The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

So, along with Retro Game Challenge (which I would expect a review ramble of… oh… tomorrowish.) I finally got my paws on Scott Pilgrim Vs The Universe last Friday. Ah, it is a wonderful thing, even without flipping it open. The cover is super-foil-y and neat, and the back cover has these “screenshots” of the Scott Pilgrim “game.” It’s nice.

The story inside is nice, too. There be spoilarz going forward, though. Not huge ones, but, you know, just in case, wait until you get to read it.

–This is the SPOILAR line.–

The book is going in a different direction. Pre-me-getting-my-copy reviews I read suggested that this book takes a much more emotional turn than previous, and that the fights are much less a focus because it’s already been established that there is no way Scott can lose. This is pretty much accurate. All but the final fight scene are mostly just in the background while other characters talk. I am totally and completely okay with this. I love the game references, I love the action, but all that wouldn’t make Scott Pilgrim as awesome as it is. It’s a great series because it has emotion and romance things underneath its silly exterior. It really comes out and shines in this book.

Talking Time favorite Kim Pine plays a very big role in this one, too. There are some revelations about her motivations that sort of caught me off guard. Maybe because it’s been too long since I read the first four. But it was just shocking at first: it all makes perfect sense. The plot is making really good sense! And I can’t wait to see the ending.
It is sad that there’s so little Wallace, though. He is just hilarious. His comment of “Hey, it’s that guy” at the end of the first volume is what made it completely clear that I was going to be a huge fan of this series. His role gets more toned down now, though. It makes sense. Things are more emotional than funny. But it’s still unfortunate.

It was also decently tugging at the heartstrings. Seeing Scott lash out at people is silly and fun, but is just so… representative of what he’s going through. He’s not the brightest guy. He very much wants to fix things. He was trying the method in the last book, of getting a job and becoming, you know, and adult. But even that suddenly becomes not enough in this one. All he knows how to do is fight, so he’s desperate to and sure that will fix things. You gotta feel for him.

People have been saying that this is good, but not the series at its best. I don’t really think that’s the case. In volume four, the series took a very clear emotional and focal shift, and this is just the result of it. I suppose if you got into the series for wacky action, you’d be disappointed a bit? But if you got into it for that, and stayed for the relationships like me? You’re going to be very interested in this volume. Very.

Reading it does make one thing clear, though: I need to reread the whole series. I’ll put it off until after Essner gets to read this one, though, so I have more people to discuss it with. I also need to force Spaeth to steal my copies and read them… yep.

That stupid song is stuck in my head from work. Ugh.

So, this month’s KoL IoTM is the libram of love songs. It’s yet another skill book! Cris was very sad. But I was, you know, still alright with it. I like IoTMs. They’re what keep me playing these games, trying the new items and seeing how to use them. So I was all about being able to Summon Love Songs. I snapped it up immediately.

Since this is a Libram, each cast of it increments the same counter that lets me Summon Candy Hearts. This hasn’t really been a bit deal for me. I have like… 4 gabillion candy hearts at the moment, so I can just summon love songs all day long. Eventually, it might become a tough choice. I kind of hope it does! It’ll probably be candy hearts for the beginning of a run for a few days, until I have a few Lavenders, Oranges, and Pinks to get me through, and then all love songs.

Now, each love song can do two things. They’re powerful combat items that deal elemental damage equal to various stats. (Well, okay, one does physical damage.) They can also be used up as a 5-turn buff with the interesting mechanic that the buff does more depending on how much duration you have. So if you have 5 turns left, it’s less effective than if you have 10 turns left, and so on, up to a cap. I think that’s a pretty neat mechanic.

There’s no denying that these items are useful. They are damn, damn good combat items. I’ve been extremely thankful that this book came out right at the beginning of my Basement dive because these combat items have made the combats trivial, which is one less completely frustrating thing to worry about. (The basement SUCKS.) I haven’t actually used them as buffs, though, the main reason being they’re so much more expensive to use. I’m using up the combat item to get a shorter effect than my candy hearts, though potentially a bit more effective if I use a lot of them. (For example, Withered Heart caps at +20% Items, +20 Myst, as compared to the Lavender Candy Heart‘s +3 to all attributes, +10% items, but I have to use 4 Love Songs of Disturbing Obsession to get up to that boost, and then continue to use them to keep that amount up.) But the candy hearts are so much easier to use in that regard. They’re going to be what I go to for buffs, even if the mechanic is neat.

And I guess that’s really the issue with this IoTM. I only really want this libram to summon powerful attack items. I don’t need the buffs. But if I had a Libram of Divine Favors, then I’d already have a much better source of attack items that would let me have a chance to get the all powerful divine popper. If I was someone who had the favors but not the hearts, then this is a great source of buffs. But to those players who have both, this really does have to seem mediocre. I mean, it has some really funny text when you use the attack items, but this really does seem designed for people who are missing a libram, or maybe even missing both. There’s nothing especially wrong with that, and I’m happy with it, because I was missing a libram. But it does seem like, if you have the other two, you could probably safely skip it. Maybe I’m missing something awesome you can use it for? But that’s how I feel about it.

Still, I’m going to continue to enjoy it greatly.

So, my right ankle sucks.

For those not in the know, I walk funny. My right foot is almost always out at an angle, and as such, extra pressures are put on my right ankle. For years, I didn’t really care about this. I wore my sandals, and did whatever I wanted, and there was never any issues. It was wonderful times.

Sometime last year, I suppose, I started having problems with my ankle. If I spent a few days working in a row, when I was always on my feet, my ankle would hurt like a bitch. I would limp all of the next day. It sucked, but I just went with it anyway, despite complaints from others. Recently, though, it got to the point where I would limp for days afterward. I couldn’t ignore it.

I started wearing *shudder* shoes… with *shudder* socks.

There was an immediate improvement. Some support was all my ankle needed. I haven’t limped in weeks.

The solution itself, though, creates a problem. Now I’m one of the shoe-wearing populace. I haven’t worn shoes in literally years. I have no idea what shoes I like anymore. Everyone has a kind of style they gravitate towards, and I just have no idea. None. This kind of bothers me. I like to think I have a strong sense of something vaguely resembling style. I have no idea what kind of footwear it fits with. No idea at all.

Sometimes I have really lame problems.

Yeah, I’m going to talk about a dream I had. Deal with it. Or, um, not.

So I dreamed I was at some sort of summer camp? But in the middle of the, you know, summer camp area was an industrial area? Like old factories and seedy bars. But there were tons of trees and a forest. Yeah.

Anyway, in this Summer camp was a secret society of some sort. It was all secret, and it had a secret meeting room in the back of a bar. You had to knock on the door a certain way to get in.

Through going to this summer camp before and having seniority or something, I managed to join this society. And because I joined this society, I could do super jumps? Sort of like in Crackdown? I remember me doing that Crackdown falling animation.

So the society tells me to deliver this message, and I jump up in trees and over factory rooftops and go to this other bar, and when I get there, I realize there’s some sort of riot at the summer camp going on, and I have to run and jump back to the base, and people are fighting below me and when they notice me jumping around they start chasing me…

And that’s it. That’s my dream. I guess.

I’m all awesome.

So, last I checked, it was February. So it’s IoTM time! Or it has been IoTM time. Yep.

Twilight Heroes offers a set this month, the foxy sombrero mask and the foxy caped suit. Since they have the word “foxy” in them and everyone in game calls me Foxy (Thanks to Val) I couldn’t NOT get them, even if they did nothing! Luckily, they don’t do nothing.

The standout piece, for me anyway, is clearly the sombrero mask. It offers an increase in farming profits, doubling my +chip bonus from the next nearest hat, the royal crown. I’d wear it, even if it didn’t have “foxy” in the title. Clearly, though, this is a reference to Zorro more than anything, and I think that’s done well. The other abilities of the hat, that of increased enemy fumble chance, is… interesting. Very interesting indeed, especially considering the ability when worn with the suit, which lets you, Zorro-style, emblazon some initials onto your enemies when they fumble for a little extra damage. Apparently Cris pushed for the customizable initials for me. Heh. I’m flattered, and I do think that part is awesome, even if the only obvious choice of initials for me is “fox”. Heh. Customization rules! Also, the idea of me carving out my initials with, say, a cannon makes me smile. In any case, I think the hat is a complete win, either as a farming aid alone or just being fun with the full suit.

The main problem I have with the caped suit, though, is that it’s a suit. Suits take up both the shirt and pants slots. I mean, for a character who’s going for ranged weapons and reflex, the foxy caped suit offers some nice bonuses. The combo with the hat isn’t too impressive, but is appreciated. (The real combo benefit is the one on the hat, as far as I’m concerned.) The -10 seconds makes it on par with the Xentrium Breastplate, which is almost a requirement. But the fact remains that, if I equip this, I can’t equip both the Letter Shirt or the crazy rainbow pants. Losing one of those I could handle, especially for the fun of the initials. (I keep my double tower shield always equipped for the battlecry, even though there are much, much better farming options for that slot) Losing both… I just can’t justify that most of the time.

Overall, though, I think this month is a pretty solid one. If nothing else, the hat is a good buy alone for anyone who wants to increase their in-game wealth with the added bonus of the fumble chance, and if you’re a player who doesn’t have, you know, most of the IoTMs like I do, the caped suit is probably a really good option if you’re playing, like, a ranged-attacking Gadgeteer or something.

The future is hazy.

Yes, I mean, I’m about to graduate. That’s awesome. But we’re in a time when people are getting fired all the time, and I just… I don’t know if, once I start looking a month or two from now, if there will be good jobs out there for me. So I feel like I should exercise all options.

Which meant applying for Graduate School.
Ugh.
The last thing I want to do is have more school. THE LAST. But I was told about the Teaching Assisstantship thing on campus, and it just seems way too good to pass up. Basically, I can teach a class and work at the University Press some more and have all school fees waved, plus get paid for my work. So, basically, I can get paid to get more experience in the field I want to work in and get a few graduate course hours.
It really does seem like a good thing to do. I can’t just pass it up. So I’m not. I’m signing up. If I get a magic perfect job before the semester starts, I can always drop out.
It does bring up the question of what I’m doing about transition… I’ve been waiting forever. I’ve been waiting for graduation to move away, but if I do this, then I won’t be moving away for… hell… another 2 years at least? So, you know, I’m going to do it anyway. I’ve waited long enough. I deserve it. It’s only going to make more stress, especially with the parents, but who cares. I need to be happy.

Of course, just applying creates headaches. In a one week period I have to fill out all these forms, pester people for letters of recommendation… it’s been exciting times… but I think I’ve got it all in hand… still, it’s been a lot of extra stress. I’m too easily stressed.

Stress! Yes!

Anyway, I guess that’s what’s been going on with me in the “Real” world.

So, I was continuing to have a roguelike urge, and Talking Time had, conveniently started up a thread about stupid roguelike deaths. I was all playing Shiren, but they kept talking about a PC roguelike called Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. It’s apparently a modification of Dungeon Crawl, if you couldn’t guess. Since it was popular and free, I decided to give it a go.

It went badly. It was all ASCII characters and I couldn’t grok the controls or understand anything. Ugh. I went on my twitter and complained.
Red Hedgehog responded in surprise. “But it’s so newbie-friendly with its mouse controls!” Mouse controls? I knew of no mouse controls…

It was then I learned that Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup with tiles is almost a completely different and much much better game, from an interface standpoint. Everything is very visual, and you can mouse over anything to get a list of commands that object can do, and the most common ones are mapped to the left and right click. So the mouse basically works as a cheat-sheet and an interface all at once. You can even see what the enemies are holding by their pictures. It’s pretty rad.
Once I got controls that worked, I was hooked for quite awhile!

Granted, I suck ass at these games. There’s like… a whole bunch of layers or something in the game, many different dungeons in the dungeon, and I still haven’t found any of them. Not one. But I’ve been pretty impressed by the different classes, as they really do seem to play fairly differently, at least at low levels. I’ve had the most success with Healer, though, as they come already with the knowledge of what potions are potions of healing, which, well, really helps me remember to actually attempt to use potions of healing. Which is probably why I’m so successful with that class.

Anyway, if you’re looking for a roguelike, it comes highly recommended by me. It’s so, so much easier to comprehend than, say, Nethack, and it’s a good time. Oh, and if you want even more information, I’m sure @play would be happy to oblige.

So, with the purchase of 1up, there was a sudden lack of podcasts and podblasts in my life. All the awesome people on Talking Time got… well… talking about a podcast called Idle Thumbs, and I had to try it. Because I was desperate for podcasts.

I laughed so hard. SO HARD.

Idle Thumbs claims to be mostly about Video games. And it is, you know, mostly about video games. But that’s not why you will become a constant, dedicated reader of Idle Thumbs. Oh no. You’ll do it because they are masters at refbacks and random humor. They are just so spontaneously humorous, it is amazing stuff. Amazing.
It’s so amazing, I actually went back and listened to every single past episode. I can’t remember a podcast that has caused me to want to do that besides Idle Thumbs. That’s a pretty big recommendation. Well, I think so.

Anyway, if I can’t convince you, just have a listen to this little ditty. Idle Thumbs often has songs. They also know all about… The Wizard.

So, I don’t know if you listened to the last 1up Yours, (even though it seems like Listen UP is the exactly same show only it doesn’t have Shane) but if you did you probably heard Luke Smith and John Davidson talk about, what else, an iPhone game. Mr. Davidson likes talking about those, and dammit, I appreciate it, because there just aren’t any good ways to get information about iPhone games. Parish’s iPhone blog is a good help, but at the same time, he’s talking about all things Mac related, whereas I want mostly just an app review portal, you know?
Anyway, so they bring up what they’ve been playing on their iPhones, which is WordJong: Daily Challenge. I’ve heard of the WordJong before, back in the EGM Live days, when they made fun of the DS release, and then found out it was actually kind of respectable. I’m still wanting more killer apps on my iPod, because I find myself playing games on it in between classes all the time, so I snapped it up for $5. It was a good choice, because it is a damn good word game. It’s probably not worth the full price DS release, but it’s hard to pass it up as a $5 download.

The game basically is what the horrible title suggests. You play MahJong solitaire, but instead of the normal tiles, the tiles have letters on them. You have to spell out words, trying to spell long ones to score more points, all the while having to adhere to the rules of what tiles you can use in MahJong, as well as having to clear every last piece from the board. This is made easier by bombs, which can destroy a single tile. You can only hold one bomb at a time, but if you don’t have one, you get another one every time you spell a 5 letter or longer word. Of course, blowing up tiles gets you no points, so it’s perhaps better not to rely on it.
Obviously, if you have no love of word games, this is completely not the game for you, but it’s the perfect game to pull out for 5 minutes if you enjoy word-based action. There is a new puzzle every day, and that puzzle is the same on every copy of WordJong, so you can compare scores with friends. Each puzzle ramps up in difficulty like the daily crossword puzzle in the newspaper. Monday’s score to beat is easy, and then each day gets harder until you reach Sunday’s impossible number.

I agree with the Luke and John that the game desperately needs an online friend leaderboard so you can race for high scores against your friends more easily, but other than that, it’s really hard not to recommend. This is exactly the kind of experience I want on my iPod: a relatively fast, easy to grasp but decently deep little game. If you have an iPhone or a Touch like me, you should really give it a purchase.

…oh my, I just learned there’s a free online version on their website? That’s awesome, although the rules seem a little different. Instead of bombs, you earn wild tiles, which aren’t in the puzzle itself this version. But yeah, that’s great. Just go check it out and try it for yourself.

So, after all the planning, all the leveling up, all the nickel grinding, we finally got to do our first Hamster Raid in KoL. It was… not what I expected.

First of all, I had a takedown before it, and I was scrambling the whole time to hurry up and get home and I managed to make myself so nervous and worried about it at work… I’m retarded like that. It carried over into the raid itself, where I was pretty nervous and on-edge the entire time. Of course, that made me be careful, and I didn’t waste a single turn. Still, it was much more stressful than I believed it would be.

Secondly, it took a lot longer. I figured parts of it would be tedious. The whole thing is all about doing repeated actions in unison time and again, and it didn’t sound like the most fun thing ever. But I only expected it to maybe take an hour. We started around 11, and I didn’t get to bed until around 2 AM. Hopefully future runs, now that we all know what we’re doing, will go a little faster.

All in all, I did a lot of work, knocked a lot of hobos out of their skin, and I got, well… nothing, in return. I didn’t win any of the rolls. Not that that was important to me. I was just, you know, doing it to be part of the group. And be helpful. Things. Stuff! Yes.

Anyway, I guess that’s one raid down, and what… 6 left to go? 5? Until we all get a Hamster? Hopefully they keep going well, and faster.