A picture

Awwwww!

Just goes to show you that despite all the corporate bullshit, software engineers are still people, and good people at that. Good to see some friendly, classy realtions between the Mozilla and IE teams.

First Linux zealot who chimes in with "LOL Microsoft" will make me sad.

Why we Play

Let's see here...

1) Leaves are turning colors

2) Crisp air

3) Cold, blustery evening with a snappy wind.

Yeah, its Fall alright. Or "Autumn" for the English majors out there. I feel too much like an asshole using that word. In any case, a new season is definitely upon us. Better enjoy it while it lasts, because winter will be upon us before we know it :(

But that's not the point of this post. Today I want to talk about gaming ruts. That is, when you find yourself in a videogame slump, when it seems that nothing can hold your grasp for very long, and you either switch between different games on an almost daily basis, or you just stop playing for a while. Right now I'm in such a rut, which may explain my slowness in creating new articles over at the Lamer. Almost every weekend I'm sitting down with something else in the pile of games the roomates have amassed, and I been able to see very few through to the end. It gets frustrating not because of a desire to finish anything and everything; if I don't beat a crappy game, I'm probably better off. The problem comes when I'm having troubles getting through something like Steambot Chronicles, a game I'm pretty damn sure I like. At this point the problem is with you as much as it may be with the games. The slump has hit, and its time to get out.

So what exactly triggered Gaming Slump '06? A lot of it has to do with time. Whether it is class work, real work, or just being out and about, my opportunities to sit down and play are either infrequent or very small. Some games are just hard to get into for 20-30 minutes at a time, thus I never load them up for fear of going 1 or 2 hours straight when I have something else to do.

Part of it is guilt. I want to just sit down and stop caring, but somewhere in the back of my mind, I'm thinking about what many other things I could, perhaps should, be doing. Its hard to focus when you just know that working on that paper would be time well spent.

Finally, a lot of it comes down to displeasure with certain games. I load up Fable, find it kind of interesting for a while, and then find my first quest involves wasps or bees or something. I try Dragon Quarter and find I don't have the time to beat those long, incredibly hard stretches between save points. Jet Set Radio Future was poorer than the original, but still good enough, at least until I realized that every mission would be the same thing, and the game's music selection algorithms were getting on my nerves. Maybe my tastes are changing to suit my lifestyle, or perhaps I'm seeing game design differently than before. Either way, I'm finding myself getting increasingly bored with learning complex control schemes that use every button on a game pad. Tired of clunky AI, pointless challenges and heavy handed stories. More and more, modern games seem to be nothing more than very old concepts with extra layers of bullshit piled on top of them. And for some reason, the bullshit is taking over.

Okay, so that is quite an exaggeration. There are still a lot of great things coming out, and good ideas going around. Its just that I'm finding that the best way to get out of the slump is to avoid the things I don't like. That's easier said than done. These days completionist syndrome has infected many of us, to the point where any and all games have to be finished (especially if you can play them for free). Otherwise you're missing out on parts of the gaming spectrum. And how then can you call yourself hardcore?

Its simple; hardcore isn't measured by how many notches are in your belt. How many consoles you may or may not have. How much trivia you might happen to know. All these things may be factors, but in the end the most important thing is your passion for playing, for thinking and discussing the world of gaming. Hardcore means you love to play, no matter what.

So here I am playing again, this time going back to the modern classics. Resident Evil 4 still delights, especially the new missions on the PS2. Devil May Cry 3 still has some of the most visceral combat this generation. And its only after everything is unlocked that fighting games really show you what they can do. These games may not necessarily lead to 100% and Ultima Weapons or six alternate endings, but they don't need to. They're good, fun games that shun story and steep learning curves for pure enjoyment. It feels good to have that excitement again.

And don't worry. There'll be plenty of articles to write still.

Rain

I've been noticing a trend lately, though I'm not sure if it really exists or if it is just my imagination. Seems that every time I wake up in the early morn' for class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I'm greeted to a grey, cloudy sky. Then sometimes it rains. Kind of like today. Most of the time it clears up by afternoon, but it feels like I can set my watch to the gloominess of these mornings (if my watch wasn't dead). Not really a complaint as much as a simple observation; in fact, it actually feels very appropriate as I march towards the dungeon basement of Beatty Hall for my Cold War class. Its the closest you can get to being a real member of the proletariat.

There is a strange bug with the Windows port of GAIM in which the (empty) buddy list categories of other people who log into AIM on my machine pop up whenever I do. For the last one or two years I've had such (empty) categories as "Fallston Peeps", "Khadir", "Loyola Peeps", "Loyola", and the always classic "People I never talk to". It took just as much time to finally realize I can just delete these groups from my list, rather than having them sit around and take up space.

Don't judge me too harshly Internet. I'll be back later. I have some world premiere of Sam and Max to enjoy

Docs

docs.google.com is the home of the Google Spreadsheet and Word Processor, meaning I no longer have to write game review drafts in Gmail whenever I'm out and about. More importantly, this is beneficial for this blog. Updates have been slow as all hell since the semester began, and it isn't for a lack of things to say. No my friends, it is a simple combination of laziness and forgetfullness. The first one is pretty bad; how much easier does it have to be to write a blog entry? I think its just a fear of mine that if an entry isn't crammed pack full of juicy links I'll have some how let down the Internet, which sounds even worse now that I'm typing it. I mean, would anyone really care if I don't provide a link to some obvious and frequently distributed piece of gaming news? I promise to fully maximize the potential of the fifteen seconds it saves me.

The second issue is just plain frustrating. Throughout random parts of the day, I'll find myself reading some news, talking to someone, or just thinking, and BAM! Inspiration for a blog post. Then I never write it down anywhere, and it flies out of my mind as quickly as it entered. By the time I finally recollect it and sit down to write about it, it is so far behind the times that my Internet Lameness Index(tm) would skyrocket, and the entire weight of the Web would come crashing down to smother my ineptitude.

Now with Google Docs, I can get it down right away and cobble it all into a post later. Considering I'm never far from a computer, this works out quite well. We'll see what happens in the coming week!

Now on to things more fun:

- Sam and Max Episode 1 is out next week on Gametap. I plan on playing and reviewing it the day of or after release, in hopes of helping Videolamer get in on the early reviews that will pop up before the game hits general release. I have no idea what to expect from a Sam and Max game, but if the foul crying of fans watching preview clips, it will be "nothing at all like the comics". Good thing this means absolutely nothing to me. Excitement is abound!

- Fuck St. Louis. This isn't over yet.

- What happens when you run out of things to unlock in Tekken 5? You buy Tekken Tag, and find that people still want to play against you in both games. Here I am with a venerable arcade of fighting games, and the only one I'm playing is one of my least favorite. That, my friends, shows you just what actual competition can do.

Also in regards to Tekken, is this not the scariest character portrait ever?


Now I know that in anime characters always look a lot younger than they actually are, but come on Namco. I feel bad fighting her because it feels like punching a baby. One who isn't being a dick.

- It is definitely fall here in Baltimore. Fall is a pretty good season; one day the air is crisp, the leaves blow around on the wind and the sun has that late afternoon tint all day long. The next day the air is crisp, the leaves blow around on the wind and the sun is replaced with a grey, almost-winter sky. Can you tell I almost failed the poetry section of freshman english?

- People have been frequently coming into tutoring asking for help in Matlab, something I'm not at all trained in. By the time we're done they have a half written algorithm, and they think I'm a computer genius. Really, we'er learning together. How long can I keep up the ruse?

Tekken Stick

Today's post is all about photos. Of stuff. Let's take a look.

Anyone who's a regular Gamestop/EB customer may have seen the nifty Tekken 5 collector's edition that came out last year. For $100 you got the game, a special box, and a nifty joystick made with real Hori parts (the best kind of parts!). Now that this item is very old and taking up space on shelves, the price has been slashed to a mere $30! I serached in four different stores to find it, but to no avail. Understandable of course, since it came out in limited quantities over a year ago. But my last ditch effort to the local Gamestop rewarded me for my persistence.
Tekken 5 alone costs twenty dollars new. Instead I got an industrial strength arcade stick for ten bucks more, along with a crappy game I won't play very much. Sounds like a deal to me.

And then there is the DVD case they give you. It has places for you to store all 6 Tekken games that have been released, but instead I filled them up with other, better fighting games.

If you add up all the games on those discs, you've got five different Street Fighters, three King of Fighters, and four Tekkens. Still missing any Soul Calibur, but its still a Murderer's Row of fighting games. I think I value even this more than Tekken 5 itself, since its a great way to consolidate these games into a more portable package. Now I just need to get the campus Gaming Club to sponsor a tourney, though that will be harder than it should be...

That's it for now. Later I hope to write something a little more substantial than the silly shit I piss away money on. Cheerio until then!