Monotheism: Then there was one

Christians believe that their religion is the most accurate theory of life, but it was those who followed Greek Mythology who were more accurate at one point.
In the heavens, the pantheon of deities lived, overlooking the Universe and arguing over how things should be run.
Many wars were had, over many petty things, such as the noise of a cat, or the colour of sunset. (Incidentally, the cat became a compromise).
Eventually, one group of deities banded together, deciding that humans should be left alone and studied from afar.

This did not go down well with the other deities, opposition grew thick and fierce.
But even that didn’t take long to divide into smaller groups, each with their own ideas of what should be done with humanity.
Their war was long, and bloody, spanning centuries. Meanwhile, the humans, forgotten from the conflict, in turn forgot about their supreme beings.
Temples became abandoned and ruined, and prayers became nothing more than whispers.

The struggle ended in one final battle, on a battlefield never seen by man.
Sides banded together until there were just two, who charged into the brawl. After that, it was a free-for-all.
Enemies would team up on a foe, only to stab each other in the back.

At long last, one outlasted the rest.
He was a minor deity, one not mentioned among the many stories.
Like the others, he was arrogant, prideful, and spiteful.
He would return from the battlefield, to Earth, and smile as he gazed upon his prize.
His trophy, for him alone.

One Good Deed

Thursday.
Another hazy Thursday.
I hate Thursdays. Just feels like it’s filler, like it’s only there to space Friday from Wednesday.
As I leave my apartment, I look down at my phone, hoping she’ll ring.
She won’t, hasn’t all week. I screwed up and she doesn’t want to speak to me.
I sigh as I wander the streets, hoping to get lost in the crowd.
But it seems even the crowds are avoiding me. No-one walks within arms distance as I wait at the kerb, lazily looking for traffic before I continue.
One step.
Two steps.
A horn.
Screeching Tyres.
I am lifted from my feet.
A hand heaves me from the road before the car can touch me.
It takes me a few seconds to process what happened as I sit on the pavement.
I search around for my saviour, but they’ve already gone, disappeared into the unfazed crowd.
My brush with death has left me disoriented, I need to sit down.
There’s a park nearby.

How have I never noticed that before?
As I watch the various people go about their lives, I see something you wouldn’t expect to see.
A number. Well, it more looks like a broken clock.
All of them, maxed out.
I muse over the numbers before I spot something more curious.
A jogger passes me. Her number is not a nine, instead 00:05:32.
Interest piqued, I follow her.

The numbers are a counter. Counting down to what, I don’t know.
Lost in her own world, she doesn’t notice me a few paces behind.
We pass a tall office block in her workout. The counter is almost empty.
I wonder what happens, I guess I’ll find out in…
3
2
1
THUD!
A bucket smashes into her head and she drops to the floor.
The blood splatter causes someone to shriek.
In a panic, I pull out my phone.
It takes too long for the ambulance to get here, people are freaking out.
The window cleaner who dropped the bucket even came down before he broke down on his knees.
The paramedics came with police who disperse the lookers.
I take the opportunity to ask about the counters.
All they say is that I’m in shock and should go and lie down.
Maybe they’re right. My near death experience might’ve messed with my head.
I start to head home.

The man turns red as I reach the crossing. I watch the crowds cross.
A man drops out of the mass to pick up some dropped papers.
His counter turns me white.
He has 7 seconds.
Checking my lane of traffic, I can hear a car going too fast.
It’s now or never, I charge.
He doesn’t even lift his head as he stands back up.
3
I hear the car skidding
2
I tackle him, hard. My momentum knocks us clean onto the pavement.
The car whizzes past, his fate averted.
He hugs me tight, thanking me.
His hug doesn’t last long, when he realises that his papers are strewn all over the road.
As he despairs, I vanish into the crowd, not wanting to cause any more of a commotion.
I thank my luck for getting away with just a few bruises when I stop.
The numbers have gone. Vanished. Not one person has them any more.
As I register this, the sun peeks through the clouds and my phone rings.
It’s my girl.
Maybe I should believe in karma after all…

Inspired by:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JQiEs32SqQ

Incoming transmission from Ilos

I’ve just completed Mass Effect, and I feel satisfied yet disappointed. I’m struggling to put into words why but the main reasons were hype and KOTOR.

The hype was my own fault, as I heard more about the trilogy, I got more excited about this game, and well, to be frank, I expected better.

To be fair on Bioware, it was a valiant effort and genuinely enjoyable …so long as you kept changing what you were doing.

See, one of the biggest problem was, whilst each of the 3 main parts of the gameplay (Combat, Exploration, and Roleplaying) were interesting and entertaining, they only remained so in small bursts. Spend too long talking to people, or investigating secret areas and I’d find myself wanting to do something else as it became monotonous. Part of this problem is how I play RPGs. I like talk to everyone, search every nook and cranny for goodies, and complete sidequests (and I’d really appreciate it if the game would try and help me accomplish this). This means that I spend extended amounts of time doing one type of activity in particular before moving onto the next. Which just felt draining instead of the usual immersiveness that I normally get from RPGs.

Speaking of immersion, Bioware really did a good job in making the galaxy feel big. From the Milky Way map to each individual solar system, it did feel like a galaxy. I just wish that A) They’d put more work into making it not feel empty and B) They gave you a way of keeping track of all the places you’ve been. It’s hard to tell one star system apart from another visually and there was no indication of whether you’ve visited a system or not unless you find something you’ve already looted, usually on the sole planet in the solar system that you can actually land on. I actually stopped exploration on the galaxy level after I had been returning to a couple of places I’d already cleared out because I realised that I hadn’t been keeping track of where I’ve been and thanks to side quests, I’d covered about half the map in a seemingly random fashion. Retreading your own footsteps is only fun if you’ve got something new and interesting.

On the topic of new and interesting, the team in charge of making the planetside landscapes and terrain didn’t quite grasp the concept of “variation”. All the planets you could land on and explore were mountain ranges. Every single one of them. Sure, some might be hot or cold or green, but a mountain range is a mountain range. After the 3rd one, I just wanted something new, like Prothean ruins! There was this grand precursor civilisation, why couldn’t a couple of the planets have had, like, a village or something! But no, all the same.

As for the Mako, I don’t know where to stand on the vehicle. It’s main job of terrain climbing is only made awkward by the terrain design and how it’s unclear which slopes you can’t climb until you’re halfway up them. The combat makes up for it, mostly. See, combat in the Mako is fun, a cruel evil fun, like turning on God Mode just to mess with your enemies. There’s nothing quite as satisfying as to charge through a group of hostile to run the guy at the back over before turning around and firing a rocket at the sap who thought he was safe behind the barricade. Pity this only works on flat terrain. The Mako’s cannon was designed to only be used at a foe at level height, it can’t aim down. This gets worse if you’re on wall, shooting “up” at your targets, then you find that the targeting reticle is misaligned. This makes trying to snipe some long range Rocket Geth all but impossible as you can’t stay still for too long or get too close. I died a number of times in the Mako because just could not hit the people shooting me, some of which were sat right in front of the cannon as I drove past.

I could continue ranting about the Mako, but I want to move onto my final major complaint: the writing. I wouldn’t say it’s bad but…
At one point, during the romantic subplot, I noticed something. A line, I can’t even remember what it was, just sounded off. It was cliché, cringe worthy. It sounded like it came out of a geek’s wish-fulfilling, shamelessly self-gratifying, self-insertion fantasy. After that point, I kept noticing it, even in normal conversations Shepard had. I pointed this out to a friend, who said that all games with character creation are this. The thing is: other games mask it, you never think that it’s a wish-fulfilling, shamelessly self-gratifying, self-insertion fantasy, as the game manages to keep you immersed or entertained enough for it to become a conscious thought, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It made the rest of the romantic subplot painful to go through, which is a shame, as Bastila’s was fun.

And now we get to the comparison. I’ve played both KOTORs and loved them. As Bioware made the first, I can’t help but make comparisons, then get disappointed as KOTOR wins every time.
In KOTOR, the equipment menu is ordered and, if I recall correctly, the same items stack. This is something Mass Effect desperately needs. Sorting through your stuff and clearing space is awkward, especially when you aren’t sure if what you’ve contemplating scrapping is better than what a non-present party member has. Seeing as I cycle through about 4 party members, this really got on my nerves.
Another things KOTOR does is tell you about things like hacking or disarming in the character gen. When I asked for advice about which class to pick, nobody, not even Mass Effect told me about the Decryption and Electronics skills. KOTOR even has cross-class skills, in case you didn’t choose a build designed for that.
Overall, after the greatness of KOTOR, I’m amazed Mass Effect failed that bad. I hear the sequels make up for it though, so I still have hope.

At the end of the day, I still liked Mass Effect, but it definitely needs more work.

Also, in case you were wondering, I called him Tarrin Shepard, he was a Paragon Vanguard specialising in Shotguns, sacrificed Ashley to save a squad that seemed dead by the time he arrived, and made sugary love to Liara. How much of this will change by the end of Mass Effect 3, I don’t know.

No pictures this time. Maybe I’ll post more in the next one to make up for it.

Goodnight.

If the pen is mightier than the sword, where does that leave the bow and the ruler?

So, 2012
11 months until the world ends according to the Mayan calendar…

Yeah right

Anyway, blog post!

…I’ve done it again, I really need to plan what to write in these things

…

hmm…

…

Ooh! That’s right!

http://parsonator64.deviantart.com/

I have a DA account now

It turns out that during last summer, I found that I have some small speck of artistic talent, so now I have artistic materials and I’m gonna milk this thing for all it’s worth. Expect all lot of fanart, particularly of games I’ll be playing over the coming months. Specifically Kirby’s Adventure Wii and Sonic Generations.

At the moment, I’m just practising with what skill I have, getting used to sketching shading etc, so a lot of my art will be more or less copies of other artwork until I have a firm enough grasp with what I’m doing and how things should look/be done to start deviating.

Until then folks. (If you want a pic to go with this post, they’re on the other side of that link 😛 )

 

(Yea, I know the title is more about words than art, but I liked what I did with it so I’m sticking to it)

He may be 2D, but he can kick ass as well as any 3D

Been playing Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door recently (as well as Osu!)
Mostly been finishing off side quests and I did the Pit of 100 Trials
To be honest, I had mixed thoughts about doing it: on one hand, it was the last challenge I had left from the game (aside from finding every star piece). On the other hand, I didn’t feel that I was anywhere near prepared for this.

70 floors in, and I wondered what I was worrying about.
Seriously, at Level 31, I had managed to equip myself well enough to tackle most of the floors without difficulty. Sure, a few floors gave me trouble, but that was more to me not being sensible and wasting my flower points.
After that, it got… harder…

For the previous floors, I had been shooting through them, now it felt like a fight for my life. I suppose it was supposed to at this point, but now I was feeling what I had been worrying about. But it was 2 in the morning and I was determined to reach the bottom before I went to bed.
And a note for anyone trying it: Charlieton rips you off BAD. Pack coins and equip the MoneyMoney badge, you’ll need the cash in the later levels

You *******

 

I had about  5 Life Shrooms when I started and by the time I reached Bonetail, I had two.
That’s right, I was at the strongest boss in the game, and I only had two revives (as it were), and considering how many attempts it took for me to defeat the Shadow Queen, I was not feeling confident.
But I managed it, spamming Shell Shield whenever Mario was on low health until he could heal.
Through sheer perseverance, I won.
I had beaten the hardest boss, not in the best state to do so, but I managed.
And my reward?
A badge that would be useless to me as I had nothing left worth using it on and 1 Star Point. ONE! I get more from the Rawk Hawk!
I felt incredibly disappointed at that, especially considering the fact that the game REPEATEDLY HYPES UP THIS DUNGEON.
Cruel joke, Nintendo, cruel joke

Why aren't you worth more?!

 

It’s-a Party Time!

I’ve recently been playing the Mario Party games with some friends and I’ve decided to rate them based on my experiences in these recent games

Mario Party (N64)

The game that started the series

Overall one of my favourites due to the originality of the games, you could tell this game was stepping into unknown territory and it did well despite the lack of try-and-tested formulae for this area of electronic gaming. (As far as I am aware, all there was before this was digital versions of Monopoly)
However, in our 4 player brawl, it didn’t stand up as well as hoped
The board felt small, and Toad sat himself in a corner that was awkward to reach due to the board’s layout and gimmick. Also, it felt half of the board was under-travelled, though this may have been due to our desperate attempts to nab the trapped star rather than by board design.
This game also has a great minigame selection, with a lot of them being very memorable and fun as well as original. However, there is the problem this game is famous for: the “Rotate the control-stick” minigames. On current consoles, I reckon this might not be such an issue due to modern control-sticks being more comfortable, but on the N64, these minigames can easily cause blisters, especially when having to be repeated.
Also, I liked the idea that you chose what items you wanted activated from the start and they randomly appeared during the game, it shall be missed

Rating: 3/5 Stars (Yes, I’ll be making that joke)

Mario Party 2 (N64)

The game starts as it means to go on...

I’d been looking forward to playing this game, though it does have one of the the most broken gimmicks out of the series: Hidden blocks containing Stars. I played a game against 3 computers and the winning computer won with half its stars gained through this method.
This game does feel less adventurous than the first one, keeping a number of minigames from the previous game
In our battle, though, it felt… lacking. Stars were “traded” least out of the games played and the board did feel very small. It also felt like the prices were mixed up as a board event cost 20 coins to pull everyone to the previous space, yet Mini Bowser only took 5 coins . It didn’t feel right
As mentioned earlier, this game re-uses some minigames from the previous game, and because of this it did feel that the selection was poor and lacking originality at times, though the battle minigames were most welcome.
The items were a welcome addition, but they seemed few and infrequent

Rating: 2/5 Stars

Mario Party 4 (Gamecube)

All I can think of is "awesome"

Another favourite and possibly the easiest, a good starting point for anyone new to the series. This game was the first (I believe) to actually use the party idea the series had been named for, with every game beforehand being a contest to find the Superstar.
In our rampage, this game had held the most surprises in my opinion, suddenly changing the players positions very close to the end. Unfortunately, this did sort of feel that events were out of our control during this point…
The board did feel a reasonable size and had plenty going on to keep things interesting.
The mingames were colourful and had creative premises and twists to them, the 3-1 ufo springing to mind. However, as always, there were some that let us down, but they were very minor nits compared to the whole experience
The addition of a random change in the last 5 turns is brilliant, I like it very much

Rating 4/5 Stars

Mario Party 5 (Gamecube)

This is just how jam-packed the game is

While this is a favourite of the series, I don’t think so highly of it. I didn’t like the lack of choice when it came to what capsules you got, you couldn’t really come up with a strategy or tactic if you couldn’t choose what you had to use.
In the multiplayer mayhem, it did feel like there was a lot more player interaction: just because you were half way across the board from everyone else did not make you any more safe or ignored.
The board itself was certainly sizeable, but I feel this worked against it as it did feel empty and character-less a lot of the time, despite there being a number of events available.
The minigames, again, were colourful and creative, but they feel that they had lost the spark from the original game and were just a “do this to win”. The context felt irrelevant in a fair few of them (not actually what I mean, but my brain is refusing to word what I want to say at this point, bed after this methinks)
It should be pointed out that stars and coins swapped hands very frequently, which is always a plus as it means that no-one really gets left behind

Rating 3/5 Stars

And there you go…
I might proof-read it at some point, but not tonight

“Anyway, this cake is great. It’s so delicious and moist.”

Update time!
I’m actually using my steam account for once, just in time for the Steam Sales 😀
Got me some good games so far, including the Portal pack.
Portal 1 was a great game, better than what I expected. Though, I don’t understand people’s fascination in the Weighted Companion Cube. For those of you who don’t know what I’m on about, let me explain:
In one of the rooms, you are given a Cube with a heart on it for the next puzzle. When you get the cube, you are told to treat as your friend, alrighty then. GlaDos then spends the remainder of the test reminding you that your cube is just an inanimate object. At the end of that test, you are told to incinerate it. In fact, you must to proceed.
Now, here’s the thing: you only have the cube for one room. And I spent a good portion of that puzzle going: “Right, you need the cube for that. Now, where did I leave it?” And having to lug it around all over the place.
I honestly didn’t care that I had to get rid of it, I knew I probably wasn’t going to be able to keep it anyway.
According to people I’ve been talking to, this mentality makes me a monster

It's just a cube, people!

To be honest, I preferred GlaDos’s curiosity module. Why? It spoke, it attempted to communicate with you. Admitted all it really did was ask questions about everything, but it made me think of a curious little kid, and I thought it cute for it. Plus, it screamed when you killed it, which I thought was horrible.
Why?
Because it made me regret it. I liked that thing, it had personality and I had to destroy it.
If it wasn’t for the more pressing matters of the time limit and GlaDos, I would have tried to find a way of keeping it.

Anyway, I completed the main story of Portal and actually found the whole thing cleverly done. I am curious as to what has been happening Aperture Science and why it was deserted. The combat drones were annoying though, but that just made it more satisfying to “render them inert”  (Read: Knock them over).
Now, I’ll play Portal 2… as soon as it finishes downloading.
See ya

 

Happy Belated 25th Birthday Baycon!

Here’s an update, seeing as I’ve sorta stopped posting (again, I promise, I’ll get into the habit of it eventually)
Things have been busy for me as I’ve gone home for a fortnight for Easter and things haven’t really been quiet.
First off, I dragged Nicktendo back with me, kicking and screaming, for the first week-end
During that week-end, my parents decided, on a whim, to buy a PS3 as a gloried DVD/Blu-ray player (the old DVD player has decided that it doesn’t have to listen to what we tell it anymore)
This has still amazed me as I have been trying to get my parents into gaming (well, video gaming), and so far, it’s only been Mario Kart, Guitar Hero and Singstar, so I think this may be a step in the right direction

On the Monday (22nd), I managed to become an admin of a Facebook page and the forum that goes with it
http://www.facebook.com/ho.kago.tea.time.htt
That’s right, its a K-ON! fan page (ONE day, I am going to update without a single mention or reference to K-ON!)
Check it out, we’re always happy to welcome new fans and to introduce people to the series that haven’t seen it yet

Following that, I visited my cousins for the later part of the week, mainly for gaming 😀

Sunday Lunch was also fairly interesting as my Grandma came down to visit me and Dad thought my other Grandparents were coming (Dad does the food shopping, oops), suffice to say, we had a good amount of left-overs for the following week: during which I got most the stuff for my cosplay, as well as The World Ends with You, and we went to Baycon

For those of you who don’t know, (and I’m guessing that is a good number of you) Baycon is a boardgames convention held at the Exeter Court Hotel and this year is its 25th year. Baycon is usually held during the last week-end of easter, lasting from Thursday to Sunday, though this year, it took advantage of the bank holiday monday.

Baycon is great fun and I recommend going to anyone who has an interest in playing boardgames or if you need testers for new games

I played many games during the looong week-end and I believe the time was thoroughly enjoyed by all. I managed to come third in a 7 Wonders tournament, just 2 points behind my brother, which was a nice surprise.

And I’ve managed to lose my momentum with this update (I was gonna talk about Baycon more) but I’ll end it here

See you around

Join with yesterday’s foe to fight fate, and take tomorrow’s path in your own hands!

Wow, I really need to learn to update this more regularly

Just a quick update again, as I’m struggling to think of a topic that doesn’t involve       K-ON!, which is a real struggle as it has stuck itself in my head and my heart and I’ll be damned if its leaving there any-time soon.
Seeing as that’s the top of My Top 5, lets do #2, shall we?

 

And that's not the biggest mech in the series!

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann!

To be honest, I just finished watching this yesterday and anything I say cannot match the manliness of the series.

The series is a mecha anime based around 5 concepts:
1. Bigger is better
2. MANLINESS!

3. Drills

4. MANLINESS!

5. And that the laws of physics are based entirely on the rule of cool.

Seriously, they need no “Don’t attempt anything you see in this show” announcement, because you CAN’T even try to attempt it, you just aren’t manly enough. Lemme give an example: At one point, a mecha gets an upgrade, then its pilots give a short, yet very manly speech (The post title is part of that speech). Immediately afterwards, all the enemy ships blow up, WITHOUT BEING SHOT AT OR ATTACKED IN ANY OTHER FASHION, except the biggest one the cast is fighting at that moment. It is the sheer manliness exploding from the mech and pilots that kills them.

You can probably guess by now that this show is incredibly over the top, following the idea that you can do anything so long as you put your heart into it and scream loud enough.

Other incredible moments of the anime:
Having a reasonable reason for the outfit of Yoko (The girl in the pic)

Kamina

How they always manage to find a way of getting a bigger mech

And several other things which I want to say, but are spoilers

 

 

Final comment: Watch it, you may gain an understanding of what Manliness truly is
(Note: If you are going to watch it, you may want to keep away from the internet, there are spoilers)

Eaaaaaarrrrrly morning post!

Maybe its the fact that its 3 in the morning on my three day week-end, but I feel like updating. Unfortunately, all I can think of is K-ON! and Touhou

Brilliant…
(Warning, spoilers may be present in this post)e
Lets start with the K-ON, shall we?

Something I noticed yesterday was that since entering university, I’ve been watching a lot more anime (the fact that’s I’ve joined two clubs that have anime nights might help that). This has caused more ear worms that I’ve taken note of (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EarWorm – this is what I mean by “ear worm”), for this year.
Between now and last september I can name at least three that got on my nerves:
The first is Caramelldansen (Don’t care about spelling, still don’t like it or that stupid dance)
The second is the opening theme to Seitokai Yakuindomo, something a friend of mine has had tons of fun with
The third is the opening to Fude pen boru pen, a song from K-ON (which translates at Calligraphy pen Ballpoint pen, or something like that)

While there have been others (mainly K-ON songs), those three stuck out because of how irritating they are.

Next is something I came across when browsing fan-art:

They're never gonna let her live this down, are they?

For those who don’t know (why not?) , this is a reference to their first performance. Mio is shy, and was a bag of nerves before the show. This wasn’t helped by being made the vocalist almost last minute because Yui lost her voice from over-practice. She seemed to calm down when the performance started. When they began to leave the stage, Mio tripped over her own bass lead and managed to flash the entire audience, an act in which gave her a fan club. This moment is brought again in later episodes and does little for her enthusiasm before a performance. Poor Mio.

Next is Touhou.

I was first (properly) introduced to the Touhou series when Nakateleeli did his Touhou Mother lets play. At uni, a friend gave me most of them, and I’ve loved them since. Why?

The characters. Read any conversation in game, they are brilliant as most seem to have a generous pince of insanity with them and I swear that a couple of them have the two conversationalists talking two separate conversations, its brilliant!

Wait, I already said that.

Anyway, the games are renown for two things:
First is difficulty. The games aren’t the easiest in the world and they have a difficulty called insane, for a reason
Second is the cast. It seems that everyone is female except for one person, who doesn’t appear very often at all.

The games are not without their references, two of which go to Jojo’s bizarre adventure. Something I should really go and watch at some point.

So, I’ve had two topics this time, so lets end on something which combines them both:

Clockwise from top left: Yuugi Hoshiguma (as Ritsu), Kogasa Tatara (as Yui), Byakuren Hijiri (as Tsumugi), Youmu Konpaku (as Azusa), Reisen Udongein Inaba (as Mio)

For those who can’t tell, they’ve made these Touhou characters look like the K-ON main characters, without making them cosplay (you may have to compare the image to official art to notice what I’m on about)