Adventures in Networking

This week I'm staying at Sarah's place, due to her mother being in Melbourne. This is awesome, but with one small problem - Internet connectivity.

She has a computer, and a modem. No router, nothing. No phone reception, so that tethering access through a phone is also out.

Why is this a problem? Well, she and I both got addicted to Terraria, and have been playing decent amounts of it in an online server (run intermittently by Sarah), along with Shinji (one of the madboard RPers). I cannot access the server without a means to reach the Internet - and therein lay our problem.

As a result, I set about working on finding a cheap solution to share her Internet connection, hopefully without a router (since neither of us were willing to fork out the money for one of those - and, more importantly, I lack decent networking skills).

I mentioned this quandary to a colleague, who pointed out that I would be able to use ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) on her computer, and share it using a USB to Ethernet adapter. It made sense to me, and a quick Google revealed that they're not particularly expensive, so during my lunch break on Monday, I dashed off to Capitol Square to find me an adapter (dragging two coworkers with me).

I found (or rather, was recommended) a particular device by one of the workers in one of the many, many computer shops there. Having been there a while with no luck, I paid for it, and we headed back to the office. That evening, I tested the device out... and it did nothing. It turns out the stupid thing I bought wasn't supported beyond Windows XP - and therefore no drivers existed. I searched for about an hour for a generic driver, but to no avail.

Tuesday, at lunchtime, I ran back down to the computer shop (alone this time) and got my money back. I was told by the guy that they would have Win7 compatible adapters in by the next day. Thanking the guy, I walked about 5 meters away to the next shop, where I promptly was recommended a Win7 compatible device, paid for it, and returned to the office.

When I got the new device home, it worked a charm. 20 minutes after plugging it in, we had shared internet running on my laptop, from Sarah's PC. And then we played Terraria for a few hours.

Parents who really shouldn't be - A Rant

About a month ago, I was on the train, when a guy and his son got on. The kid was something like 4 years old - not particularly old, or... sentient. Basically, not old enough to know - all blame for the following story is laid at the feet of the useless father involved.

The kid begins running amok on the train. The train wasn't particularly full, but I was sitting on the steps that lead up into the carriage proper, to allow people who need the neutral seats more to be able to use them. People such as parents who are taking care of their kids, or old people, or whoever.

The child starts banging on the glass door of the train. Running in circles. Banging on the thick glass separating the edge of the long bench from the area where people who couldn't get a seat stand (and hold onto the bars so they don't fall - something which is important when we take into account the fact that these are CityRail trains...).

This, I can deal with. Whatever. I had my headphones on, and wasn't hearing the child anyway. What annoys me though, is that his father just sat there, watching him. But whatever, its not my place to do his job for him - he's the parent right?

But then it got worse.

The child started pressing the emergency button. This is a big red button (that everyone wants to press, but its not a good idea to) which connects each carriage to the driver. Pressing the button gives the driver a warning, and connects him to a speaker on the carriage the alert came from, so that he can find out what the problem is. It's designed to be used in emergencies. For example, if someone gets deathly ill on the train, like has a heart attack or something.

This kid was pressing the button repeatedly. His father continued to watch and simply do nothing. This is the point where I take off my headphones, since I knew this wasn't going to end well - and since I was the closest one to the speaker (and noone else seemed to have noticed this) it was going to end up my mess... because some dude can't be bothered parenting his child. Then the driver answered.

"Is there a problem are are you just mucking around?"

I reply, telling him (quite loudly) that there was a child in the carriage running around, and he was the one who pushed the button. No, there wasn't a problem. No, he wasn't my child. His parent is sitting on the bench, watching and listening during this entire exchange. When he noticed that both I and the driver were getting annoyed at this, he eventually calls the kid over to him.

You'd think that would be the end of it wouldn't you?

Of course not! The kid starts running around like a headless chicken again, banging on things and generally being obnoxious. Again, doing kid things. It doesn't really surprise me. But then, again, the child returns to the big red button, while the father watched him, still not moving from his seat. At this point, the kid had been rampaging for about 30 minutes worth of travel, and the guy had not moved from his seat once.

The kid tries to push the button again. This time, I intervene by grabbing the kids hand. Well, we can't have him messing with the emergency button can we? When the father sees this, he calls the kid back over again, this time holding him for the rest of the trip, and sending me an angry glare.

I can't remember what he looked like, but it was probably like this

What is wrong with people? Why is it that he can't be bothered to take care of, or God forbid discipline his own kid?

Can I chlorinate the gene pool now?

Terraria, Duke Nukem Forever, and The Backloggery

Sarah bought me Terraria the other day. This was simultaneously awesome and horrible, in that it is quite a good game, but horrendously addictive and has undermined the very reason I avoided a certain game, but more on that in a moment.


Terraria is a 2D sidescrolling, tile based creation game. What this term-I-just-invented-in-order-to-sound-semi-intelligent means is that you start in a world with just a pick and an axe. You now start mining, or chopping trees to get materials (stone, wood, ores) to use to create things. Things like a workbench, a house, maybe some weapons. When the night comes, hide in your house before the zombies eat you!


Sound familiar? That's because it seems very much like Minecraft. At least, to me, it does. However, I have never played Minecraft. This is where the undermining certain principles mentioned above comes from.


I purposely avoided Minecraft for the reason that it is horrendously addictive, and would prevent me from playing other games. If you think my backlog is bad as it is now (and its a bit out of date, more games have been purchased!), it would be at least three times as bad if I played Minecraft! In fact, one large reason certain games were neglected to this degree is due to a little game known as World of Warcraft. Now, I have kicked the WoW habit, but Terraria is leading me towards the slippery slope that is buying and becoming hopelessly addicted to Minecraft, and this worries me slightly.


More on Terraria when I've played it more - I've managed to resist playing it for hours on end due to my current quest to 5 star all of the Final Fantasy XIII side missions...


~~~~~~~~~


Duke Nukem Forever has the gold master ready to go. Believe it or not, the game that's taken something like 14 years to develop will soon be purchasable. I, for one, welcome back our old stripper-savin', alien-ass-kickin' 80s action hero with balls of steel! Ever since I heard that Gearbox took over the IP, I was looking more forward to the game - mainly because playing a modern version of Duke appeals to me, since large chunks of my childhood were spent playing the demo of DN3D.


~~~~~~~~


The Backloggery is a website dedicated to allowing people keep track of their gaming backlogs - to assist them in completing their old games. I took a page out of their book and started tracking it on this very blog, since they were overwhelmed with users (server downtime ensued, as well as the need to upgrade the website - which was delayed due to the developer falling quite badly ill). As a result, registration for the website was locked - since it would be a bad idea to allow more users to join while it was already suffering. Now, finally, registration is slated to be reopened on June 3rd - and I plan on moving my backlog list there, assuming I can register in a timely manner (I'm kind of expecting it to get swamped again). Worth a try at least!

McMonday - The Goggles do Nothing!

One long, late night working in the trenches at McDonalds was made even longer by the face that it was extremely quiet. We had just made the transition from closing at midnight to being open 24 hours a day, and most of the customer peon types nearby were still unaware of this fact - which made the late shift quite highly sought after, by combining a lack of effort required to get through the night, as well as extra payment due to being after midnight.

Sweet, sweet time and a half.

However, the quiet shift inevitably made the time feel slower (as it does). It was made to feel even longer by the stupidity of those around me.

At one stage, I had gone to the front counter (no danger of bumping into customers - at that stage we were running the drive through only as our 24 hour option) to grab a drink (while it was quiet, it was still exceedingly warm in the kitchen, since there are grills and toasters everywhere). While I was there, I was stopped by one of the front area serving girls, who wanted to have a little chat with me. Well, I say chat, but I actually mean she wanted to ask me questions while I answered out of politeness. It may sound rude, but I had talked to her at length before, and found that, really, she had the IQ of a peanut. You will come to this realisation in a moment.

So, the usual "When do you finish tonight? When did you start? How's your sister?" (?!?) questions began. Once they were over, she asked me what seemed to be a much more pressing question.

"Why do you wear glasses all the time?"

Prepare to see this image a LOT in the McMonday posts...

I couldn't believe my ears! Here I am at work, speaking to one of the, admittedly not so intellectually inclined people at work. Sure, its McDonalds, and I don't expect people to be super geniuses (I only expect that of myself, and fall quite short), but basic day to day life things like people wearing glasses to bolster poor eyesight is something she should have picked up on in her twenty-something years of existence (she's actually older than me). Whether she learn from school, tv, or just by being around people...

I actually had to explain to her, that I couldn't see very well naturally, and that the devices known as "glasses" allowed me to see as well as normal people. Her follow up question, was much, much more worrying.

"Do you wear them when you go to bed?"

Really? I mean... really?

By this point, I was no longer able to answer her - it was the last thing I had expected. After stumbling over the "Oh shit! I didn't realise people could possibly be this stupid" response that was stuck in my head, I literally couldn't answer her. Another crew member heard this exchange, and jumped in with "Yes, if someone robs him then he needs to be able to identify the burglar". Almost as mind boggling as the question itself!

A lot of the time, when I tell this story, people tell me that I should have said "Yes, so that my dreams are in focus". A missed opportunity, if ever I've seen one.

My glasses are a topic that comes up in casual conversation occasionally. Usually its along the lines of "How much can you see without them? How badly would I see if I looked through them?" and then ends with people trying them on ("I look smart! S-M-R-T! OH CRAP I CAN'T SEE WHAT IS THIS WIZARDRY?!?"), and hurting their eyes because it unfocuses things for them. However, this occurrence stuck in my mind as a shining example of why we really should just remove the warning labels from everything and let Darwinism run its course.

Random Ramblings

I haven't been sleeping well lately. This is due to a lethal combination of playing Final Fantasy XIII until late (working on all of those hunting side missions!), my brother's snoring, and his alarm. Unfortunately, I share a room with him, and he gets up for work early in the morning (commonly known as the "wait, there's a 4.30 AM now?!?" period). This, in itself, isn't a problem. I used to do the same thing. The problem lies in the alarm he has selected - he uses his iPhone for an alarm (which many people, myself included, do). THe iPhone allows a great many options for alarms and ringtones (though sadly, not for SMS tones), in fact, anything song you have saved on your phone you can use as an alarm.
So why in all the flaming circles of hell did he decide to use Apple's default siren as an alarm? This is a siren which makes it sound like the room is going to explode and we are all evacuating. As a wake up tone! Which almost always wakes me up along with it.

I swear I'll throw that phone out the window one morning...

I've been listening to a fair bit of music by the Black Mages lately. I know I'm late to the party, but for those who don't know, they are a band formed by Nobuo Uematsu to perform rock renditions of Final Fantasy music. They have subsequently broken up, and since then Nobuo has formed another group called Earthbound Papas.
One thing I find strange about this, is that they do a rendition of "To Zanarkand", the piano song from Final Fantasy X. All well and good, but its identical to begin with, until, two minutes in, it suddenly kicks in with guitars and drums etc. And lyrics.
I wasn't sure how I felt about it until I heard it a fair few times. I like it, oddly enough. I will take this as further proof that Nobuo can do no wrong (as if I needed proof!).

This is the song in question

Why do I get the feeling I've written the above paragraph before?

So, apparently the world is going to end tomorrow. I don't know where people get these ideas from, just because some old guy in America (where else) says so, and a bunch of people don't even bother looking at the facts. Facts such as him having claimed the same thing for years ago (and I think the world still exists today... well either that or we've been plugged into the Matrix and don't have a clue). Also, the fact that he claims that Gay Rights movements are a sign of "The End" makes things even more suspect, in my eyes (and in the eyes of most reasonable human beings, I would think).

Artist's rendition of the guy making said predictions

Tomorrow is work on the costume day again. It's starting to come together a bit more now, though I would be lying if I said I was completely confident in my (our? I do have a lot of help here...) ability to get it finished in time for Supanova. Also, the fact that I will be wearing what is, for the most part, a completely white suit worries me slighlty. Mainly because it likely means I will not be allowed to eat.
Which is probably fine, since how am I going to find gluten free food there? I might have to pack something for nomming on... >.<

Fear of Water, in game form

Hydrophobia: Prophecy is a pretty looking game (at least, the PC version is, although it's allegedly been heavily retooled from earlier editions) all about being on a boat. And fighting terrorists, for some reason.

It follows the plight of Kate – an engineer on a large ship which is supposedly the last hope for humanity – Earth has run out of resources and so the scientists on this ship are working on a solution to this problem. The problem – extremists attack the ship during a random celebration party (which was a lead up to an announcement, which is never made nor mentioned again once the shit hits the fan). Kate is in an elevator when the extremists attack, causing her to fall onto a lower deck of the ship, which is quickly flooding. You need to help her escape through puzzling, jumping, climbing, and shooting.

I Liked:

• Potential in the plot (what happens when Earth runs out of resources?)

The plot has potential, the setup being that you are an engineer on a large ship, which houses a technological powerhouse that is working on a way to create enough resources for humanity to continue to exist on Earth. It has the potential to explore the issues of resource use, what happens when we eventually run out of resources to sustain life with, and so forth. Frustratingly enough, it fails to explore this topic in anything bar a superficial method to place you on a boat, and to have terrorists attack said boat.

• Water Power

One of the cooler powers in the game is the ability to control water. This could allow for all sorts of interesting puzzles and combat situations. You can essentially create a tower of water to carry and throw objects with. 

However, much like everything else that was good about this game, it is underutilised. More on this later.

• Water graphics

You would be hard pressed to find water graphics this pretty outside of Bioshock. I find Bioshock's to be a bit nicer, but really, water is difficult, and this water looks great. It even acts in a way that makes sense, spilling out when a door is opened from a flooded room (although it does seem to mysteriously disappear once the door is closed). One point worth mentioning though, is when the aforementioned water control powers are being used, the water suddenly looks horrible. I can understand the difficulty of making it look right when you do this kind of thing in real time, but it looks very different from the nice water just below the tower you've created!

• The hacking mini game

You are an engineer. Early sections of the game explain that the extremists lock you out of your own system, thereby justifying the myriad of broken or locked doors you come across (which makes this game linear as all hell), and need to hack to gain access to wherever you are headed at the time. Hacking doors – you all know what this means. This means a minigame!

However, I quite enjoyed the hacking minigame here. Unlike some more intrusive or nonsensical hacking minigames (ie the demented tetris/columns game in Secret Agent Clank, the pipe dream hacking game in Bioshock), you simply have to match a waveform displayed on your hacking device to the waveform from whatever you're trying to hack. This makes them run quite quickly, and nonintrusively, keeping you in the game. More importantly, it makes sense considering that you are an engineer. Unlike Bioshock's “I'm going to hack a security camera by playing with some water pipes” confusion.

I Hated:

• One gun with lots of ammo types – all of which suck

Early in the game, you are weaponless. Eventually you get a gun, but it fires “Sonic Rounds” - used to knock people unconscious, but having the ability to kill someone if they are shot enough with it (which is played off as an unintended use of the device). It's all well and good to begin with a stun gun, but instead of giving you access to new weapons frequently, Hydrophobia gives you new types of ammunition. This neatly solves the problem of “how can you carry 12 guns?”, but leaves another issue which didn't sit well with me – how can you jam bullets into a sonic laser-esque weapon?

Also, why do all my bullets seem useless in comparison to the unlimited sonic blast weapon? I found, at most, 8 bullets for the regular “Semi-auto” bullet type. Admittedly, later on there was plenty of rapid fire rounds, but I always found myself falling back on the sonic weapon, with the exception of the final battle (where you're forced into using the electricity blast weapon). Underwhelming, to say the least.

• Understated plot

As mentioned before, the plot has potential to be an interesting commentary, or “what if?” situation, with the potential future running out of resources being a major cause of the events that unfold. Instead, however, we are presented with this as only a backdrop (and large parts of it we have to infer from out of game material, since much of the scenario such as the state of the world itself is left out except for passing mention in hidden documents strewn about the world).

Challenging moral questions such as “if we were to go into population control, who decides who is to be killed” are completely ignored in favour of a generic “megalomaniac extremist thinks that mass murder is the only method to solve the problem and sets about doing that on your boat”. As the events begin to unfold, your mission begins as “survive and get to a safer spot”, until eventually Kate (your character) arbitrarily decides that she should figure out what the extremists are aiming for, stop that from happening, and somehow ends up chasing the enemy leader herself by the end of it, in a series of contrived revelations / events. This unfolds a little too quickly for my liking, and she seems to change very quickly from “engineer just trying to survive” to “action hero who sounds a little scared, but is still killing swathes of extremists all the same.”

• Underuse of powers

I mentioned that I liked the water power you gain in the game – I find it to be a nice, innovative idea. Quite fitting too, considering that you spend the game on a boat with large sections flooding. The issue is that you don't get many opportunities to use this innovative ability. Much like everything that was good about this game, it is underused.

You do not actually obtain this power until a short period before the end of the game (for plot reasons), and get to use it for one puzzle, a few combat scenarios, and the end (or should I say only?) boss encounter. There could have been any number of interesting puzzles and combat scenarios created with this mechanic, but the developers decided not to use what they created, sadly.

• Fiddly controls

There was many a time I wanted Kate to jump at an edge, where she waited to jump until after I ran off, even though I let the spacebar go about three steps before it. Many a time she refused to walk where I wanted her to go, and the water power contr4ols were frustrating. I can only imagine the input system was (badly) ported from a console, it just feels clunky, though also feeling like it would work on a controller.

Overall

The game was worth a look for me, because of its interesting setting. “Save the World, Kill Yourself” is spray painted over a lot of the walls, succinctly demonstrating the extremists viewpoint.

It resembles my view of this game closely enough – save your money and kill any thought of buying this. While it was entertaining in parts, it fell frustratingly short in every account as far as I'm concerned. A missed opportunity.

Stories from McDonalds - SCIENCE!

Every workplace has a token idiot. Well, most workplaces do. My one doesn't... unless that idiot is me. Which I suppose is a perfectly reasonable conclusion to come to, though I sure hope not!

Anyway, my point is that my prior workplace - McDonalds, is utterly full of them. Full enough that I have quite a bunch of stories I find quite amusing from when I used to work there, so I thought I would share a few of them, beginning with today's post.

One of the shifts I was consistently subjected to while working there was known as "Walkers", which was taking the delivery off the truck and putting the stock away in a neat and orderly fashion. I quite enjoyed this shift, since it did not require me to be in uniform, and was a great way to get away from the bustle and heat of the kitchen, as well as other crew members that cause me no end of torture.

Well, except for one - since Walkers was a two person job (as well as the truck driver, but he really doesn't do much after throwing the boxes of stock at us). Quite often I had a rare good crew member with me to help. Of course, I occasionally had idiots too.

On this particular shift, all was going well enough. The freezer had been unloaded, but was woefully overstocked as per usual. The dry stock, which lives in a room temperature stockroom rather than a fridge or freezer, was also unloaded, and we were up to simply putting the stuff away and rotating it (so that food gets used before the use by dates - contrary to popular belief McDonalds actually does follow most food safety laws).

We were unpacking the bottles of flavouring for the coffees - for some reason we had fancy flavourings for the coffees in the McCafe of our store. As you would expect, these boxes contained bottles of the syrup. These bottles had lids on them, as one would also expect.

For some reason, my crew member took the bottle, turned it upside down, and was amazed when the lid prevented the syrup from pouring out. He was amazed enough that he called out to me (I was in the hallway getting another box) to get my attention, and when I appeared, he exclaimed "LOOK! Science!"

And all I could wish for was that he had GLADoS' vision of science imprinted upon him, and he go and scientifically discover the height that he could safely jump from without spilling the dust that was contained by his skull all over the concrete.

Dragon Age 2

"Do you ever feel like the world's getting... simpler? Like everything from eating to fighting is a lot less complex than it used to be?". The drunk in The Hanged Man tavern can be heard saying quite often. I think this is a great dig from the developers at themselves for the transformations they've made to Dragon Age, and also marks my major reaction to the game in general.

Not that this is a bad thing, mind you, as combat flows much more smoothly than it ever did in Dragon Age: Origins (DA:O), and it tends to be more visually spectacular (in an actioney way, apart from simply being a graphical update). On the other hand, it is much simpler than it was in DA:O, and I found myself using less strategy to conquer my opponents, and more overpower tactics than anything.

The game follows the plight of Hawke - a human escapee from the small town of Lothering. The town gets destroyed by the Blight (a massive invasion of Darkspawn - the DA equivalent of orcs) in DA:O. Hawke narrowly escapes the destruction with his/her (you get to select gender, class and first name - I named him Bob. I regret that choice) family mostly intact (in this prologue sequence you lose a family member dependant upon the class you select, to allow for a balanced party in the early sequences as well as  differing stories down the track).

In short order you find yourself having escaped the Blight, and living in the city of Kirkwall - once a slaver city, now a "free" city, although there are a lot of underlying problems in the city.

You spend the game playing through the course of ten years in the life of Hawke in Kirkwall. Well, I say that, but in reality you play a section of the game, then the story skips a few years. Typically you do a bunch of quests (side quests and storyline ones), then finish a chapter by dealing with whatever situation has arisen during the storyline quests of that chapter, then time skips ahead to the next chapter. While this is an interesting way of presenting a story, this also leads to some disconnect, since there is a lack of an overall bad guy, which makes the entire game feel like "I moved to Kirkwall, did some things, some stuff happened, and then it ended". While large portions of the story are quite dramatic, and it drew me in immensely, the ending (or lack thereof) rubbed me the wrong way due to the lack of conclusion, closure, or even... anything. There was no epilogue (unlike DA:O, which provides an extensive epilogue explaining the long term effects of many of the decisions you made), there was... nothing. I felt cheated.

On the other hand, the journey there is quite enjoyable, the combat is fun, and I was immersed. Some of the events which occurred I wasn't entirely sure if they were avoidable, but they did feel like I could have changed what happened simply by making other decisions. Admittedly, this would take a second playthrough to learn about (which I don't feel up to at the moment).

All in all, the game is worth playing, just don't expect the most amazing thing ever.

Also, Varric is awesome.

Paintball

Last Saturday I attended a Paintball party for my friend's birthday. My birthday was the day after, but I wasn't about to bring attention to that fact considering that paintballs hurt, and people tend to target the birthday people more when they have the ability to do so. 

Rule: Don't camp - that's for bitches.

Taking this (nonexistent) rule to heart, while I didn't necessarily charge forward like Leeroy Jenkins, I did refuse to stay inside my base and do nothing. My goal was to actively move ahead and seek out the opposition. When this strategy was combined with the difficulty I had seeing anyone else on the field - friend or foe (the goggles made my glasses fog up, making it hard to see anything really), it tended to result in my getting eliminated quite early, but I got to take a lot of shots at people!

 Above: not quite me

This really came into its own in the later games, where we went onto a field known as "The Graveyard". It was literally a graveyard setting, with huge tombstones as the only form of cover. This worked wonders for our team (the green team), as the evil black squad had spent the entire day camping - being the wusses they are. It was impossible to camp on this field - a fact which I made painfully apparent to many opposing players by advancing up the right side and flanking them. My machine gun upgrade made this quite painful for some of the players who weren't quite so quick on the uptake that they had been shot, which leads me to my next point...

Rule: When you're shot, walk off the field!

A few of the matches we played were merged with another group, to make a large skirmish. The problem here? Many players in the group we merged with were flat out cheating bastards! In paintball, when you take a hit, you put your hands up, call out "HIT!" and walk to the Dead Zone - a waiting area for the people who had been eliminated. At the start of a match, you have some time with "extra lives", where being shot simply sends you back to your team's start point.
So, how do you cheat? Simple! Take a hit and don't walk off. Admittedly, this is discouraged effectively to a degree, since if you've been shot and don't walk off, you can keep being shot, which tends to hurt. Quite more so, after the fifth or sixth hit.
There was one guy in the aforementioned match, who "won" the game for his team by hitting the flag thing he was supposed to. I watched him do it, after being shot around 12 times and continuing to run for it. Then diving at it, whilst still being shot. So much for fair play - if you get hit, be a sport and walk off the field. Which leads me to...

Rule: If someone has their arms up, stop bloody shooting them!

The amount of times I continued to be shot while walking off the field... if I knew who was doing that they would have copped a crotch full of machine gunned paint.

While I make this sound like it sucked, it was actually a really fun day. I just hate when people cheat (in general). It was great to be running around, shooting people (even though the majority of the people I didn't really know well). I had a few great run ins where we were fairly close to each other and simply unloaded our guns at each other. While quite painful, it was also hilarious. I remember a quite clear standoff I had on the graveyard like this, where the other person involved claimed he won because he kept shooting me in the face as I was shooting him in the legs. Sure, if this was a real life situation I would be dead and he would simply have lost a leg, but this is paintball. I felt nothing since the helmet protects my head. He'll be feeling the effects of a good 15 shots to the legs for a few days, most likely.

Yes, my legs still hurt. I'm not sure if it was due to all the running I don't usually due, or the amount of welts I have on my legs due to being shot. I suspect the latter.

I Feel Old

It's my 25th birthday this Sunday. That's right, a quarter of a century has passed since I was born. I don't know why, but this seems to make me feel much older than I have any right to!

Perhaps it is because the vast majority of the friends I see regularly are younger than me. Perhaps it is because my girlfriend is also younger than me. Perhaps it is because the majority of people I hung out with when the local internet cafe still existed were younger than me, or 98% of my workmates at my previous employment (the hive of scum and villainy known as McDonalds) were younger than me (also, they possessed a collective IQ of 12).

More likely, I feel old because my insurance premiums go down, because I'm no longer a "Young Adult", and simply an adult. Removing the word young makes me feel old!

On the other hand, I still play video games a lot (which some people see as childish, despite the fact that the average gamer's age is now in the 30s). I still watch cartoons (admittedly it is usually anime when I get a chance, but they *are* cartoons). I still block my ears when my parents turn their music up (well, some of the time anyway. If they ever play Queen I'm turning their music up further). I still would join in a food fight, if one broke out.

Then again, I have a full time job now, with all the goodness (money, interesting work to do) and not so goodness (its work!) that it entails. I lack the free time required to continue doing what I'd really want to do (which is simply copious amounts of gaming). I cannot do the Friday night gaming all nighters I used to pull with mates (most likely I would simply fall apart by 1am).

Also, XKCD managed to make me feel old. You bastage! :P

The Matrix was HOW LONG AGO?!?!?

On a slightly more informative note, tomorrow I'm attending a birthday party at Heartbreak Ridge paintball (not my birthday, a friend's one - and I won't to tell the people who don't know there that it's also my birthday until they run out of paint). On Sunday the rest of the family is coming over for Mother's Day (they didn't want to come, as far as I can tell, but Mum pulled the "it's his birthday!" card on them, to the dismay of all involved - myself included).

And me? Well, I plan on spending as much of Sunday playing Dragon Age 2 as possible.

Rage Comics

Recently I have become addicted to Rage Comics. For those who don't know what they are, they are meme-like comics using faces which were originally drawn in MSPaint (or at least look like they were) along with an attempt at some form of humour. A lot of them tend to point out the stupidity of some people, others have extremely random situations, and others are simply crass. However, I can't seem to stop looking at them! It's like they're infectious or something.

Problem?

I suspect that a lot of these images originated on that hive of scum and villainy known as 4chan. I cannot back that up, but its the feeling I get from some of the art. Considering I stay away from that corner of the Internet (I know what's good for me) I cannot say whether the rage comics have taken off there - however, one place which they seem to grow in number daily is on Reddit - to the point where they made a complete subreddit for these comics. It is aptly abbreviated to F7U12.

The reason these comics are called "Rage Comics" is that, more often than not, they include a rage face. However, they don't always. I suppose its the law of the internet - things start one way but get corrupted, though somehow retaining their original title or name. Its quite odd, isn't it?

FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

I even have multiple iPhone apps that deal with this. One is the Rage Faces app, which is simply a large set of rage faces and the means to copy and paste them into the SMS app (which I enjoy annoying people with occasionally nowadays). Another is the Rage Comics app, so I can look at some of the stuff from Reddit in a decently readable format when I'm on the go.


I have no idea why I'm so addicted to these. Possibly because they are so stupid, and quick to read when I need a moment's break.

Airplane rage

Are you guys addicted to any particular Internet memes?

Dissidia Duodecim

Dissidia 012: Duodecim: Final Fantasy (hell of a title) is a PSP game which, conceptually is the Super Smash Brother of Final Fantasy in that a bunch of Final Fantasy characters from differing games are brought together in a fighting game with a ridiculous and nonsensical plot, but plays more like an arena fighter. However, how many arena fighters are there that actually work well in a 1v1 combat setting? (The answer is exactly two,  and one of them was the first Dissidia title)

If there are any Final Fantasy fans reading this who have not played the first Dissidia title on PSP, well, first of all, shame on you! But aside from that, you can safely skip it and go straight to Duodecim, since all of the original storyline is contained inside of it. While this is a cool feature and all, it frustrated me to no end that I had to play through a storyline that I had already covered from start to finish again - and its not a short one by any stretch of the imagination!

The plot of Duodecim has some kind of croc-bullshit about the Goddess Cosmos and the God Chaos locked in an eternal war on some world, and summoning warriors to fight for them. These warriors are the main heroes (and villains) of Final Fantasy games I through XIII, with some notable additions and exceptions (there are no villains at all from XI or XIII, and the XII villain is an extra hidden along with two heroines from XI).

This is everyone. I think

The storyline of Duodecim is a prequel, adding in a bunch of extra characters (namely Kain from FFIV, Tifa from FFVII, Laguna from FFVIII, Yuna from FFX, Vaan from FFXII and Lightning from FFXIII). However, there are multiple story modes in Duodecim - just as there was in the original Dissidia title.

Duodecim's initial story mode (012) focuses entirely on the new characters, and their actions (and some kind of explanation as to why they weren't in the first game, since this is a prequel). However, I found this story mode to be a little bit heavy handed on making you play as Lightning. It makes you play 3 chapters solo as Lightning, while everyone else gets a single solo chapter each, and a final chapter where you take all 5 in the newly featured party battles (you're not allowed to take Kain in this particular chapter - which I find highly unfair considering he's one of the cooler characters who was brought in).
This means that in the entirety of the first story mode, you can play as Kain once, everyone else twice, and Lightning 3 or 4 times.

The second story mode - unlocked by completing the initial one - is the story mode from the first Dissidia game. However, the difference here is that it contains the new features from Duodecim - those being Assists, the newly redesigned World Map, and party battles (which are just round robin 1v1s, or a winner stays on form of the same thing). In this story mode, you play as all the old heroes once, bar the Warrior of Light (FFI), who you play twice. You then play the final chapter as a party of 5 characters of your choosing (restricted to heroes from the original game).

Once the second story mode is completed, you unlock yet another story mode title 000 - Confessions of the Creator. This one is an extra one without any real bearing on the plot, and you are allowed to use any unlocked character at all in your 5 person party. This includes villains. However, at this stage in the game, if you have played through the Story Modes and only the story modes (like I did), your villains will be level 1, the heroes you used in the later stages of the second story mode will be approaching level 50, and Lightning will be around level 30. Kain was level 14. This makes taking anyone else a much more difficult option - particularly in this story mode, since the weakest enemy you will find is around level 50 - so you will need to grind in other gameplay modes if you wish to take, say Sephiroth (though why you would take him over Squall is beyond me).

Squall is more badass than you

Gameplay wise, it plays much like the first. If you haven't played that, as I said earlier, shame on you, but it does take a bit of getting used to. It is an arena battler where you fight in one on one situations. Hitting with a standard attack or combo (which can be physical or magical, depending upon how you've set up your character and which character you're using) will deal Bravery damage. This is not "real" damage, but it does reduce the large number on the other character's gauge (you can see both combatant's gauge sets). Dealing Bravery damage to a character reduces the enemy's bravery score and adds the same amount to your own.
However, this alone will not kill a character - it does not act as a health gauge, but more like a momentum gauge than anything. When you reduce a character's Bravery to zero, you inflict upon them a status known as "Bravery Break", awarding you bonus bravery (from a central pool held by the arena itself), as well as rendering the enemy's HP attacks harmless as long as the status persists.
A HP attack is how you actually damage a character in Dissidia - it essentially is a large attack (occasionally a Limit Break pulled from the character's respective game). Connecting with one of these deals HP damage to the enemy equal to the amount of Bravery you have at the time, however it also empties your bravery gauge, allowing the enemy an opportunity to break you, and counterattack. Your bravery regenerates to its initial state after landing a HP attack, however the bigger the blow you dealt, the slower it regenerates.
As you can see, this can lead to some interesting tug of war style battles. I liken the system to an old wrestling game's momentum meter, where you can deal more damage if you have the match leaning in your favour from the regular hits you are dealing out - otherwise you can turn it around in your favour by playing skilfully and not losing your head.

Aside from this, there are other features such as Assists, Summons (though they're reduced to status effects for everyone other than Yuna), the EX gauge and so on, but I'll be here for a week if I try to explain them all.

Not to mention that outside the battles themselves the game is an RPG - including levelling up, equipping abilities, weapons, armour, accessories and summons... and there are many hidden treasures to find and unlock. This game will take hours upon hours to complete, let alone master!

The game was seemingly designed to allow for the kind of combat you see in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. In this, it is quite successful, I have saved many a gameplay replay to watch later - even if it was a lost battle (which I find people are less inclined to save due to the bitterness of defeat), simply because the battle was so fun to enjoy! I had a particularly satisfying battle where I fought as Squall, against a carbon copy of my build of Squall - level, abilities, equipment and all. It was a battle for the ages, and at some stage, I will throw it onto YouTube because I think others may enjoy it.

All in all, Dissidia Duodecim is a fun game, although worth slightly less for people who completed the first title, since you will need to complete the same storyline again (and if you've finished that story, you know how long that will take - not to mention the fact that you need to play through as Zidane again... stupid monkey). Nonetheless, buy it if you have a PSP.

And if you don't have a PSP, then buy one, and Dissidia Duodecim. PSP prices dropped recently so there's no excuse.

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The gaming backlog has been moved to its own separate page, because it makes more sense there. The link on the sidebar will take you there - it has been updated again since I finally finished playing Tales of Symphonia with Sarah over the weekend :P We started playing the sequel to this game, and all I have to say at the moment is YUKIMURA!!!!!!