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).