Binding of Isaac

      I recently bought Binding of Isaac on sale during these Summer Sales, great decision. Although this game gives everyone a hard time, it's a fun experience. The game actively seeks to ruin Isaac's day - everything tries to end him.  Swarms of flies, dive bombing parasites, laser eyes, and huge swathes of bosses, they all challenge the player. Eventually some enemies become predictable, but most don't. Once you get far enough, the boss of each floor poses another challenge. Each of the seven sins, four horsemen turn into bosses, and even more convoluted creatures each become harbingers of Isaac's doom crashing a nice streak against the little guys into a fleshy brick wall.
      Even the pills with random effects have it out for him. Although he might get lady luck on his side and find all his health back after using the pill, likely Isaac consumes the pill and finds his range or damage downgraded while he balances on half a heart. Even the beneficial items can hurt Isaac's chances of survival, perhaps giving you an awesome laser eye that deals damage in a straight line, when the situation calls for him to curve his shots to kill a few zombie fetuses. Some items turn you into a devil spewing insta killing tears while flying around the map, but these are only commonly found after making pacts with the devil in exchange for your own hearts. The glass cannon archetype can easily be created here, but if Isaac breaks, it's all over.
    Binding of Isaac embraces dark humor and teeth grinding difficulty, but the game never becomes overly frustrating. While Isaac may die while pimped out with a huge arsenal of weapons, the game drags the player back from a pool of tears into a determination to find even more loot and see how many more ways he can go from sitting pretty to into a death sentence.

Plus he's just so cute, even with a coat hanger lodged in his head!

Sora the Explora

Srsly, what is this thing

     So I woke up early this morning, and I had no idea what to do. Still tired, I turned on the TV to try and wake myself up. Infomercials, or Sora, I mean, Dora the Explorer.
...
Yeah, I watched Dora the Explorer today, don't judge me.
     It wasn't all bad, our football headed friend and her mini dragon friend (at least, I think it's a dragon) were making flowers grow. Yep. Crezca-ing flowers, crezca-ing flowers, crezca-ing flowers. Then suddenly, they planted unicorn horn flowers. I'm not sure why they wanted them, the flores just consisted of a long, hard, ridged shaft on a stem. No idea about that.
         BUT SUDDENLY, (everything happens so fast on this show, no time to take a breather) the deviant flowers summoned a unicorn to the battlefield. It glided down on a rainbow, and it immediately asked for some of their flowers, probably for cannabalism hidden under the guise of the noble gesture of giving some to it's horrible unicorn parent that's probably sitting at home on the other end of the rainbow frantically calling out the name of her degenerate unicorn child. Probably.
        Unfortunately, in the 5 seconds the unicorn had to get these flowers, the rainbow decided to leave before even more disturbing events unfolded in front of it's rainbow-y aura. So the rainbow (I'm sure it had a conscious) abandoned our ragtag crew; Sora started freaking out, and the dinosaur just kinda stood their holding more miscellaneous seeds. Then Dora had a startling plan! "What if.. despite our differences and our struggling friendship, we band together, and cure world hunger! I mean, let's go find the rainbow." (Editor's note: not exact quote)

Yep.

       Of course, they didn't want to get lost, so they consulted the map. Not a big surprise for fans of cartoons involving football shaped kids - their brains are big and they know they don't want to get lost. Once they realized the end of the rainbow, now enjoying sentient life was on the other end of the cave of a thousand dragons, past the old troll toll bridge, they left, fearless as ever.

        On the way to the rainbow, they passed a field with some old friends playing soccer, (I think it was Shoes and some other creature, I don't even remember at this point) and having a good time. Dora called out to them, and while they clearly didn't want to be bothered by this little witch, they waved back. This meeting triggered a cataclysmic event creating a mini-raincloud that only hovered over the two of the creatures in the field, ruining their game of futball. Seeing the horrible disturbance, Sora asked her dragon friend if she knew what to do. Frightened and scared, everyone, including her imaginary audience friends. I'm pretty sure Sora, er, Dora needs to visit a psychiatrist, because she had us all make the crucial decision of picking the magical umbrella seeds to save the day. You're welcome, Sora.

      So after this stereotypical soccer match was saved, our group moved along hoping to never face another cliched event again. They could hope all they wanted, because they just had to arrive at the cave of a thousand dragons, minus 999 of them. Although they saw this cave on the map, they had no idea what to expect, so they called out for help. Of course, relying on the stereotypes once again, Dora's super Asian friend arrived on the scene to help with this dragon. She did her magic, probably a fan dance or two, and they managed to get passed the dragon by simply going around the cave. They reached the troll bridge, and guarding it was, no surprise, a troll. It looked more like a Lorax combined with a troll doll, but still, the guardian asked Dora a riddle involving space, time, and reality. Bracing for the worst, Dora cringed as he slowly read out his riddle.
      "WHAT CELESTIAL BEING WEARS A LONG HORN WITH A FLOWING MANE?"
      Dora paused at this critical moment in her young lifetime. She never trespassed into the outer realm, she wasn't supposed to do this until next season. She looked around, she stared at her little dinosaur friend. As she began to point at the thing, the troll began to light up into a blazing inferno. Noticing this little detail, she moved away and began to think once more.
       It finally dawned on her, and she mouthed the words Uni.. corn.. she realized that her friend was somehow missing. Sora panicked. She yelled out the Unicorn's name, "UNIIIIICOOOOORN!!"
It jumped out of the bush. Relieved, they crossed the bridge without caring about the other riddles the Lorax had. They finally saw the rainbow down miles upon miles away, but they continued undeterred - their 30 minutes of episode were nearing the end. Suddenly, out of another pair of bushes, their old friend Swifer the Sniper accosted them and took their flowers. Now, he's clever enough to not take hostages, then that would involve the SWAT teams and helicopters. He felt remorse, however, as the unicorn started crying, so he traded the horned flowers for the rare unicorn tears, hoping to cure cancer in the meantime of plotting his next advance towards Dora the explora. The unicorn, clearly out for himself, said Thank you for my flowers. His flowers, completely forgetting that Dora and her dragon friend planted them first.
       They didn't seem to mind, and they finally reached the rainbow. They found the unicorn's parent, who managed to hide all of the worry that went on in the background. The unicorn kid gave the parent the aphrodisiac horn flowers, they said their thank-yous and their goodbyes, and everyone went home after this ordeal.

       What an interesting show.

UNLESS IT'S A FARM

Moments like these spice up my day. Usually, you don't see creepers until it's too late, but rare moments like these give the game more flavor. It's not his fault he found himself in a makeshift dungeon, but better him down below than up above. Reminds me of a zoo, except instead of penguins, a little bundle of dynamite sits behind the glass.
My only regret was not making this moment into a .gif, because his head bobbing as he hops in and out of the water were perfect.
And, y'know, they spawn in the darkness, and he was born under erroneous circumstances, but, "These things happen."

Venus Transit

So, the Venus transit was today, and it inspired me to make a little philosophical post.
When you look up to the skies, an an entire universe conceals itself to the naked eye. While the planets will forever continue to dance along in space, for one rare day in our lives, Venus reveals itself in front of a golden spotlight. While you can't look directly at the spectacle, the transit represents much more than a pinprick on the sun. It gives depth to the solar system, and a sense of rarity despite the inherent dullness of a little dot. The transit pales in comparison to an eclipse, but just witnessing a once in a lifetime event is something of itself that makes me.. giddy. At least, I can take some solace that the pictures will last indefinitely.

Inner creativity

So, in my quest to revist old games, my friends and I launched a minecraft server once again. We created a main base in a crevice that cut through a web of abandoned mining tunnels, so after exploring them and clearing those out, I set off to create something more substantial than a giant stripper pole (read: tower) and a chest full of materials.
In my past minecraft worlds, my creations arose out of necessity, and rarely style. Armed with a new texture pack to replace the low resolution chunks and a coffee powered imagination, a semi-floating manor house remains standing after a good hour or so.

 My first goal was to simply find a nice location. I found a classic gravity defying hill on the edge of the jungle and just went from there.

 Guests can only climb up through the vines, although it's an old manor, old people might have trouble navigating the growth.

Inside, I'm awfully proud of the little details that I added. Everything, from the broken glass along the rim to the metal grating near the floor, and the more obvious rotting planks and cobwebs really complete the atmosphere.

 Above, a uh, perfectly nice garden resides with wildflowers, I guess. Let's just say the flowers drifted in from the jungle out on the horizon and those 'fountains' are remnants from an old rainstorm.

 I'm not sure if I went overboard with the rotted walkways, but punching a few holes in the floor seemed to do the trick (plus, the tower of Mordor on a diet dominates the background)

 I.. like vines.

 Now, the main, rotted out room has a downward staircase that connects to the hill, with only a single door to exit through, which can only open up from the inside (once again, not elderly friendly) Down below, a small minecart tunnel connects this little manor to the main base (where the tower resides)

Now for something, completely different.

*boom*

Fine Wine

By now, you must have heard of the argument that 'video games are art', and yeah, I could easily support that claim. However, after gaming all my life, I can look at my games like fine bottles of digitized wine. Now, they haven't all aged nicely, Nickelodeon Party Blast aged like Benjamin Button's farts after eating a diet of beans and old milk that plays worse than it did nine years ago.

The face of pure, unadulterated terror in a box that puts Pandora's to shame

Other games that will actually be remembered in the future, like that awesome grandpa that rides motorbikes that we all envy. I'm sure you, my favorite reader, has such a game in mind, but for now, Doom makes a good point. Each level has multiple ways to tackle each level, the ambient noise and demon snarls still create an eerie mood, and temporarily recreating the matrix with every dodge never gets old.

On the other hand, Party Blast plays worse than a headless chicken riding a tricycle with just one wheel and made less sense than the actual image of the metaphor. Only the game's shortcomings leave it etched in my memory, I cannot forget the horror.

You can even see the bottle of wine begin to ferment with Skyrim. When it first launched, the game's scale is still like none other. Great at first, but even the scale of the world lacks in non-repetitive content. However, the modding community makes up for the void. Like the frosting on an elegant cake, the mods add the final touch to the game. As the players and creators become more creative and push the envelope, the content and ultimately the game improves with time. That's pretty cool. Other games tend to remain unsupported after so long, or just earn DLC and other little patches, and eventually those games will just fade away along with the rest.

Retextures, custom weapons, and little fixes are only the beginning, this game has potential in the future for some large scale mods, and some are already popping up through the woodwork.

The Legends Return

AP tests have denied me time for gaming, but lately I've picked up League of Legends once again. Before I went on hiatus and put down the game, I had been on the verge of ragequitting and ready to just leave in the middle of the game.
See, every week or so they add a new character to the game, so frequently that some new characters enter the arena incredibly overpowered, or really underpowered. I had the privilege of playing against a few overpowered characters, especially one who would swing a giant greatsword, dealing massive damage and gaining invincibility while running around berserk. Just one example, but I couldn't stomach that and a few other annoyances any longer.
I put the game down for awhile, but after all this time, I'm glad I started playing once more. Although the professional life requires constant playing of the game, LoL spawned more joy in smaller, bite sized sessions and quitting after brilliant, nail bitingly close games.
Moral of the story: some games age well and are worth playing after so long, and others aren't. No screenshots today, I get too focused in game and forget to find the perfect Kodak moment.