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A month away.
Jul. 3rd, 2004 06:57 amWhat have I been filling my time with, in the month that I wasn't here?
Exhibit A: City of Heroes.
City of Heroes is a wonderful, wonderful thing. It's a MMORPG that doesn't play like one, a game where you don't have to sit for two hours waiting for two minute of excitement, a game where downtime is measured in minutes, a game with a combat system more like Diablo's than Everquest's. Perhaps most important to me, it's also a game where you can screw up massively and never, ever lose equipment or levels because of it. This is good. I'm not the most awe-inspiring player out there. But yeah, I've been all over this thing since my last entry. It has EATEN MY BRAIN.
I don't care, because it's that good.
Exhibit B: Mega Man.
So I bought the Mega Man Anniversery Collection, because obviously I was not spending enough time on video games already. Mega Man's been a constant fixture in my assorted gaming systems since I was a small child vigorously hammering the "Kill The Hell Out of Air Man" button (That being pretty much any of them, Air Man was a fricking pansy) and so I needed this collection like sane people need whatever it is that keeps THEM going. So far I've creamed Mega Man 2 and 3, unlocked one of the two arcade games on this collection, bitched energeticly about the Gamecube's lack of in-game remix music, and generally had a good time.
It does, however, have a "Navi Mode" (HEY LISTEN! HEY LISTEN! HEY LI-- *is shot, dies*) which is an excuse for Capcom to mock unskilled players by giving them "You've never played a video game before, have you?" style advice.
Some of my favorites include:
"Remember to jump over the enemy's shots and not let them hit you!"
"If you fall down the bottomless pit, you won't be coming back up!"
and my personal favorite,
"Don't forget to use your weapons, Mega Man!"
I keep meaning to screen-capture some of these and text-edit in a Bob and George style rewrite of the dialogue. ("Use the god damned SLIDE, Mega Man.")
This has also lead to me playing a lot of emulated Mega Man Battle Network, which is surpisingly good if amazingly difficult at times. I stopped playing the turn-based Yu-Gi-Oh style Battle Chip Challenge after I and the game exchanged this conversation:
Sqrl: "Yay! A card battle style game with Megaman!"
Game: "Yeah."
Sqrl: "Okay. So I place these chips, right?"
Game: "Yeah."
Sqrl: "And then I can select which path of chips to use, in response to my enemy's attacks and counters?"
Game: "...no."
Sqrl: "What can I do?"
Game: "You push the 'go' button."
Sqrl, annoyed: "...can I do anything ELSE?"
Game: "Yeah."
Sqrl: "What?"
Game: "You know your thumb? You can sit on..."
Sqrl: "...I'm not playing this anymore."
Exhibit C: Revolutionary Girl Utena.
...ooh boy, this is a strange one.
The prologue before some of the episodes catches us on backstory. When she was a little girl, Utena's parents died. Predictably, this made her very sad indeed. Then a prince appeared, and comforted her, and gave her his ring. Utena was so taken by this prince, that she decided she wanted to be a prince herself...
...and so forward to several years later, where an older Utena wears the boy's uniform in school, fences, and duels to protect the honor of one of her friends, which leads her to accidentally win the Student Council's trophy bride, the Rose Bride...
I've watched about 12 or 15 episodes of this series and it's entered the second, altogether stranger area of the plot. I look forward to seeing more.
Exhibit D: SuperDimensional Fortress Macross.
About all I can say about this anime is that... well... I can see why it's a classic. It's fricking amazing for something put out in the eighties. It's quite good even today. As I watch it, I'm constantly reminded that yes, this was a big enough thing in Japan that space-based anime are STILL going through the tattered remains of Macross's corpse looking for scraps to work into THEIR show.
That's what's had my attention of late. I'll be around more. I think.
However, before I go, I want to leave you with this:
Toast Art. Pixel-like art made of toast. The toast contains the toaster which contained the toast. I find this really freaking cool. But then, I'm mentally unbalanced. Tune in next time to my journal for a crooning German man.
Exhibit A: City of Heroes.
City of Heroes is a wonderful, wonderful thing. It's a MMORPG that doesn't play like one, a game where you don't have to sit for two hours waiting for two minute of excitement, a game where downtime is measured in minutes, a game with a combat system more like Diablo's than Everquest's. Perhaps most important to me, it's also a game where you can screw up massively and never, ever lose equipment or levels because of it. This is good. I'm not the most awe-inspiring player out there. But yeah, I've been all over this thing since my last entry. It has EATEN MY BRAIN.
I don't care, because it's that good.
Exhibit B: Mega Man.
So I bought the Mega Man Anniversery Collection, because obviously I was not spending enough time on video games already. Mega Man's been a constant fixture in my assorted gaming systems since I was a small child vigorously hammering the "Kill The Hell Out of Air Man" button (That being pretty much any of them, Air Man was a fricking pansy) and so I needed this collection like sane people need whatever it is that keeps THEM going. So far I've creamed Mega Man 2 and 3, unlocked one of the two arcade games on this collection, bitched energeticly about the Gamecube's lack of in-game remix music, and generally had a good time.
It does, however, have a "Navi Mode" (HEY LISTEN! HEY LISTEN! HEY LI-- *is shot, dies*) which is an excuse for Capcom to mock unskilled players by giving them "You've never played a video game before, have you?" style advice.
Some of my favorites include:
"Remember to jump over the enemy's shots and not let them hit you!"
"If you fall down the bottomless pit, you won't be coming back up!"
and my personal favorite,
"Don't forget to use your weapons, Mega Man!"
I keep meaning to screen-capture some of these and text-edit in a Bob and George style rewrite of the dialogue. ("Use the god damned SLIDE, Mega Man.")
This has also lead to me playing a lot of emulated Mega Man Battle Network, which is surpisingly good if amazingly difficult at times. I stopped playing the turn-based Yu-Gi-Oh style Battle Chip Challenge after I and the game exchanged this conversation:
Sqrl: "Yay! A card battle style game with Megaman!"
Game: "Yeah."
Sqrl: "Okay. So I place these chips, right?"
Game: "Yeah."
Sqrl: "And then I can select which path of chips to use, in response to my enemy's attacks and counters?"
Game: "...no."
Sqrl: "What can I do?"
Game: "You push the 'go' button."
Sqrl, annoyed: "...can I do anything ELSE?"
Game: "Yeah."
Sqrl: "What?"
Game: "You know your thumb? You can sit on..."
Sqrl: "...I'm not playing this anymore."
Exhibit C: Revolutionary Girl Utena.
...ooh boy, this is a strange one.
The prologue before some of the episodes catches us on backstory. When she was a little girl, Utena's parents died. Predictably, this made her very sad indeed. Then a prince appeared, and comforted her, and gave her his ring. Utena was so taken by this prince, that she decided she wanted to be a prince herself...
...and so forward to several years later, where an older Utena wears the boy's uniform in school, fences, and duels to protect the honor of one of her friends, which leads her to accidentally win the Student Council's trophy bride, the Rose Bride...
I've watched about 12 or 15 episodes of this series and it's entered the second, altogether stranger area of the plot. I look forward to seeing more.
Exhibit D: SuperDimensional Fortress Macross.
About all I can say about this anime is that... well... I can see why it's a classic. It's fricking amazing for something put out in the eighties. It's quite good even today. As I watch it, I'm constantly reminded that yes, this was a big enough thing in Japan that space-based anime are STILL going through the tattered remains of Macross's corpse looking for scraps to work into THEIR show.
That's what's had my attention of late. I'll be around more. I think.
However, before I go, I want to leave you with this:
Toast Art. Pixel-like art made of toast. The toast contains the toaster which contained the toast. I find this really freaking cool. But then, I'm mentally unbalanced. Tune in next time to my journal for a crooning German man.
