The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

If things went well, my computerbox is running Windows 7 now with no issues.

Man, it’ll be great if things go without issue, right?

Anyway, I’m hoping for the best on that. Wish me luck in the past. In the meantime, while I work on that, you should watch Sky Render’s LP of King’s Quest VII. Because it’s fantastic.

I’ll come back tomorrow and write more stupid shit at you, I promise.

UPPED-DATE: Install went really well! Was told I’d have to fuck around in the registry to get things working, but I didn’t, so that is fantastic. I’m activated and have a legal copy of Windows of my very own! Whoo!
I was also impressed that I kept all my chat logs, e-mail, and, and honestly I wasn’t expecting this, all my Steam installs seem to have, for the most part, carried over fine. That’s a lot of downloading I don’t have to do.

More talk about Windows 7 as I get more acquainted with it.

Dragon Quest 9 is a huge game, with lots of quests and stuff. It is also a game with a class change system, and that means that it is, by default, a game meant to be min/maxed and broke the fuck open by people fiddling with the systems in place to make super-powerful characters. This is a good thing. It has appeal for those people, as well as touching little mini-storylines in each city and gameplay that’s pretty casual friendly. That’s always been the appeal of Dragon Quest. However, I just have to question some of their decisions.

There are 12 classes, from what I understand, but 6 of them are locked behind quests. These quests require you to kill things in a specific way to prove you’re worthy of being a member of that class. Nothing wrong with that, perse. That’s a fine enough idea. The problem comes in with how complicated the quests are. Or, I guess, the one I’m going to talk about.

One of them I had was the quest to unlock the class “Armamentalist” which required you to cast Wizard Ward, and then deliver the final blow to two Metal Slimes. Metal Slimes are hard to hit, and run away very often. They’re also very rare. You can see already how this quest may be a problem. When you already have to waste one turn, and MP, casting Wizard Ward before you can even start hitting the Metal Slimes, often they will run away before you even attack them. There’s a skill that helps you hit Metal Slimes, called Metal Slash, but that’s a sword skill. Mages, who learn Wizard Ward, can’t learn Metal Slash. To complete this quest, you need someone who can do both.

This wouldn’t be a big deal, except for the previously-mentioned Min/Maxing I was talking about. Having your Warrior, who’s using swords, use 8 Skill points to learn Wizard Ward is a waste. Similarly, having your mage put a ton of skill points into Sword Skills to learn Metal Slash is also a waste. Fully-leveling a character in a class nets you 200 skill points (But who would ever get a character up to level 100 in a class?) which means that if you level up every class completely, you get 2400 skill points. There are 26 skills, and it takes 100 skill points to completely level up a skill. Therefore, two skills will never be fully leveled. See where I’m going with this? For the craziest level-grinder, mis-investing those 8 points does matter in creating the very best character, because they can’t fully level every skill. For those who aren’t going to hit level 100 with every class, which is completely insane and would take forever, mis-using those skill points is even more of a big deal, because that’s that much less power your characters have.

Plus, even with a character so specced out, the quest is annoyingly hard. Doing that just makes it possible.

I got kind of angry with the game over this today. I wanted to have all the classes, so I knew I had to do this quest, but it was just so annoying. Even though I’m playing casually, I didn’t want to purposefully mis-handle my character building. I really resisting intentionally gimping myself to completely this quest. I got really angry at the game and put it down.

Then I picked it back up like… 20 minutes later. DQ9 is really good. There’s some questionable decisions, but overall? Really quite good.

But I’ll review it another time. Like when I beat it. (Here’s where you laugh because that probably won’t happen.)

I’m writing this in the Borders in St. Louis that I often hang out at while waiting for appointments and such. And it just occurs to me how clearly book are on the list of things that I think it would be cool to like, but that I actually don’t like.

Okay, that’s not completely true. Let me explain.

I think Wine, as a concept and thing, is a cool idea. I think the concept of me drinking wine would be pretty sweet. But I’ve disliked all wine I’ve ever tried, and I am a teetotaller. I’m not going to actually drink wine. But the idea of drinking wine, that’s pretty cool. In the same way, the idea of drinking coffee is pretty neat. I hate the taste of coffee, but being someone who drank coffee is something that I could get behind with little to no issue. I won’t, but it’s fine.

Sitting here, at this table, completely surrounded by books… that’s a concept that I can get behind, especially as I put some words down on bloeg. I like the idea of books. I like the feel of books. I like having books stacked everywhere. I’m just not a big fan of reading books.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ll read things for class, and every so often I’ll find a book that I just have to read, and I will devour it. But when I have lesiure time, reading books is basically the farthest thing from my mind. Hell, reading comic books is even difficult. I love Yotsuba&!, xXxholic, and Scott Pilgrim, but I have to force myself to set aside time to consume that media. I just play video games. To put it another way, I tend to watch Let’s Plays, which are other people playing video games, before I pick up a book. I’d have to be out of Let’s Plays before I’d think about making that happen.

It’s just weird. Here I am, studying English, which is something I completely enjoy. At the same time, so rarely do I actually engage with books, which is the core of what I’m studying. It’s just… strange. I don’t mind it. I don’t wish I’d read more. (Okay, I kind of do, but in the same way where I wish I’d exercise more. I know it won’t happen, and I’m fine with it, but hey, if it suddenly somehow did, that would be nice.) It’s just weird that I’m setting myself up to dedicate myself to this sort of thing that I simply don’t do.

At the same time, maybe that’s a benefit. As I said, it’s not like I don’t enjoy reading when I actually do it. Maybe that’s the appeal. I’d be doing at work something that I would enjoy, but it isn’t my leisure activity. It doesn’t “taint” my leisure in the same way that, I dunno, working at a restaurant would taint your enjoyment of that place’s food, since you’d eat there all the time. Reading is my work, and it’s fun work, but I leave it at the office. I want to be able to leave things at the office.

Maybe that’s it, then. Hm.

As tends to happen, when trolling for a movie to rent, Essner pulled a movie that I had never heard of, but that friends of his had. It was called An Education, and was described to me as a “female Rushmore.” I don’t really think that description is very accurate at all, but it is a very entertaining and enjoyable movie.

Taking place in the past, a high school girl catches the eye of an older gentleman, who gives her all kinds of fantastic things and helps her to “live” life, instead of just being bored through it. He takes her to all kinds of exciting places, they drink fancy alcohols and smoke fancy cigarettes, they generally have a grand old time. Then a fairly predictable twist happens.

The characterization in this film is actually really good. You really feel like you understand the main character as she’s swept off her feet. She’s not an idiot, not by a longshot, but she sees an escape and decides that her life is annoying enough to take it. She’s out to enjoy every second of it, and it works. Similarly, the older boyfriend is also pretty believable. He’s awkward at times and completely suave at others. He’s generally creepy, as one would expect for an older man dating a 17-year-old, but not creepy enough that you completely write him off. Of most surprising are the characters of the parents, who start out seeming like stereotypes, but it soon becomes clear they’re much fuller characters than that. A speech by the dad near the end of the film is really touching, and really realistic, for example. It’s these characters that carry you through the narrative and make you enjoy it.

I also appreciated the fact that the movie didn’t hand the main character a happy ending on a silver platter. She fucks up in some ways, and the film makes her face up to that. Sure, she does get her happy ending, but we see her having to work hard for it there at the end. A lot of films would gloss over that. It’s really nice that An Education decided not to.

It’s not a perfect film. The same characterization that’s so good sometimes has moments of awkwardness, probably where the movie is sticking really strongly to the memoir on which it was based. The ending, especially, is going along so well, and then ends with a completely out-of-place and never before seen voice-over, which really kind of keeps the movie from ending with a bang. These issues don’t really stop it from being an enjoyable watch, though. It had me entertained the entire way through, and that’s good enough for me.

I saw the baby albino deer driving home monday night.

I guess that’s kind of a big deal? Everyone around here talks like this deer is a huge deal. Especially since the all-grown-up one disappeared, probably to too horrible to think about circumstances. It’s nice to know that life goes on. And has genetic mutations that render fur white.

Granted, it probably isn’t the son of the Albino deer, but probably another deer from the Mom who had the first deer in the first place. But it’s cool, right? Something like that? It’s certainly something I know I will be talking about with my parents for a few days.

And that makes me wonder. Because I don’t really have much else to talk to them about. This is the kind of news they want to hear about. Not about anything I’m actually working on, interested in, or doing. It’s mostly just stuff like that. Stuff that’s completely safe in every way. Stuff that leaves me being a blank slate.

Okay, that’s kind of a harsh way to put it.

But to them, that will probably be my biggest news for awhile. And so now it’s my bloeg news for today. Sorry about that.

I tried, but I just don’t understand Dungeon Solitaire.

This game was at the top of the App store lists for card games, and man, do I love card games. It was $2, and I thought, sure, I’ll give it a try. I’m down with card games, and a good single-player one seemed neat.

It just doesn’t work well, though.

Basically, you have two columns, an enemy column and a hero column. There are monster cards, hero cards, green buff cards, equipment cards, and trap cards. You place these down, and try to fill up the whole hero column with heroes to win the game. If you draw a 6th monster three times, the game is over.
Every card basically modifies one of the two stats on a hero or monster card: Strength and Magic. You line up the cards on the grid, and if the numbers on one are higher than the other, that card wins, and the other is destroyed. However, both stats have to be higher. If each card wins one stat, then a Stalemate is created. This can trigger special abilities, but mostly just results in the cards sitting there doing nothing. Equipment and Buffs are in the game to get you out of these Stalemates, but since a card can only be modified by one Equipment ever, and buffs are almost all completely random, they don’t actually help. And since you are forced to play every monster you draw, you get into Stalemates a lot.

That really isn’t fun.

So often you’re randomly drawing cards, hoping for a solution to a monster. But there’s maybe one hero in your deck that can beat said monster. So you keep drawing, but that just makes you draw a monster, and you lose. It’s really stupid, actually. A good card game has an element of randomness, of course. That’s what makes it fun. But there are so few options you actually have in the game, you are almost fully dependent on the draw. It’s very rare when your decisions on where to place monsters and heroes come into play. I’ve played many games now, and it really just seems like a slot machine. It’s pretty unsatisfying. Plus, the game seems based around you failing, and is all about getting a high score. But since it seems like the score you get is equally random, based on how long the random cards let you survive, it really doesn’t seem like a useful way to go.

The iPhone platform is perfect for a good card game. It would be fantastic. It’s a shame this isn’t it. I really want to play a good little card game. I really do! Oh well. I’ll try again, I’m sure.

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is, hands down, the best game I have played on the PSP. Certainly the best original game. Peace Walker takes everything that makes Metal Gear Solid great, and mixes it with everything that makes Monster Hunter great, and the child that comes out is fantastic. If you own a PSP, you owe it to yourself to play Peace Walker. You really do.

The main problem with most PSP games is how shitty the controls are, thanks to how badly the system is designed. I won’t lie, Peace Walker doesn’t have perfect controls, but the game is designed around them, and works great. After playing for an hour, you no longer notice the little weirdnesses of aiming with the face buttons. You’re just having a good time. There is also a control set for people familiar with Monster Hunter, if that’s your thing. That’s not my thing, but it’s nice to offer the option.

I think that Kojima and company did a great job balancing this game for single player. The entire story is very doable with one person, though someone else can jump in at any time, and that would probably make a few of the final bosses a little less tedious. Still, the game throws a great mixture of missions at you, from the sneaking missions MGS is known for to kamakaze combat “kill everyone” missions for people who play MGS like me. You’re never stuck with one strategy in these missions either. You can murder everyone in the sneaking missions, and you can sneak around, snipe, and stay hidden in the “kill everyone” missions. It’s a harder time going against the grain of what the mission wants you to do, but you’re only penalized with added difficulty. There’s no “you’re spotted, start over” sorts of situations here.
Immediately after you beat the game, and even during, you unlock all sorts of great 4-player Co-Ops, which are really Monster Hunter style and require multiple people. I’ve played some of these over Adhoc Party, and they are a blast. You really have to work together to take down bosses, and there are enough loadout variations that you can play a particular role in combat, if you desire. These missions are hard, and long, like their Monster Hunter counterparts, but are completely enjoyable. I feel like Peace Walker works better than Monster Hunter, too. I couldn’t play Monster Hunter for every long by myself. I got bored. It’s just not a single player experience. Peace Walker manages to be both a great single player game and a fantastic multiplayer game. It’s good times all around.

All of this would be enough, really, but there are so many little distractions as well. All through the game you are recruiting soldiers to build up Outer Heaven, and using them to make new equipment, research new tech, build Metal Gear ZEKE, and even send out on missions. After every mission, you have all these little side quests and systems to deal with, which keep the action broken up. They aren’t full games on their own, but tied into the other, awesome experience, it adds value. It also gives you goals after beating the main game if you’re playing by yourself. “I need some more APCs for Outer Ops… I should go fight some of those boss battles.” Things like that.

I was expecting to enjoy Peace Walker, but not as much as I did. This is a completely worthy successor to the awesomeness that was MGS3. Play this game. Seriously, just play it. You won’t regret it.

Why do I want Persona 3 Portable so much?

Here is a game I have bought twice already, and I really, really, really want to buy a third copy? Why? Is it the portability? Is it because it sparked a long-time love with Shin Megami Tensei? Is it because I can play as a girl?

No, wait, it’s definitely that last one.

Persona 3 and 4 have been about having a character who is a stand-in for you. You build that character up your way, make connections with people your way, and act like yourself. Well, preferably, if you’re playing as you and not min/maxing. That’s part of what makes those games amazing. They took the whole “silent protagonist” idea and pushed it even farther, in an interesting way.

But you always had to be a heterosexual guy.

It’s sort of the same feeling I got the first time I played Harvest Moon. “This game is fantastic, but it’s a shame I can’t be a girl.” It’s a game that involves dating the people you want to date in a significant way, and it’s always a shame when you can’t actually date who you want because the character isn’t actually a stand-in for you.

So yes, I really want to play Persona 3 Portable because I want to play as the Female Main Character.

Maybe I’ll pick it up at some point. I wish I could say I would when it got cheap, but this is an Atlus game. I know I’m making the right financial choice, but it’s really annoying. I wish I didn’t have to make it. I wish I could listen to this track for a million hours while I fight shadows. I wish I had time to play the game to begin with. Yeah.

The other day, Cole came over to watch me play a vidjeo game.

There’s nothing wrong with that, I suppose. I mean, gods, I watch Let’s Plays all the damn time. It’s not like I don’t know that watching other people play games can be entertaining.

At the same time, whenever I do it, it’s always something that just kind of happens. I don’t make plans to go over to someone’s house and watch them play something. It’s just kind of, hey, I show up, they’re playing the game, I’ll just sit down and watch and chat and give advice, etc. Yet, that’s pretty well what Cole did. We didn’t have any ideas, he came over anyway, and that was the first thing he suggested. That I start playing so he could see Crackdown 2.

It was a good time, it was fun, but it was just weird. Not in a bad way. Just in a… different way. Just in a constant reminder that I have always existed in one very particular social group, and that people outside my group do things differently. I get into such ideas all the time. It’s not like I don’t handle them well.

It’s just different. I keep getting into things that are different.

Different things keep happening.

Yeah.

And I’m someone who tends to, for the most part, not like things to be different. Known quantities are nice. But getting out of my bubble is better. Even little stupid things like that is good for me.

Probably.

Traditional action games on the iPhone are hard, thanks to the fact that you don’t have buttons. Traditional platformers are even more so. The virtual buttons most games have just don’t give you the accuracy you need to be able to play these things. However, I’ve recently picked up Pix’n Love Rush on a whim and tried it a few times during breaks at work, and it’s pretty amazing how well it works.

Apparently this game is based off some French retro gaming series? I honestly have no idea. All I know it is stars a very cute little pixelated person who plays a very traditional platformer. You’re randomly thrown into little snippets of stage for short periods of time, and have to collect the little + circles and shoot the little bats in order to maximize your score. It’s very simplistic, but it has a great art style and a great soundtrack. That soundtrack is kind of key. Normally, I hate iPod games that bring their own music, because I just want to listen to my podcasts while I play, but this short action-y rush game is set up to use such music, and it really enhances the experience, I think. At the same time, once you get tired of it, you can always go back to your iPod music.

The main thing that’s awesome is how well it controls. The only button I have problems with hitting is the shoot button. It seems too spaced-out, but I assume that’s so you don’t hit it when you want to hit jump, which is the more important virtual button. Running and jumping is nearly as good as with actual buttons. I rarely felt like they were fucking me over. My own skill was doing that. It’s pretty impressive, and I wish all games that attempted to have virtual buttons had ones as good as these.

In any case, if you’re looking for a cheap little arcade-y blast of a game, Pix’n Love Rush is a great purchase. It’s only a buck, and it’s pretty well exactly the right amount of content for a buck, I think. Maybe even more so if you really enjoy setting high scores in games like this. Give it a try.