Avernum 5

I've stayed away from the Avernum series since I failed to finish the first installment; finally burned out on the clunky interface and sub-par graphics, then lost interest. I'm a hardcore old-school CRPG fan, but maybe not that much.

Now, several years after, I've returned to Avernum, intending to playing through the fifth in the series. And what a pleasant surprise to see that while it still looks like the same engine, there has definitely been a lot of improvements, particularly in the ease-of-play department: a great tutorial and prologue, online help, streamlined GUI, and fun gameplay.

Avernum 5 definitely addressed most of the negative issues since the first game, opening up the old-school RPG style to a wider audience (i.e. me, hahah). 

Sam & Max: Season One

Finally got around to playing Sam & Max: Season One. This time around, the crazy duo is back in a 6-episode adventure that brings a lot to both hardcore and casual adventure gaming fans everywhere.

Installed this baby about a week ago, and now, I've breezed through all six adventures in a mad whirl of week-long gaming.  I think this is the first time in months that a game has managed to keep my hyper-active attention span till completion, so that's something. Granted, each episode can be easily completed within five to six hours, so there's that too.

But still Season One is a solid game: the puzzles are a bit on the easy side (it wasn't until Episode 6 that I began to get stumped, although that could be more from getting tired and not paying much attention than anything else) and the stories are hilarious and entertaining.

Best Episode of Season 1: Episode 5 - Reality 2.0. With its spoof of online gaming and a surprising homage to text-based adventure games along with references to fantasy roleplaying games, this episode stands out as the best out of all six for me.

I'm about to start Season 2 once I've installed it, and I'm also looking forward to playing their classic old game, Hit the Road. 

Puzzle Quest: Galactrix

Puzzle Quest: Galactrix is Infinite Interactive's latest connect-three/role-playing game hybrid, a science fiction follow-up from their previous fantasy offering, Puzzle Quest: Quest of the Warlords.

Instead of a square board, the playing field has been redesigned with hexagonal gems, and the battle system is intended to simulate two ships having a dogfight in space. Different gems power various tech installed on your ship, with blue gems regenerating your Shield energy and mine gems representing direct attacks on the enemy ship. Play continues back and forth with you and the enemy ship alternating turns.

I've just installed it today on my HP notebook running Vista Home Premium, and so far, its working great. It does load a tad slow when you start the program, but maybe my box is to blame partly for that (or, more to the point, Vista is). So far, I've clocked in several hours' worth of play already; this game, like its fantasy predecessor, is quite addicting!

Other things to do include mining, where you attempt to connect a series of three resources before running out of moves; resources can then be sold at ports for money. Ports buy resources at different rates, so you have another "mini-game" trying to find where it is best to sell your Food, Isotope, or Gold cargo. And then there's the stargate hacking minigames, where you need to connect a sequence of gems before the timer runs out; stargates allow access to other star systems, which you'll need to have in order to move around and complete the game's various quests.

There's also several different factions in the game, and your quests and actions alter your score with each faction. Initially, there are four human mega-corporations, but soon enough, relationships with other races and factions, like the Pirates, will also be added and tracked. 

All in all, Galactrix is a solid science fiction RPG with a puzzle combat system, a game that's highly recommended whether you're an RPG fan and/or a puzzle fan, and whether you're a hardcore or a casual gamer.

KiVa ends, Decade begins

A couple of weeks ago, Kamen Rider KiVa ("King of Vampires") ended. I've followed the masked tokusatsu series for 40 weeks--a mad fun romp between two eras (1986 and 2008), between father and son, between laughter and tears. And through it all, I've witnessed KiVa and IXA's battle against the Fangires (vampiric stained glass monsters that feed on human lifeforce) and their ruling council: the Checkmate Four.

A year ago, I tuned in on KiVa because Engine Sentai Go-onger's pilot left me feeling cold. Sure, these are kids shows, but even I must draw the line when the show's got more than one cute animal-esque mascots. Magiranger wasn't like that! My beef with the Kamen Rider franchise is its solo heroes, although recent series (particularly Ryuki and now, Decade) feature more than just one or two Riders. I've always preferred an ensemble as opposed to a single protagonist.

But this time, I didn't mind as much. And so I started acquiring KiVa over the course of some 40 weeks. And enjoyed the show immensely.

With Kiva ended, the franchise moved on to its latest title--Kamen Rider Decade--the very next week. From the pilot I just viewed, I think it's got something of a Sliders-esque vibe going, with the masked hero traveling to the 9 other Rider worlds, parallel universes that were the homes of the previous actual Riders of the series. Episode 1 ended with Decade appearing, and being given an identity, in Hyuuga's (1998 series) world.

Notetaking and Organizing Has Never Been This Fun

I just got a new laptop (an HP Pavilion) last Tuesday and I haven't finished fiddling around with it. I plan to make it my PC-away-from-home as I expect it should be, so I've basically setting it up for work-related stuff, although I've also installed some games like Fallout 3 and Dungeon Siege just because. I'll also be using it for my writings, that dream job I keep plugging at on the side.

Anyways, it came with Vista so it's also a new experience for me. Vista's almost just like XP anyway, but with a slightly better-looking interface, and a decidedly anti-game-installing bent (hahah).

One of the coolest applications that is installed right now on my new notebooks is Microsoft OneNote. I just fired it up earlier tonight and I'm still giddy with the awesome potential of this little program. It's included as part of the Microsoft Office 2007 suite, and it allows you to organize notes into electronic notebooks. The niftiness can be applied to everything: work, personal stuff, research, and, most of all, RPG campaign planning! It'd probably also be great for novel writing notes.

Over the course of the next few days, I suppose I'll be tinkering with it a bit more, entering RPG stuff and all.

That's it for now.

Supplies

Los Baños' recent adoption of paper bags in wrapping all its groceries does have one advantage: other people can't see what you've bought. So people now can't see that what I mostly buy at Robinson's are multiple packs of Marlboro Lights Menthol as well as CoffeeMate Hazelnut...

It looks like progress, but it sure as fuck isn't

Recently, the municipality of Los Baños have instituted the latest stupidity since they stepped on smokers' rights: paper bags.

Despite what the morons who made this policy may think, it isn't environmental, it isn't cool, and it sure isn't fucking hip. It looks like some slapsoil peon with a relative from the U.S. hit upon this idea, and thought, mistakenly as Asian monkeys are wont to do, that aping such a practice is a realistic and ideal thing.

It isn't. It's hard to carry a reasonable degree of groceries wrapped in flimsy bags of cheap brown paper, and they don't have a convenient handhold unlike traditional plastic bags. Sure, the makeshift carton bags they provide are handy, but they only provide those occasionally. This has prevented me, and a lot of fellow customers, from buying, say, even 2 or 3 one-litre bottles of Minute Maid, among other bottled products.

It is these conceited statements of illusionary progress that makes me want to just go and take the life of these evolutionary-challenged people in power. All of them are ill-thought-out: no littering on the streets when there's virtually no trashcans anywhere, not to mention a crappy garbage collection service. Not to mention how they transgress against smokers' rights by disallowing smoking in PUJs; that's our fucking right, and noone, not even your fucking God, has any right to take it away! And then there's the paper bags: all it does is makes grocery-shopping (among other things) inconvenient for the typical consumer. And it'd be a bit more bearable if we actually had a recycle plant in town, which would of course be the whole point of using recyclable paper bags. But nooo.

So they're all shitty ideas presenting a community of progress to the world, but in reality on succeeds at proving that Filipinos, at least here in Los Baños and especially those in public office, has not progressed much beyond the level of apes.

I'm giving the finger--no, TWO fingers--to the mayor of Los Baños, whoever the fuck he is.

Tonight's Rated K Proves Once Again How Much Filipino TV Sucks

Like they do every freaking day, local Philippine TV stations continually pump out swill and garbage. Just tonight, Rated K, a "popular" (and by "popular," I mean "probably watched by the unwashed monkeys of the P.I.) Sunday night "informative" (hahah!) magazine show, has proven that Pinoy TV, never at stellar levels to begin with, can sink to even more deplorable lows.

Currently featured in tonight's segments, if several footages copied and pasted by a backwater monkey can even be called that, are stories about losers who apparently have been given a second chance by their loser God. It's actually a close competition which one, mortal or deity, is an even bigger loser, seeing as the mortal losers are what one may call prime candidates for Darwinian extinction (I mean, what the fuck? One of the featured is someone who apparently held on to a fucking live wire; only an even more stupid God could have let that one live; do us all a favor why don't you, and clean the freaking gene pool of idiots already!).

Speaking of which, noone idiot could even be more moronic than the show's apparent host, Korina Sanchez. Framing each of these idiot's crap life stories as proof that their God exists and is willing to forgive and forget... Hahah. Give me a break. But then what can anyone expect from a local two-bit television whore who's better off doing Philippine pornos instead.

Fuck.

Yet Another Update Post

For the past couple of weeks I've been immersed with the new and very addicting computer roleplaying slash strategy game, King's Bounty: The Legend. It's the sequel to New World Computing's Kings Bounty, the game that eventually inspired the Heroes of Might & Magic series. I like the new King's Bounty better than any of the HoMM installments though, with its focus on single player play and more exploration and roleplaying quests. This means you visit towns but you don't have to think about an enemy hero conquering it later, and there's no need to wait in between turns as enemy heroes act. I've done a lot of stuff in the game already, and there's still so much to do...

Still haven't finished Mother 3.

I joined NaNoWriMo 2008, but I haven't written a word yet!

Just today, on the commute home, I fired up Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords on my DS Lite yet again--that incredible mixture of connect-three and RPG which I wasn't able to finish before. Right now, it's calling me, even with a lot of other games still on the backlog. Two notable ones being DragonQuest IV: Chapters of the Chosen, an awesome remake of the hardcore Japanese console RPG, in which I'm at very last chapter; and Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney (Objection!) where I'm currently trying to solve that concert murder...

I hope to run D&D 4E before the year is out.

Oh, and I just saw the 2-episode premiere of Legend of the Seeker--Raimi's new fantasy series for TV (finally another one, and HBO's A Song of Ice and Fire is just around the corner too!)--and it was fucking awesome. Finally, a show on TV that's not afraid of taking on all of the tropes of an EPIC FUCKING FANTASY. Here's to looking forward to the rest of the season!

Sigh. So many games, so little time...

Mother 3 (EarthBound 2) English Translation!

Finally, an English translation for the sequel to the one of the greatest console roleplaying game of all time, EarthBound, has been completed! 

I was overjoyed when, a few minutes before now, I read the email notice the translation team sent. Now, October 19, Sunday, at roughly 2:45 in the morning, I am about to start playing Mother 3, embarking on another epic journey that's been 12 years in the making...

PC Gaming

Lately, in a fit of crazy procrastination, I've been playing some games again on my PC. Instead of the mere blank-staring-at-the-monitor-trying-to-write-something activity that I sometimes do...

Baldur's Gate, the EasyTutu version, has long laid dormant in my PC since summer. Lately, I've made some progress, mostly completing the various sidequests that can be found in the city. Whew, that sure is a big city. But I'm ready to move on. Maybe give me a couple more weeks or so.

Then there's Neverwinter Nights. I've recently reinstalled this, since I still haven't finished the later Premium Modules, and I needed an RPG fix after uninstalling Oblivion. Anyway, a couple of days ago, I started playing it again, just to peek into an adaptation of the old SSI AD&D Goldbox CRPG, Pool of Radiance, for research purposes. Yes, I'm running a damn Ruins of Adventure game on rPol, using AD&D 2nd Edition rules. How did I get roped into that? Well, the DM dropped out, and I just had to offer to DM in her place. I was in a tabletop RPG high at the time, I think. Now, it's feeling like I've bitten a little bit more than I can chew (I have three other games to run afterall) but, of course, I couldn't let the gaming group down.

Anyway, the NWN Pool of Radiance adaptation was a bit too simplistic for my tastes, so little help there. Fortunately, I also finally managed to get another installer for NWN2, which also had another, and I think better, adaptation of the classic module/CRPG. So I installed it last Sunday, and, after a few hours of downloading the patches and the module, have it up and running. I cribbed some notes from the module, then planned the Slums. Nothing on graph paper. Just a bit of an outline of stuff they'll run into and when. That's one of the great things about play-by-posts: it's a lot easier to just wing it than in face-to-face games. Although the good GM need to at least plan out the story in advance a little bit, just in case Real Life(tm) starts getting in the way.

Tinkering with both Neverwinter Nights games has got me playing Pirates of the Sword Coast (which I left around the part where you finally reach Spindrift Isle) as well as the NWN2 Original Campaign (which I had to restart because I haven't kept a savegame from when I had it last installed and because I also can't remember much of what I've played before).

This afternoon, I finally finished Pirates of the Sword Coast: the final boss fight was a bit difficult but it was a good thing I bought a lot of Potions of Cause Critical Wounds (because the endgame turns you into undead). It was crazy running around for position and guzzling Potions of Haste, then hacking at the huge Aspect of Umberlee, all the while Sahuagin and the other Aspect is harassing you with arrows and swords and spells. My two companions, the pirate Nihar and the lizardman Garm, fell unconscious early on. I think I didn't give them enough gear to survive.

Still, all's well that ends well and PotSC was a well-made and entertaining module. I think I'll try that Premium Module set in Cormyr next. The one that makes use of the horse mount graphics.

And then there's Deus Ex: Invisible War. I got over my allergy of FPSes (that's First-Person Shooters, for all you nongamers) long enough to want to install this and play through more than just the prologue and I must say, I'm very pleasantly surprised. Multiple paths and solutions through the game truly make this game worthy of all the hype and fanboyism it engendered in its heyday. It's almost just like a huge Adventure game (I mean the genre, of course; i.e. like King's Quest, Grim Fandango, The Longest Journey, etc.) with fighty parts!

But it's Sci-Fi. And not RPG enough. Which gave me thirst for a fantasy version. But I couldn't go through all that crap to install Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion again. So off into my DVD archives to hunt down the nearest fantasy analog to Deus Ex that I can find: Arx Fatalis. Turns out the game's also being re-released in the next few months and it has just received a new patch! After all these years, imagine that. I don't think enough people knew of Arx Fatalis. Not now, not even back in 2002 (?) when it was first released. But it truly is a gem of the deep mines. Exploring AF's subterranean world gives me that same feeling I got way back when I first discovered the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks (now that's another story for another day).

Then there's the recently-released Dragon Quest: Chapters of the Chosen on my Nintendo DS. I've always been a fan of DQ, and I even prefer it to Final Fantasy. FF IV's been remade and also released on the DS but as soon as Dragon Quest was out, I put Cecil's quest on hold. Don't get me wrong. Final Fantasy IV is probably one of my favorite installments in the series so far, and I've played them all except for the MMORPG FF XI. But the Dragon Quest series captures that feel that can only be called "classic CRPG fantasy" for me. Add to that a dash of the naughty, the innocent, and a sprinkling of your favorite fairytale. That's what Dragon Quest means to me.

Back in the SNES days, I think the Dragon Quest series as well as the two Lufia games had much more enjoyable gameplay than Final Fantasy's superpower buildup.

It's almost a quarter past one in the morning here, and I've got classes to teach in the morning, so I think I'll have to cut it short.

Until next post, game on.

New TV Seasons

Ah, September. The last month for most of us folks working in the academe here in the Philippines. Also the month of new season premieres for our favorite US television shows!

This weekend, I noticed utorrent being sluggish. Well, we can't have that now, can't we? Especially not when Prison Break season 4's already four episodes in, with the fifth airing tonight! Fortunately, a reconfiguration of my settings was enough; utorrent's chugging along perfectly now, using much of my download speed (which I won't mention out of embarassment).

So far, I've only watched House, M.D. Season 5 premiere (spoiler: Nooo, Wilson, don't gooo!), although I've already finished downloading the first two eps of Prison Break season 4 (I promised my sis we'll watch it together when she comes home for the weekend... Hey, sis, if you read this, COME. HOME. NOW. I don't want to be too far behind. Though I may be amenable to a marathon). Both my PC and the cable modem are still working on completing the Supernatural s4 premiere as well as Prison Break s4's episode 4 (I hope they finish soon!). Oh, and I also decided to pick up J.J. Abrams' new X-Files-ey TV series, Fringe.

Two more TV shows are returning this coming week as well: Heroes (I sure hope they don't botch it like they did last season) and Chuck (go, geeks!).

In other news, I'm still buried under a ton of papers to grade.

RPGTonight.com

My tabletop RPG campaign is well underway. You can see the session logs and wiki over at Obsidian Portal. The system I'm using is Savage Worlds and the campaign is the first Savage Setting, Evernight, a fantasy campaign with a twist.

I've currently got 4 players--Benjun, Krishlex Reyval, Raphael--all of whom were my batchmates from highschool. I hope they're enjoying the game as much as I'm loving running it. On a semi-related note, I miss my home group (but that's Real Life(tm) for you).

Anyway, running Evernight has whet my appetite for more gaming, so I've been searching for an online solution to roleplaying. My previous VTT ("virtual tabletop") of choice was ScreenMonkey, which I got for free when I ran a game for CyberCon 2004.

But my current ISP, kwiknet, won't give me an external IP address, so players can't connect to any servers I'd run. That goes for the other VTTs as well (like MapTool, which I've been dying to try out). 

So that's the status quo.

Fortunately, my search turned up a surprising discovery: RPGtonight. I was actually looking more at using irc for the main game and some online solution for the battle board. RPGtonight offers all that without needing to run any servers. Everything happens on their side!

The downside is, currently, the site's character sheet functionality is d20-geared, but I think it's workable down to the dicerollers. The sheer potential of this site is unbelievable.

I'll post more once I've experimented with RPGtonight's tools a little more this weekend! I hope I can round up some victims--err, players--to try the site out.

Quick Update: Evernight

Created a campaign website over at the Obsidian Portal. Here's a banner link to the campaign:

Savage Worlds: Evernight

Finally starting up an RPG campaign again tonight, after our biweekly Texas Hold 'Em game. This will be the first time I'll be GMing a Savage Worlds game, and I'm filled with both trepidation and hope--this first-time demo could make or break the campaign. I've got 4 potential players so far: one's really hyped so no problems there; the other three's game enough to try, but if I botch the demo, there's a huge possibility they won't continue on.

This is also the first time I'll be GMing again in, like, four or five years. The ol' gamemastering wheels could be rusty. Well, we'll find out soon enough.

The campaign will be Evernight: The Darkest Fantasy, the first Savage Setting ever published by the Pinnacle Entertainment Group, Savage Worlds' wonderful publishers. I'll be starting the game off with Against the Orcs though, retooled as a sort of Act Zero to Evernight. 

Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift

I didn't like FFTA for the GBA as it was too kiddie-fied for my tastes. That was why I was pleasantly surprised when I booted the cartridge for Final Fantasy A2: Grimoire of the Rift. It seems like they took each and every mistake in the first game and corrected them, improving the sequel into an almost perfect game.

And it is perfect so far. I'm about 10 hours into the game and it has taken hold of me, gluing me to my DS Lite, making me move the sword-like cursor around on the overland maps, guide my little army around pseudo-3D battle terrain, change their jobs, finish quests, and... I could go on. There's a ton of things to do in this game, aside from following the main storyline.

Square Enix has got another winner with this one. My gaming ADHD doesn't seem to be kicking in (yet) and it seems it won't for a score or so hours more. I think I'll finish this game by the time the Final Fantasy IV remake releases (July 22).

Jose Rizal: Pinoy Hero and Zero

Jose Rizal is the Philippines national zero--err, hero, and today, the city of Calamba as well as the entire province of Laguna celebrated his birthday.

There were nonsensical parades ordered by the city officials where poor students and laborers were forced to march hither-thither while the higher-ups belched like the swines they are in lavish official banquets.

The legacy of Rizal lives on in his works, particularly his two novels which are required reading in middle and tertiary schools throughout the country. The two novels are typical of most contemporary Pinoy fiction, the two-bit paperback ones about romance domestic helpers usually thumb through with their meager read-slowly-while-mouthing-the-words literacy skill.

No, they weren't particularly good. In fact, they were downright boring, even rivaling J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy in terms of sleep-inducing effect. But I guess being the first Filipino to actually write a novel, much less publish two, it was some achievement for a race not much removed from apes.

In other fronts, Rizal managed to spark a religion of his own, yet more proof of the idiocy of the people of the Philippine islands.

I've run out of steam for this rant for now, and as I look back, it seems such a waste of energy for a topic that's so stale and base. Maybe I'll come back and revise and add to this later. But I think the point's been made: Jose Rizal is stupid, honoring him (or anyone from the past) is stupid, and I am superior to him and to everyone else here in the Philippines.

Hahah!

Quick Post

Just a quick post before I hit the shower and then off to work. We have a teaching workshop lined up today (zzZ!). I guess that's it. Hope the day passes by ASAP.

Pokemon Time Exploration Team Restart

Last Sunday, I fell asleep while playing Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time, and when I woke up, my team had wiped, and all our items have disappeared *sad*. So I re-rolled a new hero, and got Skitty this time.

Skitty (Japanese: エネコ Eneco) is a Normal-type Pokémon. Skitty has the ability Cute Charm, which has a 30% chance of inflicting an Attract condition on foes using a direct attack on the Pokémon. Skitty evolves into Delcatty when exposed to a Moon Stone.

I chose a female Torchic as my partner this time.

Torchic (Japanese: アチャモ Achamo) is a Fire-type Pokémon. Torchic comes with the ability Blaze, which increases the power of Fire-type attacks by 50% once the Pokémon has less than one-third of its maximum HP.

I hope I do better this time around. I'll post the rest of my current exploration team next time.

My Current Pokemon Exploration Team!

Here's the current line-up of Team Rogue-Like:

Bong, Lv13 ♂Chikorita (Grass)
Pikachu, Lv13 ♂Pikachu (Electric)
Lileep, Lv11 ♀Lileep (Rock/Grass)
Spinarak, Lv7 ♂Spinarak (Bug/Poison)
Geodude, Lv6 ♀Geodude (Rock/Ground)

If anyone else is playing, here's my Friend Code: 4081-5843-5878.

I frequently check Wonder Mail and SOS requests via WFC, so give a holler if you need anything or just want to say hi.

Explorers of Time and Darkness

Just got the latest Pokemon Mystery Dungeon! Well, one of them, at least. In keeping with true Pokemon tradition, the developers released two parallel versions: Explorers of Time and Explorers of Darkness. Although, the difference between the two appears to be cosmetic, there are apparently certain subtle variations in key plot scenes as well as available pokemon.

I got Explorers of Time, by the way. No main reason; I didn't play enough of the new Pokemon games anyway so I'm unfamiliar with the various pokemon and thus no favorite. Except for Pikachu! Hahah. Explorers of Time sounded a lot cooler than Explorers of Darkness, which sounds a bit too, well, dark.

It's still the same rogue-like gameplay, however, so yay! I was disappointed with the convolutedness of the much-hyped Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer. If I wanted that much punishment from a game, I'd just play nethack instead.

As with the previous installment, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time begins with an "aura reading" where the game asks you several questions in an attempt to determine your "aura color" and thus which starter Pokemon you are. It's a very cool personality-type quiz where they even have this gimmick to ask you to press your finger on the touch screen.

I got a result of "blue" (can't remember what they called it exactly, but it was a dark shade of blue... like navy or something). And the game has determined that I am a Chikorita. That's a Grass-type Pokemon that looks like this:

Anyway, I'm off to bed with my DS Lite. See you all later!

[Let's Play] Dragon Quest V: Bride of the Heavens

Just started a [Let's Play] thread over at rpg.net. I'm playing Dragon Quest V: Bride of the Heavens, which I've never actually finished before. I hope I finish this time around. This should be fun!

I've always loved the Dragon Quest series. Much better than the Final Fantasies in gameplay and sense of wonder and heart. Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King is probably the current crowning achievement of the franchise, the best console RPG ever.

Random Updates

School's ending this week and I've still got a ton of grades to do.

I feel as lost as ever. But this time around, it really isn't as lonely as before. Guess I've got Lariz to thank for that. Looking forward to summer vacation, and spending a lot of time with her...

Perfect World's really far from perfect; I hate the fact that there's no new content, and it's a crummy rules system. The only thing keeping me there before was Say. But even that's... changed. I'm just playing now for the clan. Sanctius is definitely the finest clan ever. Why do I feel so empty?

The Dungeon Master, Gary Gygax died earlier this week. And the world's a darker place without him. I'd really like to do a tribute session for him, time willing. I hope my gaming group clears a weekend or two to do a dungeon romp in D&D. Or maybe Savage Worlds.

That's it. I just wokeup; it's 2:30 a.m. And I'm going back to sleep....

Two Months

Whoa. Has it really been two months since I posted in here?

I'm currently trying to enjoy the semestral break, it being too short for my 
tastes. I think we're supposed to report back around November 6 or something. Sigh.

Anyway, one of my classmates back in highschool threw a party a week ago, celebrating her 8th 25th birthday. A few days ago, I also had my 7th. Damn. I'm getting old.

The gaming group had a sort of mini-reunion last night. After years of almost weekly games, we're reduced to these seasonal sessions, thanks to Real Life(tm). We managed to squeeze in a couple of games of Runebound, using the Doom Track option (to make sure the game actually ends sometime) and Fast Levelups (since the endgame was kicking our collective arses). Levi and Dondon tied for the first game (highest gold) while Archie laid holy Lv23 smackdown right down on Dragonlord Margath in the second game.

Still playing Perfect World Philippines, on the Dragon Server. Glad I met up with a fine clan, Excidium, composed of probably the finest people ever on an MMORPG.

And that's it. See ya next time.

Marvel Heroes

Bought this amazing boardgame last Friday, and only got to play it today. It's another high production value game from Fantasy Flight Games, with 16 superhero and 4 supervillain miniatures. Each player controls one of four of Marvel's superteams: the Avengers (represented in the game by Captain America, Iron Man, The Hulk, and Thor), the Fantastic Four (composed, of course, of The Human Torch, Invisible Woman, Mr. Fantastic and The Thing), the Marvel Knights (Daredevil, Dr. Strange, Elektra and Spiderman), and the X-Men (Cyclops, Jean Grey, Storm and Wolverine). Each player also controls the "nemesis" of the team to their left (respectively, Red Skull, Dr. Doom, Kingpin, and Magneto).

The idea is to manage your team of superheroes effectively as threats appear all over the city of New York, which is divided into six areas in the game. Successfully troubleshooting threats garner victory points (VPs), and the game ends when one of the superhero teams accumulates a set amount of VPs. Victory conditions vary depending on which storyline was chosen at the start of the game (there are 10, ranging from the "default" Born Again which requires only 15 VPs to Brood Wars, which requires the same amount but has special rules).

We managed to play two games, the first one using the Born Again storyline, which was recommended for new players. To win in Born Again, a superhero team must collect 15 VPs). I think we stumbled through the learning curve without hurting ourselves much. I can't remember any highlights since we were a bit busy figuring out the rules, except when I sent out Captain America and he got his white arse handed back to him by Blastaar. The X-Men won the victory, thanks mostly to Logan's adamantium claws.

For the second game, we tried randomly drawing from the other nine storyline cards and came up with Brood Wars, where the goal is 15 VPs as well, but now, Villains marked with the "Most Wanted" icon are considered to be infected by the Brood, raising their attack and defense ratings but lowering their outwit ratings. If three Brood-infected Villains score victories on the superheroes, then it's game over and all the players lose!

One of the highlights of the second game include the massive slugfest between the Avengers' Hulk and a Brood-infected Super Skrull, aided by a lot of other villains. Super Skrull actually managed to clobber the Hulk into submission! Spiderman was also defeated by the Kingpin. The 'Pin only managed to do so by launching a sneaky suprise attack (with the aid of Sandman) right after Spidey had a tough fight with Absorbing Man. Still, between Spidey and Dr. Strange, the Marvel Knights managed to score enough points to claim victory.

The Marvel Heroes Strategy Boardgame is a fast and fun game with some furious dice--err, slugfests, almost accurately depicting the Marvel Universe. The toy factor is a plus as well (20 pre-painted miniatures!). Fans of the Marvel Universe should definitely not miss this experience.

Here's looking forward to the expansions!

Excelsior!

Great, I'm just a six-sider

Take the quiz at dicepool.com

Punk Rock, Sex, and... Videogames?!?

Just saw SLC Punk! tonight; got the dvd rip from bit torrent. It was, for lack of a better term, profound. I've started living the punk philosophy way back when I found out about it, already part of the system. Back then, it filled my emptiness, gave a name to what I've always felt, made real that intangibility which I couldn't put into words. But let's face it: even real punks die. It's a sad fact, but the System swallows everyone and everything. You'd need the System if you wanted to live on. And the gods know how scared I am of dying.

So, yeah, that damn film echoed most of my life experiences so far, echoed it with such clarity it hurts. It's like a wave of melancholy sweeped through me, and I'm faced with the raw reality: life is pain and pain is living.

And a scratching at the back of my mind telling me I'm nowhere. I'm lost. Fuck the crossroads, I'm lost in the freakin' wilderness, waiting for nothing, noone.

Even if a hundred pleas for help were wrenched from my soul they won't reach anyone else's ears.

And enough emo crap.

Gyakuten Saiban 3 just came out yesterday in Japan, and, of course, I got the ROM for my DS (R4 Revolution, baby!). It's weird because it's a Japanese release and yet, it's dual language: Japanese & English! The US release, Phoenix Wright 3: Trials & Tribulations, is set for October. Why wait for the US release when the Japanese cart already has the English version already?

I hope I get some answers soon, 'cause this is really gonna keep me up at nights.

Phoenix Wright returns to kick prosecutor ass in all-new turnabout courtroom dramas chronicling his 3rd year. Yay.

The Bad Taste of RTS

This is gonna be brief since I'm about to leave for our semi-regular poker night (Texas Hold 'Em rules, normally only P50 buy-in).

Yesterday, I installed Warcraft 3 and its expansion, Frozen Throne, in an effort to give the RTS genre another try. The party-based missions were easy enough, but since it is the meat of the game, resource-gathering and building dominate most of the gameplay. I found myself panicking to hit the (non-existent) Pause button during certain points of the game. Good thing I got this game cheap and pirated.

To remove the bad taste of RTS it left in my mouth, I hurriedly installed Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. I've played through this game for a bit before, but I haven't finished it. This time, I made a Scoundrel (as opposed to a Soldier), Laire Random. He seemed to do pretty well during the prologue, and is now ready to explore Taris with Carth. Hopefully, this time I'll finish this game.

In other news, I'm still star-crossed. Wheee.

Crossroads of Destiny

Today, I finally finished watching through my Avatar: The Last Airbender DVDs, wrapping up Books 1 and 2 quite nicely. Season 2 (or the Book of Earth, as the show calls it) ended on a rather The-Empire-Strikes-Back-esque manner, with the fall of the City of Ba Sing Se, the Earth Kingdom capital that has never fallen in the hundred years since the Fire Nation started their insane war.

With two more seasons to go (the Books of Fire and of Air), Avatar is really set up to go down in history as one of the greatest animated epics ever to come out of the US. Paramount is even capitalizing on it right now, having signed on M. Night Shaymalan himself to direct a series of films, the first covering events chronicled in the Book of Water. It's a great time to be an Avatar fan.

Now all Avatar needs is a pen-and-paper RPG adaptation. Hmm. Big Eyes, Small Mouth would be a nice fit, but my system of choice right now is Savage Worlds. Maybe I'll savage Avatar when I get free time...

Of Whalesharks and Gaming

My friends and I went to Donsol, Sorsogon last May 16 to 18, a literally "sleepy" town where the only thing you can do is basically go diving for gigantic whalesharks. I almost drowned the first time I leaped into the seawater. Lifevests are good. Will post pics later (promise!).

Last Monday (May 14), I finished the NWN Hordes of the Underdark campaign. It was great fun using Mephisto's True Name to command him to die. All in all, a very epic ending to the NWN official campaigns.

I've also got all of Bioware's Premium NWN Modules installed, but after playing a bit through each, I'm seriously reconsidering their worth.

For starters, Witch's Wake, apparently their attempt at a "story-oriented" module, is unbalanced and sleep-inducing. Damn killer rats. Being "story-oriented" doesn't mean combat needs to be deadly!

Infinite Dungeons, on the other hand, suffers from too much combat, and has Monty Haul treasures as well. Sure, it took some pretty l33+ scripting sk1llz to pull off ID's random dungeon and item generators, but they didn't have to go overboard and make each and every monster carry a multi-function magical item!

I thought Pirates of the Sword Coast would be a bit better. I mean, how could anyone go wrong with pirates? But I was wrong: one of the very first fights (with those damn gangbangers at the Neverwinter Docks) are a bit impossible to win. And I was really looking forward to this module.

My only hope: Wyvern Crown of Cormyr, Kingmaker, and Shadow Guard. I'm not holding my breath on the last two: I hear they're both a bit short. In any case, there's some awesome fan-designed modules, and I'm looking to start the Shadowlords arc as soon as the fancy strikes me. For now, I think I've had my fill of Neverwinter Nights.

Yesterday, I installed Beyond Good & Evil, as an alternative to NWN. Haven't gotten far into the game beyond the starting sequence though.

On the handheld gaming front, the DS Lite finally got a real RPG: Etrian Odyssey, a turn-based dungeon crawl through a massive "forest" dungeon. The game features balanced character classes, an awesome stylus-based mapping system, and lots of quests and items. Looks like I'm gonna be hooked to my DS for quite some time. Thank you, Atlus!

Late to the Party: NWN Hordes of the Underdark

A couple of days ago, I finished the campaign included with the first Neverwinter Nights expansion, Shadows of Undrentide (SoU). At first, though, it was a bit disappointing because this campaign assumes you start fresh; porting over my level 16 character from the previous campaign was possible but hardly logical, as SoU has you starting as an "apprentice" adventurer.

After four artifacts were stolen from your master's home (a dwarven wizard who's apparently also a Harper) by kobolds, you're tasked to track down and get the artifacts back. This brings you into conflict with the white dragon that rules the kobolds as well as its accomplice, a (Drow?) sorceress that keeps the gnolls in thrall. Caught in between is one of the most interesting NPCs ever created for NWN, Deekin, who'll soon join you as a Kobold Bard. After recovering the artifacts, you find out that one of them (the Tower Statue) was more than it seemed: inside was a mysterious jewel whose true powers can only be identified by journeying across the Anauroch to find your master's archeologist friend. And from there, you end up in the sunken city of Undrentide which the "big boss" wanted to raise up. Undrentide was apparently one of the flying cities of Netheril, an ancient empire which wielded powerful magic compared to present-day standards. The climactic final battle takes place in the highest tower of the city, as the city floats above the desert.

SoU's adventure was a bit shorter than the first campaign's "plague in Neverwinter" storyline, but noticeably better designed. For starters, it was less of a Monty Haul than the previous campaign, and there were really a couple of times (okay, maybe more like a handful) that I had to reload and rethink my strategy in order to continue. The final "boss" fight was also more epic: as I went around smashing the mythallars that gave the medusa sorceress nigh invulnerability, pieces of masonry were starting to float up into the air in a Dragonball-Z-esque way!

Still high from finishing the adventure, I immediately set off on the 2nd expansion's adventure, Hordes of the Underdark. Hordes of the Underdark (HotU) is a direct sequel to the previous expansion, SoU. The hero is assumed to be the same one from SoU, as evidenced by the copy of a book titled Shadows of Undrentide, written by one Deekin. Also, this expansion's teleporting/respawn mechanic, the Relic of the Reaper, is said to have come into the hero's possession during his "brief stay in the Plane of Shadow." People who played SoU would remember that at SoU's end, as Undrentide crashed back to the desert, the hero used the Portable Door (one of the artifacts you gain in the endgame) to flee to the Plane of Shadow.

Deekin also makes a reapperance as your first henchman. Also, some of the henchmen who were available in the first NWN adventure (i.e. the plague in Neverwinter), make their appearance here as a party of adventurers which you would probably need to save at some point in the story.

This time around, it's off to Waterdeep and the mysterious mega-dungeon that lies beneath the city, Undermountain. This time, the City of Splendors faces an attack from the Hordes of the Underdark which apparently is making their way through Undermountain, something that has not happened before. They need a hero to take the fight to them and you are one of those who heeded the call.

So I loaded up Laire Random, my Rouge 6/Fighter 6/Weapon Master 1 character from Shadows of Undrentide, and started the adventure (HotU actually allows you to start out as a fresh Level 15 character but I wanted to play the actual character I went through SoU with). The very first event that happened divested Laire of his gear from SoU. Wah. I've read somewhere that you have a chance to recover them later in the story though. Right now, I'm running around Waterdeep--the small section you're allowed to explore at least; the City's closed a la Neverwinter in the first adventure--trying to get adequately equipped before descending into Undermountain.

Wish me luck!

Out of Town Trip: Subic Beach!

Went to the beach in Subic with the Mez Barkada (basically, batchmates who have stayed in one way or another here in Los Baños). I think it was my first time going out of town with friends, and it was surprisingly fun. The food was great, from the initial snacks on the trip (especially Cel's tuna sandwiches) to the potluck lunch (Paeng and I brought the salted eggs and tomatoes, which got sliced and turned into salad--yum!) to the fantastic dinner (pork liempo plus porkchops plus assorted seafood!).

Didn't do much swimming because I couldn't swim.

I almost won the Texas Hold 'Em Poker match that night. Made it to the final four before becoming bored and wagering off my winnings (largely because of my luck with the river that night) loosely.

The next day, before driving off home, we had lunch at a very nice (but a bit expensive!) place called Meat Plus, a steakhouse, where I had a well-done tenderloin that really hit the spot.

From there, we stopped for an hour at the Subic Duty-Free mall (forgot what it was called) but I was disappointed, both by the selection and the prices. Still, I got some sort of scented crystals for ashtrays, since they were selling them for about $1 each.

I'm waiting for my friends to post the pics of the outing.

And I do hope we do it again. Go out of town and have fun, that is.

Just watched my latest download of House M.D.

"Commitment is only commitment because it has no expiration date." --Dr. Foreman to Dr. Cameron, House M.D. season 3, episode 14.

Why do I feel...demoted?

Just got back from seeing my "girl" off at MIA, again (people tell me it's called NAIA now, but I refuse to recognize the name change because some stupid Pinoy loser went off and got himself killed there; google up "Ninoy Aquino" and you'll see what I'm talking about).

Note the double quotes surrounding the word "girl" in the above statement. In friendster relationship terms, we're somewhere along "It's complicated" and it's true.

I spent almost the entire week with her and her family, and during that time, I've wondered what I was doing there. Don't get me wrong. It was very fun spending time with her, talking to her, but sometimes, the fact that I'm not actually her boyfriend now seems all too jarring.

Or maybe it's just that she's really focused on her kids now more than ever. Which is a good thing for them. Not exactly a good thing for me. Still, I don't envy the kids that focus; they deserve it more than I do. That's life, I guess.

I'm still pursuing her in this weird second courtship thingy. She's worth it.

Updates!

Woke up early today. Fell asleep some time last night while playing Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney -- Justice For All (the second Turnabout Court game; just finished the first one last night too!). I was probably all tired from the travel: saw my "girl" (it's rather complicated) off at MIA--she's heading back to UAE where she works.

Turns out there's been a goof-off somewhere in her flight booking, and she missed the flight. By the time I found out though, I was well on my way home (about an hour and a half drive away from the big city).

In other news, I also finished my playthrough of the Neverwinter Nights original campaign and am beginning to sink my teeth into the first expansion, Shadows of Undrentide. It's a little disappointing, since you need to create a new character for SoU. Still, I hear Hordes of the Underdark (the second NWN expansion) is actually a sequel of sorts to the first NWN adventure, so all I need to do is finish SoU. After that, it's off to NWN2, which I already had since it released last year but have never gotten to finishing on account of my gaming ADD. Or is it ADHD? Heh. In any case, I want to finish at least the official campaigns for the first NWN before tackling NWN2. No hurry after all.

I loved playing through Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, especially the fifth (bonus) turnabout case. I actually thought it was over after the fourth case, and was very pleasantly surprised when Nick cried out "Hold it!" as the credits stopped rolling. Also trying to juggle a little Pokemon Diamond on the side, but it's more a token gesture to join the craze more than anything. Heh.

Handheld Gaming

Last April 3, I bought myself a Nintendo DS Lite for about Php 10,000. Included in the package was an R4DS (a slot 1 "cartridge" you can load up with NDS ROMs, MP3s, and other media) as well as a 1GB micro SD memory card. It was the best 10k I ever spent.

Right now, I'm trying out all sorts of games, owing to my gaming ADD: from the side-scrolling action of Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin to the weird RPG goodness of Contact. Other games that I'm currently playing include: Phoenix Wright 1, Elite Beat Agents (and its Japanese counterpart whose name escape me at the moment), Hotel Dusk, Megaman ZX, Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, and Age of Empires: The Age of Kings.

Surprisingly, the title that made me buy an NDSL, Puzzle Quest: The Challenge of the Warlords, is getting very little play time despite all the hype and raves from US fans, particularly Penny Arcade.

Now, I need only two more things for perfect handheld gaming: a slot 2 flash cartridge that will allow me to play GBA games (and possibly GB/GBC as well) and a wi-fi dongle (to connect to the Nintendo WFC).

Puzzle Pirates!

Last week was a harrowing one: thousands of final exam papers waiting to be checked, lots of attendance notes to collate, and a non-existent grade record to build. In short, it's the end of a grading term for me, which means it's one of the few times I actually work. Not that I'm thankful, I'd rather really avoid working as much as I can and just wallow in...hedonism.

Anyway, with tons of work to do, I naturally started looking around the net for stuff to occupy my time. Penny Arcade once again showed me the way: a discussion about Puzzle Quest led to them dropping the link to Puzzle Pirates in one of their news posts. Which I promptly clicked.

Puzzle Pirates is a multiplayer puzzle game, all centered around the theme of pirating. Players create their own beginning pirate, and then wander around in a persistent world, doing piratey stuff. It's basically just like an MMORPG, you get an avatar, which you can dress up in piratey gear (Ahr!), and you can interact with the other players: talking, trading, and fighting with them.

In this game, piratey stuff is accomplished by performing various puzzles: for swordfighting (an important piratey skill, useful for fighting duels as well as fighting with your own crew members during a ship grapple), there's a falling block-type of game where blocks can be eliminated by a sword of the same color. As you eliminate more blocks, attacks are dealt to the opponent's own board in the form of grey blocks, blocks that cannot be eliminated until about 2 turns have passed, in which case they turn into random colored blocks. A pirate gets knocked out when he booches it; that is, his entire board is filled, and there's no more space for falling blocks.

Different puzzles represent working on the bilge pumps (those pumping out water from the hold of a ship), sailing (my favorite; determines how fast your ship goes), carpentry (for patching up holes on the ship's hull during a voyage), and even gunnery (operating the four-cannon ensemble common on most ships).

What's more interesting is that you can become a member of the crew of a real player-run ship, with a Captain in command, calling the shots, a Navigator, several Sailors to fill the ship's sail with wind, Bilge Pumpers, Gunners....and this whole shipload of pirate players gets to sail all over, looking for plunder and pillaging!

My character, Lenard (Sage Server), started out just knowing how to sail (probably the easiest puzzle to pick up), and was content with that as long as he gets paid his cut of the booty. Sure, sometimes, when the Captain grapples with the other ship, he had to let go fo the sails and draw his foil, wading into a battle royale with the crew of the other ship. But that's just icing on the cake. Ahr.

Haruhiism

It's been almost a year since I first heard of and watched The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, it's a comedy/slice-of-life/highschool series that's unlike any other. Since then, I've been a fan of Haruhi, reading the light novels on my cel as they get translated into English (thank you, ReadManiac!). This afternoon, I got an urge to rewatch the entire series again (in chronological order). Damn, I really missed the S.O.S. Brigade, especially Yuki!

It's nice to hear that it's being released in English. I definitely must have a copy! I've heard somewhere that there's going to be a live-action movie. I don't know about that, but I wish they'd adapt the rest of the stories into anime.

Puzzle Quest

I've found yet another reason to buy a DS Lite. I hope my meager finances can handle it. (Why are you so poor, Kenny?)

The PC Demo for Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords had me both addicted and a bit disappointed. Addicted because, well, it's a damn good pick-up game, perfect for casual gamers who can only squeeze in small amounts of time to play, or the consummate hardcore who can sit in front of his PC for inhuman lengths of time. Disappointed because the PC demo cannot be converted into a full version of the game! Aaargh. Right now, the publishers are focusing on the handheld console releases (DS and PSP).

The game is the latest following the trend of crossing puzzle games with RPG elements (if it can be called a "trend;" as far as I know, there's also Bookworm Adventures, which is another highly-recommendable game): this time, RPGs are crossed with a connect-3 puzzle (as seen in Bejeweled, Diamond Mine, and similar games) where you're presented with a grid of gems. You swap adjacent gems and if it connects a line of three or more similar gems, those gems are scored, taken off the board, and more gems fall into the empty spaces--pure, simple fun that'll siphon several hours of your day.

It's a fairly involved game from what's been hinted at in the demo:

You create your character from one of four classes, each with its own style and set of skills (Druid, Knight, Warrior, and Wizard). After a quick character creation part where you pick your character's class, picture, and name, you're then taken into the world, represented by a map with terrain and cities and roads connecting cities.

Central to the game are quests, that you can find in cities with marked with a "!". Green !'s denote side quests, while Red !'s indicate important quests that will advance the storyline.

Aside from questing, there's a lot of other things to do. You can build buildings that'll open up new abilities and minigames, capture monsters, lay siege to cities, and even forge items. I hope those features live up to expectations since you can barely try them out in the demo (you're limited to Level 7).

All in all, even if I do get this on the DS Lite, I'd still want it on my PC. I hope Infinite Interactive releases the full PC version soon.

Oh right, fans of the Warlords series of strategy games may feel right at home, as this game is set in the Warlords' world of Etheria.

Game on.

Neil Gaiman's Stardust

Wow. Yet another movie to look forward to.

The trailer does hint that the film's more...epic than my reading of the novel. I don't really remember any pirates riding airships in the book; I know I would have remembered if there were any. I liked the novel's "fairy-tale-esque-ness" but like other Gaiman books (like American Gods and Neverwhere), I got that feeling of being held back--as in "wow, this premise is cool; this or that event will surely happen" except Gaiman doesn't go where you expected. That's a good thing, right? NOT! Well, normally it is, unless it's Gay-man at the helm, in which case he takes you in a disappointing direction.

Anyone else felt Shadow needed a good thwack up the side of the head, or for that matter, all the characters in American Gods?

Transcendence

It's the end of the semester and I'm supposed to be grading a lot of papers. Ever the procrastinator, I naturally grab this opportunity to scour the 'net looking for something to do! Which means only one thing: games!

Almost immediately, I stumble upon this little gem. Liberated Games features commercial games that have been "liberated" into the public domain, through various licenses. This effectively means that they're now free for download. This also means that the game's probably too old too enjoy. Unless it's a classic.

Anyway, I started trying out games left and right, and found Lure of the Temptress! It's Revolution Games' first adventure, right before they started making The Broken Sword series. It's a little old, having been released in the early '90s, but it's still a fun point-and-click adventure, especially because its key features seems to be NPCs that carry on with their lives, walking through town, talking with each other, etc. This game is a definite must-play for adventure gaming fans.

Aside from Lure, I also discovered Transcendence.

Actually, Transcendence wasn't listed; Anacreon was. But as it turned out, Anacreon was Transcendence's sister game. And I found out about Transcendence through a link on Anacreon's other games page.

Since watching Firefly and Serenity, I've longed for a game where you get a ship and then just wander all over the galaxy, trading stuff, fighting other ships, going on the odd mission, and upgrading your ship. In short, I wanted a spaceship game that's set in a sandbox. One of my gaming friends suggested X2, but that wasn't it. Star Control 2: The Ur-Quan Masters was a bit too difficult for me; I don't have much patience with bad design decisions. I'd settle for turn-based spaceship battles, rather than fast-paced frantic shooting.

Transcendence is a little like Star Control 2, except you start out a bit less wimpy: initial battles in Transcendence are quite fun, in fact; the first battle in SC2 is fun only if you're a masochist.

Anyway, try it out.

Game on.

Perfect World Closed Beta Test Contest Part 2!

Chances are, if you're a Pinoy gamer, you're probably all hyped up about Level Up's upcoming MMO, Perfect World (like me). And there's even an even greater chance that you can't wait to get your grubby paws on a Closed Beta Test account (ahem, again, like me). Thankfully, Level Up's GM Tristan is giving out three accounts per day until the CBT opens.

Here's how to join, taken directly from his blog:

HOW TO JOIN

1. Open only to gamers residing in the Philippines (PW Philippines CBT is locked to our country, sorry)

2. If you already won at the first contest or at Waukster.com, then you are ineligible. Period.

3. Second, like before, to join the contest, you MUST *subscribe* to my blog via my Feedburner e-mail applet on my right sidebar. Be sure to *activate* your subscription. Inactive subscribers cannot win.

4. Now, it’s time to be creative. Instead of just simple questions, I’ll be throwing pretty hard “complete-me” phrases (or some equally “evil” brain teases). This will be posted everyday.

5. There will be three (3) winners everyday until the PW Closed Beta on March 28, 2007. Winners will be announced here regularly.

6. Instead of submitting to my email, you have to submit your answers to perfectworld@levelupgames.ph, the PW Team will randomly select the most creative answers and inform me ASAP. Before, it was submitting fast and being first… now, even if you’re late but you have a cool answer, you still have a chance of winning.

DON’T FORGET TO INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION in your e-mail

Complete Name
Complete Address (with zip code preferably)
Age
E-mail address
MylevelUp or Netgames username (if you have one. Either will do)
Blog URL (if you have one):
Your email subject must be (GMTO PW CBT 2 – for )

Instructions on how to claim your prizes are here.

7. But wait! There’s more! If you have a blog and include my blog (http://gmtristan.blogspot.com) and Perfect World Philippines (http://www.levelupgames.ph/perfectworld) in your blog roll, (and you replicate this contest on one of your posts) then you get NOT ONE… BUT TWO (2) CBT accounts! Woot!

Perfect World: Race and Class Descriptions

I haven't actually ensured a CBT account yet, but I'm really hyped about this new MMO from Level Up! Using my meager Google-fu techniques and a couple of hours, I've come up with the following race class descriptions that may give some of you people an idea about the character you're going to create in the PW CBT.

Perfect World has three playable races, with each race having access to two classes, one class focused on physical aspects and the other on magic. Both male and female members of the human and elf races may choose either path; only the beasts are locked into a class based on their gender (i.e. male beasts are automatically Warriors and female Beasts are automatically Summoners).

HUMANS are blessed with boundless adaptability, making them excel in both sword and sorcery. Humans may choose to be Swordsmen or Mages.

Swordsman	Mage

• Swordsmen are trained in all aspects of weapons and armor, making them masters of hand-to-hand combat.
• Mages, through long study and meditation, are masters of magic: the secrets of water, fire and earth are theirs to command. They are, however, the physically-weakest characters when just starting out.
  

ELVES are a winged race descended from the Aves (Don't know if this is an actual "ancient race" in PW or if it just meant "birds"). They are the only characters able to fly when just starting out. Elves may choose to be Clerics or Archers.

Cleric	Archer

• Clerics channel the wind, thunder, and electricity--curing their allies and cursing their foes.
  
• Archers are lean and graceful, beautiful but strong. They are masters of the bow, dealing superior long-distance damage.
  

BEASTS are legendary animal spirits made flesh.

Warrior	Summoner

• Male Beasts are Warriors: Attuned to the balance between life and death, they are able to unleash their rage with explosive force. Warriors are also able to shapechange into their respective animal forms.
  
• Female Beasts are Summoners: Blessed with natural charm and beauty that attracts everyone, they are able to call upon the aid of the animal kingdom, as well as shapechange into a Beast Fox (don't really know what this will be called in the real English translation though), which greatly raises their physical combat capabilities.
  

So there you have it. Have you already chosen your character's race and class?

As in previous MMOs I've played, I'm going to first create a human swordsman, whose first strategy would be to charge at an enemy and start the beat-down! I believe this focuses me on exploring the game world, and to get used to the nuances of the game system .  

Tune in next time for the skills of each class!

Sources:
http://kanbisekai.wikiwiki.jp/ for the class details and pics
http://wiki.perfectworld.cc/ for the "official" translations of the race and class names

Perfect World: The Perfect MMO?

Ragnarok Online was my introduction into the world of MMORPGs: I started playing on pRO Chaos during the Beta period, and stayed on for a good two-and-a-half years of my life. Through those years I've met countless friends, made not so few enemies, lost others to the Real World(tm), leveled up, and loved. Sadly, it was that last thing that proved to be my undoing: hearts were broken and my characters were deleted by my ex in an unrivaled act of vengeance.

Since then, I've tried a handful other MMOs, from a short stint in Ran Online to an even shorter stint in Silk Road Online. Lineage II caught my attention for a good long while because most of its features reflect what I've been looking for in a new MMO (chief among others: a full streaming world whose every corner you can explore). Most recently, I took part in the Granado Espada Beta Test--Multiple Character Control is indeed interesting, but too bad that it was all the game really offers.

I first heard of Perfect World when GM Tristan announced his contest on the AEGIS yahoogroup only a few days ago. I've been looking for a new game to satisfy my MMO fix, and so I fired off my Google-fu to find out more about this Chinese-created game. What I found out about it could be summed in one word: perfect.

But here's what I'm eagerly awaiting about Perfect World:

Huge continuous terrain
The entire game world is within one large map that requires no loading or no changing of maps so players can move around without waiting for scenes to change.

I've only seen streaming world content in Lineage II, and was disappointed that more recent MMOs still haven't adopted that new MMO technology. Perfect World gets a whole lot of points from me, just for including this feature.

Day, Night and Weather Shifting
The game shifts from night to day and sunny to rainy season on a regular cycle, changing the view of each area to suit the time. This "real world" effect will immerse the players more effectively in the game.

Oh yeah. Day/Night cycles and weather changes to boot!

Perfect World Mailing System
This enables players to communicate with their online and offline friends, clan mates or factions. Aside from mail, items can also be sent through this unique system.

Sounds a lot like KoL's mailing system because you can also send items. Another winning feature.

Battle in Land, Sea and Air
Each character and class in Perfect World has the special ability and peripherals to fly, trek, and swim in different terrains. Inherent attributes, special equipments, summons or even mountable animals make it possible for characters to not only fly, trek, and swim but also to duel and clash on any of the terrain. Perfect World created a world with flying monsters and floating cities and ruins, all waiting to be explored.

Wow. This just gave me an MMOG-gasm! Now that is a truly 3D world.

Massive Quest/Mission System
The game itself has more than 5,000 quests waiting to be discovered and completed. Quests can be race- and class-specific. Instance quests are available for players who would like to make their own adventures.

Ahh, for me, this is the crowning glory of every MMORPG: a rich collection of quests to occupy your character's time. I have little tolerance for grinding but having quests to fulfill while you do seems to make the time worthwhile. So definitely lots of quests! The use of instancing also adds to the feeling that you're the hero of your own story, which is as it should be. Also, it protects you from the interference of player griefers.

I've barely covered the entire list of features, but the four I've discussed above are my personal faves. You can find the rest of the features here at LUG's Perfect World site.

Perfect World is definitely on my must-play list. Now all I need to do is get a CBT account....

Quotes taken from: http://www.levelupgames.ph/perfectworld/about.html

Unwell

Sigh. This is gonna be one of those emo posts again, isn't it?

Well, here I am again, taking time out from a hectic schedule to blog something. It's been years since I've actually written my thoughts here, I think. I just realized that last night when I tried labeling all of my posts; read the ones at the start, and they're really something. I've forgotten I wrote those things. I guess that's what I'm trying to do now.

Ever since I lost her, I've been drifting along, aimless and alone. That's pretty much emo crap. I've got my job to distract me a bit, but even that's losing it's effect these days. It's been--what?--six months without her already? We do still chat every now and then, but there's this sinking feeling of drifting away farther apart each time we talk. You know when you're desperately trying to save someone, but their blood just keeps running through the fingers you've pressed on their wound in an attempt to staunch the flow of blood, but it's not working, and their dying, and there's nothing else you can do except watch. (Aha! Someone try to say that out loud without pausing for breath!)

It's funny, because, before I met her, I was used to this life. I was used to being alone, doing my own thing, you know: your typical bachelor loser deal. But now, I'm dreading my future, because all I'm seeing is me. Noone else. Stark gray landscape, and just me in it.

Noone else.

Star Frontiers: Remastered!

Star Frontiers, TSR's science fiction roleplaying game, gets a new face-lift in Bill Logan's excellently well-done remastered PDFs!

On his webpage, you can find PDF downloads of Alpha Dawn (Star Frontier's "core" rules), Knight Hawks (the spaceship campaign supplement), and Zeb's Guide to Frontier Space (originally intended to be the first of many volumes but only 1 volume got released; the guide revises Star Frontiers with a tighter, albeit universal-table-based system a la Marvel's FASERIP). Also available are remastered PDFs of Parts 2 and 3 of the Volturnus trilogy of modules (Part 1 of the story-arc is included as a sample adventure in the Alpha Dawn core rules), as well as tons of gaming aids from character sheets to quick references to map to minis--practically everything you need to get started adventuring on a far-flung frontier.

I've a fond space in my heart reserved for Star Frontiers. The game was one of the first RPGs I've ever run, after I got the Alpha Dawn boxed set as a gift from my father in the summer of '90. While it wasn't the first RPG I owned (that honor belonged to TSR's Conan RPG), it was the first I fell in love with: poster maps and cardboard counters and all. My group actually took a break from our favorite fantasy fare (I think it was High Fantasy at the time, since we didn't have D&D rules yet), and for the succeeding months, we played only Star Frontiers: from their first job as explorers aboard the Serena Dawn, to their subsequent crash landing on the (not-so) desert planet, and until they've united the local alien races in a huge war against the insidious Sathar in Starspawn of Volturnus. By that time, most of the original characters have been replaced with new ones, as the old ones died in the hostile Volturnus environment.

It was a fun and quirky system, but fun nonetheless.

My group has always talked about going back to it again, but other RPGs--among them various flavors of D&D--and time had so far confounded us. Flipping through these newly-remastered files, I feel an urge to revisit the Frontier once more. Maybe we will, one of these days, if the stars are right.

Yet Another Attempt

So here we go again.

By now, I've realized I'm not into blogging regularly. Too many things need my attention to indulge in this pleasure. But still, here's my blog, moved over to the new blogger system thingy. I still haven't migrated most of old links to stuff. But I plan to do that later. For now, I think I've got a base layout that won't make people vomit on first glance.

Same deal: I post random things that happen to be of interest to me and hope someone's watching....

Supervillain!

Your results:
You are Dr. Doom

Dr. Doom 63% Magneto 61% Dark Phoenix 59% Juggernaut 58% Mr. Freeze 57% Apocalypse 57% The Joker 55% Riddler 52% Lex Luthor 51% Venom 44% Catwoman 43% Kingpin 39% Poison Ivy 34% Mystique 30% Green Goblin 30% Two-Face 22%

Blessed with smarts and power but burdened by vanity.

Click here to take the Supervillain Personality Quiz

Of Dreamers, Shifters, and Disciples

I just finished Dreamfall: The Longest Journey last night. Almost exactly a week after I installed it. And the game's ending left me shocked.

Zoe faded away while in coma, April Ryan was apparently dead in the swamp, and Kian was captured by his fellow Azadi. To top it off, WATICorp still manages to release the Dreamers and "the Undreaming has been unleashed," apparently upon the twin worlds of Stark and Arcadia.

I'd like to say I feel cheated, but if there's one thing my most favorite story of all time has taught me, it's that heroes do fall, if only to make them more heroic when they do rise again (and, um, return). Dreamfall is the second game in The Longest Journey series, and it seems like Ragnar Tornquist took a page from The Empire Strikes Back!.

So, all in all, looking forward to the next game in the series! Be it TLJ3 or DF2 (really, I don't see the difference), I'm hoping it will finally bring The Longest Journey to a satisfying destination. I just hope it gets released in my current PC specs' lifetime. Heh.

Game on.

Video Games!

Picked up three games last week when I got my paycheck: Neverwinter Nights 2, Dreamfall: The Longest Journey (or is that the other way around?), and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. So far, I've installed and played the first two only.

Neverwinter Nights 2

I still haven't finished Neverwinter Nights 1, having only reinstalled and restarted playing the game earlier this year. For the original NWN, I've installed everything: the two expansions, the community expansion pack, some premium modules (Witch's Wake, et.al.), but I've never finished even the original campaign. I'm lazy like that. And now, with NWN 2 installed, chances are high that I won't be able to play NWN 1 again anytime soon. Times like these, you wish you don't have Real Life(tm) to attend to.

I've played quite a bit of the NWN 2 original campaign since I installed it last Wednesday. As usual, my character's a fighter/rogue, Laire Random, with almost the same build I used in the first game. I'm also shooting for the weaponmaster prestige class. Fighter/Rogue's are the epitome of the fantasy hero for me, or rather, the fantasy adventurer: wise-cracking, witty, quick-on-his-feet, tough without being too brawny, and most of all, wields a big-ass sword. Not to mention access to most magical items via Use Magic Device, and you've got a very well-rounded character that could go toe-to-toe or hurl spells from a distance, depending on one's mood.

From what I've heard, a lot of people are unhappy with the changes made in this latest edition of NWN. Which is puzzling, because most of the changes I've seen actually do improved the game experience. Well, "improved" in the sense that you get a more true-to-the-pen-and-paper-game feel. For example, and perhaps one of my most favorite changes was the removal of the Stone of Recall, a magical item that you get since Chapter 1 of NWN 1 that allows you to essentially zip back to base and return, a la Diablo town portal. Another example would be the new familiar/animal companions, which bring them more inline with what you'd actually get in the actual D&D rules. Maybe it's just that those complaints come from people who have not played the actual pen-and-paper game.

The graphics are nothing to get all excited about, although they're definitely an improvement over the previous game's. One of the things I really like was when you finally reach Neverwinter. The city layout was vastly improved, owing to NWN 2's new capabilities, I guess. Gone was the squarish city blocks of the old game, and the districts actually look like they've been taken almost directly from the Forgotten Realms pen-and-paper game supplements.

All in all, NWN 2 is definitely recommended for RPG fans everywhere, especially if your tabletop game of choice is D&D 3.5.

Dreamfall: The Longest Journey

Dreamfall is the sequel to The Longest Journey, which is an adventure game (in the traditional point-and-click gameplay sense) featuring a single female hero who must travel between Stark (the Earth of high technology) and Arcadia (the Earth of magic) in order to save both worlds. At least that's how I remember it, since I can't remember when I actually played the first game. Nor can I find my copy of the game cds.

Anyway, Dreamfall is essentially part 2 of TLJ, and this time, the story focuses on three people: a new chick, the old chick from the first game, and an adventurer-type guy. I forget the names right now. Too lazy to check the manual. Sorry.

Dreamfall's set in the same world, or worlds, as the case may be, and is still an adventure game (in that you need to solve puzzles and pick things up in order to advance the plot), but with the addition of certain action game elements, like a combat system. So in this game, unlike most other adventure games, there's a possibility for game over thoroughout most of the game.

The graphics are crisp, colorful and cartoony, but not too cartoony--a combination I like very much. The worlds of Stark and Arcadia, some locations of which you'll revisit in this sequel, have all been rendered in glorious 3D.

I haven't gotten very far yet, because of NWN 2, but I'll definitely play more of this later.

Maybe I'll post some screenshots later.

As for Oblivion... I don't really like the cultures presented in the Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, although the game really was immersive. Well, at least until I started playing Lineage II. But since it was cheap, I thought I'd buy a copy. But I don't think it'll get installed any time soon.

Well, then, I'm gonna clock some more quality gaming hours. Until next time, folks. Game on!

Dino Jesus

So True.

You Are 15 Years Old

Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe. 13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world. 20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences. 30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more! 40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

What Age Do You Act?

Yay! I'm more boyish than girlish!

You Are 70% Boyish and 30% Girlish

You are pretty evenly split down the middle - a total eunuch. Okay, kidding about the eunuch part. But you do get along with both sexes. You reject traditional gender roles. However, you don't actively fight them. You're just you. You don't try to be what people expect you to be.

How Boyish or Girlish Are You?

On the bus home...

It's the end of the day. End of the week as well. YAY!
Sky's still blue, but Park Square 2's orange night lights are already
on. Someone just sat beside me, had to move over. Paeng just texted
me: HOSTEL TOM. Don't know if I can come. Bus is leaving now, and my
mobile's lowbatt already, so until next time...this is fun!

test again

hiya! this post was done using mini opera and gmail mobile and my post! heehee!

--
=-====================
Leonard Anthony P. Arcilla
[blog]Random Punk: http://randompunk.blogspot.com/
[serialnovel]Beyond Black Doors (A Knights of Obscurity Tale):
http://beyondblackdoors.blogspot.com

"Without this playing with fantasy, no creative work has ever come to
birth. The debt we owe to the play of our imagination is
incalculable."
--Psychological Types, Carl Jung

Cave Story

I heard about this game from a post on rpg.net.

So I checked out the link he gave me, which lead to the Aeon Genesis website. Aeon Genesis is a fan-translation group who had brought over a lot of quality Japanese games, mostly SNES RPGs which we non-Japanese folks would have no hope of playing otherwise.

This time, they translated a freeware Japanese game called Doukutsu Monogatari ("Cave Story"), released December 2004 by Studio Pixel. Such a simple name for a wonderful action adventure game. With gameplay akin to the current incarnations of Castlevania, you control a soldier girl who must explore the caves until she gets to the end. A bit simplistic but Cave Story actually has a "story" of sorts: there are NPCs sprinkled althroughout that advance the plot, as well as give helpful hints. You'd even come to love the villains you'll encounter.

And then there're the hero's different guns, ranging from the basic Polar Star to weirder ones like the Bubbler. Each of these guns can be powered up 3 levels by collecting crystals from destroyed monsters, with their effects growing with each levelup. However, if the hero takes any damage, the weapons also take damage, often resulting in them degrading. Powering them up doesn't take much effort fortunately, so it becomes only an issue during boss battles.

The gameplay is solid and the graphics are charming, especially when we consider the fact that this is a freeware game. Which kind of puts to shame those US/UK game companies who churn out crap games.

I played Cave Story using my Logitech Dual Action Gamepad, and the game automatically maps to the buttons, even to the point of using the Left Analog Stick for its directional control.

If you loved Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (inclusing the various GBA remixes) and Metroid, be sure to check this game out. Here are the download links again:

Doukutsu Monogatari -- LZH is a compressed archive format; I used WinRAR to unpack mine.
Cave Story English Translation Patch -- unzip this, run the patch, and tell it where you installed the game.

Game on.