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.

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)

Ho-kago Tea Time

Those of you who read my previous post may notice that it was not as long as some of the other posts I have made (I have even had this pointed out to me). Those of you who watch a lot of modern anime will also notice that the picture I posted is of a character from a very popular anime: K-ON!

I recently finished watching it and I want to talk about but, I don’t know what to say about it. It seems that everything I think of doesn’t do the show justice. Having said that, its not as if the show is easy to describe well.

The synopsis of the show is: A small group of high school girls decide to revive the light music club.
That’s it. No super powers, no magical abilities, no “saving the world”, no romantic developments between characters (although it is parodied).

For me, its the characters that make the show special and so good. Let me introduce you to the cast. (May contain spoilers from here on in)

Name: Yui Hirasawa
Role: Lead guitarist / Lead Singer
Description: Yui is a… carefree girl who loves food. While not the brightest bulb in the box, she does have her moments. She also cannot read music and doesn’t know much in the way of musical terminology, but that has yet to stop her. She didn’t know how to play the guitar before joining the club but has made up for it with plenty of practice. She named her guitar ‘Gitah’.

Name: Ritsu Tainaka (Ricchan)
Role: Drummer / Club President
Description: Ritsu is the resident tomboy and the closest the show has to a genki girl. Ritsu is the one who got Mio into music and has been her friend since they were in Elementary school. Ritsu is not the most responsible when it comes to important tasks as she often forgets to fill in important forms. She has a younger brother called Satoshi. Ritsu became a drummer after watching the Who. Due to how she acts, she often gets hit on the head by Mio as a way of punishment.

Name: Mio Akiyama
Role: Bassist / Lead Singer

Description: Mio is easily the most popular character inside the series. Mio is the shy, mature girl of the group. Her shyness and scaredy nature tend to be her defining points, that and the fact that the characters agree that she looks good in whatever outfit Sawako puts her in. After the club’s first performance, Mio accidently gained herself a fan club when she gave the audience the only pantyshot in the anime. Mio gets scared easily, a fact that Ritsu is more than happy to prove whenever possible. Mio writes most of the lyrics to the band’s songs, though when a vocalist was being picked, she didn’t like the idea of having to sing in front of an audience, something Yui didn’t help with when she (Yui) lost her voice from practising too hard.

Name: Tsumugi Kotobuki (Mugi)

Role: Keyboardist

Description: Tsumugi is a rich airhead. She often gets excited by or wants to try things that people often take for granted, such as ordering fast food or getting hit. Tsumugi provides the tea and sweets that the clubs spend most their meetings consuming. She also provides the group with villas for their summer training camp, though she does not like showing off her family’s wealth. Her family owns the music shop the club normally uses and because of this, the club have had unlikely discounts when the staff recognise Tsumugi. Tsumugi gets entranced by two girls interacting intimately, imagining something different to what is actually going on. Tsumugi was considered a piano prodigy when she was four and has had experience winning contests.

Name: Azusa Nakano (Azunyan)

Role: Rhythm Guitarist

Description: Azusa is the sole student the club managed to recruit when the members went into their second year. She joined after watching their recruitment performance. Azusa is serious about performing and practising, having played the guitar since she was in the four grade. When she first joined, she looked up to Yui’s guitar playing, as she believes herself a novice. This soon changed and she ended up teaching Yui how to play the guitar. Azusa doesn’t like the fact that the club spends most of its time goofing off, however she is easy to calm with sweets. Azusa is in the year below the rest of the members, because of this she is made club president when the remaining member graduate. Azusa’s cuteness is often commented on, whether she likes it or not.

Name: Sawako Yamanaka (Sawa-chan)
Role: Club advisor / Home room teacher
Description: Sawako is the school’s music teacher and was made the club’s advisor after Ritsu and Yui found her picture in the previous Light Music Club band: Death Devil. Sawako wants to throw away her past so that everyone sees her as a gentle and kind teacher, however she always seems to manage to come back to her band persona. Sawako often spends her time lazing in the club room, enjoying Tsumugi’s tea. She has a nack for making outfits for the club and likes to be complemented on her work. She was the lead singer of Death Devil and taught Yui how to sing and play at the same time. Her wild personality came from a desire to please her high school crush, but she overdid it.

Name: Ui Hirasawa

Role: Yui’s younger sister

Description: There is a stark contrast in personality between Yui and Ui, while Yui is lazy and immature, Ui is mature and constantly looking after Yui, acting more like an older sister rather than a younger one. In appearance, however, there is little difference between the sisters, which Ui uses to pretend to be Yui. Ui often does the chores and cooks for Yui. Ui is a fast learner, which she uses to pretend be Yui when she falls ill. Ui is friends with Jun and Azusa and joins Azusa in the light music club when the seniors graduate. Ui cannot see any negatives in Yui, thinking any that are pointed as positives or cute.

Name: Nodoka Manabe
Role: Class Representative / Student Council President / President of Mio’s fanclub / Yui’s childhood friend
Description:  Nodoka is a well-mannered and intelligent girl. She acts as the clubs liaison to the student council, often chasing up any forms Ritsu forgets to fill out. Nodoka is made the president of Mio’s fanclub after the previous one graduated. When the club members enter their second year, Mio is grateful to see Nodoka in her class as she doesn’t know anyone in her class. Nodoka occasionally shares stories about Yui’s childhood with the other members of the light music club.

Name: Jun Suzuki
Role: Jazz club member / Friend of Ui and Azusa
Description: Jun is a classmate of Azusa and Ui who hangs out with Ui. She is easygoing but can occasionally be unintentionally rude. She plays a bass in the jazz club and looks up to Mio. She often asks Azusa about what the light music club does, and gets envious of the activities the members get up to. She joins the club when the senior members graduate.

And that is all the main characters. I could give more information so I’ll just give you the K-ON wiki link: http://k-on.wikia.com/wiki/K-ON!_Wiki and may favourite moments from the series:
The band’s first performance
The club’s last performance
When Ui masquerades as Yui so the band can perform
When the club first hears Azusa play
Whenever Yui forgets the Lyrics
When Yui arrived an hour early, so she practised in the clubroom
When Mio uses her bass to wake Ritsu and Yui

See ya

Been a while…

Wow, I need to update more often…
…but I don’t think anyone reads these…

…and I can’t think of what to write…

…I guess that’ll do.

.hack! This is a Manga / Animé / Game Franchise that is very well done, each part of it is linked to the others via references and plot. Essentially making each bit like a chapter in the story.

The story revolves around a MMO that is on the only operating system left standing after a virus that took down, I think it was the ‘net, in the near future. Two fairly major plotlines are the fact that for mysterious reasons, people are entering deep comas, and an AI is running amok.

I won’t spoil it, go find out for yourself if you’re interested. I will mention that depending on which version of the part you are reading / watching (Manga or Animé), the plotline may not add up. This’ll be because you may be reading / watching an adaptation or an interpretation of the version which is considered canon.

Just a note, if you’re watching the animé expecting normal animé stuff (lots of fighting, fanservice, etc), I’m going to tell you now that the franchise is plot-heavy. Meaning that a lot of what is happening will be talking and moving the plot forward.

Still, I heartily recommend it and a good starting point would be ".hack//sign" which is the prequel to the games.
(Note the plot is split in two: .hack and .hack G.U. Although one follows the other, they can be considered different because of what happens inbetween)

Anime, Games, and Film

This got to stop.
Live action films do not mix with games or anime, why can’t movie producers see that until they’ve turned the franchise into a dung-pile.
While games and anime tend to mix rather well, this is because both can fit designs around each other, characters can be portrayed as their supposed to be without probelms, events can happen without making the whole thing look fake, because the whole thing isn’t real in the first place. Nobody walks into anime characters in the street, or randomly go into turn based battles. This is lost in films.

The producers and directors (I’m blaming them because they generally tend to be in charge of how things happen in the movie) just seem to pick a popular or well known franchise, game, etc. Do a minute bit of research so that they know who the characters are and who kills who. Then &£$% it up by creating their own story, character backgrounds, etc so that the only real link between the Movie and the franchise is that it shares the same name and the main characters may be able to pretent to be their original selves as they were portrayed in the franchise the Movie makers seem so keen to destroy.

Take the Super Mario Bros. movie for example: It was aimed at fans of the franchise… and had little connection what-so-ever to the series. Goombas are not 8 feet tall, Yoshi has little connection to a dinosaur (despite actually being called one, he / she / it is closer related to some form of dragon)… come on, be serious here!
There was a feature length anime of Super Mario Bros. that fit the game a lot better. It got everything right (more or less, the Mario bros. were grocers in the film, but nothing’s perfect), and, hell, it even used something that would become reknown in Super Mario 64 (I’m not gonna spoil it, found out for yourselves!)

Another example is the Dragonball Movie. I haven’t seen it, I’m not going to because it will hurt. In the film, Goku was in high school (wrong!), Gohan dies at the hands of Piccolo (wrong!), Ozaru is the name of Piccolo’s disciple (Now you’re not even trying). It is mistakes like these that cause the film to fall flat, if you are gonna make a live action film of a series (please, don’t), get your facts straight!
The DragonBall series has tons of feature length anime which fit nicely in with the series (if not the timeline in which they are set), so why make an live action?

I don’t know how or why it is that they suck, but Live Action Films do not work from anime, manga, games, etc

What is really upsetting though is that another one is in production… and its Shadows of the Collosus. Now, come on! If you are gonna kill something, make sure that its a big enough franchise to survive the blow. Mario and Dragonball, are very big franchises, Shadows of the Collosus is a one shot game that is not going to expand from that, it doesn’t need to. The game is very good, it doesn’t have much in the way of plot though. Characters have a quick back story, not much happens in between the start and finish of the game in the way of plot, with the story only kicking into gear about 4 fiftths of the way through of the game.

There ought to be a way of stopping people from doing this sort of this!

Wild Mass Guessing …or would it be Wild Single Guessing?

For those of you who don’t know what Wild Mass Guessing is, this website explains it and has a ton of it: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WildMassGuessing?from=Main.WMG

I’m gonna have a go at it on two Subjects: Ganondorf in Melee and Brawl & Haruhi Suzumiya

Ganondorf:
(This is based off his appearances in Ocarina of Time, Windwaker, Four Sword Adventures and Twilight Princess)
In Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Ganondorf fights unarmed dispite the fact it is obvious that he has a sword and this has perplexed a fair few fans. Here’s my theory: he got smart

Before people start screaming at me for saying that, hear me out: Whenever Ganondorf or Ganon has been a final boss, he’s been armed, be it with Trident, Dual Swords or Magic Sage Sword. He also lost badly against an opponent that he’ll face again in Melee and Brawl.
He has however won: before the final battle in Windwaker, he beats Link to death with his fists! Before anyone says that it doesn’t count, it does because the King of Hyrule had to ask for a do-over to give Link and Zelda a chance.
And before anyone points out that Ganondorf was double teamed in that fight, there was a part where it was just Him and Link swordfighting. Besides he could easily get double teamed in Melee and Brawl.
As for not using his energy ball attack, although it appears to be his only ranged attack, it does appear to hurt him more than his target due to the fact that it is easily reflected.
(This theory is based on Windwaker coming out before Melee, if it didn’t then it just goes for Brawl)

Haruhi Suzumiya:
(Ignore this if you don’t know about The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and don’t care for Manga, light novels or anime. Otherwise I suggest you do a bit of research before reading this)
Haruhi Suzumiya is supposedly a reality warper that doesn’t know about her powers. My theory: She does, she justs plays ignorant.
Think about it: there are clues for her to see, some in plain sight such as how various changes happened during the filming of The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina and the fact that she seems to be talented when it comes to everything short from social situations.

For her to be oblivious to everything that’s going on means that she has to be on the verge of stupid, extremely ignorant and the inability to be aware of what is going on around her. We are shown that this is almost the complete opposite for her, therefore she’s faking the obviousness, she is well aware that she has superpowers and that most of her friends are ‘special’. Either that or she is deep in denial.

My theory is that during that ‘three years ago’ in Tanabata, Haruhi discovered her powers and did what most people would revert to, world domination.
She was happy as Empress until her Empire revolted against her for reasons she couldn’t fathom. She constantly tried to fix her mistakes and remake reality over and over until she got it right, except she couldn’t, and the stress of constantly losing those who were close to her (The respective members of the SOS brigade) was getting to her so she pushed the ‘reset button’ and decided to feign ignorance about her powers and be ‘normal’. There was some things she couldn’t leave, her love interest / fiancé / etc (kyon), her maid (Mikuru), her advisor / second in command (Itsuki), and her bodyguard (Yuki). So she gathered them with her interests (Aliens, espers etc), and formed the SOS brigade. This is the reason why she ‘recognised’ Kyon and responded to him and not her classmates.

Haruhi’s reset button is pointed out by the different stories of Itsuki, Yuki, and Mikuru: Something big happened ‘three years ago’ and Haruhi was the cause of it.

…I probably should have meantioned that there are spoilers in this about the two topics.
Does anybody know how to correct the time of when the blog is posted?

Awards, Fake Stig and Steam trains

Today has been special and busy for me. I had an award ceremoney at school then watched Sunday’s Top Gear (Recorded on Sky+)!
I effectively got two awards for doing volunteer work with the younger years, which I decided to do because it seemed interesting and I was the person who devoted the most time (All my free periods and three lunchtimes) which I had decided to do simply because I knew that I wasn’t going be productive with the time anyway.
Then: STIG IS NOT MICHAEL SHUMACHER! He should remain the mystery that he is, for that makes him awesome, that and his lack of caring or appreciation of anything (that can be guessed seeing as you can’t tell his emotions).
Finally the kick-ass Train won the race, so Yays all round!