Team Fortress 2 Sprays

About two years ago, I posted a list of usernames from The Playstation network that I found amusing. They were culled from the records on my PS3 while playing Team Fortress 2. Since then, I've purchased a new computer and purchased the PC version of the game. Far better than the PS3 version, as the PC version has:

• Enough updates and added content (free!) to create a whole second game
• More users than the 10 people that played on the PSN
• Developers that didn't implement to half-ass security

I wanted to do a second post like that one from two years ago, but Steam doesn't save all the people that I meet in a single place the way that the PS3 does. Then Valve added a feature where you take screen shots in any Steam-enabled game by pressing F12, and I thought that all of the fun little sprays that people use in game would be even more entertaining.

BTW, for the uninitiated, a "spray" is a little .jpg image that you can post on a wall with a press of a button. Originally used (I guess) for tactical marking of way points or spots of interest, now they are primarily used to for humorous purposes.

Or Pornography. Lot's of T&A sprays too. Or shock images. When a game that has any online modes at all, the ESRB rating will be marked with an asterisk and a note that says "Online Interactions Not Rated". That's basically their way of saying "Look, the studio didn't add any sexual content to this game, but we can't stop people from showing you a screen grab of Two Girls One Cup, or from reading Scat-Porn featuring the cast of the Super Mario Games."

And yes, the latter had actually happened to me before. Some things you just can't unhear.

Anyway, Instead of posting them all here, I'm just going to send you to Flickr, where I've saved and commented on some of the better ones:

Team Fortress 2 Sprays

And don't worry, it should be clean enough for all but the most sensitive among us. The kind that think that extra mild salsa is a good idea. No shock images, no boobs.

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Well, maybe some boobs:

Scattershot Post - Filler for September

Nothing of importance, really. but I don't want a gap in the blog archive that shows absolutely nothing for September. Topic? Lets pick... entertainment!

Books:

There's the Dresden Files Side Jobs book that's out next month, followed by the next to last Wheel of Time book out early in November, then another Dresden files book way out in April that'll continue the main storyline. Good reading! I need to go over the first Wheel of Time books again to re-familiarize myself.

Games:

Team Fortress 2 is without a doubt the game that made me love online gaming. Eve didn't do it; there's a reason why this game is nicknamed "Spreadsheets Online". Starcraft II didn't do it (as great as the game is, you're either the OCD Multi-tasker that builds five bases and two dozen Battlecrusiers/Carriers within ten minutes, or the guy that repeatedly gets overrun by the former when he starts building his first Siege Tanks. Usually, I'm the latter. (Also, sorry for the majority of you that had this paragraph go over your heads.)

TV:

I think I mentioned before that I do not have Televisions service of any kind, including the free over the air kind (signals don't get out to here), but now that an HBO miniseries based on A Song of Ice and Fire is in production, I may have to reconsider. Yeah, I could wait and buy the inevitable DVD collection, but... There IS something to be said for seeing it sooner than later. Then again, why have another monthly bill, especially for something that I'll never use? If this one doesn't make me call up DirecTV or Dish, then I don't think anything will.

Movies:

Due to 1) the closest decent theater being an hour away, and 2) a lack of Television that walls me off from the primary marketing outlet for new movies, I haven't seen much that wan't on Netflix, and I still only bother watching maybe one Netflix movie a month. Still, I decided to go see Scott Pilgrim vs The World Last month, and have to say it was pretty good. Sadly, juding by box office returns, it looks like I was one of only about 300 people nationwide that actually paid to see it. This pretty much says it all.

Nightlife/Social:

One of the reasons why I adjusted so well to moving to Nowhereville, WY is that to me, a Saturday night at home is better than a night on the town, even when said town is hip and trendy. But I still have my karaoke, and I still run the show on Friday Nights. Good times!

Music:

I went to see Streetlight Manifesto Back in July, and in spite of a great show, I was reminded why I don't go to concerts. I can recreate the experience by walking into a sauna fully clothed, tape a picture of the backs of people's heads to my glasses, and just play one of their albums through. I could probably get closer and a better view if I was willing to muck about in the mosh pit, but I don't feel like getting shoved around by 19 year olds that have no other outlet for aggression. I'm just too old for that shit.

And now, posted with no explanation or reason, ELO's Don't Bring Me Down.

Space, Spice, and Lame-ass Vampires

So... Starcraft II. As the tagline so poignantly stated, "Hell, it's about time!" Only a few of you care, everyone else can read on. The campaign mode is a blast. Aside from the usual units (all are back) you can research fancy new ones and new abilities for them (research is done by collecting Zerg DNA Samples and Protoss knickknacks scattered throught misisions).

Example: Thor, the giant walking mech that deals a world of hurt, 2500 HP, cannons that hurt bad and shoot fast. What makes it fun is when you research an ability called "Immortality Protocol" that uses 200 Vespene. This takes your charred blow'd up husk of a unit, unloads an auto repair mechanism that survied somehow, and and patches it right up. Also fun: The Arnold Schwarzenegger voice clip that accompanies it. Gold.

While rummaging around in my pantry for various things, I decided that it was high time I break down and buy a spice rack. At this point, I felt my testicles shudder, and get weaker. They proclaimed, "Men do not need these things! They need a bigger grill, more power tools, and another beer! Go get your pink apron on, Nancy, and forget about the spice rack!"
But I assured them that it's OK for a man to cook and cook well, and want to organize his ingredients to make his pantry less cluttered. And then I felt that I might be slightly mad for having a conversation with my man bits. Anyway, at least I didn't do like my co-worker who is a 58 year old man...

...and admits to being a fan of *shudder* The Twilight Series. Seriously, he fails at being a man. I've told him as much, and informed him that he need to head downtown and turn in his penis. Also, I linked him to this comic by The Oatmeal about how Twilight works.

In conclusion, I would like to apologize to anyone by my gratuitous references to Male Anatomy. I'll limit these in the future, and as always, keep it tasteful. *cough*

Still Alive

First, let's play catch-up: Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas.

Cool. Now, Let's cover the near future: Happy New Year, Happy Presidents' Day, and just to hedge my bets, Happy St. Valentine's day.

So why have I been neglecting you all? Because I've been flying pretend spaceships: Eve Online is a Sci-Fi MMORPG that has recently been sucking up about 40% of my free time. Another 40% goes to Team Fortress 2, which is a well designed FPS game.

Otherwise, everything is chugging along. The new apartment is now cold by choice, rather than cold due to poor insulation. I guess the new tenants of my previous location complained loudly enough that they finally got the new windows they said they'd have installed by winter '08.

Work is going well. While the Christmas party was cut this year due to budget contraints, none of the staff was, so that's just fine with me.

My computer is still awesome, and still glowy blue.

Going forward, I'm hoping to take a week of vacation in the Summer to go back to the 'Burgh, as well as my usual trip to Origins.

I'll keep you posted on any new developments that I think people would find remotly interesting, but for now, I present the Black Scottish Cyclops: Meet the Demoman!

Follow Up on my New Computer

One year after I really wanted to, I finally replaced my Laptop with the Glowy Blue Beast Box for my primary computer. Take a moment to stare at The Awesomeness:

Oooooh, pretty!

So, what did I do first? Well, let's go through the list chronologically:

1. Connect to the Internet
2. Got Microsoft.com to order my free upgrade to Windows 7
3. Installed Zone Alarm
4. Played a game of Pox Nora (a game that's not graphically intense, and STILL manages to send my laptop's CPU into overdrive, overheating, and forced shutdown)
5. Downloaded Microsoft's free anti-virus utility recommended by a coworker.
6. Attempted to install aforementioned tool, installer froze and the process had to be killed
7. Succeeded installation of tool, another freeze-up and kill episode on updating it
8. Curse Microsoft
9. Attempted to install one of them new-fangled MMORPG thingies that are all the rage with the kids these days. The installer freezes and locks up, much like the Anti-Virus tool.
10. Repeat previous step 4-5 times; curse Microsoft
11. Begin to suspect that the ZoneAlarm program mentioned in step 3 was having difficulty on a 64-bit system, being a 32-bit progam and all.
12. Uninstall ZoneAlarm, reboot, subsequent attempts to install MMORPG and run Anti-Virus are successful
13. Sheepishly recant curses directed at Microsoft
14. Played through the Eve-Online Tutorial. Remembers how it feels to be impressed by Good Graphics.

And so, the adventure continues. I'm going to have to hook up this laser printer too, and see how that action works.
So, between the myriad PC games that are now open to me, the next Wheel of Time book that came out two days ago, and the fact that I just got another coworker addicted to another old hobby of mine (he was an easy sell) My leisure time is booked until further notice. At least it's getting cold now, so I have a good excuse to stay indoors all day! :-)

Fallout 3 - Surving the Post-Nuclear Capitol Wasteland

Yeah, I haven't posted much in a while, but after three travel weekends, (Origins, Steamboat Springs, and a day trip to Ogden) I'm taking things easy for a while. I like to spend a weekend bumming around the house now and then.

The only things of interest happening right now are work related, and I can't discuss those any more than this: We discovered an expensive problem with something, and there another thing going on right now that were doing to expand our service, but working with the other company involved is proving to be frustrating for several reasons.

So instead, I'll discuss a little PS3 game I've been playing in the evenings and on weekends called Fallout 3.

Here's the deal: The story is sort of an alternate time line of 1900's history where WWII never happened, and instead, the United States gets a face full of Nuclear Warheads detonated on them, mostly in the Capitol. in the 1940s or 1950s. Millions die, but some of the population make it into underground bunkers called Vaults (Built by the Vault-Tec corporation). About a hundred years pass since the apocalypse, and you decided to go out for a stroll in the devastated DC area, hearby named The Capital Wasteland.

For rest of the game you walk around shooting mutants and Mad-Max Style Raiders, while trying to scrounge up ammo, Medical supplies, food and water, and Nuka-Cola Bottle Caps, which are the defacto currency of the Wasteland.

The Art direction is interesting, with 1950 style advertising and naming conventions displayed all around, music that I'd have to say is from the 1940s and early 1950s, and your wrist-computer (big, clunky, and named the Pip-Boy) prominently displays cute illustrations involving this guy to the right.

I'm not going to painstakingly explain why the game is amusing, so I'll just leave it at this little anecdote. As you progress in the game, you may choose special abilities that suit your tastes and play style. These abilities (called Perks) have odd names and descriptions. There's the one called Lady Killer, that gives you some unique dialogue options when dealing with the opposite sex, and deals %10 more damage to female enemies.

Some of these perks are only acquired through in-game actions. I found one today, after I successfully performed a speech where I convinced the perky inventor lady that she ought to stop writing her Wasteland Survival Guide that she's been working all her life. It took the wind out of her sails, but she agreed, and I got the perk Dream Crusher. The description: "Something about your prescience dampens others' desires to exceed. Any enemy's chance of getting a critical hits is reduced by 50%." A game that rewards you not just for saving the world, or shoot things, but dashing the hopes for somebody's life's work. That's just deviously clever.

Twenty-Five Character Profile

While gaming over the Internet, you encounter a lot of people, but interact for only a brief time. Unless you use voice chat, you don't get to know anything about them as a person. And chatting with strangers over the Intarwebs, voice or otherwise, is NOT reccomended, because as I noted before, people suck. I think that Mad Scientists get their inspiration to destroy the world from hearing the words "Noob", "Sux", and "OMG ROFL!!!1" too often.

So while playing Team Fortress 2, I recalled that the PS3 saves the names of people that you've played with online, so I decided to go through and document some of these and share them with the world. I think you can have up to 25 characters for your PlayStation Network handle, and through this, you give major clues about your personality. So now, here's a few of the more interesting handles attached to people I've met while playing TF2:

• Armageddon513 - This guy probably was surprosed that someone already took the name "Armageddon," but he'll be damned if he lets that person be the only guy with his totally original nickname! Or maybe he's propheizing that the Earth's Final Battle will fall on May 13th of a year yet to be determined.
  
• TheDarkGaurdian - Maybe he's like me and favor's the Demoman class, who is in fact Black and excels at defending control points in the game.
  
• abraham007 - In 1863, Gen. Robert E. Lee is preparing to unfurl his Confederate Machinations on the world, starting at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The Union's last hope rests in one lone agent with the cunning, training, and Veto Power to stop him. This summer, prepare to be... emancipated! Abraham 007 - From Gettysburg With Love. When he addresses an Army, YOU'D BETTER LISTEN!!
  
• timburtonfan - Appropriatly, his icon was a cartoonish Grim Reaper.
  
• burntbrowniez - Mmmm... Brownies, burnt or not, are always good!
  
• hyphyxxl - I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean, but his icon was a Rubber Duck next to a Shark.
  
• thewaterispoison - Oh, another warning handle! But what water is poison? The Tap Water? The stuff in the Old Well? The irrigation water used around here has all kinds of runoff from the cow pastures, so that stuff is pretty close to poison. Or maybe he's another sucker who fell for that whole dihydrogen monoxide hoax some years back.
  
• NBK_GAYBUTTFUKRS - Somewhere, there's a twelve year-old boy laughing at his brilliance, thinking he's the most clever and edgey person ever to push an envelope. "I MADE A SWEAR IN MY NAME! I'M AWESOME!!"
  
• UPD8_TF2_4ConsoL - A request from a player, dismayed that Valve Software is pushing all the new goodies on PC, while the Console versions languish in their inital release. I think 4 maps have been added, but still only a pale shadow of the goods the PC players get.
  
• MissyMisdemeanor - Chances of this really being Missy Elliot? Only slightly better than NBK_GAYBUTTFUKRS not being a complete ass.
  
• KodaChromed - SONG CUE! Give us the niiiiight's bright colors, give us the greeeeens of summer, Make us think all the world's a sunny day!...
  

And that about wraps it all up. By the way my handle on the PlayStation Network is Pittencream, an obscure reference used due to every single nickname, screen name and alias I've ever used in my life being somehow unavilable. Guess the reference (without a google search. Honor System enforced) and you win Mad Props (cash value of Mad Props is 1/100 of a cent, void where prohibbited).

Three Lesser Nuggets of Happiness

1) Receiving a package from Woot.com. Today, it was three mini-Hibachi grills, semi-disposable, quasi-reusable, made to be portable. The three combined cost less than the five bucks shipping.

2) Opening my gas bill to find out that Questar is giving a rebate to customers due to lowered gas prices, thus bringing this month's bill to -$0.45. Hooray!

3) Mowing down my openents with HeavyWeaponsGuy in Team Fortress 2. Especially those obnoxious little Scout punks. Always trying to take my Sandvich...

Beatings from the World of Tomorrow!

In Terminator, Skynet sent an android back in time to kill the mother of the Human resistance faction. Did you ever wonder what would happen, if the Humans had been able to send a squadron of guys to destroy the time travel device before Mecha-Schwarzenegger went through the portal?

I've recently read through Rant by Chuck Palanhiuk, which also explores questions of the Grandfather Paradox. It provides a different theory altogether, rather than the usual destroy the universe or cause a second parallel universe to come into existence.

I mention this all because I've just discovered Achron, a yet to be released Real Time Strategy game that allows you to send units back into time, or even forward in time at certain intervals. Want to prevent an nasty attack on your base of operations? go back 60 seconds and shore up your defenses. While it's not the first game to feature manipulation of time, I think it's the first one to allow you to to make sweeping and dramatic changes. Check out the video below, and go to Achron's own website to see more. I'm not sure how it's all going to work, and I can't even wrap my head around all the combat possibilities, but it's nice to see someone trying something new.

Off the Wagon

I've mentioned here before that I'm a recovered Video Game Junkie. I could park in front of the Tube with a controller in hand to the point where I would start growing moss. I've spent Summers with friends playing Mario Kart and Super Bomberman almost every day.

A year ago, I finally picked up my first video game console that was made in the 21st Centrury. I've also picked up a PlayStation 2 to match it, because Sony decided not to make the 40GB console backwards compatable with PS2 games. I was surprised how little I played these things after I purchased them. an hour or two here, part of a Saturday Afternoon there, but I didn't log more than one or two hours in any one day that I played. I still have about four games that I purchased that Still haven't seen the inside of my PS3. I thought I had left that part of me behind.

Then, late one night there's a knock on the Door. I open it. There's a familiar looking monkey standing there, and he's holding something.

"Whadya have there, little friend?" I ask him. He hands it to me. It's a Playstation 2 game called Persona 4.

I look over the cover. One of those new Japanese RPGs that features a menu based combat system, and also features a kind of high school social networking mechanic, a popular recent addition to these kinds of games from Japan.

While I was distracted, the Monkey which gave me the game pounced. He put me in a full nelson, and triumphantly climbed onto my back, chattering all the way. That was when I remembered where I saw this back-dwelling monkey. I sent him packing after I replaced Video Games with Magic: The Gathering as my timesink of choice. And now he has returned.

Anyway, this monkey used a game to get his foot back in the door, so I decided to play it, in the hopes that I could finish it, and then concentrate on ditching him like I had done 8 years ago. Ah... JRPGs... Almost 40 hours of game play, and I still feel like I'm only about halfway through, if that far.

Here's the plot (if not so deep in Gameplay, JRPGs Overcompensate this shortcoming with Plot, if your lucky it might remotely makes sense). You're a 2nd year high school student in Japan who's parents take a contract job overseas. You are sent to live with your uncle, who is a Detective in Inaba, a little rural town in Japan. Hmm... The protagonist moves away from the Big City, to live in nowhere-ville. Already, I can relate to him!

The day you arrive, there's a local news personality is murdered, shortly after the Affair she's been having with a local polititian has been uncovered. A few days later, a local school student is murdered, and her body is found the same way as the first; draped over a rooftop TV Antenna. You and a few of your new schoolmates find another world after going through the TV Poltergeist style, and find a connection to that world and the recent murders. The rest of the game is spent social networking with your school mates, which give you combat powers when fighting monsters in the TV World.

As odd as this sounds, it's still more logical than some Anime and JRPGs I've seen.

Anyway, the monotonoius menu combat is broken up nicely by the social networking sim, where you make friends and strengthen those bonds by spending time with them after school, or sharing lunch with them. Also, you'll be asked to converse in some delicate situations so you'll need to boost attributes like courage, understanding, dilligence, expression and knowledge to be better able to deal with them.

It's kinda like somebody accidentally spilled Final Fantasy on The Sims, then tried to mop it up with pages torn from Manga.

I've spent the better part of the past two Saturdays playing it. When I was a kid, I'd get kicked off the TV if I would have spent even one third of that time playing games. Now, I can get all day marathons in. Such are the advantages of being a single adult.

I'll probably go back to my orginal schedule of maybe 6-8 hours of game time the per week after I finish this, but for right now, me and the Monkey are catching up on old times.

Old School Addictions

It's about time someone put this together: It's a Dual NES/SNES console and it only costs 50 bucks. So if you're having trouble finding an old nintendo console that actually worked (like I did) This is you're chance!

A Console for Pirated Games

I trust everyone's Christmas has been joyful. Things are still a bit tense around here, but I've been successfully keeping in fairly good humor most of the time.

So, let's discuss a Christmas gift that I received from one of my good friends back home. Ladies and Gentlemen, I bring you...

POWERGAMES: The game system with 111 sloppily pirated Nintendo ROMs, featuring heavily vandalized title screens!

So the box is completely devoid of any information regarding the manufacturer, the distributor, or anyone connected to the existence of this product, save for a "Made in China" label. Seems prudent to me, because if anyone claimed responsibility for this Pirate's booty, about every major game studio and publisher would send an army of lawyers after them, bearing Copyright Infringment suits against them for selling a console with a strangely familiar game called Space Hospital.

There's a cartridge that is inserted where the penguin's spinal column would go, and it plays 111 games, most of which have been ripped from a stack of Nintendo Carts, had their title screens altered in a half-assed fashion, and then stuck in onto that cart, regardless of quality. I am convinced that some of these games were projects rejected by publishers because they sucked. There's Flash games that have been playtested more extensivly than some of these ones. But there are some worth playing, such as Dr. Mario- oops, I meant Space Hosptial, two or three of the 15 or so Ninja Themed games, about 20 kinds of shooter (I likes me some space shooters!), and a handful of classic titles.

One of the Games, called "Clay Shooting" on the menu list, is just Game Mode C from Duck Hunt lifted clean. There's also Popeye, and a game that the manufacture will neither confirm nor deny is called "Super Mario Bros."

But the best part of all, the penguin's eyes are red LEDs that serve as power indicators. So when night falls, I perform the ritual of setting up a pentegram fashioned from broken NES games and controlers, light the 14 candles of Endbringing and SUMMON THE DEMON PENGUIN FROM THE DEPTHS OF ANT-ARCADIA, THE FROZEN GAME HELL!! RAWR!!

Fear the Penguin!

Food as Art

My sister has been gushing the joys of bento recently, while I've been playing Katamari Damacy. And then just today, this image appeared rather punctually on my monitor.

FOR. THE. WIN.

Scattershot Post - Weekend Activities

Sorry for the lack of posting, but work has been keeping me especially busy with difficult tasks and aggressive deadlines, but I just wanted you all to know I'm not dead or anything. So I'll just leave you with a short post on what I've been doing on weekends.

• I've been doing a little freelance work helping the King of the Cosmos rebuild the heavens by rolling all of the assorted junk on earth into spheres akin to large popcorn balls and throwing them into the sky.
• With the help of Karaoke master, Dr. Winston McCool (not his real name, obviously), I've learned that I can sing a Bob Dylan tune dead on.
• One of my esteemed colleges has lent to me his three seasons of Deadwood on DVD. Despite success and critical acclaim, the show only lasted for three seasons due to the incredible production costs of making all of the sets and costumes authentic. It's a clever show, despite heave use of the Carlin Seven, especially number five, which is every character's favorite name to call somebody.

Hope to have more soon, maybe expanding on the subtleties of Karaoke. Until then, Good Day.

Time for an Upgrade

Last year, I purchased a low-end Laptop computer because I didn't want to drag my old Dell across the country when I had plans to replace it as soon as possible anyway. This little laptop was meant to be sort of a transitional machine; meant only to fill in the gap between the Move and the time when I would get a new high end desk top to run all of my important applications.

It's been a year since then, and I'm still using the laptop, as it fulfills my need for the intarwebs, and I've purchased a PS3 and a PS2 to run my critical software. So I've been putting off the purchase of the Super Box for a while now. But one of my best friends decided he needed some more cohorts on his favorite MMORPGs, and he gave to me an extra copy that he had, with the hopes I'd install it and play it. Sadly, this laptop has no graphics acceleration, which means everything I'd try to run on it would go into slide show mode. A lot of machines are fast enough to use use the system RAM to run older games, but because this was meant to be a temporary machine (and because I hadn't yet loosened the fiscal restrictions of my previous job) I had purchased a Windows Vista machine with only 1GB RAM. enough to run the OS and a few apps (Browser, Instant Messenger, Email, Music Player, etc.) but didn't have enough to spare otherwise.

So now, I'm looking to cash out my New-Computer-Slush-Fund that's been slowly accumulating for most of this year so I can finally play this MMORPG, World of something or other. I dunno, all the kids are talking about it, and I think some kinda new add on was released just today; something about a Monarch and his Angry Lichen, or some nonsense.

Anyhow, this will be the first mid-to-high end computer I've purchased since I blew all of my High School Graduation Money on an IBM Aptiva with 64MB RAM, and 450MHz of blazing speed. (Remember, that was respectable in the Summer of 1999.) Now, with the advice of Co-workers who build machines for family and friends as a source of supplemental income, I'm looking to spend between one and two grand on a machine that will still play the latest games run my life enhancement applications with little performance slowdown within the next 2-3 years. I've been told I can have such a machine for under $1,000, (search around on Newegg) but I'll also need to buy a monitor as well (a big reason why the old Dell didn't make the move is because I didn't want to lug that HUUUGE Cathode Ray Tube with me).

So, I'm open to suggestions, with these two caveats:

1. Tiffany, Tom, you can keep your damned Kool-Aid, I'm not joining the Mac Panthers.
2. If you're about to recommend that I build my own, then you should read this first.

Give me your wisdom, oh vast Hive Mind of the 'Tubes!

UPDATE: I usually don't like deleting people comments, but when they are posted with BLATANT DISREGARD with the only two caveats I listed in this post, I terminate with extreame Prejudice. Try again, Laedelas.

The Games I Play

Back in April, I finally bought one of them new-fangled next-gen video game consoles that are all the rage among the kids these days, specifically, a PlayStation 3. After I found out that the cheaper 40GB $400 version of the PS3, which replaced the $600, 60GB version, had the backwards compatibility feature removed, I also purchased a PS2. I guess they were bitter that people weren't buying enough of their overpriced hardware, so they decided to make the newer cheaper one suck a little more, just as a giant "screw you!" to their market.

Anyway, the games I've played so far:

Assassin's Creed: If you buy a PS3, know that it has the most advanced visual capabilities than any other of it's cousins. Therefore, you'll need one Eye Candy game to showcase that feature. This is that game.

Large cities with hundreds of little virtual people walking about, some rabble rousing, some beg for coins intrusively, some are mentally ill and belligerent, some pimping their wares at storefronts, and others are soldiers that will attack you if you engage in activities that are anti-social. Like killing people. They frown on that.

The buildings are large and beautifully rendered, and serve as monkey bars for you to climb on. The attention to detail in how your character climbs seamlessly up cathedrals and castles is incredible, especially when you finish off a climb with the incredible Leap of Faith. Watching Altair jump off a building from hundreds of feet into a hay filled cart just doesn't get old, at least not for a while.

The visuals are important because you'll need something pretty to look at in order to distract you from how shallow the actual game play is. Ben "Yahtzee" Crosshaw summed the whole thing nicely in one of the few reviews of his that I wholeheartedly agree with (warning: Yahtzee works Blue!), but in summation, game play is repetitive, the fighting is oversimplified, in the first half of the game, and for a game that has "Assassin" in the title, there's woefully few actual Assassinations. It's worth playing through once, but it has zero replay value.

The Orange Box: Let me tells you, I love me some Half-Life. I think it's because the Protagonist, Gordon Freeman, is what all nerds secretly want to be. He's an Uber-Nerd with a PhD in Hypothetical Physics, who accidentally opened a portal to another dimension through which hostile alien life forms immediately poured through, at which point he begins hacking and shooting through all of them, as well as the military task force sent to destroy the aliens and silence all of Gordon's colleagues.

What part of that description does not sound awesome?

Also in the Orange Box is Team Fortress 2, which, until it's release, was the only game in production that could compare with the Vaporware status of Duke Nukem Forever (Still waiting for that one!) It's typical capture the flag gameplay with nine unique feeling, and yet balanced classes. As for the tone of the game, just watch the "Meet the _____" movies here. Amusing.

And last but not least, Portal. There's nothing I can do to praise this game more than the rest of the Internet has, so for those few who still haven't heard of this game (probably limited to my parents) here's the trailer that dropped my jaw the first time I saw it.

Devil May Cry 4: This series is notorious for being incredibly difficult, but I think they got the difficulty curve adjusted just right this time. Combat is entertaining, especially when you see how many times you can slash/stab/shoot/slam an enemy in the air before you touch the ground. The story is... well, who cares. Swordplay, Magic Demon Arm of Justice, and general badassery abound. It just feels satisfying.

Ninja Gaiden Sigma: What is the most deadly enemy an Ninja can face? Dragons? Samurai? Pirates? No, the most deadly enemy a Ninja can battle, at least in this game, is Bad Camera Angles. Nothing is more fatal to the protagonist than a viewpoint that simply refuses to show the person that is jamming a katana up your behind. Devil May Cry's Camera issues were sightly annoying, at worst, and they ironed most of them out after the first game. This game just refuses to cooperate at all. I stopped playing it at the end of the second level. It's just not worth my time.

That's all for now. next time, PS2 games!

Trailblazing Flora

This nifty little flower grows about two feet from the front of my porch, as if to challenge me.

"Yeah, that's right. You didn't plant me, or even water me, but I grow here anyway. Wanna do something about it? I don't think you have the cajones, pal!"

The red and yellow coloring reminds me of one of them Fire Flowers from Super Mario Brothers. That's right, even the sight of nature marching onto my turf reminds me of classic Nintendo games. I'm still a geek, regardless of where I live.

Scatter Shot Post - 07/15/08

• Today is the nine month anniversary of my Job. Yay!
• I'm currently rewriting an SQL procedure that was meagerly documented, fragile to begin with, and had patchwork-alterations made to it about 15 times in the past 3 years. This is kinda like major reconstructive surgery on a gnarled mass of scar tissue. We can rebuild it. Make it stronger, faster, less prone to screwing up and gobbling up man-hours to fix...
• I discovered that Pasta Carbonara leftovers must be microwaved for a longer time at a lower power level, lest you turn it into a mass of scrambled eggs with pasta embedded in it.
• For reasons that I can't quite explain, I had What is Love by Haddaway stuck in my head this afternoon. Maybe I should put Night at the Roxbury in my Netflix Queue...
• The fishing trip has left my arms lobster red, as punishment for violating my longstanding agreement with my skin: no more than 60 minutes of direct sunlight per day, with at least a half hour break every 20 minutes.
• Last weekend, I achieved one of my long incomplete video game goals: I finally blew up that friggin' ion cannon at the end of the Terran campaign in Starcraft. A solid dozen of Battlecruisers For-The-Win. I just wish I had a hotkey that could cue up Flight of the Valkaries, as it would have been especially appropriate.
• Speaking of Video Games, I found that I don't have the stamina to stare at a screen all day like I used to. I used to be able to do about 8+ hours in front of a screen if my parents would let me (they didn't). Now I'm usually only good for about two hours, or if the game is particularly engrossing, maybe 4 or 5 on a weekend before I have to turn it off for the day. I'll take this as a sign of full recovery from a childhood Nintendo addiction.
• I know I've already made several of you aware of this, but this blog is the funniest thing I've read in a long time. Read it if you haven't already. Start with the earliest posts.

That's enough for now. Good night, God Bless, and Good Luck!