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.

The history might have been a better place had I been there

Toying around in Civilization V again, and revisiting the idea of bipolar AI. See, in Civ V, you make an empire from the ground up, although instead of seeing Rome built in a day, it's just a single turn. All the diplomacy and direction in which you take your empire is up to the player. My playstyle involves me hiding away until the AI decides I'm a vulnerable target, much like China before Europe decided to take interest in its affairs (Ironically, my favorite civilization is the Chinese).
In one game from a few months ago, playing online with my friend, our empires were on opposite ends of the map. He had his share of AI empires near him, I had mine. Luckily for him, he didn't have Gandhi creeping up on his borders. I played as usual, expanding when appropriate, building up roads with my empire. I had seen a few of Gandhi's scouts earlier in the game, but he didn't worry me. The image of a peaceful protestor ingrained in my memory only caused more anguish as he declared war and proceeded with the invasion of a horde of elephant warriors. They might have been real elephant men hybrids, but I was panicking too much to worry about the details. My friend could only donate so much money, but by the time I had built up a defense, he had already captured most of my peaceful empire.
No screenshot of the invasion (caught up in fighting back the Mûmakil), so here's an old one that I took with a stark backdrop for such a happy camper.

He's peaceful, so friendly that he lives in Mordor. I feel like the right thing to do here would have been to declare war.

Red Alert 2 - The Reckoning

So, I dug up my old copy of Red Alert 2 a week ago or so, and I instantly fell in love with it again. As a kid, I watched my friend's dad play the this game all the time, commanding legions of tanks and struggling to stay afloat against multiple, brutal AIs. I had to get it, I had to be that commander pushing back the soviets. My little elementary school self had trouble with the normal AIs, but I distinctly remember cackling in my best mastermind voice as I completely overwhelmed the little easy AIs with their miniature bases, and panicking as the shark blimp with the face of doom flew overhead and tore at my base from above.

 And, when left unchecked, a seemingly well fortified base turns into a satisfying pile of rubble.

It's just little moments like those that make victory so sweet, especially after reeling from the AI stealing an entire unfortified base, or unleashing the gates of their tank factory.

But there's one strategy that the AI can't replicate (Well, admittedly, there are plenty since AI from 10 years ago weren't the most complicated out there). But, my little self discovered it one rainy night, and it involves sending your base directly into the enemies base along with a few premade towers. In my case, the Allied prism towers, who rely on focusing bolts of light directly into the victim. The victim yells out in a heap of agony and falls to the dirt fried. It's more gruesome imagined than it actually looks in game.
After setting up the base near the enemy's compound, I immediately built up the infamous prism towers. Normally, you're limited to building near your own buildings, but with the expansion, you can build right into the heart of the enemy.

Here, I built my construction yard in the valley below, but with a few little power plants and prism towers (my buildings are cyan), the enemy was slowly eaten away by electricity.

 Completely trapped, the victimized AI slowly released conscripts out of their barracks, but it wasn't enough to hold back the creeping wall of prism towers. Finally, satisfied with my sadism, I put the AI out of its misery and ended it, burning a hole through their remaining buildings.

 Each tower directed light into a single prism tower, and the result blew up their last building.

Now, the other option would have been to just mass up a bunch of tanks with the prism tower technology mounted on top of them (really shocking when a swarm of them appears at the doorstep of a base), but when's the last time you destroyed an enemies' base with a  base?

Silly AI

I have a dream that one day AI in video games, specifically of the RTS variety, will one day become sufficient enough to hold their own and become competent for once. For every time that I love taking advantage of an enemies' weakness, the AI strikes back in a subtle way.

The AI loves making mobs of tanks and men

Let's take Company of Heroes, for instance. I've been playing this game way too much, but the game just has its aggravating moments. Now, the AI likes to mob its men up and make a giant cluster of men and tanks. While a horde does has its advantages, in a profound moment of desperation I realized I had artillery, mortars, and bomber planes to thin out their ranks. Sucks for the enemy AI, but then I look back down at the battlefield and I have an entire squad of men huddled around a single rock. As my luck would have it, the enemy managed to sneak in a squad of their own with one goal in mind: throw a single grenade. As this group of six men armed with the holy hand grenade and the single notion to throw it at all costs ran towards my lightly dug in squad, I checked in to see the worst outcome unfold. Out of all the cover and spaces to hide, even a nice low wall nearby, my men huddled around the one specific piece of cover that was now home to one of the cheapest grenades you can buy for your men (normally, the kind of grenade that they threw does little damage).

 My point is, the enemy took advantage of the fluke, and I assumed they would be fine in a nice little position to fight while I monitor the rest of my men elsewhere. I could blame myself, for not microing enough to control all of my men and direct their movements down to each individual breath (don't forget to breathe!), but some of these problems could be adjusted for if the AI improved and allowed them to be more self sufficient while allowing for more meaningful player control.

And now here's a picture of a guy with no hope who thinks he's still driving a truck converted into a headquarters:

I know the engines on fire and we're all going to die shortly, but we need you to stay here and look important.

My Ball

The Ball: The world needs more zombie killing and world traversing tools

So, I finished The Ball this weekend. The basic idea behind the game is that your character finds himself deep in an underground civilization in Mexico and he discovers an ancient gravity gun that directs a ball twice the size of your character through a variety of Meso-American themed puzzles and traps. So, I found myself running through barren villages floating on top of great underground lakes and crushing its mummified inhabitants with my left nut, I mean, ball.

Let's see your traditional mummy killing weapons liquify the enemy.

The game isn't about mummy / zombie killing, but murder by ball produces a satisfying crunch after the creature chased you halfway across the dungeon because your ball was stuck in a mousetrap; very satisfying.
To put it another way, imagine your rifle hangs 20 feet in the air or in the sewers below you while trying to open the door to the next room.  Meanwhile, you're punching back and backpedaling away from the undead while positing yourself in such a way that will move your rifle closer to the objective. Yeah.

I asked myself, why, why would you need so many spikes on one wall?

 
It's not all mummy killing, however. When I wasn't running for my life or in a circle because I took a wrong turn at the intersection of right way and wrong way, I put on my fedora and tried to remember Indian Jones quotes while running past obnoxiously large traps. Secrets areas filled with little snippets of backstory dotted the dungeons, but after missing pieces of the explanation of the history behind the civilization, I gave up on my effort to meticulously scrounge each area in search of these historical artifacts and focused on progressing through the game until its anticlimactic ending.

Alright, I can tell I'm losing your attention, so one last before and after. After beating the game, I played through the Portal DLC, taking me back to Aperture and the deep underground one last time. No portals, but an excess of monkeys:

Oh look, a cute monkey on a conveyor belt, and there's an ominous button nearby. I stood here wondering what to expect

Oh.. oops.

Upon exiting the room with a dozen angry monkey ghosts presumably following me, GLaDOS chastised me for killing those monkeys, who had lived for thousands of years and were on the verge of leaking the secrets of life to their caretakers.

Skyrim'ing, Part 2

Playing Skyrim again, I found myself across a river, where a dragon and giant fought. I went over there, with thirst for dragon blood. One iron arrow finished off the dragon, while I collected the bones the giant turned for me and chased me down the road. I heard the boom, boom, boom for a minute before I jumped in a river and the current swept me away. I turned around to see the giant on the shore a fair distance from me just turn around and flee.

Meanwhile, I got stuck up in a tree.

I read this book and all I got was admiration for the author

I'm falling in love with Cormac McCarthy. For the past few weeks, I've been reading Blood Meridian, and I could sing praise of it all day. I need more of him, I need his works and literature inside of me. I watched The Road a week ago, and that only fueled my admiration for the guy. It's just as brilliant as Blood Meridian, but I must read the book to fully judge it. Finally, if you're still wondering who Cormac McCarthy is, well, he wrote No Country For Old Men, and it's just one more movie that I must watch.

Back to hiding away, like a groundhog, you'll probably see me in two weeks.

TF2, part 1

A wild feeling of apathy appeared!
Aside from being swamped in by the many demands of school (Read: light homework and allures of Internet), this week finally deserved some TF2 attention. TF2 (or for the uninitiated, Team Fortress 2), has been my drug for the past few years. It's just that one game that I can always come back to if I'm feeling down - I just jump in a server (often with friends by my side), and I can expect to rise above the rest of the team and really feel awesome for slaughtering a portion of the enemy team by myself.
However, just like any video game, competition, and even recreational drug, TF2 tends to lead me to a state of rage. As easily as I can label myself as a harbinger of death and tiny little gibs, I forget to realize that I can be on the receiving side of such personalized tickets to the respawn screen.
Random critical hits, backstabs, sniper bullets, and my own overconfidence does me in every time. To add insult to injury, I find an arch-nemesis keeps halting my own little glorified sprees every time. And again, and again, and again.
Then, suddenly, I fall back into place, with my nemesis gone, I can finally cap the point / blow up the base / eat a victory sandvich for great justice.
Next round,  the feeling of rage is gone, my nemesis has caught onto whatever strategies I dance around with, and my friends usually move on to other acts of justice outside the game, leaving me weary with a feeling that, "I don't have to be here anymore". I like to imagine that the team never misses me and they do fine without me as I give them one last message to part with, "Joy quit*!"

*The best new alternative to Rage Quit!

Hunting trees

My high quality shot is here:
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/651002589650339755/9688066D04D0F075676A88C1CD895C00F80A4804/

Trying something different tonight. I could comment on how jizz-gasm-worthy this game is every minute that I explore it's realm and just type with one hand about how great it is to run around killing skeletons and hunting dragons. But no, that would get old quick.

Rather, let's take the time to just admire the beauty of this screenshot that I took a few hours ago. This little enhanced night sky mod that I downloaded awhile ago is in full effect here, and half of the day I play. Casually walking through the swamp after failing to bring a dragon down just a few minute earlier (which I'm now regretting not catching in a screenshot).

Also, the way the mist just wisps around in the background, like one of those Muslim veils, really adds to this majestic shot. The one tree, barely surviving on its own little island in the muddy, frozen waters; this single tree could tell a tale all of it's own.

Finally, I'm in love with the pose that I'm in here. I never manually decided to put one foot on the rock like that, Skyrim created that dynamically. Any other game, I'd be floating a few feet off of the ground, barely centered over the small rock, or clipping through the rock as if I'm the Sword in the Stone.

Yo Quiero Mis Amigos

Online gaming without friends sucks.

It's not so much the game's fault, but more of my own. Having a friend to watch my back, while bouncing a joke off of in between kills has given me such a euphoria that silently playing with a team of strangers just cannot deliver. Just knowing that maybe sometime later in the week we'll bring up that one time where he narrowly assassinated my would be killer while being chased by his own certain doom for me to repay the favor by turning hunter into a mess of giblets while we both escape with a sliver of health between us both - this feeling defines the experience. Yet, I've had plenty of similar moments before (or at least, I think I have) with random kiddies online. At the moment, it might've been amazing, but I can't find a reason to remember these moments if I won't be able to discuss it with such understanding with my friends later. 

Maybe this 'fun v amount of friends' graph can explain it better:

Fully outfitted with the brothers at my side, a simple gaming ritual becomes the highlight of the week, if not, the month.

It's like trying to find people to play Farmville

Oh, the joys of running around campus without a care in the world. I've developed a peculiar ritual that most non-3DS owners will fail to comprehend - instead of heading home during my home period, I've started to take the long way around. Picture the image of me running across the school, trying to find the one other person with a 3DS active in the only way I know how, raising my device as high as I possibly can. In reality, this situation consists of me nose diving into crowds of kids with an optimistic hope that someone sends me a notification. Sadly, in these past few days, random strangers equipped with 3DS's have alluded me.
Either way, back to relying on my friends and leaving my 3DS out in the street in hopes of someone with a 3DS drives past to connect with me.

"There aren't any good usernames left!" #futurefirstworldproblems

I can envision the following conversation with the young-lings sometime in the next few decades or so:
"Grandpa, when can I finally have your username?!"
"In time, child. For now, be happy that 'Awesomename123agazzzzxdx' wasn't taken already."
"But Grandpa, you barely use the internets anymore, do you even still remember your passwords?"
"DOHOHOHOHO(Always gonna laugh like this when I'm older), of course. Soon, perhaps in my will - you will be able to inherit the infamous username 'Awesomename1'! The original, only for my favorite grandchild."

And then, most likely, a big feud would erupt (because good usernames will be as rare as social privacy) and I'd inevitably fall in the inter-family war, break my hip and die with the passwords in the aftermath. Sadly, future scientists never discovered how to cure fatal hip accidents.

A door into a medium

How quaint.

Simple beginnings indeed, but we all have to start the ball rolling eventually. The rapid push of a few dozen keys will eventually snowball into a stunning post. Until then, baby steps: one post after another. Just as long as that baby doesn't get caught up in the rampaging snowball, we'll manage.