The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

So, Fighting in the Street for the Fourth Time is here! Street Fighter IV! I’ve been waiting for this for quite some time. There was some worries about the online play not being good, and there are still some future worries about the arcade stick I got not being up to snuff, but overall, this has been what I’ve been waiting for!

Early impressions are COMPLETELY AWESOME. I mean, sure, Seth is a fucking cheating whore, and I shouldn’t have to unlock all these fighters, but the actual gameplay does pretty well exactly what was being reported: bring in the simple, great Street Fighter II experience you know, and then add in some of the more technical stuff from later Street Fighters. The EX moves and the Focus attacks? Well, I have no idea what to do with those yet. They seem cool, though, and the technical people will probably love them. The actual just base fighting, though, is excellent. I was also very, very pleased to see that my Balrog skills carried over quite well from SFIITHDR, and are even better actually, now that there’s a 3 punch and 3 kick button, so I can actually use his Turn Punch. I’ve also been thrilled to discover that my Sakura skills from so, so long ago on Alpha 2 on the PS1 have carried over, and I’m pretty solid with her, too. Those two are probably going to be my mains, as I continue to discover how to make them play better, while already being at a decent skill level with them.

Anyway, we’ll see how things go as I keep playing, especially when my controllers come in later in the week. These are first impressions, don’t cha know?

So, I was fucking tired of every single podcast ever and every single news blogpost and everything talking about Burnout Paradise without me having played it. TIRED OF IT. So I got it, since it was only 20 bucks.

Now, common sense would dictate that this was 20 bucks badly spent. I’m not a racing game person. At all. I play Mario Kart, I suppose, but that’s about it. I dislike most vehicle sections in games and such. In fact, back when the game first came out, I tried the very nice demo, and was completely unimpressed and uninterested.

Criterion sure showed me.

Burnout Paradise is the racing game for people who hate racing games. The entire design seems built up to get rid of the elements that would frustrate someone who isn’t a huge fan of cars and the technical side of racing.
What exactly does this, you ask? Well, first off, the fact that crashing your car is only the most minimal of setbacks helps a ton, first off. When I can completely wreck my car 4 times in a race and still end up winning? Well, that’s a stress-free experience. It only helps the fact the crashes are totally badass to behold. They look really impressive, and they put cool camera angles on them… it’s almost positive reinforcement than negative. I love that. Now, of course, if you don’t crash, you’re going to do a ton better. But the fact that you can and not be completely screwed makes this game less technical and more fun.
Secondly comes the fact that there isn’t a list of challenges you have to do to move up. You literally can do anything you want at any time. If all you want to do is play Road Rage today, then you can just play Road Rage and smash a bunch of cars. That’s expected, I guess, but the fact that this helps you progress in the game as much as anything else? That’s just awesome. And if you decide that you hate this particular challenge and want to quit? You just come to a complete stop for 2 seconds, and the challenge is gone. No “You lose” message or a “Try again?” prompt to make you feel in any way responsible to complete the challenge. You can just drive away. It really is the game your way.
Finally is the fact that it’s fun just to drive around the world. Any time, you can start “Showtime” mode to just deal damage as you drive around. The mechanics of driving are arcade-y and fun, and it’s just enjoyable to go fast. As you drive around, you constantly see jumps, billboards, and gates that you have to figure out how to get to and break, and it rewards you for seeking them out. As you complete challenges, cars appear in the world for you to collect. You can just be driving around, and one of these cars will roar past you, and then IT’S ON, and you have to rush to wreck them to get a new car. You can have a great time without even starting a race.

So yeah, Burnout Paradise is a fucking great game. It’s really hard not to recommend at 20 bucks. My favorite events are Road Rage (where you have to wreck a certain number of opponent cars under a time limit) and Marked Man (where you have to get to a certain location while every single car on the road is trying to wreck you) but I’ve had fun with basically every single event type in the game. I haven’t even gotten online with it yet. Sure, that time might be past with Talking Time, but I’m sure that’s even more fun if I can make it happen sometime. And hell, if nothing else, this is a REALLY great podcast game. You don’t need to listen to it. You just need to race.

So yeah, I love a racing game. There, I said it.

So, for the lovely day of Valentine’s, Brer got me a copy of Aquaria on Steam. If you haven’t heard of this, it’s an indie game in the Metroidvania style that takes place under the water! Crazy water! I’m a fan of the Metroidvania style of gaming, so I had always meant to try it, and suddenly I had a good reason to. So I did.

Man, where to start?

Well, first off, this game is painfully pretentious. Your main character gives little snippets of story every once and awhile through these voice-overs, and they just make you wince, not because they’re so bad, but because they think they’re so completely important. It’s almost like the text in Braid, except Braid’s text gives off the impression its actually about something, and you can ignore it. Still, the voice-overs are very rare, so it’s not a big deal, But it’s worth mentioning.

Secondly, the controls. The developer went above and beyond the call of duty to make a just-mouse control scheme work. It works pretty well, too, for the most part! The moment I plugged my 360 controller in, though, the game controlled just exactly how I wanted, so I used that the whole time. It made aiming difficult, though.

There is a lot of aiming, too. It’s weird, the game starts off being about a mermaid who can sing. The voice-overs and the pretty visuals really kind of suggest that this is going to be a very relaxing little indie game of exploration or something, you know? Then you get the ability to throw fireballs and suddenly there are constantly enemies swarming you and it starts to feel more like a two-stick shooter. It’s kinda strange how quickly it gets hectic!

Still, the game is pretty darn solid. Moving works right, it has a nice little magic system and a big world to explore. My main problem is how little guidance you get. Most Metroidvanias either let you know where you’re supposed to be getting to, or have you smartly funneled down certain paths by using barriers that can only be surpassed using things you get by going the right way. Aquaria does a little of that, but not very much. You just kind of have this whole big ocean cave world to wander through, and no direction.
If there’s one thing I hate, it’s not having direction in a game when I want it. Ugh. Add that to the fact that the game is pretty difficult, and you can head the wrong way and immediately get slaughtered, or do a bunch of exploring, die, and lose all of your map progress. Normally, I would be thankful to fix this kind of thing by heading to GameFAQs and pulling up all the maps and FAQs I need, but there aren’t any! It shocked me. How could there not be a guide for a vidjeo game? But there isn’t. At least last I checked.

And that’s kind of where I ended with the game, at least for now. I was frustrated not knowing where to go, and so I turned to other things. Still, if you are someone who likes wandering around and things in games, this is pretty damn well made. I’m just not that kind of gamer, I guess. Maybe someday someone will make a very elaborate map and I’ll get to finish it.

So, Retro Game Challenge! The game that Parish and all of Talking Time is all crazy over! Guess what? There’s damn good reason.

If you grew up playing console games, there is no way this game will not put a smile on your face. The presentation starts off silly, and most of it is kind of silly. But it’s so true to how it was back then. They nail so many things. Having someone sitting there, watching you play on the bottom screen just… feels so right. The magazines and manuals are so spot on, and they just make me grin as I’m reading the horrible reader mail section and everything… this game attempts to be living through that era of video games in a sort of compressed, mini form, and damn, if it doesn’t nail it.

All that wouldn’t matter if the games suck, but they don’t. Much like the presentation, you’ve got a very compressed version of genres and games, and dammit, they all play so well. The trick is that they look retro, they feel retro, but there is obviously modern influence on them. You won’t notice at first that, say, the weapon system in Guadia Quest is way too advanced for RPGs of the time period. It’s not intrusive into the gameplay, but it makes a much, much better play experience than if it would have actually been modeled on RPGs from that era. The same goes for all the action games. The little tweaks, like having the ninja stars in Haggleman to the changing ship forms in Star Prince, don’t feel out of place, but when you really think about them, they wouldn’t have been included in a game from that era. Still, they make the games that much better to play.

To top it all off, the game flows extremely well. All the challenges Game Master Arino gives you aren’t very difficult. They’re basically a tutorial on how to play each game well. They have you learn the game, and then you can decide yourself if you want to keep playing at it. The best part is, they don’t take long. I’m never going to put a lot of time into Rally King, like most Talking Timers, but the game is well-made, and I finished the challenges long before I got bored with it, even though I don’t really like those kinds of racers. The only exception to this, I suppose, is if you don’t like RPGs. The last challenge in Guadia Quest does take a little, but if you’ve enjoyed any jRPG in the past, it will fly by, I assure you.

If you do get stuck, though, one final, perfect tweak makes this game hit it out of the park: the cheat codes. You can use these codes to beat challenges, and there are a lot of them, from making yourself invincible to just being able to continue in games without a save function. It’s basically a difficulty selector. Use all the codes if you really hate Rally King and just want to be done with it, or use none of them if you’re really digging it and want to challenge yourself. The fact that you have to look them up in the in-game magazines also helps to get away from the whole “oh, it’s there so I have to use it” kind of easy mode in these games. People complain, for instance, about being able to give yourself infinite lives in arcade games, because they say they always have to do it. Looking up these cheat codes takes time, and they take effort to input. It’s not just an option you toggle. As such, I found myself only using them when I was actually frustrated. The fact that they’re annoying to put in actually works in their favor, I think, to make it easy to challenge yourself exactly where you want the challenge to be without being tempted to make it all super-easy. On top of it all, entering such codes are extremely nostalgic, of course.

This game is seriously a must buy if you, in any way, enjoy retro gaming. I’ve had a lot of fun. I’m going to try to finish up the final challenges (Which is simply beating every game, unlocked after you complete each challenge on all the games) this week before Dragon Quest V and Street Fighter IV come in. I might not: Guadia Quest is actually decently sized. But I’m certainly going to have a whole lot of fun at it, either way.

So, back when I got Amazon Prime, I got it because… well, I already talked about that awhile back, I guess. But I was planning on getting all my games through Amazon now.
It’s quickly started to become apparent that the potential for this annoying me is inherent in this plan.

There are people who are already playing Street Fighter IV, and it’s just shipped for me yesterday. I should, today, get my copy of Dragon Quest V, but again, people have already been playing that. I could have a FightPad right now. I’ve seen them in stores. But it isn’t going to get here from Amazon before next Wednesday.

I’m a hardcore gamer. Not having these games day 1 is part of the reason why I was so slow to adopt this sort of thing. I thought the 2-day shipping would make it bareable, but it’s not especially? The wait is still very annoying.
However, I’m not having much of a problem with it overall, I guess, because I’m so fucking busy. I barely have any time to play games at all, it feels like. Getting a game a few days late doesn’t actually impact the time I have to play it too much, most of the time. Hell, I probably have something else I’m playing instead in the meanwhile that I haven’t beaten.

Being busy fucking sucks, though. I feel like I’ve taken on too much, but I’ve only taken on exactly what is expected of me. This is what I should be doing. Hell, I should be doing more. I should be getting myself published, I should be getting resumes out there even though it’ll be months before I should get hired. But dammit, it’s too much. I’m already so burnt out and the semester is barely getting going. Ugh.

Well, I’ll just have to solider on anyway, huh?

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.

I, uh, kinda got busy and caught up in crap, so I never got a horrible love poem in the physical mail. Hopefully this “shout it from a mountain that kind of looks like a blog oh wait it is a blog” approach will work alright. Heh. People who aren’t Brer can probably safely vacate the area until tomorrow.

I feel like I’ve forgotten something
some really big project or something
always occupied with such tasks
Am I busy? Do you need to ask?

I feel there’s something I need to do
an assignment to read all the way through
a paper to write, speech to perform,
keeping coals of efficiency warm

I feel like this goes on forever
in rain or snow or perfect weather
It never stops, so I can’t quit
even though I often think of it.

I feel like I am needing a break
a day, two weeks, for me to take
But there’s too much, as you can see
endless tasks that do “need” me.

I feel like I’m so lucky, though
as I hope that I can truly show,
that when I do get moments of time
there’s someone I know on the line
who relaxes me by being close
who’s available when I need the most
who stands watch, from day to day
to scare all of those stressors away

I feel like I can’t tell him how
he helps me out so much, now.
Do I deserve? I can’t say I know.
But it doesn’t matter to him, so
I’ll feel him there, and I will say
“Thank you.”
in every single way.

Happy Valentine’s Day, Brian.