Dark Souls: The Magma Giant

Previously on Dark Souls: Morgan travelled through a horrible swampland filled with giant mosquitoes and killed a humongous lava-puking spider with a naked lady glued to its head.

I wasn’t terribly keen on exploring the Demon Ruins right away, but decided that I’d at least poke around a bit before venturing off to somewhere a little less flooded with lava. It wasn’t a very long poke around either, as all there was to the area was the hill below my bonfire that was covered in egg carriers, and a ruin wall that I could run across the top of that led me to a Fog Wall.

Thinking that it was one of those fake-out Fog Walls that I’d seen in early parts of other locations, I walked through it with confidence. Said confidence immediately dissipated when the Fog Wall did not. Terrified of what I’d find here, I made my way forward along a pathway leading along the side of the rock wall. Peering off the edge, I could see nothing but lava below me, and the heat coming off of it was overbearing.

I rounded a corner and stopped dead in my tracks. Quickly scampering behind the wall, I looked out again at what had spooked me. A behemoth of a creature was standing out in the lava, just sort of staring mindlessly at the pathway that stretched in front of it. The creature glowed a bright red and looked like nothing I’d ever seen before. It was a vaguely human-shaped lump with a mess of tenacles or spider legs or… something jutting out of one side. I really wasn’t able to made heads of tails of it. All I knew is that I didn’t relish the idea of it attacking me.

Then, a lump on the front of it’s body turned toward me and I felt the gaze of six or seven or God knows how many eyes on me. But the creature didn’t move. There was nowhere for me to go but forward, so I crept out from behind the wall. The creature didn’t move. I slowly started walking toward it, ready to turn tail and run for my life. The creature didn’t move.

Indeed, the giant didn’t do anything as I strolled by right in front of it. It didn’t move; didn’t make a sound. Just stared at me as I walked by. Unfortunately, the path came to a dead end. I looked up at the rock wall and wondered what I was supposed to do. I saw a small altar tucked away in an alcove at the end of the path. There was a corpse on the altar, and I did what I’ve been doing this whole time: I looted it for valuables.

I heard a terrible roar behind me.

The ground shook as the giant came to life and unwound a giant arm that had previously been coiled around its body in a way that I didn’t even know it was there. It roared again and I ran. There was a narrow passage leading through the wall, and I rolled into it, hoping for some cover. The beast’s arm slammed down on the path where I had been standing, sening rubble flying everywhere and knocking me off my feet. I quickly stood up and continued down the path, eager to escape my attacker.

But the corridor on ly led back to the main path, and the giant had already rounded the corner when I got there. It looked at me menacingly, breathed in, and the last thing I saw was fire. So much fire. You Died.

Tune in next week for Part 17: Dragon Breath

Mumbleheart

I have a love/hate relationship with the internet. On one hand, it has a strong tendency to bring out the worst in people, and makes it so that they can very easily use that hatred to make other people’s lives worse. Also social media is the Stupidest Goddamn Thing and I don’t understand how it’s taken over the world.

On the other hand, the internet affords me the ability to buy pretty much anything on a whim. While I’m very happy to have this convenience, it’s kinda dangerous for someone like me who has a terrible habit of impulse buying. I’ve sunk far more money that I should have into eBay, Humbe Bundle, and iTunes purchases over the last year, and the Mastercard people are laughing about it all the way to the bank.

And all that just to say that I purchsed some random album on iTunes yesterday. Goldenheart by The Organ Beats, to be specific. And how did I get around to picking out this album that nobody’s ever heard of? It’s pretty simple. The lead singer is Noelle LeBlanc, formerly of Damone, a band that I was pretty into back in aught-seven. I liked her previous work, so I bet $10 on her new(er) band. It was mostly worth it.

I haven’t been listening to very much in the way of new music lately, but it seems like a lot of the bands I’m currently into like to pump up their drums while sort of tucking the guitars away in the noise, only turning up their levels for solos. The Organ Beats went pretty much the opposite way in their mixing, and put the guitars front and center with the drums in the background, keeping the beat the way drums are wont to do.

The one thing about Goldenheart that I really take issue with is that they either recorded the vocals really poorly, or turned down their volume for some reason. Noelle is basically inaudible for half the album, which is a huge bummer because I think she’s a pretty good singer. Well, usually. It seems like she kinda phoned this one in. Maybe it’s just the mixing, but her singing just isn’t as strong as I’m used to.

Of course, she could have also been singing half-heartedly on purpose, because apparently (and I’m going entirely by the video embedded below) she wants to be the indiest motherbuzzer out there.

Stupid hat? Check. Scraggly hair? Check. Walking down a street trying to look deep? Double-check. Yep, that’s about as indie as you get. They just need to pop an air of self-righteousness in there and it would be totally unbearable. Oh, and also much, much worse music.

As an ironic twist, the vocals do finally stand out on the last song, “Don’t You Ever Feel Like Dying?” which pretty much just as dreary and depressing as it sounds.

Of course that all betrays the fact that The Organ Beats are a pretty hard rockin’ band, and I’m really digging them. They just need to turn Noelle’s levels up a bit next time, and they could be the next big thing for me. For now though, I’ll take it. Ten bucks well spent.

Dark Souls: Webs N’ Boulders

Previously on Dark Souls: Morgan began traipsing through the rotten hellscape known as Blighttown, and beat up a fat hobo lady.

The lower level of Blighttown was a huge expanse of poisonous swamp, dotted with raised safe spots that came up around gigantic pillars that supported the walls high above. Trudging between dry land was slow going, and the constant barrage of giant mosquitoes didn’t make anythign easier. Fortunately the safe spots were spaced just close enough together that I could get from one to another before being afflicted with poison, but my journey through the Darkroot Garden had supplied me with so many Purple Moss Clumps that poison wasn’t much of a bother anyway.

I slowly made my way around the perimeter of the area, picking up loot from corpses as I went. At one end of the swamp was an absolutely enormous tree. It was surrounded by a throng of gigantic leeches, but they barely registered as a threat. I climbed up a large wayward root to a hollow portion of the tree, and found nothing but a shabby old shield tucked away inside a chest. It was such a unique landmark that I had anticipated finding something a little more significant. Alas.

Continuing my march around the swamp, I trudged along the costal area, taking out leeches and mosquitoes as I went. Following the natural wall of dirt and rock that surrounded the swamp, I came to a pillar that served as the end of that wall. I peeked around the corner of pillar slowly, squinting into the inck blackness that stretched out before me. I couldn’t see or hear a damn thing, so I cautiously stepped out and started feeling my way along the next wall. And then a giant boulder flew out of the darkness and hit me square in the face.

Dazed, I picked myself up out of the sand and one of those tubby barbarian dudes emerged from the shadows. Only this one wasn’t carrying the usual spiked club; he was lugging a boulder reminiscent of the one that had just recently gotten all up in my bidness. Mystery solved.

As I prepared to engage the barbarian, another boulder came flying out of nowhere and finished the work that its predecessor had begun. So there were two guys back there. Brilliant. You Died.

After reviving and exterminating the entire colony of mosquitoes again, I re-engaged the boulder bros, making sure not to step out so far as to alert both of them to my presence at once. Separated, and with a wall to shelter myself from flying boulders, they weren’t terribly difficult to deal with. Without the element of surprise to fall back on, they were slow to attack and didn’t have a chance of hitting me. As luck would have it though, they were just a warm-up.

On the end of the swamp opposite of the giant tree was a huge mound covered in what looked like spiderwebs. There were twisted trees poking out of it at all angles, and the mouth of a cave just barely visible at its pinnacle. This was pretty obviously the place I was supposed ot be headed, but three boulder-tossing barbarians stood on guard at the base of the incline.

Luckily, the barabarians weer pretty dumb, and I silently snuck up the side of the mound to the cave. Inside, things only got more horrifying. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all completely covered in webbing, and there were huge egg sacs all over the place. Farther in were two corpses lying on the floor, each with huge bubbling growths emerging from their backs. It wasn’t until I got close to them that I realized that the bodies were still alive. It was then that my stomach decided that it needed to be empty immediately.

I decided to put the poor souls out of their misery, but after I struck them, the growths on their backs erupted and produced two clusters of huge maggots that immediately started crawling at me. I hacked them all to bits in a horrified frenzy.

It was only after stopping to regain my composure that I noticed that just past the egg-carrying bodies was a Fog Wall. Deciding that it was in my best interest to enlist some help before entering what could only be the lair of a truly fearsome beast, I trucked back to the bonfire and ate up a humanity to restore myself to human state. When I returned to the webbed cavern, there was a summoning sign on the floor as I had predicted. Imagine my surprise when I activated it and Maneater Mildred reappeared from the ether.

Mildred’s phantom either didn’t remember or didn’t care that I’d killed her very recently, and she followed close behind me as I passed through the Fog Wall. I couldn’t have possibly expected what happened yet.

The figure that approached us was that of a beautiful, naked woman. She stared at me with a hungry look as she brushed the hair away from here eyes. Oh, and also where her legs should have been was an enormous, horrifying spider. And she had a huge sword that was on fire, which she wasted no time in swinging at me. The sight was so paralyzing that I only barely brought up my shield fast enough to reflect the blow. My senses then came back to me, and I backed away from the woman-spider while Mildred rushed forward and started hacking away at her.

The woman-spider, Quelaag, didn’t appreciate that, and her spider head responded by vomiting out lava all over the place. Mildred avoided it, but was then put in a perfect place for Quelaag’s human half to engage her with her fire sword. I saw my opening and began my assault on the giant spider-ass. Mildred kept Quelaag busy while I did my part, but even the craziest chubby hobo can only hold out against a fire sword and lava barf for so long, and it wasn’t too long before I saw my phantom parter disappear in a flash of light.

We had already done quite a number on Quelaag by that point, and while Quelaag fought back fiercely, I didn’t have to weather her attacks for long before I finally drove in the finishing blow. Quelaag’s form dissipated quickly and left behind a small, pulsating, black blob. It was her soul, and I scooped it up like so many before it and went on my way.

On the other side of Quelaag’s chamber was the second bell, and the next step in the quest that I didn’t entirely understand. After ringing the bell, I descended a spiral stairway that led out the opposite end of the cave. Outside, I found a sprawling cavern that was lit up brightly by a lake of lava. Off in the distance I could see a very explorable ruin, and right in front of me was a bonfire.

Seemed like I was about due for a rest.

Tune in next week for Part 16: The Magma Giant

Pepsi That Came After The One Before It

Wifey and I were out at the groceteria pickig up some fruit and veg the other day (also a pie), and an endcap happened to capture my attention. It was an endcap filled with a new Pepsi product, Pepsi Next. Being a member of the Pepsi family that I’d never seen before, I was intrigued. Learning that I could save four bucks by buying two cases was the factor that convinced me to buy in.

Pepsi Next is not a new product, but like I said, I’d never heard of it before. I chalk it up mostly to the fact that I don’t watch TV at all. Oh, and I guess some of it has to do with the fact that only in the last couple weeks has it become available in Canada. Yeah, that’s probably the one. It’s been sold in the States since 2012.

Pepsi Next is a Pepsi for a world where the acceptable daily amount of sugar for an average human is six teaspoons. Or something like that. It claims to have less 30% sugar than the “regular leading cola” has. Whether that’s normal Pepsi or not, I haven’t a clue, but Pepsi Next still has 26g of sugar per can, so that’s still almost double the daily recommended amount.

It’s still an alright compromise though. I love the taste of Pepsi, but am a little wary of it’s horrible effects on my body. Pepsi Next is less horrible for you, and it still has a pretty decent taste. Somewhere squarely between Pepsi and Diet Pepsi. I am not at all a fan of Diet Pepsi or any of the other low/no-calorie sodas, but Pepsi Next is far enough away from it that I can still enjoy drinking it. I’ve been trying to cut down on my sugars, but I’m not ready to let go of soda, so I think Pepsi Next is going to be my go-to soda from now on.

And let’s not forget the best part: that can! Oh my God, it’s such a perfect shade of blue. My horrible photography skills don’t even begin to get across how achingly beautiful it is. It’s the same shade of blue as the water that you see in travel agency pictures of beaches. That particular blue is my absolute favourite blue, if you couldn’t tell by me draping my website in similar shades.

In closing, Pepsi Next is quite alright. It’s not a straight-up substitute for real Pepsi, but it’s a good ever-so-slightly healthier alternative. Though it might be more accurate to say that it’s ever-so-slightly less unhealthy, because no Pepsi has ever even had aspirations to have a health benefit.

Year of N64 Bonus Round Q1 – Super Mario 64

Super Mario 64 is a game so near and dear to my heart that I’ve been calling it my Favourite Video Game for well over a decade now. For a while I was thinking maybe that Super Mario Galaxy might supplant it, but Spring Mario is stupid. Other than that it’s a pretty perfect game.

That gets me to thinking though, that I could go on and on all day about why I like Mario 64 so much. But I’ve done that before. Maybe not in blog form, but I have. So instead, let’s have a chat about the things I don’t like about Super Mario 64.

The short answer is nothing.

Yeah, that’s a huge cop-out. Obviously, if someone digs deep enough, they can find something to complain about even in their absolute favoutire thing. But it’s hard. One of the reasons that Super Mario 64 sits unchallenged on the throne of games I like the most is that there’s nothing about it that makes me grumpy, nothing that makes me call bull on it.

If you’re going to make me give you an actual answer though, I suppose one thing I might complain about is the way the Wing Cap controls. It works exactly as it’s supposed to, but it’s impossible to gain altitude with it, as Mario enters more of a glide than a full-on flying mode when he’s in the air. You get the boost from the initial takeoff, but from there on out it’s all descent. Maintaining speed is also a struggle. As Mario glides, he slows down to a rather lazy pace. The only way to regain any speed is to dip and then quickly pull back up, and after doing this, the tendency to lose control is fairly high.

I can see why Nintendo might have limited the Wing Cap’s flight ability, as there are a number of power stars that would be much easier to get if you could just fly up to them. But really, I’d rather have the option to cheese or not to cheese, rather than just have it strippped out in hopes of keeping the game “fair.” The cape power-up in Super Mario World is exactly that kind of broken, allowing you to skip entire levels once you’ve mastered it, but you won’t hear anyone complain about it. Mario 64 gives you so much freedom to play around any way you want, it’s just weird that free flight isn’t also included.

Also, Tiny-Huge Island is probably the least fun level. It’s not that the challenges are bad or anything, but the gimmick makes the level less fun than it could be. If you’re huge, it’s a miniscule stage with virtually nothing to do. If you’re tiny, it’s designed so that it takes forever to get anywhere. This is easily overcome by using the size-changing pipes, but it’s still a minor pain in the butt if you just want to bounce around the stage like a loon.

I’m really stretching it here, but I guess I also don’t like how your extra life counter resets every time you save and quit the game. That one’s mostly negligible though.

Dark Souls: Don’t You Just Love Poison?

Previously on Dark Souls: Morgan prevailed over the nightmarish Gaping Dragon, and continued her descent through the Depths.

I awoke at the Depths’ bonfire, as I had so many times before, and rifled through my rucksack to see if I was carrying any items that would heal toxicity. I had a whole collection of Purple Moss Clumps, which would heal poison, but only one Blooming Purple Moss Clump, which also healed toxicity. It looked like I was going to have to be really careful about these blowdart fellows.

Upon returning to the shaft, I led both of the barbarians off the edge into the void, to save myself a little time and effort. As I approached  the area where I was in the range of the blowdart guy, a couple of purple, sickly-looking corpses ran up to me and started attacking. I assumed they were just a different colour of the undead I’d been killing in droves up until now, but these ghouls had a deadly trick up their sleeves. They have an attack that consists of grabbing their victim and then biting like maniacs, which deals a fairly ridiculous amount of damage. Also it’s unblockable. You Died.

The third try through, I handled the barbarians and ghouls quite deftly, and approached the blowdart sniper carefully. It only took two darts connecting to inflict me with toxic, so I moved in on him very slowly, deflecting darts with my shield. And then I stabbed the motherbuzzer right in the gut, and he crumpled over like a rag doll. The real benefit here was that he wouldn’t respawn if I died or visited a bonfire, making future trips through this area much safer.

I continued along the rickety bridge through the tunnel, taking down ghouls left and right along the way. Then, in the distance, I saw light. As I drew closer, I could see that I had reached an area suspended far above the ground. It consisted of a dark maze of wooden walkways and ladders. This area was the kind of place that caused the worst nightmares. This was Blighttown.

Blighttown was awful. Everything about it made me hate to more. The place was littered with ghouls and blowdart snipers, and also some tiny dog-like creatures that could breathe huge jets of flame at me. Fighting was a pain on the narrow pathways, and some floors were even so weak that they would give out under my weight, though luckily, none of those sent me to my doom. At least, not without the help of a pack of ghouls waiting at the bottom. You Died.

There was a bonfire right near the mouth of the tunnel that led to upper Blighttown, but it was still difficult to reach because of the winding paths. It was certainly nice to have a spot where I could let my guard down for a minute and assess what I could of the area. I noticed a shining item perched out on top of a wooden barricade, but the only way to get to it was to take a running leap from a much higher ledge. It was… a difficult jump to make. You Died.

Indeed, much more difficult than I’d assumed. You Died.

The prize, an Iaito, wasn’t even worth the effort, as I had no interest in learning to properly wield a katana at that point. No, my Drake Sword and pyromancy were enough for me for the time being.

Navigating the walkways and levels was difficult enough, and trying to find the path to all the treasures scattered about make the task even worse. I managed to collect everything after running around like a mad person and making more than a few dangerous leaps. Of course, whenever things seem to be going well, there’s a blowdart sniper waiting to toxify you, and you have no idea how to get back to the bonfire from wherever you’d managed to end up. You Died.

It took a long time to finally reach the bottom of Blighttown, and it wasn’t a whole lot better than the top. The blowdart snipers and ghouls were gone, replaced by a bunch of different creepy crawlies. The flame-spewing cragspiders were easy enough to deal with, but the giant mosquitos buzzing around were the most annoying enemies that I’d encountered up until that point. They were hard to hit, and would follow me around endlessly, biting me and flinging blood at me, both of which were poisonous attacks.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the entire area was a poisonous swampland dotted with torches, where a safe place to stand was hard to find. I’d used up a lot of my Purple Moss Clumps before I finally found my way to a safe tunnel that concealed a bonfire.

Just as I left the safety of the tunnel, a phantom that called herself Maneater Mildred appeared out of nowhere and rushed me. Mildred wore nothing but a couple lean strips of leather over her girthy frame, and a simple sack over her head. She carried a sad-looking wooden shield in one hand, and a fighteningly oversized butcher knife in the other. She was certainly a sight to behold, but that’s about the most you could say about Mildred. The poor girl’s grossly overweight body and oversized weapon slowed her down to the point where she posed little to no threat to me, and I vanquished the phantom without breaking a sweat.

I wasn’t in much of a rush to explore the poisonous swamp that was lower Blighttown, so I settled back down by the bonfire and reflected on my journey up until now. It seemed like it had been ages since I set off, but what I didn’t know what that my adventure had really only just begun.

Tune in next week for Part 15: Webs N’ Boulders

Big Plans -OR- Fairly Transparent Filler

You know, maybe that post title is a little too harsh. I don’t really do filler these days, so it’s not like I need to poke fun at it the way I used to back when basically every post was filler.

As for the subject at hand, I wanted to take a moment to check in and talk about how the Year of Nintendo 64 is going. It’s largely a personal project, so it’s not like I’m taking notes and sharing this stuff with everyone I know. I’m not even committed to writing a full article about every game I play. That said, I still want to sort of chart a course for the rest of the year here, as a reminder to keep me on task, if nothing else.

I spent January rounding up a few new games that I’ll be mixing into the lineup of games that I already own. Truth be told, I didn’t actually own enough “beatable” 64 games to get me through the year, so making some acquisitions was a must. I reserve the right to change this at any time, but here’s the breakdown of what I’ll be playing each month:

  • January – Goldeneye 007
  • February – Body Harvest
  • March – Jet Force Gemini
  • April – Star Wars: Rogue Squadron
  • May – Quest 64
  • June – Doom 64
  • July – Gauntlet Legends
  • August – Bomberman 64
  • September – Donkey Kong 64
  • October – Army Men: Sarge’s Heroes
  • November – The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask
  • December – ?????

As you can see, I’ve come up slightly short. I do have a few other games that I could pop in there, but they’re either so short (Pokémon Snap) or I’ve played them recently enough (Banjo-Tooie) that I don’t feel like they’re a good fit for the project. They may still get some play, but they won’t be the main games. What really differentiates them? Nothing, I guess. My goal is one a month, I suppose that doesn’t mean I couldn’t play two in a month.

You know what? Nuts to it. I’mma pop some quarterly titles in there, because it’s an excuse to make another list. I know that the first quarter is almost up, but I just completed Super Mario 64 DS, and I’m willing to count that. Maybe I’ll play the original again anyway.

  • Q1 Bonus Round – Super Mario 64
  • Q2 Bonus Round – Pokémon Snap
  • Q3 Bonus Round – Mario Party 2
  • Q4 Bonus Round – Perfect Dark

There we go. Now if only I had social media’d this thing it might be more than me just concocting a weird excuse to play old games. I guess it’s still not too late, but I mean, we’re already in March. The hype phase is over. Whatever. My compulsion is to put words on a page, not to try to force people to read those words.

Trouble a-brewin’

So I got this message in my e-mail inbox a couple days ago:

ROCKY SNOW POPS.

Hello:
I need you to REMOVE this site immediately!!!
This is effecting my business and I will be forced to take legal action.
http://www.torrentialequilibrium.net/art0070.html
times have changed….everyone seeks internet today
and to get negative feedback from retailers is not acceptable.

I expect a response back immediately.

So yeah. That happened.

I did reply with a sternly-worded message about how I’m in the clear and that criticism is just something people have to deal with. Also I made fun of the broken English, but in a semi-professional way. I’m not entirely sure that this isn’t some weird new kind of spam, but we’ll all just have to wait and see if I get a response back.

I don’t get e-mails regarding TE and/or its content very often, but when I do, they’re always wildly entertaining. Or you could flip that W for the less hyperbolized version.

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: February 2014

Last month was so loaded down with entries in both of the main categories that I managed to forget to add a couple games, which will be included this month. Since I write these opening blurbs at the beginning of each month, I’m sitting here hoping that February’s list won’t be quite so full, but you just never know!

~ Now Playing ~

Super Mario 3D World (Wii U) – Yeah, still hacking away at this one. Technically, I’ve finished the game. I’ve beaten every level and collected every doo-dad, but this game makes you really go the extra mile for your 100% clear: you have to beat every level with all five characters. It may be a ridiculous task, but the game is so good that I’m happy to oblige. Except for the final two stages that are just crazy hard to the point of not really being fun anymore.

Continue reading Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: February 2014