Rumors of my demise have been mildly exaggerated.
Well, I was planning to put a new rant up the week before I started my new job, but, well, they hauled
me in a week early. So, the good news is, I already got and spent my first paycheck. The bad news is,
rather than the nice relaxing stacking work I was hoping for, and for that matter told I'd be doing when
I applied, I have been picking up broken glass, filling dumpsters with rancid milk, mopping an entire
grocery store floor solo, and similar fun stuff. The best part is the totally random and arbitrary schedule.
Last week, they only wanted me in on 2 days, not yielding the money I needed for that week, this week,
Sunday morning, then every other weekday until 10 PM. Oh, and I note the Sunday morning because the week
before, when asked what hours were good for me, all I said was "No weekends, and I can never get in before
2 PM." Of course, I didn't go in today because working this job for 3 weeks left me EXTREMELY sick and
bedridden all day. There, now that THAT'S off my chest, on with the amusement!
As you may have surmised, the "Clean-Vision" idea was almost unanimously rejected by everyone who felt like talking about it. Just as well, too much work doing all that anti-aliasing.
Now then, I got a paycheck, and, as is my custom when I obtain money, proceeded to blow the wad on videogames as soon as possible. So now I have this nice shiny stack of really fun games that I'm honorbound not to touch because I promised someone I'd win Lufia: The Legend Returns. When I made this promise, it didn't seem like a problem. I mean, Lufia 2 was a great game. Puzzles everywhere, pre-Pokémon monster breeding, and a nice plot! Unfortunately, this new Lufia features NONE of these elements. The flow follows the cookie-cutter pattern most RPGs do. Get to new town. Shop. Hear about a problem in the nearest cave/tower/etc. Go there, kill boss, proceed to next town. Now, this pattern isn't TOO bad in and of itself, I mean, I can probably count the number of RPGs that DON'T follow it on one hand... no wait, just tried, I need at least 2. The problem comes from the dungeon design. More specifically, the COMPLETE LACK of dungeon design. Rather than bring back the puzzle filled dungeons that made Lufia 2 the great game it was, they opted to go with "randomly generated" dungeons. Unfortunately, rather than follow the traditions random dungeon generation, you know, where each floor looks radically different, and the whole place is full of tough monsters and a vast selection of random rare treasures that have a big impact on your characters? Instead, this random engine seems to work in the following way. Every dungeon has a set tileset, list of "Ancient Texts", and a list of monster types. Whenever you change floors, you are placed somewhere in a 3x3 grid of rooms, "randomly" connected by hallways, sparsely populated by monsters and treasure chests containing dirt common healing items and ancient texts, and with "traps", under bushes you have no reason to step on, and can slice away first if you want to. "Ancient Texts" yield new special moves for your characters, but they're all balanced evenly, so after the first 2 dungeons, you pretty much have all you need. Each floor of each dungeon takes about 10 seconds to run from corner to corner once everything is cleaned out, and fights are easy although time consuming. That's the whole game. Even when it looks like the 10 "random" floor trend may let up, like, say, in the pirate ship, or the grassy forest, it turns out to be just another tileset that makes no sense whatsoever. It's not that it's a BAD game, it's just a huge letdown and mind-numbingly boring... AND sitting between me and the newish GBC Zelda games, and Saiyuki.
I did crack and start Advance Wars though. Need something to do during my frequent breaks after all. Turn based strategy. Woo! Nice and complex and refreshingly challenging. Of course, a good amount of that challenge comes from the fog of war. I'm used to dealing with that in RTS games. In THIS though, a unit can move a BIG distance, and do MAJOR damage, in a single turn. So, you could have your main force sitting just 2 spaces away from a huge array of long range units and not know it, end your turn, and get completely maimed. THAT takes some getting used to. Especially considering the computer seems to cheat a little bit... unless I've jus been fighting generals with improved vision lately.
Hmm... I've been going on about video games for a disproportionate amount of time today. Strange, that's usually QUITE out of my system by the time I start ranting. Time for an abrupt subject change I think!
As you know, for the last few years, I've been heading out to Anime Central every year. This year it worked out really well, since it was the weekend before E3, so I hit both on one trip and saved a bundle. Before that, well, all my anime obsessee fans lived near it. This year though, said friends are scattered around the world, and ACen is a month away from E3. So I really can't justify flying halfway across the country for it. While it's true that I could just find a more local convention, like, say, Otakon, the idea just doesn't really thrill me, and it'd still cost me a bundle. On the other hand, I have access to a steady supply of new and current anime, a number of public places to attract people, from (like this one), and while I don't know any celebrities from the anime world, I have some really good connections in the RPG world, so I could even snag a few guests if I went hybrid. So, anime itself, check. Guests, half-check. Import gaming room, check. Costume and music video contests, check. Patrons, check. A Dealer room... well... I'm pretty sure that If You Build It, They Will Come. I seem to have all the ingredients nessessary to start up an anime/gaming convention. Before I start passing the collection plate and looking at convention hall pricing though, I must ask you, should I? I have gained the impression that most people who read this page are EXTREMELY STINGY with their money, and judging by the contents of my inbox after each update, not terribly outgoing. So if anyone reading this happens to be...
- ... willing to head up to Connecticut in, say, June, to attend such an event,
- ... one who runs their own anime convention with some cautionary tales to tell,
- ... a notable personage from the world of anime or gaming who would be willing to come as a guest speaker to such an event... and heck, I'd probably even accept the likes of Pete Abrams or Scott Sharkey,
- ... an anime dealer willing to bring along a truckload of loot,
- ... someone who just has way too much money and a desire to rid themselves of it,
then drop me a line, and I'll actually start to pursue this goal. Otherwise, I suppose this fanciful notion will simply die right here and now, and we'll all have to live with a meager what? 20 big annual anime conventions spread across the country and the year?
and now...
here it comes...
despite my misgivings on using the same theme twice...
and evidently from the cover of a very strange fanzine...
which from what I can gather has art like this with the characters from EVERY videogame...
at least from Sega...
and sent to me by a reader who's name I don't recall...
sorry about that...
Sonico and friends
