bz right about now

I have actually finished this game eons ago but I never got around to blogging about it. Or maybe I did and the post disappeared? I don't know. Just feels like I have actually written about it. Anyway, I have deleted the game from my laptop because I am lacking a lot of memory space.

Besides that, the real point here is is that I find it to be a fantastic visual novel. I was definitely caught off-guard with the twists and turns in the story. The thing about this game is that it will get you comfortable with it and just when you think you have a handle on it WHAM! You feel like you get hit by a truck. Things change and you find yourself having to readjust to the new elements or more aptly, aspects of the game.

I really like, to crudely put it, how it romances you gently and then just fucks you up real good.

It plays well with your emotion. Whether or not you enjoy the humour it employs, the main idea is to get you affected if not involved.

So yeah I am singing praises for this one. I don't believe in ratings. I believe in experiences. Perhaps it is more impressive to me because I haven't played a lot of visual novels aside from Back to the Future, Puzzle Agent, Puzzle Agent 2 and a little bit of Hector: Badge of Carnage.

Well, perhaps the Puzzle Agent series is more puzzle-based but hey, it still has a story.

I've also played a little bit of The Walking Dead. No intention to pursue it anytime soon.

Why? Well I'll save that for a later post. If I'm not lazy that is.

Just a quick and short one. Motivated to finish the game as soon as possible because mufujifi has assigned me to write a feature. So I think I should finish this before I get to selecting a game and doing a feature. She suggested writing on games that are newb-friendly. But for the fun of it, maybe you guys can throw me a game title and then I'll assess how newb-friendly it is? How about that? ;)

So basically Act 1 is about following John's memories backwards. The thing about Act 1 is that it cna get quite repetitive that you have a tendency to just cruise through the memories instead of paying particular attention to every detail. From things you can find to the dialogue. At the end of Act 1, the doctors were unable to access John's childhood memories and they thought those are most probably negligible.

And of course, they thought wrong, which was proven in Act 2.

In Act 2, we have to help the doctors make links between the memories in order for them to initiate planting a desire in John to go to the moon.

But oh. Trouble.

Unfortunately, the desire was not successfully planted and our doctors were very close to losing John and even themselves, I suppose. This was quite a dark section of the game. I really like how everytime comes together dramatically.

In Act 3, we were able to access his childhood memories after a bit of problem-solving/trouble-shooting by the doctors. I must say, as annoying as Neil can get, he's actually an unsung hero.

And is it just me or am I sensing some sort of chemistry between Eva and Neil? Hmm? Hahaha.

Anyway, Act 3 is just as dark if not darker but the mood was switched really well to a light-hearted one. There is a plot twist during the darker part of the section. If I had bothered to pay attention during Act 1, maybe it wouldn't have surprised me so much. So yeah, I was really caught off-guard.

But at least I paid enough attention to grasp an understanding on River's eccentric behaviour throughout her days leading up to her demise.

And yeah, that means I finally got to this scene:

The dialogue exchange between the two is really revealing of a lot of things we face in life. And this really helps us to understand why these two understand each other.

In fact this scene made me realise something but I am going to post that realisation on my personal blog instead.

Hopefully, I can resume playing it tonight and perhaps give more thought to it.

I have passed the stage whereby Dr. Watts was accompanied by the two children in finiding out more about his client.

And oh, the "horrors" he witnessed.

Hahaha!

So yeah, that phase is relatively short. Just the game's way of orienting you and getting you used to the controls, which can be quite sticky sometimes. You really have to put in a bit of effort to be more intuitive with the gameplay. Even now, I still struggle on getting the controls to work.

Not too bad though.

Anyway, I've reached John's 13th memory. This is where we find out more about the central female figure of the story. I'm going to call it a night though. Feeling pretty knackered and I have a presentation tomorrow.

The most striking memory was earlier on. I brought it up in a conversation with my friend. I asked for his opinion prior to purchasing the game anyway but it took me some time before I actually bought the game.

Tuesday, 27 August, 2013
9:38 PM - Captain Hoody Two Boots: finally playing to the moon
9:38 PM - Captain Hoody Two Boots: oklah not so sad
9:38 PM - Kindaichi17[animenauts.com]: aiyah i am a romantic
9:38 PM - Kindaichi17[animenauts.com]: thats y i find it sad lol
9:39 PM - Captain Hoody Two Boots: i also romantic. sweetly romantic
9:39 PM - Captain Hoody Two Boots: maybe havent reached the sad part
9:39 PM - Captain Hoody Two Boots: i am so amused by the two doctors
9:39 PM - Kindaichi17[animenauts.com]: u play till where?
9:42 PM - Captain Hoody Two Boots: the memory where the guy had to choose between the girl and the house
9:43 PM - Captain Hoody Two Boots: it did hit me in the gut about the selfish part
9:43 PM - Kindaichi17[animenauts.com]: havent reach the sad part yet lol
9:43 PM - Captain Hoody Two Boots: eh, i thought what the guy said is already pretty sad. ohnoes!
9:44 PM - Kindaichi17[animenauts.com]: make sure got tissue box nearby lol

So... yeah. It made me think about relationship. I had this perversed thought that perhaps love is selfish after all? As in, I am selfish for wanting to just love? I don't know.

So that made me emo.

Perfect mood for the game.

Again, the soundtrack really complements the story well. Really sets the mood.

I guess the comic relief for the emotional story would be the two doctors. It is my kind of humour, as in, if I were to write the dialogues for them, that would most probably what I would write too.

I was feeling upset and in an attempt to calm myself down before heading to work, I played To The Moon for 20 minutes or so.

I like the atmosphere. The ambience, the beginning, the characters, and the music works well for me because I have no inkling nor expectation on what the game is about. So the game itself being a mystery to me and to have the game start off all mysterious-like was awesome. It now has my attention and I have the intention to finish it.

It is also nice that despite having random characters thrown at you, you are given the chance to pick one character to work with in unravelling the mystery. Of course, you have some help (or lackthereof) from two children who accompany you. It is nice to have company when you are on a discovery trail that it doesn't matter what kind of company you have.

So I really really like it because it all comes together naturally for me.

At this point, I'm not sure if my choices have any impact on the game and if the game has different endings. I'll see how it goes. I don't feel like reading anything on it because I want to keep it as mysterious as possible. I'm totally getting a kick out of it because I love mysteries.

So, that's a short post for that. Maybe the next post will be about my birthday loot. MUAHAHAHA

Won't be gaming for these couple of days. I am working from 9am to 7pm at the centre. No school. School decided to be a bitch and close so I have to work full time at the centre instead of the usual school in the morning and work in the afternoon grind.

Also, my shift is supposed to be 9am-6pm but I forced my colleague to take leave because I believe she deserves a break. So my shift is now 10am-7pm for the next two days.

And anyway, mufujifi is working with me as an assistant teacher!!!! YAY! OMG, I can finally tell! HAHAHAHA. And she's working 10am to 7pm for the next two days also so.... yeah!

But I also volunteered to work an extra hour earlier to cover for a part-timer whom, in my opinion, deserves a break too.

So that is how I ended up with 9am to 7pm.

No overtime pay.

But I get to shave off hours on my Saturday shift next week, which is supposed to be 9am-2pm. So instead it'll be 11am-2pm.

Also, anyway, I took leave for next Mon-Wed and then Thur-Fri are public holidays.

Life will be grand then.

Suffer first, enjoy later.

I'm writing this post partially because it's one of those precious gaming moments I had, which I simply must record. It's also partially because of an assumption that Cullen made about mufujifi and I not being able to complete the Hyperion Slaughter in BL2 easily. I take offence. Although the comment was made out of candour, it brought me to thinking that others could easily assume the worst out of mufujifi as a gamer. So let's set the record straight in case anyone should take that expression seriously.

I am the newbie. To not only BL2 but to gaming in general.

mufujifi is the pro. She is not going to admit it but she will concur to being labelled as more skilled than the average gamer. She is humble like that.

Now put the both of us in an equation, essentially a team. Surely, mufujifi holds more value than me and in order to reach an equilibrium (to at least be on par with the enemies), mufujifi would have to make up for the value I am lacking. Make that severely lacking.

Can you imagine the weight she has to pull to make us at least a decent duo?

She has played with me as a siren, in my solo play as a commander, from the Bright Lights, Flying City story mission onwards. At that point I really needed the help because I couldn't defeat the Constructor that was in the way.

Somehow, we just stuck by each other from then on and have beaten the game together. We decided to leave a few side missions to after we have beaten the main story because we thought we could gain more XP that way and level up before finally facing the Terramorphous.

The Hyperion Slaughter was one of those side missions.

We died a few times in round four. We were so frustrated by it that we completed Fink's Slaughterhouse (she has done it but I have yet to and I insisted she join for the giggles) before turning in for the night.

The reasons why we did badly for the Hyperion Slaughter:

1) I wasn't using a weapon type that would wear down the bots quickly such as a corrosive weapon;

2) I only had one turret;

3) I didn't use the right combination of relic and class mod. I concentrated those on health, which in retrospect, doesn't really help;

4) I had a weak shield with a base cap of only 4k; and

5) I wasn't communicating with mufujifi. Our communication was solely text-based because we are so lazy to use microphones to chat in-game. Using voice chat helps a lot because you can communicate your ideas and pleas for help instantly and the other party can react instantaneously and accordingly.

See, from the factors I listed above, it is pretty obvious that we were not succeeding in the mission due to me.

Of course, I may not be the best gamer nor the best newbie but I can definitely be pragmatic and so I took the following actions to combat the factors above:

1) I was still adamant on using my non-elemental pistol because it has decent damage with better recoil reduction, shorter reloading time, and I invested a lot of eridium into expanding my pistol ammo. On top of that, I find that I was able to aim with the pistol from a distance despite not having a cross-hair and still achieve critical hits. It may be weird that I use pistol as a long-ranged weapon but it works for me. Additionally, I put in a rocket launcher with a 9k damage and slag. This weapons serves as a second wind redeemer for me, should I start dying and mufujifi is unable to save my arse. I also became a whole lot more generous with the grenades, throwing when opportunity presents itself (when the enemies are in group and stationary). My grenade mod was corrosive so that made up for the non-corrosive weapon I had.

2) Upon mufujifi's recommendation to respec, I did so but not according to what mufujifi would've done. She would have invested in getting the turrets to shoot rockets. I, on the other hand, concentrated on the survival skill tree. In the end, I have two turrets with shield and my health recharges on its own. This proved to be a good decision because having two turrets defintely saved our arses a couple of times. Not only because of the damage it inflicts (one would assume two turrets equal to double hits). It is because we are able to use the turrets to our healing advantage. There was this one moment that really struck me but I would elaborate it further in point number five.

3) I was starting to think that having a lot of health and shield may not work out at all so I finally asked mufujifi if I should use a team shield relic or an action skill cooldown relic. (I am not going to bother putting in the right names of those relics, just stating the description for convenience.) She suggested the action skill cooldown and I accepted that suggestion because it would certainly give us a far better advantage if I am able to deploy two turrets within short intervals. The turrets are especially useful in taking out the enemies' turrets placed beneath the mid-air walkway to the slaughter arena and the flying drones (again, it's midnight already, please don't fault me for not using correct terms). After all, it is not easy to target them when they keep flying around like houseflies that irritate the crap out of you.

4) My weak shield problem was resolved when mufujifi gave me a better one with a higher base cap so in the end my shield was 7k. I haven't been successful in getting good shield loots so thanks!

5) mufujifi and I may not be frequent communicators during the game but that's what makes us a special duo. Somehow there were times whereby we really are in sync as much as there are times whereby we are so disconnected. However, lately, I felt that we have achieved a certain kid of co-op chemistry that is only possible by having known each other as friends, having known each other's general gaming skills, and having played as each other's characters in a separate co-op play with one to two other persons. Firstly, being real life friends gives an immediate advantage to a co-op play. We both know each other's temperaments, daily schedules, and we are able to quickly forgive each other (which can really affect the mood and flow of the play). Secondly, she knows I am not a very capable gamer so she is able to gauge the amount of work she needs to put in to make up for what I lack. Additionally, she wouldn't shove things up to my face, telling me that something has to be played a certain way nor assume that I have no idea what I am doing. Instead, she allows me to explore and experience because that really is how you learn best as posited by Jean Piaget (1962). Sorry, i was doing a school assignment last night so that theory is still sticking in my brain. Piaget also posits that children learn through play so needless to say, there is an implication that knowledge and understanding of the world around us is constructed from our experiences through learning opportunities, which can be found in any play-based activities. But then that's Piaget's view, which I personally adopt, and he's a constructivist and epistemologist. Thirdly, I have played as a siren and she has played as a commander and we were part of a team with other people. So we both have an idea of what each other is capable of doing. Now, Cullen said that the siren should preferably play the role of a medic because of her ability to give health during phaselock and restore some health to complete health. I don't disagree with that, it makes sense. However, mufujifi and I both know that she is able to inflict more damage than me due to her better gunz and more skilfull switching of those gunz to meet the needs of the situation. What happened was that our roles kept reversing according to the demands of the situation such as the following:

a) I would provide her some cover with the shielded turrets while she finished off the enemies.

b) When I'm dying, she would phaselock an incoming fiend and heal me first before destroying it for trying to kill me (good ol' vengeance, or not).

c) There was this one moment (as mentioned earlier, which I shall now get to telling), which made me feel proud of myself although it doesn't even mean much to anyone. Also, this moment occurs during the final round and it was the decisive match which led us to victory (LIKE FINALLY). I saw mufujifi dying, ran to her, and instead of instinctively pressing "E" to save her, I deployed a turret in front of us so we both could have temporary relief from geting hit under its shield while I heal her. Meanwhile, the slaughtering of enemies doesn't stop because the turret is going at them. She didn't even have to ask for help nor tell me to deploy that turret. We both know we will both die in vain if I did the former. I just did it all on my own as though I read her mind. So she crawled her way into the shield and I squeezed in as well before healing her. That is why I feel we are able to work well together. At least considerably better than we first started out during our first playthrough of Rayman: Origins on the PS3 (I invited her over to play at my house).

So yeah, I have seen mufujifi played in person, I have played in person with her, and I am still playing with her although not face-to-face. And playing with her, allows me to see her at action. I am always impressed by her.

All of the positive abovementioned truly makes mufujifi a splendid gamer -- her being a good friend, her gaming skillz and being a good gaming coach, and her reading my unexpressed intentions and ideas during the game.

This post took me two hours at the expense of me falling asleep in class tomorrow. But it really must be said.

Yes, I am so unoriginal that I copied mufujifi's post title. And anyway, I was mentioned in her latest post so, nyearghs!

From the Steam Summer Sale, on top of the BL2 stuff I bought in the beginning, I have bought:

Audiosurf  2.49 USD

Metro 2033 All Languages  3.74 USD

Puzzle Quest 2  2.49 USD

Dungeon Hearts  1.49 USD

Total:10.21 USD

To The Moon Game and Soundtrack Bundle  3.74 USD

McPixel  0.99 USD

Saints Row: The Third - The Full Package  7.49 USD

Total:12.22 USD

I have also bought A LOT of trading cards and sold a few. Jeez.

During the Steam Summer Sale, I have played a little bit of:

• Alan Wake (PC)
• Audiosurf (PC)
• Batman: Arkham Asylum (PS3)
• Dota 2 (PC)
• Dungeon Hearts (PC)
• Magicka (PC)
• Team Fortress 2 (PC)
• Torchlight II (PC)

Motivations for playing those most of those games were based on getting the Steam Trading Cards (please, don't judge).

I have also played a lot of Borderlands 2! I have three characters now. The first is a Lvl 15 Siren for co-op with up to three other players including mufujifi. The second is a Lvl 22 Commando for co-op with mufujifi only. The third is a Lvl 10 Assassin for solo play out of sheer desire to play whenever my co-op partners are offline. I get sad like that but happy at the same time because I get to explore at own time own target.

So now that Steam Summer Sale is ending, should I:

1. buy the rest of BL2's DLCs, which are mostly the skins or
2. buy games and just one BL2 skin to hit the minimum 10 bucks for a trading card?

If I were to purchase game/s, which should I get?

I wanted to blog about the games I played today and the progress I made but my mood was spoilt.

Here is what little update I can give:

The next BL2 mission is

The Cold Shoulder.

So.... this is the first time I experience a Steam Summer Sale and on the very first day, I have already incurred a total of 10.12 damage to my wallet.

AND I SPENT IT ALL ON BL2 DLCs!

ZE HORROR.

So, yeah.

Waiting to see if Magic will go on sale.