Page 95 – Burning the midnight oil at noon

Tacoception

Hi, may name is Ryan. I’m an addict. I can’t stop eating Doritos Locos Tacos chips.

They’re just exactly what I want in a Dorito, and it’s killing me that they’re only a limited time thing. In fact, I was looking for some just last weekend and I couldn’t find ’em. I’d be more worried that they’re already gone, but I freely admit that I didn’t look very thoroughly.

The real kicker here is that I’ve never had the actual Doritos Locos Taco. I’m sure I’d like it, but Taco Bell is just so far away. And also that would mean that I’d have to eat at Taco Bell. I don’t generally have an issue with fast food, but even I find Taco Bell a little off-putting.

These chips, on the other hand, I feel pretty safe about eating. Also I get to explain to anyone who hasn’t seen them before that it’s a chip that’s based on a taco that’s based on a chip. Hence, tacoception.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go out and find me some more of these babies. And if they’re already gone? The razor and I have a date in the bathtub.

Dark Souls: Creepshow

Previously on Dark Souls: Morgan ran away from Anor Londo because it as too hard, and met a giant snake monster that told her about her destiny.

I meandered around the Firelink Shrine graveyard, busting skeletons to pieces as they came, until I was fairly sure that I’d found any noteworthy bits of equipment and items that I’d missed during my previous expedition here. The skeletons were still fearsome foes, but my skills with a sword -as well as the sword itself- had improved since last time.

Unfortunately, my sword wasn’t going to be of much use where I was going. I needed the Divine Battle Axe that I’d had forged so long a go. A little birdie told me that divine weapons could put down the regenerating skeletons in the Catacombs for good, so I was going to have to learn how to use something other than my beloved Drake Sword.

The axe was unwieldy, but powerful. It was slow to swing, but a strong hit could temporarily shatter the top half of a skeleton to bits, leaving its lower half defenseless and open to attack for a few seconds. It took a bit of practice with the weapon before I felt confident taking it down with me into the depths of the Catacombs, but I had to press forward, and the only other option I knew of at the time was Anor Londo.

I was not going back to Anor Londo.

Creeping down the shadowy staircase, I kept my guard up, knowing that a skeleton and the screeching explody things were waiting in the darkness ahead. The first skeleton came at me, as if out of nowhere. I parried its attack and countered with a mighty blow from my shimmering axe. The divine weapon sent bones flying in every direction. I waited, keeping my shield at the ready. The bones didn’t move. I waited a little longer, nothing happened, and I moved on.

Inside the entrance to the Catacombs, I saw the faint lights floating around above the bottomless hole. They seemed a bit father than usual, which was a boon because they didn’t appear to notice me from that distance. I was curious to find out exactly what they were, but decided not to risk it. I continued down around the edge of the pit and busted up the skeleton that was waiting to ambush me at the bottom.

When I had come down here the first time, I was beset by immortal skeletons and inexplicable explosions, so I didn’t really have time to notice that the cliff at the end of the path did not lead to yet another bottomless pit. No, there was a floor below, maybe a ten-foot drop down. It was hard to see in the darkness, no wonder I’d missed it before.

I hopped down and was immediately attacked by a troop of skeletons, commanded by an undead man who confidently whipped fireballs at me from afar while his minions engaged me in close combat. I rolled away from the skeletons, and went after the necromancer. He ran, but there wasn’t anywhere to go. I struck him down, hoping his death would extinguish the force animating his bony buddies, but they continued to charge me.

I came out of the darkness of the crypt into a valley bathed in sunlight and prowling with skeletons and necromancers. The Catacombs were a massive, winding mess of tunnels, shafts, and catwalks. It was also full of statues, some of which would fire out spikes if someone stepped too close. Finding a bonfire in this place was a welcome reprieve, and getting to the bottom wasn’t nearly as difficult as surviving at the bottom was.

At the end of the main path was a long, narrow mausoleum build into the side of the valley. Waiting at the far end of this mausoleum was another titanite demon. This fight was much tougher than the first one, as the narrow hall made it difficult to get around to the back of the demon where it was relatively save. The big guy softened me up with a few blows of his staff, and then skewered me with a diving strike. You Died.

I worked my way back to the titanite demon, this time attempting to defeat it with a mix of fireballs and arrows. The strategy seemed airtight, until he reminded me that he could fling lightning bolts at me from his staff. Also, he has a pretty amazing range on that jumping attack. You Died.

A flat-out assault didn’t really work either. You Died.

Annoyed, my next plan for dealing with the titanite demon was to simply run past him. It worked like a charm, except that behind him was just a dead end. Oh sure, I found a few Eyes of Death back there, but those were absolutely useless to me. The demon wasn’t too happy about me taking its baubles, so it killed me again. You Died.

A couple attempts later, I was running away from an encounter with the demon that went bad very quickly, and as I dove to avoid a lightning bolt, I discovered another path off to the side, well out of the demon’s initial field of vision. I stopped to lament how stupid I’d been for not noticing it earlier, and that was just enough time for the demon to catch up with me. You Died.

Tune in next week for Part 23: Spooky

An errant wrench

The Year of Nintendo 64 is going well, and I’m staying rather interested in it, much to my surprise. So far, I’ve finished at least one N64 game a month, with good times and bad times along the way. It’s been fun, and also a learning experience.

Recently, I learned a very troubling thing.

I booted up Quest 64, my chosen game for May, and was surprised to see a notice immediately pop up that informed me that I’d need a controller pak (N64’s equivalent to a memory card) to save my game. No problem, I had a few of those back in the day. At least one had to be kicking around in my big gaming chest.

I found a controller pak, conveniently inserted into another controller, so I yanked it out and slapped it into the controller I was using. Another notice came on-screen, telling me that the data was corrupt and that I’d need to initialize the card before I could use it. Whatever. I don’t recall ever owning a game that saved to the controller pak, so all I’d be losing was corrupt data from rented games.

I formatted the card and started up the game. After about half an hour, it dawned on me that I should probably save and reset the game before I got too far, to see if the controller pak was still capable of saving data. I saved, reset, and loaded my game without fault. Good, so the formatting worked. I played for another couple hours and made substantial progress, getting at least a third of the way through the game.

I decided to play a little more a couple nights later, and was devastated (but not totally surprised) when the “Your data is corrupt. Please initialize the controller pak.” screen came up. All that time wasted. A quick search in the back of my third N64 controller came up empty. I haven’t done a thorough search for another pak yet, but I fear that the dead one might be the only one I own.

If I don’t possess a working controller pak, I’m still split on whether I want to go out and try to purchase one, or if it’s a better idea to just try to power through the game in a single sitting. Like I said, I made it pretty far in only a couple hours, and I think I could manage it. I’m not necessarily looking forward to such an endeavour, but I like Quest 64 enough that I don’t want to write it off, either.

The good news is that Quest 64 is (apparently) one of only two games that save to the controller pak exclusively, and I don’t own the other one, so this ~~won’t~~ shouldn’t be an issue in the future. I’ve got my fingers crossed. This has been quite the unexpected wrinkle in my grand scheme.

Not a bad idea, the train

I’m not much of a reader. I used to be, back in the day. I used to read books by the… well, maybe not dozens exactly, but I used to read a whole lot more than I do now. I think I read a grand total of three novels last year?

It really is a damn shame too, because I love to read. I really do. Books are so much more interesting and deeper than movies and TV. Aside from me being completely obsessed with video games, I think the only thing that keeps me from reading more is the fact that it takes a really long time to read a book. I have a tough time sitting through a two-hour movie, so you can understand how my attention would easily wane while trying to work my way through a book. I’m a slow reader, too, and that certainly doesn’t help.

While perusing the internet last year, I happened to come across a piece of Mother 3 trivia that interested me: The twins in that game are named after a set of twins in a trio of novels. Intrigued, I did a search and upon reading the Amazon summary, I knew that these were books that I had to read.

The Notebook, The Proof, and The Third Lie. Collectively, they are apparently known as The Book of Lies, but the book that I bought gave the trilogy no such title. I bought it for my wife as a Christmas gift, since it sounded like something that she’d enjoy as well, and also because she actually does read a lot of books. But secretly (not actually secretly, as I told her outright), I had bought it for myself and waited patiently as she worked through it so that I could have my turn.

The day came, and I began reading. I was not hooked right away, but I think that by about 20 pages in I was finding it almost impossible to put down. I chipped away at it over a couple weeks. Somewhere in the middle of The Proof I set it down for a month or so, choosing to focus on handheld video games as my settling down activity before going to sleep. But then I picked it back up and burned through the rest in three consecutive nights. When I closed it and put it down on my nights stand, I wondered how long one should wait before re-reading a book. The only book I’ve read twice in the last decade was Monster Island.

And this is where I wish that I was smarter. I wish that I knew how to talk about books. I wish I knew how to intelligently express how I feel about the trilogy I just finished reading.

As it is, all I can leave you with is the sentiment that I absolutely loved these books. They were beautiful, and horrifying, and depressing, and inspiring, and heartrending. They were brilliant. It’s not often that I offer book recommendations, but go to Amazon right now and put your order in.

The only other book that I can recall being quite so gaga over is The Forever War, and I only wrote one sentence about that one. You know what I think it is about these books that proves that they’re so great? They make me want to read more.

Dark Souls: A Different Approach

Previously on Dark Souls: Morgan tried to break into Anor Londo castle, but got mercilessly killed over and over agin for her efforts.

The silver archers were starting to drain my enthusiasm. No. The gauntlet that led up to my inevitable death at the hands of the archers is what was really bugging me. Spinning that tower over and over again was such a chore. It was at this point that I decided to go back to the terrace bonfire and make that one my respawn point instead. It was a longer walk back across the bridge, but still took less time than waiting for the tower to do two spins after each death.

I’d lost count of how many times the archers had killed me, but I was still trying to find a way past them. There wasn’t one, though. There was only one way into the castle, and it was past these jerks.

Giving it yet another go, I steeled myself after disposing of the winged demons and started running up the buttress. I made it! But now was not the time for rejoicing! The ledge that led around the castle was very narrow, and a snigle misstep would send me to my death. Again. Also I still had those knights to deal with. Luckily, a stray wall was between me and one of them, so I only had to face off against the other to progress.

Gripping my shiled tightly as each massive arrow deflected off of it, I slowly edged towards my silver-plated foe. He stood unwavering in his position, loosing arrow after arrow even as I came within striking distance. The knight then exchanged his bow for a sword and shield, apparently intending to engage me in a swordfight on the precarious ledge. We stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity, and I began to worry. I had never faced such a patient foe before, and this knight had been just as agressive as the rest until just now.

Then I felt the arrow burrow into my back. The force of the impact slammed me into the wall and I bounced off of it, and down into the dark unknown. That stupid knight had just been stalling until his buddy was in a position to shoot me from behind. What a couple of dicks. You Died.

My spirit was broken. I was never going to get into the castle. So I headed back up the trail to the landing where I’d first set foot in Anor Londo, head hung low, and had the winged demons carry me back over the mountainside to Sen’s Fortress.

I trudged back to Firelink Shrine and rested at the bonfire, weary and not sure of what I was supposed to do. Then I noticed a strange clacking sound coming from behind me.

I turned around, and past a few crumbling walls, where there had used to be an empty area that resembled a pool, was a massive, horrifying head sticking out from a pit of inky blackness. The creature rhythmically clacked his teeth together as I approached it, and it seemed almost happy to see me, which was somewhat alarming in this hostile world.

The creature, who introduced himself as the primordial serpent, Kingseeker Frampt, was in fact delighted that I had shown up. Seems he’d been looking for the chosen one or some junk. I wasn’t overly interested in his story, but he did say that an object of great power, the Lordvessel, was hidden away in Anor Londo castle, and that he thought that I’d be the one who could obtain it.

Guess he hadn’t heard about my adventures in Anor Londo.

At least I knew what I was supposed to be doing. I had an objective now. But I decided to head off in the opposite direction and fight some skeletons in the graveyard instead. It had been a while since I’d been over that way. Also I owed them a little payback for all those times that they killed me when I first arrived in Firelink.

Tune in next week for Part 22: Creepshow

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: April 2014

In March I tried to focus on fewer games, getting my count of beaten games up, and cleaving away a small portion of my backlog. But then April came along and I have just been all over the place with my gaming; playing on every platform, new games, old games, half-beaten games. I guess it’s like that rubber-band effect that happens to people who try to lose weight the wrong way.

This month’s list is huge, but at least I beat a lot of the games on it. Lately it seems like I’ve been favoring a system of working on one or two long games, while supplementing that with a bunch of smaller games that can be beaten over a couple evenings or a single afternoon. It’s a good system, and I wish I’d thought of it years ago. Maybe then my backlog wouldn’t be so enormous.

~ Now Playing ~

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow: Mirror of Fate HD (360) – Unlike many, I quite liked the first Lords of Shadow game, but the 3DS sequel seemed so tepid that I skipped it. Luckily, Mercurysteam saw fit to release an HD version for $15 only a few months later, which then went on sale, and that sounded good enough to me. And, yeah, it’s pretty much as mediocre as the reviews make it out to be. Oh well.

Continue reading Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: April 2014

Not-quite-double vision

I know almost nothing about Phineas and Ferb or Disney Infinity, but a big ol’ wave of déja vu rolled over me when I saw this pre-order card at Best Buy a couple weeks ago.

For whatever reason, this figurine (which I later confirmed is in fact Phineas) reminds me very strongly of the official Ness figurine.

When you sit the two next to each other, they aren’t really all that similar, but they do share a bunch of traits. The striped shirt, blue jeans, and green base. Big heads topped with something red (Phineas’ hair and Ness’ baseball cap). You can see how at a glance, I could have been mistaken and had one of those “Bluh?” moments.

That’s all. Just a funny observation today.

Year of N64 – April: Star Wars: Rogue Squadron

I have two vivid memories in relation to Star Wars: Rogue Squadron.

The first is the Easter that came after I got the game. I don’t remember the circumstances under which I received the game proper (it was likely a Christmas gift), but I do remember that on that Easter, I got the Official Nintendo Player’s Guide for it as a gift. We also went to the Royal Fork Buffet for Easter dinner that year, and I brought the guide along with me so that I could study the game and how to earn the gold medals and unlockable ships. It was also the last time I can recall enjoying the Royal Fork Buffet. Maybe the food there used to be better, maybe I just didn’t know better becaue I was a child. We may never know the truth. Also we got the PC versions of Rayman and Earthworm Jim, but I was much less interested in those.

I want to say I chose to play Rogue Squadron in April because it and Easter have a permanent link in my mind, but really I’m not that clever. It’s April’s game of the month because that’s just how things rolled out. Pure coincidence.

Continue reading Year of N64 – April: Star Wars: Rogue Squadron

Applause for Pokémon

On one hand, I generally hate pop music mashups. They’re almost always stupid and more often than not I hate both of the songs they’re made out of.

On the other hand, I love it when two totally opposite things blend together absolutely beautifully.

That said, guess how I feel about the video embedded below. (Hint: I try to mostly only post about things I like.)

Dark Souls: Boot Stamping on a Hollow Face – Forever

Previously on Dark Souls: Morgan fought a bunch of giant statue-men with varying degrees of success, and broke a really expensive-looking chandelier.

Flipping the massive lever at the base of the spinny tower again, I stood and waited until it had rumbled into position, completing the bridge from the terrace at the entrance of Anor Londo to the massive castle on the opposite side. I scaled the spiral staircase up to the bridge and was ambushed by another gargoyle, which I dispatched quickly.

Things were going swimmingly, and my head was beginning to swell with confidence.

On the other end of the bridge was a massive staircase leading up to the castle entrance. The castle, of course, was locked up tight, and there was a sentinel standing on either side of the enormous door. Being so excited to have reached the castle, I accidentally alerted them both at the same time, and, well, things happen. You Died.

To get back to the castle from the lower bonfire, I had to spin the tower twice. It was a little annoying.

The doorway sentinels were a huge pain, as it was very hard to get their attention one at a time, and then I was forced to fight them on the staircase. The uneven ground made a difficult enemy even harder, until I learned that I could use the lower ground to make evading some att acks easier. It wasn’t that’s much easier though. You Died.

Spin once to bring the tower down, spin it again to make it go back up.

It took me a few more tries to defeat both sentinels, and I always started with the one on the left. For no specific reason; it just felt natural. It was truly disheartening to learn that all that was behind that guy was a locked door. To make progress, I really only had to fight the one on the right. Even then, if I was able to just sneak past him, the gate I needed to go through was much too small for him, so I could have avoided all those fights and deaths entirely if I’d simply been more observant.

Taunting the sentinel from the other side of the gate was not a good idea though, as he was still able to spear me with his weapon through it. You Died.

Spin once to bring the tower down, spin it again to make it go back up.

Little did I know that the sentinels were really the least of my problems. On the other side of the gate was a balcony where a bunch of winged demons were hanging out. They were the same kind of demons that had flown me into Anor Londo, but these ones were much less benevolent. They each carried a spear that coursed with the power of lightning, which cost me a bit of health even when I blocked their strikes. The only saving grace here was that it was easy to bait the demons over to me one at a time. Fighting them all at once would have been suicidal.

From that balcony, I had to cross over another buttress to a small tower. I didn’t see anything at the other end, so I let my guard down and dashed across without hesitation. As soon as I stepped onto the tower though, two winged demons jumped out at me and started stabbing at me with their lightning spears. I turned tail and tried to run back across the buttress, but then they started throwing lightning spears at me, and a person can only take so many lightning spear to the back before they expire. You Died.

Spin the tower down, spin the tower up. Pass the sentinel, kill the balcony demons.

The demons on the small tower had a weakness: they could not cross the buttress back up to the balcony because the railings on either side made the path too narrow for them. I could simply stay slighty out of their range on the buttress, and quickly go in for an attack It felt like I was really getting away with something, but then I discovered that the spaces between the railings were not too narrow fro me to slip through if I wasn’t careful. And off into the blackness I fell… You Died.

Spin the tower down, spin the tower up. Pass the sentinel, kill the balcony demons.

The process of getting back to the stupid buttress was beginning to weigh on me. But this time, I killed those stupid winged demons, and I triumphantly began crossing yet another buttress that lead up to the wall of the castle. Then I heard a strange thwip noise, and another right after it. Then a massive javelin pierced my torso, knocking me onto the ground. The second javelin ran through me and everything went black. You Died.

Spin the tower down, spin the tower up. Pass the sentinel, kill the balcony demons. Kill the tower demons.

I hid behind a corner of the tower and took a look to see where those javelins had come from. Off in the distance, I could see a pair of silver knights standing on either side of the ledge lining the castle wall that I was aiming to get to. I crept around the corner to better assess the situation when I saw them both draw their huge bows. I tucked back behind the wall as they loosed their “arrows” and I heard the crash of steel piercing stone as the arrows hit the other side of the wall.

But the archers did not stop just because I was behind cover. I heard pair after pair of arrows collide with the wall, and decided that I’d have to just run for it. Probably shoudl have waited a bit longer though, as I only made it halfway across the buttress before one of the giant arrows hit me and the force of the impact sent me flailing into the abyss. You Died.

Spin the tower down, spin the tower up. Pass the sentinel, kill the balcony demons. Kill the tower demons.

I tried to cross over to the castle wall again, hoping that if I began my run before the archers noticed me, the head start would be the edge I needed to make it across. I did almost make it, but took an arrow to the thigh and went plummeting to my doom again. You Died.

Spin the tower down, spin the tower up. Pass the sentinel, kill the balcony demons. Kill the tower demons. Get killed by the archers. You Died.

*Sigh*

Tune in next week for Part 21: A Different Approach