The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Gears of War 2 ain’t nuthin’ special.
It’s the same game, with the same ridiculous dialog, and essentially the same weapons, with some new locations, new gimmicks, and new plot that doesn’t make any fucking sense. It’s completely from the “longer, better, more bad-ass” school of game design.

But you know what? That’s pretty alright.

Due to my new Gamefly subscription, I put some of the co-op games I’ve always meant to play on there. I wasn’t going to play through them alone or more than once, but they would be a good ride. Gears 2 fell under this, and it was the first game I got! (Of course, unluckily, RE5, another co-op game, was the second game I got. I didn’t need two co-op only games, Gamefly!) So I sat down with Jonathan and Spaeth, alternating, as I played through the whole game, shooting some dudes from behind cover and yelling out my witty catchphrase, “Eat shit and die!”

It’s a fun time. The co-op is well-enough designed, and the base shooter gameplay is still as good as it ever was, because it is exactly the same as in Gears of War. The “we’re separated” sequences are shorter, to minimize frustration, which is nice, and now your AI partners can revive you, which also helps lower the difficulty. The way you and your co-op buddy can pick different difficulty levels is also appreciated. Jonathan picked Hardcore for most of the way through, since he played through Gears multiple times on higher difficulty levels, while I just stuck with Normal for the casual fun I wanted. We died just about the same number of times, so the difficulty system must have been doing something right.
There are many more “gimmick” levels than before, and while some suck or are kind of annoying (It’s just frustrating flailing around on a Reaver where you can’t hit anything) I’d say the game is probably better as a whole for the changes in pace. It is certainly a longer, and more complete game than Gears 1.

But yeah, the new adjusted Locust gun is pretty neat, and the Flamethrower is pretty fun… but it’s just more Gears. If you get this, you know what you are getting into. The only thing I’m sad about is that I didn’t get to try Horde mode before I sent it back… but RE5 is awaiting for my co-op time, and I wanted to get something more single-player oriented… like, say, a little Red Faction: Guerrilla. So into the mailbox it went.
Fun times, though. Fun times.

I slept like shit Friday Night! And I had this dream!

I was back in high school at Notre Dame, only we seemed to be in the gym of my grade school. We were trying to put together the yearly musical, only for whatever reason, nobody had gotten a head start on it. It was like… one week until showtime and absolutely nothing was done. No sets. No rehearsals. No music. No lights. Nothing.

Essner was the director. Why? Hell if I know. He was very stressed out. The musical we were putting on was apparently a musical version of Terminator: Salvation, starring none other than Justin Spaeth. I kept trying to calm him down. “We don’t need complicated sets, right? Just a couple of flats up with a wasteland locale, we can use that for most scenes…”

Eventually, after a dispute where we were trying to get Spaeth to be the sound guy, too, but he refused to be the sound guy from backstage and wanted to be in the booth? But he obviously couldn’t star and be up in the booth… so Essner said fuck it, and we retired to a restaurant, I think it was Logans.
Essner, Bradley Bo, Ben, and I were eating together. Ben and Brad had bought necklaces at some sort of quarter dispenser, only they looked like necklaces we sell at Kohl’s. And we talked about the necklaces for awhile, and I think I eventually stole one.

Then I think the musical was canceled.

Yep. That’s the kind of shit I dream about.

Sometimes I have my moments where I realize “Holy shit, I really am the sort of person who has a degree in English.” Mostly, these come in the form of inspiration for English Major-y papers, where I look at something and realize I could analyze it in a way where I could add in research, over-explain it, and then get myself some A’s or whatever. I realize that I could write a paper about a text that would fit right in with all of the scholarly articles I have had to look at in my college career. It’s kind of weird when I do it, as I’ve always thought I wasn’t the sort to WANT to do that, but at the same time, I suppose I have developed some skill in it.

Most recently, I was watching Endurance Run: Persona 4 and I realized there was an extremely good paper in there.
Of course, I’m not going to write the paper. So I’ll just sort of summarize my thesis here, I suppose.

Basically, there is something to be said, culturally, about the main character in Persona 4. The protagonist is your classic jRPG silent protagonist, but he also has a special power that other characters in your party don’t. His guiding Tarot card is the Fool, 0, and as such he can make multiple Persona and switch between them at will.
Personas are “facades that help you overcome life’s hardships.” They are your personality, and how you deal with things. All the characters in your party have them, and they reflect the person that the character is. However, with each Persona comes certain strengths and weaknesses, represented by the normal elemental Rock/Paper/Scissors that you see in such games. Because each other main party member is stuck with their one persona, which is their personality, they will always have weaknesses. The Protagonist does not have these weaknesses, as he can switch away to Persona who are strong against certain attacks to protect himself, not to mention have access to a much wider variety of attacks. He is a much more powerful character because of his lack of one distinct personality.
However, this ability comes at a cost. Like I said, the protagonist is your standard jRPG silent protagonist. You are given choices to make, but for the most part, they are empty choices. There is nothing the Protagonist can do to affect the world, or to make choices or changes in his life. Because he is not a distinct character of his own, his life is not guided by his choices, but rather guided by those around him, as well as a mysterious voice that tells him he’s tired and so on.

Hopefully you see where I’m going with this. There is something to say, culturally, about Japan, or at least the creators of Persona 4, considering the ability to be a non-entity, and move between personalities at will, to be a good thing, and to mean you have greater power. The game seems to promote losing your self-identity. That is… not something I really agree with. But damn, it could make a good paper. Surely there are Japanese cultural studies that I could pull in as well, to give additional real-life analysis. It would be one hell of an English Major paper.

Man, I’m kind of lost, though, aren’t I? When I’m thinking about these things in my free time? I am pretty clearly going to be an English major forever. Heh. Oh well.

So I’ve been cleaning off my desk.
Sort of.

Mostly I’ve just been chewing all the gum that has been on my desk for months.

I’m actually unsure how this is really getting my desk cleaner, but at least it doesn’t have packs of gum on it anymore? I guess that’s nice. And I got to enjoy a “New Flavor Escape!” in the form of Maui Melon Mint gum. So that’s great.

I can’t really recommend Maui Melon Mint, though. It’s not bad, but man, when you have the options of Orbit’s Raspberry Mint or Citrus Mint, this just kind of pales in comparison. Also, why does everything have to be minty? I don’t really know. I bet they could design a gum that still made my mouth feel clean without putting mint in there.

It is also interesting to me how much the Mint contained within Maui Melon Mint clashes with the Mint in my toothpaste, as I attempted to brush my teeth the other day after chewing a bit of this gum, and it was a powerful and unfriendly clash of flavors within my mouth. If only all mints could live together, in harmony! That would be better.

Mixing Sour Pink Lemonade and Sour Apple on your snow cone, though, works rather well, though the Apple flavor totally beats the crap out of the Pink Lemonade. I shall have to go and get snow cones more often, perhaps.

But probably not a mint flavor. And certainly not “Wedding Cake.”

On a whim, as I do, I picked up a game because it was cheap. (Only $2.50!) It is called Chains. This is its website, but don’t buy it from there, because even if the sale I bought it during is off by the time you read this, it’s still going to be cheaper on Steam, where I got it.

It is a small game, but a really great game.

There are many things that Indie games try to do. Many try to be artsy without being fartsy, but do tend to be a little farsty. Still, art games can be cool. I mean, I loved the shit out of The Path, for instance. But there is yet again another angle where indie games can go: Taking an idea, and exploring it completely. Putting time and effort into a concept that no big developer would try, just to see where it would go. That is what Chains is. I like it.

At it’s heart, Chains draws a lot of it’s gameplay from a Sega Swirl or something of that nature. You’ve got these colored balls. You click on one, and drag a “chain” along to other balls of the same color. If you chain at least three, the balls disappear. That’s basically it.

What happens, though, is that these balls are physics objects. They fall from the sky, into various stages. (There are 20 in the game in all) At first, you are tasked with just clearing them, but soon, the objectives begin to mix themselves up. Instead of clearing X balls, it suddenly becomes “Make a Chain of 40” or “Go for 5 minutes without 10 balls dropping off of the board.” Again, these challenges soon become old hat, but then the stages themselves start to change from simple containers to machines. Keeping balls from falling out of a cup is easy, but keeping them from falling off of the board when they’re sitting on top of timed pistons that send them flying every 10 seconds is much more difficult. They even add a completely new mechanic, that of “colorless” balls that you have to apply color to in order to solve puzzles.

That’s what makes this game a joy to play. Every stage is an extra layer of complexity upon what the last stage showed you. It is constantly building, more and more, and pushing this very simple mechanic to its extreme limit, and I love it. It’s fun to play, as most puzzle games are, and it’s always exciting to get to a new stage, look at it, and go “how the fuck am I supposed to do that one?” and then figure it out. It does require a little bit of fast timing and twitch reflexes in some stages, but most make for a very relaxing, mind-taxing kind of experience. It’s just really neat.

Would I have paid $10 for it? Probably not. I only have like 2 stages left. Would I have paid 5? Probably. And am I extremely happy at $2.50? Hell yes. Chains is an example of indie games done right. If you like puzzle games, you really should pick this up and try it. I think you’ll enjoy it. And to the developers: This is BEGGING to be on iPhone in some fashion. It would control perfectly on there. Make it happen, and make yourself some money, okay?

I find now, all of the sudden, that I have no idea why I am not following Giant Bomb more often. I was liked to a little review of Rocket Riot, a game I hadn’t really heard about, on Talking Time. I watched it, and I was like “Okay, this is pretty entertaining, let’s see what else they got… oh, here’s something about BlazBlue…” So I went to watch that.

And man, I laughed so hard.

Which caused me to notice the fact that there was over 100 episodes of something called “Endurance Run: Persona 4.” So I went to that. I’ve been watching it for quite awhile now, and I just keep laughing. Basically, they’re playing Persona 4 in 15 minutes chunks and recording it, while commenting on it. It’s a Let’s Play! But man, it’s so good. So good.

It really makes me wonder what else I’m missing. Should I be listening to their podcast? What else of theirs should I be following? I mean, I have no idea.
But hell, at least for today, I was extremely entertained.

Work is just amazing.
I just found out that I have HOURS next week! Actual, verifiable hours! Lots of them! I will have a big paycheck! I was all happy!

And then I went “Oh, I have hours.”

I mean, I’m not someone who bitches about work a lot? When something genuinely pisses me off, sure, I will tell you about it, blog of mine, but the majority of the time, I’m just fine. I work. It sucks. A lot of the time it makes my right ankle and knee ache. But I get the job done, and I get paid, and it’s no big thing.

At the same time, my schedule changes from week to week and week again. And honestly, I’m pretty well getting sick of it.
I don’t know… I’m a creature of habit for the most part. I like things not to change. This is the sort of thing that gets me into a lot of trouble, feeling that way. I think that, more than ever before, life is just constantly changing nowadays. I wish I could get 1 job and work it for 40 years, but that just isn’t done. You spend a year or two somewhere, or even less, and then you find a better offer and go for it. Change change change…

I don’t know, I think work wouldn’t be so tiring if I didn’t work completely different hours every week. The idea of, you know, working twice the number of hours as I worked last week is kind of a soul-crushing idea, even if I know I can do it. It’s the change that makes it feel worse. If I had actually been getting this number of hours the whole time, then it wouldn’t have been a big deal, would it?

Probably not.
I don’t know.

Anyway, it’ll be nice to get a large cash infusion to my bank account, in any case.

Speaking of board games, we managed to get in another exciting game of Arkham Horror on the 3rd! Yay for Arkham Horror! This impromptu match against Eldritch forces pitted us against Glaaki. Luckily, we weren’t too afraid of some crazy lake slug, so we dug on in.

Essner, of course, started out the night on the right foot by drawing out, with his uncanny ability, the researcher with the amazing rack, Mandy Thompson. How he can constantly draw his favorite character is beyond me. Spaeth also got lucky and got the gangster, which is the character he always wants to play. Shauna, the newbie to the game, got the author, Jonathan got stuck with Ashcan Pete, and I ended up deciding to go with Dexter Drake, magician extraordinaire.
Our starting gear was… so so. Besides the gun Spaeth started with, nobody really got any weapons besides Shauna, who got a rifle. I had Shriveling, of course, because Dexter starts with it, but I also had a spell I had never had before and was interested in trying out: Alchemical Process. This spell basically let me spend a sanity to gain $3 bucks. I abused the hell out of that spell, buying me a magical sword and such… and driving myself insane because of it at least twice.

So I didn’t do much, besides using Call Friend to draw Spaeth, who somehow had like 16 bucks (thanks to him getting “untold riches” from a mysterious power… those untold riches being $8) and was up in Dunwich, to the Merchant District Streets to deal with that horrible Mad Bomber rumor where you have to pay like $4 an investigator to dispel it. Money is not easy to come by in this game, and you couldn’t let it lapse, because then every investigator would get an injury and a madness. It is a really shitty rumor. Anyway, I helped out with that, but spent most of the game in Arkham Asylum. I didn’t even go to a dimension once.

Still, Jonathan, Shauna, and Essner -REALLY- stepped it up and basically won the game for us. Somehow, they sealed like… every damn thing, even with Essner constantly getting really shitty items. (I gave him my magical sword to make him feel better, but I don’t think he put it to good use.) Glaaki was also having bad luck. He only had about like… 6 doom counters on him when Shauna sealed off the final gate and won the game. The only real threat to us was the fact that we were in Act II of the King in Yellow, and had no real weapons to fight Glaaki had he been summoned. If we had drawn The Next Act Begins! we would have been fucked. But we didn’t! We won! And the world was safe from crazy mutant slugs yet again.

People on Talking Time think it’s crazy that I am missing several of the Arkham Expansions. Granted, I would enjoy having them, but damn… they are kind of expensive. Instead of those expansions, I can buy several new games with new, neat experiences, which is what I did during the purchases described yesterday. Don’t think I didn’t debate picking up Innsmouth, Kingsport, and Black Goat of the Woods while I was picking out my board games! But in the end, Arkham is plenty in it’s current state. I may pick up another expansion at some point in the future, but we’ve only played like… 2 games since I got The King in Yellow. Things are still fresh. When it needs some jazz, then I shall expand.
Plus, some of those new investigators are crazy powerful. Power creep, anyone?

Free shipping is a trap. A TRAP!

It took me a long while to realize this, and about when I did, I got Amazon Prime, so it would never again be an issue. Gone were the days of throwing another two or three things I didn’t need onto an order in order to get super saver shipping! No more, I said! No more!

Well, um, I just bought $100 worth of board games just for free shipping.

It wasn’t totally my fault, mann. I needed the new stand-alone expansion for Dominion, called Dominion: Intrigue. I and my friends love the shit out of Dominion, and I couldn’t pass that up! But there was the “free shipping if you buy $100!” And it was only like… $30. Surely there was another board game… well, that’s pretty cheap too… and another, and another… and then I spent $100 on board games, just like that.

It’s not so much the saving the $10 on shipping that does it, I suppose. It’s just sort of a sign. An “okay, it’s okay to splurge” sign. And I love those signs. I love having permission to do things like that. And I let it make me spend quite a lot of money.

What did I get? Well, besides the Dominion expansion, of course, I also picked up Race for the Galaxy, Dungeon Twister, and Ticket to Ride. Ticket to Ride I’ve played quite a bit on the XBLA version, so I know that’s worth my money. Dungeon Twister is apparently coming to XBLA, and ever since I read that, I’ve been really interested in it, as it sounds like a fantastically fun 2-player game. And Race for the Galaxy? Well… that’s more an unknown. I’ve heard good things, and it has cards. I guess that’s all it takes to sell me on a card game, huh?

Anyway, they’re all with the pre-order of Intrigue, so they won’t be shipping out until “Mid-July.” So expect a huge-ass board game party some time around then. It’ll be… exciting! Yes! Hopefully!
Man, I buy so many games…

This country is pretty okay, I suppose.

Like so many things, this country is run by some sort of system of government, which involves politics, none of with I can do anything even vaguely about. The wheels of it keep on turning, and sometimes I vote, I have even called up a congressperson once or twice, but it doesn’t particularly mean anything. It’s just kind of a suggestion that is easily ignored. I can do nothing, really, to affect this country, and as such, I can’t say I have any real strong claim to it. I certainly have nothing that even borders upon real patriotism.

Still, there are a lot of things that I hold near and dear. My home, my family, many rights that I would not have if I lived in other parts of the world. Would I be writing this stupid, stupid blog if I didn’t live in America? I don’t know. It becomes much less likely.

I don’t feel any real connection to America, and I think we don’t do a lot of things right. But I enjoy quite a bit of the freedoms and such that I’ve been given because I live here. I enjoy many things about living here.

So, you know. Happy Birthday, America. We’ll fire off some explosives that make pretty colors for you. Keep trying to improve.