272: fair is fair
I remembered [some of] what I'd forgotten to mention, which is really poor of me, considering how I've been acting as of late.
The past couple of days, the entire team has been pulling out all the stops and getting work done at a quick rate, so that we've actually been leaving at a decent hour. It's amazing, considering how poorly we'd been doing prior to this, that we actually had been *looking* for things to do at several points last night and the night before. Even Stinky has been doing well, all things considered [though it's possible that I've simply been away when he slacked off, but I'm in too good a mood to be so expectantly critical]. I guess it's like how Penny Arcade was out-done by Rob Liefeld at Baltimore Comic-Con, after their initial mocking him... sometimes karma decides to do a total 180 from out of nowhere.
Otherwise... hmm. I've been really angry about Pterattack [the one real Neopets shmup, in purists' terms], not because it's random at all, but because it's random in gameplay, even in the new edition. For instance, using this Draik as a relative-scale example [because I've already remote-hosted it and am too lazy to grab the Green Pteri]
the Draik itself is the character, the outline for which would be the most ideal hitbox. The circle is a lazy but acceptable hitbox. The actual complete image is the actual hitbox. :p
Also, power-ups are still unreliably sporadic, and it doesn't really approach being a good shmup in modern terms [that is, Ikaruga instead of Galaga] until your Pteri is fully powered, and even then it has this awful habit of the rapid fire sputtering out at the precise moment when something is coming straight at you, like, "Pow. Pow. P-pow. Pow... Pow... Pow. P-pow. Pow... Pow..." At least the old version was regular--even rhythmic--in its rate of fire.
The only way I've found to solidly predict the shot, especially since the space bar is to fire, is to shoot maybe once per second--an unacceptably low rate of fire especially during the higher levels with everything starting to swarm in all at once. I've shot a feedback message stating as such, but I highly doubt they'll take me seriously :/
Out of fairness, though, there are obviously many not-cheaters who have mastered the game without the complaints I've proposed, but I expect they're not shmuppers [or, they don't consider themselves as such]. They simply learn the game mechanics and go with the flow.
Actually, maybe they're PERFECT shmuppers--screw this hitbox and bullet pattern memorization crap o_O
Since it looks like the plot hasn't begun a new portion yet [unlike yesterday, which kept me up well after when I *should* have gone to bed], I may actually get out in a sec and finally mail off stuff I should have long ago but didn't because gas prices shot up and I just got lazy. I should also return/exchange those Spiderman Gummi Vites I found at Wal-Mart, because they were already open when I got home with them :p I mean, yeah, I guess I should've checked that at the store, but how often does someone ACTUALLY break open the seal on those things? [Mind you, I'm checking from now on!]
I'll also have to remember to take my camera to work again on Saturday. You'll see why on Sunday morning ^^
The past couple of days, the entire team has been pulling out all the stops and getting work done at a quick rate, so that we've actually been leaving at a decent hour. It's amazing, considering how poorly we'd been doing prior to this, that we actually had been *looking* for things to do at several points last night and the night before. Even Stinky has been doing well, all things considered [though it's possible that I've simply been away when he slacked off, but I'm in too good a mood to be so expectantly critical]. I guess it's like how Penny Arcade was out-done by Rob Liefeld at Baltimore Comic-Con, after their initial mocking him... sometimes karma decides to do a total 180 from out of nowhere.
Otherwise... hmm. I've been really angry about Pterattack [the one real Neopets shmup, in purists' terms], not because it's random at all, but because it's random in gameplay, even in the new edition. For instance, using this Draik as a relative-scale example [because I've already remote-hosted it and am too lazy to grab the Green Pteri]
the Draik itself is the character, the outline for which would be the most ideal hitbox. The circle is a lazy but acceptable hitbox. The actual complete image is the actual hitbox. :p
Also, power-ups are still unreliably sporadic, and it doesn't really approach being a good shmup in modern terms [that is, Ikaruga instead of Galaga] until your Pteri is fully powered, and even then it has this awful habit of the rapid fire sputtering out at the precise moment when something is coming straight at you, like, "Pow. Pow. P-pow. Pow... Pow... Pow. P-pow. Pow... Pow..." At least the old version was regular--even rhythmic--in its rate of fire.
The only way I've found to solidly predict the shot, especially since the space bar is to fire, is to shoot maybe once per second--an unacceptably low rate of fire especially during the higher levels with everything starting to swarm in all at once. I've shot a feedback message stating as such, but I highly doubt they'll take me seriously :/
Out of fairness, though, there are obviously many not-cheaters who have mastered the game without the complaints I've proposed, but I expect they're not shmuppers [or, they don't consider themselves as such]. They simply learn the game mechanics and go with the flow.
Actually, maybe they're PERFECT shmuppers--screw this hitbox and bullet pattern memorization crap o_O
Since it looks like the plot hasn't begun a new portion yet [unlike yesterday, which kept me up well after when I *should* have gone to bed], I may actually get out in a sec and finally mail off stuff I should have long ago but didn't because gas prices shot up and I just got lazy. I should also return/exchange those Spiderman Gummi Vites I found at Wal-Mart, because they were already open when I got home with them :p I mean, yeah, I guess I should've checked that at the store, but how often does someone ACTUALLY break open the seal on those things? [Mind you, I'm checking from now on!]
I'll also have to remember to take my camera to work again on Saturday. You'll see why on Sunday morning ^^