Halloween 2007

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Defeat The Robots! Pick Up A Hammer!

I was talking with one of my co-workers earlier about the future of the company we work for. The conversation led to technological progress an how some companies in the past will pull back on the size of their staff and hours that they’re needed. This is normal. As most businesses go, jobs performed by people are eventually automated. This brings me to the point of this entry…

For the reasons mentioned above, I like to emphasize to others that no matter what kind of job you have, try to learn as many extra skills as possible while you’re there. It’s only a matter of time before you’re replaced by a robot. If all you do is act like a cog and nothing more, then you’re only creating more trouble for yourself when you do get shit-canned. If you go back out into the world, employers are going to ask what you can do. And if all you have to offer is that you can be a cog, chances are that they’ll respond with, “Well, we have robots for that.”

Heh, that’s how the Robot Apocalypse will really go down…silently. They’ll take over from within and we’ll be the one’s that put them in power! Soon they’ll replace every job and we’ll all be dependent on them. The leaders will call it “progress”, but we won’t see the truth until it’s too late… We’ll become the slaves of the machines!

Seriously though, whether you plan on working your way up through your current company, branch off into your own, or find yourself looking through the classifieds, you’re going to get yourself skilled up. Maybe along with being a cog, you also have some computer skills that you can sharpen. Maybe you can learn how to fix robots! The point is that you always have to improve yourself throughout your entire life. If you do not master technology, then you will be ruled by it. There’s a reason why so many foreigners are flooding into the country and making a huge living as carpenters, electricians, plumbers, landscapers… It’s because most Americans are too dumb and lazy to take those roles.

It feels like most people want to build a career in retail. That’s retarded. Everyone thinks that if they wait things out and stick with the company, some day they’ll be sitting in an executive’s chair. Working some stress-filled job that pays shit so that one day you can be the Assistant Regional Manager by your late-40s? You can’t make a decent living on that! Retail is set up so that the people on top are putting every effort to keep everyone below them down so that there’s more for themselves. And everyone’s expendable. You spend most of your “career” running as fast as you can, just to stay where you are. Don’t fool yourself, unless you’re the kind of diabolical, cut-throat son of a bitch that doesn’t care who they fuck over to climb your way to the top.

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It says “ass” right on the box!

I treated myself to my first birthday treat in the form of picking up Disgaea: Hour of Darkness. So far it looks like just the type of grid-based strategy game I’ve been craving (while I wait to get my hands on Final Fantasy Tactics). Many people have already suggested it to me, including the very passionate sales guy that sold it to me.

He did warn me with the bold claim that the voice acting was far worse than the first Resident Evil. After giving it a listen, it’s not that bad, really. No worse than most Cartoon Network anime dubs. And even that has an easy fix: I just switched the dialog to Japanese. Then it’s really no different than watching anime with subs.

I’ve taken a break for the time being because I’m at the point to where I can assemble troops. What has me hung up–of all things–is that you can name each of your characters. That makes things pretty personal for me. Naming each character gives them each a unique identity, and thus they become kinda like my “children”. After I go through the creative challenge of finding a suitable name for each of them, that will also affect how I make choices in how I “raise” them. As I utilize them throughout the game, I know that I’ll grow a certain fondness for each one. And with the potential of building an army of 100+ characters, you can see how this is going to slow down my progress through the game itself.

The cool thing is that DoubleJump Books released their official strategy guide free online in PDF format. That’s going to be a big help for me at least, since I’m completely unfamiliar with most games like this. The site has recently taken down the file directly from them, but you can still find it floating around on the web.

Meanwhile, I’m frantically trying to finish up Final Fantasy VI Advance so I can devote my portable gaming time to the new Ace Attorney game that I plan to buy with another piece of my birthday money. Right now I’m near the end of the game, having completed most of the side quests. I’m mostly just building up my characters’ levels and getting them learned up on all the spells. I’m eager to take on the new Dragon’s Den quest that’s been added to this port and I may take that up once I’ve finished Ace Attorney (which should only take a week or two).

At some point, I’m going to need to switch gears a bit to get in some Street Fighter time. Since I quit training for Animazement, I’ve fallen back down to my previous level of suckage. I might use Game Night as my excuse for that, especially since there are a couple people I can actually compete with there. And as if I weren’t saturated enough, I’m close to acquiring Melty Blood: Act Cadenza for PC. I’ll have to fiddle with that until I can get the PS2 version.

I’ll get into more about the birthday dinner I had with my folks some time in the next few days. Tomorrow night, I’m seeing The Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D with Ashley. Between that and working almost non-stop, it may be a bit before I get some time for myself…

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NC State Fair 2007: Round 2

I know I promised to do this for Monday, but better late than never.

I went to the NC State Fair again on Sunday, this time with Ashley in our usual anniversary tradition. Ashley arrived at my place a lot earlier than I’d expected, which was nice because it gave us a full day of fun. First, we exchanged our gifts; I got Ashley a cute Halloween decoration of a metal witch cat on a pendulum, with hands that wobbled as it swung. Ashley got me some bat boxers and a winter coat, of which I’ve been in need of for years! After some snuggle time, we were off to adventure!

Our admission was covered–I’d received free tickets from my boss at work as reward for completing my first big web development project. Since I’d been to the fair a few days before, I was Mr. Navigator for finding just about anything. The first thing I grabbed was another ear of roast corn (that stuff is good!) and Ashley got a bloomin’ onion. Good appetizers to prime us for the feast to come…

I next set my sights on some fried cookie dough, but the booth that I thought had it didn’t! It was the same booth that sold the fried peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, so Ashley dug into one of those while we were there. This time, they had the sense to use the tongue-depressor type of sticks instead of the thin spears. It held the sandwich a bit better, but still not quite.

Somewhat defeated, I moved on to my next mission: a giant turkey leg. However, those things are so big, that Ashley and I have to split one. So I waited until she had a craving for one. Heh, but once she get her hands on the frozen cheesecake on a stick, I knew it was all over. As much as she loves it, cheesecake always defeats Ashley; it’s so cute. With Ashley now stuffed, I decided to go ahead and get a turkey leg for myself. I did as much damage on my own as I could, but I barely got through 2/3 of it. Then I became stuffed and needed a break. I think that unless Ashley really wants to share one, I might pass on one next year.

We walked around, catching the attractions. Of course, we hit the craft areas and the bunny barn. Ashley bought a viking troll. Later in the day, we watched a pig race. Ashley bought some fudge to take home. I felt dehydrated, so I snagged a snow cone and a couple bottles of water. Later, I managed to find room for a BBQ sandwich.

We got in contact with one of Ashley’s friends that she hasn’t seen in ages. We hung out together for a little while, though I know Ashley wishes she could have seen more of her. While we were all walking around, I thought I’d try some “chicken on a stick” (which is just a very long chicken finger…on a stick), but they were charging $7 for it, and that’s nonsense! I don’t think that anything else caught my fancy on our way out, so shortly after Ashley’s friend parted from us, we set a course for home.

I wasn’t expecting to be there as long as we were. I thought we’d be 2-3 hours…and we were there for over 5 hours! As a result, my face and neck are all pink from sunburn. It’s kinda thrown my body out of whack in that my body wants me to sleep and rest, no matter how lucid my brain is. Not only that, since my body is in regeneration mode, I’m hungry all the time. I get the same way when I’m recovering from being ill. So with that and all the junk food I’ve already eaten from my trips to the fair, I gotta watch myself so that I don’t balloon up! Between now and Thanksgiving, I’ll have to cut back what I eat normally and hit the gym more often than usual.

I gotta say, though… Best. Anniversary. Ever.

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Cel-Shading 3D on 2D in Street Fighter IV

One idea floating around a lot for Street Fighter IV is the use of cel-shading on 3D polygons. I really hope that the game is kept on a 2D plane, the use of cel-shaded 3D characters could work really well. To illustrated this, I thought I’d post a couple examples of it already being used. I don’t know if anyone here has known about this stuff yet, but I thought it would be cool for those who haven’t seen it in action.

The first game I thought of along the lines of 3D characters on a 2D plane is Battle Fantasia. It’s produced by Arc Systems and this is the website. There are only few vids of this–most of them blurry and from a handy-cam–but the two best that I can find are here and here.

Another game that has beautiful cel-shaded characters on a 2D playing field is The Rumble Fish 2. (Example vids here and here.) When I look at the videos, it’s sometimes hard to tell whether or not they’re sprites, but when the characters are idol, you can clearly see they’re polygons. It’s one of the games I’d love to pick up if I can mod my PS2.

I think that if Capcom were to use the same quality cel-shading technology that we’re seeing in The Simpsons Game, we can get Street Fighter IV looking damn sweet! If I had my druthers, I’d like SF4 to be completely HD 2D graphics, but at least this would be a pleasant alternative, eh?

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First Video Footage Of Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix

Just in time for all the excitement coming from the Street Fighter IV announcement, we finally get our first look at Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. Joystiq is calling the first video of Super-Turbo HD “underwhelming”. I actually think it’s pretty cool! They just need to finish up the HUD (like character portraits) and it’s good to go! They are right though in that it would be nice to present a better quality video other than YouTube via handy-cam. If Capcom would release an official high-quality preview of the game that’s clear for us to see, then we’d be able to make a better judgment.

Once we see that, like I said, we’ll be in a better position to predict what to expect from not only the remix, but also Street Fighter IV…

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Street Fighter IV…So What’s It Gonna Be?

Obviously, I gotta comment about this recent announcement. It’s hard to say what I think about it. Cuz really, all we have so far is a logo. We don’t even know if it’s going to be 2D or 3D. We can’t assume that the teaser video is any indication on how the game will look or play. Personally, I hope it’s 2D. I’ll probably have a better idea of what to expect when we get to see how Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix turns out.

So I refer to an entry I wrote five years ago for what I’d personally like to see:

This is another copy and paste from a post I made in a message board. Someone posed the question of what we’d like to see if they made a Street Fighter IV. I figure that the reason why so many new games suck is because game companies like Capcom are hiding in online message boards asking players what they want…and the majority of people who answer are ignorant fanboy sheep who only want the same stupid crap game after game. (That’s how we got the sadly uninventive games like Marvel Vs. Capcom 2.) So, here’s my two cents… I hope Capcom listens.

GAMEPLAY

The most important part of the game! In terms of the fighting engine, I’d like to see something along the lines of a combination of SFZ3 and CvsSNK2 (even though a lot of people may say they’re almost the same) with maybe the ability to aerial rave a la XMvsSF. I say XMvsSF because that’s when I think that particular feature was at it’s peak… MvsC2 was WAY too exaggerated for my tastes. The Street Fighter 3 engine didn’t impress me much…especially by having to choose only one kind of hyper combo move. Little things like maybe a side step move (like the ones in Real Bout) or a dash attack (like Pocket Fighter) would be nice touches too, I think.

[edit: On second thought, I could do without aerial raves. Juggles are perfectly fine by me in terms of keeping an opponent in the air. If there is to be any air combos, keep it limited, like in Melty Blood. Also, I've come to appreciate Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike in the past couple years, including it's Super Arts systems.]

GRAPHICS

I liked SF3′s high-res sprites and animation frame rate. I thought the animation slowed down the action a lot, though. Maybe something like Ken and Ryu’s sprites from CvsSNK would be cool. I think Capcom should snag up more of SNK’s old animators… Keep backgrounds in 3D cuz I think that’s been working well in MvsC2 and CvsSNK2. Though I think they need to really improve on the 3D effects for hits, special moves, etc.

[edit: Now that we've seen what the talented folks at Udon can do, I'd love to see fully hi-def renders of the characters and backgrounds. At the very least, bring it up to Guilty Gear X's level.]

SOUND

First of all, quit changing voice actors!! Especially Cammy! She’s had a different voice for every game she’s been in! The music in the past few games has only been so-so in my book. The last time I heard music that I thought was really appropriate for the game was MvsC. SF3 and CvsSNK 1& 2 had pretty cool music, but I can only take so much techno and hip-hop. Maybe get some electric guitar in there, man! (Anyone hear the remixed soundtrack to SFA on Sega Saturn? Adon’s theme is my favorite mix!)

[edit: I still believe that while techno and hip-hop tracks work well for a fighting game, what would be great is more diversity. After listening to music from Guilty Gear XX and Final Fantasy: Advent Children, there's a definite place for heavy metal guitar in a Street Fighter game. Maybe even some opera, for an epic battle feel. And instead of having each character having a theme, I've come to prefer the theme music being associated with the stages.]

CHARACTERS & STORY

50+ characters may work in a tag team game like the Versus series, but when it’s one-on-one, I don’t think the roster should exceed 30. We also need to get further into the future, I think. Keep Ryu, Ken, and a few classic characters (I’d pick Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, Delta Red Cammy, Guile, Guy, Sakura, Ibuki, Yun & Yang, or Sean…maybe Zangief or Blanka) but show their age. (The future Vega in Cannon Spike was pretty cool too.) Give them some new moves to have mastered and omit a couple older ones. I like how they’ve split Ken and Ryu into their own identities by Ryu mastering the fireball while Ken forcuses on the shoryuken and hurricane kick. Let’s keep up with that, eh? For an end fighter, I’d like to see a very old M. Bison still in command of Shadowloo as a sub-boss. But have his successor be the final boss. A fighter with skill and psycho power far beyond what anyone’s seen before. Mid-bosses in SFZ3 really kept a story focused in the game, which I really liked…

[edit: I've always wanted to see an adult Sakura in a future Street Fighter. I always pictured that she'd become like Makoto. And some characters shouldn't be aged too much, since I'd set the new game only about 5 years after SFIII. SFII characters would look a bit older, but any characters from Alpha would show at least 10 years worth of aging.]

MISC.

Other than that, I’m not sure… Keeping the Bonus Rounds sounds cool. To me, a cool announcer has a great influence on the thrill of the game. The announcers in SFZ3 and CvsSNK2 made me feel like I was actually in the game! Especially the tournament atmosphere portrayed in CvsSNK2. If there’s a home port, I’d almost suggest a memory card slot (or slots for different consoles) so that a player can bring custom characters from home. But then, that kind of thing has never done well.

[edit: That last part was under the assumption that this would be an arcade game first. But most likely it will be console-only. I miss the arcade scene...may it rest in peace.]

My final point and message to Capcom would be to listen to the players. Not just all the fanboys here in the game message boards that keep asking for the same crap (DON’T MAKE MvC3, FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST!) even if they are the biggest chunk of the market. You’ll be able to keep old hard-core serious fans if you keep things innovative. It also will help draw in new players that before had no interest in the games. I know it costs more to come up with new stuff as opposed to recycling sprites and engines like they have been in the last several games, but I heartily believe that the investment will be worth it…

What concerns me is not the announcement (because I am excited), but rather the inevitable explosion of fanboy speculation. Floods of frankly stupid expectations and suggestions. Demanding something along the lines of Marvel Vs Capcom 3: 50+ playable characters, choosing up to 5 characters at once, multiple assists and special meters, air combos that go on forever… All the junk that made the Versus series eventually suck.

I do have some amendments, though. First, after seeing what the talented folks at Udon can do, I’d love to see hi-def rendered 2D characters. 3D cell-shaded characters on a 2D playing field might work, since we’ve seen it done impressively in The Rumble Fish 2. Especially if cel-shading gets to the level that The Simpsons Game is sporting. Backgrounds can be either 2D or 3D, really. I’ve always wanted to see an adult Sakura; seeing where her martial arts training eventually led her. I’m confident that David Sirlin will have some kind of hand in the gameplay, so I do have faith that it won’t turn to shit.

Supposedly it’s due to come out in a year, but I kinda wish they’d take a year and a half, maybe two years to really fine-tune it and make it look good. But then I don’t know how far into development they already are. It could be that they’ve been working on it for a year so far and kept it a tight secret. It could also be that they’ve made this announcement and now it’s time to get started! Much like Super-Turbo HD, I won’t really have an opinion until I see more of it in action…

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NC State Fair 2007: Round 1

Last night I took my sister to the NC State Fair. It’s my first of two trips this year, since Ashley and I are going for our anniversary this weekend. Lots and lots of deep fried goodness! Every year, they feature some new fried abomination confection to unleash upon the public. Last year’s was fried Coca-Cola, which is just funnel cake, fried with cola instead of water. This year, they had fried peanut butter & jelly sandwiches. And ya know…it tastes a lot better than it sounds!

The only trick is that while it passes for flavor, it fails in form. They serve it on a stick, which–as I learned from the fried Moon Pie–anything that has a soft, gooey center can’t be held on a stick. I tried to pick the sandwich up and all I got was stick. It’s small enough that all you really need is some napkins to hold it. But it was sooooo good. I’m sure if you baked it, people would be much more receptive to it.

Also along the lines of tasty fried peanut buttery treats, they added another type of deep fried candy bar to their selection as well. This year: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Those also taste delicious, but they’re a bit expensive for my tastes. I don’t mind paying $3 for a fried Milky Way on a stick, but for the same price, you only get two Reese’s. I realize that’s what comes in a standard pack, but even so… Maybe if it were three, I’d feel more satisfied.

I did have some quasi-healthier choices as well. I started the whole event off by getting some vegetable tempura. I like to get some of that every year, but since I usually got it later in the day, I’d be too stuffed to finish the insane mountain they bestow upon you. This year, I got it first thing, so I did some major damage! Also, I grabbed up an ear of roasted corn. Not only because it’s delicious, but also so I could freak out my sister by quoting, “Gentlemen…“

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FF:TA Equipment Management

I’ve been playing Final Fantasy Tactics Advance off and on for the past few weeks. It’s not the PSone version that I have a hankering for, but I figure it’ll serve as a decent introduction to the gameplay for me. What’s keeping me from really diving into it isn’t the battle or mission systems–it’s the equipment management system.

I like that when you buy equipment, it displays for you which character class and race can use what, but what makes it frustrating is that I can’t see how the equipment I’m looking at in the shop compares to what I already have in my inventory. Unless I either commit my entire character roster’s stock to memory, write it all out separately, or go through the monotony of switching back and forth between the shop and my characters…how do I know if what I’m looking at is better or worse than what I have? Is there in fact a way, but I’m just not looking at it correctly? Maybe this is something that will be addressed in the DS version coming out soon…

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Reading IS Fundamental

I’ve always been a poor reader. I don’t read books as often as I should, or even as much as I’d like. And when I do, I’m ashamed to say that I’m also a slow reader. I read at about the pace of if the words were being spoken. It hasn’t been until recently that I’ve acquired a taste for reading, but that’s something that I mostly blame on my school system growing up.

Throughout my elementary school years, we were assigned to read constantly. It doesn’t sound much like a bad idea, but it was given an attitude that affected how I built my relationship with reading. That attitude was that reading was the superior platform of media. Neither the most artistic piece of cinema nor the the most informative educational television program could never compare to even the worst novel. Reading was the key to brilliance. You have to love books. All books were great, simply by virtue of the fact that they were books. It was exactly the way that the South Park episode depicted.

What made the experience most frustrating was the emphasis on novels. Routinely, we were told to read a novel and write a report on it. Only rather than produce a review or a simple synopsis of the book, we were lead to practically write promotional pamphlets for them. Every report that we gave (at least the ones that were graded well) carried on about how we loved it and how awesome the story was. We weren’t encouraged to critically examine it. If we didn’t like a book, then well, we must not have understood it, so fail. If you didn’t like that one, you must not like books. How dare you!

As if peer pressure when you were a kid wasn’t hard enough, what you read became just another means for other kids to judge you in my classes. Amazon.com hadn’t been invented yet and there were no used book stores near where I grew up, so while all the cool kids read classic titles or the popular books by Judy Blume, my folks would buy these value packs of books that were like, 3 for $7 or something. And they were all garbage. Our library wasn’t much help since I went to a pretty lame public school with a limited selection. And my folks weren’t about to drive me to the real library downtown. Twice, if you count then returning the books I’d borrowed.

The one thing that I did enjoy was whenever the entire class would read a book together. We’d not only read aloud in class, but we’d discuss the book’s contents. This would nurture us to grow mentally by exploring the concepts within the book…and in an open forum! When we were simply told to read a book and write about what we’d read, we’d be left to our own devices. Either ideas would be missed, misinterpreted, or glanced over.

Not enough attention was given toward encouraging us to explore our tastes in reading. Maybe some of us (like myself) didn’t care for fiction as much as maybe reference material. Maybe instead of frolicking through Narnia, I would have preferred to dive into some physics or philosophy. I think that pushing me into novels and dictating that I must like them more repelled me from books than attracted. If that pressure were not present, I might have been more open to explore fiction, as my peers were.

I was relieved once I entered 6th grade and I was blessed with a more relaxed teacher. Typically, the first 30min of class were designated as our quiet reading time, where we read to ourselves. Previous teachers set limits on what types of books we could read, but my 6th grade teacher understood that the goal was to encourage us to read, not what to read. For her, the sky was the limit! We could read our book report book, a newspaper, a magazine…even comics! I’d bring in a stack of Groo The Wanderer and even share with the kids at my table! If I had more teachers with that kind of open policy, rather than preaching propaganda, I think I would have been more receptive toward giving books a chance.

I think that sometimes, it takes one platform to act as a stepping stone into another. A lot of times, I’ll see a movie based on a novel and I’ll give that a shot. Sometimes I’ll find the book was better (like The Da Vinci Code) and sometimes may even prefer the movie (such as Fight Club). I found Fast Food Nation to be quite fascinating, which ironically I wouldn’t have even tried if not for a movie, Super-Size Me! (Although don’t see the movie version of Fast Food Nation…it’s ass.)

These days, I’m still not much of a novelist. I think it would take someone who really knew me and my tastes to sell me on trying a novel. But most of what I enjoy reading is non-fiction. Currently, I’m working my way through Dreams Of Love And Fateful Encounters, a book exploring love and attractions; as subject I have a passion for. What’s great about it is that I find it not only informative, but it’s challenged my vocabulary with every paragraph. It’s books like these that I wish we’d been encouraged to explore when I was a kid.

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