Even In The Miiverse, I'm Still Self Conscious.

The two middle weekends April, I did a lot of travelling.  And by "a lot," I mean that I've flown and driven 3,200 miles while visiting California twice and driving the length of the state.  That's a lot for me considering I haven't been back to California since mid June 2012, which according to some people is a long time to be away from where I spent the first 31 years of my life.  It's not that travelling is not my strong suite or my pint of stout, it's just that I'm not able to take a lot of time off from work.  To note, I'm also lucky enough to only have to drive less than three miles to get to work.

Anyway!

Before taking my trips, I knew that I was going to take my 3DS with me.  I figured that over those two weeks, I would be passing through three airports, one university (two days worth) and 1,000 miles of rest stops along Interstate I-5.  I saw it as 3DS Mii Streetpass gold!  My next thought was, "What game should I play a lot of so that when my Mii gets Streetpassed, that game will show up being held by my Mii in the other person's Mii Plaza?"

That was a serious question.  I've ran across a number of Mii's where the person has been "recently playing" an application such as Nintendo Video or the Activity Log.  When someone comes across my Mii, I want a game to come up that represents me as a person and a gamer.  Granted, I spend a fair amount of time in the Nintendo eShop or looking at my stats with the Activity Log, but I don't want that to come across when I pass someone else.  I'd rather have something like Theatrhythm Final Fantasy, Mega Man 2 or Gunman Clive because those are games that I really enjoy playing.

I'm not sure if I should be ashamed or embarrassed that I put so much thought into what some random strangers virtual pseudo perception of the kind of person that you 1) Probably will never meet in person and 2) May never run into again, especially travelling up I-5.    Dr. Potts brought up a great point, in that putting time into how people saw me would be like spending time doing my hair (if I ever did more than just brush my hair each morning) or putting in serious thought into picking out what clothes to wear.  While I was in Davis for Picnic Day though, I did run into a couple of people multiple times.  Now, it would be cool to see a history of the different games that a person has been playing, but only the most recent game they've been playing is visible.

So during my two excursions down to California, I did manage to come across 25 other Miis and of those 25, only seven had an application (Swapnote, eShop, 3DS Camera) as their most recent game in lieu of an actual game.  Do I have some negative or altered view of that person because of what their Mii is carrying?  And if I don't care what another Mii is carrying, why should I put so much thought and concern as to how other people see Mii?

Although to note, I don't always put so much thought every time I take my 3DS out when I go to the grocery store (some guy at Fred Meyer's always has his) or when I go out with Conklederp to a food pod.  So I don't know what this says about me and maybe I'll just leave it up to someone who is proficient in psychoanalysis to make the final determination.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Going Down Towards The Deadend

Emulator Hour: 8-bit rpg round-up

I've been on an 8-bit RPG kick of late.  It started with Final Fantasy, moved on to a translation of Final Fantasy II, then to Ultima: Quest of the Avatar, and most recently, a cell phone game called Gurk - the 8-bit RPG.   Along the way, I've made brief stops at Dragon Warrior II and Ultima: Exodus.  I guess I'm just feeling some powerful nostalgia, as this genre and these games ate up many days and hours of my young life.

At the present moment, I'm thinking of my unwillingness to play completely through these games.  Granted, I never beat Ultima:Exodus, nor did I beat Dragon Warrior II, Ultima: Avatar - and I never even played Final Fantasy II because it wasn't released in the US.  There exists, in the back of my mind, the desire to actually finish these games; perhaps with the aid of guides, save states or other modern supports of gaming.  But for the time being, I'm more content to wade into the Nostalgia pool and swim around.  However, to experience this nostalgia it is not strictly necessary to sit down and play these games. 

Images and Sound are able to carry me a long way down memory lane.  I recently remembered a fantastic website called digitpress, wherein you can find scans of dozens of NES game instruction booklets.  This is really worth a look, I was strongly struck, when reviewing the manuals for Ultima and Zelda.  There are funny elements, like the consistency of formatting between games - the one page plot summaries on the first page are good for a smile.  The cover art - so influential to me when drawing my own characters, armor designs and such. 

We've written a bit about 8-bit music on this site, and it is another great source of Nostalgia.  If you spent time playing Ultima: Exodus, the song below should be triggering for you.  

A funny thing about my memories of Ultima: Exodus vs Quest of the Avatar:  I remember preferring Exodus greatly, though when I go back to revisit these games I see that the graphical improvement between the two was massive.  Exodus looks almost ridiculous in how blocky the images are and how stiff the movement is.  Still, I remember when Avatar came out, being so excited to play a new Ultima game.  And then I was ultimately disappointed, because I felt like it looked too much like 'all those other games.'  And I think that still holds- one example of which was the choice to outline the characters in black.  This was not the style of Exodus, but became the style in Avatar, and is such a common stylistic choice that it is easily overlooked.

I guess part of my goal in playing around with these 8-bit RPGs is to study different design choices, in things like character equipment, map design and battle design.  It is my ambition to make an 8-bit style RPG of my own some day.  And actually, I've carried this ambition with me for over 20 years.  This is something I visit and revisit- I'm in no hurry, if I'm not enjoying myself, then its not worth it.  I've looked into some RPG makers, and right now I'm playing with RPG Maker VX Ace Lite - which is the free version of the $70 retail RPG maker series.  There is so much that goes into the design of a game, I have to work hard to budget my time before I'm willing to drop the cash for an RPG maker that may collect more dust than design. So far, the map builder is a blast :)

Alright, I'm heading out now.  I want to make a quick note of Gurk - the 8-bit RPG.  This is a free cell-phone RPG available for Android.  It plays like an even more low-fi version of Ultima:Exodus, if you can believe that.  No music as far as I can tell, but its got equipment, item shops, combat and dungeons.  After getting used to the interface, I think I can get into this game;  Gurk will do the job of nourishing my 8-bit RPG nostalgia while I'm away from home, without requiring me to carry my Nintendo DS along with me. 

-D

P.S.  Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of the first post on this blog.  Happy Birthday to us.

First Impressions: Cry of Fear (PC)

I'm one of those people that does judge a book by it's cover.  Does that make me proud that on some level I judge things solely based on their appearance, I guess you could say so, but there have been times when being of that mentality has paid off.  Recently on Steam's front page, down in the Featured section, I saw a thumbnail of a gloved hand trailing against a dank looking wall with the title Cry of Fear looking like the title above this paragraph.  Below said thumbnail was "THIRD-PARTY."  The combination of the lack of price and thumbnail intrigued me to click and find out more about this game.

As it turns out, Cry of Fear was originally a mod for Half-Life 1 developed by Team Psykallar.  Now available through Steam through their Greenlight release series, Cry of Fear is it's own stand alone game, without requiring Half-Life 1 in order to play.  And, and AND, the game is free.  Yes, a free game.  You're welcome to donate to the company, kind of like one of those Humble Indie Bundle or Indie Royal Bundles, but you can play the game first.

And play it I have.  At least for about an hour anyway before deciding that I should stop, write out what I have here to say then head to bed for the night/morning.  I'm going to have pretty awesome dreams too if I don't wake up screaming, although to give the game credit, I was warned ahead of time.  Resident Evil was the first game I saw that had a disclaimer before the game started warning of impending violence and gore, which read as follows, "Warning This game contains strong language and scenes of explicit violence and gore."  Maybe these were more common on PC games, but little 23 year old me hadn't been exposed to too many M rated games; I had some, just not many.  The disclaimer at the beginning of Cry of Fear however, takes the warning up a notch with, "This game contains violence and gore, and can cause fear, depression, heart failure and suicide.  Users and viewers discretion is advised."

Now that's a warning if I've ever read one prior to playing a game before and for whatever reason, I did not feel that it came across as the developers stroking their own horns.  Sure they are to some extent, but to me, it sounded more original than saying that "This game will make you shit bricks and cry for your mommy.  Pussy."  It was all about the language used.

Back to the game.

Cry of Fear is an FPS horror game set somewhere, possibly somewhere in Scandinavia although I don't think the actual setting will be too important.  All it means to me so far is that I can't read any of the newspapers or graffiti that is used as set decorations.  That's pretty much all I know about the setting of the game.  I have come across some enemies who have managed to kill me a few times, which may have also contributed to deciding to write out my thoughts earlier than I may have originally planned.  So, the game looks like this:

Yes, the graphics are a little grainy, which could be an artistic choice or it could be because the game was originally a mod from a 1998 PC game.  Either way, I feel that the graininess adds to the overall atmosphere, which is pretty flippin' creepy.

The game was easily controlled with standard WASD keys and I was able to invert the mouse, which I am always thankful for.  I tinkered around editing some of the other keys such as crouch, but everything else felt like standard FPS PC controls.  At the present, I only have two equippable but each of those items has duel functions, something I haven't seen a lot of since Perfect Dark and something I feel should have been almost required at this point, especially for FPS games.  Your cellphone acts as both a phone and as a flashlight and your knife can either stab or slash; I don't know if there's a tactical difference but I'm sure I'll find out soon enough.

The music, from what I've heard so far is pretty standard fare for a horror game in that it's mainly background ambient music intended to set the mood.  I haven't come across any areas where the music cuts out entirely as sometimes happens in the Resident Evil games.  The environment noise is very well done.  The voice acting isn't great and seems kind of stilted at times, there always seem to be bright yellow subtitles permanently on, although I typically have subtitles off, so in my case I find it a little distracting.

That all being said, I highly recommend trying this game out if you like either FPS and/or horror (including survival horror) games.  It's free after all, but that doesn't mean you don't have to show the developers some love in return for their hard work.  Any game that can cause me to jump in my seat and make me sit back from the keyboard in momentary fear is the type of game that I personally would love to see more of.  

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Feeling Good

P.S.  
***SPOILER - THE WINDOW***
I will give one pseudo-spoiler, but as it happens near the very beginning of the game, it won't be much of one, but more like a walkthrough/hint/tip.  Once you take control of the character, you will eventually come to a window.  Now, this window is a bloody damn pain in the ass to get through.  I don't know if it was an oversight or if it's intended to teach you how to jump through windows, but the point is, I spent a good 10 minutes trying to figure out what I was doing wrong.  For me, I was had to crouch first, then jump while moving forward towards the window.  I don't know if there's an easier way as two of the youtube videos I watched don't actually explain what they're doing.  But, just take your time, and you'll make it through that window.  Only to wish about a minute later that you could find your way back to it, board it up an build a thick-ass cement wall so nothing will come through it ever again.  Yourself included.

Tetris Dreams

http://perfectzed.deviantart.com/art/Tetris-wallpaper-152596878

Tetris Dreams:
well holy shit, there has actually been a scientific study on Tetris Dreams.  It was featured on an episode of RadioLab about Dreams.  And it's in the first ten minutes, so you should go over and listen.  Later they play a full-body arcade version of alpine racer.

http://www.radiolab.org/2007/may/24/dreams/


Just a post-fragment for ya'll here at 6:45am
-D
Currently Playing:  Ultima: Quest for Avatar (NES), Final Fantasy II (NES)

The Question of Geek or It's all Geek to Me - a response

 This post is a response to my blogging colleague and good friend's post:  What does it mean to you?

I think part of the problem presented by the meaning of Geek is connected to what Felicia Day presents as a concern: that Geek has become over-commercialized.  It's like Geeks were these rare and beautiful jewels, who were content to sparkle and be pretty and perhaps be set into the inlay on an elder blade, or curse a hapless treasure hunter.  But what ended up happening is that the world of business discovered that these jewels have monetary value, and can be traded for bucks.  And now they are circulating, and circulating. What once had to be stolen from a crypt in the amazon is now available for $4.99 on amazon.com. 

And to make matters worse: when something that used to be precious is now a commodity, it's hard not to begin to question authenticity.  I think this is where the phrase 'you're not a real...' - something or other - comes in.  There is a fear of receiving the fools gold of geekdom.  It's a legitimate concern, though I think some take it too far. 

I feel a certain frustration when I hear people toss around 'Geek' like it's something to be proud of.  It's hard to see that something that felt very costly to me as a youth claimed loudly as an adult.  However, I don't really think it's appropriate to publicly question someone's authenticity as a person, either.  That can be harmful.  Besides, for all the rejection I felt when I was young, I had at least an equal amount of connection-  I never went to a Star Trek convention alone.  

Now that I'm a grown up, with an adult life and adult job, the labels Geek and Nerd don't worry me too much anymore.  It's my 'adult' concerns that eat up the majority of my attention and identity. Or maybe I've just gotten really good at hiding it.  I certainly understand why it is a concern for Felicia Day, who has named her channel 'Geek and Sundry.'  If the term 'Geek' becomes watered down, where will that leave Felicia?  

I once read an article, way back when smartphones hadn't invaded, Steam really hadn't caught on, and Futurama was still canceled.  The author of this article had firm definitions of Nerd and Geek.  In it, they defined the Geek as the tinkerer, the one who could figure out how things work, who knew the computer coding language, who could do the advanced math, applied or no.  And the Nerd was the collector.  The one who consumed vast quantities of media and knowledge, and had it all organized, but didn't necessarily have any practical use for it. 

I think a dork was somewhere in between.  If there was a label that I identify with on the Nerd Continuum, I think it would be dork.  I just don't get it, I don't really mind that I don't get it, and I really hope you leave me alone about how I don't get it.  I do like stuff though, and if you ask about it, I will totally tell you all about it.  I guess it's kind of like Aspberger's Syndrome, which is on the chopping block for the DSM V.  Did I just wrinkle your brain? No?  Oh.  okay. 

I can't help but think I'm forgetting something.  I thought long and hard about this subject all day.  I guess I don't have to cover everything in just one try.  Anyway, Geek = label given to me as a kid.  Bitterness.  As adult it is now a good classification... whaaa?   The end. 

-D

Currently Playing: Final Fantasy II (NES)

Classify this.  Or just check the page out, it makes me feel better about things.

What Do We Mean By "First Impressions"?

I was thinking about this a couple of days ago, I won't say where I was at or where I was doing, but I was thinking not only what our idea is but what a readers idea of what a "First Impression" might be.  In the Nintendo eShop, you can't submit a review (albeit a pretty short review that's limited to if you think the game is casual/intense, if it's for everyone/gamers and the number of stars out of five you would award it) until you've played the game for at least an hour.  Granted if you hate a game after the first five minutes, you could just leave the game on for the next 55 minutes then give it a scathing review.

For me, it really depends on the game.  For Cogs, after about 10 minutes, I knew that it would be a game that I wouldn't either be able to or want to finish due to my pseudo-dislike and frustration with sliding puzzles.  Presently I've put in 56 minutes in Cogs and I probably won't play it again unless we have people over who happen to really like sliding puzzles.  After those 56 minutes though, I felt like I could write a First Impression about Cogs (which I did) and feel that I had a good feel for the general purpose of the game.  At the moment, I'm currently playing The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and 27 hours in, I feel like I'm almost at the point to where I could write a First Impression.

So why the huge disparity from one game to another?  

I'll give another example for both Grand Theft Auto and Grand Theft Auto 2.  I've spent 25 minutes with GTA and 44 minutes on GTA2.  I feel like I could do an article for the first game, again because I feel like I know what is expected of me in the game.  I won't presume to know everything about the game or to be an expert, but I have the general gist of what's going on.  In GTA2, I feel like I need to put in at least another hour or two before I could write something that sounds like I know what I'm talking about, which I will probably do in the next few weeks, but don't hold me to it as I recently put Mario Kart 7 (I know, I'm late with the games again) in my 3DS and Steam always seems to have 50-75% off sales on games that look like they're too much fun to pass up.

I feel it all comes down a fraction of the amount of time it would take in order to complete that game.  What is that multiplier?  I don't know and I don't think that it could be whittled down to a simple percentage.  So I just invalidated the first sentence of this paragraph, which any high school English teacher is a bad way to write a paper.  Thank goodness my sister, who is a high school English teacher (and our mother who was an English major in college) aren't frequent readers or I'd frequently be hearing from them about improper syntax or using multiple tenses of verbs in the same sentence.  But this is all beside the point.

Now, I can't speak for the Good Doctor (English major) on how he determines when is a good time to write up a review or an impression, but I feel that we're at least reading the same book, if not the same chapter.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Stage 1 of the Process

BBC indie game podcast and the best indie games of 2011

If you're like me, then you may be perpetually out-of-touch with what's going on right now in gaming.  I recently went to a game stop, and I kept repeating 'Another God of War?'  'Another Bioshock?' 'didn't these games just come out?'  And if you're like me, you probably don't really mind being out of touch.  

Yet another similarity you may have to me is that you may enjoy listening to podcasts,  perhaps while in the kitchen, cooking or washing dishes.  I have a few podcasts that I cycle through; I've always got something to listen to.  However, sometimes I get bored of the same old subjects, and I go out to find something new.  My latest search was for indie game podcasts.

To my disappointment, the first few podcasts I found had not been updated in months or even years.  This seemed odd, given that I think indie games are becoming a bigger part of the entertainment discussion, not smaller.  But, then again, as I mentioned, I am perpetually out-of-touch. I decided to give one a go, and I settled on the BBC-sponsored:  99 coins podcast (not updated since July, 2012).  

I started with the latest episode, titled 'anyone can make a game.'  This is just the kind of sentiment I was looking for.  What I found was a rambling discussion of game-making tools and what an 'indie game' really is.  Nice overall tone, a little hard to catch the details sometimes.  However, the writings and programs they reference in the episode are included in the links. 

The second episode I listened to was 'favourite indie games of 2011.'  I found that this was just my speed.  If being out-of-touch can be quantified, then I guess I'm about a year and half behind the indie gaming scene.  They list of several interesting titles, and even a couple I know of: Minecraft, SpaceChem, Sword and Sworcery EP along with many other interesting titles.

One game referenced is johan sebastian joust.  A game I may never play, but does look like fun.
http://www.jsjoust.com/

Another is the Stanley Parable, a game I almost played once.  I'm going to give this another try.    -D
http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-stanley-parable


-D

"I'll Tell You What You Need In Your Life Son: A Good Swift Army Kick In The Ass."

The other morning I heard a news report on NPR/OPB about an online game in China called Glorious Mission although this Chinese game has been cropping up in the news periodically since around May 2011.  The initial reaction appeared to be centered around images from the game that had American soldiers portrayed as the enemy.  My initial reaction was "Okay, so, they needed an enemy.  It's not like games developed in America haven't had our current allies portrayed as the enemy (cough-cough Modern Warfare 3 cough-cough)."  I'm pretty sure we're still allies with Russia.  At least the Red Dawn remake didn't have the Russians as the bad guys, just you know, the North Koreans.  Oh wait, and just some of the Russians.

Anyway, that's not the point.  The point is that there have been other instances of video games being used by military installations as recruiting tools:

Army Battlezone available on the DS game Atari Greatest Hits Vol. 1  Used to help train US soldiers in the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, back in/around 1980.

The "Army Experience Center" in Philadelphia, PA

Opened August 29, 2008 / Closed July 31, 2010.

The Starfighter arcade game used by the Rylan Star League Defense Force as a recruiting tool for the war against Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada.

There are probably many other instances of this happening, so in a way, we shouldn't be surprised that this happens at all.  I just feel sad that it does happen.  Maybe it's because the military is using a medium that I love as a recruiting tool for purposes that I don't entirely agree with.  However, I totally understand video games and video game-like devices being used not only for recruitment tools but also for training tools.

I'm trying to think of this using another medium.  Using "Where's Waldo" to train covert op spies?  Using Beethoven's 9th with randomly placed inverted minor thirds to train audio technicians to detect anomalies?  Using minor league baseball pitchers to throw grenades at a horde of the undead?  I'm just making all this up and I don't what I've mentioned as actually being put into practice.

I guess I'm just saying that video games as military recruitment and training tools are here and while some of us may not like it, we should probably get used to it.  And don't go expecting a "First Impressions" about Glorious Mission because I am not installing Chinese military software on my computer.  Although I should really do a series of posts with the 50 games that are included in Atari Greatest Hits Vol. 1 and the port of the Starfighter game.  I'm just thankful the war against the Xur ended back in '84.

JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Do A Barrel Roll. . . Out Of A Volcano!!