Well last night/early today, me and my friend played through most of Ace Combat Six a second time, and now that the initial feeling of being overwhelmed by the game is over I have some thoughts on it.
First on what I don't care for. The fact that you have to rush around babysitting operations till its done, such a style of game play isn't my natural one and it sometimes grinds on my nerves as I am doing all I can in area while another area is getting the crapped kicked out off.
Second, the music isn't as epic as the last three games. Ace Combat 4 had some pretty sweet latin choir or something sign in the final mission, ditto with Ace Combat 5, Ace Combat Zero had some of the best Spanish Guitar music I have ever heard (which is not saying alot)
Third, less of a selection of aircraft then previous games.
But what I did like:
The story and the characters in the story were pretty fleshed out for what you can do in like minute long cut scenes, but their placement within the game's plot makes logical sense and there are some powerful moments.
Allied Attacks, this allows you to sic on targets in front of you whatever operation forces you saved. Which can be awesome towards an end of a mission, when you have helos, fighters, tanks, artillery and sometimes even a guided missile cruiser firing at the same hapless target.
The Superweapons, ever Ace Combat game has about 2 or three superweapons. 4 had Stonehedge and Megalith (railguns and a giant missile launcher), 5 had the Arkbird (an laser armed SSTO) the SOLG (orbital railgun that shoots out nuclear armed MIRVS, and the Scinfaxi and its sister ship, which were giant subcarriers which fired devastating anti-air missiles. Ace Combat Zero has three: the giant laser tower, the giant aerial flying fortress, and Pixy's Morgan super fighter.
6 is like Zero, first you blow up a flying fortress with its own escorts of smaller (but still large flying battleships things), then you have to shot down a enemy ace in a superplan that has a wicked jammer, railguns, and fast missiles, and then you have to blow up a giant railgun firing large cruise missiles.
The first and the last superweapons mission are fun, the second one which takes place during liberation of the main city of your nation, is annoying and in sort of a bad way.
However, on the whole, the improved AI, the improved graphics and the excellent story makes Ace Combat 6 a worthy addiction to the Ace Combat series, and I give it 4/5 stars.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Eve Online and other stuff
I am just killing some time, before my friend comes over with a copy of Ace Combat Six, and I figure what better use to fill in that void then with a post for a blog that nobody ever reads.
Things have been hectic for me lately, had two mid-terms this week, did pretty good on them. One of them is Old Church Slavonic, which is while not proto-Slav, is the first litearly langague of the Slavs. Its a pretty intresting learning this and comparining it to modern Russia to see what came from what.
However, I am not the greatest lingust in the world, and its tough learning.
In less serious pursuits I been playing Eve Online. Normal MMORPGS don't interest me that much because there is a serious lack of performance in response to what you do. For WoW which I hear is a great game, what you retain is just your character and its sort of a limited world.
Eve, is fun to me for a couple of reasons. First, its a wide persistent universe and second, players drive conflicts across hundreds of star systems that can be fought and controlled, and all share the same space. Or in other words, we are seeing a MMORPG that has in comparison to alot of MMORPGs, a persistent civil society and formations of micronations online that actually own and control their own space. This leads to interesting situations of fleets of hundreds of ships attacking each other, while giant super star destroyer ships lumber around.
Outside of space patrolled by the big NPC empires, is space controlled by the various players all fighting for power and control, and also their honor and grudges. It strikes me as a very feudal setup, in that corporations all rely on either personal contacts or promises of loot or protection to join, and these all build up on each other into a labyrinth of competing interests all fighting.
But its a fun game in which you can be anything from a captain of industry, to a miner, to a pirate to a full time merc, to just a dude whose ship keeps exploding looking for a hard isk.
Things have been hectic for me lately, had two mid-terms this week, did pretty good on them. One of them is Old Church Slavonic, which is while not proto-Slav, is the first litearly langague of the Slavs. Its a pretty intresting learning this and comparining it to modern Russia to see what came from what.
However, I am not the greatest lingust in the world, and its tough learning.
In less serious pursuits I been playing Eve Online. Normal MMORPGS don't interest me that much because there is a serious lack of performance in response to what you do. For WoW which I hear is a great game, what you retain is just your character and its sort of a limited world.
Eve, is fun to me for a couple of reasons. First, its a wide persistent universe and second, players drive conflicts across hundreds of star systems that can be fought and controlled, and all share the same space. Or in other words, we are seeing a MMORPG that has in comparison to alot of MMORPGs, a persistent civil society and formations of micronations online that actually own and control their own space. This leads to interesting situations of fleets of hundreds of ships attacking each other, while giant super star destroyer ships lumber around.
Outside of space patrolled by the big NPC empires, is space controlled by the various players all fighting for power and control, and also their honor and grudges. It strikes me as a very feudal setup, in that corporations all rely on either personal contacts or promises of loot or protection to join, and these all build up on each other into a labyrinth of competing interests all fighting.
But its a fun game in which you can be anything from a captain of industry, to a miner, to a pirate to a full time merc, to just a dude whose ship keeps exploding looking for a hard isk.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Books to movies, Soviet Eastern Sci-Fi versions
Since I had to read a Leo Tolstoi play earlier this week, I got to thinking about his nephew, who was also a writer, and the one work of his that I read, Aelita Queen of Mars, written by Alexei, who had the awesome nickname, the Red Count and then I thought about the movie version of it, and how ironic that in at least this case, not even the Soviet movie could escape the movie director's mass editing of the story.
The novel is a pretty interesting one in which details two early Soviets flying to Mars and finding a civlization that is just begging for a revolution and the majority of the faction is on Mars. The silent movie version that came out is sort of famous for its costumes of the Martians, but its a story that adds alot more of Earth to it then the Martian part. Now this wouldn't be a problem if it was interesting, however the like forty minutes spent on Earth is more of a diatribe against the policies of NEP then advancing a story about love and Mars.
Solaris, doesn't have that great of change from book to movie (we're talkin about the Russian masterpiece that is approximatly a million hours long, not the American remake which was not bad, but still was an inefior remake) and there the director once again added more Earth scenes at the begining and the end, and IIRC added ambiguty to the ending where there wasn't any. Here the scenes were well done and made the movie better, but it still changed it.
But what the director didn't change was one of the greatest lines of science fiction, and something that I as an aspiring writer of science fiction, have taken to heart when I sit down and attempt to write something about space and aliens and their interaction with humanity.
"To science? It's a fraud! No one will ever resolve this problem, neither genius, nor idiot! We have no ambition to conquer any cosmos. We just want to extend Earth up to the Cosmos's borders. We don't want any more worlds. Only a mirror to see our own in. We try so hard to make contact, but we're doomed to failure. We look ridiculous pursuing a goal we fear and that we really don't need. Man needs man!"
The book version is slighty different, but I left my book at home. And with that I end this post.
The novel is a pretty interesting one in which details two early Soviets flying to Mars and finding a civlization that is just begging for a revolution and the majority of the faction is on Mars. The silent movie version that came out is sort of famous for its costumes of the Martians, but its a story that adds alot more of Earth to it then the Martian part. Now this wouldn't be a problem if it was interesting, however the like forty minutes spent on Earth is more of a diatribe against the policies of NEP then advancing a story about love and Mars.
Solaris, doesn't have that great of change from book to movie (we're talkin about the Russian masterpiece that is approximatly a million hours long, not the American remake which was not bad, but still was an inefior remake) and there the director once again added more Earth scenes at the begining and the end, and IIRC added ambiguty to the ending where there wasn't any. Here the scenes were well done and made the movie better, but it still changed it.
But what the director didn't change was one of the greatest lines of science fiction, and something that I as an aspiring writer of science fiction, have taken to heart when I sit down and attempt to write something about space and aliens and their interaction with humanity.
"To science? It's a fraud! No one will ever resolve this problem, neither genius, nor idiot! We have no ambition to conquer any cosmos. We just want to extend Earth up to the Cosmos's borders. We don't want any more worlds. Only a mirror to see our own in. We try so hard to make contact, but we're doomed to failure. We look ridiculous pursuing a goal we fear and that we really don't need. Man needs man!"
The book version is slighty different, but I left my book at home. And with that I end this post.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito
This weekend in between bouts of studying and working for my mid-term and my own birthday party, I watched an interesting 13 episode show called, Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito, which is apparently based on a some visual novel h-game which its explains its semi-fanservicy nature at times.
However, the story is one that is rather intresting if confusing for the fact its not told in a clear linear narrative. The stops in between the stories which themselves are not in a 1:1 ratio with the episodes are done by the narrator, a strange cosplaying guy who only appears for a little bit each episode.
The story is ostenably a quest by the main character Hazuki who is looking for her adapted sister who she has a crush for. Her sister Hatsumi is a quiet strange girl with obviously magic healing powers as we find out as the story progresses, vanishes in a sparkle of green light on her 16th birthday, and soon after Hazuki runs into a talking bird who is searching for Hatsumi as well and ends forcing the bird to take her with him to search.
What she finds out is that the world is really collected in a book and its just one of the worlds that exists within a great library created by a very godlike being that is only referenced through the information that the fansubbers give the viewer from the H-game, and that her sister is Eve, a powerful being that used to be the Guardian and caretaker of this wierd quasi-realm library, who quit and decided it would be fun to travel the worlds, being born and then leaving at her 16th birthday.
She decides to travel the worlds to find her sister again, along with Eve's sister and current gaurden , Lilith who has her own reasons for traveling. And thus they go on a series of adventures interacting with various people of time frames and worlds in an effort to Eve. A side plot is begin early in the story that shows two other people, that Eve's life had touched in a world, though it focuses mainly on the crazy Gargantua who gets redeemed at the end. However, this dude is hilariously over the top and serves at times as the comedic relief.
The true beauty of the show is that its a post modern travel show, and it plays to its strengths of it being weird and quirky, nor does it take itself too seriously though there are serious moments to be had. The ending of the show is somewhat postive, and there are some questions that are never answered but all and all I would give it a solid 4/5 stars.
Gundam OO
Also much more recent is the new Gundam series. So far there has only been two episodes releashed, and I will probably go into this more when episode 3 comes out, but so far its looking promising. For once, the grunt suits look cool, and the possible char-like character, is an awesome American dude.
However, the story is one that is rather intresting if confusing for the fact its not told in a clear linear narrative. The stops in between the stories which themselves are not in a 1:1 ratio with the episodes are done by the narrator, a strange cosplaying guy who only appears for a little bit each episode.
The story is ostenably a quest by the main character Hazuki who is looking for her adapted sister who she has a crush for. Her sister Hatsumi is a quiet strange girl with obviously magic healing powers as we find out as the story progresses, vanishes in a sparkle of green light on her 16th birthday, and soon after Hazuki runs into a talking bird who is searching for Hatsumi as well and ends forcing the bird to take her with him to search.
What she finds out is that the world is really collected in a book and its just one of the worlds that exists within a great library created by a very godlike being that is only referenced through the information that the fansubbers give the viewer from the H-game, and that her sister is Eve, a powerful being that used to be the Guardian and caretaker of this wierd quasi-realm library, who quit and decided it would be fun to travel the worlds, being born and then leaving at her 16th birthday.
She decides to travel the worlds to find her sister again, along with Eve's sister and current gaurden , Lilith who has her own reasons for traveling. And thus they go on a series of adventures interacting with various people of time frames and worlds in an effort to Eve. A side plot is begin early in the story that shows two other people, that Eve's life had touched in a world, though it focuses mainly on the crazy Gargantua who gets redeemed at the end. However, this dude is hilariously over the top and serves at times as the comedic relief.
The true beauty of the show is that its a post modern travel show, and it plays to its strengths of it being weird and quirky, nor does it take itself too seriously though there are serious moments to be had. The ending of the show is somewhat postive, and there are some questions that are never answered but all and all I would give it a solid 4/5 stars.
Gundam OO
Also much more recent is the new Gundam series. So far there has only been two episodes releashed, and I will probably go into this more when episode 3 comes out, but so far its looking promising. For once, the grunt suits look cool, and the possible char-like character, is an awesome American dude.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Musings about wastes of time.
I recently gotten myself copies of Civ IV and its expansion pack Beyond the Sword. I played about three Civ IV games seriously, gave up on the first, the second one I muddle through on victory, and the third one, my French empire was going the way of the Western Roman empire as I was rich conquests but not rich enough to have garrisons everywhere.
Then I got BTS, and so far I been addicted to playing the Final Frontier space mod. Its a pretty interesting and good quality mod that also tells the story of how humanity got to this point. But what I find interesting is the concept that is always seems to be vogue in future history of a period of expansion and technological progress, quickly followed by rapid decline and collapse.
On the mechanics of Final Frontier, you actually feel like you're moving space ships around as oppose to army units in space. My one complaint is that the barbarian err, space pirates keep on ramping up in force till one turn today I was attacked by a space pirate first upgraded battleship. Which was a bit of a odd moment, but luckily my defenses held out.
The game takes a paper rock scissors approach which I think works, its a game where you really want to have balance forces. Already I see, there are mods seeking to build upon this mod to make more classic franchise games, and it shall be interesting to see how well they do that.
In other news despite rereading it several times, the Inspector-General is still hilarious play and it shows that Gogol knew what he was doing. Its a shame he went crazy and starved to death, but it appears that the line between genius creativity and madness is a very thin one indeed.
Then I got BTS, and so far I been addicted to playing the Final Frontier space mod. Its a pretty interesting and good quality mod that also tells the story of how humanity got to this point. But what I find interesting is the concept that is always seems to be vogue in future history of a period of expansion and technological progress, quickly followed by rapid decline and collapse.
On the mechanics of Final Frontier, you actually feel like you're moving space ships around as oppose to army units in space. My one complaint is that the barbarian err, space pirates keep on ramping up in force till one turn today I was attacked by a space pirate first upgraded battleship. Which was a bit of a odd moment, but luckily my defenses held out.
The game takes a paper rock scissors approach which I think works, its a game where you really want to have balance forces. Already I see, there are mods seeking to build upon this mod to make more classic franchise games, and it shall be interesting to see how well they do that.
In other news despite rereading it several times, the Inspector-General is still hilarious play and it shows that Gogol knew what he was doing. Its a shame he went crazy and starved to death, but it appears that the line between genius creativity and madness is a very thin one indeed.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Anonymous does not forgive.
What I am referring too is not 4chan's Anon which of course never forgives nor forget, but I the debacle that is the PostiveMorris 2's comment section of its only post. What began as a ill thought out diatribes against city government, merged into diatribes against rednecks over a certain incident that supposedly occurred at a McDonald's parking lot.
Though I am bit surprised, that there is that many people who care about Morris politics to post on a blog about it. I do have suspicions that several of the anons are really the same guy posting in response to himself as is something that happens every so often on the internet. The thing that I find interesting is that there is so much anger over the issues and belief that public official A has to be a dirty rotten scoundrel as oppose to being well merely wrong, apparently the old quote about citing malice where stupidity could be the culprit has no place on that comment section.
Now to say that there isn't serious issues affect fair Morris, there is. New capital construction of a City Hall is always going to be a big issue regarding financing of it, then you have District 54 which from what I understand, isn't in the greatest of finical shape, then you have this current rigamarole with the police chief, and not to mention projects like the annexation agreement. In short, sleepy Morris has a lot of issues in front of it, and seeing that we are also entering into a campaign season, tempers are going to flare.
Meanwhile just because I like the picture, here is a pic of my new desktop.
Though I am bit surprised, that there is that many people who care about Morris politics to post on a blog about it. I do have suspicions that several of the anons are really the same guy posting in response to himself as is something that happens every so often on the internet. The thing that I find interesting is that there is so much anger over the issues and belief that public official A has to be a dirty rotten scoundrel as oppose to being well merely wrong, apparently the old quote about citing malice where stupidity could be the culprit has no place on that comment section.
Now to say that there isn't serious issues affect fair Morris, there is. New capital construction of a City Hall is always going to be a big issue regarding financing of it, then you have District 54 which from what I understand, isn't in the greatest of finical shape, then you have this current rigamarole with the police chief, and not to mention projects like the annexation agreement. In short, sleepy Morris has a lot of issues in front of it, and seeing that we are also entering into a campaign season, tempers are going to flare.
Meanwhile just because I like the picture, here is a pic of my new desktop.
Monday, October 8, 2007
A return of sorts
Well after a summer of constant real life events along with my discovery of the Super Robot Wars genre of games, I been considerably busy.
Now as the fall semster is about halfway, before I start writing yet another paper, I decided to announce that henceforth, if I can remember to do so, I shall be blogging again.
But as not to forgot one of the original reasons why I post this blog in the first place, here is a interesting picture that I haven't verified its accuracy yet.
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