Got around to playing Steambot Chronicles (another Atlus localisation), seemed okay enough. I'm sick of the hero-with-amnesia premise though. Seriously. It's gone beyond cliche now, and is just plain stupid. Didn't get to play long (reason coming up) but like all the reviews said, the Trot controls suck. It's like buying a Ferrari and discovering it doesn't have power steering. And the hero gets hungry way too fast.

I know having all the little touches makes a game unique and fun - like when you decide between 3 answers to 3 questions at the beach and there's actually voiceovers for all 9 possible answers, the playing instrument thing (interesting, seems like you'll find other instruments and songs later, woop), customiseable Trot right from the start (money seems tight though)... but the hero gets hungry way too fast. So you'll need to stockpile food but money doesn't appear easily obtainable, and wagering at the arena seems to be rigged (I friggin' hate it when the AI/engine cheats instead of having the decency to leave it to chance - yeah I know PRNG isn't exactly random but what are the odds of losing a 4:1 bet five friggin times in a row? That's like, you have to roll <20% five times consecutively). And I stopped at 5 - I imagine if I bet 10 times, it'd make me lose 10 times.

Oh well. Anyway, the reason I didn't spend much time on SC was Titan Quest. Finally got around to installing and updating it (v1.08, won't bother with v1.11 until they say it's good). It's not bad - and that moron who said the ragdoll physics (on death animations) are exaggerated is exactly that: a moron. The enemies drop pretty normally, I didn't see any flying corpses. Of course, perhaps with a detonation-type skill but I haven't read enough to know.

Looks pretty nice though. I'm not sure whether it'll replace Diablo 2 (for me). The requirements for smooth gaming are a bit high - not as ridiculous as Oblivion which chokes on anything older than 3 months - but still noticeable enough to be laggy especially when you start running behind trees. I mean, try visiting the merchants at night - I suspect it's all those transparencies and lighting effects - even while browsing the vendor screen, which means no 3D visible, it still lags as if you were viewing main. So if you have anything older than a year, prepare for some jerkiness especially if there are many NPCs around, and especially while moving behind trees (i.e. there are trees blocking your view of your hero).

The game itself? I only managed a couple hours so I can't really say - especially since I know jack about the skills - but the low-level game almost feels comfortable like low-level Diablo 2. In Diablo you start to shine close mid-to-end Act 2, around level 20ish and with a good (hopefully) skill build. Leveling seems a tad slower in Titan Quest, and I stopped just around lv10 today, so I can't really say. Played a huntress, of course. Nothing like scouting out a new game than playing ranged hit-and-run to see how it goes. Plenty of monsters, although still fairly sparse - I hope the later areas have more, to allow you to show off your skills - like in Diablo where crowd control comes into play.

More later when I get through it.

It was my turn to play host today, so I shooed my brother out before the others arrived around 10am. Itami wanted to play Disgaea so I got roped into helping her while Izumi and Shinju amused themselves on the computers playing that Simpsons Hit and Run game. Luckily I'd prepared lunch earlier so it was just a matter of heating the lasagna.

We hit the tennis courts at 3. It was deserted as usual - most people don't really use the apartment amenities except the swimming pool, which was really too small for anyone but kids. I'm no good at tennis and it was starting to get all cloudy, so after half and hour or so we went back indoors.

Unlike most people who go all sluggish when it starts raining, it just makes me more edgy. Fortunately the others weren't averse to starting earlier instead of waiting until the evening, so we headed over to the studio in Ampang. I warmed up by attempting Dimension 2012, although Itami insisted on taking over the percussion synths. She's good, not a single mistake even though I fumbled a few of the transitions.

The rain intensified. It was a regular thunderstorm. We ripped through Level 7 (from Raiden 2) - it's far more satisfying to have a real guitar on that one compared to the puny synths in the actual game music. You couldn't see a thing through the windows; it was like water was being poured at it. Nothing but to rage on with the storm - A Way To Nowhere (Hideyuki Fukasawa @ Chaos Legion). It's easy to like this stuff; totally headbangable.

Change of pace. Izumi's a Fukami Rika fan, specifically her work as Aino Minako, and requested we do Ai no Megami no How To Love (The Goddess of Love's How To Love). Synth's easy on this one, and Izumi was free to just sing. It's an okay song. Makes even a jaded cynic like yours truly forget for a while. Followed up with another senshi song (what else?), Mars' Honoo no Sogekimono (Mars Flame Sniper). I love the chorus on this one, very catchy. Personally I think Mars suits Izumi better, she pulls off sexy sophistication better than playful. Mmm, maybe I can persuade her to dress up as a miko someday :p

While the others took a break I rendered Nabiki's Kuno-chan ga yatte-kuru. Funny as hell, smiled all the way through it.

We attempted Kamelot's Karma. All I can say is that even though we got it down pat, substituting a female vocalist makes it sound... weird. What were we thinking doing power metal, you ask. Well, this song was used in an impressive AMV we'd seen a while back ('02 I think), you gotta listen to it, power metal isn't all Man-o-War-style fist-in-the-air over-the-top music. Some of the songs are actually pretty decent.

We left around 9 to indulge in one of the deadly sins - gluttony XD   Fortunately for us we seem to have metabolisms of racehorses; Itami especially is a mystery, despite being a chef she's pretty willowy (must be the height). My brother on the other hand has to count his calories - ha! It bugs him to no end that I snack incessantly to no effect whereas if he sneaks a single extra meal it immediately shows up on the scales.

Almost midnight. I hear the neighbours quarelling. Man, some guys can't hold their liquor. I know we're supposed to respect other peoples' cultures, but I wish that wifebeating was a little quieter. I would've had words with the prick before but they're almost never at home. Wonder why the hell she puts up with him. Maybe it's the money. You know the type, huge chunky Rolex, obscenely large car (stupid, considering that parking in the city is murderously difficult), tailored suits.

Maybe it'll rain again tomorrow.

- Ce.

It's been raining a lot lately. Just finished marking my last class, phew. Now just sitting back and listening to the Southern All Stars. Haven't been practising my violin these past three days, gonna get rusty one of these days. My closets are filled with instruments instead of clothes but it bugs my brother just the same. Heh. Hell, if he didn't stop me that one time I'd have gotten an accordian as well.

My goal is to be able to play everything - not that it's possible, but at least mastering the majority of commonly available instruments shouldn't be a problem. That's what bought the t3mdc together initially, the others challenged me to prove that I could fill in any spot in a band - and I did. Now they're my personal handmaidens, mmm hehehe.

I was checking out that freeware RPG, Prelude to Darkness, yeah? Apparently it was passed over to someone else, and still has a bunch of game-breaking (as in, hard locking) bugs. Ugh. Gonna have to pass it on for now. Dang.

Hmm, my user icon link died. Damn xs.to. Damn imageshack while I'm at it, they started showing those ugly "this domain is not authorised for hotlinking" frog pictures instead of the ones you upload. Wtf? Isn't the whole point of providing "image hosting" to allow hotlinking of images? Anyway I'm switching to photobucket - didn't use them before since I think I had some loading problems last time when my ISP was still crap (they still are, but at least they're consistent now).

Anyway, I'm flattered anyone is actually tracking back - I thought people would more readily read game-oriented blogs (or blogs of interesting people in the game industry). Btw despite the recent ('05) registration date I've been around way longer. I still have a 1996 (97?) hotmail mailbox. Had a '02 GameFAQs account too (dead btw, had to make a new one in '05).

My wanderings online do take up quite a chunk of my time - I'm a regular at around 10 forums and on-and-off visit maybe a dozen more (by regular I mean like visited often over the years and have racked up 1k+ posts). So it's not like this puny GameSpot account means I haven't been trolling around for long. Heh.

Busy marking exam papers this week, so not much to say. It was real hot today, managed 2 laundry loads. Quite a contrast to the past weekend's dismal downpours. Just discovered a new freeware RPG that looks quite decent, will comment later when I can afford the time to play it.

Okay, so I get this invite to join the Sephiroth's Posterity union. WTF?

Now I'm pretty easy going and prefer to enjoy my petty revenges cold, which means most of the time I don't slam people in their faces. But Final Fantasy 7 is a sore spot with me. I got it with my PSX in '97 (together with Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha, which I disliked at first but grew to love), and thought it was neat. FMVs were new, see, and I hadn't been following the consoles after the SNES.

My beef stems from the growing influx of mindless DBZ-style fans to the game. It's like when the MTV crowd "discovers" something. "Zomfg FF7 leetest since slaiced bred lolbbq". Jesus H. Christ. I absolutely loath that kind of fan. It turned my like of the game to disdain, then to hate.

Despite what you fanbois think, FF7 is nothing special. Combat? Traditional party-then-enemy arrangement. Equipment? Standard item-type-A-for-character-type-A (so you can't give Tifa Cloud's sword, for example). Yes I admit the materia system allows for some interesting combos, but what this means is that your characters are useless generic interchangeables; Cloud needs to heal? Give him the appropriate materia. Yuffie needs to use fire magic? Give her the appropriate materia. This means you can afford to play with just a bunch of "favourite" people and neglect the others. So much for interesting individual characters. I'll bet few bother with Cait Sith or Vincent either, since they have crap limits.

And don't get me started on the stupid unskippable summon animations (quad magic + Bahamut Zero vs the red desert weapon (Ruby?) - I got up to 28x casts before I gave up out of sheer boredom). Yes I know this isn't just FF7's flaw, but the point is, it's a known issue and they didn't do anything about it (Breath of Fire 4 on the other hand allows you to skip once you've seen the entire animation once).

Large world? lol, give me a break, each "town" is just a collection of rooms. Go on, count 'em. Tally how many entrances/exits there are. It's a tiny world, not huge. And it's pretty damn linear, just like most every other RPG out at the time. Try doing things or visiting places out of story sequence. Can't, can you? Just like most every other RPG out at the time.

Then the whole Cloud/Sephiroth thing. Cloud is a delusional freak, I don't see why he has that many admirers. I can name dozens of characters from fighting games with more interesting histories and better reasons to be messed up, instead of being exposed to some weird stuff in secret experiments and losing memories.

I'm not saying Cloud is crap, I'm saying he's freakin' overrated. So you get into his head and see his problems. So what? I bet a trip through Yagami Iori's psyche would be more interesting, given the Orochi bloodline history. The saving-the-world bit was just circumstantial. If not for meeting up with Barrett, Cloud would be just another mercenary in the Midgar slums - might have probably been pancaked by the falling plate even.

Sephiroth looks cool, I'll admit. But as far as freaks go he's out there with the rest of them. Plus, looking cool and being cool are different things. And to prove I'm not dissing him just because of the pretty boy long silver-hair image, I'll point you at Alucard, who looks almost exactly like that but is way more cooler than Sephiroth can be. And Alucard uses his brain to deal with his screwed up life, not freak out. "Zomfg mom was an experiment and so am I, argh, I'm going to fvck the world up". FFS. Unique? Hardly.

I had fun playing FF7. I admit that. But it's already close to a decade. STFU people, quit with the "zomfg let's petition sqaure-enix for ff7 on ps3!!1!1lol". It didn't make the PS2, what makes you nuts thing it'll be on the PS3? Advent Children wasn't bad, but fanboi reaction was exactly as I predicted. AC was basically a 90-minute fanboi handjob, nothing more.

If you want to talk FF7 to me, discuss something of substance, like materia combos or equipment or game decisions. What I don't want to hear is yet more "omg it r0x0rz" drivel.

Played a bit more Conan this weekend, I was actually motivated enough to continue with the story despite the flawed controls and camera. I bumped my GameSpot review from 5.1 to 5.5 I think.

Seriously, I didn't really have too many issues with the "dated" and bland graphics; the environments in the game DID convey the sense of being in the mountains, running along a river, wandering around a port town, etc. The sound and music were okay. Oh, I forgot to mention my biggest complaint: the screen was rendered like 30 pixels downwards, so you got this black unused area on top, and the last few lines of text at the bottom got chopped off. That was just plain fricking stupid and is another hammer blow against a mediocre but interesting action RPG. Why the hell was the vertical coordinate borked? I mean, the intro vids looked okay. I don't get it. I haven't seen any other PS2 mess up like that either.

If they were doing some weird graphic manipulation they should've added a manual adjust option too, in case things didn't work out. As it is, I can't see the descriptions on some things, and to me that is extremely annoying since I, unlike many casual gamers, actually read in-game story text and descriptions. I'm a speed reader btw so it's not like reading is a problem. I just can't see the freakin' text.

Oh, and on easy mode I can get by with just the XO (leg slashing) combo. Cheap as hell and with a low reach will hit pretty much anything. Tack on the chop overhead finisher (XOO) and you've got a decent combo that will nail pretty much everything. Occasionally I use the XXR2 smash as well but I only really got it because when I first played I didn't know the timing and ended up mashing XX a lot, so I thought what the hell might as well capitalise on that and got the R2 finsher.

My brother thought Zairin (obligatory Conan story chick) was kinda funny looking, but she was blonde, lightly freckled, and had large breasts, so it was ok. Me? I was like, whatever. Zairin doesn't follow Conan around (there was that short area but it was only like for 5 minutes if you don't count that messed up fight near the end which I complained in my GameSpot review about) so I don't really notice her. If this stays true to the Conan storybooks I guess he nails her somewhere, but since this is a regular rated game I don't think we actually see anything (ha!).

Finished polishing one of our songs, but where can I upload it? I mangled it to low quality so the size shouldn't be too large - 4:30, 128kbit 44kHz mono. No vocals, it's a somewhat slow (no percussion except for a programmed tambourine on a slow beat) and melancholy instrumental number with me, Shinju, and Izumi on guitars. We had to rerecord it twice since it wasn't easy to resist the temptation to break out into a faster riff.

Nothing else much this weekend, we were all kinda tired with work and stuff, so it was just a short session.

Edit: wtf, GameSpot mangled the text alignment. Stupid browser/ISP lag.

Cool, my kitty ears arrived this morning. I wore them to my consultations, with that white dress and lace jacket combo. My project students are familiar with my idiosyncrasies so this elicited nothing more than raised eyebrows. Lunch at the nearby restaurant, however, was an experience to savour.

Spent a couple of hours marking papers - darn exam season - then went down to the student lounge where they just installed a piano, one of those console jobs. I hate it when people treat those things like ornaments; like, "look, we got us a piano! we're neat." That's so stupid. And students were just sitting around it and using it as a table. Jeez. Not an appreciative body amongst this lot.

I motioned impatiently at the girl until she got off the seat at the piano, who seemed taken aback that what appeared to be another student would dare be that impudent. Apparently these were the student union reps. As I ignored her and sounded the keys she shifted from surprise to annoyance and started going, "hey, what's the big idea".

A couple of bars then I tried Moonlight Densetsu as I remember from the SuperS Piano Fantasia OST. An easy song, and the piano was good. Well, it's still new. Give it a couple months in this humidity and I bet it'll sound like crap. The girl was like, "sorry ma'am", guess someone clued her in that I wasn't a student but staff :p

Some muted murmuring at my playing. "Do you teach music here, ma'am?"

"No, IT faculty." The only subject here with music in it would be music appreciation, a co-curricular subject meant to be more of a filler than anything. Not that I'd want to teach music. Sure I can play like I'm possessed but I do it because it amuses me.

Sena's Long Vacation masterpiece never fails to focus attention. I skip the short parts, I just want to test this thing (and show off :p ). It's a nice piece of hardware. I hope they do something about the location though, sure it's nice and visible here but too near the window - sun discoloration would be ugly.

I get up and they part for me. As I walk past them, I wink at the girl once. She just looks flustered and confused. Pull yourself together dearie, you won't last on the student council with looks alone.

My own college days? I was too busy polishing my guitar and cello playing (strings are easier for me than woodwinds) to participate in anything other than the occasional volleyball game. Student council? Far as I remember I avoided anything even remotely popular.

Got a parking ticket from mppj (local town council) today. Wtf? I always park on the edge of the residential road bordering the commercial area where the college is, and I've never had problems for years. Ticket said "parking outside lined area", yeah right - there are a whole row of frickin' parking bays there.

I know just across the drain separating the houses and the commercial area is a road lined with pay-parking spots, but of course I don't park there. Crazy - you gonna pay per-hour parking for a whole day? Plus these residential spots are supposed to be for the nearby houses, but they don't mind outsiders parking there - as long as we don't block the road, and for years it's all been hunky-dory.

What I think happened is that the council lackeys, on their usual once-in-a-couple-of-weeks "get off our asses and show that we're doing work" kicks, instead of just patrolling the pay-bays and ticketing people who don't buy tickets there, decided to cross to the residential road and book cars there as well.

Why the hell they decided to cross into the residential road I have no idea. It's not like it's "just on the other side of a divider". It's across a drain, and the residential road is a raised area to boot. You have to drive like half a kilometre around the housing estate to get up there, and there are even a row of trees separating the residential road from the main road with the pay bays. What the hell possessed them to trespass up here.

Of course I fought the bloody ticket, but you don't get anywhere going head-on against bureaucracy. After all I didn't have a parking ticket - but who the hell buys one to park on a residential road? I argued it down and got 60% off (the maximum), but I'm still pissed.

I could, of course, park even further - put some distance between the commercial area, like say along the inner roads. But then I'd be parking on the road shoulder outside peoples' houses, and I'm not one of those inconsiderate nimrods who do crap like that. There's a large-ish road on one side of the housing area where residents often park their extra cars, so I guess I can go there (about an extra 10 minutes' walk).

But for the time being, I'm going to print a bunch of those lousy parking tickets and park right smack near the shops. Until I recoup how much they fined me only, of course. It's the principle of the thing.

I have a motto to live up to, after all. "In Defeat, Malice; In Victory, Revenge."

- Ce.

Before I go off on another tangent I just want to note that I'm surprised that I'm actually using this GameSpot blog unlike the earlier half-hearted attempts that died after 1 post. Heh.

We're creatures of habit, that must be it. 'Course, I visit GameSpot mostly just to see what's going on. I guess this networking thing is all right, I just don't really feel like participating. Much. I mean, there's a lot to do irl, compared to back when I was in college, and not just work. I bet if you nuked all the student accounts it'd seem pretty empty here as well :p

Nothing much happened gaming-wise this weekend, other than grabbing a couple more screencaps from Kana ~ Imouto. Might pick up the rereleased version (Kana ~ Okaeri!) sometime, not a priority right now. Still playing Titans of Steel, my second Squad needs to do some serious catching up. Bought another stack of 100cdrs, got to move a bunch of stuff off my drives. Since I suck at video editing my brother gets to do it. Yay.

Saturday was the highlight, of course. Trucidation and Lemur of the Megami All Stars showed up, so we really got cooking. Kinda pity those two though, a keyboard and guitar player duo don't have many options - though you wouldn't guess it if you listen to them. Hell, Trucidation can pull off Dimension 2012 solo. They're way into game music as well, so they manage. I hear they had 5 members, but the other 3 dropped out due to other commitments. Makes me glad the others have stuck with me these past few years.

Oh yeah, we met them at one of the embassy parties - kinda like how I picked the others up actually. He borrowed Setsuna's (our ex-bassist, Hayashi Setsuna) cello to illustrate a point, not caring that he was holding up the musicians, and they both ended up playing a couple of songs. Hmm. Most of my friends are musically-inclined misfits. Heh.

Almost midnight. Guess I'll edit this later. Thirsty.

- Ce.

Kind of a dull day, except for the afternoon.

Shinju apparently had some sort of disagreement at the bank at work and took the rest of the day off (you go girl :p) and decided the best way to waste it was to burn it off with us. Heh. Collared me at home - no classes today, I was busy wrestling Sena's song (that beautiful piano piece he plays at the concert hall during the exam in the Long Vacation J-dorama) - but the others were out of bounds (Itami's an overworked hotel chef and Izumi's a cog in a huge textile multinational).

Where do you go when you're missing half your regulars? To a place where they don't care, of course. Apok's was perfect - this side of town, and mostly deserted on weekdays. Programmable boards won't really substitute for people, so I warned her that the fancy stuff was out unless she really wanted to wait a couple hours for me to arrange things.

"Aww, and I so wanted to do Himitsu no Date," she complained, and I threw a drumstick at her.

"I need 8 hands for that, and that's with all of us around."

She pouted. Shinju's good at that. Drives her boyfriend wild. Sometimes I want to bite her myself.

Kidding.

"Alright princess, you want to be the star, you get the guitar." Nodnod. "I'm good on anything." Nodnod. "Not drums though, I don't enjoy them like Itami does." Nodnod. "Well SAY something!"

"Two guitars then. Classic?"

"Huh?"

"Judy and Mary, peach. We haven't played them for a while." She drags out the opening riff, then shakes her head. "Maybe not." Then all of a sudden she goes country.

I guess the song in two seconds flat. "Sakura Diaries, princess? Ok I guess." Koi wa Kaze ni Notte, the ending theme, is a pretty easy song and setting up the drums and bass for it is a cinch.

We butcher it for a couple of minutes, then drift off into a couple of random riffs before she decides she wants something even slower.

Shrug. Komm, Susser Tod. Hardly anything for me to do so I switch to the keyboard and fill in for piano. I get a few bars wrong before remembering. Shinju gets the lyrics wrong but there's nobody to care.

Then she gives me the evil eye, and launches into Cliffs of Dover. Her Eric Johnson is passable, while I struggle with bass after getting the drum track. Her 2:45 solo is flawless though, and I'm reminded again of the difference between specialists like her and the rest of us. Sure I can play more instruments than I have fingers, but I'm merely good. Shinju on the other hand is a maestro. Why she went into banking still beats me. Some people stare from the recording booth. I'm just jealous.

We quit early to avoid the friday scene, and I take her to Itami's place. We're not allowed to wander into the kitchen so we just leave a message with a waitress friend.

Turning in early tonight. Big weekend tomorrow.

- Ce.