Save Your Planet! - Tuesday, April 24, 2012

I actually successfully made a game for the Ludum Dare! Stop whatever you’re doing and play my game! Since everyone seems to be doing a post-mortem about their games, I did the same. I don’t think I’ll win, but it’s not the worst game in the competition. Huzzah. Seriously, play my game. Save your planet!

André//2:59 PM//No one ever leaves comments

Random Musings - Thursday, April 19, 2012

Steve Urkel was right: he was wearing Laura down. He eventually got her in the end, which bothers me immensely for a couple of reason. Reason #1: The writers for Family Matters were clearly ignoring the fact that the Friend Zone exists and escape is impossible. How can someone who was so deep in the friend zone for so many years escape? They can’t. Reason #2: I rarely like happy endings. There, I said it. That’s not how the real world works. You do not get the girl of your dreams, Steve Urkel. Besides, Myra > Laura.
Since I always listen to Ian’s advice, I have acquired a Sound Cloud page. This seems to be a better option than my other page for music.
I’ve been informed that people say “That’s so fire!” As in “That tie is so fire!” My head was buried deep within my hands for quite some time after gaining that knowledge.
I foolishly will be participating in the Ludum Dare. For those who don’t know, it’s a game competition where you make a game in 48 hours. This seems like a terrible idea given how many games I’ve finished before: 0. Which is kinda sad given the fact that games were the reason I originally decided to get a CS degree. My math degree was due to self-loathing and masochism. Clearly. But this time, I’m going for it. Using the power of LOVE, I will…probably fail to finish a game. But I’m still going for it. The plan is to start coming up with an idea for a game as soon as I get back from the Cake concert on Friday night. On Saturday, I shall make the game. On Sunday, I will polish that game until I can see my pretty face in it.
Xenoblade Chronicles? So good! So painfully good. It saddens me that I’m not playing Xenoblade right now! If you have a Wii and you don’t have this game, then you are a turkey of the most jive variety. They do things in this game that should be in all RPGs. Did you know when you complete a quest in Xenoblade, you almost always don’t have to talk to the person who gave you the quest to get your reward? Finish a quest and bam! Reward! There are landmarks in the world you can warp to effortlessly. Even in the middle of dungeons! They’re everywhere and great. You know what? I’m going to go play some Xenoblade now.

André//9:28 PM//No one ever leaves comments

My thirst of souls - Tuesday, April 3, 2012

So, the idea for March was to spend most of it playing Tales of Graces F, which I figured I could get done before Xenoblade Chronicles is released. However, Tales of Graces F came out a week later than I thought it would, and I had a thirst for more glory…so I started playing Demon’s Souls again. It was at this point that I realized that I should buy Dark Souls now instead of buying it at some point in the summer (I have a packed gaming schedule). So that’s what I did…3 weeks ago. And after 58 hours of pain, I achieved double manhood and defeated Dark Souls. Now I have to devote a post to talking about Dark Souls and comparing it to Demon’s Souls.

Dark Souls is a great game (so good), but I’m mostly going to talk about the things I rubbed me the wrong way. Combat is better and it’s far easier to go through the game without using magic. I didn’t have to break down and invest points in magic at all, and that was nice. On the flip side, they nerfed magic so hard. It’s much harder to be a pure mage, magic takes more of a supporting roll now. You no longer have MP! Every spell has a certain number of uses that gets refilled whenever you hit a bonfire. Bonfires are basically checkpoints. You can spend your hard earned souls there and when you die, you respawn at the last bonfire you rested at. Bonefires are nice, but I really miss The Nexus. I liked having a hub world instead of an open world.

Speaking of open worlds, you have to do so much backtracking in this game! “Wait, you can’t warp between bonfires?” you ask? You can, but not only do you not get that ability until late in the game, there are very few warp points. Also, there were times where I had no idea where to go, which never happened in Demon’s Souls. There was only one direction to travel in Demon’s Souls: onward! I was impressed by how little loading is done in Dark Souls. You can go from area to area and never hit a load screen unless you die or warp. While the lack of loading was technically impressive, the framerates in certain areas are not. The framerate in some areas gets downright abysmal (I’m looking at you Blighttown), and this is after they released a patch to improve performance. I guess A* is really time consuming. Also, the AI (the pathfinding mainly) is a bit wonky at times. I’ve seen enemies walk right off of cliffs. I didn’t mind the free souls.

And while on the topic of enemies, they still kill you dead. And the bosses still kill you dead. But a couple of those bosses felt a bit cheap (stupid jerk demon with your stupid jerk dogs and your very tiny room), which I never felt that to be the case in Demon’s Souls. And a couple of parts of certain areas felt cheap (stupid archers shooting your stupid giant arrows at me while I’m trying to run up this stupid narrow walkway towards you). But death is still nearly always completely your fault, and you should feel bad when you die. This game too me longer to beat than I thought it would, given how comfortable I’ve become with Demon’s Souls. But no matter. All that stood before my spear fell, and I seized glory. Everyone within a mile radius of my PS3 has once again grown a beard. I guess I’ll start playing Fire Emblem again (for some stupid reason) until Xenoblade is in my Wii.

André//10:31 AM//No one ever leaves comments

Uniter of the World - Wednesday, February 22, 2012

I have become the manliest of men. I have defeated all the demons and I have claimed all their souls. I have defeated Demon’s Souls and have achieved glory! Everyone within a mile radius of my PS3 grew a beard when I forcibly pulled the last demon’s soul from its body. Men have beards! Women? They have beards too! Babies? They’ve got little baby beards going on. I haven’t been this pleased with myself since I defended my thesis, and this took me only 50 hours instead of 2 years.

I know I’m 2 years late to the party, but I’ve got things to say about Demon’s Souls! In all honestly, Demon’s Souls isn’t as hard as you might expect. That isn’t to say it isn’t hard, for I’ve died too many times to say it isn’t hard. Demon’s Souls is a game that expects excellence from you as a player. If it smells a hint of weakness, it will kill you, dump your souls on the ground, send you back to the beginning of the level, and dare you to come pick up your souls. But unlike some hard games (e.g., I Wanna Be The Guy), your death is always your fault. You got cocky and went for a risky killing stroke, only to get skewered. You were the fool who decided to run into a dark room without your shield up, knowing fully well that ambushes happen. You only have yourself to be mad at. Demon’s Souls also demands your attention, because you can’t pause the game. Pausing is for pansies, clearly. You want to save your game? It’s constantly saving your progress! There’s no going back! You get smacked in the face by a large sword and lose half your health? Saved. That health is gone forever.

Demon’s Souls is brutal, but that’s only because it wants you to succeed and be awesome. Imagine Pai Mei nodding in approval when you punch a hole through a board, then flicking his beard. The entire game is a training montage…a really, really long montage. You start the game being a lame excuse for a human being who got skewered by something many times your size. What a loser! You finish the game with a large viking beard, chest hair, and the souls of every (absurdly large) demon in existence in your possession. You don’t want a large viking beard and chest hair? Too bad! I feel like some Swedish power metal band should have written a song about my exploits through the land of Boletaria.

I haven’t even mention the fact that when you die, you lose half of your health and your body! Why? To teach you a lesson: don’t die. You want your health and your body back? Kill a boss, or invade someone else’s game and take their life. Yes, when you have a body, people can (and will) roll into your game, hunt you down, and try to kill you! Let me tell you what happened when I got invaded: I was minding my own business, and some jerk hopped into my game. I was having none of that, so I faced him like a man…and received a violent beatdown. And you can’t quit the game when someone is in your game. The only thing you can do is turn off your PS3: the coward’s way out. You might as well delete your save file after you do that.

The game even has a New Game+ mode, and a New Game++ mode, and so on. With each +, the game gets harder! You keep all your stuff and attributes from your first playthrough (except key items), but the demons get much, much stronger. Normally, New Game+ is for wrecking all the bosses that gave you trouble the first time you played with your superior gear and stats. Giving you an easy time is not the Demon’s Souls way. But while every demon is stronger, they also give more souls when you kill them! Oddly enough, you’ll breeze through the first level in New Game+. Nothing will even be a challenge. I think the first level took me almost 8 hours to beat the first time I played it. I rofl-stomped it in less than an hour in New Game+! This shouldn’t surprise me, because Demon’s Souls has made me awesome.

So do you have a PS3? Do you have $20? Buy Demon’s Souls. Achieve glory! I hear Dark Souls (the “sequel”) is even better, but I don’t own that game, so I can’t vouch for it. I’d be playing it now, but my gaming schedule is filled through April. But once May hits, I shall be on the path towards double-manhood!

André//9:42 PM//Someone felt like leaving a comment

It is time - Tuesday, January 31, 2012

My body is ready. It’s time to begin the long journey towards manhood. Wish me luck.

André//8:05 PM//No one ever leaves comments

House - Thursday, January 19, 2012

My dad once told me while we lived in an apartment that he didn’t like paying rent because he could be taking that money and putting it towards a mortgage. Now I live in an apartment with a plethora of disposable income (having no children is so very awesome), and I’m slowly coming to the same conclusion my dad did. Also, seeing Massive’s massive house made me realize there might be benefits in being a homeowner. However, I’m not quick to make huge decisions, and there are advantages to living in an apartment. So I’ve decided to make a list of pros and cons for buying a house, and I shall share this list (in its current form) with you:

Pros

I won’t share any walls with anyone. This means I can turn up my amps to 10! I can even go up to 11, if I need that little extra oomph. I can buy bigger and better amps! I can buy a drumset! And not an electronic one, an acoustic one! I can buy a true surround sound system, instead of the 2.1 sound system I currently have (and enjoy). I don’t have to deal with neighbors and their volume. This is a huge thing for me.
My rent will now go towards a mortgage. I’ll be working towards something, instead of just “throwing money down a hole”. My mortgage payments will likely be higher than my current rent, but that shouldn’t be a problem.
I’ll actually be able to BBQ next to my home! I currently can’t BBQ on my patio, because you can’t BBQ on an apartment patio in the county I live in (stupid county fire ordinance). I have to use the grill a couple of hundred feet away, to which I say “Nope!” This is also a huge thing for me.
Having a garage is better than having a carport.
I can host parties! I won’t, but I can.
When our drummer decides to procreate (for some unfathomable reason), we’ll have a place to practice during the small-baby-can’t-withstand-the-rock period, and I don’t have to haul any of my stuff.
The house will likely be larger than my 1-bedroom apartment. I don’t really need a lot of space, since it’s just me, but having another room for my instruments wouldn’t be a bad thing at all. I might even have a basement, and a basement is a good place to put instruments.
I guess being able to modify my house to my liking is a plus, but I’m pretty lazy. I wouldn’t even mount my TV to the wall, but mostly because I don’t like the idea of mounting my TV to the wall. I guess I can hide the wires for my surround sound system.

Cons

I’ll have a lawn. I hate lawns, because they have to be tended to. Luckily, I can pay someone to do that, because I’m not doing that myself. Too bad I just can’t pave over my lawn. Stupid grass.
I hate having debt, and a mortgage is a huge, huge debt.
Once I’ve bought the house, I’m kinda stuck there for a while. I can’t just pack up and move with “ease” like I can with an apartment. Which means I’ll be stick in Kansas City for a while. Even though I don’t currently have any plans that involve moving, but this is still a slight concern.
When things break in my apartment, I can call the apartment office and they’ll get all over that. When things break in my house, I have no office to call. I have to handle it myself, or find people to handle it.
I’d either have to buy more furniture I really don’t need, or have an empty house. The latter isn’t that big of a deal, but the former is a pain. I hate furniture shopping, mostly for the same reason I hate clothes shopping: I never find what I want. Do you know how long it took for me to find a black couch that wasn’t leather? At least a year. You know how many times I’ve gone to Nebraska Furniture Mart only to come back with video games and no furniture? Almost every time. I can’t resist deals, which Steam already knows.
It seems like people in houses a lot of solicitors. I don’t think I want solicitors.
There seems to be a lot of maintenance involved with a house, and that’s not cheap or effortless.
The possibility of dealing with a Homeowners Association. I don’t need random people telling me I can’t paint my house black. I’ve currently no desire to do such a thing, but maybe I might one day decide to make my house metal. And if I want to make my house metal, it has to be blacker than the blackest black times infinity.

André//11:50 AM//I'm surprised 2 people left comments

An excuse to talk about Skyward Sword - Monday, December 19, 2011

Due to being pretty boring, I play a lot of games. I’m going to talk about these games. Exciting!

I find it hard to respect those who have a Wii, but don’t own Skyward Sword. Knowing Skyward Sword exists, but not putting it in your Wii is just a terrible life choice. People like that shouldn’t have children, because they’re just all about making terrible life choices. It’s just so, so, so good. Why would you deny yourself of Zelda? When has Zelda ever sucked (ignoring the CDi games that clearly don’t exist)? It hasn’t. Stop being stupid and get all over this stuff. Clear out 30 hours of your schedule (yes, the game is 30+ hours long!) and save Zelda.
Bastion is just classy. Listen to this narrator! You hear him throughout the entire game, and the world is a better place for it. It’s short (5-ish hours long), but there are few better ways to spend 5 hours.
I never expected Ico to make me rage quit, but it did. For those who don’t know, Ico is a lovely game about guiding a mentally-challenged girl though a castle. I’m serious, something is wrong with this girl. This chick doesn’t run from the shadow beings that are trying to take her away; she thinks staying still and letting them take her is the superior option. Help me help you! Another example: I climb down a ladder and tell this chick to follow me. She starts climbing down the ladder, but sometimes, she will get near the bottom and then decide to climb all the way back up the ladder? Why? Because she’s mentally-challenged. And she climbs ladders so slowly. How can someone be so bad at ladders? It still is a lovely game, and I do like the fact that everyone speaks a made-up language. I think I would be fine with voice-overs in Zelda games if the language was made up, but Link can’t talk. Link can never talk.
Mario Kart 7 is…well, Mario Kart. It’s excellent and day-ruining. Nothing says “you should start swearing profusely” like a blue shell, then a red shell, then getting knocked off the track.
Cave Story 3D is so pretty in 3D. It’s not that hard of a game…until you try to get the good ending. If my controller wasn’t my 3DS, I’m pretty sure I would have chucked it at a wall. Regardless, Cave Story is excellent, and everyone should have Cave Story. It’s on pretty much every platform that matters (and iOS) in one form or another.
I started playing the New Game+ mode for Tales of Symphonia, but eventually lost all desire to play that game. I don’t know why.
I really am enjoying these 10 GBA games Nintendo gave me for buying a 3DS before the price drop. I also enjoyed the $80 Best Buy gave me because of the price drop. Too bad I already own Minish Cap and Warioland 4. But I have original Warioware! It has taught me the proper way to pick my nose! I’m going to play Yoshi’s Island so hard, because it must be done.
Demon’s Souls sits on my DVD/game stand, ready to be played. I won’t play it until I’m a bit happier, so I can better deal with the inevitable, blinding rage. But it will be played, I will become a man, and a full beard will be grown. Because that’s what happens when you beat Demon’s Souls: beards are grown.

André//10:39 AM//No one ever leaves comments

Look at my new stuff! - Thursday, November 17, 2011

A while ago, the backlight for my lame HP laptop (never buy HP) started going out, so I decided it was time to get a new computer. The search was difficult, especially considering that I primarily use Linux, and a lot of laptops come with Nvidia Optimus, which is garbage on Linux. Eventually, I remembered that System76 existed, and they sell Linux laptops. It only makes for me to spend my money on a laptop that is guaranteed to work on Linux without any issues. So, that’s what I did. I ordered my Gazelle Performance, the backlight for my lame HP laptop instantaneously started working again. Great. My brother claimed the lame laptop was testing my love for it, and I’m glad to report that I don’t love it at all. It can die in a fire…after I’ve moved all my data off of it.

Look at that laptop. So pretty. They keyboard even has arrows on the W, A, S, and D keys. My heart was instantly warmed. My laptop came with Ubuntu 11.10 installed, but Ubuntu screwed up during the initial setup process. However, that wasn’t a big issue, since I wiped the hard drive and installed Arch Linux and Windows 7 (I love not having to pay for Windows). I seem to get about 3 hours of battery life out of the lappy, which is actually better than my significantly weaker lame HP laptop. Windows 7 is weird, but since all I do on Windows is launch Steam and Starcraft 2, it’s not a problem. So far, I’m quite pleased with my System76, but I’ll really see how good it is after holiday traveling separates me from my main machine.

That’s not the only new thing in my life. Super Mario 3D Land came out on Sunday, and I rofl-stomped it in 4.5 hours. I was about to be disappointed that the game was far too easy for my liking (although the final fight with Bowser was amazing and not at all easy), then I found out that I’ve only beaten half of the game. The other half of the game promptly punched me in my face, and I felt a lot better. Speaking of excellent Nintendo games, Skyward Sword comes out on Nov. 20, and that’s terrible! It should be awesome, because that’s in less than a week, and it’s on a Sunday. Here’s the problem: I’ll be way out of town. I will be nowhere near my 40″ LCD TV, my decent sound system, and my comfy couch. I’ll be in St. Louis. St. Louis has a 20″ CRT TV, no comfy couch near a TV, and most importantly, two children who will harass me while I try to spend some alone time with my game. Also, I’m not going to play Zelda on a standard-definition TV, even though the game isn’t in high-definition. So I have to wait for a week. One painful week until I too can play Skyward Sword. I won’t get back home until the Monday after, and I’m taking that day off. Partially due to my travel schedule…and partially due to me having a princess to save and a Ganon to shank.

This has nothing to do with anything, but I’m slightly proud of it. It seems Rock Band 2 Stratocasters have a port on the bottom that allows you to plug in a pedal to active the overdrive/star power. That’s great since I’m always accidentally activating the overdrive, regardless of how little I tilt the guitar. Also, it’s quite fortuitous that I have a spare pedal due to my purchase of a real drum pedal for my fake drum set. However, the downside is plugging in a pedal doesn’t turn off the tilt sensor, so the problem isn’t solved at all. I could open up the guitar and cut the wires for the tilt sensor, but I’d rather not do that if I don’t have to. Luckily for me, I found a video on Youtube that shows you how to fix your tilt sensor if it’s seemingly broken. So I followed those directions, except instead of fixing my tilt sensor, I intentionally left it in a broken state. So now I can use the pedal to active my overdrive without worrying about it activating if I think about tilting the guitar.

André//11:48 AM//Someone felt like leaving a comment

So very bad - Friday, October 28, 2011

I want to talk about something I saw a few days ago. It was a video on Youtube of a band covering Through The Fire and Flames (TTFAF). Now if you’ve never heard this song, then listen to 7 minutes and 22 seconds of dual guitar absurdity. Upon listening to this, you can ~~see~~ hear why one should think twice about covering this song, especially if you’re just a barely-competent guitarist. If someone in the group of people I play music with suggested that we play Dragonforce, I’d do two things: I’d laugh because I play bass, then I’d smack them for their hubris. So when I saw this video on Team Liquid in a “worst covers” thread, I was a bit surprised.

I hit play, and saw a drummer with far too few drums to play Dragonforce. “Maybe he at least has a double bass pedal” I thought. Then the guitarist started playing the intro riff, although it was a bit sloppy and a bit fast. I don’t know why you would ever want to play TTFAF faster than it already is, but he did. So it wasn’t solid, but not worthy of “worst cover ever”. Then the intro riff was over and things quickly went from okay to terrible. At this point I noticed that they were missing another guitar and a keyboard, and that’s terrible. Guitar guy was sucking through the part after the intro. Drummer guy definitely didn’t have a double base pedal. Bassist guy…was alright.

At this point, it’s still not the worst thing I’ve ever seen. Then I’m reminded that this song has words, because the guitarist sings them, and things go from terrible to Christmas-ruining. Singing while playing an instrument is hard enough, but trying to sing and play a Dragonforce song? Madness. And he was doing such a terrible job. I don’t think he ever hit a right note, even if you don’t consider octaves. And the drummer! I don’t know what he was doing! He should be playing twice as fast! The bassist…was alright…until he started singing for some reason. He was terrible too, but possibly slightly better.

Seeing this guitarist guy bothered me greatly. He kept throwing up the horns! Put those horns down! You’re doing a terrible job! And the crowd was cheering these people! Why? I would have booed them something fierce! The crowd should have given them deafening boos! I don’t care if it wasn’t polite, what that band did to that song wasn’t polite. It was morally wrong and probably illegal in a few countries. All of their musician friends had to have told them that this was a terrible idea (especially if these aforementioned friend heard them play it). If I was in a situation, I’d expect my musician friends to tell me “This…is a very, very bad idea. Worse than the jump to conclusion mat.” I’d expect Ian to drive across the state to backhand some sense into me, because that’s what true friends do.

Why couldn’t they pick an easier song to try? I’m sure they could play something easier. We can’t all be bald and awesome. Now that I’ve vented, it’s time to grab sunglasses for Massive’s Halloween Party. I’m going to be Stevie Wonder and spend my time informing people that I can’t see.

André//3:23 PM//No one ever leaves comments

I’m going back to Cali…kinda - Tuesday, September 27, 2011

I actually did something I don’t do all that much: I went home. Specifically, I went to visit my dad in St. Louis. Not so much because I was home sick, but because I had business to attend to. The experience was…meh. I played a lot of Devil Survivor Overclocked and watched a lot of The Wire. Let me take a moment to talk about The Wire as I now have finished all 5 seasons: it’s possibly the best TV show ever created. I’m not exaggerating even slightly. It’s pretty much unlike anything you’ve ever seen on TV. The characters are awesome and never act uncharacteristically, the actors seem to be born to play their roles, and the morality on the show is in beautiful shades of gray. I think The Wire might have ruined other shows on TV for me. I might not be able to enjoy Dexter’s 6th season as much as I might have before The Wire. Those who don’t like The Wire are pretty much dead to me.

When in St. Louis, it’s necessary to harass Ianda (Ian and Amanda), because out of all the couples I know, they’re the least nausea-inducing by a wide margin. We consumed pizza, and I collected their faces for Face Raiders. For some reason, Amanda’s face didn’t get saved, so I’ll have to take another picture next time I see her. Ian was smoking and I eventually noticed something weird: I had no urge to kill Ian and widow Amanda. Usually when I’m in the presence of cigarette smoke for long enough, three things happen: I usually get a headache, my dreads reek of smoke, and I want to murder anyone with a cigarette. But Ian was smoking like it was the thing to do, and none of those things happen. When I inquired about this, he explain to me the marvel that is the electric cigarette. All I remember about the explanation is being told that the smoke is just water vapor, and Amanda taking a puff (like some sort of smoker).

Amanda insisted that I travel to their home (full of instruments and animals) and play her upright. Uprights are so weird, and they have no frets. It was repeatedly mentioned that Amanda’s bass was too small for me (the thing was huge) and that I could get blisters from playing it. Given how much of my time is spent pressing the tips of my fingers against thing (e.g., round-wound bass strings), I was a bit skeptical. When I left, Ian insisted that I take distortion pedals with me (to borrow, of course). These pedals have truly taught me the value of having a clean blend.

I guess I saw some family too. Most of them have moved out of my dad’s house, so it’s just my grandma, an aunt, and two tiny cousins. Neither of them are named André, but one is referred to as “Little André”, much to my dismay. And to make matters worse, I’m sometimes referred to as “Big André”. And for some reason, they think this something other than lame and not okay (for all values of okay). This sauce is quite weak, but not nearly as weak as naming your children in a “cute” manner (e.g., their names begin with the same letter). I can only hope he hates it as much as I do.

André//10:01 AM//Someone felt like leaving a comment