One of my favourite things

The Christmas season is approaching much faster than I’m ready for it to, and I am starting to feel a little overwhelmed as a result.

Normally, I’d just go out and buy whatever I think would make good gifts for the people on my list, but this year the crushing costs of living as independent adults is making it very hard to do Christmas shopping my way. It’s really too bad too, because Christmas is the one time of year that I’m not a selfish prick, and I used to truly enjoy going all out on gifts. Especially for Wifey, though I have been squirreling away money to make sure that I can get her lots of nice things..

On the flip side, budget-conscious shopping means I’ll probably have to spend more time shopping (bargain hunting an whatnot), which makes me incredibly happy. See, while those few years I spent working at Toys R Us during the season rent my love of holiday shopping asunder, it’s finally grown back and man oh man, am I excited to soak up the festive…ness.

I haven’t ever really written about Christmas at length, but that’s because I just enjoy absorbing the season more than I do trying to put words to the feelings it evokes. Christmas shopping is one of my favourite parts of it. Despite the time I spent working in retail, I love the atmosphere of the malls when November rolls around.

Everything about it is just so wonderful to me. I love seeing all the kiosks pop up or change over to something more thematically appropriate. I love walking into stores that are suddenly overflowing with merchandise. I love the decorations, from the wintry banners to the red bow to the huge Santa Claus photo stage. Hell, I even have a bit of a soft spot for the silly music, now that I don’t have to listen to it for eight hours a day.

But my favourite part of all are the lights. There’s just something about all those extraneous strings of lights that suddenly spring forth from mall ceilings that make me feel comfortable and happy. Especially when they’re paired with a glass ceiling, as looking at all the lights with the backdrop of the night sky is just my favourite. I don’t even have words to properly describe how it makes me feel or why I like it, but it’s something I just couldn’t do without.

I’m not the kind of person who enjoys the mall normally. I like to go every once in a while to walk around a bit, and I’ll hit it up occasionally for shopping, but it’s not a place I choose to linger just for the sake of being there. When a mall is all gussied up to draw in holiday shoppers though, you can bet that I’d be happy just to walk around and enjoy the atmosphere. And it’s weird, because I’m not too crazy about going out to any other kind of holiday display. It’s all about the malls for some reason.

Well, I think that was enough disjointed rambling for one day. Tune in next time for maybe something I’m able to express a little more clearly. Or maybe not. Who knows!

Not your daddy’s Dark World

The new Legend of Zelda game, A Link Between Worlds, came out on Friday. The craziest thing is, I wasn’t really all that excited about it. Normally Zelda games are the things I go the most crazy for, but there was no hype inside me this time around. I simply worked all day as usual, went home and had a nap wile waiting for my wife to get home from work, and then proceeded to the store to pick it up.

I didn’t even start playing in earnest until Sunday.

No, nothing is wrong with me. I’m not gravely ill. It was just a weird coincidence, because now that I have spent some time in the game world, I am finding it incredibly hard to put down. This is because A Link Between Worlds is quite possibly the best Zelda game.

If you weren’t already aware, A Link Between Worlds is a direct sequel to 1991’s A Link To The Past, which is considered by most of my peers to be the very best Zelda game. While it is a sequel, it’s also a first for the series, as it uses the same overworld map that you know and love from LttP. Well, a very similar world map anyway. It’s not a 1:1 reproduction, but that’s quite alright.

Worlds also steals its story pacing from its older brother: you go through a short introduction, then three dungeons to earn your Master Sword, then Hyrule Castle to the alternate world, in which there are seven dungeons and then a final showdown. It’s cut-and-pasted wholesale, but I’d say it’s a good enough structure that it’s worth repeating.

You may have noticed that I said “alternate world” up there instead of Dark World. That’s because in LBW, you don’t visit the Dark World again; you visit Lorule instead. That may be giving it too much credit though, because Lorule is totally the Dark World, just with a different map and a castle instead of a pyramid. The scenery is the same, the enemies are the same, and the dungeons are all even in the same places. Well, the dungeon locations are the same anyway. Somehow Turtle Rock is now in the lake where the Ice Palace used to be.

Speaking of Turtle Rock, all the dungeon interiors are completely different, too. Because you wouldn’t want to climb the old Tower of Hera when you could play around in the completely awesome new Tower of Hera, right? Right. Re-using a world map creates continuity, but re-using dungeons would just be lazy. And, like I said, the new Tower of Hera was a really great dungeon.

All the dungeons are great, in fact! I think it helps that all of the ones I’ve played have been fairly compact, and that it’s more about solving the dungeon as a whole than solving each room for the next key. But there are still locked doors and keys. I’m not really smart enough to explain exactly what it is that makes me enjoy these dungeons so much, but I can tell you that they are very fulfilling the solve, and I really appreciate that they aren’t huge and more complicated than they need to be.

And this kind of ties in with LBW’s main gimmick: having access to most of Link’s inventory after completing the first dungeon. Of course, you aren’t just given all the stuff: you have to pay to rent each item. But they come fairly cheap and I had more than enough cash to rent out everything as soon as Ravio opened his item shop. Later on, you’re able to purchase them permanently for a much higher cost, but owning an item allows you to upgrade it and means you won’t have to pay to rent it again if you die.

What the item rental shop does for the game is allow you to take it at your own pace. Like I said, I rented everything out at once and then immediately went off to explore as much of the overworld as I could, because normally that’s something you have to do incrementally as you get new items. Of course, not everything opens up to you right away; the game still hands out a few power-ups at predetermined points, like the flippers, power gloves and pegasus boots. An important note is that at no point in the game are you given or tasked to find a shield: you have to go out and buy one all by yourself.

What makes the item rental system stand out to most people is that it lets you play through the Lorule dungeons in any order you choose. Dungeons are still built around a single item, but you no longer have to get halfway through to earn that item. Now the big dungeon treasure is a permanent power-up, like a new tunic or an upgraded shield, which is helpful but not necessary to complete the game. Since you don’t have to muck around finding the dungeon item first, you could conceivably head straight for the boss if you know the way, meaning LBW will likely be a big hit with the speedrunning crowd.

The freedom of being able to explore the world right away is a wonderful change for the Zelda series, and stirs things up just enough to make it feel fresh again. The dungeons are great fun, and there isn’t even a hit of the traditional handholding that had soured many gamers on the Zelda series. I’m still only about halfway through, but I am looking forward to that second half like nobody’s business. A Link Between Worlds is the renaissance that the series needed, and I can only hope that the next game is as fresh and fun as this one.

Is this the world we created?

I took this picture at some point last year, and I don’t think I ever got around to actually putting it into a blog post. Time doesn’t really dull the pain of knowing that I live in a world where not only do Fruit Ninja plush toys exists, but said toys cost twelve bucks (after taxes).

Twelve bucks. For a plush fruit. That (presumably) splits in half.

It’s not quite stupid enough that I need to call for another divine flood or muse about why suicide booths don’t exist yet, but man, Fruit Ninja toys. I guess that good ideas really were an exhaustible resource.

That sinking feeling

I went out and bought a Wii Fit Meter the other day. I know, you’re thinking that’s pretty nuts. Just hear me out: There’s a Wii Fit U demo on the eShop, which is the full game, but it’s only good for 30 days. After that, I’d have to pony up $50 for the full version of the game. BUT! Buying the silly little trinket on its own for $20 and syncing it up with said demo actually unlocks the game for unlimited use. And we all know that I was going to buy Wii Fit U at some point anyway, so I actually saved $30 by buying the Fit Meter. Score!

Also I bought it with a gift card so I didn’t actually spend any money.

Not that I know anyone who owns a Wii U (heathens), but this deal is only good until January 31st, so if you’re at all interested, now would be the time to take the plunge. Of course it’s not a great deal if you don’t also already own a Balance Board, but them’s the breaks.

wii-fit-u-meter-376x380

Anyway, the Fit Meter is basically a repurposed and repainted Pokéwalker. Actually, I think it’s exactly a repurposed and repainted Pokéwalker. The two gadgets are identical, as both are just glorified pedometers. The Fit Meter has some extra features tucked into though, those being an altimeter and a thermometer. It’s also apparently smart enough to know when you’re driving, so as not to count false steps.

You cannot, however, use it to catch Pokémon. Which is a missed opportunity, but I’ll let it slide..

The pedometer and thermometer seem to be pretty on the level, as those have maintained pretty accurate numbers as far as I can tell. The clock is a few minutes ahead and I can’t change it, which bothers me but I guess I’ll just have to live with it. It’s the altimeter that I question.

The altimeter is there to measure your change in elevation as you move around, which will affect how many burned calories it’s calculating. Thing is, the altimeter is set right now at -135m, even though the city’s general elevation is roughly 235m, but that one can be written off as a poor initial calibration.

What really troubles me is that the altitude graph showed a steady decrease on my ride to work this morning, and continued to decrease even while I was at work, despite the fact that I climbed three stories to get to my desk. Looking back even farther, the altitude graph is showing that the Fit Meter thought it was descending overnight, while it was sitting still on my nightstand.

So either the thing is buggy or my entire city is rather quickly sinking into the Earth. I don’t hear any panic in the streets outside, so I’m inclined to believe it’s not the latter.

On the other hand, having even a piece of Wii Fit tagging along in my pocket all day seems like it’s going to be a pretty good incentive to keep using the actual software. At least I’m hoping that’s the case, as I do want to drop a belt size or two, but can’t be bothered to keep myself motivated enough to actually keep exercising. Also that whole “eating right” business, but that’s a totally different beast that I’m going to tackle once I’ve got this regular exercise thing down.

Oh lately it’s so quiet

I learned the hard way this morning, that my body will no longer tolerate me eating like a young man. Back in the day, I used to pack away as much of whatever I wanted, and all would be good. I might get full after a while, but hey, full is good.

Last night, I ate two polish sausage hot dogs, half a thing of fries, a few peanut butter cookies, and a big ol’ root beer. This sounds like a standard meal for me, and I figured it would be as much. But this morning I woke up with the absolute worst feeling in the pit of my stomach. Also I was still burping out the smell of hot dogs. It was a horrible, disgusting morning.

I look back now, and shudder to think of the disaster I averted by opting to not get that third hot dog.

All this to say… there’s not a lot going on. Who would have thought that my entire schtick was buying silly crap and then writing about it? Turns out that I don’t actually do anything interesting, I just used to make the “most” of my disposable income. I’m sitting here, racking my brain for something I’m interested enough to write about at length, but I’m at a total loss. So stories about hot dog burps are the best you’re gonna get right now.

I suppose I could start playing Fallout: New Vegas and regale you with tall tales about my further adventures in post-apocalyptic America, but there are just so many other games I’d rather be playing right now (and honestly I think I’d rather go back to Skyrim before starting New Vegas). Also, I feel like I’m falling back into the habit of only writing about video games, and I really want to pull back away from that. Yes, video games are pretty much all I do, but I’d sure like to be able to at least pretend for a while that I have other interests.

It’s filler, but not

Hey I haven’t posted anything in a while. I guess I have a thing in the works but ehhhh. Between Cookie Clicker and IRL problems (re: being sick), I really haven’t been all over the writing business as of late.

So here’s a thing I did a while back:

 

Yeah, it’s just an Avatar version of QWOP. It’s not even a very good one. I have this other game that I sort of want to record, which has a similar premise, but a much better execution. Will it happen? I don’t know. It’s a multiplayer thing, and I am terrified of the prospect of trying to record something with another person. Don’t know why. Just am.

Monthend Video Game Wrap-up: October 2013

Hey! It’s this thing again! Now it’s officially a recurring feature! That was my plan all along, of course, but I’m kind of a flake so who even knew if I was going to even get around to writing up a second entry. That said, I’ll probably stop caring about this stupid thing by the time 2014 rolls around.

In the interest of further categorizing and complicating things, I’ve decided that MVGW needs a third header. I felt like “Now Playing” and “Game Over” were pretty self-explanatory, but you might wonder about what exactly the new “Reruns” header is for. It, my friends, is reserved for short games which I have played before and which were started and finished within the month. You can think of it as a subsection of “Game Over” if you’d like.

~ Now Playing ~

Pokémon Y (3DS) – Just assume that this is the only game I played after the 11th. Aside from short breaks to collect the Spooky furniture series in Animal Crossing. I have, of course, beaten the story, but I still have a bunch of post-game stuff to do and plenty of empty pokédex entries.

Continue reading Monthend Video Game Wrap-up: October 2013

Halloween 2013: 5 Best Horror Movies

Welp, it’s Halloween today, and pretty much the only thing I’ve done in the spirit of the season is watch a whole buttload of horror movies. Most of them were absolutely terrible, and sometimes that’s the appeal, but once in a while there’s one in there that I feel was legitimately good. Those movies are the ones we’re going to talk about today.

What’s going to separate this from anyone running down a list of their favourite horror movies is my single criteria: I must have watched the movie for the first time this October. So all of these are new to me, and

Curse of Chucky – I love me some Chucky series, but I was a little worried about this one before it came out. It’s a direct-to-DVD movie, which is usually enough to confirm that a movie is going to be baaaaad. I was also under the impression that it was going to be a reboot, and reboots are dangerous territory.

Curse of Chucky is not a reboot. For the first half of the movie, it could be. The Chucky doll looks new, and there are no ties to the previous films. And then one of the characters notices that Chucky’s face has a layer of latex on it that’s covering up all his scars, proceed to peel the latex off, and BAM ITS THE CHUCKY WE KNOW AND LOVE.

And then, AND THEN the events of Curse all end up tying back into the very first Child’s Play and then Jennifer Tilly shows up right at the end and it all fits together and it is damn glorious. Unlike the two previous films, Curse is not a horror-comedy. It sticks to straight-up horror, and I like that they decided to go back to basics. Also, Curse has the best, most amazing post-credits scene ever filmed.

Curse of Chucky is absolutely the best direct-to-DVD movie I have ever seen, and it’s a fantastic sequel to a series that was having an identity crisis. Easily the best horror movie I’ve watched this season, and maybe even one of my favourites of the year at large. It’s creepy, it’s surprising, and it’s a big love letter to fans of the series.

Fright Night (2011) – I’m also a huge fan of 1985’s Fright Night. I mean, who isn’t though? It’s one of the legit best horror movies ever made. So you can understand why I didn’t really want to see the modern remake. But it was $5 at Wal-Mart and with a price like that, I figured it’d be worth the gamble. Oh man, you guys.

The remake of Fright Night is great. It’s pretty much exactly what I like to see in a remake: it’s got a lot of the same elements as the original, but mixes everything up enough that it’s its own movie. Kind of like how a good cover song works. If you know Fright Night well, you’ll have a good understanding of the basic plot of the movie, but it throws enough curveballs at you that you’re going to be shocked at least a few times.

It’s a really good thrill ride too. In the original, Jerry is a fairly passive vampire. He comes after Charley that one time, but mostly he’s just like “hey mind your own business kid.” In the remake, he is the most bad-ass vampire I have ever seen. 2011 Jerry Dandrige does not mess around. He will stalk you, he will threaten you, he will blow your mother-loving house up. It is magnificent, and I am so very sad that I hesitated to watch it for as long as I did.

World War Z – I think the theme of this list so far is “movies I thought would be bad but then they really weren’t” and World War Z is probably the most fitting for that title. You watch the trailer, and you see the wacky zombie tidal waves, and you think that it’s just going to be utter garbage. In fact, if I hadn’t gotten it as a free rental from Redbox, I probably still wouldn’t have bothered to watch it.

The thing you have to understand is that while World War Z has zombies in it, it’s not really a zombie movie. You could more or less sub in any kind of global disaster and tell the same story: Brad Pitt doesn’t give two craps about saving the world or finding a cure or anything, he’s just doing what he has to to keep his family safe.

So then what separates it from other, less great apocalypse movies like, oh let’s say 2012? Brad Pitt helps, that’s for sure. I mean I love John Cusack, but there’s really no competition. World War Z is also paced really well, and I dare say that using zombies as a disaster makes the situation much more interesting. The movie is very tense and interesting from beginning to end, and it’s absolutely more of an action/drama than a horror movie, but I’ll keep calling it horror so I can justify putting it on this list.

From Hell – This is a movie I’d never even heard of that Wifey picked up because it was cheap and it has a young(ish) Jonny Depp in it. It’s a slasher that gives an identity and motive to Jack the Ripper. But it’s not really about Jack, it’s more about the prostitutes that he kills. And also a detective that solves crime by having psychic visions while wasted on opium.

It all sounds a little silly, and it is. It’s very silly if you stop to think about it. But it’s a fairly enjoyable movie to watch. I especially liked that it’s a somewhat unique variation on the usual slasher formula. You know who doesn’t like it though? Alan Moore. The movie is based on a graphic novel of his, and apparently devolves his fine story into a goofy whodunit. I haven’t read said graphic novel (and probably never will), but the movie version worked for me, and that’s all that mattered.

Christine – You know the episode of Futurama where Bender becomes a were-car? Apparently that’s also an old horror movie! Well, not really, but I can’t seem to separate the two in my mind despite the fact that all they really have in common is the theme of homicide by automobile.

It’s based on a Stephen King novel, which is usually a good thing, and has a pretty good story and a handful of great characters. What really impressed me about Christine though, was the special effects. At one point, Christine (who is a haunted car), is completely destroyed. Shortly after, she magically restores herself, and the scene looks so friggin’ good. Like, these practical effects from 1983 are considerably more convincing than most of the computer-generated effects in current movies.

The only thing that really bothered me about the film is that there isn’t even a hint of an explanation as to why the car is haunted. I suppose that’s a fairly common omission is movies based on Stephen King stories, as they’re typically more about the characters and how they deal with the situation than the situation itself. Still, it’s a pretty great movie, and despite the difference in popularity between the two, I think it was way better than Carrie.

A Decorate-Your-Own-Cookie Halloween

Halloween is fast approaching (tomorrow!) and I’ve done a terrible job of trying to post Halloween-themed things on here. And also doing Halloween-themed things in real life. Wife and I have been watching as many horror movies as possible, but that’s about it. We didn’t even bother to dig out the ‘Ween decorations.

I did buy these cookies a while back though, and they are undoubtedly the most Halloweeny thing that I’ve done this season. So good on me for that, I guess.

Somehow, I managed to keep them hidden (on the kitchen table) from Wifey until last weekend, when I deemed it appropriate to bring them out and get into the Halloween cookie spirit. She was pretty damn stoked, and that was pretty much the point. Both of us get unusually excited about anything that comes with a tube of icing packed in, and these cookies had three packs of icing each, so it was basically Christmas in October up in here.

If you’ve never seen a product like this, they’re naked cookies that come with a few packs of coloured icing and some sprinkles, so that you can work your own artistic magic on the cookie. These were pretty cheap, and came with two cookies each. They were a steal if I’v ever seen one.

Of course, being cheap, there had to be some sort of catch. That catch is that the chocolate pumpkin-shaped cookies were fused together. Trying to separate them ended with a big mess, and both cookies were broken in the process. It’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on with the cookie in that photo, but a lot of the top cookie’s backside remained stuck to the bottom cookie. I wasn’t pleased. The ghosts came apart nicely though.

I tried to “glue” my pumpkin cookie back together using some of the black icing. It didn’t work out too well, but it held together long enough to get photos, and I suppose that’s the best I could have asked for.

We then proceeded to bust out the icing and decorate our cookies. I cut the holes in my icing packets too big, and it didn’t squirt out very well, so my pumpkin looks like complete garbage. After that mess I decided to just go with a simple design for the ghost. I’m a terrible craftsman, so I’m going to blame my tools; the icing did not want to stick to the cookies at all, but it sure as Hell wanted to stick all over my fingers.

Wifey’s came out looking fairly nice though. Her Barney-coloured pumpkin is a cute little mess, and I really like the eyes on her ghost. They stare into your soul like no cookie has before.

It should be noted that I had a ton of icing left, so I slathered it all over my ghost once I was done with pictures. Also, the bag of sprinkles that come with these things has enough sprinkles to liberally cover four to five cookies, so there were orange and black sprinkles everywhere by the time I was done. Like, look up at my pumpkin there, and imagine him with at least three times as many sprinkles. You just can’t waste all that perfectly good sugar, right?

And that’s about that. I quite enjoyed devouring the ghost cookie, but the pumpkin cookie was that gross off-chocolate flavour you get with cheap cookies. It wasn’t very good at all.

Pew pew pews

Podcasts are not a thing I typically do. It’s hard for me to justify spending up to an hour and a half just listening to people ramble on about stuff, and it’s nearly impossible to really absorb the content of a podcast while doing something else. At least, that’s how it is for me. I have found that work is a great time to listen to podcasts, because my job is mostly numbers, and it’s easy to listen to what the people are saying in my ear while I muck around on my spreadsheets or whatever.

Obviously, the bus rides to and from work are a great time for this as well.

I have made a point to listen to the new Retronauts every week, because I really like the three regular hosts, and I think they do a very good job of covering a lot of video game-related topics that I’m already pretty interested in, or will interest me enough to hear people ramble about them for so long.

Last week’s episode was about fan translations, and while I’ve already played a few of the games that they highlighted on the show, I did take it upon myself to try out a few that I hadn’t already touched. I’m not trying to hock video games today, though. What was really important about this show was the guest stars: Chris Antista and Brett Elston

These dudes run another podcast called Laser Time (well, Brett guests on Laser Time, and hosts VGMpire), which I decided to look into for no real reason at all other than I was kinda interested in listening to another podcast. I hit the damn jackpot here too, because I ended up loving Laser Time.

Apparently a lot of people involved work in the video game industry, but the podcast isn’t about video games all the time. Or even most of the time maybe? I’ve listened to five episodes so far, and four of those have been about movies. In fact, I’d wager to say that it’s more about retro stuff and pop-culture in general than video games. This is the X-Entertainment podcast that never existed.

I should mention that it’s also pretty consistently funny. And when it’s not funny, it’s educational in a pop-culture sort of way. I love it, and I’m fairly sure that I’m going to have burned through all the back episodes by the end of the year if I keep listening to them at the rate I have been.

If that sounds like your kind of thing, maybe go check that out. I’ve already provided a link to the main podcast page, but if you poke around on the website a bit, you’ll notice that there are a few other podcasts hosted there. Maybe one of those will resonate with you if Laser Time doesn’t.