I'll Pay you $2k for Ewok Adventure

My good friend Jag just passed me a link to some very valuable games that may be collecting dust in your cellar, attic or crawlspace.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/03/20/mf.rich.off.video.games/index.html?hpt=C2

Thanks buddy! I unfortunately don't have any of those games and gave my old nes to my cousins.. who probably threw it away :P

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Added a new web comic link that I found on VG Cats which occupied my time today. Presenting Johnny Wander. Heh, what caught my attention was the 'wander' part ;)

Law: Don't Use Fire

I'm a rebel. I don't want to follow the Judge's law in FF Tactics 2.

Don't attack people from behind?
..So you don't want me to kill my enemies fast is what you're saying...

Don't do more than 50 damage..
..Umm same thing.. hurt them, but don't hurt them too much?

Don't use magic...
**imagines the Judge putting the Noumou in the dark corner**

Don't miss.
Oh I hate you. The enemy goes first, attacks me and I miss on my retaliation.
**throws ds against the wall**

Don't use Fire (or insert damage type)
...no coincidence that the monsters are weak against it? You Jerk!

It's a Whole New World

~ I always thought my sister was the artistically creative one, my brother the gaming phenom while myself the creative writer.... but I think I gotta hand it over to my brother. With his permission, i'll show you his creative genius that always amazes and astounds me.

I shouldn't need to post pictures to keep you interested (b/c this is some crazy-funny writing), but it is a wall of text! ~

So Sandra was playing Pokémon today, and was criticized by a bunch of us for using rare candies to level up her Pokémon rather than doing it the good ol' fashioned way. This led to her spontaneously resetting her game and beginning all over again from the beginning. Then, she demanded that someone write a story about her endeavors. That's what I do. I chronicle her failures. This is her story. Also it sort of gets out of hand. Who knows, maybe I'll write a continuation to this. With puppets. Maybe she'll read this. She deleted her Facebook account. Who knows? I did my job.

Sitting in the dressing room, Sandra's hands trembled with nerves. Throughout the years she had known ridicule and the sting of complete failure, but never had she been faced with such damning accusations. And today, she was going to have to confront them in front of the whole world.

"Ms Rai-ass? It's time?"

The intern from the Saffron Sentinel, Kanto's most distributed newspaper, calls Sandra into the press room, where thousands of reporters and fans await an answer from the famed Pokémon Trainer. After what seems like a lifetime walking to the podium, Sandra utters the words that would destroy the very sport of Pokétraining forever.

"In my time as a Pokétrainer, I have used Rare Candies to level up two of my Pokémon, and I am sorry"

First, there is nothing but terrible silence. Then, a roar of angry fans and probing reporters.

"You bastard! My daughter looked up to you!"
"She's a cheat! Shoot her! Shoot her!!!!"
"Is it true that you have never beat Metal Gear Solid?!"

Bottles are thrown. Flashes from cameras are numerous. Sandra gets escorted away by an armed guard.

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Three years later, Sandra is working as an Aide for Professor Eigen.

"Sandra! What are you doing here?! I told you to stand out in Viridian Forest and hand out Flash HMs to anyone with ten Pokémon! Why must you fail me so!?"

"I ran out of HMs, professor! Then, a bunch of Beedrills came and attacked me! I'm deathly allergic to Beedrill stings."

"You're weak! Weak like your mother! "

Suddenly, the young Pokémon maven Bugcatcher Mitch runs in.

"Sandra! Sandra! Your Pokémon League license has been reinstated! You can compete again!"

"This is great news! You'll train me again, won't you Professor?"

"Arrrrrghh I guess. But this time, we'll do things my way. Come! To the breeding tanks!"

Twenty stories below the Eigen Laboratory of Evil and Advanced Science lays the infamous breeding tanks, birthing place of the greatest monsters of all. Sandra goes there for the first time, and she sees the true horrors that lie beneath.

"Good god, professor. This place is terrible."

"This is where we will breed your Pokémon of death. It will drink only blood, eat only raw flesh, and kill Teddiursas for fucking laughs! And all because of this Pokémon's loins of doom!"

Professor Eigen then yanks a cloth off a clear jar, revealing a worn out Ditto. For over a decade, this Ditto has made thousands, maybe a million eggs. Most hatchlings are never used, left to rot in too-small cages. Those few that are selected become beasts of mythology. Only very few Pokémon ever escape a dark imprisonment. Being gifted one is a tremendous honor.

"Now then, which Pokémon do you want?"

"Okay, how about-"

"Oddish? Oddish it is!"

With that, the Professor throws a Pokéball into the glass jar, which releases an Vileplume. A terrible scream is heard before the Ditto goes to work.

"Oh god! Professor, this is wrong!"

"You shut up! You want to be a scrub?! Like Mitch? Or a champion! Like this awesome Tyrantir!"

Suddenly, a Tyrantir busts through a cement wall and lets off an awesome roar. With that, Sandra is convinced. This is a man who can lead one to greatness.

Five days later, Professor Eigen wakes Sandra at 3 in the morning.

"Wake up! Your Oddish has been built!"

Indeed, an Oddish now stands beside the Professor. Only this one, has a mean look to it, constantly with a deep frown on it's face. It's teeth sharpened into fangs, and only dead silence instead of the usual clamoring that follow newborn Pokémon.

"I feel like this thing is going to kill me in my fucking sleep!"

"I know! Isn't it great? Oddish, blow up that house!"

With that, Oddish fires a solarbeam at a nearby house, destroying it in a cloud a dust.

"How did it use Solarbeam? It's nighttime! And people were in that fucking house!"

"That's what makes it funny. Now then, do we have a deal? You will train this Oddish?"

"I-I guess. Come along, Oddish"

"Oh, it's not actually called Oddish"

The Professor points at the inscribed text on the Oddish's Pokéball.

"Boomsdale? You named it Boomsdale?"

"Hey, when you name fifty failed Oddishes you start to run out of good names."

"That's it, I can't do this. I was fine with the repeat homicide offenses and forced Pokémon breeding rape scheme, but I won't go on a goddamn Pokémon adventure with a fucking Oddish named Boomsdale."

"It's far too late for that. You will be this Pokémon's trainer, or you will be destroyed."

Boomsdale bares it's fangs. A deep hiss emanates from it's sludge-filled mouth. Sandra is doomed, until-

"Pigeotto!"

The Pigeotto that Sandra had previously rare candied into infamy returns, striking at the fearsome Oddish.

"Sandra! You have to run! Come on!"

Mitch cries out from the distance, beckoning Sandra over to his speedy pink Crobat. And so, Sandra runs. She looks back only to see her Pigeotto turned into a glistening skeleton, reduced to such by Boomsdale's Sludge Bomb.

"Tony Stark! Kill those motherfuckers!"

Suddenly, an Articuno apparently called Tony Stark soars out from the peak of Eigen Laboratories, breaking through it's walls as if it were paper maché.

"Go Crobat! We need to fucking go!"

Crobat grabs his two passengers and leaps into the air just as a javelin of ice strikes the ground where Sandra once occupied. And thus, Sandra and Mitch escape into the dawn.

"You'll never escape me! You hear me! I'll hunt you to the ends of the fucking earth!"

Slowly, Eigen's shrieking visage becomes a distant speck. But Sandra knows this isn't the end. Only blood will soothe the Professor's anger.

---------------------------------------------------

"You're fools! Both of you! That man will never stop!"

Three days later, Sandra and Mitch stand within the Newhook Laboratory of Purity and Advanced Science. The Lab is only two ill-lit rooms, with books and porn littered amongst dirty clothes and ruined furniture.

"That is why we will need Pokémon to defend ourselves, Adam. Do you have anything we can use?"

"Anything you can use? I've seen that man throw a Pokéball containing a Pokémon into a furnace to teach his other Pokémon a lesson. You can't defeat a man like that!"

"You must have something! We're desperate, Professor!"

"Hmmph. Well, if you must have a Pokémon today, I do have this"

And thus, Professor Newhook produced a Cyndaquil and a Houndour.

"I saved these from Eigen's cages. Perhaps a saved life will fare better against such evil."

"Thanks Professor!"

"Don't thank me. You have no idea the horror that awaits you. Your Pokémon Adventure begins!"

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"Their betrayal vexes me. I'm terribly vexed."

Upon his throne of the bones of former champions sits Professor Eigen, lost in contemplation. In his hands, he casually plays catch with a Pokéball.

"You will find them. And you will kill them. Do you understand?"

In the room stands a solitary figure, wrapped in dark, hooded robes, who nods solemnly at the Professor's request.

"Good. Then your Pokémon Adventure begins."

And with that, the Professor passes the Pokéball to the shadowy man. Without a word, the robed man known only as Paul throws the Pokéball, releasing a monstrous Growlithe.

"Paul, you shall bring me back their heads!"

Don't Streamline Me!

I love to micromanage in my games. Hence maybe why I love games like D&D and Neverwinter nights, wasn't as happy with Dragon Age (slight stream-lining of abilities and spells), high disappointed with Mass Effect 2 (definite lack of weapons, which is made up via a plethora of [boring]upgrades) and bored with Final Fantasy XIII (1 weapon and 1 acccessory slot which are upgradeable). My friends and I have a game (usually boardgame) night usually every other weekend and I wish we played D&D. Unfortunately my group would never have the stamina to put so much effort into character creation and roleplaying and thus we're stuck to Settlers (of Catan), Agricola, Killer Bunnies and Munchkins. Though still complex games, they are more pick up and go games.

After playing FFXIII for a few days, i've had the urge to play FF Tactics 2 on the Nintendo DS again. I got it when it first came out and loved it. Oodles of ways to customize your party, indepth character customization, from the classes, skills, dual classes, number of party members, stats, everything. I stopped for one reason or another, but now that i'm back into it, I created this chart.

Basically showing the loadouts of the way I want to have my party and what the requirements would be (whether certain classes are required or quests needed to be eligible). 3 main teams, my balanced team, utility (see: rob you blind) team and dps team.

I respect companies that are trying to give console players the ability to play RPG's, games that traditionally have more micromanagement, but the games tend to be streamlined or more basic. For us used to making charts like this, games like FFXIII kinda loses that shine.

Future

Cool idea if you have troubles with your computer-related cables!

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I've been trying to learn the ins and outs of my Nikon D200 SLR camera.. some helpful links if you're in the same boat:
http://digital-photography-school.com/digital-photography-tips-for-beginners
http://www.bbcwildlifemagazine.com/masterclasses.asp

When I have some creative/anime convention (May-ish) pictures, ill post them :)

Off Topic

My work tends to be sometimes tedious, boring and frustrating at times, but my coworkers always make it worth it as per this discussion between five of us:

http://www.delikates.pl/upics/produkty/034.jpg

Now try to say that doens't look delicious - cheese and ketchup.
Must be a polish thing!
You should try it, it's sooooooo good.
They won't believe that ketchup on cheese tastes sooo good ;-)
Oh believe me, it's really good.
NO.
Cheese works with everything, even fish.
ya, the Filet o fish at McD''s
Thats true, I didn't even think about that one
I think thats where i stop with cheese n fish though.
Any fish at all, you put a block of Feta, Cheddar, blue cheese or whatever type of cheese beside it, all of a sudden the meal just got better.
NO.

A separate conversation went this way:
They won't believe that ketchup on cheese tastes sooo good ;-)
I believe it, I put ketchup on my macaroni and cheese
Thats different....
Dude its delicious
Mac n cheese w/ketchup is normal.
Plain bread, cheese and ketchup on top is odd.
At least add another piece of bread on top and grill it, then dip it in the ketchup. Thats ok

Stormtrooper Skillz

I suggest in future iterations of Borderlands (and FPS):

Baddies need to either shoot better
or
More baddies need to spawn (& spawn more randomly)

The best case of this is shown in the Zombie Island DLC, where there are just enough enemies that come at the player from all directions, that it is easy to get swarmed and the player really needs to pay attention of what is happening on all sides. Now if they had that many randomly spawning shooting-baddies even if they currently have Stormtrooper-like accuracy, you'd still be in trouble.

View more at Ctrl Alt Delete comics..

One of the most comforting but boring things about the game is how humanoids always will file out of a hut/door to confront the player. And it is always the closest door and one at a time. A player's main strategy is to aim at the door, kill 3-5 baddies and then move to the next door/spawn area as there is only a finite amount of baddies unless you wait a good hour or so (no one really spends that much time in one area). What made the Zombie DLC challenging is that the original campaign spiderants/lobsters/animals, they would pop up randomly from the ground from all sides of the player, whereas humanoids in the original campaign only (logically) came through doors. What Secret Knoxx DLC did as an attempt to fix that issue was to have rocketeers that came out of unreachable platforms or had Atlas soldiers slide down a pole like firefighters. What future DLC baddies should be able to do is climb up through grates.

Bought it on dvd and watched it for the second time last night.. pretty good!

Nothing is scarier in the Zombie Island DLC is by happily mowing down zombie after zombie and suddenly see a huge bite mark on your screen, see your shields down, your health dangerously low, turn around to take out the crawling zombie, turn around again and be now surrounded by the other zombies!

FFXIII

I actually got it. I've never played FF before, except for FF Tactics 2 on the DS and watched my brother play FFX a lonnnnnnng time ago. (there really isn't anything else to play these days!)

Tried to take some pictures but I have to adjust my camera settings so it captures still images instead of having lots of blur. Here are the good ones.

A few impressions as a new time player to FFXIII (only about 2.5 hours into the game):
- great graphics
- nice tutorial system (its alot, but thorough)
- paradigms are cool way to change stances and the way you want to play
- the equipment system seems really streamlined (hopefully it changes later?)
- its hard to navigate the lvling system

Heh, now ill be interested in actually finishing FF Tactics 2! ;)

Why can't we be friends?

Is it that we're taking things the wrong way, that we're over-sensitive or we're just dealing with combative people?

I'm sad to see Cranky Healer blog leave us, from what I read it was stressful getting negative comments that caused him (?) to go on hiatus. It was hit and miss sometimes whether i was able to associate with some blogs (mostly WoW related) but they were always well written and thoughtful, whether I agreed with it or not. We all have our own opinion, and we're free to argue or discuss our own point of view. Maybe we just need a thicker skin, or maybe those comments were truly hurtful and unnecessary (i never actively went and looked for them). I personally use comment moderation, not for this fact, but mostly for spammers of gold selling or cell phone unlocks. I view him lucky that he has traffic going through his site via comments.. whereas I can't tell whether people read mine (not an invitation to post negative comments!!).

And by coincidence, after reading his entry I checked on a response I made on Syncaine's blog. Someone had made what seemed to be an attack on my opinion..I had to read it a couple times, went to the blogger's own site, made my own opinion of the person (negative), was about to reply in a nasty way, then in a more constructive way... read his response again.. and decided it was not worth my time or maybe he didn't mean to come off sounding combative. Or maybe he did mean offence. I'm not too sure. Maybe the other fiery responses that I saw on previous entries should have given me a clue. Or even the name of his site. I personally don't need an arch-enemy which seemed to be the fad a few weeks ago. If it was me, we'd all be friends and *ahem* be on each other's blog rolls and have tons of encouraging and engaging comments.

Though I can't stop anyone from being who they are or want to be, I would ask for people to be more aware of this fact, not for malicious reasons, but to remember sometimes we are sensitive to our works of art (our entries are that, you know). That possibly better phrasing is needed when commenting is impersonal via online web comments so that it is not misunderstood or seen as a personal attack. And sometimes we just gotta take these things people say as a grain of salt and brush it off.

Thanks!

March 17th Whiny Post Day

Read about what this day is about, other than it sharing St. Patrick's Day..

Something to whine about...

Why is it that every game that I talk about, no one takes my gusto seriously and writes it off?
Sure when it comes out, its lonely, but its still fun!
And then you eventually try it and it rocks your socks! I freaking told you so.. but noooooooooo..
And if you try it, of course its boring NOW b/c its 6mth after everyone finished the game!

Once again Borderlands.
Heyyy great game.. but its before ODST, so everyone is still playing that..
And then less than a month after, Modern Warfare 2 came out.. and no one even gave Borderlands another glance. And now? Who plays MW2? The one person that refused to think that it was a good game and waited 3-4 months after it came out, once everyone was finished with it.

Why are all the game producers out to punish Gearbox?
ODST, MW2, Left for Dead 2, Dragon Age, Mass Effect 2, AVP, Battlefield Bad Company and the list goes on and on! No one gets to see the greatness that is Borderlands b/c all these other games came out at the same time? Its a conspiracy i tell you! A conspiracy! They did it so you don't play the great game and leave me alone in the dark corner!

And that concludes my whiney blog entry. Happy Whiney Blog day!.. i mean wah wah Whiney Blog day :P