Archives for Category "Anything Goes"
I Dream of Plastic Axes
My old college roommate and I had become infected with a disease, but this isn’t necessarily bad news. The “disease” allowed us to see ghosts, and the ghosts that hung around our apartment were smokin’ hot! There was a boy ghost, though, who didn’t like that we could see his girlfriends. Whenever he was around, he would scowl at us.
All was well until one of the girl ghosts told us the infection also attracted zombies. There was a big group of zombies headed our way right now and would be here in 24 hours to kill us. The only way we could escape them was to remove the infection, and the only way we could remove the infection was to kill ourselves. Wow. That has win-win written all over it!
It wasn’t entirely hopeless. There was an arcade game in the mall that had a big, plastic axe attached to it. The ghost said if we killed ourselves with the axe, we would still come back to life, and the infection would be gone. My roommate and I decided to try it. On the way to the mall, we passed by another girl ghost who was posing for a picture for the boy ghost. The girl waved at us. The boy scowled. Typical.
In the arcade, my roommate took the axe, slit his throat, and bled all over the place as he died. Uh… I was beginning to have second thoughts about this plan. The other customers weren’t too thrilled, either, and started screaming and running around. My roommate did get back up, though, so it worked. But before I could use the axe, the panicked crowd pushed us out of the mall.
I kept yelling, “I need to go back in there! I need to use the axe!” but it was no use. The police soon arrived and taped off all the entrances. They would not let me back in, and I only had a few hours left before the zombies would arrive. But once again, I’ll never know the outcome, because I woke up before they got there.
Mini Game Reviews: Volume 2
I know, I know, this comes pretty quickly off the heels of the last set of reviews, but… I’ve been playing a lot of games lately. Gimme a break!
Left 4 Dead (Xbox 360)
My opinion of this first-person shooter would probably change drastically if I had an Xbox Live account, since the developers locked half the game’s content for paid subscribers only. Jerks. What’s left is a very short offline campaign that, fortunately, does support two-player splitscreen. You absolutely have to play this game with at least one other person, otherwise your AI teammates will drive you crazy. They always want to be a hero and won’t retreat to the safe house. I could see this being really fun with four human players, though. Even with just two humans, there were some great moments where we were holed up in the bathroom of a farmhouse, too afraid to go out and face the big monster zombie downstairs. If you thought you knew what zombies were like in games… you don’t. Unlike the slow, staggering zombies of Resident Evil fame, the zombies in Left 4 Dead are fast, crazy, and travel in huge numbers. Watching a crowd of them pile over a fence is pretty intense, four players or not.
Army of Two (Xbox 360)
At a glance, Army of Two seems like it’s just trying to rip off Gears of War. But then you play it for a few hours and start to understand what separates the two games. For starters, Army of Two is a lot clunkier. The characters, especially when interacting with objects or each other, are sluggish, and the button layout is unnecessarily convoluted. But that lovable “duck and cover” gameplay is back in full force, and it’s harder and more brutal here than in Gears. Even on the easiest difficulty, the AI’s aim is spot-on. It’s frustrating at first, until you learn how to work with your teammate (AI or human, but please choose human). It gets intense when the two of you are on opposite sides of a room filled with bad guys, taking turns getting their attention so the other can sneak up from behind. And because the AI is so good, each terrorist you kill makes a huge difference and feels that much more rewarding. Gears is still better, but I do like killing terrorists.
Jetpac Refuelled (Xbox Live Arcade)
All you need to do is spend two minutes with the original Jetpac to realize it wasn’t a good game. So why did it even garner such a polished remake? Refuelled looks really good, sounds really good, and plays really good. It’s a really good game… at first. You start out flying around a small 2D level, collecting parts to make a spaceship, then collecting fuel so you can blast off that wretched planet called Level 1. But then Level 2 comes around, and all you do is collect more fuel. Then Level 128 comes around, and you’re still collecting fuel! So… yeah, it tends to be a bit repetitive. The changes in the gameplay come from the enemies that swap out every level. It’s really great for the first 20 levels, because you are constantly seeing new types of enemies. But the developers quickly ran out of ideas and just started throwing more of the same at you. Onwards and upwards to Level 128! It’s still fun in short bursts, though, and has a nice two-player mode, which makes it worth the $5 asking price.
Dokapon Kingdom (Wii)
It’s about time somebody figured out how to do the party board game genre right. Dokapon Kingdom is one part RPG, though, making it a little harder for the whole family to jump right in. But the mechanics are easy to figure out, and, like Mario Party, much of the game is based on luck, anyway. It’s all about rolling the right numbers and being able to spot the best route to take. The battle system is just rock, paper, scissors, too, which, against the computer, is a matter of blind guessing. When you add in other players, though, Dokapon suddenly becomes really engaging and fun. There are so many opportunities to sabotage each other, whether it’s poisoning them with a spell, stealing ownership of one of their towns, or killing them in battle and changing their screen name to “ButtWipe.” What’s not to love?! Well, it is just a board game, so there’s a lot of waiting between turns. You definitely need to play with a group of people you get along with and who have a natural patience for RPGs.
Mini Game Reviews: Volume 1
In China, I watched a lot of TV series and started writing short reviews to keep me busy. Now that I’m back in the US, my entertainment focus has shifted from TV back to good, old video games. I used to write in-depth reviews for gaming sites, but I don’t have the time to be in-depth anymore. I’m going to go mini for a while.
Beautiful Katamari (Xbox 360)
Six years ago, I thought the original Katamari Damacy was the most creative game ever. Today, it’s apparent the series has not progressed at all. As I played Beautiful Katamari (and grew increasingly angry with the stubborn controls), I kept asking myself, “Didn’t I already do this level in the first game?” It all pans out the same, anyway. You roll a little ball around, collecting bits of garbage or food or animals, until it grows bigger and bigger and starts engulfing ocean liners and entire cities. The idea is, admittedly, pretty amusing. If you haven’t seen a katamari ball roll up a herd of cows before, you really ought to get on that. But the biggest misgiving about the game is that watching it is actually more enjoyable than playing it. The controls, even after six years, suck. Rolling the ball requires the use of both analog sticks and maneuvers like a broken tank. If this series wants to keep going, the developers have got to reinvent the way you move, because I honestly can’t take another minute of it.
Dead Space: Extraction (Wii)
I’ve realized now that the Wii is only good for two things: Smash Bros. and on-rails shooters. Hey, on-rails shooters are awesome! But the enjoyment comes from playing with another player and seeing who can shoot those rascally space creatures faster. Dead Space has a nice, diverse selection of weapons and a satisfying limb dislocation system that lets you pin off a monster’s arms and legs one by one. The monsters make some really disturbing sounds when they die, though. I’d rather play Ghost Squad for that reason alone. Well… I also prefer Ghost Squad’s quick, skippable story. Dead Space lays on the dialogue and atmosphere a bit too thick, and there are times where several minutes have passed and nothing’s showed up to shoot. An on-rails shooter is not the medium to make me care about the characters! Granted, there is a challenge mode that’s all about shooting monsters, it just lacks any kind of purpose or reward. It wasn’t meant to be the game’s selling point.
Gears of War (Xbox 360)
I was always hesitant to try (and like) Gears of War. Maybe I was just tired of Cliff Bleszinski being the poster boy for game designers. But since the Gears clamor has finally died down, I’ve discovered that the game really is a fun experience. Its “duck and cover” gameplay is a nice change of pace from the usual “run in guns blazing” nature of shooters. The game’s even better in co-op, because you can coordinate strategies like having your friend be a decoy while you snipe from a safe distance. The enemy is doing the same thing, too, so there’s a lot of figuring out how to safely advance from one hiding spot to the next. Gears has an entire chapter, though, where you’re trudging through tight corridors, having to fight off monsters with a shotgun, because it’s too cramped to back up and aim at anything. And I kept thinking, “This is not what this game is good at.” What it is good at, however, are the open, epic battles against waves of monsters with plenty of walls to run and crouch behind. I’m definitely a fan of those.
Pinball Hall of Fame: Williams Collection (Xbox 360)
I don’t say this often enough. I love video pinball. But good pinball is hard to find, and I’ve often had to fall back on the Windows pack-in Space Cadet to get my fix. Pinball Hall of Fame, on the other hand, kicks ass… in more ways than one. This game is really tough. The problem with pinball (and Pinball Hall of Fame) is how the tables are designed so the ball always falls down the side holes. Every single time! But bumping the table is a legitimate strategy and actually feels like it does something in this game. It’s very rewarding when you can successfully nudge the ball away from the hole. It’s also very rewarding when you finally beat all the basic goals on one of the tables. Just don’t get me started on the wizard goals. Did I mention this game is hard? But that’s the beauty of pinball. For as frustrating as it is, it’s rarely the fault of crappy game design or physics. Yeah, some of the tables are just a little too unforgiving, but you’ve got 13 total to choose from. That’s a lot of tables for $10.
I Dream of Flying Pancakes
One of the great entrepreneur stories in our town was about a local guy who built a toy factory. What made his toy factory special (or rather… very peculiar) was how the toys dropped off a conveyor belt onto an audience of volunteers below. The people in the audience then made one adjustment to the toy and passed it back until it ended up in a bin at the back of the room. And people loved this! A few of my friends went there all the time and had a blast putting someone else’s toys together.
I decided to go talk to the owner and get some ideas on how to start a business. Today wasn’t a good day, though. He was freaking out, saying the world was going to flood, and everyone was going to die. But because he foresaw this, he had cooked a giant, flying pancake to protect himself. Unfortunately, he was right about the flood. Water crashed in through the windows and swept him away before he could get into the pancake. My girlfriend and I took it, instead, wiggling inside the dark, somewhat gooey center. Then we waited.
After 40 days, the pancake landed on dry ground. The flood was gone… and so were all the people. Well, they weren’t really gone, they had just turned into animals. Dogs. Cats. Other weird creatures. My girlfriend and I wanted to know what happened, so we started exploring some nearby caves. Underground, we came across more homes where the people had been replaced with animals. But then we found a fortress that belonged to a pale, little girl. Apparently, the girl was a witch, and the flood and the animals were her doing.
Naturally, I challenged to fight her. She set up an arena so all of her minions could watch her beat me. She also transformed into a giant octopus-like monster just to make things a little easier for her. I smacked one of her yellow eyes with my flashlight a few times, though, and that changed her mind. She sent all her minions to chase us away. By the time we got back outside, it was already 11:30 at night. We had something we were supposed to do at 12:00, but we decided to go back into the cave and take care of the witch. Whether or not we did, I don’t know. I woke up before we reached her again.
onmouseout of a Div Tag Successfully
The frustrating thing about being a web developer is when you’re trying to accomplish something as simple as a menu popping up when the mouse hovers over a link… but it just won’t work. The obvious solution is to use “onmouseover” on the link to make a div tag visible, then use “onmouseout” on the div to make it invisible. But this produces a very screwy menu:
The problem is that any time the mouse moves from one element to another (in this case, from the div tag to a link inside the div tag), it counts as an “onmouseout.” Thus, the menu closes. Every suggestion I found, however, wanted to use complex Javascript to follow the parent target of the mouse and blah, blah, blah. It’s not important, because it still doesn’t account for quick mouse movement. But here’s what you can do. Add “onmouseover” events to each of the links inside the div tag as well as the div tag itself that will continue to display it.
It may not be elegant code to repeat events that many times, but at least it works. And at least it makes sense! Well… if you have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s the Javascript function that shows and hides the menu:
function showlinks(x) {
if (x == 1)
document.getElementById('morelinks').style.visibility = 'visible';
else
document.getElementById('morelinks').style.visibility = 'hidden';
}
And here’s the HTML template. Notice how many times we end up calling the function with “onmouseover” and “onmouseout.” Passing a 1 means show it and a 0 means hide it. Right now, it will only hide when the mouse moves out of the div tag. You can also add this to the main link.
<a href=" " onmouseover="showlinks(1)">my website</a> <div id="morelinks" onmouseover="showlinks(1)" onmouseout="showlinks(0)"> <a href=" " onmouseover="showlinks(1)">characters</a> <a href=" " onmouseover="showlinks(1)">videos</a> <a href=" " onmouseover="showlinks(1)">music</a> <a href=" " onmouseover="showlinks(1)">writing</a> <a href=" " onmouseover="showlinks(1)">programming</a> </div>
Now go make some menus.
Caption Contest Hits the Homeland
As promised, the caption contests would still continue even after returning home from China. And once again, a beautiful Changzhou comb is up for grabs. The contest will stay open for two weeks, but the reward will only be available to US residents this time. Sorry, guys; that international shipping is a pain.
Well, since only two people participated, I think this is going to be the last one. Congratulations to Hopfrog, though. Your second caption, “What wire? Hehe, oh that wild and wacky duo! Mr. Clark and Haibo you’ve done it again!” made me laugh the most. References to the website are always a plus!
Don’t Give Up on Chinese!
Every few months, I go through my old bedroom in my parents’ house and find new things to give or throw away. On returning from China, it was apparent I don’t do this enough. Man, I have a lot of junk. So I went through everything again and ditched even more stuff. Then the garbage man hauled the trash away, and I wheeled the garbage can back around the house. Curious, I glanced inside the can and saw that one thing didn’t make it into the garbage truck. It was my little case of character flashcards from my Chinese 1010 class.
I guess that’s a sign that I shouldn’t give up learning Chinese just yet. Don’t worry, I haven’t!
TV Roundup: Volume 10
Community (Season 1)
Having been to a community college, I was looking forward to a new show that poked fun of those unfortunate bastards who couldn’t (or refused to) get accepted by a better university. Mid-season, though, it became apparent the “community college” theme was only an excuse to allow what are your basic high school characters to drink past curfew. True, community college is kind of like an extension of high school, but many of the characters are old. Hey, Chevy Chase is in it, and he’s aged well past the point when he was ever funny. Then there’s the obligatory but tedious “they hate each other / they like each other” relationship, and the need to give so many actors screen time every episode results in disjointed story lines that rarely wrap up in satisfying ways. Community isn’t a complete waste, though. There are some very, very funny moments, particularly anything involving the students’ Asian Spanish teacher whose apathy towards teaching is hilariously relatable. All the padding in between, however, is absolutely boring.
Modern Family (Season 1)
I’m glad the traditional sitcom, with its irritating laugh track, is seeing a decline, but I’m not too thrilled with the new wave of documentary-style shows. Modern Family, however, finally uses this style well. The camera operator doesn’t get carried away with too many zooms, the actors only subtly acknowledge the camera’s presence, and interviews don’t feel like they’re pulling actors out of the immediate action. It works. I’m actually surprised by Modern Family… in a good way. It’s an ABC comedy, but it’s so unlike anything else I’ve seen from the network. Music is rarely used. It doesn’t ham up the jokes. The characters are realistic portrayals of—get this—modern families! I don’t think “comedy” is the best classification for it, though. The show doesn’t feel like it’s trying to be funny, nor does it feel like it’s trying to be dramatic. It really feels like an honest view of three related families who just happen to do amusing things sometimes and life-learning things at other times.
Prison Break (Season 1)
I have the same problem with Prison Break that I did with Dexter. A good three-hour movie has been spread across 22 episodes, and the end result takes way to long to get to the rewarding stuff. True, 24 is the same way, but every episode of 24 was exciting. Prison Break hits a lot of lulls, and I frequently found myself screaming, “Escape from prison already!” The hitches the gang’s escape plan runs into are more irritating than thrilling, although there were a few times when I was genuinely concerned about what would happen in the next episode. My biggest problem with the show, though, is that I just don’t like the characters I’m supposed to like. Ringleader Michael Scofield is ambiguous and level-headed to an annoying degree, and the rest of the “heroes” just aren’t very convincing. The best actors are those who ended up playing the sleazy scumbags, but because they’re sleazy scumbags, it’s hard to like them. Sleazy scumbags.
Scrubs (Seasons 1-3)
This is a show that feels like it’s patting itself on the back for not using a laugh track, but all they’ve done is replace audience laughter with cheesy sound effects and obnoxious music cues. I bitch about the music in everything I watch, but Scrubs really overdoes it and either uses ill-fitting music for its montages… or drags those musical montages on for too long. It’s the worst use of music I’ve seen in a TV show. Barring that, Scrubs still manages to be a harmless and easily digested comedy/drama. But there’s the catch. One minute, it’s rambunctious and over-the-top, then suddenly it switches gears, and now we’re supposed to be sad about a dying patient. One of these extremes needed to be more subtle, because trying to juggle both just makes me feel guilty for laughing moments earlier and/or bored when the slapstick stops. You could call it a dark comedy if you really wanted to justify it, but then there’s that music again, telling me how to feel. Let me do it myself!
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