Mixed Bag today

Okay, my friends and I have been tossing around the idea of doing a podcast.  Currently, we have no theme.  We were just planning on talking about each of our specialties.  I've been trying to come up with a good one, but I haven't thought of much yet.  However, I had this idea and I thought I'd put it here.

Infinite To Do List

Every show we'll have ten topics, (We can split them up among the three of us) and we discuss whatever it is we're talking about and end it with a To Do List item.  For example, somebody does a quick review of River City Ransom and after they finish, they say, "#7 on our To Do List today, Play River City Ransom."

I like ten because it makes it seem like a top ten list.  We could each take three and all agree on the last one or we could take turns doing the last one.


Let's play Name That Game.

I'm going to post some pics of some SNES games that I think are kinda obscure, prove to me how unobscure they are by guessing them.

Just kidding, on to the real pics.

This remake of an old NES strategy game is actually pretty fun to play.

This action-rpg is the second in a series of games that you wouldn't be able to tell they were a series unless you played them.

This Lucas-Arts classic is how mech games should play even with fun multiplayer deathmatch action.

Okay, enough fun and games.  The weekend is upon me, and it feels like this week has flown by.  Today I can't say that I did anything interesting.  Class as usual, but sometimes it's good to get a break.

And then.


I awoke to find myself on a wooden sailing ship.  It wasn't mine though, this one was actually at sea.  The sky overhead was bright, but not as bright as the smiling face of the green haired girl standing over me.  Not Ash though, Lee maybe?  She looked too young to be Lee, after all Lee was the last thing I saw before waking up here.

"I'm so glad you're alive.  When we fished you out of the water, I thought we were dragging up a dead body."

"Yeah, I'm glad I'm not dead too.  Say, where are we?"

"This is my father's fishing boat.  We're on vacation.  It was gonna be a real bummer to go home early cause we found a dead body, but your like, alive."

I sat up and looked around, there were two other girls and a man busy with boat stuff.  I figured he was their father, big guy, probably shouldn't hit on these girls.

One of the girls was Ash, but she looked much younger.  I can only assume I must have been sent back in time.  I found that I couldn't warp either.  The other girl had blue hair that bounced with the wind.

"Sayoko."

I said it out loud, I hadn't meant to.  She looked completely taken back at the fact that I knew her name.  I couldn't tell what happened after that because I passed out again.

I woke up in bed.  I was still at sea.  I sat up, but I was sore and I groaned from the pain.  Sayoko was sitting across from the bed, thinking about something.  She heard me groan and turned to stare straight at me.  Our eyes locked for almost half a minute and then...

She smiled.

"You've come back to us.  Are you feeling alright?"

"A little sore, I'll live."

"Who are you?  Where are you from?"

"I'm Captain..."

pause.

"Yes?"

"Captain... Bob."

"Bob?"

"Yea, Bob... Citsrk." (Where had I heard that?)

"Welcome aboard Bob.  Um, Bob have we met before?"

"Sure.  You don't remember me?  You know, from that thing, last year?"

"Oh yea, the dance party."

"Yeah, love me some dancing.  I could use some food too, I'm starving.  I'll gladly pay you when I can get to a bank."

"Don't be silly, come with me.  You can tell us all about your adventures over dinner."

Well, not ALL about them.

Until next time fellow pirates.

btw, I found this picture on dA.  It completely reminds me of how I think Sayoko should look.

Captain Comic

As a kid, my selection of games was limited.  I never owned much more than an old computer and an SNES.  We just didn't have that much money to throw around.  I always seemed to be one generation behind.  My friends all had N64s and I was still working with my SNES, I finally got an N64 and everybody was playing PS2s, I get a PS2 and everybody's got 360s.  I never minded though, older systems have a bigger variety of games.  I've been hoping for some time now that game developers will go back and make some games like they used to.  I now see that 360 arcade developers are picking up on that same vibe and doing just that.

Well, that was a long exposition just to say this.  I'm going to show you one of my old favorites.  This was one of the first platformers on PC.  It was a really fun game that is available as shareware.  Not sure if it'll run on modern computers as it was a DOS game, but you should give it a try because it is definitely worth it.













Captain Comic (MS-DOS)

You are Captain Comic, the fireball throwin', space jumpin' defender of space justice!  The planet Tambi is in need of your help.  You have to find and "recover" the treasures that were stolen by an odd assortment of animals and inanimate objects that all want to Kill You!

Presentation - Heavily pixelated graphics, MIDI sound effects, no background music, and only one attack graphic (fireball).  This game's pres is old school and not the reason you play this game.  It's not so poorly done that it keeps you from enjoying the other aspects, but not worth getting credit for.

No points for presentation

(Note: Some reviewers prefer to review the graphics of a game based on the graphics of that time.  I don't think this is helpful.  I'm not reviewing this game for the benefit of someone in 1988, I'm hoping someone will read this sometime in the present and I think they should know what they're getting into.  Also, it's not like we were blind to the fact that our graphics weren't exactly life-like.  Graphics may have improved over the past twenty years, but our eyes haven't, or have they?  If an old game I review had superior graphics at one time, I may give it credit to recognize the quality of work put into it, but otherwise I'll be reviewing the graphics as I see 'em.)

Entertainment - This game is not only one of the first platformers on PC, it's one of the oldest "sandbox" games I've ever played.  You can literally go almost anywhere from the start of the game.  There are some upgrades like jump boots and a teleport wand that are required to reach some areas of the game, but otherwise it's completely free range.  The beginning may seem like it's linear, but that only lasts for a little while.  The game is challenging at first, but as you get used to the jumping and enemy movement patterns it becomes much easier.  Gameplay is the highlight of this game, and I believe it has the best gameplay of 1988 PC games.  That's right, this game gets PC Game-of-the-Year 1988 in my book.  For its excellent gameplay, I'm going to give this game Bonus Points.

Entertainment gets an extra-credit 1.5

Literary Value - This arcade style game has almost no plot.  There might have been one in the Readme file or something.  The enemies are killer bees, beach balls, and blind frogs?  Colorful, fun to play, but it don't make a lick of sense.  It is kinda humorous, but only because it's ridiculously arbitrary.

Literary gets no points

.

Respect - This game was not popular and its sequel is almost completely unknown.  I haven't even played it.  Obscure, oh yeah, least I think so.  Maybe if they ever remake it the respect for this original would go up, but I wouldn't count on it.

Sorry Captain, no respect (but I still luv ya!)

Conclusion:  The gameplay is the only worthy factor here.  It was tons o' fun back in the day and it's still fun today.  I'm not gonna call it a masterpiece or a classic.  Heck, I hesitate to call it a good game.  Still, give it a try, it needs yo lovin'.

Captain Comic gets 1.5 Blastola Colas out of 4.

I went to the South Carolina State Fair last weekend.  That's why I haven't posted anything over the weekend.  I had a deep fried Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.  I love those things.


And then...

The floating body that had formed from the towering Cthulu that we had just defeated floated in front of us in the vacuum of space.  Thinking quickly, I commanded the nanobots to extend my astroshield to cover our new guest.  Ash had lost all the cool she had built up a few minutes ago.  She was chattering nervously about something, I couldn't understand her because she was talking too fast.

"...ifnohospitalthenyougottawarporsomethin"

"ASH, shut up... please?"

Amazingly the girl was alive.  I used my nanobots to magnetize myself back to the mech.  I imagine the miners who used to work here, probably had a similar system.  Back inside the mech, Ash kept starting to say something, but then deciding not to.  We moved towards the light I saw deeper in the asteroid.

"What! You can't go deeper in.  We've gotta get to civilization."

"She's been living here for this long, I bet she'll make it back in her own home."

"If she dies..."

"Fine. She won't, but yeah if she does then feel free to do whatever you need to do to me."

Ash was willing to trust that.  She figured I didn't have a death wish.  A normal human wouldn't have made it as long as this girl had in the vacuum of space.  She could survive in an anaerobic environment, I just knew it.

We came upon the quaintest little cottage sitting in the middle of the dark depressing asteroid mine.  It looked completely out of place, impossible even.  We entered into the building through a front door sized airlock.  It even had a doorbell!

As we entered the living room, Lee began to arouse in my arms.  She gently lifted out of my hands and drifted away, driven by an unseen force.  She righted herself and stood floating a foot from the floor of the cozy space cottage.

She stared into my eyes with a glare from a distant place.  Like she was thinking about something else and just leaving her eyes in my direction.  She wasn't though, she was looking at me, all of me, past, present, and maybe...

She began to speak with an angelic harmony that defied the acoustics of the room.

Lady with the lips
Lips that smile
Lips that bite
Lady with the snarling smile

"Do you mean Sayoko?"

You will help her rise
You will help her fall
Your hand will guide this evil
This evil will guide your hand

"I won't play by her rules, sorry."

Her rules are your rules
You make the rules, you rule her
In the end, you'll play, she'll pay
Like children telling a story

"Who are you?"

Once I was sister to the phoenix
Once I was a monster bound by a spell
Always I am the oracle, now and forever
I am Leet

She extended her hand and I began to feel my consciousness slipping.  I spent the next three years in the not so distant past. For my convenience I will chronicle it as usual, but I did not actually have the ability to return to Earth during this time.

Until another time fellow pirates.

My Blog, Talking 'bout My Blooog.

I want to talk about my blog in my blog today.  Time for something a little zen.  I wanted to discuss why I post the way I do and how it's been benefitting me.

As you know, after I blog about my adventures on Earth I begin blogging about my space-faring adventures.  I been using these logs as a scratchpad for my authory thoughts.  It's literary practice like a flat stone to sharpen my knife, a decoy to practice my latest moves on, or an experience rich area to level up my RPG hero.  Even without input from an outside source, I still have learned quite a lot.  Just looking at what I wrote I see things that I like and things I thought would be good but weren't so great.

I'll list a few things now, starting with planning.  I've found that if I concentrate on planning out the story then I tend to rush through the events with not enough details.  Planning is good and keeps me on a clear path, but I've found that fictional writing is much more an emotional process than a logical one.  If it feels right, then go with it.

I found that you can make "special effects" with words.  I used this counting in the background to add emotion to my fight with Jack, and I really liked that.  I'm going to try and experiment with more "text effects" in later posts.

A character from FLCL, Nauta, made a cameo in an earlier post.  I liked the idea, but I totally messed up Nauta.  I didn't capture his character.  One of the problems was I didn't describe him well enough, but the biggest problem was the dialogue was all wrong.  One of my weak points is giving my characters more character in their dialogue.  I'm not entirely sure what I should do.  I guess I should add some frequently used words to each person's unique dialogue.

I've been trying to write with an exponential curve of detail as I progress through each post.  I start out with just the important stuff from the events leading up the main event.  Then I describe the main event with moderate detail up until just before the climactic moment.  Then I spend a lot of detail on the climax leading up to a one-liner.  I think this is a good structure for episodic writing, maybe all writing.

Things I'm planning on doing?  I plan to include some in-depth character bios in my next recap post maybe with pics.  I plan on incorporating a little poetry into my posts.  I've seen it done in some books I've read and I think it might help.  I plan on trying to tie my posts into posts from a couple of days ago.  Like maybe I'll describe a stoplight in one post that I use as a weapon in the next post, etc.


I was eating dinner in my campus dining hall today and it was kind of crowded.  A guy walks up and sits down across from me at my table.  This wouldn't have been strange if it were one of the longer tables, but this was a small four person table.  The guy doesn't say a word and just sits down and starts eating.  I thought about making a comment to break the tension like, "Kinda crowded tonight."  Then I realized that if I wanted to sit down at someone's table, I would ask first.  So I decided to let him talk first, but he never did.  It was really awkward, I think it was his fault.

And then...

The writhing, winged, tentacled monstrosity continued to stare us down.  I tried to avert my eyes.  The terrifying visage of the beast was like a train wreck, you had to keep looking at it.  Only this was worse.  The sight of the being slowly began to peel away your mind and drive you into eternal nightmares.

"Try not... to look... directly at it, Ash."

After managing to avert my eyes, I grabbed Ash's trembling chin and forcibly turned her head from it.  She tore herself away and pushed aside my helping hand.  I explained the plan.

"This is a Cthulu, a small one."

"A Cthulu?  I thought there was only one."

"There used to be, but things happened and now there are plenty of them.  I can fight it, but it will only distract it.  It feeds on the anger of battle.  The only thing that can truly stop it is complete calm and confidence."

"So what do you want me to do?"

"I'm going to drill this thing into the wall.  While we're arm wrestling, I need you somewhere else.  Get out of the mech, go to a dark corner of the cavern and..."

"Out of the Mech!?"

"Find your happy place."

I opened the hatch on the mech.  The writhing tentacles crawled into the hull.  I slammed on the controls and drove a drill right into its center.  The drill began spinning.

Spinning.

The sound of the drill squishing the monsters guts was satisfying.  The monster wasn't really hurting though.  He was just trying to get me riled up and it was working.

"Go, go now!"

Ash bit her lip and jumped through the opening and began crawling to the back of the mech.  I continued to work the drills.

SPinning.

The monster grew bored of crying in agony and reached inside the Mech with its huge clawed hand.  Tentacles protruded from the palm of the paw.  This thing has tentacles all over it.  I drew a sword in one hand while still holding the mech controls in the other.  I rose the sword above my head and twirled it a few times...

SPInning.

...and brought it down on the claw.  I cut off one of the fingers and the hand retracted in false pain.  He was good.  The bloodlust was strong now.  I could feel it...

SPINning.

...welling up inside me.  What was taking Ash so long?  Moments felt like minutes, seconds like hours as the drills continued to spin.

SPINNing.

The monster stared at me with his eye of insanity and reached in and pinned me against the wall with his other hand.  Tentacles crawled up the sides of my head feeling around beneath my eyes.  I felt my head...

SPINNIng.

...aching and sadness, fear, and pain began to fill my whole being.  It drug me out of the mech, helpless to fight back, and towards its abyssal mouth.  Ash couldn't do it, her fear, for herself and me, would keep her from stopping it and this was going to be my final mission.

Then, I felt N.O. rushing up inside me.  I felt the asteroid that surrounded me, drifting, flipping over and over in the comsmos.

SPINNINg.

I think I actually heard the monster chuckle.  He sensed my N.O.  Actually, he was waiting for it.  He was going to absorb it for himself.  I couldn't stop the power.  It came to me like falling unconscious but backwards.  I was waking up and I couldn't stop.

SPINN...

"STOP!"

It was Ash's voice.  My N.O. faded and the monster stared straight at it.

"Put him down."

The monster moved as close as it could to Ash without touching her and she didn't even blink.

"Now."

The monster obeyed reluctantly and then began writhing in a real pain.  It began to shrink.  Not only did it shrink, but it began to take on humanoid form.  It finally reached the form of a young woman with long hair.  It was hard to tell with only the light from the mech, but it looked like her hair was... green.

"Captain!  It's Lee."

Until next time fellow pirates.

Erfworld

Quite some time ago, I was recommended to read a webcomic called Erfworld.  Having finished Book 1, I thought I'd post my thoughts.

Erfworld is a land ruled by the conventions of table-top gaming.  Wars are fought in turns and movement is measured in hexagonal grid spaces.  Lord Stanley is surrounded by enemy forces with his capitol as his only remaining stronghold.  In a last ditch effort to save his kingdom he orders that a warlord be summoned.

Parson is fat, sweaty, minimum wage earning nerd who regularly plays table-top games.  Summoned into Erfworld he is tasked with winning a losing battle.

The artwork is very well done.  This comic features a super-deformed style of drawing found in some japanese comics.  The lines are clean and the colors are well done with some added graphical effects now and then that improve the presentation.

The story has average pacing, not as slow as most web comics but still slower than commercial comics.  The author does a good job in keeping the tension rolling.

The best feature of this comic is the constant allusions especially to internet culture or old TV shows.  The author works them into the story solidly and makes them regularly.  The comic can be pretty funny at times, mostly there's little humor or a sort of dry humor.

I only really have one small complaint.  The author seems to really enjoy the system and world he made with this comic and has extended sections discussing these topics in detail.  It can be very dry and is mostly unimportant.  However, the author does a very good job of setting this information in a different style.  I found that if the information was too boring then I could simply skip over it without missing much story.

I have yet to read the summer updates that add more to the story and the author has yet to start on Book 2, but I believe I will continue to follow this story, it has caught my interest, it might catch yours.

Today it rained cats and dogs.  I got soaked on my way to business writing and flood warnings were given on several of the schools parking lots.  I did go out after class and retrieve some valuable information for deferring some of my loans.

And then...

I pushed off of the ground and floated to the cockpit of the mining robot.  I motioned Ash to follow.  She hesitated, clearly not liking the idea, but decided to follow.  I began tinkering with the controls.  I knew how to operate similar mechs but I had never used one of these before.

"Do you know what you're doing?"

"Relax baby, I never know what I'm doing."

She wasn't reassured by this fact, but sat back for the ride.  The cockpit was designed for one, but it was large enough for Ash to sit on the dash.

I activated the magnetic walking system and began pushing the thing down into the asteroid.  The lighting was damaged and flickered in most places.  Eventually there was no more left.  The metal walkway continued forward and the robot walked across it as if it was the surface of a planet.  The robot had head lights that lit the path right in front of us, but the walls remained mostly dark and the abyssal path ran towards the center of the asteroid.

The dark tentacles of something monstrously large reached out towards the robot from the darkness.  Ash screamed despite herself.  A shiver ran down my back.  I had seen that shape before and I don't like to remember it.  The monster retreated deeper into the darkness of the asteroid.  I turned to look at Ash holding her hands over her mouth.  She took her hands away to reveal a nervous smile.

"Well, I guess that's that.  No Lee, we should head back and try somewhere else."

"Ash, that thing is here for a reason.  They don't just take up residence in any abandoned asteroid.  We should check this out."

"Listen Keelhaul, as a space adventuring female I have a natural aversion to tentacles and I'm not going to support a decision to go further in."

"You wanna get out and walk back?"

The blackness of the tunnel was complete without the head lights of the mech.  That thing was clearly ahead of the vehicle, but it wouldn't be the most pleasant walk back to the ship.  This was going to be challenging.  I had never had the advantage of a giant mech when I fought one of these last time, but I knew that most people wind up dead or worse after encountering these beasts.  It was guarding something and it was likely related to Lee.

"No Cap'n.  Full sail."

The mech continued laboring towards the center of the asteroid.  The complete lack of sound due to the vacuum of space only made this excursion creepier.  The walls of the asteroid were porous.  Most of the holes were too small for a human to crawl through, but some were large enough that the mech might be able to fit in.  Suddenly the walkway ended, but the cave continued forward.

"No, no no, nooo.  I am not getting out and walking."

"Don't worry greens, this thing can still manage without the walkway.  It's just a lot more challenging to steer."

I activated the thruster system and the robot began drifting into the black abyss.  The tunnel ended opening up into a large cavern filled with natural columns.  Far deeper into the center of the cabin I could make out a light.  I adjusted the robot and came to a stop in the cavern to think about how to proceed.

Thump.

Something hit the mech from behind.  My adrenaline rose over 9000.  I twisted the mech around with the thrusters coming face to face with a monstrosity indescribible with words or pictures.  Writhing tentacles twisted from various places on his body, especially from what one would assume was the face.  A giant eye centered on the gruesome for stared into my very soul with a twisted scowl that screamed hatred, fear, agony, and confusion.  His bat-like wings spread so far apart that the lights of the mech could not even illuminate them completely.  His skin was not colored, but rather was black.  Blackness that could not be penetrated mixed with blackness not so strong that seemed to at least reflect some of the light from the headlights.  The eye was green, red, and many other colors, colors that seemed to fade and appear at random.  Yet these colors were not real, if you stopped concentrating on the eye it became the same blackness that formed the rest of the beast.

"W-w-whaat issit?"

"What isn't it?"

Until next time fellow pirates.

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...