Do you do this?
I suppose it's the nature of blogs to be a bit out of order. When someone recommends a blog they're not suggesting you read everything up to the point where they decided it was good enough to pass on, they want you to read the one thing they found hilarious or poignant, and share the experience. Sometimes it's good enough that you go back and read the whole blog. Example: waiterrant.net
But I don't hit the "first" button and start reading - I read from exactly where they are at this moment, and then the previous moment, and then the one before that. Pretty soon I'll be looking at their first post, and think "hey, what an interesting concept for a blog, I wonder how it turns out... WAIT! I already know!" And I also already know that everything works out at the end. Because I have foreseen it, you know, literally.
The thing about reading the end of the blog first is this: blogs don't tend to be about being happy. Most people don't think to themselves "wow, I am so content right now I could bitch about it to the internet for hours!". But there's really only two directions one can go, unless you're maddox and somehow remain fastidiously cynical for decades at a time. Things either get better, or they get worse.
And therein lies the beauty of the backwards blog. If things are getting better, you can read the reverse-tailspin, until you get to that initial moment where things were just so crappy that this person (whom you now share this powerful literary connection with) looked around at their empty apartment and realized that the only person they had to talk to was a few million complete strangers. Then you click on that "latest post" button, and read about their book deal, their new job, their significantly attractive other, and your own crap is suddenly just a little easier to take.
If it's getting worse? Well, then you just don't click that "latest post" button. And hey, check back in a few months - there'll be a different story then with a completely different ending. That's just the way these things work.
-s
Monday, March 19, 2007
Whew, Been a While...
Sorry about that. Been busy with side projects and work. I interviewed for a new job, and although it went very well, I haven't heard back yet. Turns out it's tough to blog when you're staring at your computer screen waiting for the inbox to update.
Then I started playing this game called Fall of Nations. Don't play it - you just click a button every 15 minutes, and if you forget to click, someone else will click for you. It's more complicated than that... well, a bit more complicated, but that's what most of my time playing it has been like so far.
The GF is in town this week, driving down from San Francisco to take my kitty away. It might be her kitty, technically, but in California, once you start paying for something, it turns into yours. And if it sits on your lap and purrs for hours, well, how can you break up such a wholesome picture?
But apparently she misses her kitty too. And her roommate has a fear of cats, and since Mookie here is less a cat than a malnourished cow, she's probably the perfect "starter-cat".
I have more to say, but I'll put it in a different post.
-s
Then I started playing this game called Fall of Nations. Don't play it - you just click a button every 15 minutes, and if you forget to click, someone else will click for you. It's more complicated than that... well, a bit more complicated, but that's what most of my time playing it has been like so far.
The GF is in town this week, driving down from San Francisco to take my kitty away. It might be her kitty, technically, but in California, once you start paying for something, it turns into yours. And if it sits on your lap and purrs for hours, well, how can you break up such a wholesome picture?
But apparently she misses her kitty too. And her roommate has a fear of cats, and since Mookie here is less a cat than a malnourished cow, she's probably the perfect "starter-cat".
I have more to say, but I'll put it in a different post.
-s
Monday, February 26, 2007
I Didn't Watch the Oscars
I didn't watch the Oscars, and I'm ok with that.
Call me old-fashioned, but awards ceremonies seem like the kind of thing that should only matter to those people who are potential winners of the award. It's something to look forward to, to aspire to. For the rest of us, it's really, really, ridiculously rich people patting each other on the back. Is that so important to you that you have to spend 4 hours watching it? I mean, it's no Lost marathon. It's not even a Dougie Howser marathon.
I'm an Eagle Scout. When I had my awards ceremony, meeting other new Eagle Scouts from around the state, I didn't expect to see anyone but other Scouts and their families. I didn't expect it to be televised (despite the fact that these people would likely be doctors, lawyers, and businessmen someday), and I didn't expect anyone to place bets on who would win the "best project of the year" award. That, to me, just seems a little silly.
That said, there are some nice headlines coming out of it all. For example, it seems that Martin Scorsese is finally being recognized for decades of great movies. It's about time. He should have won the year that Clint Eastwood won for Million Dollar Baby. I'm pretty sure that a one-armed doxen (weiner dog) with massive brain injuries could have won an award for a movie based on that screenplay. My God, it's perfect: the crux of the plot is a female Rocky who is senselessly, permanently, debilitatingly injured, and then killing herself! That, my friends, is the 3-ply of cinema.
-s
Call me old-fashioned, but awards ceremonies seem like the kind of thing that should only matter to those people who are potential winners of the award. It's something to look forward to, to aspire to. For the rest of us, it's really, really, ridiculously rich people patting each other on the back. Is that so important to you that you have to spend 4 hours watching it? I mean, it's no Lost marathon. It's not even a Dougie Howser marathon.
I'm an Eagle Scout. When I had my awards ceremony, meeting other new Eagle Scouts from around the state, I didn't expect to see anyone but other Scouts and their families. I didn't expect it to be televised (despite the fact that these people would likely be doctors, lawyers, and businessmen someday), and I didn't expect anyone to place bets on who would win the "best project of the year" award. That, to me, just seems a little silly.
That said, there are some nice headlines coming out of it all. For example, it seems that Martin Scorsese is finally being recognized for decades of great movies. It's about time. He should have won the year that Clint Eastwood won for Million Dollar Baby. I'm pretty sure that a one-armed doxen (weiner dog) with massive brain injuries could have won an award for a movie based on that screenplay. My God, it's perfect: the crux of the plot is a female Rocky who is senselessly, permanently, debilitatingly injured, and then killing herself! That, my friends, is the 3-ply of cinema.
-s
Friday, February 23, 2007
Remarkably Concise Criticism
I'm not a huge fan of the show The Office.
It's funny, I'll admit, but seriously people, the single camera concept only has one thing going for it: it's cheap. Am I the only one who's getting tired of shifting back and forth and zooming around? This is not edgy, chic camera direction, it is a lack of good camera direction.
Anyway, here's what got me on this topic:
I've got to agree with Dwight on this one. Battlestar Galactica is pretty 3-ply.
It's funny, I'll admit, but seriously people, the single camera concept only has one thing going for it: it's cheap. Am I the only one who's getting tired of shifting back and forth and zooming around? This is not edgy, chic camera direction, it is a lack of good camera direction.
Anyway, here's what got me on this topic:
I've got to agree with Dwight on this one. Battlestar Galactica is pretty 3-ply.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
I'm Pretty Freakin' Sick
I've been ill for 3.5 days now, and it's getting less and less fun by the day.
The worst part, though, is how stupid it's making me. I honestly couldn't add two numbers in my head now if my life depended on it. I've clicked on the link to my own blog 6 times so far today, and each time, I completely expected something to be there. So this is for next time. Next time, there will totally be a new post for me to read.
-s
The worst part, though, is how stupid it's making me. I honestly couldn't add two numbers in my head now if my life depended on it. I've clicked on the link to my own blog 6 times so far today, and each time, I completely expected something to be there. So this is for next time. Next time, there will totally be a new post for me to read.
-s
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
in case you were wondering
In case you were wondering what I look like.
This is much closer than anything I could ever draw for myself.
Although I should note that sometimes, I wear a hat.
images courtesy http://www.becomeanmm.com , which, disappointingly, does not actually turn you into chocolate.
-s
This is much closer than anything I could ever draw for myself.
Although I should note that sometimes, I wear a hat.
images courtesy http://www.becomeanmm.com , which, disappointingly, does not actually turn you into chocolate.
-s
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Metroid Prime 2 Echoes - Reviewed!!!
Now that I have a nintendo Wii, I'm going back and playing all the gamecube games I missed along the way. First up, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes.
Video game review:
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
You may have missed the after-credits shocker at the end of Metroid Prime, but nevertheless, if you played the first game, this disappointing sequel is your fault.
Because I don't like to lay into games right off the bat, let's start off with some things that I like about the game. It's still Samus, and Samus is still pretty darn cool. It's also still Metroid, and Metroid, despite having the kind of music that makes me want to curl up into the fetal position and cry, is pretty darn cool. Puzzle design: excellent. Art: completely sweet. Weapons: a little contrived, but honest to its predecessor and well executed. In fact, almost all of the things that earned Metroid Prime my "Greatest FPS of all Time" award are, in fact, in MP2:E. Which is why it is so painful to say that this sequel is not, at all, the greatest FPS sequel of all time.
That honor would have to go to Half Life 2, maybe Quake 2, maybe even Time Crisis 2. But now is not the time to be giving out awards to the heroes of bygone days (Hector would sweep the older brother awards); now is the time to severely critique the design of the game I am currently enduring the frustrations of.
Frustration 1: Difficulty. Difficulty in itself is not something to judge a game on. If it is too hard throughout, it's probably not designed for you. If it's too easy throughout, you are probably not the target audience. Difficulty deserves nothing more than a passing mention by a reviewer, used more to establish their own level of skill in case a reader wants to buy everything a reviewer likes/thinks is just right on the difficulty-meter.
But Echoes, oh Echoes. Echoes has badly designed difficulty. One of the first enemies that you meet in the game is the Lego version of the bugs from Starship Troopers. It is small, it is nearly unable to kill you. It takes 12 shots to kill.
TWELVE SHOTS.
This little bug thing takes almost as much damage as a metroid before breathing its last.
Also, every enemy has learned the magnificent skill of juking the z-targeting. So you get maybe 3 shots in before it's dodged to the left, and you're no longer locked onto it. Juking is not new to the genre. I firmly recall those big guys from Unreal dodging everything I shot at them. Heck, the Cyberdemon walked out of the way when I shot at him. That might have been random, but I missed a LOT. But you know what was different about those games? There was a way to MOVE SIDEWAYS.
There's a reason why the xbox and ps2 had 2 analog sticks. YOU NEED TWO STICKS TO AIM AT MOVING THINGS. Metroid Prime, realizing that it had but a single stick at its disposal, added the best part of the 3D Zelda games: Z-targeting. Echoes is the evil stepmother of Z-targeting, forcing it to clean the fireplace instead of going to the ball where it could make some handsome prince (me) very happy.
And I can guess why. It's right there on the main menu screen. Right next to options. It reads "Multiplayer." It is my firm belief that Metroid Prime didn't have multiplayer because of Z-targeting. Where's the fun or skill in clicking faster than your opponent? Echoes doesn't just make the enemies wise to z-targeting either. Targeting itself is ruined. You don't just have to be close to the enemy to lock on, you have to already be on it. And if you're off by the tiniest amount on the y-axis, hitting Z will just mess with your view, with no attempt at all to target something.
In Prime, I used to be able to walk into a room, hit Z and the fire button a bunch of times, and kill the shriekbats that flew from the ceiling. In Echoes, doing the same thing fires at the floor several times as shriekbats stab me in the face.
At least multiplayer will be skill-based. But I can't help but think that positioning and strategy would have made multiplayer fun even with z-targeting. Isn't the strategic element what makes rainbow six multiplayer, and gears of war multiplayer so much fun? Meh, I don't even know anymore.
But enough about that, here's the real problem: built-in-lag.
Who makes a game where the environment hurts you? Where you have to go stand in a certain spot for a minute and a half to regain your life after every 20-second fight?
And what the hell made them think that was a good thing to mix with loading-timed doors?
The doors in Prime were brilliant. There's no visible loading of new areas, because you have to wait for the doors to open. They don't open until the next room is loaded, but it's easy to believe that it's just an old door that needs to charge up some power to move (or something). I loved it.
But in echoes, while you're waiting, you're losing health. I literally DIED waiting for the door to open, because the door was around the corner from the nearest safe spot, and I didn't want to wait at the health spot, since I was returning to the light world anyway.
That probably made very little sense unless you've played the game.
Basically, if you loved Prime, and want to know what the hell was up with that hand thing, then you have to play Echoes. But it should have been called shadows, because it is a pale facsimile of Metroid Prime. Oh man that was clever, I love me.
Final Score: 2 plys.
Memorable quote: "I'm probably not going to finish this."
-s
Video game review:
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
You may have missed the after-credits shocker at the end of Metroid Prime, but nevertheless, if you played the first game, this disappointing sequel is your fault.
Because I don't like to lay into games right off the bat, let's start off with some things that I like about the game. It's still Samus, and Samus is still pretty darn cool. It's also still Metroid, and Metroid, despite having the kind of music that makes me want to curl up into the fetal position and cry, is pretty darn cool. Puzzle design: excellent. Art: completely sweet. Weapons: a little contrived, but honest to its predecessor and well executed. In fact, almost all of the things that earned Metroid Prime my "Greatest FPS of all Time" award are, in fact, in MP2:E. Which is why it is so painful to say that this sequel is not, at all, the greatest FPS sequel of all time.
That honor would have to go to Half Life 2, maybe Quake 2, maybe even Time Crisis 2. But now is not the time to be giving out awards to the heroes of bygone days (Hector would sweep the older brother awards); now is the time to severely critique the design of the game I am currently enduring the frustrations of.
Frustration 1: Difficulty. Difficulty in itself is not something to judge a game on. If it is too hard throughout, it's probably not designed for you. If it's too easy throughout, you are probably not the target audience. Difficulty deserves nothing more than a passing mention by a reviewer, used more to establish their own level of skill in case a reader wants to buy everything a reviewer likes/thinks is just right on the difficulty-meter.
But Echoes, oh Echoes. Echoes has badly designed difficulty. One of the first enemies that you meet in the game is the Lego version of the bugs from Starship Troopers. It is small, it is nearly unable to kill you. It takes 12 shots to kill.
TWELVE SHOTS.
This little bug thing takes almost as much damage as a metroid before breathing its last.
Also, every enemy has learned the magnificent skill of juking the z-targeting. So you get maybe 3 shots in before it's dodged to the left, and you're no longer locked onto it. Juking is not new to the genre. I firmly recall those big guys from Unreal dodging everything I shot at them. Heck, the Cyberdemon walked out of the way when I shot at him. That might have been random, but I missed a LOT. But you know what was different about those games? There was a way to MOVE SIDEWAYS.
There's a reason why the xbox and ps2 had 2 analog sticks. YOU NEED TWO STICKS TO AIM AT MOVING THINGS. Metroid Prime, realizing that it had but a single stick at its disposal, added the best part of the 3D Zelda games: Z-targeting. Echoes is the evil stepmother of Z-targeting, forcing it to clean the fireplace instead of going to the ball where it could make some handsome prince (me) very happy.
And I can guess why. It's right there on the main menu screen. Right next to options. It reads "Multiplayer." It is my firm belief that Metroid Prime didn't have multiplayer because of Z-targeting. Where's the fun or skill in clicking faster than your opponent? Echoes doesn't just make the enemies wise to z-targeting either. Targeting itself is ruined. You don't just have to be close to the enemy to lock on, you have to already be on it. And if you're off by the tiniest amount on the y-axis, hitting Z will just mess with your view, with no attempt at all to target something.
In Prime, I used to be able to walk into a room, hit Z and the fire button a bunch of times, and kill the shriekbats that flew from the ceiling. In Echoes, doing the same thing fires at the floor several times as shriekbats stab me in the face.
At least multiplayer will be skill-based. But I can't help but think that positioning and strategy would have made multiplayer fun even with z-targeting. Isn't the strategic element what makes rainbow six multiplayer, and gears of war multiplayer so much fun? Meh, I don't even know anymore.
But enough about that, here's the real problem: built-in-lag.
Who makes a game where the environment hurts you? Where you have to go stand in a certain spot for a minute and a half to regain your life after every 20-second fight?
And what the hell made them think that was a good thing to mix with loading-timed doors?
The doors in Prime were brilliant. There's no visible loading of new areas, because you have to wait for the doors to open. They don't open until the next room is loaded, but it's easy to believe that it's just an old door that needs to charge up some power to move (or something). I loved it.
But in echoes, while you're waiting, you're losing health. I literally DIED waiting for the door to open, because the door was around the corner from the nearest safe spot, and I didn't want to wait at the health spot, since I was returning to the light world anyway.
That probably made very little sense unless you've played the game.
Basically, if you loved Prime, and want to know what the hell was up with that hand thing, then you have to play Echoes. But it should have been called shadows, because it is a pale facsimile of Metroid Prime. Oh man that was clever, I love me.
Final Score: 2 plys.
Memorable quote: "I'm probably not going to finish this."
-s
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