HaHA, you spambots will never be rid of me!
Been tearing about on Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. I'll talk about that later, mostly because I'm pretty frustrated with the game. Whoever did the vehicles probably did programming work for Battletoads' Level 3. Thanks a lot for making moon buggies suck.
In other vidya game news, I've also gotten my hands on Shining Force EXA, better known as "Sega Really Wanted To Make Diablo." It's actually pretty damn fun, and has a distinction of being challenging in a fun way, which I haven't run into lately.
It's actually kind of weird. Both games have a habit of randomly kicking my ass, they go about in different ways. Borderlands PS really comes across as trying to steal Dark Souls fans. I'm hoping it gets better down the line. 2 could be really damn hard at some points, too. And to be fair, this shit is still awesomesauce. LASER SHOTGUNS! YOU'RE WELCOME!
Shining Force here, when I die, I know I screwed up. I can go back and do the right thing (or grind) and I just jump aboard the train to PwnVille. Oh and you can smack things with spellbooks. I don't mean use the spellbook to burninate things (though you can do that too), I mean physically beat people with metaphysical literature.
Dammit, now I want to watch...oh...Raistlin and Snape whack the hell out of some Twilight characters now. Preferably with copies of The Simarillion. With Yakety Sax blaring in the background.
Oh, and I'm planning on writing a semi-intelligent post on a semi-serious topic. It will be entitled "Metallurgy, Mineralogy, and Monster-Mashing."
Friday, March 27, 2015
Sunday, March 8, 2015
Brain Barf
Blarg-a-rant!
I've decided to get off my ass and make a list of Star Wars lines that can be improved with the word 'pants'. I saw a short list of such things a long time ago on an old SWCCG trading site, but never encountered another one, so I throwing them back out there with some additions. They will be a fairly random bunch, and probably far from exhaustive.
Original Trilogy:
"Han will have those pants down, we got to give him more time."
"That blast came from those pants. That thing's operational!"
"The pants are ray-shielded, so you'll have use proton torpedoes."
"Those pants better be back up by midday, or there'll be hell to pay."
"Luke...help me take...these pants off."
"In his pants you will find a new meaning for pain and suffering..."
"Judge me by my pants, do you?"
Prequel Trilogy:
"All last we will reveal ourselves to the Jedi. At last we will drop our pants."
"No money, no pants, no deal!"
"Your pants will make a fine addition to my collection."
"There's pants here, unless you brought them with you."
"His pants were a necessary loss. Soon I will have a new apprentice, one far younger..."
"Not victory, Obi-Wan. The pants of the dark side have fallen."
I've decided to get off my ass and make a list of Star Wars lines that can be improved with the word 'pants'. I saw a short list of such things a long time ago on an old SWCCG trading site, but never encountered another one, so I throwing them back out there with some additions. They will be a fairly random bunch, and probably far from exhaustive.
Original Trilogy:
"Han will have those pants down, we got to give him more time."
"That blast came from those pants. That thing's operational!"
"The pants are ray-shielded, so you'll have use proton torpedoes."
"Those pants better be back up by midday, or there'll be hell to pay."
"Luke...help me take...these pants off."
"In his pants you will find a new meaning for pain and suffering..."
"Judge me by my pants, do you?"
Prequel Trilogy:
"All last we will reveal ourselves to the Jedi. At last we will drop our pants."
"No money, no pants, no deal!"
"Your pants will make a fine addition to my collection."
"There's pants here, unless you brought them with you."
"His pants were a necessary loss. Soon I will have a new apprentice, one far younger..."
"Not victory, Obi-Wan. The pants of the dark side have fallen."
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Rated T for Tanks
Blarg!
Been tearing about like a madman on World of Tanks again. Even when I die like a moron, its an absolute blast. The big trick to the game is really that death is just part of the game. Its even reinforced by an achievement, This is World of Tanks, which you get by dying all alone as the last guy on your team.
I've also been tearing about in Final Fantasy VII. It's still a fun game, even after all of these years. FF7 is a particular favorite of mine; I actually owned a copy of it before I owned a Playstation! I'm a little angry at the RNG right now. Snagging certain skills can be a real bitch if the game isn't in a good mood. I'll go back to it a day or so; controller throwing is a sign of idiocy. Ol' Seph is in deep shit anyway. He realizes that I'm back and prepared to shank a bitch, or bishie in his case. Hell, it's both.
I'm still of the opinion that the real reason post-game Cloud is so damn emo because Seph up and poked Aerith with his sword before Cloud could. That shit is Freudian as hell.
Been tearing about like a madman on World of Tanks again. Even when I die like a moron, its an absolute blast. The big trick to the game is really that death is just part of the game. Its even reinforced by an achievement, This is World of Tanks, which you get by dying all alone as the last guy on your team.
I've also been tearing about in Final Fantasy VII. It's still a fun game, even after all of these years. FF7 is a particular favorite of mine; I actually owned a copy of it before I owned a Playstation! I'm a little angry at the RNG right now. Snagging certain skills can be a real bitch if the game isn't in a good mood. I'll go back to it a day or so; controller throwing is a sign of idiocy. Ol' Seph is in deep shit anyway. He realizes that I'm back and prepared to shank a bitch, or bishie in his case. Hell, it's both.
I'm still of the opinion that the real reason post-game Cloud is so damn emo because Seph up and poked Aerith with his sword before Cloud could. That shit is Freudian as hell.
Monday, February 23, 2015
Another Day, Another Beat Game
Hail to the Spambots.
Well, Stick of Truth is now officially on my kill list. The game was a load of laughs, though honestly the most laughs I got was from burninating a rat with a fart-splosion. I'm a bad person.
In all honesty, while I do like a bit of South Park now and then, I got this game based on some Let's Plays I saw. The whole concept revolved around kiddies tearing around and LAPRing, which is something I've wanted to see in a damn video game for close to 20 years. Finally got to lead an seige on a damn school. Now we need an RTS version of this crap, and we'd be golden.
This is probably the best "entry level" RPG I've seen that didn't involve Mario, possibly even best ever. The only real complaints I have is that it's short and has some obvious missing elements (which is easily explained by the THQ bankruptcy fiasco), and the lack of a crafting system, It's really just a personal bugaboo, but the level of cleverness inherent to the little game going on could have been extended to some nifty craftables. They could be nasty weapons and horrible traps and toxins, basically what would happen if...
Oh hell, this shit is pretty much 4chan The Video Game anyway. The crafting thing is still pretty much something I'd want personally, but things are just fine, and don't need any more breaking.
Some of the combat mechanics are hilarious in and of themselves. You want to see your enemies under bleed and burning DoT effects, while also barfing their guts out as another DoT? In Stick of Truth, you can, and it's a viable strategy to the point where BOSSES are best put down this way, Let's see Final Fantasy do that, huh? They're all "Nope, Bosses are Immune To Everything, Screw You!" Here you can poison and burninate to your heart's content.
Next on the list is hopefully Borderlands the Pre-Sequel, Until then Legate Wulfe the Unhinged is going to got smack on Ash Spawn with sharp objects. GRARGH!
Well, Stick of Truth is now officially on my kill list. The game was a load of laughs, though honestly the most laughs I got was from burninating a rat with a fart-splosion. I'm a bad person.
In all honesty, while I do like a bit of South Park now and then, I got this game based on some Let's Plays I saw. The whole concept revolved around kiddies tearing around and LAPRing, which is something I've wanted to see in a damn video game for close to 20 years. Finally got to lead an seige on a damn school. Now we need an RTS version of this crap, and we'd be golden.
This is probably the best "entry level" RPG I've seen that didn't involve Mario, possibly even best ever. The only real complaints I have is that it's short and has some obvious missing elements (which is easily explained by the THQ bankruptcy fiasco), and the lack of a crafting system, It's really just a personal bugaboo, but the level of cleverness inherent to the little game going on could have been extended to some nifty craftables. They could be nasty weapons and horrible traps and toxins, basically what would happen if...
Oh hell, this shit is pretty much 4chan The Video Game anyway. The crafting thing is still pretty much something I'd want personally, but things are just fine, and don't need any more breaking.
Some of the combat mechanics are hilarious in and of themselves. You want to see your enemies under bleed and burning DoT effects, while also barfing their guts out as another DoT? In Stick of Truth, you can, and it's a viable strategy to the point where BOSSES are best put down this way, Let's see Final Fantasy do that, huh? They're all "Nope, Bosses are Immune To Everything, Screw You!" Here you can poison and burninate to your heart's content.
Next on the list is hopefully Borderlands the Pre-Sequel, Until then Legate Wulfe the Unhinged is going to got smack on Ash Spawn with sharp objects. GRARGH!
Friday, February 20, 2015
Rated E For Elf Stabbing
Blarg to the spambots!
Got my hands on Stick of Truth on the cheap. I'm not all that much of a South Park fan in general; didn't watch the show very much, but I did watch the movie a lot back in the day. I still think that cover of "What Would Brian Boitano Do?" on the CD is the shiznit. Screw "Let It Go." Anyway, this game is a hoot and a half, with the wonderful bonus of being a great entry-level RPG.
Two thirds of the game is devoted to fighting the elves (arguably just one, but whatever), and while its quite fun, I'm wondering where the hell all this hatred for pointy ears came from. I'm probably wrong, but this seems to be a relatively recent phenomenon. Nobody in my little nerdy circle of friends hated elves like this back in the day. I understand hatred of elf factions like The Elder Scrolls' Thalmor bunch (fuck those guys with a chainsaw) or pretty much every Wood Elf faction ever after Tolkien (which are either grimdark, cannibals, or grimdark cannibals). Those guys are like a Fifty Shades of Gray/Cupcakes/Captain Planet crossover. Yes, I know exactly what I said there.
However, even fairly decent portrayals of elves are pretty much fire magnets these days. What the hell happened? Personally, I blame Orlando Bloom.
Got my hands on Stick of Truth on the cheap. I'm not all that much of a South Park fan in general; didn't watch the show very much, but I did watch the movie a lot back in the day. I still think that cover of "What Would Brian Boitano Do?" on the CD is the shiznit. Screw "Let It Go." Anyway, this game is a hoot and a half, with the wonderful bonus of being a great entry-level RPG.
Two thirds of the game is devoted to fighting the elves (arguably just one, but whatever), and while its quite fun, I'm wondering where the hell all this hatred for pointy ears came from. I'm probably wrong, but this seems to be a relatively recent phenomenon. Nobody in my little nerdy circle of friends hated elves like this back in the day. I understand hatred of elf factions like The Elder Scrolls' Thalmor bunch (fuck those guys with a chainsaw) or pretty much every Wood Elf faction ever after Tolkien (which are either grimdark, cannibals, or grimdark cannibals). Those guys are like a Fifty Shades of Gray/Cupcakes/Captain Planet crossover. Yes, I know exactly what I said there.
However, even fairly decent portrayals of elves are pretty much fire magnets these days. What the hell happened? Personally, I blame Orlando Bloom.
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Screw You, Topps
Blarg and hail to the spambots!
Been thinking about old nerdy times. Specifically the tabletop stuff I used to play and enjoy. I played the Star Wars CCG. It was ridiculously complex. It took ten years for Magic: The Gathering to approach the complexity this game had after one. Sometimes I think Decipher was staffed by geeks that wanted to run a modern video game physics engine with cards. Star Trek CCG was worse.
In any case, I didn't play much, but I had a wonderful time, and near the end of its run I built a small online trading empire out of it. It was awesome.
Another nerdy passion I had Star Wars Minatures. I blew way too much money and made a far less successful trading run, but I played it a helluva lot more. A very good friend and I worked out a modified version that dumped the grid based combat and faction restrictions for actual table terrain, mass fire, the works. It was even more awesome.
But the reason I'm writing is the game I picked in between.
That game was Mage Knight.
These days, it seem to be so obscure that there is no real data out there. No background information. No fan fora. Very rarely, you see product on Ebay. The odd very crappy relaunch. It has gone through the gamer equivalent of Damnatio Memoriae. I'm amazed there's a Wikipedia article.
Back in the day, it was not so. It was really great stuff. It successfully melded the collector's craze of card games with the armchair general's craze of pushing plastic dudes across a table for great justice. It was even (relatively) cheap.
The basic gist is that Jordan Weisman (yes, that Jordan Weisman, the BattleTech guy) and his sons got their hands on a big Warhammer Fantasy starter set, and realized that on top of the ridiculous initial investment, the game his kids spent all sorts of time and money just getting still needed even more time and money to build and paint, and on top of that, the rules...well somehow they managed to bamboozle an experienced miniature games developer. He went on to put something together that far more accessible for gamers.
The miniatures came in starters and boosters, just like a CCG, and came prepainted. Starters were $20 on a bad day, and came with a rulebook, a tailor-style measuring tape, a nice little background comic, and enough miniatures to get going. There were multiple rarity tiers, with the highest (at the time) being the unique minis, which tended to be powerful centerpieces for an army. There were a good mix of factions, and even better, a player could mix and match as they saw fit. Games were point based, with the typical value being 200, resulting in a nice skirmish-level game. Stats were on the minis themselves, using revolving clicky bases, pretty much negating bookkeeping. This stuff was fricking awesomeness.
I got hooked into it about three expansions in, and managed to drag a few buddies in for once. There were weekly tournaments with a decent following. Then the gravy train just kept a rollin'. They had already added cavalry models, soon would come big stuff like dragons, giants, cannons, and tanks. TANKS! Nice rule variants came out, like Conquest, which brought in official rules for structured multi-battle campaigns, and large scale (1000 point or more) games that really upped the scale, and Dungeons, which brought actual squad level dungeon crawling into Mage Knight. The awards and cash kept pouring in. WizKids managed to acquire the rights to DC and Marvel characters, and HeroClix was born. The stars aligned and clicky BattleTech appeared. MK, as the flagship game, just kept getting better and better, and the minis (which were admittedly horrible at first) were starting to really come into their own. It was really something special.
Then it happened. WizKids was acquired by Topps. The gravy train had been hijacked by CSX and was about to derail and cause serious casualties. Long story short, a gaming-oriented demographic was being occluded and cynically shut out in favor of toy store bullshit.
Mage Knight 2.0 came out, and everything went straight to hell. Every miniature before the new release was invalidated, and the old ruleset, factions, and abilities were null and void. This wasn't like other miniature games, where basic model variants were still legal (40k's Space Marines still haven't fundamentally changed in loadout since 2nd edition from the 1990s, arguably since Rogue Trader itself), or CCGs, where the shifting meta-game and set-swaps were a constant. Everybody's army, everywhere, didn't exist anymore. I freely admit that I had invested heavily, and gotten pretty much all the big goodies, plus a ton of the regular stuff. I was far from alone, either.
A few other stubborn individuals and I toughed it out to the bitter end. We bought plenty of 2.0 and tried to hold things to together. WizKids tried to reinvigorate things by bringing in new unit types, like dedicated flyers, revamped cavalry, magic items, and all sorts of special rules. But the gravy train was off the track and burning. The very last set was pure fanservice, bringing back minis from the older edition, along with reinstating the old models, factions, and rules.
Not much to tell after that. They did some horrible video games, and tried a reboot into a pen-and-paper RPG. I've been told there is a Mage Knight board game that's pretty awesome, but really hard to get. Last year, I saw a new set of the things; not sure how it went.
My other gaming obsessions aren't like this. They had a good run, and I had a blast. Even where something was killed by corporate suits, and I had to either put them away or jump ship entirely, I still have good feelings overall.
Mage Knight... Mage Knight is different. I don't have anything left except for two minis that live on the Shelf of Glory, but I know the rules (especially pre 2.0) very well, and could still tell you about a certain mini's stats and abilities just glancing at a base. But even so, just seeing the Wizkids logo makes me all maudlin and bitter. It didn't get a wonderful run and just fade out, it got cut down in its prime, and for stupid reasons.
The thing that really gets my goat: How many fledgling gamers were alienated and left the tabletop completely because of this mistake? I felt betrayed, but Star Wars minis were out, and personal business intervened long enough that I got a clean break and came back later. Not everybody was so forgiving.
Been thinking about old nerdy times. Specifically the tabletop stuff I used to play and enjoy. I played the Star Wars CCG. It was ridiculously complex. It took ten years for Magic: The Gathering to approach the complexity this game had after one. Sometimes I think Decipher was staffed by geeks that wanted to run a modern video game physics engine with cards. Star Trek CCG was worse.
In any case, I didn't play much, but I had a wonderful time, and near the end of its run I built a small online trading empire out of it. It was awesome.
Another nerdy passion I had Star Wars Minatures. I blew way too much money and made a far less successful trading run, but I played it a helluva lot more. A very good friend and I worked out a modified version that dumped the grid based combat and faction restrictions for actual table terrain, mass fire, the works. It was even more awesome.
But the reason I'm writing is the game I picked in between.
That game was Mage Knight.
These days, it seem to be so obscure that there is no real data out there. No background information. No fan fora. Very rarely, you see product on Ebay. The odd very crappy relaunch. It has gone through the gamer equivalent of Damnatio Memoriae. I'm amazed there's a Wikipedia article.
Back in the day, it was not so. It was really great stuff. It successfully melded the collector's craze of card games with the armchair general's craze of pushing plastic dudes across a table for great justice. It was even (relatively) cheap.
The basic gist is that Jordan Weisman (yes, that Jordan Weisman, the BattleTech guy) and his sons got their hands on a big Warhammer Fantasy starter set, and realized that on top of the ridiculous initial investment, the game his kids spent all sorts of time and money just getting still needed even more time and money to build and paint, and on top of that, the rules...well somehow they managed to bamboozle an experienced miniature games developer. He went on to put something together that far more accessible for gamers.
The miniatures came in starters and boosters, just like a CCG, and came prepainted. Starters were $20 on a bad day, and came with a rulebook, a tailor-style measuring tape, a nice little background comic, and enough miniatures to get going. There were multiple rarity tiers, with the highest (at the time) being the unique minis, which tended to be powerful centerpieces for an army. There were a good mix of factions, and even better, a player could mix and match as they saw fit. Games were point based, with the typical value being 200, resulting in a nice skirmish-level game. Stats were on the minis themselves, using revolving clicky bases, pretty much negating bookkeeping. This stuff was fricking awesomeness.
I got hooked into it about three expansions in, and managed to drag a few buddies in for once. There were weekly tournaments with a decent following. Then the gravy train just kept a rollin'. They had already added cavalry models, soon would come big stuff like dragons, giants, cannons, and tanks. TANKS! Nice rule variants came out, like Conquest, which brought in official rules for structured multi-battle campaigns, and large scale (1000 point or more) games that really upped the scale, and Dungeons, which brought actual squad level dungeon crawling into Mage Knight. The awards and cash kept pouring in. WizKids managed to acquire the rights to DC and Marvel characters, and HeroClix was born. The stars aligned and clicky BattleTech appeared. MK, as the flagship game, just kept getting better and better, and the minis (which were admittedly horrible at first) were starting to really come into their own. It was really something special.
Then it happened. WizKids was acquired by Topps. The gravy train had been hijacked by CSX and was about to derail and cause serious casualties. Long story short, a gaming-oriented demographic was being occluded and cynically shut out in favor of toy store bullshit.
Mage Knight 2.0 came out, and everything went straight to hell. Every miniature before the new release was invalidated, and the old ruleset, factions, and abilities were null and void. This wasn't like other miniature games, where basic model variants were still legal (40k's Space Marines still haven't fundamentally changed in loadout since 2nd edition from the 1990s, arguably since Rogue Trader itself), or CCGs, where the shifting meta-game and set-swaps were a constant. Everybody's army, everywhere, didn't exist anymore. I freely admit that I had invested heavily, and gotten pretty much all the big goodies, plus a ton of the regular stuff. I was far from alone, either.
A few other stubborn individuals and I toughed it out to the bitter end. We bought plenty of 2.0 and tried to hold things to together. WizKids tried to reinvigorate things by bringing in new unit types, like dedicated flyers, revamped cavalry, magic items, and all sorts of special rules. But the gravy train was off the track and burning. The very last set was pure fanservice, bringing back minis from the older edition, along with reinstating the old models, factions, and rules.
Not much to tell after that. They did some horrible video games, and tried a reboot into a pen-and-paper RPG. I've been told there is a Mage Knight board game that's pretty awesome, but really hard to get. Last year, I saw a new set of the things; not sure how it went.
My other gaming obsessions aren't like this. They had a good run, and I had a blast. Even where something was killed by corporate suits, and I had to either put them away or jump ship entirely, I still have good feelings overall.
Mage Knight... Mage Knight is different. I don't have anything left except for two minis that live on the Shelf of Glory, but I know the rules (especially pre 2.0) very well, and could still tell you about a certain mini's stats and abilities just glancing at a base. But even so, just seeing the Wizkids logo makes me all maudlin and bitter. It didn't get a wonderful run and just fade out, it got cut down in its prime, and for stupid reasons.
The thing that really gets my goat: How many fledgling gamers were alienated and left the tabletop completely because of this mistake? I felt betrayed, but Star Wars minis were out, and personal business intervened long enough that I got a clean break and came back later. Not everybody was so forgiving.
Sunday, January 11, 2015
That's Treasure Hunter!
Hail to the Spambots!
Did a fair bit of shooting and looting today. The World of Tanks highlight is when I was driving one of my VKs. Everybody else charged up the left side, I took the right and did some sentry work to cover the arty. After helping to lay waste to the Hetzers that came into my zone of control, I snuck off and around the map. Blasted one arty piece, then some...person on my team decided it would be fun to block me from getting into the base cap. After a whole three seconds, I gave up and just sniped the last arty, and won the game. I repeat, I was being shoved around by some retard, and still managed to stick my gun over him and win the fucking game. Got Reaper out of the deal too.
I wonder if they even figured out what happened.
In other news, I've been doing a fair bit of old-school rampaging and pillaging in Final Fantasy VI. I do have my issues with the Game Boy version, mostly that some luminous soul decided that this is the one version that didn't need an official Strategy Guide. ALL of the previous versions got one, along with every other FF released on the Game Boy Advance (I, II, IV, V, FFT Advance). I have decided that all is now forgiven. Some other, far more luminous soul decided to include alternate input commands for Blitz moves. For the uninitiated, Blitz commands require input commands much like fighting games, with the best ones requiring circle motions. I'm very bad at this, and the teeny d-pad on the GBA doesn't help at all. These alternate inputs require directional tapping instead, which makes by life much easier, and the pixellated forces of badness are now in deeper shit than ever. >:D
Set phasers to burninate!
Did a fair bit of shooting and looting today. The World of Tanks highlight is when I was driving one of my VKs. Everybody else charged up the left side, I took the right and did some sentry work to cover the arty. After helping to lay waste to the Hetzers that came into my zone of control, I snuck off and around the map. Blasted one arty piece, then some...person on my team decided it would be fun to block me from getting into the base cap. After a whole three seconds, I gave up and just sniped the last arty, and won the game. I repeat, I was being shoved around by some retard, and still managed to stick my gun over him and win the fucking game. Got Reaper out of the deal too.
I wonder if they even figured out what happened.
In other news, I've been doing a fair bit of old-school rampaging and pillaging in Final Fantasy VI. I do have my issues with the Game Boy version, mostly that some luminous soul decided that this is the one version that didn't need an official Strategy Guide. ALL of the previous versions got one, along with every other FF released on the Game Boy Advance (I, II, IV, V, FFT Advance). I have decided that all is now forgiven. Some other, far more luminous soul decided to include alternate input commands for Blitz moves. For the uninitiated, Blitz commands require input commands much like fighting games, with the best ones requiring circle motions. I'm very bad at this, and the teeny d-pad on the GBA doesn't help at all. These alternate inputs require directional tapping instead, which makes by life much easier, and the pixellated forces of badness are now in deeper shit than ever. >:D
Set phasers to burninate!
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