Monkey-Shines

Okay, I hated to do it but I had to withdraw from class this quarter.  I wasn’t prepared to take this class yet (don’t have a thesis topic), and it was stressing me out too much.  I’ll have to take it in a couple of months, but now is just not a good time.  I knew I should have just taken the quarter off when I couldn’t get that last class I need, but I didn’t want to put off finishing up by another quarter.

The good news is I’m back to gaming a little more.  Well I will be in a few more days.  I have a fair amount of painting and work around the house/farm to do to get ready for a family reunion here in May, but I can playing through my backlog again without stressing out over not doing my school work.  I need to work through some quickly since I can’t be lucky enough to have no “must have” games in the stores forever.

Now if I can just get my drums reassembled and get back to practicing everything will be back to normal.

Sunday marks the beginning of the 2009 Formula 1 season, and as of right now I am officially stoked.  It’s time once again to set my alarm clock and wake up early on Sunday mornings to root for my boys in the shiny red cars.  Go Felipe!!  Go Kimi!!  Go Ferrari!!

It seems the “year of finishing games” may be coming to a grinding halt.  Well, slowing way down at least.  I went to register for classes today and realized I only had 3 classes left.  Two of those classes are thesis related and I was trying to save them for the last 2 classes I took.  The third is one that is a core class for my degree, but it’s not being offered this quarter so I’ll be starting my Master’s thesis earlier than I thought.

I thought I still had about 5 classes left so that I still had time before I really got into it, but since I have to take the research portion this quarter I’ll be having to cut back on a lot of my other activities and gaming is the first thing that will get cut back.  I’ll still play, but I won’t be able to put the same amount of time into it.

*Since there is only one person I know who will get the significance of the title of this post (and I love her because of it), I’ll go ahead and explain.  It’s part of a poem from Robert Burns called ‘To a Mouse’.  In the original Scottish it goes ‘The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley”, but most people would probably recognize the English translation “The best laid plans of mice and men, go often awry”.  Read the whole poem (in English and the original Scottish) here.

Okay for real this time.  Arkanoid is coming to XBLA.  A brick busting classic, and as S. can help verify, I am a brick busting fiend.  Peggle was big, but for me, this is slightly bigger.

R-Type, Peggle, and now Arkanoid?  All is right in in the world.

I recently started trying to finish up Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords (CotW) in anticipation of the release of Puzzle Quest: Galactrix.  I’ve been looking forward to Galactrix (Galactrix) since they announced it, but now I’m not so sure it’s as highly anticipated as it was.  In finishing up CotW, I remembered why I stopped playing in the first place.  The fact that upper level characters always seemed to get exactly what they needed, long cascades , and extra turns.

It seems that in creating a difficulty curve for CotW, Infinite Interactive decided to give the computer the advantage by allowing it to influence the outcome of the AI moves.  In essence, the computer cheats.  Instead of giving higher level NPC’s enhanced stats to compensate for the player improving, they allow the game to cheat.  All but the final boss do the same amount of damage as the first rat you encounter.  The final boss however has the benefit of improved stats, much higher hit points, AND it still cheats.

This has some battles coming down to luck, and leaves the player feeling frustrated when the computer gets turn after turn of good moves and then they are left with turns that don’t give them anything they can actually use.

I’m disappointed that more time wasn’t spent in designing the NPC’s so that cheating isn’t necessary.  I’ve heard that the PC version of Galactrix suffers from the same problems although the game has been designed to alleviate it a bit.  It doesn’t remove the cheating but allows the players more tools to combat it.  That’s not much better, and now I’m not sure if I want to give my money to a company that feels it is okay to cheat the customer.

I’ve never really been able to get into graphic novels.  I tried to.  As a card carrying member of the geek generation I thought it was expected of me.  I’ve grown out of that phase and realized I don’t have to conform to expectations.  I’m my own geek, and I’m proud of that.

I think part of what holds me back is that I’m such an avid reader.  I love books, and while technically graphic novels are books, the illustrations tend to hinder me.  My mind’s eye can’t see past the illustrations.  I only see what the creators want me to see, and that takes away part of what I read for.   I can’t escape to my own little world if I’m being told where to go.

All that said, I did fall for some graphic novels, but not really the ones most people flock to.  Watchmen is big right now with the movie coming out recently, but the whole super-hero thing never appealed to me.   I read the graphic novel it’s based on, and it was good enough that I’d like to see what they did with it cinematically, but it’s not what I would call one my favorites.

I went more for the quirky ones.  Like Bone.  I fell in love with Bone very quickly.  It has the traditional quest in a vaguely “fantasy” setting that has always attracted me in my regular readings.  But it adds some characters in ways you might not expect.

On a recent trip to the bookstore to spend a couple of gift cards I had I found the all-in-one Bone collection.  I couldn’t believe it, I hadn’t thought about Bone in years.  Since I never finished the series, it wasn’t finished when I started and I fell out of trying before he finsihed, I went ahead an plopped down my gift cards for it.  1300 pages of graphic novel gold was mine, and I will finally be able to finish the series I had all but forgotten about.

Microsoft hates me.  Here I am trying to run through some of my backlog of games and they pick now to release a game I’ve been waiting months for.  This week on XBLA Peggle will be released.  Guess I’ll have to get some points since the new Maw level will also be released this week.

I’ve played both Peggles on the PC so I already know I love the game.  Sigh.  I was able to resist R-Type (due in part to the overpricing), but Peggle is coming in at 800 points so it’s going to get me.

Source: MajorNelson

While browsing through Walmart.com today to see if the AC/DC pack for Rock Band had been lowered in price anymore I came across this little number.  It’s a little pricey, but you are paying for the endoresment here.

Now if I could only get one for the 360, my girlfriends son would crap his pants when I rolled in with this thing.

Walmart.com: Gene Simmons Wireless AXE Guitar for Guitar Hero & Rock Band (PS2, PS3): Accessories.

Sometime last year I decided I should learn to play drums.  I enjoyed the drum portion of Rock Band so much it seemed only natural that I would enjoy playing real drums as well.

Drums are not exactly a cheap hobby.  They can be, but with drums you can only go so cheap without sacrificing quality.  A decent started kit will run closer to $1000 than to $100.  I was in a unique situation that I needed to get electronic drums so I wouldn’t bother the people I live with when I practice, so my prices didn’t vary so much as most starter eKits run around $700 new and there are fewer kits to choose from.

One thing I found early on was that since my are electronic, they can keep track of how many times I have hit the drums.  Since I bought them used, I immediately scoured the book to see how to reset the counter so only my hits would count.

The other day I hit my first milestone.  It doesn’t really mean much other than a measure of how much I practice (not as much as I should, I know), but I hit 1,000,000 drum strokes on Friday.

The first game in my queue falls victim.  I finished Prince of Persia yesterday.  I think that leave me 18 to go in my stack.  The ones near the bottom of the stack may not get finshed, however.  By the time I get that far down the line I will probably be happy with what I’ve accomplished and be on to other things.  I’m sure somebody will have released a new game I have to play by then.  (like H.A.W.X. this Tuesday)

Thanks to Circuit City going out of business I was able to pick up Fable 2 for cheap and my girlfriend snagged me my own copy of Ninja Gaiden 2.  Both are still in the plastic, and believe me that’s a big deal for me since I tend to play the newest game I have and ignore all others.  In addition to those we are sharing Guitar Hero:World Tour and Soul Calibur 4.  I’m pretty set for newish games for a while, and that hits pretty much all that I was wanting with the exception of Skate 2 and the already mentioned HAWX.  I’ve already made the commitment to not buy anything new for a while unless it something I have really been looking forward to so I can pass on Skate 2 and HAWX for now  Nothing else is pinging my radar hard at the moment so I should be fine until the 3rd quarter at least.

Next up?  Fallout 3, or Ninja Gaiden 2, or Fable 2, Assassin’s Creed, or Okami, or Jade Empire.  Yeah, I don’t know where I’m going next.