The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Hello and greetings. Let me tell you about my Skylanders. Well, okay, wait, I guess I’m going to tell you about my Skylanders tomorrow. Today, let me tell you about Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure, a game you can purchase and play on your Xbox 360.

Skylanders is one of those games that makes me wish I had children of the right age, so I could play it all day with them. However, Skylanders is also a really good game… if you can get past the gimmick. Luckily, I kind of ended up finding the gimmick to be part of the fun. So that wasn’t a problem for me! But, you know, I could see some people being really pissy about having to pay 8 dollars for a new character. And if you break it down like that, it does seem pretty shitty! But I dunno, having the cool little statue makes it okay to me. Your mileage may obviously vary, though. If you can’t get over that, then this just isn’t a game for you, and that’s fine. I certainly kind of feel embarrassed being okay with it, but I had fun, dammit, so I don’t really care.

I was asked earlier today “Is Skylanders basically Gauntlet: Legends?” The answer is yes, but unlike Gauntlet Legends, which I will admit to playing a ton of as well, you have a lot of characters that actually play differently to choose from! Seriously, one thing that really shocked me was how different and varied all the Skylanders feel. After my TOTALLY STUPID hunts for more and more Skylanders, I ended up with about 10 toys. Each one feels unique and different, which is hard to do in such a simple game. But they all have their own little strategies and things they are good at, and that’s not even counting the elemental affinities. They aren’t all equal, but they’re different, and since you can swap them out at will using the magical-seeming Portal of Power, any time you feel like you aren’t being as effective, you have a new strategy at your fingertips. It’s great.

There are certainly parts of the game I feel are weak or frustrating. Each Skylander has a branch in their skill tree, and it really only gives you a vague idea of what skills are in each branch. You can’t check them ahead of time. I never felt like I made the wrong choice on these, but still, it would have been better if it had just told me what I was getting for each branch. I felt dirty getting big XP bonuses for buying more toys. I mean, obviously the game wants you to buy more toys: it shows you goddamn sizzle reels for each Skylander and is all like “BUY THEM TODAY!” But somehow that stuff bothered me less, because I wanted to know what I was buying, and those sizzle reels did a good job of quickly running down how each Skylander played. “Oh, if I want to set up laser traps, he might be good. Okay.” However, those XP bonuses are just pure greed. “To play more optimally, buy more toys.” I took their XP boost, but I felt dirty about it. Also, you could often swap Skylanders and, due to how the game pauses or doesn’t pause the action, have your new Skylander teleport in and immediately lose most of their health. I seriously swapped a character in, and had them die before I even got control of them during one of the final boss battles. That was pretty annoying! There are three achievements in the game that are real hard as well. Two I could probably get with practice, but the last one, beating the last boss without swapping Skylanders, just seems ridiculous. I barely beat the last boss using all 10! He was SO MUCH HP! It’s like he’s the last boss of a Mario and Luigi game or something. That bothered me, because I kind of wanted to S Rank this game.

These are minor complaints in the grand scheme of things. Overall, this game was simple fun. It strikes that nice medium where it’s never so complicated or taxing that you need to really think hard, worry, or be frustrated, but it’s also interesting enough that it isn’t a boring grind all the time. It’s the perfect game to play while listening to a podcast or audiobook, or while catching up with a friend on the second controller. I am really glad I decided to give it a chance, and I’m excited that it’s so popular that you can’t even find any toys in town, because I am excited to play Skylanders 2 when it comes out. The things people are going to have problems dealing with are up front: either you’re down with the toys or not. Just know that if you decide you are, there’s a pretty damn good game underneath it all that’s aimed for kids, but certainly enjoyable by adults.

Been awhile since I did one of these! Figured I should again. Here’s a poem about obsession.

Fangirl

My jaw will open and close
without a second thought
and my vocal chords
will strike a haunting tone
of facts nobody wants.
Obsessions jam marionette strings
deep into skulls
and tug them this way and that,
and soon you simply aren't aware
of the ridiculous dance
that fills up your day with high kicks
and twirls.
I was at one point rational,
a model citizen
who used intelligence
to grease the wheels
before I poured over tiny details
stomach churning
to absorb them all
with the desperate burn of acid,
molecules becoming cell walls
until, finally, it was me
who shouldn't be set off,
cued to go into a spiel
more annoying than factual,
she who needs to be ran from.

What’s next on my list of things I should have written about months ago? Hm. Ah, Crimson Steam Pirates. That sure is a game!

I like the idea behind the game, as well as playing it. You were a steampunk pirate fleet: nothing wrong with that. The gameplay itself felt a lot like my time back in the day with Pirates of the Spanish Main. You moved all your ships each turn, and then saw how it played out for a few seconds before you picked moves again. It’s a kind of strategy game that’s pretty perfectly suited to the iPad, and I’m surprised I haven’t seen more of them. (I think Steambirds is one like it? I dunno, I haven’t played it.)

The game is microtransaction-based, in that there are “episodes” of content, and while the first one is free, the rest cost money. This is a fair model, and the first episode seems of a decent length. I certainly didn’t beat it. However, it also seems like the first episode is mostly a kind of tutorial, showing you various mission types and ship types that you can have in your fleet. Again, nothing wrong with that, I suppose, but I got kind of bored with it by the time I stopped.

There are plenty of things in the game that had potential. You could assign crew, and different crew members had different abilities they would give the ship. However, this really seemed mostly pre-set: you had a small amount of customizability, especially when you captured a ship mid-mission and decided who would leave your ship to crew it, but not as much as I would like. This game needs you to be able to pick your own fleet, and play missions your own way. I wasn’t really seeing that, though maybe that’s something that happens in later episodes? I dunno.

The game is polished, and it’s free to try, so you might as well try it! Again, it controls perfectly, and might have what you’re looking for. I found it lost my interest really fast because I was not invested in my fleet or tweaking it to make it work in various scenarios. That seemed like where fun would be in this sort of game, but maybe I’m wrong.

Sorry for the quickie: I’m quite tired, but I didn’t want you to go without blog content, even when it’s over something I haven’t played for months and don’t have time to refresh myself on! Am I the worst sort of blogger? You be the judge. Anyway, I’m off to bed.

Let me look at my list of blog topics…

Goodness, Mega Mall Story? Damn, it’s been awhile since I played that. Best clear that off of there. Maybe this week will be “Games I should have written about like two months ago” week.

In any case, Mega Mall Story is Kairosoft’s attempt at making SimTower, and to be fair, this is probably one of the better Kairosoft games. However, in some ways, I feel like it suffers a bit from the smaller scope Kairosoft tries to stick to. They always keep their types of whatevers limited and dole them out slowly over time to make you want to keep going. However, in Mega Mall Story, I was really feeling it. I simply didn’t have enough store types to expand far enough to unlock more store types, and that felt weird to me. You don’t, say, but two different book stores in a mall. You just don’t. Whereas in, say, Hot Springs Story, it made sense that you were putting like a million hotel rooms down of the same type: that’s what goes on at those sorts of places. Maybe that’s just me thinking too hard about the scenario. Then again, you build apartments with your own money, but don’t collect rent from them, but instead just get another customer in the area. So if I want to pick apart the “story” of the game, there’s probably more interesting things to poke at.

But I digress. The game attempts to fix this problem of not enough new stuff by having “combos,” which are strings of stores placed together to make certain types of customers come. For example, if you put a toy store, a candy store, and a capsule vending machine together, you get a “Kids” combo. The problem is, while most of the combos make some sort of sense, the game doesn’t outright tell you about them. You have to either stumble upon them accidentally, or you have to buy them from this guy to learn about them. More unlockables, sure, but I’m not just going to move my stores around for no reason to try to find these things, you know? Plus, when you buy them, you may get plans that involve stores you don’t have access to yet. Not knowing them gives me no way to plan a new floor in a new or interesting way. I clearly thought my stupid original layout was fine. I don’t want to change it without reason, you know?

Still, if you liked SimTower at all, and, uh, don’t just want to buy SimTower under it’s original name, YootTower, on iOS, Mega Mall Story is for you. I find I have more and more diminishing returns on Kairosoft’s games. They are all pretty similar. Yet they all still have the magic of previous games in there. I feel like it’s just something where you should pick the one game that really speaks to you more, whether it be Game Dev Story, Pocket Academy, or whatever, and play that one to death, you know? You probably don’t need to play every single one like me. I’m pretty sure I still have Grand Prix Story sitting on my iPad, as of yet unplayed. But someday I will play it! And it’ll be cool, I’m sure. Kairosoft is good people.

What am I wanting to say again? I feel like I had a bunch of little stories… Oh yeah.

HEY GUYS I ATE A SALAD. But other than that, I bought salad dressing. For a long time, I wished I could find a dressing that tasted just like the Honey French they use on the Honey Bacon Club at Quiznos. It’s the sauce, more than anything else, that makes that sammich, and I wanted to be able to apply that to sandwiches I made at home, and thus never have to walk into a Quiznos again. Previous attempts to buy such dressings tasted terrible, and I kind of stopped trying. In any case, with this whole “salad” experiment, I ended up trying again and buying the Schnucks generic store brand California French dressing. It was PERFECT. Not only did it do just fine on the salad experiment, but I placed some on a sammich and it was everything I had ever wanted. Needless to say I will be buying this dressing for a long time to come. Blogs about groceries are fun, right? Maybe?

I got a weird package in the mail, and then I opened this package and it had a booster pack of Furoticon cards in it. I had completely forgotten about this thing: they were giving away free booster packs if you signed up for their new loyalty program (which in itself is insane that they have a loyalty program) so I’m like eh, why not? It wasn’t a real booster pack, perse. It was just a bunch of spare commons and uncommons from all the sets they had lying around, I guess, so they made these little packs and put them in leftover booster wrappers to maybe drum up more business. I can’t blame them, it was a good idea. I got some cards I didn’t have, and it made me look back at the website and remember how insane it is that this game exists and consider, for a brief insane moment, ordering more cards. It also reminded me that they still owe me a ridiculous novel with my fat pack I ordered from them a long time ago. They send me e-mails every so often promising me that it’s still coming. I’m not mad if I don’t get the dumb thing? But it’s going on a year. With everything else about this outfit being so professional, it’s just kind of surprising? But eh. The game has cards like this (SFW). And that’s a very common, very useful utility card. That’s like the Rampant Growth of Furoticon. Yeah.

I was at work, wearing a pony shirt because I am a small child. I am talking with my team, and a young girl in glasses, I want to say like 4th grade but I am a terrible judge of age, comes up to me and says, “I love your shirt.”
I blink, and go, “Wow, thank you!”
She goes, “I watch that show all the time!”
And I go, “Me too! It is an awesome show.”
Then I said goodbye and went back to work. But that simple little encounter just had me grinning. I dunno what it was about it. Maybe that little girls think I’m a cool lady. Or that, yeah, this show I like is a show that its intended audience ALSO likes, which is a good thing for the longevity of said show. Or maybe it’s because I hope the idea that I’m an adult and I like the show will do a little bit to help her feel comfortable enjoying whatever the hell she wants at any age. But I think it was just because if I was her age, I would have never had the guts to go up to some random adult and tell her how cool her shirt was. She wanted me to know I was wearing cool stuff enough to push past that. That girl was awesome, and I’m glad she said that to me. No matter what silly reasoning I want to create for it, that made my day, no joke. Kids are so awesome sometimes.

Also, the employment front is looking pretty good for me right now. They went out of their way to give me a fourth class to teach this semester, which will really help my finances and also be totally awesome. It’s a bit of a commute, but they are reimbursing me for travel, so that’s nice. Seriously, Three Rivers has been pretty completely awesome so far, and although tomorrow’s trip down there might get a little weird as I have to show all my paperwork, etc, I’m sure this next semester is going to rock. On top of all that, the sole employment opportunity at the University Press has opened, and I am so, SO applying for that. I am so qualified for this position it is INSANE, and I would love every second of doing that job. I am going to get in on that. We’ll see if Susan wants me for it or not, though. Either way, my employment future is looking fine, and that’s nice to know.

Alright, well, we’ll call that a blog. Meet me back here tomorrow. There might be more blog. Okay, will be more blog, let’s not lie. There will be.

Finally, I get all done with writing all my prep for my Mafia game and now I can…
Oh.
OH.
Blog. Right.
Um…
LINKPOST!
I mean, I am on vacation, after all.

I did a lot of pony research while doing all my writing, so let me share some of that with you. Like this awesome picture. Or maybe some of the silly music that I listened to while writing? Or maybe you’d rather like just general funny videos. I mean, I dunno. I don’t know what kind of ponies you’re into. Maybe you only like ponies when they’re compared to classic RPG series? I’m not one to judge.

Here’s a nifty installation art exhibit that I approve of.

Consequences are unfortunate when someone has evidence against you.

This little girl knows what it’s all about. You rock, little girl.

Anyway, SORRY I didn’t have more for you tonight. I’m truly SORRY I couldn’t write something better.

No, seriously, I am. I’m going to sleep now. I’ll see you tomorrow.

I feel like I should write about Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, but I recently watched the first episode of the second season of Sherlock, which was fantastic, and that’s kind of stuck in my head. Not that Game of Shadows wasn’t good. It was silly at times, but it was fun and action-packed, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just that Sherlock brings the character development and such along with the humorous bits. But I digress.

I was seeing some backlash on my twitter feed against Game of Shadows, but I can’t say I really understood why. They saw the first one, didn’t they? This is pretty well exactly what you would have expected out of a sequel to that movie: bigger, more explosions, more of the same awesome actors being all awesome. It was certainly exactly what I wanted. Sure, there were some extra-ridiculous bits, like the “fight” at the end of the movie that was all in the mind, but at the same time, that kind of crazy-ass idea for a final fight scene made perfect sense in the realm of the movie, given that that sort of “pre-planning” was always how they showed Sherlock’s prowess, so of course his equal and rival would be able to do the same. They showed that off as best they can, and in a weird way, made a very action-packed sequence that was still a battle of wits. I couldn’t fault it for that too much.

If I really had to place fault on anything in the film, it’s that the character of the tarot card reader person was really, really useless. She does nothing besides show up with magical gypsy supplies to conveniently move the plot along again and again. She’s basically just an explanation as to why Sherlock and Watson can be where they need to be when they need to be. I guess there have been worse characters in films? But she certainly wasn’t as memorable as the rest of the main cast, but at the same time was kind of forced in there because you need a female character, right? Yeah, I don’t know.

I did rather like how they mostly resolved the Sherlock-Watson-Watson Wife love/hate triangle that was set up in the first movie. Sherlock finally kind of gives in, but his solution is to make sure that Watson Wife trusts him, and brings her to his side, as opposed to just kind of apologizing and getting along nicely, which isn’t really a thing he would do. Then again, I guess Holmes’ “death” kind of solves the problem for Watson Wife before she need really do TOO much, though, so maybe they’ll bring it back if they do another sequel. I kind of hope not, though. I liked the subtle way it resolved itself.

Anyway, I didn’t find any surprises in this film. I went in looking for a fun popcorn kind of movie, just like the last one, and that’s exactly what I got. It was fun, and funny, and just plain entertaining. I’m sure if I thought SUPER HARD I’d find some plot holes and even more stupid shit. But eh. This never wanted to be something impressive. It just wanted to be fun. And it was. So there.

Maybe I mentioned this? I ended up playing a bunch of iPad games while I wasted time Christmas morning and eve and whatnot. It was fun! It had been awhile. I think I mentioned that? I dunno.

Anyway, one of the things I played was the now almost laughably named Sonic 4 Episode 1. Because, there’s clearly going to be more episodes. Yep. Totally going to be. Most certainly going to be more episodes of that.

The game was fine. It’s very much a callback to old school Sonics, and there’s nothing wrong with that, if you’re into that kind of thing. The thing that’s really surprising is that it doesn’t play like complete garbage on the platform. It turns out that Sonic is mostly about holding to the right and then clicking the jump button appropriately, and the virtual thumbstick can totally handle that! You just hold right and just go! It’s fun! It does get a little more complex when you get to, say, boss battles that require you to actually maneuver, but even then, I didn’t find the virtual thumbstick that bad. I was able to beat the bosses I faced without TOO much trouble.

All that said, it almost seemed like too much of a throwback to me. Like, I dunno why you would play this over another run of Sonic 2 or something. I mean, it’s way easier, because they seem to throw lives at you constantly and whatnot, and the levels are like… all generic Sonic level with nothing really new about them. Okay, so, there’s little gimmicks in each level, but in general? Just Sonic level. Oh, look, here’s some Casino stages. Oh, look, here’s an airship of some sort. I’m not a huge Sonic fan, though they’re fun enough? I haven’t played the games to death, but it even seemed dull to me. I dunno. I’d rather play Sonic Colors. It would have a better soundtrack too. (Also, I hear Generations is really great? I can’t wait to try it whenever Gamefly decides to send it.)

But I mean, fuck, I paid a dollar, and it’s a solid product. Just not a particularly interesting one. Still, I’m sure Episode 2 will be even better! Coming any day now! Yep.

2011 was a fantastic year. Sure, there were a lot of shitty parts of it, such as, say, my grandma being hospitalized and having to live in a nursing home for awhile. That sucked hardcore. I got my heart broken, but to be fair, that was my fault. I had to work a million swing shifts at Kohl’s, which was kind of terrible, but at least it was employment. The parents keep not supporting me in my transition, and that’s stressful, any my best friend told me something similar. So yeah, bad stuff, I suppose. But fuck, did I accomplish a lot. I mean, I’m me! Fucking finally! How many New Years in a row have I wished to accomplish that? I finally did it. And I’ve been me long enough that it really feels like my natural state which, when I realize it, just make me grin so damn hard. I got my masters with a 4.0! I wrote a fucking book! I got a short story published in a legit Lit Mag! I started having an adult teaching job! I bought a goddamn house and started living on my own! I visited my boyfriend, of like 7 years at this point, for the first time, met his family, and didn’t die from it! Not to mention, I helped put plans in motion to get him living in close physical proximity to me, finally! Yeah, when all is said and done, 2011 was a fucking fantastic year, and I am in such a better place now than I was at the beginning of it, it isn’t even funny.

In any case, it’s the time of year when you make resolutions, and decide what this year is going to be about, for better or worse. I have my resolution: Relax. For so long I’ve been stressed about needing to transition, needing to get out of school, needing to get to a point where I can get my life on track… and I’ve done it. I did that. I worked damn hard, and I did that. I deserve to have some fun. I deserve not to push myself crazy hard working on another thing and another thing and not be happy with what I’ve accomplished. I’m not saying that I shouldn’t accomplish things, goodness no, but I’m saying that, for once, I should put some focus on making sure I enjoy what I accomplish, and that I have enough time to breathe and, well, relax. Maybe it’s selfish to say, but I feel like I’ve earned a little relaxation, and I often self-flagellate myself out of actually taking it or enjoying it. This year, I’m going to try to take that time. Maybe I’ll take a vacation I plan myself for the first time in my life. Or maybe I’ll just enjoy actually having my wuff next to me on the couch for once when I get home from work. Either way, I’m going to relax, and enjoy my new-found happiness.

Here’s hoping 2012 is as awesome as 2011.

There are always games that are considered, but don’t make the prestigious (?) cut of being on my top ten list. Still, I like to point them out, as they’re still fine games. But before I do that, let’s talk about what games are glaring omissions from potentially being on any list. These are games I simply didn’t play this year. They might have had a shot, but it just didn’t happen.

Skyrim: I’m sure I’ll love it. I never got to it.
Kirby’s Return to Dreamland: I will clearly love the fuck out of this one, but again, haven’t cracked the plastic on it.
Stacking: Double Fine is pretty fantastic, and I’m sure this is funny and clever, but even though I own the thing (I bought it during a sale) I’ve never loaded it up.
Fortune Street: What a smart looking board game! But I haven’t spent near enough time with my friends recently to even think about playing something like that.
Professor Layton and the Last Specter: Got it for Christmas, haven’t tried it yet. It’s kind of a known quantity, but it’s good stuff, I’m sure.

Anyway, let’s get to those honorable mentions! These aren’t in any particular order.

Dark Souls
I thought that, much like Demons’ Souls, I would play this as just a curiosity and send it back to Gamefly, but this much-improved spiritual sequel really got it’s hooks into me. It’s probably still a bit more obtuse than it really needs to be. But there’s just something to the very skill-based combat and the way the world feels like a cohesive place you’re stumbling through that keeps me wanting to go back again and again, even as I die over and over and probably build my character wrong.

Neuroshima Hex
A port of a board game I didn’t know anything about, Neuroshima Hex hits the sweet spot between being complicated and being simple. Each of the armies plays very differently and gives you lots of options, and the Hex-based placement system makes turns go fast, but you never feel like a turn is unimportant. Sure, it’s a bit of a learning curve figuring out some of the icons and how the initiative system works, but once you’ve got a grip on that, you’ve got a damn good hotseat versus game that will only be improved once they get around to putting in online asynchronous multiplayer.

Ascension: Rise of the Godslayer
A card game port I didn’t know anything about, Ascension is a twist on the Dominion formula, but instead of picking a set of decks to play with every time, you have a static deck you cycle through with tons of options. In some ways, this makes the game even more strategic, because you always know what strategies are open to you from the get-go, but you can’t be sure the deck is going to deal out key cards to buy in time. Asynchronous multiplayer just adds to how awesome this game is. I guess there’s an expansion now that I haven’t tried? But the base game alone is worth the price of admission.

Virtua Tennis 4
If you had told me a sports game without “Mario” in the title would be anywhere near any best of list of mine, I would have told you that you were insane. However, I really considered booting Tiny Tower for Virtua Tennis 4 on my list for much longer than I probably should have. I just can’t believe how fond I think back on my time with that game. The honestly ridiculous board game campaign was just so much fun, and seemed created just for me, and the way you could make custom “super shots” that tailored to your playstyle was genius, even if they took a bit too long to unlock. If they kept that campaign in the next game and refined it more, I could see me buying Virtua Tennis 5, and me typing that feels weird, but it’s totally true.

Trenched
I guess it’s Iron Brigade now? But the name doesn’t matter. Double Fine made a game that has actual gameplay mechanics instead of just some stuff you do while you wait for more jokes, and that is awesome. The customization on your Trench is a lot of fun, letting you play just how you want to in a group, and when you get four people together online, this game is magic. It has some flaws: the lack of endless modes at launch was one, for example, and the boss battles didn’t completely work as well as the normal stages. But it is a blast. If you have friends you can play with, purchasing this game should be a no-brainer.

That’s it for gaming of 2011! I look forward to playing way too many games in 2012 as well. Off we go! To the future! And, you know, to Ragnarok.