Home Stretch 2005

You may notice the new banner at the very top of the blog. I know it doesn't look very good, and it is very squished, but it was yet another attempt to improve my gain some skills in digital art. Being a computer geek, I of course follow the Golden Rule: You probably can't break a program, so keep playing with it until you figure it all out. This is sound advice that has helped me learn practically everything I know, even in college. But it only seems to go so far wtih this artistic stuff. I know a lot of the gizmos and features in your Photoshop and Fireworks or whatever it is one might use, but I always struggle with knowing just how much color to use here, or what combination of filters and saturations might work best. I've tried asking more artistically skilled people for advice, and generally they just refer me to the Golden Rule. I know all the tools, I just don't know how to use them. I guess that kind of skill isn't something that can be taught to someone; you just need to have it in the first place. If that is so, then I'm screwed, but damn if I won't keep trying, just in case.

Hopefully everyone had a good Christmas (and Chaunuka !) this year. I got Band of Brothers on DVD, which made it a success no matter what else. I still feel as if the gift pile was far larger than I actually needed, even if it was paltry compared to the average Loyola student. I guess I still prefer giving over receiving, though I will be thankful for what I have and will use it in good health(and get your minds out of the gutter...).

There are a whole lot of End of the Year Gaming Retrospectives going on in all the usual places, and I can't say I like most of them. It is generally the same stories repeated over and over again, with a healthy sprinkling of smarmy jokes and comments (mostly directed at Nintendo; I know you didn't play Cube much. Its collecting dust. I get it). Yet hyopcrisy be dammed, I kind of feel like doing one of my own. Nothing large mind you, just a simple article on my favorite games and biggest surprises during the year.

Tonight is the final game of Monday Night Football on ABC. While it isn't ending as much as simply moving to ESPN, it still feels like the end of an era. However, I feel that it is a necessary end; while the idea of a Monday night game might have been a good idea originally, these days no one has the time or the energy to stay up and watch a football game on Monday night that is guaranteed not to finish before midnight. On cable, diehards can still tune in, while ABC can air something else during the timeslot. A pretty good compromise if you ask me.

I rented Million Dollar Baby tonight. I must say, between this and Return of the King, the Academy is getting pretty good at picking these Oscar winners for a change. Maybe they can keep it up.

Why sir, its Christmas Eve!

Yes it certainly is, and thankfully I got all of my gift shopping done in just one day. Not too shabby (or stressful), though I should count my blessings. The only reason I did so well is because my list consisted only of my four family members. Come ten years from now, when the word "family" encompasses four times as many people, perhaps I'll be saying "humbug" to holidays like so many others....

So around this time of year it seems I always try to come up with some deep holiday message, or something like that. I can't think of anything this time, but I think that's a good thing. Everyone seems to be arguing about the commercialization of the season, the "war on Christmas", and lots of other topics that just aren't in the spirit of the season. Instead of tryign to grasp such weighty topics, I think that, for now, we should all just take it easy, and be thankful that the holiday season is one where many of us can spend some real, quality time with friends and family.

I thought of this after reading all of the news surrounding the death of Tony Dugny's son, which was an apparent suicide. Dungy is on the top of the sporting world with his 13-1 Colts, is an incredible coach and a great family man. Now comes the Christmas season, and his son is dead, and he may never know the reason as to why. I can't think of many things that could be worse for a parent to face, and it is horrible to think that such a promising young man had to take his own life.

This holiday season, I'm thankful more than anything for having my family with me, safe and sound and together. And for those who cannot be with loved ones, or who have lost them recently, they'll be in my thoughts and in my heart.

Take it easy everyone, and be safe (I know, everyone says it, but its important). After the holiday rush you can expect a lot more psots by me, since I'll have plenty of free time to do so. I'll even crank out some reviews. Yay!

Oops

To anyone who has tried to comment on any blog posts in the last month; my bad. Apparently I had enabled comment moderation, which does not publish comments unless you allow them too. I had no clue that the feature was enabled, or that it worked like that. The moderation is off now, so comments should appear as normal.

I'm back at home for Christimas break. Or is it "holiday break"? I really don't know. Just make sure that whatever you choose to celebrate is fun and safe. That matters far more than any sort of names we attach to the season.

Eh?

First off, here's an interesting GIF made by an insert credit forumite parodying Working Designs..using Zero Wing. I know all the fans out there are going to dig it.

Okay, I promised to talk about Kingdom Hearts 2 here, but I realized its kind of pointless. Instead I'm going to try to finsih my long lost review of the original game. Yeah, that sounds good.

That's a wrap.

Today I took my last exam, returned my library books, and turned in a final paper a day early (don't think it was due to overachieving; I thought it was due today and stayed up all night working on it). The semester is now officially over, and I can let out a small sigh of relief . It is only a small sight because I still have a busy day of cleaning and packing tomorrow, and I'll be spending the holiday break looking for summer work and logging in hours for my on campus job. Then there's the looming (and dooming?) grades that will come in sooner than later. Nevertheless, being able to rest my head on a pillow without having to think about assignments looming over my head is a truly great feeling.

I wish there was more to discuss in this space, but I've been so out of touch with the world this last week that I don't really know what's gone on. I do know that Kingdom Hearts 2 is out in Japan, and the fan(boy)s are in a fervor. Actually, maybe I'll get to that later tonight...


Watch this space.

Finals Status

Two finals down, three more to go. Here's how it has gone so far:

Macroeconomics: I actually studied a lot for this one. The class was rather easy, but either because of my neglicence or my picky professor I hadn't performed as well as I wanted to. The final took some thinkin' to get through, but with the exception of one short answer and a handful of multiple choice, I think I did well enough. Expected Grade: B, which is about what my average is. It could be a B+, maybe even an A-, but I don't want to jinx myself.

English Lit: We had a final paper in this one, and damn if it didn't consume my entire life for almost two days. I got about four hours of sleep on Wednsday night, and proceeded to work on it for all (and I mean all) of Thursday and didn't get a wink of sleep. I'd say that tossing it on the stack at 11:30 was a great feeling, but I was so weary that I don't remember much beyond putting it there and leaving. Now that I realize that it was the last English paper I'll ever have to write, that good feeling is starting to finally come. Expected Grade: Can't tell really. I definitely could have used more time to refine the research and drive the thesis home, but by the end it was looking much better than I thought it would. This could either be one of those knock out papers that nets me an A-, or one that is so far out there that it doesn't scrape out a B. I'll cross my fingers and see what happens.

Round 3 is tomorrow. Place your bets folks.

Linkage time.

Dragon Quest 8 prequel all about Yangus. Hopefully it gets a U.S. release; I love that cockney bastard.

Kingdom Hearts 2 is out in Japan, and my the man behind my favorite review ever chimes in on it. Of course, if you loved the first game, I don't suggest you click on that link. Thems be fightin' words.

And lastly, I'm about to pull the pin and throw a huge grenade of awesomeness for all the indie game fans: Katamari Damacy T-Shirts designed by the creator himself. A bit pricey, but I know of at least two people that will love this. Enjoy guys.

Steam at Work(ing Designs)

U.K. cult classic Darwinia is being released today via Steam. Since the actual relese time is measured in Pacific Standard, it was still technically availibie for preorder this morning, which means one could technically get the $2.00 discount. Despite being backlogged with games to play (my roomie's got a lot of Xbox titles), I went ahead and purchased it. One, because the game looks great. Second, I would like to see online content delivery at affordable prices become a serious reality in the games industry, and this is the best way I can think of to support that goal.

Even more interesting gaming news lies in the closure of Working Designs. In case you don't know, Working Designs is a company that worked solely in licensing and localizing obscure Japanese games for release in the States. If you've played any of the Lunar games on Playstation, you've seen their work. However, their releases during this generation have been slow as shit (only three games in five years), and failed to get the green light from Sony to localize the latest Goemon game after a very long time trying, and either one or both of these things combined to create a bad situation.

In the aftermath, I find myself fascinated by all of the debate being waged about the company. The fans blame the entire ordeal on Sony's insistence on cool, cutting edge games, and cite that WD was an incredible company that released incredible games and really cared about their fanbase. To them, the company has had a huge impact in the localization of Japanese games, and the loss is a huge one.

On the other hand, the non fans(naysayers and people who just didn't care) claim that it was all WD's fault; their infamous head honcho Vic Ireland took the company from a bad situation with Sega during the Saturn era and moved it into an equally bad scenario with Sony, all the while completely ignoring Nintendo and Microsoft as possibilities. They claim that WD took far too long localizing any games, and seemed to be more worried about their small fan base than about the rest of U.S. gamers. Finally, this camp claims that none of WD games were really amazing, but rather were "otaku bait", titles that were quirky and wierd for the sake of being so that would appeal to the "otaku-wai-wai" group of people that unshakingly believe Japan = better. To this side, Working Designs was great for its fans, and had the passion, but their business sense wasn't very good, and thus they were the product of their own downfall.

While I have never played a game made by Working Designs, I would say that, based on what I've read (and it is quite a lot), I would prob. side with the latter camp. I'm sure everyone at the company, including Vic, are great people who loved what they did. But wihtout a good business sense there is no way a group like them could last forever. And based on the amount of otaku bait products I have seen, I wouldn't be surprised if most of their games weren't really up to snuff. In the end, I think Ferricide puts it best: WD was basically a man and his associates getting paid to do their hobby for ten years. Not that bad if you think about it.


Finally, this is another good article, discussing how the RPG genre is so stale. The author cites how 4 games (one being Dragon Quest 8) managed to break the mold and really stand out, yet none of them will have much of an impact in the long run. This guy is is wondering why the genre is facing problems, but he managed to answer his own question. As long as unique, or just plain solid RPG's that do not follow the Final Fantasy mold are ignored, the longer it will be before the genre becomes fresh again. But as a great man noticed, Level 5's Rogue Galaxy will be outsold by a long shot by Kingdom Hearts 2 in Japan this month. I think we've got a long way to go...