I'm not sure what is up with me these days. Back in May/June I had a period of time where I was very much focussed on playing games and Let's Playing but now I just don't want to do anything. Maybe I'm just tired. I've been working a lot lately and on July 16th I'm about to get even busier as I picked up a second job.
I still have a small pile of videos I need to upload but even uploading seems to be bothersome at the moment. Before, I actually liked uploading videos. Like, just the act of uploading it was satisfying. But right now it feels annoying. In the free time I have I'm so bored and have nothing to do. Yet I have no energy to Let's Play as I don't feel like speaking. So instead I've been playing games on my own yet even in that I've been... strange. I keep installing new games from my steam/gog library and playing for about one or two hours before quickly abandoning the game. None of them can hold my interest for long. Rather sad as I have a library of over 150 games when you count all my steam, gog, and retail games.
I love tower defense games so I bought Defense Grid: The Awakening today. Played 65 minutes. Just stopped. Not that it wasn't good or anything. Just suddenly felt apathetic towards it. Played Syberia for 82 minutes yesterday. Don't feel like going back to it. Again, not that it isn't good or that I didn't like it... just feel apathetic. This behaviour isn't that new to me though. This is like 70% of the reason that I LP: to help me actually finish a game. But it feels even worse than usual. Especially considering that I don't even feel like LPing these days.
Avernum 4 and Dungeon Siege 2 are two games that I've actually gotten a bit into despite this mood. Even so it's hard to start to play them. Once I start I'm good for those two but it's terribly annoying to make the decision to start. Also, my stupid OCD habit of making sure I get the most out of everything is driving me insane. For example, making several trips back and forth in Avernum to get all the loot and sell them all... even though the item is only worth 1 gold; making sure that I uncover every little speck of blackness on the map so I know I explored every single tile; back tracking because I get the nagging feeling that I missed something but then end up simply wasting time. I almost LPed Avernum 4 too. Thank god I didn't. For one. this mood wouldn't let me play the darn thing if I was LPing it and two, the above behaviour would be extremely irritating to watch, to edit, and/or to restrain.
Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 is done downloading. Time to go play that for an hour or something. Whatever this mood is, I'm giving in to it.
Edit: Well, that game lasted barely 10 minutes. I thought it at least had some campaigns or something but none that I could see. Good thing I didn't actually buy that game but rather just got it as a part of a bundle.
Thursday, 12 July 2012
Thursday, 5 July 2012
The Forest Laird: A Tale of William Wallace
I just finished reading The Forest Laird: A Tale of William Wallace by Jack Whyte about 5 minutes ago... before I go on though I must warn that this post will contain a serious spoiler for the book so if you are interested in reading the book then don't read any further. I will point out when I'm going to say the spoiler but I'm afraid even so it'll be too obvious what it is.
Today I went to work and everyone noticed a certain air about me. Someone thought I was sick; another asked me why I look so tired today. I was, in fact, tired but that wasn't why I looked so horrible at work today. The reason was this aforementioned book.
The book tells the tale of William Wallace: a figure a lot of people know from the Hollywood movie Braveheart. He is actually a historical figure though and while various accounts of him exist, a certain shroud of mystery still revolves around him. It is said that most accounts of him were written by his enemies; it's not hard to see how those might be biased. I'll be completely honest and say that I neither knew of William Wallace before nor ever watched the Hollywood movie. This book was the first time I had ever "encountered" him.
It is written from the perspective of Jamie (James) Wallace, William Wallace's cousin. I'm pretty sure this character is a fake one... it's hard to say really since there's just so many different accounts of WW's family on the internet. Jamie is "writing" the book in memory of his cousin Will so that he does not become twisted and misrepresented (like he ended up becoming in real life). Anyways, Jamie and Will grow up together and Jamie eventually becomes a priest and Will becomes a verdurer (a person who is in charge of regulating the forests and their bounty on an estate). Certain events lead Will to become a rebel who defends Scotland against the English. I won't go into what events... that would take far far too long.
Even though this book is about William Wallace, I never felt very attached to Will as a character. As strange as this may sound though, I think that is a good thing. William Wallace is like a legendary figure, a hero. Jamie strives to show William Wallace as human but you cannot regard him as just that. You feel the distance between you and Will and somehow it feels appropriate. Like as if you're a peasant and William is a king. Instead you bond with Jamie which is a lot more "appropriate" as Jamie feels like he's on "my level" of status. Even though I bond with Jamie while reading, I never really felt anything for Jamie and this I attribute to the fact that nothing serious happens to him. Instead he's just a vessel through which you experience Will's story because you're too common to actually get the story first hand from Will's point of view or even just an omniscient narrative. Part of this non-feeling for Jamie also comes from the fact that I know he's fine. He's the one writing it! I know he survives to tell the tale.
Between these two characters are... well, a lot of important yet minor characters. You don't ever really bond with the other characters. Sure, I like Ewan but you don't really get to know him well. Bishop Wishart? Again, too distant. Andrew Murray? You hardly ever meet the guy.
Then there's Mirren Braidfoot. Or Marion Wallace. William Wallace's wife. Now, historically, I don't think it's clear that Will ever had her as a wife. I say "I don't think" because I'm not sure really. As I've said, I didn't know anything about William Wallace before and what I know of him now historically come from short little searches on the internet. In the book though, Marion Braidfute is named Mirren Braidfoot and marries Will pretty early in the story. At first she's just someone Will is smitten with and then Will's wife. You never get to know her well either. Much later on in the book, as Jamie himself gets closer to Mirren, you finally get to learn more about her. You learn that she's a very strong willed, no non-sense type of woman. I didn't like her very much. Probably because at the beginning she didn't really like Jamie and Jamie didn't particularly like her much (only due to the fact that he didn't know her well and she appeared to dislike him) either.
*SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT*
Mirren bears a child for William (named William after his father and called Willie) and later gets pregnant again with their second child. Disaster strikes though and Mirren, now heavily pregnant, must go to her mother but Will cannot go as he must see to his rebels. So instead, Jamie and Ewan, among other rebels, go with her. Things go horribly wrong on the road though and Mirren and Willie become captured by the English while Jamie gets beaten badly to the point of broken bones all over his body. While Mirren is being transported, Willie dies. One of the rebel archers found him in the forest at the side of the road where the English chucked him after his death. He was only a year and a half old.
Now, this is the beginning of the part which truly affected me in this book. It mystifies me because I thought I felt so distant from Will. Putting that aside for now, let's go on. Mirren gets taken to a prison where she is raving like a mad woman because Willie is dead and was left behind. Not only that but her mother is dead as well. I never really liked her much but here I could not help but feel intensely for Mirren. Jamie described the events of that day as something like a nightmare where he can only watch helplessly and cannot stop; can only live through it and be subjected to it without any power. Strangely enough, reading this, that is exactly how I felt. I felt such horror for Mirren and felt so helpless and powerless.
But the horrors had only begun for Mirren. At the jail, the cruel guard hits her over the head to make her shut up. She falls to the ground, no doubt completely dazed by the blow... then the guard gives her a hard kick to her belly. Her pregnant belly. She goes into labor due to the blow and the baby comes out still-born. The guard feeds the dead baby to the pigs. Mirren, herself, is lying on the floor in a bloody mess. No one helped her through the labor and no one helps her now as she continues to bleed. The jailer checks on her before leaving for the night and she's still on the floor. Later, he checks again and she is dead.
All this time I felt distant from the characters yet suddenly here I was, in utter horror at this part of the story. No, not just horror... I was affected. Moved. I felt such despair. I felt helpless. I wanted to make it not have happened. To rewind time back to when she was alive, back to when Willie was alive. I felt like Jamie: grieving for Mirren and the children and feeling absolute sorrow for William. Perhaps you might think that I'm just "being a woman". You know, women tend to get very upset over the idea of pregnant women being abused, losing babies, babies dying, etc. But no... I actually do not care for babies/children and things like this in other books or movies have not bothered me so much. At most they got a cringe out of me at the cruelty. But it is rare for me to grieve so for a character I did not feel attached to. That part of the book left me very depressed and somehow insecure. Like as if things could go wrong at any moment like it did for Mirren and Will. It made me want to go and gather my loved ones and hold them tight to feel safe.
I'm still confused as to why it affected me so. I think a part of it might be the knowledge that although this is a work of fiction, the base plot of the story is derived from historical events. The English invasion of Scotland *did* happen. People like King John Balliol, Robert Bruce, and King Edward were real and the political figures were mostly real. I know full well that the account of Mirren and her death is complete fiction but I can't help but feel that similar cruelties must have happened in real life. Probably still do happen in some places in the world. It's not even that I am blind to the cruelties of the world. In fact, I'm one of those people whose YouTube related panel is filled with news stories of cruelties because I've watched so many of them as I jump from one video to the next in a continuing cycle of "what the hell happened here? I must know!" I've heard of real life news stories of babies being killed by their own mother and dumped in the garbage without so much feeling as I felt for Mirren.
Shortly after reading this part of the book I went to work where I was utterly stone faced. Stone faced yet inside I still felt volatile. Coincidentally, someone whom we were serving ran off with the entire tip jar today. I think I had left over emotions from the tale of Mirren as after that happened I felt like crying and felt highly vulnerable. It's like as if the incident proved to me that sometimes you're just a victim of misfortune and people can be cruel. I'm not so naive as to think that someone making off with our tip jar is a big deal nor to think that it's a great act of cruelty. There was, at most, ten dollars in there and what I personally lost is probably around 75 cents at most. It was more of a symbolic thing. There are people out there who are victims of injustices and cruelty that happen just as spontaneously as that guy running off with the tip jar. Except those victims lose not 75 cents but maybe their livelihood, their life, the life of a loved one... Perhaps I should add here that I have a long, on-going issue with anxiety. Perhaps that contributed to my gloom and doom feeling today. In any case, The Forest Laird is now one of the few books which has made me feel like I wanted to turn back time and make everything right again.
Today I went to work and everyone noticed a certain air about me. Someone thought I was sick; another asked me why I look so tired today. I was, in fact, tired but that wasn't why I looked so horrible at work today. The reason was this aforementioned book.
The book tells the tale of William Wallace: a figure a lot of people know from the Hollywood movie Braveheart. He is actually a historical figure though and while various accounts of him exist, a certain shroud of mystery still revolves around him. It is said that most accounts of him were written by his enemies; it's not hard to see how those might be biased. I'll be completely honest and say that I neither knew of William Wallace before nor ever watched the Hollywood movie. This book was the first time I had ever "encountered" him.
It is written from the perspective of Jamie (James) Wallace, William Wallace's cousin. I'm pretty sure this character is a fake one... it's hard to say really since there's just so many different accounts of WW's family on the internet. Jamie is "writing" the book in memory of his cousin Will so that he does not become twisted and misrepresented (like he ended up becoming in real life). Anyways, Jamie and Will grow up together and Jamie eventually becomes a priest and Will becomes a verdurer (a person who is in charge of regulating the forests and their bounty on an estate). Certain events lead Will to become a rebel who defends Scotland against the English. I won't go into what events... that would take far far too long.
Even though this book is about William Wallace, I never felt very attached to Will as a character. As strange as this may sound though, I think that is a good thing. William Wallace is like a legendary figure, a hero. Jamie strives to show William Wallace as human but you cannot regard him as just that. You feel the distance between you and Will and somehow it feels appropriate. Like as if you're a peasant and William is a king. Instead you bond with Jamie which is a lot more "appropriate" as Jamie feels like he's on "my level" of status. Even though I bond with Jamie while reading, I never really felt anything for Jamie and this I attribute to the fact that nothing serious happens to him. Instead he's just a vessel through which you experience Will's story because you're too common to actually get the story first hand from Will's point of view or even just an omniscient narrative. Part of this non-feeling for Jamie also comes from the fact that I know he's fine. He's the one writing it! I know he survives to tell the tale.
Between these two characters are... well, a lot of important yet minor characters. You don't ever really bond with the other characters. Sure, I like Ewan but you don't really get to know him well. Bishop Wishart? Again, too distant. Andrew Murray? You hardly ever meet the guy.
Then there's Mirren Braidfoot. Or Marion Wallace. William Wallace's wife. Now, historically, I don't think it's clear that Will ever had her as a wife. I say "I don't think" because I'm not sure really. As I've said, I didn't know anything about William Wallace before and what I know of him now historically come from short little searches on the internet. In the book though, Marion Braidfute is named Mirren Braidfoot and marries Will pretty early in the story. At first she's just someone Will is smitten with and then Will's wife. You never get to know her well either. Much later on in the book, as Jamie himself gets closer to Mirren, you finally get to learn more about her. You learn that she's a very strong willed, no non-sense type of woman. I didn't like her very much. Probably because at the beginning she didn't really like Jamie and Jamie didn't particularly like her much (only due to the fact that he didn't know her well and she appeared to dislike him) either.
*SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT*
Mirren bears a child for William (named William after his father and called Willie) and later gets pregnant again with their second child. Disaster strikes though and Mirren, now heavily pregnant, must go to her mother but Will cannot go as he must see to his rebels. So instead, Jamie and Ewan, among other rebels, go with her. Things go horribly wrong on the road though and Mirren and Willie become captured by the English while Jamie gets beaten badly to the point of broken bones all over his body. While Mirren is being transported, Willie dies. One of the rebel archers found him in the forest at the side of the road where the English chucked him after his death. He was only a year and a half old.
Now, this is the beginning of the part which truly affected me in this book. It mystifies me because I thought I felt so distant from Will. Putting that aside for now, let's go on. Mirren gets taken to a prison where she is raving like a mad woman because Willie is dead and was left behind. Not only that but her mother is dead as well. I never really liked her much but here I could not help but feel intensely for Mirren. Jamie described the events of that day as something like a nightmare where he can only watch helplessly and cannot stop; can only live through it and be subjected to it without any power. Strangely enough, reading this, that is exactly how I felt. I felt such horror for Mirren and felt so helpless and powerless.
But the horrors had only begun for Mirren. At the jail, the cruel guard hits her over the head to make her shut up. She falls to the ground, no doubt completely dazed by the blow... then the guard gives her a hard kick to her belly. Her pregnant belly. She goes into labor due to the blow and the baby comes out still-born. The guard feeds the dead baby to the pigs. Mirren, herself, is lying on the floor in a bloody mess. No one helped her through the labor and no one helps her now as she continues to bleed. The jailer checks on her before leaving for the night and she's still on the floor. Later, he checks again and she is dead.
All this time I felt distant from the characters yet suddenly here I was, in utter horror at this part of the story. No, not just horror... I was affected. Moved. I felt such despair. I felt helpless. I wanted to make it not have happened. To rewind time back to when she was alive, back to when Willie was alive. I felt like Jamie: grieving for Mirren and the children and feeling absolute sorrow for William. Perhaps you might think that I'm just "being a woman". You know, women tend to get very upset over the idea of pregnant women being abused, losing babies, babies dying, etc. But no... I actually do not care for babies/children and things like this in other books or movies have not bothered me so much. At most they got a cringe out of me at the cruelty. But it is rare for me to grieve so for a character I did not feel attached to. That part of the book left me very depressed and somehow insecure. Like as if things could go wrong at any moment like it did for Mirren and Will. It made me want to go and gather my loved ones and hold them tight to feel safe.
I'm still confused as to why it affected me so. I think a part of it might be the knowledge that although this is a work of fiction, the base plot of the story is derived from historical events. The English invasion of Scotland *did* happen. People like King John Balliol, Robert Bruce, and King Edward were real and the political figures were mostly real. I know full well that the account of Mirren and her death is complete fiction but I can't help but feel that similar cruelties must have happened in real life. Probably still do happen in some places in the world. It's not even that I am blind to the cruelties of the world. In fact, I'm one of those people whose YouTube related panel is filled with news stories of cruelties because I've watched so many of them as I jump from one video to the next in a continuing cycle of "what the hell happened here? I must know!" I've heard of real life news stories of babies being killed by their own mother and dumped in the garbage without so much feeling as I felt for Mirren.
Shortly after reading this part of the book I went to work where I was utterly stone faced. Stone faced yet inside I still felt volatile. Coincidentally, someone whom we were serving ran off with the entire tip jar today. I think I had left over emotions from the tale of Mirren as after that happened I felt like crying and felt highly vulnerable. It's like as if the incident proved to me that sometimes you're just a victim of misfortune and people can be cruel. I'm not so naive as to think that someone making off with our tip jar is a big deal nor to think that it's a great act of cruelty. There was, at most, ten dollars in there and what I personally lost is probably around 75 cents at most. It was more of a symbolic thing. There are people out there who are victims of injustices and cruelty that happen just as spontaneously as that guy running off with the tip jar. Except those victims lose not 75 cents but maybe their livelihood, their life, the life of a loved one... Perhaps I should add here that I have a long, on-going issue with anxiety. Perhaps that contributed to my gloom and doom feeling today. In any case, The Forest Laird is now one of the few books which has made me feel like I wanted to turn back time and make everything right again.
Tuesday, 3 July 2012
Catching Spiders
Okay, more like *killing* spiders. I have no qualms about admitting that I kill spiders if I can. All things that have more than 4 legs scare the bejesus out of me. I'm not talking a little "oh my there's a spider!" kind of thing ... more like sitting and staring at it in trepidation with a cold tingling going down my spine.
So how does one so afraid of spiders go and kill them? Trust me, each time is a little horror story in my head. Often I get the instruments of spider destruction out in my hand and merely sit or stand there staring at it, unable to move my hands. These instruments of spider destruction vary: vacuum cleaner, fly swatter, fly zapper, cup and paper, a shoe... etc.
I've had some bad experiences with some of those instruments. Vacuum cleaners aren't always strong enough to suck the spider from wherever it might be hiding; if it's out in the open then it's hard to aim the rather small nozzle right on top of it and god forbid I miss and it starts freaking out and crawling insanely. Fly swatter / shoe, again, if I miss then it'll be hell to make that thing stop crawling. Fly zapper isn't flexible enough; I get so scared that the spider will simply crawl out from under it because it's a flat plastic disc. Cup and paper: I am so terrified of sliding that paper under the cup because the spider might escape, then lifting the cup and paper afterwards is horrendous. I've had spiders escape from the cup and paper so many times I no longer trust it.
Today I developed a new way to capture and kill spiders and I think I'll be using it for a while. It still fills me with terror to do it but it's the safest way I've found so far. Sadly it'll only work if it's on a vertical surface or the ceiling. It's kind of like the cup and paper but different. You need a cup (clear one so you can see what's going on inside), maybe some plastic wrap, and some sticky and/or viscous fluid such as lotion, bath gel, liquid detergent, or honey. Today I used bath gel. First, I put the plastic wrap in the cup so that it lines the cup and still comes up and over the lip of the cup. Then I put my bath gel inside liberally. This next part is the part that terrifies me but then you put the cup over the spider and hold it tight against the surface the spider is on. Still pressing tightly against the surface to make sure there is no gap through which the spider can escape, move the cup around so that the spider is compelled to move. Sooner or later the bath gel will ooze its way towards the lip of the cup and sooner or later as you keep the spider moving the spider will end up in it. Give it a little while to thoroughly encase itself inside the liquid then carefully remove the cup in a scooping motion to catch the liquid. Gather up the sides of the plastic wrap, twist, and now you have a little baggie that you can toss in the trash. Alternatively, you can skip out on the plastic wrap and just rinse out the cup with water and send the critter down the drain.
The reason I like this method is because it puts a stop to what terrifies me the most about spiders: their crawling. Especially when they are scared and scuttling around really fast, it gives me the creeps. Also trapping the spider under the cup is a lot easier than smacking it with something as you can be as slow as you want, guaranteeing precision. Only down side is that you probably will get some of the crap you used on your wall/vertical surface.
I just realized that if you have a tile/laminated floor you can still use this method. Just let the liquid drip down and eventually encase the spider and then scoop it up with a paper towel once you're sure it's dead or immobile.
The one I killed today was a pretty big one. Not by world-wide standards but of the ones I've seen in my room it's got to be one of the biggest. It had a white stripe down the middle of its back. So glad it's gone... I know in all probability it wouldn't have done anything to me (that goes for most bugs I encounter really) but it still freaked me the hell out. I have had spider bites before though so I will show no mercy. Besides... I'm too scared to show mercy. Can't transport one live.
So how does one so afraid of spiders go and kill them? Trust me, each time is a little horror story in my head. Often I get the instruments of spider destruction out in my hand and merely sit or stand there staring at it, unable to move my hands. These instruments of spider destruction vary: vacuum cleaner, fly swatter, fly zapper, cup and paper, a shoe... etc.
I've had some bad experiences with some of those instruments. Vacuum cleaners aren't always strong enough to suck the spider from wherever it might be hiding; if it's out in the open then it's hard to aim the rather small nozzle right on top of it and god forbid I miss and it starts freaking out and crawling insanely. Fly swatter / shoe, again, if I miss then it'll be hell to make that thing stop crawling. Fly zapper isn't flexible enough; I get so scared that the spider will simply crawl out from under it because it's a flat plastic disc. Cup and paper: I am so terrified of sliding that paper under the cup because the spider might escape, then lifting the cup and paper afterwards is horrendous. I've had spiders escape from the cup and paper so many times I no longer trust it.
Today I developed a new way to capture and kill spiders and I think I'll be using it for a while. It still fills me with terror to do it but it's the safest way I've found so far. Sadly it'll only work if it's on a vertical surface or the ceiling. It's kind of like the cup and paper but different. You need a cup (clear one so you can see what's going on inside), maybe some plastic wrap, and some sticky and/or viscous fluid such as lotion, bath gel, liquid detergent, or honey. Today I used bath gel. First, I put the plastic wrap in the cup so that it lines the cup and still comes up and over the lip of the cup. Then I put my bath gel inside liberally. This next part is the part that terrifies me but then you put the cup over the spider and hold it tight against the surface the spider is on. Still pressing tightly against the surface to make sure there is no gap through which the spider can escape, move the cup around so that the spider is compelled to move. Sooner or later the bath gel will ooze its way towards the lip of the cup and sooner or later as you keep the spider moving the spider will end up in it. Give it a little while to thoroughly encase itself inside the liquid then carefully remove the cup in a scooping motion to catch the liquid. Gather up the sides of the plastic wrap, twist, and now you have a little baggie that you can toss in the trash. Alternatively, you can skip out on the plastic wrap and just rinse out the cup with water and send the critter down the drain.
The reason I like this method is because it puts a stop to what terrifies me the most about spiders: their crawling. Especially when they are scared and scuttling around really fast, it gives me the creeps. Also trapping the spider under the cup is a lot easier than smacking it with something as you can be as slow as you want, guaranteeing precision. Only down side is that you probably will get some of the crap you used on your wall/vertical surface.
I just realized that if you have a tile/laminated floor you can still use this method. Just let the liquid drip down and eventually encase the spider and then scoop it up with a paper towel once you're sure it's dead or immobile.
The one I killed today was a pretty big one. Not by world-wide standards but of the ones I've seen in my room it's got to be one of the biggest. It had a white stripe down the middle of its back. So glad it's gone... I know in all probability it wouldn't have done anything to me (that goes for most bugs I encounter really) but it still freaked me the hell out. I have had spider bites before though so I will show no mercy. Besides... I'm too scared to show mercy. Can't transport one live.
Thursday, 14 June 2012
Tomb Raider: Anniversary - Review and Reflections
Some parts of this post is on my final TR:A video but the whole post did not fit in the description box so I am posting it in its entirety here. This is a loose review of the game.. loose because I'm not formally reviewing it but just addressing certain things. It is also a reflection on my experiences with it and why I did some things the way I did.
Enjoyability:
First off I want to clarify my statement that this has been one of the best games I've ever played. I feel like I'm going to get some people saying this or that about it. I say it's one of the best games I've played based on my personal enjoyment of the game. I'm well aware of its faults but I genuinely enjoyed this game so much that it takes a place among my top most enjoyed.
This was my first Tomb Raider game so maybe all TR games have this vibe but I loved the feel of accomplishment in this game. Not only does it make you feel good after solving something but it makes you feel like you're actually DOING something. A lot of the times, I find puzzle games annoying because I just don't get the point of the puzzle (why it's there, why the heck I would do it) or the actions involved in the puzzle are really boring (like pick this up, put it there, run back and pick something else up, put it else where). I really liked the fact that I was solving puzzles so Lara could GET somewhere. Not sure if I'm making myself clear but I really connected with Lara and liked getting her to her destinations.
Inconsistencies with the original TR:
I'm aware that this game isn't an exact replica of the first TR game. I know it left out some things or added this or that. The specifics I do not know but personally it makes no difference to me. Those who have a gripe with it do because they were expecting everything they saw in TR. As a TR newbie I really had no problems with this flaw.
Graphics:
I'm very glad they made TR:A because to be honest, I probably would never have experienced any part of TR 1 otherwise. I'm not exactly a graphics whore (I don't really care for crazy detail or life like textures... I don't drool over the graphics of Crysis 2 or anything) but I don't particularly like old 90's era graphics (Another reason I probably would never have played TR 1, unrelated to graphics, is that I hate old school controls). I really liked TR:A's graphics. They weren't up to today's standards but I liked the feel of it. It was modern enough yet had its own... personality to it. Weird as that sounds.
Combat Controls:
You've heard me say SO many times in this LP that Lara is sometimes hard to control in combat. You're probably tired of hearing it since I bitched about it so much! But I looked around at some reviews of this game and it turns out it's not just my personal inability that made it seem like Lara wasn't doing what I told her to... it's a real problem. Other people have said too that the camera and directional controls were really awkward during combat and I will definitely agree. I mean, it's not fun clicking the mouse to continuously shoot for 30 minutes of a boss fight because that's the only way I can get the camera to cooperate and therefore the only way I will get Lara to go the way I want her to most of the time.
The headshot thing was an interesting idea but it did not execute well. Reason being what I just described above... Lara does not go the direction you think she will unless the camera is just right. So outside of boss battles if the game threw me an enemy with headshot inducing abilities I could not do it because I hadn't readied the camera for it.
Poor introduction of some mechanics:
This game's beginning was nice; it was a little tutorial area with little pop ups telling you how to do things, etc. But later in the game it introduced new elements without actually telling you about it. The perpendicular wall jump off the grapple was crazy hard for me simply because I didn't know HOW to do it... Never mind that, how about the fact that I didn't even know it was possible in the first place? Even after accomplishing it in that room where I first encountered it, I still didn't know how to actually do it. It's only near the end of the game (that room with tons of pillars where I inserted two pieces of the scion) that I finally figured it out. What about the speed jump off of poles? I had no idea I could do that until I discovered it by accident in the Obelisk of Khamoon when I just happened to tap space twice. Even then I didn't know that you had to be pressing the direction she's going until that huge water room much later.
Was it all in Croft Manor? I have no clue. Either way, a player isn't guaranteed to play CM first anyways so mechanic introduction should be in the main game.
Reflections:
Even with these faults though, I really enjoyed the game. Not only was this my first TR game but it was my first puzzle platformer. I understand that a lot of viewers probably got pretty frustrated at me at some points because I just would not a see a simple solution; but my counter to that is a psychology based one. I have never played a game like this before so all these puzzles are new to me. Even if someone plays this game for the first time, if they have experience in other games of the same genre, then they have a "schema" in their mind for what to expect in certain situations. Most puzzles aren't 100% unique but take traditional puzzle elements such as "pull a lever and something, somewhere will happen". Now, that particular schema I obviously had... but other more complex ones I did not.
It was interesting to myself to see my own progress. When I first started this game I found it hard to get into because everything was new to me. I had no previous experiences to relate to; therefore, that meant more brain power; therefore, it was something my brain regards as work. It was only half-way or even 3/4 through the game that I truly started enjoying it as much as I said I did because now I had all these experiences that told me what to look for, what I could expect, what a probable solution might be, etc.
More Tomb Raider?:
The day after finishing TR:A I downloaded TR: Legend (from Steam, silly) because I felt my fun with Tomb Raider was just beginning. TR:A laid down some basics for me and at the end I was really starting to get it. I didn't want it to end there so the adventure continues in TR: Legend (which, btw, I am happy to find is a lot like TR:A). I thought about LPing TR: Legend as well but decided against it. I want to experience a TR game without the recording going on. Believe it or not, it does make a difference. With a recording going I'm less likely to try a variety of things and more likely to miss things in my desire to not waste time. That's actually true of all my LPs. I won't speak definitively for other LPers but that's probably the case for a lot of people.
Not only that but the reason it took me so long to finish TR:A is because of the editing involved in the TR videos. Even though I try to not waste time, it's a puzzle game... I'm obviously going to have to stand around gathering information, trying and failing, etc. I have to go through the videos and try to balance things out so the video isn't TOO boring. I need to leave in parts where I explain my thinking and parts where I try something (and either fail or succeed), cut out needless repetition due to death or jump fails, and make sure that if anything new happens, it's shown in the video. It can take anywhere from 10 - 60 minutes to edit a TR:A video. The finale took me about an hour to edit... which is longer than it took to record it. It'll be nice to just go through a TR game without gaps where I'm editing.
Enjoyability:
First off I want to clarify my statement that this has been one of the best games I've ever played. I feel like I'm going to get some people saying this or that about it. I say it's one of the best games I've played based on my personal enjoyment of the game. I'm well aware of its faults but I genuinely enjoyed this game so much that it takes a place among my top most enjoyed.
This was my first Tomb Raider game so maybe all TR games have this vibe but I loved the feel of accomplishment in this game. Not only does it make you feel good after solving something but it makes you feel like you're actually DOING something. A lot of the times, I find puzzle games annoying because I just don't get the point of the puzzle (why it's there, why the heck I would do it) or the actions involved in the puzzle are really boring (like pick this up, put it there, run back and pick something else up, put it else where). I really liked the fact that I was solving puzzles so Lara could GET somewhere. Not sure if I'm making myself clear but I really connected with Lara and liked getting her to her destinations.
Inconsistencies with the original TR:
I'm aware that this game isn't an exact replica of the first TR game. I know it left out some things or added this or that. The specifics I do not know but personally it makes no difference to me. Those who have a gripe with it do because they were expecting everything they saw in TR. As a TR newbie I really had no problems with this flaw.
Graphics:
I'm very glad they made TR:A because to be honest, I probably would never have experienced any part of TR 1 otherwise. I'm not exactly a graphics whore (I don't really care for crazy detail or life like textures... I don't drool over the graphics of Crysis 2 or anything) but I don't particularly like old 90's era graphics (Another reason I probably would never have played TR 1, unrelated to graphics, is that I hate old school controls). I really liked TR:A's graphics. They weren't up to today's standards but I liked the feel of it. It was modern enough yet had its own... personality to it. Weird as that sounds.
Combat Controls:
You've heard me say SO many times in this LP that Lara is sometimes hard to control in combat. You're probably tired of hearing it since I bitched about it so much! But I looked around at some reviews of this game and it turns out it's not just my personal inability that made it seem like Lara wasn't doing what I told her to... it's a real problem. Other people have said too that the camera and directional controls were really awkward during combat and I will definitely agree. I mean, it's not fun clicking the mouse to continuously shoot for 30 minutes of a boss fight because that's the only way I can get the camera to cooperate and therefore the only way I will get Lara to go the way I want her to most of the time.
The headshot thing was an interesting idea but it did not execute well. Reason being what I just described above... Lara does not go the direction you think she will unless the camera is just right. So outside of boss battles if the game threw me an enemy with headshot inducing abilities I could not do it because I hadn't readied the camera for it.
Poor introduction of some mechanics:
This game's beginning was nice; it was a little tutorial area with little pop ups telling you how to do things, etc. But later in the game it introduced new elements without actually telling you about it. The perpendicular wall jump off the grapple was crazy hard for me simply because I didn't know HOW to do it... Never mind that, how about the fact that I didn't even know it was possible in the first place? Even after accomplishing it in that room where I first encountered it, I still didn't know how to actually do it. It's only near the end of the game (that room with tons of pillars where I inserted two pieces of the scion) that I finally figured it out. What about the speed jump off of poles? I had no idea I could do that until I discovered it by accident in the Obelisk of Khamoon when I just happened to tap space twice. Even then I didn't know that you had to be pressing the direction she's going until that huge water room much later.
Was it all in Croft Manor? I have no clue. Either way, a player isn't guaranteed to play CM first anyways so mechanic introduction should be in the main game.
Reflections:
Even with these faults though, I really enjoyed the game. Not only was this my first TR game but it was my first puzzle platformer. I understand that a lot of viewers probably got pretty frustrated at me at some points because I just would not a see a simple solution; but my counter to that is a psychology based one. I have never played a game like this before so all these puzzles are new to me. Even if someone plays this game for the first time, if they have experience in other games of the same genre, then they have a "schema" in their mind for what to expect in certain situations. Most puzzles aren't 100% unique but take traditional puzzle elements such as "pull a lever and something, somewhere will happen". Now, that particular schema I obviously had... but other more complex ones I did not.
It was interesting to myself to see my own progress. When I first started this game I found it hard to get into because everything was new to me. I had no previous experiences to relate to; therefore, that meant more brain power; therefore, it was something my brain regards as work. It was only half-way or even 3/4 through the game that I truly started enjoying it as much as I said I did because now I had all these experiences that told me what to look for, what I could expect, what a probable solution might be, etc.
More Tomb Raider?:
The day after finishing TR:A I downloaded TR: Legend (from Steam, silly) because I felt my fun with Tomb Raider was just beginning. TR:A laid down some basics for me and at the end I was really starting to get it. I didn't want it to end there so the adventure continues in TR: Legend (which, btw, I am happy to find is a lot like TR:A). I thought about LPing TR: Legend as well but decided against it. I want to experience a TR game without the recording going on. Believe it or not, it does make a difference. With a recording going I'm less likely to try a variety of things and more likely to miss things in my desire to not waste time. That's actually true of all my LPs. I won't speak definitively for other LPers but that's probably the case for a lot of people.
Not only that but the reason it took me so long to finish TR:A is because of the editing involved in the TR videos. Even though I try to not waste time, it's a puzzle game... I'm obviously going to have to stand around gathering information, trying and failing, etc. I have to go through the videos and try to balance things out so the video isn't TOO boring. I need to leave in parts where I explain my thinking and parts where I try something (and either fail or succeed), cut out needless repetition due to death or jump fails, and make sure that if anything new happens, it's shown in the video. It can take anywhere from 10 - 60 minutes to edit a TR:A video. The finale took me about an hour to edit... which is longer than it took to record it. It'll be nice to just go through a TR game without gaps where I'm editing.
Tuesday, 12 June 2012
Skyrim Makes Me Sick
Those of you who either talk a lot with me, watch my videos, or interact with me a lot on the forums may know that I have not completely enjoyed Skyrim. I guess it was a combination of many things, one of which is that I did have high expectations and didn't really feel like they were entirely met. I don't have a phenomenal gaming computer (in fact, I have a MacBook Pro running Windows Vista on a partition) so the graphics settings aren't exactly great (but I can still run it at moderate settings fairly well) so maybe that's why, but I felt like the game felt... lifeless. It tried to copy real life so much that it lacked vibrance. Also factor in the fact that it takes place in the Nordic regions where there naturally is just a lot of white and brown and you get a rather... colourless game. The combat feels way too boring though some people have recommended playing a melee or bow character instead of my customary mage. As a mage, so far it's just pressing L&R mouse buttons together and just pointing it. I don't really feel engaged at all with the story and I just feel a bit lost as to who my character is. Usually I can just invent something and I get attached to my characters easily... but not so with Skyrim.
There. You have the bulk of my complaints with Skyrim. However, the biggest one is that Skyrim just makes me sick. Literally. When I play Skyrim I feel nauseous and the hollow between my eyes and brow bone start hurting. The first time I ever encountered a game I felt physically ill with was an LP I was watching on YouTube. I could not watch although I liked the game and commentator due to the fact that I felt so nauseous watching it. Since then I haven't had the problem. But alas, Skyrim enters my life and here I meet once again: another game that makes me physically ill. At first I didn't pair the game and the symptoms together but soon it became clear that playing Skyrim caused me to have motion sickness.
I felt a bit stupid. I mean really. It's a game... and I'm sitting here feeling motion sick because of it?! Of course the immediate thought in my head was "am I the only one who's sensitive enough to get sick like this?" A quick google search shows... no, of course not. In fact, there's a lot more people who suffer from video game motion sickness than I thought. It's not just the first-person-view of the game. If it was, I'd feel sick playing Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas too... but I do not. So what is it? A little article on About.com takes some guesses about the head-bobbing, weapon-bobbing, and lack of focal points but they freely admit their speculations are purely from their own experiences. I don't know what it is for me. I walk around without my weapons drawn in both FNV and Skyrim so it's not weapon bob. Do either of those games have head-bobbing? I never noticed it but perhaps Skyrim has it...? Google time.
Yep. In fact, the top results are people asking how to turn it off and one guy says his wife has motion sickness. It looks like FNV does not have head-bobbing, only weapon bobbing. So it's probably the head-bobbing. So after this revelation I have decided that I will no longer voice my opinions on Skyrim. It wouldn't be fair to the game; I would obviously be biased by the fact that whenever I play it I am in a state of physical illness. Obviously, I would not enjoy the experience and obviously that would taint my view of the game.
I just hope I can somehow overcome it or get around it so I can play what may be a quality game. I also feel very bad since someone gifted it to me =/.
There. You have the bulk of my complaints with Skyrim. However, the biggest one is that Skyrim just makes me sick. Literally. When I play Skyrim I feel nauseous and the hollow between my eyes and brow bone start hurting. The first time I ever encountered a game I felt physically ill with was an LP I was watching on YouTube. I could not watch although I liked the game and commentator due to the fact that I felt so nauseous watching it. Since then I haven't had the problem. But alas, Skyrim enters my life and here I meet once again: another game that makes me physically ill. At first I didn't pair the game and the symptoms together but soon it became clear that playing Skyrim caused me to have motion sickness.
I felt a bit stupid. I mean really. It's a game... and I'm sitting here feeling motion sick because of it?! Of course the immediate thought in my head was "am I the only one who's sensitive enough to get sick like this?" A quick google search shows... no, of course not. In fact, there's a lot more people who suffer from video game motion sickness than I thought. It's not just the first-person-view of the game. If it was, I'd feel sick playing Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas too... but I do not. So what is it? A little article on About.com takes some guesses about the head-bobbing, weapon-bobbing, and lack of focal points but they freely admit their speculations are purely from their own experiences. I don't know what it is for me. I walk around without my weapons drawn in both FNV and Skyrim so it's not weapon bob. Do either of those games have head-bobbing? I never noticed it but perhaps Skyrim has it...? Google time.
Yep. In fact, the top results are people asking how to turn it off and one guy says his wife has motion sickness. It looks like FNV does not have head-bobbing, only weapon bobbing. So it's probably the head-bobbing. So after this revelation I have decided that I will no longer voice my opinions on Skyrim. It wouldn't be fair to the game; I would obviously be biased by the fact that whenever I play it I am in a state of physical illness. Obviously, I would not enjoy the experience and obviously that would taint my view of the game.
I just hope I can somehow overcome it or get around it so I can play what may be a quality game. I also feel very bad since someone gifted it to me =/.
Tuesday, 29 May 2012
Pronouncing Words "Correctly" in English
Two months ago, I came across an LP video in which the player was playing as the Iroquois. I forget what game it was but it's entirely inconsequential to this post. In the video, the commentator was pronouncing the name Iroquois as "ir-ro-koi" which a lot of people do... but I tend to look at that as the wrong pronunciation. The name Iroquois is French and thus takes the French pronunciation rules; under which it would be pronounced "ir-ro-kwah". It's how it was taught in my school and by the word's origins, the correct way to say it. I left a comment about how it's pronounced the latter way instead of the former and the commentator responded to me with a "I know, I speak French." I did not further comment on it as I wasn't about to get in his face about it. After all, a lot of people DO pronounce Iroquois with "koi" rather than "kwah".
Then recently I got a reply on my comment which made me return to that video and those comments. I won't get into the reply I got as it turned into a mess of stupidity on which I do not care to longer dwell than I already have. In any case, I saw that someone had replied to the commentator's claim to speaking French and asked him, "then why do you pronounce it wrong?" to which he replied, "I'm speaking English so I will say things with English pronunciation." That is the topic of today's post.
His response kind of baffled me. It seemed rather... ignorant. Take some other words in the English language that have derivatives in other languages for examples. One such word is the word "debut". If you were anal in your insistence in pronouncing things purely in English, then that word would have to be pronounced much like the word "rebuttal" is pronounced: "dee-butt". Now doesn't that just sound silly?
What about the word herb? In England people DO pronounce it with the H but in North America it is pronounced "erb". In fact, I've seen plenty of people be very particular in this regard... almost to the point of making themselves look like an ignorant dumb ass. So does that commentator pronounce herb with the H? Seeing as how he's from North America, I kind of doubt it. How about the word milieu? We do not pronounce that "mil-li-u". Genre is not "jen-re". Lingerie is not "ling-ger-ee" or "lin-ger-ee". Chalet is not "cha-let"... and so on and so forth.
Now don't get me wrong. I'm not all worked up or anything... nor am I really arguing that everyone should pronounce Iroquois as "kwah" and not "koi". Sure, *I* think "kwah" is the correct way but if thousands of people pronounce it "koi" then whatever. My problem however was his response of "I'm speaking English, therefore I will say things with English pronunciation." That is truly a dumb thing to say when EVERYONE who speaks English goes out of the true English pronunciation for certain words. That is.. everyone who is not an idiot. So if "chalet" is to be pronounced "sha-leh" in English, why not "ir-ro-kwah"?
Then recently I got a reply on my comment which made me return to that video and those comments. I won't get into the reply I got as it turned into a mess of stupidity on which I do not care to longer dwell than I already have. In any case, I saw that someone had replied to the commentator's claim to speaking French and asked him, "then why do you pronounce it wrong?" to which he replied, "I'm speaking English so I will say things with English pronunciation." That is the topic of today's post.
His response kind of baffled me. It seemed rather... ignorant. Take some other words in the English language that have derivatives in other languages for examples. One such word is the word "debut". If you were anal in your insistence in pronouncing things purely in English, then that word would have to be pronounced much like the word "rebuttal" is pronounced: "dee-butt". Now doesn't that just sound silly?
What about the word herb? In England people DO pronounce it with the H but in North America it is pronounced "erb". In fact, I've seen plenty of people be very particular in this regard... almost to the point of making themselves look like an ignorant dumb ass. So does that commentator pronounce herb with the H? Seeing as how he's from North America, I kind of doubt it. How about the word milieu? We do not pronounce that "mil-li-u". Genre is not "jen-re". Lingerie is not "ling-ger-ee" or "lin-ger-ee". Chalet is not "cha-let"... and so on and so forth.
Now don't get me wrong. I'm not all worked up or anything... nor am I really arguing that everyone should pronounce Iroquois as "kwah" and not "koi". Sure, *I* think "kwah" is the correct way but if thousands of people pronounce it "koi" then whatever. My problem however was his response of "I'm speaking English, therefore I will say things with English pronunciation." That is truly a dumb thing to say when EVERYONE who speaks English goes out of the true English pronunciation for certain words. That is.. everyone who is not an idiot. So if "chalet" is to be pronounced "sha-leh" in English, why not "ir-ro-kwah"?
Tuesday, 8 May 2012
Fallout: New Vegas Troubles
My Fallout: New Vegas LP has been put on pause momentarily due to the fact that I cannot seem to get the game to load properly. It's very odd; it worked just fine then a week later I go to play it again and it will not work. First sign of something wrong was when it would not load my mouse once I launched the game. If you own FNV or FO3 then you know that if you click during the intro it skips forward to the menu screen. Well I could not do that which puzzled me. Once it got to the menu screen itself it didn't load the actual menu for a long long time. Just sat there with that picture of the character with the gas mask and revolver. Finally it loads the menus so I press continue and it takes me to the loading screen. Round and round the roulette goes, where it stops.... who the fuck knows. It just kept going for SO long that I ended up having to force exit the game. Even THAT was hard to do because it refused to minimize the game so I had to put my computer to sleep, wake it up, at which point it froze for a while then exit the game in the processes.
I am by no means a techie person but I doubt that I'd be able to figure it out even if I was. I replicated the above three times. No changes whatsoever. I know they say it's stupid to try the same thing over and over again but I find that an exception exists with computers... especially after rebooting the thing. But no, not this time. After some google searching I've got a couple things that I might try out but not at the moment. I just don't feel like messing with the damned thing right now. I'm just in that kind of mood where the prospect of dealing with something like that makes me just feel exhausted already.
I already liked Fallout 3 over Fallout: New Vegas but the number of glitches, bugs, and now this that I have to deal with with FNV makes me kind of tired of it and biases me against it more. Don't get me wrong, I'm still enjoying the game and think it's a good game... but it's raising Fallout 3 more in my eyes.
I guess the biggest issue I have with FNV right now is that I feel completely... objective-less. Fallout 3 at least still had a over arching motivation for my character: finding her dad, then fulfilling her parents' dream of pure water for everyone. But FNV? What the heck is my character doing? Gaining power? For what? The starting motivation of finding Billy who "killed" me is long since dealt with since I punched him to death in front of Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky.
Maybe I'll feel differently once I get further in the main quest or do some of the DLCs.
I am by no means a techie person but I doubt that I'd be able to figure it out even if I was. I replicated the above three times. No changes whatsoever. I know they say it's stupid to try the same thing over and over again but I find that an exception exists with computers... especially after rebooting the thing. But no, not this time. After some google searching I've got a couple things that I might try out but not at the moment. I just don't feel like messing with the damned thing right now. I'm just in that kind of mood where the prospect of dealing with something like that makes me just feel exhausted already.
I already liked Fallout 3 over Fallout: New Vegas but the number of glitches, bugs, and now this that I have to deal with with FNV makes me kind of tired of it and biases me against it more. Don't get me wrong, I'm still enjoying the game and think it's a good game... but it's raising Fallout 3 more in my eyes.
I guess the biggest issue I have with FNV right now is that I feel completely... objective-less. Fallout 3 at least still had a over arching motivation for my character: finding her dad, then fulfilling her parents' dream of pure water for everyone. But FNV? What the heck is my character doing? Gaining power? For what? The starting motivation of finding Billy who "killed" me is long since dealt with since I punched him to death in front of Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky.
Maybe I'll feel differently once I get further in the main quest or do some of the DLCs.
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