When Last We Left Our Heroes...

A Quick Review of Quarrel

2012-01-26T19:37:00.002-05:00

About time I started reviewing proper console games, eh? Quarrel, released yesterday for XBLA (earlier on iOS), is a word/strategy hybrid game that plays like a mix of the Letters rounds on Countdown and the board game Risk. The goal of the game is to capture the entire map through a series of battles. Rather than using dice, you use letters. Eight letters are given (for which there is at least one perfect anagram); your goal is to make the highest-scoring single word from those letters, hopefully higher than your opponent's selection. The twist is that the length of your word is limited to however many men are in your attacking/defending territory, so actually playing the vicious 8-letter anagram rarely happens. If you get the higher-scoring word, you successfully capture your opponent's territory (or block their advance if you're defending).

Quarrel comes packed in a tremendously entertaining world, almost parodying itself with how seriously silly the game is (such as the over-the-top DUN-DUN-DAAAAAH music sting when a player's last territory is targeted). The subtle humor of the atmosphere of the game is played up perfectly between the tense "hope my word is good enough" moments. While the gameplay is certainly fun (at least for a word game freak like myself), I can't help but feel the strategic side of the game is a bit screwy. I don't know if comebacks are readily possible when each game is small enough to begin with (I think the standard formula is 4 territories per player); the somewhat linear shapes of the boards might not help this issue at all. That's not to say it's impossible to have upset moments, like a territory of 3 defending itself against an attacker of 8 (not that I'm bragging), but the winner sometimes becomes a little too obvious too early on.

Still, it's nice to have a strategy game like this that uses skill more than it does luck. I feel like when I lose a territory, it's actually my fault, rather than trying to pin the blame on bad luck. Close games can still be quite tense, especially when a tied round goes to whoever submitted their word first. The game knows when to tease you that little bit longer, just to make the reveal of the win/loss all the more amazing. Plus, the word list in this game is comfortably large, and the AI players have a pretty good range of difficulties between them. At a pleasantly low 400MSP ($5), I'd wholeheartedly recommend Quarrel.

Killing Two Birds with One Stone, Four Magic Stars, a Fire Gem, and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

2012-01-04T20:30:00.005-05:00

Remember that console rundown I promised last time? It might actually happen soon! Or not! All I can really say is that when Steam sales happen, I tend to buy things. I'm human, you know. As part of my spoils, I ended up buying a couple of games that I've had my eye on for quite some time, but couldn't be bothered to get because they weren't on sale before. After a while, you'd think I'd spring for a banner for the top of this blog that says "cheapest reviewer on earth", but then again, I'd have to shop around first.

The first of these two games was Bejeweled 3. Yes, that Bejeweled. (And I suppose by extension, yes, that 3.) I probably don't need to go over the rules of how to play match-3 games, so I'll cut to the chase and say it's lacking something. You've got Classic mode, where you try to keep making matches until you can't make anymore (which is to say, let a random number generator decide when you stop playing), a Zen mode wherein one can play non-stop while being awkwardly pelted with subliminal messages and mind-altering sound waves, and about twenty different variations on the speed mode. The quest mode houses a number of these, and I've got to say, it's a really disappointing smattering of minigames. It's got only 40 levels to play through, compared to the 100 or so back in the days of Bejeweled Twist. Within about four hours of all playtime, I had already unlocked every mode available in the game, beaten the quest, and received half of the achievements, most of which simply stack on one another (clear 500 whatnots, clear 1000 of the same whatnots, etc.). All in all, it's a disappointing showing.

I do have to give thumbs up to the at least partially-entertaining Poker and Diamond Mine modes. The latter, shown here, is one of those speed levels where you have to clear gems adjacent to dirt to dig through them to go deeper. The Poker mode has you making five-gem "hands", by clearing gems in a certain order to put them on your cards. Both take a bit of strategy to play well, but they also make you realize how much the random number generator hates you. In every game mode (except for Classic), gems fall onto the board such that there's always at least one possible move. Sometimes, that's nowhere near where you want to go. Sometimes, it sets up a never-ending combo that keeps clearing over and over again. No joke, in the game pictured above, I nearly lost on the very first round because three gems of the same color kept falling into place on the right edge of the board, over and over again, while I was left with no move elsewhere and couldn't advance the game (what a time for crummy behavior, right when the blogger is writing about it!). It's instances like this that make the random number generator that chooses the gems for you seem really poorly-designed.

With very little added on to previous titles, and many things feeling broken, I just can't positively recommend Bejeweled 3. Then again, it's also somewhat unfair comparing it to semi-related titles like Twist, where the mechanics worked differently in so many ways. Then again, you're probably playing manly games like Skyrim instead of this, so what do you care anyway.

If you're still with me for some reason, the second game I wanted to share with you is Clickr. Rather than being a match-3 game, Clickr is best described as a match-4-plus-others game, if that makes any sense. You're given a grid with a colored squares, mostly red, blue, and green, plus stars which are wild and stones which are ~~domestica~~ blockers. Clicking any colored square will remove it from the grid, and gravity will drop the pieces above it down. When you create a 2x2 square of any piece, you can click it to remove it from the board, along with similarly-colored pieces of the same color.

Too complex? Try this: Just click until things happen. Unfortunately, for a game that finally takes a novel approach to matching and clearing tiles, the rewards for good play don't seem balanced enough. Clearing consecutive combos without stumbling seems to give bonuses on a curve so flat you'd be better off just playing clicking furiously rather than strategizing. Note that I said "furiously" rather than "randomly", because the game is still complex enough that it requires some thought, but too much and the game just bogs down.

Now that I've gotten my biggest complaint about Clickr out of the way up front, what of the rest of the game then? There are four modes to choose from, two puzzley clear-the-items-to-meet-a-certain-requirement modes, plus two clear-things-to-attack-your-opponent modes. (Actually, I guess there are five modes if you count the multiplayer mode, but I haven't tried that yet.) These modes all seem to be connected through a currency system that seems to be just as unforgiving as the combo system for good play. In playing the game, you can earn a handful (maybe five or so) of "cubes", but you get 100 every time you fulfill an in-game achievement, most of which are just things that you do while naturally playing, or worse, spending those same cubes to unlock new modes.

Despite a similar brokenness to the mechanics of Bejeweled 3, Clickr still seems to have some good entertainment value to it, even if only because of the chipper graphics and sound effects (think Yosumin, if you can remember that far back). Don't quote me on this, but I'd guess that I'll probably play more Clickr than Bejeweled 3 from this point in, though they'll both have to be wedged between the many awesome console games I'll be reviewing! Or not!

Print This Out and Put It Where A Loved One Might Find It - 2011 Edition

2011-12-20T13:42:00.000-05:00

It's that time of year again... and yet I'm somehow no more prepared for it than any year in the past. In anticipation of Steam's end-of-year sale, I usually make a list of games I'd recommend buying or asking for. I've run into a bit of a problem this year though, as I've just recently discovered the joy of console gaming. (Two consoles, really... Black Friday was particularly good to me this year.) I do feel it's my duty to bring you a list of recommendations though (not that you haven't already bought half of these games). So, in no particular order, here are some things to look into:

The Binding of Isaac - Link
After the Thanksgiving Steam sale, I found myself with a handful of new games to try, but kept gravitating back to The Binding of Isaac. In this roguelike (a new word I learned through this game) from Edmund McMillen, creator of Super Meat Boy, you play as Isaac, a child who escapes his oppressive mother by traveling through an underground tunnel he discovers in his home. Of course, no underground tunnel would be complete without a ridiculous number of enemies waiting to kill you. That's why I'm writing this review from the roof. Man, it's cold outside.

As you travel from room to room looking for a way to escape the randomly-generated dungeons, you encounter a number of enemies to fight before you can move on, as well as tons of power-ups (or occasionally, power-downs!) It's this randomness that gives this game incredible replay value, as the maze you must traverse is never the same. Sometimes you get an easier run with all the right power-ups, sometimes you get 20 keys and no heart containers. If there's one drawback to this game, it's that the fantastic gameplay is surrounded by some potentially disturbing (well, slightly disgusting, thus offensive) aesthetics. Expect lots of blood, guts, urine, feces, etc. It's certainly not a family game, but there's still a lot to love about The Binding of Isaac.

Trauma - Link
Another item I picked up from that Thanksgiving sale was Trauma, an interesting escape-room-esque puzzler about a student who needs to recover her lost memories. Each of the four separate scenes in this game are made up of a series of photographs that overlap in a three-dimensional space, which really helps to suggest that you're trapped in this small space. Navigation and item manipulation are not just done by clicking, but also painting certain symbols with streaks of light.

Unfortunately, Trauma is rather short, with four worlds that can each be solved in under five minutes, but part of the fun in this game is really taking time to explore the different environments. Each world has nine tricky-to-find Polaroid photos scattered throughout the level. Some contain instructions for navigating and manipulating objects (unfortunately, they repeat through the levels), some contain more of the backstory of your character. While Trauma might not bring a tremendous amount of novelty to the escape genre, it does have a surprising amount of replayability as you piece together all of the parts of the story, one photograph at a time. This is a must-try game if you can get it on sale.

Fractal - Link
Fractal is a tile-sliding puzzle where your goal is to clear the board of tiles using an interesing pushing mechanic that's really hard to explain well. Basically, you can place a tile (or tiles) on the board by clicking in a space adjacent to a tile(s). In doing so, you don't put a tile there, but rather, you push the adjacent tile(s) outward from that point, and adding a new tile in place of the old location of any pushed tiles. When you make a bloom (a seven-hexagon honeycomb of one color), the outer six hexagons push outward before disappearing, potentially triggering chain reactions across the board.

Okay, fess up, who gave up reading that last paragraph? If you want a tl;dr version, here's the scoop: I previously reviewed Fractal for Jay is Games, and it's been rereleased for Steam, mostly only with some cosmetic changes. If you bought it before, you can go back to Cipher Prime's website and generate a Steam key. If you're new to the game, I'd strongly recommend giving it a go, as it's quite good mental gymnastics. And yes, the rules are much simpler than I can articulate them, you just have to try it for yourself.

The "Other Recommendations" Lighting Round
Sequence - Link
Definitely a favorite from this year, and one I still return to for the occasional button-mashing blitz. Previously reviewed here.
Portal 2 - Link
Dear Modern Warfare 3 and the VGA's: Piss off, this was my most anticipated game of the year, and it didn't suck as much as yours! Previously reviewed here.
Assassin's Creed 2 - Link
After playing through its prequel and its first sequel, I can confidently say this was my favorite of the series so far. Previously reviewed here.
B.U.T.T.O.N. - Link
Have I raved about this game on this blog yet? This hilarious physical party game has you wrestling your friends for button-mashing dominance. Quite good, but I'd recommend using a junker keyboard just in case.

That's all the recommendations I have for now. Feel free to peruse all of my posts from this year for more good games (and ones to avoid). Hopefully, I'll be posting again within a couple of days with more thoughts on the console world, but if I don't before then, have a very Merry Christmas!

WE NEED MORE TYPES OF CHICKEN

2011-11-22T22:21:00.002-05:00

As I begin typing this on one computer, I'm watching the eternally slow credits roll for Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood on the other. I have officially completed the main single-player campaign of the game, but not even close to all the side quests in the game. That was not my choice however, as it turns out the ending of the game is thrust upon you rather quickly.

Buried somewhere underneath the fullscreen credits roll on the other ocmputer, I had been keeping a journal of all of my experiences while playing Assassin's Creed: Grilled, making observations about certain events in the game and how they related to Original Recipe and Extra Crispy. It's chock full of SPOILERS, but it's the most complete summary of my thoughts on the game, so if you don't mind a leg-numbing read, here it is.

If you're not up for the spoilers, but still want my general impressions on the game, let me say this: It feels like it was way too short, and not necessarily in a way that left me wanting more. I don't have it perfectly divvied up, but I would imagine that I probably spent about as much time on the billions of sidequests as on the actual points relating to the plot. In fact, even some of the points to the plot felt like they were sidequest material that got tacked onto the main plotline just to make it longer. To be honest, I don't feel like I got my money's worth with the single-player campaign alone.

Oh, and I figured out why they call Rome "The Eternal City": It's because you never leave Rome the entire game. Am I the first to use that joke? I hope so. I've had that in the back of my mind for a while now.

Fortunately, the game's primary selling point was the new multiplayer mode, which I can pleasantly describe as absolutely fascinating chaos. I only squeezed about an hour or two of the multiplayer in so far, but I look forward to returning to play some more. In the multiplayer mode I played (Wanted), you're randomly assigned another player to kill. Meanwhile, other people might be searching for you to kill. Run around for ten minutes trying to rack up points (with bonuses for stealthy kills), high score wins. It's as simple as that, but the specially-made maps feel like you're playing a real-world game of Pac-Man. If there's one thing I don't fully appreciate, it's that veteran players are blessed with special weapons and tools that aren't ever even explained to the noob player, making it a bit frustrating at times, since it's hard to know exactly why your attacker killed you or why your target escaped you in the way they did. Still, it's an overall fun romp and I'd say that the multiplayer makes up for a large portion of the shortcomings in the single-player.

But I guess I still have to make some sort of verdict, don't I? Well, if the game allows it (pending these bloody credits ever finish), I would not be opposed to going back and clearing more of the side missions I missed out on, now that I know I can't endanger my chances of accidentally running into the end of the game anymore. I would happily spend more time playing multiplayer. But would I recommend buying this game at full price? Probably not. If anything, it feels like it's more of a bridge to the final game, Assassin's Creed... Popcorn Chicken? Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is only really good as a sum of its three parts (the single-player campaign, the single-player sidequests, and the multiplayer mode), but it's hard for the former two to stand on their own without the multiplayer holding them up.

Will I play Assassin's Creed: Revelations? At this point, I guess I have no choice but to finish up the series. I don't know if it'll be again on Steam or perhaps a legitimate console... Let's just say we'll wait and see what Black Friday brings.

Oh, So It's a Racist Rap Battle

2011-10-21T00:42:00.008-04:00

Hm, where to start this post... Well, I've finally started playing through Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. But this post isn't about that. The problem was, for whatever reason (most likely having to do with the fact that I've been using a crappy $9 controller to play games on my PC to this point), Brotherhood didn't work with my old controller. So I ended up splurging on a shiny new $40 XBox controller, which pretty much negated any savings I made while buying the game on sale. But as a side bonus, it works rather well with other games too, so I guess I can't complain too much.

Today (or yesterday by this point, I guess), I downloaded Sequence, a combination rhythm/RPG game. To sum up the game really quickly, you accumulate XP and gather items by defeating enemies in rhythm-based combat, where you face three simultaneous screens of Dance Dance Revolution-style arrow-tapping. Obviously, you can't play all three at once, so part of the strategy of the game comes in when you play each specific screen. Do you take a few points of damage (on your Defense screen) to build up Mana on another screen, so you can charge up to cast a Spell on yet another? You've got to keep an eye on all three screens at once, switching back and forth at the right moment to defeat your opponent quickly.

Keeping in the tradition of RPG games (which, I'll admit, I know nothing about), items dropped by defeated enemies can be equipped to increase your health or strength, or combined in recipes to create new items and spells. Crafting these items takes a bit of luck, as you must always wager a portion of your experience points to make the crafting work. You can risk more of your points for a greater success rate, but it's still capped at 95% odds, so there's always some shot of losing those points for nothing. Spells must also be mastered before they can be used in battle by completing a solo round with a matching task (over X% accuracy, X-hit streak, etc.).

Let me start out my analysis of this game by saying that it's pretty fantastic overall. The combination of multitasking and rhythm makes for a good challenge, and the four levels of difficulty (I chose medium, for the record) mean you can dive right in at any level of experience with rhythm games (or general rhythmic competency). The attached storyline, while so far mostly bare-bones, is still intriguing and hilariously well-written, taking the mickey out of itself and other similar games without ever begging for you to like it. The music you play with isn't exactly gripping, but that non-intrusiveness is perfect for a game like this where you've just got to keep tapping your feet and smashing the right buttons. And as for the art, more than the fairly simple graphics, I'm impressed that there exists an RPG character that wears NORMAL CLOTHING. Seriously, cargo pants and a sweatshirt? I wear those things! (Though green was never really my color.) But I say that to say that the main character is so instantly relatable that you'll have no trouble getting into this game.

...But staying in this game might be a different matter. My biggest drawback from giving Sequence a wholehearted recommendation right off the top is the fact that it's still oddly buggy, in one way or another. The first minor quirk was that this game seems to be highly susceptible to fluctuations in CPU usage (I had my browser window open in the background while using this), meaning the scrolling arrows might slow down and speed up for a bit mid-game, or my controller buttons didn't seem to register all the time. I will gladly admit that this might simply be an issue with my computer being old and crappy, but there are further issues to be discussed.

In addition to this, it seemed like after the game initially finished downloading, it immediately started to download another update. Initial release date blues, I thought, no problem at all. However, it seemed that it kept downloading more and more updates, all large and cumbersome for my connection to handle (Dear Steam, when are you finishing the interface update that lets users throttle download speeds? XOXO, --steve), even after verifying the game cache a few times. Despite this, there seems to now be an issue (which started just this evening) where when I attempt to master a spell to add it to my arsenal, the game instantly crashes every time (and it still charges me the 50 XP I pay to do so!). That definitely wasn't an issue earlier today when I mastered my first spell, so I don't know what's going on. (Edit: It appears I can't access the Spellset options now. Fix plz?) (Edit again: It's the morning after, and it looks like both of these issues have been fixed. Link)

If you can get over the annoying buggyness (which I'm sure someone is constantly working on fixing), Sequence is definitely a strong title and well worth buying even at its non-sale price of $5. The trailer videos (worth a watch, if only to hear one of the most brutally honest PR speeches I've heard in a while) boast 10+ hours of gameplay, but even though I'm only two hours in, I can already tell it will be worth the time.

Wheel! Of! Ridiculous.

2011-10-11T20:28:00.004-04:00

I downloaded Puzzler World 2 yesterday. The fact that I'm writing a blog post about it now means that either I've found so many things to love about it that I have to share it with you so can jump on the sale price, or it's so terrible that I've already gathered a list of complaints long enough that I have to get it off my chest before I suffocate. Puzzler World 2 falls into the latter category. Mostly.

Puzzler World 2, much like the original Puzzler World, is a collection of 560 puzzles of ten different types, each with a bonus puzzle attached to help you "win big", if the entire thing is to be interpreted as a game show. Which is probably what the developers were shooting for, really, although it's hard to imagine crosswords, sudoku, and hidden picture puzzles as game shows. (Never mind the fact that all three happened.) The puzzles range from fairly challenging, like the three I already mentioned, to the inane, like the Silhouette puzzles which are essentially monochromatic coloring book pages, or Word Searches, which, to quote my high school chemistry teacher, "are for stupid people." (Which is to say, they're algorithmic and don't require tremendous skill.)

I enjoy the Backwords and Patchwords puzzles new to this second edition, although they become somewhat banal after a bit. The game showy atmosphere is still present, though it seems to oscillate between light, daytime game show and deadpan, serious-face million-dollar game show too quickly. Altogether, it's a decent collection of puzzles, and it's large enough to hold one over for quite a while.

But it also sucks somewhat grandly. Like its predecessor, Puzzler World 2 seems to have been ported from another platform to the PC. (The first one came from the DS, this one seems very iPaddy.) The transition from device to PC isn't nearly as smooth here, and there are some bizarre interface quirks that show this. Plus, there are a lot more instances in this game where you have to sit and endure animations, rather than being able to skip them like before.

It feels like a lot of things that weren't broken before were "fixed" in this edition, but the "fixing" just made them worse. While you now have access to larger Link-a-Pix puzzles (courteously supplied by the often-cited folks at Conceptis Puzzles), the interface is also much clunkier and frustrating to work with (including not solving the basic problem of not allowing multiple active lines). The Fitword puzzles got a helpful drag-and-drop makeover (rather than typing in every word), but the controls can still be finicky and dropping one pixel away from your target can set you back several steps. There are a lot of things that make Puzzler World 2 gradually more frustrating than the original.

I'm not saying you shouldn't buy this game though. As far as puzzle collections go, it still has a larger batch of puzzles and a wider variety than what you'll find most other places. It's just those annoying quirks everywhere that give Puzzler World 2 a major downside. If you're considering buying this, I'd say the current sale price on Steam ($7.99) is fair, especially considering you get Puzzler World 1 for free along with it. But if you're easily turned off by these sorts of issues, you'd only be putting your money in Jeopardy! (See that? I did a game shows thing!)

Funny, Chrakovsky Isn't On iTunes

2011-10-02T22:22:00.003-04:00

On another unrelated whim, I bought Vertigo Games' greenTech+ the other day. There's no long convoluted backstory to go into with regards to this game, aside from I really enjoyed the AcidBomb and Shellblast games and I've played the pre-commerical greenTech, so I can jump into reviewing the game without a long history lesson.

Instead, let's talk ecology. Just kidding! Sort of. greenTech+ is a game about global warming and pollution management, though in a definitely (and surprisingly) non-preachy way. Over the course of a level, factories release pollution into the air at regular intervals. Your goal is to guide the pollution to the waiting cleaning centers. How? By controlling a hurricane that sucks the pollution toward itself. Naturally. To make matters worse, the cleaning centers have limited uses, meaning you've got to guide the pollution all around the map. Also, if the pollution hits an area of high air pressure, the pollution disperses into the atmosphere, raising global warming by 10%. If any pollution hits the hurricane itself, it shoots up 20%. If you reach 100%, it's game over.

greenTech+ is an easy game to get the hang of, but very hard to master. Most of the levels can be passed even if only barely (sneaking by with 90%), and each completed level unlocks a new monitor for you to upgrade to (more on the aesthetics later). But, to unlock new levels, you have to achieve a certain number of perfect levels, finishing with 0%. This is way easier said than done, as a split second of lost concentration can tack an unwanted 10% on your score. As you play, you pick up certain strategies like rounding up a ton of pollution into a tiny cluster before making the rounds to the cleaning centers, or speeding up and slowing down the hurricane's attraction speed, but figuring out when to use each is extremely difficult.

Despite being a game that tackles a serious problem (though in a wholly fictional way), greenTech+ carries a very light-hearted tone. It's been trimmed down in this commercial re-release, but in the original greenTech the opening titles gave the impression that the game simulated the daily job of one lonely office worker who would find his favorite classical music station on the radio while booting up his computer to work his magic, Fantasia-style. That quirky attitude toward a life-or-death situation carries over here in perfect form. (One of my favorite examples of this is when you lose a level, destroying the world, then you're asked press X to "accept".) Tie in the fake classical music and the retro graphics on upgradable (though still crappy) monitors, and this game bleeds personality despite its harsh gameplay.

greenTech+ is definitely challenging, but still fun to tackle. If you don't want to dive into the full version of the game, you can always try the original greenTech (the only major difference is free mouse control vs. grid-based keyboard control). Once you fight your way through that, it'll be hard not to give into the allure of the newer version. The greenTech series is frustrating but fun, and makes an excellent diversion for when you don't have the time to get into larger puzzle games.

Oh, and there are also apparently 3-D settings for greenTech+ to play with, but I don't have the glasses and it'd probably give me a headache pretty quickly anyway.

It's Like Doing Pull-Ups With a Box

2011-09-29T20:34:00.005-04:00

On a whim, I went ahead and bought myself Edge today, as they've released some extra levels and gone on sale and whatnot. It'll be really hard for me to review this game, since I've had such a long history with this game, going back years before it became available on a platform I owned. See, way back in the days of iTunes being "popular" and "non-irritating", Mobigame released a game app called Edge where you control a cube moving around a three-dimensional playing field like an obese Q*bert who gets himself wedged in between things too often. Then, the app disappeared, due to legal conflicts with one Tim Langdall, on the grounds that the game clearly mimicked one of his own (eh, sorta, but not significantly enough) and the fact that he trademarked the word "Edge" (wait, what?). I can't remember the rest of this story, but three things have definitely happened since then:

Edge shaving cream is still available in grocery stores,
Mirror's Edge was still allowed to be made into one of the first games I ever outright panned on this blog, and
The aforementioned Edge game is now on Steam.

So I guess the lawsuits didn't work out for Langdall. And for the longest time, that was my only connection to Edge, and I had mostly forgotten about it, aside from the fact that the hoopla surrounding it was probably one of the first things that got me interested in copyright law.

Edge is a three-dimensional platformer where you move a cube through a series of obstacles, picking up smaller cubes along the way, and trying not to fall in a myriad of ways. (Well, walking off the edge of the platform, getting pushed off, staying on one of the disappearing blocks too long... A myriad is pretty much three, apparently. It just feels like more because it happens a lot.) Get to the exit, and you get an arbitrary rating based on how many things you picked up and how quickly you did it. That's the game, really.

I guess the main selling point to this game, aside from the rebel-against-the-tyrant background it boasts, is that there's more to it than just walking around and picking daisies. Since you're a cube, you move like a cube (rolling from one face to another), but you're also somehow a cube with sticky edges, meaning you can stick to moving objects by hoisting yourself on one edge and holding that position for as long as necessary. It's known as "Edge Time", and any Edge Time you accumulate is subtracted from your time at the end of the level. Shame it doesn't really make that much of a dent when you're sucking one second off of a 90-second level.

I don't know which angle to tackle this game from first, so let me start by saying that the level design in Edge is quite good, but it doesn't make up for the game itself. There's no shortage of interesting puzzles that can be made from what few mechanics are introduced in the game, but there's really a limit to how much you can play before you start to get bored. I could easily see myself playing through all the levels, but I don't think I'd want to go back and 100% everything right away. I already know it takes some fierce tedium to go back and conquer the highest ranking for each level, so I'll gladly settle for second-best. Or lowest. Frankly, that doesn't much matter to me. I guess what I'm saying is that it feels like there's not enough of a reward for doing well in a level. Top marks or last place, you still unlock the next level, and that's it.

Mind you, there are plenty of levels to go through, between the 40-or-so in the main game, the 40-or-so in the first DLC pack, plus more in the bonus levels obtained by becoming a member of the Edge Steam Group. This is a Two Tribes thing (the company who ported the game to Steam). Between Toki Tori, Rush, and now Edge, they seem to enjoy making you join their group before they give you toys to play with. On the upside, they don't spam you once you're in, but I hope they realize that people don't really want to follow their exploits on Steam, they just want more content for free.

The chiptune music and fairly basic graphics go well with this game, and really help set the mood for a good time. The controls, on the other hand, do not. I understand that the game was originally designed for a touch-screen device, where you play by swiping the cube in one direction or another, and that's fine, but I don't think it really translated well to my keyboard. There are times when I have too much momentum and seem to go right off the edge of a cliff even after I've taken my finger off the key, or that the cube wants to balance on its edge way longer than I would have intended, which is especially annoying when trying to move through a section quickly. The controls aren't a definite turn-off, but they don't help much.

Ultimately, I would recommend buying Edge if it's on sale, and if you can swing it, a better sale than the 20%-off deal going on right now. It's definitely a game that's worth tackling at least once, but I can't see there being much replay value to it. Alternatively, you can be gung-ho about supporting a game that "fought the man" and got away with it, but that battle is long over and shouldn't be relevant when judging this game.

Do You Like Websites With Placeholder Images and No Content?

2011-09-04T00:43:00.003-04:00

Have I got the site for you.

My Nanoblogging Is Your Microblogging - Episode 4

2011-08-31T01:05:00.003-04:00

It's the end of the month, and you know what that means... It's time for me to throw up an emergency blog post so it at least looks like I've done something for every month. Hey, at least I'm honest about my filler material.

14. Edge and Limbo Make Steam Debut; Blogger Fails to Create Humorous Title
Hey you, do you like games that were released years ago on other platforms that finally make their way to PC via Steam? You know I do! It seems like we got a double-dose of this at least with the help of popular app Edge and popular console download Limbo, both shuffling into the Steam store within a couple weeks of each other. I hear both games are quite good, and I'll gladly look into reviewing them here... after they go on sale. That's the other thing you can always count on. Me being a miserly old grump.

15. Hey Guys, Guess What? I READ A BOOK!
If you know me and my terrible reading habits, this is a huge deal. I finally finished reading Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture the other day. I first heard about the book thanks to the occasional nod from xkcd. On a whim, I decided to try the book out, and it ended up being the first pleasure book I've taken notes on. I got halfway through the book last summer, and took a Communications Law class in the fall semester. We only spent a couple days talking about copyright law, but I wrote a term paper on copyright terms and cited what I had already read in the book. What I found weird was that during the research for the paper, I noticed the author's name coming up in some of the court transcripts I found. As I found out (when I resumed reading the book over winter break), the author of the book was one of the lawyers in a Supreme Court case regarding the issue. So I continued reading like a madman, and I got up to about seven pages from the end of the book before I returned to school in the spring. I just finished reading those seven pages now.

I know copyright law isn't the most thrilling discussion topic in the world, but he makes some interesting points about how our culture and entertainment economy works. The book's a bit dated now (I think it was written in 2005?), but I'd still recommend it to anyone who's looking for an interesting read on a part of law not discussed much in public, or for anyone who's looking for a good conspiracy theory over how much control big businesses have over us. (I say that not to be cynical but to summarize what I took from the book in an exaggerated, humorous way.)

16. Goodbye, Pinky
I don't know how many readers I get who visit from Jay is Games (although I guess I have that little stats toolbar... Well, apparently that's 21 of you in the last month... and three people searching for "people riding kangaroos"), but I have a bit of a complaint to get off my chest. I've been continuing my mostly weekly Letters In Boxes column for a few months now (we've just wrapped up the 12th edition, containing the 50th individual puzzle). But in the most recent edition of the series, I squandered away a puzzle I've been harboring away for quite some time now. This puzzle set was based on the concept of base mathematics, where you had to convert a bunch of numbers from binary and ternary and other bases into decimal form. The third puzzle in the series takes a severe deviation from the normal puzzle style and instead uses a screenshot taken from MSPaint's color selection palette. The answer, if you sit down and convert the red, green, and blue values to hexadecimal, is FACADE.

I've had an oddly long attachment to this puzzle, and I'm sad to announce that what was used in the series was nowhere near what I had originally hoped to do. The puzzle idea first came about back when we ran a SpaceChem Giveaway on the site. John, my fellow puzzle inventor, and I came up with a series of puzzles based on the periodic table. I came up with one puzzle idea, where a greenish-colored box was supposed to be translated in the same hexadecimal way to get BA for barium. Ultimately, the puzzle was shot down because it would be "too colorblind-unfriendly", but I was determined to make it work somehow. It was only last week that I thought up the idea for the base-themed puzzles and decided to give the idea another go. The entire puzzle consisted of only a box with a pinkish hue in it. Sadly, in my test run, I found that the #FACADE-colored box I wanted to use would turn into different colors depending on which file format it was saved in, or even which program opened it, so the idea was scrapped and turned into the straightforward "here are the numbers, figure out what to do with them" format linked to above.

In the end, the puzzle seemed to get rather positive remarks, as people enjoyed the shock of seeing something unusual in the middle of the normally dichromatic puzzle series (one person compared it to playing an ARG... wholly not what I intended, but thanks!). But still, in the back of my mind, I have this nagging feeling that I threw away that puzzle unnecessarily, and I can't ever get it back. Perhaps someday there might be a browser or a file format or a painting program that will allow colors to show up exactly as intended no matter what, but by that time, this little nugget of an idea might have spread too far to be novel anymore. Perhaps it's already been done, and I just haven't heard of it yet. It's like I let a little part of myself go into the world, never to return again. I can't help but wonder if that's something normal to be feeling, but yet I also wonder why I don't feel that with so many other puzzles I've made. Perhaps it's time to step back and reflect on what I've done.

17. Vusy as a VVVVVV
You all have gone out and bought VVVVVV by now, right? And you've played through it multiple times as well, right? And you've put the soundtrack music into your jogging playlist, right? Suddenly, that's not enough love for the 22nd letter of the alphabet. The most recent version of the game, released as part of the Humble Indie Bundle, includes a level editor, preloaded with a bunch of user-made levels. In addition, it's incredibly easy to download other players' homemade maps, and the developer has featured a number of levels on his website. For the past couple of weeks, I've been playing through user levels like mad, and I'm actually running out of levels to tackle! I guess that means it's time I finish up the level I've been working on, except I'm terrible with scripting. Hurry that tutorial up, Terry, eh?

18. One Final Note, Brought to You By the Letter Z
In my last post, I mentioned how I wish I bought Atom Zombie Smasher when it was on sale. Well, thanks to the Humble Indie Bundle mentioned above, I now own AZS. As it turns out, it was just as fun as I was imagining it to be, but it also bizarrely lacks replay value. After a certain point, it feels like once you've beaten the game enough times, it loses its novelty. There are plenty of user-made mods available to tweak certain aspects of the game (sadly, you have to wade through the hordes of people who just re-uploaded the sample mod just to get an achievement), but it still feels like the same game too many times over. Still, I've put a handsome chunk of time into the game, so maybe there's still just enough of a cling factor to keep me coming back.

Surveying the Wreckage of a Summer Sale

2011-07-21T16:04:00.003-04:00

It's been a week or two since the annual Steam Summer Sale. Surprisingly, I probably didn't buy as many games for myself as I did for others, but I'm okay with that. I think I'm hitting that plateau where unless some fantastic new game comes out, I'm pretty comfortable with the games I do own. Still, I did take the time to try a few new games, and I have the following report to present to you.

One of my earlier purchases of the sale was BIT.TRIP RUNNER, which claims to be "the fastest, most exhilarating music/rhythm-platformer to hit Steam!" Erm, well, I suppose it's a valid claim, but I can't think of other music/rhythm-platformers on Steam, so make of that what you will. While BEAT was a legitimately rhythm-based Pong-esque game, RUNNER takes the form of a constant-motion platformer, where you must time Commander Video's actions to dodge obstacles, break through barriers, and collect gold bars. It just happens to have a backing soundtrack.

Note that that's very much not to say that the music corresponds to the actions you're performing on screen. For one, in order to, say, jump over a hole in the ground, you've got to hit the "jump" button before you get to the hole. As you pass over the hole, you hear the associated note/sound for completing the jump. This is supposed to make you feel like you've passed the obstacle, but instead I couldn't help feeling that the awkward disconnect between the action and the consequence/confirmation made it uncomfortably arhythmic. Add to that the fact that there's even a tiny delay between when you push the button and the action appears on screen, and it's just frustrating to play. I can't help but feel that if I were to play the game with the sound turned off, I'd do better because I wouldn't be tempted to follow the rhythm of the music.

In thinking about how to describe this game, I keep coming back to Mevo and the Grooveriders, a similar music platformer from a few years back. Mevo is played with only two keys (left-shift, right-shift, and a combo of both), but it uses a scoring system similar to a Dance Dance Revolution game, where you're graded on how close you are on hitting the designated beats, gaining or losing health as you go. In RUNNER, if you slip up, you're instantly sent back to the beginning of the level. You're either perfect or you're doing it again. And again. Factor in the arhythm I described above, and this game is just not fun to play. You don't feel encouraged to keep playing, you feel hindered by the difficulty. In all the time I've spent with this game so far, I've yet to beat two levels in a row. I just can't stomach it. On the whole, I just can't recommend BIT.TRIP RUNNER.

I can, however, put up a geeky nod for Vertex Dispenser (demo available), a puzzle... shooter? Puzzle shooter, I guess. The general goal of the game is to conquer the board, a three-dimensional shape composed of a bunch of triangles and squares, with colored vertices. The vertices change colors, depending on what "activated" vertices surround it; a vertex will always be blue, unless there's already another blue vertex next to it, at which point it will become red; a vertex will be red unless there's already a red and blue next to it, at which point it's green, and so on. The rarer the color, the stronger the power-ups you can charge up. You move along the edges of the shapes, trying to break through defenses set up by opponents, trying to dominate the board and eliminate your opponents. It's not just a brainy strategy game, but it's also a fast-paced action game.

There are two complaints I have to file against this game though. At any point in time, you can have upwards of 14 power-ups available to you, each of which are activated by a key on your keyboard. That's way too many to juggle at once, especially when there are also four power-ups per slot to choose from. You need to use a diverse range of power-ups to win a game, but I find myself having to check the laundry list of options every time I want to use one, and by the time I figure out what I want, it's too late. As a result, I usually stick to only two or three power-ups for most of the game, which is a bit of a waste. The other complaint is that I can't seem to find anyone playing multiplayer matches. Or is it only multiplayer with Steam friends, and I happen to lack other friends who play this game? Despite both of these, I'd still give Vertex Dispenser a solid thumbs up.

Lume is a very beautiful point-and-click puzzler, with an artistic style of cardboard characters and settings that make the entire experience feel like an amazing children's TV show (so it must've been a European show). On the downside, some of the puzzles in it are a bit too obscure to solve without any hints (I ended up either brute-forcing or checking a walkthrough for a couple of puzzles). Plus, it's really short. Granted, it's part one of a series, but still, I'd definitely not recommend this at its regular $7 price, but I'd say give it a go if it comes up on sale again. If nothing else, add it to your list of games with good loop music for playing in the background while working on a late-night paper.

Critical Mass (demo available) looked like it should have been an equally geeky puzzle game, considering the game looks like you're attacking a neon Rubik's Cube. Unfortunately, it's just a three-dimensional match-4 game. Your goal is to clear the blocks before the mass reaches "critical mass", AKA an arbitrary time limit irrelevant to the actual size of the mass. I've only gotten the demo, but it seems like there's very little else to this game. I'll pass, thanks.

I've played all of about five minutes of Terraria and I've yet to touch Magicka, though I hear both are quite good. I also picked up Assassin's Creed: Grilled and Greed Corp, but I don't know much about either of those yet.

I also downloaded the demo for But do you want to know where my biggest regret is? I didn't buy Atom Zombie Smasher. With about an hour left in its day for an extra discount in the store, I tried out the demo. I decided not to buy it, because I'm not a huge fan of real-time strategy games. However, in the last couple of days I've found myself coming back to the demo to play its limited four levels over and over again. There's something about the chipper, surf guitar-y theme that makes this game much more lively than other RTS titles, much less zombie titles. Plus, the action is easy to get into, meaning a strategy thicko like me could get sucked in. I've not got that drum and guitar riff looping in my mind, and I tremendously crave this game. I'm seriously regretting not buying this game.

Armor, Artwork, Medicine... What, No Stromboli Stand?

2011-07-12T22:13:00.006-04:00

I finished Assassin's Creed 2 this morning with a considerable chunk of sadness. Knowing from what I experienced in playing the first Assassin's Creed, my thoughts for this game started to dwindle as I approached the final stages of the plotline. Nonetheless, I'd still probably throw in a nod for AC2 as a pretty good game, if you're willing to get past a few shortcomings, some of which carry over from the first game. In this post, I'll try to stay light on significant plot spoilers for as long as possible, though I'll definitely have to rant about the ending later.

Assassin's Creed Extra Crispy starts off where Original Recipe leaves off, although assuming the first one "leaves off" anywhere is quite generous considering that the ending was as abrupt as a squirrel catapult. You begin by escaping Abstergo and high-tailing it with Lucy to a warehouse, where you meet the tech-obsessed geek, the English snob, and the Animus 2.0, which doesn't mean much except the game is going to suck a bit less than last time (fewer loading screens, better in-game interface, etc.). Setting up this bit of plot feels like a bit of a missed opportunity, since you'll spend about 98% of your time inside the Animus, only to pop out for one cutscene sequence mid-game and at the very end, with your new partners dropping bits of information to you via audio link probably ten times at most.

Inside the Animus, which, let's face it, is pretty much the game, you take on the role of Ezio Auditore, who is somehow another one of Desmond's ancestors. You begin, perhaps surprisingly, at birth, with a cutscene with quicktime events that somehow teaches you the basics for just about all the commands you need for the rest of the game (top button corresponds to head-type actions, bottom to feet-type actions, left and right to hands). Fast forward to some point in the future (I knew I should've taken notes) where through more instances in late-teen-early-20s Ezio's daily life you learn how to fight, climb buildings, and have sex. (Just kidding! That's only a cutscene, and I think it only happens... twice?) Eventually you discover that your father has been imprisoned, and killed before your eyes, at the hands of some corrupt government officials. So it's up to Ezio to take over his father's role and get revenge on those baddies! Naturally.

I know I mentioned before that my first exposure to Extra Crispy was on a friend's PS3, where I got maybe three to four hours into the game. One of my initial big gripes was how right after getting his first vengeance kill, Ezio launches into this speech about how he's going to avenge his father's (oh, and brother's) death(s). Not at all stealthy, but thankfully, this is one of the rare instances where the veil of stealth is shattered for the sake of the plot. In fact, as I continued through the game, there's quite a lot of semi-legitimate stealth to be had, such as timing your movements to not attract guards' attention, or making kills from a hiding spot. The stealth is also sometimes unbelievable, such as the numerous times I've found myself hanging onto the ledge of a building with a guard inches from my fingertips but still not seeing me. Still, the pleasant flexibility of the "notoriety" system makes this game quite a bit less frustrating than the last game.

The combat in this game still sucks. Just as in Original Recipe, I found myself repeatedly mashing the same two buttons to beat baddies until they were dead. I suppose there was a slight improvement in the combat thanks to the ability to select weapons and armor, which are purchasable from stores, but the general strategy for that always seemed to be "pick the best one, there's no difference in how you wield them". And at that, after a certain point in the game, you discover what's clearly the best armor and weapons in the game, so there's no sense in attempting to upgrade anymore. Actually, more than the combat itself, I should focus more on the wider range of items that can be used in and out of combat, such as smoke bombs, medicines and poisons, and the pistol, which feels like a bit of a cop-out of a weapon, but it comes in handy in certain moments. I kid you not, there's also an option to throw money to cause a distraction. I don't know why I found this ability both hilarious and pleasing.

Speaking of money, the whole economic system is a huge difference between this game and Original Recipe. Once you visit your uncle Mario in Monteriggioni (and yes, he spouts the obligatory "It's a-me, Mario!), you get a treasure chest that collects a portion of the town's income. A large side quest involves purchasing upgrades and buying items in shops to increase Monteriggioni's value (and income). As the town's value grows, the income (delivered to the chest every 20 minutes of play time grows as well. The money system is an interesting addition to the franchise, but it also feels wasted, just like life outside the Animus 2.0. Once you unlock all of the buildings in town, your income increases ridiculously. Once you use that money to buy all the weapons, armor, and paintings you can find, your income increases some more. By the end of the game, I had close to 400,000 Florins (units of currency), but couldn't spend it fast enough, with trips to the doctor costing 50 florins and repairs at the armory costing 400. If you invest the money early in the game, you earn it back too quickly, which unfortunately negates the dilemma of ever having to manage the money in the first place.

Worth mentioning: I really appreciate the amount of detail in the various locations, and how true to life certain parts of the scenery are within the game. When I finally arrived in Venice, I couldn't wait to check out their rendition of the district of San Marco. Unfortunately, that portion wouldn't be unlocked for another two or three chapters of the game, but when I got there, it was serious deja vu. I took so many snapshots of St. Mark's Square, where I actually stood almost three years ago to the day. I went looking for the general location of a geocache I found in Venice three years ago. I found myself on a side mission inside St. Mark's Cathedral, and found my virtual self standing in the exact same spot I sang in three years ago. Of course, not everything's the same, as everything in the game was probably scaled down to maybe 1/8th or 1/10th of the actual size of all these places to make getting from one end of town to the other relatively quicker, but I was so happy to see these details come through here, and to relive those brief but happy memories on that island.

But look at me, picking apart things like the cost of a leather pouch or how to punch people repeatedly. What really needs picked apart is the storyline! I can confidently say that Extra Crispy's storyline is way more varied and interesting than that of Original Recipe's. AC1's "plot" revolved around going to a random district of a city, completing two or three mini-tasks to "gather information" on the assassination target, then doing the assassination. Lather, rinse, and repeat about eight times. In AC2, there's definitely a set chain of events that eventually lead you to each assassination, but you've got way more freedom to take up side missions as you go. Not knowing what's coming next or in what order makes this game way more tolerable... Until the next-to-last chapter of the game, where you have to do nine relatively easy assassinations in a row. That was the first point in the game where I started to feel fatigued from the whole ordeal, but to at least make it to that far in the game (chapter 13 of 14) before I felt this demonstrates that they've done something better with how the plot is handled this time around.

The characters in Extra Crispy also help the general atmosphere of the game. Early on, you befriend Leonardo da Vinci, who helps you out by decoding pages you collect, upgrading your weapons, and providing you with the occasional flying machine adventure. Even if the other names dropped in this game aren't all familiar (Machiavelli and Medici come to mind), they all stick with you, thanks to some well-designed personalities. The cutscenes that illustrate the interactions between Ezio and his allies show you some hilarious and quirky sides of just about everyone, whether based on a real historical figure or not. These characters stick with you way more than the cast of about four people in Original Recipe, who have about as much personality put together as a cinderblock with lipstick. I genuinely want to see Ezio and Leonardo in a sitcom together. One's a blood-thirsty murderer bent on revenge, the other's the wacky inventor guy next door. Ezio and Leo! Ba-da-da-da-da da-na-da-da!

I think I've covered everything non-spoilery I wanted to get to, so now let's discuss some reactions to parts of the game. SPOILERS from here on in, though once again, this game's two years old now, so there's probably not much to spoil.

One of the big reasons I wanted to see more action outside of the Animus was the lone scene in the middle of the game where Desmond gets out, does a bit of an experiment involving the "bleeding effect" in the warehouse, then has that crazy hallucination. You know, the one where he's Altair and chasing that woman through Acre to get to the game's other sex scene? To be quite honest, I was playing through this scene late at night, so to see everything go crazy horror story dark made me freak out a bit. And I loved it. That scene left me wanting to experience more of the Animus's effects on Desmond, because they really hit a strong nerve of both curiosity and fear. I loved that scene, until I wrapped up for the night and realized I had to go to bed with those ghostly horses still running through my head.

Remember how I said I was fine with how the story played out up until chapter 13? Well, that bit of nervousness about how things were going to end up was justified when I hit chapter 14, the final portion of the game. You arrive at the outer walls of the Vatican, and you have to get to the end of a long, narrow corridor to assassinate the pope (as one does). My jaw dropped in horror... This was exactly how the "final" battle in AC1 went. Long corridor, bound to be filled with lots of baddies dropping in, leading to the first of a series of "final" fights. It was irritating then, and to see it coming made it more irritating now. Luckily, this time around it wasn't as frustrating, considering there were way more checkpoints (I don't think the first one had any?) and more ways to kill the enemies along the way than just swordfights. Still, in the end, it was a series of at least three attempts to kill the ultimate baddie (in this case, the pope, natch). It's annoying how predictable this has become.

Which leads me up to the final cutscene, in which Ezio discovers... the truth? That was probably one of the more bizarre bits of footage I've seen in a while, and it once again left the game in a very un-closured state. As the screen goes black, Desmond utters, "What the fuck?" Then roll the credits. Indeed, my brother... What the fuck, indeed. At the very least, there was a small fight sequence outside of the Animus as the credits ran that at least provided an end to this chapter of the Assassin's Creed series, but very much not the series as a whole. It's still an incredibly unsatisfying ending, though it's far better than how you're left off at the end of AC1. Back then, the ending felt like a giant middle finger. Here, it's a fist shaken with great vigor. It's still not entirely pleasant, but at least it's not as insulting as it once was.

Would I go back and finish this game to 100% completion? Probably not, and here's why: At the end of AC1, I claimed I would do so, not realizing that going back and reclaiming all the extra missions actually required you to play through sequences in order, regardless of the fact that you'd already cleared everything. In fact, you'd even drop back in experience and health, meaning any skills you had gained after that point would be gone so you could relive that portion of the game exactly as you had before. This is an incredible turn-off. Here, on the other hand, there's really not much more to go back and claim. Yes, there are the mini-assassination missions, races, and beat-up events, all of which I skipped, plus hundreds of treasure chests and dozens of missing feathers to collect, and they're all readily available for claiming at any point in time without "rewinding". But after the ending I just finished, I'm going to admit that I need some time away from Assassin's Creed. Note that I'm far from giving up on it, I'm downloading Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood as we speak. (So... Assassin's Creed... Grilled?) It'll probably sit idly on my computer while I check out some of the other swag I grabbed from the recent Steam Summer Camp Sale. In the meantime, I'm going to bed (review writing time: almost exactly two hours!). Maybe I'll throw some screencaps up in the next couple of days to illustrate some points. Until then, requiescat in pace.

Oh, one more thing... Because it was on sale for something like a buck, I decided to pick up the digital AC2 Prima Official Strategy Guide on Steam as well. I figured it'd be nice to check one out just for the fun of it, plus it came through on some tricky little spots. But the format was absolutely crap. You can tell that this guide was written as a book, then transcribed to a website, when it really should have been transcribed as a PDF. If it requires trial and error to find the help you're looking for, something's seriously not right. When you get to the bottom of a webpage and you see it refer to "the map on the page on the right", but with no map nor any link to any map, you know they put about two seconds of work into the thing. And to think, they'd charge $10 for this piece of crap. So there.

My Nanoblogging Is Your Microblogging - Episode 3

2011-06-28T01:07:00.001-04:00

No single blog post could chronicle the myriad of things going on in my head right now, so here's a cheatingly fast way to get them all out.

9. It's Not a Ripoff of Blocks With Letters On, Though I Admit It Feels Like It
Do you like words? Do you like puzzles? Do you like word puzzles that may or may not have anything to do with words? Golly, you've got some screwy tastes. But I've got just the thing for you! I've started writing Letters In Boxes, a word puzzle contesty thing over at Jay is Games. Each week we give away a few prizes for the fastest solvers and a handful of other random correct entries, so there's always a chance you could win something. For me, this now-regular Thursday column has been both a blessing and a curse, as it's given me the ability to flex my freelance puzzle-writing skills. Not that companies are looking for in-house crossword puzzle producers, but it's at least getting my name out there with another talent attached. On the other hand, it's my name attached to these puzzles. Every week, I've got to come up with about four of them, and triple-check everything, or else it's egg on my face (like one particular week that was so marred by typos that completely slipped by my radar, despite me double-checking everything right before it went live). I've got beta testers now, but it's still a lot of stress just coming up with puzzles that people would want to solve, and keeping them fresh every week. Still, it's fun, and I hope to keep this up for a while.

10. Or Perhaps I'm Bothered By the Fact It's Only One Letter Away from Trine
As part of one of Steam's Daily Deals, I had an impulse-buying moment with Trino. In Trino, you play a wriggling bean-like creature (well, let's face it, it looks like a sperm) that lays down the corners of triangles to trap enemies inside the boundaries. These enemies vary from very Portal turret-looking creatures that float up the screen to crab-like creatures that destroy your corners and spider-like creatures that scamper away from your triangles. It's an interesting concept, but I can't help but feel like this particular port (of what I'm assuming was originally an XBLA game) is broken. At the very least, it's more frustrating than fun, and that's a damper on what could/should be a pretty good game. Between the questionable hit detection that seems to favor the enemies, the abilities those enemies have that way overpower a lot of things you can do, and some occasional random controller non-responsiveness, the sensation of being challenged just falls before the desire to play something else.

11. Someone's Got to Make the Victory Speech
How about some current video game news? Today (well, yesterday, by the time I get this thing posted), the Supreme Court voted 7-2 in favor of video games basically getting the same First Amendment rights as other forms of media. Actually, that's a bit too broad of a generalization, but they voted that a California law prohibiting the sales of violent games to minors is unconstitutional. Justice Scalia's argument included the fact that children are exposed to violent material in other accepted forms, from the Grimms' fairy tales to Lord of the Flies. I agree with this decision, and I agree with the argument that the responsibility of keeping violent or offensive games out of kids' hands comes down to the parents, not the government. I'll be the first to admit that this decision won't immediately effect me, since not only am I not a minor, but I tend not to be drawn to the violent, sexual games this case was about. It is very good news for the entire industry though, in the sense that developers still have the right to explore the possibilities of video games, rather than being boxed in by regulations.

It's a bit weird hearing the reaction from both sides though. The Video Game Voters Network, who I mentioned back in a post comparing 3-D game vision concerns and the current SCOTUS decision celebrated the victory with a post with highlights from Scalia's argument, while Common Sense Media, who I think I had heard (don't quote me on this) were the ones to initialize the case, expressed their sorrows about the decision, then used it as a platform for advocating more parental controls. CSM CEO James Steyer even took credit for numerous changes in how the industry markets its games, which I'd be willing to call out as bollocks (I'm pretty certain self-imposed regulations were in effect long before he came along), but to each his own.

12. Assassino! Assassino!
I finally managed to snag Assassin's Creed 2 on Steam on sale a few weeks ago. I've been playing through it a good amount since then, and while I'm (hopefully) nowhere near the end yet, I've come to feel it's made a ton of improvements over Assassin's Creed Original Recipe. To start, the storyline is much more intriguing, and generally presented better than its predecessor. The missions feel more varied, and there are a ton of side quests to keep you busy as you play. As usual, my video game wanderlust take full advantage of this and I spend a ton of time outside of the game's real objectives just to fool around. 'Tis great fun. The combat is still sorta sucky; I can still get by just about everytime with my standard "mash these two buttons until they're dead" strategy, but at least it's more possible to avoid combat in this game. I still have issues with the camera and controls, but the latter may be due (at least in part) to the fact that I'm starting to realize that the controller I have only registers 8 directions of movement, rather than the whole circle of freedom the joystick seems to imply. I don't know whether or not a full blog post will come once I finish, but know for now that I'm definitely enjoying it.

13. So... It's Wii... Without the Wii?
One more bit of video game news that caught my attention was Razer's new Hydra Motion Controller, which going by the videos given, seems to work just like your standard Wiimote and Nunchuk. However, it comes bundled with a copy of Portal 2, plus a handful of bonus levels that take full advantage of the controller's capabilities, including the ability to rotate objects with absolute precision, place and move portals with absolute precision, and stretch boxes for an extra puzzle element. With absolute precision. I can't say I'm excited for the last bit, but I think it'd be interesting to play with a spatial game like Portal 2 with a spatial controller. That won't happen anytime soon though, as I tend to get scared away by anything with a three-digit price tag.

I Think It's About Time We Had A Haxxor Showdown

2011-05-27T01:26:00.006-04:00

I picked up Uplink the other day as one of Steam's new Daily Deals. (There's a fairly decent chance I might go broke as a result of these Daily Deals. Just throwing that out there.) Similar to the previously-reviewed Hacker Evolution (hereafter referred to as HE), Uplink is a game about hacking your way into computers, gathering data, and generally causing havoc in cyberspace. As I play through this game and compare it to my experiences with HE, I notice some similarities, such as recurring missions and terminology in both games (such as "bouncing," "cracking," and "computer"), which suggests to me that these games are based on real-life hacking, or at least an incredibly similar imagining of such a concept. (To make it seem as though I'm not a real-life hacker, I'm intentionally playing dumb here. That's a lie, I'm actually genuinely dumb when it comes to hacking. I freak out when my computer boots improperly and I have to work my way through the BIOS screens. What is BIOS anyway? And how long can I stretch this parenthetical aside out?)

Uplink's plotline is different in that you work as a freelance hacker, taking jobs that pay money for successful completion. This money is used to buy software, hardware upgrades, and to add to the security of your "Gateway", the physical representation of your hacking account. Protecting your Gateway is important, because if you get caught in the act, the authorities will come to collect your Gateway as evidence to use against you in court. Presumably the game continues after this happens, you just get knocked down a few pegs on the totem pole and have to start from scratch. I wouldn't actually know though, as I've not screwed up that badly yet.

That right there is one tremendous difference in how the game is played out. While HE focused on detectivework and managing your resources carefully to try to find the optimal solution to each level, Uplink revolves around fast movements to get the job done. You get in, you screw around with stuff, you erase your tracks, and you get out. If you know what you're doing, a mission could be as short as two or three minutes, compared to HE's half-hour time commitment. This speedy in-and-out sequence creates an atmosphere that is, quite frankly, absolutely terrifying. You know you've got to do so much in so little time, and not being fully prepared (or even knowing if you're fully prepared) makes every new mission really exciting.

Note that I said "every new mission" though. One definite downside to this game (at least, in the three hours or so that I've played of it so far) is that especially in the early stages, you'll find yourself grinding a lot. To raise enough funds to get better equipment and to increase your rating level in the Uplink community, you'll find yourself repeating a lot of similar missions over and over again. Granted, they're quick, and they really reinforce the concepts you're learning, but you start to get a bit tired of these quickly.

As I'm writing this, I'm realizing that I should have written this entire post backward. Did I mention Uplink is much easier to get a hold of than HE? You'll recall that when I wrote about HE, I noted that it tended to throw all the concepts for the entire game upfront in a tutorial level, which isn't easily revisited later on. Uplink avoids that problem with these short, simple missions that let you get familiar with your tiny toolbox. New concepts are slowly worked into the game through very subtle trial-and-error. For example, one mission I just started requires you to alter some information in a database, which I've done before. However, entering into the level, you have no idea that the information is guarded by a proxy (whatever that is). You're able to escape without any consequence, then get a proxy-bypassing tool and try again. It's not exactly "teaching" you the concepts, but you "learn" them through roundabout methods.

I can only think of one other major remark to make about Uplink, and it regards the game's interface. Almost all of the game is controlled by the mouse, except for when you need to edit text directly (file tampering, etc.). This is way more convenient than trying to remember HE's cavalcade of DOS commands, but still a bit of a hassle in certain places. To input text into a box, you can't just click on it, you have to keep your mouse hovered over the box. Moving the mouse away "deselects" the box and you have to move the mouse back to regain focus. In an interface that's otherwise fairly workable (well, it's also a pain having eight different information sources pop into the same spot, meaning you can't have two open at once), it seems weird that such an annoying problem would be considered passable.

If you're looking for a final verdict between HE and Uplink, I can only say that my decision is split, but I'd lean more toward Uplink. Uplink is a way more easily-digestible game than HE, giving you smaller tasks to accomplish (which you can leave in the middle of, by the way). On the other hand, it moves a bit too quickly to be really involved in the game beyond quick commands, so it's missing a certain puzzle element HE has, but that quickfire presentation gives you a more thrilling experience. I'd say it's worth a go, if it goes up on sale again (we'll see what sales the upcoming summer holidays will bring).

A Very SPOILERS! Oh. Review of Portal 2

2011-04-23T00:29:00.004-04:00

Right, so a year of anticipation has finally paid off, and I've played through Portal 2 TWICE already. (Once straight through, once for developer commentary and achievement nabbing). I've been wanting to spout off my opinions on things since then, but I've also wanted to avoid posting spoilers for those who don't want them. As such, I've written up a separate page that can (or at least, should) only be accessed through the link at the end of this post. Be aware that the link contains SPOILERS for the gameplay and story of Portal 2. Also be aware that since there's no way to activate comments on the link, any comments posted below might contain spoilers as well.

If you want to avoid spoilers but are still interested in my thoughts, I'll say this much: Portal 2 is quite good and definitely worth playing. I've not yet touched the co-op mode yet, but I trust it's just as fantastic as the rest of the game. I come away from this game again wanting more. Valve certainly didn't drop the ball here.

Right then, ready for some spoilers?
Click here.

This Post Makes No Sense, But Will Shortz Has a Cameo

2011-04-10T14:07:00.004-04:00

Alternative title: "Hare Today, Blogged Tomorrow"

I don't know if I've ever mentioned it on here before, but I've always been amazed and frightened by the fact that there exists an an entire industry based on the premise of the consumer paying to be bombarded with problems and asked to solve them. Normally, you'd pay a therapist to help you get rid of your problems, but here you're paying to take on challenges that often times will get you nothing more than a chirpy sound effect or a piece of paper with a bunch of numbers on it. I'll be totally honest with you; logic puzzles are my cocaine. I've come to equate grid-based usually-Japanese logic puzzles with pleasure and stress relief.

This is a bit ironic when you consider the financial strain I put myself in when I'm on a logic puzzle bender. Recently, the fine folks (read: sadistic jerks) at Conceptis Puzzles released Nurikabe, a logic puzzle where you have to create a continuous chain of black squares that divide the white squares into "islands" that have the given area. I've been a member of Conceptis for probably two-and-a-half years now, and since they introduced their pay-to-play system, I've been pretty good at limiting how much I indulge in their puzzles. As soon as I played through all the sample Nurikabe puzzles when they first came out, I immediately bought another load of credits and started spending them like mad on Nurikabe puzzles. It's now about a month later, and I've already gone through half of the credits I bought due to this addiction, which is sad considering I usually make a credits package last 6-9 months.

But I couldn't stop there. Since it's a Japanese logic puzzle, and one created by Nikoli, a major logic puzzle manufacturer, SURELY there must exist a book of these puzzles somewhere out there. After doing a search on Amazon, I found that there were some Nurikabe books, but most were either not-in-stock, too expensive, or couldn't ship to my dorm before I graduate (holy crap, I'm graduating). I settled on a Will Shortz book of a small variety of puzzles (I say small because there are only 100 puzzles spanning five types, I think), though I've realized in retrospect that they'll probably be very low-difficulty puzzles, since the book is meant to be an introduction to new puzzle types.

Not satisfied with this, I ended up going to the Lycoming Mall yesterday to check out their Borders for more puzzle books (and elsewhere for pants). When I got there, I was heavily disappointed in their Games and Puzzles section. Of what I saw on those shelves, maybe 55% were sudoku, 40% were crossword puzzles, and the rest other random puzzle types. And of all that, maybe 70% of those books were Will Shortz books. Don't get me wrong, Will Shortz is a swell guy, and I love his Weekend Edition puzzles and I keep a New York Times Crossword calendar next to my bed, but the utter lack of variety that they had there absolutely disappointed me. There were no Nikoli books, which is a tremendous shame considering they're one of the major developers and distributors of new puzzle types that seem to pick up everywhere. So I left the Borders, angry and empty-handed.

In the center of the mall, though, I couldn't help but watch a rather bizarre spectacle taking place. You know how malls usually have Santa Clauses (Clausii?) on hand around Christmastime to have kids sit on their laps and have their picture taken? Here, there was one with the Easter Bunny. There was a small line with kids and their parents leading to a guy in a bunny costume (think "Harvey"), and one by one the kids would sit on the bunny's lap, talk for a short bit, and have their picture taken by the photographer on hand.

I started to wonder, what would you talk about as you were sitting on the Easter Bunny's lap? I don't think you'd ask for presents, like you would with a Santa. Maybe you'd ask for a certain kind of candy, or specify something like, "No coconut, please." I'd imagine a lot of kids would ask for hints to where he's planning on hiding eggs this year. And I'd imagine that any well-trained mall Bunny would respond with a vague non-answer such as "I can't tell you, that'd spoil the fun!" And then the photographer would take your picture, and you'd send it out to all your relatives in the annual Easter card, along with a list of boring details about what the fam has been up to.

Not that I would expect anything different from a mall Bunny, but I'm surprised to admit that this Easter Bunny looked exactly as I've always pictured the Easter Bunny. As in, I've always imagined the Easter Bunny to be a guy dressed in a bunny suit, not an oddly anthropomorphic cartoon bunny. I think this belief stemmed from a dream I had when I was maybe seven or eight years old when the Easter Bunny asked me to help him hide eggs. He did not speak, he just mimed everything. That image of the Easter Bunny has stuck with me ever since then.

I've not confessed that to many people, as it seems like this is a very unorthodox view of the Easter Bunny. I don't understand why though. Think about it: Unlike the concept of Santa Claus, which tends to have very specific characteristics tied to him (fat and jolly, red suit and hat, white beard), there are no defining characteristics to the Easter Bunny. Probably every interpretation of the Easter Bunny you've seen has been in some cartoon form, and even then there's no definite template for him (except maybe that he has white fur). If I am to be raised to believe that a rabbit comes to my house every year to hide eggs in the lawn, then I'd be more comfortable imagining a guy in a rabbit costume doing it, rather than a small woodland creature dragging a basket everywhere. So there.

Then I went to Auntie Anne's for some pretzel sticks and left.

Because the Internet Needs More Men Eating Ramen in Their Boxers

2011-04-01T00:04:00.002-04:00

Just a quick post to let you know of a new feature I've enabled for this site. Since I got a webcam a month or two ago, I've been having a lot of fun with terrible homemade YouTube videos for friends and Skype chats. But then I got to wondering, what other fun things can I do with my webcam?

The result, in case you missed it, is now on the toolbar on the right. I've added a live webcam to my site! The camera is set up just to the left of my computer monitor, facing my chair so you can always see when I'm at the computer by checking the webcam. Now you can see in an instant if I'll be right there to answer a message from you. Hopefully we can start a trend of people opening up their availability on the Internet. After all, how popular are things like FourSquare and other mobile apps that do much the same thing? Check back later to see if I'm around and maybe we'll chat!

[Edit: On the incredibly off chance that you didn't figure it out, this was an April Fool's joke.]

The Assassin's Dilemma

2011-03-21T00:49:00.003-04:00

WARNING: This review contains spoilers for a game that came out three and a half years ago. If you're still concerned about reading something you don't want to find out yet, please heed my warning mid-review to stop reading. Or just don't read this at all. That's what most people do anyway.

(*sigh)

Well, I finished playing Assassin's Creed tonight. I promised myself I would write about my experiences with the game one way or another, as it's sort of a huge milestone in terms of gaming for me. AC was my first full modern console game that I've ever played through, albeit on Steam. Yeah, sad, inn'it? However, I had been tempted to write about my experiences with the game at several stages in the game, and I wish I did, because my mood would have very noticeably changed throughout the game, as you might see here, if I write this properly.

First off, I have to start off this review by thanking Derek, who gifted this game to me way back when, following my annual Christmas gift suggestion post. After downloading the game, I rather comedically couldn't play it for a couple of weeks. After consulting Steam Support (have I mentioned how fantastic they are?), it turned out that I just needed to update my video card drivers. After that, I was quickly into the game.

At this point, I should pause and explain a bit of the backstory behind this game for those not familiar with Assassin's Creed. The game takes place switching between two worlds, one moderny/futuristic, one virtual and ancient. In the former world, you're Desmond, a young twenty-something guy who's been taken in by the Abstergo Corporation. They want to tap into Desmond's genetic memory by using the Animus to discover the location of an ancient hidden artifact. You spend most of the game inside the Animus, playing as Altair, one of Desmond's ancestors, And you run around doing assassin-y stuff. (This is the spot where I can't remember the specifics of the plot and start broadly generalizing.)

As I mentioned back in December, I had played a couple hours of Assassin's Creed 2 at a friend's house, so I was roughly familiar with the general premise of the game. That might have been a bit of a handicap at the start, as the "notoriety" system used in AC2 is different from the "visibility" system used here. As a result, I found myself walking around at a slow crawl around people I didn't need to be avoiding until I realized the difference between the two systems. Oh, how silly I once was.

Once I got past the tutorial-esque stages, I found myself with a bit of a dilemma. In order to progress with the game, you have to do "investigations" to find out enough information on your assassination target. Along the way, there are other tasks that can help you along the way, such as climbing viewpoints (where you get a little bit of architectural eye candy) and saving citizens from bullying guards. These I did with great liberty, but I avoided doing any extra investigations beyond the required two or three. Apparently, there existed (or perhaps, still exists) a bug where if you complete all of the investigations for an area, you won't be able to find new investigations when you return to that city in the future. So, I skimped on that aspect of the game, with the intention of returning to those bits of the game later to complete everything. Yes, I was enjoying the side mission-y things tremendously.

I can't say I was ever a fan of the fighting, which is a shame, because combat is surprisingly easy for how complex it is. With every level up, you gain a new method for combat, and even get a bit of practice time to reinforce the concept. Sadly, I found myself sticking to a primitive "mash the attack button" method, occasionally pressing the right shoulder button to defend. Still, this only came up when saving citizens and during final assassinations, so there wasn't much to really gripe about. For a while.

Please note: At this point in time, I'm going to start getting into spoilers about the ending of the game. If by some chance Assassin's Creed hasn't already been spoiled for you yet, you might want to stop reading now, although suffice it to say I wasn't pleased with the ending. Ironically, this is a spoiler for anyone who plans on reading the rest of my review! We all win today.

As I progressed through the missions in the game, I started to wonder why I kept hearing about how bad of a game Assassin's Creed is, even when not comparing it to Assassin's Creed 2. I loved all of the wandering tasks in each town, and the plotline seemed coherent enough as I was playing through. This changed when I hit the "final" mission, which I knew would inevitably not be the real final mission. Because hey, it's a video game. (Sorry, is that overgeneralizing?)

After the "final" mission, there was another mission, which turned out to be the downfall of the game for me. The final mission involved moving through a passage with a bunch of attackers in succession. At the end of the corridor, you again face another relentless battle against many attackers (but with better armor, so they're harder). This is where my entire opinion of the game started to change. You face about twelve or fourteen attackers, eight at a time (the extras politely wait along the side for their chance to attack you). Once you take them down, the "final bad guy" steps out from the shadows and you face him with whatever semblance of a health bar you have left. Do that, and you've completed your mission. Sort of. As it turns out, that wasn't the final battle! Still! Golly.

But why the rub? This final fight sequence took about ten attempts for me to beat. It was in this time that I started to realize that this game rather sucked in several ways.

It sucks technically: The game blocks off areas you shouldn't be in by putting a black cloudy curtain in your way if you get close enough. If you try to go through it, sometimes it will just stop you, sometimes it returns you to the last save point. In the final battle, it just stops you, but your attackers are free to move into these forbidden areas, and even attack you from there.

It sucks logically. I kept thinking about the dialogue right before this battle. King Richard (I think?) says that he can't decide whether to believe your character or your assassin target, so he leaves it to combat, saying God would side with the better man. Funny that bit of dialogue, how come I had to face a baker's dozen-odd minions before I could even touch the guy the original dispute was with? Somehow this realization set up a chain reaction of disappointments looking at the behaviors of so many characters in the game up to this point.

It sucks action-ally. I already confessed to my button-mashing habits, but this sequence made me realize that any action sequence is just that. You beat ridiculously homogenous baddies over and over again until they're gone. I will very generously give points to any sort of parkuor-ish chase sequences, but that's about the height of exciting action in this game.

In perhaps a somewhat predictable turn, your mentor who had been sending you out on all of these missions turns out to be the real baddie and you fight him (over the course of, surprise, three more homogenous fight sequences), and the game's pretty much over right there. There's a bit of an interactive cinematic that takes place back at Abstergo, which I rather enjoyed, because I got to flex my cryptography muscles a tiny bit. But then when you go to check out one more bit of mysterious "writing on the wall" back in your bedroom, Desmond utters a bit to himself, ending with, "I wonder what it could mean?"

Cut immediately to credits.

It goes without saying at this point that there's a sequel or two that pick up from here, and I consider myself fortunate enough to have seen the start of the second game and know this. However, I could only imagine that when this game was still relatively new, this would have been a tremendous middle finger to the players. It's one thing to make someone want to buy the second game, and a whole 'nother thing to just make them buy the second game. I think this game falls in the latter category.

(*sigh)

That all said and done... I'm still interested in Assassin's Creed 2, and perhaps Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood if ever I could get the time. I hear they're tremendous improvements over the original game, and I already enjoyed what little I saw in those two hours I already played. As for Assassin's Creed: Original Recipe, I think I can finally agree with the naysayers that it's not a great game. I enjoyed bits and pieces, but ultimately it's one that I found frustrating. My dilemma, if you would, is that I might work to try to finish off the bits I skipped earlier, but I'll do it with great resentment now that I've seen the downsides of this game. On a lighter note, we're less than a month away from another game debut NO YOU SAID YOU WOULDN'T TALK ABOUT PORTAL 2 ANYMORE UNTIL THE PREMIERE SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP

At the Moment - Comic Relief's 24 Hour Panel People

2011-03-05T12:13:00.001-05:00

In an effort to make my blog seem more topical than it actually is, I've invented a new category for things going on right now (or in the immediate future or past). I'm currently watching Comic Relief's 24 Hour Panel People. In a nutshell, Comic Relief is a charitable organization that hosts telethons for raising money for charities in the UK. Unlike US telethons where entertainers come to a studio to encourage viewers to call in their support, entire shows will devote their plotlines to the event which air in a giant marathon.

In a bit of a change-up from the normal format, 24-Hour Panel People is a day-long event in which a series of panel shows are being taped consecutively, with one bloke (David Walliams) appearing in all of them. The shows are being taped today, and will be edited down and shown on TV at a later date.

What makes the event today very interesting is that if you watch the live feed, you can see all of the shows being produced live, including all of the slipped lines and production bloopers. It's quite fascinating to see how these shows start out before they're cut down to the tidy packages that finally air.

Click here for a complete schedule of shows. The times are approximate (they seem to be twenty minutes behind at the moment), since they're working off of a crazy live schedule with one person serving as the constant thread between them all. My personal picks to watch out for (times listed are EST):

1:50pm - Blankety Blank - The UK version of Match Game, with possibly the most annoying theme song ever written.

3:10pm - Mock the Week - News quiz with some great improv comedy bits thrown in.

7:20pm - QI - Probably the highlight of my night. Hilariously impossible quiz that was the basis of one of my earliest blog posts. But wait... no Alan Davies?

4:25am (tomorrow morning) - Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Yes, that Whose Line. This may well be worth it just to see what sort of humor Walliams is capable of on little sleep.

On the whole, I'm excited to see the behind-the-scenes aspect of all these shows, so I'll be watching this for a good portion of today. And of course, if you can donate, please do.

(Edit: Times updated, as it turns out I'm crap at figuring out times across the pond.)

My Nanoblogging Is Your Microblogging - Episode 2

2011-02-26T00:54:00.000-05:00

5. I Was Going to Write a Review on the New "You Don't Know Jack" Game But Then I Was Asked to Do a Review for JIG So I'll Just Link to It...
Here.

6. More Jack, No Coke
On a related note, I managed to win a copy of the You Don't Know Jack electronic tabletop game in an eBay auction. I thought it'd be all sorts of fun to write up a review of that, to pair with the above new release. You know, comparing the new 2011 computer game with the fantastic game technology of 1998. But then I realized, why do I need to wait to review it? I already played this thing way back when at my piano teacher's house. In a nutshell, it's that same Jack humor (just, you know, from 13 years ago), but in a stack of colorful question cards. Two to four players play (no solo mode, I don't believe), and the screw option is still in play. After you enter in the five-digit question code (so the computer knows which answer is correct), read the question, open the trapdoor to reveal the answers, and buzz away. It's a ten-question game. Aaand review done. But hey, another toy for random get-togethers.

7. Everything You Loved About Chemistry Class with Half the Calories
If you haven't played it yet, you really need to give Zachtronics' SpaceChem a go. Like most of Zachtronics' other releases, SpaceChem is a "game for engineers", meaning most of the puzzles revolve around developing a system to complete a task that works on its own after you set it into motion. In this case, most of the action is bonding (or unbonding or rebonding) chemical compounds by laying down pathways and commands for your little transporter doohickeys to follow (I'd call them by their proper name, "waldos", but that'd make less sense). To be honest, the entire system is crazy hard to understand, but some good effort is put into a tutorial and levels with gradually increasing difficulty, two things notably missing from most Zachtronics titles. But when you experience that moment when all the weird symbols and flashing colors make sense in one earth-shaking moment, you'll be hooked. Then you'll come to another dead end and struggle for a while. It's a fairly simple cycle. Anyway, I tell you all this (1) because it's a good game, (2) because JIG is giving away a few copies. You just need to solve a few puzzles. I helped make them. Yay! Contest ends March 5.

8. Finally, A Few Quick Words on Portal 2
The preorder's up. And I swear, in the last bit I'll blab about Portal until the game comes out, I'd like to repost a photo of something I found to be quite useful lately:

"Easy Money" - Or, A Game of "Spot the Continuity Errors"

2011-01-30T22:03:00.004-05:00

Last semester I took TV Production 2, a class whose final project is to come up with a short film presentation. This is what I came up with. There's not much more to say aside from the following:

Yes, the audio is crap in a lot of places, and is pretty much absent in one scene. I tried to fix it in the editing software, but it was beyond salvaging. Sorry.
Yes, the dialogue is crap. Half of that is my inability to write comfortable dialogue that doesn't sound like two surfers on heavy tranquilizers, half of that comes from the editing which makes people repeat lines in awkward places. Sorry.
Yes, the whole thing was done on a shoestring budget. I offer no apologies.

Enjoy! Or not, if that's what you prefer.

Video Games, Eye Strains, and BRAAAAAAAAINS

2011-01-05T00:37:00.002-05:00

You'll have to forgive me, I don't write about politically-based issues much, so I have no idea how coherently the point I'm going to make will come across. For that matter, I'm not entirely sure I have a solid point to make, but I would at least draw attention to an interesting parallel I noticed yesterday. (Oh yeah, Happy New Year and all that.)

I was listening to NPR's All Things Considered yesterday and happened to tune in to an interesting piece about Nintendo's 3DS, yet another new-fangled toy I will likely never own. (I'm actually not bitter about this, for the record.) The article (read and hear it here) talked about the potential health concerns that could come from the 3-D effects generated by the system, and in particular how it could cause vision problems for younger children.

The story itself is pretty straight-forward. 3-D causes the eyes to focus in a different way, prolonged use could cause eye strain, et cetera. I'm not terribly psyched about everything with an extra D, because I know my eyes get incredibly tired quickly. (I have a hard time being in a room with an air conditioner running a bit too high. How's that for sad?) What really caught my eye was how both the audible and written story ended. Loosely quoted: Game manufacturers, for lack of solid evidence for or against the possibility of eye strain in younger viewers, have decided to recommend that children play with the 3-D mode off. However, enforcing that recommendation falls to parents.

Sound a bit familiar? The parallel that I immediately thought of was the debate over violence and sexual content in video games. Game manufacturers mark the packaging with a recommended age bracket for games. However, enforcing that recommendation falls to parents. Or at least, that's my view. I know that there are people out there who feel that such dirty games shouldn't be in existence, but I would have to side with the folks that stifling these games is violating First Amendment rights. I'm not saying that I endorse violence and sexual content in video games, and I'm not saying that there aren't developers that go overboard with what they do, but the ability to create a game and share it shouldn't be eliminated.

If I understand it correctly, there's currently a case in (or on its way to) the Supreme Court regarding video game regulations, based on a California-based bill that would place restrictions on content in video games. I'm not sure such a bill is necessary, or even a good idea. According to the Video Game Voters Network (disclaimer, the content is obviously heavily slanted toward an anti-regulatory stance), the video game rating system set in place by the Entertainment Softward Rating Board (familiarly the ESRB) is already used by parents when making decision on what games to buy (80% of parents say they are aware of the system, 70% say they use it). For that matter, retailers say they have denied 80% of all M-rated game sales thanks to the ESRB rating system.

Ultimately though, I want to bring this discussion back around to the parallel between violent video games and eye-straining video games. There is perhaps more evidence (although again, nothing final yet) that a 3-D video game will cause damage to a six-year-old's eyes than a violent video game will cause them to live a violent life. Yet oddly enough, despite the tremendous similarities in the implied consequences, I don't see many people debating about 3-D games and the horrific impact it will have on our society. In a sick and twisted way, I want to see SCOTUS debate whether 3-D games should be allowed on the market.

I honestly don't know where else to take this discussion without simply repeating what I've already said above. (Like I said, there's a reason I don't write much about politics.) I just found the parallel between these two issues somewhat interesting, if not ironic, and I thought I'd share my thoughts with you, my humble blog's eight readers. Please, fire your thoughts back at me. Am I completely off in my reasoning or is there some credibility floating around in there? Was linking the eye strain to the violent video games too much of a stretch? What's your take on the violent video games debate? Let me know what you think.

Print This Out and Put It Where A Loved One Might Find It - 2010 Edition

2010-12-20T23:26:00.009-05:00

Every year for the last (*checks... oh.) one year, this website has offered up a list of suggestions for games worth buying on Steam during their holiday sale, either as last-minute gifts or as guilty pleasure purchases for yourself. I was planning on writing a blog post of recommendations prior to today, but with the sale starting hot on the heels of a giveaway, I was slightly caught off-guard. However, I'd been considering some things on my list to suggest, so I'd like to share them with you now. (The games on last year's list still stand, of course.)

Poker Night at the Inventory - Steam link
I mentioned pre-ordering Poker Night in a previous post, and I've now had a chance to play through it. In this game, you play a pretty straight-forward tournament of Texas Hold'em against Max (of the Sam and Max point-and-click game series), Strongbad (of Homestar Runner fame), The Heavy (of Team Fortress 2), and Tycho (of Penny Arcade fame). The characters make witty remarks about the proceedings of the tourney, as well as engage in banter with each other about their daily lives while playing. However, the banter seems to run dry fairly quickly, especially the one-line comments about how you're playing and whether they're betting or folding, so if you're simply buying this game because it's got a few characters you love, you're probably buying it for the wrong reasons.

Perhaps surprisingly, Poker Night at the Inventory is worth buying simply because it's a good poker game. There aren't a lot of frills to the game, but the un-tampered-with simplicity is what makes it such a good choice. The AI seems slightly erratic at times, but some would argue that that's how poker should be played. (Or the AI is just trouncing me regardless... and I'm still on normal difficulty!) What Poker Night lacks in variety, it makes up for in its straightforward-ness. If you're looking for a good, cheap poker game that may surprise you with the occasional laugh, Poker Night at the Inventory is worth a go.

VVVVVV - Steam link - (demo available)
VVVVVV, which debuted back in January if I remember correctly, could possibly be described as one of the gaming highlights of my year. The 2-D retro platformer by Terry Cavanagh is based on the principle that your character, Captain Viridian, cannot jump, but rather, reverses gravity to overcome obstacles. I should mention that there are plenty of obstacles (namely a ridiculous amount of spikes) waiting to kill you, so the simple task of getting from point A to point B, which might be as short as a few pixels away, can be a grueling task. Despite the difficulty, VVVVVV is terrifyingly addictive, as you can't help but give a particular challenge "just one more try." I remember when I first played through the game and spent close to a half hour attempting to pass one notoriously difficult passage (pictured here at the halfway point). I'll never forget throwing my arms up in triumph and screaming when I finally nailed what seemed like an impossible task. (I'm glad no one else was home at the time.)

That was nearly a year ago now, and after multiple replays through the game, beating that passage is absolutely no problem at all for me. I've mastered the game to the point where I can beat it in about a half hour, and with a fraction of the deaths it took me before. Amazingly, this game has still not lost its appeal. Despite its simplicity when every room is well-practiced, I still come back this game to tackle a level in a speedrun. Earlier today, I loaded up the game just so I could listen to the music while wrapping Christmas presents (the soundtrack, PPPPPP, is available here for $4, by the way). VVVVVV is honestly a tremendous game in a tiny package, and I would recommend it to anyone willing to take it on. If nothing else, the game's regular price is now $5, down from the original $15 when it was first released. To quote someone else (sorry I can't remember who specifically), there's really no reason not to own this game anymore.

Assassin's Creed II
Right then, here's something completely new: I'm about to recommend a game I don't even own. (Yet. Hopefully. Here's my Steam wishlist, by the way. In case you were curious.) A friend started me off playing Assassin's Creed II on his PS3 after I expressed interest in the series, particularly after Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood came out a month or two ago. I'm probably only three hours into playing the game, but I've been completely floored by what I've experienced so far. Without spoiling too much of what I've experienced so far (though why bother avoiding spoilers, I'm already months behind on this one), one of the things I've loved so far is the stealth aspect of the game, something I didn't encounter (properly, anyway) back in that Thief game long ago. Sneaking around is simple, but still tricky to master, in that way that makes you feel like a champion when you finally pull it off. Factor in a pretty involved storyline, fan-freaking-tastic graphics, and a bowl of popcorn (or at least, that's how playing it at my friend's place has gone), and you've got one pretty amazing game, based at least on the three hours I've played of it so far.

In the interest of fairness, I will throw out a couple of disclaimers, seeing that I haven't played this game in its entirity yet. In my first stealth-based mission, which I loved so dearly, it turns out that in order to complete the task (which required me to kill a certain person, sneaking up to them), it turns out that after three attempts to make the kill in perfect stealthful-ness, the proper way to finish the quest is to break cover for the kill, then roll a cutscene in which you declare your vengeance on the town to everyone watching. I'm so happy I spent all that time trying to be noticed just for it to be blown for the sake of a cutscene. I hope that sort of incident (sacrificing normal or desired play to set up a cutscene) doesn't happen often in this game, as that instance left a sour taste in my mouth.

Another minor quibble I have is simply personal; I hate playing sequels to games before I play through the originals. There are exceptions of course, like Left 4 Dead 2 (where the gameplay is pretty much the same as the original) and Team Fortress 2 (where the game experience is way different from the original... how's that for a double standard?), but I couldn't/can't help feeling like I'm missing something by not playing the original. From what I gather from multiple sources though, The original Assassin's Creed got stale rather quickly, and AC2 improved on it tremendously, while AC:Brotherhood maintains the high standards of AC2. That all said, I'd still like to at least play through the original Assassin's Creed, but with the opportunity to play through AC2 presently at my fingertips, I won't hesitate to jump on that. Going by what I've experienced so far, I'd list Assassin's Creed II in my recommendations.

The "Other Recommendations" Lightning Round
The Ball - Steam link - demo available - JiG Review: I once heard someone describe The Ball as what Portal would be like if it ran on the Unreal engine. I'm not familiar enough with the latter to really be sure, but it's definitely got the puzzling heart that Portal had. (Thanks Thomas!)

Puzzle Dimension - Steam link - demo available - JiG Review: Puzzle Dimension is like a lot of games where you've got to grab some loot and make it to the door, but with the extra twist of levels that play with gravity and other little spacial tricks. Definitely a challenge, but a somehow relaxing one at that.

Magnetis - Steam link - demo available: Simple-yet-hard Dr. Mario-esque puzzle involving connecting magnets to clear blocks. Good fun in solo mode, but I want to try this in multiplayer sometime.

That essentially wraps up my recommendations for this year's Steam sale. Again, I'd suggest rereading last year's list, and also see some of my reviews over the past year for more picks. And as a final reminder, if you'd like to show your appreciation for my helping your game-buying plans, I'm sure there's something you could do to thank me. (That's not too tacky of a way to end off a post, is it? Desperate pleading?) Merry Christmas, everyone!

Wir Wetten, Sie Können Nicht Sehen

2010-12-06T00:43:00.005-05:00

Right then, I advise that you start by watching the following video clip. Fair warning, this clip features a Chinese man swearing in English on a German game show.

This is from a show called Wetten, Dass...? The show features members of the public attempting to perform various stunts, ranging from the bizarre to the nerve-wracking, but always difficult. Meanwhile, big-name celebrities come on the show to small talk with the host, and try to bet whether the MOTPs will be successful or not, with a forfeit attached to incorrect guesses. (For example, in the clip above, Jackie Chan incorrectly bet that the girl would be able to break the bricks without breaking an egg in her hand, so he had to perform the task himself. He did it a bit too well, I think.)

The Jackie Chan clip was not my first exposure to the show, although it was one of the first. My first Wetten, Dass moment was a man balancing a stack of Jenga blocks on a pole on his forehead, while his partner proceded to play the game of Jenga on a raised platform, trying to raise the height of the tower from 10 blocks to 15. They succeeded, but with some incredibly tense moments when the man had to stop his partner while he regained balance of everything. Sadly, the clip is no longer online, though I do have it saved on my computer. If you're looking for more ridiculous bets, I'd recommend this one, this one,, and... oh what the heck, this one.

Wetten, Dass...? has been on the air for 29 years now, although only showing six or seven episodes per year (not unlike the previously-reviewed Schlag den Raab). In its history, the show has been riddled with a few controversial moments, but has still stayed strong and popular as ever. At one point in time, the Wikipedia page boasted that the show would regularly attract over 2/3 of all German-speaking viewers (the show airs in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland), a rating comparable to the finale of M*A*S*H or a Super Bowl, except every other month. To give you an idea of how ridiculously popular the show is, Pope John Paul II offered to appear on the show via a video link. (The offer was declined, on the grounds that it would set the precedent for future celebrities to appear only via video instead of in person.)

For the record, there was a short-lived American version on ABC a couple years ago. It wasn't anything special. Moving on, then...

Obviously, there's a reason why I bring this show up, and here it is. On an episode that aired this weekend, Samuel Koch attempted a bet in which he would jump over four out of five moving cars using special spring-loaded shoes. Dangerous stunts of this nature had been attempted before, but, spoiler warning, never had there been a failure of this nature before. After having cleared the first and third car (and cancelling the second car when he realized he didn't get enough speed), Koch clipped the windshield of the fourth car with his head, which caused him to over-rotate his flip, landing him flat on the ground in no subtle fashion. As far as I know at this point, Koch is still in critical condition. If you care to watch the video of the incident, click here, however, be forewarned that though the accident itself is not graphic, it's still incredibly hard to watch. The accident occurs about halfway into the video.

Whether or not you watch the clip, there's something I really want to point out about this incident. After the accident occurs, the cameras do not return to Koch, except for one zoomed-out split second, which I would assume to be a mistake. The rest of the time that the cameras are rolling (five or six minutes' worth), the shots focus on wide audience shots and celebrity reactions, and the host giving a few final words. The live feed was cut, and a back-up episode was put in its place.

What I really appreciate about this scenario is the deference given to the injured Koch. In a rather un-American fashion, the cameras do not scramble around him to get close-ups of his silent suffering, but stay completely out of the way, and avoid catching a glimpse of him at all costs. I could only imagine that if this were American television, the director would sic the cameramen on the limp body, trying to get shots of his anguish from every angle. Then, we'd be treated to numerous slow-motion replays and once the body was out of the way, the show would continue normally. As an overly-broad example of this, think of most injuries you see during a football game on TV and how they're managed on-camera. I'm really glad that was not how Koch's situation was handled.

Surprisingly, this is actually the second instance of this sort of respect for the injured I've seen on German game shows. (Surprisingly, I watch German game shows.) On an episode of Schlag den Raab from sometime this summer, a BMX bike-racing event saw a number of crashes taking place, between both Stefan and his opponent. However, in one moto, both Stefan and his opponent crashed on the same obstacle, a small bridge of some sort, if I remember right. Stefan's opponent recovered fairly quickly, but Stefan had some rather brutal injuries and was effectively "out" for a few minutes. During this time, while the host's audio continued, the only camera shot shown was a zoomed-out overhead shot of the course, with the emergency crews helping Stefan just on the edge of the screen. No close-up shots were used until Stefan had recovered from his crash a few minutes later. (Replays of the crash would be used later, but with tasteful restraint.)

Koch's accident (and how it was handled) really makes me think about the standards by which our media operates. I can't remember where I heard it, but someone once uttered the phrase "If it bleeds, it leads," in regards to journalism in America. Part of me wants to believe that we have higher standards than that, but yet I know we don't. To a certain extent, I'd be willing to bet that this story wouldn't have made it onto Yahoo! News if Justin Bieber weren't supposed to perform right after Koch's bet (Ta, David at Bother's Bar for the link). It's this sort of incident that makes me wonder if we're doing something wrong with our media. It's rather late now, so I'm not exactly able to wrap up my point how I wanted to, but this incident is something to consider.

My Nanoblogging Is Your Microblogging - Episode 1

2010-11-19T23:37:00.006-05:00

Honestly, this sort of post is why I would be better off with a Tumblr account, but hey, here we go. Besides, I just finished a 15-page research paper on the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 and I need a good way to celebrate.

1. Oh God, the Doghouse Just Fell Off the Front of the Lorry
As I'm typing this paragraph, I'm losing my "Top Gear" virginity. I've heard enough stories about some of the ridiculous things they've done on this show, and I've been itching to watch this show for some time now. Thanks to the magic of Netflix on a video game console, I'm now on my third episode and loving it. (Season twelve, if you're curious.) I love the fact that I (as well as many other friends of mine) am/are not HOLY CRAP NOW THAT OTHER LORRY IS ON FIRE (ahem) Sorry about that. I love the fact that many of my friends and I are not car fans, but this show definitely has enough humor to appeal to a wide audience. I'm hoping to keep watching more of this, because it's quite good. I understand that there's an American version debuting on the History Channel on Sunday... Honestly, I'm a bit scared. I don't know if we can really match the unique British-style humor and general enjoyability I'm seeing here.

2. Poker? I 'Ardly Know 'Er
I preordered Poker Night at the Inventory back on September 3 (or so my tweeting indicates). It was an impulse buy, half because because I was in the mood for something poker-y at the time, half because it had a bunch of characters I recognized in it and the concept seemed ridiculous enough to work. It's now mid-November, and the game is still slated to debut Mid-November. Having now seen the preview video, my thoughts are faltering a little bit. If, from what I gather from the video, the game boils down to playing poker with four characters from random games, there had better be a ton of witty banter to go along with it, or else the game is going to go stale pretty quickly. I'm still hoping for the best, but I'm starting to feel leary about my (under $5) decision, and the fact that no actual release date has been finalized yet worries me a smidge.

3. BIT.TRIP FALL POINT AND LAUGH
Another impulse buy, I bought BIT.TRIP BEAT. Verdict: Not worth the price. If you're not familiar with the game, just think of a one-player Pong in which everything you hit is timed to coordinate with the music. This should be a good concept, but something kinda falls flat in the final package. One thing I really like about the game is that each level takes (totally guessing here) 10-15 minutes to complete, so it's really an endurance challenge. Unfortunately, each long level builds up to a rather underwhelming boss battle at the end. The first boss is the only slightly novel boss (level two is just Breakout, level three is Pong against the AI that's heavily stacked against you). And after three bosses, that's it. The entire game is three levels long. It's sadly not worth the $9 I paid for it. That said, it still is a decent game (except for the bosses), the music is pretty good, and the endurance factor makes the game oddly replayable, so I'd still recommend the game to a friend, but only after the price drops to at least $5, if not $3.

4. One Day, I Will Regret Everything I've Written on the Internet
I've been thinking a lot about the future of this blog. While I would like to continue using it as a place for musings about games, television, and other media-based oddities, it's getting to that point in time (namely, near the end of my college career) when I need to start thinking "professionally". I don't think the quality or nature of my posts would change, but I think I need to spruce things up and make this place more presentable. The Uniqlock? That's gotta go. The Onion Ring Tally? That's staying. The somewhat overused Blogger template with some minor color tweaks? That's something that's really got to be changed. In fact, it'd probably be for the better to get out of the *.blogspot.com domain just for the sake of additional "professionalism" and buy an actual domain name for myself (although choosing a professional-sounding name is going to be hard, considering that I'm already battling against other famous people). In any case, I'm thinking I've got to fix things up for the sake of "professionalism", as much as it hurts. I'm thinking of throwing up some sort of portfolio for projects and writings I've done, plus keeping the blog (and archives) alive. So my main question is, does anyone have any suggestions for how to get started on the breaking-free-from-Blogger-and-starting-to-look-professional process?

No Ordinary Blog Post... wow, that was unclever

2010-11-11T01:21:00.004-05:00

For a class, I was assigned to follow one of the television shows that debuted this fall. I was lucky enough to have been able to grab ABC's "No Ordinary Family," which airs Tuesdays at 8pm EST. I say that I'm lucky because it is just as interesting and intriguing as I had hoped, and it was also one of the few shows that didn't look terrible. (I feel kinda bad for the kid that got stuck with "Lone Star"...)

"No Ordinary Family" follows the lives of the Powells, a slightly dysfunctional family that becomes slightly less (or more?) dysfunctional after a family vacation to Brazil results in a plane crash into a mysterious lake. As a result of something in the water, the family develops superhuman powers, such as father Jim's (Michael Chiklis) super strength and ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound (though NOT fly), mother Stephanie's (Julie Benz) 600mph running speed (and a side effect of a ridiculous metabolism), daughter Daphne's (Kay Panabaker) who can read minds, and son JJ's (Jimmy Bennett) genius mind.

On the whole, the show is fun to watch, and the running plotlines (such as Jim and Stephanie's constant arguing over when it's "right" to use their powers and JJ's initial reluctance to tell his parents about his powers) make for some interesting drama. I won't say the writing is entirely perfect, though. There are moments where the dialogue and action feels sorta... oh, what's the word... hokey. For instance, there are times (which seem to pop up at random) where you can't help but feel like everyone around the Powells are completely thick and miss the obvious signs that something just plain ain't right with this family. I'm saying this while well aware that we, the audience, have the omnipresent eye and know everything that's going on, but it still feels like someone somewhere should have picked up on something.

While not entirely proving my point, I would like to reference a scene from this week's show. In this episode, Stephanie's prying parents stop by for a surprise visit, and the family try to keep them entertained (and to keep their secret safe). Steph's father (Bruce McGill), still under the impression that JJ's thick, schools his grandson for a few games before the following scene occurs. (Note: Video will likely expire about a month from when this post is written.)

Well then, how many things did we spot wrong with that scene? Trust me, you've got to see the amazing stuntwork that takes place later in the episode, it's equally sad. Not all of the show is this terrible, but there are those moments of hokeyness that just drive you up a wall.

In any case, the main point of the class assignment was to follow the show, and pay attention to the ratings. To be honest, "No Ordinary Family" is against stiff veteran competition, including apparent old-person favorite "NCIS," younger-skewing powerhouse "Glee," and... well, "The Biggest Loser" returned for another season. Let's give them a hand. Right then, the ratings (as of this Sunday, when I first scrawled out this chart):

Wa-hey, a pretty consistent third place! For being the rookie for the time slot, I'd say that "No Ordinary Family" is holding its own fairly well (though I'm not a network exec, so I could be way off). There's something about those Tuesday 8pm numbers that scare me a bit though. While "NCIS" consistently holds rating well over its nearest competitor on most nights, "Glee" wins over the 18-49 demographic on nights with new episodes. "Dancing with the Stars," normally a powerhouse for the older demographic, creamed "NCIS" with last week's early results show. These two factors lead me to believe that while "Glee" gets the younger crowd (and subsequently, the advertising), "NCIS" gets the points from the Neilsen Nursing Homes across America.

So where does that leave "No Ordinary Family?" Limbo, I guess. It's holding its ground, but it's not really excelling. Seeing that it hasn't gotten the "Lone Star" treatment yet, I still think there's great potential for the show. Most of the casual remarks I've heard/read about the show say that it's "interesting." I hope ABC continues to back this show, because they really do have a unique show on their hands. I've somewhat fallen in love with the plot, despite its flaws, so I hope this show catches on, possibly in a different time slot where it has more exposure. Oh, and some more consistent writing would be lovely.

De-ta De-ta Tsu-ki-ga

2010-10-28T15:20:00.000-04:00

About a month ago, I bought Hacker Evolution and Hacker Evolution: Untold on Steam (because they were on sale, natch). In the last month, I've gotten through three levels of the first game, mostly because I've not had the time to play it more. Similarly, I've been wanting to write about for all of the last month, but I've not had the time to, though my thoughts have been accumulating since then. (And some of them spilled out in a Skype conversation with a friend which I wish I had recorded, because it would've made writing this so much easier. Dang it.)

If I'm remembering all of the details properly, Brian Spencer's (sorry, I'm really not familiar with the name) Hacker Evolution is set in the year 2025. With technology controlling so many aspects of our lives, it would only be a matter of time before the technology went sentient and needed hacking into in order to stop it. (On a sidenote, I kinda hate how I tend to overgeneralize plot synopses for the games I review and make them sound unnecessarily snarky. I really do pay attention to them, but my memory really is that terrible that details evade me quickly.)

The game is played by hacking computers to acquire information and complete tasks. This is done by manually typing out commands in a MS-DOSsy interface, such as "connect servername.com" or "download filename.exe". As you decrypt servers, crack their passwords, and transfer money (the process is done automatically, sadly), your actions are slowly traced, but you can "bounce" your actions through other servers that you've unlocked to slow down the trace time. So in a nutshell, the optimal strategy is to try to unlock servers and use them strategically to minimize the damage you do to yourself later. There are other observation-esque puzzles along the way, but they haven't really stood out as incredibly difficult (or not yet at least).

At the risk of sounding like a Valve fanboy and pointing to the same game in two consecutive reviews, I want to mention something about Portal. When you play through Portal, you're learning the different mechanics of how to play the game while the game is still going on. If you don't believe me, play through the game again with the developer commentary on. They're very specific about how they want to introduce new concepts (how a portal works, how to manipulate storage cubes and other objects, how to fire one portal, how to fire both portals, etc.), and reinforce concepts before moving on to new concepts. I'm sorta surprised to say that knowing the way that Valve sets up their games has actually helped get through other games, like navigating Left 4 Dead 2 maps on my own.

That said, I think that teaching the player how the game works is something Hacker Evolution does wrongly. Rather than progressively introducing new concepts over multiple levels, HE throws a ton of information into the first level for you to absorb. Mind you, it's clearly a tutorial level, and it takes you through everything step by step, but it's all done very quickly, and chances of retention are slim.

Or at least, slim for an incredibly thick person like me. I played through the first level with general ease, trying to soak in all of the details. By the time I started level two, everything I learned in level one was gone. I restarted the game with another account, taking notes on a notepad with all of the commands. Or so I thought, because there was one command I wrote down but couldn't remember how to use, so I ended up playing the first level a third time before I could finish the second level. The third level ramped up the difficulty rather significantly, and it took about five attempts to beat. (By the way, my average for solving a level so far is about 15-20 minutes, so each successive try is somewhat aggravating.)

In addition to this, there's one other hitch that isn't clearly explained upfront in the game that would have been greatly appreciated. As I played through each level, I always assumed that each level, though connected by one plotline, were independent of each other. As it turns out, your progress (including your funds, your computer upgrades, and your trace rate) is completely carried over from level to level, meaning that at the start of the fourth level, I'm already in a pretty bad state from where I left level three, and there's no way to go back and redo levels. This newfound dilemma concerns me because at the beginning of level four, you're confronted with a side mission (not required to complete the level) where someone offers you a ton of cash if you hack something for them. I definitely need the money at this point, but I can't help but be paranoid that whether or not I take this mission will effect how the rest of the game plays out. In fact, it's all enough to make me want to restart the entire game again just so I could be in a better position by this point in the game.

One final gripe, I swear, I came into this game expecting a nice mental challenge. I'm somewhat of a cryptography buff, and I like the challenge of solving a nice, juicy code. The Steam page for both of the games state that (my emphasis added) "The concept behind Hacker Evolution is to create a game that challenges the gamer's intelligence, attention and focus, creating a captivating mind game. Solve puzzles, examine code and bits of information, to help you achieve your objectives." Sadly, so far the game has mostly been a test of focus, as each level is a mental endurance test. I hope the puzzles pick up to a greater depth later on, but all in all, I'm disappointed I'm not manually cracking any codes yet.

(*sigh) Crap, that was way longer than I had intended... Despite everything I've complained about above, Hacker Evolution is a good game. It's a challenge, and it's a bit aggravating to get started, but if you can stick it out, beating each level is an amazing thrill. It's visually unimpressive and the puzzles are a bit lackluster to start out (although it looks like they add some new elements in the sequel, which I'm trying not to touch until I beat the first game), but that's really not important for a game of this nature. What's really important is that for twenty minutes at a time, I felt like I was trying to tackle some huge international crisis using only my wits and a crappy computer, which, rather disappointingly, is not that distant of a memory for me. Hacker Evolution is immersive fun, the biggest hurdle is just getting into it.

Steam Link

Tetris + Music + Portal + ?????? = PROFIT

2010-09-06T20:14:00.009-04:00

This might be the fastest game review I've ever written for personal purposes. I literally purchased a game less than an hour ago, and I'm already starting to write about it. Furthermore, I'm going to attempt to finish up writing about it in under half an hour. Pics might come later tonight, but I'm determined to get a word in about this game pretty quickly.

But then again, where would my game reviews be without a pseudo-related tangent to kick them off? Apparently at PAX this past weekend, some more details about Portal 2 were finally dropped, namely, a release date. Portal 2 is, as of the time of the writing of this post, set to debut on February 9, 2011. So mark your calendars, but do it in pencil, because we all know that Valve doesn't exactly run on the same system of time as the rest of the world. (For full disclosure, my source for the date is this video showing a co-op mode demonstration, so here's hoping it's semi-legitimate.) [Edit: Apparently, the date has been out for a few weeks now. Whoops.]

Game review, then. Over the summer, a friend of mine introduced me to a NES gem called Rampart. The object of the game is to try to maintain as large of a kingdom as possible while destroying your opponents and defending against your enemies. While this probably sounds like every tower defense game out there, the main twist is that your kingdom is formed by a miniature game of Tetris. You have a limited amount of time to build and repair your castle walls in between rounds (oh who am I kidding, the build/repair stage is the round), and only areas completely surrounded by walls will count for your score and be usable in the next round.

From the first game I played with my friend, I was hooked. The gravity-less Tetris twist is really fun to play with, and the panic to try to close off a portion of walls before time runs out gives you an amazing rush. I'm honestly amazed that I had not heard of Rampart before, because it's truly the sort of game that's right up my alley.

Enter Chime. At first, I noticed that Chime was a music-based game (though not one where you can use your own music like other previously reviewed games), but then I noticed the Rampart-like gameplay. With all that and a pretty low price (of which a portion goes to charities), I jumped on the Purchase button like a hobo on a ham sandwich. (Unrelated, I've heard that expression used more times in the last week than probably the last ten years of my life.)

Rather than building walls around hollow courtyards, the goal of Chime is to use your stash of pentominoes (I think it was all pentominoes?) to build solid blocks (3x3 or larger) to claim territory. When a block is made, you have a limited amount of time to continue adding pentominoes around the outside to make it a larger block, adding to your score and your territory claimed. When the timer for a block runs out, it becomes inactive for a short bit.

Meanwhile, you've got some sort of music playing in the background. The tempo of the song determines the speed of the Beatline, which scrolls across the board from left to right. When it crosses an inactive block, it clears it, giving you a small time bonus and letting you build in that space again. Unused scraps of pentominoes "age" as the Beatline passes over it, and if left unused too long, will wipe the board clean of unused pieces. This helps to get rid of junk on the board, making it easier to build again, but it also kills off your combo bonus. Claiming the entire board unlocks a special bonus stage that... well, I don't know, I haven't gotten there yet, but there's a ton more points available for that.

On the downside, there are only six songs (thus, six levels) to play with. Each "song" isn't a strict song as much as they are loops that you can add different elements to, but they're still pretty good. Note: This is as far as I made it in the half hour I allotted myself. Dang it. And coming from such names as Philip Glass, Moby, and Jonathan Coulton (yes, it's that song... see, there was a Portal tie-in all along!), you know it'd have to be good stuff. Six songs might get repetitive, but you hardly notice it when you're caught up in the game.

For only five bucks (and since a portion of that goes to charity, I wouldn't expect any sales anytime soon), Chime is definitely worth the price, even with how little comes in the package. At the very least, it's a very fast-paced puzzle that satisfied my Rampart needs, and has a heck of a lot of replayability along with it. Chime definitely gets a seal of approval from this humble blogger.

Steam Page

Ear Whacks - I Apparently Suck at Game Show Pilots

2010-08-30T00:52:00.000-04:00

Right then, this is the start of a new series I've been meaning to do for some time in which I highlight some of the podcasts and other audible musings I keep myself entertained with. Over the summer, I whittled my backlog of unheard podcasts down to nil, and wanted to celebrate by reporting on some of my favorites. However, this past week, I was at band camp, and the backlog is now back up to twenty unheard podcasts. Kinda unfair, really.

Anywho, the first podcast I wanted to highlight was a little game show podcast called PinPoint. This is the second podcast game show put out by Alex Davis and company, who run the immensely popular (if you're into game show news) game show news site, Buzzerblog (see also: Double Cross).

The object of PinPoint is to guess the results to survey questions, trying to come as close to the actual percentages as possible. The questions range from interesting and topical, such as how people feel about the proposed Ground Zero mosque, to the bizarre and thought-provoking, such as what people think about s'mores and Ouija boards. The contestants play for Oodles, which are GSN's (formerly the Game Show Network) online virtual currency redeemable for prizes and whatnot. The farther you are from guessing the correct percentage, the more Oodles you lose, and the greater danger you're in of leaving the game.

The weird thing about this game is that I had a very small hand in its production. I was involved in two test pilots, and I had a blast playing. I was also relatively good at the game, nearly nailing a couple of questions on the nose. In both cases though, I lost in the final head-to-head question, missing by a major margin. I wouldn't have won anything for taking first place anyway, but I got some major harassment from my friends when I tried to explain the show to them the next day. (Now that the show's finally available to the public, these friends can hear how tricky the show can be. And subsequently start apologizing. Use the comments box below, thanks.)

PinPoint is a fun game for people who think they know people, and is rather easy to play along with. I was initially critical of how the game is split into three separate podcasts over the course of the week, but the fifteen-minute segments are just the right size for a quick dose of fun and really manages to effectively stretch the suspense over the week. (By the way, definitely listen to week three's game, the entire game is really intense and it had some of my favorite questions of the series so far.) Bob Hagh does a great job of keeping the game moving while bantering with the contestants, and gets right into the heat of the game along with the players. On the whole, PinPoint is a great listen and makes reading America's mind fun (so long as the questions don't involve politics, they kill me every time).

iTunes Link - Official Site

Does Ms. Pac-Man Know He's Seeing Other Women?

2010-08-08T23:09:00.000-04:00

Have you ever had the indescribable urge to try something just because it sounded so amazingly terrible that it had to be hilarious? Old movies seem to have a knack for being a target of this sort of humor (heck, who could forget Mystery Science Theatre 3000 which practically mastered the art of ripping up terrible movies), and many talent shows on television capitalize on humor from terrible auditionees (American Idol and America's Got A Fleeting Desire To Act As Though It Has Talent Other Than Singing are two examples). This same joy of snobbish mockery can even come from games, if you look hard enough.

At some point in time last week, I ran across a banner ad for PAC-MAN Pizza Parlor. As I read through the game's description, I instantly thought to myself, "Mystery Science Arcade 3000". For perhaps not the first time but definitely not the last, I came across a game that looked so terrible, it had to be pathetically hilarious.

The game, in a nutshell (and forgive me for lacking on the exact details of the plot): Cathy's father has lost his memory, and it's up to her to maintain the family business until he can get better again. Naturally, assistance for Cathy comes in the form of a basketball-sized yellow man with a giant nose that happens to pop out of an arcade machine. Naturally.

So in terms of the actual game itself, customers place orders on the left side of the screen, Pac-Man (not sure why it's capitalized in the title) fetches the individual ingredients on the right side, and you assemble and deliver the ingredients in the middle. You start off by serving drinks, then salads, then in a traditionally tertiary object of priority when owning a pizza parlor, pizzas. Mr. P, on the right side, needs to not only collect the ingredients for foods in a specific order (no pepperoni before the dough, no tomatoes before the lettuce, etc.), but also avoid running into ghosts (which randomly turn into fruits for bonus points) and stay away from the edges of his section, as it turns out that he's on a conveyor belt that moves periodically, possibly dragging him off the edge and causing you to lose time (whereas Cathy's only limitation is that she can only carry two objects at a time).

Honestly, there are some pretty cringeworthy parts to this game. The plotline, presented in click-to-see-the-next-frame-even-though-it's-already-in-front-of-you form, seems to be held together with imitation maple syrup (two random guys in suits come looking for my dad with the intention of breaking his legs, only to walk away in near-tears when they find that he's already been hospitalized, and a random old acquaintance shares his honey for use in recipes for no reason other than... well, heck if I remember). The customers seem to always wear exactly one emotion even when angry, and happiness seems to be always expressed with a wink and an accompanying gesture. When a customer orders more than one item, you have to deliver them in a specific order, even though the ingredients pop up at the same time and you can fairly easily assume what some people want in larger orders. Even some of the in-game text seemed to be presented in Engrish, and the freaking fairy (a nickname I assigned her) taught you how to make every single item in the game with robotic repetition, as though we couldn't figure out that a salad with tomato is different from a salad with egg because one has tomato and the other has egg. I want to guess that this game is aimed at a younger, less game-experienced demographic than whatever group I'd be in.

Yet somehow, in some very odd way, it's really not that bad of a game.

Perhaps I'm completely out of the loop when it comes to these time management games that seem to frequently take place at restaurants, hotels, and other service-related industries. Honestly, the last TM game I played was Diner Dash (the original one, which is probably over five years old), which just has one character running around doing every job on the floor of a 'raunt. Somehow, the divide-and-conquer method of splitting up the action into two halves of the screen works well, and it's rather challenging to make sure you don't get too far ahead or behind on either side to keep everything flowing. Perhaps this is an incredibly old mechanic that I've just never seen before, but for now at least, it's really a new thing for me. (In retrospect, there is Arcadia which divides your attention in four directions, but that's different in that the games are independent and doing something in one doesn't really affect what happens in another.)

I guess the $64,000 question left to be asked is why. Why is Pac-Man our assistant throughout this journey? Why is he working on a moving conveyor belt that can kill him if he doesn't move quickly enough? Why do the ghosts randomly show up in the restaurant? You could quickly answer any of these questions with "because it makes it more challenging" or "because it adds to the plot" (it's definitely not the latter). But still, it seems like the developers of the game (which includes Namco, which explains a lot) came up with a semi-feasible premise for a game (girl in pizza parlor), but needed some other schtick to justify some other challenges in the game (stock arcade character helps her). When your justification for making such a terrible tie-in is "to make the game work," perhaps you need to reconsider why the game is broken to begin with. Playing this game with Pac-Man on the other side of the counter feels like awkward product placement. Playing with someone else, let's say Cathy's sister, would be a lot less painful.

Would I buy this game? Likely not. Perhaps my pint of admiration for this game is because it's one of the few time management games I've played in way too long. I definitely wouldn't buy this game because Pac-Man is in the title, and I hope no one else would either. I would recommend it on the fact that despite its numerous annoyances, it's still an interesting take on the time management genre, although possibly one that's overdone and I don't even know it. On the whole, definitely try it before you buy it.

Unlike Mega Man 2, This Could Still Happen in the Future

2010-07-26T00:41:00.004-04:00

As I was reading through my last post, I realized that I had unintentionally made it stupidly long. Four full reviews in one post was really a bit too much all at once. I decided that the next time I wanted to write a game review, I should try to do one game at a time, just to keep things nice and short. Digestible. Manageable. Biodegradable.

This past week, I found myself returning to an old favorite for kicks and giggles. "Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden" is an RPG retelling (forecasting?) of the great B-Ball Apocalypse of 2041. Twelve years after B-Ball was outlawed and many of the legends of the sport are massacred, a Chaos Dunk devastates Neo New York, and Charles Barkley is blamed for the wreckage. It's up to Charles, his son, Hoopz, and a cast of other allies to clear his name and restore the glory of B-Ball to the world. The journey ahead is long and rough, so be sure to stock up on steroids and chicken fries...

Even if you haven't really been paying attention to professional basketball since "Space Jam" (like myself, except I don't think I even saw the movie), the plotline of "Barkley, Shut up and Jam: Gaiden" is easy to follow (although you might miss a few jokes). Surprisingly, despite being a fan-made game (the entire credits list appears to be three pseudonyms long), a lot of work went into this game, and the result is a few good hours of a hilarious trip though basketball, science fiction, and pop culture. "Barkley" isn't just a straight RPG either. It pulls elements from many different genres, including old-school point-and-click adventure games, puzzles, horror/survival games, dating simulators, and a few simple quick-time scenes for good measure.

Be warned though that "Barkley" is very much not a game for children. Between frequent strong language and occasional mature themes, this game is probably for adults only. Also, as this is a fan-made game, there is a bit of editorializing in certain places. The most frequent occurrence of this is at the save points throughout the game. A talking gas pump-like object lectures you on how your American tastes in gaming prove your stupidity and how you should switch to the "far superior" world of Japanese gaming. Fanboyish, yes. Annoying, yes. But I suppose the developers have the right to throw in their pearls of wisdom now and then. (Fine, maybe not pearls of wisdom... How about chickpeas of commentary?)

If you're willing to look past a few minor annoyances, "Barkley, Shut Up and Jam" is truly a fun experience that's worth playing a few times. I remember when I first played this game back in 2008, there were several points in the game where I found myself laughing for five minutes straight. Even playing through this game two years later, I still find some little bits of dialogue that I might have missed before that make me chuckle. "Barkley" is well-assembled and intriguing, and I'm truly hoping that the mentioned sequel is not a gag, because I would really like to see this game continue.

Go download it for free.

Wishing You a Happy Rest of July, Because the Fourth is Gone

2010-07-07T12:31:00.001-04:00

You know what makes for a good combination? The end of a semester of summer courses, a well-timed Steam sale, and a blog post. Yes, my tastes are screwy, but this is what I do best. (Sometimes.) I ended up buying three games during the sale, and after playing through them a bit (although some more than others), I'd like to share my findings with you. (I feel like I should be wearing a lab coat as I explain these to you.)

Left 4 Dead 2 - Steam link
Remember how I always used to keep talking about Team Fortress 2 and my undying love for it? Well, that's still in place. But surprisingly, Left 4 Dead 2 is up there in terms of shmups that I actually find to be fun. I'm sure I don't need to explain much about the premise of L4D2, but for the uninitiated, it's a zombie apocolypse again (the "again" because it's a sequel, obviously), and the only four survivors (sorta... remember that it's a sequel) are trying to escape relatively unscathed. You team up with three other players and basically shoot anything that moves en route to the exit point, with a couple of exceptions (namely, each other and witches).

I've not played the original Left 4 Dead, so I'm not sure how much L4D2 expands on the original, but as someone whose main shmup experience lately comes from TF2, L4D2 is a rather refreshing change of pace. In addition to the garden-variety "common infected", you've also got Spitters that vomit acid everywhere, Jockeys that ride their victim and push them towards massive throngs of the infected, and the witch that basically kills you in one shot if you startle her. Swell. Needless to say, this game is quite a bit different from TF2 as you're now faced with a horror-themed zombie film setting rather than a jovial, cartoonish romp.

While the game is intended to be played with four players online, there are plenty of offline modes with computer AI to practice on. I've primarily stuck to the easiest difficulty, and the AI usually does a good job of saving my butt everytime a Charger pommels me. Unfortunately, I've gotten quite used to these near-perfect AI, and that hurt me yesterday as I played my first online game. Even on the easiest difficulty, I think I died a total of three times, and our team had to restart one chapter over again because we all died. The AI spoiled us, basically.

I've still not had the time to look over all of the aspects of this game (such as the numerous multiplayer modes as well as the weekly "mutations" that offer a random challenge to tackle), but Left 4 Dead 2 is entertaining and holding my attention so far. I'm hoping that with a bit more practice, I can become more comfortable with this game and hopefully hook up with more friends for some fun. (Besides, they pressured me into buying the game, so they owe me.)

Shatter - Steam link
First off, let me confess something to you: I really wish this game sucked. I wish I could tear this game limb from limb, picking apart every annoying bit about this game until there's nothing left, solely because I have an amazing arsenal of jokes about this game lined up (the most obvious being what happens when you change one letter in the game's name... and no, it's not Chatter, Swatter, or Shutter).

Alas, Shatter is a good game. It might look like your standard Breakout/Arkanoid clone at first glance, but Shatter makes good use of physics to significantly impact the game. The main mechanic you can use to your advantage is that your paddle (a spaceship, natch) can generate wind to move the ball and blocks in different directions. Hold the left mouse button to suck and the right mouse button to blow (two more jokes I would have capitalized on if this game was bad). Shattered bricks release shards which, when sucked in and caught by the paddle, increase your multiplier for the wave and build up for a powerful storm attack that can clear half of the board if used properly. Sucking can also be dangerous though, as any bricks that hit your paddle temporarily stun it, which puts you in danger of losing a ball. On the other hand, if you do this before launching a ball, the automatic ball-launching timer resets back to zero, and it's possible to clear out the majority of some levels without breaking a single brick. Obviously, there are less points available for doing this, but it gets you through the levels quicker.

One major difference that sets this game apart from most Breakout clones is the use of boss battles at the end of each world to face off against. Each boss has a unique defense system that must be conquered before you can do any damage, and part of the fun of each boss is figuring out how it works. Some follow the standard hit-the-shield-until-it-breaks mechanic, but some require you to suck or blow the boss into a certain position before you can attack. I didn't think it was possible to get one of those "aha" moments from a Breakout game, but Shatter accomplishes it with its fiendish boss fight puzzles.

I can only think of two minor quibbles to file against this game, and neither one is terribly significant. First, of the three shapes that the levels will come in (rectangle where you play on the side, rectangle where you play on the bottom, circle where you play on the bottom), the circular levels are generally annoying. It's hard to predict where the ball will go with each bounce. I'm partly tempted to outright accuse the game of completely botching natural rebounding physics on this one, but it's just a game and it doesn't much matter here. Also, the keyboard controls seem oddly designed, but it's likely set up in such a way so that you can share the keys with a same-computer co-op player.

Beyond that, there's way more to this game to love than to hate. I won't lie, this game probably first caught my attention for the catchy music in its short preview video (watch it here), but the game itself more than met my expectations. Even if you're only an average player, the game seems to be designed to give you little boosts when you need it (such as 1-ups appearing more frequently when you suddenly run low on lives), which makes this game harder to put down. Of the three games I bought in this sale, I've probably spent the most time with this one so far, and I'm thoroughly glad I caught it when it was on sale.

Thief: Deadly Shadows - Steam link
Writing this bit is going to be interesting, because this is the game I've had the least experience with, and equally so, the least positive experience with. As it turns out, after downloading this game the other night and having a small power failure earlier yesterday that took my computer down, Thief seems to have disappeared from my computer. I'm laughing about this irony now, but I'll wake up tomorrow and wonder if that's a sign of things to come. Anyway, for the time being, I really can't make any screencaps, and I'm stuck basing the majority of this review solely on what I've experienced in only the first level, the tutorial.

Thief is a game where for whatever reason, you play as a thief who sneaks around and steals things. There's apparently a backstory in previous games that I don't know about, so I'm kinda in the dark here. Honestly, I decided to give this game a shot because I've never done a stealth-based game before, and it was only three dollars. In the tutorial mission, my goal was to steal someone's purse. (Okay, it was a satchel of some sort with a MICROSCOPIC SPOILER special medallion in it, but you catch my drift.) Even though I've only played the first level, I can already see I'm in for trouble.

The controls start out intuitively enough, with the standard WASD to move and mouse to look around. However, this quickly becomes cluttered with all sorts of commands for different actions. Control to creep, X to crouch, 8 to select the water arrow, F1 to select the flash bomb and I to throw it, Alt-P to renew your Netflix account, whatever. I know that eventually I will have to make a cheat sheet in order to play this game so I can quickly figure out where each command is.

Despite this level being a tutorial level, I quickly ran into trouble with the bit on lockpicking. The instructions only tell you that you right-click to start picking a lock, and by moving the mouse around, you will eventually find a "sweet spot". Stay in the sweet spot long enough (how long?), and you will get past each tumbler in turn. The game tells you that you're near the sweet spot when the little tumbler icon is making the most movement. This apparently isn't true, as where I found the tumbler to be moving the most wasn't the sweet spot at all. In fact, after two or three failed attempts, I actually had to look up a walkthrough to get past this part. As a reminder, this is still the tutorial level. Having to look up the solution in a walkthrough on the tutorial level is not a good sign. (Or I'm just thick, but let's not jump to that conclusion. Yet.)

As far as the more stealthy bits go (what few there are in the tutorial), I couldn't really decide if the AI was too dumb or too smart. The guards who keep an eye out for suspicious movement (and announce their findings in comedically melodramatic fashion) seem to either walk right by you when you're inches away from them, or spot you because of a square inch of light from that candle you didn't notice making you completely visible. Perhaps playing a bit more (if/when I re-download the game) will reveal some of the finer points of stealth, but for now, I'm just not getting the hang of it.

On the whole, the interface is rather crappy. To start, the game doesn't seem to want to work with the Steam overlay, which may or may not be a problem caused by the game's designers. However, fiddling with the F1 key for that flashbomb at the end of the level apparently made me tap the Escape key and some other combination of buttons by accident, leaving me at a "load game" screen. I clicked the "back" button thinking it would return me to my game, but apparently I had already exited to the main menu without even realizing it. This forced me to plow through the tutorial level for a fifth time, because if there was any sort of confirmation request before sending me back to the menu, I missed it entirely. Needless to say, I was rather not happy with the game at this point.

It's also a shame that the game isn't working now, because it seemed impossible to play this game during the day. My monitor, which is usually capable of showing contrast between near-black colors if you get at the right angle, seemed to be worthless during the day. On the other hand, the second level (of which I survived twenty seconds) starts out with you in a well-lit entryway, with two guards waiting for you to catch their attention. The more I played this game, the more I felt like I was missing some essential bit of skill I should have acquired from previous installments in the series.

So between overly-complex controls, AI with seemingly random I, and gameplay that leaves you out in the dark, Thief and I are not getting along right now. I'm glad I have a temporary break from the game due to it accidentally uninstalling itself, so I can focus my attention on my two other new games (and more TF2 in prep for another major update). I'd like to try this game again just to see if I can overcome some of these noob-unfriendly hurdles, but for now, I guess I just have to pretend that I didn't notice this less-than pleasant game, disappearing like a Thief in the... oh.

Late Entry: Turba - Steam link
This one didn't show up in the Steam store until yesterday, so this was technically not part of my purchases, but I figured I might include it here anyway. Turba, which I vaguely remember as a project raising funds on Kickstarter way back in the day, is a music-based match-3 game where once again, your music determines how the game is played. From what I could tell you though, the music seems to have less to do with the game than you'd originally expect, but at least it does a semi-decent job with what it does.

As the song you select plays, the rhythm allegedly determines when new blocks are added to your grid, always from bottom to top and left to right. Blocks show up in one of four colors or a bonus multiplier. Your goal is to keep the grid from filling by selecting clusters of three or more blocks (by left-clicking) and clearing them (by right-clicking). Rather nicely, you can select chains of more than one color (although no more than one chain of each color) and clear them all at once, with a bonus for clearing chains of all four colors in one shot. You can also swap columns to make new matches if you're having trouble finding a natural pair. But to make things more difficult, there are time bomb-esque tiles which explode after so many "beats" occur, leaving behind a mess of ugly debris squares that disappear after time. Errant chains also result in debris, so you've got to be rather accurate when you're panicking to clear the board.

This somewhat unfair "heads, I win, tails, you lose" situation makes levels rather difficult to beat, even when on the medium level. I actually have yet to beat a single song on the medium level, because the board just fills up too quickly. I need to try this again with less rhythm-heavy songs, but for the time being, I can only declare this game as outright hard.

So then, where does this leave us with the game's ability to make a game that actually corresponds to the music? Let's check our little rating scale, which still has only two elements, because no one left any suggestions for other factors, cough cough. In terms of reflecting the tempo and rhythm of the music, Turba would probably score a 5, and maybe squeak out a 4 in terms of reflecting changes in dynamics. (For reference, we're assuming Audiosurf scored a 7 in both categories. 7 is pretty good, but there's always room for improvement.) One of the things that makes it difficult to gauge where Turba falls on this scale is how new blocks (which appear on the "beats") don't show up immediately, but rather, fate into view. There's a soft drum kick to illustrate where it's picking up the rhythm, and it's not always accurate, but it at least makes a gallant effort. I've not yet tried a song with a weaker drum pattern and a more prominent instrumental line, so for now I can only guess that the dynamic analyzers are just picking up the spikes in the percussion. Otherwise, I might bump that rating up a smidge.

If you don't mind being pummeled by the difficulty, Turba can be quite a fun game, and it's not really that bad of a music game either. It'd be nice if a little more could be done with the music, but it's at least a moderately fun take on the way-overdone match-3 genre. It's on sale now for a buck off to celebrate its release, but I'll probably wait until the next huge sale comes around to buy it.

In Which I Attempt to Make a Joke About Cookie Dough

2010-06-30T16:17:00.002-04:00

Christmas in June? It's a Pathetic Excuse, But It'll Have to Do.

2010-06-25T00:38:00.003-04:00

Fine, I admit, this post is filler material. I'm basically doing this post so that I can say that I wrote something in June for this blog. It's not that I haven't been writing at all, it's just that I've been writing a bunch of stuff that will likely never be read except by one or two people. I've been doing a couple of summer courses just to try to lighten my load for my last two semesters, and they've been sucking up a lot of my time and my writing energy. It doesn't help that one class (Mass Media and Culture) actually requires me to keep a small blog relating to my media usage, but that will only ever be seen by myself and the teacher. Possibly in the future I'd like to pull some thoughts from that and use them here, but I'd like to spin them way further than I did in the blog posts there.

I've also been writing for other sites too. Naturally, I've still been writing for Jay is Games (this page has everything I've done in the last two months). I also threw a guest post at Entropic Kitchen which is worth a read. But yet somehow, I couldn't make it back here to write more.

I've had some ideas for things I'd like to do, though. For one, I'd like to do a bit of an explanation of some of the podcasts I listen to. Not everything I listen to is common fare, and perhaps you could enjoy some of the things I hear on a regular basis. I also had an idea for somewhat of a longer-running project that could significantly be aided by this... Details to come, pending the project ever gets off the ground first. I also started a long blog post about a dream I had last month, but I nixed it, because I realized the target audience for that post was way too narrow (it's the specific content in the dream that limits the potential audience).

If I had more time, what would I write about right now? Well, there's a nice sale going on over at Steam right now through the 4th'o July. I wish I could buy more things from it (especially since my classes end this coming week, leaving the rest of the summer pretty free), but I'm low on money right now, so I'll be skimping through this one. My recommendations from this post still stand though, so be sure to check them out. I'd also tack on And Yet It Moves, Safecracker: The Ultimate Puzzle Adventure, and Everyday Genius: SquareLogic as excellent picks if you haven't tried them yet. (Get the links yourself, I'm tired.)

"You Don't Know Jack" is slated to return. This is good news. I was a fan of the online series that ran for a year or two, and I wouldn't mind shelling out a few bucks for the big relaunch whenever it comes.

Please buy Fridge Tetris. It's in the post right below this one.

Yeah, I've really got nothing else. Hopefully more legitimate posts to come in the next couple of weeks when I get my life back.

It's Actually Thirty Pieces If You Count the Jar and Lid

2010-05-24T13:00:00.004-04:00

My mind is completely shot right now. Over the last few days, I've been struggling to come up with any sort of way to set this post up. I wanted to tie this in with my summer reading list and links to the books on Amazon. I wanted to tie this in with a short essay on why "Sit Down, Shut Up" was actually a very good show and could have lasted longer than one pseudo-season if they had debuted with any other episode than the one they used. Unfortunately, everything I've written in the last few days has been crap and I've scrapped everything.

So, I'll just come out with this announcement: I've finally listed my Fridge Tetris sets for sale on Etsy. Please feel free to meander over to my Etsy store and stock up. They make a great gift for any occasion, and are sure to make your recipient laugh. (At the very least, I've had a 4/4 track record with that.) Even as I type this, I might be close to making my first sale, so be sure to jump on them quick-like! I'll keep making more sets throughout the summer as well as some sets with variants, so be sure to keep an eye out for those as well. Click on the picture to jump to my store!

State of the Twitter

2010-05-14T23:22:00.001-04:00

I've been thinking about writing this post for quite some time, hence the terribly outdated title. It seemed like the topic came up again in a big way this past week, so I figured I should dust it off and try to work something up about it.

I think I mentioned once before how I prefer to use Facebook as a utility rather than a means of life (ah yes, here). Since then, I've also started using Twitter in a similar way. For my Communications Theory class this past semester, I did a nice long research project (although it was technically more of a literature review?) on Web 2.0 applications and their practical usage in modern society. Before you ask, I won't be posting it here, no matter how relevant it is to the topic. The end result was terrible, my grade reflected it, and I honestly wish I could have had another week to get the whole thing together and salvage my grade (and dignity) a bit.

Nonetheless, it was an interesting topic to research. Among the articles I researched, a few talked about the impact social networking sites like Facebook may have had on elections, both here and abroad. A couple more talked about how Twitter is being used in health care, and can be an effective means for emergency response. (Interestingly, a week or two before the assignment was due, XKCD published this comic, which I nearly included in my final project.) On the whole, it was awesome and a bit weird to see how much technology, and in particular, the Internet could be harnessed and manipulated by the average Joe.

I used to be in the camp of people who hated the concept of Twitter, because of all the people who do 140-character ramblings about their mundane activities. This is, of course, a stereotype, but it was rather prevalent back then, and it still somewhat is now. I got a Twitter account because of my Journalism professor, who attended a conference where they mentioned Twitter as a means for receiving and relaying news. He suggested that we do a little experiment and get Twitter accounts, and see whether or not it was practical or not.

I'm fairly certain I was the only one who emerged from that experiment with any sort of positive result. In addition to the professor and a few obligatory classmates, I had other friends who were already on Twitter, and making good use of it for spreading news stories they came across. Often times, I would use these stories that the people I followed posted in my radio show, as the hard-copy newspaper I was using sometimes didn't give enough material to make jokes about. As of the time of writing of this post, I follow 17 people, of whom, about half have posted a tweet on some sort of news story that I would later use on my show. My professor is following only seven people, of whom, only one appears to be using the service actively (two if you count myself). (Worth noting: One person he's following seems to have a profile pic not unlike him, although blurry. This person posts tweets (although infrequently) reflecting the same political views as my professor. Final nail in the coffin, pun unintended: Their background picture is a zombie/horror film pic, which my professor has often professed a love for. Doppelganger much? I've got my suspicions.)

After a month or two of non-tweetliness in class, my professor said he didn't much see the point in Twitter, and has stopped using it since then. I've gotten a lot out of Twitter, so what went wrong here? Is it his fault for not being a little more outgoing and following people who post news? Is it my fault for not retweeting the articles that my friends would post? Perhaps we're both a bit at fault here.

Aside from news-sharing tweets, a few reviewer friends and I have used Twitter for more social exchanges, such as comedic debate and banter. Honestly, I don't tweet often, and when I do, it's usually announcing a new blog post, but occasionally I'll tweet my two cents' worth of humorous thoughts. That's the extent of my Twitter usage, and I'm comfortable with that.

Unfortunately, one of the problems that remains with Twitter is that it still gets a bad rap as a useless site. It's hard for a lot of people to overcome the 140-characters-of-narcissism view of Twitter. (I don't need Twitter for narcissism, I've got a blog for that!) Or, they don't see the point of following celebrities mindlessly gabbing away in a similar manner. The popular opinion, from what I gather, is that people don't like Twitter, and if they once did, then it's "dying out," according to a couple of articles I read in some newspapers (which is sorta ironic, if you think about it). There really is a gem of utilibility (ooh, I should trademark that) in Twitter, but you've got to be putting it to the right uses to be able to find it.

My origins with Facebook started out a little differently from that of Twitter. It wasn't until after my freshman year of college that I decided to sign up. So far as I can remember, I didn't have anything against the service when I first found out about it, I just didn't really see the need to get it until later than most people did. Over the summer of 2007, I started my account, and I used it with the intent of, surprisingly, being social with people.

Over time, my Facebook usage started to diminish, and it took on the "utility" role that I have for Twitter. If I needed to get a hold of someone, Facebook was generally a good way to go about doing it. Someone once commented on how "naked" my Wall was. (I had a fun time continuously posting responses of "(This message has been deleted by Facebook Administration.)", much to her annoyance.) My irritation for Facebook probably started when little things called applications became popular. Day in and day out, I would receive endless requests to join some game or take some quiz or other irritating diversion. I quickly came to love the "block application" button, and to this day, I have probably about 300+ applications on my block list. (Sidenote: If you hate seeing all the messages in your newsfeed about other friends' application usage, be sure to check out FB Purity, a very nice script that blocks those sorts of messages out.)

It seems as though Facebook has changed over the last few months though. Part of this might be due to the fact that the majority of my peers, students who graduated last week as Music Education majors, seemingly collectively changed their last names to their middle names to avoid being found in searches. It's not necessarily that there's anything bad in their profiles that they want to keep hidden, it's just that they'd prefer not to have students or employers looking up their pages. All of these years of professors stalking profiles to yell at students for what they have on their pages seems to have finally paid off, apparently.

This does bring up a huge question of privacy, and what people you haven't approved can or can't see on your profile. I think I've gotten my profile on a tight enough lockdown that nothing aside from my name, gender, school, and location are visible to non-friend humans, although I've yet to test this out. However, there's also the numerous problems with non-humans and how much information they can see of your profile. A bot flipping through profiles and farming information would probably be no more effective than a human doing the same thing, so the major information loss occurs when Facebook wants to make a little money.

Perhaps this is an overly-paranoid statement, but I've come to believe that at this point, Facebook now exists first with the intention of making a buck, and providing a platform for social networking second. Part of this sneaking suspicion(!) comes from the ever-changing privacy statements, which seem to grow in length and become more vague and legalese at time goes on, despite Facebook's best efforts to "keep the peoples' best interest in mind." Part of this suspicion comes from how Facebook seems to want to barge into other aspects of my life, and Facebook seems to be willing to shell out my personal information to do so.

Part of this suspicion comes from an instance I had a couple weeks ago, when I checked my actual profile page for the first time in a few days. I was greeted with a Facebookian dialogue box asking me to link my interests to their respective "pages". "Hm, what," I asked. Apparently, the "interests" I put in my profile page are no longer to be read as a normal paragraph explaining my interests, favorite books, TV shows, etc., but are now to be attached directly to the pages they correspond to. As I mentioned before, I use Facebook strictly as a utility, so I have avoided joining any fan pages up until now. Thus, I declined joining any of the fan pages. Little did I know that this would actually delete all of my interests from my profile, leaving me with absolutely no personal information about myself other than my gender and school. Clearly, the Facebook I once knew for sharing information with my friends instead of the whole world is gone. This, among many other reasons which I have mentioned above and will continue to mention below, are catalysts for me to leave Facebook. I'd rather people not look me up by what I enjoy, but rather, who I am.

Thus, in the last couple of weeks, Facebook and I have been on slightly uneasy terms. Apparently, I've not been alone in this. I started seeing news stories popping up on how Facebook might be violating its own privacy policy by selling information to advertisers. Facebook's privacy policy is apparently now longer than the US Constitution (which, frankly, isn't terribly long, but it says something when you have to deal with more legalese to be a member of a website than to run an entire country). A friend of mine has actually decided to leave Facebook entirely, citing a number of links showing how corrupt Facebook really is. I'm very much not alone in thinking Facebook's no longer a good site. (link, link, link, although I might argue with some of the points in the last one.)

Despite its corruption, I still plan to keep using my Facebook account, for the time being at least, because it's still a decent tool for contacting friends. Aside from photos (from which it'd be hard for advertisers to get any personal information about me), my profile is nearly bare, save for a few essential bits of information.

This really is a shame, because I have seen the potential benefits of Web 2.0 sites such as Twitter and YouTube, but Facebook really seems to have gone down a dark path. Do I still think there's hope for the expansion of practical applications of Web 2.0? Possibly, but the faults that Facebook has committed really makes one lose confidence in the system. When you're invited in as a human but treated as a piece of meat, it's hard to enjoy a decent burger later.

I Swear, I Wasn't a Music Major in a Past Life

2010-04-25T18:28:00.009-04:00

In case you missed my last posting, here's a sliver of what you missed:

Excellent.

Speaking of Steam (crap, that was a hint, wasn't it?), I spotted a new music game in the store the other day. It's called Beat Hazard, and to quote the game's description, it's "A new experience in gameplay mechanics... Gameplay Powered by YOUR Music!" Huzzah, we've never experienced such a unique concept befo-- Oh wait.

Okay, in fairness, it's not the same thing as Audiosurf. While Audiosurf is a Guitar Hero-esque reflexy music game, Beat Hazard is a Asteroids-esque shmupy music game. You play as a spaceship that moves around with the arrow keys/WASD, and goes pew pew with the mouse. You shoot things that are flying around, you collect powerups, you get points, you try not to die. Not that complex of a game, and at that, not too original.

Theoretically, the main selling point is that your music (sorry, YOUR music) is what changes the actual gameplay experience. As the music gets more "intense", you get swarmed by more or more powerful enemies. Similarly, you can pick up powerups that make the music louder (more intense!) which gives you stronger bullets. Or perhaps the music itself makes the bullets stronger. Or something like that, I'm not quite sure, frankly. (Now would be a good time to mention that like so many games I review, I really can't afford to buy full versions all the time, so I'm working off a demo that limits you to only ten games.)

Sketchy memories of the exact rules aside, the graphics are nice and bright, although flashy to the point of seizure-inducing (as early as the title screen). One problem is that as more enemies flood the screen, it's hard to tell the active enemies, the dead wreckage, the volatile shards of space junk, the visualizer-esque background, and even your own ship apart. I tried to grab a screenshot to give you a taste, but, well, all I could really get was a black screengrab, so there's a bunny for ya. Also, I didn't want to steal the snapshots posted on Steam, because not only are they less than impressive, but they also have captions written right on them that make looking through them feel like reading through an overly-eager father's photo album of a family vacation. ("I love pwning those bad guys to heavy rock!" Yeah, that bad.)

As I mentioned before, the gameplay is kinda lacking any fresh bells or whistles. Move with one hand, fire with the other, and blow stuff up. Quieter/calmer music seems to give you more non-combative debris-like obstacles to shoot (think "Asteroids"), louder/more active music seems to give you enemies in small salvos that fly around and fire back at you (think... Oh dear, I don't know about that many shmups... I'm just gonna throw in Rapture Capture because it's one of the few shmups that I've ever really enjoyed). But there's very little evidence that the music actually corresponds to the game being produced. Sure, it can pick out little spikes of sound in the waveform, but is that really it? To a certain extent, it almost seems like it's just a standard shooter with a really flashy visualizer in the background. If you need a little bit more of an elaboration on this thought, consider the boss battles which seem to appear more at certain time intervals instead of in conjunction with the music, and the visualizer itself which sometimes looks as though it's pumping out beats at a different tempo from the one in the music being played.

In order to remedy this rash of people claiming that the difficulty of the game is determined by the music that's playing, I'd like to propose a system for analyzing this fluctuating corelation. Each game would be rated by a few different criteria, each getting a score from one to ten, indicated by the box above (black out colored bars for scores less than ten, and put the name of the specific criteria in the bottom half of the box... and yes, it did take me two minutes to whip that up in Paint, thank you very much).

The tricky bit in devising such a system is coming up with the actual criteria to grade on. Two obvious ones would be "How well does the game reflect the dynamics/volume of the music?" and "How well does the game reflect the rhythm/tempo of the music?". Frankly, almost any game with a decent music analysis system should be able to look at the basic waveform and pull out those two things. The volume factor comes from the amplitude of the waves, the rhythm (mostly) comes from the wavelengths, or the clusters of waves that make up each sound (drum hits, instruments playing notes, syllables of lyrics, etc.). These are physical characteristics of sound, or at least, physical in the sense that they are observable and recordable.

Honestly, those two criteria could be enough to rank songs with, although it'd be a very bare-bones rating. It'd be nice if there was at least a third criteria, possibly to explore the corelation between the general mood of the music or the instruments used and the shape of the gameplay. Actual "intensity" is so hard to analyze in a song, unless you're actually hearing it and experiencing it.

What I'd like to ask is your opinions on what could be used as criteria for judging the relationship between music and gameplay that is theoretically based on it. Any ideas? I sorta like the criteria of volume-matching and tempo-matching, but what else is out there?

Random Thoughts on the Town Formerly Known As Sue Nork Yitty

2010-03-29T22:38:00.004-04:00

1. New York is an amazingly organized city.
I think that every time I've been to New York City in the past, my views have been influenced by what I've seen on TV. Every street is caught in a perpetual traffic jam, it takes forever to get to the other side of town, and you'd be better off walking everywhere. Granted, in every other trip to NYC in the past, I was in a coach bus that didn't jive well with the busy streets, and likely ended up causing half of the traffic jams. When you really back up and look at the streets of NYC as a total pedestrian, traffic lights and regulations are set up to really make for smooth sailing most of the time. Even in busy Times Square, things run rather smoothly (pending the absence of crazy coach bus drivers who block off streets to let kids out to see a musical).

2. Tourists carry cameras, travelers do not.
Technically speaking, these "tourists" and "travelers" are really the same thing, but there's such a strong negative connotation to being a tourist, especially in a big city like this. I used to be a tourist, in fact, taking pictures of anything and everything. I now see how annoying this is to everyone else who just wants to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible. Tourists like to stand in inconvenient places to take their pictures, such as right on the corner, where mobile pedestrians are actually trying to cross streets, but instead have to dodge stationary pedestrians that are in the way.

I did not take a single picture during this entire trip, despite having my camera on me at all times. I came to realize that half of the pictures I would take pictures of (or most tourists, for that matter) have already been taken and posted on the Internet. If the tourists themselves didn't take them, someone who works at the particular facility in question posted it on their website. This really belongs in a rant all by itself, but it seems like we don't need to travel or take pictures anymore, we could just surf around Flickr accounts and Google Images and get exactly what we need. I honestly returned home with the intention of, if necessary, just doing a quick search for a photo of someplace I went to in order to describe it. This might be part of where my bitterness for tourists and tourism comes from.

That much said and done, once you get rid of the cameras, it's truly impossible to tell a visiting traveler from a New York City resident. Or at least, this opinion comes from a visiting traveler who really can't tell the difference if there is one. Maybe there are some certain dress codes that travelers and tourists use that residents don't, but beyond that, there's very little way to tell one person from another. New York City is enough of a cultural mixing pot such that you can't pick out any ethnicity as local or not. Everyone has the chance to be a local.

Of course, I had to get a little creative...

3. Subways are pretty much the most awesome thing ever.
Confession: I have a mild obsession with public transportation. I'm quite comfortable sitting and looking out the window for long periods of time in the company of strangers. I loved the El in Chicago, and I love the Subway in NYC. I get a really strange kick out of seeing an underground world fly by me from the comfort of my cozy little cabin. The best way I can describe it is like those chase scenes in action films where more of the rush comes from the speed of movement rather than the pursuit itself. That's really a crappy decision... I just like subways. Shut up. Leave me be.

4. Pizza is pizza.
I'd hate to say it, but of the three or four different pizza establishments I ate at over the course of the weekend, I noticed no difference in taste. I'm sorry. I'm sure each of these independently-owned pizza joints have their own claims to fame, but pizza is pizza. There's really little deviation there.

5. It is completely feasible to live in New York City.
Again, most of my assumptions about NYC were formed by media stereotypes and faulty high school experiences. Now that I've seen more of the island on my own and have seen residential areas as well as the big tourist district, I feel that life in a big city such as NYC is completely possible. The only downside is the cost of living there, between high rent and costs for everyday items. Granted, mid-town Manhattan isn't the best representation of prices everywhere, but even as you get away from the middle of the city, prices still do loom higher. But cost aside though, it seems like anyone could function just as they normally would in their hometown. The only thing that changes is the size of everything. And the presense of tourists.

You've Won the Home Version of Our Game!

2010-03-07T01:13:00.015-05:00

Spring break! And instead of running around on the beach, I'm blogging. Meh, it's a small price to pay for not having ~~an attractive body.~~ ~~nearby beaches that MTV would care to tape at.~~ a life. Sometimes I truly wonder what majors all these kids have that allows them the genuine free time to go to beaches, get plastered and knocked up, and have MTV cameras show it all. I've got some 150-some pages of journal articles to read for a research paper over break, and I've somehow managed to find time to slip in a blog post about gaming. You kids can keep your STD's, I'm fine here, thanks.

Before I get to the actual blog post at hand, I wanted to throw out a question that some of you might have more knowledge than myself on. A few posts back, I discussed the idea of Fridge Tetris, a little set of magnets for geeky fun on your fridge. I've started making a couple of batches for a couple certain someones, and I'm noticing that I've got quite a lot of beads sorted and ready to go for more production. My question is, would it be possible to sell Fridge Tetris for a profit, or would copyright/legal issues prevent me from legally doing so? If I were to give the same product a different name (one that doesn't use the T-word), would it be legal? I don't plan on going huge with this, maybe just a small etsy.com store or something like that. Any input on the matter would be greatly appreciated, please comment below.

Right then, on to reviews proper. Amazingly, all three of these games caught my eye(s) because of the fact that they're based on game shows. It's been an awfully long time since I've written anything on game shows, hasn't it? First off, and this is only slightly cheating, I'd like to draw your attention to the deviously difficult Only Connect online game, featuring some of the Connecting Walls from the first season of the show. Only Connect is one of those UK game shows that I wish we could have in America, except it's way too cerebral for anyone to give a crap and actually watch it. We like our quick thrills with game shows here in America, we've got no tolerance for the sit-and-think shows. Anywho, the Connecting Walls are quite a fun (although painful) treat, and worth a go if you're a fan of lateral thinking puzzles. Also be sure to check out the Jay is Games review for more discussion.

Second up, and with a bit more proper discussion this time, is the Press Your Luck game by Ludia. You're probably familiar enough with this "cult classic" that I don't have to explain it in great detail to you. (By the way, what does that even mean, "cult classic"? I don't get what makes something in pop culture "cult" or not. Firefly, Mystery Science Theatre 3000, and Press Your Luck all seem to be clustered under the "cult" definition, yet I see really little linking them. DISCUSS!)

In this version, much like the show, you get two question rounds and two spin rounds. Rather than fiddling with the incredibly testy input-your-answer-by-keyboard method, you can buzz in first and choose from four possible choices for three spins, or wait until someone else picks first then choose from the three remaining choices for one spin. Full disclosure: Both this review and the next are made on hour-long demos, so I can't get very far into these games to make accurate judgements. I throw in this warning because at least in the very early stages, the AI is incredibly slow to buzz in, so you're almost definitely guaranteed to hear the full question and still buzz in for three spins. Perhaps this gets a little better as you unlock the twenty "games" as you go along, where you face off against (what I'm assuming are) more difficult sets of opponents. Oddly, each pair of contestants you face against has a little mini-story behind them, almost to justify the difficulty curve. The first two contestants you face off against both "could use a little more sleep", ie, they're slow on the buzzer.

I'm actually a bit surprised to say that this version pays close attention to some of the finer details about this show. While the music isn't exactly the same and sound effects might be slightly different, a lot of the set design and graphics feel right at home compared to the original show. If there's any major difference to be noted, it's the questions used for determining spins. While the original show had questions that seemed to cover a lot of topics, most of the questions on this version are about TV and movies. Namely, you'll see a lot of questions in the form of "What character did [celebrity name] play in [movie title]?" This may or may not account for some of the character bios as well, for example, the pair of sports fans who might not be up on this sort of trivia. (*shrug) I'd rather have a wide range of questions, but then again, I'm really not up on movie trivia.

One other difference (or similarity?) that needs to be mentioned is the "randomness" of the big board itself. It didn't take me very long before I realized that the bouncing lights on the big board were in fact random (unlike the pre-made patterns used early in the show's run), but the boards themselves were not. In fact, there seems to be three boards for each round, and one of them contains no Whammies at all (see above). Once you figure out how this works, you'll likely find yourself watching one signal square to know exactly when to stop and never hit any Whammies. You'd think that they'd do a little more to prevent this (after the whole Michael Larson fiasco and all), but apparently they're not concerned about people cheating. You know, cheating that's as easy as pie, intravenously injected into one's body: not nearly as delicious, but it's still pie.

Right, so there's a good amount that "isn't quite right" here, especially if you're a purist fan of the show (hm, cult makes sense all of a sudden...). The music is different. Only one of the Whammy animations was ever seen on the original show. The only "prizes" on the board are trips, all with the same value. There's no flokati rug. Those aren't Peter Tomarken's and Rod Roddy's voices. What do you want from them, man? They're both dead! If you're one of those game show fans that is seriously distraught by differences from the original formats, stay away from this game. Otherwise, you might find this game to be a quite enjoyable tribute to that show you always watched reruns of on the USA Network as a kid. In either case, as an alternative, I have to give mention to a freeware version I found online years ago. While the original developer seems to have yanked his homepage, it's found on some freeware download sites (like here). It lacks the question round altogether and Whammy animations (although there are plenty of audio files from the original show), but it's still very well-made, easily customizable with the included tools, quite a bit of fun, and FERE. Sorry, free. My typing seems to be off today.

The final game in this "home version" round-up is The Price is Right 2010 Edition, also by Ludia. Sadly, my review on this game is going to be extremely short, because there's very little to say here, especially if you bought the last version of the game (which I believe also came out on Wii and maybe some other platforms).

If you've not played either version, let me run down the fast details: You can play either alone or as a group, earning the right to play on stage with the Item Up For Bids (hereafter referred to as "IUFB"), playing pricing games, spinning the Big Wheel, and trying to win it all in the Showcase. If you're playing solo, you can play with either the 3 Strikes mode, where you play until you accumulate three losses (but only from the IUFB's and Big Wheel, oddly enough), or Classic mode, where you play through a typical "show" of sorts, where you play everything in the order and conditions given by the show (you have to win an IUFB to play a pricing game, you have to win the Showcase Showdown to go to the Showcase). In any case, it's pretty much the same as the show you watched everyday during the summer and when you were home sick from school.

The big problem is that there really isn't anything new here to see. Ludia seems to have just regurgitated the last version of the show, but with the newer set design and a change in the characters you can play as (which I completely forgot to mention during the PYL review, but it's the exact same thing here, so it's no big deal). If you jumped to buy the last version, you'd be better off continuing to play that one than to buy this one as well. I'm not even joking when I say that almost nothing has changed about the IUFB's, the pricing games, the prizes a/o prize footage, or the showcases. In fact, I'm pretty sure that the first IUFB I bid for with the 2010 version on this computer (my netbook), my desktop, and my desktop with the older version (2008 or 2009?) was the exact same garden shed.

I apologize for keeping this review so short in comparison to the Press Your Luck review, but there's very little I can say about a rip-off of one's own product. If you like the show, by all means, give this a shot, but don't buy both versions, they're nearly identical. It's a shame because I'm sure host Drew Carey would have loved to have been involved in the production of this new version, but it looks like no effort was made to actually improve the game itself from its last incarnation. If you're still looking for more information, I'd recommend this video review for the old Wii version, it coincides with most of my opinions (just, you know, on PC), or check out the Jay is Games review.

On a wholly unsatisfactory and unrelated closing note, this is the first time I've tried throwing in alt-texts with the graphics. Do they seem to be working? I'm not sure if I did the code right or not, and the "Preview" function on Blogger doesn't seem to show the alt-texts at all.

The Night I Saw Indigo

2010-02-22T18:36:00.004-05:00

This is not the sort of blog post I would normally write. My goal is not to deliver any opinions on anything. I just want to try to share this scenario with you. Please bear with me.

I left the campus television station and started walking toward the dining hall. I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to eat tonight, but as I crossed the road to the sidewalk that leads down the side of the hill, I noticed that something felt very odd. I started to look around me. It's been very mild in the area lately, and the temperature's been hovering around freezing for the last few days. As such, when I went into the studio, all of the snow had been gone for a few days, and it was still light out. When I came out of the studio, a barely noticeable layer of white had appeared on the green grass. The sky was still barely lit, like that shade of indigo that your elementary school art teacher tried to describe to you as the shade the sky is right before it gets dark, but you could never really get the full grasp of it because there was no representation of it on the six-pointed color wheel she used in class. Tonight, indigo finally made sense.

Along the path, I noticed that the lampposts from the sidewalk further up the hill were shining down on the snow on the hill next to me. The snow had an eerie glowing effect, not sure if it wanted to reflect the white lights above me, the yellow lights further down the path, or the green grass still trying to peek through. The sight of the grass in this state was suddenly accompanied by a scent. It smelled like the first day of spring, but not quite yet. Something was barely restraining that sensation from reaching my nose, but I couldn't identify what. I spotted the occasional snowflake falling around me, but I heard the sound of raindrops falling, yet neither fell on me, because the tree cover somehow only protected me and my path.

I reached the bottom of the hill and got on the brick road that leads to the dining hall. Here, tiny, waist-high lampposts shined bright white lights on their surroundings, including the snowy hill I had just descended. I was now surrounded by buildings, by life, but yet the feeling of unfamiliarity remained. As I approached my destination, all I could think about was "Taps".

I've always imagined this perfect arrangement of the song, which starts out with a male quartet singing the words (and yes, there are words to Taps). In this case, it would probably be just the second verse, Day is done, gone the sun / From the lakes, from the hills, from the run / All is well, safely rest; / God is nigh. The tenor sings the verse as a solo, with the bass, baritone, and lead singing a simple chord progression after each phrase. When the tenor finishes, the others hold out their final chord while the tenor and lead start humming "Amazing Grace" from the same spot. Normally, this arrangement continues to be a cappella, but tonight I heard a soprano saxophone sneaking into the background, improvising freely between lines. A light drum beat, maybe gentle bongos, joins in, and the symphony is complete.

Perhaps the song only makes sense in my own mind, but this arrangement establishes a sense of calm in me. "Taps" is generally a morbid song, played only at burials and military ceremonies, but here it's reassuring, comforting. It says, even though we may be going through miserable times, there's still hope. There's always tomorrow. Keep going. Suddenly, the uncomfortable luminescence of the snow is soothing, and the falling rain is warming. As "Amazing Grace" carries on, it picks up in speed, not to the point of cheeriness, but to enlightenment. Everything's going to work out.

Anecdote aside, these last couple of weeks have been very difficult for me, and I see things continuing to slide downhill for the next couple of weeks as well, but somehow I know that in the end, it'll be alright. I've got friends and family to encourage me, I've got a plan in mind for handling what's coming, I think I'm going to be alright. If you're the praying sort, please pray for me, and if you're not the praying sort, pray anyway, it's good for you. I'll be sure to keep you all in my prayers as well, and hopefully this story has helped to boost your day or someone's around you. We're all in this together. Everything's going to work out. Keep going.

Bring Your Scarlet Lips To Me, Sit Closer To This Fine Lad

2010-02-14T14:36:00.005-05:00

Thinking caps on, class, it's puzzle-solving time. And with prizes!

A while back, I had an idea for a gift for a friend. I bought a bunch of perler beads and made a series of video game characters (using actual sprites for reference, thank you very much). They were intended to be Christmas ornaments (just stick a little hook through the top of them), but when I found out that he usually doesn't get a tree for himself, I needed a backup plan. You know, something else a bit more utilizable. In the end, I thought of Fridge Tetris, a bunch of Tetris-shaped magnets.

I asked the recipient to make a YouTube video of their reaction when they opened the package, and he definitely seemed to enjoy his new toys. "This is quite possibly the coolest thing in the world, and I've been... Okay, I haven't traveled that much, but... This is still really, really cool!" Mission accomplished, I'd say.

Since then, I've been returning to the idea of Fridge Tetris as gifts for people. It only takes a couple hours to make (and that's while watching Schlag den Raab), and I already have a large supply of beads (maybe too large? I need to kill those off...), so I figure, why not? Other recipients have reacted with similar amounts of glee, so I know it's a fun idea worth repeating.

The problem, however, lies in the setup process. I always make sets of 28 blocks (four each of the seven shapes), and I try to knock them all off in one ironing session. I have these large square pegboards that I make all of the pieces on, but no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to squeeze them onto one board. I end up with about 25 pieces on one board, three on another, and my first time ironing them didn't end well, as the iron knocked some of the pieces out of place when sliding over to the second board. I've avoided this in the past by making multiple sets and spreading the pieces more evenly across three boards, but I'd rather find a way to make a single set on a single board.

Here's the puzzle.

I'm looking for a way to fit all 28 pieces (again, four each of seven shapes) onto one pegboard. The dimensions of the board are 29 pegs by 29 pegs. Each piece consists of four touching 2x2 squares, as shown in the picture. (Thus, the famous "LINE PIECE!" is a 2x8 rectangle, while the "SQUARE PIECE!" is a 4x4 square.)

Some other rules to keep in mind:
--The pieces may not touch. This includes all sides and corners. While I know that it's easily possible to snap apart things joined at the corners, I would prefer that the pieces keep their rounded edges, rather than a random flat edge where a border once occurred. There must be a one-peg border along all sides of the piece, with the exception of the outermost edge of the board.
--Pieces cannot be flipped. While you could argue that a S is the mirror image of a Z (sorry, "SQUIGGLY" and "REVERSE SQUIGGLY"), I also apply more pressure with the iron on the first fusing before flipping the pieces over to fuse the backs, and the more-fused sides usually become the side I put the magnets on. To prevent inconsistencies in appearance, I would prefer that the pieces are in their proper orientations on the board. (The same applies for the J and L pieces.)

Ultimately, what I am trying to find is whether or not it's possible to make the 28 pieces on one board given the above rules. If it's not possible, then it's not possible, and I guess there's nothing I can do about that, but if it is possible, the first person who presents a valid solution will receive a free set of Fridge Tetris magnets. Fine print: Colors may vary. Product will be made and shipped at my convenience, I'm on a schedule too, you know.

I know I've got to be forgetting some other rule or restriction, but I can't remember it for the life of me, so go nuts. If I remember it, I'll add it here. Submit your questions and solutions in the comments box. Thanks, and good luck!

Update: Congrats to Derek for coming up with this solution, tweeted to me in an amusingly small 29x29 picture. For some reason, it seemed natural to repost it as a snapshot of an Excel spreadsheet so you could see the gridlines. So, Derek gets some Fridge Tetris lovin', but it's not too late to get your own batch! See the comments for more details...

Introducing: The iCurve

2010-02-01T23:45:00.003-05:00

An incredibly unfair exaggeration, but I just had to get this one out of my head. That said, I still wouldn't be surprised if twenty years from now, I see a man walking down the street with a white box over his head. As he passes by, you hear his muffled voice, "Yeah, I got the new iCube! Isn't it amazing how technology keeps improving?"

Now if you'll excuse me, Zach Morris is calling me on my cell phone.

"In Case You Missed It...." 2009 Year in Review

2010-01-29T16:30:00.005-05:00

If you've been listening to my radio show or the clips of it I've been posting here, there's really not much to add. Just enjoy. Happy New Year!

...It's not too late for one of these, is it?

In Case You Missed It... 2009 Year in Review sound bite

(Note: There's a loud bit near the beginning, so you might want to keep your finger near the volume knob.)

If I Had Creamers, I Could Make Sugar Shooters

2010-01-24T00:37:00.006-05:00

I'm back at school again, and I've got a few writing-heavy courses, so I likely won't be blogging as much as I once was, or at least, not as much as the last month. There are definitely some things lined up in the chute though, so be sure to keep an eye out for all of that.

In the meantime, I asked a friend (Katie Sekelsky, I'm pretty sure I've talked about her before... Oh yeah, here) about tea. It's a beverage that I've never really enjoyed before, particularly since most of my experiences have been with nasty iced tea. In conjunction with her webcomic Magpie Luck, she created a tea blend at Adagio Teas, and is, as far as I'm concerned, my go-to authority on teas. I wanted to know what she would recommend for someone who wanted to "get into" tea (in the way that one "gets into" drinking warm beverages). This is what she had to say:

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I am assuming you have mainly only had instant iced tea (and not iced tea brewed by making hot tea w/ loose leaf and then chilling). And so you should expect a much different taste with hot tea.

You can go all out, as I have, with loose leaf tea and infusers. It is not really that expensive to get into, but I would definitely recommend starting out with bagged tea, since you aren't sure yet if you're going to like tea at all and you won't want stuck with a bunch of gadgets and bags/tins of tea.

In general, though, bagged tea is considered inferior to loose leaf. But I am not yet snobby enough about tea to not drink bagged tea sometimes myself or to not recommend it to others. I would recommend against Lipton hot teas, though, as they are probably the lowest end for bagged tea you will find at the store (though they are still totally drinkable).

Now, you might want to start out with an herbal tea. Which is not actually tea! It just infusing herbs/fruits into water (and therefore inherently decaf). But it will get you started on the whole "drinking a hot beverage with a lighter taste" thing. I would recommend either a mint or a fruit. But really, go for wherever your tastes lie. You can find a decent variety of bagged herbal teas at the grocery store (and actually, for herbals, Lipton should be just fine).

When you get into actual tea, there are a few varieties (and sub-varieties and so on). And I would recommend trying a variety, because they are quite different and you might hate one but like others, and it's not really a matter of weening yourself from one to another.

Here are the main types of tea:

Black tea: The most common type in the States. Odds are, if it does not specify another sort of tea, it is black. It is typically stronger, and the hardest to mess up (other types of tea can get bitter if brewed too long).

Green tea: A lighter, earthier type of tea. Much different from the types of iced tea you've likely had.

White tea: Also lighter. I've not had as many varieties of this tea, though, as I don't like it that much. Except when paired with mint.

Red tea: Actually an herbal tea made from the rooibos plant which grows in Africa! And also decaf. It has a very distinct taste that I like a lot, but is very hard to describe.

You can get all those varieties in different flavors as well, which you will probably want to do before trying an unflavored variety. There are fruity teas, spicy teas (see: chai), minty teas, flowery teas, etc. Again here, go with the sort of thing you like!

You can also add things to your tea, which you may want to do at first. Such as sugar (though if you dislike sugary iced tea, you may want to play it light here), honey (same goes), and milk (which I would only recommend for stronger chai blends).

So, in summary:

Try an herbal tea. Then try a flavored tea (probably black). Then try some non-black tea. Then try unflavored teas. If any of the above are too bland, add sugar or honey. If any of the above are too strong/spiced, add a little milk or cream.

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So I went to Walmart and got some tea.

Is it something I would continue trying? I guess so, although I'm still not convinced I wholly like the taste of it or not yet. Maybe my tastes will grow over time, or I'll put those sugar packets to good use some other way. (Actually, adding one sugar packet did make a difference. It tasted a lot better.) In any case, it was a fun trial, and shows I really need practice with webcams. (Eventually, I'm going to have to stop doing these irrelevant conclusions.)

Spaß an einem Samstag Nachmittag

2010-01-13T22:27:00.006-05:00

Photo: http://www.farmshow.state.pa.us

I don't watch much television, and when I do, it tends to be very odd selections. For example, right now I'm watching the Pennsylvania Farm Show Sheep to Shawl Competition. If you're not familiar with the most amazing sport on the face of the planet, teams of five have about two and a half hours to shear a sheep, spin the wool, and weave it into a shawl (over six feet long, minimum). I don't know why, but this is absolutely gripping television to me. Between the race to the judges' table and the following auction (one sold for $3400 last year), I just can't not watch it.

Honestly, I can't say I have any "favorite" television show, although I've admitted that the only television show I've ever cleared my schedule to watch was The Mole. It was probably one of the very few reality television shows that had a true play-along element (as compared to a phone-in element), and the entire setting of espionage in a foreign country sucked me right in. Sadly, ABC never really respected this show and always shoved it to late hours, then wondered why it never got higher ratings.

I have a tremendous aversion to German, by the way. (Really, this is leading somewhere.) I don't know where exactly my phobia of the German language began, but I'd like to think it has something to do with my former life as a Music Ed major. German is "an incredibly easy language to understand" to everyone except me, apparently. Memorizing German is almost impossible for me, which is a shame, because some German art songs are stunningly beautiful. I've noticed that lately though, I've been spouting random German phrases to people, like "nein, das ist verboten" or random German counting (for numbers less than ten). Perhaps this aversion is slowly wearing off.

This may or may not explain my recent fascination with a little show called Schlag den Raab (Beat Raab). In it, a contestant (selected by a live vote) faces off against German television personality Stefan Raab in a serles of challenges. The first challenge is worth one point, the second is worth two, and so forth to game 15, worth 15 points. The first to reach 61 points (out of 120 possible) wins. If the contestant wins, they receive a jackpot that starts at €500,000 and increases by €500,000 every time Raab wins.

The challenges widely vary in nature, from traditional sports (volleyball, handball, ping pong) to trivia or puzzle challenges (identifying the title of a book by its cover, buzzing in as soon as an item that doesn't fit a category shows up on a screen, naming a celebrity that's reading a passage by listening to their voice) to more extreme challenges (driving ATVs on an outdoor course, egg-and-spoon races on beams suspended off the ground) to more ridiculous stunts and things you'd challenge a drunk person to do in a bar (hammering nails into a board 2 feet above one's head, flicking a coin into a glass, combining five keyrings into one keyring)... Pretty much anything's up for grabs.

Photo: http://www.prosieben.de/tv/schlag-den-raab/

One trend of shows I've noticed in Germany (possibly in other countries, I'm not sure) is the popularity of periodic shows such as Schlag den Raab, which only air a few episodes per year, and take up the better portion of an entire night. Wetten, dass..? is another show that follows this trend, and is watched by well over half of German speaking folks across Europe. Schlag den Raab usually runs for at least four hours (think about it, there's a minimum of 11 games to play, plus commercials and musical guests) and starts airing at 8:15 on Saturday nights (in Germany, obviously), so it's an evening pretty well based around the television set.

The next episode airs this Saturday, January 16, and starts 2:15pm EST with a contestant playing for a €1,500,000 jackpot. I plan to watch the show as I finish packing to return to school. There's just one hitch... There's not really any legal method to watch it live in the US. There's a bit of hunting involved to find a website that's streaming the channel live. If I find something then, I'll be sure to post a link to it on Saturday, and I'll admit that I'll most likely be obtaining the link from Bother's Bar, so you'd be best off watching for a link there.

That said, keep watching this space for an update, and we'll see you Samstag.

Update: Show over, yanking this link. Yikes, that was a smidge embarrassing for the contestant. For those of you who missed it, Stefan won 63-15, after round 12. The contestant, Torsten, won only rounds 1, 5, and 9. A definite highlight worth noting: A game where some bread was loaded into a toaster, and the first to buzz in started a timer. If the toast popped before ten seconds, whoever buzzed gets a point. My definite favorite though was the backwards music game. Give it a shot, it's a lot of fun. For a bit of a play-by-play/commentary on everything, I will again link you to the Bother's Bar discussion.

Print This Out and Put It Where A Loved One Might Find It

2009-12-24T02:51:00.008-05:00

Dear Honey,

Hi, it's me, ________________. I know you're probably still searching for the perfect gift for me for Christmas. Time's running out, you know! However, my good friend Steve recommended a very good list of games that I think you should buy me. And everything's on sale on Steam until January 3! After all, that jewelry/sweater/other: ________________ you already bought is really ugly, and I was going to take it back to the store and use the money to buy Borderlands anyway.

Steve Strongly Recommends I Get These Games:

Braid - $2.49 - Steam - JiG review
Steve said that this was one of his favorite puzzle games that he played this year. The time-based puzzles are fun, and quite a challenge to wrap one's head around. Plus, the music and artwork are soothing and gorgeous (respectively), and the ending could change how you see life. Deep stuff.

World of Goo - $4.99 - Steam - JiG review
Steve said that we are basically unawesome until we've played this game. World of Goo was the winner of several indie gaming awards, and rightfully so, as its innovative gameplay and riotous sense of humor have made it a tremendous joy for Steve to play. Seriously, we're behind the ball on buying this one. I think that's why the neighbors have been letting their dog pee in our garden.

Audiosurf - $2.50 - Steam - WLWLOH review
I hate going to the company Christmas party because my coworkers all make fun of my ability to get down to the music. Audiosurf would be an excellent game for helping me find my inner groove while jamming out to the music I already love. Okay, this game might not help me learn to dance, but Steve said it's fun, a'ight?

Chains - $.99 - Steam - JiG review
Oh, come on, this one's only a buck! Steve said that Chains has a very interesting twist on the match-3 and samegame genres, and a variety of challenges to match. He also said that he had french toast for breakfast this morning. (Irrelevant, but I'm having a hard time coming up with any other quirky things to put at the end of these mini-reviews.)

The Wonderful End of the World/AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA! Combo - $11.24 - Steam - JiG review of TWEotW - A! review forthcoming
Steve said that the fine folks of Dejobaan Games have outdone their previous 75 years of video game design with these two astonishing games in one convenient, bite-sized package. We both said we liked those Katamari games on our son's PlayCenter thingy, and TWEotW captures all the fun we had with that and put into a computer-able game. And AaaaAA! is probably the closest we'll come to going skydiving considering our age. I wonder if there really are floating buildings up there?

Steve's Friends Who Are Also Very Knowledgable About Games Would Probably Recommend These Games As Well:
Machinarium - $9.99 - Steam - JiG review
Trine - $7.99 - Steam - WLWLOH demo impressions
Time Gentlemen, Please!/Ben There, Dan That! Combo - $2.49 - Steam - JiG reviews for BTDT, TGP
Crayon Physics Deluxe - $9.99 - Steam - JiG Review

Hope this gives you some ideas!
XOXOXO
--Yours

This Rule of Thumb Actually Involves Thumbs

2009-12-22T00:51:00.004-05:00

And it's quite handy too. You're welcome.

Any game in which a glitch is formed where your thumbs become fused together inside a chain-link fence is generally not a good game.

Mirror's Edge, then. I downloaded it over Thanksgiving break because it was on sale, I'm probably going to give up on it over Christmas break. Why? Because it's just starting to irritate and bore me.

Okay, you have to admit, it's a sexy game. The developers have paid a lot of attention to visual details, and the result is clear. The world is drop-dead gorgeous, although very white, which really should be considered cheating since they can fall back on simple gradients rather than trying to create intricate artwork, but we'll forgive that. But beyond the eye-candy of all the intricate levels to explore, there's a sense of aggravation looming in the darkness.

For those of you unfamiliar with Mirror's Edge, a plotline summary in 50 words or less: Faith is a "Runner" who uses parkour to try to clear her sister's name. Oh dear, that was only 14 words...

First off, I understand that in a certain sense, Mirror's Edge is a puzzle platformer, although not in the same sense that Portal and Braid are puzzle platformers. You've got to get from Point A to Point B, lather, rinse, and repeat. Usually, your Point B becomes the new Point A, and you've got to work out where the next Point B is. This is all fine and dandy, except either certain levels are designed to obscure your target destination in whatever ways possible, or I'm generally too stupid to figure out the ways to get there. There's a "Runner's Eye" system where objects that you need to use turn red to catch your attention, but this does not occur in all instances, and sometimes finding the way to a red object is half the battle. I kid you not, there have been times where I've sat putzing around in a corridor trying to find a way up onto a higher platform for literally half an hour, only to find that the answer was in a one-inch ledge on a wall that I never really realized was there before. I mean, who could have missed! the one inch ledge on a wall above me. Naturally. Unrelatedly, this Faith girl clearly has the strongest fingertips known to mankind.

If it's not the puzzle aspect that seems a bit unintuitive to you, maybe it's the combat system that seems a bit off-kilter. Occasionally, you will encounter police officers (of varying levels of experience or expertise, apparently) that you must disarm and/or kill. Since your character is unarmed, you've got to use only fists and feet to get the job done, unless you manage to rip a gun away from someone trying to shoot you (although there exists a statistic for your save file that counts the number of people you've shot, which I want to believe is significant later in the game, so I've been trying to avoid that route). However, Super Smash Bros. this ain't, as all you can really do are kick, punch, flying kick, sliding kick, and that's pretty much the lot of it. Thus, my melee strategy is just to mash buttons whenever I meet someone in SWAT armor. (Oh wait, it IS Super Smash Bros.!)

However, the kiss of death in this game seems to be how long it is. Or rather, how long the chapters are. One key thing about gaming and me is that I can't stand long sessions of the same thing over and over again. Team Fortress 2 is incredibly tolerable, because the game is constantly changing, and if it's not, you can change your character as you see fit. Half Life 2 is painful, because the chapters are incredibly long, but at least you can save and walk away at any time during the level. (Still, I've been wandering around in Ravenholm for hours now, and I'm wondering if that level ever ends.) Mirror's Edge is particularly painful in that there are checkpoints to return to if you die, but you can't save in the middle of chapters. Some chapters are stupidly long to begin with, not to mention the fact that I'm clearly too thick to get certain puzzles, so they take twice as long for me, so having to quit in the middle of any level is tremendously aggravating. I can't stick around for long periods of time to finish a single level, and I can't be bothered to return any time soon when after an hour and a half in a level, you get a glitch like the one above.

I will concede that Mirror's Edge is visually stunning, and that it does turn a lot of conventional platformers on its ear with a versatile parkour-style navigation theme. There's just too many things that drive me batty about the game to make me want to continue, and that's a bad thing. Did this make sense at all? It's late, which is part of the reason why I'm not bothering with links this time. In a nutshell: Mirror's Edge, not worth it unless if you've got a higher tolerance for this sort of aggrevation than me.

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Edit: I think it's only fair that I include this little addendum. The post above was written while incredibly tired, which I think I mentioned. However, in fairness, I should also mention that the only reason for writing the post was to vent rage about a glitch at an irritating moment in the game. In other words, you could call the post the equivalent of writing emails to your boss while drunk. In no way does it end well, except it's something your co-workers can laugh at the next day.

Now that that's out of the way, and now that I'm a little less tired, I can tell you in good conscience that the above negative review stands. I think I can justify it a little more coherently now.

I understand that there's a certain amount of skill to play any sort of game, and the skill required varies from game to game. In the case of Mirror's Edge, you could say it's about half coordination/skill/timing and half puzzle/problem solving, and the reason that I put them at a 50/50 split is because there are parts where both are required and parts where one definitely trumps the other.

On the puzzle/problem solving side of the coin, much of the challenges involve figuring out how to get from Point A to Point B, as I mentioned above. The main problem that I have with this is that the solution for getting there isn't always clear, and at that, you might not even know where you're going to begin with. You can get a little help by tapping the Left Alt key, which automatically turns your head to look at where you need to go/what you need to do. (By the way, don't do this while moving, you might accidentally walk off a ledge because of the sudden turn of your motion.) The (other) problem with this is that the guiding system doesn't always respond to your cries for help (as if to say, "C'mon, the solution should be obvious, just go down this hallway"), or it tries to show you the solution too many steps in advance. This is often the case with trying to climb upward in narrow corridors, like mentioned above. Hitting Alt pretty much makes you look straight up, which doesn't help much when you need to figure out which wall to wallrun-jump off of to grab on to which pole to swing to which ledge and so forth. Similarly, there are instances (particularly outdoors) where hitting Alt points you to a building far away, where your goal is to get to a door on the other side of the building (but you don't really know that until you get there). To sum it up, when you need help the most, it's not likely you'll be able to get it.

Then there's the coordination/skill/timing side of things. Once you figure out what you need to do, doing it is a completely different matter. You occasionally have to make large jumps over certain-death heights, and these jumps always seem to require that you get enough speed and jump at the exact right moment, or else you plummet downwardly. Even when I've had to repeat certain jumps due to dying shortly thereafter, I still find myself missing the previous jumps due to the accuracy needed to complete them.

In the same category of skill/timing, I need to cite this example of another frustrating thing about this game. In a certain level, which I forget, you encounter a certain character, whom I forget, and have basically a mini-boss fight. To start the fight, the character delivers a surprise blow as you arrive at the top of a flight of stairs, grabs you, and throws you down to a lower roof on the building. The character then jumps down, charges you, and attempts to beat you with a pipe. If you fail to disarm the man just before he strikes you with the pipe, he hits you, then grabs you again, holds your helpless body up for a moment while he flashes another evil smile, and throws you to the street below where you die. An exciting scene, yes, but it becomes significantly less exciting when you realize that every time you die, the exact same sequence starts again. From stairs to concrete, it's about 40 seconds (estimate from memory, sorry if I'm off). To beat the boss, you're supposed to (1) realize that you need to disarm the man when he charges you, (2) find the exact moment to disarm him (which can be aided by using the R key, which slows time down for a bit), and (3) actually do the disarm. Prior to this stage, I had never disarmed a man in the game, nor had I used the R key, so it took me quite a while to even remember how to do either. The sad bit is, after at least 20 tries (and I'm not exaggerating that), I finally managed to disarm the man, and watched carefully for the next part of the fight... but disarming him also disoriented him, and he basically ran off the edge of the roof. Boss fight over, and I only had to click once at the right time. What the heck? After wasting way too much time figuring out what to do, it all came down to one well-timed click? Sloblock, that. It's instances like this that make this game frustrating, and you actually feel for a moment as though you've been wasting your time.

There are other instances of ire which I won't go into (as it's once again becoming late, and I'll just slip into my incoherent place once again), but just know that these moments of frustration and helplessness and illogic make Mirror's Edge an unpleasant experience for me. Maybe your mileage will go farther, but it just wasn't my cup of tea. I don't know if I'll be returning to it anytime soon, but if you feel so inclined to give it a try, you might as well download it now on Steam, as it's now on sale... More on that later. I've got a cold, so sleep is a higher priority than last night. Stay tuned...

"In Case You Missed It...." Round-up 2

2009-12-11T15:35:00.002-05:00

What happens when a quiet radio station gets swarmed by a crew of unruly staff members? About the same thing that happens on most other radio shows on WNTE. But in this episode (from last week), "In Case You Missed It..." opened the studio doors for a visitation day, and several other hosts came for the fun. And chaos ensued.

In Case You Missed It... 12/4/09 sound bite

Check us out at wnte.com, or listen to this week's clip to find out who is the reason why we can't have nice things.

Save a Horse, Ride Joe Thomas

2009-12-11T02:19:00.008-05:00

Whenever I travel, I like to have a certain CD in the car with me. Well, two CD’s, actually. One is the Maria Rita CD that I seem to mention every time I do a longer entry on here. The other is a mix CD that I’ve labeled the “Feel Good Mix”. I tend to pop it in on the last leg of my journeys, and for whatever reason, “Jessica” by the Allman Brothers Band always seems to come on when I’m arriving in the town of my destination.

Music, in this sense, seems to be a vehicle of sorts, controlling the emotions we feel, taking us to certain highs and lows. There are moments of excitement during the drive, and moments of relaxed cruising. And while I acknowledge that this is a terrible way to set up the game I’m about to review, you could see how music is like a road to travel on.

Right then, Audiosurf. A couple of months ago, I bought Audiosurf on Steam (it was on sale… as are most of my game purchases anymore). Audiosurf is a game that takes your music and makes an interactive “road” to travel, challenging you to pick up blocks and make combos for points.

Each song that you put into Audiosurf goes through a quick analyzer that finds the song’s high points and low points, basic rhythm, swells in the music, and changes in volume. Through whatever mysterious process, these are all taken into account when making the “path” of that song. In slower, quieter parts, the path tends to go uphill, and in faster, louder parts, the path goes downhill. It’s like a musical roller coaster, if you would.

Except I now redact the roller coaster simile to return you to the “road” theory, as along the road are “cars” (ie, colored blocks) that correspond to the rhythms of the music. You play as a spaceship of sorts that collects (or avoids) the cars in order to make clusters of similarly-colored blocks in a grid beneath you, which makes the entire thing feel a lot like Guitar Hero mixed with a match-3 puzzle. Larger clusters score more points, but also, warmer colors (which pop up more often when the music is more “intense”) also get you higher scores. If you gather up too many blocks and overfill a row, your ship is temporarily paralyzed, and you have to wait a bit to be able to collect blocks again.

There are (if I remember right, I’m typing this up on a different computer) 14 different “characters” (spaceships) to play with, spanning three difficulty levels and six specialized skills. Playing a “Mono” character means you’re collecting any colored block while avoiding grays. Playing an “Eraser” character lets you remove blocks of a certain color from the grid, then throw them back up later to grab some extra points. Other characters let you randomly shuffle the grid, shift blocks before they land, and even let a second player join in for co-op play.

In a nutshell, that’s Audiosurf. This game literally lets you “ride your music” (catchphrase, that) with a pretty trippy neon roller coaster theme that’s engrossing and fun.

Unfortunately, you also realize how boring of a human being you are.

Way back when I used to geocache (man, I need to get back into that again), I was on a cache trip with a friend where we discussed his iPod, and my reluctance to get one. If I remember right, my primary arguments for not getting one were (1) cost, (2) I have the tendency to doom myself to be the last to catch on to most tech trends, (3) there was always something slightly unsettling about having a portrait of your personality (via the music you listened to) that could be seen by anyone who touched the thing. I still don’t have an iPod, but I’ve got iTunes, and taking a look at my list, I don’t have much to be ashamed of. It’s mostly jazz with a few scattered oldies, high of 69. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.) There are a couple whole albums of classical music and liederwhatnots, mostly stuff I purchased when I was still a music major, but likely never listened to (except the Debussy album, that’s a good one). I suppose if there’s anything that would stick out as “abnormal”, it’d be the more ethnic bits, like some Portuguese jazz, zydeco, or a group known as “Slavic Soul Party!” (Really, they’re good. Look them up.) Since I really don’t host any social functions in the rooms where I keep my computer, my iTunes list stays pretty well under wraps, and if I need music, I throw some good stuff onto a CD (or use the ones mentioned at the top of this post). On the whole, you could say that my music is fairly easy listening, if not outright relaxing.

However, Audiosurf is a game that’s dependent on fast guitar riffs, heavy drum beats, and loud singing for a lively (and therefore higher-scoring) ride. You can play through your slower songs and still have fun, but after a while, you begin to feel the slowness of your music, which becomes apparent after a string of slow songs. On rides like these, you might average about 30k-40k points, which pales in comparison to the 700k scores you see topping the high score charts on “more exciting!” songs. Granted, if you’ve never heard of the song, you can’t blame yourself, but you wonder what it’s like on the heavier side of the game.

To counter this sense of boredom (and to create a sense of community), the developers of Audiosurf select a few songs every week or so that are available for download and playing within the game. They usually pick a good mix of songs, often all by one or two indie artists, and occasionally fitting a theme. There’s usually a longer techno/RPM piece, a guitar-heavy fast piece, maybe something slower but still active to change things up, and a few other treats thrown in for good measure. If you like what you hear, links are included to download or purchase the songs. So everyone has a chance to hands on some more active music, if you don’t mind the weekly shuffle.

That all said and done, I have one more complaint to file about this game. Songs that rely less on guitars and vocals and more on the percussion and bass tend to “jerk” along as you play the game. Since the drum beat is what registers as the more dominant sounds in the song, they will be what the program makes the faster portions of the song. When every quarter beat is just a smidge faster than every eighth and sixteenth beat in between, the road usually moves very slowly, but incessantly speeding up and slowing down. In certain modes where avoiding certain bricks is key, this is intensely annoying.

It’s also worth noting that you won’t gain tremendous amounts of musical ability by playing this game, so I wouldn’t recommend it for use in a music classroom, or at least not more than I would recommend Guitar Hero or other faux musical ability games. It’s basically DDR for your hands, except the rhythm of the song is taken only as a suggestion for the actual patterns of movements you make. It’s a shame though, because unlike so many other music games on the market, this one doesn’t jeer at you for doing a less-than-stellar job. Even if you suck something fierce at this game, it never insults you, and you’re always allowed to continue playing the song and finish racking up more points. The only exception to this is if you decide to play in “Ironmode”, where your abilities are more limited and overfilling a column automatically ends the song. (Frankly, I don’t see the point of using Ironmode. The game only suggests that Ironmode is done “for the bragging rights”.)

Other than a couple minor quibbles and the self-induced paranoia about your music collection, Audiosurf is a good game and worth every penny of its (low!) price. If you’re still trying to come up with some good gift ideas for Christmas, this might be something worth giving to the music fanatic in your life. It’s simple to get the hang of and family-friendly (well, pending the music you use, of course), and good for quick ten-minute breaks from working. Whether you’re a hardcore music nut or just someone who likes to sing along with the radio in the shower, Audiosurf is well worth a shot when you just want to have some fun with your music. The hard part is resisting the urge to throw your hands in the air when you go down a hill.

Official website
Steam website

"In Case You Missed It...." Round-up 1

2009-11-20T15:11:00.003-05:00

I've been waiting for a good chance to mention this, and this is probably about as good of a time as ever. I have a radio show on the campus radio station in which I play music and talk about the news of the past week, usually with terrible jokes thrown in for good measure. This week happened to have a ton of great news stories, and I'd like to believe (oh dear, my head's swelling) that it was one of my better shows to date. I managed to record most of my segments, clipping only a few seconds off at a couple of places, and uploaded the result for you to enjoy. (You know, in case you missed "In Case You Missed It...")

In Case You Missed It... 10/20/09 sound bite

If you're in the area (and I do mean really local, the signals can't travel far due to terrible terrain), you can tune in to the show Fridays at 1pm EST at 89.5 on the FM dial. Or, you can listen on the web at http://www.wnte.com and join us for the fun.

Why I Write Sketches and Not Draw Them (Part 1 of a Series)

2009-11-18T01:03:00.004-05:00

...Except I really don't write that many sketches... I should get on that.

Anywho. This morning (which I suppose is yesterday morning by now), I turned in a ten-page research paper that sucked up a lot of my time over the past few weeks. I knew that as soon as I was done with it, I wanted to throw up another post of some sort. I've had two or three games I've wanted to review, and will likely submit one to the site for this weekend (if I get around to writing it). It's nice to be able to write freely again, or at least, until the next major project is due (early December).

Instead, for reasons I'm not entirely sure of, I pulled out a sketchbook, snapped a photo of myself (for lack of an easily accessible mirror), and drew a self-portrait.

Yikes.

In my defense, I'm using a rather terrible scanner, which has a hard time picking up very light lines (ie, it just drops them altogether). A lot of the shading I had in the original sketch disappeared in the transition to digital. I tried to pseudoPhotoShop a bit of the shading back in with some tweaks to the contrast and brightness, but there really wasn't much I could do. Also in my defense, I'm using a 5.5"x8.5" sketchbook, which isn't exactly an ideal height/width ratio. That at least partly explains why my head is so skinny.

Beyond that, I'll say that I have a history of hating any self-portrait I do, and my lack of love for shading (particularly things that aren't already black and white) trumps all. Trying to shade the (as you're looking at it) right cheek was a nightmare, as either it was too dark compared to the unnaturally light left/top of my head, or darkening the latter just made me look like my face was caked with mud. My hatred for shading runs deeply, and I wish there were some way I could get better at it. (Oh, I guess that I could also use the fact that I'm using a mechanical pencil in my defense.)

Anywho, I would like to start putting more random sketches up, and it'd be an awfully swell bonus to improve as I went along as well. If ever I find the time again to sketch something/someone, I'll keep you guys posted.

This Anniversary Only Makes Sense If You Knew Me Five Years Ago

2009-10-31T23:07:00.000-04:00

Hm, twenty-fifth post.

Happy Halloween, and Happy 25th Thing.

(Bonus: Pumpkin Two!)

Celebrate Good Times, Come On! It's a CelebrOOWWWWW MY EARS

2009-09-23T01:18:00.005-04:00

I'm sorry to inflict this sort of cruel punishment on you, but I have to celebrate right now. Back when I was a music major, we had this weekly performance hour on Thursdays (called Promenade). Depending on your specific major/concentration, you had to perform once or twice a year for credit. Somehow, I always ended up performing on the same week every year (first week in April). (If ever I decide to post it, there's an interesting little story that goes along with this. We'll see, maybe later.)

Anyway, this particular week that I was performing, I did a piece called Luke Havergal by... I forget. I'll look it up and keep you updated. But anywho, I was first on, and my performance was... meh. This was back when I was still a nervous performer who didn't particularly like his vocal professor and had nothing but negative thoughts about his own abilities. The truth of the matter is, the recording IS pretty terrible, that hasn't changed at all. I flub a few notes, I miss at least one entrance, the diction is pretty mushmouthy, I don't project well enough, there's just a lot wrong here altogether.

Following the performance, I took the master recording (one of the perks of working stage crew... although it would have been preferred if I didn't have to work stage crew on the day I was performing, thank you very much) and made a copy of the CD. But I didn't do this so I could hear my own performance, no no. David Wert, a good friend of mine, did a vibraphone duet with (insert second person's name here... I need to look this stuff up somewhere) that I really enjoyed. I made a copy of the disk, returned the original, and that was the end of that for a while.

There was a slight problem... I had forgotten what I had done with the disk. In fact, I had completely forgotten that I had even made the copy. At the time that this was all taking place, I was in the middle of swapping out one crappy Dell computer for another (I could go into long details about the fight that occurred, but suffice it to say that it all boils down to the biggest oxymoron around anymore: Customer Service). I managed to keep my old hard drive, and for whatever reason, made the copy using the software on it, rather than the new hard drive. However, while recalling these events, I had myself convinced that I simply ripped my piece and Dave's onto the old hard drive, and forgot to transfer it over with all of the other old files.

Since about that time, the old hard drive remained wrapped in a static-free cloth bag of sorts, with some extra padding around it inside a plastic bag. For months, I kept telling myself that I needed to find a way to transfer the song from the old hard drive to the new one, but never really got around to it. Also, I lacked the means to transfer much more than 4GB, because at the time, I was limited to either using re-recordable DVD's or a flash drive. I made several DVD transfers at the time my new computer arrived, but couldn't figure out why I never transferred the song.

This changed recently, when I bought myself a new 320GB hard drive, and I realized that the reason I was never able to transfer directly from one old hard drive to the other (sorry for the confusion with all of these hard drives) was that I had the power cable hooked up to both, but still only had one data cable. Upon a little beg/borrow/stealing from good friend Steven Gustafson, I had meself a new used data cable, and all that was left was finding the time to do the transfer.

That all happened tonight. Sensing a bit of free time on my hands, I grabbed the old old hard drive, popped open the side of my tower, and started to dig in. Much to my dismay, I couldn't find the file that (I thought) I had ripped from the disk. I spent about 50 minutes trying to run searches for "*.mp3" between 4/1/08 and 4/18/08, but nothing came up. It wasn't until late in the night when I tried to recall the events of when I first borrowed the master copy, and I realized that I might not have ripped the songs at all. Luckily, I found my spindle of used-but-unmarked CD's and DVD's, went through the CD's in the stack, and bingo, EPIC WIN.

So to celebrate me finding Dave's performance, which I have now listened to several times while writing this, I thought I'd upload something completely different. Yes, Luke Havergal. Aren't I swell?

Luke Havergal sound bite

Luke Havergal
Baritone(ish): Stephen Lewis
Piano: Kristina Moritz
Recorded April 3, 2008

Yet It's No More Handicapped-Accessible Than It Was Before

2009-09-05T20:51:00.009-04:00

From the makers of Campus Tower Defense, it's time for CampusTD2!

(I mean, CollegeHumor did such a good job with Minesweeper...)

Classes Start Tomorrow! Stop Having Fun!

2009-08-30T22:43:00.004-04:00

Yeah, you heard me!

Rather than do my usual itemized game review thingy, I'm just going to rant on a bit about some games I've been playing lately. I've been back at school for the last week for band camp and classes finally start tomorrow, so I've got to get a bit of bloggery in edgewise before I'm required to have actual duties again.

Texas Cheat 'Em

Let's see what new icons I have on my desktop... First one that jumps out at me is Texas Cheat 'Em. For those of you who would never believe I'm a poker addict, you're actually quite right. I played a bunch of Triple Jack back when it was popular on the site, but I never really got into it as much as some. I've never gambled real money, nor do I intend to anytime this century. (And yes, the opportunity has been there.)

Texas Cheat 'Em, then. Unfortunately, with only the demo, there's only so much you can really do with the game, but what I saw was enough to convince me not to buy it. The main selling point of TC'E is that while you're playing, you can use cheat points to alter the community or hole cards, peek at someone else's cards, steal someone's chips, and all sorts of otherwise-illegal tactics, pending your success on a small skill mini-game. The problem is, especially when playing against a somewhat thick AI (and I had selected the hard difficulty, mind you), it becomes a bit too easy to skew the cards in your direction a little too often. I don't know if online multiplayer play changes this at all, but it just seems sorta flawed. The advert videos stress that "it's not whether you win or lose, it's how good you are at getting away with cheating" or something like that, but frankly, the cheating's rather unlimited if you do it right.

So it's a shady concept, but how about the execution? I appreciate the fact that you can play the game pretty much entirely with the left hand (on WASD keys), and I like the little twist on how you bid (all players put in a "maximum bid", and anyone below the max has to call to keep in), but stylistically, it rather sucks. There's really nothing that jumps out as amazing in the graphics or sounds, but the "annoyance factor" gets a tremendous boost because it takes literally ten seconds to begin a new round. Once the winner is revealed, there's a (not) flashy animation with a (not) flashy sound effect telling you that "You Won!" or "You Lost!". This is then followed by a recap of what cards you had in your hand, and if you lost, what the winner beat you with. This is then followed by a recap of everyone's hands and whether they won or lost money over the course of that hand. It's not until this screen has been up for at least two, maybe three seconds that you're finally given the ability to press on with the game. This entire process takes about ten to twelve seconds, and if you think I'm exaggerating, an on-screen timer confirmed it for me.

Trine

So with poker out, I guess I now have to justify some other game genre. Let's go to the adventure platformer Trine. There was only an hour-long, two-level demo that came along with this one, so I can't really critique too much of it, but from what I experienced, it was pretty fun. In a nutshell, a wizard, a knight, and a thief become kinda "bound" in the way that magical crystals of weirdness usually do, and you've got to get from point A to point B switching between their three forms, using their special abilities to get there. The levels are beautifully designed and have a lot of nice physics puzzles to wrap yourself around, although it can get tricky at times, and you might wish you had more checkpoints lying around.

As I only have the demo, I've only played a bit of the one-player campaign, although there is apparently a three-player co-op mode, which sounds like a lot of fun, each person controlling a different aspect of the team. Trine also gets definite bonus points for getting a reasonably good review from Zero Punctuation (note: if you're at all familiar with 0P, you'll know not to click that link until there are no kids in the room). And while I've probably given enough reason to like the game enough to buy it, the main thing keeping me from buying this game is the $30 price tag. I dunno, I guess I'm cheap. I usually try to pick out games that are either on ridiculous markdowns or are just inexpensive to begin with. I'm sure this game will probably come down in price eventually, hopefully down to $15 or less, then I'll pounce.

Droplitz

Speaking of things that were on sale, I grabbed Droplitz on sale this weekend for two bucks. In a nutshell, Droplitz is like most Pipe Dream-esque games that you know, in which you rotate the pipe segments to direct the flow to a certain goal. In this case however, the pipe tiles are hexagonally aligned, and the flow of droplets [sic] runs with gravity. Using splitting pipe segments, you can rack up a ton of points by making a bunch of top-to-bottom connections at once. On the whole, it's a very simple game to learn, and you'll end up losing a lot of time to this game.

The truth be told, as you progress through levels, you really don't notice the changes of background and graphics as you're playing. If anything, you'll notice the changes in the music tracks. The music seems to be on perpetual music loop, which, just off the top of my head, is a strange chord progression that runs something along the lines of vi-IV-I-V, but the music changes to match (somewhat) the themes that you pass through, from a coffeehouse theme to a valentine theme to an arctic theme to a warm jungle theme. And when you do rack up those huge combos, the music swells and a heavier drum beat kicks in, to let you know you're kicking butt and taking names. So aesthetically, it's a game that you can let yourself get lost in, and play for hours.

...Which is exactly why I'm not sure I should recommend this game. It's relaxing, and it's addicting, but I'm surprised to hear myself say that I'm not entirely sure that that's good. There is a point where a game might get to be a bit too addicting, and you don't realize until 45 minutes later that you've been playing the exact same game, repeating the exact same process hundreds of times over. And while replayability is definitely a good thing, I started to wonder why I was replaying it. It was simple enough that I could go on for hours, even though I shouldn't have. It was addicting enough that I found myself imagining ideal situations in my mind while not playing the game, trying to mentally rack up a ton of combos with the X blocks. But for some reason, it still doesn't feel "right" recommending this. I guess it's because I know some people will genuinely hate this game, but then again, that's the risk of recommending any game. So let's settle this once and for all: If you've got the ten bucks to shell out, this is probably worth a look. If you're still not sold, wait until the next sale rolls around. (Good luck.)

The Lightning Round

Bedtime's coming soon, so I'd better hit the rest of these icons on my desktop kinda quickly. 3Tones could have made for an interesting match-3 game, if it actually lived up to its promise of taking your music files and creating a unique gaming experience from them. That's bull, there's no correlation between the music and the game. Fail. Yumsters! 2 takes an interesting concept of threading like-colored objects while making sure your ropes don't cross, and kinda spoils it with the premise that you're helping a bunch of musical worms. Sorry, the plotline's just killing it. The demo for Plants vs. Zombies has been sitting on my desktop for months now, and I've not felt the urge to buy it yet. It is quite fun, and all the characters you get to play as are quite hilarious, but I guess I'm just not feeling the push to buy it. Coming down the pipeline, I pre-ordered AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!!, and if it's anything near as fun as Dejobaan's The Wonderful End of the World (which comes as a free bonus for pre-ordering AaaaaAA!), then I know I'm in for a good time.

So go play games! Before school starts! DO IT NAO!

Poetry 'n Ocean

2009-08-16T22:05:00.007-04:00

Two thoughts I want to get off my chest today. First off, today was the first time the entire summer I went swimming. I find this terribly sad for several reasons. Number one, it's less than a week before I go back to school. I've had the entire summer, as well as a semester before then that I could have gone to the Y and jumped in the pool, but I never did.

Secondly, I really like swimming. Or if it's not that I like swimming, then I definitely missed swimming. It's safe to say that the last time I was in a pool prior to this was with a bunch of screaming day care kids, so "swimming" was limited to whatever you could do in a wading pool with a nice pipe system spewing water in a few different directions. Before that, the last time I was in a pool was in Slovenia during the choir trip last July. We had one night in that country, and the hotel we were staying at (absolutely gorgeous, by the way) had a pool. I went up there after a long day of sightseeing and generally being touristy and had so much fun jumping in a nice, relaxing pool. And with friends, too. Fun times to be had by all.

Though, if I could have the chance, I'd love to have a pool to myself for a day. Or if not a pool, then a nice stretch of beach. For some reason, I just like to be out there, swimming. I don't exactly have an aerodynamic body, but there's a really simple pleasure to be derived from pulling one's self through the water. You just float there, letting your own natural buoyancy keeping you afloat. Then you thrust both arms above your head and pull them back down to your waist in an arcing motion, and you're gliding along on your back. Add in an appropriately timed frog kick, and you've got the elementary backstroke. Lather, rinse, repeat, repeat, repeat, and you've got bliss in its simplest form. You glide over the water, and the water glides past you.

Way back when I was a Boy Scout (a chapter of my life I usually neglect to mention, for whatever reason), I would go to the summer camp each year. The merit badges probably didn't mean as much to me as the mile swim that'd take place every year. On Monday, those interested would swim a quarter mile inside the confines of the roped-in waterfront area. On Tuesday, it'd be a half mile. Wednesday was given as a day off, and anyone left who was still up for it (usually just me, in the years that I went) would do the full mile on Thursday. Rather than sticking to the designated waterfront area, the mile swim started by jumping off the dock and swimming outside the yellow rope perimeter, out into the Allegheny Reservoir, going from the green buoy to the red buoy (intended as markers for speedboats), back and forth several times before coming back in to the dock. There would always be a rowboat or two sticking close by for safety purposes, but aside from that, I was alone in my own little world. I would switch from breaststroke to side stroke (switching sides periodically) to elementary backstroke and back to breaststroke, relaxing the entire way. There was no rush to get done in a certain time, so you could conserve all your energy and mellow out in the water. Of course, traditionally, as soon as I would get back to the dock, I'd always get a foot cramp, but it'd be worth it. An hour of constant swimming, with nothing in your way... It was bliss. I think I did the mile swim at least three times (maybe four, possibly five, but I can't remember). And at a ceremony at the end of the week, they'd recognize you with the patch and card saying you did it, but who cares. It's an elementary joy fulfilled out in the middle of nature, where the only thing stopping you from enjoying yourself is the guy in the rowboat telling you you've veered a bit off-course. ...So? Let me be.

I don't think I could ever do competitive swimming. Soon after I earned my Shark patch from the YMCA, I received a letter asking me to join the swim team. Which sounded all fun and dandy, but I think I passed because of other time commitments. I can pleasantly say that I do not regret this decision. Swimming was always a fun thing for me, and I don't think I could enjoy adding a competitive edge to it. If it takes me a bit longer to swim the length of the pool compared to the guy next to me, so be it. I enjoyed the trip more than he did. Fine, so I'd never get my name up on the board of records mounted on the wall of the pool room at the Y, and fine, I won't end up like Michael Phelps, but that's a loss I'm okay with. I'll just get my gold medals whenever competitive blogging becomes an Olympic sport. (Look ma, I'm qualifying!)

During the summer, I'm a generally boring person. It's rare that I take a "vacation" of any sort, except for the ones that are required (choir trips, etc.), and they're really not true vacations at all. You could say that I'm a workaholic and don't want to leave my insignificant part-time jobs to spend away my hard-earned money, you could say that I'm just intolerant to traveling, falling asleep on hour-long car trips and waking up cranky. Whatever reason it is, I just don't get out and see the world as I probably should. So when a reviewer friend of mine, John Bardinelli, told me he was visiting some friends along the coast, I was genuinely jealous. On one day, he wrote to me and said that he was playing Dragonball Z against the ocean. "You know, where you stand your ground, let the waves pound you while you block and let it push you back in the sand. I withstood over 9,000 waves, and I am in pain. The good kind of pain!" Now, whether or not he actually stood in the ocean and faced incoming waves all day long while screaming for no apparent reason while his hair turned large and an aura of energy started to flare up around him, or if he just spent the day playing around in the water getting knocked back by the occasional large wave, I haven't the slightest idea, but in either case, there was nothing that I wanted more than to be right there at that moment. I missed water.

So this was probably the first time I've swam since last year. I had to leave the pool early due to other commitments, but I enjoyed every moment I was in there. I still got a bit of sunburn, despite putting on some lotion beforehand, but who cares. I was in my element for a while, and there was nothing that could stop me from enjoying it.

Pseudo-related: The I-fluid review finally went up today. I felt that I needed to include that, not just for plugging purposes, but also so there's a little more clearly-defined break between the first portion of the post and the upcoming second.

I can't say I really understand poetry. I know I ranted about my dislike of poetry before, but a new thought has crossed my mind regarding poetry, comma, what is. If I understand the basics of written language decently enough, then I think it's fair to say that the "opposite" (for lack of a better term) of "poetry" is "prose". Or, that which is not written in verse or meter or what-have-you is of the essay nature.

But what's really the difference between the two? The reason I ask this is because last night, I turned on the radio to A Prairie Home Companion while traveling to the Warren County Fair. Oops, sorry, I meant to give a few moments to acknowledge some fun times I had at the fair... And we're done. So I turned on to the radio to PHC, and I recalled in the adverts airing earlier in the week that said this was (I think) their annual poetry show, with much of their skits, songs, and guests dedicated to things poetic and bardly. I turned the radio on right as William Farley, the 2009 winner of Poetry Out Loud, was announced to read Langston Hughes's Theme for English B. It was an interesting poem, but the thing that caught my ear was how he read it. The poem didn't seem to have any rhyming scheme or set meter, so I wondered, if someone were to come in right when the poem started, having not heard the introduction and knowing that it was a poem, would they be able to tell it was a poem and not just prose?

Consider the following sentence: So much depends upon a red wheelbarrow, glazed with rain water, beside the chickens. It's an awkward sentence yes, and that's not even counting the punctuation I tried adding in. That poem, presented above in "prose" form, is presented again in its original "poetry" form:

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

William Carlos Williams, everyone. Let's give 'em a hand. That was XXII, or The Red Wheelbarrow, depending on who you ask. I'm not going to try to elaborate on the meaning of that (cough) poem, I'll leave that to someone else's blog. Besides, I've already told you that I can glaze over poetry like any piece of prose, so I'm now left to ask, what's the difference?

Modern poetry (ie, just about anything that wasn't written on the title page of a Berenstein Bears book or by Shakespeare himself) seems to relish in the free-form poem, where rules of rhyming and meter go out the window, as well as proper grammar, capitalization, and spelling. This seems extremely unfair to me, as I have had numerous English teachers in the past who have asked me to write poetry, expecting proper meter and rhyming. I had one teacher who deducted a point or two for a "near-rhyme", something like trying to rhyme "elation" with "devotion", where the last syllable rhymes (or, it is the same), but not the preceding syllable. "Elation" and "decoration", perhaps, but "devotion" just wasn't going to cut it. Come freaking on, what did you really expect from us? I would have loved to have written a paragraph about my dog (which I never had), then broken it up into random phrase segments with punctuation peppered in like... well, like salt, and handed that in to the teacher. But no, everything's gotta be either AABB or ABAB. (There's an ABBA joke in here somewhere... Poetry is my Waterloo?)

The rules of what poetry were and weren't changed as we got older and started to experience more exotic writings. Things weren't as cut-and-dry as a Shakespearean sonnet anymore, and this is probably where my hatred for poetry started. There was no longer any defining line for what could be considered poetry, so long as, and I'd recommend reading this next part as though you were a high school drama teacher, it had emotion. So long as it was flowing from your heart to your paper, it was poetry. So now, when asked to write poems, we (or at least, I) had the impression that it had to be some lovey-dovey bag of sap in order to be poetry. I now know better, but when you're asked to "write from the heart" about something you don't really care about, it's really hard, and almost a bit painful.

I apologize for going a bit off-topic, what I really wanted to discuss was what the difference between poetry and prose was. My answer: There is no difference, it's just how drunk the guy running the printing press is. And in order to prove my point, I thought it would be totally neat to write this entire blog post up to this point in rhyming iambic pentameter, with ABAB rhyme scheme. It wouldn't be very pretty. In fact, most of the end-of-line rhymes would be mid-sentence or possibly even mid-word, but so long as every tenth syllable held some sort of rhyming power, who would care. Of course, to prove my point, I wouldn't reveal this until now, and then I'd include a portion written in proper iambic pentameter form, just to show you what I had done right underneath your nose without you realizing it. But I have nowhere near enough rhyming skill to be able to pull that off, so the idea was quickly dropped.

But coincidentally, while looking up the name of the poem and whatnot that had appeared on A Prairie Home Companion, I noticed that a listener had written in to Garrison Keillor, asking why rhyming wasn't a part of poetry anymore. GK's response, which I strongly encourage you to read, gave a fun-poking answer to the question, putting much of the blame on the listener's hometown of Berkeley, CA. However, it was done in rhyming couplets. There doesn't seem to be any meter, but every pair of lines rhyme. However, if you took out the spaces and extra capitalization and read it as a paragraph, you could get the exact same response, but without the jerky stop-and-go of a poem. I really wish I could quote the poem here, because he goes on to elaborate on the actual nature of poetry and what it's intended for, but strangely, I truly feel afraid to post something here for the first time because of legal reasons, knowing I'll somehow mis-cite it, and this is the first poem from someone still alive that I would've posted in this blog, so I know he can still sue me for it. I do strongly encourage you to go and read the letter with the title "No Time for Rhyme?" here, and if you're reading this some time later and the post has disappeared from the front page, find it in the July '09 archives, second one down.

The bottom line: Poetry confuses me in uncomfortable ways. If not by the deeper meanings of a lot of poems, then by how they're supposed to be written, read, and enjoyed. The rules of poetry have been bent more than an overused paper clip, and the line between poetry and prose is becoming so thin, it's practically non-existent. I'd like to think this is one of the reasons why I find it so hard to get an emotional rise out of poetry, and a lot of other songs and lyrical media. I don't know how to elaborate further on these thoughts, but just know that I would be more than willing to jump into your swimming pool this week if you have one available. (Nice dodge, that.)

Shame I Didn't Win the Raffle, It Would Have Been Fun Being Photographed With the Oversized Check

2009-07-23T22:43:00.005-04:00

I got a letter in the mail today. I'm not sure about the legality of reprinting these sorts of documents without consent, but I don't think the sender would mind too much. (I do love how I'm so concerned about all sorts of legal concerns when it comes to this blog... I have to preface everything I do that I find slightly questionable, so that when I'm considered for a Supreme Court nomination down the road, I won't have to explain the comments I made years ago about how a wise Latina woman could make better decisions than myself.)

A bit of backstory first, I suppose. On the Fourth of July, I marched in the local parade with what was called the "Warren County Band", if I recall correctly. It consisted of "Students and alumni from Warren, Youngsville, and Sheffield High Schools." (Again, loosely quoting what was listed in the parade program, the newspaper, the Fourth of July website, and even read aloud at the Judges' Stand. This is significant later.) I neglected to count exact numbers, but between the three schools, there were probably 60 or so instrumentalists, and I don't even know how many color guard, maybe another 15-20. A good-sized parade entry, considering that many others weren't able to participate due to being in other organizations in the parade, having to work, or being out of town. (Again, this is significant later.)

So far as I know, participation in the group was completely voluntary, and word was spread solely by word of mouth (or at least, that's how I found out about it). On the first and the third, we met at Warren High School for two-hour-long rehearsals. The piece was an American trilogy of sorts, with "America the Beautiful", "Chester", and "America". I'd never heard of Chester before, is it safe to assume it's one of those Civil War-era songs that nobody really knows about anymore? But anyway. It was a nice arrangement, and I had it mostly memorized pretty quickly, and anything I didn't have memorized, I could make up fairly easily. (Hey, I play tuba, all I really do is arpeggiation on the bassline anyway.)

The parade went rather smoothly, and it was good fun too. We were fairly early in the parade line-up, so we had plenty of time to put our instruments back on the bus and go back to see much of the rest of the parade, which was nice. For a group that was thrown together in about four hours' time and had only one hour of practice with marching (although most were veterans from their own high school's/college's bands), you could really tell these kids all wanted to be there and were ready to put on a good show. What surprised me the most was the high level of professionalism of these kids (and I should mention that while I'm saying "kids", I'm really only three years older than the majority of them, so it's mostly my non-existent seniority talking when I say that). If anything, it was the adults in the band (teachers, no less) who were breaking form more often and shouting things to the crowd (but then again, it was Mr. Lyle. You have to love Mr. Lyle. He's allowed to.)

Letter arrived in the mail today. It was addressed to me, although my address was somehow apparently wrong on their file (they were 30 off of my actual street address, but it was fixed on the label on the envelope with a pen). No worries, it made it here anyway. I look to see who it's from... the School District. The Superintendent. What? Why would he be sending me a letter... Ah, let's just open it.

--------------------

Dear Steve:

I would like to express my thanks for your efforts and participation in the Fourth of July Parade. Your dedication to your art is commendable and does not go unnoticed. That you were willing to take time from your busy life to express your community spirit and help to provide entertainment for others is very admirable. I, as well as all of the Warren County residents who were in attendance at the parade, appreciate your contribution to this important event in our area's history.

Sincerely,

(signature)
Robert E. Terrill
Superintendent

--------------------

Huh... Wow... I uh... Huh. Very much not what I was expecting to get from them. Or anybody. Very much not what I was expecting. But I had to put the letter down rather quickly, because I knew that the more I looked at what he said, the more I'd pick it apart, and I'd be unhappy with it.

Like I'm about to do now.

It's no secret that I'm amazingly overanalytical. All eight fans of my blog know that I tend to overexpound on little things and rattle on for hours in mundane chapter-length essays. Almost instantly, my mind started to do that with this letter. This "dedication to [my] art" he speaks of, does he know I'm not in Music Ed anymore? I guess I've not been very open about it, particularly with a lot of teachers (whom I had done observations with, whoops). My dedication "does not go unnoticed"? What have I done that's showed dedication, and who's been noticing? "Willing to take time from my busy life"? No sir, it was a pleasure to not have to work those nights... Did everyone get a letter like this? All these thoughts flooded my mind faster than you could say something that takes precisely three seconds to say.

The biggest bit that bothers me is the last sentence. "I, as well as all of the Warren County residents who were in attendance at the parade, appreciate your contribution [...]."

I walked into the dojo on the Monday after the parade for my morning workout, and as I was signing into the attendance record, a lady (who I'm not even going to mention how I knew her, but suffice it to say that we see each other on a regular basis so we know each other decently well) promptly poked her head around the door. She asked me if I was in the band, and I said yes. She asked me who all was in the group, and I again quoted "students and alumni from" yada yada. She then mentioned that she didn't know that, because she didn't see that printed anywhere. I told her that it was directly printed in the parade line-up, in the newspaper and online, as well as quoted verbatim by the Judges' Stand.

She then said (quoting loosely, as usual): "Well why didn't Warren have its own band in the parade? I'm mad. I'm honestly mad that Mr. Lyle wouldn't make it a requirement for students to be in the parade. I'm mad that Warren doesn't have its own band in the parade."

(sigh)

This is a recurring theme, by the way. Annually, there is a complaint printed in the newspaper's editorial page by some concerned citizen saying how ashamed they are of Warren's high school marching band and how they weren't in the parade (one even directly reprimanded Mr. Lyle) and how they are going to refuse to support the band in the future. Eisenhower High School requires their students to be in the parade, why can't Warren? Usually, at least one person, sometimes a student, sometimes an adult, jumps to the defense of the band, and says that many students are unable to participate in the parade because of involvement with other organizations in the parade, having to work during the parade, or being out of town for the weekend... Sound familiar? Exactly the same reasons I mentioned above, and exactly the same reasons given almost every year in a response published in the editorial page. How come Eisenhower does it and we don't? I don't know. I'm not sure what rules their director (whose name I'm intentionally not putting here, because I know I'll misspell it) has in place for that to happen. Eisenhower invited other schools' band members to partake in an all-county band one year that was a terrible flop for several reasons, which helped to fuel my surprise in the fact that this year's mixed band worked so well. Eisenhower was the only band who didn't participate in our mixed band, and since they were ahead of us in the line-up, I can't even make a fair judgement about how well they played, but from what I heard, they were... but anyway.

I'm not entirely proud of this, but after she said this, I threw the pen I was holding on the ground. Partially out of genuine rage, but also more out of the need to do something humorous, because I knew that if I didn't control myself, the gloves were going to come off. (It could have been worse, I could have always thrown the pen at her. And hot dang, that blue dot would have had quite the lasting impression.) I then explained the above arguments to her, work, away, and other organizations, but somehow, she still was not satisfied. I'm not entirely sure how the argument ended, but we were both looking at a newspaper where she asked about the other bands in the parade that won awards (and oh look, the Warren County Band, consisting of students and alumni from Warren, Youngsville, and Sheffield High Schools even got an award. Ver-freaking-batim.).

I really wish I never got into that argument, partially because it's bad form no matter how you look at it, but also because I felt like I really didn't get my point across. I couldn't convince her otherwise, and that bothered me. And since she clearly had a problem with the Warren High School having it's own band in the parade, then invariably, others would as well, and another freaking letter would be put in the editorial page, but I wasn't going to take it anymore. Should another angry letter show up in the paper (there was none, by the way), I was going to send in the definitive response.

Something's very much not right, if in the spirit of such a holiday, one tiny and insignificant thing isn't just "so", and therefore, the entire day is ruined because of it. If the non-appearance of Warren's marching band in the parade upsets you to the point where the day is absolutely ruined, then you've got one perverted idea as to what Independence Day is about. Surely the parade is for the purposes of celebration and entertainment, but if one particular act doesn't show up and your spirit of celebration is ruined because of this, you're clearly not celebrating the same thing the rest of us are. I'm reminded of an incident at the restaurant I work at on Easter Sunday, in which a table of patrons (who were hideously rude in every way imaginable) got so upset by their waitress's service (she did nothing wrong) that the father angrily declared to the manager, "Our Easter has been ruined by you!" I'm sorry, but just because you didn't get your feet massaged by the busboy, doesn't mean Jesus didn't rise from the dead. If your entire Easter rests on the quality of one meal, you've clearly got the wrong idea as to what Easter's about.

It's not enough that these complaints about the lack of a Warren High band come annually, you then factor in the fact that completely legitimate and honest reasons are provided every time, but they continue to be ignored. The first time this concern was raised I-don't-know-how-many years ago, it was a matter of genuine curiosity and the desire to find out. Every subsequent time was pure ignorance. We've given you the exact reasons why, but you refuse to hear them. When you refuse to hear what we have to say, you are officially labeled as "ignorant", and since this holiday clearly isn't meeting up to your expectations, maybe you shouldn't "celebrate" with us. I'm sorry, but you're no longer wanted here. Go to Brazil for a day.

Okay, so maybe it's a bit harsh, but it's the truth. Despite our efforts to provide for the community in any way we can, it's clearly not enough for certain people. It saddens me that these people continue to rattle the newswire in the way that they do, but some people feel that they just have to be heard by everyone who glances at page A-4, willingly or not. (Me? No, I just blog.)

Thank you, Dr. Terrill, for your note of recognition. It was a very pleasant surprise and brightened my day. However, I feel that your words are a bit exaggerated. Not everyone appreciates our contributions, as much as we'd like to think so. There will always be people who just can't be satisfied. But you clearly saw something good in our efforts, and for that, we thank you.

If I Were a Bad Demoman, I Wouldn't Be Sittin' Here Discussin' It With Ya, Now Would I?

2009-07-15T21:43:00.004-04:00

I just realized that I have five icons for demos of games sitting on my desktop, all in a row. Let's discuss, shall we? Left to right, then...

Brainpipe - link
Synopsis (in 10 words): Guide the eyeball down the speedy tube and go insane...?
What I Think of It: The subtitle for this game is "A Plunge to Unhumanity". The website suggests that this game does some weird things to your brain (the terribly photoshopped tabloid-esque pictures are worth a look). Yet somehow, all this game is is a fly-through-the-tunnel-and-dodge-the-obstacles game. The visuals are gorgeous and the sounds go well with the experience, but the fact that they're trying to make this game seem like it's some sort of brain-altering experience just... I dunno. The effect they're trying to get really doesn't work by slapping on pseudo-psychological terms.
Will I Buy It? No. The demo only lets you start from the beginning of two levels, and I can't beat the third to see if anything interesting happens, but it's enough to show you that it's just another tunnel-flying game. It's pretty, but not worth the dough.

Yosumin! - link
Synopsis: Meet quotas by eliminating boxes of similar shapes by corners.
What I Think of It: Oh dear, you've got to love Japanese-based games and their ability to slap smiley faces on everything and suddenly make them seem 180% more appealing. Yosumin is definitely fun, although it's not the first time I've seen the game mechanic of finding quadrilaterals with corners of the same color in a grid. So it doesn't get the novel points, but it definitely gets the ear candy points for having one of my favorite music loop soundtracks I've heard in a game in a while.
Will I Buy It: Still trying to decide. The hour-long demo was quite enticing, although I'm not sure if it'll really be worth the money in the later stages. If nothing else though, be sure to check out JohnB's review on JiG for this game. There's even a link to an online version to try out (if you're willing to blindly click Japanese until things work).

Flock! - link
Synopsis: Aliens guide rubbery sheep to ship in beautiful patchwork land.
What I Think of It: This game and I got off on the wrong foot. Initially, the controls were terribly confusing and frustrating, as I thought you had to move the UFO around the level using the mouse, which was a pain, since it never went where you wanted it to go. On a later play, I realized the keyboard could be used to control it as well, but my attitudes toward this game were already tainted. Flock!'s patchworky-quilty style is very nice to look at, in an almost Wallace and Grommit sort of way. The demo was only three levels, so I'm not sure how much this game has to offer in the way of "physics puzzles" (so far it's just been move and push), so I'm sure it's got potential, but...
Will I Buy It? I'm leaning towards to no. Maybe this game is great, but my initial experience left a very foul taste in my mouth, and I'm not sure I want to shell out the money for this one either. It does have fantastic production values though, so you have to give them credit for that.

Cogs - link
Synopsis: Slide tiles around to make strange contraptions run. And again.
What I Think of It: Be warned, this game is for sliding puzzle enthusiasts. If you've never been able to solve those sliding-tile puzzles you picked up at the dentist's office as a kid, I'd recommend staying away from this one. I'll give you a moment to scroll down if you wish. Still here? Okay. Cogs is all about sliding tiles with gears and pipes and other fun stuff on them to power little machines of sorts. Surprisingly, you can really stretch the concept of sliding puzzles, by putting different requirements for time, number of moves, and even throw in wicked variations (two-sided sliding puzzles, pseudo-3D sliding puzzles, etc.). The sounds and graphics make you feel like you're playing inside Big Ben, which is pretty neat, but in the end, it really is a sliding puzzle, times I-don't-know-how-many.
Will I Buy It? Surprisingly, the jury's still out on this one. It's a cheaper title, and I do kinda enjoy sliding puzzles, but the ~10 level demo really wasn't enough for me to know whether I'd like it later on or not. This is a prime example of a pet peeve of mine. I hate it when demos only give you samples of initial, easy puzzles. I could whip through those pretty easily, but will it ever get harder later on? Could you maybe show us the X1 puzzles in demos, like levels 1, 11, 21, 31, etc.?

I-Fluid (or spelling variants) - link
Synopsis: Guide a drop of water, with heavy emphasis on physics.
What I Think of It: I'm going to spoil the ending right now and tell you that I'm working on writing up the review for this one. It's got very impressive visuals, accurate physics, and it's European. Hooray culture! I do make sure to outline several painful faults in the review, which are: 1. Awkward controls, 2. Crazy camera, 3. Hit detection problems, and 3.5 (since it primarily occurs on only one level), Questionable AI. But as much as I want to hate this game, it's got a lot of replay value, and the challenges get quite tricky later on.
Will I Buy It? Already did. (For those curious, the icon for the full version is two to the right and up one.) And for only $10.25 (I guess it depends on the Euro/Dollar exchange rate on the day you buy it, the list price was $9.99), it's really quite a well-produced game. It's pretty large though (the 3-level demo is 125MB), and you'll likely encounter some things to nit-pick over, but it's still worth a go.

Well, that's that, then. I should probably mention that I think (I think) that all of these games are acquirable on Steam, although I tried to find links to outside sources.

Potential future blog topics:
--The aftermath of a party game. Another flop, but one that justifies the creation of the post category, "delicious failures".
--A ridiculously long essay/tutorial on Picross strategy, variants, and resources.
--A video tutorial on a favorite internet meme prank.

Phone lines are now open! And remember, which one I do next will greatly depend on how much money you bribe me with.

Here's to Hoping I Don't Regret This Decision: Ped Xing, Now Online

2009-06-22T19:57:00.003-04:00

One thing I've always been concerned about when it comes to the internet is privacy, and the fact that once something gets posted to the internet, it's basically available for anyone to see and use, forever and ever, amen. Sure, websites allow you to pull or edit things, but who's to say someone hasn't already downloaded what you've said or done and shared it with the other half of the world by now?

This is one of the main reasons why I've always been fearful over sharing what I would consider one of my "creative highlights" of my life, Ped Xing. Ped Xing is a project I did back in 2005 for one of my school district's "senior project" requirements. (That's a long story by itself, so I'm not even going to try explaining it.) Honestly, it was a project I had always wanted to do, but now that I had a legitimate reason for "having" to do it, I figured that now (then) was as good of a time as ever.

Since the final project was submitted, Ped Xing has stayed under my watchful eye for over four years now, residing only in a photo album that I show curious friends, and the occasional CD that I send out to people who I can't directly show the album to. (And maybe a random sample photo for some online friends or two.) I've always been afraid to go into other forms of publication with it, just because who knows who's going to steal it.

Recently, I sat down for lunch with Katie Sekelsky, a good friend and founder of the famed Taco Club. As a professional graphic designer and long-time webcomic writer (I suppose I should give a courtesy link to her newest upcoming project, Magpie Luck), she's had a bit of experience with copyright issues, and planted some seeds in my head. Seeds like, "You really need to put Ped Xing up on Flickr." Evil seeds.

But I'm afraid my work will be stolen or plagarized, he said tepidly, possibly misspelling that last word. "Don't worry, you can put it under a Creative Commons license," she said, or at least that's how we're paraphrasing it.

I don't know why it's taken me so long to do this, but I've finally decided to upload Ped Xing for all to see. For now, I'm being kinda stingy with my license, putting a "Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic" Label on it, which, I won't lie, I'm not entirely sure what it means, but it's at least a step in protecting my work. (I might peel back the No Derivative bit later, but for now, my idea = my idea, kthnxbye.) Hopefully in the future, I'll be able to bring this project back for a second go, and we'll have even more fun with cardboard men.

For now, click the picture below to see the album on Flickr. At some point in the future, I'll upload the photo captions/descriptions and other literary bits that went into this project. Enjoy!

Fair warning: I had long hair at the time of this project.

The Nice Thing Is, All of My Failures Are Usually Delicious in Some Respect

2009-06-12T22:35:00.004-04:00

The Annual 4th'o Taco Party is coming up, and I'm in a bit of a panic at the moment. I usually have a game or two or three up my sleeve to play, but at the moment, I'm having a bit of trouble coming up with new ideas for games. I've got one activity planned, but it'll literally take no more than ten or fifteen minutes to play. I could always resort back to the old classics, like 1000 Blank White Cards or Things, but I want to try something different, so I'm trying to think of Other Things to play.

I did have one idea come to mind, partially out of necessity, partially out of curiosity. In a previous party, I had a game where two teams raced to build a pyramid of cups (11 cups in the base, which was the killer, as one team thought they had won after only ten), but then in subsequent rounds, letting a member of their team fire at the other team's stack using homemade marshmallow guns. I still had the marshmallow guns (washed, of course) in storage, and found them recently when going through some old boxes of junk.

Also pertinent to this story is a gingerbread house kit, which I had bought back around Christmas, with the intention of getting together with some friends and making it, but we never got around to it. The kit sat around my room for some time, taking up space. When I found the marshmallow guns in the box in my room, my gaze shifted, if only for a split second, toward the gingerbread house kit.

The theory for the game was, each team has a gingerbread house (pre-made or made by the teams that day, I don't know), and a supply of marshmallow guns, or other sweet-flinging objects. In a sort of weird capture-the-flag variant, each team would set out to try to destroy the other team's house. Honestly, the entire game is just an excuse to do weird things with food. In reality, it wouldn't work for several reasons. One, cleaning up would be a pain, since I'd likely be peeling half-melted marshmallows off of just about every external surface of my house, two, people would likely have to be peeling it off of each other, three, if even one sweet wasn't picked up, we'd instantly become a haven for all sorts of insect problems. So in all practicality, this idea wouldn't fly.

But... Just... What If...

So summer's here, the weather is good, and a lot of my friends are home from school. I threw an open invite up to a group of them to work on "a project". Very vague on details, but I hinted that it involved food, which eliminated about 2% of all possibilities. On the day I had planned, only one was able to show up, Steve, my SSS brother. We got to work on the gingerbread house, and it was working pretty well for a while. (Gotta love the ominous addition of the words "for a while".)

Getting the house to stay erect while adding the decorations was hard, but we at least had the opportunity to blame it on the fact that hey, it's almost seven months old now. Unfortunately, while adding (ironically) a frowny face to the roof of the house, all four sides instantly decided to collapse inward, and that was basically the end of that house. There was no salvaging it anymore.

On the bright side, the gingerbread man, snowman, and tree were still standing (albeit leaning). With what would probably become the quote of the day, I blurted out (and let's see if this gets me on a terrorism watchlist), "We still have people, let's take them outside and shoot them!"

Not much more to say here, so let's cut to the moral of the story: Gingerbread house icing becomes cement if you give it enough time to dry. Amen.

Rec

2009-05-28T23:26:00.003-04:00

This post sets the record so far for shortest title for a post, yet leaves enough wiggle room for one or two to slip by there. Feel the suspense!

On Wednesday nights for the last, oh, I don't know, maybe ten years or so, I've been going to a youth activity night at our church, called "Recreation," or "Rec," as the cool kids call it. In a nutshell, it's an hour and a half of getting together, playing games, getting sweaty, and having fun. The faces running it have changed, and the games and people playing them have changed, but it's been a pleasure to participate for all this time.

Each night of Rec usually starts with a large mesh bag (or two) of balls. A few basketballs, about six or seven cheap dollar store nine-inch balls, maybe a soccer ball or kickball of sorts, a smaller wiffleball-type ball, and maybe a frisbee or two thrown in for good measure. The gym is (intentionally or otherwise) littered with the balls for the first fifteen minutes or so, and all of the kids run around throwing them into the basketball hoops a/o each other. After this, some sort of organized game starts to form. Dodgeball, kickball, ultimate frisbee, or some variant of one of those. (And trust me, we have a lot of variants.)

Part of the fun lies in those bizarre variants. Dodgeball is a fairly run-of-the-mill game. Dodgeball where you can only kick the ball is different. Dodgeball where you become a member of the other team when you get hit is strange (but ensures that everyone wins. Yay!). Dodgeball where everyone plays on a team by themselves is fairly common, but dodgeball where everyone plays on a team by themselves and as soon as the person who got you out gets out, you get back in, meaning that the only way to win the game is to effectively knock every single person out of the game at least once without getting nailed yourself, that's not as common.

There was one time when, I can't remember how, we got the center of a hubcap from someone's vehicle. It was basically a seven-inch round piece of aluminum with SUBARU printed across it. This became the centerpiece of a game of ultimate frisbee. It was nearly impossible to throw with any consistant accuracy, and it didn't help that there were probably only three people per team, but it was one of the most fun ways to risk getting tetanus that I've ever experienced.

Similarly, a game of frisbee outside in the former front yard of the elementary school went slightly haywire when someone threw the frisbee and hit the flagpole. Someone declared, "Well, that's two points for our team!" And pole frisbee was born. Goals are still worth only one point, but hitting the flagpole with the frisbee got you two points. Pole shots could only be taken if the pole was still "forward" along your team's offensive line, although you could pass back to a teammate behind the line, and they could hit it from there. Scores would often reach ridiculously high numbers (occasionally in the 40's or 50's), yet very few goals were ever scored.

As I got older, everyone else who came started getting younger. Or at least, it felt like that. Eventually, I was one of the few high schoolers who still attended, and one of the few college students who came back to help (ie, play). There were a few kids who also grew up with Rec, and it's still pretty neat to see them change from these young, annoying little kids, to these bizarrely mature high schoolers, then they disappear again until the summer.

The leadership's changed hands a couple of times at Rec, but it's not really ever lost its shine. The most recent "version" (for lack of a better word) has a prayer time in the middle, which is really neat, and is a cool way to minister to the neighborhood kids who come, but might not regularly attend a church. All in all, the same friendly spirit has been maintained for well over a decade now, and I felt somehow compelled to write about it in a blog post. (*shrug) What's it called when you're currently living through something you know you'll later recall as nostalgia?

Your Funny T-Shirt is No Longer Funny (Part 1 of a series, I'm sure.)

2009-04-15T00:28:00.001-04:00

T-shirts that have the text "The Man" with an arrow pointing up at the head and the text "The Legend" with an arrow pointing down at the crotch: Funny.

Men who wear this t-shirt while walking down the street holding a little girl's hand: Not nearly as funny.

I'm just saying.

Now We Are Six(th Kyu)

2009-03-23T23:27:00.003-04:00

I finally broke down and bought the Orange Box. I'm kinda excited because I can now play Team Fortress 2 with some fellow reviewers, and I can finally play Portal, which I've heard so many good things about (and the fact that it's a puzzle game is an amazing plus), but I'm bizarrely not excited about Half-Life 2. As is, it's a miracle in itself that I'm playing TF2, a kill-your-opponents game, because I've never really been into shmups (although yes, TF2 technically is more than just a shmup). Maybe someday I'll get around to playing HL2, or maybe someday I'll just pass it off to someone as a gift. Does anyone know if you can pass off games that you've purchased on Steam but not yet installed?

Anyway, while TF2's downloading, I thought I'd put in a little blog update. Not that I expect to be playing it anytime within the next six hours (wait, this is taking up how many gigs of space?), but with my connection slowed down a bit due to having something better to do, I figured I might as well put in some time doing something productive elsewhere. I felt bad about leaving my last post being something that really only mattered for a couple of days (although BFG had another game sale this past weekend with code SPRINGBREAK... whoops), so I wanted to get something up as quickly as possible just to freshen things up. I actually tried two separate posts late last Tuesday night, but they were both so amazingly incoherent that I couldn't bear to even finish them. (That, and the general fact that they went absolutely nowhere anyway.) Today though, I have a solid topic to talk about, so let's put the Maria Rita on loop and go for it.

The title for today's post was lovingly lifted from a book of poems by A. A. Milne that I got a while back (it was... oh yes, on my sixth birthday). Unfortunately, poetry didn't really interest me back then, nor does it really interest me much now. I usually read over a piece of poetry like any other bit of prose, rather flatly and emotionlessly. So far as I can remember, only one poem has ever really stood out to me in a "huh, that's interesting" sort of way. That was Walt Whitman's "When I heard the Learn'd Astronomer."

When I heard the learn’d astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

For whatever reason, the events I'll eventually get around to detailing in this post made me think back to this book of poetry, which I never even read, even in the almost fifteen years I've owned it. I dug out the book, and found that there really is no poem entitled "Now We Are Six," but instead the title comes from the last poem of the book (entitled "The End"), which is apropos for this post, so I might as well retype it here as well:

When I was One,
I had just begun.

When I was Two,
I was nearly new.

When I was Three,
I was hardly Me.

When I was Four,
I was not much more.

When I was Five,
I was just alive..

But now I am Six, I'm as clever as clever.
So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.

Abrupt subject jump: Let's talk karate. For those of you wondering, the famed "5000 Katas" tally disappeared rather quickly. Why? Well, once I started getting into the dojo and practicing the katas more heavily, I realized a tremendous problem: I lost count almost immediately. All of a sudden, the need to actually think about the movements in the katas and to focus on my stances and strikes and blocks completely overshadowed a petty little tally. If I focused on the numbers, the katas wouldn't have been good, and the entire exercise would have been futile. So for the 5000 katas plan to actually work, I would need to rent a midget to do the counting for me, so I could focus on the katas. (Why a midget? Simply put, he needs to fit inside my gym bag.) So yeah, 5000 Katas is dead in practice, although not in spirit. I'm still chugging along, just without the tangible steps toward a goal.

Since I've not had much more important things to do during the day than write reviews, prepare for work in the evening, or do whatever oddjob needs done around the house, I've been finding myself at the dojo roughly six days a week to work out. There are a couple of us who try to get together roughly lunchtime-ish (according to their work schedules) to spar around a bit, and there are another cluster of us who have been meeting after school-ish (according to their school schedules) on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to work on different things, and I still have the usual classes Tuesday and Thursday nights and Saturday afternoons for organized group practices. To say the least, I've been practicing a lot, and a lot of different things. I've since started work with on a lot of kenjutsu exercises, including working on the Toyamaryu katas and preparing for a possible trip to a chanbara tournament in P'burgh next month. I'm pretty sure that if I could spend full days practicing in the dojo with someone, I'd sign up in a heartbeat.

Last week though was sort of hellish though. Why? Testing. Need I say more? Those who know me know that I am bizarrely panicky when it comes to any sort of major test or examination. This past week was no different. I still went in town to the dojo everyday to practice as usual, but I could feel my nerves taking a hold of me. My mind was racing the entire week, and I had a hard time relaxing. (Okay, so not being able to relax is a running problem for me, but you get the point.) The night before the test, I had a hard time falling asleep, and I felt sick to the stomach for that entire day. I went into the test an absolutely jittery blob, and came out feeling like so much less. All of the katas that I had been working on for months were terrible, I blanked when it came time to recall terms and wazas, and honestly, I feel that it's by miracle alone that I passed that test.

Now I am sixth kyu. A blue belt. I was quite displeased that I had gotten to that level in the way that I did, because I felt that I had done a terrible job. I have no doubt in my mind that what I did was a terrible job. Nonetheless, I somehow passed, and found myself in the dojo the next day, wearing the hakama I wear for practicing kenjutsu, with a blue obi. I don't think I actually practiced that day. Instead, I sat on the floor of the dojo and meditated something fierce. I love the irony in how I phrased that, "meditated something fierce," but it's really the most accurate way of describing what I did then. I've never really been able to meditate before, but something actually worked this time around. For the last week, I had been completely unable to empty my mind and just relax, and the morning after, I finally accomplished thinking about nothing for probably the first time in my life. It's a nice feeling. I kinda miss it.

Anywho, I guess if there's one thing I "got" out of that time, it was that I came to accept my "fate," per se. I've come a long way since when I first started practicing karate back in what, June? Since then, I've picked up so much knowledge not just on karate but also kenjutsu and other fun forms, and it's weird to think that at one point in time in my life, I never thought I'd even make it this far. And yet, here I am. I have great potential, and I can't talk myself into thinking otherwise. After the test on Thursday, I managed to learn Heian Sandan in a matter of ten minutes on Friday and fifteen minutes on Saturday, with more fine-tuning today. When I first started, Heian Shodan took well over three days to get the hang of, but here I am now, understanding everything that's going on, and everything flowing so much more naturally.

I'm still by no means perfect in what I do, nor do I expect to be anytime soon. I'm still bitter about the test, but all I can do is just work out my kinks (and my tics) and just prepare myself for next time. I've come a long way, I can't deny myself that, and I have so much further to travel. Now I am sixth kyu, and I am clever as clever. But I can only hope that I will continue to grow for ever and ever.

Actually, in retrospect, that was kind of a dumb way to tie everything together.

Big Fish Sale

2009-03-16T11:13:00.003-04:00

Bah, Big Fish, the bane of my existance? Why? Too many games to choose from, and so little time. Then they come along with these crazy sales, and I end up spending lots of money on them.

But now, I pass the blessings/curses on to you. Big Fish Games is currently offering half off on all of their games, with coupon code LUCKOFTHEIRISH. The sale ends tomorrow, so if you want a game, you'd better get it quickly. There are plenty of games to choose from, so as a slight takeoff on my other job, here's a quick list of some things to consider, if you're in the market for another time-wasting addiction. I haven't much time, so I apologize for keeping these somewhat brief and lacking glitzy screenshots and that. Starting from the top of my current BFG play menu...

Diner Dash - link
Synopsis (in 10 words): Time management with fast restaurant action. Keep the customers happy!
What I Think: This one's really a guilty pleasure for me. I'm a fan of time management games, but don't like some of the hyper-excessive bells, whistles, and other unrelated tasks that some have you do. GameLab (maker of too many other awesome games) really does a nice job with a fun game with a great atmosphere. Also, Flo and the customers rank up there among my favorite character designs in a game.
Will I Buy It? Most likely. It's fun, it's quirky, and it's simple enough to be a great challenge.

Slingo Supreme - link
Synopsis: Bingo plus slots in a classic strategy game. Darn Devil!
What I Think: Again, another guilty pleasure game. I've been a fan of the online version for a while, and it's a fun time-killer when there's nothing else to do. This downloadable version has a lot of interesting bells and whistles in the form of power-ups, but it still feels like it has the potential to get stale quickly and suffer from PMMS, or Pictureka! Museum Mayhem Syndrome, in which a game has one short game aspect which is played a billion times over to obtain a rather uninteresting goal. (Remind me to heavily pan that game on here sometime.) This here has a lot of emphasis on getting high scores, which is something I usually don't find as a fun goal.
Will I Buy It? No, for several reasons. One, the PMMS mentioned above. Two, there's still the free version on slingo.com or something like that. Three, I've come across an interesting bug. I tried this when it first came out, played the hour demo, then uninstalled it. Several months later, I'm playing it again, but with my saved progress still intact. So... yeah, sort of a free game on a bug, there. Keep it under your hat though, right?

Puzzle Quest - link
Synopsis: Match three manas to beat an opponent on your quest.
What I Think: Oh geez, the match-3 genre, such a boring and overused thing. When Bejeweled/Diamond Mine first came out back in the day, it sucked out trillions of hours of productivity from the American workforce. Just think where our economy would be today if the game had never been invented. Since then, so many clones have popped up, with very little variety to offer, Puzzle Quest, however, stands out in a huge way: It's essentially a 2-player game. Now instead of just matching any three items together just to get it done and over with, you have to strategically plan your moves so that you leave an opponent with ineffective moves. A much needed refresher in the genre, I think. I'm not much of a fan of the forced-Celtic atmosphere, but I guess it comes with the territory.
Will I Buy It? Definitely. If nothing else, there's an online-multiplayer mode that looks awesome, and I know of at least one other reviewer that would be up for a throwdown. (This means you, John.)

Boonka - link
Synopsis: Blast off critters to restore the wooded lands. Oohn Shtarna!
What I Think: It's been a long time since I've seen an arcade-ish keep-the-stuff-from-getting-to-the-top puzzle game, so this was a welcome entry. From the moment you start, you're sucked into this cheery and whimsical world of a Buddha-like god trying to restore his trees, his friends, his people. Fast-paced and unique, this one's definitely worth a look.
Will I Buy It? Already did, after my first time playing it. Too bad it was full-price back then.

Mystery Case Files series - link, to one
Synopsis: Find the hidden objects to solve the mysteries at hand.
What I Think: I'll spoil the ending and reveal that I actually got two of these games (Huntsville, Madame Fate) for free during a game giveaway BFG had not too long ago. Do you remember those I Spy books we spent weeks at a time looking through back in elementary school, or those hidden pictures pages in Highlights magazine? This is basically that, but usually with a haunted/murder mystery theme. Find the hidden objects in different settings to unlock riddles and solve cases, the synopsis above pretty much says it. I don't want to sound bitter about these games, because they're actually quite excellent, but hidden-object games really aren't my cup of tea, especially with my poor eyesight (which I strain greatly when playing for a couple hours, thank you very much).
Will I Buy It? Aside from the fact that I got them for free anyway, no, but only because it's just not my genre. MCF games are some of the better in the genre though, and are strongly worth considering.

Hopefully that's enough to get you started off. Just remember, you still have to save money to feed the wife and kids. And the sale ends tomorrow, March 17!

FailCake

2009-02-17T23:23:00.005-05:00

I know it's almost two months after Christmas, but this is still a story worth sharing. Long story short (because words can only do so much to tell this story), as part of my Christmas gift for my girlfriend, I decided to make her a cake. I enjoy* cooking and baking, and having fun with recipes, putting my own creative spin on them. In the end, I decided that I would try to make her a cake in the shape of a snowman. But this wouldn't just be a two-dimenisional outline of a snowman flat on the counter, this would be an upright snowman, with three large "snowballs" for the body and a carrot nose and whatnot.

The plan was actually to make a series of three different flavors of cake and stack them to make somewhat of a tower. Then, I would round off the edges of the cakes to have the shape of a snowman. In theory, this would have been a great plan. Could have. Should have. It should have been a great plan.

In any case, it's time to go to some healthy visual aids. In this first shot, we see four cake pans (two chocolate, two vanilla) before the cookie sheet on which the snowman would be assembled.

In addition to using three flavors of cake (the third, strawberry, was cooling in another room), I also wanted to use three flavors of frosting, one for each layer of cake. I was hoping to use some sort of whipped cream frosting, but wanted to make it from scratch, rather than buying it from a plastic tub. After searching for a bit, I found a nice-looking double-boiler recipe, but I lack a double-boiler. A trip to the library led me to a book with a ton of frostings, and one recipe looked simple enough to be used and modified with the different flavor concentrates. The name of the recipe: Emergency Frosting.

For the first batch of frosting, I used a "tutti frutti" concentrate, which I'm still not quite sure if it qualifies as a legitimate flavor or not. In any case, I whipped up the first batch of frosting... and noted that it was still rather runny. Maybe it'll thicken a bit on the cake, I said to myself.

I finished the first layer of the cake, chocolate with tutti frutti icing, and continued on to the second layer, vanilla with creme de menthe flavored icing. (Honestly, I'm not quite sure where I chose these flavor combinations. They at least made sense in my mind when I picked them out.) After completing putting the vanilla layer on the cake and carving the edges to make it round, I added the frosting, but felt something sticking to my hand on the outside of the bowl. I put the bowl down and went to the sink to wash my hands. Then I heard a very strange sound, sorta like a "fwap" mixed with a bit of "foof. A "fwoopf?"

At this point, it was clear that this snowman wasn't gonna fly. Nonetheless, with the stubborn intent of giving my girlfriend some sort of cake, I picked up the two layers of vanilla cake off the ground, threw away the layer that had touched the ground, and slapped the other layer back on the cake. A few hasty moments later of not really caring anymore, the strawberry layer went on top (with strawberry-kiwi frosting, a semi-logical choice), and...

...voila.

Needless to say, this was not my proudest baking moment. (I'd actually rank this event below the time my sister and I made sugar cookies that were so burnt, they tasted like bacon.) In any other case, I took the cake to my girlfriend's house, thinking that at least some of it was salvageable. Ish.

The weird part was, despite how generally crappy it looked, she loved it. And she could even see how it was originally intended to be a snowman. (Quite unlike her mother. "Oh, I see the snowman!" "No you can't." "No really, that's the nose right there, and there are the eyes..." "That's the torso." "Oh.") She invited me to sample my work, and much to my surprise, it didn't taste too* terrible. The individual cakes and frostings actually mixed well, and what I had been jokingly calling "The FailCake" actually was a moderate success.

Morals of the story: Nobody's perfect. And things don't have to be perfect to be good. Even one's failure's can be enjoyed, so long as you don't put too much of the flavored concentrates into the frosting. And I have one amazing girlfriend. Love you, Beth!

I Still Love Riding the Kangaroo

2009-02-02T13:05:00.006-05:00

I'm not gonna lie, doing this Facebook status statistics thing is kinda fun. It's not so much that you get a "better feel" for the way your friends think about certain momentarily relevant issues, but more about how much they're willing to show it. I spent much of last night gathering data based on my friends' Facebook statuses (statii?) and put them once again into delicious pie form. Problem is, Excel '07 is a tremendous pain in the butt (as is the entire Office '07 line, but that's another rant for someone else who cares to obsess over that sort of thing), so things will be out of alignment and generally ugly, and without the subtle selection of colors from last time.

I should probably mention, for those who are curious, I consider myself a Steelers fan, although a very passive one. A good chunk of my family lives in the Pittsburgh area, so I practically grew up in Kennywood. On the whole, I'll generally vote for any Pittsburgh team (Steelers, Penguins, Pirates), but I'm not obsessive about them. I don't own any jerseys or go to any games, nor do I clear my schedule to watch the games. But I'll gladly support them, because Pittsburgh's been a big part of my life.

Anywho, on with the show. The data for these first three charts was taken between 10:15 (A couple of minutes after the game ended) and 11:30 last night. It should be noted that in all of these data samples, multiple status updates from the same person were all considered in tallying the data. The first chart shows what was on everyone's minds all day yesterday:

Interesting... a dead-even split, 41-41. Let's move on to the game itself, shall we?

It seems less people are posting about the Super Bowl here, but then again, it makes sense. I could only imagine that most of the people who were watching it didn't have the time or felt the necessity to go onto Facebook to talk about it.

I should probably confess that I actually didn't catch much of the Super Bowl, as I was working last night. Luckily, we closed early (for some reason, no one was coming into the restaurant that night, how strange), but I just came home, checked the score, then continued upstairs to my computer. I did, however, watch the last five minutes or so of the game (two commercial breaks' worth, if that helps approximate the time), then quickly ran to the computer again to start watching for more statuses. Here's what came up next:

Worth noting:
--Number of people who posted within the first minute of the official end of the game: 3
--Number of people who posted within the first 20 minutes: 13
--Number of people who posted a message about the Steelers winning before the game actually ended: 1, and you know who you are. Shame on you for almost jinxing it.

I figured I'd keep in the great tradition of the first 20 posters' data being recorded. After recording this data, I went to bed, woke up, went to the grocery store, came home, and checked Facebook once again, to find this:

I never really thought about it before, but there was probably a bit more on the line for Pittsburgh this time around, given that win or lose, Pennsylvania would be the center of national attention once again, with Phil (that jerk) once again being pulled from his hole to once again tell us we're stuck with crappy weather until mid-June. I didn't see any of the footage from this morning, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few Terrible Towels floating around in the background.

Nonetheless, after the initial victory and they day wore on, less people were talking about the Super Bowl anymore, and life returned to normal. That's just how Facebook statuses go, I guess. If anything, it's somewhat of a reflection on how quickly society moves, going from one state of mind to the next phenomenon around the corner. We live in a busy world, with a lot of things aiming to grab our attention and opinion. That's why statisticians have so much fun!

Edit, 2/3: Definite props to kfunque for sending me a link to a New York Times article which did a similar thing during the game, but with Twitter posts. Check it out!

Ooh, I Feel Sorta Like XKCD!

2009-01-18T23:29:00.005-05:00

Alternative title: "No, Just... Regular Pie..."

Unrelatedly, I Made Tortellini for Dinner

2009-01-10T02:08:00.002-05:00

I’ve not taken any classes on developing ideas for commercials or advertisement schemes, and I don’t regret it, because frankly, the thought scares me a bit. I’ve read about the experiments that movie theatres have tried with subliminal advertising and the like, but I can’t say I know much more about advertising than that. While I’m not sure if there are any specific tenets of the advertising world that marketers shoot for, I’m fairly sure at least one has to be something to the effect of “Make It Stick.” Make your advertisement something the people will remember, something that will make them think of your name.

Right then, Burger King.

I’m not sure how many years ago it was, but someone sent me a link to a website run by Burger King, “Subservient Chicken,” or something like that. (What was the link? Maybe this? Sorry if the link’s broken.) A man in a (slightly discouraging) chicken suit stood before you in a living-room-type setting on a supposedly real-time webcam. You would type a command in the text box, and it would “send” “to the chicken,” and the chicken would perform the said action, or something similar, or otherwise react to what you say. Obviously, it wasn’t a perfect system, since there were only so many commands the chicken could accurately follow. I tried telling it to “Raise your right arm,” and it raised both. I told it to “Sit on the ground,” and it sat on the sofa. One fairly accurate reaction was when I told the chicken to “Take the chicken suit off,” and the chicken moved closer to the camera, and shook its head and wagged its finger at me. Which was freaky, because it wasn’t the friendliest-looking chicken to begin with. I’m not sure what exactly this was advertising, maybe their chicken sandwiches or something, but nonetheless, the promo stuck.

About the same time (probably before, now that I think of it), we saw the first commercials with Burger King’s now iconic “King,” a man in royal garb, but a plastic smiling face. The King would show up at various places, silently offering a sandwich or burger on a tray to an unsuspecting person. For example, a man woke up with the King next to him in bed, holding one of their breakfast sandwiches, with the narration, “Wake up with the King! Try our new” blah blah whatever. Reactions to King seemed to be mixed, so far as I can recall. People either loved him for his comedic charm, or hated him because of his general freakiness. Both are probably accurate descriptions, as I’ve occasionally found myself in both camps. One way or another, people talked about King, and the promo stuck.

I know there was another stunt by Burger King that I wanted to mention between this last month and the King’s debut, but I can’t remember it off the top of my head anymore (not sticking?). Anywho, this past month, NPR’s comedy news panel game, “Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me!” (Dec. 21, 2008 episode) featured a story on a “last-minute gift idea for a guy with a big appetite,” “a cologne for carnivores,” “a top aroma of flame-broiled meat with notes of gristle, bun, and mayo.” Yes, “Flame,” Burger King’s new cologne. Odd enough as is, but it gets worse: “The website offering it is ‘firemeetsdesire.com’ [no hyperlink, since I haven’t checked it out myself]… it features Burger King’s spokes-monarch lying naked on a bear-skin rug in front of a fire, and beckoning you forward towards him… This may be a subtle campaign to sell more lunches, by forcing you to lose the one you already had.” I haven’t been to the website to check it out (nor does it sound at all appealing), so I’ll take their word for it. Nonetheless, as painful as it sounds, the promo stuck. (Notice a theme yet?)

It was just yesterday that my mom and I saw a commercial for “The Angry Whopper,” a burger with spicy onion petals and a few different peppers. The concept of spicy burgers isn’t exactly new, but the commercial had my tilting my head and wondering what could have possibly compelled them to make such a convoluted commercial. In it, a very angry farmer is shown planting seeds with disgust, beating them into the ground, watering them while yelling at them, throwing ground pepper on them while shouting, “Hot enough for ya?” In the end, these angry onions are apparently used in this new burger, where they are “looking to get their revenge.” (Shirt-and-tie man bites burger, starts running around like chicken-sans-head looking for water, etc.) Aside from the fact that I’m really not a fast food burger person (I go more for chicken), this was a commercial that genuinely turned me off. I in fact have absolutely no desire to eat this burger, and I think the commercial might have been the kiss of death. I love spicy foods (within reason), but this was just outright ridiculous. I could probably go on fuming about this for a while, but I think I’ve made my point, and it’s clear that this promo really stuck again.

Tonight then. I log on to the internet to find that two unrelated people have posted links on two different venues (a forum of a few local friends, and Facebook) to Burger King’s newest advertising scheme, the “Whopper Sacrifice.” If I understand this right, If you add a certain application on Facebook, you will get a coupon for a free Whopper if you unfriend ten people.

Okay then, where do I start with this? Let’s start with the Facebook side of this. I’m not a tremendous Facebook user to begin with. In fact, I didn’t get an account until after my freshman year of college, when I figured it’d help to keep in touch with people over the summer. Since then, I’ve been using Facebook as a utility, not a means of living. If I need to get a hold of someone and I can’t do so using a phone call or AIM, a PM on Facebook is my next way to go (not even a Wall post, I go straight to PM’s, because frankly, not every request or response for a person’s mailing address or whatnot needs to be public info). I’m incredibly passive when it comes to searching for people I know as friends, and I’ve often not accepted friend requests solely because I just don’t know the person well enough. I mean, I know my memory’s crap, but if I’ve never even heard of your name, much less if I still can’t recognize you even after a short description and a look through your profile, no offense, but I don’t see the need to add you. For me, Facebook is not a race to get as many friends as possible, it’s a utility.

This is why it often scares me when people freak out over small Facebook things, like an unfriending or someone getting “engaged” to a good friend, even jokingly. “It’s not official until it’s Facebook official” has become more than just an often-occuring quote, it’s a mantra for some. I understand that some people use Facebook as a form of entertainment, but to base one’s life around every byte of information that flows through that website just seems absurd to me.

Now then, the Whopper Sacrifice. First off, the sheer cruelty of asking someone to defriend someone for the sake of 1/10th of a coupon is a little disturbing to me. Not just because of the (anti-)social plotting one does deciding who they “hate the most” a/o “don’t need,” but for the fact that it’s for a burger. Seriously, kids, shell out the three bucks for the thing. Secondly (and I’m saying this part-sarcastically), It must be psychologically devestating to someone knowing they’ve been defriended for the sake of such a cheap burger. To say “Our relationship is worth less than thirty cents toward a meal” is a kick in the pants to anyone. On the whole, if this thing becomes viral (and I suppose it already has), I expect to see a lot of angry vendettas against “former friends,” and maybe even some lawsuits thrown in Burger King’s direction.

Good.

My honest thoughts on Burger King, in terms of food: Not too bad. I usually get the Chicken Sandwich with cheese, which tastes good, although the price seems a bit steep. The fries are good, they tend to be crispier than most other fast food joints. I can’t say much positive for their breakfasts, since most of what I’ve tried has left me feeling iffy afterwards (namely, the Cheesy BK Wrapper and the Ham Omelet Sandwich), and they only offer one size of orange juice, which is inconvenient. Burger King’s got its hits and misses as far as food goes, so I’d give it a middle-of-the-road rating.

Burger King’s advertising? Clearly over the last few years, they’ve really gone for the outlandish approach, with freaky mascots and questionable advertising gimmicks (I forgot to mention the “Whopper Virgins” campaign, which I really don’t know much about). Their aim has not been to necessarily market their products in an entirely appealing way, but at the very least, in a very memorable way, a sticky way. How sticky? Look at what you’ve just read. I’ve outlined several of their promos from memory (although I had to replay the “Wait Wait” bit a few times so I could copy the exact quotes), and I’ve engaged in and encouraged discussion on the topic. Burger King’s stuck to me, although not in a positive way, but it’s stuck in my mind strongly enough that I’ve written an entire blog post about them, essentially promoting both their products and their advertising campaign, which means it’s extremely effective, and they’ll likely produce more campaigns like this because of reactions like this, and now I feel like such a corporate whore.

(sigh)

But yeah, I tried using a roasted red pepper alfredo sauce with the tortellini. Kinda runny, but good flavor to it.

If Ever You've Wondered What the Judges are Writing on Their Clipboards When You're Auditioning

2009-01-06T00:11:00.006-05:00

Remind me to explain this later.