Today I Smiled: Batman isn't the only thing Rising

This clip from College Humor really made me laugh the first time I saw it, and it continues to do so every time I watch it! Yes it's crude but I found it extremely well done. Gotta warn you about the adult themes and language present in the clip though, so don't watch it with little ones nearby. Also it would help if you've already seen The Dark Knight Rises movie, otherwise spoilers ahead! 

Its... Badman "Rising". :P

Also the Sochi Winter Olympics has started! I'm glad I caught a replay of my favourite ice skater Evgeni Plushenko, performing his short program. Caught me off guard for two reasons - 1) this took place a day or two before the opening ceremony and 2) I didn't think he was going to be participating any more as he had retired. Glad to see he's back, and hope he does fantastically well for his home crowd! After this round he's currently finished second behind the japanese skater Yuzuru Hanyu who pretty much embodies every anime kid you've ever seen. Hopefully Evgeni totally rocks his long program to take the lead, and the gold. :D

Dead Island Riptide: That was a Dead End

[Part of the Dead Island Diary]

Once we had our hard earned boat we managed to get to the nearby bridge leading to Henderson, except it was broken! Dismayed that we had absolutely no way to cross the lagoon which blocked our path, we had to get our boat (which couldn't possibly cross a lagoon) and make our way back to the fishing village to ask for a different way around. They said this religious leader named Marcus Villa would be able to help, but he was currently missing. It was easy enough to actually find him but those people really didn't want to leave their compound.

After saving Marcus he told us of some maps that could help us cross the lagoon at his house, and as a bonus the fishing village actually let us into their safe zone which was great. We met more people who needed more things done, medicine (and some shrooms) related mostly, so we went and did those first. One of them was pretty bad in that the infected runners would not stop spawning in a particular area. Fortunately we managed to push through and collect whatever it was we were after (drugs I think) and that made them stop falling out of the sky.

Swinging by "Paradise" to drop off more gear and build more weaponry (most of which is ludicrous) we noticed that boats have begun popping up everywhere, including right beside the first base camp. We kinda want to kill Harlow now for sending us all the way across the damned island to build one. >:(

I guess we'll let it slide since she did pull us from the beach.

MMOs: Where Equipment is more Heroic than You

[Part of my MMO Design Folder]
 
In MMO's usually what you wear is more important than who you are.

One of my main gripes in most MMOs is that regardless of who your character is, in the end you are defined by the gear you use - and often that gear despite having some level of rarity will never be unique. It's kind of like saying, to make the knights of the round table better you should equip each of them with an Excalibur and a Holy Grail. Suddenly such artefacts become cheapened simply by having duplicates. Why this is the case I'm not sure, as it surely isn't that hard to simply code that a particular item is unique, there is only ONE of them in the game. Maybe its magic properties expires after a week, regardless of the owners log in time, upon which it vanishes or reverts to a more common item resetting the flag for someone else to be able to get the magic shishkebob or whatever.

That is of course beside the point. If everyone can have all the gear then basically you are a storm trooper. Yeah you might think you are unique, with all those hard earned skills and levels behind you but guess what - everyone else can attain those too. In the end if you come across your counterpart of equivalent ability it will come down to the +1 underwear one of you is wearing to have an edge on the other. At least the way you play can still define you right?

Some games try to combat this by either going crazy with their available skill tree (Path of Exile) or simply adding an element of player skill (GW2, NWO) much like how flight and combat sims do it, yet even there exist tiers upon tiers of items locked behind abstract level requirements. Why? To take your time and money mainly. I just wish there were more games where a sword is just a sword and what makes your character better is his (and your) skill with it, instead of one sword being slightly more magical than the other. Yeah ok, that's plausible too but not when -every- person in the game (barring newbies) has a variation of magic sword.

What's really funny is when "gear score" comes into play. Basically your arms and armor become the hero, the only thing of importance, instead of the person underneath it.

We'll take the one with the +10 belt?

NWO: Gateway to the Sword Coast

I've been playing Neverwinter Online for awhile now but I'm pretty new to the whole browser based Gateway thing they've had going on which basically lets you play some parts of the game without needing to login to the client. Previously you could manage your little workers from there to get them crafting or questing up minor rewards for you and that was it. Enter the "Sword Coast Adventures" mini-game which was recently added. For me, this is a brilliant tie-in and I've lately been spending more time here than in the game itself!

It focuses on the adventures of your companions that you can send out to various dungeons to try complete quests. Low level quests reward crap, but the highest level ones I've seen (as well as the tutorial one) reward unique companions that you can't acquire by other means. How it works is that your team of four must explore a location until they find the goal. In their way are challenges (the goal itself is a challenge) that test various attributes via dice rolls. All party members get 6 six sided die and based on their actual level and class additional four/six/eight/or twelve sided die (I don't have a level 30 pet so there may be a 20 sided in there somewhere).

While luck plays a big part in victory there is strategy to the gambling. You can see the requirements for the nearby challenges before heading to them, meaning you can plan in advance who is best to tackle what. Also the option to reroll when you get a partial success is crucial later on when you literally are running out of rolls to win (dice of your choice are removed as the challenge progresses). In summary I think it's a pretty well done side game that ties in with NWO very neatly, and it's one you never even have to play to enjoy the main game.

Lastly while your companions can gain experience there it is still not as fast as training them yourself in-game. If you have a level 60 character, getting a companion to level 15 in one sitting is very easy. Summon said level 1 companion, then do all the daily quests in the Dread Ring followed by all the daily quests in Sharandar minus the solo dungeons. That's it. Repeat or add to as necessary for pets that have a higher max level.

Dead Island Riptide: Deus Ex Machina

[Part of the Dead Island Diary]

Even though we cleared out the massive hordes and saved everyone at "Paradise" the place was just NOT defendable. To that end our priority became helping one of the women there go about setting up defences such as electrified fencing and creating mines. While we were out looking for components of those we were also picking up any canned food for the camp we came across. Interestingly every single one of the NPCs had side-mission fetch quests that would in turn boost their own rank, letting them create better gear to trade or maybe just fight harder.

All that and other weird jobs like saving a movie director's camera and fetching some pot head his drugs really kept us busy and a tad distracted from our "main" objective of finding a boat to get to the nearby city of Henderson. Harlow suggested we check out the nearby fishing village but all of theirs had already been taken. We had to go foraging much deeper into the swamp (monsoon season) before we came across one - the only one in the swamp apparently, and even then we needed to install an outboard motor on it.

Would be a lot less zombies if these were in the game.

 

Now's a good time to mention the zombies here are a good deal more dangerous than the ones on the last island. Sure they are all still the same types as we've met before but it seems our team is being downed more often on our expeditions this time around. Maybe there are just more of them? Also, I'm really loving this chainsaw we came across as it is really handy for chopping up the slow, tank type enemies who have trouble turning around.

A Dark Room: Will test your Patience

I came across a Dark Room from a Kill Ten Rats article and decided to try it out one night, seeing that it's free for anyone to play. What starts out as a one button text adventure soon grows into a resource management and eventually into an adventure game. An interesting one involving aliens and spaceships which is a pretty big leap from starting a fire in the eponymous dark room. While I do agree with Ravious that the developer does some interesting tricks as the game progresses it isn't without its problems.

This is way too much graphics, hence it isn't in the game.

Obviously as a text adventure there are no sounds and no pictures (though later you do get an ASCII adventuring map) which can be a downer depending on your mood but what really killed it for me is the grinding. Grinding in its purest form: click button. Wait to click button. Repeat. The amount of resources you need is near ludicrous. It may be understandable in the building phase but when you need 100 units of wood (the same amount required to make your first hut) to make a single spear you know that someone is just jerking your chain.

Zubon's comment on the Kill Ten Rats post puts it most elegantly: " I feel like I spent most of the game waiting to play the game." That's the same thing I felt, and it isn't a good feeling. To that end, and because I like pictures and music, I rate it one alien skull out of five. Still worth a try yourself, even if it's just to see the minimalist creativity at work. It just wasn't my cup of tea.

Today I Smiled: The Pull of the Ocean

This is a story that's been shared at family gatherings a lot recently so I thought I'd put it up here. During a family trip to the beach, my brothers along with other family members had swum out to an anchored raft off shore just to fool around. I was too little at the time and not very fond of the water to participate so I stayed on the shore with my mother looking on (well, collecting sea shells and building sand castles more likely). As the day wore on it was time to head back so they took it in turns to dive from the raft and swim to shore.

When my brother's turn came, he dove towards the shore and begun swimming. For some reason however he began to drift off course and was turning away from his destination (either he got pulled by a rip or he was stronger on one side). The calls from the others as he did so were ignored as he continued pushing on, and the water in his goggles prevented him from actually looking where he was going so onwards he went as hard and fast as he could for in his mind, shore was not far off. Only it never came. Finally getting tired he decided to stop and pull off his goggles to see what I would imagine is a scary sight: the wide and vast ocean in front of him with no land in sight (it was behind him).

Fortunately as soon as he had gone off course my grandfather chased after him. Being a strong swimmer he reached my brother after a few moments to calm him down and instructed him to lie down in the water and rest a bit. My grandpa kept him in his arms as he tread water for while my brother recovered, and when they were finally good to go they both swam back to shore safe and sound. 

What makes me smile about this story? Having an awesome grandpa and not losing my brother to the sea. It also means I could gift him the Banner Saga last week for his birthday. ;)