Saturday, January 17, 2009

Been a week...

After a week, there has been nothing to blog about.... There seem to be a lack of energy in the air, just... nothing to think of or entertain myself with. Stumbleupon isn't bringing me anywhere that can capture my interest, so I selected more options to see if I can broaden my stumbling delight.


My beagle is laying on the floor beside me, and my puppy is on he other side of the room, and all three of us want to sleep more (Ignoring the fact that the dogs woke me up to feed them). Hmm... I should go do something other than read web comics, and look for flash games to review/play, but what? Oh, I could play some of the games I got for X-mas! With nothing to blog about, it might help me get an idea or something....


~Vertro

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Slow week...

The week crawled by, with no interesting things, just video games*, school, eating, playing with the dog, and sleep. I really need to start working on programming! Anyways, there have been no flash games to review, as, all Stumbleupon brings me to, are games I have already played, or games of low quality. Even though I change all my topics to games!


In other news, I finished Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of a New World! So that gives me something to write about.


Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of a New World review:



This game is a squeal to Tales of Symphonia, I regard the first game to be better. This is for a few reasons;

1. There seems to have been a bit of scrip lost in translation! (characters will repeat what others say, right after they say it)

2. Character's eyes won't move, though they will change. (They have three or four different things they might change to, I don't quite remember.) Their face will move though.

3. At the start of the game, there are flashbacks, for example: "Courage is the magic that turns dreams into reality, now are you a dog, or a man?" *FLASH BACK* "Courage is the magic that turns dreams into reality". Thank whatever GODS there are that this stops by the time you get to a new town, though, there are a few mixed into the rest of the game.


4. They only show two of the eight Centurions. (If you play the game, you will know what these are, basically, they control monsters, and maintain the balance of mana.)


5. They ruined the character Genis, made him more childish.

6. Not enough weapon and armor upgrades. **


I think that is all my gripes, and it is comparison to the first game, but, you would think they would give the character's faces a bit more life, I mean, the opening sequence had their eyes shifting, and looking life-like***... I didn't do the sidequests, but I will next playthrough. They used towns from the first game, dungeons from the first game, and only a few new places, with additions, like, the lamps in the first game that were "only for decoration" in the shadow dungeon, turn out to be of use in this one! I thought the battles were a little tough, though, I avoided monsters whenever I could, so that may have been the cause****. The skits***** were like the old game, with a few different configurations******

As I read somewhere else, this game is more of a "side" adventure, while Tales of Symphonia, was a "main" adventure. This makes sense; In this game, without sidequests, it took me thirty hours on my first play through, on ToS, it took me fifty to sixty hours. I am hoping that they make more "side" adventures, but don't try to upgrade the technology too much, so that games would come out better/faster, with more focus on story, instead of graphics.


Without giving too many spoilers away, that was my review. I give the game a 73/100 compared to the original, and a 84/100 as a stand alone. Though this is just my opinion, I suggest that you make up your own, this game was fun, could have been better, but it is what it is, right?


* WoW, ToS, Moo, MP1.*

**No elemental weapons, just things from the stores that are better, or are not.

*** This was in the skits***** too...

**** I also didn't figure out that there were "skills" until two thirds into the game, even though the menu for them appears whenever you go to equip a new weapon/armor...

***** Small chats between characters, sometimes the entire party!

****** Where the character's portraits were in the skit screen, sometimes they would touch, other times they would have four at once, and just switch depending on who was talking...


*All of those are names for games, though, only half are on consoles.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

All of That Which Makes the World Function

For those of you who don't know what it is, it is a toolbar that sends you to sites tailored to your interests. First, you make an account, set what general categories you like, then you start click the "Stumble!" on your toolbar. This is the most epic thing, EVER. Once you go to a site, if you like it, thumbs it up, if not, thumbs it down, if you like it, but don't like it that much, then don't thumbs up or down. You can write a review/comment by pressing the speech bubble icon on your toolbar, but unless you use the blog feature, I wouldn't bother.



I have continued looking for programming learning things... seems that books and looking at other people's programs are the main ways of learning. I am trying to assimilate as many of my friends as I can into learning, so that we could work together. I have managed to get one competent friend, but he is over the internets.



Log 0002:

School is the same as ever, not learning anything, though it is necessary in this society for me to at least finish high school, collage is strictly necessary, but I really don't want to spend four years on something I didn't want in the first place, only to go work at some job that doesn't require a degree. While it is unlikely that I would get that kind of job, I would like to try my hand at freelancing a bit before getting a real job. It won't matter for a good five years or so, but it would be for the best if I didn't have to spend a nice four year chunk of my life on something that wouldn't matter.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

World of Warcraft and friends!

You cannot say you have a toon at level cap in WoW without sounding obsessed, so I will not try to avoid it. My main* is a level eighty Night Elf Druid, restoration specification**. I need a little under two thousand gold for my epic flying training***, and am not heroic dungeon ready. The guild I co-exist with is not organized at all, all raids we have attempted have ended in failure.



Well, yesterday and today, nearly the entire week has been slow, and lacking in entertainment, even though it is the second week after all the nice toys appear under the tree****. Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, is alright so far, though I am only about halfway through it. Lost Magic is very fun, as you cast spells by drawing a rune on the DS's touch screen, in real time! Your character stops moving when casting, however, so that is a bit of a draw back... otherwise, it is very fun!



I have been thinking of dual booting Linux into my Windows XP*****, it seems that if I were to use XP for games, and Linux for everything besides Windows restricted things, I could have the advantages of both! But for now, I just need to clear out hardrive space, last I checked, I had about one and a half GB left******.



This will be a fun year. ~Vertro

* The character that I play 99% of the time...

** LVL 80 NE dr00d res spec!

*** This is my first character to high levels, so I didn't have gold from other characters to support this one. =P

**** Reverse burglary?

***** It came with the computer, and I have never had any problems with it, plus it can play games.... So I may end up only using it for games if I can get Linux to work. ^^

****** Games take up a lot of space... plus I need to defragment, remove junk, virus, spyware, bugs, windows, drivers, software, hardware, and the like.

Friday, January 2, 2009

Stick Ranger Review

So far, I have found Stick Ranger* to be enjoyable.

Type: RPG
Score: 78/100
(You have to make an account to save)

You get four stick figure heroes, all of whom can be one of five classes. (Though you can have multiple be the same class) The Archer, Gladiator, Mage, Boxer**, and Priest. They all only can do one thing, the Archer shoots arrows, the Gladiator slashes with a sword, the Mage casts a ball of energy, the Boxer punches people, and the priest has an aura***. It is a two dimensional game, as a three dimensional stick figure would be... a skeleton. I don't know how long it goes, but it seems to be a long game***. My team of heroes is a group of four mages. ^_^


Log #001
Nothing happened today, just a little bit of WoW, some console gaming, looking for something to blog about, and worrying that school starts again on Monday. I have already forgotten my New Years things, whilst my time is spent trying to spend it better.

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Online flash games?

I have thought,* that perhaps I could review flash games, as one of the things I might do here; as most are simple to complete, are free, plentiful, and it is not like I have any skills at reviewing, summing up, or anything, but practice makes perfect,** right? So, the first game I would like to review is this: Nano War***


Nano War is a RTS**** type game, with an editor, and multiplayer support,***** as of this post, it is still in the works, but there are a good fifteen levels to play with. I breezed through them, as the kind of high of his thrown guy I am. The AI seems to be weak, and doesn't take you by the neck, the cells can hold as many units as you want, but stop regenerating their own after they reach a certain point. I have found it to be quite fun to but myself at a disadvantage, and then steal the crown. ^_^ What I found to be odd though, is that you cannot test your map, without saving it first, it does not tell you this, and if you press "test" you will play the map you last saved at, and after you exit that game, it goes back to your unsaved map. All in all, a great game. Eight out of ten.

Well, that was fun.****** I think I will review some of my video games, once I am finished with them...

~Vertro


* Randomly generated with my mind

** You know, all those perfect people exist.

*** http://nanowar.free.fr/

**** Real time strategy

***** I haven't seen anyone else there host a game...*

****** I was playing Nano Wars when writing this. =D

* At nine forty five PM the day after New Years.