Ramblings on a Sunday

It has been an interesting enough week for me, care to share along? Of course you do that’s why you’ve read this far already…away we go!

Purchased a Wii Fit and am surprised at how much fun it actually is though it did ‘crash’ my Wii so to speak last evening and I had to reset it. Not that this was hard to do mind you. Just bears noting.

Made Reservations to Animethon 15 for my wife and I for this August. Poor folks at the Con this year are almost all new so it’s been rough going for them. I wish them the best of luck!

Work has been soso this past week, shifts are getting filled and no ones whining overmuch. One of our Managers is on Two Weeks Vacation beginning today so that will be a welcome absence. She is a dedicated worker but when she is around stress levels are always higher because she likes to find fault. Though I am having to work 6 Days a week again for the moment I am assured this is only to cover for the Manager being absent.

In personal news I found a small place to vent my writing urges on…it is not perfect and on occasion smacks of God Modding but I myself work within the limits I have set and the others playing there are respecting that for the most part. I consider it my obligation to bring a sense of the mundane to their game whenever I am able.

And that’s all I have to say about that. Merry Sunday all!

Your Attention Please…

Diablo-Freaking-3!

That is all. Mwahahahahahahaha

New Game Impressions

So I have always been a fan of all things dark and nasty. It’s the evil in me I guess. Thus I bring you my thoughts on :

Requeim: Bloodymare

Now it’s alot like Guild Wars so if you ever tried that game and enjoyed it you might find yourself liking Requiem. It’s free to play to an extent (more on that in a moment) and is freely downloadable through several options. I Elected to use the Torrent they had on their site and left my PC on chugging away at all 2.61 Gigs of it. Lo and behold a mere 8 hours later it was ready to install.

Installation was easy and painless, your Login is the same as the one you set up your account with on their webpage so that’s a no brainer. Pretty standard character creation options, three races consisting of your Melee, your Spell Casters and your Jack of All Trades. The usual custom things like faces, hair etc. By no means is it what I would call robust however it gets the job done.

Interestingly enough at the end of Character Creation you have to choose a Pass Code (PIN # if you will) for your Character/Account. Any time you want to log in your Character you are asked to enter this four digit code. Uniquely every time you select a Number on the key pad it randomly moves the numbers around this is there way of preventing third party mods from easily accessing their game (WoW Bots anyone?)

Once you enter the world the first thing you will notice is the game runs pretty reasonably even on older systems, this is because they restricted the resolutions you can run in to a Maximum of 1280 x 764. Now don’t panic, the game still looks pretty darn good regardless. All of the standard MMO commands work for your movement and Mouse Looking though some of the keyboard shortcuts are not standard. For instance the “I” key does not open your Inventory it opens your Character Sheet window. All are customizable though so that’s hardly an issue.

Combat is a bit bloody. Not Age of Conan bloody but gruesome nonetheless. You have a set of abilities you click to perform special actions ala WoW/Guild Wars and from then on it’s a game of “Who runs out of hit points first”. Loot drops the same ways as other games, little shinies on the ground that give up gold and items from time to time.

Quests are fairly standard, Fetch me this, Go here then come back, Kill five of these. Newbies are sent hither and yon through the starting area to get familair with the lay of the land. Rewards are gear and weapon upgrades along with cash.

Requeim borrows from Final Fantasy a bit with a “Job” system. At level 10 you can essentially specialize your Class which opens different skill sets and specific abilities. I have not tried a SpellCaster yet so I can’t speak to the spell Casting.

Setting wise the world is dark, looking much like a disaster has befallen the area. Technology IS present in sort of steampunk way so it’s not all Sword and Sorcery. In fact you are encouraged at some points to seek out DNA modifiers to augment yourself with.

Now the slightly annoying bits…you can Pay to get more benefits. $8 a month gets you an experience Boost and other such things like bigger bank space and better % Chance of nice item drops. $14 a month is a 50% Exp Bonus and even bigger chance of item drops. On top of that you can buy coin from the company to purchase things in game. Now none of this is required but you can get your ass it’s going to be hella useful if you have the cash to toss around. Strangely either of the Payment options gets you access to ‘World Chat’ which I thought was foolish. Don’t you WANT your Players to be exposed to people saying “Oh who I bought this really cool item just now!” or “Sweet I just levelled a Character to 10 in half an hour because I have the Premium Package!”

All in all, it’s a pretty fun game, if you have 2.61 Gigs of free space to devote to it I will recommend it as a time waster if nothing else

Final Fantasy Crisis Core Update

Well I’ve finally gotten around to actually sitting down with the new Final Fantasy game for the PSP. Crisis Core is turning out to be considerably more fresh and interesting than I had originally thought it would be. Initially I went in expecting that the game would be fanservice for FFVII fans and I have been pleasantly surprised. Combat, as with all new FF titles, is different but easy to grasp. My only real issue with the Combat if you get into the Items Menu you MUST use something. Even if you just got there by accident. A few times now I’ve wasted Potions just to get out of the menu and back to a fight because it’s pseudo-real time so while you’re in that Menu you you’re not attacking and likely getting hit.

Cut Scenes are awesome as is almost always the case and are easily skipped through if needs be. Voice Over is nice…but stiff in some cases and I would have liked to have seen more of it.

Something I am loving though are the Missions. Anyone who has played a FF game in the past knows the sometimes tedious task of leveling up your group in between major adventures. Crisis Core takes some of that pain away by removing the need to run around for days on end hoping for random encounters. Enter the Missions. At any Save Point you can access the Missions area and choose from a decent list of things to do which basically amount to about 4-5 minute adventures that flesh out the storyline if you’re interested in the side plots. Defeating a mission usually will unlock the next harder one in the Chain with increased difficulty and better rewards.

They have something called the “Modulating Phase” which occasionally will pop up similar to the Limit Breaks from the past but much more random. It’s basically a slot machine of NPC images which scroll through randomly. Sometimes you get something nice like a Level Up, a Summon, or Bonus’ to Combat Abilities like No Magic Point costs briefly. It’s fun so far but I’ve had a few “WTF” moments when it jerks me out of combat to do it.

So far so good!

Oh yeah and someone strap Pandora to her PC and make her Post. That is all

Luck <= Skill

Who needs Skill when you have blind ignorant luck eh? Earlier tonight I was goofing around with my 360 checking the Live stuff out when I saw a little thing called “Media Center” and I said, “Hey, what’s this do?” Five minutes later I have Media Center running merrily along on my 360 and my PC. Kinda handy to tell you the truth. I am chasing her on Anime like Bleach and Naruto and my beef was always that I could not sit still at my PC for long enough to watch more than one or two episodes.

Now I can stream them from my PC to the TV and watch them on the living room couch whilst my 360 Controller allows me to Search my PC Library for the next episodes and such-like.

But you want to know what the most shocking thing of all is? It actually…..WORKS! and it’s Windows… I suspect third party involvement. No Errors, no Patches…no Updates…it just works. I turned it off though just in case it might realize its mistake and start acting up.

In other news, Candy Pizza is actually not entirely vile. Earlier today at work one of the Servers asked me if I could make her a sweet pizza and they happened to have some candy out there to nibble on. So I stole some and went back to the Kitchen, rolled out some fresh dough, layered on some Skittles, Starburst and a handful of Nerds along with some Gummi Bears, tossed it into the oven with some mozzarella on it and 6 minutes later out came what looked a bit like a tie-dyed shirt…but it tasted pretty good.

Well I only had a piece about the size of my thumb..I cannot imagine how wired the poor girl got after eating the rest of that pizza.

Age of Conan First Impressions

So. I got the game yestereve, went home and ripped open my Collectors Edition because I am that much of a geek for things Conan. Oo’d and Ahh’d were appropriate and popped the game discs (2) in for the installation which took around 45 minutes.

I am a veteran of Online Games, Diablo I & II, EverQuest I & II, EVE Online, WoW, Final Fantasy, Guild Wars etc etc so I fully expected the immediate Patch. I was not expecting the enormity of it however. First was the 112 Meg Patch, then it’s little sister the 12 Meg Patch, then Uncle Eddy that no one talks about…the 680 Meg Patch.

True to form however I just read through the Art book as it did its thing and once done I gleefully double Clicked my way into….a rather lackluster little screen which suggested that I download Vista Service Pack I before attempting to play AoC. Disheartened that I was not soon to be rending limbs and wenching my way across the landscape I dutifully went to Microsoft and began the download for Service Pack I…all 480 Megs of it. That happened in about a half hour. Then the Install took another 45 minutes.

All in All I began the install at 5 PM and when I was finally able to log in to the game it was 8:45 PM. Irritating but that is neither here nor there now. The game ran a little rough for me at first so I tweaked some settings. (I am fairly sure that I do no need to see the NPCs fully rendered at 2000m…A fully rendered 5 foot tall Pict at 2000m looks remarkably like a fully rendered single pixel at 2000m.

With my settings properly adjusted so I wasn’t playing a Flip Book MMO I began the opening “Let’s teach this jackass how to play our game” Quests and completely ignored every single tool tip I could find, instead relying on trial and error to get through things and you know what? It worked just fine. I is Inventory, M is Map etc etc industry standards.

Shocking as it might sound I was not asked to slay Rabid Wolves by the thousands. Instead I was asked to rescue a fair damsel…well…is there such a thing as a fair trollop? Meh either way. I slew some nasty Brigands, some Picts and some other things. Combat is easy. You get some base attack directions depending on your Class and weapon. Simple things to begin with like Overhead Strike, Left Slash, Right Slash all easy to perform and satisfyingly bloody in Conan Style. In Combat the game actually hints at you which attack might be more successful but it’s still a crap shoot in the end.

Movement is the same as most MMO’s out there and you can go First or Third Person as you desire. So far the terrain is lovely even with my settings toned down a fair bit. Not the old “Is that a house or a boulder?” days of EverQuest for sure.

Chat is similar to most online games as well, OOC Channels, General Chat etc. One thing that IS different is the freedom of movement you DON’T have. This game sports some fairly solid collision detection so there’s not going to be any running through Allies or Foes here. In combat with three Picts once I tried to circle around to keep them all in front of me and I was so used to playing WoW and such that I tried to run through them and damn near got killed as they all thought I was trying to get them to stick their knives in just the right place.

Loot is more well thought out as well, you aren’t going to kill a Wolf and come away with a Chainmail Coat or 20 pound hammer. I haven’t had the need or opportunity to buy anything just yet as the games lower levels tend to provide fairly well for the beginner.

All things considered I would give this game so far an 8 out of 10 for overall appeal to me. I’ll post another Topic when I have actually accomplished something other than freeing myself from slavery.

Oh and Sexual Innuendo, yep it’s there. Haven’t seen any nipples just yet but believe you me. The people next door will know when I do for the first time. =)

Spring Devestation

I refuse to use such a mundane word as ‘Cleaning’ for what I have been doing these past two evenings. It just doesn’t adequately convey the disaster that is my house at this moment. In all fairness I must heap credit upon my wife for her part in this as she began the work while I was at work myself. However I pitched in as soon as I returned home and after almost 9 hours of cleaning, tossing, moving and laundry we now can almost make it to the far corner of our storage room.

Next on the agenda is drafting some of our more able bodied friends and family members to help lug an ancient (read: freaking heavy) hide-a-bed UP a flight of stairs and out the door so that it may be finally put to rest. That might take a while because to get to the hide-a-bed I have to get through the Bumper Pool table. They’ve been together for several years now and I don’t think she’s going to take it very well. Sucks to be her though because what I haven’t told her is she’s next on the chopping block.

Now once we get those two pieces of dead weight out the door it will be on to my own personal love. My Library as it were. I generally don’t throw out books when I buy them. I’ve been in this house for going on 14 years now. I read alot. Do some abstract math why dontcha? Oh and also I collected comics for about…8 years back in the day and I still have all of them.

My plan is to go book by book through the lot of them and see which ones I have read more than one time. Those can stay because they have proven they have value in a re-reading sense. All the others will get donated to the local area be it the Book Store, the Crisis Centre or whatever comes to mind. I refuse to throw a book in the garbage when it might bring someone else the same joy that I had upon first reading it.

In other news, I picked up the 20th Anniversary PSP Editions of Final Fantasy that came out before I owned a PSP and have been playing with them for a couple days now. I have to say that even with the age of the format I still get drawn into the stories of those games even though I have played them several times now.

Tomorrow Age of Conan comes out for the PC. I am on the fence about this, even though I have it Pre-Ordered. I have heard many good things about it from Beta Testers but I question my ability to get back into an MMO even if it is one for which I have long been a fan of the novels by Robert E. Howard. I stopped playing WoW when I got my Blood Elf Warlock to his Maximum Level because I am not a raider and I could see WoW slipping into the same trap as EverQuest albeit with much more grace.

Ah well I will get it, install it, patch it and try it out in the next few days to see if it is something I can enjoy despite the children that will no doubt infest it despite it’s M Rating from the ESRB. Look for a scintillating review in the near future =)

Godfather

You know the deal…just when I thought I was out…Puzzle Quest pulled me back in! Thanks in no small part to a Post on my friend Pandora’s Blog put there by Yoshi. Curse you…I couldn’t find it for my DS for some reason (i think I loaned it to a friend) so I went out and bought it for the PC.

Now for those of you not already addicted/aware of this game go Click the Puzzle Quest Link Above now.

What I love the most about this game is the pick up and play aspect. There is no lengthy load, getting into the Action is quick and easy. Best of all though, there is no death. There is Defeat but no Death. You lose a match and all that happens is you have to try try again or perhaps go hone your skills some more on an Opponent more suited to your skill level.

Something of note for my fellow PQ Addicts is they are making a Sci-Fi Version of the game!

Oh and not to be outdone…the mention of PQ got me thinking about a former Guilty Pleasure of mine and so I Double Dare all my readers to go and try Progress Quest!

Start your PSPs!

Ah the heady days of Spring how they move me to action. Allow me to share with you what could very well be the most significant thing I do for the next 2 weeks. That most wondrous of franchises with the MOST foolish name in Gaming History (arguable but it sounds good) Final Fantasy! Crisis Core comes out tomorrow. I’d squee but I’m to macho.

Up until now my favorite game for the PSP has been Warhammer 40K Squad Command but no longer I say! Of course that being said I will probably not like the *SMACK*…sorry sorry, can’t believe I almost said that.

Oh..and while I have you here readers…What The Fuck…is wrong with Amazon.com? Kindle is not available outside the United States? What kind of stupid shit is that? I realize there are probably distribution laws causing most of this problem but for fucks sake people…I am SO very sick of running into this crap every time something interesting comes out. ITunes Canada, no Downloadable American TV shows or Movies for you Mr. Canadian! Old Navy, We currently do not ship outside the United States from our Online Store you silly Canuck!

The ONLY thing this does is force me to go underground to get the things I want. And in 97% of cases I succeed, so yeah, you go with your Legal Crap and see how far it gets you when half your country is laughing at your regulations and getting the things they want anyway.

Oh and someone with more Tech Experience might want to explain to me how do do Cuts…so I can spare a whole screen of me babbling. Thanks!

Oddity

For an as yet indeterminate reason today I am sad. Perhaps melancholy is a good description of what I am feeling today. This is rare for me, usually I am a fairly ‘even’ person emotionally. This could be due in large part to the self-sacrificing nature that I sport which does not often allow me to burden others with my issues.

Earlier today my wife phoned me from work with good news, God of War - Chains of Olympus is out for the PSP now and she thought I might want it ( I do! ) so she called to confirm that. In my mind I was saying, “Please stay on the phone with me for a little while.” but of course what I said was, “Thank you honey, don’t let me keep you from your work.” 

What really cranks my wheel is that when I go back to work in 30 minutes I will be my normal self to everyone there, the amusing smart-ass joker that everyone loves to work with. Four hours later I will get home, pick Christina up from Hap Ki Do and probably not even mention how I feel right now because in most cases it has more than passed by then.

Oh and in other news. Vista is an Idiot..but a crafty idiot… the learning curve is slowly being overcome.