Monday, February 28, 2011

UnWowed

I look at Killzone's great textures and sharp post-processing, and I identifying as such. I don't think "Wow, this game looks great." Which it does; the models aren't universally great and there's a big problem with people's eyelashes, but as a whole, it looks fantastic. But I can't get beyond banal and analytical sentiments like, "Wow, this game sure cost a whole lot of money to make." When a bipedal mech and a spider-bot got toe-to-toe, I'm initially surprised, but then find myself wondering what kind of work -- and of course, how much money -- went into making it. I sure hope Guerrilla got everything they wanted out of the section, because damn, it looks expensive.

I had the same feelings about Uncharted and its sequel. And Gears, for a while. I think that this sentiment is what leads people to hate big-budget games and proceed to declare that the humble artistic efforts of smaller developers trump the money-laden blockbusters of our current generation. But I don't think that; if you want to make your game look gorgeous (as all of the games I mentioned above do), go ahead. Most people with the resources of the company you work for would do the same thing. And you should, because when you're a big enough company, you eventually enter a competition of technical prowess.

Not that I question these studios' artistic intent. Though at some point, you're not just a studio artist showing the world your wares out of a selfish sort of altruism -- you're a business. But something about seeing motion-blur, vignetting, and other technical wizardry ends up putting me in the same technical mind that's likely needed to make those effects in the first place.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

The Catherine Conspiracy

Even though Atlus has said it has no plans to, I find it hard to believe they won't release Catherine in the U.S.. Their history betrays them; they've released weirder titles and taken plenty of risks over the years. Catherine may be a bit different from anything else the company has released so far, but not by that huge of a stretch.

There are a few things working against Catherine's U.S. release -- most importantly, its adult content and America's tendency to overreact to things they clearly don't understand. It's likely that Atlus is trying to find a way to release their first big current-gen project without any sort of controversy. Considering that Catherine's sexual theme is the only thing that trumps Bulletstorm's... let's say gregarious violence on the Motherly Outrage-o-Meter, how Americans perceive their title should be a concern. A popular controversy could increase sales of the game, but it could also get it banned. A likely outcome? Not really, but Atlus seems like a modest company, one that would try to avoid a debacle altogether.

Still, I remain hopeful. Why? Well, for one, not only does Atlus' history betray them -- their present does too. As a few people have pointed on podcasts and other, there's little incentive to develop a 360 version of a game you won't be releasing in States, and looking at the numbers in the news story above reinforces that thinking. 360's a console on life support (less so in recent years, but still), so porting to it may be always be the smartest thing to do.

So why not just announce a U.S. version and get it over with? My insane theory is that Atlus is still gauging interest. And it's not just about releasing it like they would usually. I predict that Atlus wants to go big-time with Catherine, to leave the niche-world and have a bona fide hit. They have that with Demon's Souls, but considering Catherine more volatile subject matter, they're taking a more cautious approach. They're not just gauging interest; they're gauging demand. They want to know whether they can actually pull off a chart-topper in the U.S. like they did in Japan.

So, like many people, I'm confident about a state-side version of the game. But I'm also confident Atlus wants Catherine to be a title that has a wider reach than they've had before. Whether or not the game's odd gameplay and mature themes cross over into mainstream success remains to be seen, but I have Atlus is going to give it a shot.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Guess What...

The Camaro is a great-looking car except when someone thought it'd be okay to use its two-wheel drive on a day when the forecast says "HEY YOU GUYS I THINK THERE MIGHT BE LIKE SOME SNOW OR SOMETHING." Then it's kind of ugly, when looked at from the perspective of someone who's trying to push the damn thing up the driveway when it's not even your car while also telling people to go around all the time. It looks even more ugly when you have three people pushing it from behind while someone drives it uselessly. Uglier still when you realize you just spent an hour helping someone recovering from a mistake they shouldn't have made in the first place because you told them so.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

New PS3

It started with overheating. After a few minutes of use, the system would turn off. I'd let it cool, then it'd start all over again. I vacuumed and compressed-aired the vents and whatnot, even took out the hard drive and dusted it. No go. Then, when I went to transfer all of my saves from the sinking ship of a system to the new slim PS3 I ordered, the yellow light came on right after the system turned on. Then it turned off. With my Marvel vs. Capcom 3 disc inside it. Now it was personal.

I'd planned to get a new PS3 for a while now, but this forced me to actually follow through. But first I had to get the disc out. I tried to open the PS3 the old-fashioned way, but I didn't have a flathead small enough to unscrew the screw that lodged the thing together. So I did the next best thing: I went at it with an X-Acto and a big flathead. I pried the top off as (mostly) one section, then popped off the second top. It looked something like this afterward:


Lots of dust on the thing. you can see it pretty clearly on one of the lids. Keep in mind that that picture is the PS3 sans disc drive, which I had already began taking apart. I had to find a tiny cross-head, which I found in my dad's screwdriver set (and yeah, it had the tiny-ass flathead that would've made this process a whole lot more simple), and after a few careful dissections, I found my disc inside.

Was there a more simple solution? You bet. Was it fun to find out what a gutted PS3 looked like? Hell yeah it was. I tossed the whole thing (except the hard drive, which might prove to be useful for something) into the recycling bin. And hey, now I have a new PS3 that'll actually let me use my wireless controllers wirelessly!

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

You Are Not Hard Corps.

Hard Corps: Uprising's a game for those who cringe at their character catching a stray bullet, a retro-hard fantasy for the person who's not satisfied by games unless they master a challenge that will rip so many others apart. It's a game that's deviously efficient at separating the wheat from the chaff. Between all the lives you'll lose, all the times you screw up -- an offense punishable by death -- and the letter grades at the end of each level, Hard Corps' secret motto is clear: you can do better.

I had more C's and D's in my time with the game than a Victoria's Secret catalog, but that's the point. The game is supposed to be hard, because it calls back to Contra, and Contra was hard. "Rising Mode" lets you upgrade your stats (including your health and starting lives), but you're still just as likely to suffer death after death, until you've upgraded every possible part of your character and you're tearing the levels apart.

So yes, it's incredibly hard, even in co-op. But at times, I felt it crossed the line from "Hard for the sake of it" to "Poorly designed." The levels Six boss essentially takes a life with every hit (even with the game's three blocks of health) due to you falling off the edge of the train you're riding on. And the last boss has three stages, which must be tackled all at once per credit. It's Arc Systems sticking to their guns, and while that stubbornness works for most of the game, I can see several places could have been better and still hard if they hard just fixed what was essentially broken about the old-school game they're inspired by.

But the Rising Mode does do a great deal of leveraging the frustration. I know for a fact that I'll never beat Arcade mode, which offers none of the upgrading. And I'd like to meet the person who can, honestly.

A Lesson in Difficulty

Despite that I'm against what Super Meat Boy stands for -- namely, the proliferation of "faux-retro" indie games that flip game design ideas and repackage them -- I have to admit that it's a well-made game. As far as the masocore genre is concerned, SMB hits a lot of the points that should be hit. Instant restarts, quick pacing, and bite-sized gameplay all fit to counteract frustration.

But as I made my way through the game, something began feeling off. The levels I was playing were certainly harder than the ones I'd played before, but I couldn't pinpoint why. I was getting through these levels about as quickly as I was the earlier ones, but I had started enjoying them less. Then I realized why I enjoyed them less: they were longer.

As far as I could tell, that was the only difference in the level design after about world 3. The timing got a little rougher, but I by the time I realized what was going on, I was sure that the length was my issue. The levels were harder mostly because they were longer. What that meant for a game like Super Meat Boy was that when you died, you had to re-do a larger chunk of the game. Which to me ended up feeling like a poor decision. The game's strength lies with the fact that you're completing (but usually failing at) the game in small sections at a time, which means that your progress, while incremental, was set. The longer levels just make the game seem more unfair.

And it wasn't like there were some revelatory or creative twists at the end; the last section of the game has the same jumping over saws and airtime manipulation as the rest of the game. The game had run out of unique ideas, and resorted to changing its difficulty from "the things you have to do" to "how much you have to re-do when you fail." Which it didn't need to. N+ is a similar game that doesn't cross this length line. it keeps the level small enough to fit inside a single screen, meaning that you never have that "start all over" experience that you do with Super Meat Boy.

I don't think that a longer stretch of time without saving makes games harder -- it just makes them more frustrating, and more defeating. I was more inclined to stop playing as the levels got longer. I did beat the game, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I think I should have, considering my wholehearted love of N+. But then again they are an indie, so no harm no foul, right? Right?

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Anonymous vs. the World

Anonymous remains a group that both fascinates and scares me. A group of coordinated hackers and internet Illuminati ("Internet Illuminati" sounds like just the kind of oxymoron that would make a perfect band name) seems like a likely product of the digital age. People from various places working in tandem is the definition of the internet, and it was only a matter of time before it was for a devious purpose. Anonymous uses its internet muscle to harass people they deem are worth the effort, usually with the horribly illicit images found on places like 4Chan.

Which makes the beginning of their crusade against The Westboro Baptist Church all the more interesting. A cease-and-desist with the immediate threat of force outside the legal system sounds like something out of a government conspiracy movie, where a team of "terrorists" who considers themselves noble makes demands of someone "or else." But at its core, it's a group of people who think that the Westboro folks are bad people and want to do something about it.

And if ever a group deserved the wrath of a group of Anonymous forum users, it's Westboro. The Baptist Church group -- though you'd be hard-pressed to find a Baptist outside the group who'd associate with them -- has a staunch anti-gay protests, picketing funerals, and other acts of general bigotry. When people try to point to "Evangelical Christians" as the cause of most hatred in America, these are the people they're imagining. The group is relatively small, but its ability to attract headlines its undisputed.

A skirmish between these two groups is bound to prove one of those media-hijacking stories that'll work like a train-wreck, provided that Westboro doesn't heed Anonymous' warning. The problem is that the whole debacle is bound to elevate the profile of both groups which is ultimately a problem. Anonymous works as well as it does because it's yet to go big-time with its pranks, and thus remains off most authoritative radars -- not that an investigation into the group would necessarily yield results, but it wouldn't be a good for the Anon either -- and Westboro will likely use the attack as a way to promote itself as being "under attack by a malicious, godless hate group. They may even rally more people who don't understand who Anon is into their cause because of it. But the they certainly won't stop what they're doing.

Westboro's site will go down, there'll be big outcry, a huge splash, and eventually, the commotion will die down. A group like Anon could be used to make changes akin to Wiki Leaks, if only they put their all into it. This seems like a good first step into turning the group from deviant troublemakers to the vigilantes they likely would like to be, but this particular case looks to me like trying to put out a fire by drowning it in gas.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Nothing's Coming Out.

I can't think of anything I want to write about. There are a couple things, but I'd like to develop my thoughts on a few things before I roll out posts on 'em.

Friday, February 18, 2011

Music (not making it, listening to it)

I've entered that hipster faze of my life where I stop listening to the radio. I listen to CD's or iPods in most of the cars I'm in now, so the radio seems entirely irrelevant to me now. I used to be a pretty avid listener of morning radio, telethons (before I discovered podcasts), and other kinds of radio shows. A rock station, most of the time. Which is ironic, given that my taste in music has shifted to mostly hip-hop and electric stuff.

I'm not even entirely sure why I did this, but I have to assume the internet had a lot to do with it. I discover most of my music through recommendations, which I admit is a very hipsterish thing to do. I don't feel as motivated to explore stuff outside recommendations for music as much as I do games and movies because I get a good variety of stuff from people on twitter. I know I should probably go out of my way to find stuff that I like, but I guess I just don't have the confidence in my taste to recommend things to other people just yet. Part of me feels stupid for being so snobbish about music, something I don't really have a right to apply a constructed opinion on just yet.

I should probably listen to Pandora or Last.fm, but I do most of my listening on my PSP (no joke. My phone is a terrible music player and my DS is even worse, so the PSP's the best I got), which has access to neither of those. And even then, since the PSP doesn't have a constant internet connection, it'd be shaky to use any internet service anyway. I should get a better phone, but I'm not in a financially stable enough position to buy a new phone when the one I have works fine.

So I guess I'll have to settle for recommendations for now, as much as it makes me a bad person. Should I ever get an iPhone or something, I think I'll probably start listening to Last.fm, since it's where I keep track of most of my desktop music-listening. Uhh... the end?

Thursday, February 17, 2011

The Netflix queue

I have a ton of movies on my Netflix instant streaming queue as well as my DVD queue. I've already come to terms with the fact that I'll never be able to watch them all, so I'm taking a more relaxed approach than I previously was. Before I'd find out which movies were set to expire next, then watch those (or at least try) before they expired. It worked for a while, but it ended up feeling like work. "You have to watch these movies now, or you'll never see them, and that would be a shame."

I enjoyed the movies less that way, so I stopped doing that. I'll watch a movie whenever I feel like it. Though this does mean that my movie-watching days are less frequent, it doesn't bother me too much. I'm blazing through The Wire -- finished season 2 earlier today -- so I don't feel like I'm behind on anything. I've written about this before, but the reason I'm probably better at watching shows than movies is probably because the chunks of time I have to dedicate to watching shows is less than that of movies which makes them more approachable.

But oddly enough, I'm starting to use the DVD queue to my advantage. After finishing up the first three seasons of Burn Notice, I've finally started watching movies. And when a movies just sitting there, waiting to be watched, I feel much more like watching it, because it feels like a waste of money to just leave it sitting there. I couldn't explain why, but this is an altogether different feeling from having to sit down and watch all those movies through streaming. Most likely, it's because the movies that come through the mail feel more like one-offs than a part of a collection of movies I have to see. This is been very beneficial for my movie-watching progress.

Now if only I had more time to read.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

The Fighting Hump

A repeating cycle usually happens to me when a new fighting game I'm interested in comes out. I'm excited for it because I failed to get good at any other fighting games and I think maybe this'll be the one. Arcade stick in tow (though the stick is a relatively new element in this cycle), I'll say to myself, "This is it. This'll be the one I get good at."

Except it's never happened. I'll get into it, learn the basics, think I'm getting good, and at some point, whether it be by Hard difficulty AI or an online opponent, I'll get trashed repeatedly. I'll look at online videos of people playing my characters way better than me and get dejected. Then I'll actually try some of that stuff, realize I have no idea what I'm doing, and settle for mediocrity.

Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 at least offers the average player a glimpse of how the game would play if they were much better at it. Because the game treats its physics like it does its fictions -- very loosely -- characters dart around the screen, use screen-filling attacks, and call for help both on the ground and in the air. As a result, the average MvC3 match ends up looking like something between a light show and a war zone. I may not be very good at it, but after learning a few moves, I could pull off some pretty cool looking stuff. I just couldn't beat Galatctus on anything above easy.

Fighting games are a weird genre for me. I'm not very good at any of them, yet I love most fighting games to death. A lot of my interest was born by a bygone era of UFS, as well as watching matches online. I usually realize early on that I'll never reach the level of skill required to do most of the stuff I want to, but I usually give it an honest shot. I'm still trying to get learn both MvC3's systems and the arcade stick in general, and I'm hoping I don't burn out too quick. Here's hoping I can break out of this cycle.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

He's Just the Goddamn Batman

I like Batman. Superheros are usually some of the most ludicrous stories you'll encounter, especially considering that so many have been ingrained in our culture. Batman, though still somewhat unbelievable, at least seems plausible. Sure, he's a billionaire with a seemingly unlimited amount of time and resources, but it's easier for people to believe that if they had all that money, and his access to all that tech, that they'd be that cool. I can get behind that. Batman's a nerd who works out.

But recently, I've heard a lot of people going out of their way to praise Batman's strengths, to the point of the absurd. I couldn't point to a specific example, but I remember several conversations involving character match-ups that included Batman. And often enough, Batman would win against anyone who wasn't divine or something like The Beyonder, by reason of his intellect. The defining argument was always that Batman would use his intellect to get out of any situation.

I can't get behind the fact that sheer intellect would allow Batman anyone within reason. I can't allow situations like Batman being at a party with a sniper in a surrounding building where Batman would win. Almost instantly, defenders assume that Batman would somehow figure out he's there, excuse himself and take care of someone like, say, Crossbones. Intellect is one thing, but there's simply no way Batman would be able to figure something like that out, provided Crossbones wasn't an idiot.

This is probably the dumbest, most nit-picky and nerd post I've ever made, but it does bother me that Batman gets away with so much just for being smart. When I tell people the story of Batman R.I.P. a common reaction is "That's stupid, there's no way Batman would lose like that. He'd find a way around it or something." Dude no he wouldn't! He's a fucking dude!

...it makes me angry in a way I didn't think was possible.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Expanding Elliott's Law

Elliott's Law: At least one person will profess to love any comic, podcast, blog, etc. no matter how bad it may be.
If you're an internet snob -- like most people on the internet are -- you've likely experienced Elliott's law (named after its creator/founder/discover-er Shawn Elliott) before. On a negative review of any product of media, you'll likely find the one defender of said product. All well and good, since everyone is entitled to their opinion. But the more you browse around the internet looking for examples of Elliott's law, the more you'll see the law applied to even the worst of deviantART drawings. Sometimes, this defense borders on irrational. You'll either dismiss a person entirely because of their love of something you consider horrid, or have a semi-serious argument with yourself about everyone being entitled and all that.

But there's also the other side of Elliott's Law, which I would like to formally introduce as an addendum. See, if any person will profess to love anything, then one could make the assumption that the opposite will also happen; that someone will always profess to hate something, no matter what it is. For evidence of this fact, simply look to the Amazon.com Knee-Jerk Contrarian Game. For those reading from a mobile device, the game basically asks you to go to any product on Amazon and sort the reviews for said product, which will show a negative review of that product. Everything from The Beatles' White Album to The Wire to The Godfather is subject to this. The game is incredibly consistent, as far as I have played it, and goes to show in great detail the other side of Elliott's Law. Just read this roasting of The Wire from several Amazon customers.

So, using this other side, we can expand Elliott's Law to include the kind of thinking that lead to the Amazon Knee-Jerk Contrarian Game, and get something like this: Any product of media, no matter how good or bad it may be, will elicit hyperbolic responses both for and against said product. When you read it out loud, it sounds pretty obvious; of course people will have varying opinions of things. But it's the extremity of those opinions that are important. And besides, that ubiquity is exactly it works so well as a law. So the next time you feel like dismissing someone for their sense of taste, know that whether you're right or wrong, there's a law that protects them, albeit in a backhanded way.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Getting Meta

My goal for this blog was to stretch my writing muscles about stuff that didn't pertain to video games, and in that regard, I feel like I'm failing. I thought I hard diatribes within diatribes about myriad topics, but when I'm watching the vertical blink, my mind pulls a blank. I often have "important" thoughts outside the blogging mind, but often, I forget to note it as something to write about. Many of these feel forced. And often, it kills my motivation to see plenty of commentary on something I want to talk about, which usually either kills or dilapidates as post.

Length is another issue. These should be longer, but I often leave this blog as the last thing to do, because its beaten out my things that seriously need my attention. Which means by the time I get around to them, I'm tired and can't muster much energy to write them.

I don't need these excuses. I need solutions. I need to develop points more clearly, need to create them more organically in the first place. So please, bear with me as I get my footing.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Whoa.

Work has once again piled up, and a hobby project has to take a back seat to schoolwork. So I'll post two videos of oddities I've found in games. I might start doing these more as I find them now that I have reliable off-screen capture equipment.

So yeah. Games are programs made by people. Or something.

Friday, February 11, 2011

Slow Going

I realized earlier today that Capcom has the best lineup of the year, as far as I'm concerned. Ghost Trick is my favorite game of the year so far, and Rearmed 2 currently has me under its collectathon spell. Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 looks like it's right on track to being for me what Street Fighter 4 was for so many people, and Okamiden sounds like it'll be fun as well. Capcom 3 is really the only game I'd say I am/was anticipating.

I'm going into this year more than ever realizing that I'm not truly "excited" for anything coming out this year. Last year, Starcraft and Super Mario Galaxy 2 were the games that I knew would set the bar for games that year. Most everything else was going to be a nice surprise. I think this year will probably hold a few a surprises for me, but as of now, nothing gets me going. Maybe that has to do more with the fact that I've lost a lot of my enthusiasm for hyping up games, after a few of them have made me blown my gasket then disappointed.

I'm sure everyone will point out tons of games and say "What about this?" and I'll say, "Yeah, sure that'll probably be good." But the point is, It'll be something where the week before I'll realize it's coming out and buy it. Or not. I'd be one thing if this meant that I'd lost ability to like games or whatever, but the fact is, I'm incredibly excited about BioShock Infinite, which isn't out until 2012.

Maybe this is better. Maybe since I don't build games up in my head into something they're not I won't be disappointed but rather surprised. We'll see.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

An Odd Exchange

I'm doing something I don't usually do. I'm running through Bionic Commando Rearmed 2 for a third run for achievements. I usually am a one-and-done kind of guy, but something about Rearmed 2 gave me the collecting bug. And it's not really the points; it's the feeling of completion. A Retro run, a co-op run, a hard run, and challenge  rooms. I want all of 'em done. The game is so fun that I don't mind playing through the bullshit levels like Countdown and General Headquarters several times.

But anyway, my oldest brother is watching me play (quick aside: I hate it when people watch me play. I usually don't suffer from stage fright, but when people are watching me, I get performance anxiety). He's seen me play the game for about a week or so, and most of that has been post-endgame. So he casually asks me, "Why are you still playing that game? You doing the same stuff."

To which I also casually replied, "I'd ask you the same thing about WoW."

Which set him off. He said how wow had different things every time, achievements, and all that. I told him that I was doing it for achievements as well. Then he asked me why I had to be such an asshole and give him shit all the time. In his defense, this history does exist. But it surprised and frankly amused me that he got extremely defensive as soon as the topic of WoW came up in anything other than a positive light.

I could dive into a deeper post about WoW and addiction, but nah. I'll save that anecdote for another time.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Review Everything: Molten Hot Wings Ruffles

(Review Everything is series where MyGen does as the title implies. Well, not really. We do it one at a time. Which is a semantic difference, but an important. That review would be way long. I mean, imagine that. A review of everything. That'd be rad.)


These things are pretty impromptu, I'm not gonna lie. I look at a product and say, "Damn, that looks stupid. I should be stupid too. This product and I can fly away together on a Hummer running on lead-based fuel into a land of New Coke and Bluetooth headsets." So sometimes, I can have an unfair bias against the product I'm reviewing. I know that at some level, it's pretty terrible. But I like to be surprised, which is why I drive do fifty down the red-light district, pull the parking brake and yell at the nearest person I can find.

But Molten Hot Wings Ruffles are worthy of every kind of scorn this series is based upon. Convenience stores aren't known for quality products, but when they proudly display a product at the register, I know I'm in for a whole new world of dumb. But goddamn. These are bad.

I'll be honest though. These things do their job. They taste like shitty KFC hot wings. They're sour and ugly like hot wings. They nauseate me like hot wings. If you're looking for something that tastes like dollar hot wings, these Ruffles got you. I don't know what kind of person you are, but if that's your thing, you deserve less money.  Because these things are terrible. And I don't know that there's really anything anyone can do about it. Other than not buy these.

Score: Canon Printer

Review Everything: Pizza Supreme Doritos

(Review Everything is a series where MyGen hit-mongers with bullshit reviews of things no one cares about. Because none of you love us, we have to do this. So in that case, Brittany Spears Justin Timberlake Jersey Shore Gangbang XXX New ipad Angry Birds. Thank you for your Call of Duty Achievements understanding Are Games art?)

I don't know how Doritos does it, but I never have a fucking clue when they release new product. I just saw their new "Pizza Supreme" flavor at the Subway I buy my Subway at today, and I saw it. The instant, the moment, the minuscule frame in time that I saw the bag, I knew it was going in my mouth. Along with a Subway. And a Minute Maid.

Speaking of which, my review process may have been a little tampered with, since I ate most of my Pizza Doritos while they were on top of my six-inch over-roasted chicken on wheat with shredded cheddar and Southwest Chipotle sauce. I went light, what can I tell you?

But I did eat around half the bag by itself; you can only stack so many Dortios on top of a six inch before you're like, "Damn, I'm going to die alone in a public cemetery without a proper funeral like a bitch if I keep doing this." So I opted to have at least part of a the bag by itself.

I'll tell you this straight: They're pizza Doritos. Which means they're all right. The taste is fairly mild for something that calls itself "supreme". Even the air supremacy is hollow when those pizza Pringles exist. It's a tall task to take down the king of pizza, so when you come at him, you'd best not throw him some mild pizza like this. I was watching The Wire while eating these. And I can tell you without reservation, The Wire is delicious. So is Minute Maid.

Score: Chopped Lettuce

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Behind the Scenes: Bionic Commando Rearmed 2 Review

I had a lot of fun writing my Bionic Commando Rearmed 2 Review, though I could've finished it sooner. I started Monday when I had beaten the game on Saturday. I didn't really feel the impetus to post something on Sunday, since few people would likely see it behind the enormous cloud of Super Bowl tweets and Facebook updates. Still, it could've gone live Monday, if I really felt like it.

Now, the other thing. Rearmed 2's reviews have been middling across the board. I like to read reviews by other outlets once I've finished mine to get some other opinions, but I was generally surprised by underwhelmed most of the press was by the game. The level design seemed to be the biggest issue. I had the same issue and pointed it out in my review, but it never so big of a problem that it detracted by how fun the game was to play. Maybe I'm hypnotized by the controls and swinging, but hey, it didn't bother me. The bosses did, though, and that's the biggest knock I can make against the game.

The part of me that's still a budding writer takes the fact that I'm higher than the average as a affront to my expertise. They know more, so they have to be right, right? Maybe I'm too green to notice issues that are clearly there, I ask myself. But I can'd deny that I had a ton of fun with Rearmed 2. The jump makes navigation easier, and the remapped controls work better than in the original.

And maybe that's why I liked Rearmed 2 -- I didn't really love the first Rearmed. I thought it was fun, but didn't see why it had such high praise. But, I guess that's just me. And I'm entitled to my opinion, after all. I just hope it doesn't end up burning potential buyers of the game.

Monday, February 7, 2011

Sick Guilt

I went to school congested and coughing today. My eyelids still feel hot and heavy, and I'm tired as all hell. I woke up thinking I wasn't going to school, but eventually bullied myself into going because I didn't want to miss this assignment, didn't want to skip a lecture. What was I going to do if I stayed home? Play games, watch The Wire and write, which seemed like a good day. If I skipped, I was weak. As you may have guessed, I shouldn't have gone. I fell asleep in one of my classes, and coughed all through the other. I didn't learn anything since I was too busy not dying.

Situations like this are way more common than they should be. My family has a pretty bad history of overpowering rugged individualism. You're not bleeding, so get your ass out of bed and go to school. If they call me from school about you vomiting or something, I'm not going to get you. You're not too sick to watch TV, right? Go mow the lawn. None of these things ever work out well. I know that I shouldn't stick to this rule-set, but I can't help but let the guilt dog me. But I'm trying to do something about this cold so I can properly do work tomorrow. I'll start by keep things post short.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Taking Sides

There was a recent twitter fight between Anna "Auntie Pixelante" Anthropy and Jim Sterling earlier this week. The two exchanged inflammatory comments back and forth, with Anthropy calling Sterling a closet homosexual and Sterling eventually calling her a "feminazi slut". Anthropy (feels weird typing a name like that every time), basically blackmailed Sterling after this, and Sterling fired back saying that he was only offending  and apologized to anyone else who might've been offended.

He also responded by saying that all the harassment Sterling was dealing with ignored his side of the story, where Auntie (that still feels kind of odd) was being a hypocrite by calling him a closet homosexual while taking offense to his insults. That doesn't make him right though. Retaliating in kind to insults certainly rings true for the part in all of us that wants to see people get their just deserts, but it's still incredibly unprofessional. Auntie may have baited him, but whether or not his views represent those of his company's, he has a responsibility to not act like an ass, even when confronted by one.

A loose analogy: If you work at Burger King and the manager finds out you smoke pot, whether it was while you were at work or not, you're out. To a certain extent, companies are not willing to support employees performing illicit acts. Destructoid can decide what they're going to do with Sterling, and it's not my place to say that they should fire him. But c'mon, act your age.

And saying that you were only offending "the type of woman represented by who I was dealing with" is an incredibly ambiguous cop-out, specifically because it's the kind of offense people use to get themselves out of trouble. "I wasn't saying all of them are bad people, just her and her ilk. You know the kind!" No, we don't. We don't know the exactly what kind of person you think she represents. I can only guess what kind of person you think I'm thinking of. Maybe I'm in that circle. Maybe I'm not. It's not an out because if were I woman and I responded with "hey, I'm offended" he can say "Well, I didn't mean you people. I meant those people."

Of course, Auntie's not off scot-free. She did in fact call him a closet homosexual while making his insult a jumping off point for a diatribe on misogyny. Whether or not that's the case is irrelevant; you called him gay, so don't expect him to respect you. Now, the "feminazi slut" is taking things a bit too far, but Auntie clearly established an attitude of escalation early on, so something like that was bound to pop up. You're not employed by a larger entity like Sterling is, but that only means you have a larger responsibility to act professionally, since the buck stops with you.

None of this excuses the comments either side made. People are often prone to take sides, especially in a knee-jerk fashion. The point I'm trying to make is that you don't have arbitrarily fly a flag; as far as I'm concerned, they're both wrong. The conversation quickly devolved into the bickering of children trying to outwit each other by proving they were above insults while responding to them. When both sides act like idiots, it's hard to root for either.

Twitter fight link courtesty of Nathsies's blog post on the subject.

Continuing Adventures in Arcadestickland

I ordered an octagonal gate for my arcade stick. For those of you who don't know, on an arcade stick, you can have multiple kinds of gates, which dictate at how many points the directional stick can stop. What that does is basically let you know what direction the stick is pointing at purely by feel.  The default gate on my stick was square, which meant the only stops were at the diagonals. I replaced it with a diagonal one, which meant that I had the complete compass rose of stops to work with. What that meant was that I could more easily know when my quarter-circle forward  was complete -- a necessary part of being able to play fighting games effectively.

I've written on the topic multiple times, but this has usually been on the side of someone who plays fighting games on a controller. But, having already bought an arcade stick that was gathering dust on the eve of Marvel vs. Capcom 3's arrival, I decided that if I was ever going to get any use out of the thing, I'd have to switch out the gate. I'm used to the octagonal gate because that's how the sticks at the arcade I used to frequent worked. This was about as experience with arcade stick as I was going to get.

I ordered one for about 10 bucks after shipping. While I waited for it, I decided to remove the square gate. I saw an instructional video on how to do and quickly got to work. I had to admit, applying a screwdriver to a machine with a semblance of knowing what I was doing felt great. Not so great was actually removing the gate. In the video I watched, the dude clenched his hand around the tabs that prevented the thing from falling and just squeezed it out. Didn't work for me; I had to file down the edges of the tabs and push down on them with the screwdriver, then swat my hand upwards to lift 'em off. It took about an hour, but I managed to get through it without breaking anything serious. The installation of the octagonal gate was easier, since all I had to do was line up the holes with the tabs, and press down really hard.

I twirled the stick around its fancy eight-way gate, and it instantly felt familiar. I eagerly tried it out with the Super Street Fighter 4, and I noticed a definite improvement over the square gate. Super Combos were a breeze to pull off now, since I knew immediately where to stop. There was still some over-performing of movements, but that was more due to my eagerness than anything. Overall, it felt much better. I understand that some people prefer the square gate, but I don't think I can go back now. My actions feel too easy with the stick now to retrain myself on something I think is inferior. But we'll see how this goes. Maybe I'll actually learn to use an arcade stick effectively this time.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Further Digital

I've thrown out most of my CD cases. I'm flipping games as soon as I finish them. I've bought all of one DVD and two Blu-Rays, instead opting to use Netflix almost exclusively. I don't know where any of those are. I used to be a collector -- bordering on hoarder -- but I've taken the steps necessary to get rid of as much crap as possible from my living space. I don't miss any of it. Netflix is wonderful, games are cheaper with rebates, and online music tends to be way cheaper than its physical counterpart. Generally, I'm happy with my decisions.

The one area where I've yet to take the digital dive is books. Mostly because the idea of carrying around a kindle or iPad with me does not appeal to me in the least. I don't buy too many books a year, to be fair, but I'm a monogamous reader, so I don't suffer from carrying around two or three books. The $200 minimum needed to get into decent digital readers seems too steep when I can keep going about my business, as well as being able to flip books to mitigate the cost of buying.

And more and more, this same idea has made its way into gaming, as well. I'm the biggest proponent of digital games as you're likely to find, but I haven't bought too many full-price PC games digitally. I can't sell them back, like I would any other kind of game, so the fifty up-front charge seems to intimidating for someone who's income is severely limited. When it comes to the cheaper downloadable fare (think Xbox Live Arcade or PlayStation Network), I'm down to pay the fifteen dollars, because the price is small enough for me to swallow. Besides, I can't imagine that resell price on a fifteen dollar game would be too high.

So for now, I'm stuck somewhere between the digital future and retail past. At some point, I'd love to have everything I own on a server somewhere, because I don't fear a electronic collapse of some sort. Discs break too, and by the time something happens that renders all of our electronics useless happens, we'll have bigger worries than where our copy of Diablo 2 is.

Friday, February 4, 2011

Cutting Back

I've recently cut down the number of podcasts I listen to. I won't say what I cut and why because that's really not the point of this post. I'm down to six regularly-updating and four infrequently-updating ones. I a lot of this had to do with the fact that I had started organizing my day by how many podcasts I had to listen to: I didn't want to do certain things because they weren't "podcast-compatible," which is a fairly stupid notion. I need to read more books, and playing BioShock 2 again for the singular reason of "I can do it while listening to podcasts" instead of reading can't be a good thing.

But it's also because I've realized that the number of people who's opinion I care about has steadily dwindled. The trigger that started my podcast genocide was that I was listening to too many podcasts thinking, "I don't care what these people have to say." And when that's the case, I started deleting them. Keep in mind that it isn't because they have different viewpoints; that's actually something I value. But some people I've just found boring, which is why I got rid of them. It's not worth my time, which is something I should've realized a long time ago.

And it's funny, because that follows the same trend that other media has. I only visit 2-3 game websites regularly anymore, and one of them is mainly for news. I think it has to do with "my" generation of game journalists mostly having moved on to do developer work. A lot of the newer faces are unfamiliar, so it's harder for me to get attached. Which might be a bad thing, since I'm looking to be one of those new faces. And since I'm insulating myself within the few sites I do visit, this whole thing leads to a downward spiral where I'm not exposing myself to new points of view.

But with my work at Bitmob, I like to believe I'm getting to know the new faces before they're actually faces. So maybe I am getting my exposure.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

I'm Testing.

I have homework, a test, and quiz due tomorrow from the same class. I went to the supermarket for way longer than I ever wanted to. I still have reading to do. So we'll see what happens tomorrow.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Various Notes

A bit of a cop-out post, to be sure, but I couldn't pick a topic to write about -- or one that would merit its own post -- so here are several opinions on several things.

- The Dickwolves thing: The Penny Arcade dudes were right on both counts. Right to joke about whatever it is they want, because they had their forum to do so. And right to pull the shirt from the store so as to not alienate people who might be offended by said material. As it pertains to PAX, which is a business as well as whatever other might make of it, it's the right business move. People have as much a right to be offended as they do to express themselves.

- I can't imagine a bigger non-issue than adding a jump function of Bionic Commando Rearmed 2. Considering that the game can be beat without using it once (and it even rewards you for doing so), people moaning that their perfect game has been broken by something that FatShark saw as something it needed to add to their sequel sounds incredibly myopic to me. Hardcore fans of the original already got their remake. This is a new game, and FatShark has the freedom to do whatever they want with the game they've been entrusted. If the fact that people are enjoying the game more because of a feature that you can avoid entirely gets under your skin, I can't help you.

- I have six JRPG's to play on my PSP, and they all seem incredibly intimidating. I started with the first Disgaea, which may have been a poor choice. Out all of the games I have to play (P3P, Riviera, Knights in the Nightmare, Yggdra Union, Disgaea, and Valkyria Chronicles 2), Disgaea seems like the longest one. I'm going to blow through the main game for the sake of the other games. All of the side stuff you can do to min/max sounds like it could take hours of grinding. I'm hoping to get through these before the NGP comes out. We'll see if that ever happens.

- I really hate driving in the snow.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Get a Job

Working solely from anecdotal evidence, I've come to understand that people who work hate people who don't. Likely, it's a combination of lack of understanding and jealousy that breeds this distaste. When someone asks you if you work and you say "no," several other questions pop up: how are you making money? Who is taking care of you? What are you doing with your life that you feel you don't have to work? Then, when you tell them whatever circumstance you're in, their reply usually adds up to "figures."

I've had two jobs throughout my life, and neither of them were good ones. First, I worked at the Omaha Henry Doorly Zoo, which everyone except some employees will tell you is a wonderful place to be in. Specifically, I worked at the food stand next to the Sea Lions Exhibit. I'd cook hot dogs -- I was one of three people out of eight that was old enough at the time to cook there -- popcorn, and the like. I don't want to get too whiny about my responsibilities there, but to put it succinctly, there was a lot of walking and a lot of fake-smiling.

In the three months I worked there, I didn't really get the respect I thought I'd get from working there. See, I had several tasks around my house that were given to me purely because I didn't work. I didn't think that after I actually did get a job, I'd still have to do them. A new family member didn't come along and start doing those chores instead, so the responsibility came back around to me. When I quit, it was back to "You don't work, so you have to do this." Which is fair, quite frankly. It's the fact that having a job didn't do much for me that irked me. This happened for the year I worked at Burger King as well.

The other side of this is a monetary one. Because they spent their time doing something they'd rather not be doing to get it, people assume their money is worth more. I get most of my income from scholarships right now. Not a lot, but enough to get me through a semester living in a place where I don't pay rent. But though I did put in the effort to earn the grades, do the paper and legwork, and interview for those scholarships, people see that income as easy money. Which it kind of is. But I still earned it. It doesn't make the fact that you had to clock hours at a place you hate suck any less, but it doesn't make me a slacker. I do quite a bit of work without pay.

But I should still probably get job soon. That way I continue this cycle of condescension.