still the same -- which means it's still good. Fantastic even. It's also still the same -- which means you've done it all before and you may or may not have had enough. It's going to be interesting to see where it goes after the next year. I always refrain from saying "Blizzard needs to change WoW to make it interesting again." because the game is actually fine in the way it plays now. There are MANY features in WoW that I wish TOR had. For example: Achievements, Dungeon Finder, and Transmogrify. But...I feel like I've played WoW. Does that sentence make sense to you? I don't want to say "I feel like I'm done with WoW", because I don't know that. So that's the next best line I can come up with. It's just...it feels like I've done it all, and that feeling persists even when there's new content.

Also, one more award!

Game that Would Have Done Better If It Hadn't Been Released Right Before TOR's Early Access Began
Batman: Arkham City

Do you hear me, Rocksteady? If you'd released the PC version at the same time as the console version, I would have had enough time to play a lot of it, and it might have won an award. But your inability to treat the PC gaming platform with respect has cost you any place on my list of best games. And now, let's do some completely fabricated awards categories for good games!

Best Soundtrack

BastionI dig my hole, you build a wall

I dig my hole, you build a wall

One day that wall is gonna fall

Gon' build that city on a hill

Someday those tears are gonna spill

So build that wall and build it strong, cause we'll be there before too long

Enough said.

Best Story

Oh for the love of the Nine, why must I make such a decision? Fine. It's Deus Ex. There, I said it. And before you have a stroke, let me explain why it's not Skyrim and why it's not LA Noire.

You have to understand what a story is to me: It has a beginning, a climax (herp), and a conclusion. And everything along the way is engaging, dramatic, exciting, and/or funny. Skyrim does not get this award because Skyrim is TOO BIG. Being able to put off the main storyline for as long as you could possibly want is an amazing feature and for Skyrim it needs to be there. But it breaks the flow and it dilutes the drama. And that's why it loses. If this award was "Best Story World", or "Best Open World Game", then Skyrim would win. LA Noire does not get this award because it's a bunch of mini-stories wrapped up in a game. All of those mini-stories are brilliant, but you're trading one final, huge, amazing climax (HERP DERP) for all of those smaller ones. Also, some of LA Noire's stories are kind of convoluted. Therefore it loses.

Deus Ex did it correctly. One great flowing story, start to finish. There are twists and turns along the way. Mystery. Intrigue. Even some funny moments, although the game is very brooding most of the time. It's what -I- want in a story. It drove me. (Hard. Herp.)

And before all the fucking "LINEAR IS BAD" whiners start whining, Deus Ex was not fully linear, anyway. A linear story can exist within a non-linear game, and it's not a bad thing. Do you know why I think all those kids who proclaim "LINEAR IS BAD!" think that way? It's because their parents won't let them do everything they want, and they hate that. And y'know, the self-entitled little twats don't even realize it's for their own good. Same principle. Just because you -can- do something doesn't mean you -should-.

(How was my cynicism there? I've been working on it! I feel like I should have a 1-800 number for people to call and share their comments. Something like 1-800-Y-SO-SERIOUS.)

Best Co-Op
Again...for the love of the Nine, why are you making me do this? Sigh. Alright...It's obviously between Magicka and Portal 2. Pros and cons?

Magicka has a lot more co-op content (read: THE ENTIRE GAME).
Portal 2 has a better story.
Magicka's gameplay is a recipe for hilarious disaster.
Portal 2's puzzles are oh-so-satisfying to solve together.
Magicka has this charm to it that you really can't explain.
Portal 2 feels more robust and looks better.
Magicka is an indie game with a small budget, but it's still amazing.
Portal 2 is a mainstream game with a large budget, and it's also amazing.

Hmm.

Portal 2 wins.

The reason Portal 2 wins is due to a few minor things. One, I -adore- the two co-op buddy robots. They have so much personality, and it adds so much to the game. As much as "SUPRENDAY!" makes me laugh, it just doesn't stack up to Atlas and Peabody. Next, the great story makes up for the entire game not being co-op. And finally, the quality Valve put into the game exceeds the amazing job the indie developers did with Magicka. It's just that simple.

It's also interesting because I've played a hell of a lot more Magicka than I have Portal 2, and that isn't solely due to the amount of content. Magicka is replayable because of how fun the possibility of disaster is. That doesn't make it superior in my eyes, however.

Best Graphics
THESE ANSWERS ARE NOT GETTING ANY EASIER.

I can narrow it down to these:
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Rage
Crysis 2
LA NoireWhich one? I -have- to pick one. That's the whole point of these awards. Crom!

It's Skyrim. It has to be. And what's funny is that it's not because it's a superior graphics engine. I don't believe that it is. I think that id's new ID Tech engine is superior -- I really do. Rage was GORGEOUS. But it was in a post-apocalyptic world. It limits you -- you can try to make a sewer as pretty as you can, but it's still a sewer. Oh CROM that game was pretty...but Skryim is prettier because the WORLD of Skyrim is prettier. It was designed to be. (I just had a flashback of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, when Jessica Rabbit tells Eddie, "I'm not bad...I'm just drawn that way.") Skyrim beats Crysis 2 for the same exact reasons. LA Noire is on the list simply because of that GLORIOUS lip-synching. It's the greatest lip-synching in a game ever. More of that, please, Rockstar!

So I guess I would have to say that in regards to presentation (which is really what we're talking about here), Skyrim is the winner. If we were talking from a technical standpoint, or from a CAPABILITY standpoint, then Rage would be the winner. I actually look forward to seeing what other developers do with the id Tech 5 engine. The results should be amazing.

Also, I should mention that TOR looks very pretty as well. But it's nearly impossible to get an MMO to look as good as a single-player game. It's just not logistically viable, which is a shame, but that's the way it goes. I just thought I'd give it a mention here regardless, though.

Best WTF! Moments

Trying to kill an unkillable monster before realizing it was unkillable in Dead Space 2. (Hey I heard you like unkillable monsters...)
Blowing up yourself again and again in Magicka.
Shooting someone in the ass in Bulletstorm...and getting an achievement for it.
The mage animations in Dragon Age 2.
The ending of Portal 2.
The first time you summon a boss in Terraria.
Re-building what you destroy in Red Faction: Armageddon
Pretty much every 27 seconds of Limbo.
Playing through Bastion when -that- music kicks in during a battle. You know the one I mean.
The finishing moves of Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
Having a shotgun pulled out on you when simply questioning a shopkeeper in LA Noire.
FUS RO DAH!
"I can go ANYWHERE in Arkham City?!"
Keeping your trigger finger pressed down for ten full minutes in Serious Sam 3.
The ending of -any- story based questline in The Old Republic.

Scariest Game

Dead Space 2 or Limbo? Jump Scares or Subtle Psychological Dread?

I choose Dead Space 2.

And if these choices weren't difficult before...

Best Shooter
Oh. Fucking. Hell.

Deus Ex is eliminated. It has talent points and conversation choices. Therefore it is an RPG! So that leaves...Rage, or Serious Sam 3.

It has to be Rage. It's simply a better game. Serious Sam 3 is brilliant for what it is -- unadulterated fun. I don't deny being thrilled by every minute of it. But Rage is...well, it's an id shooter. Serious Sam is meant to be a "budget title", and it's meant to be a love letter to shooters from the time when I first starting getting into shooters. Rage was designed to push the envelope, which it sort of missed doing because it was released a bit late -- Borderlands and Fallout already did what it does. But it's also it's own game, and it does things differently. It stands on its own, and when it really comes down to it, I enjoyed it more than I enjoyed Serious Sam 3.

Best DLC
This is tough only because I don't actually have a full list of all the DLC I've gotten this year. I can remember several. If I had actually managed to play the Deus Ex DLC by now, it might actually win this award. I think PC Gamer gave it a 90% score. But I haven't. Sorry Eidos! Your timing was horrible.

There's also all that glorious Magicka DLC. I've played those!

And, there's the Portal 2 DLC. I haven't played those. Crap!

Well, this is going to be a rather misconstrued award, isn't it?

In any case, my choice is Old World Blues for Fallout: New Vegas. It wins by a narrow margin against The Lonesome Road DLC, also for Fallout: New Vegas. OWB wins for a couple of reasons, but only two of them are worth mentioning. First, it gave me a home, which I continued to use forever. Second, it was freaking hilarious.

Best RPG
Oh boy! Time for some good 'ol fashioned CONTROVERSY! Surprisingly, this was an easy decision for me to make.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

Oh God, my ears are bleeding from the sounds of people threatening to shoot an arrow in my knee.

Okay, just stop for a minute. What does RPG mean? Role Playing Game. It's you, the player, playing a role. When I play Skyrim, it's all very cool and it's all very fun to play. When I play TOR, I feel like I'm a Sith Lord. Do you see the difference? TOR does RPG better.

Next, the most important thing: Skyrim had amazing stories, an amazing world, and so much content to explore. It feels more -alive- than any of the planets I've seen so far in TOR. BUT - after I defeated Alduin...nothing changed. My decisions, my actions, my involvement didn't feel like they had any weight behind them. Also, other quests and towns BROKE as I progressed through the game. People who I murdered were still mentioned by the common-folk. When I make a decision in TOR: My companion treats me differently. My skin might start to blemish. My eyes might start to turn red. People comment on how evil I am. The storyline shifts in a different direction. There is CONSEQUENCE. There is REACTION. My decisions change things. THAT'S an RPG done as an RPG should be done. And that is why TOR wins.

There are other things as well:

Establishing relationships with your companions based on the decisions you make as a character.
Implementing a bit of personality and interaction into the crafting aspect.
The promise of continuing your character's storyline for many YEARS, through the addition of new quests, new planets, and new content over the course of expansions to the MMO.
A very good and established intellectual property with a clear division of good versus evil, which is then turned on its head to allow you to be good on the "evil" side or evil on the "good" side. Mind = blown.
A unique and engaging story for each class.

Game of the Year
Also an easy choice. Relatively.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

I know what you're thinking. "How the fuck can you say Skyrim is game of the year, but not RPG of the year? Raaaaaaaage." Well that's quite a simple answer. If I'm going to consider something to be the best RPG, it would have to be the best at the elements of an RPG. Read what I stated under that category. But, a game that is the best at being an RPG isn't necessarily the best GAME I've played this year.

Skyrim has its faults, but it provided me with the most engaging and enjoyable gaming experience this year.

What it has going for it:

Solid storylines.

A massive world filled with a mind boggling amount of places to explore, an infinite number of quests, dragons, and utterly gorgeous landscapes.

The ability to go anywhere and do whatever it is your want to do.

Combat that is very fun and diverse.

Lots and lots of things to do -- fighting, crafting, exploring, questing, stealing.

A single-player experience (more on this later).

And here's why it beat out other games that I really, really enjoyed this year. These explanations will also give you insight as to the games that I was also considering as the best.

It lost to Deus Ex: Human Revolution because of the exploration aspect of things. Exploring in Deus Ex might lead you to a weapon cache or some praxis points. Exploring in Skyrim leads you to a sprawling cave or dungeon with loads of monsters inside and piles of loot, and maybe even a quest or two. I'm not being unfair to a linear game here -- I'm setting the bar for quality in a game that contains quests. Deus Ex was a quest based game, not just a linear shooter. Therefore, for it to beat Skyrim it would have to offer me superior quality in that regard. It did not.

Now, in regards to The Old Republic, it was actually a very close race in my mind. I'll try to explain what I was thinking about here, but I probably won't do a very good job. The first thing is that I've only been playing TOR for about a week. With a game so big, that's not even close to enough time to form a final opinion on it. That was one thing it had against it. The next small thing was what I mentioned about a single-player experience. I'm a very anti-social gamer, though not to the extent of Yahtzee. I honestly get irritated leveling in an MMO when there are other people around me. I just want them to fuck off so I can enjoy my game. So you can see why Skyrim gained points with me here, with its single-player only experience that allows me to simply lose myself in the game without worrying about some fucking asshat jumping in front of me and tagging my kills. I still had a hard time justifying this as a reason, though, given how often in TOR you enter an instance to quest. But there are still plenty of open areas in the game, so other people are still an irritation sometimes, so my argument is valid. In this same vein, I feel that TOR has too many group quests. I know, I know, it's an MMO. You're supposed to play it with other people. Well, sometimes I don't wanna. And actually, it's not even that -- it's that I don't care to play with complete strangers. But I'll tell you what, this choice was still difficult. I can't tell you the last time a game has made me feel like so much of a badass as TOR is making me feel. I also can't tell you the last time I've been so IMMERSED in a game world. Because of the Light Side/Dark Side choices and the Companion Affection points, I find myself actually thinking like my character as I'm playing the game. It's incredible.

And it lost to Rage because it simply has tons more to offer. There's really nothing else to say about it. Everything that Rage did, it did perfectly. Skyrim wasn't so perfect, but the sheer magnitude of the game makes up for it.
And now, to summarize, my top 5 games of the year, in order, are:

1. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
2. Star Wars: The Old Republic
3. Rage
4. Deus Ex: Human Revolution
5. Portal 2

And that ends what is probably the longest blog post I have ever written! I dropped everything before this sentence into Word, and it's 4,095 words. Heh.

Hm. Let's see. John, I know you're impatient, so this one's for you! TL;DR: Skyrim.

Taking the Grand Tor: Part 2

2011-12-19T00:33:00.003-05:00

Okay, so if I don't make this blog post soon, the number of screenshots I have to share is going to make it utterly impossible to catch up any time soon. So I suppose I'd better get to it.

It's already strange for me to look back on these, because I feel like I've progressed so far since I took them. It's funny, because at the start I didn't really think that my character looked "low level" in regards to what he was wearing. It looked good. Looking back now, I do think that, because of how much better I look now.

All of these shots are still from Korriban. If I was better at organizing this stuff, I would make a post about each planet. Sadly, I'm not. This particular image is what a particular Sith Lord did to his apprentice after I informed him that said apprentice tried to get me to sabotage his research. Silly little apprentice.

This is my master -- Darth Baras. He's unstable, unhinged, and just an all around bastard.

Yes, that is me leaning against the wall like a boss. The game never fails to make you feel like a badass.

I chose to be a Marauder, which means I'm playing a pure DPS class and wield two lightsabers. This is me two seconds after learning to dual wield.

Choosing dark side options will change your character visually. Your skin will become pale, you'll get blemishes, and your eyes will gradually change to red. You can see some of the early affects here, as my eyes are orange. (They are supposed to be green.) I've turned the feature off -- it starts to make you look sickly, which I don't particularly like. It's a cool (and accurate) affect, though.

I took a picture of him because he looks cool. That is all.

Okay, well that put a little dent in the screenshots, anyway. As for where I am currently, my Sith Marauder is level 22. I'm now on Nar Shaddaa, and the place is gorgeous. I love having gone from desert (Korriban), to swamp (Dromund Kaas), to open plains (Balmorra), and now to a metropolis. It's a very nice variety of locales and environments.

As for what I think of the game -- well it should be obvious the I think it's fucking awesome. I'm having a blast playing it, and I have to force myself to stop. I have very few complaints. Biggest one? Needs an LFG. If I could queue up for group quests and instances, I'd be one happy Sith.

Taking the Grand TOR: Part 1

2011-12-17T17:21:00.000-05:00

Okay, since I have a queue on my server and need to wait before I can play, I'm going to take a few minutes to provide a few commentated screenshots of the game. Lucky you!

First of all, say hello to Saburo. He's a Sith Warrior (not even a Marauder at this point, as I took this right when I first created him). He's also an evil bastard.



Instead of needing to eat food to replenish your health after a tough fight, you simply meditate. It's an out-of-combat thing, and each class has a different version of it. This is mine. He's channeling his hate.

The combat is really good. After thus far 14 levels, I'm not even coming close to getting tired of it yet. It's just well done all around. Slicey slicey!

Korriban is the starting world for the Sith (Warriors and Inquisitors), and the place looks rather dead-like. It's still very impressive, but when compared to the Jedi starting area, you can tell the environment of the Sith is a lot harsher and a lot more unforgiving. It fits.



All the quests are voice acted in a cut-scene, and I can't you how much of a joy it is to not have to -read- quests. Having them spoken to you is brilliant, and I love it.



Flight paths are shuttle rides, and they are entertaining beyond belief. There's a joke here about "riding them all day", but I won't even go there.

And with that, my queue is down to 37. I'm going to go stare at it now. Then it'll be some leveling, and getting some social points by grouping up with John and knocking out some group quests. Onwards!

SWTOR - Day 01

2011-12-14T08:06:00.002-05:00

One good thing about this early access thing is that since I got in on the first day of it, I probably got to experience the least amount of in-game traffic until the game starts to lose it's popularity. I enjoyed it. There were times in the persistent world where I was the only one around doing quests. It was quite relaxing.

So yeah -- TOR is here. Well, it's here for those who pre-ordered the game. Ok, actually, it's not even here for ALL the people who pre-ordered the game. Just SOME of them. I honestly don't know how they chose...perhaps how quickly you clicked BUY on pre-order day? No idea! In any case, I got my e-mail yesterday morning, and played for a few hours before bed last night.

It was an interesting parallel, because I had just spend a few hours prior to -that- going through the three new instances that Blizzard added to WoW in their Hour of Twilight patch. It was an MMO scale of justice with a polished, well established game on one side and a new, scrappy game on the other. It made it quite easy to make comparisons, and it was sort of like watching a boxing match, or maybe even a fight from a 1960's Batman TV show where the words of the punching sound effects flash on the screen.

WoW's animations are incredibly smooth and a joy to watch. (Bam!) TOR's quests make me feel more involved and engrossed in what's happening. (Pow!) I can play something that doesn't look like a human in WoW. (Biff!) TOR has lightsabers. (Whap!)

But unlike an episode of Batman, there wasn't a knock-out punch to be seen from either side. Quite honestly, from a casual standpoint one could easily play both games without issue, aside from cringing at having two subscriptions to pay. If you want to raid in either, though...well, you'd probably have to make a choice unless you have a ton of free time on your hands. I don't, and I'm fine with that.

I'm having fun, and that's what's important. And, unlike with the beta (because it was beta), I'm beginning to feel that attachment to my character that I also feel in WoW when I invest the time and make accomplishments. But fortunately, I'm also -not- feeling that sense of urgency that I have gotten from WoW in the past (back when I actually played a lot). I'm talking about that "OH MY GOD I NEED TO LEVEL QUICKLY SO I DON'T FALL BEHIND" feeling. It's not present, and good riddance to it. I stopped playing right at 11:30 PM last night, and was level 6. I hadn't even gotten my lightsaber yet. And I'm fine with that, too.

I took some screenshots last night (at least, I think I did. I didn't check my folder to ensure TOR and Fraps were working together) so I'll make more posts later when I have access to them. If anyone is playing the game or is about to and wants to look me up, I'm on The Shadowlands server. I rolled a Sith Warrior, and his name is Saburo.

Define: Bittersweet

2011-12-13T09:09:00.002-05:00

As I'm sitting here this morning scripting away at work, I'm trying to decide if the ending of 11/22/63 is happy or sad. I finished the book last night around 2:00 AM. The answer is both, of course, as most Stephen King books tend to be. He's not a sympathetic writer -- he never has been, and I seriously doubt he ever will be.

The ending was bittersweet and, more to the point, basically it wasn't the ideal conclusion I would have hoped, but it could have been a lot worse. In the last ten pages or so, the story got...well, bizarre. Up until then, it was pretty grounded and based very much on fact. Even the things that weren't true (in real life) were still based on fact or derived from analyzing the facts to make hypothetical assumptions. It was believable.

I suppose you can't write a story about time travel without introducing some sort of fantastical elements. The reader is going to want you to explain -how- your character went back in time in the first place, after all. I won't go into it that much.

However, I do need to talk about the "Card Men" a little bit, because something has been on my mind ever since it was finally explained what their purpose really is. At the beginning of the story, there was this hobo who was always around the area of the rabbit hole. He had a card in his fedora, like a reporters press ticket. It was yellow. When Jake went through the rabbit hole the first time, it was orange. When he went through the second time, it was black. And the man had killed himself by cutting his own throat.

When Jake returned to the rabbit hole after saving Kennedy, another man was there. With another card. This one: green. Jake figured out that the card was sort of like those radiation badges that people at a nuclear power plant would wear. Only these measured SANITY. These "Card Men" were guardians of the rabbit holes, and staying near them slowly ate away at their sanity. Green meant they were fine. Yellow was okay. Orange, and they were a bit mad. And black...well, you know what happens then.

After it was explained that these men were guardians of the rabbit holes, and that they were human beings just like you or I, it occurred to me that they might be a certain kind of human being that we've seen in Stephen King's universe before: The Breakers.

It's viable. The Breakers are psychics, and their most notable appearance is within the Dark Tower novels. They are slaves to the Crimson King, and are forced to use their telepathic abilities to slowly weaken and break the beams of the Dark Tower. Thus their name: Breakers. It seems to me that guarding holes in time would be a job fitting their unique abilities. There is no confirmation of this in the book, but I seriously doubt I'm the only person out there making this connection.

It also begs the question: Who are they working for? Are they still under the sway of the Crimson King at this point? Roland took care of that, but had that happened yet when this story takes place? I do not think they are, and I'll explain why: The Crimson King's goal was to destroy the universe so he could rule the darkness. That's why he wanted to break the beams of the Dark Tower and bring it down. The Green Card Man said he was trying to -avoid- the universe, no REALITY, from unraveling. If he was working for the Crimson King, he would have let that happen. No, they are either on their own, or they are working for someone else. Perhaps...the Turtle. Or Gan himself.

Werk, werk

2011-12-13T00:04:00.000-05:00

My boss was in Europe last week for what's called a user group meeting. Basically, our largest customer wanted to bring in a lot of the people within their organization who use our software, and get a bunch of feedback from them to find out what they would like to see as far as system enhancements and performance improvements go. It all sounds very boring, I'm sure. Trust me -- it is.

The side effect of this meeting is that it's probably going to mean a lot of work. Not all of the news coming out of this thing was good. I won't get into the details about that, because anything I say would be pure speculation on my part, anyway. And it's, again, boring.

The entertaining things that came out of the meeting were that the release notes that our team re-wrote got rave reviews by the customer. It probably embarrassed the hell out of the person who originally wrote them, and I find that very entertaining. Also, the project plan I compiled for the customer acceptance testing also got rave reviews.

It's humorous, because these are all things that everyone else in the company said was unnecessary and a waste of time. In yo face!

Also, I think the hundreds of thousands of records that I'm scripting into the database are starting to drive me insane. Today I saw some records with the notation "River Craft". This sent me off on a tangent:

"River Craft? Who the hell calls a boat a river craft? It's like something a snooty rich hipster would say. 'Yeeeesh, our cah-go was broot in on the river crah-ft. But you've probably never heard of it."

Then, a little later, I was reviewing locations in Switzerland and came across one called "Verde". So of course that led to this:

"Have you heard? Verde is the word!"

And you know the rest.

See, my plan is that if I keep the rest of my co-workers questioning my sanity, it'll work to my benefit. So far, so good!

The most interesting refuel in the world.

2011-12-12T08:56:00.002-05:00

Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds

2011-12-09T10:29:00.000-05:00

Okay, you may remember that a few weeks ago I posted a YouTube video for the song "If I Had a Gun" by this band. It's a good song -- something you can sing to. I'd like to talk a little more about the band now, though.

First of all, if you aren't privvy to your 90's British rock, Noel Gallagher is pretty much one half of arguably the most famous rock band of the 90's: Oasis. (Damon Albarn of Blur would probably like to have a word with me regarding that statement, I'm sure.)

In any case, Oasis has come close to breaking up about 500 times since their inception, and this time seems like the most serious of splits. Both of the brothers have new bands now, and that's a first. So there you have it.

To me, Liam was always the one who in my eyes was Oasis' lead singer, even though the two of them shared the responsibility. I always liked his voice better -- he's the one singing Wonderwall, Champagne Supernova, and pretty much every other Oasis song that was a major hit. I didn't like Noel's singing, at least not then.

Oddly enough, almost any list of "The Greatest Oasis Songs" will list "Don't Look Back In Anger" as the -greatest- Oasis song. Likewise, any list of simply the greatest rock songs will have that song on the list as the highest ranking Oasis entry. I say it's odd because that song is sung by Noel. It was the first time he was the lead vocals on an Oasis track. I never liked that song much. Certainly not as much as Wonderwall or Champagne Supernova...or Go Let It Out for that matter.

So I was surprised when I actually liked "If I Had a Gun...", which is the first song that I heard from Noel's new band. He wasn't singing like the Noel from Oasis. Quite honestly, he's singing more like the -Liam- from Oasis. Ironic, that. It was one of those cases where the song was good enough that I knew I had to hear the rest of the album. It was almost a guarantee I would like something else from it.

The thing is, when I listen to this album, I hear Oasis. Depending on which hipster music guru you listen to, it's possible Noel had all these songs written even before Oasis broke up. So there's really nothing aside from the band's name that doesn't make them Oasis to begin with. It's a shame, really.

Anyway, this is my favorite song off the album (thus far):

The intro is the best part. All the way up to "I'm gonna take that tiger outside for a ride..." What a brilliant line.

It looks fine!

2011-12-08T10:49:00.001-05:00

Modders: Y U SO OBSESSED WITH GRAPHICAL IMPROVEMENT MODS?

Also, I can't see a difference between your mod and the original game. U mad?

I'm Batman. Again.

2011-12-05T22:38:00.001-05:00

Alright, so I started Arkham City just now, and played about 30 minutes of it. (I tend to do that with new games -- a short playtime the first night, and then delve more into it from that point forward. It's my thing.) Basically, I did one mission.

Things look really good from this little bit of exposure. Graphics are in the same noir-y style of the first game, but you can certainly see the improvements. Also, the city is...well, daunting! Right after I got my suit and got my first mission, I just sort of looked around going, "Ummm...WTF am I doing?" I had no idea where to go, what to do, or anything. Then I was like, "I'm Batman. I can do whatever the hell I want!" And then I started jumping from building to building. It was glorious.

Well, if there's any sort of video that I should show you regarding my short playtime this evening, it should probably be putting on the suit. I would like you to pay very particular attention to the MUSIC in this short clip. Because it is very good. Allow me to set this up for you: Batman had a plan regarding Arkham City, but it went a little...Strange. (OH I'M SO PUNNY.) Anyway, Bruce Wayne was arrested and thrown into Arkham City, so you spend the first 15 or so minutes as the billionaire playboy. This video is where he gets his suit on.

Here's a short amount of screenshots as well.

This first one is my first view of Arkham City itself. (You can see that I'm still Bruce at this point. I had just won a little brawl with the Penguin's goons. Ol' Cobblepot isn't happy with me.)

Here's Harvey Dent (or Two-Face if you prefer). It looks like they took the design choices from The Dark Knight film when they designed him, and I think he looks fantastic. His voice is very similar to how Aaron Eckhart did it in the movie, too. Very good choice there.

And here's Batman and Catwoman having a little chat. Interesting enough, the first time you're in control of the game itself, you play Catwoman for a little scene. She steals some kind of location data chip from Two-Face, which sets up him capturing her (from the screen above).

I feel quite overwhelmed by this game. I'm not sure yet if it's a good thing or not -- we'll see. However, I have a feeling that once I get my bearing in this game, it's going to become fantastic. Stay tuned.

Seriously Finished

2011-12-02T14:34:00.001-05:00

I finished Serious Sam 3 last night. I'm sure you're very happy about that, because it means an end to the corny blog titles with the word "serious" or some form of the word thrown in. Seriously. In any case, the game didn't disappoint in regards to all the promises it made. In other words, it was a triumph. I'm making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS. It's hard to overstate my satisfaction.

The final level was quite insane. The precursor to the final boss fight was running through a winding cavern while killing literally thousands of enemies. It had to be thousands. I'm thinking there was between 200-300 of each type of enemy in the game charging at me through that cavern at some point in time.

After that insanity, it was time for the final boss fight. His name was The Guardian of Time, and naturally he was as tall as a skyscraper. The fight started with him wrestling with the large sand worm creature that had existed in every level throughout the game. (It's designed so that if you leave the designated level area and wander out into the desert, the big sand worm would come out of the sand and eat you. That way, you stayed on course. It's basically how the developers made it so the desert LOOKED endless, but you couldn't go walking out into it, thus eliminating the need for invisible walls. It was a good thing.)

So anyway, the Guardian of Time is wrestling the huge sand worm. (Sam comments, "Are you two having an ugly contest? Well guess what, you -both- win!") It took me a bit of time and many deaths to figure out this fight. It was a large area with several small huts filled with ammo -- mostly the ammo for the most powerful weapons. Also, the entire time, endless waves of enemies were spawning -- primarily the most powerful ones. I assumed that I simply had to whittle down the boss' health while keeping the endless wave of enemies to a manageable level.

The problem was that the boss' health regen'd faster than my most powerful weapon could damage him. And that was when I would focus ONLY on the boss and completely ignore the spawning enemies. So in other words, it wasn't working at all. I didn't know what the game wanted me to do. I saw these large javelins on the ground that I could pick up and throw (just like a spear, really), but I didn't see a place to hit the boss with them. It was very confusing until I accidentally hit the jump button at one point. When I did, I went flying up into the air.

I had a jetpack and didn't even know it.

Looking back, the jetpack must have been sitting among a pile of ammo that I had picked up, and I just didn't notice it. And just now I remember hearing Sam, at one point, say "Who needs a chopper?" That must be when I picked it up. I just didn't see it, nor would I have noticed it on my back -- I'm in first-person so all I see of Sam are his hands and the weapon he's holding. But in any case, I figured it out! I had to grab a spear, jetpack up while the boss wrestled the sand worm, and throw the spear at the soft fleshy area on the creature's back. When the boss wasn't distracted by the sand worm, I had to strafe away from it while thinning out the hordes of spawning enemies. It all fell into place once I learned what I had to do.

The game ended just seconds before the very first game begins. (It's a prequel, after all. The full name of the game is Serious Sam 3: BFE. Everyone assumes BFE stands for "Before First Encounter". Since the first game was called "Serious Sam: The First Encounter".)

I have a very, very strong urge to play the other games now. I own them, and they are the HD versions. But I must resist. I have Batman and Assassin's Creed to play.

Also, I mentioned in my previous post that I had two other videos to share regarding a few amusing bits of gameplay. I've linked them below. Enjoy!

This is getting Serious.

2011-12-01T00:16:00.001-05:00

Let's chat a bit more about Serious Sam 3, because I feel it rather deserves it. First, I want to point out a throw back from the days of old school shooters. Try to think back to the likes of the original Half-Life. Doom 3. Quake 4. And pretty much any pre-2005 shooter worth it's salt. Do you remember what would happen about 50-75% through the game? Hopefully you do. I'm talking about the infamous point where you're either captured or knocked out, and you lose all of your weapons. Then, you pick them up again one by one in a sort of sped-up version of how you started the game. I freaking love that! Serious Sam 3 just did it to me. They were telling the truth when they said their game was "a glorious throwback to the golden age of first-person shooters where men were men, cover was for amateurs and pulling the trigger made things go boom."

Ok, next! Do you remember in my previous post, I mentioned a new enemy? Well, here's the bitch right here:

I -hate- her. She hovers in the air, and she's telepathic. If you are in her line of sight when she appears, you will be stunlocked until she disappears again. So difficult to fight! Rockets work best.

How about a few more screenshots?

Remember that other screenshot with the monster sitting on a throne, and I said if the thing had been alive and moved I would have shat myself? Well, the monster above was sat in a throne and moved when I approached. I shat myself.

I got the portable cannon tonight. (That actually reminds me -- I haven't gotten it -back- after I was stripped of all my weapons. How strange! I'm sure I'll get it back soon enough.) The cannonballs got a lot larger than previous games -- look at them!

That's a whole lot of kleers charging at me. Luckily, I have a minigun.

Mmk, next I would like to introduce you to the space monkeys. These little bastards are incredibly fast, and cleaning out a room full of them is actually one of my favorite things to do in this game. They're hard to hit, and I like that! It's a challenge sometimes. In any case, I can't really explain them to you properly with screenshots. Therefore, I have made a video of me cleaning out a roomful of them. Enjoy!

I thought I had also recorded a cut-scene that I wanted to share as well, but unfortunately I must have pressed the record key twice. Therefore, instead of getting the scene I wanted, I got footage of me going through the game menu to exit out. Balls!

BUT, I do have two other videos to share. They'll have to wait, thought -- they're not done uploading to YouTube yet. I'll probably post them tomorrow or something like that.

"Ah, my old love."

2011-11-30T07:55:00.001-05:00

I got the mini-gun in Serious Sam 3 last night. It's Sam's trademark weapon, and that line, "Ah, my old love.", is the same line he utters when he gets the gun in the first game. I smiled at that.

I'm obviously not at home, currently, so I'll refrain from talking about the game anymore since I don't have access to my screenshots. There's a certain new kind of enemy new to this game that I want to mention, but I'd like the picture to go with it.

So instead, let's discuss how things are faring in 11/22/63. I did more reading than I did gaming last night anyway.

When last I left our intrepid hero, he had just returned back from the past. Before he committed himself to actually going back and stopping Oswald from killing the president, he wanted to change something smaller and observe the "butterfly effect" of his actions by returning to 2011. In the back of my mind, I wondered how this was going to work. The portal always takes you back to the same instant in the past, and every time is a reset. That means, if you go through the portal a second time and then immediately turn around and return to the present, you'll erase everything you changed during your first trip. That meant Jake was going to have to save Harry Dunning's family twice. I wondered how King was going to pull that off without boring the reader. (Why would we want to read the same thing twice?)

I assumed he would either make the second time a lot quicker, or he'd make it different so as to keep it interesting. He ended up doing both.

In any case, Jake observed the impact his changes made. One thing shocked me, and it did so simply because it shouldn't have. I should have seen it coming a mile away. Jake saved Harry from being crippled by his father (and saved his mother and all but one of his siblings, too). His goal was to see if Harry would still be a janitor at the school where he teaches in 2011. After all, if the guy was no longer a cripple nor slow from having his skull caved in, he probably wouldn't be a janitor, right?

Turns out Harry dies in Vietnam instead.

So instead of saving him from the life of being crippled, he basically takes at least 40 years off his life. Oops.

Jake's pissed at first, of course, damning the whole thing, the portal, and even the guy who showed it to him. But after calming down, he realizes something: If he does it again, and also stays to stop Oswald from killing Kennedy (which is his ultimate goal in the first place), there probably won't BE a Vietnam War.

King fits this together so very nicely. It's master storytelling at work.

The one other thing that I found fascinating was the idea that the past doesn't want to be changed. It's obdurate, as King puts it. As Jake gets ready to stop Frank Dunning from murdering his family, several things try to stop him. Actually, that's not right. Several things -happen-. It's time itself that's trying to stop him. He wakes up with a blinding migraine. (He's never had a migraine in all his life.) The banister for the stairs snaps, sending him nearly tumbling down them head first. A hole appears in the pocket of his new slacks, nearly causing him to lose his keys. The battery cable in his car comes unfastened. Two of his spark plugs corrode. His spare tire is flat. It's directly suggested that all of these things are the past's way of resisting change. It's trying to stop Jake from meddling, and I find that fascinating.

It's also suggested that eventually you can "break through", and it all stops. When Jake does "break through", his headache subsides almost immediately and he's able to change we he came to change. It's also stated that the amount of resistance time itself will give is directly proportional to how big the change is. Stopping Frank Dunning probably affected a -lot- of people. He ended up not murdering his family, so all of them would live and affect the lives of who knows how many? That's a pretty substantial change, and look at how big of a fight the past put up.

Imagine how many lives will be altered by stopping Oswald. It utterly boggles the mind. I cannot imagine what kind of resistance Jake is going to encounter trying to do this, and I can't wait to find out.

Seriously.

2011-11-29T00:58:00.000-05:00

I have a very strong urge to yell really loudly right now. Serious Sam has that effect on me.

Let's take a step back. Ten years, to be exact, because that's when the first Serious Sam game was released. (Don't get me started on how fecking ridiculous that fact is.) The year, 2001. The world was simpler then. Fuck, the world was a -lot- simpler! The game came out in March. That means 9/11 hadn't even happened yet. Talk about an innocent time.

ANYWAY, a little game called Serious Sam came out, and it filled a void. That void was left by Duke Nukem, who had been missing in action for quite a long time EVEN THEN. There was always something different about Sam, though. The sexism and crude humor that sort of turns me off when it comes to Duke wasn't there. And it was refreshing.

The point of Serious Sam was to basically throw a metric fuck ton of enemies at you all at once, and give you multitudes of weapons to deal with the problem. Simple. Fun. Hours of entertainment. No complexity. No thinking. Just fun. It was a lovely detour on a road of games that were becoming increasingly more realistic. Even then.

That was then. This is now. Fast forward to present day. Serious Sam 3 has been released, and a lot of people are inclined to ask: Is this franchise still relevant? Things have changed a lot in a decade. Is there still a place for Sam? After all, Duke is back. Right?

Well, I'm here to tell you that Sam has just kicked Duke's ass clear across the galaxy. Croteam have irrevocably captured the spirit of the first game, and brought up into the present day. All the fun I remember having then, I'm having all over again, and it is fantastic. Having been neck deep in Skyrim for the past 18 days, this game is -exactly- what I needed. No worries. No bothers. Just murder everything in sight and crack jokes while you're doing it. Yes, please.

Crom, where to begin? Let's start with the tone of the game. Playing Serious Sam is very akin to watching a James Bond movie. You know 007 is going to win. You know the super villain is going to lose. So as you're watching one of those movies, you're just sitting back, relaxing, and enjoying the show. That is -exactly- how you play Serious Sam. In any other game, that would -kill- any intention anyone had in actually playing it. If there was no dire threat of defeat in Skyrim, would you really want to play it as much? Probably not. No one knew how Skyrim was going to end. Everyone knows how Serious Sam is going to end. AND THAT'S OKAY. Because how it ends isn't the -point-. It's playing through it. This game is designed to take you by the hand, sit you down, and say to you, "Now, just lay back. Relax. I'm going to take care of everything for the next couple of hours."

That is exactly why I play the game. I can listen to Sam crack jokes and not worry what's going to happen around the next corner. (I know what's going to happen -- there's going to be lots of enemies, and I'm going to kill them all.)

So, things Sam does better than Duke? I thought you'd never ask:

Sense of humor. It's not sexist or crude. It's not tasteless. It is -definitely- corny, but that's okay! I find myself laughing every time Sam says something, no matter how bad the joke is. His superior yells into the speaker, "Do you -have- to blow everything up?" And he dryly replies, "As a matter of fact, yes, I do." It's an old joke. It's a bad joke. Is it even a joke? I dunno, but I laugh at it because of the way he says it. It's masculine and laced with testosterone but it's not over the line. (Duke was over the line.)
Weapons. You can carry ALL the weapons! I'm currently carrying a pistol, a shotgun, a bigger shotgun, an assault rife, a rocket launcher, a better rocket launcher, and dynamite. And a sledgehammer. And a wristband weapon. AND I CAN RIP OUT EYEBALLS, HEARTS, AND TONGUES WITH MY BARE HANDS.
Setting. It's in Egypt. At the pyramids and ancient ruins. THIS ALWAYS WINS.
Enemies. You hear a loud "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" It's a Kamikaze -- a human with no head and a bomb in each hand that runs at you intending to blow you both up. Do not ask how it's yelling when it has no head. That's part of the charm. Sam yells, "Ah, shut up!" after killing it. Twenty more then run towards him. "Uh-oh." It's brilliant.

So basically, Sam is better in every way imaginable. Shock horror.

I'm typing a mile a minute here. I'm just so damned happy that Croteam made this game. I just saw a newspost about them. Apparently the game is selling very well on Steam, and they took a jab at the bigger developers. They said, "Well, with quality games like Skyrim and our own Serious Sam 3 coming out, gamers will gladly pay for awesome." YES I WILL PAY FOR AWESOME. This was a direct jab at developers like Ubisoft who whine -constantly- and declare that the PC gaming platform has a 95% piracy ratio. And Croteam's response to their whining was "Gamers will pay for awesome." I fucking love it.

Also -- I'm just putting this out there now: If Jesse from OMFG doesn't do a playthrough of this game, it will be a CRIME AGAINST NATURE. The entire time I'm playing, I can imagine parts that he would find utterly hilarious. I can hear his laugh as I'm laughing. This game is practically made for him. I've already send OMFG a message stating as much. You're welcome.

And holy spaceballs that's a lot of text I just wrote! How about some footage in the form of screenshots then? I should warn you -- Sam's horrible sense of humor has rubbed off on me. The captions on these will be horrible jokes!

Dark, moldy hallway. What could possibly go...WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!

Hi! You're ugly! Y'know what you could use? Holes. Allow me to fix that for you!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-BOOM!

Yes, I did all that. With a shotgun.

Torro? Torro? Ole? Aw fuck it. BLAM!

"Ah, shit."

When I saw this, the first thing that came to my mind was, "When a very religious mother has a son, she probably tells him that a woman's vagina looks something like this, so that he'll be too terrified to have sex with a girl and maintain his "purity".

The second thing that came to my mind was the desire to kill it. And so I did. With a rocket.

I don't always aim, but when I do, an automatic turret steals my kill.

Not gonna lie -- Sam looks cool.

Oh look, a harpy. Nothing could possibly go...

...SWEET ZOMBIE JESUS!

Think of all the bird poop...

All joking aside, Egypt looks fantastic.

I guarantee you, if this thing would have come alive as I walked up to it, I would have shat myself.

This picture does this room no justice whatsoever. Look at the FLOOR. It reflects -everything-. Even Sam's image as I walk across it. I could see his reflection as I looked down.

"Ah, finally. Some sci-fi mumbo-jumbo."

Diablo's cousin?

I'm six levels/four hours into the game. All of that except 20 minutes was done tonight. MY WRIST IS GOING TO FALL OFF BUT I DON'T CARE.

Why you stuck up, half witted, scruffy looking, nerf-herder!

2011-11-28T09:16:00.001-05:00

Sorry. I saw that line in reply to someone whining about TOR being bad on the PCG forums, and I just had to repeat it. What a brilliant reply.

Also, here is a brilliant snippet of song lyric for you as well:

"There's a party inside my head. And no one is invited."

Anyway, I'm here today to discuss something completely unrelated to the Star Wars beta. It's a book, actually! 11/22/63.

This is Stephen King's newest title. I will admit that I don't read as much as I would like -- the amount of free time I have to do so just isn't there with all the other interests that I have. (I'm looking at you, gaming.) But I do it when I can. This primarily means that I'm reading in bed long after I should be sleeping, but I digress.

I recently purchased the new Amazon Kindle Fire, because as the very first entry in this blog will tell you, deep down I am a trendy son of a bitch. If someone asks me why I purchased such a device, I will undoubtedly tell them it's because I hold a certain amount of disdain for hardcover books. When I'm trying to read them in bed, their corners seem to enjoy digging into my nipples, or do other equally unappealing things to my body. The Kindle is a sleek, thin little device that is quite pleasant to hold upright as I lay in bed enjoying a good yarn.

The real reason, though, is that naturally it's new and shiny and I wanted one.

In any case, the Kindle arrived at my door on Wednesday, which was perfect because it gave the two of us a long 4-day weekend to get acquainted. The first thing I did was purchase 11/22/63, which I had wanted to get as soon as it came out a couple of weeks ago. (But I didn't, because of the whole I-hate-hardcover-books thing.) I started reading the book (which seems strange to say now, since I don't actually have a BOOK) that night, and have been whittling away at the chapters each night since.

I have a love-hate relationship with Stephen King. I love reading his books, and I hate the fact that when I'm reading a book not written by him I find myself missing his distinct style of writing. I honestly can't explain this. The man simply writes in exactly the way I like to read words. That's the best I can do. There's this certain sardonic sense of humor he has that really appeals to my cynical nature. When I'm not reading a Stephen King book, I'm wishing that I -was- reading one. It's both good (because it means that I will probably enjoy any one of his books), and bad (because there are countless other brilliant authors out there that I should be reading).

To go off on a weird tangent here for a moment: I have a new philosophy in regards to what it takes to make a good story. You have to make your reader believe that the events happening in your story are the most important things in existence at that point in time. While I'm reading this book, I know damn well that Roland is out there questing for the Dark Tower so that he can save the universe. I know that IT is not really dead, and only sleeping, and will awaken again in 28 or so odd years. I know there are many other things happening in Stephen King's fictional universe, a lot of which are more important than a guy going back in time to save one man's family. But Stephen King writes his stories in such a way that you forget all of that and you are solely focused on -this- story, because he writes it in such a way that you're so drawn into it, that it becomes the most important thing at that point in time. That's what makes a good story.

And now I've successfully derailed myself. What was I talking about? Oh yes. So the book is really good. I'm pretty far into it, and we haven't even started on the whole 11/22/63 thing yet. The main character is going back and changing something smaller first, because he wants to see what the "butterfly effect" of it is going to be.

So far, my favorite (I use the term loosely) portion of the book was how descriptive he was regarding how this guy used a sledgehammer to murder his oldest son. I can't honestly say I've ever imagined that a hammer could split someone's head down the middle all the way to their jaw. Thanks for that, Stephen King! I'm so glad that after all these years, you're still capable of giving me nightmares.

I hope the rest of this book is as enjoyable as what I've read so far. I have this fear that I won't find the remainder as interesting, because so far the main character has been spending his time in the past within the town of Derry, Maine. I love Derry, because there's something wrong with Derry. "Something wrong. Something bad." as Stephen King puts it in the book. Derry has been the setting for other stories -- most notably IT. The town is evil in and of itself, and going back to Derry has been utterly fascinating for someone like me, who has read the other novels taking place there. There's this eerie familiarity that creates tension and keeps me enthralled. I hope when we move on to Dallas to stop Oswald, the book keeps me interested. We'll see!

Ok, I think I'm done!

2011-11-27T22:20:00.001-05:00

With Skyrim, that is.

There are a couple of things that led me to this conclusion. I'm sure I'll put in a lot more time, an hour here and there, but I think the evenings consumed by this game are finally at an end. (Seriously, I was doing nothing but playing this game for every scrap of free time I had.)

That being said, I am prepared to share with you my final thoughts on the game. While eating a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, no less!

Skyrim is still in the same position on my top games list as it was the last time I announced where it stood -- a solid third, beaten by only Half-Life 2 (at #1) and Fallout 3/New Vegas (at #2). I'm actually in the mood to explain exactly why that is.

First, here's what Half-Life 2 does better:

Story. Skyrim has an amazing story, and amazing -side- stories. It's got more lore and more content than Half-Life 2 by far. But one of the problems I have with Skyrim's stories is that a lot of the times, you do not see the consequences or benefits of your decisions. Half-Life 2 may be quite linear by today's standards, but the story -moved-. You felt a sense of urgency. That's something Skyrim lacked. Yeah, you saw dragons around. Ok. Buuuut...where was the world ending danger? You knew it was there only because people say, "If you don't do something, the world will end!" It's one of the balancing acts that you have to walk when you make an expansive, open-world environment. It's not really Skyrim's fault. But I have to make that assessment because of how freaking good Half-Life's story is.

Characters. Alyx. Dr. Breen. Dr. Kleiner. Dr. Vance. Barney. G-Man. All of these character have these very unique personalities. They are their own people. Skyrim really doesn't have any strong secondary characters like this. The closest I can think of would be the Jarl of Whiterun, or Delphine. But still...they don't feel -completely- unique, or fully fleshed-out. Not like the characters of the HL universe. I -cried- when Eli died at the end of Episode 2, it was able to evoke that strong of an emotion out of me. There were no moments like that in Skyrim.

As for Fallout, this was a bit harder to determine. A lot harder, actually, to the point where I had to really think about it. It was a photo-finish right up to the end, man! But in the end, I chose Fallout as my #2 for the following reasons:

Setting. I will not argue with anyone regarding the beauty of Skyrim. It is probably one of the most beautiful game worlds I've ever seen. But Fallout is more -my- kind of setting, and therefore it will win every time. When John looks at Skyrim and sees a snowy hillside, it cries out to him for exploration. I'm sure that's true for a lot of people. But for me, nothing says "Explore me!" like an office building after a nuclear holocaust. I think one of the main reasons for this is because when I scavenge through that office building, I'm finding remnants of a world that I live in, but somehow different in ways that were unexpected. Bottlecaps...that are -money-. Batteries...that power my -weapons-. Money...that is absolutely useless. You get the idea. Exploration in Skyrim is also incredibly enjoyable and rewarding, don't get me wrong about that. But Fallout's appeals to -me- to a greater degree. Also, the idea of exploring a world that was once inhabited, and then destroyed, just fascinates the crap out of me. When I was in school, I loved learning about Pompeii for that very reason.

Combat. There's not much to say about this. Skyrim's combat is brilliant, but I will choose guns with the VATS system over anything else, ever. Besides, you know me -- I'm a gunslinger. Skyrim doesn't have pistols. /sadface.

All of that may seem like a hell of a lot of complaining, but in reality it's not. Consider that I'm directly comparing this game to two of what I would consider the greatest games ever. I'd say it fared quite well, and besides, I'm not done talking yet.

First, allow me to explain the title of this post. That is, why I feel I'm now (mostly) finished with the game. The first is that I've done just about all of the -major- story lines. All that's left are the simple ones -- find a book, kill something, deliver something, etc. I've done all the really interesting ones. Next, I'm running into situations where I cannot proceed on some side quests because I've already done other things in the game. For example, I was sent to retrieve a certain item from a certain cave somewhere out in a certain bit of nowhere. Well, I was to turn in this item to a certain Jarl in a certain city -- but the Jarl is no longer in his palace, but in a common house. Which is locked. I was undaunted, so I sneakily picked the lock and went inside. Unfortunately, he's not happy with me due to my decisions during the "Reunification of Skyrim" questline, and therefore I cannot turn in the item or complete the quest. This may not seem like a big deal, but I am a completionist, so this is incredibly frustrating for me.

The final thing was my house in Windhelm. I thought I took a screenshot of it, but I don't see it in my folder. In any case, it's not hard to explain. Basically, I did a quest in Windhelm that involved a serial killer. He was hiding out in an abandoned house. When I bought my house there, -that's- the one they gave me. Complete with blood stains all over the floors, skulls in the closets, and butchered flesh in a hidden room. I spent nearly 20,000 gold on the house and all the furnishings, and yet I have all this -mess-. Really? The part that annoyed me the most was that I probably would have liked that house the most out of all the ones in the game, because it has a cool armory where you can store your cool weapons in display cases. Such a shame.

Crom, that's enough bitching. You'd think I hated this game or something. Hardly. I had so many good experiences, so many surprises, and so many cool things happen that I can't even begin to explain them all. And besides -- spoilers!

And now, how about another round of screenshots? I will use them as a medium to reassure you of how awesome this game is.

Why yes, he is a badass. Thank you for noticing.

Pretty landscape overload. Commence head exploding.

You can imagine the dragon saying to me, "Careful with that thing! You'll poke someone's eye out."

Oh, come on. It's a game with infinite dragons in it. You can't be surprised that eventually I ended up riding one!

All together now: "Ooooh, pretty!"

Rejected captions for this image:
"This way to the Dark Portal!"
"The Witch-King would like a word with you."
"Oh no! Dementors!"
"Suprenday!"

If you get each one of those references, I'll give you a cookie. (If you get each one of these references -and- you're John, you get something -else-.)

One word about "Team Jacob" and I will maul your face.

I've killed a lot of dragons, but -every- time I am compelled to stand and watch the death animation and the soul absorption. It just never gets old, and that's true for a lot of the things in this game. There's a lot of repetition, sure. But it's presented so well that you really don't care!

And that's the last of the screenshots that I currently have. Hey, I might post some more later on, especially if Bethesda delivers with the DLC content. So don't worry about that!

It's the game that never ends.

2011-11-26T12:39:00.001-05:00

I knew going into Skyrim that they designed it to last forever -- quests are randomly generated, dragons are randomly generated, etc. That still doesn't change the fact, however, that eventually -I- will consider myself finished. I'd either start to see repetition or I would simply get bored. It doesn't matter how good something is -- eventually, if you play it long enough, you will get bored. Just look at World of Warcraft. There's no denying it's a brilliant game. But it's also 7 years old and people are getting bored with it. There's nothing you can do to prevent that. Even re-branding yourself might not help -- Blizzard tried that with Cataclysm and it didn't really do much.

I'm sort of waiting for that to happen with Skyrim, and it really hasn't yet. Part of me wishes it would, because I have a house that needs cleaning, a litter box that needs emptying, Christmas shopping that needs doing, books that need reading, Christmas decorations that need decorating, and a myriad of other things that I should be doing right now.

But I digress -- Skyrim is awesome and I can't put it down. With that being said, let's browse some screenshots, hm?

Everything that you kill has the potentially to provide a "finishing move" cut-scene. This includes dragon slaying, of course!

Here's my character, looking as awesome as possible.

This shot looks so impressive. It would make an excellent wallpaper.

Got trapped in an evil altar by an evil daedric prince of darkness. Same 'ol, same 'ol.

Oh look, it's the wall from the trailer! I won't reveal any spoilers here about it, but take a look at the intricate design. It's amazing! I loved how the torchlight reflected off all the little niches when the NPCs walked along it.

Yay kittehs

2011-11-25T20:13:00.002-05:00

That is all.

I have a blueberry fritter.

2011-11-23T08:23:00.001-05:00

And it is delicious.

On a completely different topic, you may have noticed that while I have made quite a number of posts about Skyrim, I haven't actually written a lot of text about the game. If you compare it to my posts on say, Deus Ex or Dead Space 2, there is considerably less information. You may take that to mean that I don't like Skyrim as much as I like these other games. I'm here to tell you that is incorrect.

I haven't even finished Skyrim yet, and I'm already prepared to tell you that it is my third most favorite game of all time, behind Half-Life and Fallout. (I don't put sequels on those games, because I feel they are just simply games as a whole and should be treated as such. But if you want me to be more specific, that includes Half-Life 2, Episode 1, Episode 2, Fallout 3, and New Vegas. That is as specific as I can get.)

The reason I haven't written a lot about Skyrim is because the game is so -huge- that it's actually quite difficult to do so without being confusing. I could start spouting some of the cool things, but it probably wouldn't make all that much sense out of context. (Though, last night I killed a dragon by jumping on its head and stabbing it through the top of its snout. I don't care what context you put that in -- it's badass.)

So unless I did a daily diary of the game (which I don't have the time nor the patience to do for an -entire- play-through), there's really not much more I can do other than provide some screenshots and a blurb or two of information about them.

I had a similar problem with Fallout, which shouldn't surprise anyone since it's basically the same game in a different setting. The longest and most detailed post I made about Fallout was the final DLC of New Vegas, The Lonesome Road. The reason I was able to so easily write about that one is because it was linear. It's ironic, because PC Gamer gave that DLC a tepid 53% review score because of that very fact. (I think they said something like, "It's linear and doesn't do much.")

Well they're entitled to their opinion, and they speak the truth -- it was linear. They're also entitled to suck my granolas, because linear <> bad. To me, Lonesome Road was a lovely ENDING to an epic game. I have no problem with being given a huge, expansive open world to explore and do anything I want in, and then when I'm finished with it, walk a linear path to a conclusion. It was a nice send-off for one of the greatest games ever made.

Also, I made you a meme:

John's Skyrim Stories

2011-11-22T08:24:00.015-05:00

Well, Steve's doing it so I'm going to do it too. Since the gods of death and diseases have focused their unbridled fury down upon my throat (aka: I'm ill and have nothing to do other than play Skyrim), I thought I'd share my stories from Skyrim. I'm sure me and Steve will enter some kind of "my stories are better than yours" contest... And I shall win it! Har har.

So, let us commence my Skyrim stories..

I found myself in the middle of a snowstorm and damn, it was pretty. On the right there is not me (I'm not that girly), it's my companion Lydia. I got her after doing a quest to save a town, and she was all "let me help you kill things". I didn't want my style cramped, so I left her at home to do nothing except read books about how to improve one-handed weapons. After being eaten by a bear 15 minutes later, I decided her help would be useful.

You know what this screenshot says to me? Explore me, damnit!

This screenshot doesn't say that to me. To me, this screenshot says "OH MY FUCKING GOD SPIDER KILL IT QUICKLY". The spiders in Skyrim are horrible. Then again, I am a wuss.

Hand bone, connected to the axe bone, connected to your... FACE BONE!

I had a really bad feeling about this.

There are alot of "I may be screwed" moments in this game. Getting out of those moments is ridiculously satisfying.

My thought process for this moment was: "Oh god a spiny dragon of death that one-shots me with its jaws, I'll shoot it with arrows while that guard over there- oh." In case you can't see, that flying corpse had just been lobbed out of the Dragon's mouth.

The people who say this game needs a better-looking sky are idiots.

Finally, I leave you with this. Proof that Skyrim doesn't only have width, it has depth. That makes sense in some kind of hypothetical way. Don't care. Is pretty.

Steve told me that he does't like writing posts about Skyrim, because he just ends up playing it rather than finishing his-

Looking the Part

2011-11-21T23:52:00.001-05:00

I can't tell you where I got this stuff. Spoilers.

Skyrim Stories - Part 2

2011-11-20T14:16:00.001-05:00

As a continuation of yesterday's screenshot-oriented post, I bring you more postcard-worthy pictures of Tamriel. Enjoy!

This whole thing with the Greybeards reminded me of that scene from near the end of Ghostbusters.

"Are you a god?"
"Uh...no!"
"Then...DIE!"

"Ray, when someone asks you if you're a god...you say YES!"

I'm not sure why I thought of that -- probably due to the whole "voice-from-the-sky" thing. In any case, I really liked this part, because it gave you the impression that this world is really, really old, and that a lot of people have been waiting and searching for someone like you for their entire lives. That's a cool idea.

The problem I tend to have is that there are so many places, so many things to do, and so many things to see in this game, that I tend to forget the circumstances of a lot of it. Take this image, for example. Looks cool, doesn't it? I have no idea where I was or what I was doing when I took it, though.

It's even beautiful in the dark.

These caves were filled with all kinds of nasty things. Spiders, undead, necromancers, mages, Trolls, you name it, it was there.

Those statues on the left and right are in the process of lifting up out of the water as I approached the altar on the other side. This is where the story for the game really opened up for me. You were sent to retrieve an item, and it wasn't there. In its place was a note, leading you to one of the more interesting quests thus far.

Skyrim Stories - Part 1

2011-11-18T21:38:00.001-05:00

What I'm going to do here is provide a screenshot that I've take in-game, and tell a story about it -- give you what was happening, what my character was doing, and such things as that. There's so much to this game that this is really the most interesting way I can think of to go about discussing it. So, on to the first one:

So with this one, early on in the game I got hopelessly lost. This was before I learned clairvoyance, which has been a cromsend ever since. In any case, to get to the village that I needed to get to, I decided to walk along the coast. This is one of the places that I happened to come across on my way there. And in the end, yes, my plan worked and I did make it to the village. Finally. Though I'm quite sure I had frostbite.

I also found this on my trip along that horrid, icy coast. It's a shrine, and it gave me a little buff when I clicked on it. What's also interesting is that it cured all my diseases as well. I didn't think very much about that at the time. But now, I learned that I can eat alchemy ingredients to discover what I can make with them -- and you can get diseased from doing that. So this is actually quite useful!

Alright, so this is the mage college above Winterhold. This place both fascinates me and makes me want to smash things like a mage-version of the Hulk. The quests are incredibly interesting, but some of them are mind-numbingly difficult. I've put doing them on-hold for the time being until I can actually survive one hit from this bastard I need to kill.

This is me right after I got my first set of mage robes. I'm still wearing them, which concerns me a little bit, because I figured by now I would have found some replacements -- especially since I've been doing all the mage college quests. But any case, they look cool and I like them. I just can't take any damage.

This is my horse. Look at my horse. My horse is amazing. He -hates- spiders. He'll go out of his way to go kill them. He's dead now though. I don't want to talk about it.

This is the Shrine of Azura. After I lost my first companion to unfortunate circumstances, I picked up another one here. I don't like her as much.

This is a very pretty shot. It's Riverwood, I believe.

Coldplay

2011-11-18T14:12:00.001-05:00

I never gave Coldplay a lot of credit. The first song of theirs that I heard was Yellow, and I thought it was pretty okay. I think my thought process was something like, "This song has a nice tune but why does the singer sound like that?"

They had a lot of hits since then, most of which I only "kind of liked". I really enjoyed "White Shadows", though, because it wasn't their typical "sappy love song" material.

The release of the Mylo Xyloto album really changed my opinion of them. The first song I heard off the album was "Every Teardrop is a Waterfall", and it was normal Coldplay. Everything seemed like business as usual, and I pretty much ignored it. I then heard "Major Minus", and I actually liked that one a lot better, and the fact that I liked it at all (the first Coldplay song I truly liked since "White Shadows") was enough to make me stand up and take notice.

And then I heard "Paradise". This song is nothing short of amazing, with a chorus that never fails to make me shiver. It was a typical "Who are you and what have you done with the real Coldplay?" moment. If you haven't given that song a listen yet, I recommend that you do. And even if you have...go listen to it again.

I can't see.

2011-11-15T07:49:00.001-05:00

My eyes burn this morning, in the only way eyes can burn after you've had a night that did not contain nearly enough sleep. And the pointed lack of posts here is further proof that I've been doing something else with my free time. Unless you've been living under a fucking rock since last Tuesday, I don't need to explain that I've been playing Skyrim as much as I can.

This game is an odd specimen. I don't mean that in the actual game itself, but more of what the game has done to the gaming community at-large. Just like the Oscar-buzz when a new artsy movie comes out, the Game of the Year buzz has been buzzing now all week. Moreso, I've seen people proclaiming this game as the greatest open-world game ever made. I'm seeing people actually profess excitement and love for a game -- which, if you are familiar with the gaming community, is like getting Iran to say they love Jews. (Off-color joke is off-color.)

Do I think it's worthy of the greatest open-world game of all time title? Most certainly yes.

But it does not hold that title for me, at least not yet. Fallout (more specifically Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, which I consider to be the same game) hold that title. Bethesda shouldn't be upset with me over that, since both of those are also their games, and Fallout has always been my game. It's everything that I like. But I am blown away by Skyrim.

Fortunately, a lot of the things I adore about Fallout are right here in Skyrim. Not only that, but Beth has simply created a stunning game, and they deserve all the credit their getting for it. You truly feel like you're in this HUGE, sprawling world. A -real-, living world. For someone who isn't a fan of post-apocalyptic settings, I can fully understand how they would prefer Skyrim's world over Fallout's.

And the real test to see how good a game is just happens to be one that Skyrim has passed for me -- every time I go to make a blog post about it, I ask myself why the fuck I'm not playing the game instead of writing about the game. And then I go play the game. Screw writing about it. Just so happens that I -can't- play the game right now. Thus the blog post. Without screenshots. Because those are at home. But so is Skyrim. Do you see the problem I have, now?

In any case, since the game has been out for a week now, I'd say it's safe enough for me to start talking about it.

When I think about the game from 30,000 feet, the first thing that comes to mind is the world itself. It's -so- difficult to describe exactly how well designed it is. I can use adjectives like 'believable', 'beautiful', 'realistic', 'epic', 'sprawling', or 'jizz-in-my-pants inducing'. But when I do that, it feels like just words and that I'm not doing it a bit of justice. So, I think that a good way of putting is that you will probably never find a world that is more -immersive- than this one. Even Fallout can't compare there -- the Capital Wasteland or the Mojave were not this immersive. In my opinion, Fallout's world is more fun to explore. Walking around and finding odd things in that game is one of my favorite things to do in gaming, period. But Skyrim does immersion better. You feel like you're -in- it.

I apologize for making so many comparisons to Fallout, but it's sort of unavoidable. They are made by the same company, and Beth has publicly stated that they have borrowed the best things from Fallout to put into Skyrim, and also used what they learned from Fallout when they made Skyrim. I have to make comparisons.

As a side note into my comment regarding exploration -- there is one thing Beth could have changed about Skyrim that would have made exploration a bit more enjoyable for me: Encumberment. If I didn't get over-encumbered every time I picked up so much as a piece of charcoal, I'd probably be more inclined to go into that cave. Fallout has the same system, but it seems INCREDIBLY MORE HARSH in Skyrim. It's been relieved a bit after getting a companion who can also carry things, but I have still yet to go through a dungeon, cave, house, building, etc without being over-encumbered before reaching the end. This could be further relieved if there was actually a system that let me know which items I needed to use for which professions to make which things in what quantities at what time in what place at which full moon on the 9th day of the third month...you get the idea. This is pretty much my only gripe about the game thus far!

So that leaves the things that are my favorites! They include:

The quest/map system. Clear and concise. Thank you for giving me an open world, but one in which I also know where I'm supposed to go.
I already mentioned the world. But I'll mention it again. DAT WORLD.
The weapon design. DAT AXE!
The incredible flexibility in regards to your character's power. Weapons! Shouts! Spells! Potions! Oh my!
Surprises. Shrines in the middle of no where. Walruses trying to eat my face. Daedras wanting me to be their assassin. A child performing black magic on his mother's corpse. Higher powers summoning me at random intervals. I'm one busy Nord.

Another thing that I really like is the fact that the game is really well designed to pick up and put back down again at any time. Saving anywhere means that if I'm tired, or if it's late, or if I just need to go do something else, I can and it's not a problem at all. (Suck it, console players!)

Also, I like the interface. It's very slick as far as I'm concerned. My only suggestion would be something I've already covered -- tell me if these items I've picked up are useful, or vendor trash. Even MMOs tell you this -- grey items = vendor trash. It's simple. But that's a moot point and sort of a sideline. The UI is good in my opinion. People like TB are bitching about it. I suppose they need something to fuel their hate brigade, amirite?

You have no idea how badly I want to play now. Crom dammit.

I Have Seen Skyrim

2011-11-11T08:41:00.001-05:00

But, I'm not going to tell you about it. Nor am I going to provide you with any screenshots or videos. Because you need to be experiencing it for yourself. So what are you waiting for?

Seriously, I'm not -that- tall.

2011-11-01T10:56:00.002-04:00

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T09:40:00.001-04:00

I'm sitting here trying to remember the times when I've been the most scared, and it's difficult to put this into the context of Halloween because real life is scary in a much different way than the whole concept of "Halloween Scary". In real life, things like mortality, losing a loved one, job security, and stuff like that are all scary things. They're also not fun to think or talk about, and thus not really conducive to a holiday that, while being about scary things, is also supposed to be fun. So, I'll keep this light-hearted, in the spirit of the holiday.

I remember when I was a kid, around preteen or some such an age, I would have this thing I would do if I would arrive home at night. Without going too far off-topic, this would happen quite often due to any number of activities I would do, especially during the summer. Things like horseshoe leagues/tournaments, or going out after dark to help my Dad water tees and greens at the golf course where he worked.) When I'd get home, and it'd be completely dark, I would walk around the house in a circle before going inside. There were no lights around our house at the time, except for one in the driveway, so it would always be utterly dark, which made it scary.

I used to imagine scary things I had watched or read when I did this, which of course made it scarier. My motivations for doing this was nothing more than wanting to be scared, of course. That's just what I was like. One night when I did this, it was shortly after I'd read this book called "Intensity" by Dean Koontz. It was about this maniac who broke into this house and murdered everyone inside except for one girl, who ended up trapped in the back of his RV. I was thinking of this book as I walked around the house that night, and I still remember thinking how odd the name of the maniac was: Edgler Foreman Vess. Right at that point, my brother jumped out of the bushes to scare the shit out of me.

The Heist

2011-10-28T10:16:00.002-04:00

First, allow me to set the scene for you. My team is located in the center part of the second floor of the office, occupying six of the cubicles here. Our seventh team member is sitting a little over on the other side a ways, near the Custom's department. Bernie and her team are over to the left from us near the windows and in front of the break room. Got the logistics? Good.

Now, since it's Halloween soon, Bernie's team have hung up a plastic Halloween themed sign on one of their walls. It has a button on it. When you press the button, you get this incredibly annoying sequence of sound effects: First, a ghostly "Ooooooooo!", followed by a monstrous growl, and finally a high pitched horror movie scream.

Yesterday, after Danielle, Jeff, and I tired of hearing it, I got out my toolkit and we sneakily removed the batteries. They didn't notice it until this morning, so I told them where the batteries were (because I, like some men, simply like to watch the world burn).

So, when Danielle got in this morning, they pressed the button much to her chagrin. "AUGH WHO GAVE THEM THEIR BATTERIES BACK?!"

Then, the two of us conspired a kidnapping. Or, a signnapping, if you will. A HEIST, of sorts, on par with the purloining of the Mona Lisa. We were going to steal the sign!

So I drafted up a ransom note, because any signnapping worth it's crime has a ransom note! I found a ransom note font on the Internet, and printed it out on the color printer. (Because it's a fully acceptable waste of company supplies.)

After we finished drafting the note, it was time to "do the job".

I sneaked over to the sign, ducking behind the cubicle as I reached up to lift it from it's hanging place. And the damned thing went off! ABORT! ABORT THE MISSION! I ran for it, diving back into my own cubicle. No one noticed. Whew! I tried again a few minutes later -- more carefully this time. I have a picture of this so you can see me in action:

After I got the sign off the wall, I made a run for it and hid it in Ed's office. (The fucker went off again when I set it down!) Then, we put the ransom note in the sign's place and went back to acting nonchalant at our desks! Here's a picture of the ransom note:

Now we're just waiting for them to actually notice it's missing!

Inception Bullets

2011-10-28T09:42:00.000-04:00

I gave those "Inception Bullets" a try in Rage last night -- those are the bullets where the tooltip says, "Bullets within bullets within bullets that all fire at once". Basically, you load up your pistol and it fires all 6 bullets simultaneously.

It's actually not quite as useful as I thought it would be. Basically, it turns your pistol into a shotgun, so it's good for close range. It doesn't quite have as much spread as a shotgun, but it still has some and that sort of means I won't use them. I like aiming for the headshots. Also, since you're basically shooting 6 shots at once, you have to reload after every shot. That's just...annoying actually.

So I'll be sticking with the Fatboy bullets!

Ninjas!

2011-10-25T09:50:00.000-04:00

Late last night, John and I decided to watch Jurassic Park together. It's funny, because I got that movie on DVD right when it first came out (so like, what, 16 years ago?), so it's actually the full screen version, because widescreen wasn't mainstream yet. I found that amusing (and weird!). Anyway, I started the movie and turned on screenshare via Skype -- John was watching it in bed and I was just sitting at my computer (having cereal).

I think John lasted about three quarters of the way through it, or something like that, before he fell asleep. It was close to midnight-my-time when the movie ended, and I decided to just go to bed. I left Skype on.

Now, it's common knowledge that John talks in his sleep. Around 2:30 AM, I get woken up by him saying "NINJAS" really loud into the mic. Yes, "NINJAS!". I leaped out of bed, still half-asleep and probably half-dreaming, looking around for my sword so that I could fight the ninjas. It was frickin' hilarious. (Yes, I keep a sword by the old fireplace. It's a WWII Japanese sword.)

NINJAS!

Wot I Hear

2011-10-24T11:11:00.000-04:00

I don't often post about music for two reasons.

1. It's the common interest most susceptible to hipsterism.
2. You don't care what I'm listening to.

Even so, I decided to share a few songs that have been playing in my ear regularly the last couple of weeks.

Wolf Gang - The King and All of His Men

Kasabian - Days Are Forgotten

Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - If I Had a Gun

Jetson....!

2011-10-21T15:38:00.000-04:00

Drama!

It's been a while since I've had any at the office, so I was about due. This is actually quite an amusing story. I love telling it.

Yesterday afternoon, a lady by the name of Sue came over to my desk. She's another manager in the office for our Customs department. I don't know her all that well, but she attends the bi-weekly manager's meeting and we do know each other. She brought me this weird looking item -- it was (unbeknownst to me at the time) the padding for a bra or something of that nature. A boob pad. Whatever. I thought it was a shoulder pad for a lady's blouse.

I took it over to Melissa's office, who is our HR person. She laughed when she saw it, saying that she didn't know what it was but that it was just lying on the floor. I told her what I thought it was, and she said that to her it looked like a skullcap, sort of like the kind of thing the Pope wears. So naturally, the next logical thing for me to do was to put it on my head.

I said, "Well, this looks like something a Jewish person would wear at their Bar Mitzvah. Mazel Tov!"

Both Melissa and Danielle found this to be hilarious, mostly because the thing sat on top of my head perfectly. However, the owner of the thing didn't find it so amusing. Apparently, she now wants me fired.

Nothing is going to happen to me, but damn if this whole thing wasn't hilarious. It's kept me entertaining for a day and a half now.

Ow My Finger

2011-10-20T23:12:00.001-04:00

Playing Rage, and I was inside the tavern. I noticed a guy sitting at a table doing the thing with the knife where you stab the table between your fingers as fast as you can. Turns out, it's a mini-game! I made a video of it.

Ooh, Scary!

2011-10-19T06:42:00.000-04:00

I like making Halloween themed posts, and I've been thinking about what I'd like to do this year. I've done games before, I've done Friday the 13th kills before. I don't think I've actually done movies as a whole, though. So this year I'm going to do something different. A few years ago, Bravo compiled a list of the top 100 scariest movie moments. I'm going to take their top 10 and comment on them myself. Mainly, I'm going to express the reasons why I feel the movie is on the list. So without further adieu, let's get to it, starting from the bottom:

10. Wait Until Dark

Wait, what? I've never heard of this movie. Well, this is embarrassing, isn't it? *Goes to Wikipedia*

Okay, so it's a thriller from the 1960's...oh hey, it's directed by Terence Young! He did some of the earliest Bond movies. It seems that it made the list due to the ending of the movie, which is apparently quite harrowing. Seems the heroine is blind, which probably adds to the tension. Sounds alright, I suppose. Anyway...moving on.

9. Night of the Living Dead

"They're coming to get you, Barbra!" Ah, I still remember that line. So this one is obviously on the list because it's basically the first zombie movie. Ever. Needless to say, it's not a happy film. I can't really pick out any one portion of the film that stands out to me -- the whole damned thing is one big mess, pretty much. The ending is quite depressing, though, so I suppose I could mention that. (It's a zombie movie, what do you expect?)

8. Carrie

The ending. Definitely the ending. Prom queen gets pig's blood thrown on her and snaps. On a side note, I'd like to point out that Carrie was Stephen King's first published novel. The book is excellent. Read it. (Hey, I'm a fan. Sue me.)

7. The Silence of the Lambs

I can think of two scenes that stand out to me. One, when Hannibal escapes from captivity. He eats a man's face and wears another as a disguise. HELLO?! The other is the end, when Clarice is in a pitch dark basement and the killer is behind her with night vision goggles on, close enough to touch her and she has no idea.

There are a few other memorable scenes I should mention, but they're more iconic than truly frightening. One is, of course, the infamous "Would you fuck me?" scene. where the serial killer tucks his penis between his legs and pretends to be a women. And the other is the "It puts the lotion in the basket" scene. These are DISTURBING, which adds to the incredibly creepy atmosphere of the film.

Since I plugged Stephen King's books, I should also mention that this one was based on a novel of the same name by Thomas Harris. Most of the Hannibal books are good. "Hannibal" itself is not. Don't bother with it. Nor the movie.

6. The Shining

"All work and no play make Jack a dull boy."

The little girls in the long hotel hallways. I -hate- creepy children. I mean, kids are creepy to me under normal circumstances. I don't need them to make the extra effort. Also, Jack hacking through the door with the axe, though that scene is more iconic than frightening. "Heeeere's Johnny!"

Also an excellent Stephen King novel I might add. You may be interested to know that he's penning a sort of sequel to it, entitled "Doctor Sleep".

5. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

I saw this movie when I was too young to understand it, and I will admit that I haven't seen it since. I remember some things, though.

First of all, I remember that the entire movie drips with this feeling of despair. It's like it saps all hope from your body and leaves you with a rather low opinion of human beings. It also left you feeling that even though that one girl survived, it really doesn't matter because she's mentally destroyed anyway. Bottom line is, you're left sitting there going, "Why am I watching this again?" Not one of my favorites. While I am a fan of horror movies, I do not appreciate horror movies that end up being depressing. I believe the best ones are movies where the ending is rather hopeful. That is why you will never see a Saw movie in any list I create on my own. I consider them to be garbage. And I consider this movie to be garbage.

4. Psycho

I love this movie. It's just so, so well done. And it was such a shocking film for its time. Obviously, the infamous shower scene is what everyone will mention when you bring up this film. And it's quite good, indeed. My favorite part is the ending, though, when Marion's sister finds the mummified body of Norman's mother in the basement, and Norman coming up behind her dressed as his mother.

"A boy's best friend is his mother."

Also, "Everyone goes a little crazy sometimes."

3. The Exorcist

This movie is #1 for me, bar none. To me, it is THE horror movie. (I'm sort of stealing the thunder of #2 and #1, aren't I? Well I don't care!)

There are particular reasons why I like this movie. Remember what I said about endings? Well, even though the ending of this movie is sad, it's still -good-, and it's still -hopeful-. I like it. It's bittersweet and touching.

Next, there's a lot of suggestion. It's the age old mantra of things that you -don't- see are often scarier than things you -do- see. With that being said, there's also plenty of things -to- see, which scare the fucking crap out of you. Regan walking bent-over-backwards down the stairs? WTF is that shit?

And finally, realism. The science in this movie is very genuine, and they try to use every medical procedure possible to cure Regan before they resort to an exorcism. And it's detailed to the audience as being painstakingly real. Don't even bring up the spinal tap scene. I still cringe when I think about it.

2. Alien

I tend to forget about this movie too often. I suppose when I think about this franchise, I tend to always think about an action movie rather than a horror or thriller. It's James Cameron's fault, obviously, for making "Aliens".

But this movie does belong on this list. It's -one- alien, and you hardly ever see it. Again -- the power of suggestion. There's nothing like it.

1. Jaws

Okay, I'll admit -- I don't consider this movie to be scary. It's a thriller, sure. But it doesn't scare me. I -love- the film, don't get me wrong. But it makes me watch it with rapt attention on the edge of my seat, and sometimes laugh (in a good way). I don't really feel it's appropriate for THIS list.

There are quite a number of movies that could have been on this list instead. Poltergeist, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Pet Semetary, Hellraiser, The Sixth Sense, The Hills Have Eyes, Cujo, The Amityville Horror...

I could be here all day. So I'd better stop now.

Yup, They Work

2011-10-18T09:24:00.000-04:00

Today is National Drive Like As Asshat Day (#124). The first incident was simply my confusion at some schmuck in an SUV who apparently thought the passing lane was her own personal driveway. She confused me, because right when I first ended up behind her, she undertook a car that was going even slower than her. This car then moved into the normal lane after this, which allowed me to pass it properly, and still leaving me behind this SUV. A little while later, that same SUV was passed from the slow lane by another car (who had to be going about 100 MPH I think). It just made me wonder about the thought process of her. She was a living contradiction.

That wasn't the most exciting part of my morning drive, however. Right before the exit off the parkway that I take to the office, suddenly everyone slammed on their brakes. I'm not talking about a little slow-down either -- cars were actually going sideways in order to stop without hitting the cars in front of them. I saw what was happening with time to spare, but I still had to hit the brakes pretty hard to get stopped. (I didn't have to swerve, though.) Actually, I was more concerned about the vehicles -behind- me. I knew I was getting stopped, but I worried that whoever was behind me wouldn't react quite so well and hit me. It didn't happen, though. I still don't know what happened to cause it -- my guess is some asshat on a cell phone wasn't paying attention or some other asshat in a rush switched lanes without looking.

Jobs and Sniping and Driving, Oh My!

2011-10-17T00:34:00.000-04:00

I'm sitting here listening to "Anyone's Ghost" by The National as I write this. I have a new love for this song because I heard it at the beginning of Grey's Anatomy last Thursday. Hearing songs I love in strange places tends to give me a new appreciation of them.

As for the topic at hand, I reached a few interesting milestones in Rage this evening. The first of these was getting a bit of exposure to the secondary quests, which I retrieved from a job board in the middle of Wellspring. Aside from the "sniping game" quest, where I simply had to sit in one place and snipe bad guys, the rest of the quests sent me into places I've already been to. I didn't mind that -- the environments are so detailed and well done, having a second look at them was actually quite enjoyable.

I also explored a few new places, with nothing terribly exciting to report there in regards to the environments. It was a lot of dank sewers, dark buildings, and creepy paths. I didn't care, though, since I was too busy shooting everything that moved.

More importantly, I finally had my first exposure to both The Authority and The Resistance. I was given a quest to go down into the water systems of Wellspring to take care of the bandits there who were trying to poison the town's water supply. After retrieving their canister of poison, I was told to take it to that creepy doctor with the robot on his shoulder. He then refined it a bit and told me to take it to Elizabeth, a resistance fighter. Apparently the stuff will be quite useful to the cause.

Elizabeth, in turn, gave me a new quest. Just a little stroll in the park: Break into an Authority prison and rescue the leader of the Resistance. Say what?

So I finally got to meet the Authority, and they're pretty tough bastards. They wear red suits with forcefield-like armor around them. Their suits and equipment can be disrupted and disabled with EMP grenades, which I conveniently learned how to craft just before heading over there. It was pretty cool to be able to totally shut down turret guns, remove their body shields, and generally wreak havoc before shooting them full of holes. I have a few new weapons now, too, but I'm mostly using my trusty pistol. I -am- a gunslinger, after all. Besides, I've got Fat Boy bullets, which sound delicious when fired and pack one hell of a punch.

So that dude is Captain Marshall. And he's voiced by Steven Blum. Of course he is.

After busting him out of prison, and helping him escape all guns-o-blazing style, I made my way back to Wellspring to a rather interesting surprise. The Authority placed a bunch of drones in the town to monitor it, undoubtedly due to what I'd done at their high security prison. Whether I like it or not, I'm now part of the Resistance. And the Authority wants me even more dead than they did before. Now instead of simply being an Ark survivor, I'm an Ark survivor that just shot and blew up a whole bunch of their boys. Oops.

Now that the Authority knows about me (I waved to them as I passed by the security cameras), they're going to hunt for my Ark. I need to go find it, and that's the quest I'm on now. I'll betcha 10-to-1 that Authority goons are there waiting for me when I arrive. I'm going to stop by the shopkeeper and pick up some more Fat Boys.

Well Gang, It Looks Like We Have Another Mystery On Our Hands!

2011-10-14T14:41:00.001-04:00

Ruh-roh!

Last night was poker night. I carried Buyo upstairs and put him into the spare bedroom, and I went into the living room for a bit on my laptop to finish off my evening with John. After he'd gone to bed, I went into the bedroom to check on Buyo. As I did, I noticed a bunch of glass on the floor. Naturally, my first thought was that he'd knocked something off a shelf or bookcase. I looked a bit closer, and realized there really wasn't anything breakable in that particular vicinity...but realized the glass was directly underneath the window. Oh balls.

I opened the curtain to find a baseball shaped hole in the window, very near the top of the pane of glass. My first thought was a bullet. I looked at the opposing wall and found nothing, though. Well, -something- had to make the hole, so I started looking around on the floor. I found a chunk of wood about the size of a golfball, and one side of it looked as though it had been chopped with a machete...or the blade of a lawnmower.

So that's what I surmised happened. I think the golf course guys mowed our lawn last, so they probably hit a chunk of wood, and the piece I found punched through the window.

How unfortunate.

Stoopid

2011-10-13T09:23:00.002-04:00

Never underestimate the power of stupid people on the internet. Give them an idea (a usually false or misconstrued one at that) and they will dig their claws into it and never let it go so long as they draw breath. It happens every single day across any media, for any topic, in any corner of the world. For me, I see this kind of thing on the topic of gaming more often than anywhere else, since I read a lot of gaming articles. It sometimes makes me fall into the same trap -- I tend to start thinking that the gaming community is filled with a bunch of idiots.

But then I remember the truth. The entire PLANET is filled with a bunch of idiots.

In any case, I present you with my most recent example of human stupidity:

I was perusing the PC Gamer forums this morning, and there were two articles regarding Mass Effect 3. The first one was explaining how ME3 will have over 40,000 lines of dialogue, which is nearly as much as ME1 and ME2 combined. That's pretty damned cool, and it shows that Bioware are putting a lot of effort into making sure that ME3 has a rich and detailed story when we play through the single-player campaign. It looks like they really want to make this (supposed) last installment of the series be a real grand finale. Really cool stuff.

The next article contained a couple of screenshots of the newly-announced multiplayer aspect of the game. It looks like salarians will be a playable race, which is pretty damned cool. As I tend to do with articles on PC Gamer, I scrolled down to take a quick glance at the comments. (I think I do this because I am an optimist, and I truly believe that one day, someone will make a comment that is a positive statement. It hasn't happened yet.)

The one comment that stood out to me was some twit complaining that he doesn't want multi-player in his ME games and that adding such a feature will do nothing but dilute the single-player story and make it weaker, shorter, and less enjoyable.

He posted this comment in an article that was two mouse scrolls away from another article stating that ME3 will have as much dialogue as both previous games combined, showcasing Bioware's efforts to make the story as good as it can possibly be.

IRLRNG

2011-10-12T17:15:00.006-04:00

I hate IRLRNG. That's the "in real life random number generator". It's the term I've coined to describe the reason for things going to shit. It just seemed like today was a hugely bad sequence of IRLRNG. I went into the office early to be on a customer call at 7:00 AM. (I got in around 6:30-ish.) As a result, I skipped breakfast until after the call was over, and was therefore starving. I knew that Jeff had told us yesterday that he was bringing in rice crispy treats, so I waited around until about 9:15 AM since I figured I'd just have one of those for breakfast. I couldn't wait any longer, so I went out and got something to eat. Jeff pulled into the parking lot as I got back. That figures.

That was only the start of things, naturally. The main annoyance occurred near the end of the day. Since I'd gotten in early, obviously I could leave early. I planned on leaving for the day at 3:15 PM. So of course, I had to attend a meeting at 3:00 PM. That figures. After that was over, I went back to my desk, checked in with everyone, and got ready to leave. As I was standing at Danielle's desk, my boss came by and told me that he needed to see Jeff and I in his office. BLARGH.

So, in the end, I ended up leaving the office a full NINE MINUTES earlier than I normally would have. Go me!

That was of course nullified by the fact that I had to stop at the eye doctor's office after work and pick up my new glasses. As a final tally, I think I got home exactly 27 seconds later than I normally would have.

I hate IRLRNG sometimes.

A Non-Rage Post

2011-10-11T15:50:00.000-04:00

It was bound to happen eventually...

It's funny story time.

Several years ago, before my company was acquired by Descartes, our phone system was supplied by a company called Siemens. Remember that. It's important.

We had our bi-weekly manager's meeting today, which are rather entertaining. It pretty much gives us the opportunity to bitch and complain about our employees and our bosses without worrying about offending anyone, because all us managers know each other and are friends. The topics tend to spiral well out of control, as was the case today.

We're migrating to a new e-mail server. As such, our IT department is slowly migrating each individual employee from the old domain to the new one. It's no big deal -- mine was migrated last week without any problems. Well, apparently, today someone nearly lost all of the data on their computer when the migration was done to their system. This, naturally, cause a rant by our boss Ed, who couldn't understand (rightfully so) how switching -EMAIL SERVERS- could cause the data on someone's hard drive to be lost. (IT did end up getting it back. It was a weird situation.)

Anyway, this led into other complaints about our company's IT -- to include shitty network performance, slow response times, and finally, the current phone system. We were talking about how dialing into a conference line was sometimes hit or miss with this system, and that it can get very frustrating. Just today, Ed had to perform a software demo to a potential customer using his Blackberry's speaker phone, instead of his office phone, because the office phone couldn't dial into the conference line for some unknown reason. And needless to say, the speaker phone on a Blackberry leaves much to be desired in terms of audio quality.

After Ed had finished explaining the phone problems, Bernie shook her head and said, "Siemen was good."

I'm not sure anyone else caught it at first. I instinctively snickered, which caused everyone else to realize what she'd just said. Then there was this domino effect of facepalms all around the table, followed by much laughter. After which I said, "Of course, Bernie. But we were talking about the phone system."

It should be noted that it would have sounded a whole less funny if she'd actually pronounced the name of the company -correctly-. (Siemens)

A little while later, she sends an e-mail to Danielle and I with a link to the company's website, saying, "Check out what else Siemens makes!" It turns out they also make some kind of orbiter nuclear camera.

So I replied with, "A phone company that also makes those? That's a little hard to swallow."

Yes, I am the master of cheap puns.

I have one word for you:

Bash TV

2011-10-11T00:25:00.002-04:00

I was going to do some of the car races in Rage this evening, but I was in the mood to shoot stuff. Lucky for me, there's a quest for that! (See what I did there?)

There's this weird TV game show host out in the Wasteland who runs this channel called "Bash TV". I had to go to him in order to get him to sponsor me for a car race -- it was the only way to progress further on that particular quest line. In return for the sponsorship, I had to appear on his television show. And apparently he would pay me to do so.

Bwah?

The object of the game show was to survive as they throw waves and waves of mutants at me.

Ah.

I pretty much explain everything else in the video. Feel free to watch and have a chuckle at my inability to be good at games. Obviously I recommend clicking it to open it up in a new window. It is in HD, and will probably look great fullscreened.