Spore Creature Creator

This was supposed to be a summer of some intense gaming and fun, however...I got a labor intensive job instead. Oh well, at least I should have college funding for the remainder of the year. Anyways, at the end of July I was looking for the Game of the Year edition of Oblivion (because I thought it included all the official plug-ins), yet couldn't find it anywhere convenient. I found the Spore Creature Creator instead. It was released in preparation for a large-scale MMORPG called Spore, which is about controlling freaky critters to take over planets...or something like that. I couldn't care less about the game (because MMORPGs are getting to be a major turn-off for me), but the Creature Creator is a whole load of fun.

I've always been a little partial towards games that allow me to have serious character customization (which is why Oblivion is +3|-| 4\/\/350|\/|3), so I felt especially drawn towards the SCC. I must say that it kept me seriously amused for a good 2 days and only costs $10. I made several little critters that made me laugh when I think of them romping around on some guy's planet when the game comes out. Check out my critters! Left to Right: Shawa, Kuchi, and Barudo

Rainbow Six: Vegas

Again with the more recent FPS games, this Rainbow 6 is the newest game that I've gotten. I've never actually played a Rainbow Six game before this, but Vegas is probably the most realistic game I've ever played...to the point that it's annoying. It's about the Rainbow 6 team, a group of elite special ops, trying to stop a terrorist attack on Las Vegas, Nevada. You have pretty much whatever standard military weapons you could want at your disposal to fight several hundred terrorists with 2 teammates. The numbers are really the only unrealistic thing about the game. Other than that, it's as realistic as a game can get. If you get shot more than once, you're going to die. Headshots are instant kills. This applies to your enemies...and you. Your teammates are probably the most durable creatures in the entire game. While I enjoy the fact that enemies go down very easily, it's extremely frustrating to have to replay certain parts of the game countless times until you realize that there is a second door that is used to get a good sniper setup going. Even this wouldn't be so bad...except that there is no quicksave function. This means that every time you die, you will start back at the last checkpoint (usually every 10-15 minutes apart). When you die halfway through every shootout...the time used adds up.

The weapons are very accurate, no matter which ones you use. Obviously sniper rifles are going to be the most so, but you can take out enemies at medium range with all the weapons, with the shotguns being the only possible exception there. My only complaint about the weapons is the similarity between them all. Submachine guns, Assault Rifles, and Light machine guns are all practically the same. The best choice for pistol is almost always the desert eagle: it's always an instant kill. I found that my best equipment combination was C4/Frag, Desert Eagle, Shield, and either a sniper rifle or Scar-H. Depending on the situation, I might swap the shield for a light machine gun, but I found that the shield was the only way to survive in several instances. As much as I love using my teammates as decoys, they don't last long enough for me to snipe everyone from a higher angle before I have 5 guys shooting at me. Cover is also a must. If you are out in the open for any longer than 1 second...you will die. Even if you think the coast is clear, send out your lackeys to go ahead first.

Overall, definitely fun and challenging, but it got really repetitive...follow these steps:
1. Snake Cam the area- always send your team to grenade the most populated door while you find the higher ground to snipe from.
2. Always have a gun with a scope on it- you'll need to hit someone that is in a turret without getting too close. The one time you don't have it is the one time you'll need it most.
3. Find cover for you and your teammates. You won't survive without cover, and your teammates can't do squat without you in the room helping. Keep yourself safe yet within eyesight of your team.
4. Paranoia is only bad in real life- this is a game, you'll have people being WAY too ready for your arrival. You can be the sneakiest player in the world, but you'll still get noticed after the first or second enemy goes down.
5. Read your reason of Game Over- I was surprised when I saw after the 4th time of "dying" that I wasn't being killed...my objective was failed or my teammate had been fragged. Check that stuff, even though the screen is the same, your cause is right above the Reload from last Checkpoint option.

It really becomes second nature after about the 5th room or area, and it never really gets any harder, so it really got a sort the DOOM feel to it: "Enter room, clear room, find door, repeat" except there wasn't the problem of poor lighting or demonic images everywhere...just nightvision opportunities and Axe: Body Spray ads.

Rating: B

Bioshock

I've been playing several of the newer First Person Shooters lately, so I guess it would be proper if I actually gave my stance towards one of the ones I played. Bioshock was last weekend's adventure, and I have some mixed feelings about it. The story is about a man who is fighting his way through an underwater city created by scientists who shunned all authority. That means that morality and restrictions were nonexistent when research was going on. This all takes place in 1960, so it's a bit odd having advanced technology all around you, but I suppose all those morals and government restrictions were the only thing holding back our inventing genetic enhancements and robotics after WWII.

You get mostly your standard arsenal of weapons: pistol, machine gun, grenade launcher, etc...but you also get a crossbow and chemical thrower, so there is originality in the weapons. Also, each weapon has 3 types of ammunition (generally an antipersonnel round, anti-machine round, and the normal rounds). Where Bioshock sets itself apart from most other FPS is the Plasmids. These are genetic mutations for humans that give them superhuman abilities such as throwing lightning, pyrokinesis, telekinesis, and summoning swarms of bees. Since I'm a bit slow to change, I found myself using the Plasmids only for the puzzle attributes of the game. Sure, I set a guy or two on fire every now and then, but I really just used the guns for any real fighting. Speaking of fighting, I hope you have a very nice computer to run this game on. I was annoyed when I had to turn the visuals on medium settings because the lag from 5 enemies in the room with me stopped me from aiming well. Bah! The enemies are the most mobile of any standard foes I've ever faced in a FPS before, so aiming isn't easy anyways. The graphics really aren't the high point of this game (although it is pretty looking), so it really isn't much of a sacrifice.

The best part of the entire game is the "Little Sisters" and the "Big Daddies." The Little Sisters are young girls who go around with giant hypodermic needles and suck out everyone's life force when they die. To protect the girls, giant genetic monsters in diving suits walk around with either large drills or rivet guns for weapons. What makes these the best part of the game is the interaction between the two. The Little Sisters call their escorts "Mr. Bubbles." I'm not sure if it's the diving suits or what...but seeing a giant creature that can tear me up instantly referred to as "Mr. Bubbles" by a little girl made me laugh every time I heard it. Also, when you defeat the Big Daddy that guards the girl, you have a choice to make...you get to either save the little girl, or suck the life out of her. Whether you kill or save all the little girls determines which ending sequence you acquire. If you value playing more, suck the gals clean. However, if you want to take the higher path and see a different 30 second ending movie, keep them alive. I was surprised when I decided to save them all, but I guess the "Mr. Bubbles" thing kept me more amused than seeing a lifeless little girl tossed away like a banana peel.

However, the game did have its faults. Unfortunately, the farther along the game progresses, the worse the combat gets. The creators could never keep a balance between the storyline and the game play, so you get all the good game play in the first half and the deep story in the second half. Your enemies respawn when you exit the rooms, yet your ammo does not. Because of this fact, I found that it's actually better to just run through all the rooms. The enemies you fight only get slightly more challenging as the game goes on, and the upgrades to your weapons keep them at about the same effectiveness because of the improved enemies. There is only one real boss fight in the entire game (the others were just normal enemies with slightly more health and were just annoying-not difficult). I found that the Big Daddies were actually more of a challenge than any of those boss fights. The final boss was rather pointless: just use Incinerate 3 on him over and over (Roy Mustang vs. Lust anyone?). I actually felt a considerable amount of similarity to Dementium: The Ward towards the second half of the game with the avoiding enemies while running, little creepy girls, pointless final boss, infinite enemy respawn with no ammo, the worthless and disappointing ending movie, and the single weekend it takes to beat it (seeing some patterns?). If you liked Dementium, then this will probably be your favorite game ever. If you didn't...it's still a good game. It just loses its novelty halfway through. I guess 2007 really didn't have that many good game releases in the FPS category, because this won all kinds of amazing awards from several different gaming magazines and tech companies. Personally...I think it was really fun, but I wouldn't really like to play through it again for a while. (Rainbow 6: Vegas review coming next).

Rating: B

F.E.A.R. Revisited

I went back and played through F.E.A.R. again with a few tricks in mind. These can probably apply to any recent First-Person-Shooter for PC (or console with a quicksave feature). My first goal was to clear the game on the highest difficulty. My next goal was to never die (ain't that everyone's?). I decided to use the "save early, save often" strategy that my dad has been relaying to me ever since I started playing DOOM at age 4. However, I took it to the next level: if I took any kind of significant damage, I'd reload from my last save. This turned a game that should be completed in 5 hours or so into a week long project. I must say, the sense of accomplishment was much higher than usual...but I must have replayed certain scenes (especially with the ghosts and fire) several times before I cleared them unscathed. Next, I wanted to collect all the health and reflex boosters that I could find. This is simply a matter of wall-hugging to find any secret areas or vents. Next are a few tricks that only apply to F.E.A.R.:

1. Never run over a gun for its ammo. Take your gun and throw it away first (b key for PC), then pick up the new gun. Then you run over and pick up the gun you just threw away. This will give you a full gun plus 2 clips for most weapons plus all the ammo you previously had. For example, when you run over a Penetrator, you'll get 25 shots. If you use my method, you'll get 75. Big difference.
2. Always stay under cover unless you are using your slo-mo. On the hardest difficulty, they don't miss.
3. Saving right before you throw a grenade is quite useful. Also, shooting a grenade midair will detonate it (this is for enemy grenades when they leave their hands)
4. My optimal weapon set was 1. Penetrator 2. Repeating Cannon 3. Particle Weapon. As long as you use the weapon-toss ammo trick (working on a name for that), you'll never run out of ammo. Pistols or Assault Rifle are good substitutes for Penetrator (I just like seeing bodies pinned against walls).
5. There are maybe 3 instances in the game where melee is actually useful in combat (it's fun on the lowest difficulty, but we're in the big-leagues now). If they get that close to you, you'll need to reload from your save.

Don't worry about any of these if you are playing Extraction point...they throw ammo, armor, and health at you like you are a trigger-happy hemophiliac. Hope some of these tips helped.

Travian

While on the band trip, I was introduced to a simple web browser game called Travian. While it's not the most action packed or graphically amazing game, it is fun and strategic...somewhat. You create your little village among thousands of other villages (all bigger than yours when you start). All those other villages are controlled by other players who are probably going to "farm" you, or use their army to steal your resources. Your only hope of defense is the week or so that you get as a novice protection period. After that, you're fair game to anyone who just sees you as an extension to their own resources.

The game has three parts in theory:
Beginning, where you create your village and start your game
Midgame, where you grow your city and start to branch off into other villages
Endgame, where you try and work with alliance members to try and defeat all other alliances and win the server with your "good word, how much free time do you have???" skills

Pros: It doesn't take that much time out of your day to play and it's not very hard. There are the most reasonable internet gamers on Travian that you will ever meet in your life. You can usually just ask someone to stop attacking you and they will. This completely caught me off guard (mercy on the internet...who would have thought?).

Cons: You will want to check your village (even if it takes 8 hours to build something) every second of your life. It doesn't matter that you didn't have enough resources to buy what you're saving for and won't for another 10 hours, you'll still look every 5 minutes.

My advice to all those who want to start playing, find yourself a nice alliance towards the end of your novice protection. You'll instantly have friends, protection, and mentors. Also, just look at the game a maximum of 4 times a day (morning, afternoon and before you go to bed are prime times). I promise that it truly isn't worth expecting an attack every 10 minutes. There are worse things than loosing 5 hours of inactively gained resources.

I'm on US server 4 for now, I might start with US server 2 when it restarts though.
Link to the United States servers

Rating: B

Joke

So...I have this calendar that tells me a joke every morning. I thought I'd share one that made me laugh today.

An elderly potato farmer lived alone after his only son was sent to prison for a bank robbery. The money from the robbery was never recovered. The farmer wanted to dig his potato garden, but he was too feeble to till the soil. He decides to write a letter to his son about his predicament. Soon, he received this reply: "Whatever you do, Dad, don't dig up that garden. That's where I buried the money!" At 4 A.M. the next morning a dozen policemen came and dug up the entire garden looking for the stolen money, but to no avail. Confused, the old man wrote his son telling him what happened and asking him what to do next. His son replied, "Now plant your potatoes in your newly dug garden, Dad. That's all the help I can give you from here."

The Band Returneth

Ah, what a refreshing 4 days of bus rides, theme parks, rain, more bus rides, and wet-socks. I can safely say that my senior year's band trip will be memorable. Although...going on 2 hours of bus-sleep...I don't remember much of it right now...or much of my personal information, but that's all right. Being on the "Loading Crew," I had certain perquisites:

1. I got to get off the bus 3 minutes before everyone else.
2. I got to return any...favors given to me in the form of how I treated or where I placed certain people's bags.
3. I got to sit underneath the bus for half an hour in chilly weather waiting for late folk to drag their bags to me.
4. I got the pleasure of deciding which individuals got to dig for their bags in the sea of luggage spread across the parking lot.

Anyways, Bucsh Gardens was probably the best because of the lack of lines...except that it rained for 3 hours until we finally decided to leave a bit early. Islands of Adventure had excellent scenery and roller coasters, but the lines were 45-60 minutes long...not so great for riding multiple times (although I rode Dueling Dragons 3 times). Universal Studios became quite the wet experience; however, I would recommend "The Mummy" to anyone who thinks that Studios is only a park for shows and gift shops. My new pastime for theme parks is to find the camera that takes your picture at the most frightening points in a roller coaster, and pose for the picture. It's quite humorous to see the picture when you get off the ride and you see your friends all with terror-stricken faces...and there's you pushing your nose up and sticking your tongue out.

Also included in the stereotypical bus ride (which this was) were the movies shown. Ah, it was Disney out the wazoo. Although, I had been wanting to see "Meet the Robinsons," so it wasn't all bad. The performance on CityWalk in Universal was quite interesting; I had forgotten my music back at school...but I could recall most of it from memory, so it turned out all right (except for the one kid who forgot his mouthpiece and couldn't play). All in all, I'd say it was a complete success. The most picturesque moment was after everyone got onto the bus from Bucsh Gardens. A bunch of freezing, soaked, sugar-filled teenagers on a bus is quite the scene...it made for a miserable time trying to sleep though...public seating is not meant for people over 6ft tall. Oh well, it's good to be back, and I hope y'all had fun without me.

Band Trippin'

Ah, it's that time of year again. The Band members all gather their belongings, sardine themselves into a large box with wheels, and begin the adventure known only as....BAND TRIP 2008!!!
We'll be going to Orlando (yes...again) and Tampa, Florida for Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure, and Busch Gardens. Heeeyaw! It should be quite fun at all the parks. Oh, and we'll be playing at the CityWalk in Universal Studios. We have to play somewhere to make it a band trip...and not just a field trip with only band folk allowed...(which is what it actually is). Have fun to those of you who are left behind. We'll be back Monday afternoon.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl

I've been waiting for this bloody game since the Wii came out. I actually bought it while on vacation and ignored the amazing weather in Orlando, Florida just to play it when I wasn't going to theme parks, reading, or sleeping. The game is quite similar to SSBM for the Gamecube, so I'll skip the whole gameplay analysis. Just think of it as a 4-player-platform-fighting-game...with all Nintendo (and one Sega) characters. I enjoy most of the new characters, and the Final Smashes are a terrific addition to the game (yet extremely unbalanced). All in all, I'd say it's the best game for Wii to date...sad thing is that it will stay that way. Super Smash Bros. has always had a bad habit of making all other multiplayer games pointless (with exception of co-op multiplayer).

It seems that I was the first in my little group of friends to acquire all the characters, and it's much easier than in the previous games to do so. You only have to play through the "Subspace Emissary" once and then sweep up the 3 or 4 characters that weren't included in that. Piece of cake. The online play is certainly a welcome feature...except that when you are fighting other people, you can only play 4-player timed matches. I don't have any friends registered online, so I don't know if you can actually change the rules with friends because you sure can't with strangers.

My favorite new character would be Ike, with Wolf coming in second. I'm a huge Fire Emblem fan, so I was disappointed when I saw that Roy was no longer in the game, but I couldn't care less now. Ike is the new powerhouse of the game joining Ganondorf and Bowser. Marth, however, remains my favorite character, even if he does suck in anything but 1vs1 matches. In the first SSB, I was Fox, but I was just too clumsy with him in Melee, so I switched to Marth. However, with the slower, but more powerful Wolf, I was happy to be able to play with the same style as when I first started playing the game. A lot of folks don't know how to get Wolf because he isn't an active member in the Subspace Emissary. Just beat boss mode with Fox, and you'll unlock him (provided you can beat him), or go hunting for him in adventure mode.

I hope to see (and smear) many new faces in the horribly laggy online battles. Good luck to all who got the game, or go to friends' houses to play.

Rating: A+

Spring Break.

Wouldn't you know it! It's snowing outside decently for the first time in years, and I have to go to Florida where it's 80F outside. It's kind of bitter sweet...Universal Studios > 2 inches of snow, I guess. Maybe I'll get a chance to get my Internets on once I'm there, but who knows...? I'll let y'all know how Islands of Adventure is. See y'all next Sunday.

Music Update...again

Oh my goodness gracious, it's been like...forever since I've posted. I blame Guitar Hero 3, college music auditions, and my general indolence. Guess I'll give you a little look into my last couple of iTunes purchases: Brimful of Asha by Cornershop, Time is Running Out by Muse, Bidibodi Bidibu by Bubbles, Hard to Explain by The Strokes, Granite, and Fasten Your Seatbelt by Pendulum. I know I'm weird, you ain't gotta tell me. Each one of these songs is pretty different from the other.

While the original Brimful of Asha is by Cornershop, I bought the Norman Cook remix by Fatboy Slim, so it's got that repetitive near-techno feel to it. Muse is what most people would call an "Emo" band...I'm not gunna lie, I get that vibe at times too. However, Knights of Cydonia got me interested in them, so the song I bought was in their iTunes top 5 popular list. It's a good song -Times is Running Out that is- but I just like the middle really... the first 40 seconds makes me want to skip the song, although the rest is fine. iTunes recommended most of the other ones to me, and I can't complain. Ever since reading Financial Peace by Dave Ramsey, I've become paranoid of all salesmen and marketing attempts, but iTunes has been making some great recommendations lately. The Strokes were introduced to me by a friend...Hard to Explain has a really odd video. Helicopter on GH3 is pretty good, and a very fair representation of them as a whole.

I don't think anyone really cares that we're playing a boring arrangement of William Tell Overture in band class, but this is a music update...so yeah. Also, we are all required to participate in "Solo and Ensemble" in our area. I really do hate playing solos...I'm a low brass man, leave me in my little box of on/offbeat thumps. My fellow baritone player will be attempting something absurdly hard. Good luck, mate...lemme know when you can move your fingers again. I ain't got a clue what I'll be doin'...probably something lame out of a method book, but at least I'll be able to play it.

Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles

Ever played those shooter games at the arcade? They're all over the place, so go slap a quarter in an Area 51 game lying around abandoned in some movie theatre. I've been playin' these kind of arcade games since I could hold the plastic pistols, so it ain't that hard to learn. Umbrella Chronicles is that same kind of rail-shooter. Rail-shooters are first-person-shooters in which you don't have to move your character. You just point and shoot the baddies as you trail along. Sound easy? If you have the reflexes and aim to do it, sure.

Now, I've been playing this game using the Zapper (a plastic gun-shaped carrier for the Wiimote and Nun chuck) for a "more interactive experience." I had to take the nun chuck out of the Zapper so I could shake it like a dog more easily. This Resident Evil takes the random button mashing sessions of RE:4 to a new extreme: you must actually push the correct buttons only. This is where those cat-like reflexes come in handy, because you've got about 2 seconds to push only the correct buttons several times in rapid-succession, or you will take heavy damage or even an instant death. The manual doesn't expound upon how exactly to press these buttons, so I'll tell you right now, rapidly hit the button it commands; don't just push it once.

The storyline isn't anything new, because it's all a big report by Wesker about all the plots of the previous games. It's like a giant playable flashback. It's pretty fun, and it sheds some light on some confusing plot details, so I don't have to go and play all those previous games (RE:4 was my first). The game's release was supposed to calm the Wii owners down who got all bent out of shape when RE:5 was not announced available for the Wii (I'm included there). The game was also delayed due to some controversy about shooting Africans in Africa...No one got pissed at shooting Spaniards in Spain in RE:4, but I guess no one cares about them.

Rating: B

Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series

After nearly four months of waiting, a new Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged Series has surfaced. For those of you who haven't a clue what it is that I'm talking about, I'll take you back to three years ago. A lowly YouTube user named LittleKuriboh creates a little 5 minute spoof of the anime Yu-Gi-Oh! He takes an episode, splices it all up into a shortened flowing comedy, and does all the voices himself. It was probably the funniest and most easily quoted thing I watched all sophomore year. While I had watched quite a bit of the actual Yu-Gi-Oh! cartoon and read the manga that took place before the anime, it isn't required that you really know anything about it to enjoy the Abridged Series. Most of the references are quite nerd-based, so don't expect to get all the jokes unless you are a hardcore Nintendo and YTMND fan. While these videos were removed from YouTube because of supposed "usage violations," LittleKuriboh has them all posted on the Abridged Series' website.

These episodes used to come out weekly, but he rarely keeps on track. I was beginning to think that he would stop making episodes after his fiancee became ill (he proposed on YouTube actually) so it's been quite a while since his last video. I'm glad he hasn't forgotten about his loyal fans. Now, if only some of my manga that haven't come out in 4 months would be released...

Game Reviews

A friend of mine told me about a game reviewer who works for The Escapist magazine. His name is Yahtzee and he delivers his reviews and impressions of recent games at lightning fast British/Australian speeds. His program is called Zero Punctuation and always manages to make me laugh. Every Wednesday, like today, he comes out with a new review with a video to go along with it. It's rather profane, but if you don't mind that, I'd say it's hilarious. Because I'm not exactly "in the loop" I haven't a clue what new games are coming out unless I've been waiting for the game for months. Therefore, I stay a bit informed on what the game companies are doing while delaying Super Smash Bros. Brawl....again. His latest is a review on "The Witcher," so by all means, check it out.

For making fun of older games, I would recommend another reviewer named "PlayItBogart" up on the YouTube. He covers those terrible games from the late 80s and early 90s on the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. Once again, he is a little vulgar, but it's not quite as often as Yahtzee.

While it may be a conflict of interest to direct you to other peoples' reviews, I don't get paid, and they make me laugh, so by all means.

Cinquain

I can't stand it. I just had too much fun thinking of what to write for my cinquain for English class. A cinquain is a strict, word-limiting poem describing a noun. The first line is the item, the second line is two adjectives describing it, the third line is three gerunds or present participles (-ing words) that describe the item's actions, the forth is a short four word phrase pertaining to the item, and the fifth line is one alternate word for the item that sums it up. Here's mine.

Wii
Interactive Childish
Annoying Gaming Flailing
Do a Barrel Roll
Nintendo

****Update**** 1/18/08
My teacher seemed quite a bit disappointed with my poem. Her response was "...Okay...and I really liked the Wii." I think she misunderstood my position. I love the Wii. I'd choose it over the Xbox 360 any day of the week, even Tuesday. What I was getting at was just the fact that you don't normally see anyone over 30 flailing his or her arms like a lunatic, and then calling that having a good time. I dunno, maybe it only seems immature to me. I don't have a problem doing it, but I'm pretty sure most of the adult world would see it as "childish" like I said. I think my teacher sees the words "childish" and "annoying" as much worse than they actually are. I'm just sayin'...maybe less arm flailing and more sword slashing would be nice, eh Nintendo?
*****Fin****

For my English teacher, if you have found this online through some sort of plagiarism checker, I will identify this as mine. Just ask me.

Diablo

I know I'm about a decade too late to talk about this 1998 Blizzard game, but I got to playing it again a few days ago, so here we go. I played the game as a kid when it came out, so I have almost as much reverence for it as I do for Dungeon Keeper (the bestest game ev4r). There are several games that I played as a kid that I never really beat without cheating because of my pathetic attention span. Diablo would be one of those. But now, since I'm much more mature and ....what was I talking about?

So, the game is about an adventurer that just gets back from some trip. It's a good thing he/she has returned too, because there are evil critters roamin' free across the church at the edge of town. It's a darned shame too, because the entire town feels that you should go do something about it. Apparently, a group of the townspeople have already tried, but didn't hardly make it past level 2 of the Labyrinth under the church. It's a good thing you are seen as completely capable of doing what half the town (including the weapons smith) couldn't do entirely by yourself. Hey, why not?

You find out through a series of inconspicuously placed tomes (which are lit up like the Eiffel Tower on New Year's in dark tunnels and caves) that the cause of all these critters breaking loose in the church and its labyrinth is some disgruntled employee from hell getting into a fight about rent with his two brothers. I guess the church seemed like a good place to chill for a bit. While this demon fled from his brothers, who got trapped in some soul stones by some other warriors...that didn't care enough to go get this demon, Diablo decided to possess the King's son and restore himself to his former glory in Hell. Another darned shame, because you are questing to post an eviction notice on his door. Way to ruin a guy's day, eh?

So anyways, the game play is pretty straight forward, you get to pick one of three classes at the beginning. I like to think of the different classes as difficulty levels instead of types of characters. The rogue is the easiest to be: just a matter of pointing and clicking the enemies. She's an archer, so you are rarely in any danger from anything. The medium character is the warrior: he's a big guy who thinks that getting up in a monster's face will scare them into not attacking. He can take a beating though, which is good because beating are all over the place. Finally, the sorcerer is your standard magic user in any game: squishy. Being the mage-haters that Blizzard is, he's terrible. Health and armor are completely unnecessary when you can't even survive long enough to cast one of your spells. I usually pick the warrior, because magic and I rarely get along...unless it involves some kind of immolation spell.

I enjoy playing the game, but the storage system is a little lame. There's no rotating items, and your strength has nothing to do with your storage amount. Ultimately, throwing down useful items in town is the best space saver. Just come back to town (via portal) whenever you have a full inventory of magical items that need to be identified by the town elder...who knows everything. Money is scarce in the beginning of the game, but towards the end you have to actually work hard to spend it all. The best part of the game is certainly the ending, however. While I won't spoil how it ends (Diablo 2 does that just fine), I will tell you that this is the first and best example of a game that has a special feature and reward for beating it: you restart the game with all your current stats and equipment. While you might think it is completely lame to have to play the entire game all the way through again, I think it's the funniest thing to run through a level with hordes of skeletons and demons throwing themselves upon you and missing or doing no damage with each hit. You give early bosses a funny look and they practically explode. Because of this game's early exposure to me, I refer to all games that take the retroactive-stat-restart as having "Diablo Syndrome." Thank you, Diablo, for your contribution to my identification of good replay values.

Rating: B

The Wikipedia Game

While it may seem that all I do is play video games and watch anime, I would like to inform you that I also do many other more active things such as breathing, eating, and sleeping. However, my sleeping has been rather lousy as of late, and that takes up a lot of my time, so I decided to Wiki (the action of using wikipedia.org to inform one's self of an area, event, or item with little effort) some methods of falling asleep more quickly. Whenever I use Wikipedia, I can rarely just look at one article. This recognition of my low attention span has now become "The Wikipedia Game."

Step 1: Become curious about something. That's right, you can't start unless you have something you want to know about. Even if it's something that you've looked up already, there are different paths to take this time around. I guarantee it.

Step 2: Satisfy that curiosity with a single, direct article from Wikipedia. It's not hard to get your answers from the great Wiki, so place your faith upon its digital pages, and you will be rewarded with a wealth of knowledge (if you can't find your answer, it doesn't matter. Even if your attention span is better than mine, you'll probably get sidetracked with something way more interesting than the answer to your question anyways).

Step 3: Click on the most interesting link to another Wikipedia article on the site. Whether you choose to finish the current article you're on or not, you need to continue the chain. I would advise sticking slightly to topic at first, but as you get better at the game, click on some entirely unrelated links. *Warning* Do not leave the sanctity of Wikipedia by clicking on the "External Links" section. It's a nasty world out there on the Internets, and I wouldn't want any one of my beloved (four) readers getting viruses that stop them from reading my amazing posts.

Step 4: Get bored. All good things must come to an end. Whether it's your mom calling for dinner, or you are just too tired to continue on, eventually you will stop this easter egg hunt for knowledge. This is where the fun begins (for those of you who just don't like learning).

Step 5: Climb your chain. With me, it's usually 10-15 articles I go through before finishing up. Write down the last one and work your way back to the Wikipedia homepage, writing down all the articles you read along the way.

Step 6: Bask in some glory. Stare at that piece of paper and think about all you learned and read today. Doesn't that just make you feel like someone who is smarter than you are? The best part about it is: you are that smarter person now!

So, as an example, my Wikipedia Game score sheet looks like this: Sleep - Sleep Apnea - Dream - Lucid Dream - Near Death Experience - Out of body experience - meditation - Bahá'í Faith - Monasticism - Christian Monasticism - Heremetic Life - Recluse - Hikikomori - Dysthymia

As you can see, this is quite a list and kept me occupied a good 2 hours. Less expensive and more informative than a video game, yet it's usually only information that won't even show up on Jeopardy. I wouldn't advise this game for parties, but it's fun to try and do the same thing with conversations with people, and it shows them that's you're listening. Go on, give it a whirl!

Music Update

Lately, I've been doing very little except school and video games. Thank Christmas for that. One of the more time consuming games I received would be Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock. It's been on the "Games I'm Currently Playing" list for a bit (I keep that fairly updated), yet I haven't reviewed it. The reason for that is that I can't really give it rating. The review would be nearly identical to my DDR review...except with more fingers, and less jittering of the feets. Like all skill-based games, the only real way to beat it is to complete every song perfectly, or to just put down the controller (it doesn't make you a quitter, it makes you sane).

However, the game has gotten me in touch with many rock classics, both older and recent. One of the newest songs I purchased on ye ol' iTunes is "Knights of Cydonia" because it is my favorite song to play (I'm only starting Hard, so don't go telling me that it's impossible on Expert). I have a tradition of buying music on iTunes: as soon as it's done downloading, I turn my speakers up to 11 and hit the deck. Can you blame me? Anyways, the song I bought today that triggered this post is "A Night on Bald Mountain." Brilliant piece of work, and it's played by everyone and their grandmother on Halloween. I just like the bombastic parts because I am a low brass player myself. I find that in all the techno, metal, alternative, jazz, and classical music I buy (country and rap can bite me), I enjoy blasting the classical the most. There's just something exhilarating about listening to "Mars" loud enough to bother the neighbors (your neighbors). I love every second of the hearing I lose later in life from this too. Anyways, just thought I'd share with you a fun pastime of mine.

Playing trumpet parts on a euphonium now, I don't get the loud, long, eruption of violence from my horn that I've grown to love. However, technically, my sound is getting more precise, and my high range has never been better. I do miss blasting notes though, and that's the main reason I bought "A Night on Bald Mountain."

F.E.A.R.

Ever been scared of a little girl? No? Apparently you've never played little game called First Encounter Assault Recon (or met my sister). My purchase of F.E.A.R. was a response to my playing Dementium (I reviewed it earlier). It was pretty much the same game with a more confusing, yet less pointless, story. It had more action, less locked doors, and was actually pretty terrifying.

Your name is "F.E.A.R. Point Man" in all the mission descriptions, so there's no need to get personally attached to your character: you never see his face anyway. Here's the storyline: there's a crazy psychic that can control hundreds of clone soldiers, and he's gotten loose. Your mission is to go fetch him. I'm not going to spoil anything, so you don't have to worry about that. While trying to capture him, you learn many secrets about the corporation that had the mysterious "Project Origin" commissioned. You also get the heck frightened out of you by a little creepy girl that enjoys projecting ghoulish images and nightmares into your head. This becomes one of the more annoying points, but I'll get to that in the gameplay.

F.E.A.R. runs like a standard FPS in that you get guns and you shoot people. The arsenal provided at the beginning is pretty boring: a pistol and a sub-machine gun. You can hold up to three weapons or two pistols and two other weapons. The other weapons would be your standard for most games: shotgun, assault rifle, sniper rifle, rocket launcher, and some non-conventional weapons like an auto-cannon, a nail driver, and the particle weapon. There are also a few types of grenades such as frags, motion activated, and remote detonation. The key feature that separates this game from all the other PC FPS games out there is the SloMo feature. The game explains the SloMo as your having amazing reflexes, and they ain't kidding. The world moves 1/5 speed and you move twice as fast. This means you can run out into the middle of a squad of soldiers, take aim with your dual pistols, and shoot and kick people to your heart's content without heavy fear of people completely destroying you. However, sometimes you will enter points in the game where you can't activate your Reflex Mode. These are the nightmare sequences that the little girl, Alma, sends you in order to thwart your efforts. They generally involve disturbing images of gore or frightening flashbacks. Nothing to worry about though...but it does suck to get startled when you weren't expecting one. The music definitely is what scared me the most. When you don't know when your flashlight is going to go out (leaving me alone in my room with the lights off and creepy music blaring into my headphones) and the music goes minor on you, be prepared to fight off some freaky ghost things.

For a game with such great battle mechanics, I really hated the physics engine sometimes. When I'd drop some poor fool, his body would keep making the collapsing noise every time he twitched on the ground due to some kind of tension. It's really hard to get scared at all the blood and creepy images flashing about when there's a dead guy doing the milkshake dance at you. All in all, it's a fantastic game with excellent graphics, decent story, excellent gun fights, and truly terrifying, Kafkaesque (that's my favorite word) sequences. There are a few expansion packs...they aren't really worth it, but it you feel like I just didn't want to comment on them...go get them. Project Origin is the upcoming sequel; I can't wait.

Rating: B+

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance

Well. The polls are closed, and we had a 33% increase in voter turnout (thank you, mystery 4th person). That means this blog is slowly growing into something slightly less puny than before. Yay. Berserker was a clear W1NN4R here and we can all see why. Who doesn't love a guy who charges into battle with nothing but an axe, a bad attitude, and a 15% bonus to critical hits? Ranger and Warrior were a close second. The sword and bow combo of a horsed ranger is quite something to behold, but the size of the axe-toting, bow-blitzing warrior is nothing to sneeze at. Well that's all for that poll. Good to know that the reading population is enlarged (or some one just voted again from a different computer...). The next poll should be interesting.

So, a little while back, I got through Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance. It's an excellent addition to the Fire Emblem family, but the real reason I finished it was my wanting improved stats in the sequel, Radiant Dawn. I received Radiant Dawn for Christmas and haven't played it yet. I'm waiting for a Zapper so I can beat Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles first. That way, I'll only have Guitar Hero 3 and DDR: Hottest Party to get in my way.

Path of Radiance was quite a bit different from the previous Fire Emblem games (other than being on the TV screen instead of a Gameboy) in that it had time in a base that you could use to assign skills, award bonus experience, talk to people, and listen to support conversations - which are based on chapters spent together, not turns adjacent to each other as usual. I found the improved graphics refreshing...for about the first 10 battles, then it just became annoying until I got to see everyone's critical hits. I didn't mind the Laguz characters that you fought, but I never used any of the ones that I got myself. I just can't get attached to a tiger-thing like I do with the beorcs, except for Reyson of course. My favorite character throughout the whole thing is tight between Keiran and Nephenee. They both always did exactly what I wanted them to, which was usually standing in a crowd of enemies alone and clearing the area (or at least getting damaged and letting Wrath and Resolve take effect). That's saying something, considering I usually hate Paladins in the FE series. The Halberdier a fun addition to the classes, but far underpowered compared to the bonuses that Berserkers, Snipers, and Swordsmasters get with their single weapon mastery. All in all, if you like Advanced Wars or the other Fire Emblem games, you'll be satisfied with this one.

Rating: B