What is happening in my head?

Stockholm syndrome is real.

Do you want to know how I know this? I miss ArcaniA. That buggy hot mess of a game that I played for roughly a month to help justify buying yet another Humble Bundle. I was so glad when it was over, because it was not very good, and I didn’t care at all about the plot or characters, and it was grating on my nerves because I had to play on the Very Hard mode to get the platinum trophy. My weekends were once again free to play whatever the heck I wanted instead of being chained to this trainwreck “project” game!

But now I miss it. When I sit down to pick out a game to play in my free time, my mind often wanders to ArcaniA and then I feel an emptiness inside because it is no longer a part of my life.

How in the sweet, crispy Hell did this happen?

On another note, the fact that I will doggedly play games I don’t like because I feel obligated to “finish” them (whatever that might mean) is a completely separate mental illness.

Citadale

You want to know something that I’m not done talking about yet? Wii U games. I probably should be, because there is basically nothing but garbage-lookin’ indie games coming out on it anymore. Maybe a Virtual console release here and there, and I guess there was that remastered version of Darksiders that came out last month (which I would love to purchase again on something more… portable). But mostly garbage-lookin’ indie games.

All that aside, today I have a whole lot of things to say about a garbage-lookin’ indie game that came out several months ago. And to be completely honest, it doesn’t actually look that bad if you’re just checking out screenshots. This game is Citadale: Gate of Souls, and I had literally zero interest in puchasing it until I heard about it on a podcast which I very much enjoy. It sounded like a miraculous garbage fire, and we all know how strongly I feel about garbage fires.

So I went right ahead and I plopped down my $5 or whatever it was, and I got me some Citadale. Much against my better judgement, but I think I may have been drunk at the time. I think I bought Wario: Master of Disguise at the same time, which is something I never would have done sober. That’s just a straight-up Bad Video Game. Citadale is, fortunately, entertainingly bad.

Okay, take a moment now and scroll back up a bit. Take a good, long gander at that logo. Remind you of anything? No? For shame. Citadale’s logo looks suspiciously like the logos of most of the Castlevania games on GBA/DS. Like, it’s just a font and differently stylized C away from being a complete rip-off. That’s a little bit gutsy, I’ve got to say. Wearing your inspiration on your sleeve is one thing, but copying it wholesale and then charging money for it is a whole different ballgame. Congratulations on your hubris, Nitrolic Games.

Continue reading Citadale

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up – June 2017

It seems like I’m in one of those phases where I spend a little bit of time with lot of different games. This usually happens when I don’t have a “major” game to focus my time on. Though Ever Oasis was nearly the only thing I played for the final week of the month…

~ Game Over ~

Life is Strange (PS4) – The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. But that doesn’t make the choice any easier. Sorry, Chloe 🙁

Zoo Rampage (PC) – Barf.

ArcaniA (PS4) – By the end, I’d gotten so accustomed to the game’s jankiness that I think I was genuinely enjoying it. But man, is it ever broken. Almost Bethesda-like, to be honest.

Spooky Cats (PC) – It’s a thing, alright.

Mighty Gunvolt Burst (Switch) – A very good Mega Man successor.

Chrono Trigger (SNES) – I usually have trouble with Lavos on a NG playthrough of Chrono Trigger, but I won pretty handily this time around, despite feeling like I was ill-prepared for it.

Team Kirby Clash Deluxe (3DS) – I’ve rolled the credits, but there’s still so much more to accomplish. Is it worth the time and effort, though? I’m not really smart enough to say.

Anna: Extended Edition (PS3) – A free PS+ spook-em-up that sounded great on paper, but was more than a little lacking in practice. And yet it still lingers in my mind… how apropos.

Ape Escape 2 (PS4) – Finally completed the slog of a replay to earn the final trophy. I don’t know why I did this to myself, to be perfectly honest. Ape Escape is NO FUN.

Continue reading Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up – June 2017

Happy Tomorrow!

On account of my silly Monthend posts running on the first of every month, I’d like to extend to all my fine readers a Happy Canada Day! today, in lieu of tomorrow.

I probably won’t be doing much. Maybe go see Wonder Woman with my dad. Drink a few beers. Basically, act as if it’s any other Saturday.

The beloved Ryan’s Canada Day Tradition is dead and buried. I feel like I cannot bear to go out to Lac Du Bonnet any more, as I really don’t want to have to put up with my ex-laws for even a minute. And we all know that my ex-mother-in-law would not simply let me go if she caught a glimpse of me. Oh, if only it were so easy as to just ignore them.

I suppose I could try to go in disguise, but it’s really not worth the effort. Doing the exact same thing every year kind of killed it for me, anyhow. The fireworks are always set to the exact same soundtrack, the Bargain Shop hasn’t had anything that sparked my interest in years, and I just don’t think I’d enjoy spending the day out there as much as I used to without a ladyfriend.

Sorry if this comes off as a bit depressing. It’s a long weekend! Be happy! Have a great time! Eat something maple-flavoured! Yay, Canada!

C
ANA
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A         CANAD         A
CANA      DACAN      ADAC
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[I didn’t already have an image of a maple leaf and couldn’t be bothered to steal one from Google]

Gotta go somewhat hastily

Last summer, I decided that “running” was a thing that I was going to do. I came up with a specific course, and my goal was to decrease the time it took me to get around it. While I did not achieve my target time, I did get my time down quite a bit from the initial run. So that’s good! Something to be proud of!

This year, I’ve gotten a late start on the actual running thing, but I have been getting out for long walks every weekend, so it’s not a complete wash. And since I’ve been displaced from my course, I have to come up with a new one. Or maybe not. I might not set a clear goal this year. For whatever reason, having goals is more likely to dissuade me from doing things. It’s weird. I’m weird. I much prefer to just go with the flow. Like a hedonist but with more body image issues.

Going out for a run is so hard at first. Even with a little stretching and a glass of water to prep, I get done with that first burst of energy, and then things just go to pot. I puff and I wheeze and my mouth gets all full of that sticky saliva that makes everything worse. I’ll walk for a bit, then try to run some more, but can’t get nearly as far. Rinse an repeat until I get back home, but with the walk cycle getting longer and the run cycle getting shorter each time.

Then I get back home, have a nice glass of water and sit for five minutes. I’m absolutely dead when I get back, but after a short rest and rehydration, I feel as though I could conquer the world. So I go back out, and that’s where the bulk of my time is spent. The second “leg” of my journey is always so much easier. I still puff and wheeze, but I feel that it’s a lot easier to push myself at this point than on the first part of the run. Also, much less of the sticky saliva, so it no longer feels like my throat is closing off from the goo.

I am not a runner, or an athlete of any capacity. So I have no idea why it’s so much easier to run more after pooping myself out and taking a short break. I don’t think it’s the runner’s high, but maybe it is? I thought that was more of a “during the run” kind of thing.

Either way, I’m going to do my best to keep it up this year. The main sticking point is going to be getting out more than once a week. I just feel so emotionally drained after a day at the office that it’s difficult to summon the will to do anything, never mind a physically taxing exercises session. And I’m not doing two weekend days in a row. No, sir! I mean, I could, but there is only so much weekend to go around. If I spend it all running and recovering from running, where am I going to fit in all my lazy time?

A weekend of games and stuff

I hate to admit it, because I’ve been trying to diversify the ways I waste time lately, but I spent pretty much the whole weekend playing video games. Well, the time during the weekend that I was conscious. I spent way too much time sleeping in and napping, but I slept terribly last week, so I suppose that I needed it. Anyway, for some reason I feel the need to write about all the nothing I did over the weekend. Really Live Journal it.

Friday night was a blur. Because it’s already so far away, you see. But I do recall that after a long Friday at work, I decided that it was in my best interest to get some physical activity, I opted to take a short walk. Partly because I wanted to do something good for my body, and partly because I wanted to listen to the Talk Nintendo podcast special on Ever Oasis. And by golly, did Casey and Neal ever do a good job of selling that game. I was planning on skipping it, but their gushing praise started to make me reconsider my stance…

Upon returning home, I finally set aside a little time to play ARMS, which I am desperately in love with in theory, but I need a lot more practice because I am awful at it. I managed to get through the easiest level of the single-player mode, but not without some struggles. Also I need to get online and get in on that party mode. Once I was done with that, I cracked and bought Ever Oasis. In retrospect, I should have played the demo first to make sure, but in the end it wouldn’t have dissuaded me anyhow. Although the game was surprisingly small (just over 6200 blocks), the download was slow and would not finish until early the next morning.

Finally, I began playing what might be the only free PS+ game that I’ve been at all interested in since I’ve had the service: Anna: Extended Edition. It is pitched on the store as a psychological horror game wherein you explore an abandoned sawmill to discover its spooky secrets. Late Friday night is like the only good time I get to play horror games, so I was pumped. And then the game turns out to be something of a janky mess. I was so befuddled by the odd control scheme and got stuck on a stupid(ly simple) puzzle that I only played up through the first “stage” before calling it quits and turning in for the night.

The next morning, I woke up late because I had opted not to set any alarms. Then I chose to relive a ritual of Saturday mornings from last summer: watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003 series) while playing Tap My Katamari. I had four episodes left to watch from season four’s “lost episodes” (not on DVD) and burned through those right quick. Afterwards, I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do and curled up in bed for a quick nap.

It was after I woke that I realized that Ever Oasis was probably done downloading, and then most of my afternoon just vanished into it. Ever Oasis is a really good game. What Casey and Neal neglected to mention is that it is very slow to start because holy crap does it ever like to take its time explaining everything to you. Also, it is just as hand-holdy as the Zelda series is infamous for being. At least for the first few hours. Eventually it gives you a little more freedom, but the beginning of the game is a slow, unskippable slog. This will undoubtedly discourage replays.

I then decided that it was my mission for the rest of the afternoon to finish Anna, and so I booted the ol’ PS3 back up and jumped back into that mess. The game does have its charms once you let yourself get into it, but I maintain that it could have used a lot more polish. At least have a few of the rougher edges sanded down. Case in point: I was not interested in the game enough to care about solving its obtuse puzzles, and it didn’t take me long to pull up a walkthrough for consultation whenever I felt stuck. I cleared the game, and am weakly considering a quick second playthrough to round up the leftover trophies. On one hand, it’ll be a very easy task that should take no more than half an hour. On the other hand, I don’t really care about this game and should probably just delete it and forget it forever.

Saturday night was the usual board games party. The major difference is that when my brother and I made a trip to the liquor store, we found something highly unexpected: Freedom 35 lager! It’s the Trailer Park Boys branded beer! We were so excited that we each filled up an 8-can carrier and merrily went on our way. The checkout guy must have thought we were nuts.

Many beers led to a hearty sleep-in on Sunday morning. Sort of. I got up at 8:30, had breakfast, watched an episode of Bob’s Burgers, and played some Mighty Gunvolt Burst to grab a few screenshots for the article I wrote on it. Then I passed out again and slept until after noon.

To round out my activities, I went out for an extra-long walk/run after waking up. I was out for two and a half hours, which I think is my longest journey on record so far. Especially since it was only my second outing that included running this year. And yet it was still not long enough to listen to the regular weekly episode of the Talk Nintendo. When I got back, my legs were so done that I showered off and flopped onto bed to nap for an hour, then watched several more episodes of Bob’s Burgers. And then I ate a metric ton of food for dinner and way too much in the way of ice cream treats, completely invalidating all the exercise I’d done earlier.

Finally, I ended the evening the same way that every Sunday evening ends: laundry. In between throwing dirty clothes in the machines and putting away the clean laundry, I tacked a few more hours onto Ever Oasis. Turns out that it’s quite difficult! Monsters hit really, really hard and you can’t dodge-cancel out of attack animations, so you’ve got to be careful. It’s still limiting how far off-course I can explore, but at least it’s not pushing me along the intended route quite as sternly any more.

Alas, eventually the laundry was all done, and that’s my cue to stop whatever fun I’m having and go to bed. I think that’s probably why I hate doing laundry so much. It heralds the end of the freedom of the weekend, and the return of the dreadful work week. Ugh. So disheartening. At least I had a lot of fun over the weekend. And when put into words, it almost seems like I accomplished much more than I actually did. Hurray!

Mighty Gunvolt Burst

Are you aware of Mighty No. 9? That game that blew up (the good way) on Kickstarter and then blew up (the bad way) during its development cycle? The knock-off Mega Man that ended up being so much less than Mega Man? I’m sure you’ve heard of it, but you have probably forgotten about it, like the entire world did shortly after it actually released.

Although Beck’s first major outing flopped hard, it’s actually not the only game he’s starred in. Long before the Mighty No. 9 debacle, co-developer Inti Creates had made their own little Mega Man-esque title on 3DS called Azure Striker Gunvolt. I haven’t played that game, but it came bundled with a free retraux game that was even more in the vein of classic Mega Man, Mighty Gunvolt.

Mighty Gunvolt was a neat little crossover that let you play as either Beck, Gunvolt, or some girl from a game that I still don’t know what it is. It was only five or so stages long, but it was tightly designed, tough as nails, and the three playable characters all had their own style and unique abilities. Needless to say, I liked it a lot.

Continue reading Mighty Gunvolt Burst

So it goes

I’ll be honest right up front: that is probably the most clichéd title for a blog post or article or review of Slaughterhouse-Five. But it kinda makes the most sense, you know? Or maybe you don’t, because you haven’t read the book. I want to tell you that you should, but that is probably best saved for the ending of whatever this series of ramblings turns out to be.

I don’t know Kurt Vonnegut’s greater oeuvre very well at all. In fact, before I read Slaughterhouse-Five, the only work of his that I had read previously was a collection of short stories, Welcome to the Monkey House. And even that I only read because one time Chris Kohler compared Mario Kart 8 to Harrison Bergeron. My lack of experience be damned, I would gladly tell people that Vonnegut is one of my favourite authors.

Perhaps my favourite author, on account of I don’t read enough to even know other authors.

Slaughterhouse-Five, if you are not familiar with it, is the story of a man named Billy Pilgrim and his experiences being a prisoner of war in World War Two. It is also the story of Billy Pilgrim’s life before and after the war, and the story of how he was abducted by aliens and kept in their zoo. It is also a semi-autobiographical account of a survivor of the bombing of Dresden in 1945.

The tale is told very disjointedly and not at all in chronological order, as Billy is “unstuck in time” and will randomly bounce between points in his life. This makes it a little confusing to follow at first, but the writing style is simple enough for even a man of my limited intelligence to grasp. However, it is immediately engrossing and the fragmented style ensures that something new is always grabbing your attention. One might suggest that Vonnegut’s unwillingness to stay on one story thread for more than a page or two at a time is flaky, that it’s the literary equivalent of jingling keys in front of a baby. But it worked wonders for me and my ever-diminishing attention span.

Like most books, and movies, and whatever other media I enjoy, I find it difficult to describe exactly why I liked the book so much. It was funny, it was shocking, and it very easily captured my attention throughout. I read the entire novel in under a week. The last novel I read took over two years. It also proposed many interesting ideas about religion and philosophy and time itself, but this work is called satirical. The problem is that I, with my not-good brain, can’t tell where honest opinions end and satire begins. For example, the entire book was about Billy Pilgrim adopting a fatalistic point of view, but I can’t tell if Vonnegut is championing or tearing apart that particular way of looking at life.

Despite the fact that I can’t properly articulate why I like this novel, I think it it’s easy to say why Slaughterhouse-Five is a good novel: It made me think. As few cylinders as my brain has, the book had them firing at all times; I was always pondering the theories and philosophies that Vonnegut was presenting, sincere or otherwise. And these ponderings continued even when I was no longer reading. Things I read are typically cheap fluff that has you follow a character for 200-300 pages and then put it all out of your mind immediately afterward. Such is why I’m even bothering to put these words to the page.

And so, we come back around to the point where I can finally tell you explicitly that I think you should read Slaughterhouse-Five. I highly recommend it. But as is always the case when it comes to reading, I must reiterate that I read so little that I can’t in good faith say that I have any taste in literature. Still, it was an exceptional read that kept me interested from the first page to the last.

Frightening Felines

Time to scratch another Indie Gala Trash Game off the good ol’ Steam backlog – I’ve played and finished Spooky Cats.

Spooky Cats is a very basic platformer, and it looks and sounds like it’s a Flash game from 1998. Hell, it probably is, but I’m not about to go and do the research. That’s against my policy. I much prefer to just talk out of my butt and sound like a complete moron.

Anyhow, the game is like, I dunno, 22 levels long, and many of them are just barely larger than a single screen. So it’s a brief game. There are a few longer stages, and one or two of them do have some semblance of a challenge. It’s not enough to save the game, however, because it’s really not very fun. In fact, I only powered through to the end because I realized almost right away that it was going to be an investment of less than an hour of my time. An easy write-off.

The levels are very basic, mostly just about getting to the end while avoiding monsters and spikes. Some require you to grab a key to unlock the exit door, and others task you with finding a little girl’s body and then reuniting it with her disembodied spirit. Yeah, it’s a little weird. You will also collect pennies throughout your travels, and a certain number are required to unlock the final stage. I don’t remember how many you need, exactly, but it’s low enough that if you grab pennies very diligently, you’ll have way more than necessary by the time you get there.

Only one thing really stood out about Spooky Cats, and that’s the aforementioned final stage. It’s a boss battle of sorts, against a witch-cat sitting in a toilet. Said witch is invincible while on its throne, and will periodically fire off magic blasts that become monsters if they hit the floor. The objective is to get to the little girl body behind a locked door, but I had no idea how exactly you get the key. After getting killed four or five times, it seemed to spawn completely at random, finally allowing me to finish the stage. Once you put the girl’s body and soul back together, the witch starts flying around, and you just have to dash into it a couple times. After that, the screen jump-cuts to an ending card that says “you finished the greatest game ever made!” or something to that effect. And that’s it. So it goes.

Would I recommend Spooky Cats? Not at all. If you want to throw away an hour on a no-budget platformer about a little pink blob, stylized to look like a cat, in a haunted mansion, then I guess this is for you. But for the rest of the world, there’s absolutely no reason to bother. Spooky Cats is not fun, it’s not engaging, it’s not especially nice to look at, and it has no plot. It is entirely pointless and I’m glad that I can consider it to be a free “bonus” that came packed in with other, (hopefully) more worthwhile games.

*NB: This game costs $2.99 USD on Steam. I paid $5 CAD for the 10-game Indie Gala bundle it came in. That’s a hot deal if I ever saw one.

Cakes of pan

Anyone who has been following TE since its Angelfire days or bothered to read through the archives will know that I have a certain fondness for pancakes. Well, I suppose I haven’t written about them all that often, but I very frequently reblog suggestions to read this article. For me, that’s good enough justification for my opening sentence.

Yesterday, as a combined celebration of Father’s Day and my mom’s XXth birthday, the family went out to The Original Pancake House for a (very) late lunch. Now, I’ve been to one Pancake House location many times, and it’s not really anything to write home about. But for this occasion we drove all the way across the city to the much bigger and newer location that I had never even seen previously.

In retrospect, it’s not really that much more impressive than your average sit-down restaurant, but at the time I was very much wowed by its size and fanciness. Also there’s a tiny gift shop at the entrance which is weird on its own, even moreso because it didn’t seem to sell any pancake-related goods.

The big downside to this particular establishment is that their menu is absolutely massive. Pages and pages and pages of choices. I strongly agree with the theory that a good restaurant has a smaller menu that focuses on a number of specialty dishes. The Original Pancake House has more entrée options than the friggin’ Olive Garden. It took me forever to finally make a choice, because I kinda felt like an omelette, but also those blintzes looked delicious, and a nice Belgian waffle is always great. Oh, and then all the other things on the menu. Augh!

I finally settled on the same thing that I always get at the Original Pancake House: triple berry pancakes with a side of turkey bacon. It’s not very adventurous, no, but I really doubt that I could be so satisfied with anything else. You’ve got raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries all swirled up in a generous helping of whipped cream, laid on a huge bed of six pancakes. It’s basically the perfect meal. I mean, at least for me, because I love berries. And pancakes. The turkey bacon is always a little disappointing, but there has to be a tradeoff for being able to eat bacon and not having to feel bad about it afterward. Maybe one day I’ll get used to it.

I did not take a photo of my meal. Sorry. Taking pictures of my food has lost all of its appeal now that everyone does it every day. Instagram, I hate you more than you could ever know.

Anyway, the meal was delicious and the service was adequate (the “how were the first few bites?” visit came as I was taking my last bite). However, I felt that while the building and décor were very fancy and new, the chairs seemed a little lacking. They were passable, sure, but I don’t know… I guess they could have been a little nicer. They were so bog-standard in a place that seemed like it wanted to be more than the average dining establishment. But hey, if that’s the worst thing I have to say about the place, I think that’s pretty good! Oh, no, wait. I complained about the too-big menu as well. You mileage may vary on that one.

So yes, I would give the McGillivray Original Pancake House my official seal of approval. While it’s a bit of a drive, and it doesn’t have quite the same “this has been here forever” character that the one at The Forks does. But that’s to be expected, since it’s considerably newer, and I’m perfectly fine with that. I don’t see myself making the drive out there again any time soon, because I don’t normally do sit-in dining, but I’ll be perfectly pleased if it’s picked to be the place of another family gathering.