Mass Review Time – Honeymoon Edition

Internet, I have a problem. I’m addicted to Fargo.

Maybe it’s not so bad as addiction, but the summer trip south to Fargo has become a tradition that I can surely not break free of. I need it. I need it so bad that I managed to convince my now-wife that it’s where we should spend our honeymoon. So maybe it is bordering on addiction. I’m not a psychiatrist, I don’t know these things. Surely there’s a better way I could have started this article.

As usual, the trip was mostly to get away, relax, and just be together for a few days. And from what I’m told, that’s mostly what a honeymoon is about too. So to that end the voyage was perfectly successful. Of course we also spent a buttload of money. Like, way more money than we were even allowed to spend while down there. By some random stroke of luck, the amount you’re allowed to spend when crossing the border increased on the day we came home, so we didn’t have to pay duty on what we spent over the previous limit. It’s the first time crossing the border was a truly pleasant experience.

To that end, I should note that this is by no means a complete list of things I bought in the States. I’ve obviously excluded anything The Wife bought, because this website is about me me me me me and God forbid I give anyone else more than a passing mention. I also spend a bit on a few little house things and some clothes that I don’t feel are nearly interesting enough to write about. On that note, let’s take a look at exactly what I judge to be “interesting.”

Continue reading Mass Review Time – Honeymoon Edition

Filler at its worst

Don’t you hate it when you don’t really have anything important to talk about?

I do, but that’s not really my problem lately. The problem is too many awesome video games, and too much time spent at work to play them all.

I’m only four levels into Lollipop Chainsaw. I should have finished this game weeks ago. I think there are only two or three more stages anyway, but still. And this feels like a game where playing it over and over for high scores and cheevos will be fun and not just compulsion.

Dragon’s Dogma continued to suck up all my video game time, because I love it to pieces. I try to be careful about using the word “love” when I describe material objects, but man do I love Dragon’s Dogma. The only thing I don’t like about it is that it’s a huge dick when it comes to fast travel. But the world isn’t that big, so it’s mostly not an issue. It would kind of ruin the point anyway, when the only time I end up needing to traverse the entire map is during escort quests.

Then Theatrhythm Final Fantasy came along and ruined everything. I fear that I might not play another game for weeks. I already have a real thing about rhythm games, but when it’s a rhythm game that also tickles my nostalgia bone? Big trouble, but in the best way.

The biggest loss is that I’ll be completely ignoring the Xbox Live Arcade version of Spelunky, which I have been absolutely frothing with demand for and finally launched yesterday.

And then there’s still Monster Hunter Freedom: Unite, which I will probably be playing until the day my PSP dies. And then I will buy a new PSP and continue to play Monster Hunter Freedom: Unite. Unless Monster Hunter 3G is better.

Someday I’ll finish Kid Icarus: Uprising. If it even has an ending.

I love that my primary hobby is so consistently wonderful. 🙂

Craftimals: Adorable Slave Labour

So last week I peer-pressured Edwin into buying Craftimals: Build to the Sun. I kinda feel like I owe him a dollar.

To be fair, I don’t really deserve all the credit. Craftimals dangles a carrot that seems to be just slightly outside the three-minute trial limit, and between my insistence that it could be reached and his own need to reach said carrot, we ended up playing Craftimals for the better part of the evening.

Now I had played the trial version of Craftimals long ago, but I wasn’t able to put down the 80 Microsoft Points required to access the full game. Quite literally too, at the time I had 40 points. I probably would have bought it otherwise. It’s probably okay that I didn’t too, because Craftimals is just a big ol’ time sink, and two players make it go slightly faster.

Well, two players make it go faster if the second player is contributing to the cause, anyway.

Continue reading Craftimals: Adorable Slave Labour

The hunting cycle

It’s almost Canada Day, and Canada Day means two things to me: the Lac du Bonnet fireworks show, and Monster Hunter. Over the last couple years, it’s been a new part of our Canada Day traditions for me to tote my PSP down to LDB for the weekend and play Monster Hunter Freedom: Unite during the time that is not used for adventures or fireworks. Of course, the PSP’s battery life doesn’t last nearly as long as it needs to (there’s not that much to do around there), but for me those four hours are as important a part of the weekend as the journey to Pinawa to get ice cream from the Burger Boat, trying to collect enough silly things from the Bargain Shop for an article, and the fireworks show.

Summer in general is also just kind of when my Monster Hunter cycle restarts itself. For MHFU anyway. Me and the game have sort of a love/hate relationship where I’ll play it obsessively for a while, get stuck on a tough quest, and then put it aside for months. Regardless of where I am in the cycle though, an impending Canada Day always brings me back around to the Monster Hunter.

The first time I hit a brick wall was actually on Canada Day. I had just bought MHFU after spending the couple previous months completely obsessed over Monster Hunter Tri on Wii; when I discovered that the PSP game had roughly three times as much content, as well as giant crab monsters, I knew I had to get it. It wasn’t long after I dove in that I discovered what would become one of my most hated parts of Monster Hunter: piscine livers.

Piscine livers are an item dropped randomly when you defeat a monster known as Cephalos. Cephalos are strange looking monsters that are something like a cross between a hammerhead shark and a chicken. Most of their time is spend swimming through the sand, where it’s very hard to damage them. There is an item that can force them out of the sand, but the sonic bomb isn’t available to purchase, and the items you need to create them are somewhat rare. So once you waste the two sonic bombs that are supplied to you for the piscine liver quest, you’re stuck waiting for the Cephalos to jump out of the sand by their own volition. Which can take forever. And of course the piscine liver isn’t the only thing a Cephalos can drop, so if luck isn’t on your side you can very easily time out on these quests.

You’ll see, if you follow my Monster Hunter LP, how annoying these quests can be. It’s not until about a dozen episodes in (so it won’t be uploaded until quite some time after this blog post), but I think it takes like three videos for me to finish the stupid quest.

I did manage to wrangle up the necessary livers eventually, but the quest left a sour taste in my mouth. And I won’t even get into how I feel about the fishing quests. No, I hit my first stopping point when I met Cephalos’ big brother, Cephadrome. He does the same damn thing where he swims around in the sand and doesn’t come up for nobody. Even worse is the fact that you’re stuck fighting these jerks in the desert, where the intense heat will literally drain the life out of your hunter. Cool drinks can temporarily stop the drain, but even if you bring five in with you, they won’t last the duration of the quest. If Cephadrome decides he doesn’t want to play, there’s a very real chance that the heat will kill you.

So I tried the fight against Cephadrome a couple times. I think I died from heat stroke once, and my time ran out on another attempt. I may have even been killed by Cephadrome himself once. He’s not a terribly strong creature, but at the beginning of the game his body slams can be pretty deadly. Once my failures had stacked up enough, I decided that the quest was garbage and stopped playing the game altogether. Monster Hunter Tri had no such bullcrap; the challenge was fair and sensible, so I went back to that. Even though it didn’t have awesome giant crab monsters.

It probably wasn’t long before I picked MHFU back up though. It was still a fairly new game to my collection, and easily the best PSP game that I owned (still is!), even with the crappy quests. I took on Cephadrome again, and while I don’t think I managed it on my first try, I did eventually fell the beast, and everything was wonderful again for a while. That was, until I met Tigrex.

I’ve posted about my hatred for Tigrex before, and fairly recently, too. It took me forever to eke out a victory against one of those guys, and I’ve only slain one more since then. Tigrex isn’t really that strong, but he is fast. A lot of monsters have a thing where they knock you down and then trample over you or blast you with a fireball before you can get up and out of the way. It’s kind of cheap, and that’s basically all Tigrex does. Most monsters leave an opening to get a hit or two in, but Tigrex generally turns around and launches into his next attack long before you can close the gap and smack him up some. And then there’s rage mode.

The majority of large monsters have a rage mode where they hit harder, move faster, and gain new attacks. This is usually brought on by special circumstances, like if you deal out a lot of damage in a short period of time, cut/break off part of a monster’s body, or when they come out of a stun. I’d say that once you carve off roughly 20% of Tigrex’s life, he goes into rage mode every time you hit him. Or at least it seems that way. And it’s the worst, because the very last thing you need is an already too-fast monster getting a speed boost. It’s no wonder I stopped playing because of him.

My latest brick wall was the mighty Lunastra. She’s referred to as a dragon, but looks an awful lot like a big blue lion with wings. Lunastra’s not that hard, and I think I put down the game last time more due to being distracted by other games than because I couldn’t beat her. I know I lost a couple fights against her, but they were losses caused by my own inexperience and impatience.

The trick to defeating Lunastra, and indeed many other large monsters, is patience. Knowing when to strike is key, and it might take a couple rounds to really figure that out. Her attacks are easy enough to avoid, but if you aren’t paying enough attention and get caught by one, you’re in trouble. The flamethrower attack, for instance, is super easy to see coming, and even easier to dodge. But the damn thing hurts if you’re clumsy enough to get caught in it. I was killed instantly with 3/4 of my health bar once because I got hit by a rage mode flamethrower. It was a little embarrassing, but it put me in my place. Upon picking up the game again last week, I took Lunastra down on my first try, and with a fire-element sword and fire-susceptible armor to boot. I could not have been more poorly equipped for that fight, but I came out victorious because I took my time and fought smarter, not harder.

The next challenge on my list is Teostra, Lunastra’s stronger, redder, male counterpart. I don’t feel confident that I can take him out, because I’m still kitted out in that weak-to-fire armor set. But it’s got a super-strong physical defense rating compared to everything else I own! Sometimes it’s hard to know whether you should be worrying more about physical or elemental resistances. At least I don’t have a fire sword equipped anymore.

Will Teostra be my next gamebreaker? Probably not. At least, I hope not. I’ve only been playing MHFU again for about two weeks now. It’s far too soon to be rage-quitting already. Plus it’s Canada Day weekend, and I don’t know what else to do between the time the Bargain Shop closes and the fireworks start.

*NB: I stole the images for this post from the Monster Hunter Wiki*

Bury the Arisen

Dragon’s Dogma isn’t getting any easier. At this point a gentle bat from Veronica’s blade will send a common goblin flying several feet, but their hobgoblin friends are proving to be quite a bit more sturdy and are appearing more commonly. And these are still just basic mooks.

I accidentally let that random guy who was following me die. I don’t know when or where he got knocked off. I was exploring the area just west of the Witchwood, being assaulted by wolves or bandits every few steps. We eventually came to a beach where a group of bandits were catching some rays. I began a long-distance assault on them by firing off a few arrows into their own archers, and then I noticed that they were chillin’ with a cyclops.

The ensuing battle was frantic and much blood as shed on both sides, but I refused to retreat and eventually we emerged victorious. As the cyclops’ corpse melted into a bubbling pile of goo and I wondered why it didn’t drop any loot, I noticed that the destination marker on my map was gone. I also couldn’t see the dude I was escorting. My quest log told me I’d failed though, so I guess the only explanation is that he got smooshed by the cyclops and I was too embroiled in the heat of battle to notice. I figured I’d let him go though, he didn’t seem overly important. Also I didn’t want to have to fight that battle again.

We have since slain a few more cyclopes during our travels. Turns out they’re not particularly difficult to bring down if they don’t have backup. We probably could have taken out that one in the forest and gotten that one guy to his destination. Oops.

Continue reading Bury the Arisen

The Amazing Exploding Circus

I’ve been listening to the new(ish) I Fight Dragons CD like once a day for the duration of this month. You should go buy it. It’s a little considerably more radio-ey than either of their EPs, but the quality is still there. And yeah, maybe the lyrics to “The Geeks Will Inherit the Earth” are edging a little too close to Good Charlotte territory, but it’s such a fun song! Really, the point is that they use a GameBoy as an instrument, and that’s more than enough to keep a firm grasp on my attention and my ten dollars.

And to switch up the topic completely, when I was searching for the Kaboom album cover, I found this:

Upon further investigation, I discovered that this cereal was only discontinued in 2010. For the last five years at least, anytime I go down to the States on vacation I spend more time in Wal-Mart’s cereal aisle than anywhere else. How is it that I never once saw this? I understand that it would have had a different, more modern (though less amazing) box design, but I never saw anything close. Too bad. It looks like it would really make breakfast fun. Guess I’ll have to stick with the stupid Fruity Pebbles flakes.

Terrible Lizard Nosferatu

Do you remember -it’s been almost ten years now- how when I started this website I was really really into X-Entertainment? Like, that’s the reason I started doing this thing in the first place? Well I was. It seems like just the other week I was staying up all night long reading about Pokémon episodes and mantis shrimp. Oh, those were good times. And then Matt stopped writing articles and started blogging. Which is exactly what I did. Only I stopped reading X-E all the time long before I turned blog, so that likeness was unintentional. I think. It’s been a long time.

Anyway, Matt’s abandoned X-E, leaving the site up for savvy scavengers to poke through in an attmpt to find the stuff from the good ol’ days. But he’s not out of the game yet. No, in fact he just launched a new website that is pretty much what X-E was about six years ago. It’s called Dinosaur Dracula and it is fantastic. Mostly fantastic. It’s still pretty blog-heavy, but at least he’s still writing full features. Sometimes there are video blogs too. I’ve only watched one of the vlogs, but… ouch. Matt’s genius seems to be exclusive to written work. Apparently those were A Thing on X-E too, but since I stopped reading X-E at all around late 2007, I never saw a one of them.

I’m looking forward to following DinoDrac in the future, but it really makes me wish that Matt would go back (or pay someone else to go back) and put all the old X-E stuff into a neat little database so that I could read the old articles again and mabye sift through the more substantial stuff I missed. Of course, I no longer have empty weeks that I can use to just browse through one man’s thoughts on Batman cereal and McDonald’s placemats, so it’s really pipe dream any way you look at it. Ah, how I miss being unemployed.

Anyway, don’t go thinking that I’mma be starting up a new site that’s re-focused on features too. At least not yet. I’m still working on this WordPress thing. As much as I miss having custom page layouts for every article and being really excited about each an every terrible thing I published, I like it the way things are now. It may be a slightly different delivery system, but the idea is the same: sharing the things I like with the internet (and sometimes the things I don’t like).

What I’m really trying to get around to saying here is: go check out Dinosaur Dracula. It’s like nostalgia about nostalgia, and I can really dig on that.