Wednesday!
Okay, so first off are the foxes! On Monday, I saw some foxes out and about. The mommy fox was very itsy at me being near by and actually crossed over the road to ward me off! I can only guess that she has got some babies in a burrow near the church. Then, I saw daddy coming home - he was huge! At first I thought he was a dog or something because he was so huge, about twice the size you'd expect a fox to be. We figured they were so active because it was bin night. I feel really lucky and privileged to have seen them.
What else has been going on? Well, I've been playing FFXII. It's okay but not stellar. Basically the plot and characters seem to be a copy of Star Wars. Lets consider the evidence:
Hero is a small orphan boy who hates the empire and lives in the desert.
He hooks up with a scoundrel.
Who has a non-human sidekick who's strange for allying with a human.
Who accidentally rescues the Princess.
I've only got some 6 hours into it, but so far it's also looking like said scoundrel is going to have some sort of change of heart. And don't get me started on the Reks/Biggs parallels.
The game is fun to play and handles exactly like Knights of the Old Republic, which is a good thing, mostly. However, I some serious issues with the level up system. See, FF sets itself apart from most of the other RPGs on the market by having a great and interesting system each installment. X-2 had the awesome dress spheres, VIII had my personal favourite - Junctions and 5/6/Tactics all have Jobs. Brilliant. XII has licenses and gambits. Gambits are basically like the AI script, EXCEPT YOU HAVE TO BUY THEM! WTF! Seriously, you walk into ye olde shoppe and order 3 potions, a phoenix down, 2 eye drops and the option to not make my partners act like retards. It makes no sense and isn't cool. I want to spend my money on new swords and cool items, not marching orders. Which leads us to the license board. Spend points, unlock skills. New related skills can now be unlocked. Makes sense. EXCEPT YOU HAVE TO BUY THEM! That's right, after you've learned said spell with your skill points (license points or lp), you have to go into the ye olde shoppe and add to your order the ability to cast spells. Again it makes no sense and is not cool. It takes all the fun out of battling to level up too. Sure, I can get into 14 hours of random battles to level everyone up but it'll do very little good as afterwards I've got to track down a shop that is selling the skills and spells I want to learn. I'll give it a bit more of a go before I give up though as it's not terrible, but I doubt it's a threat to VIII's or X-2's status as most awesome. This has nothing to do with Fran. Who should get it on with Chewie.
So: Now that's today, lets take a quick look back at beyond yesterday!
Saturday 17 June 2006 - 07:02PM (BST)
Reload! Shoot Outside the Screen!
I had an ice cream the other day, bought for me by my lovely girl. Now, this was no ordinary ice cream. See, the ice cream was stored inside a cartridge. Like a shotgun shell. This rocks. The cartridge is loaded into the machine, then the handle is pulled, which squishes the ice cream out into the cone. Awesome! Of course, when the cartridge is empty, there is no funny voice repeating 'Reload! Shoot Outside the Screen!' like in Virtua Cop. Shame really, otherwise I would *so* be applying for that job.
Not me!
Yeah! I still remember that ice cream machine, man, it was awesome! It's been mentioned quite a few times since, too. So it obviously had an impact. And Virtua Cop still gets mentioned too. Not me!
Tuesday 20 June 2006 - 11:04PM (BST)
Chun Li Cosplays!
I put this together for my good friend (Spaceterrapin), and thought I should share with everyone! The astute KoF fans among you will notice I 'enhanced' Mary's chest. Terry will thank me!
In other news nothing much is going on at the moment. Just waiting for thursday to roll around; when I am going to visit my gran.Obviously not a serious sprite edit, but still very fun. I particularly like how Ash and King turned out. Friday 23
June 2006 - 12:25PM (BST)
I spent 6 hours on the train....
...and everyone on it was using their mobiles. You know the sort; power dressing women and business suit wearing men. Chatting on their phones being demanding and direct with the person on the other end as if to say 'Look at me! I'm important enough to tell someone else what to do!' Saying things with obviously 'over blown' language to sound knowledgeable.
This sort of thing is fine and doesn't annoy me. It did however reveal to me that I've been spending way too much time playing the King of Fighters games recently. I began to imagine them all being important players in the organization of the KoF annual tournament! This one guys was talking about 'rivets' and them being the wrong kind. I imagined these being the rivets on the winner's stage (a la KoF 2000). Some other guy was talking about another company doing things cheaper; this was obviously something to do with the catering. And let's face it between Yuri and Chang; that's a *lot* of food. This continued throughout the day until all the invitations had been sent, the stage's were booked and ready and every last detail was arranged. Even the soundtrack.
Now if anyone see's this a slightly weird 'Superman: Red Son' reference, you're probably more like me than you'd like to admit.
Ha! I remember these thoughts! Those people still piss me off. Saying things like "Can you action that?" WTF! Don't you mean "Can you do that?" Ah well, just glad I'm not one of them.
Saturday 24 June 2006 - 04:04PM (BST)
It's a sho(w)down! Between Samurai!
So yesterday I tried out, for the first time in like, ten years - Samurai Shodown! I bought number 5, recently released on the PS2 in the uk. I thought it might be good fun as I'm really getting into the KoF series at the moment. Initial impressions were good.
But the game has some serious flaws. The first one is related to the difficulty settings and the new 'sword meter' feature. So when you strike, you use up some of your sword meter. It replenishes when you're not striking. The higher the meter, the more damage you do when attacking. This is a cool idea as we all know that being a samurai is all about killing your foe in a single stroke. And a full sword meter means you're looking at 2/3+ damage to your opponents life bar. Awesome! Unfortunately on the easy difficulty settings the AI doesn't take this into account. So it makes few, opportunistic strikes as you'd expect from difficulty one.
And then slays you in a single stroke and looks boss!
The reverse problem is also true. On the harder settings the cpu characters go mad and perform huge strings of attacks you don't feel. The other major problem with the game is that there is little to zero difference between how the characters play. You expect a few clones (Kyo/Iori, Ryu/Ken etc.) but most of the characters have about three moves, including a mix of projectile/rising/travelling, which are executed in the same way for each chacter. So the impressive roster of twenty something fighters is actually worth about six, with most of them 'pulling a fireball' on a D/DF/F/A move. Which is boring. The final issue with the game is the 'super-ace-hyper-mega-you-die-now' moves. You have two types. A slow-mo custom combo style move which is only usable under certain conditions which occur as often as hen's teeth and near useless. And a super art style unique attack which deals less damage (on average) than a full sword meter heavy attack and is performed in the same way for each character. And prevents you from using the aforementioned slo-mo thingy.
So with screwy AI that rewards cheap gameplay, little actual difference between the characters and no real super arts to master; does this game offer anything at all?
Actually it does! The two main selling points of this game should be the graphics, which are beautiful, and the sound, which is awesome. The sprites are huge, colourful and exciting. Plus the character designs are cool. There are all the traditionals (i.e. cute girls, brooding ninjas, complete freaks, huge haired heroes etc.) and they're done well. The animation on each character is great, and some of them have companions, such as a hawk or wolf, which look good and add to the spectacle. The sound is amazing too. There are loads of music tracks, which are a cool mix of atmospheric sound, j-rock style guitar fests (a la Dynasty Warriors) and traditiona fudal Japanese instrumental pieces. In short, music designed to make you feel like a samurai as you play. The in game chatter between the characters if fun too ("I'll fix your problems!"). Some of then endings are damn weird. All in all I'd give it a 2/5. Fun but just to dip into with friends. Wow - I never meant to turn it into a review. Anyways;
I'll leave you with a quick rendition of one of the weirdest endings.
Girl - Why? Why must we fight for revenge? *Angst*
*scary noise wake her from angsting*
Girl - Ah! My baby has turned into a giant metal lion! What am I to do!
*scary noise from said giant metal lion*
Girl - Why? Why have you turned evil? Was it (insert boss name here)? *angst*
*scary noise as giant metal lion gets ready to attack girl*
Girl - Then I will kill you and keep my promise to you. By killing myself straight afterwards! *angst*
*baby/giant metal lion and girl die*
--Fin--
Kev goes WTF!?!
Ah! Samurai Shodown! Ricky described it best as SNK does Darkstalkers. Fun, but not the best. That ending was weird. I kid you not about the giant metal lion.
Monday 26 June 2006 - 08:26PM (BST)
Here's Aoi....
...telling it like it is. Word.
If you win you get stuff. If you lose; you don't. Otherwise it would be too much like winning.
Thursday 29 June 2006 - 10:37PM (BST) King Kong Escapes!
I watched the excellent 'King Kong Escapes' today. Check out the photo album for some pictures! So yeah, I love films like this. A giant monkey takes no crap from a giant robotmonkey. What more could you ask for? I enjoyed it more than the Peter Jackson remake. The one area where this film needs extra credit is the costume department. You get (sexy) uniforms, period fashions, and the evil mastermind behind the creation of Mechakong has minons dressed in black with white gloves.
And. Wears. A. Cape.
Awesome!
You already know if you'd like to see two men dressed as monkeys (one of them metal) fight it out on a replica of the Tokyo Tower. Me? I can't get enough of Toho's 'golden era'. Just like that evil Dr. Who, who can't get enough of element X! So rather than mine it he creates a giant robot monkey to dig it out for him.
I like the way that guys thinks...
So when Mechakong isn't enough he needs the real Kong to dig that hole. When the radiation from element X helps Kong break his hypnotic programing, he's really pissed and an epic battle follows. I've said it before but I'll say it again;
Awesome!
Man, VF4 is pretty cool. But not as cool as that movie. In fact, I'd say we're about due a re-watch. Seriously, the guy wants to dig a hole to get at element X. He doesn't get a giant drill. Oh no. Get builds a massive robot monkey and gets said massive robot monkey to drop bombs to get at element X. Awesome.
Sunday 2 July 2006 - 12:18AM (BST)
Sometimes you've got to let someone else do the talking for you...
In this instance it's the awesome Luca Turilli.
There between the eight suns
right before the system Hazor
shines the silent planet
Alkor Zephyr is its name
Surface made of magma
of wide oceans and volcanos
middle dusty regions where
no trace of life is found
From the space an ancient secret
soon will mark this old world
In the southern region
live the people of Iraklia
descendants of peaceful
ancient dynasty of Lor
Between these a warrior
destined to become the victim
victim of a prophecy
now lost between the stars
He will be the astral rider
prophecy's new fighter
FROM THE DUST
OF A TIME NOW FORGOTTEN
IT WILL COME THE DESTROYER OF WORLDS
AS THE LEGEND OF THE ANCIENTS
REVEALED WITH ITS WORDS
IT WILL COME FROM THE BLOODY DIMENSION
WHERE DEATH IS A PRESENT FROM GOD
HE'LL FACE THE SACRIFICED ONE
THE RIDER WHO OWNS...
WHO OWNS THE ASTRAL FIRE!
I fuckin' love that track. I guess the day I posted those lyrics, I was just feeling it. Awesome!
Sunday 2 July 2006 - 09:14AM (BST)
We are gathered here today...
So yesterday I was once again reminded how lucky I am, when my girl and I began discussing plans for a 'theoretical King of Fighters themed wedding'. The general idea was that as long as no one was going as Bao, then everyone was happy. I think we ended on me going as Terry and her going as either Andy (gayness!) or Mai-cosplaying as Whip. Because whilst Mai is cooler, Whip has a more 'conservative' outfit, and one you're more likely to wear in public.
Apparently there's no way we're doing this for our own wedding though...
...damn...
We didn't do it, when we actually did get married. And we all now know that Whip and Kula are an item.
That'll do for now. More later!
What else has been going on? Well, I've been playing FFXII. It's okay but not stellar. Basically the plot and characters seem to be a copy of Star Wars. Lets consider the evidence:
Hero is a small orphan boy who hates the empire and lives in the desert.
He hooks up with a scoundrel.
Who has a non-human sidekick who's strange for allying with a human.
Who accidentally rescues the Princess.
I've only got some 6 hours into it, but so far it's also looking like said scoundrel is going to have some sort of change of heart. And don't get me started on the Reks/Biggs parallels.
The game is fun to play and handles exactly like Knights of the Old Republic, which is a good thing, mostly. However, I some serious issues with the level up system. See, FF sets itself apart from most of the other RPGs on the market by having a great and interesting system each installment. X-2 had the awesome dress spheres, VIII had my personal favourite - Junctions and 5/6/Tactics all have Jobs. Brilliant. XII has licenses and gambits. Gambits are basically like the AI script, EXCEPT YOU HAVE TO BUY THEM! WTF! Seriously, you walk into ye olde shoppe and order 3 potions, a phoenix down, 2 eye drops and the option to not make my partners act like retards. It makes no sense and isn't cool. I want to spend my money on new swords and cool items, not marching orders. Which leads us to the license board. Spend points, unlock skills. New related skills can now be unlocked. Makes sense. EXCEPT YOU HAVE TO BUY THEM! That's right, after you've learned said spell with your skill points (license points or lp), you have to go into the ye olde shoppe and add to your order the ability to cast spells. Again it makes no sense and is not cool. It takes all the fun out of battling to level up too. Sure, I can get into 14 hours of random battles to level everyone up but it'll do very little good as afterwards I've got to track down a shop that is selling the skills and spells I want to learn. I'll give it a bit more of a go before I give up though as it's not terrible, but I doubt it's a threat to VIII's or X-2's status as most awesome. This has nothing to do with Fran. Who should get it on with Chewie.
So: Now that's today, lets take a quick look back at beyond yesterday!
Saturday 17 June 2006 - 07:02PM (BST)
Reload! Shoot Outside the Screen!
I had an ice cream the other day, bought for me by my lovely girl. Now, this was no ordinary ice cream. See, the ice cream was stored inside a cartridge. Like a shotgun shell. This rocks. The cartridge is loaded into the machine, then the handle is pulled, which squishes the ice cream out into the cone. Awesome! Of course, when the cartridge is empty, there is no funny voice repeating 'Reload! Shoot Outside the Screen!' like in Virtua Cop. Shame really, otherwise I would *so* be applying for that job.
Not me!
Yeah! I still remember that ice cream machine, man, it was awesome! It's been mentioned quite a few times since, too. So it obviously had an impact. And Virtua Cop still gets mentioned too. Not me!
Tuesday 20 June 2006 - 11:04PM (BST)
Chun Li Cosplays!
I put this together for my good friend (Spaceterrapin), and thought I should share with everyone! The astute KoF fans among you will notice I 'enhanced' Mary's chest. Terry will thank me!
In other news nothing much is going on at the moment. Just waiting for thursday to roll around; when I am going to visit my gran.Obviously not a serious sprite edit, but still very fun. I particularly like how Ash and King turned out. Friday 23
June 2006 - 12:25PM (BST)
I spent 6 hours on the train....
...and everyone on it was using their mobiles. You know the sort; power dressing women and business suit wearing men. Chatting on their phones being demanding and direct with the person on the other end as if to say 'Look at me! I'm important enough to tell someone else what to do!' Saying things with obviously 'over blown' language to sound knowledgeable.
This sort of thing is fine and doesn't annoy me. It did however reveal to me that I've been spending way too much time playing the King of Fighters games recently. I began to imagine them all being important players in the organization of the KoF annual tournament! This one guys was talking about 'rivets' and them being the wrong kind. I imagined these being the rivets on the winner's stage (a la KoF 2000). Some other guy was talking about another company doing things cheaper; this was obviously something to do with the catering. And let's face it between Yuri and Chang; that's a *lot* of food. This continued throughout the day until all the invitations had been sent, the stage's were booked and ready and every last detail was arranged. Even the soundtrack.
Now if anyone see's this a slightly weird 'Superman: Red Son' reference, you're probably more like me than you'd like to admit.
Ha! I remember these thoughts! Those people still piss me off. Saying things like "Can you action that?" WTF! Don't you mean "Can you do that?" Ah well, just glad I'm not one of them.
Saturday 24 June 2006 - 04:04PM (BST)
It's a sho(w)down! Between Samurai!
So yesterday I tried out, for the first time in like, ten years - Samurai Shodown! I bought number 5, recently released on the PS2 in the uk. I thought it might be good fun as I'm really getting into the KoF series at the moment. Initial impressions were good.
But the game has some serious flaws. The first one is related to the difficulty settings and the new 'sword meter' feature. So when you strike, you use up some of your sword meter. It replenishes when you're not striking. The higher the meter, the more damage you do when attacking. This is a cool idea as we all know that being a samurai is all about killing your foe in a single stroke. And a full sword meter means you're looking at 2/3+ damage to your opponents life bar. Awesome! Unfortunately on the easy difficulty settings the AI doesn't take this into account. So it makes few, opportunistic strikes as you'd expect from difficulty one.
And then slays you in a single stroke and looks boss!
The reverse problem is also true. On the harder settings the cpu characters go mad and perform huge strings of attacks you don't feel. The other major problem with the game is that there is little to zero difference between how the characters play. You expect a few clones (Kyo/Iori, Ryu/Ken etc.) but most of the characters have about three moves, including a mix of projectile/rising/travelling, which are executed in the same way for each chacter. So the impressive roster of twenty something fighters is actually worth about six, with most of them 'pulling a fireball' on a D/DF/F/A move. Which is boring. The final issue with the game is the 'super-ace-hyper-mega-you-die-now' moves. You have two types. A slow-mo custom combo style move which is only usable under certain conditions which occur as often as hen's teeth and near useless. And a super art style unique attack which deals less damage (on average) than a full sword meter heavy attack and is performed in the same way for each character. And prevents you from using the aforementioned slo-mo thingy.
So with screwy AI that rewards cheap gameplay, little actual difference between the characters and no real super arts to master; does this game offer anything at all?
Actually it does! The two main selling points of this game should be the graphics, which are beautiful, and the sound, which is awesome. The sprites are huge, colourful and exciting. Plus the character designs are cool. There are all the traditionals (i.e. cute girls, brooding ninjas, complete freaks, huge haired heroes etc.) and they're done well. The animation on each character is great, and some of them have companions, such as a hawk or wolf, which look good and add to the spectacle. The sound is amazing too. There are loads of music tracks, which are a cool mix of atmospheric sound, j-rock style guitar fests (a la Dynasty Warriors) and traditiona fudal Japanese instrumental pieces. In short, music designed to make you feel like a samurai as you play. The in game chatter between the characters if fun too ("I'll fix your problems!"). Some of then endings are damn weird. All in all I'd give it a 2/5. Fun but just to dip into with friends. Wow - I never meant to turn it into a review. Anyways;
I'll leave you with a quick rendition of one of the weirdest endings.
Girl - Why? Why must we fight for revenge? *Angst*
*scary noise wake her from angsting*
Girl - Ah! My baby has turned into a giant metal lion! What am I to do!
*scary noise from said giant metal lion*
Girl - Why? Why have you turned evil? Was it (insert boss name here)? *angst*
*scary noise as giant metal lion gets ready to attack girl*
Girl - Then I will kill you and keep my promise to you. By killing myself straight afterwards! *angst*
*baby/giant metal lion and girl die*
--Fin--
Kev goes WTF!?!
Ah! Samurai Shodown! Ricky described it best as SNK does Darkstalkers. Fun, but not the best. That ending was weird. I kid you not about the giant metal lion.
Monday 26 June 2006 - 08:26PM (BST)
Here's Aoi....
...telling it like it is. Word.
If you win you get stuff. If you lose; you don't. Otherwise it would be too much like winning.
Thursday 29 June 2006 - 10:37PM (BST) King Kong Escapes!
I watched the excellent 'King Kong Escapes' today. Check out the photo album for some pictures! So yeah, I love films like this. A giant monkey takes no crap from a giant robotmonkey. What more could you ask for? I enjoyed it more than the Peter Jackson remake. The one area where this film needs extra credit is the costume department. You get (sexy) uniforms, period fashions, and the evil mastermind behind the creation of Mechakong has minons dressed in black with white gloves.
And. Wears. A. Cape.
Awesome!
You already know if you'd like to see two men dressed as monkeys (one of them metal) fight it out on a replica of the Tokyo Tower. Me? I can't get enough of Toho's 'golden era'. Just like that evil Dr. Who, who can't get enough of element X! So rather than mine it he creates a giant robot monkey to dig it out for him.
I like the way that guys thinks...
So when Mechakong isn't enough he needs the real Kong to dig that hole. When the radiation from element X helps Kong break his hypnotic programing, he's really pissed and an epic battle follows. I've said it before but I'll say it again;
Awesome!
Man, VF4 is pretty cool. But not as cool as that movie. In fact, I'd say we're about due a re-watch. Seriously, the guy wants to dig a hole to get at element X. He doesn't get a giant drill. Oh no. Get builds a massive robot monkey and gets said massive robot monkey to drop bombs to get at element X. Awesome.
Sunday 2 July 2006 - 12:18AM (BST)
Sometimes you've got to let someone else do the talking for you...
In this instance it's the awesome Luca Turilli.
There between the eight suns
right before the system Hazor
shines the silent planet
Alkor Zephyr is its name
Surface made of magma
of wide oceans and volcanos
middle dusty regions where
no trace of life is found
From the space an ancient secret
soon will mark this old world
In the southern region
live the people of Iraklia
descendants of peaceful
ancient dynasty of Lor
Between these a warrior
destined to become the victim
victim of a prophecy
now lost between the stars
He will be the astral rider
prophecy's new fighter
FROM THE DUST
OF A TIME NOW FORGOTTEN
IT WILL COME THE DESTROYER OF WORLDS
AS THE LEGEND OF THE ANCIENTS
REVEALED WITH ITS WORDS
IT WILL COME FROM THE BLOODY DIMENSION
WHERE DEATH IS A PRESENT FROM GOD
HE'LL FACE THE SACRIFICED ONE
THE RIDER WHO OWNS...
WHO OWNS THE ASTRAL FIRE!
I fuckin' love that track. I guess the day I posted those lyrics, I was just feeling it. Awesome!
Sunday 2 July 2006 - 09:14AM (BST)
We are gathered here today...
So yesterday I was once again reminded how lucky I am, when my girl and I began discussing plans for a 'theoretical King of Fighters themed wedding'. The general idea was that as long as no one was going as Bao, then everyone was happy. I think we ended on me going as Terry and her going as either Andy (gayness!) or Mai-cosplaying as Whip. Because whilst Mai is cooler, Whip has a more 'conservative' outfit, and one you're more likely to wear in public.
Apparently there's no way we're doing this for our own wedding though...
...damn...
We didn't do it, when we actually did get married. And we all now know that Whip and Kula are an item.
That'll do for now. More later!