Page 92 – Burning the midnight oil at noon

Vacation time and a new baby

Last week was my first week-long vacation since September, and man, when you wait that long between vacations, it feels good to be off for so long. Especially when you don’t do anything with that week besides catching up on your video games and Netflix backlogs. Many years ago, a vacation week would have been put to good use with comic drawing and writing for this blog, but I didn’t even think about touching my PC until Saturday night. To say that I accomplished nothing of value would be an understatement.

Actually, I did mow my lawn and tidied up my basement a little, so I suppose that technically I did get a few things done. Though I likely would have done those on a not-vacation week anyway. And I spent a few mornings sitting out in the sun with a book, so there’s an activity that I guess isn’t a complete waste of time. Why reading is considered a more legitimate hobby than any other type of media consumption is a mystery to me.

Oh, also I began recording a new set of Pop-Tarts Reviews, so you can look forward to those at some undetermined point in the future.

The big news of the week is that my entertainment unit is now home to a Playstation 3. Heresy, I know! But it came at the low, low price of $9, as my brother had recently moved up to an Xbox One, and all I had to do to adopt his PS3 was to buy a new power cable for it. The poor thing had been living between the bed of his truck and my parents’ shed for the last few months, so I’m happy to be able to give it a loving home.

Alas, now that I’ve got the thing, it seems like there are far fewer exclusive titles for it that interest me than I had thought. Currently the only games that I have on it are Tokyo Jungle, which I love with all of my heart, and a handful of PSOne Classics that I’d previously purchased on my PSP. Literally the only other games for it that I really want are Valkyria Chronicles and Drakengard 3. It’s pretty likely that I’ll be buying the HD Kingdom Hearts collections at some point, and probably Tales of Symphonia Chronicles, but I wouldn’t place those as sure bets.

I’m trying to resist the HD port of Shadow of the Colossus, but I think we all know that it is my destiny to buy it and play it over and over forever. It’s funny how a game that I didn’t like very much at first has become one of my all-time favourite video games. Favourite PS2 game, at the very least.

Dark Souls: Return to Anor Londo

Previously on Dark Souls: Morgan spun her wheels in the forest for a little while, slaughtering mushroom-men and big, ugly cats. Also there was some sort of tragedy involving a dog.

Having explored the entirety of the forest, I had only three things left unchecked on my to-do list: a) Fight the hydra, B) Explore deeper into the Catacombs, or C) Go back to Anor Londo.

I really wasn’t interested in any of these options, but apparently my nebulous objective resided in Anor Londo, so it was time for me to stop putting it off and try my hand at getting into that castle again.

I traveled back up through Darkroot Garden and Sen’s Fortress, eventually meeting up with the bat-demons that would carry me over the walls into the city of giants. As we came up over the wall, I could feel a sense of dread wash over me, remembering all of those deaths at the hands of those damnable archers. Would this time be any different? All I could do was hope.

I ran past the sentinels into the alcove with the bonfire. I rested to mark my progress, and dashed down to the bridge. At the other end, I weaved under a sentinel’s legs and fought the demons on the ledge behind him. I stared down the buttress to the tower where things could go wrong so quickly.

I inched down, and baited the demons out from around their corners. I ran back up to the ledge, and one of the demons jumped off the side of the tower at me, plummeting to its doom. From there, it was simply a matter of patiently striking the remaining demon until it collapsed.

Standing behind the wall that separated me from the archers and their massive bolts, I breathed in deeply. I ran. I could feel the air warp around me as the arrows flew by me. Made it to the centre tower. I waited for the hail of arrows to stop before I dashed around to the other side and almost leaped up the final buttress.

I stood on the ledge, facing one of the archers. For the moment, the second one couldn’t see me, but he’d figure out to move a few feet over soon enough. I raised my shield to deflect the nearby archer’s continued volley as I slowly pressed forward. He gave up as I drew closer and exchanged bow for blade. He struck me quickly and fiercely, but his sword came in contact with the centre of my shield, and the force of the rebound knocked him backwards, clear off the ledge.

I don’t know how long I stood there, staring down into the void below, shouting unintelligibly in relief. It wasn’t until an arrow from the second archer clashed into the wall beside my head that my mind snapped back. I clambered around the side of the castle wall, nearly losing my footing to a mix of panic and excitement. Just around the corner, the ledge dropped off and below lied a small balcony. There was no way back up, but there was nothing for me back there anyway, so I jumped.

The balcony led into a resplendent hallway of ivory and marble. There were doors to either side of me, and a huge spiraling staircase directly in front. I decided to try my luck with the door on the left. I let out a massive sigh of relief to see that the room contained a bonfire, and sitting by that bonfire was my good friend Solaire. I took a seat next to him, and he offered me some words of encouragement as I rested.

Taking my leave, I began exploring the rest of the castle. It was a nightmarish place, brimming with mimics and highly skilled silver knights. These knights were more than a cut above any enemy I’d previously faced. They were fast, and able to anticipate and block my attacks with unprecedented accuracy. I thought that perhaps this was a good time to recall my fencing training and practice my parrying.

It was a long, drawn-out process, and I saw the words You Died many, many times as I traversed the castle interior. The silver knights did not goof around; the ones carrying spears were more manageable than their sword-bearing brothers, but none went down without a fight. Eventually I reached the rooftop, which only led me to more archers, though they were considerably easier to deal with on an open playing field.

I circled back and forth through the hallways and rooms of the castle, eventually finding myself on a ledge above the main hall. Below I could see two dressed-up sentinels patiently waiting to swat intruders. At the far end was the massive castle door, in the opposite was a Fog Wall. I did what any sane fellow would do, and followed the ledge up to the far end of the room, where I noticed a missing panel in a beautiful stained glass window.

Poking my head out, I could see goodies lined up on a series of ledges outside the window. I hopped out eagerly to retrieve them, and only then did I notice that I wasn’t able to pull myself back inside. I hopped down to a lower ledge, suspended right behind the gate sentinels, and climbed down behind the gate opposite of the one that led to the archer buttress. I unlocked the gate to make a shortcut for myself, but didn’t notice the horde of demons creeping up behind me as I did so. You Died.

Tune in next time for Part 27: TITS!

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: June 2014

June, much like May, was a month where I played far too many games, and as such, ended up with a lot of half-finished stuff on my plate. Most of the games that I did finish were either short new games or short replays. My goal for the year was to clear out some of my backlog, not to clog it up even more.

Doesn’t help that I’ve got a few drawn-out and/or notoriously difficult games on the go here. I really need to remember in the future to only be playing one RPG at a time.

~ Now Playing ~

Mario Kart 8 (WiiU) – I wanted to skip this one, as I felt that I was done with Mario Kart. But it’s like, the one game that the wife wanted, so we got it. And then I ended up loving it. Stupid Mario Kart, being so fun.

Shovel Knight (WiiU) – Sweet Jesus God, I had no idea how amazing this game was going to be. I mean, I pledged towards the Kickstarter campaign, so I had faith in it, but it’s even better than I could have ever hoped. I did beat it already, but I’m playing again in New Game+, and probably another couple times for some cheevos. I really love this game.

Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep (PSP) – I always wonder, when a movie or game or TV series starts to expand, if the writers had the whole plot laid out from the very beginning, or if they’re just flying by the seat of their pants the whole time. The Kingdom Hearts series, I’m convinced, falls into the latter category. When even the prequel -which should probably be the one with the simplest plot- is a big confusing mess, you get the feeling that they’re likely just using a plot dartboard. At least they’re pretty fun to play, and I especially like the skill system in this one. I’ve finished one and a half of the three story paths.

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (NES) – Sometimes, you’ve just gotta go back and finish a game that you’ve never beaten without rampant cheating. If you think save states are cheating, then yes, I’m still going through the game dishonestly, but at least I’m not an invincible god with unlimited magic and moon jumps. Also, I really wish Zelda II were a better game.

Chrono Trigger (DS) – One of my goals for the year is to earn all 13 endings in Chrono Trigger. So far I’ve gotten three. The second playthrough is going pretty quickly though. If I wasn’t spreading my gaming time around so liberally, I’d probably be finished this little endeavour by this point.

Costume Quest (PC) – One of my other goals is to start playing through the hundreds of games I’ve bought in Humble Bundles and Steam sales over the last couple years (all aboard the Steam Train~), and Costume Quest fits nicely into the center of the “short” and “runs on my PC” venn diagram. Too bad it’s not very fun.

Rage of the Gladiator (3DS) – Still picking away at this one, but the hardest difficulty (which awards the true ending) is, well, hard. Suddenly the enemies who were total jokes before can kill me before I get one hit in. Wonderful.

Super Smash Bros Brawl (Wii) – Didn’t really have a goal here, just spent a whole afternoon playing Smash Bros to see if I could still spend a whole afternoon playing Smash Bros. Completed the boss rush with a few guys, and failed to win All-Star mode with Link nearly a dozen times. I think I may suck at Smash.

Papers, Please (PC) – Started this up on a whim and got hooked right away. Played for about two hours, and had I not been dragged away and imprisoned for doing my job too well (ending #3), I probably could have kept going on through the night. I’m definitely going to keep playing for more endings.

Donkey Kong Country 2 (SNES) – I played the crap out of DKCs 1 and 3 back when they were current, but never really got into 2. Can’t say why for sure, I suppose it came out at a time when there were more attractive games to rent? Anyway, the end is nigh for this one, and it has been a brutal trip. I want to go for the best ending, but will I have the drive to find all of those dastardly DK Coins?

Golden Sun (GBA) – You know, if I played this more than once every few weekends, I’d probably be done by now. I don’t know how I feel about it. It’s got the nice nostalgia value, and I likethe puzzles, but the battles are awfully tedious. And the dialogue! Oh my goodness, shut up!

Final Fantasy IV DS (DS) – I think that this game is only taking so long to beat because I’m afraid of how hard the final boss will be. So afraid, in fact, that I even took the time to fight all the optional bosses before I tackled the final dungeon. It’s… really hard to get through the final dungeon too, when even the more common random battles can wipe your party in a matter of seconds.

~ Game Over ~

Ittle Dew (Wii U) – At first it looks a lot like somebody made a Legend of Zelda game that looks like Scott Pilgrim, and that is actually fairly accurate. Only the gameplay leans very, very heavily on block-pushing puzzles. Sometimes there are also block-teleporting puzzles. Or a mix of the two! And then some really misplaced boss fights. Ah well, it was good fun.

Abyss (Wii U) – A game about navigating mazes while trying to control your little eyeball-squid-monster’s propulsion. I thought it was a completely different kind of game before I bought it, but I ended up liking it anyway, so that’s $2 well spent. Hooray!

Mega Man Xtreme 2 (GBC) – Technically, I guess it’s better than the first one, but it’s just didn’t grab me the way I thought it would. Then again, I think the only reason I was so excited to play Xtreme 1 was because of nostalgia. Xtreme 2 has no such advantage.

Doom 64 (N64) – As much as I love Doom, this game is just so different from what Doom was before that I couldn’t really get into it. Still way better than Doom 3, though.

~ Re-Runs ~

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (360) – It’s not the worst brawler, but it’s pretty darn bad. I played through the game in Time Attack mode to round up the last few achievements. Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to burn through the game the second time around.

Klonoa: Empire of Dreams (GBA) – I know that I did rent this game when it first came out, and that I spent a lot of time playing it in class, but I can’t recall for the life of me if I beat it or not. It was highly unusual for Young Ryan to leave a game unfinished though, so we’ll call my playthough of it on the Wii U Virtaul console a re-run.

Super Mario Bros (NES) – I beat 8-3 in a single life, without taking a hit! It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever done!

I Love Katamari (iOS) – Occasionally, to kill time, I attempt to play video games on my phone. Most of those games end up being terrible, and this one is just barely an exception. I’m not saying it’s good, but I’ve seen tilt-control games go horribly awry, and I Love Katamari at least works. Still, it’s a shabby cash-in that only wishes it could be as engaging as its big brothers. Anyway, I just poked around on this one for a bit to complete the item collection and get the final cheevo.

Year of N64 – June – DOOM 64

My frame of reference for the DOOM series (I’m just going to capitalize the D from now on) exists in a time somewhere between 1994 and 2000. Doom II was one of the few full-version computer games we had back then that I was keenly interested in, and I played it was the only one. Of course, at some point, my taste for Doom and similar games (Wolfenstein, Duke Nukem 3D, etc) waned and I moved on to newer, fancier computer games.

Doom 64 doesn’t have the greatest reputation. It’s not particularly hated or anything, but the internet’s collective opinion is that the original games are better. In the interest of finding out for sure, I made sure to play through the entirety of the Xbox port of Doom so that I could have more than faded memories to make a comparison to.

The original Doom is fantastic. It’s a simplistic game that doesn’t even let you look along the vertical axis, but it felt much more satisfying to play than most modern first-person shooters. The first two chapters are breezy fun, the third dials it up to push your abilities, and the fourth (an add-on scenario) is simply there to beat you into the ground. What’s most remarkable is that Doom feels really great to play with a controller, as opposed to the keyboard controls (sans-mouse) that I was shackled to in my youth.

Having completed the entirety of Doom for the very first time, and having enjoyed roughly 95% of it (there are some really cheap traps later on), I was riding high and expecting Doom 64 to be a similar experience.

But then it turns out that Doom 64 is poop from a butt.

My very first mistake was playing on a difficulty level that was too much for me. I had chosen “Hurt Me Plenty” on Doom, which is the default setting and equates to what the “Normal” setting would be in other games. Doom 64 phrases it differently, where the equivalent is “I Own Doom.” Sure, it’s the default difficulty, and also a statement of fact. Why would I choose any other setting?

Assuming that it is, in fact, the average difficulty setting, Doom 64 is a brutal game. I was killed twice before I was able to finish the first stage. Secret doors containing monsters open silently behind you. The Average Joe Zombie has a very accurate shot. Rooms are filled with up to eight monsters.

None of this is helped by that fact that playing similar games on an Xbox 360 controller and then an N64 controller is like going from a fork to chopsticks. I figured that all my N64 playing over the last few months would have eased me into the controller, but it turned out to be a massive source of woes for me. I blame it entirely no having used the vastly superior 360 controller immediately beforehand, and it really shows how difficult it can be to adapt to different controllers.

I need to make it very clear though, that Doom 64 lets you customize your controls any damn way you like. Every function is remappable, and you can make changes to your control scheme at any point. It’s a really handy feature, as the default control setup is kinda weird. The only downside is that custom setups aren’t saved, and you have to remap all your buttons each time you power on.

The next big gripe about Doom 64 is the general atmosphere. the graphics, for one, are much darker and more bland than in the PC games. This is to accommodate a generally more horror-focused aesthetic. Doom has always been “scary” in that it incorporates monsters and gore, but the first two PC games were more about stright-up action than trying to frighten you. Doom 64 has this all backwards. The PC games have interesting, colourful visuals, while Doom 64 is awash in browns and grays.

I do appreciate that the team tried to make the graphics more detailed (which they are!), but they killed a lot of the character in the sprites by removing most of their colours.

The sound design has also gone entirely to pot. Doom’s characteristic heavy metal MIDIs have been replaced with subdues, spooky ambiance tracks. This is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. More importantly though, the monsters barely make any sounds unless they’re attacking you. Being able to hear monsters lurking about was a very important part of Doom; you would usually know when a monster was lurking about by the hisses and growls echoing through the halls. Now, pretty much every encounter is a surprise, and monsters will be able to sneak up behind you with no problem at all.

So after having painfully made my way through one and a half stages, I quit, took a week-long breather, and started up again on the next rung down the difficulty ladder, “Bring It On!”

Let me also take an aside here to mention that Doom 64 does not save your game. It uses passwords, which is kinda bonkers. The nice thing is that the passwords save your state (health, armor, guns/ammo) as well as which level you’re on, which is nice. If they only saved your level, it would be a massive pain in the hiney to tackle later levels with only a pistol. No saving is still a big pain though, as mid-stage saves saved me a lot of time when going through the original game. Having to restart a level from the beginning after each death is a little disheartening. I hate sounding like a spoiled brat, but that’s what I am.

Not everything about Doom 64 is bad, though. I really like a lot of the level designs, they feel a lot bigger and more ambitious than in the older games. I suppose that stands to reason though. It’s not like a lot of games get smaller and humbler with each sequel. It’s really just too bad that the designers didn’t seem to have many good ideas for traps. It seems like they decided early on that having enemies appear out of thin air behind you was going to be their bread and butter. Still, the actual architecture of the stages is usually impressive, and I enjoyed navigating and solving them.

Doom 64 features the usual Doom weaponry, including Doom II’s super (double-barreled) shotgun and the totally sweet double chainsaw. It also has a new weapon that’s unique to only this game: the Unmaker. It’s an alien-tech laser gun, which doesn’t seem all that impressive at first. However, if you take the trouble to find the secret stages, each one contains a collectible artifact that adds to the Unmaker’s power. The first one speeds up its fire rate, and the second and third give it double and triple beams respectively. Even if you only find the one artifact, the sped-up Unmaker is a pretty awesome gun, burning through even Barons of Hell like a hot knife through butter. It’s pretty great.

The monsters in Doom 64 may at fist appear to be new, but really, they’re mostly your old favourites with fancy makeovers. Some are pretty familiar, like the standard zombies and the pinkies, but you probably won’t recognize Doom 64’s imp as an imp until you’re already choking down fireballs. Cacodemons and pain elementals have likewise gotten new sprites that barely resemble their older incarnations. The one new monster is barely new at all. Nightmare imps are just translucent blue imps, with purple fireballs that fly quite a bit faster than the standard imp’s. Doom 64 does have a unique final boss, the Mother Demon. She’s ugly and can tear you apart in record time (that also works the other way around with a powered-up Unmaker), but she looks pretty dumb. Kinda like a big, fleshy bug, if you ask me.

In the end, Doom 64 is caught in a weird place. On one hand, I really like a lot of the levels. On the other hand, pretty much everything else is different in a bad way. It’s reminiscent of Doom, but it doesn’t really feel like Doom, if that makes any sense at all. There really isn’t any reason to play Doom 64. Regardless of whether you’re looking to play a Doom game or an N64 shooter, there are a handful of better choices out there. Even if you’re intent on playing through the entire Doom canon, you might be better off trying one of the fan-made PC ports. Poor Doom 64 just isn’t quite the game it should be.

When a stone’s not a stone

WARNING: The following post concerns icky body stuff. Maybe skip it if you can’t handle that kind of stuff.

Sometimes weird stuff happens in our bodies. Actually, weird stuff happens in our bodies all the time, but plenty of it goes completely unnoticed. One of the weird things that is totally noticeable is the mysterious tonsillolith.

Colloquially known as tonsil stones, tonsilloliths are gooey little bits that pop into your mouth from time to time (in fact, I referred to them as “bits” before I actually looked them up). I never thought much about them until recently, when I watched an episode of Game Grumps where Arin hacked one up and Danny freaked right out at it, having never seen one before.

Maybe you’ve never seen one before either. If you haven’t, you’re either really lucky, or you’ve had your tonsils removed. See, a tonsil stone is a buildup of calcium and bacteria and other bits of stuff that collects in your tonsil cavities. They’re white/yellow chunks, and are generally pretty tiny. Despite being called stones, tonsilloliths are actually very soft and sticky. On occasion, they’ll fall out, possibly because of a cough or other throat-rattling activity. They’re fairly common, although since many people have tonsillectomies, they’re not quite common knowledge.

I used to have tiny little ones show up in my mouth all the time. Despite being known for having an awful smell, I never smelled or tasted anything when they showed up. Mostly I’d just spit ’em out and think nothing of it. And then they stopped. I didn’t even notice that I wasn’t getting them anymore until one day when I just randomly thought about it. don’t know what spurred the thought in my mind, but I shrugged, realized that I hadn’t seen one in what felt like years, and moved on with my life. I hadn’t made any major changes in my diet or lifestyle, so I have no idea why they went away.

Over the last few months, I’ve been getting them again. Just like when they stopped, I haven’t made any changes in my life, so I have no idea what brought them back. But now, they’re back with a vengeance, being bigger than ever before, clinging just on the edge of my tonsil cavities for hours before falling out, and carrying a noticeable (though faint) odor. Someone suggested that my mouth is dirty and gross, but my oral hygeine regiment is more thorough than ever, so I know that’s not the case. Unless my Listerine is actually causing them, as they started showing up again around the time I started using mouthwash daily.

Like I said, they’re really lingering just inside my tonsils now, and they’re quite annoying to feel sticking around back there. I’ve taken to poking stuff in there to scoop them out, and I’m actually starting to get really good at it, so much so that I’m able to pry open the tonsil cavity and fish out the deeper ones. All this poking around in the back of my throat has also dulled my gag reflex, which is kinda neat, but ultimately useless because I only like girls.

So what’s the point of this story? Nothing, really. Partly to educate (a lot of people don’t know tonsil stones exist), and partly just to keep a short log of my battles against tonsilloliths. I have an upcoming physical, so I’m going to ask my doctor if there’s a way to prevent the little buggers, but the internet hasn’t offered much on that front, so I’m fully prepared for the possibility of having to live with them forever. It’s a very minor inconvenience, but one I’d like to nip in the bud if I can.

Can you dig it?

The new Smash Bros and Captain Toad game are still a ways off, but my knee-jerk reaction here is that Shovel Knight is going to be my 2014 Game of the Year. The fates have conspired to keep me from spending too much time with it over the past two days, but after playing the first three levels, I’m pretty sure that I’m in love. This is exactly what a retro-styled game should be.

If you own a current Nintendo system or a PC, this is required playing. It will figure quite heavily onto your final exam.

Festivus in June

I briefly mentioned once that last year, I participated in Talking Time’s yearly Festivus gift exchange. It’s essentially an internet Secret Santa (here dubbed Ninja Santa), with each forum member who signs up given the mission of sending out a gift to an assigned recipient.

I have very little confidence in my ability to pick out gifts for people, and I was panicking pretty hard to get my gift done and sent before Christmas, but I did it. I spent a little more than I’d hoped to, but my “victim” was happy, and so was I. Then all that was left to do was to wait for my gift to arrive.

I waited, and then I waited some more.

By the time March rolled around, I’d accepted my giftless fate, and figured that I’d just have to be content in knowing that I’d done my part. “More important to give” and all that jazz.

Then last week this showed up.

I was not particularly shocked, as the fella who organized the whole affair had said that he’d be sending out consolation gifts to everyone whose Ninja Santa had flaked. Apparently the flake rate was really high this year, and Nich was paying for these consolation gifts out of his own pocket, so to say that he’s a pretty good dude would be a serious understatement.

Let’s take a look at what’s inside, shall we?

A big book of ghost stories! Mammoth, even, if the cover is to be believed. I’m so very happy to have received this book, as I’ve been crazy about ghost stories since I was a wee lad. In my adult life, I’ve not read a single one, so this fills a long-neglected niche.

It’s worth mentioning that I am also legitimately terrified of ghosts, regardless of whether they’re real or not, so this book will probably contribute to more than a few sleepless nights. I can’t wait!

Also a collection of old horror comics! This is exactly the kind of thing that I would spend my own dollars on if I had some to spare, so I’m also really happy with this.

For whatever reason, I have a deep appreciation for Golden Age comics. I don’t have a clue where it comes from, but I look at this book and I think that it’s exactly the kind of thing that I want to be reading.

I’m not very familiar with EC Comics on the whole, but I’ve had a life-long fascination with Tales From the Crypt, so a publication of a similar theme should be right up my alley, yes? Only time will tell for sure, but I can’t imagine any reality in which I end up disappointed after reading through this volume.

So that’s my Festivus haul. I’d say that it goes above and beyond being a simple “consolation gift.” I know that if I had to shell out to supply gifts to all the folks who didn’t get, I’d probably have just sent out the same generic tchotchkes to everyone, rather than hand-picking personalized gifts. So it’s a good thing that I don’t ever plan to run Festivus.

Ryan’s Spelling Tips For The Internet: Breath/Breathe

Good morning, Internet!

I see you’re back to learn more about spelling with your old pal, Ryan. It makes me very happy to see you here, because it makes me very sad to see easy words misspelled.

This lesson will focus on a set of words that are are similar in appearance, but are very different in application: Breath and Breathe.

Breath is a fairly easy word to spell, but it’s very common for people to forget that they need to add an E on the end when they want to use the word breathe instead. I see the word breath used instead of breathe all the time, so I’m going to teach you the difference between the two words.

The word breath is a noun. Breath is the air that is inhaled and exhaled during the act of respiration. Breathe, on the other had, is the verb for that action.

For example: Morning breath is gross, so brush your teeth before you breathe on anyone.

If for some reason you can’t remember which one is which, just remember that while the second E in breathe is silent, the first E makes a longer sound than the one in breath. If you hear the E as “eh” then you only have the one E. If it makes an “ee” sound, you’ll have to tack a second E on the end.

Hopefully you’ll take this lesson to heart. Already, getting this pet peeve off my chest is helping me breathe much easier.

Thanks for sitting in on today’s lesson, and be sure to tune in later for more spelling tips!

Hooray, hooray, for Mega May

If you’re not a 3DS owner, you probably have no idea that last month was referred to in some circles as Mega May. Those circles being “Capcom” and “Virtual Console fans.” Obviously I place in the latter. Anyhow, Capcom made it Mega May by releasing the entire catalog of Game Boy Mega Man games through the 3DS’ Virtual Console over the course of the month. (Except for the first one, which has been on there for years already.)

It was glorious, let me tell you. But it wasn’t without its ups and downs. Of the six games released, I’d played only two, so there was a lot of new ground for me to cover here. I mean, obviously I was going to play them all. Even if I didn’t play them, there’s a certain sentimental value in having the entire catalog of classic Mega Man games all packed into a single device.

And by “sentimental” of course I mean “compulsive.”

Continue reading Hooray, hooray, for Mega May

Dark Souls: Throw Me a Frickin’ Bone

Previously on Dark Souls: Morgan splurged on a really expensive magical trinket, and got pulverized by a jacked-up mushroom-man.

Dusting my hollowed self off, I got up and left the bonfire to travel through the mushroom-infested forest again. Having the ghostly figures in the first section jump to their dooms again earned a tidy profit of souls on the way, adding nicely to the figure I recovered from my bloodstain.

My second encounter with the mushroom-men went much more smoothly than the first. I took a few wallops, each requiring a couple swigs of estus to recover from, but ultimately the key to winning against them is to take it very slowly. Their punches hurt like nothing else, but they’re also very slow. Mushroom-men aren’t hard to kill, but it might take you all day to get the job done.

After defeating the two large mushrooms guarding the chest (an Enchanted Ember), I thought about slaughtering the harmless little mushrooms that were just minding their own business, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I may have been undead, but that didn’t make me a bad person.

Past the mushroom grove was a massive set of doors, even bigger than the ones that I opened with the Crest of Artorias. I could also see a white mist seeping through the seams, and I decided that I did not feel like a boos encounter at this point.

I turned tail and ran all the way back to Andre, who I figured would be able to put my Enchanted Ember to good use, but he said that he couldn’t do anything with it. I’d have to find another forge to give this bauble to.

I returned to the forest, but explored the far half of the first section a little more thoroughly this time. Past the innumerable weed monsters, I found a path made up of ledges and ladders that led into and across the ravine, up to the other half of the forest. It seemed like a roundabout way of getting over there, since taking the bridge was much easier and a more direct path. I was able to get a good glimpse at the hydra in the basin below. It was by a very wide margin the biggest creature I’d ever seen, and I didn’t have even the slightest motivation to get anywhere near the thing again.

At the other end of this unusual trail was a small clearing. Around it was slightly elevated ground, lined very neatly with trees. It looked almost like a cage created by nature. On the other side of the tree line, I saw a large shadow stalking about. I crept close enough to get a better glimpse, and saw that it was a huge feline. The beast’s fur was thick and spiny, and its wide, toothy jaw looked like something out of a nightmare.

I decided that it would be best to try to engage the big cat from a distance. I stood by the ladder leading into the ravine, ready to bail if the beast charged me, and took aim with my bow and arrow. My first shot hit its mark. The cat turned toward me and charged, but stopped at the tree line and started to slowly back away, never breaking its eye contact with me.

It repeated this pattern indefinitely, as if it was afraid to step down into the lower clearing. So I just shot it to death with arrows. Two more cats showed up, but they just did the same stupid thing and I shot them both to death as well. It took a long time, and well over 100 arrows, but I felled them all without breaking a sweat. It was weird, but I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

As a bonus, the cat monsters didn’t reappear when I rested at a bonfire, as most other monsters did. So I’ll never know what was going on with them, but that’s alright.

Fresh off of my victory against the cats, I pushed open the misty doors with confidence and waltzed through them with a swagger. Past them was another clearing, this one much bigger, and lined on all sides with slippery rock formations. In the very center was an absolutely massive tombstone, and an equally gigantic sword thrust into the ground in front of it.

I strode forward to check it out, but before I got too close a giant dog leapt out of nowhere, pulled the sword from the earth with its mouth, and then started swinging it at me. A huge dog, swordfighting me. And I thought that I’d seen it all.

The dog was not a great swordfighter though, and I felled him without too much trouble. And by trouble, I mean physical resistance from the dog. I really didn’t want to kill or even fight the oversized canine, as he was the most adorable thing I’d seen since I woke up in the Demon Asylum. In fact, he was the only thing I’d seen in Lordran that wasn’t some sort of hideous beast. So, yeah, I had some emotional resistance to stabbing him. I kinda just wanted to give him a big hug and scratch his tummy.

For my troubles, I was awarded a ring called the Covenant of Artorias. It didn’t seem overly useful at the time, and this was one trinket that I found no pride in having acquired.

Tune in next time for Part 26: Return to Anor Londo