BlindFire

You know it’s a weird month when a serial video game polygamist like me only plays 3 games in a month. I blame work. Anyway, onto the 2 games I played prior to work starting, but first, the one game I played this past weekend for a couple hours.

I’m feeling really lazy, so I present an entire GeneralChaos without any new images!

IIDX Goooooooooold - It’s party time!

That’s the what the opening movie says at least. There’s really very little I can say about IIDX games besides that they’re awesome because they provide a good balance of catchy J-crap music and random bleeps and bloops, all set to the rhythmic smashing of your forehead into the IIDX controller as you fail miserably every time.

How is this version, the 14th style, any different from the past 13 and a half styles (there was a IIDX 1.5 called ‘Substream’)? It’s… harder? Maybe? I can’t even tell, I’ve never beaten every song on a single style. And assuming my fingers don’t magically grow a few more of themselves, I doubt I ever will. But then, I’ve been feeling pessimistic lately. Possibly because I started playing IIDX again. Hmm… nah. I still blame work.

I’ll beat it eventually! Or die trying… One of the two!

Persona 3: FES - Didn’t I already play this game already? Well, yes. And didn’t I stop at exactly the same point in the story of the last game as I stopped in this game? Yes. Why? I got up to that point, and then I started work. I really can’t get anything done in the video game realm now that I have to go to work. You’d think I’d make it up on the weekends, but usually I find myself doing things that are *gasp* more interesting than video games! Like what? You know.. I don’t even know. Perhaps I just pretended that the other things I do are more fun? Also, as you can tell from my nonsensical writings that don’t even have to do with the video game they’re supposed, I’m tired and bitchy.

Grand Theft Auto 4 - This is the first GTA I’ve ever played. And being a noob to the series, I don’t see what all the fuss is about. It’s a fine game, probably objectively deserving of the 10s and 9s it’s got, but like reading the finest Chinese novel in its original Chinese, I’m left scratching my head. Engaging in mindless violence is fun the first time you do it, but gets old fast. So surely the missions are where the meat of the meal lay, right?

This is not a shot of Liberty City, but like I said, I’m too lazy to find relevant screen shots. I’ll try to be less of a sourpuss next update.

Eh. A few are cool when they introduce new toys to play with, like the helicopter, the rocket launcher, the bank mission where you get the powered up assault rifle, but for the most part the missions seemed kinda samey and annoying. Also, the lack of check points in missions just grates on my mozzarella, if you know what I mean. Repeating aggravating missions is fun? I only got up to maybe a few missions after Bernie or whatever his name is, so maybe there’s more interesting stuff after. But every mission, I went into it with the mindset of “I hope I get this on the first try, because I don’t want to retry all the way from the beginning”. So maybe it was my fault I didn’t enjoy the game as much as it seems everyone else is.

Anyway, I doubt I’ll borrow it again to finish it. Or maybe it was borrowing it in the first place which messed up my ability to enjoy it because I had a time limit to play against. Or maybe I just don’t like video games anymore. I don’t know, see me next month, and we’ll see if this is still a blog about video games.

A video with scrolling comments? Although it could get cluttered like so… A good idea that needs refinement I say.

【ニコニコ動画】ストIIの効果音で、オリジナル曲　【ヒャダイン】

There’s probably no way you’ll be able to click through to that. A) It’s probably gibberish and B) it’s a Japanese video site that requires registration. But, if you do manage to get through to it, you’ll see that their version of Youtube, Nico Nico, kicks Youtube’s ass. It’s got streaming comments within the video! Kinda like being able to add your own subtitles whenever you want. You can turn that off when you’re viewing the video if you want though. Also, they have a repeat button, which is great for songs that I want to listen to over and over again like this one:

So anyway, my point is, inline-commenting and repeat are awesome. Get on it YouTube. Or maybe YouPorn can get to work on it. Porn with anonymous inline comments? I don’t think I would’ve graduated college if they had invented that.

In order to get my brain waves kickin’ for this April GeneralChaos, I’m going to make an acrostic, an idea I borrowed from the first game up, Brain Age 2.

Dr. Kawashima says my brain’s a healthy 28 years old. My acrostic says otherwise.

Brain Age 2 -

Beats
Reading
And
Increasing
Nowledge

Aww,
Good
Enough!

Pokemon Pearl - Now that my brain juices are flowing, time to unleash my young and limber brain age on this Pokemon game. First off, Super Effective has a great start to a Pokemon-related web comic. Second, I finally beat Pokemon Pearl a year and a week after I bought the game. Last month was the first time I picked up the game since October. Why did it take so long?

To me, Pokemon is like the ex-girlfriend that you had a burning passion for when you first dated her, but then the relationship fizzled out. Yet every time you bump into her in the future, you two reminisce on the former excitement, maybe go out to dinner and get a little drunk and maybe have a quick romp in the sheets if neither of you are terribly busy, but afterwards you say your goodbyes and move on without regret. There’s no real emotional attachment to the person, just kind of a nostalgic lust that you fall for every time because you’re desperately trying to recapture that initial ecstasy from your first kiss.

Zoidbergkip, one of my stronger pokemon.

That, in a nutshell, is why I play Pokemon. Not that I’ve ever experienced that kind of relationship with a girl. But at least I’ve had it with a video game? Oh boy…

Super Smash Bros. Brawl - So I played with a tourney-level player at his apartment, and being the polite guest that I am, I gladly accepted all the beatdowns he was offering. Much like the unwilling invitee who courageously pastes a smile on his face as he hurriedly gulps down each dish prepared by the culinarily challenged host, I was viciously and hastily served.

It was a humbling experience I suppose. But then I watch Yahtzee’s take on SSBB and its rabid fanboys and think that, just maybe, sucking at the game is for the best.

Everyday Shooter - My first reaction was, oh, this is a kinda cool blending of music and shooting, kinda like a Lumines of two-stick shooters. But then it got surprisingly hard surprisingly quickly, and I was surprised (duh). There were so many enemies and bullets everywhere and combo systems to figure out, that I soon shifted all my focus to the game, and none to the music.

Buddy Christ says “See you next Sunday, baby!”

By the time I finally lost all my lives, all I could recall was that, like plunking down on a hard pew for several hours of mass, it was an exercise in unfulfilled expectations and also a pain in the butt. I had heard that it was a great triumph in indie gaming and an aural delight. Instead, also like mass, I came out of it with that stale Jesus-flake taste in my mouth.

Maybe I just don’t get it? I mean, I also don’t get the point of mass. So there we are then.

Four-square in a Coney Island parking lot - Hoop! Stick! Hoop and Stick! Stick! Hoop! Stick and Hoop!

The World Ends With You - I was listening to the 1up Yours podcast for this week, and it may have been Shawn who said something to the effect of ‘you know you’ll love a game in the first 10 minutes’. In the first 10 minutes of this game, I thought that me and TWEWY were going to be one of those comedy romances. You know, the ones where the two people hate each other at first, but once they get into wacky adventures together, they fall for each other.

Arrows on top, stylus on bottom, and confusion all around!

The hate came from the fighting system. Stylus on the bottom, and face buttons for the top. While there is an option for auto-pilot on the top screen, I figured I’d use manual controls to get the most enjoyment from the game by figuring out how to hot-potato my way from screen to screen. However, I couldn’t wrap my head around the concept of dual-wielding action-RPG characters. In fact, I got killed by the lowest level froggies the first 3 or 4 tries.

But eventually, I prevailed, and after a little grinding, tolerated the combat. Somewhere prior to the climax, the combat system and I were best buds. I could juggle baddies on the top and bottom screens with ease. This was all leading up to a happily ever after, or at least I thought so. And then I met the final boss (semi-sorta spoiler in the next paragraph, but not really).

The final boss killed my enjoyment for the fighting. A bitter taste at the end of a sweet treat, like sucking on a reverse-Warhead. Instead of being a jack of both trades, the final fight asked me to be a master of stylus action fighting. Here I am, with a double major in face-button smackery and screen-scratchology, and they’re looking for a PhD in the latter? Fuck! I just wasted my education time, thanks a lot. You coulda given me a heads-up!

So, I switched the game from Normal to Easy, methodically and boringly vanquished the gimped final boss, and beat an otherwise satisfying game on a rather mundane note. So my ending with TWEWY was more like My Best Friend’s Wedding than I wanted it to be. It was almost meant to be.

And yes, I’ve seen My Best Friend’s Wedding.

Hey, remember these resolutions? Let’s see how I’m doing, shall we?

Usually, flying kicks to the head do a good amount of damage.

1. Get a Kill to Death ratio of 1.00 or higher in Halo 3 and COD4 - 50% done
I basically stopped playing COD4 once I realized I hate being airstriked and helicoptered and wanted to simply play against humans with guns. Even if the helicopter were human controlled, I’d be more okay with the game. But yeah, my K/D in that is well below 1. As for Halo 3, I’m currently at 1.02.

2. Write more about video games - Eh.. not really
I mean, look at how many things I posted last month… yeah, I need to pick up the slack. And even this article you’re reading right now doesn’t count, as it’s not really about video games. Hence, the “Eh.. not really”.

3. Write betterer - Unquantifiable.
Maybe my writing got better, or worse? I still write the way I did back in high school, more or less. I know my vocabulary has gone down since I took the GRE, but other than that.. shrug?

4. Write more when I’m stupidly tired - 00%
It used to be that back in high school and college that when I was really tired and bored, I’d write stuff until I felt sleepy enough to sleep. Now? When I’m really tired and bored, I sleep. I imagine that if I had done that back in high school and college, I wouldn’t have been quite as sleepy and tired all the time. Hmm.

Unfortunately, Charmillionaire did not join me on my adventures through Pokemon Pearl.

5. Finish at least 2 of the following RPGs that I’ve started: Final Fantasy 12, Persona 3, Pokemon Pearl, Final Fantasy Tactics or Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness - 75% done
I beat Pokemon Pearl (only took a year and week to do it!) and Disgaea, but RTSes only count for 0.5, which means I’m at 1.5/2. I just got in a copy of Persona 3 FES, which I cannot wait to sink my teeth into. So when I look back at my resolutions around Decemberish, I’ll be an astonishing 125% done with this resolution.

6. Try Oblivion - Fail
Apparently I can’t scrounge up the $2 it takes to try this game (see resolution 13 below).

7. Beat every level of Mario 3 and Super Mario Galaxy - Hells nope.
I did the minimum requirement to beat Galaxy, so I’m half done with that. And Mario 3, well, I haven’t even touched that game since I bought it. One of these days, when I get a hankering for some old-skizool platforming action..

8. Play Front Mission DS - Sorta?
I have played the game. I downloaded a copy of the English version, and am intrigued, but have yet to do anything past the 2nd mission. Of all the resolutions on here, I think this is the one I will most likely break without having any regrets.

9. Play Psychonauts - 100%
Finally! A resolution I’ve completed! Although, I didn’t complete the game, as I couldn’t stand the 3D platforming and uninteresting combat anymore.

Am I the only person who wants to try a train simulator? Look at how much joy this wreaks of!

10. Try a game in a genre I have never tried - TBA
Where the hell does one find a train-sim? That’s the only genre of game I can think of that I haven’t played!

11. At least give a solid week’s effort into learning what it takes to program a game - Yup.
A solid week somehow became like, 4 weeks or so (about one week to make RPS Shoot!, and then another 3 weeks to make Kelvin Cubes, give or take a few days). Although my games were made in Flash (which does a lot of work for you), they were basically entirely made by me, which includes the design, art, code, and music, and well, everything. So yay me.

12. Learn all those random terms that graphic whores are impressed by - Fuck that shit.
Uh, yeah, fuck that shit. Too many terms, don’t give a crap. Don’t know why I made the resolution in the first place.

13. Not get a job - yes so far.
There’s still time to screw up this resolution. Hopefully I fail at this resolution soon… I would like to, you know, have money at some point in my life. At least enough to try Oblivion for chrissake!

To be honest, I cheated a bit and also included some stuff I played in the first week of April, but eh, it was a relatively slow month gaming-wise. And is it just me, or is everything I play either killing stuff or solving puzzles?

I don’t know who these people are. Musketeers perhaps?

Crisis Core: FF7 - This is even more cheating, because I didn’t play it at all! Jialu did, but I watched some, and it looked like fun. Actually, it looked at first like a complicated mess. There’s a slot machine dealie, a real-time menu during real-time fights for choosing spells and items, dodging, blocking, camera control.. a meaty recipe for getting a PSP chucked at a wall, especially if you are more of an RPGer than an action twitch junkie. But Jialu seemed to get the hang of it in no time, and I’ve heard others also report a smooth learning curve. So maybe it only looks complicated?

I wonder if it would be better as a pure RPG or a pure action game, or if it could only be done as a mix of the two. Rest assured, I’ll investigate the matter after Jialu is finished with it.

Kelvin Cubes - This’ll be a pseudo-postmortem in a paragraph or two, and then you’ll never have to hear about my game again. Pinky swear.

While I think the game is probably fun for people who like tile-switching puzzle games (so, like .005% of the population), I’m not actually sure. See, the problem with making this game is that I know all the answers to the puzzles. So really, I’m not 100% certain whether this game is fun or not. Nevertheless, I did enjoy making it at least, so hopefully that shows in the game.

If I were to make it again, I’d probably make the playing field taller. There are a lot of puzzles that I made up in my head, but then couldn’t implement because the field was only 4 blocks high. Also, I would like to see whether the game would work Arcade-style, with a never-ending barrage of cubes coming from the ground. Although something tells me that’d get confusing really fast. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, Tetris Attack had a huge influence on this game, and so did Audiosurf (the idea of hot and cold colors). And the background music was me trying to make something like a beatmania song played on a Fischer-Price toy for Final Jeopardy. Or something like that.

Cut that man’s face! Draw a scary snake thing! WAAAAH TAAAHHHHH!!!

Fist of the North Star DS - WAAAAAHHH TAHHHHH!! Best menus ever, especially if you enjoy the sound of men screaming (and I do). As for the game itself, it’s kinda like reading a manga and playing a mini game of Elite Beat Agents to get to the next panel. Not quite as fun as the arcade game, but close.

Shift - This puzzle platforming game is short but sweet, with a little bit of Portal-esque banter. The gameplay reminds me of a Warner Bros. cartoon, where Bugs pulls a black hole from his bag of tricks, and then places it so Elmer ends up on the ceiling and then falls on his head. Needless to say, any game that reminds me of Looney Toons is highly recommended.

Halo 3 - It’s pretty much a given that I’ll’ve played Halo 3 at least once a month. This month was different though since they released new maps, and had double XP weekends of Team Swat (no shields, headshots = death) and Grifball (like football with giant hammers and swords). Hopefully they keep up the double XP weekends, if only to throw something different at Halo fans every week.

Smash Bros. Brawl - I already reviewed it in haiku, but I need to add that I’ve tried to play online like 2 times, and finished an amazing 0 games. I don’t know if it’s my DSL, or if Nintendo just ain’t good at online.

Echochrome - There’s something about this game that doesn’t sit well with me. So how the game works is that you manipulate the camera to make your walking stick figure reach a target. By manipulating the camera, you can do tricks like making gaps in walkways disappear, or by dropping your ambling avatar to a lower level perspective-wise, even if 3 dimensionally that shouldn’t have made sense.

Yeah, I don’t know what the hell is happening in this screenshot either.

Another tool at your disposal is a jump pad, which launches your walking man into the sky, so he can reach a visually “higher” plane. However, instead of setting up the camera the correct way, I find myself often forcing the stick figure to walk endlessly into the jump pad, and then hopelessly to his death by endless pit of doom, until I figure out the right way to wrench the camera into place during the multiply-respawned stick figure’s flight. It’s difficult to imagine, but let’s just say that my solutions are the equivalent to solving a calculus problem by beating up the nearest Asian in the room until he coughs up the answer.

The solutions to the puzzles don’t seem graceful to me, or perhaps I’m not smart enough to find the most elegant solutions. But it’s still a neat idea for a puzzle game, even if it feels like I’m gaming the system.

The World’s Hardest Game - I’m gonna review this game Kotaku-style. So here’s the good and the bad in blue and red goodness:

Loved: NOTHING.

Hated: EVERYTHING.

Fuck this game. Fuck it. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck it. That’s my expert review after getting to stage 11 and after 177 deaths and 1 large headache.

Maybe Ben can make the game fun instead of a test of how much frustration you can handle without punching a hole through a wall.

Check out the final version, if only to hear my Mario Paint trained musical talent.

Well, it’s finally done. Go to this link to play the final version of Kelvin Cubes. What’s different from the prior versions I’ve shown you? Well, not much, except it has music and sound effects, it keeps stats on Kongregate, and I may have tweaked a few puzzles.

If you sign up to Kongregate, you can acquire high-scores.. well, not exactly scores, but stats that say whether you’ve beaten a level before or not. Unfortunately, I could not get a save system to work, so signing up to Kongregate and having it keep track of what levels you’ve done or met the target of is the closest you’ll get to a save system. Hopefully eventually, they’ll make achievements for the game.

Oh, and while you’re on there, feel free to give my game a rank or a Digg, or whatever else.

I found this in the Hong Kong Supermarket today. Do Chinese supermarkets do April Fools jokes?

Yeah, you heard me, lollercaust.

Anyway, I couldn’t possibly do a joke post today, since I make one pretty much every other time I post. So instead, I’m just gonna direct y’all to better stuff (which is mostly from Kotaku, err, Kaketaku).

The first April Fools thing I saw was this GameFAQs poll. And then this awesome video that you gotta see.

Blizzard has some good stuff, if only for the amount of effort put into it. The WOW bard class is amusing, and probably being considered seriously by the CEO of ActiBlizzion as an attempt to milk even more money out of Guitar Hero.

I’m more impressed with the Tauren shock troops in Starcraft 2. If you watch the action moovie, you’ll be impressed as well I’m sure.

The world needs more Chris Tucker, and so does GTA4.

I already have a woody faceplate for my ugly 360, so I’d totally buy the retro 360.

And lastly, at first I thought this was a joke. Apparently it’s not? Oneechanbara: The Movie, about a scantly clad chick’s fight against zombies and other otaku jerkin’ bait.

Oh, and if you’re wondering if there’ll ever be another version of Kelvin Cubes (and who isn’t?), there will be one posted on Kongregate eventually, and the only difference will be the existence of sound and music, and possibly achievements. However, that doesn’t mean there won’t be a sequel to KC… although that’ll have to wait for another day.

Hit it for massive damage. Hah hah hah, raucous laughter.

So I was casually navigating the interwebs when I stumbled across this…

But first, here’s the deal. I’ve never played Half-Life. Or Half-Life 2. I also don’t have $30 lying around to spend on a plush hat. But as a poor individual who is blissfully ignorant of this series, I have to proclaim my undying love for Valve’s Head Crab Hat. The idea of lounging in a Starbucks, drinking my favorite Dunkin’ Donuts’ hazelnut coffee while wearing this hat, brings joy to my life. I mean, come on, just look at it! It looks like a giant flea lounging on your noggin’! Isn’t that absolutely adorable?

I’m much too lazy to type clever words or make prettiful Flash games. So here, watch, go go. The first video is damn old, as it came out many months ago, but I figure I’d include it anyway as a reference. However, the second one (in the series) is more recent, so feel free to jump straight into that for some girl on girl action.

Dead Fantasy I

Dead Fantasy II

Serious gaming. Seriously.

Major League Gaming has added the common playground game ‘Simon Says’ to their list of competitively played games for the 2008 season. The game of competitive listening is set to debut at this year’s opening event in the Meadowlands Expo Center this April 11th, along with favorites Halo and Gears of War.

When asked about the odd choice of game, MLG CEO Matthew Bromberg explained the professional video game league’s newest addition. “It’s a game that requires lightning fast reflexes. And when you throw money-tournaments into the equation, you’ll see some of the fastest obedience you’ve ever see.”

Bromberg continues on about the success of the Wii in the video game market, and how they wanted to capture some of Nintendo’s good will. “The direction of video gaming is moving towards a broader audience, and we gotta get a piece of that action. ‘Simon Says’ is a game everyone knows from kindergarten, so we think we’re headed in the right direction.”

“Simon says… raise your right arm!”

The competition is heated, and the competitors are taking what Simon says to new heights.

“If Simon told me to jump off a bridge, sure, I’d do it. Anything to win,” declared top Listener Doug “Big Ears” Smith of team ‘Simon Says Pwn’. “In an intense exhibition match, the other team’s Simon says ‘Simon says kiss a man’, so I kiss him right on the stupid mouth! That shut him the hell up for sure.”

‘The Yellin’ Felons’ are one of the favorites in this year’s tournament, thanks to their newest “Simon”, former auctioneer Hank “FireTongue” Jones. “Here, put this in your story,” Jones quickly dictated. “Between each of these words in this sentence, I’m saying the word ‘verisimilitude’ so fast, you can’t even hear it.”

Scotty Chan, Listener for the ‘The Fast and the Curious’ team was on hand during “FireTongue”’s rant. Chan gave his respect to the master orator: “Shit yo, I only heard like 19 of the 25 of those ‘verisimilitudes’. He’s real good. I gotta go practice listening to those Chipmunks CDs on fast forward.”