The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

So I just spent all kinds of money on a brand new phone and a data plan. Exciting times! I am now the proud owner of a Blackberry Bold, one of the newest Blackberries, with all the bells, whistles, and 3Gs.

The first question one has to ask when they realize I made this purchase is “Why didn’t you get an iPhone?” This is especially true since we switched to AT&T and the iPhone 3G is ridiculously cheap. Well, it comes down to keyboard. I already have access to all the cool iPhone apps and, more importantly, games, through my iPod Touch, so apps are mostly a non-issue. What I really want a phone with data for is for twittering and for getting on my AIM and whatnot in weird places and chatting with people. For this, you need a keyboard, and gods, I hate the keyboard on the iPhone. Granted, I think Shawn on Talking Time made a good point once: The iPhone keyboard is a ton better than typing with a standard phone keypad. But when there’s Blackberries out there, why settle just for that?
And oh my god, this keyboard is so sweet. You can tell that RIM has been making the best cell phone keyboards for years. It feels PERFECT, having the exact right amount of give and click to the buttons. I can’t type at the same speed at which I’m typing on this compy keyboard right now, of course, but I have been impressed at how fast I can already type, and I know it’s going to improve a little more once I’ve had it for a month or two. I can AIM on this thing at good speeds! I might even be able to hold down TWO conversations! It’s pretty damn neat to me.
The other reason I wanted data on a phone was for anytime access to internet browsing. This, I will admit, is an area where an iPhone is superior. Mobile Safari is just the best mobile broswer out there. It works so damn good. The Bold doesn’t have a touch screen, and that’s going to make broswing not as good. It makes up for it with this little trackball thing. I thought I might hate this, but after you get used to it, it really works quite well for selecting things and whatnot. It doesn’t, however, scroll webpages well, which is the main issue with the built-in broswer. However, I was told to immediately get Opera Mini, and I did, and it is much better, having easy zoom in/out controls and shortcut keys to scroll for 1 page of text, making it easy to read blog posts, such as this one. The broswer is plenty good for checking something on Wikipedia or wasting time, and that’s all I ask.

But yeah, it’s quite the nice phone. And I am so glad to have mobile data now. I am going to abuse the shit out of it. Still, besides Twitterberry and BeejiveIM, I don’t really know what other apps there are that I might actually use. (I also put Qik and Google Maps on there, but those are going to be rare uses, I’m sure, though if I ever start road-tripping again, Google Maps could be a lifesaver.) If anyone out there has any good suggestions, I would love to hear them.

So I just got back from seeing Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

I guess I’m in the minority, but as much as I loved Harry Potter originally, J.K. Rowling’s writing quickly showed how weak it was as they let her write longer and longer novel and she attempted to build up a world she obviously hadn’t put all the much thought into. It’s a fun world, but it’s a world riddled with retcons and fairly ridiculous plots and dialog.
Book 5 was the beginning of the end for the series being any good, and that’s why, when I saw the movie version, I was shocked at how entertaining and just plain fun it was. Even having to deal with the “Harry is an angst-monster” plot, it was just a good time.

The movie of the fairly awful book 6 thankfully follows along with this tradition. It is obvious that the writer of this film was given plenty of leeway with the retarded events of the novel, and has turned the majority of the movie into a really great romance story between friends that is as hilarious as it is entertaining. The chemistry between Harry, Hermione, and Ron is just completely wonderful. They’re like actors or something. They give each other these wonderful looks and glances, and they have dialog that wouldn’t look out of place between a trio of friends. You would never expect Harry to respond to Hermione’s accusations that girls are only interested in him because he was “The Chosen One” with “I am the Chosen One.” It’s charming, and funny, and Hermione’s response is perfect as well. This kind of shit is all through the movie, and it’s why it is so far above what the book is.

In fact, the parts that pretty well follow the book exactly, to the best of my remembrance, are pretty well the worst parts of the film. The last bit of the film with them running after the horcrux is okay, with some nice effects, but it just isn’t as interesting as the chemistry of everyone living out their fun times at Hogwarts.

But yeah, the movie? Totally great. Totally. Worth your time. I only hope they give whoever free reign to write whatever they want. Maybe the 2 book 7 movies won’t be as god-awful as the book was, if that’s the case.

I like music game.
There is music game on iPhone.
Music game is called Mevo and the Grooveriders: Galactic Tour.
It’s good.
Buy it.

…

Okay, fine.

So, this game came out on Steam, and it was called Mevo and the Grooveriders. I was interested, because it’s a music game, and I am a person who loves their music games, but unlike most good indie games, I heard absolutely zero buzz around this one, so I gave it a pass.
Then, John Davidson aka “The reason I still listen to ListenUP”, talks about Mevo and the Grooveriders: Galactic Tour on the iPhone. He says it’s some sort of Mario platformer with music and it’s good. I go “hm” and then promptly forget about it.
Two days later, I open up the app store, and there it is on the front page. And it’s a dollar. So I buy it.
The next day, I get to work way too early, so I boot it up in front of the time clock.

It’s really fun stuff.

The game is really simplistic. Mevo, the little red dude, walks and jumps his way across this platformer world. When he gets to an arrow, you push it in time with the music. There are only two kinds of arrows. That’s basically it.
But man, they use those two arrows beautifully. Across the five levels currently in the game (Apparently it started with three, and they’ve added two more with free updates, claiming that they will slowly add all the content from the PC version) hitting the buttons in time gets to be quite the challenge. There are difficult rhythms, but the best part is that the rhythms themselves make sense, and don’t seem like they are cheating just to up the difficulty. They fit pretty well perfectly with the songs.
And the songs! They’re completely original compositions made for the game, and they’re quite good. You can’t help but nod your head in time with them. This kind of solid indie soundtrack is exactly what an indie music game needs. It’s great. Of course, since it’s a music game, you can’t listen to your own music while playing. Normally that pisses me off in an iPod app, but this is for a good reason, so I let it slide.

The biggest worry is the fact that there are no buttons for you to hit on the iPod, and this is a game designed around buttons. The game would still probably control a little better with physical buttons, as it would be easier to hit very rapid combinations with tactile feedback. However, you couldn’t ask for better virtual buttons. They are perfectly spaced so you can have a thumb on each and hold the thing and they aren’t all picky, so they respond very well. So have no fear there.

Basically, even with just five levels and three difficulty settings, this is a great $1 buy. If they do put in all the levels from the PC version, it will be an amazing $1 buy. If you like music games at all, you really should probably pick this one up. You aren’t going to be disappointed by it.

There hasn’t been a game I’ve bought that’s been more of a hit than Dominion. And why shouldn’t it be a hit. The game has a completely genius design based around building your deck while you play, and is incredibly easy to pick up while being strategically interesting and fun all around. It really is a winner.

So, of course, when I heard about Dominion: Intrigue, the stand-alone expansion for Dominion which can be played alone, or mixed with the cards from the original set? Man, I was right there. Pre-ordering it was basically the reason I ordered the Big Box of Board Games.

It didn’t disappoint.

Even though Dominion: Intrigue is Stand-Alone, I really don’t think it works very well as an introduction to the game. There are no simple cards, because the simple cards are all in the normal Dominion. However, that doesn’t mean this isn’t a good expansion and game. Far from it. I think it’s completely worth the title of Dominion’s first expansion.

Options Options Options seem to be the name of the game with the cards in Intrigue. So many of them, like Ironworks, Steward, and Pawn, present a choice of many smaller effects instead of one big effect, like most of the cards in the base set. This allows them to fill the roles of some of the more necessary cards from the base set, while still playing fairly differently. Pawn, for example, is just a really great card all around, letting you choose 2 different options from the list of +1 card, +1 buy, +1 action, and +1 gold. The correct choice is not obvious as many times as it is clear, and I think that’s really great.
There are also a lot of twists on other cards. Wishing Well was quickly my favorite card from the new set. This card basically works like Village, but has a luck/guessing aspect to it, in that if you can correctly guess the top card of your deck, you get to draw an additional card. That kind of guessing is just fun. Shanty Town also fills that Village role, but with an interesting twist: You always get +2 actions, but you only get +2 cards if your hand doesn’t have any actions in it besides the Shanty Town you just played. Trying to set up chains with that card is additionally fun.
There are also some really painful new attack cards that run the game out incredibly quickly. Saboteur is just completely and utterly mean. It makes opposing players flip cards off the top of their deck and trash them, adding in a lower-costed card. This is devastating if someone flips over a Province or something. (This happened to Spaeth. Totally dicked over!) The Swindler card also has opponents flipping over the top card of their deck and trashing it, but instead, the player who played Swindler has to replace the card with one of the same value. Lots of dicking potential here, but at least your Provinces are safe, being the only card worth 8. Still, that kind of constant trashing makes the game end much, much faster!
The real power cards, though, are the hybrid Victory point cards. These cards have an additional affect, as well as being worth points. For example, there is absolutely no reason why everyone won’t buy out the Great Hall deck if it’s in the game immediately. It is just so good. Harem is also extremely powerful, and I found myself picking that over a similarly-priced Gold every single time. At first, these cards seemed TOO powerful, but the more I think about it, the more okay these sorts of cards are. The game is designed so you just don’t play with card types you don’t like, and since buying them out ends the game quicker, putting a single card out there that’s higher valued than other options makes the game end significantly faster, affecting gameplay and potentially making the powerful nature of these dual-natured cards less impactful.

Still, though, if you like Dominion, buying this expansion is a no-brainer. Mixing these new decks in with the old will provide tons more entertainment, not to mention that if you mix them, there are now rules to play with 6 players, which is always welcome. I mostly just worry about Dominion: Seaside, the non-stand alone expansion coming out later this year. Is the well deep enough to support another 26 Kingdom decks? We’ll see. I’ll certainly be there day 1.

So, there’s a thread on Talking Time. It’s called Fall Anime ’08. The title is kind of incorrect, though, as it’s much more about talking about what Animes are currently running and how they are. (I guess the title was correct, back in Fall of ’08, but it keeps being used.

In any case, I check in there from time to time. I used to be all about the animes, and I like vaguely knowing what’s going on in the Anime world. So while I’m there, I hear about an anime called Saki. It’s painfully fanservice-y, with lesbian sexual tension poured on by the bucketful, and it’s not very good.

But it’s about Mah Jong. And how winning this Mah Jong tournament is the only thing that matters. And dammit, I am completely weak by this kind of concept. The idea of these dramatic shows about board games, card games, and so on is what made me watch seasons of Yu-gi-oh. I can’t get away from such things. They are so compelling to me, even when I want to murder the animators every time they’re like “MUST HAVE THE CAMERA ANGLE SHOW SHE HAS BIG BREASTS LOL!” When you play Mah Jong like this, then I watch. I am so weak.

So yeah, that’s what I’ve been doing for the last day or two. Watching Lesbian High Schoolers Play Mah Jong show. What have you been up to?

Awhile back, I ordered a big box of board games. They have arrived, and we are now playing through them and enjoying them. Etc. So here is some of my first impressions of the games within said big box.

One of the games I bought almost completely on a whim was Race for the Galaxy. I didn’t know anything at all about it, besides it was a card game (which is a huge plus in my book) and that several people on Talking Time seemed to like it. So some days ago, when the box came in, we busted that sucker out and gave it a try.

Damn, this game is complicated.

This is not a game you get right on the first, or even perhaps the second gameplay session. Each game card is partially COVERED in obtuse symbols. Each player is given a full page cheat-sheet for these symbols. Depending on differences in coloration, cards might play completely different. Some elements of cards actually don’t matter unless you add in an expansion set, but are just there in the base set. It’s really weird, and not for the weak of heart. This isn’t a game you’re going to be teaching your non-gamer parents or anything.

Still, once you start to get into it, the game starts to show off its fairly clever mechanics. The main idea of the game is that there are 5 phases to a turn, and each player picks a phase to get a special bonus in, in secret, at the start of the turn. The catch is that unless a player picks a bonus for that phase, it doesn’t happen. So if nobody picks the Explore phase bonus, no player gets an Explore phase that turn. This means it’s actually impossible to play all 5 phases in a turn, since there are only 4 players, max. It’s pretty interesting.

The other thing that I find interesting is the fact that the cards in your hand are both your money and your options. (options, options…) You have to discard cards to put things in play, but then you’re also throwing away things you can do… it’s a pretty solid way of making a currency without having another currency. (Though they then kind of throw that out the window with the “Goods” thing on Planets.)

Anyway, this game has a huge learning curve, but already, by the end of our second game, we were starting to get the hang of it. I think in another game or two, this will be really fun. We’ll have to see how it goes, though. Such learning curves can really kill the game, but it’s clear that underneath it, there is a really clever strategy game here. Hopefully we can find it.

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.

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.

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?

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?