May 08, 2019
Looked down, and a month went by
Still having plenty fun in Azur, in GBF, and in GFL; each one wears on me in turn but rotating over to the others keeps me from burning out. Weirdly, playing gacha games seems to cost me a lot less than conventional gaming does (though I would not try this stunt with FGO!)
Decided a periodic update would be easier than the daily "nothing much happened" minutia, but then of course the trick is remembering to do the update.
GFL's Deep Dive event went well (need to make at least one more good run at the ranking map; my first effort netted me 43%, just outside the range I need for the exclusive equipment for 9A-91 that I was shooting for... but I can probably squeeze out some more points if I take it seriously...) They have their first anniversary going on, and in about an hour they'll start a week of increased success in building... time to take these hoarded resources and fling them away like I'm at a strip club. Already got Groza (and the True Core Mask might as well be labeled "press this button and collect SAT8"...) so I'm quite content as it is; everything from here will be icing, so I hope to pig out until I'm sick.
Azur Lane's Kizuna Ai event's petering out - was fun, not deep even by the extremely limited standards of Azur storytelling, but the music was pretty good. The disturbing advent of "extra loli" versions of ships I could have done without (the more so because, somehow, I ended up with all of them!) For even more fun, the first tier of the World of Warships collab hit the English server, so I get to have fun grinding for shipgirls corresponding to ships that never got built; heh, why not? Monarch looks good in a qipao skin anyway.
GBF is extra GBF-y at the moment. Just a little bit away from recruiting old man Al-Anon, an "evoker" whose skills are oriented toward coming in to fill a hole left by someone who dies in your front line; how convenient that I'm playing fire Beatrix, who trades a fierce attack buff for a crippling, nigh-suicidal defense and aggro penalty. Fire up Beatrix, collect huge damage, have her catch something hideously damaging, and Alanaan comes in to bring the Sun. And then I can pick a second one to start working on, for a months-long project; probably Maria Therese (whose story is, basically, "I am a Habsburg"... in the middle of our game of impossible floating islands and airships, yet.)
Real life isn't too bad - been sick off and on, but nothing too nasty. Dad's got his first cyborg surgery scheduled, so that should be fun. Need to plan some kind of vacation this year...
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April 04, 2019
Gaming journal 4/4
Quiet week in Granblue. Finished with the current event and clearing up some miscellaneous tasks - the pile of fate episodes really stacked up with all the leveling I did over the anniversary event. Probably won't have anything significant going on until the guild war event next week, though it's a good time to work on some random raids.
Azur's on maintenance tonight - adding in submarines. Because, of course, they didn't have enough lolis with the Japanese destroyers running around in literal kindergarten uniforms. Oy vey. I've got a pretty thick callus on that from all the years I've worked on anime, but I don't exactly need more of it.
GFL's going well - the new boss bully event yielded a gold scope and I lucked into building a second one. Those were very high on the list of "things I need a whole pile of". Another friend is trying the game out as well, so that's always fun too. Did enough missions to hit the daily minimum to get the daily rewards, but that was enough to get Thompson up to level 80.
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April 02, 2019
Gaming journal 4/2
GFL has a maintenance tonight, so I'll worry about it when I wake up tomorrow.
Had fun in Azur Lane instead. No notable ship drops, but I did clear 10-1 and got a win on 10-2. The boss fleet didn't have any trouble, but the clearing fleet took a pounding - no casualties but the vanguard was mostly under 20% HP and burning. Seriously thinking about dropping one of my fleet carriers and bringing Unicorn along (though she's just a little under 100 still...)
In Granblue, I finished up the full uncap of my first Nibelung Horn (axe weapon, big bonus at near full HP plus crit). This puts earth right up near light for "strongest grid", though light's still probably stronger for practical purposes (two limited characters plus a 5* Eternal will do that). Feels like some progress, though.
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April 01, 2019
Gaming journal 4/1
Granblue's April Fools' was... I hate to say "disappointing" because they put some work into it, but the new stuff was limited to a couple of costumes and a series of "puzzles" done in conjunction with an escape room company. Not my cuppa, but eh, it's easy enough to look up the response and scoop up the loot. Did get one of Alexiel's axes to drop, so that's good for the earth weapon grid.
Azur Lane has a very quiet sort of 4/1, with not much beyond a two-page back-to-the-future comic and a pixel-art login page. They announced the release of submarines (lots of calls of "they're not actually that great!" from experienced players from the CN/JP side). Cleared 10-1 a couple more times, 1 more before 10-2 unlocks.
GFL... a 5-star AR build! Annnnnd it was FAL, who I finished 5x linking last night. (Adding a "dummy link" takes either extra copies of the character, or "dummy cores" you get by scrapping high-rarity ones you don't need. I didn't have any spare FAL, which meant I spent 45 cores last night... and the one I built tonight would have been worth 15 of that. But scrapping the now-surplus-to-requirements French AR only netted me 5... ah well, it's 5 I didn't have yesterday.) I did also get a gold AP rifle ammo as a consolation prize.
Not actually done for the night yet, since Granblue has a final part to its puzzle stuff that doesn't unlock until 7 PM JST... or, in other words, 5 AM CST. And it'll end at midnight, so 10 AM CST. Would be mos' inconvenient for those of us who don't roll out of bed until noon, but fortunately because of that I can deal with 5 AM pretty easily...
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March 31, 2019
Gaming journal 3/31
The month-long Granblue anniversary event finally petered out, and we have a new event - a comedy with the Lowain brothers and Tyre. These events do a great job of taking what would be some fairly one-dimensional characters and putting extra flesh on them - Tyre didn't previously get much beyond "I'm way too serious and have the hots for Vira the uncomfortably yandere!" As for Lowain, he runs away with the show as usual; I enjoy the performance so much that I forgave his VA, Minoru Shiraishi, for all that pain and effort subtitling those Haruhi and Lucky Star extras.
A friend of mine is also a big fan of the bancho stereotypes, so the onna-bancho delusion chapter will have her rolling. I got a good laugh out of it too.
Event itself is pretty normal ("fight some bosses, earn tokens and points for the usual loot".) The usual event summon inflicts Petrify; seems to good for an event hand-out, maybe the chance is really low? Worth experimenting on. Anyway, the real fun starts tomorrow, we'll see what crazy stuff they've come up with for April Fools'.
Sunday in Azur means all the daily quests are open at once - between the three rotating types, the level cap daily, and the usual three clears a day of a Hard Mode map, that's 15 fights. Did those (3 gold destroyer retrofit blueprints, unlikely/good result there!) Managed to put in one win on map 10-1, but having Washington on the boss fleet there is hurting me (as a US BB, she only has 5" secondary guns and 10-1 is Home of the Suicide Speedboat Conga Line) - I may swap in Tirpitz for that map.
GFL... finished leveling the third AR/SMG team. One more to work on, but this one's a collection of odds and sods - Thompson and Suomi tanking, G41, SOPMOD attacking, and M16 doing her weird hybrid tank thing. If it wasn't for M16 being in the squad, I might want to work on leveling others instead, but I really do need to get her up to 90 or 100 so that she can help when it comes time to level the assorted handguns and etc. that I've run across.
Downside is the dummy core cost, as usual - though I have enough to upgrade Thompson for free and one duplicate of G41 as well, that still means I'll need 129 to finish the other four, and I have... 10. Might just do M16 and Thompson and leave the rest until I actually want to use them more (though G41 is genuinely good; waste not to have her out there.)
Decent night of gaming, all told.
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March 30, 2019
Gaming journal 3/30
I've been terrible about posting - things are going fairly well, but boring enough I haven't been worried about sharing. Might as well post and talk about how the games have been going lately...
GBF - nothing much today, just a couple of trains (MM HL, Metatron). Got around to crafting an Unsigned Kanehige. The 100-draw-plus-frenzy event netted me absolutely nothing new, though I got some uncap stuff (Kaguya, Rose Queen, and a Disparia). Should be fun with the comedy event kicking off tomorrow, and god only knows what 4/1 has to offer - last year they made a completely separate taiko game as a joke.
Azur Lane - need a bit more experience in Saratoga to finish her refit. Got all hard levels cleared to danger level 0, so easy farming there. Built a Yukikaze and a Mogami so there's nothing to worry about for the current event - figure I'll take a couple of weeks to work on world 10 in story missions. Should decide between the retrofit magical girl skin and the hanbok skin for Saratoga...
GFL - weekly production scored me an NS-2000 (lousy 3-star shotgun). Nothing notable from the daily builds except a gold exoskeleton. Limiting actual play at the moment to daily runs of 0-2 to get cores - I'm almost done leveling the third AR/SMG team, but with a 50% bonus experience week coming up, no reason to spend resources in advance (and I don't have the cores to support leveling the fourth AR/SMG team or anyone from the extra pile yet...) Big event announced for the very end of April, so plenty of time to bank up ammo for that.
And they announced a new Sakura Taisen, too...
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September 05, 2018
Aria stuff has arrived
Big box of happy was left at my door, and thankfully ignored by my neighbors until I arrived home. Came with a good bit of extra goodies, some of which I intend to pass on to a certain Aria fan who will remain quackless.
Watched an episode and was smiling like a loon the whole time. Genuinely quite happy with the world.
Also, I actually made it to a baseball game over the weekend, and the Astros won, so that was pretty nice too.
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August 20, 2018
Been gaming
Several gacha games, though they're doing well about getting away from the "gacha" and including a game these days.
Granblue's still plenty of fun, though mostly with friends. It has a lot of the same systems as a more exploitative game (characters through expensive gacha, energy system), but the whole thing feels like it's run by a half-senile and indulgent grandparent; it hands out free rolls like candy (like "ten a day for a couple weeks at a time"), and the "forget the energy and keep playing" items rain from the sky; realistically your limit is physical exhaustion. Gameplay's classic-RPG style with fairly simplistic controls, but advancement is less "what you got out of the gacha" and more "how much work you've put into well-designed equipment grids".
On top of that, I've been trying out Girls Frontline and Azure Lane, the latter of which came out in English last week.
GFL is, basically, Kancolle with guns instead of ships. Nicely polished, plenty of cute, doesn't rely on you bringing tons of cash to get characters, no permadeath (and the girls head for the hills when they're hurt). Some customization/leveling, but a lot less than the other two games.
Azure Lane is actually kind of a game - a shmup, even. We're not talking Touhou or anything that crazy, and by comparison the controls are a little mushy and a lot of shots you just aren't going to dodge - but the girls are fairly tanky (the heavy cruisers are slow, but -very- tanky) and so you're less trying for That Perfect Run and more just mitigating the damage. Or if you're slow, distracted, or just plain bad at it, it has an auto mode that'll half-ass things for me. Enjoyable, especially if you were kind of interested in the idea of Kancolle but the language barrier stopped you. Much more international cast, too - the Royal Navy and US Navy are there in force instead of being relegated to a couple of bonus ships, while the IJN is in the "bad guy" role at the beginning.
Life is going pretty well. Got out to visit the Lexington while I was on vacation (was nice, but take my advice and wait for winter to go!)
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January 05, 2018
Laid-Back Camp is maximum comfy
I liked the antarctic show as well, but this one should top everything for lazy enjoyment.
I liked the antarctic show as well, but this one should top everything for lazy enjoyment.
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September 10, 2017
I made it through the big windy rainy thing
Been quiet lately, but not because of any trouble on this end. Here's a quick recap:
-Dallas was way too far north to see any of the trouble (or even more than a little rain). My parents ended up with a few feet of water in their house, though. I spent the weekend before this one with some friends and family ripping out... just about everything they had downstairs. They're insured but the house probably won't be habitable for a while (though, miracle of miracles, the air conditioner kicked on after a few days to dry out).
Doing demo work in a flooded house is not high on my list of pleasant experiences to be recommended to friends. Live on the high ground, folks.
-Went up to DC for Otakon and to do the tourist thing, since I'd never been before. Met a friend of mine a week before the con, and we had a lot of fun going around looking at things. The convention was quite good, and extremely well-run for the first year in that location. The figure shelf gained a couple of new additions (some more of the little Medicchu Kancolle ones, Shiro from NGNL, and yesterday, a Holo!)
-Been playing a whole lot of Granblue Fantasy (a browser game in the mobile style, hosted in Japan but translated to English.) Saw the first episode of the anime a while back and went "meh, generic", but an old friend from the anime company days got me into it and it's actually got some quite toothsome crunch in there; the events also have a fun, light-hearted feel. Technically one of those "play for a while and wait for the energy to refill" types, but they hand out so many items to refill the stuff that I think I could play continuously until 2018 at this point. OTOH, it's Japanese, so the "microtransactions" if you do want to buy stuff aren't really "micro"; at $30 or so for a 10-draw, it's more of a macrotransaction. Still, if you like this stuff and haven't been sucked into FGO, Granblue is a lot of fun.
-I've also been playing FF14, since a lot of my friends got back into that when the expansion hit. I'd tried it when it first came out and it was horribad; enough people agreed with me that they ended up blowing up the world and doing it over. These days, it's quite a good game; certainly prettier than WOW by a long way, and with a much deeper crafting system, though there's also still a few design oddities. Don't know that it'll hold my interest indefinitely, but it's plenty fun for now.
-Anime this season, I'm enjoying Centaur's Life, Clean Freak Aoyama-kun, Gamers, New Game, Restaurant, and the one ep of Knights and Magic I've seen so far. I'm also watching Smartphone in a kind of enjoying-the-train-wreck sense.
-Dallas was way too far north to see any of the trouble (or even more than a little rain). My parents ended up with a few feet of water in their house, though. I spent the weekend before this one with some friends and family ripping out... just about everything they had downstairs. They're insured but the house probably won't be habitable for a while (though, miracle of miracles, the air conditioner kicked on after a few days to dry out).
Doing demo work in a flooded house is not high on my list of pleasant experiences to be recommended to friends. Live on the high ground, folks.
-Went up to DC for Otakon and to do the tourist thing, since I'd never been before. Met a friend of mine a week before the con, and we had a lot of fun going around looking at things. The convention was quite good, and extremely well-run for the first year in that location. The figure shelf gained a couple of new additions (some more of the little Medicchu Kancolle ones, Shiro from NGNL, and yesterday, a Holo!)
-Been playing a whole lot of Granblue Fantasy (a browser game in the mobile style, hosted in Japan but translated to English.) Saw the first episode of the anime a while back and went "meh, generic", but an old friend from the anime company days got me into it and it's actually got some quite toothsome crunch in there; the events also have a fun, light-hearted feel. Technically one of those "play for a while and wait for the energy to refill" types, but they hand out so many items to refill the stuff that I think I could play continuously until 2018 at this point. OTOH, it's Japanese, so the "microtransactions" if you do want to buy stuff aren't really "micro"; at $30 or so for a 10-draw, it's more of a macrotransaction. Still, if you like this stuff and haven't been sucked into FGO, Granblue is a lot of fun.
-I've also been playing FF14, since a lot of my friends got back into that when the expansion hit. I'd tried it when it first came out and it was horribad; enough people agreed with me that they ended up blowing up the world and doing it over. These days, it's quite a good game; certainly prettier than WOW by a long way, and with a much deeper crafting system, though there's also still a few design oddities. Don't know that it'll hold my interest indefinitely, but it's plenty fun for now.
-Anime this season, I'm enjoying Centaur's Life, Clean Freak Aoyama-kun, Gamers, New Game, Restaurant, and the one ep of Knights and Magic I've seen so far. I'm also watching Smartphone in a kind of enjoying-the-train-wreck sense.
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January 16, 2017
Miku Mikku'd
Low posting is a symptom of happiness and games.
Picked up the new Project Diva: Future Tone. Realized that if I put 15-16 hours of play into it, that will be just about enough to have played each song precisely one time. Holy -mackerel-. I thought that Project Diva F and F2 were each worthwhile at about $50 for 40 songs or so, and Diva X was a bit short with a bit less in the way of songs. Of course Future Tone is $60 (two $30 packs, with 120 and 100 songs), and a lot of the content is stuff from the old games... but there were a lot of good songs in those old games, so putting everything into one rolled-up package along with a bunch of stuff that never came out over here is actually pretty great.
Difficulty level is... higher and lower at the same time, I guess? The removal of the double-same-direction takes out some of the finger-fatigue, offset by the addition of mash-two-different-notes-at-once; that's taking getting used to. The standard for passing a level is much lower, but in previous outings "good" and "cool" both counted as a full hit (now "good" is worth a little less) and doing well in portions of the song could get you bonus completion percentage (now it's raw "did you hit the notes right?") Clearing a song on "normal" only takes 50%, and there are a couple that I haven't managed that on, out of the tithe of the total I've managed to play so far. I haven't even tried the really manic ones that I know I have trouble on...
Picked up the new Project Diva: Future Tone. Realized that if I put 15-16 hours of play into it, that will be just about enough to have played each song precisely one time. Holy -mackerel-. I thought that Project Diva F and F2 were each worthwhile at about $50 for 40 songs or so, and Diva X was a bit short with a bit less in the way of songs. Of course Future Tone is $60 (two $30 packs, with 120 and 100 songs), and a lot of the content is stuff from the old games... but there were a lot of good songs in those old games, so putting everything into one rolled-up package along with a bunch of stuff that never came out over here is actually pretty great.
Difficulty level is... higher and lower at the same time, I guess? The removal of the double-same-direction takes out some of the finger-fatigue, offset by the addition of mash-two-different-notes-at-once; that's taking getting used to. The standard for passing a level is much lower, but in previous outings "good" and "cool" both counted as a full hit (now "good" is worth a little less) and doing well in portions of the song could get you bonus completion percentage (now it's raw "did you hit the notes right?") Clearing a song on "normal" only takes 50%, and there are a couple that I haven't managed that on, out of the tithe of the total I've managed to play so far. I haven't even tried the really manic ones that I know I have trouble on...
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May 05, 2016
When Uncle Sugar isn't happy, ain't nobody happy
Been lazy about updating. Things going well, many fun games, much good anime, etc, etc.
Steven is pessimistic about the long-term trajectory of the US economy, given the apparently-inevitable increase in debt. Fortunately the situation is better than what he's presenting, though for reasons that aren't terribly cheery in and of themselves.
First, while his analysis isn't incorrect, it's looking at the US in a vacuum. But we're not in a vacuum - we're in a world with a significant number of other countries. And those countries have their own problems... including the same problem the US has with respect to deficit spending. But worse.
While we certainly should be worried about the rapidly-approaching tiger, in practice we don't have to outpace it - just outpace the other competitors. Whether it's Japan's huge debt-to-GDP ratio and incipient population implosion, or Europe's deficits and other issues, or China's upcoming mother-of-all-burst-bubbles, none of our major competitors is anything like financially healthy. (Germany might be, were it not shackled into the Euro. Norway is, but it's tiny.)
The collapse of any of those major competitors is bad, in the sense that they are major markets. But from the chaos would come lots of opportunities for the US as well. Our prosperity in the '50s was not wholly unrelated to the happy fact that most of the other advanced economies had been bombed into rubble while ours was untouched, after all.
Behind all that, though, is a darker reason. We haven't been entirely idle, grasshoppering away in the sun. Sure, the dollar is backed by confidence in the American economy... but it's also backed by a dozen fleet carriers and a bunch of nuclear weapons. The US's naval superiority is essentially absolute at this point (the only country within shouting range, and they'd better use a megaphone, is the UK.) That doesn't mean that we can mwa-ha-ha rule the world... but it does mean that the transport of the commodity upon which all modern industry relies, oil, moves by our leave and no others. We don't use that power - we've never used that power - but it's there, and if push came to shove, it would be done.
When you're a banana vendor in a small room with an 800 pound gorilla, and he's buying bananas, that's a good position to be in. But if he comes to you and says "hey, I'm going to need credit for bananas for a while," you're going to offer him credit... even if you don't particularly expect to be paid. Why? Because the alternative to him buying your bananas is NOT "gorilla goes hungry".
Which is to say, the world's got a vested interest in keeping the US reasonably happy, because if we're not happy, we will spread around the unhappy with a big brush.
Not precisely a cheering thought, but there you have it...
Steven is pessimistic about the long-term trajectory of the US economy, given the apparently-inevitable increase in debt. Fortunately the situation is better than what he's presenting, though for reasons that aren't terribly cheery in and of themselves.
First, while his analysis isn't incorrect, it's looking at the US in a vacuum. But we're not in a vacuum - we're in a world with a significant number of other countries. And those countries have their own problems... including the same problem the US has with respect to deficit spending. But worse.
While we certainly should be worried about the rapidly-approaching tiger, in practice we don't have to outpace it - just outpace the other competitors. Whether it's Japan's huge debt-to-GDP ratio and incipient population implosion, or Europe's deficits and other issues, or China's upcoming mother-of-all-burst-bubbles, none of our major competitors is anything like financially healthy. (Germany might be, were it not shackled into the Euro. Norway is, but it's tiny.)
The collapse of any of those major competitors is bad, in the sense that they are major markets. But from the chaos would come lots of opportunities for the US as well. Our prosperity in the '50s was not wholly unrelated to the happy fact that most of the other advanced economies had been bombed into rubble while ours was untouched, after all.
Behind all that, though, is a darker reason. We haven't been entirely idle, grasshoppering away in the sun. Sure, the dollar is backed by confidence in the American economy... but it's also backed by a dozen fleet carriers and a bunch of nuclear weapons. The US's naval superiority is essentially absolute at this point (the only country within shouting range, and they'd better use a megaphone, is the UK.) That doesn't mean that we can mwa-ha-ha rule the world... but it does mean that the transport of the commodity upon which all modern industry relies, oil, moves by our leave and no others. We don't use that power - we've never used that power - but it's there, and if push came to shove, it would be done.
When you're a banana vendor in a small room with an 800 pound gorilla, and he's buying bananas, that's a good position to be in. But if he comes to you and says "hey, I'm going to need credit for bananas for a while," you're going to offer him credit... even if you don't particularly expect to be paid. Why? Because the alternative to him buying your bananas is NOT "gorilla goes hungry".
Which is to say, the world's got a vested interest in keeping the US reasonably happy, because if we're not happy, we will spread around the unhappy with a big brush.
Not precisely a cheering thought, but there you have it...
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February 06, 2016
IA, IA, visited Cthulhu
Last weekend was PAX South. Hadn't been to one before, and I caught wind of several of my friends planning to attend, so I decided, what hey, it's San Antonio, that's a cheap trip; why not go?
The convention was all right, though if I'd gone solo I probably wouldn't have been particularly impressed - the game rooms were predictably packed, the panels were not things I'm usually interested in, and a good chunk of the indy games in the exhibit hall were... way too indy (in the bad way). I did see a Marble Madness-inspired game I'm looking forward to, though.
Fortunately, friends made it a good time, especially as I hadn't seen several of them in many years. StarCreator put on a heck of a show at the Tetris Attack tournament, and I managed to boggle Konoha and Cthulhu by drinking a margarita the size of my head (and that is not a small size; I don't call this place the Ego's Nest because of my modest nature!) Didn't end up grabbing much swag, but I did find one thing that had been on my "hey, get this sometime" list - a copy of IA/VT Colorful for the Vita.
I don't normally buy games in languages I'm illiterate in, for the obvious reasons, but since this is a rhythm game, it's not really an issue. I'm having a good bit of fun with it, but from a technical perspective, it's just not as good as the Project Diva games. Every song in those games features a full CG background with at least one character model you can set as various costumes, and "keep playing to earn points to unlock the costumes" is the hook in that series. IA/VT has some costumes, but they're only visible in about a quarter of the songs - the rest have static videos, some of which ain't particularly impressive.
The scoring system is interesting. The Project Diva games say "you got X score, you get Y points, have fun spending them". IA/VT uses the points only to level up the player, and then songs and costumes unlock based on that level. Play the song again, and get a better score? You get the delta between "points you'd already banked" and "points you've now earned" - and if you don't get a better score, you get no benefit at all. A serious "git gud" scoring paradigm, with the only other source of points being a daily challenge (that you get a -single- attempt at).
This could get frustrating really fast if you were new to rhythm games and got fairly terrible scores. If you're an experienced player of rhythm games, you'll be scoring A, S, double S, and even triple S and have nothin' to worry about - I'm about 2/3 of the way through the unlocks and have not even played all the songs yet. (And there are 60, plus some DLC which you need a Japanese PSN account to get, so I'll live with 60.) This is mostly because of the strike zone for the notes, which is -huge- (with "cool", "fine", and "safe" results all preserving your combo). On easy difficulty you can miss a note, realize you've missed it, go back and hit the correct button and still get credit.
The song selection is all right, given that it's all IA songs; there's some in there I've listened to and enjoyed, but there's less variety than in the Miku games. Good enough to make the game worth it but not so good that I'd shout it from the rooftops or anything. Still, if you already worked your way through Project Diva F and F2, and you're waiting for X in a few months, this will fill up that time nicely.
The convention was all right, though if I'd gone solo I probably wouldn't have been particularly impressed - the game rooms were predictably packed, the panels were not things I'm usually interested in, and a good chunk of the indy games in the exhibit hall were... way too indy (in the bad way). I did see a Marble Madness-inspired game I'm looking forward to, though.
Fortunately, friends made it a good time, especially as I hadn't seen several of them in many years. StarCreator put on a heck of a show at the Tetris Attack tournament, and I managed to boggle Konoha and Cthulhu by drinking a margarita the size of my head (and that is not a small size; I don't call this place the Ego's Nest because of my modest nature!) Didn't end up grabbing much swag, but I did find one thing that had been on my "hey, get this sometime" list - a copy of IA/VT Colorful for the Vita.
I don't normally buy games in languages I'm illiterate in, for the obvious reasons, but since this is a rhythm game, it's not really an issue. I'm having a good bit of fun with it, but from a technical perspective, it's just not as good as the Project Diva games. Every song in those games features a full CG background with at least one character model you can set as various costumes, and "keep playing to earn points to unlock the costumes" is the hook in that series. IA/VT has some costumes, but they're only visible in about a quarter of the songs - the rest have static videos, some of which ain't particularly impressive.
The scoring system is interesting. The Project Diva games say "you got X score, you get Y points, have fun spending them". IA/VT uses the points only to level up the player, and then songs and costumes unlock based on that level. Play the song again, and get a better score? You get the delta between "points you'd already banked" and "points you've now earned" - and if you don't get a better score, you get no benefit at all. A serious "git gud" scoring paradigm, with the only other source of points being a daily challenge (that you get a -single- attempt at).
This could get frustrating really fast if you were new to rhythm games and got fairly terrible scores. If you're an experienced player of rhythm games, you'll be scoring A, S, double S, and even triple S and have nothin' to worry about - I'm about 2/3 of the way through the unlocks and have not even played all the songs yet. (And there are 60, plus some DLC which you need a Japanese PSN account to get, so I'll live with 60.) This is mostly because of the strike zone for the notes, which is -huge- (with "cool", "fine", and "safe" results all preserving your combo). On easy difficulty you can miss a note, realize you've missed it, go back and hit the correct button and still get credit.
The song selection is all right, given that it's all IA songs; there's some in there I've listened to and enjoyed, but there's less variety than in the Miku games. Good enough to make the game worth it but not so good that I'd shout it from the rooftops or anything. Still, if you already worked your way through Project Diva F and F2, and you're waiting for X in a few months, this will fill up that time nicely.
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October 30, 2015
Coming up for air
Uneventful life is pretty good. Got down to Austin for the weekend to hang out with a couple of friends. Been playing MGS5 to distraction, started up Trails to the Sky (have owned it for ages, just never fired it up...) Next purchase is a PS4 for some Disgaea 5, I think, but I'll wait for the holiday bundles to see if we get a price drop.
Anime lately? One Punch Man (more subtle than it lets on, heh), more Ushio and Tora, more Is the Order a Rabbit, the new Utawarerumono, and Sakurako. Komori-san Can't Decline isn't all that great but eh, two minutes is not a huge time investment. Lovely Muco is terrible but charming for some reason. Ditto Hakone-chan. Shomin Sample is pretty dumb but is enough fan-service to get by. SD Attack on Titan is not doin' it for me. Watching some One Piece - I suppose there's an inexhaustible supply of it out there, not too bad if I've had a little rum to drink. (Incidentally, DarkSong turned me on to Capt. Morgan Cannon Blast, which is goddamned delicious rum; it tastes too good to mix it! Pricey though.)
Reading, I've dug out copies of Churchill's memoirs. Six volumes, this'll take a while...
Kind of a good time to be a 40K fan - GW's releasing a board game with a ton of Mk4 marines in it, and next year they're releasing a 12-book series of Ork-centric novels. Heh, that'll be something to look forward to! (of course, so is the eventual delivery of that Ork kickstarter...)
Anime lately? One Punch Man (more subtle than it lets on, heh), more Ushio and Tora, more Is the Order a Rabbit, the new Utawarerumono, and Sakurako. Komori-san Can't Decline isn't all that great but eh, two minutes is not a huge time investment. Lovely Muco is terrible but charming for some reason. Ditto Hakone-chan. Shomin Sample is pretty dumb but is enough fan-service to get by. SD Attack on Titan is not doin' it for me. Watching some One Piece - I suppose there's an inexhaustible supply of it out there, not too bad if I've had a little rum to drink. (Incidentally, DarkSong turned me on to Capt. Morgan Cannon Blast, which is goddamned delicious rum; it tastes too good to mix it! Pricey though.)
Reading, I've dug out copies of Churchill's memoirs. Six volumes, this'll take a while...
Kind of a good time to be a 40K fan - GW's releasing a board game with a ton of Mk4 marines in it, and next year they're releasing a 12-book series of Ork-centric novels. Heh, that'll be something to look forward to! (of course, so is the eventual delivery of that Ork kickstarter...)
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September 08, 2015
MGS5 - a history request
Helicopter blasting Ride of the Valkyries when it comes in for extraction? Heck yeah. (Technically it can do the same when it comes in to lay rockets on a position, but so far I've been working a little more quietly. Or more like, Big Boss views those outposts not as enemy positions but as being filled with potential recruits and hardware only awaiting pickup!)
I have a couple of friends who are also greatly enjoying the game. However, they're a bit less into the military history than I am, and were asking me for a book recommendation regarding the Afghanistan conflict in the 80s. And I don't have one; I've never read one even. It's been long enough that there should be some good ones available. Anyone got any recommendations on where to start?
I have a couple of friends who are also greatly enjoying the game. However, they're a bit less into the military history than I am, and were asking me for a book recommendation regarding the Afghanistan conflict in the 80s. And I don't have one; I've never read one even. It's been long enough that there should be some good ones available. Anyone got any recommendations on where to start?
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September 03, 2015
Snaaaaaaake!
Tip - do not start Metal Gear Solid 5 shortly before you need to go to work.
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August 14, 2015
The dog days of summer
Twenty different things goin' on. Got back into WOW for a little while, though I'm playing the Pokemon game in it more than I'm doing anything serious. Also fired up If My Heart Had Wings, which I had picked up in a Steam sale a while back and am now enjoying immensely.
The anime this season isn't doing half bad, better than I honestly expected. Not everything is great - when is it ever - but there's plenty of stuff that's worth watching for me. So far, keeping up with:
Jitsu wa - thoroughly stupid concept, but funny enough for good background noise.
Non Non Biyori Repeat - slice of life by way of rural Japan, it's amazing they can fill up a show with so little actually happening and still keep it pretty good. Definitely carried by the characters, who don't quite rise to the level of "zany cast" but are done quite well. Ren-chon's cuteness is not to be underestimated.
Overlord - interesting take on the "trapped in an RPG"... I guess we can call it a genre now, huh? Serious power fantasy tripping here, like "Arthas raiding Westfall" level of mismatch. But the main tension of the show isn't so much "is Momonga stronger than the ogres?" (hint: very yes) but more "how can he keep his minions happy as their evil overlord when his actual nature is actually kind of a nice guy?" Weakest point is the pacing - it's a bit slow, this had damned well better be 20 plus episodes or it's not going to get anywhere. But it's fun, it plays well with the RPG tropes while subverting a bunch of them, and I would very much like one Albedo delivered here; she's got 99 problems but a lich ain't one. (Forced that one a bit, but I couldn't resist.)
Monster Musume - this is... actually quite a bit harder to enjoy than the manga, I think. The popularity of the originals wasn't so much "lol it is porn with monster girls" as it was "this is actually some funny comedy with a sweet flavor and oh, it has porn in it". It's not that the anime is significantly different than the manga in content, but in the latter you can pick the parts you want to pay attention to. In the anime, you're going through at the pace the director had in mind, and a lot more of the time is being spent on "lol, we want to satisfy people who want to boink a harpy". Sigh. Still, I can get through shows that have some "dammit Japan, quit that" content (Nanoha S1's inordinate panty shots of grade schoolers, for example), so maybe I just have a callus built up. If I had to cut something for lack of time, this one would be it, methinks.
Himoto Umaru-chan - Huh. Watched ep 1 on a day I was really bored and wasn't too wild about it - Umaru's not that endearing on her own. Watched a bit more and now I really enjoy it, not because of Spoiled Brat In the Middle, but because the other characters are quite good too. (Helps that the show is not merely willing to take Umaru down a peg, but to dump her right off the board from time to time.) That said, this could run out of material REALLY fast, so no telling if it'll keep up.
Ore no Monogatari - it's a romantic show, but it's so completely against the shoujo type that it's scary. Miscommunication comedy? Hell no, it's a couple who talks to each other despite being awkward. Angst? We don't need any of that! At the end of the day it's a show about a boy and a girl who are really into each other, if rather innocently, even though the guy isn't handsome... well. That doesn't really do it justice. Takeo is a man-mountain caricature drawing in a show where everyone (but his parents) got a normal character design. Early on I saw his buddy, the handsome and somewhat withdrawn bishounen type, and thought "oh, here comes the love triangle..." But no! Nothing of the sort. I don't think the show's really good, objectively speaking, but it's so against type that it feels liberating just to watch.
Ushio and Tora - because come on, man, I had this on VHS back in the day. Hell, I screamed and died in the dub, even. Massive nostalgia. I'd watch this even if it sucked, but it's still as good as it was back in the day. Only downside is that it's following the manga just like the original OAVs did, so there won't be anything really new for the first ten eps; however, it's been so long since I've seen it that I'm totally okay with the refresher.
Wakaba * Girl - Not precisely sure why I tried this, and the concept isn't that deep (it's lighthearted rich-girl fish-out-of-water comedy). But eh, at eight minutes a week it's fine.
GATE - if you're reading this you already know why this show is the best thing this season.
I will probably end up watching School Live sometime as well, the recommendations are pretty good. For catch-up from last season, I want to sink my teeth into Euphonium; in my "I really ought to have watched this but I didn't and now I probably won't get to it for a while" pile is Shirobako.
Good times, good times.
The anime this season isn't doing half bad, better than I honestly expected. Not everything is great - when is it ever - but there's plenty of stuff that's worth watching for me. So far, keeping up with:
Jitsu wa - thoroughly stupid concept, but funny enough for good background noise.
Non Non Biyori Repeat - slice of life by way of rural Japan, it's amazing they can fill up a show with so little actually happening and still keep it pretty good. Definitely carried by the characters, who don't quite rise to the level of "zany cast" but are done quite well. Ren-chon's cuteness is not to be underestimated.
Overlord - interesting take on the "trapped in an RPG"... I guess we can call it a genre now, huh? Serious power fantasy tripping here, like "Arthas raiding Westfall" level of mismatch. But the main tension of the show isn't so much "is Momonga stronger than the ogres?" (hint: very yes) but more "how can he keep his minions happy as their evil overlord when his actual nature is actually kind of a nice guy?" Weakest point is the pacing - it's a bit slow, this had damned well better be 20 plus episodes or it's not going to get anywhere. But it's fun, it plays well with the RPG tropes while subverting a bunch of them, and I would very much like one Albedo delivered here; she's got 99 problems but a lich ain't one. (Forced that one a bit, but I couldn't resist.)
Monster Musume - this is... actually quite a bit harder to enjoy than the manga, I think. The popularity of the originals wasn't so much "lol it is porn with monster girls" as it was "this is actually some funny comedy with a sweet flavor and oh, it has porn in it". It's not that the anime is significantly different than the manga in content, but in the latter you can pick the parts you want to pay attention to. In the anime, you're going through at the pace the director had in mind, and a lot more of the time is being spent on "lol, we want to satisfy people who want to boink a harpy". Sigh. Still, I can get through shows that have some "dammit Japan, quit that" content (Nanoha S1's inordinate panty shots of grade schoolers, for example), so maybe I just have a callus built up. If I had to cut something for lack of time, this one would be it, methinks.
Himoto Umaru-chan - Huh. Watched ep 1 on a day I was really bored and wasn't too wild about it - Umaru's not that endearing on her own. Watched a bit more and now I really enjoy it, not because of Spoiled Brat In the Middle, but because the other characters are quite good too. (Helps that the show is not merely willing to take Umaru down a peg, but to dump her right off the board from time to time.) That said, this could run out of material REALLY fast, so no telling if it'll keep up.
Ore no Monogatari - it's a romantic show, but it's so completely against the shoujo type that it's scary. Miscommunication comedy? Hell no, it's a couple who talks to each other despite being awkward. Angst? We don't need any of that! At the end of the day it's a show about a boy and a girl who are really into each other, if rather innocently, even though the guy isn't handsome... well. That doesn't really do it justice. Takeo is a man-mountain caricature drawing in a show where everyone (but his parents) got a normal character design. Early on I saw his buddy, the handsome and somewhat withdrawn bishounen type, and thought "oh, here comes the love triangle..." But no! Nothing of the sort. I don't think the show's really good, objectively speaking, but it's so against type that it feels liberating just to watch.
Ushio and Tora - because come on, man, I had this on VHS back in the day. Hell, I screamed and died in the dub, even. Massive nostalgia. I'd watch this even if it sucked, but it's still as good as it was back in the day. Only downside is that it's following the manga just like the original OAVs did, so there won't be anything really new for the first ten eps; however, it's been so long since I've seen it that I'm totally okay with the refresher.
Wakaba * Girl - Not precisely sure why I tried this, and the concept isn't that deep (it's lighthearted rich-girl fish-out-of-water comedy). But eh, at eight minutes a week it's fine.
GATE - if you're reading this you already know why this show is the best thing this season.
I will probably end up watching School Live sometime as well, the recommendations are pretty good. For catch-up from last season, I want to sink my teeth into Euphonium; in my "I really ought to have watched this but I didn't and now I probably won't get to it for a while" pile is Shirobako.
Good times, good times.
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July 05, 2015
4th of July, and back again
I remember looking up at the fireworks on the 4th of July, from the parking lot of the Buffalo Wild Wings off the George Bush tollway in Richardson, and thinking "I probably won't be seeing these again." I hadn't really intended to see them in the first place, just went in for wings and came out to see them going off across the highway.
This year, two years later, I went back there and enjoyed the show from the patio. Same in a lot of ways, different in quite a few. For one thing, there's a lot less of me to enjoy it - I've just nudged under 50 pounds from my heaviest weight, down to 244.
Feeling pretty good, though. Had fun playing games today, had good wings, had some nice vodka when I got home, watched some good anime, overall not a bad way to spend the holiday. Not terribly productive, to be sure (I -really- need to get cracking on that desk so that I can set up my office already), but eh, it's a holiday.
This year, two years later, I went back there and enjoyed the show from the patio. Same in a lot of ways, different in quite a few. For one thing, there's a lot less of me to enjoy it - I've just nudged under 50 pounds from my heaviest weight, down to 244.
Feeling pretty good, though. Had fun playing games today, had good wings, had some nice vodka when I got home, watched some good anime, overall not a bad way to spend the holiday. Not terribly productive, to be sure (I -really- need to get cracking on that desk so that I can set up my office already), but eh, it's a holiday.
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June 15, 2015
Keep meaning to update
So since my last post I've arrived in Dallas, got a new apartment, and my stuff has caught up with me. Folks helped me get the home-decorating part of things done over the weekend, now I'm to the "unpack all the nerd stuff" portion of the move.
Figures are unpacked, and the damage isn't too bad. Only real breakage occurred with that huge Hayate figure, who had a broken ankle (superglue ho) and one of the little wings snapped at the tab (this will be rather difficult to glue, since it's a hanging part, but it'll look fine when it's done). She's also got some smudges from the newspaper, as do a couple of the other figures, but I'm told that some Mr. Clean Magic Eraser will fix that, so I'll give it a shot. Everything else came through okay. Still need to build out four Nendos - Amatsukaze, Rin, Rico from DD, and Yukiko from P4.
The wrath of the moving gods seems to have concentrated itself on the Warmachine model I had in the same box, which was practically dismantled; it will need massive reconstruction.
The desk for my office will be a big project - going to refinish the bastard, since it's about twenty years old at this point and showing the wear. Gonna take a lot of sanding...
Figures are unpacked, and the damage isn't too bad. Only real breakage occurred with that huge Hayate figure, who had a broken ankle (superglue ho) and one of the little wings snapped at the tab (this will be rather difficult to glue, since it's a hanging part, but it'll look fine when it's done). She's also got some smudges from the newspaper, as do a couple of the other figures, but I'm told that some Mr. Clean Magic Eraser will fix that, so I'll give it a shot. Everything else came through okay. Still need to build out four Nendos - Amatsukaze, Rin, Rico from DD, and Yukiko from P4.
The wrath of the moving gods seems to have concentrated itself on the Warmachine model I had in the same box, which was practically dismantled; it will need massive reconstruction.
The desk for my office will be a big project - going to refinish the bastard, since it's about twenty years old at this point and showing the wear. Gonna take a lot of sanding...
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May 07, 2015
Across the Southwest in a week
Less than a week really. Spent two days in Berkeley, the first recovering from an overnight flight and the second enjoying barbecue with my brother, his wife, their son Rohan (unreasonably cute), and a dozen or so of their friends.
Sunday took us south to Bakersfield, then across the Mojave Wasteland, and all the way to Mesquite, NV, to stay at a sad little casino with an unreasonably good breakfast buffet.
On Monday, we took a shortcut through Zion (not really that short but oy, don't pass up a chance to visit Zion!) And on to Bryce Canyon, which was pretty good for a visit with Dad - no real hiking involved, just a lot of spectacular overlooks. More hoodoos than you can shake a stick at, and some recent fire scars. We then backtracked a little and pushed on through south Utah and down to Flagstaff late at night.
We took I-40 back from the Grand Canyon last time, so this time we cut south of that on Tuesday. We ran across (actually through) the radio telescope Very Large Array there and fetched up in Roswell for the evening, where we remained thankfully un-probed.
Wednesday took us down US 380 to Sweetwater and then along I-20 into Dallas, at times only a hair ahead of a storm with golf ball sized hail. Did Not Want!
I'm now perched downstairs at the Westin, next door to our relocated office, escaping Dad as he makes noises like a downshifting lumber mill during an earthquake. (Yes, Dad, you should use your CPAP!) We'll get him dropped off at the Greyhound terminal and then I'll work on my outstanding problem - I still don't have a home!
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