I'm too lazy to describe this song, just google Simon & Garfunkel. It's a well known song, you won't have any trouble finding it.

Rained most of the day this weekend. Spent it in solitary, just practising. A hammock, a violin, and a locked room. Sometimes you just don't feel like being out and about. It's not the foehn, more likely the usual occasional bout of malaise; the melancholy of Mikami V.

Oh well, since I've got nothing to do, http://www.mp3lyrics.org/s/simon-garfunkel/i-am-a-rock/

Might've noticed I picked up Micropose's Magic: The Gathering again. It's one of those games you come back to every once in a while. My brother found a vmware image with it preinstalled, yeah I know but I own the game. Microprose is history, too. It's just that it never installs very well - if I'm not mistaken it was an early '97 release, and it was a real pain in the arse to get running under win95, let alone xp. I hear there's a patch for xp (speed problem fix). The vmware image was of a bootleg '95 my brother was checking out, the game just happened to be in it. Goody. Shandalar's always good for a spin.

I'm not exactly partial to M:TG; as card games go I think it's ok, but I don't really enjoy duelling other players. I mean, you fight, win, then what? The game has a campaign mode though; where you actually start with a bunch of crap cards, and then slowly increase your starting life (through a combination of duelling and fetchquesting) and improve your deck as you fight creatures and purchase, discover, or win additional cards. That's what I enjoy most about it, the improving part. It's not just an endless series of card duels against other people. I also recall not finishing the campaign, I wonder what stopped me last time. Maybe technical issues? It was a pain to get installed properly after win95 left the scene.

Standing on the apartment roof, flying a kite in the stiff noon breeze, under the shadow of giant skyspanning thunderclouds, it's easy to forget there are important things to do.

"Miss! Don't jump!"

Huh, was too near the edge. Anyway, who commits suicide flying a kite? Seriously, some people have to stop watching so many goddamn movies. In any case I was still wearing my rappelling harness, I was perfectly safe up there, eating the flowers of paradise. Remember kids, winners don't use drugs. At least, that's what all those old Double Dragon arcade cabinets displayed when you won the game.

Next weekend, the t3mdc take on The Starry Sky.

Un... 今夜もまた儚い＊ゾラ
Un... ヒカル＊に願いをかけるから

悩みはいつも絶えることもない
けれどトビラはもう開いているよ

踏まれても　倒れても　起き上がる強さくれたキミが
誇れる＊になる為　僕は歌うから
今以上に頑張るから　もっと強くなれるように

揺るぎない愛　こんな大事な愛
誰よりもずっと大事に想ってる
不安な夜も確かにあるけれど
負けないで　生きていく　僕らは

運命なんて残酷なもので
予想なんてねつけようもないでしょう

散っていく　砕けてく　けどこの手にある
痛み秘密持ちながら　キミの為に　僕は歌うから
憶えていて　信じていて　忘れないでいて欲しい

誰だってきっと　弱さを秘めていて
キミだってきっと　ホントは恐いよね
僕だってきっと　わかりきってるけど
負けないで　生きていく　僕らは

儚くて　もう　泣いてしまいそうで
悲しくて　もう　立っていられないよ

儚くて　もう　泣いてしまうけれど
悲しくて　もう　立っていられないけど
だけどね　きっと　いろんな障害に
負けないで　生きていこう　僕らは

u__u

Space Force 2 apparently got picked up by publisher JoWood (of Spellforce fame), and they've retitled it, "Space Force: Rogue Universe" (I'll refer to it as SFRU from now). Well, that's a mouthful. Not to mention "Rogue Universe" kinda sounds Star War-sy. The website can be seen here: http://www.spaceforce2.com

I'm kinda worried though. For one, there doesn't seem too many ship models. Okay, so that's a minor point. All the screenshots seem to be of the default first-person view (cockpit mode); what, no chasecam (a la Freelancer) view? Darkstar One was already a huge disappointment in that regard. I freakin' hate FPS games, and I will only tolerate that kind of camera view so far. What's the use of buying shiny new ships when all you get is the same stupid look-out-of-the-window view?

Then the writeup about the various races. Okay, I understand Provoxx is a Croation outfit. Still, reading the summaries is cringe inducing. Couldn't they have just ran it by a proofreader if they couldn't afford a pro writer who was fluent in English? Considering how much devs spend on artists for game art, you'd think they've learned by now that presentation is more than flash graphics. Look at Darkstar One for example. Even it's cutscenes couldn't compensate for the blah delivery of the rest of the game. Contrast that with Freelancer's campaign.

Crud, there's a storm brewing and I gotta disconnect. Anyway, overall it looks like it's another small sandbox game like Darkstar One was, not the open-ended styl e of the Elite games or the many REAL factions like in Freelancer. Hell, for all it's age and simplicity, Freelancer was a great game to fly around in. There were a lot of ideas in it that should've been expanded. On the other hand, Darkstar One was pretty much a disaster all around, a lot of ideas in it were too simplistic.

Damn, and I was really looking forward to a great space sim.

Edit: Alright, where was I. Right, factions. In Freelancer, you could actually ally yourself to the various factions, by how you acted towards them (ok, so most of the interaction was in the form of blowing ships up...). Say you attacked a criminal faction. Other criminals would also hate you, and law enforcement would like you. On the other hand, there were many factions, not just the simplistic "merchants, pirates, police, military" of the old Wing Commander (Privateer) days of yore. So for example there were rival criminal factions, and helping one made you the enemy of another.

See, there were many alliances to balance. Darkstar One on the other hand, merely relied on the stupid monolithic "bounty hunters, pirates, police" stereotypes, falling into the cliche trap like so many other games. Freelancer may have sold short on the space sim part, but at least where factions were concerned it did a decent job (which, of course, could be expanded upon).

Back to the FPS-like view, I'm also afraid SFRU may be as arcade-y as Darkstar One, or another older game in the genre, Tachyon: The Fringe (which also elicited a tepid review from me). On the other hand, I don't need space sims to be ultra realistic - past experiences with such games, e.g. Starshatter: The Gathering Storm, gave me mixed feelings, like the anal-retentive landing procedure (simply slowing to a stop within a "target" landing area should suffice dammit, I don't want to be a real pilot). There's a mix between realism and simplicity, and so far I've not really seen any game I'm really comfortable with except Freelancer, and Freelancer is too simple.

I'm not too sure about the trading aspect; frankly I've always been a proponent of gunboat diplomacy in these kinds of games simply because it was more immediately rewarding. I believe there should be more returns to be reaped by trading than just watching your bank balance grow - that's not much incentive (for me) to haul cargo around. Perhaps if they tied it to your diplomatic handling of faction relations or something.

The random mission generators could also use heavy tweaking. I can't believe we're still doomed to "kill X ships at mission waypoint Y for $Z". Graphics have progressed from simple 2D sprites to full 3D with lighting and other special effects; surely missions can be more complex now than stupid fetchquests which have been around since the days of King's Quest (yes I know those games didn't have random missions, but each game was basically a predetermined succession of fetchquests). That's the problem with developers who race other devs to see who can put out the best-looking game, they don't put any thought into the other details and it freaking shows.

I don't want a stupid fullscreen 64xFSAA 120fps state-of-the-art engine; I want to play something with some goddamn DEPTH, not something that a 6-year old can master in seconds by simply pointing and clicking at targets. That's the crux of my complaints, really, with games nowadays. I'm a gamer with a brain, not a twitch reflex connecting eyeball to mousehand.

Well, there's still a chance SFRU won't be as bad as I suspect it may. Prepare for the worst, maybe you'll be surprised by the best. Gotta run, picking up some hardware - gotta replace a mixer, and pick up a keytar. The stock ones always look terrible, I'm getting one custom finished so it doesn't look like a dork's sawed-off keyboard.

Kinda surprising how slow the Immortal Throne player reviews are coming out, considering the original game (Titan Quest) snowballed into 3 digits and I recall more than a good half of them were within one week from launch. Still, I read the new ones, and I was pretty disgusted by how short they were.

Not that mine was a particularly stellar review, but at least I mentioned game issues... not just how I felt about it, or how many copies it sold ("therefore it's a great game"), that kind of useless crap. I particularly like how this one moron stated "100 or more hours" playtime, but in his review he mentions that he only logged in 8 hours so far - typical fanboi reaction. "zomfg this game r0x0rz, must write a review NOW (even though I have no friggin' clue about a lot of other things)".

A good review would be one that you can stand by, months later, even though your personal like or dislike of the game has changed.

Just a short update. Still playing Imperian. It's been a blast, it's one of the few online games which have seriously made me consider spending money on. I know, it's free to play, but it'll take a good long while to earn game credits normally (think months, years...). The learning curve is fairly steep and the regular players are quite strict about RPing, so it really feels like a game world, not just a chat lobby where morons hang out until they have enough to go on a clickfest.

What's coming out soon? Still no news of Space Force 2, or was there a May '07 date? Or am I thinking about Hellgate: London? I do remember seeing a date for one of the games on my watchlist. Got tired of Freelancer again, heh. I mean, without a story, it's a bit hard to keep going just exploring without purpose. The scripts are great although there doesn't seem to be provisions for a really evolving universe. I guess that should be an option - even though it ends up like several factions getting wiped out. I mean, that's the whole purpose of an evolving universe: things happen. If the player doesn't like it, he can try changing it, or he can just restart in a new universe. As it currently is, it's still fairly static, even though it's a damn sight more lively than, say, Darkstar One's dead arcade universe.

I heard that Brother Laz of the Diablo 2 modding community fame finally bowed out - he's lasted, what, 5 years? That's a hell of a long time to burn on a game. At least he'll still be popping into Phrozen Keep from time to time. Joel is supposed to be picking up where he left his mod, Median 2008, at. I haven't had a chance to try it out - last I remember there was this crisis about whether shared skills is a good thing or not. Think I might have another go at V&K's Middle Earth D2LoD mod, the Titan Quest expansion, Immortal Throne, is proving to be as unexciting and unfixed as the original game was.

They still haven't fixed crap like, holding down shift should mean don't move - period; or items dropping and then falling out of reach; extremely poor graphical performance, rubber banding and other speed issues; not to mention serious balance issues like how multiplay melee is useless when casters level monster camps before you can get past the frontline monsters, how the hp-balance issue still isn't addressed, etc.

Oh... there's a karaoke version of the God Hand credits song. Try it at a karaoke party sometime, it's really funny. Bonus points if everyone is smashed and at the silly giggling-at-everything stage. 

It's about time someone took a shot at the Titan Quest expansion, Immortal Throne, but I'm kinda pressed for time. Long story short, it's still the same game, and the stark contrast between melee and magic players is still there. They don't party well, at all. The magicuser will be clearing screenfulls of stuff, so by the time his companion has finished the frontliners engaging him, the rest of the monster camp will already have been levelled. To the ground.

Seriously. I fired up a dream/rogue character and went the trance/traps route - it was a piece of cake, tossing traps and kiting monsters around them. My friend was trying to play dream/hunting but got disgusted by how... efficiently... I left her without anything to attack. Now imagine a storm user partnered with, say, a warfare build.

Although I realised there are some problems with the issues I raised in my original Titan Quest review, the main gameplay complaint still stands - killing speed is imbalanced. I've not heard too much from the modding community; strange, since the game ships with an editor. You'd think the action RPG mechanics fanatics would've tinkered with it since day one. As it is, all you can see on the mod boards are just skins, a bunch of lame monty-haul type lootfests, and a couple of game, not gameplay, tools.

Edit: I surprised myself by actually managing a review within 5 minutes. It's rather short though (by my long-winded standards). Here it is:
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/titanquestexpansion/player_review.html?id=435147

I don't normally listen to System Of A Down, but Chop Suey is a suitable song for certain moods. It's a bit weird with female vocalists though. You can transition it into Kamelot's Karma, but again, this is a song best with guys on the vocals. Sometimes it's annoying to acknowledge that our best impressions are of idols singers (except that we actually possess musical talent), but what the hell - can't have everything.

It's gonna be rather quiet on this front; Imperian is eating up my free time, big time. It's like the good ol' MUDding days when I was younger, heh. Also on the plus side I can play anything I like on winamp so I'm not forced to listen to a crap gametrack. Don't get me wrong, I like game music, I'd say it's a staple, even, but many games have lacklustre music - to put it mildly.

People... please stop sending me union invites, I really don't have the time. I spend like 30 minutes a day on GameSpot, tops. I'm 27, not 17... not a college kid on holiday with endless hours to burn. I work, manage and play in a band, fend off crazies, deal with my neighbours, reach new lows, do housekeeping, pay the bills, play video games, go shopping, and lots of other stuff.

I doubt you want another lurker in your unions. If I'm not going to turn up and contribute anything, then what's the point? Seriously. It's not that I have anything against you guys, but I really have my hands full elsewhere. Hell, I can't even be assed to update my own profile or stuff.

Okay, so that's a horrible pun, but I just reviewed Darkstar One: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/sim/darkstarone/player_review.html?id=430863

Does it deserve the scrubbing? Yes, it does. Year in, year out, publishers keep stumbling and releasing half-assed games. Come on! Flash graphics and gorgeous cutscenes do not a game make. Freelancer (which I am currently playing, with the Discovery mod, ver4.82), which I did not really take to at first, has finally settled in my opinion as the worthy Privateer replacement, when it comes to games of this genre. It's sad when the golden oldies (Privateer is over a decade old now, dammit) still outplay the newcomers.

Darkstar One had everything going for it, and they had to further stir people up by advertising themselves with the tagline, "Freelancer done right". Look who's eating their words now. Don't do that. Don't advertise yourself as being better than XYZ, unless you are completely sure that XYZ in fact was a disaster, and that you cannot screw it up no matter what (actually, that's impossible). It just makes people angry; fanbois and impulse-buyers will not care either way.

I'd go on and on about the features this genre should (in my opinion of course) have, but that's a long rant. I've got to go uninstall the monstrosity now.

Speaking of stellar bodies, I wonder about the coincidence that all of us in the band are pretty good looking. Personally, I feel I'm entitled to some good karma, everything else was pretty much hell growing up, knowing our family didn't want us. Between my brains and my sister's charm, we did okay for ourselves. Still, being shuttled around from one guardian to another, from place to place, wasn't all fun and games. Kids need stability, otherwise they die young (like my sister), or hide deranged, unstable personalities behind facades of brilliance (like me :P ).

Think happy thoughts!

*anticipates getting some tonight*

Thought I'd put in a good word for the friends I've made here. Really. I used to be one of those high-falutin' elitist snobs when I was a kid, it wasn't hard to play the evil twin to my sister's generous and kind nature. Now that I'm older, alone, and hopefully wiser, I know we should appreciate the people around us. Hell, I had few enough friends growing up on the move all the time. Who am I kidding, I can count them on one hand.

So, to everyone reading this, thanks for allowing your life to touch mine. Nobody knows when we're gonna kick the bucket, so make the most of the time you have with your friends now. Keep on posting!

...

Nothing brought this on, why do you ask? You pessimistic cynic, you :P To quote a \b\ism, "maek lurv not WOAR!"

Meh, Phantasy Star Universe won't run, stupid loader. Sorry bro, it's not just my laptop Urumi, even our desktops won't run it. I tried it on a couple of pcs; Kodama, Kirara, Senrigan, and even one of my servers, Kamaitachi. I either get a report-or-not crash, or a generic ctd.

Sega makes lousy ports. Not to mention the fact that I read the story portion of PSU must be horribly crippled since the online version is getting updated every so often while it isn't. I've watched my bro host and play private servers for MMOs before - it's awful lonely by yourself doing everything, even though there's no lamers to contend with. Sega should've just released a standalone spinoff PC version. Christ, after all these years of playing games I can reel off dozens of random quest templates that should occupy players handily. And yet most games fall into the tired old fetchquest rut. Give me a freakin' break.

Darkstar One, however, installed and ran just fine on another laptop of mine, Jehuty. Looks nice. Guess I'll be running with it for a while. Still, the overall arcadish vibes I'm getting from it haven't diminished even after (or maybe especially after) trawling through the various options and settings and upgradables.

Someone asked me why we called them "don't worry" guitars. Well... don't worry, don't fret, same thing right? So, don't fret, i.e. fretless... fretless guitars.

Yeah, it's stupid, but like the bi act, it's just part of the front. When we're in the band, we're parts of a whole, not individuals anymore. By the way, I don't really get why guys like to see two girls kissing. It's a nice distraction, sure, but fondling Shinju onstage doesn't really give me a kick. I mean, sexually. I'll go along with pranks and stuff, but sleep with her? She's, like, a friend. A sister. Okay, bad example since I'm doing my brother, but you get the drift.

Heck, she's cute, and it isn't hard to imagine her all flushed and sweaty and aroused, like in a bad doujin, god knows I read plenty of those. But for some reason that doesn't light my fuse. I mean... guys, imagine kissing your best guy friend. Yeah. You like him as a friend, right? But not to cross swords with, so to speak? Tongue him? No?

Knew you'd get it! You people are smart. And I'm a pervert, but that goes without saying. We wouldn't be here if people were more fastidious about where, when, and who they poked.

Passed another checkpoint today, i.e. officially added another year to my age. Sigh... I can't be doing "cute" anymore, just "beautiful" :P At least 30 is a couple more years off...

Bullet Witch was a disappointment, dunno why I keep expecting too much of these next gen games. I mean, it's not like I read all the hype... in fact I seldom read previews or watch trailers or play demos. I wait for the actual release date and then read the reviews of people who played the thing. You know? Those who know what they're talking about, not a bunch of "critics" who think their opinion is fact.

Apparently the Discovery mod won some sort of award, great. Kinda sad that Rebalance just bailed like that, although the ships imported weren't balanced but the mod had changeable engines and powerplants. I suppose I'll get used to it. Space Force 2, hurry up, I'm getting impatient here. And yeah, I have a copy of Darkstar One at home (gift) unopened... It's kinda hard to wrap my brain and expectations of a space sim around a game which confines you to a single ship. I hope they surprise us by releasing a freeroaming sequel, but who knows with these europeans, they always get games last and I suppose this is some sort of revenge. Ahh.

Last midnight was a surprise party, so nice of the others to indulge me like that. To avoid pissing off the neighbours they hauled me to Wing 31 where I had to sit like a good birthday girl and watched as the others played some songs for me. They're so cuuute ~_~

"You know... I think we should rethink this whole hobby thing. Get signed up. Appear on tv. Think of all the fan mail we're gonna get! And all the skimpy outfits we get to wear!"

Shinju gave me a dirty look and Itami told me I was getting senile in my dotage. Youngsters, so impudent nowadays -__-" Oh well, one of these days...

On an unrelated (hehe, spot the pun!) note:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,254943,00.html

Getting there!

- Ce.  @  Mikami V

Edit: some people apparently don't get it... so, in 5 pictures:

This   .   Is   .   My   .   Love   .   Story   .

I mean, if gay marriage is ok then why is this not?