Metroid

Alright, I won’t lie. Metroid kinda sucks dick. At the very least, it aged very bad. But still, I will say this. Within the same year, Spelunker, Super Pitfall and Metroid came out and tried out the open ended exploration thing. One of these games succeeded. Metroid is an interesting novelty as it basically drops you in a world with no aim or direction. You get the hint that you need to kill two monsters to proceed in the game early on and thats it. From there you wander around, bomb every brick and collect everything until you succeed. Then you encounter Metroids and have no idea what to do about them. Only experimentation allows you to kill them and the experimentation does not come easy due to the nature of different guns replacing each other. The game does give you two different shots at the ice beam, but anyways. What of the map?

Well Metroid is not an advanced enough game to convey an ecosystem in a significant way outside “fire sea horse is in a sea of fire”. The map layout it’s self is huge by NES standards (and interesting enough, is compressed in such a way that it generates a ‘secret’ glitch area that is like many many times greater in size than the actual game, but thats another story), but its use of rows and columns in it’s design create a map that is…. digestable. We can also see that brinstar, the ‘main’ area is the higher most area, with both Norfair, Ridley’s Hideout and Kraid’s hideout being toward the bottom of the planet. Nothing significant, but some design elements are considered. The big problem here is that Metroid is made out of ‘megablocks’ that form screen templates. Ever notice how a lot of metroid screens look exactly the same? WELL, thats how it got to be so big. Thats also why those hidden areas accidently exist (I won’t write about that anymore here, but if you’re curious, look up ‘metroid hidden areas’. The topic has been explored extensively by more knowledgeable people). After awhile everything blends together until you are truly, horribly lost.

Two notes:
First one is on topic: If the screen transitions, the horizontal/vertical scrolling HAS To switch. Remember how you had those two columns in the beginning with the one screen ‘tunnel’ room between them? Well now we know why that exists.
Second one for fun: You know the good Ol’ Justin Bailey code. Well, that is not a special password. That is a RANDOMLY GENERATED PASSWORD that passes Metroid’s password checksum and is interpreted as expected. It exists sheerly through random chance. There is a special password though. NARPAS SWORD (followed by a bunch of 0s), which makes samus invincible. The name probably has nothing to do for a sword, but probably means either North American Release Password or Not A Real Password. Just a fun bit of trivia.

So what can we learn from Metroid? Not much, the game sucked. If anything we learned that people will tolerate ‘suck’ for exploration.

Metroid II: The Return of Samus

Holy Christ on a stick, this game sucks too. How did we even GET to Super Metroid? Well, probably because this was a gameboy game and for a gameboy game, this shit is pretty baller. Also we didn’t get Super Metroid yet so we didn’t know what a good Metroid was yet. So lemme start off with one fact. THE MAP DOES NOT FIT TOGETHER.

THE MAP DOES NOT FIT TOGETHER.

THE FUCKING MAP OVERLAPS IT’S GODDAMNED SELF

God dammit. SO you wanna talk about getting lost? The screens are so big compared to what you can see, they all look like the same fucking grayscale shit and shit doesn’t even lead up to places it should lead. It is horrible. But anyways, some neat stuff does exist in this game. I actually beat it the other day to see how well it aged. Not well, but like Metroid, it’s an interesting relic. So as Samus you explore SR388, the home planet of the metroids (Well, if you wanna be a fag, Zebes is their homeplanet as the Chozo made the Metroid to kill the X parasite on SR388! :D) to well… commit genocide. The levels are all very natural. Winding caves — it’s literally like spelunking as you drive deeper and deeper. Unlike the eventual Super Metroid idea, you don’t advance with new abilites, you advance by killing off all the metroids in a given area (to be fair, the items help you find metroids), and the ACID LAKE in the center vein structure of the map lowers. So whats cool about any of this? Well unlike Metroid, the place feels like a natural cave of sorts. Metroid either looked built and industrial or abstract (why is the ground made of bubbles? D:). Even when it did seem rocky, the straight forward nature of everything made things seem man made. Metroid II does not feel man made, in an interesting and BAD way. It damaged gameplay but it is interesting. In no other metroid do you spend as much time walking and platforming without seeing an enemy. Prime seemed to borrow a bit from this, but did it in a much more tasteful capacity. Anyways since theres no proper ‘areas’, the whole ecosystem thing is also kinda weak here. The enviroment gets more hostile as you go deeper, but you also see more and more chozo made constructions outside the statues. By the time you get to the end (which features the most idle walking), you reach what is called Phase 9 (the lava dropped 9 times), which is also called ‘The Royal Palace’, a constructed breeding ground for metroids. The tunnels feel authentic in their desire to be as inconvenient as possible. It’s rather an interesting development, even though the sacrifices made to do it are almost unforgivable. The difficulty in backtracking is a problem, but there are actually more missiles and energy tanks in the game then you can actually hold, so that softens the blow. You can see what they were going for. Also they had a huge boner for the morph ball. The spiderball sounds fun on paper, but it’s the most tedious, slow, buggy piece of shit in the world. I also have a strange suspicion that the emptiness near the end of the game is unintentional and that they literally ran out of time for the game. I can see it going either way, but the thought that the decisions were intentional interests me more.

Metroid II also features a lot of Flora and Fauna that appears in Super Metroid… which is obviously sort of weird, but hey, those Chozo are wacky bird people. Anyways clearly this is a game meant to capitalize on the feeling of exploration Metroid game, while trying to deal with the sense of being lost. The Acid lake was arbitrary but if you look how each area’s unlocks allowed access to new metroids, you can see where they got the idea for an interactive, ability driven map. Because why rely on the metroids? At the moment it was necessary, but moving on their goal became clear. Between Metroid and Metroid II you can construct the prototypical design for Super Metroid in an atmospheric and Exploratory sense. Metroid II is ultimately a failure and has probably aged worse than Metroid (which as I said, is fairly digestible). Also they decided that their map should fucking fit together.

Super Metroid

Japan isn’t a fan of Metroid. Looking at the above games though, it makes sense. But Super Metroid is one of the best designed games out there and it’s aged amazingly. It also leads into what I want to talk about. Now, I’m forgoing my favorite image of the cocktail napkin sketch of Super Metroid, for a more practical map…. but lemme link to an even LESS practical map . Yeah, thats the whole god damned game in an image. It’ll help.

So what does Super Metroid do wrong? Besides the pit with the god damned green monkey motherfuckers (etecoons — also the spinespark birds are Drachoras) where you have to walljump, not much. That part is trivial to me now, but when I was a kid it filled me with rage. The map has tons of interesting things going on. It has the organic nature of Metroid II, with a digestible structure like in Metroid 1. The map is pseudo non-linear and the lock and key mechanics are made up of acquirable moves. It uses the pillar ‘super structures’ from Metroid as a way to divide areas up neatly. Only once you get to Maridia do things get kinda confusing. Anyways, I wanna talk a bit about the Zebes ecology.

You start in Crateria, which is rocky, damp and stormy. There is very little life — some grass and moss, but very little life. The tile set is cold and it is storming outside. It implied in sources that this is actually acid rain. Upper Crateria is filled with with Acid pools, either from the first detonation of Tourian or just because thats how Zebes rolls. You re-explore the ruined Tourian and the original metroid starting location — which for the record is 2 screens short of being in perfect alignment with their positions in the original Metroid (for the record, you can practically fit the original metroid in the dead space created by the elevators and Brinstar and Norfair maintain their geographical locations from one another). As you head down you see more life — stone like mushrooms and hardened hives of small animals. You take an elevator down and BAM, life. It’s warmer down here and the acid rain doesn’t reach. Life is booming. Upper Brinstar (green and Pink Brinstar) is rolling with life and the boring ass Spore Spawn. But then you head deeper and suddenly Brinstar begins to dry out. The soil is read and there is less life. Clearly we’re closer to norfair… But hey wait, water. You pass through Maridia and things are damp again. You drop by Norfair, get highjump, and then go viisit Kraid. Kraid’s layer is kept wet from Maridia, so life is abundant again. The dried green and red glowing background imply this is a dubious balance, but is balanced enough for life.

Stuff like this exists elsewhere. Above Maridia, Crateria and the wrecked shit are wet and damp. The missile lake and entrance to the ship are clearly results of Maradia’s underground ocean. Lower Norfair, the hottest part of the planet, is at the lowest point, perhaps the core. Things aren’t perfect (the first red wall in Brinstar is next to Mardia, but a player wouldn’t ever realize it. Lower Norfair lines up with the grappling hook segment which isn’t portrayed as insanely hot (and theres water!), but generally when you look for it there are a LOT of attentions paid to the little detail. Super Metroid crafts a believable world. It makes concessions when necessary, but it knows it doesn’t have to be unyielding. The little details it puts in crafts an excellent atmosphere. You can make all sorts of assumptions too. Was the guy who died infront of Kraid’s liar a survivor of the wrecked ship? Well, maybe that was the intention, until Zero Mission explained that, but it’s still a cool touch. Probably just a some Federation Marine chump who got killed by the door.

The map in general is almost perfect. At the very least, it is the best, most interconnected map in it’s genre. Even where it has chokepoints (only one way into Norfair), the nature of things funnel you there from multiple starting points. No teleportation require and no need to break the interconnected nature of the maps.

Metroid Prime I & II

It’s been awhile so my memory is rusty, but first, lemme say this is the cause of all my grief here. WHY THE FUCK IS PHENDRANA DRIFTS NEXT TO MAGMOOR CAVERN? ARE YOU GUYS EVEN TRYING? Prime actually has a great atmosphere and wonderful ecology on the micro scale, but their maps have always been sorta bad. Sadly Prime is their best attempt. The game is great overall, and it’s slower, more pondering pace makes its map issues (you will check your map a lot. Forever) less of a concern, it does discard a lot of metroid lessons. The game, made by Retro Studios seemed to mistake Metroid for being about crazy enviroments or something. Then in II they went for the hub design which sucked dick (also light and dark world, where the dark world HURTS YOU so you can’t explore), and III is a shooter so whatever. A note about Prime from a level design standpoint thats positive — and probably the cause of this issue. Prime was made by level designers making levels out of squares — than the art team came in and made the room look great. There seemed to be a bit too much of a disconnect — or at least a lack of planning that lead to these quick, goofy location transitions. Their methodolgy was good though!

Also again, fuck Hub designs, because next we’re talking about

Metroid Fusion

Fuck you person who surely disagrees, this game sucks. Thank god Prime was good (Even if its map was weak), or else we’d be 1:4. Fusion I think got a lot of paces because handheld Metroidvania’s still sucked. The game controlled well, which is a big plus, but it has an awful map. We’re back to MII territory. THE MAPS DO NOT CONNECT. Fuck you, map designer, that shit is NOT COOL. Also the map sucked, the bosses sucked, the exposition sucked, Adam locking shit off sucked, having to go to nav rooms before trying to proceed sucked and well the whole game fucking sucks, short of the controls and the tileset used for the main space ship (it’s seriously kinda swank).

The map is divided into 5 zones. ICE ZONE, FIRE ZONE, JUNGLE ZONE, WATER ZONE AND….. Dark… Zone? Man, fuckin’ A guys. Now like with Other M’s bottle ship, I think the concept is stupid, but at least you can’t fuck up the ecology bit. The problem here is the zones are almost entirely separated from each other and you can gain and lose access to them based on the will of the plot. Can’t use your new toys to get new items, Adam doesn’t approve. The game is disjointed and the nav stations only serve to slow the game down. There is a single line of interconnectivity among the sectors, but seriously the shit is so lame. Lemme sum up my feelings on Fusion in a forum post.

So I just did something terrible. I played through Fusion. Now, I haven’t played Fusion since it came out and with only one playthrough in 8 years, I was practically going into the game fresh. I remembered a few things. The stupid computer plot, the themed sections of the ship and a few trace ‘oh yeahs’ were about all I had going for me.

The game still sucked balls. One thing on the plus side though: Certain areas had reaaaaally nice tile sets and use of color, notably the first area. Saying that though, I could have lived without ever seeing a potted plant or vending machine in Metroid. Otherwise most of the enemies look like ridiculous cartoon characters, save for a few rebuilt enemies from SM and maybe a handful of originals. The linearity was beyond my memory, it was INSULTING. At one point the game tells me to get an item in a ROOM I’VE ALREADY BEEN IN, and then, on route to the room, traps me in a navigation room AGAIN to say “ARE YOU SURE YOU KNOW WHERE IT IS? Y/N”. The whole plot reminds me of the sort of thing I yell at Indy developers for making. It was so contrived and I didn’t feel like anything was gained by listening to Samus get wet over Adam while she rode the elevator.

Granted I think Samus introspective are potentially cool, but this game did not show how to do it. Every bit of injected plot, besides a few reveals, are just painful.

Also GOD THE BOSS FIGHTS. I mean, I admit too that SM’s bossfights leave something to be desired, but these were AWFUL, especially toward the end. My strategy in all these fights were to just pound the bosses with my insanely good missiles and take whatever damage and say ‘whatever’, only dodging the occasional high damage attack. The whole game seems to be made up of patternless bosses who’s gameplay involves ‘try and jump over the big obnoxious enemy’. This isn’t even to go on to say how hilariously ugly and nonsensical Nightmare looks .l Also Ridley suddenly bursting into ANIMU RIDLEY OOOH YEAH. zzzzzzzz

This game is amatuer hour at R&D1. They definitely didn’t have a feel for making a Metroid game. Not being a metroid game isn’t bad, but the problem is in their failed attempt to make a Metroid game they made a game that was bad overall. For example theres a few sections that take some Metroid style intuition, but they come totally out of left field. I’ve been being dragged by the nose so long that NOW, for like, ONE ROOM, I’m supposed to intuit where to go? Screw you, game.

SA-X also seems pretty dumb. Theres like, one tense moment followed by a bunch of ‘die until you learn course/trick: Repeat until success’. It’d be better if she just didn’t totally wipe the floor with you. You survive by cheesing her. You either die or you survive almost unharmed. As you hide behind an obvious wall. zzzzz

Also I thought the plot would be cooler if that was the real samus. I kept looking at her saying “Man, why don’t I look like that? I’m just a Mottled Samus, like some sort of EVO body type or something.”

Anyways to be fair the game isn’t entirely awful. It’s some okay-but-flawed action adventure game on it’s own, but it is well under the radar of quality for games I would normally play.

Also here is something someone else describes that happened to me.

So, Sector 5. You get the Power Bombs there! As someone who’s played Super Metroid previously, I recognize this as a Good Thing, and figure I might want to play with my new toy.

Oh, wait, this is Fusion, I have to go back to my ship now, because the computer told me to. Hm… on the way, there’s this area I can now open up with my power bombs! Screw you, Adam, I’m gonna investigate that place.

Oh wait, I can’t, there’s a grub blocking the corridor right after it, and it’s covered in adamantium plating that my weapons can’t touch. Sigh. To the ship it is, then. I save here. Adam now tells me to… go exactly where I was going to go so I can try to start up a generator. But there was a grub in the way before, I can’t get through!

Except the grub was woken up by Adam’s yammering, or something, so it’s not in the way anymore. Really, Fusion? Really?

Metroid Zero Mission

Oh god, more not lining up. TAKE A HINT FROM CASTLEVANIA YOU MOTHERFUCKERS. YOUR BEST GAME LINED UP.

To be fair, Zero Mission is pretty damned great. Not Super Metroid great, but great. The map interconnects nicely. It uses the memorable parts from the first Metroid well and discards the rest. It has a well internconnected map with a sensible arrangement. It doesn’t go the subtle ecological route. The map is solid, but not outstanding. We also get to find out that the wrecked ship is Ridley’s ship. Fun stuff. I dig on Zero Mission but I can’t figure much to say. It’s like a less good version of Super Metroid mixed with some unique charm from the original Metroid. It does have some goofy arbitrary bits though. Also the stealth segment is hit or miss (I liked it).

So anyways, what can we learn from all this? Well, make your maps LINE UP like a pro. But we also learned that subtle details can craft an interesting world that feels internally consistent. For example, most Castlevanias feature the clock tower to the right of the Castle Keep. Why? Because during the Final Approach, the clock tower is traditionally off to the right in the background. HoD ignores this. That doesn’t make the game. HoD and Aria get this wrong. HoD has the clock tower fundamentally in the wrong place and Aria for some reason puts the Clock Tower on the LEFT side, which is kinda goofy. Does this make or ruin a game? No, but it helps make a game feel consistent. In IWBTG the map didn’t line up (granted my task was harder and I was inexperienced. Adding filler screens to connect things would be terrible and IWBTG isn’t a real exploratory metroidvania either. Still, I think you could sketch a picture of the IWBTG world featured in the game. There is some oddities (why is thhe start of the minecart on top of a tower? D:), but generally you have the above ground (which you drop off of on either side to lower areas), the underground and a tower, all geographically located next to each other. This could be more ideal (and anything else I make will be more ideal), but this sense of structure is something I think is missing from a lot of fan games. I digress mostly because IWBTG is more about pacing, cleverness and humor than it’s poorly considered map that happened to work out.

Details push things another step forward and if you’re trying to construct a world or structure, even though gameplay comes first, things should be sensible. Towers where towers should be, catacombs UNDER the map, high places on the TOP of the map (or on the ‘outside’ of the map, like in SoTN). That sound obvious, but if you’re making a map, be absolutely sure to actually DO IT. If you wanna be awesome though, you go the extra mile like in Super Metroid and make all the area not only blend into each other, but exist in a sensible manner that reveals hints at the nature of the world it’s self.

Edit: So heres some added little stuff from people on the Talking Time Forum.

From Kishi

NARPASSWORD refers to Tohru Narihito, the guy who converted the game from the game from the FDS to the NES (which included implementing the password system, since the FDS version had saves).

From Eusis

Minor nitpick there (though is more me being baffled by Sakamoto & crew): the ship at the end of Zero Mission ISN’T the one from Super Metroid. Seems like a lost opportunity to do something like that which should fit nicely, then go “nope, that was some other ship!” Apparently you saw parts of this other ship around the same area but… gah.

Hooooo, really? Thats a pretty interesting bit of information

More art, more big blockquotes from DA. Her description/history is a bit shakey but I feel like I’d be okay if I roleplayed her. Not that I do any RP stuff lately. Anyways.

Some more space stuff. I figured Rory (Miss No Legs) needed a captain so she could have a ship to work out. So I made Varda(One Eye ). I will resist the urge to further populate the ship with scared females and just leave it at these too. Anyways this is sort of a “Proto Character”. I usually flesh out character personalities by using them for something, so the below exists mostly as a base idea that’ll probably be modified. I have a wiki page with stuff on this space nonsense if anyone cares. It’s right over here.

Sylvarda Liliandra (simply known as Varda to most) is an earth born elf who’s wanderlust lead her to the stars. Being magically inclined, she enrolled at a relatively long age to become an astral navagator — mages who pull starships into (and navigate) astral space to achieve FTL travel. Varda also took her time at the academy to become an exceptionally skilled duelist with magically infused rapiers, designed to be used as spell focuses. Despite being a highly talented and motivated student with a promising future as a top class navigator, she abruptly vanished for unknown reasons and generally refuses to talk about them.

Varda exists as a rogue and a smuggler, captaining a light transport. Her and her crew get by performing morally ambigious jobs in the galaxy’s shader locations to make ends meet. She fiercely avoids work that to heavily entangles or harms folks who are just trying to get by, but is not above stealing from cooperations, criminal organizations, or simply those she views as rich enough to afford it. Desptie her concern for the lives of the innocent, her reputation is that of a cold and dangerous woman.

Varda is an arrogant, sultry woman, often to her own (often comedic) down fall. She has a habit of throwing tantrums when frustrated and isn’t always very good with people. In fact, her cold reputation isn’t even entirely deserved, as it is somewhat of an “act” to make up for her lack of negotation skills (which would be handled by someone else whom I’ll probably draw at some point). Despite such flaws, she is an exceedingly clever player and schemer, and, assuming she’s working with people who actually listen to her, exceptionally well at getting things done. She is fiercely protective of her crew and, when able to relax, has a soft, caring core.

Under her eyepatch (another event she seldom will talk about) exists an artifact called the Karisarma, which, from elvish, loosely translates itno “The Demon Engine”. This engraved glass eye, when exposed, can see into and eve partially exist in astral space. This gives incredibly fast reflexes and a massive amount of energy for her body to metabolize, giving her an incredibly boost in speed and agility. As it is used, the demon engine pulls her in deeper, making her even faster and stronger, but slowly overloads her body with magical energy. When turned off quickly, the effects are small — muscle aches and such — but when used for an extended session, the pain endured upon deactivating can be crippling, as if ones body was on fire. Extended use requires long recoveries and a sufficantly long use could outright kill her. It is not uncommon for her to use it in combat in short bursts, but extended usage exists only for dire emergencies. The full image of whats imprinted on the eye can be seen here. The patch it’s self actually has a pinhole camera in it that can feed images to the enchanted eye without using it’s power. While not as good as a real eye, Varda enjoys uses her opponents expectation over her limited field of view to her advantage.

That’s all I got. If I ever get a chance to roleplay any of these new characters, I’ll probably have a chance to actually refine their personalities and histories, but as is these just serve as basic starting notes. Whatever I finally end up with could be quite different.

On Disc DLC
Now I’ll admit, this leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Especially when I’m playing say, Street Fighter 4 and an online opponent uses a costume I didn’t buy. It’s clearly there. It’s taking up harddrive space — but I can’t use it. THAT SAID, these features were never advertised as being ‘in game’ and whats the alternative? Take them off the disk and make it so I have to download a patch for other peoples DLC? On disk DLC, while it feels shady, is fine because it’s pragmatic. The common argument is ‘why not just include it in the game!”, but lets get real here, stuff has been held out from us for expansions since the early PC days.

Unlock DLC
This pisses me off the most. I can’t believe people will whine about this. This refers to content that is on disc and also UNLOCKABLE IN GAME. People see this as exploitation, getting people to spend money to REDUCE the value of their game. Clearly this is also the type of people who care about achievements, as they need a carrot infront of them to do anything.

The big misconception here is ‘Hours played = Value’. Fuck you. Fuck whoever said that. That person should die in a fire. I do not judge how good a movie is by HOW LONG IT IS. I do not judge the quality of a book by the AMOUNT OF PAGES and in all cases that length can be DETRIMENTAL TO THE EXPERIENCE. I don’t buy games to BURN TIME I DON’T WANT, I buy games for an experience. The optimal lenght for an experience can be too long or too short, but it’s never “MOAR IS BETTER”. I -LIKE- having time to do things and there was a number of times I would gladly pitch a dollar or two to keep a game from WASTING MY TIME.

Oh my god, character unlocks in SF4. I would have GLADLY played a few bucks to “lowered the value of my game” and never have had to touch single player. You know why? Single Player in fighters is GARBAGE. I want all the characters so me and my friends can have the BEST EXPERIENCE. Granted, unlocks in fighters SHOULDN’T EXIST (well, unless it’s EX style characters or something, and by all means, have dlc for that too ), but if they are, I would LOVE an out. The lack of unlocks in SSF4 INCREASED the value of the game in my mind. Another example is Bayonetta. I wanted to get some key items so I could start doing what I considered to be the ‘meat’ of the game (playing for score). I didn’t want to play through the whole game again in under 5 hours to get the bracelet of time, or do this or that for something else. Thats a waste of my time. Theres no VALUE THERE FOR ME. It is NEGA VALUE. I was able to get around this by farming halos through an exploit and using ‘cheat codes (more like a secret shop)’ to get stuff, but even THAT was time consuming. I’d have gladly spent a few bucks to get through that too.

So some guy in some racing game might want to just play with a certain car and isn’t interested in the requirements for it. LET HIM. Let him have is fun. You can make the argument that ‘They didn’t earn it!’ but really, whats that worth? If someone said that to me in TF2 if I bought all the unlocks (OH YEAH I’D SO DO THAT TOO D:<) I'd digitally punch them in the dick for implying I should waste my time on such drivel.

Map Packs
This is over done, so just for whoever is wondering why map pack bitching is okay.
TLDR Version of Argument: Map Pack bitching is okay since map packs segregate the community unlike unlikes like a character in a fighting game, whom you can still play AGAINST but not play. Segregating multiplayer communities is awful. It’s practically extortion.

My friend’s Dad Died
Rest in Peace, Tim Traskos. He was the dad of my very good friend AJ. If you’re an IWBTG fan, he’s one of the people who is frequently quipping in my youtube videos, as well as the guy who cooked up Mecha Birdo. I wish him and his family the best. :(

I Went to this Weird Indy Arcade in the Basement of What Seemed to be a Squat House

I went to Babycastles, which was this super ghetto but cool little set up in some building in the middle of Brooklyn that hosts illegal concerts. So to put it short, it was an establishment far hipper than I. I got there late after 3 hours of train/subwaying which made NO FUCKING SENSE (the trip should of taken a little over an hour each way, but instead ended up taking 6 hours of total travel time for 2 hours of payoff. Ah well. Met some up and coming pro gamers which was cool. The guy who ran it seemed to have a lot of heart. He wanted me to come by to talk to some high school kids about game creation. Cool guy. The whole thing was because IWBTG was in one of their ‘arcade machines’ — amusingly junky looking setups made from salvaged windows 98 machines. So I kinda got to be E-Famous for a bit. Also got the charming chance to bitch about Jason Rohrer. Destin(Dustin?), if you read this, I think the words that fit my feelings are better put as “I hate everything he’s ever done and think it has no contribution to the true artistic nature of art, but if people eat his shit up I hope he at least makes a living for himself”.

Anyways, will probably go back at SOME POINT, but I’m definitely going to drive.

I Hate Trophies/Achievements

As far as I know, there is no way to turn this shit off on the PS3 (at all) or 360 (without turning off ALL notifications). Now, I could talk about how the concept is silly to me, but my bitching has nothing to do with that either. Let people have their fun. I JUST DON’T CARE. I don’t get why this is an all consuming, inescapable system. I love playing SF4 and having an achievement notification cover my opponent’s life bar. I don’t read what it is, I never look up what it is later or anything. It also makes my games take longer to load. They have been nothing but a net negative to my experience. Frankly I’d love to turn them off, period. I don’t want people to compare trophies with me. How far I’m in a game is none of their god damned business… but I could deal with that as long as I didn’t have to deal with it.

Actually wait, I can deal with it, and do, but that doesn’t make the lack of such a basic feature NOT RETARDED. Yet whenever someone questions this online, theres threads of mouth breathers going “Why would you want to turn off achievements?” “lol why don’t you just ignore them” “oh my god my console has a blue light when it’s on how do I turn that off, lol!”, like a bunch of worthless slapdicks that think gamer scores mean anything and need a little pop up notice to accomplish anything.

Also don’t get me started on achievements in TF2. To put it short, if this BS was never invented, my life would be marginally better. If Microsoft and Sony just implemented a basic feature, my life would be less marginally better, but still better.

This whole ‘social networking’ thing in gaming is starting to piss me off. I’ve come to accept facebook, but I don’t want shit like that in my gaming.

Speaking of facebook, I can’t set anything up to publish blog posts to facebook. I thought facebook was supposed to be friendly! D:<

Now, it’s hard to explain to someone who wins like this that it’s a totally awful idea. I mean, they’re winning! Thats the point, right? Well yes and no. I could win a 100% of the time against my cat by pressing jab all day. The idea is to be able to win against the best opponents possible, as consistently as possible. Shenanigans can win because they are unexpected, or the player doesn’t know the counter (usually easy) or can’t effectively punish it with their level of knowledge… but once one plays against a sufficiently skilled opponent, the Shenanigans are no longer not effective, THEY ARE DETRIMENTAL. You give up so much, for such an easily counterable strategy. You are merely led on by those who do not understand the tactic. You write off your losses, focusing on your wins…. But you will never catch up to the players who beat you with that mentality. They practically have you beaten forever until you change your game at a fundamental level.

Shenanigans have their uses (though rarely are they the same shenanigans the player is using currently, but thats another story). Sometimes it’s good to throw something wacky out there to catch someone off guard. The problem for these low level players is that not only is shenanigans their ‘plan A”………… There is no ‘plan B’. Thats it — beat their trick and they flail in panic. Sometimes its hard to tell — sometimes you can throw out tons of shenanigans and actually beat a player better than you occasionally…. but for what? You are throwing your win to the random number god. Sometimes you get lucky with your BS, other times (most of the time) he’ll just punish you. I get this with a lot of people I play with. I will lose to them occasionally, but they will mostly be in a spot where they will have little luck improving. It’s useful for me, because I can use this to clear how to properly deal with such nonsense and move on eventually…. The player will likely be stuck where he was though, making tiny improvements at best. Instead, they should be developing solid, safe and consistent play while not being deterred when they lose. Switching to that style may represent an actual increase in loses at first, but the rewards are CONSTANT wins and the ability to beat much stronger opponents. It also leads to near limitless improvement!

Moral of the story: Don’t cheese your wins until your good enough to realize how cheesy your cheese is. Otherwise you’ll confuse ‘cheese’ with something more substantial. Besides, when you get better you’ll learn about some HIGH LEVEL CHEESE you can use occasionally and that cheese is just soooo much more taster. So go read up on your game and try and find the best way to improve!

This is how most my dates start.

The game is artificial. I often say I hate the game, to which people reply “Well you must not like team work!” or something (sometimes they accuse me of not liking fun, which is more accurate in general, though L4D bores me to tears). I always found this funny because -there is no real team work in L4D-. This is color by numbers team work. Why do you pick your friend up? Because when you get pounced or hurt, you need your friends to keep you from dying. You pick him up because you are incomplete. It doesn’t just benefit you and your team to pick him up — it is critical to your survival. The game has a gun to your head and is saying ‘pick up your team mates because if you have no team you will abruptly die to some special infected.”

Maybe one of the best things to result from L4D

The other thing people state is ‘hey it’s co-op!’ — well, I hate co-op. Doesn’t make co-op bad, but I can dismiss this point personally. This is partially why I think the game succeeds (mixed with zombie romance) with most people.

This is how most of my dates end

You know whats a better co-op game where you fight hordes of the undead? Doom. Don’t wanna play Doom? Serious Sam. Interesting weapons and enemies and a sense of overwhelmingness! Sounds good to me!

Everything ever crafted by man has a Touhou crossover

So yeah. Not much gameplay. For the most part you can’t even be good at the game. The skill is in being the least bad. Between co-op, zombies and good presentation, people get into it. People also get into it because honestly, they enjoy being tricked. When you look at the teamwork objectify, it’s laughable, but for the average player it makes them feel like hot shit. One thing I noticed is every group of players who play L4D seem to think that their little group is the best. Why wouldn’t they? They get to stomp random teams and feel like they’re helping each other the whole time. Theres also a general lack of accountability. Lose as the SI? Oh well, SI always lose (unless you’re doing comp L4D which I can’t even begin to speak about), no harm there. If you, win, you’re awesome. If you lose as humans, you have 3 other humans to blame. Even if you don’t blame them, you can laugh it off and not be bothered — its just how the game works. Sometimes you’ll randomly die. The only thing to be afraid of is just flat out fucking up.

So yeah, I fucking hate the game. You’re not a bad person for liking it, but your experience is mostly artifical. But hey, no harm in liking dumb, shallow games, I play horrific fighting games all the time my self…. just don’t tell me theres any real gameplay in the game. Just say you like co-op and zombies and be done with it.

To be fair, the official updates have been sophisticated and while they detract from the trim, lean design of the original release, they do add real, new gameplay at the cost of less elegance. But now we got these shitty, worthless items mucking things up. They complicate the game WITHOUT MAKING IT A BETTER GAME. Were you guys always secretly hack game designers, strung along by some other forces working at valve, or did you slowly drift into hat-induced madness?

And still, the drop system. Oh wow, lets make a system of inconsistent reward! People like that, right? They play WoW! But lets design it with such little feedback that the only people who get that slot machine rush are the PEOPLE WHO ARE IDLING. We will then fix this system with an awful crafting system that is useless for anything but hat generation and then vaguely fix the crafting system by making obvious changes that could have been made at any time!

You guys are ridiculous. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I wish you’d STOP updating the game after the engineer update. Clearly you no longer have the game design sense to make smart, intelligent games and if you’re just going to shit on what used to be this games wonderfully elegant game, I’d rather you just stop doing anything but bug fixes.

In short, stop being awful. You guys are awful. Please stop.

So yeah. Dat Ass.

Paladin Naomi Vos Cruz by *Katie-W on deviantART

Despite my best efforts, I can only draw women! Anyways if anyone is waiting for Brave Earth’s release (Sometime before the universe suffers from heat death), the below has some spoilers — but really who cares? So as usual, DA post biography.

So here we got Naomi Vos Cruz, walking toward a undescript, old fortress. Naomi is a young Astorian Paladin, belonging to the Sacred Order of Saint Alistair — an order of mostly females. Naomi is friendly and outgoing, through tends to have a temper when pressed. Over time, the typical naivity associated with Paladins faded away, leaving a somewhat jaded young woman who could better percieve the shades of gray between good in Evil. When confronted by actual evil, Naomi acts with brutal decisiveness and is not against fighting dirty if necessary for the greater good.

Naomi’s combat skills are highly regarded. While not as high as many other in the order by status, she is one of the most respected by merit. She is agile and atheletic, while possesing the strength to wield a bastard sword one handed with a shield. Her magical skills are highly focused on combat — healing and other clerical skills are highly lacking. Instead, Naomi can wield holy energy as an offensive, explosive force. She can also use that energy to further increase her speed and strength. She is also particularly skilled in magically destroying the undead. Despite all this, Naomi started out as an unremarkable warrior, who entered the order through birth and, in dangerous situations, was often seen as a burden to her brother who did all her could to protect her. This likely acted as the motivation for her rapid improvement.

Naomi is socialable and charasmatic. She tends to be a community figure where she is positioned (like many of the female Alistarian Paladins), though due to her combat skills she is not often positioned in places where this is necessary. She enjoys make-up and prefers to look well made and groomed in public, doing so even it is not necessary or even appropriate. Naomi will socially drink (through with very strict moderation) and socialize with townfolks at the local taverns. She also has an intense love of fruit, which she seems to eat constantly in public. Despite her outgoing characteristics, she is quite private. She keeps most of her feelings to her self and usually vents through writing and reading poetry. She doesn’t show it to anyone though — it’s probably pretty bad.

She is noted for her intense and bitter rivalry with Cassara, who killed her older brother and fellow Paladin. Naomi remains in constant inner conflict over her brother, whom Cassara casts casts aspersons of guilty upon for various crimes. The mixture of Naomi’s loyalty to her brother and Cassara’s antagonistic personality has led to Naomi’s absolute hatred for her, despite them often working toward the same goals. Cassara on the other hand, despite Naomi’s growing skill, merely precieves her as a naive brat anda nuisance.

Despite being a Paladin, Naomi’s faith is also not quite in tact. While the existance of higher powers are obvious in a world of spirts and magic, the teachings and scriptures of her church do not seem to line up with reality in her mind. Combined with the panthiestic nature of the priest, Father Maynard (Slash), has led to her merely possessing a deistic view. Despite this she still is able to weild her holy powers, which furthers her shakey faith. Naomi remains in the church more due to it’s ability to allow her to help the most people, rather than for it’s exact tenets. She also is highly distrusting of the upper clergy. She her self is also suspected by the church, and she suspects that her usefulness as a warrior is the only reason she is kept around.

It’s actually kinda cozy!