Sonic and Friends

About a week ago I believe I told you that I was trying out a writing community called Bibliofaction.  Don't go.  Most of the pieces were poorly written smut, which I expected to a degree after all I was looking for a Deviant Art of writing, but there was no system in place to rate works or sort through the bad ones.  I will continue my search... Elsewhere!

I wanted to mention Google Wave.  My friend who adores guinea pigs, in a totally no homo masculine way, mentioned that the internets were abuzz with this new leet software.  I looked into it and I was actually impressed this time.  Normally I don't approve of listening to hype, but I would advise everyone to keep there eye on this one.  It appears to be a cross between an Instant Messenger and a Document sharer.  It looks like its going to have a lot of functionality.  The makers are kinda stuck up about it, saying they think it's going to replace email, psh yea sure.  I do think it looks like a good product and if its free, hot dog!

Speaking of guinea-man, on Sixty's Blog he reviewed a bad game for a change of pace.  Now I'm not competitive or anything, *glance left and right* but I think I WILL review a bad game.  Okay, maybe a little competitive.


Sonic Heroes

Sonic and his many many obscure friends on a three dimensional adventure to... do... something... that involves Robotn- I mean EGGMAN!

Presentation - This game is in 3D, but the graphics are simple, way too glossy, and tend to clip, flicker and otherwise bug out.  The music is annoying and the theme song makes me want to get a bucket and hurl and then find someone who likes this game and dump it on them.  The cutscenes are clearly not synched up with the voice acting either, not that they'd be impressive if they were.

Presentation gets no points.

Entertainment - 3D Sonic has always struggled and this one is probably the best example.  The controls are stiff, the homing attacks make you bounce all over the place, and weird camera angles for dramatic effect change your controls and make you fall to your death.  Enemies in the game are no threat.  Hitting one makes you lose like 10 rings or something, really easy to get back.  Never the less, you will die all the time in this game.  The game is almost nothing but platforms placed over endless pits of death.  Even landing in deep water is instant death.  Strange camera angles don't make avoiding this death any easier.  An awkard team mechanic coupled with a leveling up system makes this game feel very not Sonic-esque.  When gameplay is the mainstay of a game, like it usually is in platformers, you really can't afford to mess it up.

Entertainment gets no points.

Literary Value - heh, ha, ha ha, HA HA HA HA Ha Ha, Ha, ha, ha, hoo, whoo, yea, good one.

No points.

Respect - Sonic was a big name series and still has a large following, but even most fans of Sonic will still agree, this game stinks.  This is not a highly acclaimed game, in fact its rather often the butt of many a joke.

Sonic Heroes gets NO RESPECT!


Sonic Heroes gets 0 rings / 4 and dies.

Final Notes - This is the only game that I wish I could get rid of.  Most bad games I get I just sell, but my six-year-old sister is a hoog Sonic fan and being six she has no taste in games.  The colorful graphics and repetitive theme song hypnotizes her young impressionable mind and she makes us play it for her sometimes.  We've almost got it completely out of her system by hiding it in the back of our games case, but sometimes she remembers or finds it.  As Roland of Gilead says, "For your father's sake," don't get this game.

Fall Break is coming up this week.  I'll be with my family and I may not update until I get back.  I'm not going to promise I won't, but don't be surprised if I don't.

I worked on my assembly language project today.  Assembly language is probably the most cryptic computer language I've had to deal with.  I have to use a reference card to remember the difference between load word and load immediate.  I got it mostly done today all that's left is some debugging.

And then...

We landed the ship on the asteroid's landing pad.  The place was an abandoned mining colony with old rusted digging equipment and space weathered buildings with faded Fraction Corps logos on them.  (It looks like pac man)

"Nanobot Command, Astro-Shield, Personal" I commanded the nanobots to form a space survival shield to protect me from the vacuum of space and provide me with compressed air to breath.  It's completely invisible.

Ash repeated my command.

She cut her hair back to its original short state where it comes down just below her ears.  It is still completely green, apparently she didn't have the dye to get the blond tips she had before.  Reminds me of Ryoko on Martian Successor Nadesico.

"Stop staring and lets get moving."

"Hey now, I'm the captain, I give the... orders."

She had already pushed off the ship towards one of the walk lines.  The gravity on the asteroid is too low to really walk so the workers put up ropes along the surface they could use to pull themselves along with.

The barren cold surface of the asteroid filled with the ruins of a long gone civilization gave me a bad feeling.  You have to think that people once lived and worked here every day.  Now there was nothing but silence.

"COMM CHECK!"

"Lord! Ash, do you have to yell?"

"I'll take that as an affirmative."

"Yea, yea, affirmative.  There's no one here, if your sis is hiding out here she's gotta be in the mines."

"Roger that, let's go."

"Aye."

We drifted into the darkness of the mines.  As we got deeper into the cave we realized neither of us had brought a flashlight.

"I think we should go back."

Just then, the lights flickered on.  Ash's eyes flickered on as well.

"She's here!"

"calm down, could've been motion detected or worse, could be someone else."

"Stop being pessimistic."

"Then stay on your toes!"

She stared at me for a moment with nothing but defiance in her puckered lips, but then she softened into a grudging compliance.

"Aye cap'n."

We continued down the mines until we reached a sector with a huge metal walkway leading deeper.  The walkway appeared to be for using magnetic boots to simulate gravity, but there were still walk lines along the ground.

"What d'you think these metal walkways are for?"

Ash pointed down the cave.

"That."

I followed her gaze to a towering metal colossus with drills for arms.  A mech, mining class, but big enough to impress anyone standing in its shadow.  Nearly ten stories tall, its drills were at least two stories tall by themselves.

"I want one."

Until next time fellow pirates.

Disgaea

I'm craving a game that I can't play.  One it's on PS2 and two I don't own a copy.  Since I can't play it, I'm gonna review it, or something.  Most of my friends, those who love the 80's and those who live off of chicken fingers, will not hear anything here they don't already know.  This is mostly just for me to stifle my craving, hopefully.


Disgaea: Hour of Darkness

I'll use my normal format really quickly and then I want to get to the good stuff, as this is more commentary than review.

Presentation - Disgaea has beautiful high definition art during cutscenes and brightly colored over-the-top special moves.  It may lack some in animation, but makes up for it and more in artwork.

Full-Marks for Pres.

Entertainment - Providing one of the most intricate strategy RPG systems I have ever seen with a plethora of levels, many of which are optional, you could literally play this game for hundreds of hours and still find new stuff.  Trust me, I have a friend who's done it.

Entertainment gets Full-Marks

Literary Value - A heart-felt divine comedy with several plot twists and a fresh from the villain perspective.  It may have a little anime cheese to it.  But just enough to make it better and not hinder it.

Full-Marks for Story (seeing a pattern here?)

Respect - Now here's where I get picky with my review.  This game is obscure, it used to be a lot more obscure than it is now.  Now it's very in with the nerd crowd and the anime crowd.  Popular? No.  Well-known?  Not really.  Highly acclaimed?  Definitely.  It's not a perfect game, but it's damn near close.

Respect? Half-Cred.  It's good enough for me.

Disgaea gets 3.5 exploding prinnies out of 4


Enough review, I just wanna ramble.  Disgaea Commentary starts here.  One of my favorite things about Disgaea was Item World.  When you need to level up, Item world is there for you.  Not only does it provide random dungeons to train your peeps in, but doing so makes your items better too.  Also, Item World was chocked full of goodies to be had in case you were low on cash or needed some better gear.

It wasn't just easy pickings either though.  If you went into Item World unprepared or picked the wrong item to jump into to, you'd find yourself over your head fast.  Mr. Gency's Exits were a godsend, and made it so that even if you did get in over your head, you could still salvage the situation.

I think the combo system made the game ten times more fun as well.  Both the physical attack combo and the stringing together several commands combo.

And the game was so funny.  Even the battle system was hilarious.  Your stats had practically no limits, throwing your teammates around was a strategy, and if you couldn't get a bill passed you could just beat up everyone who didn't vote for you.

Disgaea 2 and 3 weren't as good.  Disgaea 2 would've gotten a 3/4 and I didn't play Disgaea 3 enough to know what it would get.  I think Disgaea 2 made a lot of good changes to the game system, but the story was much weaker.  And it didn't have the deep character development of the first one.  I think Rozalin was the best character and she didn't have that much going for her.  Despite Axel's attempts at being the next Mid-Boss, he couldn't quite live up.

I think the fact that you could use a ton of different strategies really helped Disgaea too.  You could power-level Laharl to kill everything, or you could work with a huge rotating cast.  You could pick your favorite characters and even mold them to your preferences to a degree.  I made Flonne a gun user, best one I had, because I made her that way.  She would've been much more suited to healing or working with a bow, but I said no, she's gonna pop some caps.

Last word, if you're reading this and you don't know about Disgaea, play this game.  If you're reading this and you do know Disgaea, please send me a copy, a PS2, and million dollars, please?

I worked on some Visual Basic projects today.  Visual Basic is really easy to use.  It also seems rather limited in its capabilites, but I'm taking the class so I'm learning the language.

And then...

I used Googalaxy to search for leads to finding Lee, but the words of Sayoko still swam in my head.  She had said that Lee had killed herself when she activated the weapon of mass destruction.  Hey, Ash had died and she was standing over my shoulder right now.  Maybe it was genetic?

"What's bothering you Keelhaul?"

"Sayoko said your sister was dead."

"Sayoko says a lot of things.  Keep looking."

I could see I wasn't going to change her mind about this one.  I found a chat on PirateLinks about someone saying they thought they saw Lee Edwards' spaceship landing on one of Fraction Corps asteroid mining bases.

Sounding like a good enough place to start.

The nanobots I picked up had the ship up and running.  Her beautiful hardwood floors glowed in the unfettered starlight.  Her completely useless sails fluttered in an artificial breeze.  Really stunning and completely superfluous.  The boards even creaked as you walked across them, just for added effect.  The photon cannons were molded into age of exploration cannons with powder kegs next to it and everything.

The only thing it was missing... a crew.  The decks were huge and completely empty.  Thanks to the nanobots neural interface, I could pilot the ship all by myself, but it still needed a crew.  I could use the extra hands too.

At least I had a first mate.

"And these, my lady, are your private quarters."

"So I can paint the walls pink right?"

"Well, you, I mean..."

"I'm just kidding.  It feels weird to have a place to call my own.  I've been on the road for several years now."

"You and your husband?"

"No, ex-husband, and he was too ADD with me anyway, sans travel."

(Cha-ching)

"By the way Keelhaul, you look a lot like him."

"Related maybe?  What's his name?"

"Bob Citsrk?"

"Don't know him.  It actually sounds like a name I'd use as an alias, but I've never met you before.  I'd have to get really drunk not to remember getting married."

"Yea, guess so..."

"Anyway, get some sleep, we'll hit that asteroid tomorrow."

"I hope not."

Until next time fellow pirates.

dA Today

I'm bored.  Time for a new segment. Today I'll browse through Deviant Art and pull some of my favorites of the day.  I may take some stuff made in the last week or so.  I'll go with my top three today.  I may do more or less next time.


Time to Fly


I like the sense of scale the author used in this piece.  It reminded me of those commercials for Aion.


Dragon and Slave (Censored)

I, um, ahem, I thought this piece was well colored and... yea okay I thought it was kinda hot.  Sorry about the censoring, but this is a public page that may be viewed by minors.


Kappa


I found this picture very frightening despite the lower detail.  Artist did a good job with mood.


I didn't find as much as I was expecting to find.  I got a hundred on a Assembly language exam I was dreading, so I'm happy today.  Still busy though.  I'll get it all done though.

And then...

I warped back to find myself safely six feet above the ground outside of the Fraction building.  Falling six feet still hurts though.  I shook it off and walked back towards the building.

The building was deserted, likely evacuated during the fight.  I walked up and pushed the call button for the elevator.

Waiting.

The elevator doors slid open and I began to step into the elevator.  I was kindly met with a pistol in my face.  Luckily (or unluckily) I found that Ash was behind that pistol.  She looked human again.  Her hair fell straight to her waist and was solid green.  She wore the tattered burnt remains of one of the guards' uniforms.  Besides that she looked just like she used to.

She lowered her gun and ran up and hugged me.

"Thank you for bringing me back."

"It was nothing.  You really helped me out of a scrape up there."

"I hope I didn't hurt you.  I didn't know I could do that."

"Naw, so... can you do that whenever you want now."

('Cause it's almost time for the bad news)

"I don't think so, but maybe."

(Not good.)

"Well, I'm glad you're back, but I should be on my way."

"Take me with you.  I could use your help again sometime, and I owe you one for bringing me back."

"You owe me one, eh?  Well in that case I guess you could tag along."

"Besides I need to pick up the money from the refractor."

"I spent it."

Here comes the look.

"All of it?  I needed that money."

"Just my share, just call us even, waddaya say?"

"I need you to help me find my sister."

"That sounds like work."

"I was going to use the money from that refractor to fund my search, but since you spent it, I guess I'll have to squeeze it out of you."

"Very well, but if we do this, you have to become my first full fledge crew-mate."

"I'm not sure I like the implications of 'mate' but okay, Ash Citsrk at your service."

(Oh yea, her husband, I'll ask her later.)

Until next time fellow pirates...

Modern Con Man

I picked up this book called "Modern Con Man" and I love it.  It's filled with bar tricks to impress people or win a few wagers.  The whole thing is devious, but in a fun, harmless kind of way.  The motto in the front of the book is:

"Do unto others... then run."

Some of the tricks I've heard of, like playing the game of Nim, but most of them I haven't and they don't require a lot of props either.  Here's a simple example just to give you a taste.

Standing in line, bored?  How about skipping the person ahead of you?  Try this.  Bet him that he can't stand on his right foot for ten seconds if you place him against the wall.  You get to skip him if you win and if he wins, offer him a dollar or something.  When he agrees, place him against the wall, but place him sideways so his right shoulder and right foot are against the wall.  Timber!

I had an enjoyable weekend.  A couple of my friends came over and we watch Lupin III: Castle of Caligostro.  It's an old Myazaki film based on a TV series.

And then...

I stood on the top of the Fraction Building staring down the sights of three rifles trained on me.  Ms. Sayoko stood behind them, her blue curly hair bouncing at her waist and plump red lips curled in an evil smile.

"The Refractor, if you don't mind."

"Funny thing about that, I just gave it to some ninja."

"Then I'll take those nanobots as compensation."

"How about I leave and take the bots and you just have a nice day."

"I wouldn't advise that.  As soon as I saw you on the buildings cameras, I erected an anti-warp field that scatters objects leaving the area faster than the speed of light.  It covers the entire roof."

"Where do you people GET THESE THINGS?"

Just as I was exclaiming about how unfair anti-warp devices were, the sun was fully eclipsed by the moon.  At that moment, the pouch that had been holding Ash's remains began to get very hot.  I quickly tossed it off in self-preservation.  The guards took their guns off of me and aimed at the satchel that was now on fire.  The pouch quickly burned to a crisp and the ashes fell out.

The pile of ashes writhed and grew.  Embers spread out in veins branching out all over the pile.  Then the delicate shape of a human hand burst from the pile as if someone was reaching out of a lake.  The hand, black and crispy like the ash, grasped the roof, pulling itself from the invisible mire.  A shoulder appeared, still black and crispy like the hand with the ember veins mapping out some alien terrain.  Then the head pulled itself from the lake of ash, slowly and laboriously as if the lake was made of some thick syrup.  Her hair was long and draped from her head concealing her face.

Then in a violent flail, she flung her hair backwards and thrust her crispy black bare chest into the air and gasped for breath.  As the air rushed into her, the ember veins flared like a Boy Scout's campfire as he blew on it to keep it going.  She continued her crawl from the primeval pits, one hip and then the next.  Finally the last bits of ash gathered together to finish her long legs and burnt black feet.  She paused a moment, rasping for air, her ember veins pulsing with every gasp.

Then she looked up.  Three frightened gaurds and a carefully retreating Sayoko were in front of her.  She let out a feral screech like someone trying to impersonate a hawk, and doing a pretty good job.  She burst into flames, all the black crispy skin licked away by red hot heat.  Then she lunged at the first guard.  Her fingers clawed through his face, each cutting like a minature blow torch.  The other guards fired their weapons, but each bullet passed through her as if she wasn't even there.  Second guard.  Third guard.  She whirled around and looked right at me.

"Hey now Ash, it's me, Keelhaul?"

I knew this wouldn't work, but I was buying for time.  I couldn't warp, the anti-warp field was still active.  (Anti-warp field, really)

She began leaping towards me on all fours.  As she lunged for me, I pretended to be knocked off.  I was actually jumping.  As I fell, I thought about how mad she was going to be when she found out that we already spent the refractor money.  I wondered if she would have the ability to turn into that thing from now on.  The ground was getting closer, this was a pretty tall building.  I had to warp right before I hit the ground, that way if I warped back, I'd only be six feet in the air instead of sixty.

If I missed timed it, I'd end up as street pizza.  Right... about... now.

Until next time fellow pirates.